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Former Dana Carvey Show writer Charlie Kaufman, who has since written a lot of super awesome movies like Adaptation and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, is set to write and direct a HBO comedy that looks at "one day in a woman’s life and how the events leading up to it can affect, or not, the reality in which she lives." Frequent Kaufman collaborator Catherine Keener, who generally is really great, will play that woman. Considering this is Kaufman, there will probably also be some crazy high-concept twist like all the characters in the show live on a TV set inside the mind of a character named [...]

Nepotism shmepotism. People have complained about how the stars of Girls have famous parents, which is a dumb thing to complain about, but regardless the upside is these actresses tell hilarious stories about their dads. Like how David Mamet's only acting advice was that "acting school was bullshit." Apparently, school in general was bullshit, as he pushed his daughters to drop out of high school. Zosia seems like she's doing OK and she also curses a ton (as can be seen in the clip below) – David must be super proud.

It seems like Girls is finally out of the thinkpiece stage and into the "Oh, this is just a TV show that's going to be on every week, we should probably chillax" stage. It helps that the show keeps on getting better and its praise has become less hyperbolic and more earnest. Girls creator/Our creator's second coming, Lena Dunham dropped by the Colbert Report to talk about her show, be charming, have Colbert act kind of like a dad, and answer the most important question of her series – if Stephen Colbert used to be a Charlotte, who is he in Girls? While we're talking about Dunham, the below [...]

Veep debuted to 1.4 million people (and 1.7 across the two airings) on Sunday night. This is slightly above the 10:00pm timeslot's normal 1.0 million average and ties last week's Eastbound & Down finale. It's also more than the MUCH talked about Girls debut, which, all kidding aside, isn't a surprise, considering that Julia Louis-Dreyfus was on one of the biggest television shows ever and Lena Dunham has only appeared in a film (Tiny Furniture) that most people have just hanging around in their Netflix instant queue.

Speaking of Girls, it held the entirety of its debut's 1.1 million viewers, which is actually quite impressive. It [...]

As a newcomer to the world of TV, actor Timothy Simons is joining a very impressive group of writers and performers for his first big role in the HBO political comedy series Veep. Created by Oscar-nominated auteur Armando Iannucci (In the Loop, The Thick of It) and boasting a cast that includes Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Matt Walsh, Anna Chlumsky, and Tony Hale, Veep has a more impressive pedigree than any TV comedy in recent memory. I’ve seen the first three episodes of Veep, and Timothy Simons holds his own against these heavy-hitters. It’s a funny show that lives up to the high expectations set by Armando Iannucci’s previous work, and [...]

This picture was snapped by the New York Post from the Brooklyn set of Girls. Yep, that is Donald Glover smiling really big and Lena Dunham smiling a normal size. It's a photo that might single-handedly explode the Internet. As Lena said earlier this month on Fresh Air, with her show's second season she aspires to expand the diversity of the cast but no one would have guessed that meant The Don of Gloves. It will be interesting to see if a famous person will be distracting in the hyper-real universe of the show. If you want to stand in the background of these two while the'yre [...]

Poor VP Joe Biden and his lackeys aren't fans of HBO's new show Veep, which centers on a fictional version of his office. A staffer of his had this to say about it: "It would have been more watercooler conversation-inspiring if it had been funnier. The show gets the D.C. personalities right, but it has what's funny about the VP all wrong. A senator would come to him. Not the other way around. That the VP paradoxically has enormous power and no power — is treated like the president but isn't. But they missed that." Perhaps they should pitch a rival VP-based comedy to Showtime? The more the merrier, [...]

HBO has just renewed both of its freshman comedies, Girls and Veep for second seasons. Neither have had really blockbuster ratings, with Veep besting Girls but not by too much, but with HBO that doesn't really matter. Both shows have gotten generally favorable reviews and Girls in particular has become the internet's favorite thing to verbosely bicker about. And you can't buy publicity like that!

For my money, these are the two best new comedies of the year, if you consider the TV year a thing that starts in the fall. And thank goodness that HBO is around to give two shows that would never have gotten [...]

With the exception of Al Gore, the office of the Vice President has recently become a fertile ground for comedy, mostly because of the characters involved. Dan Quayle was comically stupid, Dick Cheney was comically evil, and, if The Onion is to be believed, Joe Biden is just a guy looking for a good time. The funny thing is that these qualities are pretty terrifying if they ever become attached to the responsibilities of the President, which of course is a very real possibility (one could argue that George W. Bush was a mixture of all three).

There's a moment in Veep — a brilliant new HBO series [...]

1.1 million people watched over the two airings. This is not a small number, this is not large number, it is just fine. Well, until you compare it to the 500 million who watched the first moon landing, which like Girls was an event that supposedly defined a generation. More than anything, these numbers suggest that Girls, despite being a show that launched 1,000 thinkpieces, is just another niche, premium cable television program; however, somewhat luckily for Girls, its niche is people who write thinkpieces about niche, premium cable television. Its numbers are less than Luck's debut and are identical to Bored to Death's premiere.

Did you [...]

HBO has been on a hot streak lately, with both of their new spring comedy series, Girls and Veep, getting renewed for second seasons and enjoying pretty great reviews all around. And from the sounds of it they're looking to extend that streak: they're in talks to produce a new series from Rob Riggle, Adam McKay and Chris Henchy that sounds downright delightful. The single-camera comedy, based on an idea by Riggle, is being written by Adam McKay and Chris Henchy. Set in the world of bond traders in 1980s Wall Street, it revolves around a successful, hard-living boss (Riggle) who lives a dark, self-centered, unhealthy life.

Riggle [...]

When the Girls backlash was at its peak (all the way back in April), it was hard for Lena Dunham, the show's creator/writer/director/star, to address the show's controversies with the level of sincerity and thoroughness the issue demanded. Instead, we got this eventually deleted tweet from Girls writer Lesley Arfin:

“What really bothered me most about Precious was that there was no representation of ME”

Which was glib and made the problem worse. Now that things have cooled down, and her show has gotten picked up for another season, Lena, herself, was able to address the issue directly, in a conversation with NPR's Fresh Air:

The New York Times used the race-based Girls backlash (opposed to the class and nepotism based backlash) to look at how race is represented on television, or, more appropriately, it isn’t. The author writes:

"Television is nowhere near diverse enough — not in its actors, its writers or its show runners. The problems identified by critics of Girls are systemic, traceable to network executives who greenlight shows and shoot down plenty of others. It’s at that level that diversity stands or falls."

He points to vastly more popular shows like Two and a Half Men and How I Met Your Mother that are equally as monochromatic, if not [...]

Variety is reporting that, after three seasons, HBO has decided to cancel The Life & Times of Tim. Created, written, directed, and starring Steve Dildarian, L&TOT focused on the awkward and uncomfortable life of a mid-20s New Yorker named Tim. It was like Girls in a way but animated and about a man named Tim.