Eric Deggans

A few days ago, I entertained myself for a few minutes watching ESPN's Stephen A. Smith lose his cool — this time, over an "incompetent" NFL for not interviewing Patriots quarterback Tom Brady regarding the team's deflated football controversy.

But what made this moment noteworthy, was where I was watching ...

Sling TV launches in a few weeks. That's the new streaming service from Dish that allows viewers to stream content previously only available through cable.

The ex-Daily Show correspondent becomes the only black man to host an entertainment show in late night TV. And he starts on an important occasion; the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday.

With the announcement this week that Woody Allen will write and direct a new television series for Amazon, the online retailer is now poised to be a major force in television.

Amazon has announced that Woody Allen will write and direct a new half-hour series for its video-streaming service — news that feels a little like hearing Mad Men's Don Draper just founded an Internet advertising agency.

Allen, known for his old-school approach to filmmaking, may be the biggest name from ...

The show, which portrays a 70-year-old coming out as transgender, won two Golden Globes — the first wins for original programming by Amazon.

When critics asked Tina Fey how her new series Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt would be different now that it's airing on Netflix instead of NBC, she had quite the zinger ready.

"I think season two's gonna mostly be shower sex," Fey said during a press conference last week, drawing laughs. But ...

When I asked Tina Fey how she felt about the attack at the offices of the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, I wasn't aiming for a big headline — though that's exactly what her answer produced.

She was facing a roomful of journalists at the TV Critics Association's winter press ...

The drama Empire features Terrence Howard as a ruthless music mogul building a worldwide company. But NPR TV critic Eric Deggans says the show works best when focused on the black family at its core.

Like many devoted fans, I jumped on the release of newly reconfigured, high-definition versions of HBO's classic cop series The Wire, binge-watching much of the show's five seasons on the HBO GO streaming service over the holidays.

And what I discovered — along with the sharper visuals — was the ...

The most important TV events coming in 2015 include new voices in late-night, big goodbyes, online platforms picking up old shows and, NPR TV critic Eric Deggans says, more of everything.

It is, perhaps, the worst nightmare for those of us constantly trying to get a white-dominated Hollywood to widen its doors of opportunity for people of color: All those executives who say the right things in public and give to the right causes, just might think something much less admirable ...

Advisory: Videos on this page contain imagery that may be disturbing.

Here's a truism about our modern media culture: Sometimes the most interesting things on TV aren't actually created for television.

Viral videos have long been an important part of the savvy pop culturist's media diet. But this year, such ...

Both Stephen Colbert and Craig Ferguson end their late-night TV shows this week. Colbert is getting a boatload of attention as he moves to succeed David Letterman, but Ferguson deserves some too.

When I was a kid, I loved reading Gene Siskel's movie reviews for the Chicago Tribune.

Not because I agreed with him (friendly rival Roger Ebert's brainy populism was really more my style). But Siskel's tastes were so well-defined and sharply argued, after reading a piece I knew whether or ...

As the CIA and Senate Intelligence Committee clash over whether so-called enhanced interrogation techniques are considered torture, another question arises: Have depictions of torture on TV and film helped convince us that it works?

Consider this warning that recently greeted viewers of ABC's political soap opera, Scandal:

"The following drama ...

For TV writers, "enhanced interrogation" are just one more storytelling device. But has its surefire success in shows like 24 influenced how and when real-life interrogators employ torture?

FX's biker drama Sons of Anarchy airs its final episode tonight, capping a seven-season run. NPR TV critic Eric Deggans says cable's most macho series succeeded by finding strong roles for women.

Now more than ever, America needs productive conversations about race, stereotyping, police, crime and social justice. And too often, our national media continues to fall short.

After many years of dissecting how race works in media, I was both disappointed and but, sadly, not surprised by much of the coverage ...

TV critic Eric Deggans debriefs with Audie Cornish about Thursday night's live performance of the musical, Peter Pan, on NBC.