Game of Thrones’ Peter Dinklage used the Golden Globes last month to draw attention to a dwarf-tossing attack in England. But with the launch of Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant’s Life’s Too Short on HBO, it’s hard to imagine a stranger time to be premiering a potentially exploitative comedy about a dwarf.

At The Daily Beast, you can read my latest feature, entitled "Little People, Big Controversy: Game of Thrones and Life’s Too Short," in which I look at Ricky Gervais' new HBO comedy Life's Too Short and ponder its exploitative potential.

When Game of Thrones’ Peter Dinklage won the Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actor last month, he used the award show’s significant global viewing audience to name-check Martin Henderson, to whom he dedicated his award.

While millions of viewers raced to Google Henderson at Dinklage’s suggestion, it quickly became clear that he was not speaking of the Australian actor (who costarred in The Ring), but rather a 37-year-old English dwarf who was the victim of a vicious pub attack in October that left him forced to use a wheelchair and crutches after a patron tossed him through the air.

The attack against the 4-foot-2 Henderson was news to Americans, but it came on the heels of a well-publicized incident in the U.K., in which media reports surfaced that England’s rugby World Cup team had attended a dwarf-tossing event in New Zealand. Henderson has indicated that the two incidents could be related, with the rugby players’ behavior perhaps giving his attacker the idea. (Dwarf tossing is currently illegal in several U.S. states, including New York and Florida.)

Given that the majority of awards-show acceptance speeches are laundry lists of thanks, it was refreshing to see Dinklage use the opportunity to shine a spotlight on a story of which few were aware. Dinklage, best known until now as the star of The Station Agent, was born with achondroplasia, a genetic disorder that causes dwarfism, and at 4 foot 5 is just slightly taller than Henderson. He currently stars as Tyrion Lannister on the HBO fantasy drama Game of Thrones (based on the A Song of Ice and Fire novels by George R.R. Martin), and has so far won an Emmy and a Golden Globe for his portrayal of the cunning, ruthless, and charismatic schemer.

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At The Daily Beast, my colleague Maria Elena Fernandez and I examine how PBS got cool: the massive success of Downton Abbey has brought PBS an increase in donations, funding for Masterpiece, a boost in ratings for other programs, and an unlikely place in the zeitgeist. (Plus, RuPaul on Downton's appeal.)

You can read my latest feature, entitled "Downton Abbey: How PBS Got Cool," in which Fernandez and I talk to Rebecca Eaton, RuPaul, PBS SoCal, WNET, and PBS executives, and The Soup producer Matthew Carney, among others.

Patton Oswalt obsessively live tweets it from his weekly viewing parties. Katy Perry is using it to distract herself from her marital woes. Roger Ebert has stepped outside the movie realm to praise it in his blog. Saturday Night Live spoofed it. Mob Wives star Big Ang Raiola recited favorite quips for Us Weekly. The Onion equated watching one episode with reading a book. And Wednesday night The Soup will celebrate it with a special parody starring RuPaul and drag queens Raven and Shangela.

Could all of this fuss really be about a PBS show? Quite right. Masterpiece's Emmy- and Golden Globe–winning hit, Downton Abbey, created by Julian Fellowes, a TV ratings success and cultural phenomenon, has catapulted the public-television broadcaster with the stodgy reputation to the cool kids' table.

“We don’t know how to handle that over here,” said Mel Rogers, CEO and president of PBS SoCal, the PBS member station that serves greater Los Angeles. "We got accidentally popular.”

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And now for something different. I'm definitely not within ABC Family's target demographic, but I've fallen head over heels in love with the cable network's drama Switched at Birth, which is a profound and reflective exploration of communication, identity, and self-expression.

Over at The Daily Beast, you can read my latest feature, entitled "Switched at Birth: ABC Family’s Groundbreaking Deaf/Hearing Drama," in which I take a look at the teen soap, which explores self-expression and the communication gulf between the hearing and deaf communities, and talk to creator Lizzy Weiss and stars Katie Leclerc, Sean Berdy, and Marlee Matlin.

When Marlee Matlin walked away with an Academy Award for her heart-wrenching turn as a deaf custodian in 1986’s romantic drama Children of a Lesser God, it seemed as though film had finally encountered a definitive depiction of a deaf individual and the often tenuous relationship between the hearing and the deaf worlds. Television has lagged behind; nearly 30 years later, most TV shows still typically shove deaf characters into the background or use them as props as part of a hearing person’s story.


Switched at Birth reverses that course. On the surface, the teen soap, which launched on ABC Family last summer, appears to revolve around two teenage girls (Vanessa Marano, Katie Leclerc) who discover that they were switched at birth as their families—a wealthy white couple (D.W. Moffett, Lea Thompson) and a Latina recovering-alcoholic hairdresser (Constance Marie)—attempt to untangle the emotional Gordian knot in which they’ve found themselves.

Unexpectedly, the show delves deep. Created by Lizzy Weiss (Blue Crush), Switched at Birth—which airs Tuesday evenings at 8 p.m.—offers a deft and intelligent take on the way in which we form our identities through self-expression, whether that be street art, spoken/signed communication, texting, or open dialogue among family members and individuals, as well as the communication gulf between the hearing and deaf/hard-of-hearing communities. It’s also a show that doesn’t pander to its presumed audience. Semantics—“deaf” and “hard-of-hearing” are OK; “hearing-impaired” is not—and ethical implications, as well as morality and choice, are discussed frankly and without preaching.

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Happy birthday, Mr. Dickens.

Over at The Daily Beast, we're celebrating Charles Dickens’s 200th birthday. You can read my latest feature, entitled "Happy Birthday, Charles Dickens! Lost, NCIS, Big Love, Veep Writers on His Legacy," in which I talk to TV auteurs including Lost's Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof, The Thick of It and Veep creator Armando Iannucci, NCIS's Gary Glasberg, and others as they reflect on how Dickens’s work has influenced storytelling on television.

Today marks the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Dickens (1812–1870), but the popularity of the writer of such novels as Great Expectations, Bleak House, A Tale of Two Cities, and David Copperfield—to name but a few of his immortal works—hasn’t diminished in the time since his death.

In the pantheon of great English-language novelists, Dickens reigns supreme for a number of reasons. He was a master storyteller who created unforgettable characters—a menagerie that included the grotesque, the disenfranchised, the saintly, and the avaricious robber barons of his day—who leapt off the page and continue to live on in the imaginations of those who read his words. And his whiplash-inducing plots, with their constant twists, fused populist entertainment and deft societal commentary.

Despite his fame and fortune, Dickens was a champion for social reform, turning his attention to education, the Victorian workhouse, social inequity, and financial speculation, and offering blistering commentary on the failures of legal and governmental institutions to protect those they were designed to defend, themes that continue to resonate sharply today. Looking for his take on Bernie Madoff? Read Little Dorrit. Feel that the educational system is collapsing? Take a look at Nicholas Nickleby. The war on crime? Oliver Twist. Serpentine legal battles? Bleak House.

Additionally, and unbeknownst to him, Dickens also paved the way for the serialized narrative that television viewers have come to enjoy. The majority of his novels were first serialized in monthly or weekly publications, written just a few weeks ahead of time and typically ending with a shocking revelation or cliffhanger that kept readers eagerly awaiting more. This structure is the one clearly embraced by the creators and writers of serialized dramas, parceling out plot and character development in an episodic fashion while having the ability to react to those engaging with the material.

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Over at The Daily Beast, I talk with Anjelica Huston about her husband’s death, her formidable character on Smash, and the “cult of murder” on television today. You can read my latest feature, entitled "Smash's Scene Stealer," here.

It is impossible to miss Anjelica Huston when she walks into a room.

In this case, the room was the bar at the Langham Hotel in Pasadena, California, a few hours before Huston was set to take the stage before a ballroom of television critics at the TCA Winter Press Tour to answer questions for her new show, the Broadway-set drama Smash, which premieres Monday on NBC.

With her raven Cleopatra cut, an armful of gently clanging bracelets, and her impressive height, Huston is unlikely to get lost in a crowd, but her considerable talents as an actress render that an impossibility. As she slinked into a club chair on a gray January morning, she exuded a sense of serenity and warmth that is deeply at odds with the troubled characters she often plays.

“Were you one of those kids I scared to death?” she asked, when the topic of The Witches arose; Huston starred in the 1990 adaption of Roald Dahl’s novel as The Grand High Witch, Miss Eva Ernst, and terrified a generation of young moviegoers when she removed her face to reveal a grotesque monster beneath the placid façade.

The Academy Award-winning actress, perhaps best known for her roles in The Royal Tenenbaums, The Addams Family, and Prizzi’s Honor, is no stranger to television—she starred in miniseries such as CBS’s Lonesome Dove, HBO’s Iron Jawed Angels, TNT’s The Mists of Avalon, and appeared in a seven-episode story arc on Medium in 2008—but it is the first time that she has taken on a series regular role. In the backstage Broadway world of Smash, Huston plays producer Eileen Rand, whose divorce from her lecherous husband has not only resulted in the freezing of her assets but the awakening of her sense of righteous vengeance.

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Smash premieres tonight at 10 pm ET/PT on NBC.