Contributor: Paul Asay

Paul Asay has been part of the Plugged In staff since 2007, watching and reviewing roughly 15 quintillion movies and television shows. He’s written for a number of other publications, too, including Time, The Washington Post and Christianity Today. The author of several books, Paul loves to find spirituality in unexpected places, including popular entertainment, and he loves all things superhero. His vices include James Bond films, Mountain Dew and terrible B-grade movies. He’s married, has two children and a neurotic dog, runs marathons on occasion and hopes to someday own his own tuxedo. Feel free to follow him on Twitter @AsayPaul.

Houdini & Doyle

What do you get when you combine Downton Abbey with The X-Files? Agent Scully in a petticoat? Not even close.

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Don’t Trust the B—- in Apartment 23

UPDATED REVIEW: ABC suggests we not trust the young woman who lives in Apartment 23. We’d say the same thing about this show.

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Criminal Minds: Beyond Borders

This crime procedural may traipse around the globe looking for all manner of unsavory crimes to solve, but it sure looks a whole lot like its TV home.

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Breaking In

Christian Slater heads up a security agency staffed by thieves, hackers and would-be crooks. What could possibly go (comically) wrong?

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Breaking Bad

UPDATED REVIEW: Stricken with lung cancer, Walt wants to make sure his wife and disabled son have enough money to live on when he’s dead and gone. So he starts cooking meth for a fast payday … which may well put him six feet under a whole lot faster than the cancer.

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Living Biblically

This CBS sitcom isn’t perfect when it comes to depicting people of faith. But it is trying.

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Legends

Sean Bean plays, well, actually a whole lot of characters in this TNT thriller where things are not always quite what they seem. Except for the violence and the sex and the swearing, of course. Those things are exactly what they seem.

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Kings

The newspaper headlines blare, ‘David Slays Goliath!’ But this David isn’t a shepherd boy from Bethlehem. He’s a Gilboan soldier in a new NBC series.

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So Random!

What does it look like when a show within a show gets too big for its home? Well, exactly like what happened when Disney Channel’s So Random! blasted free from Sonny With a Chance.

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A Series of Unfortunate Events

Yes, the series is unfortunate. But in its own gloomy, tongue-in-cheek way, it’s also rather fun.

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Suburgatory

According to Suburgatory, the suburbs are soulless, zombie-like places devoid of creativity, warmth and life. Hmmm. Kinda like this show.

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Glenn Martin, DDS

Because we all love going to the dentist so much, Nickelodeon has formulated an entire Claymation show based on a traveling doctor of dentistry. The result is a ‘root canal’ of epic proportions. Without Novocain.

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Camp

Do you have fond memories of going to camp as a kid? Well, you won’t feel anything like that after seeing this summer show on NBC.

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Shades of Blue

Jennifer Lopez stars in NBC’s series about police officers whose approach to law enforcement is shady indeed.

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Rake

Greg Kinnear plays a semi-likable louse who drinks, gambles and carouses—and sometimes fits in a little lawyering work if he’s running low on cash. Time to rake him across the coals …

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