Alison Herman
Alison Herman brings a critic’s eye to television as a dedicated TV voice at Variety, treating shows as cultural artifacts rather than disposable entertainment. Her work pairs clear plot and craft evaluation with attention to power, gender, and industry dynamics, whether she is reviewing a prestige drama, a franchise spinoff or a reality series. Before joining Variety, she spent several years as a staff writer focused on television and popular culture, building a portfolio of columns on new shows, profiles of performers and deep dives into series aesthetics.
Television Criticism and Season Coverage
At Variety, Herman’s day‑to‑day work centers on TV reviews, commentary, appreciations and longer features across the outlet’s platforms.
Her archive shows a steady rhythm of episodic and season‑level criticism, including reviews of Netflix horror series “Something Very Bad Is Going to Happen,” the espionage drama “Bait” starring Riz Ahmed, and Lisa Kudrow’s “The Comeback” Season 3. She regularly handles finale and recap duties, writing pieces on the “Drops of God” Season 2 finale and “Industry” Season 4, including an episode‑specific recap tied to a Max Minghella interview.
A review of “House of the Dragon” Season 3 fits this pattern: she uses the show’s ramped‑up action to assess how pacing and stakes evolve over time rather than treating each season in isolation. Her Metacritic record reinforces the breadth of this beat, with scores and text for an array of series from the Primetime Emmy Awards broadcast to dramas like “Neagley” and genre entries such as “The Drop: A Snowfall Saga” and “Dang!”
Franchises, Spinoffs and Genre Worlds
Herman returns often to franchise storytelling and spinoffs, using individual titles to examine the mechanics of expansion and brand management. She has reviewed a “Yellowstone” spinoff, “Marshals,” describing it as a workmanlike CBS procedural, and later covered another extension, “Dutton Ranch,” which she characterizes as cutting and pasting the Taylor Sheridan tentpole into a new setting.
Her coverage extends to genre‑heavy projects tied to larger universes, including HBO’s “Dune: Prophecy,” where she discusses how the series compares to the blockbuster films in scope and tone. She has also weighed in on Netflix’s “Lord of the Flies” adaptation, a Stranger Things animated spinoff titled “Tales From ’85,” and Apple TV’s horror comedy “Widow’s Bay,” focusing on how each project balances allegiance to source material with fresh thematic or stylistic choices.
Across these pieces she writes plainly about plotting, performances and world‑building while flagging when franchise logic or tonal inconsistency undercuts the viewing experience.
Unscripted, Reality and the Media Ecosystem
Herman’s beat is not confined to scripted drama and comedy; she also reviews reality and docuseries and covers television as an industry. Her review of the Netflix reality show “Earle Meets World” argues that Alix Earle’s brand of relatability translates into an everyday life that is “almost painfully boring to watch,” pointing to packaging that mimics “Keeping Up With the Kardashians” without delivering comparable narrative drive.
She has written about HBO’s “DTF St. Louis,” calling it perversely hilarious while examining how it frames its subjects, and evaluated the structural and thematic choices behind other unscripted projects. In pieces on Savannah Guthrie and Hoda Kotb’s tearful “Today” interview and on the Primetime Emmy Awards telecast, she looks at how television institutions cover themselves and manage tone, noting when attempts at self‑reflection or ceremony result in a stilted or constrained viewing experience.
Her widely cited review of “Special Ops: Lioness” treats the show as military propaganda that weaponizes pop feminism, spelling out its politics and gender dynamics rather than leaving them implicit.
Audio Presence and Prior Work
Herman’s television criticism extends beyond print into audio and live conversation, which reinforces her value as a subject‑matter expert. Before her move to Variety, she served as a staff writer focused on television and culture, contributing essays on filmmakers like David Gelb and profiling performers such as John Mulaney alongside regular TV columns. She has hosted episodes of the Writers Guild’s OnWriting podcast, interviewing creators including Amy Schumer and Sharon Horgan about series like “Life & Beth” and “Bad Sisters,” and guiding discussions that link creative process to how shows land with audiences. As a guest on CBC’s “Commotion,” she joins other critics to unpack series from “Dune: Prophecy” to “Furious” and “The Shards,” bringing the same clear, thematic reading of television into panel formats. Her reviews are aggregated as Tomatometer‑approved work at Rotten Tomatoes for outlets including Variety and The Ringer, underlining her standing as a consistent, recognizable voice in contemporary TV criticism.
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Aaron Couch
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Adam Blevins
Adam Blevins tracks how major entertainment projects perform, stall, and evolve across theaters and streaming platforms. He is a senior author at Collider covering film, television, superhero and science-fiction franchises, and gaming-related screen projects. His core beat is box office results, streaming performance, release windows, budgets, production changes, cancellations, sequels, and franchise durability. He has written exclusives involving Avengers: Doomsday, The Penguin, and Star Wars: Skeleton Crew. Earlier, he wrote gaming features at Screen Rant and became a senior editor at Agents of Fandom, where he interviewed talent connected to Marvel Studios, House of the Dragon, and Planet of the Apes. He also visited the set of The Chosen. His reporting is high-volume, direct, and data-driven, using metrics, release details, interviews, and production context to explain commercial prospects and fan interest.
Adele Ankers-Range
Adele Ankers-Range is a senior writer at MovieWeb who tracks streaming thrillers, book-to-screen adaptations, and industry announcements through the fan conversations around them. Writing professionally since 2015, she has also contributed to IGN, Sideshow Collectibles, Screen Rant, and other genre-focused brands. Her beat covers new and upcoming film and television titles, especially thrillers, high-concept genre releases, literary franchises, and projects moving from development to release. She reports on teaser reveals, casting, release dates, CinemaCon announcements, platform strategy, and early critical response. Her coverage often uses reception metrics such as Rotten Tomatoes scores to show how a release is landing. She returns to adaptations as they develop, following announcements, talent attachments, marketing, and final release details. Her work is fast, news-driven, concise, and attentive to fan theories, speculation, and the reasons a project matters.
Adrianna Freedman
Adrianna Freedman turns fan-driven TV and streaming moments into fast, service-focused entertainment stories for Good Housekeeping. She covers network dramas, procedurals, Hallmark titles, streaming releases and book-to-screen projects, including renewals, premiere dates, cast news, release timing, platforms and pricing. Her work centers on how developments affect committed viewers. She also reports on daytime hosts and celebrities, covering health updates, family milestones, career changes, social posts and fan response without gossip or speculation. Freedman conducts interviews and writes features on subjects such as personal books, career milestones and awards. She has written for or across Hearst titles including ELLE, Cosmopolitan, Men’s Health and Town & Country, as well as Prevention and Oprah Daily. Her coverage of television, movies, music and celebrity pop culture uses clear language, concise explainers and direct, headline-driven angles.