Comedy

Ballers feels like the football equivalent of the hip-hop world of Empire, and The Brink is reminiscent of Dr. Strangelove, but has its own modern take on the nonsense of war.

Forte tells Fresh Air about landing a job on Saturday Night Live and learning on the set of Nebraska that acting is "all about commitment."

The Web series centers on a pot dealer who bikes around Brooklyn delivering to clients. Katja Blichfeld and Ben Sinclair say they drew on their experiences and friends' generosity to make the show.

The show, in its fourth season, was created by David Crane, who worked with LeBlanc on Friends. TV critic David Bianculli says its brand of satire is particularly timely and laugh-out-loud funny.

Stewart talks about his future hosting the show known for its political satire. "It is unclear to me," he tells Fresh Air's Terry Gross. "The minute I say I'm not going to do it anymore, I will miss it like crazy."

Josh Thomas, 27, stars in the show geared toward 20-somethings on the new cable channel Pivot. He talks about coming out to his dad via text message and dealing with his mom's suicide attempts.

The host of The Soup co-stars in the thriller Deliver Us From Evil. "I felt like a 12-year-old getting to be in an action film," McHale tells Fresh Air's Terry Gross.

The finale of the Fargo TV series airs Tuesday. The characters are different, like a deputy sheriff played by Allison Tolman. But writer Noah Hawley says the Coen brothers told him he "nailed it."

Netflix's women-in-prison series, based on a memoir by Piper Kerman, returns Friday. Fresh Air listens back to interviews with Kerman and series creator Jenji Kohan.

The British import Doll & Em is another inside-Hollywood comedy from HBO; Emily Mortimer and her real-life friend Dolly Wells play outsize versions of themselves.

Netflix recently unveiled its newest exclusive series: Orange Is the New Black, created by Jenji Kohan, who also created Weeds. All 13 one-hour episodes of the first season are available for streaming, and David Bianculli says the show is another Netflix success.

Show creator Mitch Hurwitz advises against binge-watching the new season, but TV critic David Bianculli begs to differ. He says hidden identities and perplexing mysteries unfold slowly, and watching everything in one sitting helps make those connections ever clearer.

Christopher Guest's new HBO comedy series follows a down-on-his-luck guy looking into his family genealogy. Guest, who pioneered the mockumentary style in cult classics like This Is Spinal Tap, co-created the show with Jim Piddock and star Chris O'Dowd.

On Showtime's dark comedy series, Laura Linney plays a terminally ill cancer patient. The actress's own father died from lung cancer while the series was being made; her mother was a cancer nurse when Linney was young. These experiences, she says, inform her performance.

This week, HBO airs the season premieres of two returning series — Game of Thrones and Veep — and launches a new series called Silicon Valley. Fresh Air's TV critic has seen them all.

As the alcoholic paterfamilias Frank Gallagher on the Showtime series Shameless, the actor enjoys portraying a man with a dark side. But he says it's Frank's better qualities that make him sustainable as a character.

The second season of the HBO series premieres this month, and Fresh Air critic David Bianculli says "these young women — these girls — really are changing and growing and adapting to tough life in the big city."

Fresh Air's television critic says there weren't any new shows this year that wowed him and that the shows he watched and loved this year were ones that have been on for at least a season. His No. 1 favorite remains Breaking Bad.