1. It looks great.

2. The second episode rehashed too much of the pilot, but the third episode was much better.

3. As far as the cast goes, Danny Huston makes a great bad-ass, Jeffrey Dean Morgan is in fine form as well, and although Alex Rocco’s storyline was a bit schmaltzy for my tastes, he’s still Alex Rocco, which means his scenes are worth seeing simply because he’s in them.

All things considered, it’s probably best that I hadn’t yet seen the fourth episode when I wrote about the series, since not only did it prove to be the most disappointing installment of the entire season, but it left such a bad taste in my mouth—I believe the precise phrase I used to describe the series at the time was “infuriatingly inconsistent”—that, if I’m to be honest, I could’ve flipped a coin to decide my thoughts on whether it was going to get better or worse in the coming weeks. Pretty much all of the good will it had built up in the preceding three weeks had been shot all to hell in the span of a single hour.

Thank God it got better. In fact, it got so much better that, now that Magic City: The Complete First Season has been released on DVD and Blu-ray, I have absolutely no hesitation about recommending it as a must-buy. I really can’t speak to what happened behind the scenes to turn the series around in such a dramatic fashion, but it was one of the most impressive TV turnarounds I’ve ever seen.

“Magic City,” if you’ve never seen it, is set in Miami in 1959, not long after the Cuban Revolution, with Morgan playing Ike Evans, owner of the Miramar Playa, the snazziest hotel in the city. It’s the fulfillment of a dream for Ike, but it’s one that he’s achieved at a cost, having gotten financial assistance from mob boss Ben Diamond (Huston), a guy with such a nasty reputation that Huston himself has said, “You would not want Ben Diamond to do you a favor. I think even if he offered to open the door for you, you’d be, like, ‘No, no, that’s okay!’” It leads to a very interesting dynamic between the two men, with Ben knowing that he’s got a position of power in the relationship even as Ike is trying to convince himself that Ben’s really just a silent partner. The self-delusion is slowing disintegrating, however, first when Ike asks Ben to “take care of” a labor dispute, then when the hotel’s overhead hits a point where Ike has no choice but to ask Ben for more money, and the situation gets even worse when Ike attempts to gamble his way into salvation, only to end up even further in debt. It’s at this point that Ike decides to pitch Meg Bannock (Kelly Lynch), his late wife’s very well-off sister, on the idea of teaming up with him on the hotel in hopes of relying less on Ben…but that opens a whole other realm of problems, since there’s a ridiculous amount of sexual tension between Meg and Ike, a situation that Ike’s current wife, Vera (Olga Kurylenko), is in no way unaware of.

Beyond the Ike vs. Ben battle and the Ike/Vera/Meg triangle, Ike’s also having to deal with the district attorney, who’s sure that Ike had something to do with the labor union rep suddenly going MIA. Then there are Ike’s sons, Stevie (Steven Strait), who’s very much his father’s son in all the worst possible ways he can be, and Danny (Christian Cooke), a squeaky-clean lad who’s trying to pursue a career in law as well as a relationship with Mercedes (Dominik Garcia-Lorido), who works in the hotel with her father, Victor (Yul Vazquez), the general manager of the Miramar Playa. Meanwhile, Stevie’s playing with fire by having an affair with Ben’s wife, Lily (Jessica Marais), a situation which – as anyone might guess – is almost certainly destined to end poorly.

As you can see, “Magic City” is a good old fashioned soap opera, albeit one that plays more than a little bit like “Mad Men” meets “The Sopranos,” not that there’s anything inherently wrong with such a combination. Although it starts slowly, with so many different storylines whirling around that many of them are necessarily set aside for several episodes at a time, the fifth episode proves to be a turning point. At first, there’s that suspicion that the fourth episode was so bad that you might be overrating the proceedings, but, no, the show definitely gets into a groove that continues all the way to the season finale, leaving you dying to see what’s going to happen next. Now that the entire first season is available on DVD and Blu-ray, you really need to pick it up, put it in the player, and have yourself a good old fashioned marathon. Season 2 won’t be kicking off ’til next year, but there’s no time like the present to start getting psyched.

Well, not really, anyway. I mean, normally, I’ve got an interview or a preview of a new series or a commentary on an existing TV series, and it’s enough to fill up an entire column, but not this time. Between all the writing, transcribing, and family matters going on over the past few weeks, I’ve had precious little time to watch TV these past few weeks, and what I have watched has tended to be in short spurts, which means that I’m way behind on just about all of my favorite shows. Mind you, that’s not to say that I don’t have anything to say. I’m just going to kind of run through some of the things I’ve been watching lately – some new, some old – and offer up my thoughts about them.

First up: the same show just about everyone else was talking about this morning:

Seems like only yesterday that I walked up to Jimmy Fallon at the TCA Press Tour and asked him outright if he was scared shitless about starting his talk show. (His response: “Why, yes. Yes, I am.”) Now look at the guy: slow-jamming the news with the President of the United States. You know, I’d say “I don’t care what your politics are, that’s just awesome,” but I know Republicans better than that. I will, however, note that President Obama earned a little extra respect from me for taking the time to give a shout-out to Key & Peele. It wouldn’t surprise me if you forgot that I talked to them back in January, since the piece didn’t get so much as a single comment, but they’re a hilarious couple of guys, and they deserve all the success they’ve been getting with their Comedy Central Series. But I digress. Here’s that slow jam I mentioned, just in case you haven’t caught it yet:

If you’re a parent, I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that the addition of children to your life inevitably results in a number of changes to your lifestyle, but one of the most crucial is how it affects your TV viewing habits. It seems like it’d be easy to tell a little kid what they’re going to watch, but you’d be surprised. Battles are often fought in our living room over what I want to watch versus what my daughter calls “my shows,” a short list which includes a variety of programming that I have no interested in sitting through. As such, my wife and I regularly try to find shows that are at least somewhat of a middle ground for us all, thereby avoiding these arguments with a little lass who’s 1/4 my size, and in an effort to avoid watching “Dance Moms” at all cost, I finally asked a question I never thought would come out of my mouth: “Do you want to try ‘Dancing with the Stars’?”

Mind you, it still wouldn’t have come out of my mouth if we didn’t have Hulu Plus, because its regular timeslot(s) finds it up against several programs that I’d much rather watch instead, but since we can stream it whenever we want, we’ve taken advantage of that opportunity…and damned if it hasn’t been amazingly entertaining. I mean, I’m annoyed by the same things on “Dancing with the Stars” that I am on most reality shows, most notably the fact that it’s stretched out to an unnecessary length (particularly the results show, which could be done in 30 minutes without any problem), but it’s been hard to take my eyes off the screen during the actual dance routines. I’m led to understand that this is arguably the strongest group of celebrity contestants they’ve had on the show in quite some time, possibly ever, so I guess I picked the right season to take a chance. By the way, if Katherine Jenkins doesn’t take it all, I’ll be very, very surprised. What a cutie…

Speaking of “Dancing with the Stars,” not only is Jaleel White pulling some serious street-cred from his fancy footwork on this season of the show, but he’s also got a new full-time gig to keep him occupied: hosting SyFy’s new game show, “Total Blackout.” As with about half of the programming on SyFy, it has absolutely nothing to do with SyFy (indeed, it would really fit in better on Chiller), but it’s still a highly entertaining concept, not to mention a simple one: put people in a dark room and have them compete against each other to perform various tasks that would be simple if only they could see. The first few episodes have the contestants reaching into aquarium tasks and being forced to identify objects that range from cockroaches to a pineapple just by touching them, figuring out what they’re eating or smelling, and other strange stuff. You’ll cringe on occasion, but mostly you’ll laugh and say, “I’m glad that’s not me!”

Say what? Yep, Shout Factory has finally secured the rights to continue releasing the full-season sets of this ’70s classic, and when Season 2 arrived at my house, I dug right in. Screw all that new programming: I’d much rather delve through this treasure trove of stars on their way up and down the ladder of success and more character actors than you can shake a stick at. Don’t believe me? Take a look…

Fantasy? Magic? Get it…? Okay, so it’s a slightly imperfect segue. So sue me.

When I first saw the trailer for Starz’s “Magic City,” I was instantly captivated by the look of the series. Having not actually been in Miami Beach in 1961, I haven’t a clue how accurate the portrayal of the area and the era are, but the results sure are easy to watch. Three episodes into the proceedings, however, it’s hard to really know yet what to expect from the series, especially since the second episode fell into the unfortunate but often-repeated mistake of rehashing too much from the pilot. I will say, however, that the third episode was very strong and left me particularly excited about seeing where things will be going this week, so I’m certainly hopeful.

Danny Huston’s an effective bad-ass, and Jeffrey Dean Morgan’s better here than I’ve seen him in just about anything else, but I do wish they’d give Alex Rocco a storyline that doesn’t feel so damned schmaltzy. He’s made an impression every time he’s been on screen, but I’m invariably left thinking that, although Rocco was great, the storyline wasn’t. But, hey, we’re only three episodes in. There’s still plenty of time left to turn things around.

Time for another flashback, this one courtesy of Warner Home Video, who finally realized that there’s enough of an audience for this short-lived series adaptation of a ’70s classic to warrant releasing it on DVD. (It had previously only been available via download.) Although I have to admit that my first reaction upon watching Gregory Harrison’s performance as Logan was to think, “Gee, I really wish they’d release ‘Trapper John, M.D.’ on DVD,” it turns out that although “Logan’s Run” looks precisely as dated as you’d expect a sci-fi series of the ’70s to look, the stories themselves hold up surprisingly well. Mind you, it doesn’t exactly hurt that Heather Menzies is totally swoon-worthy. Also worth noting is Donald Moffat’s performance as the android Rem, which never fails to be thoughtful, amusing, and just generally entertaining.

Look, I don’t know what the chances are that Fox is going to bring back this “Bones” spin-off for a second season, but let me just go on record as saying that it’s a lot of fun and absolutely worthy of renewal. I have this feeling that a lot of “Bones” fans took a pass of trying it out because the back-door pilot for “The Finder” – that would be the episode of “Bones” that they used to introduce the characters – but I’m here to tell you that the actual series is so much better. With each passing episode, Geoff Stults seems perpetually more at home in the role of Walter, the eccentric gentleman who’s obsessed with finding stuff, and the chemistry between Stults and Michael Clarke Duncan is fantastic. As I say, I have no clue if they’ll deign to bring it back for Season 2, but I sure hope they do.