Laura Dern

Highlights from the fifth day of the festival, including swinging with Spider-Man’s Andrew Garfield and talking old age with Mark Ruffalo

Enlightened is about to wrap up its second season (its season finale will air on March 3). Unless HBO decides it likes the show a lot, there isn’t likely to be any more: the first season got almost no viewers and, worse for HBO, very little buzz. They were able to get a Golden Globe for Laura Dern, but they couldn’t get people talking about it the way people talk about Girls (a show that doesn’t have a whole lot of viewers, but is constantly in the news and may drive some subscribers HBO’s way). It didn’t have a clear selling point the way Girls does; that show is almost as much about the behind-the-scenes story of a new talent and a new generational perspective in TV as it is about what happens on the screen. Enlightened is a half-hour comedy-drama conceived as a vehicle for an actress who’s been in the business a long time, and both HBO and Showtime have had so many of those shows that it’s hard for one more to stand out. Today’s shows almost need a compelling promotional hook as much as they need a compelling story, just because there are so many shows fighting it out for our limited time.