RESURRECTION:  Sunday 9PM on ABC  – Potential DVR Alert The restrained tension of RESURRECTION‘s pilot may remind you of early, suburban Spielberg, and of M. Night Shyamalan before he became a punchline.  The premise, based on a novel called “The Returned” by Jason Mott (and also perhaps inspired by the unrelated French miniseries that ran […]

  GROWING UP FISHER:  Tuesday 9:30PM on NBC – If Nothing Else Is On… We reviewed GROWING UP FISHER last summer based on the pilot that was originally shot, but after the series was ordered, one of the lead performers, Parker Posey, was replaced by Jenna Elfman, which required some reshooting.  But not, as it […]

We’ve reached the broadcast networks’ Upfront Week… which used to be a lot more central to our television lives than it is now.  Ratings everywhere are down, and there’s no reason to think they’ve hit bottom, which has caused seismic changes in the ways networks make scheduling decisions.  Among other things, with revenues from on-air […]

  SECRETS AND LIES:  Midseason TBD on ABC THE FACTS:  Another ABC murder soap, this one starring Ryan Phillippe as a man who finds the body of a neighbor’s child in the woods, KaDee Strickland as his wife, and Juliette Lewis as the homicide detective who thinks he’s the killer.  It’s based on an Australian […]

  THE WHISPERS:  Midseason TBD on ABC THE FACTS:  Something is taking possession of American children and making them do very bad things–like “kill your parents” bad things.  They may be on their way to launching an all-out attack, and Lily Rabe is the government agent tasked to stop them.  The series creator is Soo […]

  Read All Our Fall Pilot Reports here and Midseason Pilot Reports here. CRISIS:  Sunday 10PM on NBC – If Nothing Else is On… Funny story.  Remember how last fall, there was a serialized thriller about a high-stakes political kidnapping in Washington whose victims included teens called Hostages that flopped badly?  NBC would prefer that […]

  SURVIVING JACK:  Thursday 9:30PM on FOX – Change the Channel SURVIVING JACK is a Mortifying Parent Sitcom, which isn’t much of a surprise, since it originated with Justin Halpern, who wrote the book that became the short-lived sitcom S#!* My Dad Says and also wrote the book I Suck At Girls, which inspired this […]

  STAR-CROSSED:  Monday 8PM on CW – Change the Channel If aliens are in high school, we must be on CW.  The network’s midseason entry STAR-CROSSED plays as a clip reel of CW’s greatest hits, from the supernatural teen romance of The Vampire Diaries to the forbidden love of Beauty and the Beast to the […]