SELFIE:  Tuesday 8PM on ABC THE FACTS:  Suburgatory creator Emily Kapnek may have lost one sitcom this week, but she gained a new one, this spin on My Fair Lady.  Eliza Dooley (Karen Gillan) is an entirely self-obsessed, social  media-magnet narcissist (think a slightly less sociopathic Dahlia from Suburgatory), but when she herself gets […]

  Note:  all ratings below are Live + Same Day 18-49 numbers , the ratings which experience has shown to be closest to the averages for viewers who watch within 3 days and DO NOT skip through commercials, the “C3” rating which is the only measure that advertisers use in their transactions with the networks. […]

  MANHATTAN LOVE STORY:  Tuesday 8:30PM on ABC THE FACTS:  Boy (Jake McDorman) meets girl (Analeigh Tipton), but here’s the gimmick:  we hear all of the couple’s hidden thoughts throughout.  The series creator is Jeff Lowell, whose sitcom writing/producing career goes back to Cybill and Spin City. WHAT IT’S SAYING:  He’s cute, she’s cute, and […]

  The big news at CBS is that the network is reducing its Monday comedy block to 1 hour, while leaving 2 sitcom hours on Thursday.  Consequently, the network is adding only one new half-hour in the fall.  (There was no last-minute pick-up for How I Met Your Dad, which until last week was regarded […]

  Thanks to SUNDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL, THE VOICE and Dick Wolf, NBC is in stable–if unexciting–shape as the 2015-16 season ends, and the Peacock’s fall line-up is as notable for what it doesn’t do as for what it does.  Although the network has ordered a dozen new series, only 3 of them will begin airing […]

  NBC has kept a lot of is pieces in place, but also made some significant changes for next season, especially on its once-signature Thursday night.  Let’s dig in. MONDAY:  No surprise that THE VOICE is staying where it is, but 10PM is a risk.  NBC will keep THE BLACKLIST there only until November 10, […]

  NOTE:  Weekly and Season To Date Ratings Charts Are Below The war is over:  victory is television’s (make that “television”), which after decades of being considered the Fredo Corleone of dramatic narrative is now–to the evident recent discomfort of the film critics at the NY Times and LA Times–taken as seriously as the kind created […]

  With the overwhelming amount of quality television these days available on various platforms, the Emmy nominators (of which I’m one, in certain categories) weren’t going to get it all right.  (A full list of nominees is here.)   There were omissions aplenty–The Americans and The Knick on the drama side, to name just two, and […]