THE MCCARTHYS:  Thursday 9:30PM on CBS THE FACTS:  Ronnie McCarthy (Jake Lacy) is part of a lovingly smothering Boston Irish-Catholic family, who are just fine with him being gay but embarrass him at every turn anyway.  The series was created by Brian Gallivan, a relative newbie, so the showrunner will be Mike Sikowitz, of […]

  ABC made some impressive strides this past season, especially on Wednesday and Thursday, and it was probably wise that the network decided to adopt a conservative schedule for the Fall.  Here’s a quick look, along with the network’s reported midseason plans, and reviews of the new shows’ trailers (new shows are in ALL CAPS, […]

  SQUIRREL!  NBC, and its media enablers, will do their best to focus discussion of the WINTER OLYMPICS ratings on total viewers, daytime and online numbers, and–SQUIRREL!–anything other than the evident fact that the Games didn’t justify a cost that probably exceeded $1 billion, between rights ($775M alone) and production costs over the 18 days of […]

  MULANEY:  Sunday 9:30PM on FOX THE FACTS:  John Mulaney, in real life a stand-up comic and TV comedy writer (most notably on SNL, where his biggest claim to fame may be co-creating Bill Hader’s Stefon character), plays one in the sitcom he created for himself, too.  His TV show boss is Martin Short, and […]

  Fridays aren’t the most exciting night on the broadcast network schedule, but there are some interesting changes coming next fall.  We’re following our predictions for Monday,  Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday with a look at what Fridays have in store.  These projections cover the September 22-December 7 period, before holiday reruns and specials kick in, […]

  NBC and FOX will be the first broadcast networks to announce their 2014-15 schedules next Monday, so it makes sense that they’re the first to begin announcing their new series pick-ups.  No trailers have yet been released, but here are some quick facts on each: FOX Note:  In addition to those below, FOX has […]

  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 […]

  We’re taking these last days before the broadcast networks’ midseason begins to scrutinize how those still-powerful dinosaurs fared during the fall.  Yesterday we looked at ABC, and today it’s the turn of what was called (although not recently) the Tiffany Network. CBS Fall Primetime 18-49 Average (through December 28):  1.93, down 3.6% from Fall […]