CRISTELA:  Friday 8:30PM on ABC THE FACTS:  The Hollywood American Dream:  Cristela Alonzo is a Latina comic who wrote (with Kevin Hench) a family comedy pilot script loosely inspired by her own life, about a young woman living with her sister and brother-in-law as she tries to become a lawyer.  ABC passed on the […]

  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 […]

  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 […]

  AMERICAN CRIME:  Sunday 9PM Midseason on ABC THE FACTS:  John Ridley, this year’s Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar winner for 12 Years A Slave, has written a serialized crime drama very specifically about race, in which a Latino teen is arrested for the murder of the son of Timothy Hutton and Felicity Huffman. WHAT IT’S […]

  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 […]

  FOREVER:  Tuesday 10PM on ABC THE FACTS:  Dr. Henry Morgan (Ioan Gruffudd) is a brilliant New York medical examiner who can solve any murder.  Partly that’s because he has a lot of experience with death, since he himself has (temporarily) died many times–when he falls out a window, is poisoned or hit by a […]

    BLACK-ISH:  Wednesday 9:30PM on ABC THE FACTS:  Anthony Anderson plays the head of an African-American family that lives a prosperous life in a mostly white neighborhood, and he tries to hold onto some part of his culture even though his assimilated kids, wife and father mostly couldn’t care less.  The series creator is […]

    HOW TO GET AWAY WITH MURDER:  Thursday 10PM on ABC THE FACTS:  The new wing to the Shonda Rhimes Thursday that’s about to be a cornerstone of the ABC line-up.  In case that name wasn’t enough, try this one:  Viola Davis, starring as a brilliant, enigmatic criminal defense attorney who teaches a law […]