LOUIE:  Thursday 10:30PM on FX We’ve learned over time that it’s impossible to take the measure of a season of LOUIE until we see what its auteur has in store for us.  Last year’s Season 4 was extraordinarily ambitious, with a feature-length episode that only barely featured its star tossed off in the midst […]

  THE COMEDIANS:  Thursday 10PM on FX – If Nothing Else Is On… THE COMEDIANS is another trip down meta-comedy lane, with comic actors playing twisted versions of “themselves,” meaning more for Larry David to answer for when he reaches the pearly gates.  It’s based by US creators Billy Crystal, Larry Charles, Matt Nix and […]

  WEIRD LONERS:  Tuesday 9:30PM on FOX Previously… on WEIRD LONERS:  Out-of-work womanizer Stosh (Zachary Knighton) has just moved in with his odd cousin Eric (Nate Torrence) in Eric’s house, which is next door to the one where bitter singleton Caryn (Becki Newton) has just taken in commitment-phobe artist Zara (Meera Rohit Kumbhani). Episode 2:  […]

  MAD MEN:  Sunday 10PM on AMC The final season of MAD MEN was conceived by Matthew Weiner to run, as the previous seasons had, across 14 consecutive weeks, and it was AMC’s decision (for scheduling and budgetary reasons) to break the season in half and run it over 2 years.  Nevertheless, whether by chance […]

  In its 5th season, SHAMELESS recognized that some of its younger Gallaghers were now old enough to be corrupted, which resulted in strong storylines for Carl (Ethan Cutkosky), whose drug dealing ended up putting him (and his half-nephew, if that’s a thing) in juvie, and especially Debbie (Emma Kenney), who discovered love and sex […]

  SALEM:  Sunday 10PM on WGNAmerica SALEM, WGNAmerica’s first original scripted series, developed into an enjoyably gonzo exercise in old-time witchy horror during the course of its first season, more than willing to stretch the envelope of acceptable gore and sex on basic cable.  (The network’s follow-up, the prestige project Manhattan, was a much more […]

  It wasn’t until the last few minutes of tonight’s SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE that the show seemed to figure out what to do with this week’s host–which was weird, because Michael Keaton, making his return to SNL after decades, much as he returned to public consciousness with last year’s Birdman, has a wide range that […]

  FINDING CARTER:  Tuesday 10PM on MTV FINDING CARTER was one of last year’s genuine surprises.  Showing up on MTV, of all places, it rose past its contrived premise–teen Carter (Kathryn Prescott) finds out that Lori (Milena Govich), the mother she’s grown up with, is actually the woman who kidnapped her as a child, and […]