The fact that ABC’s QUANTICO has been renewed for a third season (albeit with a 13-episode order, a reduced network license fee and an as-yet-unchosen replacement showrunner) tells you everything you need to know about broadcast network television circa 2017.  Qnantico has recently been earning same-day 18-49 ratings at the 0.5 level, a number […]

  Season 2 of FOX’s WAYWARD PINES wouldn’t have felt out of place on Syfy, and that’s not a compliment.  Season 1 had a strong cast (Matt Dillon, Carla Gugino, Toby Jones, Juliette Lewis) and a clever twist, revealed halfway through:  the bucolic yet sinister titular town was actually the last outpost of humanity, its […]

  TABOO:  Tuesday 10PM on FX – Potential DVR Alert It may be that Tom Hardy will join Clive Owen and Michael Fassbinder among British leading men who never quite became the global superstars they seemed meant to be.  With Owen and Fassbinder, there’s a certainly coldness to them that makes them perfectly cast in […]

  TYRANT:  Tuesday 10PM on FX Season 1 of TYRANT was a mess.  It was rebooted and somewhat restaffed after the pilot was shot, and then continued to be changed on the fly, making for a series that seemed to shift tone and direction every few episodes.  The ratings weren’t much above terrible (although they […]

  DEVIOUS MAIDS:  Sunday 10PM on Lifetime – If Nothing Else Is On… Technically, DEVIOUS MINDS isn’t a spin-off of Desperate Housewives–there are no significant shared characters or storylines.  But Maids, like Housewives, hails from writer Marc Cherry, and it follows the Housewives tone and pattern so closely that it often feels like at any […]

  As I was saying… THE HOBBIT: THE DESOLATION OF SMAUG:  Worth A Ticket – The Long Road Continues, But This Time On A Better Path Jumping at once to the most pressing matter–which is more than its trilogy often does–Peter Jackson’s THE HOBBIT: THE DESOLATION OF SMAUG is considerably more enjoyable than last year’s […]

  The idea of applying a deep coat of existential angst to thriller conventions isn’t new–every Sundance Film Festival has at least a couple of examples of the sub-genre, and there are even sub-sub-genres of the form, like Thomas Pynchon’s Inherent Vice and Bleeding Edge, which add surreal humor to the mix.  With 8+ hours […]

  HOOTEN & THE LADY:  Thursday 9PM on CW – Change the Channel Here’s an indicative moment from CW’s summer adventure series HOOTEN & THE LADY.  The disreputable treasure-hunter Hooten (Michael Landes), having just found out that his reluctant companion, assistant British Museum curator Alex (Olivia Lovibond), is an actual member of the British nobility, […]