Having blown up the initial premise of their show in its Season 1 finale, ONCE UPON A TIME creators Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz have inventively plotted a Season 2 that came to a satisfying Act 1 culmination in the show’s Fall Finale episode, which they wrote and which was directed by Ralph Hemecker.  […]

  GIRLS:  Sunday 9PM on HBO The newly Golden Globe-winning GIRLS has returned, despite all its intervening success and attention, with its messiness intact.  “Messy” is a relative term in the world of Girls, of course, because although the lives of its characters are in complete disarray, auteur Lena Dunham’s vision (carried out with writing partners […]

  Maybe it’s time for a filmmaker who doesn’t give a damn about the Beat Generation to make the next movie about them.  Michael Polish’s BIG SUR joins last year’s On the Road as a Jack Kerouac adaptation that’s gorgeously filmed, performed with seriousness and commitment, and dramatically paralyzed.  (I missed this year’s other Sundance […]

  RED WIDOW:  Sunday 10PM on ABC The “2-hour premiere” of RED WIDOW actually consisted of the pilot that was shot before last year’s upfronts, combined with the first regular episode (both halves written by series creator Melissa Rosenberg, with the pilot directed by Mark Pellington and episode 2 by Daniel Sackheim).  Watching the combination […]

  DEFIANCE:  Monday 9PM on Syfy Previously… on DEFIANCE:  Now that the usual post-apocalyptic interstellar warfare is over, a variety of alien races live alongside the remaining humans on Earth.  In the town that used to be St. Louis, renamed Defiance, recently elected Mayor Amanda Rosewater (Julie Benz) has appointed peripatetic ex-soldier Jeb Nolan (Grant […]

  The success of ARROW was a big win for CW and for DC Comics this season.  The appeal of CW’s single-girl soaps was running thin, while DC has been reeling from the otherworldly success of arch-rival Marvel’s grand Avengers strategy.  Arrow has given them a franchise they both needed. The series started out terribly […]

  IRONSIDE:  Wednesday 10PM on NBC – Change the Channel “There are rules, dammit, and they need to be followed!”  That actual line is spoken, with a completely straight face, about four minutes into the pilot for NBC’s reboot of IRONSIDE, and it may rightly make your heart sink.  We know we’re in 2013, because […]

  MAGIC CITY:  Friday 9PM on Starz You’d have thought, after the low-rated, little-buzzed first season of MAGIC CITY, that both Starz and series creator Mitch Glazer would have recognized the series needed to return with some extra oomph for Season 2.  But it wasn’t to be found in tonight’s season premiere, and the result […]