THE PERSIAN VERSION (Sony Classics):  Maryam Keshavarz’s dramedy won the Sundance Audience Award in the US Dramatic Competition, and it’s a smart mixture of broad comedy and family drama.  The comedy is mostly set in the present day, where aspiring filmmaker Leila (Layla Mohammadi), tries to keep her distance from her mother Shireen (Niousha […]

  MR. ROBOT:  Wednesday 10PM on USA – Potential DVR Alert There are networks, especially in the pay-TV universe, that play the instant-renewal game, announcing as soon as a new show has premiered, or sometimes even before, that another season has been ordered.  It’s a PR move, for the most part, and sometimes only semi-legitimate, […]

  Truth be told, Season 4 of COMMUNITY was probably closer to what NBC thought it was buying when it originally ordered the show than any of the seasons that preceded it.  Eccentric but not insular, offbeat but not off-putting, with a logical explanation for each seeming twist of surrealism and wrapped up whenever possible […]

  ENLIGHTENED:  Sunday 9:30PM on HBO HBO’s decision to renew Mike White and Laura Dern’s ENLIGHTENED for a second season was one of the least ratings-driven calls in memory.  The show barely registered with viewers, usually drawing a 0.1 in 18-49s and a grand total (on initial airing) of perhaps a quarter of a million […]

  HELLO LADIES:  Sunday 10:30PM on HBO HBO sure loves it some Ricky Gervais-ian British comedy.  Apart from his stand-up specials, over the past few years the network has aired Extras, Life’s Too Short and The Ricky Gervais Show, and now, with Gervais in Netflix’s clutches with Derek, it’s resorted to the pseudo-Gervais of the […]

> Watch It At Home:  For Fans of Florescent Green Another summer weekend; another superhero epic.  What used to be an extravagant event genre is now hard-pressed to muster more than a yawn.  What is there to say about GREEN LANTERN?  Well, it’s better than January’s sophomoric Green Hornet, so at least it’s got color […]

  POWER:  Saturday 9PM on Starz After its long respite in the past with the likes of The White Queen, Da Vinci’s Demons, Dancing On the Edge and Magic City, Starz returns to the 21st Century with the new POWER, a drama so contemporary that it boasts (as he’s billed) Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson among […]

  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 […]