It’s no small thing to be a scripted success on the broadcast networks during the summer, and while it’s never been a breakout hit, the fact that the Canadian series ROOKIE BLUE has made it to a 4th season on ABC is impressive in itself.  Its modest, accomplished mix of police procedural and soap […]

  In its second season, Stephen Bochco and Eric Lodal’s MURDER IN THE FIRST altered its format, only to find new ways to fail.  Season 1 had told a single convoluted story, a murder mystery loaded with so many red herrings and reversals that by the time it ended, it was impossible to care who […]

  CASUAL:  October 7 on Hulu Hulu has included some original programming in its inventory for a while now, but it’s signaled its intention to join Netflix and Amazon in that realm in a more serious way with its order of new Mindy Project episodes, and production of a Stephen King minseries, The Way from […]

  The hits just kept coming on tonight’s SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE, which packed a whole fall’s worth of glitz into the show’s final 90 minutes of 2013.  Technically, Jimmy Fallon was the host and Justin Timberlake was musical guest, but as anyone would have expected, the two were essentially a team–and if they weren’t enough […]

It’s a cliche to say, when a director of commercials and music videos helms his or her first feature film, that the result resembles a video extended to feature length–and certainly not one that’s always true, as the debuts of, among others, Ridley Scott (The Duellists) and David Fincher (Alien 3) have shown.  But cliches […]

  THE BRONZE is an entertaining but standard-issue R-rated American comedy, equal parts Bad Teacher and any Danny McBride vehicle, which makes one wonder what it’s doing in the Dramatic Competition line-up at the Sundance Film Festival.  (McBride’s breakout movie The Foot Fist Way also premiered at Sundance, but in the more genre-oriented Midnight section.)  Another similarity to […]

  UP ALL NIGHT:  Thursday 8:30PM on NBC WHERE WE WERE:  Watching a show about Reagan Brinkley (Christina Applegate), who struggled to produce her best friend Ava’s (Maya Rudolph) afternoon TV talk show while adjusting to parenting daughter Amy with stay-at-home lawyer husband Chris (Will Arnett). WHERE WE ARE:  In a somewhat different show.  Up […]

  Although it regrouped somewhat in its last few episodes, Season 7 of THE VAMPIRE DIARIES was mostly an awkward and ungainly one.  Some readjustment was foreseeable after leading lady Nina Dobrev decided not to return, but by the end of Season 6, series co-creator Julie Plec and showrunner Caroline Dries seemed to have a […]