Almost every quality series, at one point or another, takes a wrong turn (remember the Friday Night Lights murder storyline?); the mark of one with staying power is whether it can bounce back.  THE FOSTERS was in danger of going over the edge at the end of its first season, piling one melodramatic plot […]

  DALLAS:  Monday 9PM on TNT As TNT pushes its action-oriented “Boom” branding campaign (successfully with The Last Ship, not so much with Murder In the First nor apparently the new Legends), DALLAS seems more and more like a remnant not just of an earlier era of television, but of its own network’s past.  The […]

  OUTLANDER:  Saturday 9PM on Starz Previously… on OUTLANDER:  Claire Randall (Caltriona Balfe) is, shortly after the end of World War II, a former Army nurse vacationing in Scotland with her ex-Intelligence Officer historian husband Frank (Tobias Menzies)–until she drops out of time and finds herself living in 1743, among the Scottish rebels against the […]

  SELFIE:  Tuesday 8PM on ABC starting September 30 – If Nothing Else Is On… PLAYERS:  George Bernard Shaw.  (And Lerner & Loewe, whose My Fair Lady made Pygmalion into a fixture of pop culture.)  Series creator Emily Kapnek, of Suburgatory.  Stars John Cho and Karen Gillan.  Pilot director Julie Anne Robinson.  Warner Bros. Television. […]

  GRACEPOINT:  Thursday 9PM on FOX starting October 2 – Potential DVR Alert PLAYERS:  Broadchurch, the wildly successful limited (and now continuing) British TV series, of which Gracepoint is a remake.  Broadchurch returnees, including series creator Chris Chibnall, director James Strong and star David Tennant.  A cast surrounding Tennant that includes Anna Gunn, Nick Nolte, […]

  THE KNICK:  Friday 10PM on Cinemax Previously… on THE KNICK:  New York’s Knickerbocker Hospital circa 1900 is a highly respectable institution, funded by wealthy benefactors and with a conscientious staff, but to modern eyes, it’s little more than a sewer, with “state of the art” operating procedures that seem savage and conditions that are […]

  MARRY ME:  Tuesday 9PM on NBC starting October 14 – If Nothing Else Is On… PLAYERS:  Series creator David Caspe, of the late and lamented Happy Endings.  Stars Casey Wilson and Ken Marino, but especially Wilson, because while starring in this comedy about an engaged couple, she’s engaged in real life to Caspe.  Pilot […]

  FRANKLIN & BASH:  Wednesday 10PM on TNT Until very recently, FRANKLIN & BASH was what people had in mind when they talked about “Summer TV.”  It’s a fluffy, undemanding procedural whose buddy heroes Jared Franklin (Breckin Meyer) and Peter Bash (Mark Paul Gosselaar) are at least as interested in partying as in winning cases, […]