MAJOR CRIMES:  Monday 9PM on TNT MAJOR CRIMES returned for its third season tonight with a grim but unremarkable hour.  The episode, written by Co-Executive Producer Michael Alaimo and directed by David McWhirter, tipped off its hand very early for anyone raised on cop procedurals:  when the wife and mother of a missing family […]

  FAMILY TOOLS –  Wednesday 8:30PM on ABC – Change the Channel   J.K. Simmons is one of our national character actor treasures, but he tests the bounds of our willingness to follow him anywhere with FAMILY TOOLS, which is getting a last-minute run starting tonight. Tools is sitcom with a capital “sit.”  The rollicking […]

  TOUCHY FEELY offers the gifted writer/director Lynn Shelton taking herself very, very seriously for the most part.  It turns out to be a less effective mode for her than those of her recent small-scale comedies Humpday and Your Sister’s Sister, which had marvelously well-judged tones.  (In her more mainstream work, she recently directed a […]

  HOUSE OF LIES:  Sunday 10PM on Showtime HOUSE OF LIES deserves some credit for nailing the Wolf of Wall Street vibe before there was a Wolf of Wall Street.  Marty Kaan (Don Cheadle) and his “pod” of business consultants have already spent 2 seasons merrily doing drugs, having inappropriate sex and swindling their own […]

  SUPER FUN NIGHT:  Wednesday 9:30PM on ABC Previously… on SUPER FUN NIGHT:  Kimmie (series creator Rebel Wilson) and her BFFs Marika (Lauren Ash) and Helen-Alice (Liza Lapira) share a New York apartment and nonexistent romantic life.  One night each week, they go out to have adventures.  On the professional front, Kimmie is a lawyer […]

  SIGNIFICANT MOTHER:  Monday 9:30PM on CW – Change the Channel CW doesn’t air scripted half-hours in its regular season line-up, and it’s been trying its hand with them over the summer when there’s little to lose.  No one is watching its Thursday British import Dates, but it’s a surprisingly nimble set of mostly two-actor, […]

  The only thing more boring than a typical Oscars is one without surprises, and the closest thing to a major upset this year turned out to be Disney’s loss in the Best Animated Short category.  (The studio almost instantly rebounded with the much more important Animated Feature prize for Frozen.)  All the conventional wisdom […]

  Television as a medium seems to become more exciting and surprising practically every week these days, but one thing remains the same:  The EMMY AWARDS is still the weak, erratic sibling of the other major awards shows, even when the telecast itself is slickly packaged, as was mostly the case with tonight’s rendition from […]