LAWLESS:  Watch It At Home – A Moonshine War To Make You Long for “Boardwalk Empire” Director John Hillcoat specializes in stark, emotionally distanced pulp, and if that sounds like a contradiction in terms, often it is.  His Australian western The Proposition, about a man murderously stalking his own brother, had a gnarled power, […]

  CLARICE:  Thursday 10PM on CBS The Silence Of the Lambs wasn’t supposed to be Hannibal Lecter’s story.  Despite Anthony Hopkins’ Best Actor Oscar for the role, the character was a supporting player in both Thomas Harris’ 1988 novel and Jonathan Demme’s 1991 film.  The center of the tale was FBI agent Clarice Starling, but […]

  ALMOST HUMAN:  Monday 8PM on FOX (after a Sunday Nov 17 preview) – Worth A Look The ALMOST HUMAN pilot has a whole lot of concept.  The show was created by J. H. Wyman, a senior writer/producer on Fringe (the pilot is directed by Brad Anderson, who also directed many Fringe episodes), and the […]

  ONCE UPON A TIME:  Sunday 8PM on ABC As everyone knows by now, Season 4 of ONCE UPON A TIME is aiming for a grand slam of corporate synergy, combining its Disney-owned network and Disney-owned TV series with Disney Animation’s biggest mega-buster in decades, the $1.3 Billion (and that’s just for ticket sales in […]

> In these heady moments after the NY Giants’ triumphant victory over the New England Patriots (I’d say “Sorry, New England fans,” but I wouldn’t mean it), let’s take a moment to look at the other major event of the evening:  the ads for upcoming movies.  (Mitch Metcalf will offer a separate take on NBC’s […]

  ZOO:  Tuesday 9PM on CBS Viewers who enjoyed the first dumb season of CBS’s ZOO last summer–and there were quite a few of them–should have little quarrel with Season 2.  In fact, based on the two-hour season premiere (Hour 1 written by Supervising Producer Matt Pitts and Producer Melissa Glenn; Hour 2 by Co-Executive […]

> The first substantial buy of the Toronto Film Festival (Shame had sold first, but for art film prices) turned out to be Salmon Fishing In the Yemen, a modestly engaging romantic comedy from Lasse Hallstrom.  Hallstrom has made a career out of “modestly engaging,” following his early distinction with My Life As a Dog […]

> See A Word About Busted Pilots For those who like Six Degrees of Separation-ish linkages:  the protagonist of ABC’s busted pilot GRACE is Michael Grace, an aging, womanizing choreographer who bears some resemblance to Bob Fosse–or at least to Joe Gideon, the center of Fosse’s semiautographical All That Jazz.  The actor playing Grace is […]