TIMELESS:  Monday 10PM on NBC – If Nothing Else Is On… NBC’s TIMELESS is strictly B-movie escapism.  That’s a bit of a surprise considering that its creators are Eric Kripke of the densely mythologized (if not altogether workable) Revolution and The Shield‘s Shawn Ryan, but undemanding genre storytelling seems to be the preferred space […]

  In 2007, Julie Delpy wrote, directed and co-starred in 2 Days In Paris, a romantic comedy-drama featuring Adam Goldberg and herself as a couple who lived in NY and visited the title city for a tumultuous visit with her character Marie’s family.  Paris was only a moderate art-house success in the US ($4.4M), but […]

> One of the enduring questions of Madonna’s illustrious quarter-century career is how someone so brilliant in managing every other facet of her persona has consistently made such terrible decisions when it comes to movies.  It’s the one medium where she’s never succeeded, and even when she’s occasionally done something right, she instantly follows it […]

  GOD FRIENDED ME:  Sunday 8PM on CBS It’s not hard to figure out the target demographic for CBS’s GOD FRIENDED ME.  The Steven Lilien/Bryan Wynbrandt series appears to have been custom-stitched for those viewers who would have loved ABC’s Kevin (Probably) Saves the World if only it had been a little bit more urban.  […]

  YOU’RE THE WORST:  Wednesday 10PM on FXX Acrid TV comedy is no longer a surprise–in fact, on cable and streaming services, it’s more the rule than the exception.  What makes Stephen Falk’s YOU’RE THE WORST distinctive among shows like Netflix’s Love and HBO’s Girls is how cheerful, romantic and often just plain hilarious its […]

  SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE usually benefits from having a host with the confident comic talent that Melissa McCarthy brings to the table, but even with a 3-week hiatus in its pocket, the writing staff came up with little that was up to her level.  The result was a very long 90 minutes. Almost everything that […]

> See A Word About Busted Pilots We round out our survey of some of the more notable busted pilots of the season with the distinctive POE, produced by Warner Bros Television for ABC and written by Chris Hollier (a former writer for Kyle XY).  Unfortunately, this pilot stands for the proposition that “distinctive” doesn’t […]

  RESURRECTION:  Sunday 9PM on ABC American viewers have a seemingly endless fascination with the undead in all their various forms, and that extended to last season’s instant midseason hit RESURRECTION (although its ratings steadily declined throughout its run).  The show returned tonight for its second season, and as is often the case with it, […]