SLEEPY HOLLOW has grown into one of the (few) pleasant surprises of the fall network season, a keenly judged mix of supernatural folderol, increasingly well-drawn characters and light time-travel comedy.  Enough of a hit to already have been renewed for next season, the show’s first fall term culminated in a barnburner of a season […]

  LOOKING:  Sunday 10:30PM on HBO – Worth A Look HBO’s LOOKING is distinctive for the obvious reason that it’s a dramedy about gay characters, of a completely different order than the network universe of a Sean Saves the World or Glee.  That doesn’t just mean it’s far more sexual than a broadcast network would […]

  All the way to the very end, BETRAYAL couldn’t get it right.  Although it hasn’t technically been canceled (as a matter of policy, networks don’t give up their legal rights to shows until the last possible moment), the show’s ratings have been so awful that a renewal is massively unlikely, and for most of […]

  THE FOLLOWING:  Monday 9PM on FOX (starting Jan 27) The blood-drenched, increasingly grandiose literary pretensions of THE FOLLOWING grew tiresome by the end of last season’s run.  It seemed like very good news that in the season finale, Edgar Allen Poe scholar, brutal serial killer and unaccountably irresistible cult leader Joe Carroll (James Purefoy) […]

  Tonight’s footnote to SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE history was that it featured the debut of new cast member Sasheer Zamata, who is, not incidentally, an African-American woman–“not incidentally” only because her hiring came after a rather embarrassing amount of pressure, both internal and external, was applied to force Lorne Michaels to acknowledge that SNL was […]

  ENLISTED:  Friday 9:30PM on FOX Previously… on ENLISTED:  The brothers Hill–demoted hero soldier Pete (Geoff Stults), cynical Derrick (Chris Lowell) and earnest, dumb Randy (Parker Young)–all serve on a Florida Army base, where Pete is Sergeant of his brothers’ platoon.  Their commanding officer is one-legged Sergeant Major Wallace (Keith David).  Also on the base:  […]

  JACK RYAN: SHADOW RECRUIT:  Watch It At Home – Tom Clancy’s Hero Is Plugged Into A Routine Action Movie The fourth movie incarnation of Tom Clancy’s emblematic hero Jack Ryan (in 5 films) finds him much diminished.  Ryan was introduced in Clancy’s first novel, The Hunt For Red October, in 1984, which was filmed […]

  CHICAGO PD:  Wednesday 10PM on NBC Previously… on CHICAGO PD:  Sergeant Hank Voight (Jason Beghe) is a tough-as-nails cop out of the Dick Wolf school of tough cops, and he runs a tough squad, although he has a heart of sufficient gold to rescue street kids who come his way.  His tough squad includes […]