> Disclaimer:  Network pilots now in circulation are not necessarily in the form that will air in the Fall.  Pilots are often reedited and rescored, and in some cases even recast or reshot.  So these critiques shouldn’t be taken as full reviews, but rather as a guide to the general style and content of the […]

  Despite the fact that the producers didn’t know if the Season 4 finale of NASHVILLE would be the end of the series when it was written (and lead studio Lionsgate, in fact, is still trying to sell the show to another network or platform, proposing a Season 5 writers room that would be run […]

  BULL:  Tuesday 9PM on CBS – Change the Channel CBS’s BULL is, from its title down, almost completely insufferable.  Loosely inspired by the pre-TV professional life of Dr. Phil (billed here as “Dr. Phillip C. McGraw” for maximum pretentiousness), and co-created by McGraw and industry veteran Paul Attanasio (a co-creator of the great Homicide […]

  KING & MAXWELL isn’t the kind of show you’d particularly expect to see evolve between its premiere and season finale, and in fact it didn’t.  That’s too bad, because the TNT series, developed by Shane Brennan and based on characters created by novelist David Baldacci, was badly in need of improvement.  It may be […]

  ROOKIE BLUE:  Thursday 9PM on ABC It’s quite an accomplishment for a scripted summer series on one of the broadcast networks to last five seasons on the air, and the ABC/Canadian co-production ROOKIE BLUE is now so venerable that one of the plotlines in tonight’s Season 5 premiere had the character whose rookie year kicked off […]

  THE JIM GAFFIGAN SHOW:  Wednesday 10PM on TV Land (and Nick At Nite) Previously… on THE JIM GAFFIGAN SHOW:  Stand-up comic Jim (Jim Gaffigan) lives with wife Jeannie (Ashley Williams) and their 5 children in a crowded NY apartment–all elements to be found in Gaffigan’s stand-up act and comic memoirs.  Her best friend is […]

  MANHATTAN:  Sunday 10PM on WGN America Previously… on MANHATTAN:  Starting in 1943, the New Mexico desert housed a mysterious, ultra-secret military and scientific operation code-named The Manhattan Project, its mission to create the first atomic bomb (or as they called it, the “gadget”).  There were two opposing designs for the gadget.  The better-funded and […]

  ONCE UPON A TIME:  Sunday 8PM on ABC The Season 3 premiere of ONCE UPON A TIME didn’t step foot in Storybrooke, nor did it feature any flashbacks to pre-curse incarnations of the protagonists.  Whether this was a one-time event for the premiere or a new template for the series is unclear, but the […]