HOMELAND:  Sunday 9PM on Showtime The endgame has begun for Showtime’s HOMELAND–the reported plan is for next year’s Season 8 to be the last, although the network hasn’t confirmed that–and we’re past the point where it makes sense to bewail the fact that the series has never again equaled the heights of its first […]

  PLAYING FOR KEEPS:  Not At Any Price – All Penalty, No Kick Has any actor more thoroughly wasted his 15 minutes in the Hollywood spotlight than Gerard Butler?  Since he hit with 300 half a dozen years ago, he’s churned out PS I Love You, Nim’s Island, RocknRolla, The Ugly Truth, Gamer, Law Abiding […]

  There were no surprises of any scale at tonight’s ACADEMY AWARDS (a full list of winners is here) , and that went for the telecast, too.  Neil Patrick Harris was as personable a host as anticipated, and he/his writers were sometimes quick on their feet, as when he had a gag ready about a Documentary […]

> The Sundance Film Festival, like Toronto, issues its announcements about the films that will be screening in several stages.  (Sundance’s sadism about actually obtaining tickets, however, is all its own.)  Today came the first release for the January 2012 Festival, covering the US and international competition slates in Dramatic and Documentary films.  These are […]

  Read All Our Fall Pilot Reports here and Midseason Pilot Reports here. LUCKY 7:  Tuesday 10PM on ABC – If Nothing Else Is On… LUCKY 7 doesn’t feel like a jackpot.  Although its premise pilot doesn’t necessarily give a clear idea of what the series will be, the seemingly irresistible plot hook–a half-dozen ordinary […]

> THE LORAX:  Not Even For Free – A Seussian Mess It may not be pretty, but surely it’s true–Credit must go where credit is due.  In this case, that means the Universal Pictures Marketing Department, which as it turns out has done a splendid job these last few weeks of hiding just how thoroughly […]

> A lot can happen between the creation of a TV pilot in the spring and the production of episodes for the regular season: a writing/producing team is hired, audience focus groups weigh in, networks and studios (which may have had their own turnover) give plenty of notes, helpful and otherwise, and critics begin to […]

  SNOWFALL:  Wednesday 10PM on FX – In the Queue It used to make sense to judge a new TV series based on its pilot, because the pilot was a template of all the episodes that would follow.  In the serialized, bingeable TV era, though, an opening hour is often just an introduction to the […]