THE REAL O’NEALS:  Tuesday 8:30PM on ABC – Change the Channel Whatever its other ailments, over the past few years ABC has had an extraordinary run of diverse, smart family sitcoms,–an area where other networks have struggled badly–with Fresh Off The Boat, Black-ish and The Goldbergs building on Modern Family and The Middle.  (Even […]

  THE LEFTOVERS:  Sunday 10PM on HBO Previously… on THE LEFTOVERS:  3 years ago, 2% of the world’s population simultaneously and spontaneously vanished, in what may have been the Rapture (albeit a Rapture that took Gary Busey and the cast of Perfect Strangers along with the Pope).  The troubles of those who remain are encapsulated […]

  TURN: WASHINGTON’S SPIES:  Monday 10PM on AMC After its initial season concluded, the reruns of AMC’s Revolutionary War drama TURN acquired the subtitle WASHINGTON’S SPIES, presumably in recognition of the fact that the original title conveyed absolutely nothing about what the show was about.  There was the hope that this signaled a Season 2 […]

  Host James Franco (and very busy musical guest Nicki Minaj, who turned up in several sketches) had the benefit of one of SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE’s sharper episodes of the season tonight–uneven, of course, but with at least as much good as bad. Things didn’t start off particularly well.  It’s gotten to the point where […]

  SMILF:  Sunday 10PM on Showtime – In the Queue SMILF is TV’s latest auteur dramedy, a semiautobiographical work from star/writer/producer/director Frankie Shaw.  (She was Elliot’s ill-fated neighbor on Mr. Robot.)  As the title suggests, the show is the story of young single mom Bridgette (Shaw), who has a friendly relationship with her son’s dad Rafi […]

  Zach Braff’s WISH I WAS HERE, his first film as a writer-director since Garden State 10 years ago, mixes genuine, deeply-felt emotion with the kind of contrivances that would grate even on a second-rate sitcom.  (This week’s episode:  Dad tries to homeschool the kids!  And Uncle Jonah wears a costume to Comic-Con just to […]

  MEGALOPOLIS (American Zoetrope/Lionsgate – Sept. 27):  Francis Ford Coppola’s long-awaited, much-discussed return to epic filmmaking, self-financed to the tune of $125M+ (he’s paying for the marketing as well as the production) is, alas, a hapless failure in every way.  Its fatuous pretentiousness might be excusable if it were a dazzling piece of cinema, but it […]

  Even as ABC’s Agents of SHIELD suggests the limits of corporate/entertainment synergy, it’s been working out just fine for the same network’s ONCE UPON A TIME.  Whether the idea originated with the show’s network, studio or (as they claim) producers, melding Disney’s Frozen with the Once melenge of fairy tale, myth and pop culture […]