IRONSIDE:  Wednesday 10PM on NBC – Change the Channel “There are rules, dammit, and they need to be followed!”  That actual line is spoken, with a completely straight face, about four minutes into the pilot for NBC’s reboot of IRONSIDE, and it may rightly make your heart sink.  We know we’re in 2013, because […]

  MAGIC CITY:  Friday 9PM on Starz You’d have thought, after the low-rated, little-buzzed first season of MAGIC CITY, that both Starz and series creator Mitch Glazer would have recognized the series needed to return with some extra oomph for Season 2.  But it wasn’t to be found in tonight’s season premiere, and the result […]

  THE MORTAL INSTRUMENTS: CITY OF BONES –  Not Even For Free –  An Incoherent Compendium of YA Tropes THE MORTAL INSTRUMENTS: CITY OF BONES isn’t so much a movie as it is a mash-up.  They’re all here, crammed into 130 minutes of screen time–Twilight and Harry Potter and Buffy and True Blood and even […]

  ROOKIE BLUE did a solid job of wrapping up its fourth season and setting up cliffhangers for Season 5 (already ordered) with last night’s episode.  Although the Grey’s Anatomy-with-guns police soap has never had the level of success as its medical forebear, it’s been a steady summer performer for ABC, and this season successfully saw it […]

  It wasn’t a great final season for DEXTER, and tonight’s last episode muffed its chance at a fully satisfying conclusion by falling into the trap of one twist too many.  In a way, that was fitting for a series that always tried to play both sides against the middle, with a protagonist who was […]

  THE GOLDBERGS:  Tuesday 9PM on ABC Previously… on THE GOLDBERGS:  It’s the era of Muppet Show lunchboxes and acid-washed jeans, and the Goldberg family spends its time driving each other crazy:  grumpy dad Murray (Jeff Garlin), smothering mom Beverly (Windi McLendon-Covey), cool grandpa Pops (George Segal), teen son Barry (Troy Gentile), daughter Erica (Hayley […]

  THE TOMORROW PEOPLE:  Wednesday 9PM on CW Previously… on THE TOMORROW PEOPLE:  Stephen Jameson (Robbie Amell) is a teenager who also happens to be “homo superior,” aka one of The Tomorrow People.  Their powers include telekinesis, teleportation and telepathy, but because Stephen is The Chosen One–his long-vanished father was the mysterious Obi-Wan Kenobi of […]

  With the addition of Rockne S. O’Bannon to the REVOLUTION writing/producing team as co-showrunner, alongside series creator Eric Kripke, the first half (actually 9/22nds) of its second season has been more tightly focused and dramatically effective than the mess of its first year.  There were considerably less of Season 1’s annoying mannerisms:  endless trudging […]