FOREVER:  Tuesday 10PM on ABC starting September 23 – If Nothing Else is On… PLAYERS:  Series creator Matthew Miller, an experienced writer/producer on shows like Chuck, 666 Park Avenue and The 100, but who hasn’t had a show that he created on the air in 15 years.  Stars Ioan Gruffudd and Alana de la […]

  The failures of HOSTAGES were many, and they separate into two dimensions.  One–the more important to CBS–was commercial; the show proved to be dead in the water from the night it premiered against the launch of The Blacklist.  Despite a summer of heavy promotion, NBC and James Spader wiped the floor with Hostages, and […]

  AMERICAN HORROR STORY – COVEN:  Wednesday 10PM on FX Caged and tortured slaves, mid-coitus spontaneous brain aneurisms and gang rape aside, the COVEN season of AMERICAN HORROR STORY was relatively restrained in its start, at least compared to other AHS seasons.  There appears to be one basic story being told, and all the mythology […]

  Although Claire Danes and Mandy Patinkin are still present to provide a continuing center of gravity, the HOMELAND that concluded its sixth season tonight is almost unrecognizable from the one that premiered in 2011.  That series was a dazzling mix of doomed romance and psychological spy thriller, about a bipolar CIA agent who couldn’t […]

> Although a great work of art is great forever, the relevance of a given piece to a current moment in time does tend to fluctuate.  It turns out that Arthur Miller’s DEATH OF A SALESMAN, written 63 years ago, is so remarkably attuned to this here and now that despite its period setting, it […]

  And so the curtain drops on the first season of SMASH, which may have set the all-time television speed record for going from shining beacon to punching bag.  Tonight’s season finale, written by now-deposed showrunner and series creator Theresa Rebeck and directed by Michael Morris, wasn’t the worst episode of the series, but it […]

  GROWING UP FISHER:  Tuesday 9:30PM on NBC Previously… on GROWING UP FISHER:  When Henry Fisher (Eli Baker) is 12 years old, his parents Mel (J.K. Simmons) and Joyce (Jenna Elfman) decide to divorce, but with little effect on the family’s camaraderie, which has also barely been touched by the challenge of Mel’s blindness, a […]

  BEAUTY & THE BEAST: Thursday 9PM starting 10/11 on CW – If Nothing Else Is On… Disclaimer: Network pilots now in circulation are not necessarily in the form that will air in the Fall. Pilots are often reedited and re-scored, and in some cases even recast or reshot. These critiques shouldn’t be taken as […]