THE PLAYER:  Thursday 10PM on NBC Previously… on THE PLAYER:  Alex Kane (Philip Winchester), former government agent, soldier and security consultant, was recruited by a shadowy, sociopathic, all-knowing organization based in Las Vegas that places bets on whether crimes can be stopped by a single well-equipped individual with advance notice.  (One of their bets, […]

  TNT has been burning through its old-line series like Major Crimes and The Librarians two episodes at a time in recent weeks, seemingly in a frenzy to get rid of them.  The network has put its muscle behind darker, more serialized and adult dramas, with mixed results:  Animal Kingdom and Claws are hits, while […]

  As bad as it is for a network when it launches a new series and no one shows up, in a way it has to be worse when the series premiere has a huge start–and then viewers drop away in droves once they’ve given it a try.  The first kind of failure may be […]

  THE ROYALS:  Sunday 10PM on E! – Change the Channel This week’s cable network eager to expand its portfolio to the world of scripted programming is E!.  Just as Bravo attempted to appeal to its Real Housewives audience with The Girlfriends’ Guide to Divorce, E! is courting its celebrity gossip crowd with THE ROYALS, […]

  SCREAM:  Tuesday 10PM on MTV Previously… on SCREAM:  In the town of Lakewood, it’s been 20 years since a misshapen student supposedly slaughtered a horde of schoolmates in a single night, all for the love of Daisy Duval.  Now someone who really loves his/her up-to-the-minute tech is stalking the local teens once again.  They’re […]

  TEACHERS:  Wednesday 10:30PM on TV Land (pilot airs 11PM on January 13, also available via on-demand & streaming) – Change the Channel In its continuing effort to cultivate a younger image, TV Land will follow Season 2 episodes of Younger with the new TEACHERS.  Both are female-oriented, but they could hardly be more different […]

> 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 TV pilot reviews, but rather as a guide to the general style and content […]

  Road trip!  It was a decidedly odd way for COPPER to exit the scene, even if last night’s episode was intended just as a season finale, not as an end to the entire series.  (BBCAmerica didn’t cancel the low-rated show until last week.)  But nevertheless, our hero Kevin Corcoran (Tom Weston-Jones) and his pals, […]