RECOVERY ROAD:  Monday 9PM on Freeform (Episodes 1-3 available via VOD/streaming) – If Nothing Else Is On… If the idea of rebranding ABCFamily as Freeform was to escape the network’s flavor of earnest YA soap, the new RECOVERY ROAD didn’t get the memo.  It’s ABCF down to its toes, a super-sized Afterschool Special built […]

  It was probably unwise for TWISTED to end its first season with a cliffhanger, since it seems to be doomed–the ratings were low even when it had Pretty Little Liars as a lead-in, and once that show finished its season, they became downright awful.  As much as one hates to see people lose their […]

> Plot spoilers are even more problematic when it comes to limited releases, because by definition they’re only being seen by a few people in certain selected locations, and–if they’re good–will ideally be discovered by audiences over time.  Which is a roundabout way of saying that I strongly recommend, but can reveal almost nothing about, […]

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 rear […]

  LOW WINTER SUN:  Sunday 10PM on AMC – Potential DVR Alert It’s been more than a decade since The Shield introduced US television to not just corrupt, but murderous cops as protagonists, and–well, it feels like about 15 minutes since the last bleak serialized mystery (actually it was a few days ago, with the US premiere of Broadchurch), […]

  RUSTIN (Netflix – Nov. 17):  The director and producer George C. Wolfe is a towering figure in American theater, but his films to date have been wobbly at worst (A Night in Rodanthe, You’re Not You) and sturdy at best (Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks).  Rustin marks his most accomplished […]

    MELANCHOLIA – Watch It At Home – The Title Tells the Tale   Here’s a quick primer in Oscar rules and how studios can get around them.  In order for a film to be Oscar-eligible (other than in a few special categories like Documentary and Foreign Film), it needs a theatrical release in […]

  ABC’s AMERICAN CRIME is Serious and Important, but how good is it?  John Ridley’s series takes on the biggest topics–all of them, it seems–from race to class to sexual orientation to school violence and the loss of privacy in the internet age, and not even Oscar-bait films wear a mantle of unrelieved misery quite […]