For a while there, it seemed as though the finale of GRIMM was on a crusade to make sure the show could never be rebooted, massacring almost the entire regular cast one by one, which in an age where IP is more important than anything else would have been a fairly brave move.  But […]

  The Matrix is one of the many pop culture properties that have influenced Noah Hawley’s LEGION, and Legion has been something of a matrix itself.  Behind its surface and around its edges, the shape of a much more conventional Marvel comic-book adventure story has lurked from the start, and with the final two episodes […]

  There was a time when BONES was a breath of fresh TV air.  When it arrived in 2005, the networks were deep into Peak Grim Procedural mode, as shows like CSI, Criminal Minds and NCIS thrived and spawned seemingly endless spin-offs.  Bones pumped some changes into the format, adding rom-com, screwball comedy, warmth and […]

  INTO THE BADLANDS:  Sunday 10PM on AMC The vigorously pulpy INTO THE BADLANDS has returned for a second season, gifted by AMC with a Walking Dead lead-in for the first 3 weeks of its run that should guarantee some viewer attention.  This time it has a 10-episode order, not necessarily good news considering how […]

  It’s easy to overlook the ingeniousness of Dan Fogelman’s THIS IS US, the season’s only broadcast network smash hit.  On its face, the show is a familiar, even old-fashioned family soap, in which the various members of a clan are constantly beset by romantic, professional or medical problems–The Fosters with older siblings.  But Fogelman’s […]

  TRIAL & ERROR:  Tuesday 9PM on NBC – If Nothing Else Is On… NBC’s TRIAL & ERROR is a cluttered joke-book of a sitcom that parodies true-crime docuseries like Making A Murderer and especially The Staircase.  As in the latter, the accused murderer, here named Larry Henderson (John Lithgow), is a figure of some […]

  AMERICAN CRIME:  Sunday 10PM on ABC John Ridley’s AMERICAN CRIME feels even more like an outlier amid the world of network television than it did when it debuted two years ago.  Broadcasters have largely responded to the erosion in their ratings by seeking bigger and bigger tents, relying on procedurals, franchises, remakes and stars […]

  Vampires may live forever, but TV shows don’t, and tonight the coffin closed on THE VAMPIRE DIARIES, the pre-superhero champion of the then-fledgling CW network when it debuted 8 years ago.  In truth, the close of business was a season or two past due:  not only were the ratings way down from their peak, […]