> Michael Scott is really gone.  Technically, that’s been true since a few episodes before the end of THE OFFICE‘s last season, but with tonight’s season premiere, Office 2.0, the most well-publicized reboot of the new season, began to tell us what it’s going to be.   Which is, for now at least, a somewhat jarring […]

  The Ewing family had to figure out how to muddle through this season after the loss of its most illustrious and colorful member, and so did the TV show that created them all.  DALLAS survived the death of Larry Hagman, and the consequent passing of J.R. Ewing, with ratings that stayed fairly steady in […]

  HOUSE OF LIES:  Sunday 10PM on Showtime Marty Kaan (accent on the “con”) and his management consulting crew are back for a second season at their HOUSE OF LIES tonight on Showtime, and apart from a purge of some of the recurring guest stars, everything is pretty much as remembered.  2 weeks have passed […]

  HALT AND CATCH FIRE:  Sunday 10PM on AMC – Potential DVR Alert HALT AND CATCH FIRE won’t remind you much of The Social Network.  (Or for that matter of Silicon Valley.)  Set in 1983 Texas and written by first-time series creators Christopher Cantwell and Christopher C. Rogers (the series will be run by the […]

  THE AVENGERS:  Worth A Ticket – A Fun Summer Movie, No More Or Less   It’s easy to forget that THE AVENGERS is, you know, a movie.  It’s perhaps the ultimate example of corporate intellectual property, bioengineered years in advance of its production by Marvel and that company’s recent owner Disney, like the spawn […]

  DYNASTY:  Wednesday 9PM on CW – In the Queue The new DYNASTY isn’t the fall’s worst new show, but it’s the most puzzling.  Was there really a surge of interest among CW’s 18-34 target demo for a revival of an ABC soap that went off the air 28 years ago?  The show has a […]

  TOTAL RECALL:  Watch It At Home – Unmemorable TOTAL RECALL isn’t the worst picture of the summer, and probably won’t be the biggest flop, but it may be the most unnecessary waste of everyone’s time.  Paul Verhoeven’s 1990 Arnold Schwarzenegger vehicle, while no masterpiece, had lots of Verhoeven’s oddball streak of pulp surrealism and […]

  VEEP:  Sunday 10PM on HBO You wouldn’t expect Armando Iannucci’s VEEP to change much from season to season, and you’d largely be right.  Notwithstanding its four-letter words and bustling cinema verite screwball style, Veep is the most conventional of HBO’s comedies, a workplace sitcom about a group of mostly officious idiots that happens to […]