Season 1 of THE MAGICIANS had plenty of flaws, but lack of ambition wasn’t one of them.  In a way unseen on Syfy since the days of Battlestar Galactica, The Magicians wanted to be about everything:  Harry Potter, The Chronicles of Narnia, Doctor Who, the very concept of the supernatural as escapist entertainment, the […]

  HUNTERS:  Monday 10PM on Syfy – If Nothing Else Is On… HUNTERS has production values that suggest it’s intended as one of Syfy’s more A-level entries (it’s shot in Australia rather than Canada), but mostly its premiere hits B-movie beats.  Created by veteran TV writer/producer Natalie Chaidez, whose credits include everything from Heroes and […]

  FEAR THE WALKING DEAD:  Sunday 9PM on AMC AMC’s eccentric decision to keep its Walking Dead assembly line going with a not-quite-prequel has become even more so in Season 2, which places the Season 1 survivors on a yacht owned by one of them, the rich and enigmatic Strand (Colman Domingo), hovering off the […]

  OUTLANDER:  Saturday 9PM on Starz OUTLANDER hasn’t been the ratings breakout for Starz that Power has been, but it may be something even more important:  the network’s first real buzz show, one that’s put it on the drama map with its fellow cable networks, and is perhaps poised for a ratings jump in Season […]

  DICE:  Sunday 9:30PM on Showtime – Change the Channel The journey of Andrew Dice Clay from an explosively successful poster child (and, many would say, cynical exploiter) of comedy political incorrectness to a long sentence in the showbiz wilderness and then a new career as an increasingly respected character actor, with solid recent performances […]

  SLEEPY HOLLOW has been trying very hard to justify its survival this season under new showrunner Clifton Campbell.  In addition to telling its core story arc about Pandora (Shannyn Sossamon) gathering sundry demons to strengthen her evil god husband The Hidden One (Peter Mensah) in preparation for his destruction of, you know, the world, […]

  It’s easy enough to say that the phrase “stranger than fiction” would have had to be invented to describe the murder trial of OJ Simpson if it didn’t already exist, but still, the natural tendency of Hollywood is to gild the non-fictional lily, making melodrama out of drama.  When it was announced that THE […]

  When a show is as successful as AMC’s THE WALKING DEAD, it can afford to spend virtually the entire back half of a season as little more than a lead-up to the next.  But can it also provide no satisfaction at all when it reaches the end of the season finale?  Of course, Walking […]