SOMETIMES I THINK ABOUT DYING:  The Office, for depressives.  Fran (Daisy Ridley) is the most anonymous member of a nondescript shipping department in a small Oregon town, wrapped in so many layers of emotional insulation that she can’t make the smallest of small talk and flees from any interaction with her officemates.  When Robert […]

  For a show perceived as standard medical soap, PRIVATE PRACTICE has gone through quite a few permutations in style and focus over its 5 seasons.   Conceived originally as a light-hearted spinoff to Grey’s Anatomy, built around Grey’s character Addison Montgomery (Kate Walsh), aka Derek’s first wife, the show tried to pull humor from […]

  CALIFORNICATION:  Sunday 10:30PM on Showtime Even in the relatively free-and-easy world of paycable, there’s something about CALIFORNICATION that seems to get under people’s skin.  Perhaps it’s the casual tone of the show’s debauchery, or the way it implicates viewers in its hedonism with its tendency toward soft-core porn.  In any case, it’s probably the […]

  Showtime’s BILLIONS has cultivated one of the most recognizable signatures on television, from its rudely epigrammatic dialogue, to its love/hate relationship with its ruthless, narcissistic characters, to its very narrative devices.  Tonight’s Season 4 finale, written by series co-creators David Levien and Brian Koppelman and directed by experienced Billions hand Colin Bucksey, was precisely […]

  STATION 19:  Thursday 9PM on ABC – In the Queue STATION 19 probably marks the end of an era at ABC:  unless a pilot developed under her watch is picked up, it will be the last new Shonda Rhimes series at the network, as she moves on to her huge new deal at Netflix.  […]

  THE LIFE OF CHUCK (no distrib):  Although Mike Flanagan first gained attention as a director of low-budget feature films, he may be the first horror filmmaker to become an acknowledged master of the genre largely through episodic television, notably The Haunting of Hill House, The Haunting of Bly Manor, Midnight Mass and The Fall Of the House […]

  DON’T TRUST THE B– IN APT 23:  Tuesday 9:30PM on ABC WHERE WE WERE:  New York City, where naive midwestern arrival June shares an apartment with street-smart, manipulative Chloe (Krysten Ritter).  Their neighbor, and Chloe’s best friend, is James Van Der Beek, playing the same kind of version of himself that Matt LeBlanc does […]

  DECEPTION:  Monday 10PM on NBC 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 […]