SLEEPY HOLLOW has grown into one of the (few) pleasant surprises of the fall network season, a keenly judged mix of supernatural folderol, increasingly well-drawn characters and light time-travel comedy.  Enough of a hit to already have been renewed for next season, the show’s first fall term culminated in a barnburner of a season […]

  It seems that for many viewers, ONCE UPON A TIME has become too conceptual for its own good.  The ratings, so robust just 2 seasons ago, have continued to sink (down another full ratings point this season), and while Once is still relatively successful by ABC standards, it’s no longer a substantial hit.  Nevertheless, […]

  Improved isn’t the same as good, and the first half of REVENGE‘s third season has languished in the gulf between those two.  Under new showrunner Sunil Nayar (who replaced series creator Mike Kelley), Revenge has backed away from the extreme idiocy of last year’s The Initiative storyline, with its quasi-government conspiracies, its psychotic long-lost […]

  The concept of a “finale” as an event calling for special plot revelations and narrative shockers is almost irrelevant to SCANDAL, where every episode brings massive twists.  This is a show, after all, set in a world where the sitting President and Vice President of the United States have now recently committed murder–and not […]

  GREY’S ANATOMY doesn’t get much attention these days, not even compared to its creator Shonda Rhimes’s shinier Scandal—Grey’s is just a soap–but after 10 years, it still knows how to pull off a big episode.  The fall finale, written by Co-Executive Producer William Harper and directed by Tony Phelan, effectively kicked off a long […]

  It’s been an odd, spotty half-season for THE VAMPIRE DIARIES.  For one thing, it’s been more like two mini-seasons:  the story of all-powerful, unkillable vampire-witch-whatever Silas, which would have been expected to climax in the fall finale, abruptly ended 7 episodes into the season–which was too bad, because with Silas as its Stefanganger (Paul […]

  REIGN rang down the curtain on the first piece of its season (it returns on January 23, having managed to hold onto its post-Vampire Diaries timeslot) in fine historical romance style.  The script, by series co-creator Laurie McCarthy (the episode was directed by Fred Gerber), brought the show’s main storyline to the forefront:  the […]

  How much guitar string does NASHVILLE have left?  Last night’s fall finale had a 1.4 rating in 18-49s, half a point below last season’s–which was already considered a major disappointment.  When you’re already below a 2, half a point is critically important, and at some point, the revenues ABC/Disney get from Nashville iTunes sales […]