SECOND CHANCE:  Wednesdays 9PM on FOX (pilot also available via VOD/streaming) – If Nothing Else Is On… There’s not much spark to FOX’s SECOND CHANCE, a spin on Frankenstein (at one point it was even titled The Frankenstein Code), restyled as a contemporary sci-fi-tinged procedural.  The show’s creator Rand Ravich was behind the intriguing […]

  MAN SEEKING WOMAN:  Wednesday 10:30PM on FXX – If Nothing Else Is On… You know how on Family Guy a character will say “This is just like when________” or “You’re like________,” and there’s an instant cutaway to whatever the character was talking about, no matter how bizarre?  (An example from this past week:  Stewie […]

  THE ROYALS:  Sunday 10PM on E! – Change the Channel This week’s cable network eager to expand its portfolio to the world of scripted programming is E!.  Just as Bravo attempted to appeal to its Real Housewives audience with The Girlfriends’ Guide to Divorce, E! is courting its celebrity gossip crowd with THE ROYALS, […]

  UNFORGETTABLE:  Friday 8PM on CBS UNFORGETTABLE, the CBS procedural whose title practically begs to be a punchline, is back.  Although “back” isn’t exactly the word:  Unforgettable was famously canceled after its initial 2011-12 season, and then uncanceled to serve as filler for CBS with a 13-episode order.  7 of those episodes aired last summer, […]

  AMERICAN CRIME:  Thursday 10PM on ABC – Potential DVR Alert Recently, the broadcast networks have started kicking the tires of what we think of as “cable” oriented programming, by which we mean serialized, darker, more emotionally ambiguous and less genre-bound stories that require serious attention from viewers.  This kind of programming is against broadcast TV’s […]

  TEACHERS:  Wednesday 10:30PM on TV Land (pilot airs 11PM on January 13, also available via on-demand & streaming) – Change the Channel In its continuing effort to cultivate a younger image, TV Land will follow Season 2 episodes of Younger with the new TEACHERS.  Both are female-oriented, but they could hardly be more different […]

  MERCY STREET:  Sunday 10PM on (many) PBS stations – Potential DVR Alert PBS isn’t accustomed to acting like a conventional “network,” and so it took the service until the very last episodes of Downton Abbey to do what any normal network would have done years ago:  use Downton as a platform to launch a […]

  THE ODD COUPLE:  Thursday 8:30PM on CBS – If Nothing Else Is On… As Chandler Bing might say:  Could there be a more CBS show than a reboot of a 45-year old multicamera sit-com, with a star 10 years from his last hit?  If the network’s new version of THE ODD COUPLE works, maybe […]