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 […]

  PROVEN INNOCENT:  Friday 9PM on FOX PROVEN INNOCENT is even worse than you might expect from a broadcast drama that premieres on a Friday in February.  The creator is David Elliot, whose previous scripts have mostly been action movies (GI Joe: The Rise of Cobra, the Mark Wahlberg vehicle Four Brothers), and the writing […]

  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, […]

  GLEE:  Friday 9PM on FOX Among the many wrongheaded decisions made by FOX over the last several years, one was giving GLEE a two-year renewal–just as the bottom was starting to fall out of its ratings.  Last year, things went from bad to ghastly, not only in the ever-worsening ratings but creatively, as the […]

  BILLIONS:  Sunday 10PM on Showtime (pilot available via VOD and streaming) – Potential DVR Alert There’s a gag in The Big Short where an esoteric piece of financial information, crucial for understanding the mortgage meltdown but hard to communicate without an audience’s eyes glazing over, is illustrated by having it explained by Margot Robbie […]

  With the addition of Rockne S. O’Bannon to the REVOLUTION writing/producing team as co-showrunner, alongside series creator Eric Kripke, the first half (actually 9/22nds) of its second season has been more tightly focused and dramatically effective than the mess of its first year.  There were considerably less of Season 1’s annoying mannerisms:  endless trudging […]

  LUCIFER:  Monday 9PM on FOX – Change the Channel It’s fun to imagine the development meetings that preceded FOX’s order of the new procedural LUCIFER: Series Creator Tom Kapinos:  The Devil, Satan himself, is the show’s main character. FOX Executive:  Wow!  So what does he do? Kapinos:  He runs a nightclub, and he consults […]

  PARKS AND RECREATION:  Tuesday 8PM on NBC There will be plenty of time to lament the passing of PARKS AND RECREATION, and what it portends for network TV comedy and especially for NBC.  Well, “plenty” may be overstating it, since NBC is burning off the remaining episodes two at a time, apparently in a […]