ORPHAN BLACK:  Saturday 10PM on BBCAmerica A somewhat meta line of dialogue about “consolidation” is a sign that ORPHAN BLACK has commenced its final (and 5th) season.  Series creators Graeme Manson and John Fawcett (Manson is credited as writer of the season premiere, Fawcett as director) have started to move their pieces toward the […]

  Barring unusual financial or political considerations, David E. Kelley’s MONDAY MORNINGS–which has had wretched ratings since its debut–aired its final episode on TNT with tonight’s technically season finale, so we won’t spend a lot of time poking around the body.  Returning to the show after its first month of episodes, hardly anything seemed to […]

  THE 100:  Wednesday 9PM on CW – Worth A Look THE 100 has promise, although it needs some work.  Based on a series of YA novels by Kass Morgan, the premise borrows liberally from Lord of the Flies, Lost, Battlestar Galactica, The Hunger Games, and any number of post-apocalyptic dystopian tales.  In the future, […]

  In its 6th season, NURSE JACKIE went all the way back to square one.  There were cosmetic differences, of course–Jackie Peyton (Edie Falco) is now divorced, and increasingly alienated from her daughters Grace (Ruby Jerins) and Fiona (Mackenzie Aladjem).  But for the most part, the season was Jackie redux, as she cunningly (and sometimes […]

  EPISODES:  Sunday 10:30PM on Showtime EPISODES, written from beginning to end by David Crane (a creator of Friends) and fellow sitcom vet Jeffrey Klarik, improved considerably in its second season, adding some shading to its original cartoon about a married pair of relative babes-in-the-woods British writer/producers corrupted by the comfort and thorough superficiality of […]

  TRUE DETECTIVE:  Sunday 9PM on HBO The first season of TRUE DETECTIVE was so masterfully assembled that it took some time for people to question what taste it was leaving in their mouths.  When Matthew McConaughey’s arias of philosophizing, and the brilliantly extended tracking shots, and the dense mythology were done, how new were […]

  THE WALKING DEAD:  Sunday 9PM on AMC At this point in its massively successful run (massive enough to allow AMC to renew the superb but low-rated Halt and Catch Fire last week, so hurray!), THE WALKING DEAD can well afford to take a few chances, and tonight’s Season 6 premiere was its most formally […]

  The Season 2 finale of Agents of SHIELD was the show trying its very, very hardest–and still not hitting the mark.  A great deal of work has gone into rescuing Agents since it plummeted from the heights of its enormous hype-driven premiere in Fall 2013, and it’s certainly a better series now than it […]