THE CRAZY ONES:  Thursday 9PM on CBS Previously… on THE CRAZY ONES:  Simon Roberts (Robin Williams), a genuine mad man and an advertising legend, and his more practical daughter Sydney (Sarah Michelle Gellar), run a Chicago ad agency.  The dynamics of the place are very clear:  Simon and copywriter Zach (James Wolk) are the […]

  DRACULA:  Friday 10PM on NBC – If Nothing Else Is On… A century of vampire movies and TV shows has taught us that undead is by no means the same as lifeless, but NBC’s new excavation of DRACULA doesn’t seem to have gotten the memo.  Produced on a lavish scale (at least in the […]

  Not to beat up on Agents of SHIELD more than it already has been, but comparisons between it and ARROW are particularly clear right now since both shows are pursuing essentially the same storyline, in which there’s an evil plan underfoot to inject innocent people with a serum that will transform them into super-soldiers […]

  HOUSE OF LIES:  Sunday 10PM on Showtime HOUSE OF LIES deserves some credit for nailing the Wolf of Wall Street vibe before there was a Wolf of Wall Street.  Marty Kaan (Don Cheadle) and his “pod” of business consultants have already spent 2 seasons merrily doing drugs, having inappropriate sex and swindling their own […]

  By the time it reaches four seasons on the air, even a first-rate show can find it difficult to sustain its initial burst of energy and creativity, and the same holds true on the other side of the Atlantic as well, as this year’s helping of Julian Fellowes’ DOWNTON ABBEY confirmed.  The show was […]

  Throughout its third season, reactions to GIRLS seemed to depend to a large extent on the particular vision of the series that viewers had.  Season 3 of Lena Dunham’s show was notably less conceptual and experimental than Season 2 had been, with its standalone episodes, abrupt shifts in tone and focus, sexual frankness unusual […]

  ORPHAN BLACK:  Saturday 9PM on BBCAmerica In an era of non-stop TV drama overhype, last season’s arrival of ORPHAN BLACK was that extreme rarity:  the real thing.  Even its network didn’t seem to know initially what it had on its hands, as BBCAmerica promoted the show, but reserved the bulk of its marketing resources […]

  Well, at least human heroine Emery (Aimee Teegarden) and alien hero Roman (Matt Lanter) got to have sex before STAR-CROSSED came to its abbreviated end.  The series was among those to discover in the last few days that its season finale was actually its ultimate end, so its cliffhangers will never be resolved, and […]