>Disclaimer:  Network pilots now in circulation are not necessarily in the form that will air in the Fall.  Pilots are often reedited and rescored, and in some cases even recast or reshot.  So these critiques shouldn’t be taken as full TV pilot reviews, but rather as a guide to the general style and content of […]

>   See A Word About Busted Pilots SMOTHERED, which was produced for ABC by Warner Bros Television, falls into the category of “not as bad as you’d think.”  The concept is Predictable Sitcom 101:  a young couple (Kyle Howard and Brooke D’Orsay) whose daughter is about to celebrate her first birthday, is invaded by […]

> WARNING:  Scaaaarrrry Spoilers Within You have to give AMERICAN HORROR STORY the credit of its crazy, crazy convictions.  Ryan Murphy and his gang of producers followed through on where the last few episodes appeared to be going, and the result will be a second season presumably very different from its first. It didn’t take […]

> A lot can happen between the creation of a TV pilot in the spring and production of episodes for the regular season:  a writing/producing team is hired, audience focus groups weigh in, networks and studios (which may have had their own turnover in the off-season) give plenty of notes, both helpful and otherwise, and […]

> MAGIC CITY:  Premieres Friday April 6 at 10PM on Starz – Potential DVR Alert Starz’s new MAGIC CITY is another stroll down Mad Men lane:  glamorous people in impeccably detailed 1960s settings (technically very late 1950s), smoking, drinking to excess, having lots of illicit sex, and generally enjoying what they don’t know is their […]

  NASHVILLE – Wednesday 10PM on ABC:  Potential DVR Alert ABC has become the network of soaps, and its big play in the genre for fall is NASHVILLE, which is inheriting Revenge‘s slot as the latter show gets promoted to Sundays.  The new drama is less instantly compelling than Revenge‘s pilot (there’s no mysterious shooting […]

  DAMAGES:  Wednesday 9PM on DirecTV Audience Network   WHERE WE WERE:  Recoiling from Patty Hewes (Glenn Close), the most untrustworthy attorney in New York.  Patty is a spider, constantly setting traps for everyone around her.  She has a particularly unhealthy relationship with Ellen Parsons (Rose Byrne), who started out as Patty’s junior associate.  In […]

  With the exception of those shows that don’t know they’re about to be canceled, rarely has a long-running series come to less of a conclusion than tonight’s last episode of THE CLOSER.  And with good reason, of course–the episode was less an ending than a brief interruption, with the spin-off Major Crimes literally premiering […]