SIBERIA:  Monday 10PM on NBC Previously… on SIBERIA:  What’s worse than being on yet another reality TV competition show?  Being on one where unknown creatures are trying to kill you.  The contestants on SIBERIA have been flown out to a remote outpost in guess-where, with the idea that whoever makes it to the end […]

  Magic was one ingredient that MAGIC CITY lacked, and so despite its not-insubstantial virtues, tonight’s Season 2 finale also marked its finish as a series.  The low-rated show was a passion project of its creator Mitch Glazer, built around his own childhood memories about mostly Jewish gangsters in the lavish Miami Beach hotels of […]

  FRIENDS WITH BETTER LIVES – Monday 8:30PM on CBS (Preview Tonight at 9PM) – If Nothing Else Is On… FRIENDS WITH BETTER LIVES is a CBS comedy of the post-2 Broke Girls era, which is to say that while a thoroughly conventional multi-camera sitcom in many ways (it’s even directed by the dean of […]

  After almost 4 decades (!) on the air, it’s a little silly to describe any given SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE episode, or even season, as “critical” or “vital.”  Nevertheless, this is a big transition year for the show, with such veterans as Bill Hader, Jason Sudeikis and Fred Armisen (on top of Kristin Wiig the […]

  THE ORIGINALS:  Tuesday 8PM on CW Previously… on THE ORIGINALS:  The Mikaelsons have come (back) to New Orleans.  The literally original vampire family (their witch mother cast the spell that created vampirism), brothers Klaus (Joseph Morgan) and Elijah (Daniel Gillies), and sister Rebekah (Claire Holt), beloved of Vampire Diaries fans even–perhaps especially–when they’re trying […]

  After three seasons on the air, it seems fair to say that–paraphrasing Star Wars—Homeland isn’t the show we were looking for.  That doesn’t make it a bad series, or an unentertaining one.  But it’s not the successor to Mad Men and Breaking Bad in the pantheon of truly great television dramas that it at […]

  THE FOLLOWING:  Monday 9PM on FOX (starting Jan 27) The blood-drenched, increasingly grandiose literary pretensions of THE FOLLOWING grew tiresome by the end of last season’s run.  It seemed like very good news that in the season finale, Edgar Allen Poe scholar, brutal serial killer and unaccountably irresistible cult leader Joe Carroll (James Purefoy) […]

  ABOUT A BOY:  Tuesday 9PM on NBC Previously… on ABOUT A BOY:  Will Freeman (David Walton) lives a happily superficial, bimbo-laden life in San Francisco, supported indefinitely by the royalties from the one successful song he ever wrote–when one day, 11-year old misfit Marcus (Benjamin Stockham) and his vegan, neurotic, disapproving mother Fiona (Minnie […]