MOM:  Thursday 8:30PM on CBS MOM is a grittier brand of sitcom than CBS’s usual variety.  It features three generations of teen moms, and its lead characters, Christy Plunkett (Anna Faris) and her mother Bonnie (Allison Janney), are recovering addicts and alcoholics.  The family members as often as not regard each other with outright […]

  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 […]

  SECRETS & LIES:  Sunday 9PM on ABC – If Nothing Else Is On… How much do you find yourself missing Gracepoint?  Not Broadchurch, mind you, the brooding and powerful BBC child-murder mystery (which is returning to BBCAmerica next week), but the flat US remake that came and went on FOX last fall?  ABC hopes […]

  SALEM:  Sunday 10PM on WGNAmerica SALEM, WGNAmerica’s first original scripted series, developed into an enjoyably gonzo exercise in old-time witchy horror during the course of its first season, more than willing to stretch the envelope of acceptable gore and sex on basic cable.  (The network’s follow-up, the prestige project Manhattan, was a much more […]

  Despite the declining fortunes of network TV, it was a good season for newly-launched dramas, with big hits emerging for FOX in Empire, ABC in How to Get Away With Murder, and CW in THE FLASH.  The latter isn’t just one of its network’s highest-rated shows ever, but remarkably has outrated series in its […]

  Even though no one who isn’t in the awards game could name a member of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (or would care about their opinion if they did), that group has seen its Golden Globes become the 2d most prominent award for both movies and TV.  In the last few years, the Globes […]

  FEED THE BEAST:  Tuesday 10PM on AMC – Change the Channel There’s not much on the menu of AMC’s new FEED THE BEAST, which previewed tonight in advance of its regular timeslot debut on Tuesday.  The show is based on a Danish format, and perhaps that version had more meat on its bones, but […]

  YOU’RE THE WORST:  Wednesday 10PM on FXX Acrid TV comedy is no longer a surprise–in fact, on cable and streaming services, it’s more the rule than the exception.  What makes Stephen Falk’s YOU’RE THE WORST distinctive among shows like Netflix’s Love and HBO’s Girls is how cheerful, romantic and often just plain hilarious its […]