MULANEY:  Sunday 9:30PM on FOX Previously… on MULANEY:  John Mulaney (the series creator playing a character with his own name) is a stand-up comic who supports himself by serving as a producer on a comedy game show hosted by egomaniacal, insecure old-timer Lou Cannon (Martin Short).  John’s roommates are college friend Jane (Nasim Pedrad) […]

  Showtime’s BILLIONS has cultivated one of the most recognizable signatures on television, from its rudely epigrammatic dialogue, to its love/hate relationship with its ruthless, narcissistic characters, to its very narrative devices.  Tonight’s Season 4 finale, written by series co-creators David Levien and Brian Koppelman and directed by experienced Billions hand Colin Bucksey, was precisely […]

>See A Word About Busted Pilots On paper, EXIT STRATEGY looked like one of the hot FOX pilots this past season, a high-profile (Ethan Hawke’s first TV project) espionage thriller in the vein of 24 that could inherit that show’s Monday night slot and its House lead-in.  It didn’t happen:  the network chose Terra Nova […]

  Within the first two minutes of its midseason premiere tonight, BUNHEADS featured a Harold Clurman gag.  For those not up on their celebrated left-wing Depression-era theatre directors, Clurman was–well, yeah.  (This particular gag took place in a kitchen perfectly constructed in miniature–including working electricity–in a cardboard box.)  I’m going to go out on a […]

> A lot can happen between the creation of a TV pilot in the spring and the 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) give plenty of notes, helpful and otherwise, and critics begin to […]

  Television as a medium seems to become more exciting and surprising practically every week these days, but one thing remains the same:  The EMMY AWARDS is still the weak, erratic sibling of the other major awards shows, even when the telecast itself is slickly packaged, as was mostly the case with tonight’s rendition from […]

  SEED:  Monday 9:30PM on CW – If Nothing Else Is On… Remember last year’s Vince Vaughn (purported) comedy Delivery Man?  CW’s summer sitcom SEED isn’t a rip-off of the movie, exactly, since it premiered in Canada before the Vaughn movie opened (although whether it’s a rip-off of Starbuck, the 2011 Canadian movie that preceded […]

  Read All Our Fall Pilot Reports here and Midseason Pilot Reports here. SUPER FUN NIGHT:  Wednesday 9:30PM on ABC starting October 2 – If Nothing Else Is On… Anyone who’s seen Rebel Wilson confidently walk away with chunks of Pitch Perfect, Bachelorette or Bridesmaids knows that she’s a breakout comic talent, and possibly even […]