A return visit to LAW & ORDER: SPECIAL VICTIMS UNIT on the occasion of its 15th season finale revealed a procedural that had gone positively soapy–possibly a result of creator Dick Wolf’s recent success with his more serialized Chicago pair of series. Both of the cases covered in the hour, which was written by […]

  REVOLUTION was sort of a sad story.  The lights-are-out sci-fi adventure was NBC’s top priority in Fall 2012, promoted like crazy and given the network’s prized post-The Voice timeslot.  At first the show looked like the hit NBC desperately needed, but once it started dropping in late fall it didn’t stop, and by the […]

  Like a middle schooler suddenly realizing that final exams are around the corner, the mostly tired 9th season of BONES went into overdrive tonight to deliver a super-dramatic season finale. The season had inherited a bummer of a cliffhanger from Season 8:  Booth (David Boreanaz) was blackmailed by petulant recurring serial killer Pelant (Christopher […]

  There was so much going on in tonight’s finale of the sensational fifth season of THE GOOD WIFE, it felt at times like a 2-hour episode that had been forced at gunpoint to strip down to a single hour.  There was barely enough time for Veronica (Stockard Channing), the irresponsibly direct mother of Alicia […]

  MR. SELFRIDGE, which might as well be called “Downton Abbey Won’t Be Back For 10 Months, So What Else Are You Gonna Watch?”, concluded its second, very earnest season on PBS tonight.  World War I came to Mr. Selfridge this season, much as it had to Downton, and the result was a less bustling […]

  PENNY DREADFUL:  Sunday 10PM on Showtime Previously… on PENNY DREADFUL:  In 1890s London, a mysterious set of figures exist in a world where literature’s classic horror characters are as real as Jack the Ripper and the Industrial Revolution.  Sir Malcolm Murray (Timothy Dalton), a famous African explorer, is searching for his daughter Mina, who […]

  It was inevitable that with Andy Samberg returning to SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE as host, tonight’s season finale would have the feel of an SNL class reunion.  The cameo guests were indeed plentiful:  Bill Hader, Kristen Wiig, Fred Armisen, Seth Meyers, Martin Short, and Maya Rudolph all showed up, and that’s not even to mention […]

  In all ways but one, GRIMM had a highly enjoyable third season.  Its one significant flaw came when it tried to cultivate a deeper mythology than the events in Portland where it’s set.  That took the show away from its core characters, while the plot elements it used–mysterious keys, a puzzle map, a nobility […]