WESTWORLD:  Sunday 9PM on HBO   With most other forms of new entertainment content sidelined for at least the next several weeks, television is likely to be even more at the center of our culture than it already is, and Season 3 of HBO’s WESTWORLD, with its dense mythology and high philosophical ambitions, seems […]

  And so the curtain drops on the first season of SMASH, which may have set the all-time television speed record for going from shining beacon to punching bag.  Tonight’s season finale, written by now-deposed showrunner and series creator Theresa Rebeck and directed by Michael Morris, wasn’t the worst episode of the series, but it […]

  The second 2-hour chunk of the newly anointed most popular scripted show in the history of basic cable, History’s HATFIELDS & MCCOYS, was much like the first episode:  a strong opening hour followed by a second that didn’t quite live up to it.  Oddly, Hour 4 even failed for many of the same reasons […]

> See A Word About Busted Pilots FAMILY ALBUM was one of the more buzzed-about FOX pilots of this past development season, and although it’s not on the network’s announced schedule, Deadline reports that it’s in contention for midseason and will even shoot a second prototype episode.  So this isn’t so much a postmortem as […]

> After 3 years of the morass that was Laurence Fishburne’s tenure, the original CSI:  CRIME SCENE INVESTIGATION, now with a new Wednesday 10PM timeslot, may have recaptured some of its old mojo.  The potential hero of the tale is Ted Danson, newly installed as D.B. Russell, head of the squad after Fishburne’s execution of […]

> 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 reviews, but rather as a guide to the general style and content of the […]

> (Note:  SHOWBUZZDAILY had a pilot report on this show back when it was called Are You There, Vodka?  It’s Me, Chelsea.  Since then, it’s been substantially recast and reshot, not to mention retitled, so we’re taking a fresh look at it.) ARE YOU THERE, CHELSEA? – Wednesdays 8:30PM on NBC – If Nothing Else […]

> WHERE WE WERE:  Contra Security, a wacky high-tech firm run by the extravagantly enigmatic Oz (Christian Slater).  Contra tests the security measures of its clients by cracking them wide open, staging mock break-ins, robberies, and similar hijinks.  Its roster of idiosyncratic experts include hacker Cameron (Bret Harrison), gadget guy Cash (Alphonso McAuley) and, for […]