> ROB – Thursdays 8:30PM on CBS – Change the Channel We live in a Dickensian era of situation comedies, the best and worst combined on every network.  ABC is the home of both Modern Family and Work It; NBC contains Parks & Recreation and Whitney; FOX has New Girl and I Hate My Teenage […]

> MISSING:  Premieres Thursday 8PM on ABC – If Nothing Else Is On… If you’ve seen any of the commercials for ABC’s new MISSING, you know that it’s basically Ashley Judd playing Liam Neeson’s role in Taken, and on the basis of the pilot, really that’s all you need to know.  The show is pure […]

> 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 […]

  MALIBU COUNTRY: Friday 8:30PM starting November 2 on ABC – Worth A Look Disclaimer: Network pilots now in circulation are not necessarily in the form that will air in the Fall. Pilots are often reedited and re-scored, and in some cases even recast or reshot. These critiques shouldn’t be taken as full pilot reviews, […]

  The first season of Showtime’s EPISODES was hobbled by its own agenda, but in its much better Season 2, the series relaxed into a very solid sitcom.  The show, written throughout by Must-See-TV veterans David Crane and Jeffrey Klarik (Klarik’s credits date back to Mad About You, and Crane was co-creator of an obscure […]

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 rear […]

  There were a few moments in this week’s SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE where you could actually have mistaken it for a place that offers trenchant political satire.  That’s hasn’t been SNL‘s mode since Tina Fey hung up her Sarah Palin glasses–the political bits have instead tended to the silly and bland.  But the “Tech Talk” […]

  ABC’s NASHVILLE has reached the midpoint of its season as one of the better dramas on network television, and also one of the more frustrating.  Particularly galling is that it seems to falter worst at the things other, less interesting shows do with much less effort. Plotting, for example.  Within the show’s mostly parallel […]