THE CARMICHAEL SHOW:  Wednesday 9PM on NBC – If Nothing Else Is On… THE CARMICHAEL SHOW is the latest sitcom to be aired by NBC with a stealth run that suggests one of the network’s programming executives looked at another recently and asked “Do you even remember why we ordered this thing?” and got […]

  REVERIE:  Wednesday 10PM on NBC In recent seasons, original summer dramas on the broadcast networks have tended to cluster in two varieties:  straightforward procedurals like Rookie Blue and The Night Shift, and fantasy-thrillers like Under the Dome and Extant.  NBC’s new REVERIE, created by Extant‘s Mickey Fisher, tries to mix the genres, with indifferent […]

> 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 […]

  THE LIBRARIANS:  Sunday 8PM on TNT – If Nothing Else Is On… TNT’s THE LIBRARIANS is a reboot, of a sort.  It’s based on a trio of Indiana Jones-ian original movies the network aired starting in 2004 (when it was more currently a knock-off of the National Treasure franchise), toplining Noah Wyle as a […]

  After 5 seasons, 2 of them exclusively on DirecTV, DAMAGES and its saga of dueling attorneys Patty Hewes (Glenn Close) and Ellen Parsons (Rose Byrne) came to its close this week, mostly with a whimper.  There were no last minute shockeroos (Ellen wasn’t Patty’s long-lost daughter), just a final renunciation of Patty and all […]

  ABOUT A BOY:  Tuesday 9PM on NBC (Preview Tonight at 11:05PM) – If Nothing Else is On… ABOUT A BOY, which NBC will preview tonight at the close of Olympics coverage ahead of its regular timeslot premiere on Tuesday, has a daunting pedigree.  It’s based on the excellent 2002 Paul Weitz/Chris Weitz feature film […]

  JA’MIE: PRIVATE SCHOOL GIRL:  Sunday 10:30PM on HBO – Change the Channel JA’MIE: PRIVATE SCHOOL GIRL belongs to that particular British Empire school of comedy in which the central joke is that a female character is played, very obviously, by a man in drag–not that the character is a man pretending to be a […]

  When inspiration hit this week’s SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE, it came from an unexpected direction.  African-American staff writer Leslie Jones, who isn’t an official cast member, pretty much blew the doors off Weekend Update with a sustained piece of political incorrectness that was all the more startling in the context of the timidity that is […]