You couldn’t tell it from the ratings, which were if anything more dismal than ever, or from tonight’s somewhat disappointing season finale, but the return of Founding Genius Dan Harmon rejuvenated COMMUNITY‘s fifth season.  It wasn’t that last year’s replacement team had done a shameful job–they worked hard to provide the same species of […]

  EXTANT:  Wednesday 9PM on CBS Previously… on EXTANT:  Astronaut Molly Woods (Halle Berry) returns from a 13 month-long solo mission in space with a surprise–she’s pregnant.  Although come to think of it, she did have that odd encounter with her dead first husband Marcus (Sergio Harford)–or at least with someone or something making use […]

  I get it:  teen vampires, ick.  THE VAMPIRE DIARIES is never going to win a major Emmy–it’s never even going to win a Golden Globe.  But there isn’t a long-running show on television that hums along as smoothly, and this fourth season was no exception.  Under the guiding hand of co-creator/showrunner Julie Plec, Vampire […]

  DOLL & EM:  Wednesday 9PM on HBO – If Nothing Else Is On… HBO’s romance with quirky British comedies of discomfort (and with the look and feel of micro-budgeted indie film) continues with DOLL & EM.  It doesn’t hail from the Ricky Gervais team that gave the network Extras, Hello Ladies, Life’s Too Short […]

  THE GOODWIN GAMES:  Monday 8:30PM on FOX – If Nothing Else Is On… Note:  we reviewed the original pilot for this show back in August.  Since then, however, it underwent fairly significant recasting and reshooting, so it seemed fair to give the new version another look. The term “busted pilot” is fairly well known, […]

> It’s not an exaggeration to say that many people probably had to check their cable and satellite listings just to find out where their local PBS station was, once it became clear that the first season of what’s now called Masterpiece Classic’s miniseries DOWNTON ABBEY was not to be missed.  Now, after a year-long […]

  ONCE UPON A TIME:  Sunday 8PM on ABC WHERE WE WERE:  Watching a season finale that looked like it could end the series, as Emma Swan (Jennifer Morrison), AKA the daughter of Snow White/Mary Margaret Blanchard (Ginnifer Goodwin) and Prince Charming/David Nolan (Josh Dallas), gave her seemingly dead biological son Henry (Jared Gilmore) a […]

  This week marked the end of the road for two of TV’s most distinctive, original takes on the romantic-comedy genre.  FXX’s You’re the Worst and CW’s CRAZY EX-GIRLFRIEND were both “cult hits,” which is to say that they survived low ratings for multiple seasons (5 for Worst, 4 for Girlfriend) thanks to critical praise […]