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 […]

  THE BLACKLIST was a hit before it was much of a show, and it’s still decidedly uneven.  That was underscored again by tonight’s season finale, which killed off–well, apparently; you never know with this series–at least one regular and grievously injured more, but put very few cards on a table that could have used […]

  TATAU:  Saturday 10PM on BBCAmerica BBCAmerica only has two showcase slots to launch new series, those being the hours after Dr. Who and Orphan Black, so with plenty of time to prepare for the return of the latter, it’s difficult to understand how the network ended up handing the space over to TATAU, a […]

  SATISFACTION:  Thursday 10PM on USA Previously… on SATISFACTION:  The Trumans, Neil (Matt Passmore) and Grace (Stephanie Szostak) have comfortable suburban lives that are breaking apart.  Neil, an investment manager, delivers a diatribe about his life on an airliner marooned on the runway, which becomes a YouTube punchline.  Grace, regretful that she abandoned her design […]

  THE NORMAL HEART:  Sunday 9PM on HBO – DVR Alert When Larry Kramer’s just-barely-semi-autobiographical THE NORMAL HEART was first written and performed in 1985, it was as “ripped from the headlines” as any episode of Law & Order, a furious, mournful expose about the AIDS crisis as it was happening just outside the theater […]

> A lot can happen between the creation of a TV pilot in the spring and 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 in the off-season) give plenty of notes, both helpful and otherwise, and […]

  SCANDAL:  Thursday 9PM on ABC Sheer addictiveness is SCANDAL’s stock in trade, and although the Season 4 premiere had an absence of the show’s jaw-dropping plot twists, it was already awash in adrenaline and its trademark high-voltage monologues. The premiere, written by series creator Shonda Rhimes herself and directed by Tom Verica, mostly served […]

  THE FLASH:  Tuesday 8PM on CW Previously… on THE FLASH:  Mild-mannered civilian police investigator Barry Allen (Grant Gustin) comes out of an encounter with a particle accelerator and a freak storm, and finds himself gifted with super-speed.  Other “metahumans,” though, are less heroic, and before long, Barry has donned a suit and become a superhero […]