For a while there, it seemed as though the finale of GRIMM was on a crusade to make sure the show could never be rebooted, massacring almost the entire regular cast one by one, which in an age where IP is more important than anything else would have been a fairly brave move.  But […]

  David Simon is unquestionably a pivotal figure in the history of contemporary TV, yet he’s never been associated with a mainstream hit.  From Homicide: Life On The Street to The Wire to Treme to Show Me A Hero, his work has been critically praised and sometimes honored, but viewers haven’t flocked to them on […]

  When people say that an original film or television series has the feel of a novel, it’s usually meant as a high compliment.  (The Wire is probably the definitive example of this in television.)  But Sundance Channel’s first scripted series RECTIFY was a reminder that not all novels, however earnest and well-meant, are worth […]

  BLINDSPOT:  Monday 10PM on NBC – If Nothing Else Is On… NBC’s strategy this fall seems to be to play the deja vu card and hope for the best.  Heroes Reborn returns on Thursday as though its ratings hadn’t cratered into oblivion just 5 years ago, The Player feels like basic cable circa 1998, […]

  THE ROYALS:  Sunday 10PM on E! THE ROYALS has been, if not much else, an effective demonstration of branding by E!.  Its first scripted series, recounting the antics of a fictional British royal family, fit in well with the network’s more established business of depicting the antics of the emptily wealthy in an unscripted […]

> 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 […]

  CALL ME KAT:  Thursday 9PM on FOX   There’s been widespread hope that a change in calendar pages would reverse the traumas of 2020, and that 2021 would bring in gusts of new air to blow away all that’s been awful in the world.  Sadly, the arrival of FOX’s CALL ME KAT, the first […]

  Comic crumbs were hard to come by on tonight’s mostly dreadful SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE.  It’s a particular disappointment because after two episodes struggling with non-comedy hosts Adam Levine and Justin Bieber, the show had a definite uptick with the slyly funny Christoph Waltz, and this time the host was Kevin Hart, who’s proven his […]