THE BRIDGE:  Wednesday 10PM on FX – DVR Alert FX has assumed a leadership role in the development of serious, ambitious TV drama over the past decade (The Shield, Rescue Me, The Americans), and with its new series THE BRIDGE, it takes on its largest canvas to date.  The Bridge, which is based on […]

  FEAR THE WALKING DEAD:  Sunday 9PM on AMC AMC’s eccentric decision to keep its Walking Dead assembly line going with a not-quite-prequel has become even more so in Season 2, which places the Season 1 survivors on a yacht owned by one of them, the rich and enigmatic Strand (Colman Domingo), hovering off the […]

  SUPER FUN NIGHT:  Wednesday 9:30PM on ABC – Change the Channel ABC’s decision to bury the original pilot for its Rebel Wilson vehicle SUPER FUN NIGHT isn’t unheard-of, but it’s certainly no mark of confidence–the pilot, after all, is what convinced them to order the series in the first place.  (For the record, our […]

  SUITS:  Wednesday 9PM on USA Because of the way USA scheduled last season’s episodes of SUITS, it feels as though Season 3 barely ended (it was just 2 months ago), and now Season 4 is already here.  The events of the Season 3 finale required a moderate reboot, as Mike Ross (Patrick J. Adams) […]

  THE CRAZY ONES:  Thursday 9PM on CBS Previously… on THE CRAZY ONES:  Simon Roberts (Robin Williams), a genuine mad man and an advertising legend, and his more practical daughter Sydney (Sarah Michelle Gellar), run a Chicago ad agency.  The dynamics of the place are very clear:  Simon and copywriter Zach (James Wolk) are the […]

> Disclaimer:  Network pilots now in circulation are not necessarily in the form that will air in the Fall.  Pilots are often reedited and rescored, and in some cases even recast or reshot.  So these critiques shouldn’t be taken as full TV pilot reviews, but rather as a guide to the general style and content […]

  SCANDAL:  Thursday 9PM on ABC How tough is Olivia Pope (Kerry Washington), newly minted as both Chief of Staff to President Mellie Grant (Bellamy Young), and head of secret intelligence and torture bureau B613?  As Season 7 of SCANDAL has it, Olivia is so tough that when she has Huck (Guillermo Diaz) train a […]

  FX’s FOSSE/VERDON was a triumph of narrowcasting, a showbiz hall of mirrors about a showbiz hall of mirrors.  That was never more so than in its final installment, where it met its meta-destiny by depicting Bob Fosse (Sam Rockwell) depicting a just-slightly fantasized version of his own life and death in All That Jazz.  […]