It’s not as though HAPPYISH creator Shalom Auslander is unaware that many would consider his protagonists Thom and Lee Payne (Steve Coogan and Kathryn Hahn) to be whiny, tiresome, self-important narcissists–he has plenty of other characters tell them that’s exactly what they are through the course of the series.  Watching the show, though, it’s […]

  WICKED CITY:  Tuesday 10PM on ABC Previously… on WICKED CITY:  In 1982 Los Angeles, serial killer Kent Grainger (Ed Westwick) is slaughtering young women he picks up on the Sunset Strip.  He’s recently acquired a new playmate, Betty Beaumontaine (Erika Christensen), a single mom and nurse with a very dark side.  Chasing Kent is […]

  OUTLANDER:  Saturday 9PM on Starz OUTLANDER hasn’t been the ratings breakout for Starz that Power has been, but it may be something even more important:  the network’s first real buzz show, one that’s put it on the drama map with its fellow cable networks, and is perhaps poised for a ratings jump in Season […]

  BRAINDEAD:  Monday 10PM on CBS – Potential DVR Alert The Good Wife was always as much about politics as the law.  And while it was officially a serious drama that dealt with Big Issues, Dark Themes and Edgy Characters, it was sneakily one of TV’s funniest sophisticated comedies.  So Robert and Michelle King’s segue […]

  KEVIN CAN WAIT:  Monday 8:30PM on CBS (thru 10/17, then 8PM) – Change the Channel Sometimes when a TV star returns to the tube, it’s to try something excitingly different.  Think of Rob Lowe’s second career as a comic actor, or Kyle Chandler’s move from the heroic coach of Friday Night Lights to the […]

  SCANDAL is full of characters who take one step over the line of ethics and morality, sometimes for what they’ve convinced themselves are the best possible reasons, only to find themselves in a morass they can’t escape.  The same has come to be true of the series itself, which took its fatal step when […]

  INSECURE:  Sunday 10:30PM on HBO Issa Rae’s INSECURE became progressively more assured during the course of its first season, and although it wasn’t more than a moderate success, its ratings trended upward through its run, until it was outrating its higher-profile lead-in, Sarah Jessica Parker’s Divorce.  HBO has rewarded it by scheduling Season 2 […]

  TEN DAYS IN THE VALLEY:  Sunday 10PM on ABC – Potential DVR Alert TEN DAYS IN THE VALLEY is very ABC, in a good way.  Created by Tassie Cameron, who co-created the network’s longtime summer hit Rookie Blue, it’s a purportedly closed-end mystery soap, about a successful TV-producer mother whose 8-year old daughter goes […]