> Pending the return of The Voice and NBC’s high hopes for Smash, THE OFFICE is the closest thing hte network has to a successful television show.  As the series greets a new hour-mate in Up All Night, let’s take a look at how it’s conducting its business. WHERE WE LEFT OFF:  Andy (Ed Helms) […]

  HINDSIGHT has been a very pleasant rom-com-dram vehicle that probably didn’t generate enough in the way of buzz, and certainly didn’t score the ratings, to survive past its first season, notwithstanding its cliffhanger season finale.  (Its only real chance is if network VH1 decides to make a statement by backing its first scripted series no matter the […]

  THE GRINDER:  Tuesday 8:30PM on FOX – If Nothing Else Is On… THE GRINDER has something no other network sitcom this fall can claim:  an original, promising premise.  (It’s the execution that needs some work.)  Jared Paul and Andrew Mogel’s comedy gives us Dean Sanderson, Jr (Rob Lowe), longtime star of the primetime courtroom series […]

  THE X-FILES:  Monday 8PM on FOX With its densely serialized mythology and mostly pre-internet rabidly enthusiastic fans, THE X-FILES was a key signpost on the road to today’s pop culture.  By the time it left the air in 2002, though, it was limping badly, with David Duchovny barely participating and ratings that were low, […]

  HOUDINI & DOYLE:  Monday 9PM on FOX – Change the Channel Paranormal procedurals have been fertile ground for FOX since at least The X-Files, recently with Lucifer and Sleepy Hollow (and the rebooted X-Files).  The network’s early-arrival summer series HOUDINI & DOYLE, though, is a plodding, uninspired miss in the subgenre. As the rules […]

  “Go big or go home” isn’t a sentiment that’s usually associated with the second year of a successful TV series.  More often, it’s “Do the same thing again,” possibly appended with “… only bigger.”  But Sam Esmail, the creator of MR. ROBOT (and this season, also the director of all its episodes), knows no […]

  RAY DONOVAN:  Sunday 10PM on Showtime – Potential DVR Alert Ray Donovan (Liev Schreiber) is a fixer with plenty to fix.  Professionally, he’s sort of a lower-rent LA version of Scandal‘s Olivia Pope, employed by Hollywood agent Lee Drexler (Peter Jacobson) to do whatever’s necessary to clean up after Tinseltown’s celebrities and studio execs.  […]

  DALLAS:  Monday 9PM on TNT The ratings didn’t collapse for the reincarnated DALLAS when it had to weather the loss of Larry Hagman and his iconic character J.R. Ewing last season, so the show is back.  Without Hagman, the plot machinations keep churning along, but based on tonight’s Season 3 premiere, it all feels […]