GRIMM:  Fridays 9PM on NBC NBC took a risk in placing GRIMM, one of its few successful shows, onto its microscopic bench for months of midseason hiatus, but at least it broke off with a solid cliffhanger.  Without overdoing the backstory:  our hero, homicide detective and erstwhile monster-hunter (aka “Grimm”) Nick Burkhardt (David Giuntoli) […]

  There was a time when BONES was a breath of fresh TV air.  When it arrived in 2005, the networks were deep into Peak Grim Procedural mode, as shows like CSI, Criminal Minds and NCIS thrived and spawned seemingly endless spin-offs.  Bones pumped some changes into the format, adding rom-com, screwball comedy, warmth and […]

> Until now, LAW & ORDER:  SPECIAL VICTIMS UNIT has been unique to the franchise in not having undergone a periodic reshuffling of its cast.  For 12 seasons, SVU had been the only one of the series to be star-driven, anchored by the team of Chris Meloni and Mariska Hargitay.  But Meloni and NBC were […]

  FAMILY TOOLS –  Wednesday 8:30PM on ABC – Change the Channel   J.K. Simmons is one of our national character actor treasures, but he tests the bounds of our willingness to follow him anywhere with FAMILY TOOLS, which is getting a last-minute run starting tonight. Tools is sitcom with a capital “sit.”  The rollicking […]

  THE PASSAGE:  Monday 9PM on FOX FOX’s THE PASSAGE does to Justin Cronin’s intricate, elaborate trilogy of postapocalyptic thrillers what Hollywood has traditionally done with literary fiction, flattening the books in the most conventional way possible.  This wasn’t the original plan, or even the second:  Ridley Scott’s production company acquired Cronin’s books with the […]

  NASHVILLE is a superior network series, loaded with talent and powerful moments, but it can also drive you up a wall, beset as it is with sometimes infuriating shortcomings.  The same was true for tonight’s season finale, written and directed by series creator Callie Khouri. Some of the show’s problems are glaringly obvious.  Its […]

  For all that HBO’s WESTWORLD is deliberately obscure and oblique, one thing has become increasingly clear through the course of its second season:  series creators Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy expect viewers to decide for themselves what aspects of the show are features and which are bugs.  Most obviously, Westworld has no interest in […]

> Michael Scott is really gone.  Technically, that’s been true since a few episodes before the end of THE OFFICE‘s last season, but with tonight’s season premiere, Office 2.0, the most well-publicized reboot of the new season, began to tell us what it’s going to be.   Which is, for now at least, a somewhat jarring […]