Hit dramas rarely go south as quickly as THE BLACKLIST.  In November 2013 it was earning a 3.0 rating, one of the highest rated 10PM shows on TV.  In May 2014 it was still at 2.6.  In November 2014 it was almost as strong at 2.5.  2 weeks ago?  A new series low of […]

  THE FOLLOWING:  Monday 9PM on FOX (starting Jan 27) The blood-drenched, increasingly grandiose literary pretensions of THE FOLLOWING grew tiresome by the end of last season’s run.  It seemed like very good news that in the season finale, Edgar Allen Poe scholar, brutal serial killer and unaccountably irresistible cult leader Joe Carroll (James Purefoy) […]

  THE CATCH:  Thursday 10PM on ABC – If Nothing Else Is On… Not much remains of the original pilot for ABC and ShondaLand’s THE CATCH, beyond its basic premise and some of the cast.  Original series creator Jennifer Schuur has been discarded in favor of showrunner Alan Heinberg, a ShondaLand veteran (Schuur retains a script credit […]

  BANSHEE:  Friday 10PM on Cinemax Previously… on BANSHEE:  Through a series of coincidences not worth recounting, an ex-con (Antony Starr) has taken on the identity of Lucas Hood, who was killed on his way to becoming the new sheriff of Banshee, Pennsylvania, a small town rich in Pennsylvania Dutch culture and crime.  It also […]

  ORPHAN BLACK:  Saturday 9PM on BBCAmerica In the first season of ORPHAN BLACK, it was more than enough that the series introduced us to the incredible Tatiana Maslany, a previously almost unknown actress who delivered a jaw-dropping series of performances as clones who each had separate backgrounds and personalities (from suburban soccer mom to […]

  RED WIDOW spent its season about two inches away from being a really enjoyable dark farce.  All the ingredients were there:  plotting that had a vague, circular logic but was basically nonsensical, and a cast of moronic characters so wrapped up in their own ignorance, selfishness and blind aggression that they constantly bumped into […]

  DOWNTON ABBEY:  Sunday 9PM on PBS In its fourth season as the most successful regular series in PBS history, DOWNTON ABBEY operates as smoothly as a well-staffed ancestral estate.  Even though the larger subject of the series is the creeping spread of democracy into the centuries-old system of English aristocracy, which would eventually undermine […]

  Was this the season that Cinemax’s comparatively low-rent BANSHEE surpassed Justified?  In the subgenre of cop show pulp, the FX series has been the unquestioned class entry, with its distinguished Elmore Leonard auspices and elegantly violent plotting and dialogue.  But with a few episodes to go this season, Justified has felt a bit desultory, […]