> The Academy limits the number of movie ads that can be aired on the Oscar telecast (until recent years, they didn’t allow any), so as not to make the night look like the awards are shilling for the studios.  (God forbid!)  It’s not clear whether that’s the reason only 2 movie promos made it […]

  MIND GAMES:  Tuesday 10PM on ABC – If Nothing Else Is On… The creator of ABC’s midseason MIND GAMES, Kyle Killen, was the man behind Lone Star and Awake (as well as the movie The Beaver), so he doesn’t lack in fertile imagination.  What he hasn’t had, however, is any commercial success whatsoever, and […]

  HOUSE OF LIES:  Sunday 10PM on Showtime Marty Kaan (accent on the “con”) and his management consulting crew are back for a second season at their HOUSE OF LIES tonight on Showtime, and apart from a purge of some of the recurring guest stars, everything is pretty much as remembered.  2 weeks have passed […]

  SCORPION:  Monday 9PM on CBS Previously… on SCORPION:  Walter O’Brien (Elyes Gabel) is the leader of a group of geniuses–behaviorist Toby (Eddie Kaye Thomas), mathematician Sylvester (Ari Stidham), and engineer Happy (Jadyn Wong)–who solve high-tech crimes for the government, represented by Homeland Security agent Gallo (Robert Patrick).  The team’s ambassador of empathy is Paige […]

    There’s no half-hour on network television more consistently accomplished than MODERN FAMILY.  The show may not reach for the demented highs of a Community (at least, you know, the old Community), 30 Rock or Happy Endings–it traffics instead in a heightened but very relatable emotional reality, and does so, virtually every week, with […]

> A lot can happen between the creation of a TV pilot in the spring and the production of episodes for the regular season: a writing/producing team is hired, audience focus groups weigh in, networks and studios (which may have had their own turnover) give plenty of notes, helpful and otherwise, and critics begin to […]

  It’s difficult, even after a full and absorbing season, to know exactly what to make of THE AFFAIR.  The series hasn’t fit neatly into either of the genres it seemed to be invoking:  despite the title and occasional bits of premium cable-level sex (as in tonight’s season finale), physical passion isn’t its main subject […]

  The farther it gets from the historical person named Leonardo Da Vinci, the better Starz’s DA VINCI’S DEMONS tends to be as a series.  In its 2d season, it went very far–all the way to South America, in a completely fictional Indiana Jones-ish quest for the mystical and all-powerful “Book of Leaves,” not to […]