Once again, Starz has had to stand by and watch as other cable networks, not just its paycable competition HBO and Showtime, but smaller players like BBCAmerica and Sundance–and now even streaming services–get the original programming glory and attention it’s repeatedly tried to capture.  Despite an instant Season 2 renewal (standard practice for Starz), […]

> 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 […]

  There’s a reason why serialized dramas usually have some sort of “franchise” powering them:  a mystery to be solved, patients to be cured, a quest to be undertaken, etc.  Generating compelling stories on a weekly basis out of something like ordinary life can become awfully difficult, and a series can quickly turn mundane.  THE […]

  ENLIGHTENED:  Sunday 9:30PM on HBO HBO’s decision to renew Mike White and Laura Dern’s ENLIGHTENED for a second season was one of the least ratings-driven calls in memory.  The show barely registered with viewers, usually drawing a 0.1 in 18-49s and a grand total (on initial airing) of perhaps a quarter of a million […]

  VALOR:  Monday 9PM on CW – Change the Channel VALOR is the CW version of a military drama, which makes it markedly different from NBC’s The Brave and CBS’s SEAL Team.  For one thing, it’s significantly lacking in production values, even in its pilot, which would typically have a higher budget than regular series […]

  BEAUTY & THE BEAST:  Thursday 8PM on CW BEAUTY & THE BEAST has been demoted about as far as a CW series can go, from its original mid-week, regular season perch to Fridays, and now to summer (after being off the air for 11 months) with a reduced order of 13 episodes.  The speculation […]

> A lot can happen between the creation of a TV pilot in the spring and 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 in the off-season) give plenty of notes, both helpful and otherwise, and […]

  ORPHAN BLACK:  Saturday 9PM on BBCAmerica The second hour of BBCAmerica’s ORPHAN BLACK continued to keep up the pace while gradually revealing its secrets.  The very hardworking Tatiana Maslany this time got to add German and soccer mom accents to her repertoire, as the base character of Sarah met yet more of her lookalikes, […]