THE GIRLFRIENDS’ GUIDE TO DIVORCE has made its way, at least somewhat, past a very shaky start–not so much in the ratings, which have remained mediocre (although steady enough for Bravo to declare its first scripted 1-hour a win and order another season), but dramatically.  At the start, Girlfriends pandered all too blatantly to […]

  Under showrunner Scott M. Gimple, this fifth season of THE WALKING DEAD became steadily better as drama than the series has ever been, drawing closer to deserving its phenomenal level of ratings as still (even after the arrival of Empire) TV’s biggest non-football success.  Gimple and his team have greatly improved the show’s eternal […]

  After 40 years of SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE, it’s fair to say that every season is uneven, and so is every episode.  Although it’s generally true that installments hosted by former cast members (this season it was Bill Hader) have the advantage of ready-made comfort zones for the writers and cast, and that hosts with […]

  One never knows, but the rebranding of its network probably doesn’t bode well for RECOVERY ROAD.  The recently-renamed Freeform, which has over the last few months canceled Chasing Life and Switched At Birth, while renewing Stitchers and Shadowhunters, seems to be moving in the direction of heroine-led fantasy-adventures and procedurals, rather than the YA […]

  OUTCAST:  Friday 10PM on Cinemax – If Nothing Else Is On… The surprise is that it took Cinemax so long to enter the world of TV horror.  With the notable exception of The Knick (and somewhat less notably, the network’s trademark “Skinemax” late-night soft-core programming), all of its original series have been genre pieces, […]

  HALT AND CATCH FIRE:  Tuesday 10PM on AMC HALT AND CATCH FIRE is AMC’s charity project; every episode could bear a credit saying “This series is brought to you thanks to the generosity of The Walking Dead.”  That show’s mega-success has allowed AMC to indulge itself with a drama that has only gone downward […]

  RECTIFY:  Wednesday 10PM on Sundance Ray McKinnon’s Sundance drama RECTIFY is the prestige television series for those who consider themselves just a little bit too good, even these days, for TV.  With its glacial pace, arid narrative, film festival trappings and copious religious touchstones, it announces its own self-importance to the world at large.  […]

  LEGION:  Wednesday 10PM on FX – DVR Alert The answer to what Noah Hawley could do for an encore after Fargo is:  continue to spectacularly overperform.  Fargo was and is a totally unexpected piece of great television, an adaptation that’s not an adaptation of one of the quirkiest masterworks in the American cinema canon, […]