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 rear […]

  A return visit to LAW & ORDER: SPECIAL VICTIMS UNIT on the occasion of its 15th season finale revealed a procedural that had gone positively soapy–possibly a result of creator Dick Wolf’s recent success with his more serialized Chicago pair of series. Both of the cases covered in the hour, which was written by […]

  HART OF DIXIE:  Tuesday 8PM on CW WHERE WE WERE:  The bedroom of Dr. Zoe Hart (Rachel Bilson) in Bluebell, Alabama, where the New York transfer was finally getting some action after an entire season of dithering.  On what was supposed to be the wedding night of George Tucker (Scott Porter), for whom Zoe […]

  EMPIRE:  Wednesday 9PM on FOX Previously… on EMPIRE:  As he prepares to launch his hip-hop entertainment conglomerate into an even higher financial sphere via an IPO, mogul Lucious Lyon (Terrence Howard) learns that he has ALS, a disease that will kill him, and he’s forced to decide how to divide his kingdom.  His choices:  […]

  TAKE TWO:  Thursday 10PM on ABC ABC’s TAKE TWO has an unusually classy set of auspices for a summer broadcast series.  Its co-creator is Andrew W. Marlowe, who gave the network its long-running hit Castle (his writing partner on the new show is Terri Edda Miller, a Castle writer/producer and also Mrs. Marlowe), and […]

  THE MAYOR:  Tuesday 9:30PM on ABC – Worth A Click The premise for ABC’s breezy THE MAYOR is wall-to-wall gimmick, in a likable way.  Courtney Rose (Brandon Micheal Hall) is a young aspiring rapper in the small town of Fort Gray, CA who decides to get himself some publicity by declaring his candidacy for […]

> This year’s WONDER WOMAN pilot did not fly under the radar.  Produced by Warner Bros Television for NBC, it was the subject of speculation before it was even placed with a network, scrutiny while it was being produced, and analysis after it had been rejected.  With the exception of Terra Nova and Smash, it […]

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 rear […]