LONGMIRE:  Monday 10PM on A&E LONGMIRE may be the best CBS show not to air on CBS.  A cleanly-executed, straightforward procedural that skews old (3/4 of its viewers are over 50), it’s a show that knows what it wants to accomplish and doesn’t try to reach for more.  The Season 2 premiere, written by […]

  Nothing ever came up roses for SMASH, and tonight, after two misbegotten NBC seasons, on a holiday weekend buried against reruns and NASCAR, the show’s Broadway curtain came down for the last time.  The saddest thing about its passing, of course, is the enormous waste it represented:  of a truly distinctive setting and topic; […]

  After an absence of more than 7 years, in many ways the early episodes of the new, Netflix-produced 4th season of ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT feel like the show never left.  (In fact, it would be unwise to tackle Season 4 without at least a working knowledge of what preceded it.)  The familiar stylistic quirks are […]

  We’re gradually discovering that Steven Soderbergh’s definition of “retirement” from filmmaking is a fairly narrow one.  It was recently announced that he plans to direct a new series for Cinemax, and he has another cable/online series in development.  It appears that the one thing he won’t be doing for the foreseeable future is directing […]

  It’s no small thing to be a scripted success on the broadcast networks during the summer, and while it’s never been a breakout hit, the fact that the Canadian series ROOKIE BLUE has made it to a 4th season on ABC is impressive in itself.  Its modest, accomplished mix of police procedural and soap […]

  Previously… on SAVE ME:  Beth Harper (Anne Heche), didn’t die when, after the latest of many drunken nights, she choked on a hero sandwich.  She was, in fact, saved by God Him/Herself, and is now a prophet of the Lord’s message, albeit on a small scale.  She knows local facts, like who her teenage […]

  NBC is all-in on CHICAGO FIRE.  Not only has it given the show a plum spot for the fall on Tuesdays with The Voice as its lead-in, it’s ordered a police-oriented spin-off for midseason.  All this enthusiasm is a little puzzling, giving that the show has been only a marginal success (its season average […]

  You can take a time-travel journey back to 20th-century network television with LAW & ORDER: SVU, the last remnant of Dick Wolf’s once-behemoth franchise.  Visiting the show for the first time since last fall reveals a few small surprises–Detective Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay) has acquired a boyfriend–but for the most part, SVU is very […]