FALLING SKIES told a somewhat different story this season under showrunner Remi Aubuchon than it had in its first two years, and the changes worked fairly well for the most part.  Tom Mason (Noah Wyle) and his plucky band of rebels against the evil alien Espheni, instead of roaming the east coast, were based […]

  An odd thing happened to NASHVILLE in its 5th season, as it shifted networks to CMT and showrunners to Marshall Herskovitz and Edward Zwick.  When series creator Callie Khouri and original showrunner Dee Johnson were in charge, Nashville had revolved around three women:  country music superstar Rayna Jaymes (Connie Britton), glitzy troublemaker Juliette Barnes […]

> Last night ABC’s REVENGE became the first of the network serialized dramas to return from its long midseson hiatus.  Let’s see how the show managed its 2012 arrival. WHERE WE LEFT OFF:  Emily Thorne (Emily VanCamp), who’s really Amanda Clarks, continued her plot to bring down the super-rich Grayson family, headed by matriarch Victoria […]

  ORPHAN BLACK:  Saturday 9PM on BBCAmerica In the first season of ORPHAN BLACK, it was more than enough that the series introduced us to the incredible Tatiana Maslany, a previously almost unknown actress who delivered a jaw-dropping series of performances as clones who each had separate backgrounds and personalities (from suburban soccer mom to […]

  GOLDEN BOY:  Friday 9PM on CBS (special previews on Tuesday 2/26 and 3/5) – Potential DVR Alert CBS tries to have its procedural cake and eat its serialization with GOLDEN BOY.  Think of it as How I Met Your Mother as a cop show:  the story is structured, by veteran procedural writer Nicholas Wootten […]

  Edward Norton, a very fine actor who’s shown occasional comic chops, is the oddest choice to host SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE in recent memory.  It’s been a long, long time since he was anywhere near the forefront of the pop culture zeitgeist, and he didn’t even have anything new to plug this week.  It would […]

  It’s already been announced that next season will be the fifth and final one for TNT’s FALLING SKIES, and that seems best for all concerned.  The series, under new showrunner David Eick (probably best known as a producer, although not creator, of the rebooted Battlestar Galactica), took a wrong turn both creatively and in […]

> 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 […]