THE ROYALS:  Sunday 10PM on E! Previously… on THE ROYALS:  The (fictional) British monarchy is a mess.  The Prince of Wales has died in mysterious circumstances, and the next in line to the crown is now his brother Prince Liam (William Moseley), who’s falling for Ophelia (Merritt Patterson), the raised-in-America commoner daughter of the […]

  Achieving the right tone is critical for any TV show, of course, but the task may be trickiest on JANE THE VIRGIN, with its mix of old-fashioned sentiment, broad comedy, melodramatic telenovela plotting and arch self-parody.  It’s quite an achievement of Jennie Snyder Urman, creator/showrunner of the US version of the show (who’d previously […]

  MTV’s FINDING CARTER is another high-concept series challenged by its concept losing some of its height.  The original impetus for the story was teenager Carter (Kathryn Prescott) being rescued from a kidnapping at the hands of Lori (Milena Govich) that Carter didn’t even know had happened, because Lori had taken her at the age […]

  SEX&DRUGS&ROCK&ROLL:  Thursday 10PM on FX – If Nothing Else Is On… Denis Leary doesn’t have a world of range, and in his new comedy SEX&DRUGS&ROCK&ROLL, the aging never-quite-star he plays called Johnny Rock isn’t very different from Tommy Gavin, the fireman he played on Rescue Me.  (Leary created both shows, on Rescue Me working […]

  THE LEFTOVERS:  Sunday 9PM on HBO It would be hard to imagine a more appropriate theme song for a Damon Lindelof TV series than one that includes the refrain “Let the mystery be.”  The title sequence of THE LEFTOVERS, which along with much else about the series has been completely revamped from its polarizing […]

  Lorne Michaels does know how to throw a party.  The 2015 finale of SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE closed with a rollicking “Santa Claus Is Coming To Town” from Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, joined by the cast, the night’s hosts Tina Fey and Amy Poehler, special guest Maya Rudolph, fake in-studio snow–and Paul […]

  THE FAMILY:  Sunday 9PM on ABC Previously… on THE FAMILY:  Ten years after his disappearance and presumed death, a now-teen Adam Warren (Liam James) appears, freshly escaped from what he describes as a decade spent in a hole in the ground near a “dragon.”  In the intervening years, his mother Claire (Joan Allen) has […]

  THE ORIGINALS has some recurring problems.  For one thing, since its antihero family the Mikaelsons are ageless supernaturals who emigrated to the US over the centuries, their foes–and even the family members who turn up from time to time, sometimes in new bodies–tend to be interchangeable Eurotrash.  It took effort this season to remember […]