1600 PENN:  Thursday 9:30PM on NBC 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 […]

  Jimmy Kimmel’s set got a bit of an upgrade, but other than that there was little visible evidence that the 11:35PM version of JIMMY KIMMEL LIVE will be very different from its midnight incarnation.  Kimmel has never been Mr. High-Concept–he leaves that for Letterman and Conan–and as Jay Leno, still the winner in both […]

  JUSTIFIED has the luxury of time.  The series typically tells one or two extended stories through the course of its season, so tonight’s Season 4 premiere, written by series creator Graham Yost and directed by Michael Dinner, mostly served to introduce the year’s plotlines and allow us to make the acquaintance of some new […]

  The cul de sac has moved south along the dial, but aside from that, there’s nothing very different about the TBS version of COUGAR TOWN, transported last night pretty much intact from its prior home on ABC.  (It’s possible that later episodes could show more of a shift, since although series co-creator and original […]

  Within the first two minutes of its midseason premiere tonight, BUNHEADS featured a Harold Clurman gag.  For those not up on their celebrated left-wing Depression-era theatre directors, Clurman was–well, yeah.  (This particular gag took place in a kitchen perfectly constructed in miniature–including working electricity–in a cardboard box.)  I’m going to go out on a […]

  DECEPTION:  Monday 10PM on NBC – Change the Channel Stop me if you’ve heard this one before:  a beautiful young woman returns to the Long Island estate of the family she knew when she was growing up, becoming involved with their intrigues as she hides her true identity, unfinished business on her mind.  Now, […]

  Ah yes… the clink of silver on fine china, the lords and ladies sitting down to dinner in their best evening dress, the barely perceptible rustle of servants smoothly executing their duties behind the scenes–it’s all back.  America’s favorite TV vacation destination (certainly more appealing than the Hamptons of ABC’s competing Revenge, a place […]

  After 6 years and a 55-minute clip show retrospective, and bearing enough promos for The Carrie Diaries for that show to establish a network of its own, GOSSIP GIRL came to a breezy, mostly satisfying end by concentrating on its original basics:  Blair and Chuck (Leighton Meester and Ed Westwick), Serena and Dan (Blake […]