> See A Word About Busted Pilots It’s entirely possible that BAD MOM wouldn’t have worked as a network TV series.  It represented an unusual attempt for a broadcast network (ABC) to step into the “edgy” sitcom territory that’s been the property of cable networks like HBO, Showtime and FX, and the pilot was clearly […]

> 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 […]

> Disclaimer:  Network pilots now in circulation are not necessarily in the form that will air in the Fall.  Pilots are often reedited and rescored, and in some cases even recast or reshot.  So these critiques shouldn’t be taken as full TV pilot reviews, but rather as a guide to the general style and content […]

> 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 […]

> 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 […]

  WEEDS:  Sunday 10PM on Showtime   WHERE WE WERE:  After a season largely concerned with a battle for supremacy in the New York drug trade, both within and outside the family, there seemed to be a moment of comparative serenity for Nancy Botwin (Mary Louise Parker) and her clan at the upstate enclave she’d […]

  GREY’S ANATOMY:  Thursday 9PM on ABC WHERE WE WERE:  In a plane crash.  After a difficult year in which many of our characters had to pass their medical boards and then choose/be chosen by a hospital for a permanent position–Karev (Justin Chambers) to Johns Hopkins, Cristina (Sandra Oh) to the Mayo Clinic–a group of […]

  The midseason finale of the purported romantic thriller BEAUTY & THE BEAST delivered almost all romance, no thrills, as it continues to have only a glancing relationship with its title. Plotting has been this show’s weak spot from the start, so the fact that its procedural crime-solving story of the week was underdeveloped to […]