WATCHMEN:  Sunday 9PM on HBO The Damon Lindelof/HBO WATCHMEN provides a new wrinkle to the world of IP exploitation.  It’s not an adaptation of the classic Alan Moore/Dave Gibbons graphic novel (a la Zack Snyder’s all-too-reverent 2009 film) or even a reboot, but a newly conceived work that’s more like a spin-off or a […]

  The first season of Freeform’s Marvel series CLOAK & DAGGER was from the measured pace school of serialized TV drama.  Joe Pokaski’s saga was essentially 10 hours of origin story, tracing Tandy Bowen (Olivia Holt) and Tyrone Johnson (Aubrey Joseph) from teen outcasts to budding superheroes, with only scattered uses of their powers until […]

> It’s not all that unusual for a situation comedy to change directions in the midst of its initial season and emerge a different, and better, show:  The Office and Parks & Recreation both took that journey (the US Office was trying too hard at first to ape the Ricky Gervais original, and Parks was […]

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 rear […]

> 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 reviews, but rather as a guide to the general style and content of the […]

>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 reviews, but rather as a guide to the general style and content of the new […]

  ZOO:  Tuesday 9PM on CBS Viewers who enjoyed the first dumb season of CBS’s ZOO last summer–and there were quite a few of them–should have little quarrel with Season 2.  In fact, based on the two-hour season premiere (Hour 1 written by Supervising Producer Matt Pitts and Producer Melissa Glenn; Hour 2 by Co-Executive […]

  LAW & ORDER TRUE CRIME:  THE MENENDEZ MURDERS – Tuesday 10PM on NBC – Change the Channel Dick Wolf is one of the most successful producers in the history of television, but the one thing he’s never been is cool.  His Law & Order and Chicago franchises have kept NBC on the map for […]