New showrunner Brad Kern (working with series creators Sherri Cooper and Jennifer Levin) has made plenty of changes to BEAUTY & THE BEAST, but mostly they haven’t been improvements.  The gothic romanticism of Season 1 (and every other rendition of the tale) has been largely gone, replaced by a colder action-movie aesthetic.  Season 2 […]

  Almost every quality series, at one point or another, takes a wrong turn (remember the Friday Night Lights murder storyline?); the mark of one with staying power is whether it can bounce back.  THE FOSTERS was in danger of going over the edge at the end of its first season, piling one melodramatic plot […]

  CSI:  Wednesday 10PM on CBS As with Law & Order before it, the franchise that is CSI has dwindled down to a single entry, in this case the original Las Vegas-set version.  The cast has mostly been refurbished, with Ted Danson and Elisabeth Shue now toting the biggest forensics kits, and the ratings are […]

  DEVIOUS MAIDS:  Sunday 10PM on Lifetime The comic soap DEVIOUS MAIDS, based on a Mexican telenovela, overcame a slow start to become a solid performer for Lifetime last season, rising 50% in total viewers between its premiere and the season finale.  With Army Wives done, Witches of East End only a modest success and […]

    HATFIELDS & MCCOYS, already a blockbuster hit, kept its best and most compelling hours for last.  Although the conclusion of the 6-hour tale, directed throughout by Kevin Reynolds and with this installment written by Ted Mann and Ronald Parker, has its share of tense confrontations and large-scale action, it dwells more on the […]

  HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER:  Monday 8PM on CBS WHERE WE WERE:  At the intersection of several major events.  Lily (Alyson Hannigan) and Marshall (Jason Segel) had just had their baby; Barney (Neil Patrick Harris) had just gotten engaged to ex-stripper Quinn (Becki Newton); and Ted (Josh Radnor), having re-met old flame Victoria (Ashley […]

  HUNTED:  Friday 10PM on Cinemax – Potential DVR Alert On the same night that coincidentally brought the season premiere of Nikita, we have a new series that treads similar ground, both centering on gorgeous, betrayed spies, although the tones of the two shows are very different.  In HUNTED, set and produced in Britain but […]

  RED WIDOW:  Midseason TBD on ABC – If Nothing Else Is On… Disclaimer: Network pilots now in circulation are not necessarily in the form that will air in the Fall. Pilots are often reedited and re-scored, and in some cases even recast or reshot. These critiques shouldn’t be taken as full pilot reviews, but […]