SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE had one of the quietest off-seasons in its recent history, with the addition of featured player Jon Rudnitsky as its only major change, so for better and worse, tonight’s Season 41 premiere felt as though it could easily have aired last season. There were a few indications that time has passed.  […]

  The signs are foreboding for AGENT CARTER:  not only have the Season 2 ratings gone from lukewarm to frigid, but star Hayley Atwell has signed for another ABC pilot (although since the same studio and network are involved, and Carter only produces a limited number of episodes each season, doing both isn’t impossible).  It […]

  DESIGNATED SURVIVOR:  Wednesday 10PM on ABC Previously… on DESIGNATED SURVIVOR:  When the US government gathers in a single location, one low-ranking official is kept apart in case of catastrophe.  Thus Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Tom Kirkman (Kiefer Sutherland) is the only member of the administration left alive when a bomb destroys the […]

  DIRTY JOHN:  Sunday 10PM on Bravo Bravo recently finished a 2-season run of Imposters, the story of a con artist who seduced victims into marriage, only to steal all their money.  Clearly the network knows what it likes, because in Imposters’ stead we have Dirty John, which tells a story remarkably close to that […]

  For 3 seasons, Noah Hawley’s FX anthology series FARGO displayed an uncanny ability to channel the unique sensibilities of Joel and Ethan Coen, even while telling original stories with their own idiosyncratic characters.  In Season 4, Hawley seemed to tire of exercising that muscle, and while the season was clearly intended as his nod […]

  After three seasons, THE KILLING is still hard to get a fix on.  Technically it’s a murder mystery, but efficiently and intelligently spinning out crime stories is what it’s least good at–its narrative is notoriously overextended, sloppily plotted and reliant on bad detective work and a seemingly infinite number of red herrings.  (Even though […]

  Luckily for ELEMENTARY, appearances by the BBC’s celebrated Sherlock are so sporadic and brief (this season’s 3 episodes were the first in 2 years), that the two series only infrequently need to be judged against one another.  Those comparisons aren’t to Elementary‘s advantage in terms of conceptual brilliance and sheer inspiration, but then Elementary […]

  BALLERS:  Sunday 9PM on HBO – Change the Channel BALLERS is alarmingly ramshackle by HBO standards.  Of course, it’s got enough A-list lineage to justify it getting on the air several times over, with genuine movie star Dwayne Johnson in the lead, and most of the Entourage production team attached, including Mark Wahlberg, this […]