Whether it was appropriate in the first place (other than for ratings, obviously) for SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE to turn over 90 minutes of its hugely valuable, non-news airtime to Donald Trump, who already gets more media attention than any other candidate, is debatable.  But SNL certainly didn’t bolster its brand by failing to challenge Trump in […]

> See A Word About Busted Pilots  The double meaning of “little” in the title of Fox’s busted sitcom pilot LITTLE IN COMMON is that the 3 couples at its center are brought together only because their respective kids all play on the same little league team.  That’s about it for cleverness, though, in this […]

  Visually, this season of BREAKING BAD has been typified by shots of Walter White’s looming, shaven, gleaming skull.  A bald pate may not have received this much loving camera attention since Brando’s in Apocalypse Now, and in tonight’s season finale, it was featured again, most notably in the great shot as Heisenberg fastened his […]

  RED BAND SOCIETY:  Wednesday 9PM on FOX Previously… on RED BAND SOCIETY:  In a Los Angeles hospital, a half-dozen adolescents struggle with their health and with the general problems of being teenagers.  Kara (Zoe Levin) is a mean girl cheerleader who needs a heart transplant; Emma (Ciara Bravo) a studious, compassionate anorexic; Jordi (Nolan […]

After 3 seasons of telling more or less the same story, Season 4 of Showtime’s NURSE JACKIE took a leap that revitalized the show.  Jackie Peyton (Edie Falco), having successfully concealed her drug addiction, her adulteries, and her many, many lies from her husband (Dominic Fumusa), and her friends and colleagues, was finally caught.  Her […]

> Michael Scott is really gone.  Technically, that’s been true since a few episodes before the end of THE OFFICE‘s last season, but with tonight’s season premiere, Office 2.0, the most well-publicized reboot of the new season, began to tell us what it’s going to be.   Which is, for now at least, a somewhat jarring […]

  SUITS didn’t have a winter season this year so much as it had the stub of its fall season, just 6 episodes that seemed to be what was left over from the real season after an overlong holiday break.  That scheduling glitch may have contributed to the general feeling of letdown that accompanied the […]

  THE GOLDBERGS:  Tuesday 9PM on ABC Previously… on THE GOLDBERGS:  It’s the era of Muppet Show lunchboxes and acid-washed jeans, and the Goldberg family spends its time driving each other crazy:  grumpy dad Murray (Jeff Garlin), smothering mom Beverly (Windi McLendon-Covey), cool grandpa Pops (George Segal), teen son Barry (Troy Gentile), daughter Erica (Hayley […]