THOSE WHO KILL: Monday 10PM on A&E – Worth A Look It has the accoutrements of a basic cable crime drama–the heroes are seriously screwed-up, and occasionally say “shit”–but THOSE WHO KILL is a surprisingly conventional procedural in its initial hour, especially given its adjacency on the A&E schedule to the more perverse 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 rear […]
After an absence of more than 7 years, in many ways the early episodes of the new, Netflix-produced 4th season of ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT feel like the show never left. (In fact, it would be unwise to tackle Season 4 without at least a working knowledge of what preceded it.) The familiar stylistic quirks are […]
The opening 15 minutes of the 38th season premiere of SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE (fun fact: Barack Obama was 14 years old when the show first went on the air) set a blazing pace that the rest of the show, alas, couldn’t sustain. This is a season of transitions for the series–Kristen Wiig and Andy […]
Having blown up the initial premise of their show in its Season 1 finale, ONCE UPON A TIME creators Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz have inventively plotted a Season 2 that came to a satisfying Act 1 culmination in the show’s Fall Finale episode, which they wrote and which was directed by Ralph Hemecker. […]
THE FOLLOWING: Midseason MONDAY 9PM on FOX WHAT IT’S SAYING: Jack Bauer meets Hannibal Lecter. Only this time, Lecter has a cult of imitator serial killers. WHAT IT’S REALLY SAYING: Not for the kiddies. It may look more like a movie than a continuing series, but it certainly gets its point across. Kevin […]
SURVIVOR’S REMORSE: Saturday 9PM on Starz Previously… on SURVIVOR’S REMORSE: When basketball phenom Cam Calloway (Jessie T. Usher) signs his first giant free agency contract and moves to Atlanta, he takes his family entourage with him: cousin Reggie (RonReaco Lee), sister M-Chuck (Erica Ash), mother Cassie (Tichina Arnold), and uncle Julius (Mike Epps), along […]
MAN WITH A PLAN: Monday 8:30PM on CBS – Change the Channel As the traditions of television splinter around them, the broadcast networks have fled en masse to TV comfort food this fall–but for CBS, that’s no more than the status quo. Aside from its Robert & Michelle King shows, the network hasn’t moved […]