It helps, when watching CW’s BEAUTY & THE BEAST, not to think too much about “Beauty and the Beast”.  Not the 1987 TV show, and certainly not the movies and other adaptations of the story.  Jay Ryan’s Vincent Keller just isn’t much of a Beast–he’s not even much of an Incredible Hulk, and he’s […]

  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 […]

>See A Word About Busted Pilots On paper, EXIT STRATEGY looked like one of the hot FOX pilots this past season, a high-profile (Ethan Hawke’s first TV project) espionage thriller in the vein of 24 that could inherit that show’s Monday night slot and its House lead-in.  It didn’t happen:  the network chose Terra Nova […]

WAYWARD PINES:  Thursday 9PM on FOX Previously… on WAYWARD PINES:  Secret Service agent Ethan Burke (Matt Dillon), on a mission to find colleague (and former mistress) Kate Hewson, who’s been missing for several weeks, awakens after a car crash to find himself in Wayward Pines, Idaho, a small town that’s heavy on the creepy.  Menacing […]

  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 […]

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 […]

  This season, HAVEN delved deeply into its own mythology, with mixed results.  Haven‘s own situation is unclear, existentially speaking:  it received a super-sized 26-episode order from Syfy earlier this year, with 13 episodes to air in 2014 and the rest at some as-yet undetermined date next year that could end up being in the […]

  BURN NOTICE:  Thursday 9PM on USA USA Network is beginning to clean its programming house, with tonight marking the beginning of the 7th and final season of BURN NOTICE (the exit of veteran Psych is expected not to be far behind), and the arrival of the new Graceland.  Burn Notice has been a stalwart […]