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 […]

  GAME OF THRONES:  Sunday 9PM on HBO With tonight’s Season 7 premiere, the endgame of HBO’s GAME OF THRONES has begun, kicking off the final 13 episodes (which will be divided 7/6 over 2 seasons).  It might be called the “Don’t Screw This Up” run, as series creators David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, now […]

  Odd and inconsistent may have been the watchwords for tonight’s SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE with host Lena Dunham, but even intermittent inspiration was a big improvement after last week’s grimly unfunny outing with Jim Parsons. Dunham has one of the most distinctive voices in current TV comedy, and her SNL gig worked best when it […]

> See A Word About Busted Pilots FAMILY ALBUM was one of the more buzzed-about FOX pilots of this past development season, and although it’s not on the network’s announced schedule, Deadline reports that it’s in contention for midseason and will even shoot a second prototype episode.  So this isn’t so much a postmortem as […]

  Replacing a show’s creator with a new showrunner isn’t the preferred way for a series to proceed, but the change did some good for Season 3 of RAY DONOVAN, although tonight’s season finale didn’t necessarily showcase that fact.  it wouldn’t exactly be accurate to say that David Hollander, taking over for creator Ann Biderman, […]

  COMMUNITY:  Thursday 8PM on NBC In 1984, MGM released the movie 2010, which was a sequel to 1968’s classic 2001:  A Space Odyssey. 2010 had credentials to prove it was no mere rip-off:  it was based, like 2001, on a novel by Arthur C. Clarke, its characters and storylines related back to the original, […]

  GIRLFRIENDS’ GUIDE TO DIVORCE:  Tuesday 10PM on Bravo – If Nothing Else Is On… Bravo has established a very successful brand for itself in the unscripted realm, notably with the Real Housewives franchise and its seemingly innumerable spin-offs, and now with GIRLFRIENDS’ GUIDE TO DIVORCE, the network is attempting to extend that brand to […]

  THE PLAYER:  Thursday 10PM on NBC Previously… on THE PLAYER:  Alex Kane (Philip Winchester), former government agent, soldier and security consultant, was recruited by a shadowy, sociopathic, all-knowing organization based in Las Vegas that places bets on whether crimes can be stopped by a single well-equipped individual with advance notice.  (One of their bets, […]