QUANTICO:  Sunday 10PM on ABC – In the Queue The first hour of ABC’s QUANTICO is a bit of a mess, but it’s one of the most slickly enjoyable of the network fall TV season.  Think of it as Shondaland meets Homeland, although Shonda Rhimes has nothing to do with it.  The series creator […]

  It’s been a heavy week for epochal TV.  On Sunday, Mad Men sold us one last Coke, and tonight marked the end of David Letterman’s reign, one that’s lasted into a fourth decade on the air and has had an almost incalculable influence not just on late-night TV or even TV in general, but […]

  Audiences of TV drama have the luxury these days of being spoiled, and that raises the question:  what separates a great series from one that’s merely very good?  WGN America’s MANHATTAN had an original, intriguing premise and setting, exploring the scientific and personal tensions amid the creation of the world’s first atomic bomb at […]

  CHASING LIFE, which aired its not-quite-half season finale tonight, could better have been titled What Not To Do If You Get Cancer.  That, in itself, isn’t a criticism:  a story about a narcissistic idiot who gets sick and does absolutely everything wrong once she finds out about it is a perfectly valid subject for […]

  THE 100:  Wednesday 9PM on CW THE 100 started as almost defiantly derivative of every post-apocalyptic, dystopian YA fantasy around (plus more than a little Lost, Battlestar Galactica and Lord of the Flies), but it proved to be a surprisingly sturdy piece of storytelling over the course of its season.  Series creator Jason Rothenberg […]

  There was so much going on in tonight’s finale of the sensational fifth season of THE GOOD WIFE, it felt at times like a 2-hour episode that had been forced at gunpoint to strip down to a single hour.  There was barely enough time for Veronica (Stockard Channing), the irresponsibly direct mother of Alicia […]

  THE GOODWIN GAMES:  Monday 8:30PM on FOX – If Nothing Else Is On… Note:  we reviewed the original pilot for this show back in August.  Since then, however, it underwent fairly significant recasting and reshooting, so it seemed fair to give the new version another look. The term “busted pilot” is fairly well known, […]

  There was remarkably little rust on Shonda Rhimes’s GREY’S ANATOMY in its 14th season.  The series, now under the showrunning stewardship of longtime writer/producer Krista Vernoff (Rhimes herself is leaving ABC Studios for Netflix, but will continue to be in uber-charge), smoothly balanced its huge cast of regulars and recurring characters through 24 episodes […]