Jimmy Kimmel’s set got a bit of an upgrade, but other than that there was little visible evidence that the 11:35PM version of JIMMY KIMMEL LIVE will be very different from its midnight incarnation.  Kimmel has never been Mr. High-Concept–he leaves that for Letterman and Conan–and as Jay Leno, still the winner in both […]

  The second half of BUNHEADS‘s first (and potentially only) season seemed designed to drive even fans of Amy Sherman-Palladino a little crazy.  The auteur delights in having her characters dance on the head of conversational pins, and if her non-stop dialogue is to be more than mere verbal choreography, it’s critical that the scenes […]

  ROGUE:  Wednesday 9PM on Audience Network (DirecTV only) – Change the Channel Remember when the phrase “cable drama” only implied a cheaper, racier version of a network cop show?  Subscribers to DirecTV can relive those years with ROGUE, its newest original programming and a series that gives Red Widow a run for its money […]

  MOTIVE:  Thursday 9PM on ABC – Change the Channel It’s a paradoxical truth that when TV’s “summer” begins, cable networks get adventurous and creative, and the US broadcast networks get generic.  (And Canadian.)  There may be some bright spots this season–certainly CBS’s Stephen King miniseries Under the Dome sounds like it could break the […]

  DEVIOUS MAIDS:  Sunday 10PM on Lifetime Previously… on DEVIOUS MAIDS:  A quintet of maids toil for the vapid, selfish, and sometimes downright evil well-to-do of Beverly Hills.  Carmen (Roselyn Sanchez) hopes contact with her music-star boss will jump-start her own singing career.  Zoila (Judy Reyes) is trying to keep her daughter Valentina (Edy Ganem) […]

  LOW WINTER SUN:  Sunday 10PM on AMC – Potential DVR Alert It’s been more than a decade since The Shield introduced US television to not just corrupt, but murderous cops as protagonists, and–well, it feels like about 15 minutes since the last bleak serialized mystery (actually it was a few days ago, with the US premiere of Broadchurch), […]

  BREAKING BAD:  Sunday 9PM on AMC This is actually the back half of Breaking Bad‘s last season (AMC separated the 16 episodes into two parts for scheduling and budgetary reasons–namely, that actors, writers and other Guild members are entitled to automatic bumps in pay if and when a “new season” begins).  That may help […]

  ROOKIE BLUE did a solid job of wrapping up its fourth season and setting up cliffhangers for Season 5 (already ordered) with last night’s episode.  Although the Grey’s Anatomy-with-guns police soap has never had the level of success as its medical forebear, it’s been a steady summer performer for ABC, and this season successfully saw it […]