DOMINION:  Thursday 10PM on Syfy This summer, long-suffering USA and Lifetime finally succeeded in airing image-changing original series with Mr. Robot and UnReal.  Syfy, though, still dwells in the desert where most of its low-rent programming seems to be shot, watching other networks notch hits even in its own home genre.  If Defiance is […]

  The third season of DEFIANCE may have been its most assured and cohesive to date.  However, as the most expensive of Syfy’s low-rated trio of Friday scripted summer shows, its fate has been far from certain.  In fact, tonight’s season finale, written by series co-creator Kevin Murphy and directed by Michael Nankin, felt overwhelmingly […]

  SECOND CHANCE:  Wednesdays 9PM on FOX (pilot also available via VOD/streaming) – If Nothing Else Is On… There’s not much spark to FOX’s SECOND CHANCE, a spin on Frankenstein (at one point it was even titled The Frankenstein Code), restyled as a contemporary sci-fi-tinged procedural.  The show’s creator Rand Ravich was behind the intriguing […]

  THE CATCH:  Thursday 10PM on ABC – If Nothing Else Is On… Not much remains of the original pilot for ABC and ShondaLand’s THE CATCH, beyond its basic premise and some of the cast.  Original series creator Jennifer Schuur has been discarded in favor of showrunner Alan Heinberg, a ShondaLand veteran (Schuur retains a script credit […]

  FALLING WATER:  Thurs 10PM on USA – If Nothing Else Is On… The pilot for USA’s FALLING WATER is flashy, but it doesn’t have much on its mind.  The project has had an extended period of development:  it was originally created by Henry Bromell, whose credits included I’ll Fly Away, Homicide and Homeland, and when Bromell died in 2013, […]

  The first season of CW’s musical-comedy CRAZY EX-GIRLFRIEND was by far the most daring and distinctive show on broadcast television, but a nagging question remained:  what could it do for an encore?  It wasn’t clear how long the story could follow Rebecca Bunch (series co-creator Rachel Bloom) in her stalking of one-time summer camp […]

  VEEP keeps setting new challenges for itself, and surpassing them.  Last season, it underwent a change at the top when series creator Armando Iannucci decided to move on, and new showrunner David Mandel kept the trains running as hilariously as ever.  This year, it imploded its own paradigm, exploring what its political satire would […]

  ME, MYSELF & I:  Monday 9:30PM on CBS – In the Queue CBS’s ME, MYSELF & I is a gimmick sitcom, which CBS seems to regard as necessary for single camera comedies (see Life In Pieces, or don’t).  The high-concept here is more or less This Is Us with one-liners  As in the NBC […]