The past two seasons of FALLING SKIES have been something of a wreck, all the way through to tonight’s flat finale, and with its ratings echoing the show’s title, it’s hard to regard the show’s departure with much beyond relief.  Under showrunner David Eick, Season 4 featured a spectacularly wrongheaded series of plotlines that […]

  In real life, serial killers are not infrequently foiled by mistakes as mundane as unpaid traffic tickets, and while Hannibal Lecter may be eternal, the NBC television series version of Hannibal–despite an inexpensive license fee and critical adoration–was finally brought down by low ratings, the show’s online streaming deal, and series creator Bryan Fuller’s […]

  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 […]

  One of the reasons “locked room” mysteries appeal to producers is that they require limited production values, and for what amounted to half its initial season, DARK MATTER tried to make up for its inadequate budget by being a locked spaceship mystery, with chunks of its content taking place on the dimly-lit, far from detailed sets […]

  THE CARMICHAEL SHOW:  Wednesday 9PM on NBC – If Nothing Else Is On… THE CARMICHAEL SHOW is the latest sitcom to be aired by NBC with a stealth run that suggests one of the network’s programming executives looked at another recently and asked “Do you even remember why we ordered this thing?” and got […]

  PUBLIC MORALS:  Tuesday 10PM on TNT – Change the Channel Unless its pilot turns out to be misleading, PUBLIC MORALS looks to be fairly woeful stuff.  The show’s auteur–its star as well as the series creator, writer and director–is Edward Burns, who’s become the forgotten man of American indie film.  Burns’ The Brothers McMullen […]

  In its second season, Stephen Bochco and Eric Lodal’s MURDER IN THE FIRST altered its format, only to find new ways to fail.  Season 1 had told a single convoluted story, a murder mystery loaded with so many red herrings and reversals that by the time it ended, it was impossible to care who […]

  The ratings for BALLERS have more than justified its renewal by HBO, but the pieces of the series have yet to fit together.  Most of the show’s creative team hails from Entourage, and Ballers embraces the same bimbos-and-bling lifestyle porn and breezy pace, but having Dwayne Johnson as its central attraction has proved to […]