Coming off its acclaimed, Emmy-winning production of Grease, FOX had the holiday live TV musical market cornered this year, NBC having opted out of its planned Bye Bye Birdie in favor of a Spring 2018 Jesus Christ Superstar.  FOX zigged a bit from past practices, choosing the recent (and short-lived) Broadway musical adaptation of […]

  VAN HELSING:  Friday 10PM on Syfy – Change the Channel The playwright and filmmaker Neil LaBute has dabbled in genre before, although he may prefer not to be reminded of his disastrous remake of The Wicker Man.  Still, it’s odd to see him as the creator of Syfy’s postapocalyptic vampire saga VAN HELSING.  It […]

  In its second season, Noah Hawley’s FX series LEGION largely became a delivery system for set-pieces.  Some of these sequences, to be sure, were dazzling:  Hawley has become a whiz with aspect ratios, split screens, stylized sets, skewed camera angles, eccentric music choices, and all manner of visual and aural devices–at one point, he […]

  FEED THE BEAST:  Tuesday 10PM on AMC – Change the Channel There’s not much on the menu of AMC’s new FEED THE BEAST, which previewed tonight in advance of its regular timeslot debut on Tuesday.  The show is based on a Danish format, and perhaps that version had more meat on its bones, but […]

  INSECURE:  Sunday 10:30PM on HBO – In the Quene HBO introduces a promising new voice to TV comedy with Issa Rae’s INSECURE, which she created with Larry Wilmore (who left after pilot to concentrate on The Nightly Show).  Rae’s vision is strongly R-rated (a key word from the Donald Trump tape gets a full […]

  HAPPY! – Wednesday 10PM on Syfy – In the Queue HAPPY! counts as one of Syfy’s infrequent big swings, although its ultra-violent grunge aesthetic gives it a look and feel that isn’t all that different from the network’s usual diet of micro-budgeted co-productions.  This one, though, has a name star in Christopher Meloni, and […]

  ANIMAL KINGDOM:  Tuesday 9PM on TNT – In the Queue The opening hour of TNT’s new ANIMAL KINGDOM is daringly light on plot.  Although TNT’s meat and potatoes programming is still mainstream entertainment like The Last Ship and Rizzoli & Isles, it’s been trying to cultivate a darker, more adult image lately, albeit not […]

  THE INBETWEEN:  Wednesday 10PM on NBC The flow of broadcast summer product continues with NBC’s workmanlike paranormal procedural THE INBETWEEN.  The show was created by Moira Kirland, previously a writer/producer on Medium, Hawaii 5-0 and Madam Secretary, among other shows.  It’s the first of those that counts here, as The InBetween is very much […]