NBC was so eager to get UNDATEABLE off its schedule that the network unceremoniously threw 4 episodes onto tonight’s line-up, 1 rerun and 3 new half-hours culminating in the season finale.  That treatment was a bit unfair, because although Adam Sztykiel’s series is easy to damn with faint praise, it managed the summer show […]

  MOM:  Monday 9:30PM on CBS Previously… on MOM:  Christy (Anna Faris) is a recovering alcoholic single mom who has to cope with her own no-boundaries recovering addict single mother Bonnie (Allison Janney), as well as teen daughter Violet (Sadie Calvano) and son Roscoe (Blake Garrett Rosenthal).  Christy is just barely holding it together, and […]

  A return to COMMON LAW for its season finale didn’t show any appreciable improvement from its unimpressive early episodes.  Standards at USA Network aren’t exactly at the level of Sunday night on HBO, but Common Law is below par even for USA, a mix of very routine cop show with shticky comedy that’s only […]

  Showtime’s BILLIONS has cultivated one of the most recognizable signatures on television, from its rudely epigrammatic dialogue, to its love/hate relationship with its ruthless, narcissistic characters, to its very narrative devices.  Tonight’s Season 4 finale, written by series co-creators David Levien and Brian Koppelman and directed by experienced Billions hand Colin Bucksey, was precisely […]

  It was inevitable that with Andy Samberg returning to SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE as host, tonight’s season finale would have the feel of an SNL class reunion.  The cameo guests were indeed plentiful:  Bill Hader, Kristen Wiig, Fred Armisen, Seth Meyers, Martin Short, and Maya Rudolph all showed up, and that’s not even to mention […]

  In its second season, Courtney Kemp Agboh’s POWER solidified its position as Starz’s biggest original hit, and it was a considerably better drama, too.  Partly that was because of Season 1’s weird structure, which played as 8 hours of prologue because the show’s two protagonists, drug trafficker Jamie “Ghost” St. Patrick (Omari Hardwick) and […]

  TELENOVELA:  Monday 8:30PM on NBC starting January 4 – If Nothing Else Is On… Simply put, TELENOVELA is what Jane the Virgin would be if Jane’s vain, airheaded but good-hearted actor father Rogelio were the main character–actually, if every character were more or less Rogelio.  The show, which NBC previewed tonight to give it […]

  The unquestionable highlight of tonight’s SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE was brief but heartfelt:  the tail-end of Weekend Update, as Amy Poehler, Andy Samberg, Fred Armisen (wordlessly, as wandering sight-impaired former NY Governor David Paterson) and, inevitably, Bill Hader’s Stefon, all trooped in to bid farewell to co-anchor Seth Meyers on his way to take over […]