COMMUNITY:  Thursday 8PM on NBC In 1984, MGM released the movie 2010, which was a sequel to 1968’s classic 2001:  A Space Odyssey. 2010 had credentials to prove it was no mere rip-off:  it was based, like 2001, on a novel by Arthur C. Clarke, its characters and storylines related back to the original, […]

  Greg Garcia has made a successful niche for himself on network television as poet of the lower-middle-class, small-town, gently surrealist sitcom, first with My Name Is Earl and now with RAISING HOPE.  The only problem with Garcia’s type of show is that the constant requirement for more inventively conceptual, eccentric storylines can lead to […]

  THE BIG C: HEREAFTER – Monday 10PM on Showtime THE BIG C has spent a lot of time trying not to be the show it was supposed to be.  TV shows, much like people, tend to want to go on for as long as possible, so although Darlene Hunt’s dramedy began with Cathy Jamison […]

  As of this week, there’s just one CSI left standing on CBS, and after 13 years, it’s the original recipe.  Having survived the bump in its creative road a couple of seasons ago when the misguided hire of Laurence Fishburne was repaired with the arrivals of Ted Danson and Elisabeth Shue, the show has […]

  Every so often, a show comes along that makes you want to run up to random people in the street and yell “Why aren’t you watching this?”  right in their uncomprehending faces.  ORPHAN BLACK probably wasn’t–OK, wasn’t–the season’s best new show; The Americans, for one, was more layered and expertly crafted.  But Orphan, airing in […]

  COPPER:  Sunday 10PM on BBCAmerica A tale of two low-rated series:  BBCAmerica’s two original scripted dramas COPPER and Orphan Black had comparable ratings in their first seasons.  Copper garnered a higher number of older fans (600K total viewers even after its initially higher-rated first few episodes, compared to just 3-400K for Orphan Black–which in […]

  Every fan of HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER came into tonight’s Season 9 premiere knowing three things.  This will be not just the ninth, but the final season of the series; last season’s finale introduced us, at long last, to the still-unnamed Mother (new regular Cristin Milioti); and the entire season will take place […]

  LUCKY 7:  Tuesday 10PM on ABC Previously… on LUCKY 7:  In a Queens, NY auto shop, (almost) all the employees have just hit a $45M lottery jackpot.  However, that hasn’t made their problems go away.  Brothers Matt (Matt Long) and Nicky (Stephen Louis Grush), both in need of money before their win was announced […]