AGENTS OF SHIELD:  Tuesday 9PM on ABC It took most of its first season for AGENTS OF SHIELD to start becoming the show the synergy experts at Disney, Marvel and ABC desperately wanted it to be, and by then it had squandered most of the gaudy ratings that had greeted it last fall.  Only when the plotline of Captain America: […]

  ABBY’S:  Thursday 9:30PM on NBC Unless the general public cares about a multi-camera sitcom being shot outdoors, NBC’s new ABBY’S may face a tough road.  Aside from that technological distinction (handled with seeming effortlessness by director Pamela Fryman), Abby’s feels like the kind of sitcom that might have tried to coast off the vibe […]

  CRAZY EX-GIRLFRIEND:  Monday 8PM on CW – In the Queue With a Netflix-driven need to keep its line-up as stable as possible (returning shows are automatically included in the network’s lucrative streaming deal), CW only took one swing this fall with a new series, but it’s a fairly big one.  CRAZY EX-GIRLFRIEND is a […]

  SURVIVING JACK:  Thursday 9:30PM on FOX – Change the Channel SURVIVING JACK is a Mortifying Parent Sitcom, which isn’t much of a surprise, since it originated with Justin Halpern, who wrote the book that became the short-lived sitcom S#!* My Dad Says and also wrote the book I Suck At Girls, which inspired this […]

  VICE PRINCIPALS:  Sunday 10:30PM on HBO – In the Queue Your feelings about HBO’s new VICE PRINCIPALS are likely to be determined by your instinctive reaction to the name Danny McBride.  For a decade now, since the indie movie The Foot-Fist Way, McBride and his writing/producing/directing partner Jody Hill have been turning out variations […]

> ROB – Thursdays 8:30PM on CBS – Change the Channel We live in a Dickensian era of situation comedies, the best and worst combined on every network.  ABC is the home of both Modern Family and Work It; NBC contains Parks & Recreation and Whitney; FOX has New Girl and I Hate My Teenage […]

  9-1-1:  Wednesday 9PM on FOX – Surprisingly Unsurprising Saying that FOX’s 9-1-1 is the Ryan Murphy team’s version of a Dick Wolf procedural makes it sound far more subversive and original than it actually is.  In fact, for the most part its opening hour is virtually indistinguishable from one of the cogs in Wolf’s wheel […]

  50 Shades of Grey has only been playing in theatres for 2 weeks, but it’s plunged so quickly from its opening weekend that Dakota Johnson already seems a bit like the answer to a pop culture trivia question.  Nevertheless, the star of the presumed franchise (produced by Universal, which also owns NBC, which also […]