COUGAR TOWN survived its trip from ABC to the wilds of cable, as well as the day-to-day departure of series co-creator and original showrunner Bill Lawrence, with its charms mostly intact, even if the show is starting to feel a bit predictable around the edges.  While not a breakout performer for TBS (it didn’t […]

  MISTRESSES:  Monday 10PM on ABC There isn’t much mistressing going on in MISTRESSES at the dawn of the unapologetically frothy summer soap’s 4th season.  Having weathered the loss of marquee star Alyssa Milano’s Savi last year, the remaining lead characters Joss (Jes Macallan), Karen (Yunjin Kim) and April (Rochelle Aytes) are barely being transgressive […]

  Television is a little less berserk and interesting tonight with the departure (although not the death) of Kenny Powers (Danny McBride), the unstoppable id of EASTBOUND & DOWN.  The series finale, written by series co-creators McBride and Jody Hill (who also directed) and Consulting Producer John Carcieri,  cleverly managed to have its cake and […]

  BLACK BOX:  Thursday 10PM on ABC – Change the Channel In ABC’s (partial) defense, BLACK BOX wasn’t intended to run during the regular broadcast season.  It was meant to be seen in summer, when standards are lower, but the network was caught flat-footed when Kerry Washington’s pregnancy caused Scandal to cut its season by […]

  RECOVERY ROAD:  Monday 9PM on Freeform (Episodes 1-3 available via VOD/streaming) – If Nothing Else Is On… If the idea of rebranding ABCFamily as Freeform was to escape the network’s flavor of earnest YA soap, the new RECOVERY ROAD didn’t get the memo.  It’s ABCF down to its toes, a super-sized Afterschool Special built […]

  TYRANT:  Tuesday 10PM on FX – If Nothing Else Is On… For better or worse, it may be particularly unfair to judge FX’s new TYRANT on the basis of its pilot alone.  There’s been an unusual amount of behind-the-scenes dissension on the show that’s gone public, and one of the upshots is that although […]

Game WISDOM OF THE CROWD:  Sunday 8PM on CBS – Change the Channel CBS’s WISDOM OF THE CROWD is for the people who thought the problem with FOX’s canceled APB was that it didn’t star Jeremy Piven.  Once again we have a high-tech billionaire who decides to privatize crimefighting after someone close to him is […]

  Very little about STITCHERS has made sense, and that includes ABCFamily’s decision to renew it for another season, despite ratings that have been lousy even with Pretty Little Liars as its lead-in.  The word is that the network desperately wants to be in the procedural business, and Stitchers is the only show it’s got […]