THE GOOD PLACE:  Thursday 8:30PM on NBC starting 9/28 The Season 1 finale of NBC’s THE GOOD PLACE was a tough act to follow.  Michael Schur’s series pulled off the plot twist of the season, which turned out on further examination to have been hiding in plain sight all along.  We learned (2016-17 spoiler […]

  Although Starz was a co-financier of THE WHITE QUEEN, the show was produced by the BBC predominantly for a British audience, so it helped to have a working (or at least a Wikipedia) knowledge of 15th-century English history to get the most out of it.  For example, it would have been difficult to appreciate […]

  Season 4 of HAVEN was its most ambitious by far.  Under showrunners Matt McGuinness and Gabrielle Stanton, the series delved into its own mythology more deeply than it ever has before, moving past its initial rote Trouble-of-the-week structure to introduce some important new characters while radically shifting others.  All was not revealed, of course, […]

  SCANDAL:  Thursday 10PM on ABC WHERE WE WERE:  Washington DC, where Olivia Pope (Kerry Washington) is the best fixer around.  Not a lawyer (although she has a law degree), not a publicist (although she’s expert at manipulating the press), and not a lobbyist (although she’s been known to influence public policy), she’s the one […]

  The 2nd season of HELL ON WHEELS was different, and perhaps somewhat better, than its first.  (Behind the scenes, experienced producer John Shiban was brought on to showrun with series creators Joe and Tony Gayton.)  If the show manages to come back for a 3rd season, it appears that incarnation will be yet another […]

  GRIMM:  Fridays 9PM on NBC NBC took a risk in placing GRIMM, one of its few successful shows, onto its microscopic bench for months of midseason hiatus, but at least it broke off with a solid cliffhanger.  Without overdoing the backstory:  our hero, homicide detective and erstwhile monster-hunter (aka “Grimm”) Nick Burkhardt (David Giuntoli) […]

  WATCHMEN:  Sunday 9PM on HBO The Damon Lindelof/HBO WATCHMEN provides a new wrinkle to the world of IP exploitation.  It’s not an adaptation of the classic Alan Moore/Dave Gibbons graphic novel (a la Zack Snyder’s all-too-reverent 2009 film) or even a reboot, but a newly conceived work that’s more like a spin-off or a […]

> Previously… On HOUSE OF LIES:  Marty Kaan (Don Cheadle) and his “pod” of associate management consultants (Kristen Bell, Ben Schwartz, Josh Lawson) travel the country, putting out fires for their high-powered clients while enjoying their lack of principles.   Episode 2:  The second episode, written by series creator Matthew Carnahan, suggests that House of Lies […]