HANNIBAL:  Thursday 10PM on NBC The languidly brutal art-horror thing HANNIBAL has returned, much to the joy of its acolytes.  The series is, without question, unlike anything to be found on even the most adventurous cable or online platform, which makes its continued existence on the wasteland of present-day NBC truly remarkable.  Nevertheless, its […]

  EXTANT:  Wednesday 10PM on CBS Although EXTANT survived to a second season (due at least in part to its lucrative Amazon streaming deal), no one involved fooled themselves that it was going very well, as critical response was poor and the ratings steadily fell through the summer.  Season 2 has brought, if not a […]

  FEAR THE WALKING DEAD:  Sunday 9PM on AMC – In the Queue The opening episode of FEAR THE WALKING DEAD was audacious as only a sure thing can be.  The new series is, of course, a spin-off of the fantastically successful The Walking Dead–even if it lost two-thirds of its parent show’s ratings, it […]

  LEGENDS OF TOMORROW:  Thursday 8PM on CW – In the Queue Even with a half-season and the resources of two other series to prepare the way, LEGENDS OF TOMORROW finally arrived on CW heavy with exposition.  It was such a premise pilot, in fact, that the show’s ability to stand on its own feet […]

  Effective showrunners learn from their mistakes, and the 4th and, as we now know, penultimate season of BBCAmerica’s ORPHAN BLACK was altogether more satisfying than Season 3.  Creator/showrunners Graeme Manson and John Fawcett had gotten ambitious in all the wrong ways last year, creating a line of male “Castor” clones (all played by Ari […]

  In the best case scenario, this first half of THE WALKING DEAD‘s 7th season has been a necessary evil.  While ponderousness has been built into the show’s DNA more or less from the start, Walking Dead has never before been as oppressive as these 8 episodes.  Part of that is sheer length:  AMC has gone […]

  FEUD:  BETTE AND JOAN:  Sunday 10PM on FX – Potential DVR Alert It’s a testament to Ryan Murphy’s clout that FEUD:  BETTE AND JOAN even exists.  8 hours set in the early 1960s about Bette Davis and Joan Crawford, a pair of Oscar-winning stars in their 50s who were considered has-beens when they made […]

  MANHUNT: UNABOMBER:  Tuesday 10PM on Discovery – In the Queue Discovery’s 8-hour docudrama miniseries MANHUNT: UNABOMBER features its Ted Kaczynski (Paul Bettany) only in the final sequence of its opening 2 hours, a decision that gets the show off to an unfortunately pedestrian start.  As the title indicates, the focus isn’t on the charismatic […]