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 […]

> On Saturday night, HBO’s GAME CHANGE scored the network’s highest premiere rating for an original TV-movie in 8 years.  (As it always the case with HBO, the movie will be rebroadcast many times, as well as being available on HBO GO and other platforms.)  While there were certainly A list names associated with the […]

> (RATINGS NOTE:  THE TIME-SLOT FOR ABC’S 2D EPISODE OF WORK IT BEGAN WITH A 3-MINUTE LAST MAN STANDING OVERRUN ON THE EAST COAST, WHICH MAY MAKE OVERNIGHT RATINGS LESS ACCURATE THAN USUAL.) A lot can happen between the creation of a TV pilot in the spring and production of episodes for the regular season:  […]

  When SUBURGATORY went on the air last season, it had a clear vision:  as the title suggests, it was a light but acerbic satire about the perils of living a few too many miles from New York City, reflected through the gaze of Tessa (Jane Levy), a bright high-schooler who’d been brought from Manhattan […]

  SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE:  Saturday 11:30PM on NBC Opinions may differ–sharply–on whether Donald Trump is good for the US, but there’s no question that he’s been great for SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE, which returned tonight for its 43rd season, hot off its most popular and acclaimed session in years, and with a bunch of Emmys to […]

  THE GIRLFRIENDS’ GUIDE TO DIVORCE has made its way, at least somewhat, past a very shaky start–not so much in the ratings, which have remained mediocre (although steady enough for Bravo to declare its first scripted 1-hour a win and order another season), but dramatically.  At the start, Girlfriends pandered all too blatantly to […]

  MADAM SECRETARY quietly had one of the most interesting paths of recent broadcast network dramas.  Airing of all places on CBS, it was a frankly political series that began its run in 2014 and ended 5 years later, bridging two entirely different eras of real-life US politics.  The show’s own center-left policies on social […]

  MARRIED:  Thursday 10PM on FX – If Nothing Else Is On… Acrid indie comedy is FX’s brand, with shows like It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia, The League, Legit and (although it transcends such categories) Louie.  The network has introduced a new pair for the summer, the first of which is Andrew Gurland’s MARRIED.  It’s on-brand, […]