PREACHER:  Sunday 9PM on AMC – Potential DVR Alert It’s not quite clear what on earth AMC’s new PREACHER is after watching its pilot, but it’s certainly intriguing.  Based on a celebrated comic book series by Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon, and widely considered unadaptable after several cycles of development hell over the years, […]

  COLONY:  Thursday 10PM on USA (pilot available via on-demand and streaming) – If Nothing Else Is On… USA’s new COLONY falls into the category of alien-invasion science fiction, but its pilot has more in common with World War II films like The Last Metro or the recent alt-history chronicle The Man In the High […]

>   See A Word About Busted Pilots We’ve gotten this far without using the word “ghastly” to describe any of the busted pilots from this year’s development season, but that streak is about to end.  HELP WANTED, which was produced by Warner Bros for NBC, is unaccountably bad.  Partly that’s a function of its […]

  WEIRD LONERS:  Tuesday 9:30PM on FOX – If Nothing Else is On… WEIRD LONERS belongs to the sitcom subspecies of quirky singles comedy, which has given us New Girl (the pilot for Weird Loners was directed by Jake Kasdan, who’s also a New Girl director/producer) but also things like A To Z and Marry […]

  ONE BIG HAPPY:  Tuesday 9:30PM on NBC – Change the Channel Have you heard the one about the guy who makes a pact with his lesbian best friend that if they’re not with anyone else when they turn 30, they’ll have a baby together?  Have you heard the one about the guy who meets […]

  9JKL:  Monday 8:30PM on CBS – Change the Channel We usually do actors the favor of evaluating their work on a project separately from the quality of the project itself, willing to take their performances on their own terms.  But Mark Feuerstein doesn’t just star in the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad new […]

  REBEL:  Thursday 10PM on ABC Krista Vernoff is one of network TV’s most prized showrunners.  She’s successfully guided Shonda Rhimes’s Grey’s Anatomy into a remarkable 17th season of success (which will be extended further if the necessary deals are made), and when she took over Station 19, that show became an effective one-two punch […]

  EMILY OWENS, MD: Tuesday 9PM on CW – If Nothing Else Is On… Say this for EMILY OWENS, MD:  it really makes you appreciate Shonda Rhimes.  The seeming ease with which Grey’s Anatomy mixes medical drama, soap opera, humor, sex and romance every week is tempting to take for granted, but really it’s a […]