FRIENDS WITH BETTER LIVES – Monday 8:30PM on CBS (Preview Tonight at 9PM) – If Nothing Else Is On… FRIENDS WITH BETTER LIVES is a CBS comedy of the post-2 Broke Girls era, which is to say that while a thoroughly conventional multi-camera sitcom in many ways (it’s even directed by the dean of […]

  UNDATEABLE:  Thursday 9PM on NBC – Change the Channel UNDATEABLE, whose episodes NBC is burning off two at a time on summer Thursday nights, may not be quite bad enough to earn the obvious “unwatchable” or “unbearable” labels its title seems to demand–not at the tail end of a season in which NBC gave […]

  RED BAND SOCIETY:  Wednesday 9PM on FOX – If Nothing Else Is On… PLAYERS:  The Fault In Our Stars, which opened studio and network eyes to the commercial appeal of seriously ill teenagers.  Amblin Television, the small-screen wing of Steven Spielberg’s production empire.  The Spanish series that originated this project’s concept.  US series creator Margaret […]

  BETTER CALL SAUL:  Monday 10PM on AMC – Potential DVR Alert Spin-offs used to be an regular part of the TV landscape, even for the most celebrated shows–Norman Lear created a virtual tree of comedies originating with All In the Family, from Maude and The Jeffersons to Archie Bunker’s Place and Good Times, and […]

  SECOND CHANCE:  Wednesdays 9PM on FOX (pilot also available via VOD/streaming) – If Nothing Else Is On… There’s not much spark to FOX’s SECOND CHANCE, a spin on Frankenstein (at one point it was even titled The Frankenstein Code), restyled as a contemporary sci-fi-tinged procedural.  The show’s creator Rand Ravich was behind the intriguing […]

  ANIMAL KINGDOM:  Tuesday 9PM on TNT – In the Queue The opening hour of TNT’s new ANIMAL KINGDOM is daringly light on plot.  Although TNT’s meat and potatoes programming is still mainstream entertainment like The Last Ship and Rizzoli & Isles, it’s been trying to cultivate a darker, more adult image lately, albeit not […]

  THE MICK:  Tuesday 8:30PM on FOX – Change the Channel FOX has ushered in network TV 2017 with a show that feels less than fresh:  THE MICK, a sitcom that’s basically a not-quite-cable retread of Uncle Buck. The irresponsible relative is an aunt this time, and Mackenzie (Kaitlin Olson) is meant to be edgier, […]

  SALVATION:  Wednesday 10PM on CBS CBS’s summer series SALVATION presents a potential end of the world so pedestrian that viewers might fall asleep while awaiting the apocalypse.  It’s a disappointment, because at their best (BrainDead, the first season of Under the Dome), CBS’s forays into the sci-fi potboiler genre can be entertainingly over the […]