FAMOUS IN LOVE:  Tuesday 9PM on Freeform (full season also available via online/VOD) – Change the Channel On the basis of its opening hour, Freeform’s new FAMOUS IN LOVE is pretty woeful stuff.  It’s the latest version of America’s contribution to the fairy tale template, the one that tells of the gleam and oh-so-naughty […]

  SUCCESSION:  Sunday 10PM on HBO HBO’s new drama SUCCESSION may be too much of its moment for comfort.  The series, created by Jesse Armstrong (previously a writer/producer on Armando Ianucci’s Veep, The Thick Of It and In the Loop), shares the fascination of its Sunday-mate Billions with the hideously scheming ultra-rich of Manhattan.  Unlike […]

  ABBY’S:  Thursday 9:30PM on NBC Unless the general public cares about a multi-camera sitcom being shot outdoors, NBC’s new ABBY’S may face a tough road.  Aside from that technological distinction (handled with seeming effortlessness by director Pamela Fryman), Abby’s feels like the kind of sitcom that might have tried to coast off the vibe […]

  WELCOME TO THE FAMILY:  Thursday 8:30PM on NBC – Change the Channel NBC continues is retro approach to fall comedy with WELCOME TO THE FAMILY. Even more than Sean Saves the World and The Michael J. Fox Show, Family seems intended for viewers just an AARP mailing away from TVLand, for whom the very idea […]

>The FOX pilot LOCKE & KEY is a very effective hour of creepiness, but it’s not that hard to understand why the network didn’t put the project on its schedule.  The show screams “cult hit” at best, and the pilot feels more like a shortened feature film than the viable prototype for a continuing weekly […]

> Disclaimer:  Network pilots now in circulation are not necessarily in the form that will air in the Fall.  Pilots are often reedited and rescored, and in some cases even recast or reshot.  So these critiques shouldn’t be taken as full reviews, but rather as a guide to the general style and content of the […]

>Premiering tonight after Modern Family on ABC (at 9:30/ 8:30 Central) is Don’t Trust the B- in Apt. 23 (formerly titled Don’t Trust the Bitch in Apt. 23 or simply Apt. 23 during the upfront season last year, when this review from Mitch Salem was originally posted.   Disclaimer:  Network pilots now in circulation are […]

  KING & MAXWELL:  Monday 10PM on TNT – Change the Channel Jon Tenney and Rebecca Romijn are an attractive, appealing pair of series leads, but they’re not enough to make the markedly sub-par new procedural KING & MAXWELL worth watching.  Even by TNT’s usually unadventurous summer standards, this is a show that never should […]