SEX&DRUGS&ROCK&ROLL:  Thursday 10PM on FX – If Nothing Else Is On… Denis Leary doesn’t have a world of range, and in his new comedy SEX&DRUGS&ROCK&ROLL, the aging never-quite-star he plays called Johnny Rock isn’t very different from Tommy Gavin, the fireman he played on Rescue Me.  (Leary created both shows, on Rescue Me working […]

  COOPER BARRETT’S GUIDE TO SURVIVING LIFE:  Sundays 8:30PM on FOX – Change the Channel The first network TV premiere of 2016 is FOX’s COOPER BARRETT’S GUIDE TO SURVIVING LIFE on Sunday (already available on various on-demand and streaming platforms)… and, well, it’s good that there’s still plenty of year yet to come. Cooper Barrett‘s […]

  UNCLE BUCK:  Tuesday 9PM on ABC – Change the Channel ABC’s UNCLE BUCK is exactly what you’d expect from a network sitcom left on the shelf for the entire regular broadcast season, then unloaded two at a time during the summer.  As ABC sitcoms go, it is to Black-ish what Family Tools briefly was […]

  WILL:  Monday 9PM on TNT – If Nothing Else Is On… TNT’s WILL, a gloss on the early life of William Shakespeare (and an unacknowledged one on the movie Shakespeare In Love), would seem like an extreme oddity if we hadn’t just had ABC’s Romeo & Juliet gloss Still Star-Crossed, which has already been sent […]

  9-1-1:  Wednesday 9PM on FOX – Surprisingly Unsurprising Saying that FOX’s 9-1-1 is the Ryan Murphy team’s version of a Dick Wolf procedural makes it sound far more subversive and original than it actually is.  In fact, for the most part its opening hour is virtually indistinguishable from one of the cogs in Wolf’s wheel […]

>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 TV pilot reviews, but rather as a guide to the general style and content of […]

>   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 […]

> TOUCH:  Mondays 9PM on FOX, starting March 19 – Change the Channel FOX’s new series TOUCH got off to a very good start in the ratings with a “preview” episode last week (having American Idol as a lead-in didn’t hurt), and certainly indications are that it could be a solid hit when it makes […]