HUMANS:  Sunday 9PM on AMC – If Nothing Else Is On… The sentient robot story gets another workout in HUMANS, AMC’s first import series.  It’s set in a barely futuristic England where “synths” have taken over an increasing number of menial and routine jobs.  They’re housekeepers, nannies, companions to the elderly–and prostitutes–and they’ve been […]

  THE 100:  Wednesday 9PM on CW – Worth A Look THE 100 has promise, although it needs some work.  Based on a series of YA novels by Kass Morgan, the premise borrows liberally from Lord of the Flies, Lost, Battlestar Galactica, The Hunger Games, and any number of post-apocalyptic dystopian tales.  In the future, […]

  FARGO:  Tuesday 10PM on FX – DVR Alert Previously… on FARGO:  It’s chance that puts mild-mannered, beaten-down Bemidji, Minnesota insurance salesman Lester Nygaard (Martin Freeman) beside sociopath Lorne Malvo (Billy Bob Thornton) shortly after Lester had a run-in with the bully who made his high school years a living hell.  But when asked directly […]

  LETHAL WEAPON:  Wednesday 8PM on FOX – Change the Channel By the time the LETHAL WEAPON movie franchise reached its 4th installment, it was virtually a TV series anyway, so there’s no reason for moral outrage that it’s now been turned into one.  But FOX’s small-screen reboot fails in the most obvious way:  it […]

  HEROES REBORN:  Thursday 8PM on NBC, starting September 24   This year, for the first time, the Toronto Film Festival has included a slate of television productions from around the world in its line-up, formalizing the degree to which the status of TV has changed in the last few years.  That’s completely logical.  What […]

  COMPLICATIONS:  Thursday 9PM on USA – Change the Channel USA Network has been hammering away at its own image for some time now, trying to find a show that will brand it as cooler and edgier than the home of Monk and Psych.  Suits has given the network a 2d generation hit, and a […]

> 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 […]

  THE ROOKIE:  Tuesday 10PM on ABC THE ROOKIE is mostly a standard-issue police procedural, not surprisingly most reminiscent of ABC’s long-running summer series Rookie Blue, but with one big difference:  it’s unmistakably a star vehicle for Nathan Fillion.  He’s one of those actors who seems to have spent his entire adult life starring in […]