> GIRLS – Sundays 10:30PM on HBO – Potential DVR Alert The lion’s share of attention paid to HBO goes to its splashy, big-budget, big-name projects like Game of Thrones, Boardwalk Empire, Luck and True Blood.  But at the same time, the network has consistently produced smaller, idiosyncratic shows that are more akin to independent […]

  VEGAS:  Tuesday 10PM on CBS – Potential DVR Alert VEGAS is CBS’s version of swinging for the fences, which is to say that it can also be seen as a neon-lit, gold-edged version of Longmire.  This time the widowed western lawman is Ralph Lamb, a real (although probably quite fictionalized) rancher who became a […]

  Read All Our Fall Pilot Reports here and Midseason Pilot Reports here. BACK IN THE GAME:  Wednesday 8:30PM on ABC  – Worth A Look Unlike most of its characters, BACK IN THE GAME keeps its pitches pretty much in the strike zone, which in this case is a combination of The Bad News Bears […]

  SILICON VALLEY:  Sunday 10PM on HBO – DVR Alert There’s no algorithm (yet) to predict compatibility between TV series, so we don’t know yet how SILICON VALLEY will fare in the ratings, or for that matter how its quality will hold up over time, but based on its pilot, it seems to be as […]

  A TO Z:  Thursday 9:30PM on NBC starting October 2 – If Nothing Else is On… PLAYERS:  Series creator Ben Queen (he wrote the script for Cars 2).  Non-writing producers Rashida Jones and Will McCormick.  Stars Cristin Milioti and Ben Feldman.  Supporting performers Henry Zebrowski, Lenora Crichlow and the voice of Katey Sagal.  Pilot director […]

  DIVORCE:  Sunday 10PM on HBO – In the Queue In its opening half-hour, HBO’s DIVORCE doesn’t show much interest in the “-medy” part of “dramedy.”  The series creator is Sharon Horgan, who with Rob Delaney is also the co-creator and co-star of Amazon’s wonderful Catastrophe.  Part of what makes that show so extraordinary is […]

  KEVIN (PROBABLY) SAVES THE WORLD:  Tuesday 10PM on ABC – In the Queue ABC’s KEVIN (PROBABLY) SAVES THE WORLD is the closest any broadcast network has to a Big Swing this fall, and as such, it deserves some respect.  But wow, is it a mess.  The only reason the fantasy-inspirational dramedy holds together even […]

  FOSSE/VERDON:  Tuesday 10PM on FX A pair of shadows loom over FX’s limited series FOSSE/VERDON.  One is the ultra-meta fact that its story has to some extent been told by Bob Fosse himself, in his barely fictionalized 1979 masterpiece All That Jazz, all about a chain-smoking, pill-popping, self-destructive womanizer who was also a brilliant […]