QUANTICO:  Sunday 10PM on ABC – In the Queue The first hour of ABC’s QUANTICO is a bit of a mess, but it’s one of the most slickly enjoyable of the network fall TV season.  Think of it as Shondaland meets Homeland, although Shonda Rhimes has nothing to do with it.  The series creator […]

  THE BLACKLIST:  Monday 10PM on NBC – If Nothing Else Is On… NBC has made it very clear that its top fall priority is the launch of the new Monday drama THE BLACKLIST.  The show has been given the network’s plum post-The Voice slot, and clearly, NBC sees the series as a more consistent […]

  THE ENEMY WITHIN:  Monday 10PM on NBC NBC’s spy thriller THE ENEMY WITHIN is a variation of The Blacklist, itself a variation of The Silence Of The Lambs, all telling stories about ingenious master villains recruited by the FBI to help track down other fiendish criminals.  But series creator Ken Woodruff’s script (his previous […]

  The world of television may have undergone a revolution over the past decade, but it hasn’t hit the continent of late-night network talk shows, which have introduced variations from their 1950s-era formats, but little meaningful change.  There is, every time, the (middle-aged white) guy who does a topical monologue, the desk (or pre-taped) piece, […]

> 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 […]

  SATISFACTION:  Thursday 10PM on USA – If Nothing Else Is On… Sean Jablonski’s new series SATISFACTION is a rarity for USA Network:  a drama that isn’t built around a familiar procedural franchise or fast-talking, quipping heroes.  Instead, it’s a story about midlife angst and marriage–there’s a namecheck of “Updike” at one passing point in […]

  ROSEWOOD:  Wednesday 8PM on FOX – If Nothing Else Is On… If there’s one overriding theme running through the network television premieres this fall, it’s their almost defiant lack of ambition.  The Big 4 may be watching their audiences erode and their advertising revenues shrink, they may be besieged by literally hundreds of other […]

  TRUST:  Sunday 10PM on FX – DVR Alert TRUST is distinguished initially by what it isn’t.  Despite its placement on FX and the fact that it’s a saga of real-life celebrity crime and scandal, it’s not a Ryan Murphy production.  And although it tells the story of the 1973 kidnapping of J. Paul Getty […]