> Premieres Thursday 10PM on USA:  If Nothing Else Is On… (But it’s summer, so nothing is.) At this point, I think we could all identify a USA Network series blindfolded and with the soundtrack running backwards.  There’s the quirky, unconventional savant lead–available, like a comfortable sweater, in several colors:  cop/detective (In Plain Sight, Psych, […]

>Stay tuned to SHOWBUZZDAILY’s THE SKED for advance reports on all the new Fall pilots (NOW INCLUDING BUSTED PILOTS TOO):      ABC      APT. 23 – Potential DVR Alert     CHARLIE’S ANGELS (ABC) – If Nothing Else Is On…     GOOD CHRISTIAN BELLES (ABC) – Change the Channel           LAST MAN STANDING (ABC) – Change the […]

>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 […]

    THE CARRIE DIARIES: Monday 8PM on CW – Change the Channel   THE CARRIE DIARIES is CW’s last big gun of the season (Cult, still forthcoming, is smaller caliber), the show that the network hopes will inherit Gossip Girl‘s place (Carrie just so happens to be produced by Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage […]

  MARON:  Friday 10PM on IFC – If Nothing Else Is On… Everyone wants their Louie.  TV comedies built around fictional versions of real-life comics are nothing new–they go back to the days of Jack Benny and George Burns–and Larry David followed Seinfeld with his own notable success on Curb Your Enthusiasm.  But the near […]

  ENLISTED:  Friday 9:30PM on FOX  – Change the Channel Not all goofy, barely-functional family sitcoms are alike, and although FOX has paired the new ENLISTED with Raising Hope on its Friday schedule, the two aren’t much of a match.  Raising Hope is a very smart comedy about people who aren’t necessarily rocket scientists, while […]

  TRUE DETECTIVE:  Sunday 9PM on HBO – DVR Alert It sometimes seems like brooding serial-killer thrillers are as plentiful on the New Television as multi-camera family sitcoms were on the Old.  TRUE DETECTIVE, though, gives the genre the HBO Deluxe treatment–premiering, no less, on the same night one of its stars, Matthew McConaughey, became […]

  THE MESSENGERS:  Friday 9PM on CW – Change the Channel CW wasn’t in any rush to get THE MESSENGERS on its air, holding it until the last month of the broadcast season, and then putting the show in the lowest-visibility slot on its schedule, the Friday 9PM hour.  The series, created by Eoghan O’Donnell […]