LEGACIES:  Thursday 9PM on CW CW’s LEGACIES brings the Vampire Diaries extended universe once again close to its roots, after the older-skewing adventures of The Originals.  We’re not only back in Mystic Falls, Virginia, but in a version of high school, although one that looks a lot like Hogwarts.  (The connection is so blatant […]

> 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 […]

  SCREAM QUEENS:  Tuesday 9PM on FOX There didn’t seem to be a pressing need for a second season of SCREAM QUEENS.  The ratings for Season 1 were meager, even in the young female demo the show was courting, and the reviews were worse.  But FOX as a whole had bigger flops to cancel, plus […]

  CLAWS:  Sunday 9PM on TNT – If Nothing Else Is On… There’s a reason that CLAWS,  TNT’s latest foray into original programming, feels like the offspring of a multi-camera sitcom, a paycable hour and Orange Is the New Black.  The project, created by Eliot Laurence, was originally developed as a HBO half-hour, and then taken […]

  GREAT NEWS:  Tuesday 9PM on NBC – If Nothing Else Is On… NBC’s latest disposable sitcom GREAT NEWS hails from the House of Tina Fey, who serves as one of its Executive Producers.  Series creator Tracey Wigfield was a writer/producer on 30 Rock, and Great News, which is set behind-the-scenes at a local TV […]

  BLACK-ISH:  Wednesday 9:30PM on ABC – Worth A Look   PLAYERS:  Star and Executive Producer Anthony Anderson, and recurring guest star/EP Laurence Fishburne.  (And Executive Producer Larry Wilmore, although he’s leaving the show to take over the Stephen Colbert slot on Comedy Central.)  Series creator Kenya Barris.  Pilot director James Griffiths.  A supporting cast headed […]

  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 […]

  DECEPTION:  Sunday 10PM on ABC – In the Queue For its newest trick, the House of Greg Berlanti presents a crime procedural so insubstantial it seems to disappear before your very eyes.  DECEPTION, created by Chris Fedak (co-creator of NBC’s vintage Chuck) mixes together tropes like a summer camp magic show:  the smug amateur […]