PARTNERS:  Monday 9PM on FX – Change the Channel Anyone who’s seen the promos on FX over the past several weeks has known what was coming:  PARTNERS is a sitcom with the charm of an IRS audit.  It’s really less a TV show than an illustrated business deal, the latest in the assembly line […]

  PREACHER:  Sunday 9PM on AMC – Potential DVR Alert It’s not quite clear what on earth AMC’s new PREACHER is after watching its pilot, but it’s certainly intriguing.  Based on a celebrated comic book series by Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon, and widely considered unadaptable after several cycles of development hell over the years, […]

  THE GREAT INDOORS:  Thursday 8:30PM on CBS – Change the Channel Fall TV has a mystery even greater than exactly what’s going on at Westworld:  Joel McHale’s presence in the cardboard CBS sitcom THE GREAT INDOORS.  It’s one thing when multi-camera veterans from the 1990s like Matt LeBlanc, Matthew Perry and Kevin James come […]

  BORDERTOWN:  Sunday 9:30PM on FOX – Change the Channel BORDERTOWN adds a light dusting of politics to its Seth MacFarlane factory settings.  Produced by MacFarlane, and created by Family Guy writer/producer Mark Hentemann (the writing credit on the pilot is shared with “La Cucaracha” cartoonist Lalo Alcaraz, but since Alcaraz is credited only as […]

> 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 […]

  THE PLAYER:  Thursday 10PM on NBC – Change the Channel How fond are you of grade-B basic cable action series?  Do you watch the anonymous movies your cable/satellite service piles on its pay-per-view schedule each week?  Do you remember Cannon Films, and are you nostalgic for its product?  Does it mean something to you […]

  FULL FRONTAL WITH SAMANTHA BEE:  Monday 10:30PM on TBS – Potential DVR Alert It is written, apparently, that all alumni of Jon Stewart’s The Daily Show who aren’t starring in movies or sitcoms must have their own comedy news series, and tonight it was the turn of Samantha Bee.  TBS’s marketing of the series […]

  MACGYVER:  Friday 8PM on CBS – Change the Channel CBS’s reboot of the 30-year old MACGYVER was the fall’s problem child.  After picking up the series, the network didn’t just dump the original pilot, it fired the showrunner and most of the cast, virtually starting from scratch.  (The original showrunner, Paul Downs Colaizzo, retains […]