THE SLAP: Thursday 8PM on NBC – Potential DVR Alert THE SLAP is strikingly different from everything else on broadcast television–it’s unusual even by cable standards, with an indie film, non-genre mindset that brings little to mind beyond Showtime’s The Affair and HBO’s Togetherness (and even The Affair has its flash-forward murder plot to help […]
PROOF: Tuesday 10PM on TNT – Change the Channel Is there life after pilot? TNT’s new PROOF doesn’t make much of a first impression. It’s a squishy attempt to fuse a medical setting with the come-into-the-light spirituality that’s made inspirational hits out of stories like Heaven Is For Real–except in this case, stripped of […]
MR. ROBOT: Wednesday 10PM on USA – Potential DVR Alert There are networks, especially in the pay-TV universe, that play the instant-renewal game, announcing as soon as a new show has premiered, or sometimes even before, that another season has been ordered. It’s a PR move, for the most part, and sometimes only semi-legitimate, […]
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 […]
> HOUSE OF LIES – Sundays 10PM on Showtime – If Nothing Else Is On… Showtime took a major step forward this season with its gripping new drama series Homeland, a show worthy of being mentioned with anything on TV. The network’s new comedy HOUSE OF LIES, though, is considerably less of an event. The […]
> A lot can happen between the creation of a TV pilot in the spring and production of episodes for the regular season: a writing/producing team is hired, audience focus groups weigh in, networks and studios (which may have had their own turnover in the off-season) give plenty of notes, both helpful and otherwise, and […]
ASCENSION: Mon-Wed 9PM on Syfy In the post-Battlestar Galactica era, Syfy has barely even seemed to be trying. It’s rather sad: at a point when nearly every network–even CBS!–has at least one substantial piece of inventory in the science-fiction/fantasy genre, Syfy has been filling its air with tame programmers like Eureka and Haven, or […]
MALIBU COUNTRY: Friday 8:30PM starting November 2 on ABC – Worth A Look Disclaimer: Network pilots now in circulation are not necessarily in the form that will air in the Fall. Pilots are often reedited and re-scored, and in some cases even recast or reshot. These critiques shouldn’t be taken as full pilot reviews, […]