Read All Our Fall Pilot Reports here. HOSTAGES:  Monday 10PM on CBS starting September 23 – Potential DVR Alert HOSTAGES, like this summer’s Under the Dome, finds CBS stretching its legs, expanding its brand into new areas.  The serialized drama will have a limited run of 15 episodes this fall, sharing its timeslot with […]

  WITCHES OF EAST END:  Sunday 10PM on Lifetime – Potential DVR Alert The supernatural serial isn’t exactly a neglected genre on TV–this week alone brings the season debuts of American Horror Story and The Walking Dead, and The Originals and Sleepy Hollow have just gotten started–but based on its pilot, Lifetime’s new WITCHES OF […]

  THE LAST SHIP:  Sunday 9PM on TNT – If Nothing Else Is On… Post-apocalypses are a dime a dozen on television these days, so a new one had better be something special.  The one in TNT’s new THE LAST SHIP arrives by way of a generic new plague that isn’t as scary or original as it needs […]

  SCORPION:  Monday 9PM on CBS starting – Worth A Look PLAYERS:  The real-life hacker Walter O’Brien, on whose adventures Scorpion is (very loosely) based–and who is also an Executive Producer on the show.  Series creator Nick Santora, who created Breakout Kings and was a writer/producer on Prison Break.  Pilot director Justin Lin.  An ensemble […]

  THE CARMICHAEL SHOW:  Wednesday 9PM on NBC – If Nothing Else Is On… THE CARMICHAEL SHOW is the latest sitcom to be aired by NBC with a stealth run that suggests one of the network’s programming executives looked at another recently and asked “Do you even remember why we ordered this thing?” and got […]

  THE SHANNARA CHRONICLES:  Tuesday 10PM on MTV – If Nothing Else Is On… MTV is late to the YA fantasy-adventure party with THE SHANNARA CHRONICLES, so it doesn’t have the element of surprise going for it.  There’s no innovation here, either, because while the main source material, Terry Brooks’ 1982 novel “The Elfstones of […]

  POWERLESS:  Thursday 8:30PM on NBC – If Nothing Else is On… So far, NBC’s POWERLESS is merely a clever idea for a sitcom.  It’s set on the fringes of the DC superhero universe, in Charm City, where Wayne Security (owned by the unseen Bruce, who of course has things to do in Gotham) exists […]

  AMERICAN HORROR STORY:  CULT – Tuesday 10PM on FX We find ourselves in boom times for killer clowns.  They’re the main vehicles for terror in the new installment of FX’s Ryan Murphy anthology AMERICAN HORROR STORY, dubbed CULT (including a cameo from Freak Show‘s Twisty), and one of the granddaddies of the genre, Stephen King’s […]