KING:  Friday 10PM on Reelz – If Nothing Else Is On… One genre that’s never in short supply, even on summer TV, is the police procedural–in fact, during the summer months, even Canadian police procedurals seem to be just about everywhere.  Reelz has added another with the schedule-filler KING, an unobjectionable but hardly notable […]

  MIND GAMES:  Tuesday 10PM on ABC – If Nothing Else Is On… The creator of ABC’s midseason MIND GAMES, Kyle Killen, was the man behind Lone Star and Awake (as well as the movie The Beaver), so he doesn’t lack in fertile imagination.  What he hasn’t had, however, is any commercial success whatsoever, and […]

  PLAYING HOUSE:  Tuesday 10PM on USA – If Nothing Else Is On… Created by and starring real-life best friends Jessica St. Clair and Lennon Parham, PLAYING HOUSE is, as sisterhood comedies created by and starring real-life best friends go, less edged and genuine than HBO’s recent Doll & Em (which was the work of […]

  THE KNICK:  Friday 10PM on Cinemax – DVR Alert It’s yet another measure of where television is these days in relation to movies that Steven Soderbergh, the main figure behind Cinemax’s new historical medical drama THE KNICK, found his ambitions too big for the big screen.  Soderbergh is now “retired,” which has turned out […]

  MAN SEEKING WOMAN:  Wednesday 10:30PM on FXX – If Nothing Else Is On… You know how on Family Guy a character will say “This is just like when________” or “You’re like________,” and there’s an instant cutaway to whatever the character was talking about, no matter how bizarre?  (An example from this past week:  Stewie […]

  FEED THE BEAST:  Tuesday 10PM on AMC – Change the Channel There’s not much on the menu of AMC’s new FEED THE BEAST, which previewed tonight in advance of its regular timeslot debut on Tuesday.  The show is based on a Danish format, and perhaps that version had more meat on its bones, but […]

  SHOOTER:  Tuesday 10PM on USA – Change the Channel USA Network has had a tough time populating its post-Mr. Robot schedule.  Sam Esmail’s series, while not a ratings blockbuster, has been a re-branding triumph, instantly changing the image of USA from the stodgy network of Monk and Royal Pains to something darker, younger, cooler, […]

  SNOWFALL:  Wednesday 10PM on FX – In the Queue It used to make sense to judge a new TV series based on its pilot, because the pilot was a template of all the episodes that would follow.  In the serialized, bingeable TV era, though, an opening hour is often just an introduction to the […]