BACKPACKERS:  Monday 8:30PM on CW – Change the Channel BACKPACKERS feels like a student film project, although it isn’t one.  Instead, it’s another example of the walls coming down between entertainment platforms:  a Canadian digital series–written and directed by British talent–that aired on CW’s website and has now been picked up for air (along […]

  THE AFFAIR:  Sunday 10PM on Showtime – DVR Alert Sundays already have too much television to watch, and Showtime isn’t making life any easier with its excellent new THE AFFAIR.  Although paired on the night with Homeland, it’s of a piece with the network’s Masters of Sex, another compelling exploration of the boundless mysteries […]

  THE WHISPERS:  Monday 10PM on ABC – If Nothing Else Is On… What would the horror genre do without its creepy children?  Whether possessed by some sinister entity, born to be supernatural embodiments of evil or simply homicidal, the mix of presumed innocence with wicked actions has always been a fundamental thriller trope, no […]

  BLOOD & OIL:  Sunday 9PM on ABC – If Nothing Else Is On… ABC’s BLOOD & OIL, along with the same network’s midseason The Catch, holds the season’s crown for the most alterations inflicted on a series between pilot script and air.  It’s been recast and reshot in part, made its way through a […]

  THE EXORCIST:  Friday 9PM on FOX – Potential DVR Alert Like Noah Hawley’s ongoing take on Fargo, the new FOX version of THE EXORCIST, created for television by Jeremy Slater (one of the unhappy group credited for the script of last year’s awful Fantastic Four reboot) wisely uses the underlying material as inspiration for […]

  FEUD:  BETTE AND JOAN:  Sunday 10PM on FX – Potential DVR Alert It’s a testament to Ryan Murphy’s clout that FEUD:  BETTE AND JOAN even exists.  8 hours set in the early 1960s about Bette Davis and Joan Crawford, a pair of Oscar-winning stars in their 50s who were considered has-beens when they made […]

  TEN DAYS IN THE VALLEY:  Sunday 10PM on ABC – Potential DVR Alert TEN DAYS IN THE VALLEY is very ABC, in a good way.  Created by Tassie Cameron, who co-created the network’s longtime summer hit Rookie Blue, it’s a purportedly closed-end mystery soap, about a successful TV-producer mother whose 8-year old daughter goes […]

  SUCCESSION:  Sunday 10PM on HBO HBO’s new drama SUCCESSION may be too much of its moment for comfort.  The series, created by Jesse Armstrong (previously a writer/producer on Armando Ianucci’s Veep, The Thick Of It and In the Loop), shares the fascination of its Sunday-mate Billions with the hideously scheming ultra-rich of Manhattan.  Unlike […]