CAMP:  Wednesday 10PM on NBC – If Nothing Else Is On… If drive-in theaters hadn’t been superseded by multiplexes, NBC’s new CAMP would be the TV equivalent of a drive-in movie, a throwback to B-movie 80’s comedies like Meatballs, Summer School and One Crazy Summer.  (It would prefer to be a throwback to better […]

  SURVIVING JACK:  Thursday 9:30PM on FOX – Change the Channel SURVIVING JACK is a Mortifying Parent Sitcom, which isn’t much of a surprise, since it originated with Justin Halpern, who wrote the book that became the short-lived sitcom S#!* My Dad Says and also wrote the book I Suck At Girls, which inspired this […]

  24: LIVE ANOTHER DAY:  Monday 9PM on FOX – DVR Alert Jack Bauer didn’t speak until 40 minutes into the first hour of tonight’s 24: LIVE ANOTHER DAY premiere.  It’s not that he wasn’t around:  he had a fight scene, a chase, and some interrogation sequences during that span.  He just didn’t say anything.  […]

  RED BAND SOCIETY:  Wednesday 9PM on FOX – If Nothing Else Is On… PLAYERS:  The Fault In Our Stars, which opened studio and network eyes to the commercial appeal of seriously ill teenagers.  Amblin Television, the small-screen wing of Steven Spielberg’s production empire.  The Spanish series that originated this project’s concept.  US series creator Margaret […]

  ALLEGIANCE:  Thursday 10PM on NBC – If Nothing Else is On… ALLEGIANCE is what happens when broadcast network executives watch cable.  The story of long-term, deep-cover Russian agents is clearly, shall we say “strongly influenced” by FX’s The Americans, even if the specifics of the storyline aren’t identical.  But broadcast networks desperately need “big […]

  THE JIM GAFFIGAN SHOW:  Wednesday 10PM on TV Land – If Nothing Else Is On… Doofus dads are a staple of TV sitcoms, and THE JIM GAFFIGAN SHOW is an affable addition to the canon.  Gaffigan has made a modest industry out of recounting his life as a stand-up comic squeezed with his wife […]

  UNCLE BUCK:  Tuesday 9PM on ABC – Change the Channel ABC’s UNCLE BUCK is exactly what you’d expect from a network sitcom left on the shelf for the entire regular broadcast season, then unloaded two at a time during the summer.  As ABC sitcoms go, it is to Black-ish what Family Tools briefly was […]

  AP BIO:  Thursday 9:30PM on NBC (regular run starts March 1) – Change the Channel Most of the braintrust behind NBC’s new sitcom AP BIO hails from Saturday Night Live, starting with series creator Mike O’Brien and including Executive Producers Lorne Michaels, Seth Meyers and Michael Shoemaker, so it’s not hard to see why the pilot […]