A TO Z:  Thursday 9:30PM on NBC starting October 2 – If Nothing Else is On… PLAYERS:  Series creator Ben Queen (he wrote the script for Cars 2).  Non-writing producers Rashida Jones and Will McCormick.  Stars Cristin Milioti and Ben Feldman.  Supporting performers Henry Zebrowski, Lenora Crichlow and the voice of Katey Sagal.  Pilot director […]

  BLACK BOX:  Thursday 10PM on ABC – Change the Channel In ABC’s (partial) defense, BLACK BOX wasn’t intended to run during the regular broadcast season.  It was meant to be seen in summer, when standards are lower, but the network was caught flat-footed when Kerry Washington’s pregnancy caused Scandal to cut its season by […]

  VICE PRINCIPALS:  Sunday 10:30PM on HBO – In the Queue Your feelings about HBO’s new VICE PRINCIPALS are likely to be determined by your instinctive reaction to the name Danny McBride.  For a decade now, since the indie movie The Foot-Fist Way, McBride and his writing/producing/directing partner Jody Hill have been turning out variations […]

> ROB – Thursdays 8:30PM on CBS – Change the Channel We live in a Dickensian era of situation comedies, the best and worst combined on every network.  ABC is the home of both Modern Family and Work It; NBC contains Parks & Recreation and Whitney; FOX has New Girl and I Hate My Teenage […]

> AMERICAN HORROR STORY – Wednesdays 10PM on FX – Potential DVR Alert The first inkling of just how deranged AMERICAN HORROR STORY is going to be comes with one of the early “normal” scenes.  The location isn’t the haunted house, so we’re away from the girl with Down’s Syndrome who tells people they’re going […]

  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 […]

  GANG-RELATED:  Thursday 9PM on FOX – Change the Channel I think my favorite cliche in the pilot for FOX’s burn-off drama GANG-RELATED–out of, believe me, plenty of choices–comes at the end of an argument between a fiery Assistant District Attorney (Shantal VanSanten) and the head of the show’s inter-agency Gang Task Force (Terry O’Quinn).  […]

  THE FOLLOWING:  Monday 9PM on FOX – DVR Alert We’ve been here before, perhaps most memorably in Red Dragon aka Manhunter:  the burned-out, injured, brilliantly intuitive FBI agent, called back to the field to go after his nemesis, a savage but erudite serial killer.  But even Thomas Harris didn’t invent that archetype, and Kevin […]