GHOSTED:  Sunday 8:30PM on FOX – In the Queue FOX’s new sitcom GHOSTED has two big assets in stars Adam Scott and Craig Robinson, a pair of experienced comedy players who combine star presence with chops as members of the unselfish Parks & Recreation and The Office ensembles.  The premise of Tom Gormican’s series […]

  SWEETBITTER:  Sunday 8PM on Starz – In the Quene Starz’s SWEETBITTER is, with Vida, part of the network’s unusual run of back-to-back half-hour dramas, each of them with a short 6-episode order.  Both shows make use of indie tropes, with Vida on the “gritty estranged family that has to co-exist” end of the Sundance […]

  THE ENEMY WITHIN:  Monday 10PM on NBC NBC’s spy thriller THE ENEMY WITHIN is a variation of The Blacklist, itself a variation of The Silence Of The Lambs, all telling stories about ingenious master villains recruited by the FBI to help track down other fiendish criminals.  But series creator Ken Woodruff’s script (his previous […]

> ENLIGHTENED – Mondays 9:30PM on HBO – If Nothing Else Is On… As a writer, Mike White is drawn to stories of delusion.  Even though their tones (and commerciality) are widely divergent, his screenplays from Chuck & Buck to The School of Rock, The Good Girl to Nacho Libre share protagonists who are firmly […]

  Back in 2000, the rapid-fire fizzy dialogue of Gilmore Girls prompted some to spread an utterly unfounded rumor that Amy Sherman-Palladino, its creator and chief writer, didn’t actually exist, and that Girls was really being written by Aaron Sorkin.  This was wrong in every possible way, of course, including the fact that Sorkin was […]

  RED WIDOW:  Midseason TBD on ABC – If Nothing Else Is On… Disclaimer: Network pilots now in circulation are not necessarily in the form that will air in the Fall. Pilots are often reedited and re-scored, and in some cases even recast or reshot. These critiques shouldn’t be taken as full pilot reviews, but […]

  ALMOST HUMAN:  Monday 8PM on FOX (after a Sunday Nov 17 preview) – Worth A Look The ALMOST HUMAN pilot has a whole lot of concept.  The show was created by J. H. Wyman, a senior writer/producer on Fringe (the pilot is directed by Brad Anderson, who also directed many Fringe episodes), and the […]

  FARGO:  Tuesday 10PM on FX – DVR Alert Previously… on FARGO:  It’s chance that puts mild-mannered, beaten-down Bemidji, Minnesota insurance salesman Lester Nygaard (Martin Freeman) beside sociopath Lorne Malvo (Billy Bob Thornton) shortly after Lester had a run-in with the bully who made his high school years a living hell.  But when asked directly […]