DOUBT:  Wednesday 10PM on CBS – If Nothing Else Is On… As highly prized as the talents of Shonda Rhimes are, it takes the continuing line of her failed imitators to remind us just how difficult it is to duplicate her touch.  Conviction and Notorious are two tries that went splat earlier this season, […]

  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 […]

THE NEWSROOM:  Sundays 10PM on HBO – DVR Alert We live in an era of TV auteurs.  Although there will always be networks and studios writing the checks–just ask Dan Harmon–it’s arguably the case that writer/producers like Matthew Weiner, Louis C.K., Kurt Sutter and Lena Dunham have more clout than all but a tiny handful […]

  FULL FRONTAL WITH SAMANTHA BEE:  Monday 10:30PM on TBS – Potential DVR Alert It is written, apparently, that all alumni of Jon Stewart’s The Daily Show who aren’t starring in movies or sitcoms must have their own comedy news series, and tonight it was the turn of Samantha Bee.  TBS’s marketing of the series […]

  WILL & GRACE:  Thursday 9PM on NBC Nothing and everything has changed since WILL & GRACE began its run on NBC in 1998, and departed in 2006.  Every effort has been made to duplicate the original series:  not only are Eric McCormack, Debra Messing, Sean Hayes and Megan Mullally back, along with series creators […]

      COMING THIS WEEK:  The New and Improved SHOWBUZZDAILY!     It’s a paradox of American pop culture of the moment that you can barely sell a movie ticket for anything that even smells like a western (Cowboys & Aliens and John Carter were the most recent to discover that), but the older […]

  TURN:  Sunday 9PM on AMC – If Nothing Else is On… Unlike just about any other armed conflict in history, and for reasons that have never really been pinned down, the American Revolutionary War has rarely been a fertile source of drama either in the movies or on television.  Mel Gibson’s The Patriot was […]

> Disclaimer:  Network pilots now in circulation are not necessarily in the form that will air in the Fall.  Pilots are often reedited and rescored, and in some cases even recast or reshot.  So these critiques shouldn’t be taken as full reviews, but rather as a guide to the general style and content of the […]