BLUNT TALK:  Saturday 9PM on Starz – If Nothing Else Is On… For Jonathan Ames, the creator of Starz’s new comedy BLUNT TALK, the sweet spot is the intersection of addled (male) self-delusion and yearning.  His HBO series Bored To Death never found much of an audience, but it was rewarding for those who […]

> 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 […]

  Read All Our Fall Pilot Reports here. DADS:  Tuesday 8PM on FOX  – Change the Channel It’s hard to believe that the comedy executives at FOX, who have put such high-quality shows as New Girl, The Mindy Project and Raising Hope on the air in recent years, not to mention the upcoming and very […]

    THE CARRIE DIARIES: Monday 8PM on CW – Change the Channel   THE CARRIE DIARIES is CW’s last big gun of the season (Cult, still forthcoming, is smaller caliber), the show that the network hopes will inherit Gossip Girl‘s place (Carrie just so happens to be produced by Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage […]

  GREY’S ANATOMY is no longer Shonda Rhimes’ brightest, shiniest toy, but in a way her skills as a producer are most evident in the way that her first hit hums along, now in its 2d decade on the air.  That’s incredibly difficult for a serialized drama, especially one that started off as being about […]

  BULL:  Tuesday 9PM on CBS – Change the Channel CBS’s BULL is, from its title down, almost completely insufferable.  Loosely inspired by the pre-TV professional life of Dr. Phil (billed here as “Dr. Phillip C. McGraw” for maximum pretentiousness), and co-created by McGraw and industry veteran Paul Attanasio (a co-creator of the great Homicide […]

  THE GOOD PLACE:  Thursday 8:30PM on NBC – In the Queue Originality, imagination and sheer strangeness are rare network TV commodities these days, so it seems fair to give NBC’s THE GOOD PLACE some time before deciding whether it’s actually, you know, good.  It’s the creation of Michael Schur, who gave us Parks & […]

  MURPHY BROWN:  Thursday 9:30PM on CBS MURPHY BROWN was Prestige TV comedy before that concept really existed.  When it went on the air 30 years ago, it was a year before the arrival of Seinfeld, and 5 years ahead of Frasier, and while there were other intelligent, funny sitcoms on the air, Diane English’s […]