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 […]

  TEN DAYS IN THE VALLEY:  Sunday 10PM on ABC – Potential DVR Alert TEN DAYS IN THE VALLEY is very ABC, in a good way.  Created by Tassie Cameron, who co-created the network’s longtime summer hit Rookie Blue, it’s a purportedly closed-end mystery soap, about a successful TV-producer mother whose 8-year old daughter goes […]

  SUCCESSION:  Sunday 10PM on HBO HBO’s new drama SUCCESSION may be too much of its moment for comfort.  The series, created by Jesse Armstrong (previously a writer/producer on Armando Ianucci’s Veep, The Thick Of It and In the Loop), shares the fascination of its Sunday-mate Billions with the hideously scheming ultra-rich of Manhattan.  Unlike […]

  IN THE DARK:  Thursday 9PM on CW The protagonist of CW’s new drama IN THE DARK is blind, but the show wants it to be very clear that Murphy (Perry Mattfeld) isn’t TV’s typical high-functioning disabled role model.  Murphy is disaffected, sarcastic and often downright rude (she’s even dismissive to her adorable guide dog, […]

> 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 […]

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 […]

  KING:  Friday 10PM on Reelz – If Nothing Else Is On… One genre that’s never in short supply, even on summer TV, is the police procedural–in fact, during the summer months, even Canadian police procedurals seem to be just about everywhere.  Reelz has added another with the schedule-filler KING, an unobjectionable but hardly notable […]

  MIND GAMES:  Tuesday 10PM on ABC – If Nothing Else Is On… The creator of ABC’s midseason MIND GAMES, Kyle Killen, was the man behind Lone Star and Awake (as well as the movie The Beaver), so he doesn’t lack in fertile imagination.  What he hasn’t had, however, is any commercial success whatsoever, and […]