HALT AND CATCH FIRE:  Sunday 10PM on AMC – Potential DVR Alert HALT AND CATCH FIRE won’t remind you much of The Social Network.  (Or for that matter of Silicon Valley.)  Set in 1983 Texas and written by first-time series creators Christopher Cantwell and Christopher C. Rogers (the series will be run by the […]

  CULT:  Tuesday 9PM on CW – Change the Channel CW has had little good news this season apart from the arrival of Arrow, and it’s not helping itself by deciding to launch the new thriller CULT just as FOX has introduced its own somewhat similar The Following.  Comparisons are inevitable between the two shows […]

  MARON:  Friday 10PM on IFC – If Nothing Else Is On… Everyone wants their Louie.  TV comedies built around fictional versions of real-life comics are nothing new–they go back to the days of Jack Benny and George Burns–and Larry David followed Seinfeld with his own notable success on Curb Your Enthusiasm.  But the near […]

  THE NEVERS:  Sunday 9PM on HBO The arrival of HBO’s THE NEVERS introduces a continuing series that’s also, in a sense, a limited one.  It was initially meant to be the latest original franchise from creator/auteur/showrunner Joss Whedon, the inventor of the Buffy The Vampire Slayer universe and director of the first two Avengers […]

  BACKPACKERS:  Monday 8:30PM on CW – Change the Channel BACKPACKERS feels like a student film project, although it isn’t one.  Instead, it’s another example of the walls coming down between entertainment platforms:  a Canadian digital series–written and directed by British talent–that aired on CW’s website and has now been picked up for air (along […]

  RESURRECTION:  Sunday 9PM on ABC  – Potential DVR Alert The restrained tension of RESURRECTION‘s pilot may remind you of early, suburban Spielberg, and of M. Night Shyamalan before he became a punchline.  The premise, based on a novel called “The Returned” by Jason Mott (and also perhaps inspired by the unrelated French miniseries that ran […]

  B POSITIVE – Thursday 8:30PM on CBS These are tumultuous times.  (Hell, as this is being written, these are tumultuous hours.)  And that’s true in the world of broadcast television as well, which was already being hammered by new technology and viewing habits even before the pandemic hit.  And yet the model of the […]

  FEED THE BEAST:  Tuesday 10PM on AMC – Change the Channel There’s not much on the menu of AMC’s new FEED THE BEAST, which previewed tonight in advance of its regular timeslot debut on Tuesday.  The show is based on a Danish format, and perhaps that version had more meat on its bones, but […]