KRYPTON:  Wednesday 10PM on Syfy – Change the Channel With the engagingly odd exception of The Magicians, Syfy hasn’t had much luck with its big swings, and KRYPTON is unlikely to change that.  The network’s position for the last several years has been so strange as to be almost nightmarish:  in a pop culture […]

  INSTINCT:  Sunday 8PM on CBS – Change the Channel It’s a coincidence that the movie Love, Simon and CBS’s series INSTINCT premiered over the same weekend, but both are facets of a newish stage in LGBTQ pop culture:  the ordinary genre story that happens to have a gay lead.  In the case of Love, […]

  RISE:  Tuesday 9PM on NBC – In the Queue RISE creator Jason Katims practically demands that viewers compare his new series with his classic Friday Night Lights.  The song that accompanies the opening scene sounds like it came off the Lights soundtrack, director Mike Cahill (an indie filmmaker whose best-known works are Another Earth […]

  DECEPTION:  Sunday 10PM on ABC – In the Queue For its newest trick, the House of Greg Berlanti presents a crime procedural so insubstantial it seems to disappear before your very eyes.  DECEPTION, created by Chris Fedak (co-creator of NBC’s vintage Chuck) mixes together tropes like a summer camp magic show:  the smug amateur […]

  CHAMPIONS:  Thursday 9:30PM on NBC – Change the Channel As this season’s NBC comedies go, CHAMPIONS is less rancid than AP Bio, but “harmless” isn’t much of a recommendation for a sitcom.  Despite the fact that the series was created by Mindy Kaling and Charlie Grandy, its pilot is all set-up, in the traditional […]

  LIFE SENTENCE:  Wednesday 9PM on CW – Change the Channel Last season, CW aired No Tomorrow, a madcap romp about a couple who lived every day as though it might be their last, because a deadly meteor was supposedly on its way to destroy the Earth.  The series flopped, but now the network has […]

  UNSOLVED: THE MURDERS OF TUPAC & THE NOTORIOUS B.I.G. – Tuesday 10PM on USA – Potential DVR Alert The progeny of The People vs. OJ Simpson continue to arrive.  This season we’ve had the (so far) enormously disappointing American Crime Story follow-up The Assassination of Gianni Versace, as well as Dick Wolf’s even worse […]

  GOOD GIRLS:  Monday 10PM on NBC – Potential DVR Alert GOOD GIRLS is one of the more promising pilots of the broadcast season–even if it’s itching not to be a broadcast series.  Jenna Bans’ script is a #MeToo slant on Breaking Bad and Fun With Dick and Jane, and as that list may suggest, […]