No one can say THE CATCH didn’t try.  Today’s cancellation announcement concluded two seasons of seemingly constant adjustment and revision (probably attributable in part to ABC’s commitment to non-writing Executive Producer Shonda Rhimes), starting with a pilot that was largely junked and partly recast, and continuing with a change in showrunners and many tweaks […]

  Frank Darabont has had a busy couple of weeks, although not necessarily in a good way.  He launched TNT’s MOB CITY, his first project since being thrown off AMC’s The Walking Dead after less than two seasons as creator/showrunner, to ratings that started out as disappointing and only got worse.  Then, earlier this week, […]

  The second half of REVOLUTION‘s season tried to be interesting, God knows.  The initial run of episodes after the pilot mostly seemed to consist of our heroes trudging through forests, on the trail of militia-captured teen Danny Matheson, brother of heroine Charlie (Tracy Spiridakos) and nephew of Miles (Billy Burke).  But when Revolution returned […]

  Over the course of the season, THE NEW NORMAL toned down its most disastrous miscalculation, which can be summarized in two words:  Ellen Barkin.  Not Barkin the very fine actress, of course, but the character she was called upon to play, Jane Forrest, the conservative Republican midwesterner grandmother who had raised Goldie Clemmons (Georgia […]

  In all ways but one, GRIMM had a highly enjoyable third season.  Its one significant flaw came when it tried to cultivate a deeper mythology than the events in Portland where it’s set.  That took the show away from its core characters, while the plot elements it used–mysterious keys, a puzzle map, a nobility […]

  Like a middle schooler suddenly realizing that final exams are around the corner, the mostly tired 9th season of BONES went into overdrive tonight to deliver a super-dramatic season finale. The season had inherited a bummer of a cliffhanger from Season 8:  Booth (David Boreanaz) was blackmailed by petulant recurring serial killer Pelant (Christopher […]

TOUCH is a show that thrives on impenetrable mysteries, so perhaps one day it will solve its own.  The show was FOX’s big midseason drama play (Terra Nova was the fall’s), by virtue of being created by Heroes writer Tim Kring and starring FOX’s own hero, Jack Bauer Kiefer Sutherland, and given the week’s plum […]

  SLEEPY HOLLOW has been trying very hard to justify its survival this season under new showrunner Clifton Campbell.  In addition to telling its core story arc about Pandora (Shannyn Sossamon) gathering sundry demons to strengthen her evil god husband The Hidden One (Peter Mensah) in preparation for his destruction of, you know, the world, […]