It’s easy to overlook the ingeniousness of Dan Fogelman’s THIS IS US, the season’s only broadcast network smash hit.  On its face, the show is a familiar, even old-fashioned family soap, in which the various members of a clan are constantly beset by romantic, professional or medical problems–The Fosters with older siblings.  But Fogelman’s […]

    There’s no half-hour on network television more consistently accomplished than MODERN FAMILY.  The show may not reach for the demented highs of a Community (at least, you know, the old Community), 30 Rock or Happy Endings–it traffics instead in a heightened but very relatable emotional reality, and does so, virtually every week, with […]

  The limits of critical adoration are demonstrated by LOUIE.  Despite possibly terabytes of raves and features about Louis C.K.’s show in every corner of the media all season, the ratings, especially since Anger Management finished its run, have been terrible, and last night’s season finale was watched by fewer than 450,000 people in its […]

  Marvel may own the movie houses, but DC Comics has been demonstrating that it has the edge when it comes to the small screen.  ARROW has steadily improved since its debut, and in its second season it provided a model of the way comic book action-adventures can work on TV within the limitations of […]

  You can take a time-travel journey back to 20th-century network television with LAW & ORDER: SVU, the last remnant of Dick Wolf’s once-behemoth franchise.  Visiting the show for the first time since last fall reveals a few small surprises–Detective Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay) has acquired a boyfriend–but for the most part, SVU is very […]

  Whatever one may say about WHITNEY and whether it’s a sitcom that deserves to reach a Season 3, it’s clear that NBC and its producers (including star Whitney Cummings herself) heard the complaints about the show’s original version.  Season 2 wasn’t officially a reboot, but it featured an assortment of changes in style and tone.  Both Whitney and […]

  Every so often, a show comes along that makes you want to run up to random people in the street and yell “Why aren’t you watching this?”  right in their uncomprehending faces.  ORPHAN BLACK probably wasn’t–OK, wasn’t–the season’s best new show; The Americans, for one, was more layered and expertly crafted.  But Orphan, airing in […]

    LAST MAN STANDING was a terrible show when the season began, and it hasn’t gotten any better.  The series was anticipated to be a blockbuster hit, and ABC gave it the unusual task for a new series of opening up a night, since it marked the return of Tim Allen to series television, […]