In its third season, HOUSE OF LIES tried to have more substance than it did in previous years, and part of the time it worked.  The end of Season 2 had scattered the cast, with Marty Kaan (Don Cheadle) forming his own consulting shop, while the members of his “pod,” Jeannie (Kristen Bell), Clyde […]

  For the most part, Shonda Rhimes and the Season 10 finale of GREY’S ANATOMY kept its Cristina Yang Farewell Extravaganza confined to a 20-minute chunk in the second half.  The opening half of the hour, written by Co-Executive Producer William Harper and directed by Tony Phelan, was concerned with an explosion at a shopping […]

  DOMINION has performed well enough in the ratings that there’s a fair chance of it being renewed (especially since it’s evidently produced on the cheap).  This is fairly remarkable, since even by the currently debased standards of Syfy, the post-apocalyptic Biblical sci-fi fantasy is notably awful (it makes its lead-in, the merely not-bad Defiance, […]

  Nobody saw Season 2 of YOU’RE THE WORST coming.  Season 1 of Stephen Falk’s series had been high-risk enough, a rom-com that spat on the genre’s conventions while also quietly incorporating them, centered on a couple notable for their narcissism, self-destructiveness and general sense of delusion.  Falk, and his stars Aya Cash and Chris […]

  RAY DONOVAN had an odd, misshapen Season 5, bleak even by its own depressed standards.  It was perhaps best viewed as a long runway to Season 6, which will by necessity involve something of a reboot, since Showtime has announced that the series is relocating to New York.  The show thus far has been […]

  Although its production studio MRC is seeking a stay of execution from another network or streaming service, it currently appears as though Starz’s Season 2 finale of COUNTERPART will be the last we see of the show, which is both a shame and less than a shock.  In an era where much of TV […]

    The dirty little secret at the heart of 30 ROCK has always been that it doesn’t really have one–a heart, that is.  That doesn’t make the show any less brilliantly written or superbly performed, but it explains why despite all its massive acclaim and zillions of awards, in 6 years on the air […]

> CALIFORNICATION lost a step this season, which is what often happens when a series of limited scope reaches Year 5.  Unlike other Showtime series like Weeds and Dexter, Californication has never had the appetite for seasonal re-invention.  It tends to merely introduce a few new supporting characters and run the same basic story again.  […]