I’m not sure when THE NEIGHBORS started winning me over.  I dismissed the pilot as an overbroad, gimmicky, mostly witless rehash of 3d Rock From the Sun, but as quickly as an October episode where Zabvronian alien Jackie Joyner-Kersee (Toks Olagundoye), who usually speaks with a British accent that would put her in good […]

  The renovations on Season 3 of NECESSARY ROUGHNESS worked out quite well.  The series jettisoned its original setting and much of its supporting cast, moving Dr. Dani Santino (Callie Thorne) from her job as in-house therapist to the NY Hawks football team to the high-powered V3 talent agency run by new regular (for this […]

  By the time it reaches four seasons on the air, even a first-rate show can find it difficult to sustain its initial burst of energy and creativity, and the same holds true on the other side of the Atlantic as well, as this year’s helping of Julian Fellowes’ DOWNTON ABBEY confirmed.  The show was […]

  PARENTHOOD doesn’t have the luxury that higher-rated long-running shows do of deciding its own fate, so tonight’s season finale, written by series creator Jason Katims and directed by Lawrence Trilling, could end up as the last we see of it–we may not know for another month, when the networks will announce their fall schedules.  […]

  HBO’s GETTING ON was generally close to unwatchable, and that’s meant as sort of a compliment.  Even in the world of pay-TV, where ratings aren’t always at the forefront of a network’s expectations, there’s usually some concession to conventional entertainment value, especially in a show that purports to be a comedy of sorts.  But Getting […]

  HINDSIGHT has been a very pleasant rom-com-dram vehicle that probably didn’t generate enough in the way of buzz, and certainly didn’t score the ratings, to survive past its first season, notwithstanding its cliffhanger season finale.  (Its only real chance is if network VH1 decides to make a statement by backing its first scripted series no matter the […]

  So the rumors were true, and the title of HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER‘s Season 8 finale, “Something New,” meant what it sounded like it might mean, and the CBS promos weren’t lying or misleading:  in the final shot of the episode, we finally really actually saw the woman who next season will–unless this is […]

  The Matrix is one of the many pop culture properties that have influenced Noah Hawley’s LEGION, and Legion has been something of a matrix itself.  Behind its surface and around its edges, the shape of a much more conventional Marvel comic-book adventure story has lurked from the start, and with the final two episodes […]