FX probably shouldn’t hold its breath for THE AMERICANS to become a wider popular success than it is. The series, for all its excellence, was more grim in its 3rd season than ever–the sun barely even seemed to shine on its distressed, and distressing, characters.  There was intense drama, to be sure, and outbursts of shocking violence […]

      With the spring decline of New Girl‘s ratings, 2 BROKE GIRLS became the only remaining breakout comedy hit of the 2011/12 broadcast season.  The truth is, it’s still not all that good.  Tonight’s season finale, written by co-creator/showrunner Michael Patrick King (the other co-creator, Whitney Cummings, famously had to drop down to […]

  To say that in its fifth and final season 90210 was running on fumes would be to disparage fumes.  The show, after a very bumpy start in which it ran through several developers and showrunners and tried far too hard to stoke memories of its Beverly Hills, 90210 forebear, settled in for a moderately entertaining […]

  THE 100 stood apart from its CW fantasy-adventure counterparts, unique both in its often unexpected (and sometimes ruthless) narrative choices, and in the sense it imparted of true auteurship by series creator Jason Rothenberg.  The fact that the series reached 7 seasons is itself remarkable, as it never approached the ratings echelon of the […]

  With the exception of those shows that don’t know they’re about to be canceled, rarely has a long-running series come to less of a conclusion than tonight’s last episode of THE CLOSER.  And with good reason, of course–the episode was less an ending than a brief interruption, with the spin-off Major Crimes literally premiering […]

  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.  […]

  Tina Fey’s 30 ROCK left the building very much the way it entered 7 years ago:  with a million gags (at least ten thousand of them meta), a bit of sentiment (usually followed instantly by undercutting silliness), and a gnawing taste for the hand that fed it. If there was any surprise in the […]

  FOX’s PITCH, co-creator Dan Fogelman’s (with Rick Singer) “other” fall series–he also has a little project called This Is Us–is a modestly engaging drama that deserves another, you know, at bat.  Unfortunately, “modest” also describes its ratings–and that’s being kind–so fill in your further baseball analogies here about tonight’s season finale being two outs […]