When SUBURGATORY went on the air last season, it had a clear vision:  as the title suggests, it was a light but acerbic satire about the perils of living a few too many miles from New York City, reflected through the gaze of Tessa (Jane Levy), a bright high-schooler who’d been brought from Manhattan […]

  The final scene of ALMOST HUMAN‘s season typified what a behind-the-scenes mess the entire run had been.  The occasion was a sequence where human police detective circa 2048 John Kennex (Karl Urban) and his cyborg partner Dorian (Michael Ealy) expressed their appreciation for one another, Dorian because Kennex had spoken on his behalf at […]

  After three sets of series creators and two pilots, THE CATCH certainly zeroed in on its inspirations:  To Catch A Thief plus The Thomas Crown Affair, with a touch of Soderbergh’s version of Ocean’s Eleven.  The Catch longs for fizzy romantic intrigue, with light (but opulent) crime stirred alongside flirtatious banter between glamorous people, […]

  Here lies HAPPY ENDINGS, one of the funniest comedies on all of television–foully murdered by some of the worst scheduling moves in recent network memory.  ABC began the season by sending the show (along with Don’t Trust the B___ In Apt 23) on a virtual suicide run, competing head-to-head on Tuesdays with New Girl, […]

  Despite the declining fortunes of network TV, it was a good season for newly-launched dramas, with big hits emerging for FOX in Empire, ABC in How to Get Away With Murder, and CW in THE FLASH.  The latter isn’t just one of its network’s highest-rated shows ever, but remarkably has outrated series in its […]

  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 […]

  The well-oiled Greg Berlanti & Co DC superhero TV machine has so far slipped a gear with CW’s LEGENDS OF TOMORROW.  Despite half a season of careful preparation before its January start, including pre-premiere appearances on The Flash and Arrow and a cast largely familiar from both those shows, Legends hasn’t jelled on any […]

  THE FOSTERS had a very busy first season (or half-season, depending on whether you count ABCFamily’s practice of ordering 10 summer episodes and then 10 more for winter as one season or two). There was, to begin with, the basic situation of the Foster family itself, with two lesbian parents, Lena (Sherri Saum) and Stef […]