ABC, which passed on DEVIOUS MAIDS and allowed it to be picked up by corporate sibling Lifetime, is probably lucky the cable network only programs the show during the summer off-season.  Maids, which of course is the brainchild of Desperate Housewives creator Marc Cherry, has been zeroing in on what was once the Housewives […]

  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 […]

  MTV’s FAKING IT did a surprisingly deft job of sustaining its limited premise over 8 half-hour episodes–until, at least, the last 30 seconds of the season fell victim to a bad case of Season Finale-itis, reaching for one plot twist too many so that people would have something to talk about during the hiatus.  […]

  Everyone on Stephen Falk’s FX comedy YOU’RE THE WORST is a wreck, and yet the pieces of the show have fallen together rather neatly.  The series isn’t so much an anti-rom-com as a kicking and screaming one, peopled by characters who, if they aren’t doing terrible things, do right ones for the worst possible […]

  Under showrunner Scott M. Gimple, this fifth season of THE WALKING DEAD became steadily better as drama than the series has ever been, drawing closer to deserving its phenomenal level of ratings as still (even after the arrival of Empire) TV’s biggest non-football success.  Gimple and his team have greatly improved the show’s eternal […]

  The first season of AMC’s INTO THE BADLANDS felt entirely predigested.  It was Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon by way of Game of Thrones by way of every post-apocalyptic Chosen One fantasy you’ve ever seen.  The Matrix was in the mix, and so was Star Wars, and Mad Max, and The Wizard of Oz, and […]

  Effective showrunners learn from their mistakes, and the 4th and, as we now know, penultimate season of BBCAmerica’s ORPHAN BLACK was altogether more satisfying than Season 3.  Creator/showrunners Graeme Manson and John Fawcett had gotten ambitious in all the wrong ways last year, creating a line of male “Castor” clones (all played by Ari […]

  This week marked the end of the road for two of TV’s most distinctive, original takes on the romantic-comedy genre.  FXX’s You’re the Worst and CW’s CRAZY EX-GIRLFRIEND were both “cult hits,” which is to say that they survived low ratings for multiple seasons (5 for Worst, 4 for Girlfriend) thanks to critical praise […]