NBC is all-in on CHICAGO FIRE.  Not only has it given the show a plum spot for the fall on Tuesdays with The Voice as its lead-in, it’s ordered a police-oriented spin-off for midseason.  All this enthusiasm is a little puzzling, giving that the show has been only a marginal success (its season average […]

  You can take a time-travel journey back to 20th-century network television with LAW & ORDER: SVU, the last remnant of Dick Wolf’s once-behemoth franchise.  Visiting the show for the first time since last fall reveals a few small surprises–Detective Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay) has acquired a boyfriend–but for the most part, SVU is very […]

  NASHVILLE is a superior network series, loaded with talent and powerful moments, but it can also drive you up a wall, beset as it is with sometimes infuriating shortcomings.  The same was true for tonight’s season finale, written and directed by series creator Callie Khouri. Some of the show’s problems are glaringly obvious.  Its […]

  After 4 seasons as a smash hit, MODERN FAMILY isn’t too concerned with creating forward momentum.  The show is better at what it does than just about anything else on television; the ratings may be down, but so are everyone’s; in short, it ain’t broke.  If that makes for a season that’s more pleasant […]

  The second season of NBC’s GRIMM was considerably more satisfying than its first, although it did show the strain of trying to establish a series mythology.  The season’s final episode (really, last week’s hour and this one formed a cohesive 2-hour finale), written by series co-creators David Greenwalt and Jim Kouf, and directed by […]

  When people say that an original film or television series has the feel of a novel, it’s usually meant as a high compliment.  (The Wire is probably the definitive example of this in television.)  But Sundance Channel’s first scripted series RECTIFY was a reminder that not all novels, however earnest and well-meant, are worth […]

  The first season of BATES MOTEL pulled one of the season’s more interesting sleights of hand.  In theory a prequel to Psycho, more often than not it used the source material as pretext for a quite different kind of series.  (Unlike Hannibal, which for all its distinctive, archly disgusting visuals and doomy mood has […]

  Even though death is part of the daily menu of our television and movies, dying–lingering, fatal illness–is much rarer.  We prefer our deaths to be mere starting points for police investigations, or the byproduct of our fascination with serial killers–puzzles rather than human beings.  Even on medical shows, patients who die rarely take up […]