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 […]

  Although frequently tortuous to watch, TOP OF THE LAKE wasn’t really Snob TV, where a Famous Filmmaker slums their way through a series.  It’s more that narrative has never been of particular interest to Jane Campion, even in her best films like The Piano or Holy Smoke, and giving her 6 hours to play […]

  The Ewing family had to figure out how to muddle through this season after the loss of its most illustrious and colorful member, and so did the TV show that created them all.  DALLAS survived the death of Larry Hagman, and the consequent passing of J.R. Ewing, with ratings that stayed fairly steady in […]

  GO ON is a genuine bubble show–not just in its ratings (which are strong when it has The Voice as a lead-in and barely acceptable when it doesn’t), but in its quality.  The series wobbles from episode to episode and even between storylines in a single episode, sometimes smart and charming and equally often […]

  COUGAR TOWN survived its trip from ABC to the wilds of cable, as well as the day-to-day departure of series co-creator and original showrunner Bill Lawrence, with its charms mostly intact, even if the show is starting to feel a bit predictable around the edges.  While not a breakout performer for TBS (it didn’t […]

  Stripped of its period trappings and the fact that its heroine is named Carrie Bradshaw, THE CARRIE DIARIES is the most basic and least interesting of CW’s YA romances.  The season finale, like countless season finales set in high school before it, revolved around the junior prom, even though none of the characters ever […]

  Barring unusual financial or political considerations, David E. Kelley’s MONDAY MORNINGS–which has had wretched ratings since its debut–aired its final episode on TNT with tonight’s technically season finale, so we won’t spend a lot of time poking around the body.  Returning to the show after its first month of episodes, hardly anything seemed to […]

  Showtime’s HOUSE OF LIES was a bit more ambitious in its second season, and that was a good move, even if the results were uneven.  In its initial season, House was all too clearly a companion piece for Californication, a weekly half-hour of light, sexy satire around the consulting group campfire, with Don Cheadle’s […]