History Channel has been on quite a streak in its last two seasons.  Its first foray into scripted television, the miniseries Hatfields & McCoys, was a surprise smash hit, as was this year’s follow-up The Bible.  This season the network stepped into the continuing series world with VIKINGS, and while not at the same […]

  This was, for the most part, a solid rebuilding season for TRUE BLOOD.  The show survived a replacement in showrunners when series creator Alan Ball stepped down after 5 years–and then a replacement of that replacement–with show veteran Brian Buckner ultimately taking over.  Under his direction, the series took a smart step or two […]

  HBO’s GETTING ON was generally close to unwatchable, and that’s meant as sort of a compliment.  Even in the world of pay-TV, where ratings aren’t always at the forefront of a network’s expectations, there’s usually some concession to conventional entertainment value, especially in a show that purports to be a comedy of sorts.  But Getting […]

  You couldn’t tell it from the ratings, which were if anything more dismal than ever, or from tonight’s somewhat disappointing season finale, but the return of Founding Genius Dan Harmon rejuvenated COMMUNITY‘s fifth season.  It wasn’t that last year’s replacement team had done a shameful job–they worked hard to provide the same species of […]

  It remains a pop culture puzzle that Marvel can have such uninterrupted, unprecedented success as a producer of blockbuster movies, yet still not have cracked the code of TV, while DC, which is hurrying (perhaps too fast) to play catch-up on the big screen, is routinely turning out hit series for the small one.  (Well, […]

  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 […]

  MISTRESSES faced some challenges in its 3rd season.  Two were interrelated:  for budget reasons, the network and studio decided to relocate the production to Vancouver, and that prompted marquee star Alyssa Milano to disengage from her contract.  Season 3 didn’t really suffer from these changes, since Milano’s character Savi had a relatively weak role […]

  For anyone who doubts the challenges of sustaining a serialized narrative across 22 broadcast-network hours, there’s QUANTICO.  Joshua Safran’s series went from one of the brightest spots of ABC’s fall schedule to a show that may have been lucky to have an early Season 2 renewal in its pocket, unable to effectively navigate its […]