THE CHI:  Sunday 10PM on Showtime – More Mean Streets Showtime’s THE CHI is geographically close enough to the Chicago of its veteran hit Shameless that its characters could bump into Gallaghers at any given moment, but series creator Lena Waithe is influenced more by the work of David Simon, and not so much […]

  9-1-1:  Wednesday 9PM on FOX – Surprisingly Unsurprising Saying that FOX’s 9-1-1 is the Ryan Murphy team’s version of a Dick Wolf procedural makes it sound far more subversive and original than it actually is.  In fact, for the most part its opening hour is virtually indistinguishable from one of the cogs in Wolf’s wheel […]

  GROWN-ISH:  Wednesday 8PM on Freeform – In Progress ABC’s Black-ish has been a bright spot on the broadcast landscape, the rare network family sitcom to earn both wide audiences and critical praise for its combination of political sting and emotional warmth.  A spin-off created by Black-ish creator Kenya Barris (and Larry Wilmore, an original […]

  LA TO VEGAS:  Tuesday 9PM on FOX – In the Queue Broadcast TV kicks off its new scripted series year with FOX’s well-paced LA TO VEGAS, a mostly retro workplace sitcom with a small twist:  Lon Zimmet’s series takes place almost entirely on the roundtrips of the titular run, operated by the Southwest-like Jackpot Airlines. The […]

  COUNTERPART:  Sunday 9PM on Starz, starting 1/21/18 – In the Queue Tales of alternative earths are an increasingly popular form of fiction these days, possibly because our actual Earth is currently so difficult to handle.  Just as The Man In the High Castle runs the subgenre through tropes of old-time war movies, Starz’s new […]

  HAPPY! – Wednesday 10PM on Syfy – In the Queue HAPPY! counts as one of Syfy’s infrequent big swings, although its ultra-violent grunge aesthetic gives it a look and feel that isn’t all that different from the network’s usual diet of micro-budgeted co-productions.  This one, though, has a name star in Christopher Meloni, and […]

  AGENTS OF SHIELD – Friday 9PM on ABC It’s hard to believe that only 5 seasons ago, when ABC’s AGENTS OF SHIELD arrived on the air, the idea of a superhero TV series still seemed somewhat new and cool.  At that point, it was joined only by Arrow, in the era before CW was […]

  SMILF:  Sunday 10PM on Showtime – In the Queue SMILF is TV’s latest auteur dramedy, a semiautobiographical work from star/writer/producer/director Frankie Shaw.  (She was Elliot’s ill-fated neighbor on Mr. Robot.)  As the title suggests, the show is the story of young single mom Bridgette (Shaw), who has a friendly relationship with her son’s dad Rafi […]