ZOO:  Tuesday 9PM on CBS – Change the Channel Of all the broadcast networks, CBS is the biggest fan of branding.  It has its procedural hours during the regular season, its working-class half-hours (which are either multi-camera or feel like they could be), and more recently, its summer sci-fi thrillers.  Under the Dome begat […]

  SCREAM QUEENS:  Tuesday 9PM on FOX There didn’t seem to be a pressing need for a second season of SCREAM QUEENS.  The ratings for Season 1 were meager, even in the young female demo the show was courting, and the reviews were worse.  But FOX as a whole had bigger flops to cancel, plus […]

  VICTORIA:  Sunday 9PM on PBS – In the Queue Female British monarchs are certainly having a television moment, with Elizabeth I a regular character on CW’s soon-to-return Reign, her current namesake at the center of Netflix’s The Crown, and now the PBS/ITV VICTORIA.  The newest arrival is far classier than CW’s YA soap, but […]

  ORPHAN BLACK:  Saturday 10PM on BBCAmerica A somewhat meta line of dialogue about “consolidation” is a sign that ORPHAN BLACK has commenced its final (and 5th) season.  Series creators Graeme Manson and John Fawcett (Manson is credited as writer of the season premiere, Fawcett as director) have started to move their pieces toward the […]

  THIS IS US:  Tuesday 9PM on NBC Last season, THIS IS US was the artisanal brewery of network TV.  It didn’t fit into any of the conventional franchise genres, which made it feel hand-crafted and special.  Instead, it mixed the old-fashioned sentiment of a family soap with state of the art trickery derived from […]

  UNSOLVED: THE MURDERS OF TUPAC & THE NOTORIOUS B.I.G. – Tuesday 10PM on USA – Potential DVR Alert The progeny of The People vs. OJ Simpson continue to arrive.  This season we’ve had the (so far) enormously disappointing American Crime Story follow-up The Assassination of Gianni Versace, as well as Dick Wolf’s even worse […]

    The sparse network summer season for scripted series kicked off tonight with ROOKIE BLUE, beginning that extreme rarity, a 3d season, where few original network dramas in summer even get to a Season 2. WHERE WE WERE:  Our heroine, 2d year Toronto police officer Andy McNally (Missy Peregrym), after a season and a […]

SUITS – Thursdays 10PM on USA   WHERE WE WERE:  On a precipice.  Mike Ross (Patrick J. Adams) was a hustler with limited formal education but a photographic memory.  He used his talents, among other things, to take tests for those who paid him–including the bar exam, which he passed many times.  Fate brought him […]