SMASH:  Tuesday 10PM on NBC The intermission that began last May is over, and what SMASH desperately wants you to know isn’t just a second season but a full-fledged Version 2.0 kicks off with the self-aware lyric “I know I’ve kept you waiting/I know I’ve made you mad.”  In an attempt to get the […]

  WHISKEY CAVALIER:  Wednesday 10PM on ABC ABC capped Oscar Night with a bit of dessert, very much a trifle:  a “sneak preview” of WHISKEY CAVALIER, which will officially premiere on Wednesday night with the same episode.  The genre is Romantic Intrigue Lite, very much in the tradition of Charade, one of the classics of […]

  RAY DONOVAN:  Sunday 9PM on Showtime When a car crashes into a Los Angeles wall in the Season 4 premiere of Showtime’s sizable if somewhat inexplicable hit RAY DONOVAN, it doesn’t just crash into a wall:  it crashes directly into a giant mural of the Virgin Mary.  That’s the way Ray Donovan rolls, its […]

  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 […]

  ENLIGHTENED:  Sunday 9:30PM on HBO HBO’s decision to renew Mike White and Laura Dern’s ENLIGHTENED for a second season was one of the least ratings-driven calls in memory.  The show barely registered with viewers, usually drawing a 0.1 in 18-49s and a grand total (on initial airing) of perhaps a quarter of a million […]

  NANCY DREW:  Wednesday 9PM on CW Although NANCY DREW doesn’t hail from CW’s go-to producer Greg Berlanti (its showrunners are Gossip Girl‘s Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage, who created the show with Noga Landau), the series is clearly meant to follow in the path of Berlanti’s Riverdale as an “adult” (i.e., sexualized and violent) […]

  AMERICAN CRIME:  Wednesday 10PM on ABC AMERICAN CRIME‘s first season was, if not great network television, certainly ballsy.  John Ridley’s series took on race and class and religion to boot, and it was shot in a self-conscious “art film” way, with lengthy, intense close-ups, a measured pace, and a minimum of both music and […]

  STILL STAR-CROSSED:  Monday 10PM on ABC – If Nothing Else Is On… The idea of a Shonda Rhimes-produced sequel to one of Shakespeare’s classics sounds like something that might air on a satirical network, but STILL STAR-CROSSED is real, albeit relegated by ABC to its summer minor leagues.  (The actual series creator/showrunner is Heather […]