CAMPING:  Sunday 10PM on HBO Although HBO’s new comedy CAMPING is set in the great outdoors, it has the dynamics of a filmed play.  The concept is simple:  throw a number of mismatched characters together in a confined area, and watch them rub each other the wrong way.  In this case, the occasion is […]

  ALMOST FAMILY:  Wednesday 9PM on FOX Whether we like it or not, the strongest lead-in on broadcast television right now is The Masked Singer, which makes it somewhat surprising that FOX has given the precious slot afterward to the mess that ALMOST FAMILY appears to be.  Even more surprising is that the lead producer […]

    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 […]

  MODERN FAMILY:  Wednesday 9PM on ABC WHERE WE WERE:  Gloria (Sofia Vergara) is pregnant.  That’s really all you need to know.  Well, that and Cam and Mitchell (Eric Stonestreet and Jesse Tyler Ferguson) failed in their attempt to adopt a second child.  But mostly, Gloria is pregnant. WHERE WE ARE:  The next day, which […]

  GIRLS:  Sunday 9PM on HBO The newly Golden Globe-winning GIRLS has returned, despite all its intervening success and attention, with its messiness intact.  “Messy” is a relative term in the world of Girls, of course, because although the lives of its characters are in complete disarray, auteur Lena Dunham’s vision (carried out with writing partners […]

  THE FOSTERS:  Monday 9PM on ABCFamily For the most part, ABCFamily’s new THE FOSTERS takes a nicely low-key approach to material that could easily have been cloying or vapid (or both).  Our entry point into the story is Callie (Maia Mitchell), a troubled teen who, upon her release from juvie, is taken in by […]

  Every fan of HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER came into tonight’s Season 9 premiere knowing three things.  This will be not just the ninth, but the final season of the series; last season’s finale introduced us, at long last, to the still-unnamed Mother (new regular Cristin Milioti); and the entire season will take place […]