AGENT X:  Sunday 9PM on TNT – Change the Channel Remember a couple of months ago when The Player started on NBC, and the criticism was that it was the kind of mindless action show that had once made the term “basic cable” a perjorative?  Well, TNT’s new AGENT X is a throwback to […]

  LEGENDS:  Monday 10PM on TNT The first season of TNT’s LEGENDS was notable mostly for wasting the talents of its star Sean Bean.  The show’s concept, based on a novel by Robert Littell, concerned federal agent Martin Odum (Bean), who had taken on many “legends” or fake identities over the years, and who discovered […]

  WICKED CITY:  Tuesday 10PM on ABC – Change the Channel CBS and ABC both took their time before introducing their last new dramas of the fall.  But while Supergirl flew into town on clouds of carefully planned hype and positive buzz, WICKED CITY was preceded by behind-the-scenes changes and reshoots.  The show is another […]

  SUPERGIRL:  Monday 8PM on CBS (premiere at 8:30PM tonight) – In the Queue SUPERGIRL is more thrilling as an experiment in network scheduling than as a TV show.  There’s nothing terribly wrong with the series itself, which comes from the Greg Berlanti factory of DC Comics adventures that’s already given us CW’s Arrow and The Flash, with […]

  THE KNICK:  Friday 10PM on Cinemax Even at a time of unprecedented quality on television, when the complaint is that there’s just too much good content to watch, Cinemax’s THE KNICK was something special last season.  It served as a reminder that in the right hands, a story that sounds initially unpromising–the saga of […]

  FARGO:  Monday 10PM on FX Despite all the pressures of launching a new storyline and cast–not to mention living up to its brilliant first season–Noah Hawley’s reincarnation of the Coen Brothers’ FARGO gave no sign of missing a step in its Season 2 premiere (unlike, say, a certain anthologized HBO detective series one could […]

  THE WALKING DEAD:  Sunday 9PM on AMC At this point in its massively successful run (massive enough to allow AMC to renew the superb but low-rated Halt and Catch Fire last week, so hurray!), THE WALKING DEAD can well afford to take a few chances, and tonight’s Season 6 premiere was its most formally […]

  AMERICAN HORROR STORY: HOTEL:  Wednesday 10PM on FX Even by the lavish standards of its franchise, the first installment of AMERICAN HORROR STORY: HOTEL is crazily incoherent.  It plays mostly as a collection of extended, bloody music videos–and since subtlety has never been a strength of series co-creator Ryan Murphy and his team, it […]