HELL ON WHEELS:  Saturday 9PM on AMC In its 5 seasons on the air, HELL ON WHEELS has never achieved a sustained stability, shifting tones and narrative thrust on an almost seasonal basis as a perpetual bubble show in the ratings.  Based on tonight’s Season 5 premiere, this announced final stanza may be its […]

  SEX&DRUGS&ROCK&ROLL:  Thursday 10PM on FX – If Nothing Else Is On… Denis Leary doesn’t have a world of range, and in his new comedy SEX&DRUGS&ROCK&ROLL, the aging never-quite-star he plays called Johnny Rock isn’t very different from Tommy Gavin, the fireman he played on Rescue Me.  (Leary created both shows, on Rescue Me working […]

  THE JIM GAFFIGAN SHOW:  Wednesday 10PM on TV Land – If Nothing Else Is On… Doofus dads are a staple of TV sitcoms, and THE JIM GAFFIGAN SHOW is an affable addition to the canon.  Gaffigan has made a modest industry out of recounting his life as a stand-up comic squeezed with his wife […]

  IMPASTOR:  Wednesday 10:30PM on TV Land – Change the Channel TV Land’s brand was built primarily as a repackager of vintage sitcoms, and when it entered the world of original content, it initially did so with shows that tried to duplicate their appeal:  basic multi-camera comedies like Hot In Cleveland and The Exes that starred former stars of […]

  MASTERS OF SEX:  Sunday 10PM on Showtime Turning the lives of sex researchers William Masters and Virginia Johnson into a continuing series was an audacious idea from the start, and Season 2 of MASTERS OF SEX proved a challenging one, less focused and compelling than the first season had been.  Tonight’s first episode of […]

  RAY DONOVAN:  Sunday 9PM on Showtime It’s a bit surprising that RAY DONOVAN has been a steady performer for Showtime, considering that its tone tends toward the glum and monotonous, but next to Homeland, it’s one of the network’s more consistent titles.  Despite that success, Showtime deposed series creator/showrunner Ann Biderman at the end […]

  THE STRAIN:  Sunday 10PM on FX Despite its contemporary NY setting, there’s an old-world charm to the horrors of THE STRAIN, with its silver bullets and sword-canes.  They come courtesy of series godfather and co-creator Guillermo del Toro, who loves this stuff (his own upcoming movie Crimson Peak appears to be a compendium of […]

  DOMINION:  Thursday 10PM on Syfy This summer, long-suffering USA and Lifetime finally succeeded in airing image-changing original series with Mr. Robot and UnReal.  Syfy, though, still dwells in the desert where most of its low-rent programming seems to be shot, watching other networks notch hits even in its own home genre.  If Defiance is […]