DALLAS:  Monday 9PM on TNT The most important fact about this second season of the revamped DALLAS is, of course, the sad event that occurred off-screen:  the death of Larry Hagman, the legendary J.R. Ewing.  Hagman apparently worked right up to the end, and in fact despite evident frailty, he was quite prominent in […]

  FALLING SKIES:  Sunday 10PM on TNT FALLING SKIES is, for TNT, the series Syfy needs and doesn’t seem to be able to pull off.  As futuristic adventure sagas go, there’s nothing innovative about it, or even stylish, and now that the original producers have departed, it’s no longer much interested in being an allegory.  […]

  LAW & ORDER: SPECIAL VICTIMS UNIT – Wednesday 10PM on NBC SVU began its 15th season with an atypically dark, serialized episode that served as a showcase for star Mariska Hargitay.  It picked up from the Season 14 finale, in which Detective Olivia Benson (Hargitay) was captured by a sadistic rapist and murderer played […]

  GETTING ON:  Sunday 10PM on HBO – Worth A Look It’s probably safe to assume that when a network launches a short run of a new series to air only during the holiday season, and that show isn’t at all holiday-related, the show isn’t prominent in the network’s long-term plans.  HBO is turning its […]

  DA VINCI’S DEMONS:  Saturday 9PM on Starz In its second season, Starz’s DA VINCI’S DEMONS continues to be less fun than it seems like it should be.  The series concerns a “Leonardo Da Vinci” who’s about as historically accurate as “Matt LeBlanc” is on Episodes, an Indiana Jones-ish adventurer who’s hip-deep in mystical skullduggery […]

  ROOKIE BLUE:  Thursday 9PM on ABC It’s quite an accomplishment for a scripted summer series on one of the broadcast networks to last five seasons on the air, and the ABC/Canadian co-production ROOKIE BLUE is now so venerable that one of the plotlines in tonight’s Season 5 premiere had the character whose rookie year kicked off […]

  ABOUT A BOY:  Tuesday 9:30PM on NBC This much is clear:  doula is the current sitcom profession of choice.  Just days after the second episode of Mulaney revolved around the hero’s discomfort with his girlfriend being one, ABOUT A BOY has returned with the news that Fiona (Minnie Driver), the show’s clueless mother, has […]

  STITCHERS:  Monday 9PM on ABCFamily – Change the Channel These are high times for those who can’t get enough of TV shows about young women who solve crimes by entering the memories of the recently deceased  Even as iZombie nears its season finale next week, ABCFamily’s new STITCHERS is telling a variation on the […]