THE EXORCIST:  Friday 9PM on FOX – Potential DVR Alert Like Noah Hawley’s ongoing take on Fargo, the new FOX version of THE EXORCIST, created for television by Jeremy Slater (one of the unhappy group credited for the script of last year’s awful Fantastic Four reboot) wisely uses the underlying material as inspiration for […]

  BANSHEE:  Friday 10PM on Cinemax Cinemax’s gonzo-grindhouse extravaganza BANSHEE is back for its second season, seeming to flow directly from the ids of sensitive rom-com/dram novelist Jonathan Tropper and his fellow series creator David Schickler. By Banshee standards, the season 2 premiere, written by Tropper and directed by Greg Yaitanes, was relatively sedate.  Mostly […]

  THE SPOILS OF BABYLON:  Thursday 10PM on IFC – Change the Channel A lot of talent has been harnessed for IFC’s miniseries parody THE SPOILS OF BABYLON, starting with performer/producers Will Ferrell (whose Funny Or Die studio is behind the project), Tobey Maguire and Kristen Wiig, and including cast members Michael Sheen, Jessica Alba, […]

  DAMAGES:  Wednesday 9PM on DirecTV Audience Network   WHERE WE WERE:  Recoiling from Patty Hewes (Glenn Close), the most untrustworthy attorney in New York.  Patty is a spider, constantly setting traps for everyone around her.  She has a particularly unhealthy relationship with Ellen Parsons (Rose Byrne), who started out as Patty’s junior associate.  In […]

  THE NEVERS:  Sunday 9PM on HBO The arrival of HBO’s THE NEVERS introduces a continuing series that’s also, in a sense, a limited one.  It was initially meant to be the latest original franchise from creator/auteur/showrunner Joss Whedon, the inventor of the Buffy The Vampire Slayer universe and director of the first two Avengers […]

  NOTORIOUS:  Thursday 9PM on ABC – Change the Channel Any viewer apt to complain about the over-the-top melodrama of Scandal should be forced to watch the pilot for Notorious, a supposed “drama” so consistently idiotic that it’s closer in tone to the self-mocking theatrics of Jane the Virgin.  As it happens, Notorious is filling […]

  CLARICE:  Thursday 10PM on CBS The Silence Of the Lambs wasn’t supposed to be Hannibal Lecter’s story.  Despite Anthony Hopkins’ Best Actor Oscar for the role, the character was a supporting player in both Thomas Harris’ 1988 novel and Jonathan Demme’s 1991 film.  The center of the tale was FBI agent Clarice Starling, but […]

Game WISDOM OF THE CROWD:  Sunday 8PM on CBS – Change the Channel CBS’s WISDOM OF THE CROWD is for the people who thought the problem with FOX’s canceled APB was that it didn’t star Jeremy Piven.  Once again we have a high-tech billionaire who decides to privatize crimefighting after someone close to him is […]