FBI:  Tuesday 9PM on CBS Dick Wolf and CBS have always seemed as made for each other as the leads of a rom-com.  And as in that genre, only outside interference has kept the King and Network of Procedurals from falling into a passionate airport-gate embrace before now.  In this case, it’s been their […]

  SUBURGATORY:  Wednesday 9:30PM on ABC WHERE WE WERE:  Meeting Grandma.  In the season finale, having survived her first year in the titular Chatswin, Tessa (Jane Levy) met her long-absent mother’s mom–on Mother’s Day, no less.  Also, Tessa’s best friend Lisa (Allie Grant), who had spent most of the season thinking (hoping) that she’d been […]

  COLONY:  Thursday 10PM on USA (pilot available via on-demand and streaming) – If Nothing Else Is On… USA’s new COLONY falls into the category of alien-invasion science fiction, but its pilot has more in common with World War II films like The Last Metro or the recent alt-history chronicle The Man In the High […]

  BETTER CALL SAUL moves with the assurance of a series that knows exactly where it’s going to end up–and so do we, since we’re aware that sad sack attorney Jimmy McGill (Bob Odenkirk) will ultimately wind up as slick Saul Goodman in the world of Breaking Bad (and then as a woeful Cinnabon manager […]

  GAME OF THRONES:  Sunday 9PM on HBO GAME OF THRONES is such an assured, expert piece of work that it’s easy to forget how many rules of conventional TV storytelling it routinely violates.  It’s not just the teeming mass of central characters–so many that tonight’s Season 4 premiere wasn’t even able to visit all […]

  SCANDAL:  Thursday 9PM on ABC How tough is Olivia Pope (Kerry Washington), newly minted as both Chief of Staff to President Mellie Grant (Bellamy Young), and head of secret intelligence and torture bureau B613?  As Season 7 of SCANDAL has it, Olivia is so tough that when she has Huck (Guillermo Diaz) train a […]

  THE AFFAIR:  Sunday 10PM on Showtime The second season of THE AFFAIR took some risks, and they largely paid off.  (Dramatically, if not in the ratings.)  The series widened its universe beyond the viewpoints of illicit lovers Noah Solloway (Dominic West) and Allison Lockhart (Ruth Wilson) to include their respective exes Helen (Maura Tierney) […]

  HART OF DIXIE:  Tuesday 8PM on CW WHERE WE WERE:  The bedroom of Dr. Zoe Hart (Rachel Bilson) in Bluebell, Alabama, where the New York transfer was finally getting some action after an entire season of dithering.  On what was supposed to be the wedding night of George Tucker (Scott Porter), for whom Zoe […]