MR. SELFRIDGE:  Sunday 9PM on PBS MR. SELFRIDGE, the solace for PBS viewers between editions of Downton Abbey, has returned for its second season.  It lacks the dramatic urgency of Downton and is altogether a more conventional piece of work–it’s literally a show that, set in 1914, climaxes its opening hour by having someone […]

  FALLING SKIES:  Sunday 10PM on TNT After a falsely cheerful minute or two, the Season 4 premiere of TNT’s sturdy post-apocalyptic alien war saga FALLING SKIES set to work establishing its lines of battle for this summer.  By the end of the opening sequence, the script, by new series showrunner David Eick, had jumped forward by […]

  THE MILLERS:  Monday 8:30PM on CBS THE MILLERS is about to enter dangerous territory. Last season, the series was the very definition of a “timeslot hit.”  It lost half of its Big Bang Theory lead-in each week, but Big Bang‘s ratings were so enormous that even 50% of them counted as a success.  This […]

  HANNIBAL:  Thursday 10PM on NBC The languidly brutal art-horror thing HANNIBAL has returned, much to the joy of its acolytes.  The series is, without question, unlike anything to be found on even the most adventurous cable or online platform, which makes its continued existence on the wasteland of present-day NBC truly remarkable.  Nevertheless, its […]

  FEAR THE WALKING DEAD:  Sunday 9PM on AMC – In the Queue The opening episode of FEAR THE WALKING DEAD was audacious as only a sure thing can be.  The new series is, of course, a spin-off of the fantastically successful The Walking Dead–even if it lost two-thirds of its parent show’s ratings, it […]

  THE CATCH:  Thursday 10PM on ABC THE CATCH may have set a record for the number of times a series can be rebooted by the launch of its 2d season, yet it remains stubbornly lite rather than airy, ShondaLand’s little red choo-choo that has never quite made its way up the hill. Showrunner Allan […]

  INSECURE:  Sunday 10:30PM on HBO Issa Rae’s INSECURE became progressively more assured during the course of its first season, and although it wasn’t more than a moderate success, its ratings trended upward through its run, until it was outrating its higher-profile lead-in, Sarah Jessica Parker’s Divorce.  HBO has rewarded it by scheduling Season 2 […]

  DYNASTY:  Wednesday 9PM on CW – In the Queue The new DYNASTY isn’t the fall’s worst new show, but it’s the most puzzling.  Was there really a surge of interest among CW’s 18-34 target demo for a revival of an ABC soap that went off the air 28 years ago?  The show has a […]