THE GOOD WIFE:  Sunday 9PM/9:30PM (depending on football) on CBS THE GOOD WIFE lost a step in an uneven fourth season that included botched characters (Kalinda’s husband, the friend/foe played by Maura Tierney) and a gubernatorial campaign that never caught dramatic fire.  But the finale set things up very nicely for Season 5, and the […]

  REVENGE:  Sunday 9PM on ABC REVENGE went off the rails last season, both creatively and in the ratings (its Season 2 finale managed just a 1.7).  When it was over, series creator Mike Kelley found himself bumped off his own show, replaced by new showrunner Sunil Nayar, who wrote tonight’s Season 3 premiere (directed […]

  ONCE UPON A TIME:  Sunday 8PM on ABC The Season 3 premiere of ONCE UPON A TIME didn’t step foot in Storybrooke, nor did it feature any flashbacks to pre-curse incarnations of the protagonists.  Whether this was a one-time event for the premiere or a new template for the series is unclear, but the […]

  PARENTHOOD:  Thursday 10PM on NBC PARENTHOOD, like Parks & Recreation, is one of NBC’s little engines that could, chugging along to a fourth season despite mediocre ratings.  (And last night’s series-low-tying 1.6 in its Thursday night debut won’t help any.)  Whatever the network may consider its failings from a bottom-line point of view, creatively it […]

  PARKS & RECREATION:  Thursday 8PM on NBC PARKS & RECREATION had a much better time in London than Elementary.  The marvelous never-a-hit comedy, starting its improbable 6th season, brought most of the cast over for a full hour of the show’s trademark mix of crazy and heartfelt.  No one who wasn’t already in love […]

  ELEMENTARY:  Thursday 10PM on CBS For those of us mildly obsessed with BBC’s superlative Sherlock, it may have been unwise for CBS’s ELEMENTARY (which all concerned agree is not, legally, a knock-off) to bring its updated Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, in its Season 2 premiere, to London.  Kept on their separate continents, Jonny […]

  GREY’S ANATOMY:  Thursday 9PM on ABC In the miracle season of 2004-05, ABC launched three smash hits:  Desperate Housewives, Lost and GREY’S ANATOMY.  Ten seasons later, the only one still around is Grey’s, and its blockbuster days are past, with ratings last spring around a 3.0 that didn’t always carry its timeslot, and with […]

  GLEE:  Thursday 9PM on FOX It was announced a while back that GLEE will wait until its third episode, after its previously planned 2-part salute to The Beatles, to deal with the passing of Cory Monteith and the absence of his character Finn.  Nevertheless, it was hard not to feel as though Lea Michele’s […]