MIDNIGHT, TEXAS:  Monday 10PM on NBC – Change the Channel NBC’s summer series MIDNIGHT, TEXAS is a horror, all right.  It’s based on novels by True Blood author Charlaine Harris, and the idea was plainly to do a broadcast network version of HBO’s hit.  But even if Midnight had been any good, the idea […]

  PERSON OF INTEREST:  Tuesday 10PM on CBS You wouldn’t necessarily know it from last night’s ratings, but PERSON OF INTEREST had a smooth segue to its new Tuesday 10PM home.  Although there are some notable changes from the past two seasons, in general the show seems very stable, which is exactly what CBS asks […]

  HART OF DIXIE:  Monday 8PM on CW It’s a strange thing to say about an airy, cornpone rom-com, but HART OF DIXIE is the most grounded show on the CW schedule.  None of the characters have supernatural powers; there are no secret government agencies or international assassins to be seen; franchises aren’t in play.  […]

  SUBURGATORY:  Wednesday 8:30PM on ABC For a comedy that seemed to have a strong sense of itself on its debut, SUBURGATORY suffered from a surprisingly rocky case of the Terrible Twos.  Creatively, the second season of Emily Kapnek’s series wobbled from its original tart satire of suburban mores to weakly serialized romances, dumbed-up silliness […]

  THIS IS US:  Tuesday 9PM on NBC Last season, THIS IS US was the artisanal brewery of network TV.  It didn’t fit into any of the conventional franchise genres, which made it feel hand-crafted and special.  Instead, it mixed the old-fashioned sentiment of a family soap with state of the art trickery derived from […]

  PROVEN INNOCENT:  Friday 9PM on FOX PROVEN INNOCENT is even worse than you might expect from a broadcast drama that premieres on a Friday in February.  The creator is David Elliot, whose previous scripts have mostly been action movies (GI Joe: The Rise of Cobra, the Mark Wahlberg vehicle Four Brothers), and the writing […]

  RECOVERY ROAD:  Monday 9PM on Freeform (Episodes 1-3 available via VOD/streaming) – If Nothing Else Is On… If the idea of rebranding ABCFamily as Freeform was to escape the network’s flavor of earnest YA soap, the new RECOVERY ROAD didn’t get the memo.  It’s ABCF down to its toes, a super-sized Afterschool Special built […]

  PREACHER:  Monday 9PM on AMC Think of PREACHER as American Gods without the aspirations to greatness.  Both shows detail the gory interactions between (more or less) ordinary humans and supernatural beings; both tackle religion as an integral part of their pulp action; both feature jet-black humor.  Under Bryan Fuller’s supervision, though, Gods is painterly […]