THE NEWSROOM:  Sunday 10PM on HBO Aaron Sorkin may have professed not to agree with most of the criticisms aimed at THE NEWSROOM during its initial season, but a look at its Season 2 premiere makes it pretty clear that he was listening.  From the new and altogether less stentorian opening credit sequence (no […]

  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 […]

  MOTIVE:  Wednesday 10PM on ABC Welcome to summer network TV. The broadcast networks talk a good game about the new 12-months-a-year world of television–and to its credit, CBS has been relatively ambitious with Under the Dome and this summer’s Extant, a sci-fi thriller starring Halle Berry–but for the most part, once May sweeps end, […]

  SLEEPY HOLLOW:  Monday 9PM on FOX SLEEPY HOLLOW turned out to be the best news FOX would get all of last season.  Although the show’s ratings dropped somewhat from their initially remarkable heights during its 13-episode run, it remained just about the only show on FOX’s air (other than its aging animated monuments) that […]

  THE FOLLOWING:  Monday 9PM on FOX With the exception of those whose livelihoods depend on it, is there anyone who really wanted a third season of THE FOLLOWING?  After a promising start, the mass murder thriller wallowed in gore, torture and plotting that was pretentious, repetitive, and often downright silly.  The ratings reflected that, […]

  LEGENDS:  Monday 10PM on TNT The first season of TNT’s LEGENDS was notable mostly for wasting the talents of its star Sean Bean.  The show’s concept, based on a novel by Robert Littell, concerned federal agent Martin Odum (Bean), who had taken on many “legends” or fake identities over the years, and who discovered […]

  OUTLANDER:  Saturday 9PM on Starz OUTLANDER hasn’t been the ratings breakout for Starz that Power has been, but it may be something even more important:  the network’s first real buzz show, one that’s put it on the drama map with its fellow cable networks, and is perhaps poised for a ratings jump in Season […]