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) […]

  HALT AND CATCH FIRE:  Saturday 9PM on AMC The links between AMC’s HALT AND CATCH FIRE as a television series, the stories it tells, and its characters have gone unusually deep.  The positive part has been that as series creators Christopher Cantwell and Christopher C. Rogers have grown steadily more assured and ambitious in each […]

  COUNTERPART:  Sunday 9PM on Starz, starting 1/21/18 – In the Queue Tales of alternative earths are an increasingly popular form of fiction these days, possibly because our actual Earth is currently so difficult to handle.  Just as The Man In the High Castle runs the subgenre through tropes of old-time war movies, Starz’s new […]

  SUCCESSION:  Sunday 10PM on HBO HBO’s new drama SUCCESSION may be too much of its moment for comfort.  The series, created by Jesse Armstrong (previously a writer/producer on Armando Ianucci’s Veep, The Thick Of It and In the Loop), shares the fascination of its Sunday-mate Billions with the hideously scheming ultra-rich of Manhattan.  Unlike […]

  WANDAVISION:  Episodes 1 & 2 available now on Disney+, remaining episodes drop 12:01AM each Friday   WANDAVISION mixes the old and the new in ways both self-conscious and not.  COVID delays on other projects led to it becoming the first genuine piece of MCU content created for the small screen.  (Earlier series like Agents […]

> Previously On… THE WALKING DEAD:  Our erstwhile humans spent many, many episodes on a farm owned by cranky vet Hershel (Scott Wilson), while they searched for the missing Sophia (Madison Lintz).  There were lots of lengthy conversations about the meaning of life in a zombie-infected universe, and whether it was worth going on–let alone […]

  UP ALL NIGHT:  Thursday 8:30PM on NBC WHERE WE WERE:  Watching a show about Reagan Brinkley (Christina Applegate), who struggled to produce her best friend Ava’s (Maya Rudolph) afternoon TV talk show while adjusting to parenting daughter Amy with stay-at-home lawyer husband Chris (Will Arnett). WHERE WE ARE:  In a somewhat different show.  Up […]

  NURSE JACKIE:  Sunday 9PM on Showtime NURSE JACKIE had a strong, dramatic season last year that may have been its best.  But the ratings weren’t anything to speak of (a 0.2-0.3 in 18-49s, and fewer than a million total viewers), and series co-creator/showrunners Liz Brixius and Linda Wallem left the show rather messily (from […]