ESCAPE AT DANNEMORA:  Sunday 10PM on Showtime Although the star currency of producer/director Ben Stiller and leading players Benicio del Toro, Patricia Arquette and Paul Dano doubtless were responsible for the 7 hours of ESCAPE AT DANNEMORA being produced by Showtime, the limited series is far from a glossy big-name vehicle.  As an actor, […]

  LEGACIES:  Thursday 9PM on CW CW’s LEGACIES brings the Vampire Diaries extended universe once again close to its roots, after the older-skewing adventures of The Originals.  We’re not only back in Mystic Falls, Virginia, but in a version of high school, although one that looks a lot like Hogwarts.  (The connection is so blatant […]

  THE ROOKIE:  Tuesday 10PM on ABC THE ROOKIE is mostly a standard-issue police procedural, not surprisingly most reminiscent of ABC’s long-running summer series Rookie Blue, but with one big difference:  it’s unmistakably a star vehicle for Nathan Fillion.  He’s one of those actors who seems to have spent his entire adult life starring in […]

  THE KIDS ARE ALRIGHT:  Tuesday 8:30PM on ABC THE KIDS ARE ALRIGHT is ABC’s 9th family sitcom currently on the air (10th if you count the quasi-family of Single Parents), which puts it in a meta position not unlike its focal character Timmy Cleary (Jack Gore), the middle child of eight Catholic sons and […]

  CAMPING:  Sunday 10PM on HBO Although HBO’s new comedy CAMPING is set in the great outdoors, it has the dynamics of a filmed play.  The concept is simple:  throw a number of mismatched characters together in a confined area, and watch them rub each other the wrong way.  In this case, the occasion is […]

  CHARMED:  Sunday 9PM on CW CW’s reboot of CHARMED wants to be a lighthearted supernatural romp, but it also seeks to push as many topical buttons as it possibly can.  So while the basic story of a trio of young women witches provides a built-in tale of female empowerment, the new pilot also comes […]

  ALL AMERICAN:  Wednesday 9PM on CW The ALL AMERICAN of CW’s pilot may or may not be fully representative of the series going forward, since creator and original showrunner April Blair is no longer involved with the production of the show, replaced by writer/producer Nkechi O. Carroll.  (The series is under the overall supervision–as […]

  HAPPY TOGETHER:  Monday 8:30PM on CBS Even though CBS’s HAPPY TOGETHER is inspired by a period in Executive Producer Harry Styles’s actual life, it’s one of those sitcoms where no one in front of or behind the cameras appears to have spent much time on Earth.  The contrivance that serves as the plot has […]