ANIMAL PRACTICE: Wednesday 8PM starting 9/26 on NBC – Change The Channel UPDATE:  Tonight NBC aired the recast version of the ANIMAL PRACTICE pilot as a last-gasp grab for the attention of its Olympics audience.  Joanna Garcia Swisher now plays the female lead, the new boss of the show’s animal hospital and ex-girlfriend of […]

  Lorne Michaels does know how to throw a party.  The 2015 finale of SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE closed with a rollicking “Santa Claus Is Coming To Town” from Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, joined by the cast, the night’s hosts Tina Fey and Amy Poehler, special guest Maya Rudolph, fake in-studio snow–and Paul […]

  LIFE OF PI:  Worth A Ticket – A Floating Display of Visual Marvels A boy and a Bengal tiger get into a lifeboat… The digital paintbox now available to filmmakers provides an almost limitless variety of visual possibilities, and also a certain amount of temptation, because like any resource, it can be overused.  Ang […]

  THE X-FILES:  Monday 8PM on FOX With its densely serialized mythology and mostly pre-internet rabidly enthusiastic fans, THE X-FILES was a key signpost on the road to today’s pop culture.  By the time it left the air in 2002, though, it was limping badly, with David Duchovny barely participating and ratings that were low, […]

  HOMELAND:  Sunday 10PM on Showtime WHERE WE WERE:  Wincing, as bipolar CIA agent Carrie Mathison (Claire Danes) underwent electroshock therapy, which we knew was going to make her forget the proof she had that former POW, current Congressional candidate and all-around American hero Nicholas Brody (Damian Lewis) was actually a deep-cover terrorist, working for […]

  2 BROKE GIRLS:  Monday 8PM on CBS 2 BROKE GIRLS is about as basic as sitcoms come.  Take two mismatched young women–Caroline (Beth Behrs), who’s tall, blonde and unable to believe she’s not rich anymore; and Max (Kat Dennings), a busty brunette with street smarts–turn them into enforced roommates and co-workers at a Brooklyn […]

  TYRANT:  Wednesday 10PM on FX FX’s TYRANT has never been as incisive or daring as it could have been, given its incendiary setting in a fictional Middle Eastern nation on the brink of revolution, but it’s a survivor, back on the air for its third season.  After an unengaging initial run, the series remade […]