BROKE:  Thursday 9:30PM on CBS Even brand-new episodes of CBS multicamera sitcoms can have a tendency to feel like reruns, and the network’s new midseason series BROKE brings that to the “but this is ridiculous” level.  Broke is built around virtually the same premise as NBC’s midseason sitcom Indebted.  (The two shows even air […]

  COUNCIL OF DADS – Regular episodes begin airing April 30 on NBC NBC isn’t trying to fool anyone with its hopes for COUNCIL OF DADS.  The network aired a “preview” of its pilot more than a month before the actual series premiere in order to pair it with the season finale of This Is […]

  WESTWORLD:  Sunday 9PM on HBO   With most other forms of new entertainment content sidelined for at least the next several weeks, television is likely to be even more at the center of our culture than it already is, and Season 3 of HBO’s WESTWORLD, with its dense mythology and high philosophical ambitions, seems […]

  WATCHMEN:  Sunday 9PM on HBO The Damon Lindelof/HBO WATCHMEN provides a new wrinkle to the world of IP exploitation.  It’s not an adaptation of the classic Alan Moore/Dave Gibbons graphic novel (a la Zack Snyder’s all-too-reverent 2009 film) or even a reboot, but a newly conceived work that’s more like a spin-off or a […]

  NANCY DREW:  Wednesday 9PM on CW Although NANCY DREW doesn’t hail from CW’s go-to producer Greg Berlanti (its showrunners are Gossip Girl‘s Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage, who created the show with Noga Landau), the series is clearly meant to follow in the path of Berlanti’s Riverdale as an “adult” (i.e., sexualized and violent) […]

  ALMOST FAMILY:  Wednesday 9PM on FOX Whether we like it or not, the strongest lead-in on broadcast television right now is The Masked Singer, which makes it somewhat surprising that FOX has given the precious slot afterward to the mess that ALMOST FAMILY appears to be.  Even more surprising is that the lead producer […]

  ON BECOMING A GOD IN CENTRAL FLORIDA:  Sunday 10PM on Showtime There’s an overlap between two of cable’s more high-profile new shows, which also happen to air against each other in the linear world.  Both HBO’s The Righteous Gemstones and Showtime’s ON BECOMING A GOD IN CENTRAL FLORIDA are dark comedies about pernicious American […]

  SUCCESSION:  Sunday 9PM on HBO Sometimes HBO’s loyalty to its series creators results in the last season of Game of Thrones, but it can also lead to the first season of SUCCESSION (and, to be fair, the earlier seasons of Thrones), where vision and skill patiently nurtured result in the very best TV has […]