SERIES PREMIERE: Viola Davis is fun to watch as a law professor and trial lawyer who, as my friend and fellow critic Mark Dawidziak summarizes her, is part John Houseman from The Paper Chase and part Glenn Close from Damages. Exactly – and that’s a very intriguing mixture.

2014

Sep

PARENTHOOD By David Bianculli

SEASON PREMIERE: The bad news is that this is the final season for Parenthood. The good news is that it gets a final season, which was by no means guaranteed when NBC started putting together its fall schedule. (Especially since, when looking at the network’s programming development for the new season, it’s clear that quality was not a mitigating factor.) One thing I’m really, really looking forward to this year: the continuation of the romance between Sarah (Lauren Graham) and

2014

Sep

GARFUNKEL AND OATES By David Bianculli

SEASON FINALE: Riki and Kate end their season by trying to get better adjusted. Especially Kate, who sees a therapist, and tries to act on the advice – though it isn’t easy, or particularly helpful.

2014

Sep

THE MIDDLE By David Bianculli

SEASON PREMIERE: It’s the start of Season 6 for this underrated sitcom, and the season premiere brings major changes for the Heck family. Well, for at least one of them: After five very long years, Sue (Eden Sher) finally is getting her braces removed. And in a sitcom as sweet and observantly funny as this one is, that’s plenty of inspiration for a season opener – molar less.

2014

Sep

SURVIVOR By David Bianculli

SEASON PREMIERE: I’ll be honest: Survivor finally lost me a season or two ago, and I no longer feel the need to watch these camera-unshy castaways as they attempt to outwit, and occasionally out-halfwit, one another. But if your reality TV tolerance level is a little higher than mine, this competition reality show is better than most. And compared to Fox’s Utopia, it’s… utopia.

2014

Sep

MODERN FAMILY By David Bianculli

SEASON PREMIERE: All you need to know about this series – well, all I need to know, anyway, is that it’s back for a new season, with the first fresh episode of the fall. Oh, and that one particular newly married couple is just wrapping up a honeymoon, with a less-than-romantic re-entry into “real life.”

2014

Sep

RED BAND SOCIETY By David Bianculli

Fox opted to premiere this series last week, before there was all the surrounding Fall Premiere competition. So if you watched then, you already know this show’s premise, and its characters – and already have witnessed such emotional growth among those young characters that this second episode could have had much less friction. But apparently, there’s plenty of friction left in this particular hospital ward. And at least this drama is about something – and aims at young v

2014

Sep

BLACK-ISH By David Bianculli

SERIES PREMIERE: Here’s another of those rare TV shows that’s built around an actual, original idea, and has a distinct viewpoint to impart. In this case, it’s a series starring Anthony Anderson and Tracee Ellis Ross as successful parents, and Laurence Fishburne as the family patriarch – all of whom, like their kids, have markedly different ideas about what it means to be true to their racial identity in suburbia in 2014 America. The jokes in the pilot are a little obviou

2014

Sep

NCIS By David Bianculli

SEASON PREMIERE: Next year it will be 20 years since NBC premiered JAG, a drama about lawyers working in the Navy. NBC canceled that show after one season, but CBS picked it up, and watched it develop into a hit series that ran for a decade. And in the interim, in 2003, CBS launched a spinoff series, called NCIS, which now is the most popular drama series on television, and has launched several spinoffs of its own. (Basically, NCIS is to NBC what The Beatles are to Pete Best.) And tonight, on th

2014

Sep

MARVEL'S AGENTS OF S.H.I.E.L.D. By David Bianculli

SEASON PREMIERE: Two different drama series, on two different networks, begin their new seasons tonight with plots that are remarkably similar: In order to survive, and combat the bad guys, a team of heroes goes underground, adopting new identities to evade detection while planning their next moves against the evil forces amassed against them. On this series, Agent Coulson (Clark Gregg), already revived from the dead at the start of this series, has to exercise his talents for rebirth once again

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