By JIM SABATASO Correspondent When “The Americans” premiered in 2013, it was a thrilling drama that recalled a bygone time when Soviet spies still meddled in domestic affairs and plotted…

By JIM SABATASO Correspondent Black Friday, the annual mid-May purge of TV shows ahead of network upfront fall-schedule previews for advertisers, is always a painful ordeal. This year it was…

By JIM SABATASO Correspondent Recently, I wrote about how TV series become less enjoyable as they age. As writers run out of original ideas, they tend to recycle or rehash…

By JIM SABATASO Correspondent Even if you don’t know John Mulaney, you’ve probably seen his work. From 2008 to 2013, he was a writer on “Saturday Night Live” where, among…

Jim Sabataso Correspondent Watching “The Handmaid’s Tale” I often find myself contemplating how a society could let things get that out of hand. I remind myself it’s a work of…

By Jim Sabataso Correspondent Where do I even begin with “Legion”? The FX series, based on the Marvel Comics X-Men character of the same name, is a dense, mind-bending and…

By Jim Sabataso Correspondent If we have to keep enduring TV shows about brooding male antiheroes, please make more like “Barry.” The darkly funny new HBO series created by Bill…

By Jim Sabataso Correspondent When “Roseanne” premiered on ABC in 1988, it was an outlier on broadcast television. Its honest, loving depiction of a white working-class Midwestern family was a…

By Jim Sabataso Correspondent Media consolidation is the kind of dry issue most television viewers don’t give much thought to. Last week, however, knowing who owns your local TV station…

By Jim Sabataso Correspondent The American abroad culinary and cultural adventure show is nothing new. We’ve had Anthony Bourdain’s greasy, gritty “No Reservations,” Andrew Zimmern’s cultural immersion travelogue “Bizarre Foods”…