Empire

Considering how big FOX’s Empire surprisingly expanded over the first season, the hip-hop drama’s Season 2 swell is anything but unexpected. FOX has officially confirmed that Empire Season 2 will expand its run of episodes from the first year, also adding a new musical voice to the soundtrack behind the scenes.

Amid the myriad of FOX’s pickups and surprising cancellations, the network has also taken its 2015 Upfront presentation to file out Mulder and Scully’s TV return. Not only will The X-Files formally return in January 2016, but so too has the network put the truth out there with its full future lineup.

Well hello there, TV super-fan! Did you know that Breaking Bad breakout Jesse Pinkman was almost killed off in Season 1? How about that Joss Whedon hated the original Buffy theme song, or Curb Your Enthusiasm served as a murder alibi? Can you imagine LOST starring Michael Keaton? Why yes, we ​do​ have more where that came from!

At some point in the SNL writer’s room, everyone must have realized that guest host Taraji P. Henson plays a monstrous character named Cookie on the smash hit Empire and, a few Cookie Monster jokes later, they were scrambling to call the producers of Sesame Street. Yes, SNL put Henson’s Cookie on the world’s most famous children’s program and the results are kind of spectacular.

This past weekend's SNL with Birdman star Michael Keaton kept Dwayne Johnson's franchise viagra going strong, but will Taraji P. Henson make a true Empire out of the NBC sketch comedy's landmark 40th season? Find out in the slap-tastic first promos for this weekend's next SNL!

SNL will Rock Studio 8H once again this weekend in returning Furious 7 star Dwayne Johnson to the stage, but April may yet have even more gold in mind. Birdman star Michael Keaton will return to SNL as our first April host, followed by the unstoppable juggernaut of Empire breakout Taraji P. Henson.

Fox’s new series Empire is huge. Like, insanely, impossibly, jaw-droppingly huge. In an age where ratings are steadily declining across the board as audiences cut cables and enter the brave new world of streaming, it’s a phenomenon. And like all phenomenons, it has to get targeted by SNL. In the most recent digital short, Empire is re-imagined with a brand new character: Chip the office manager, played by guest host Chris Hemsworth.

Terrence Howard acted weird at the Oscars. Tasked with announcing some of the Best Picture nominees, he flubbed almost every line, wacked his microphone, and then appeared to be overcome by emotion. This was all Oprah’s fault.

FOX will give Batman further beginnings with another round of ‘Gotham’ in the fall, but Jim Gordon’s won’t be the only precinct hanging around for an additional season. In addition to the renewal, ‘Brooklyn Nine-Nine’ will officially remain open another year, along with FOX’s new hip-hop drama ‘Empire.’

In the past, I’ve taken an approach towards pilots that I will occasionally deploy here in the ‘MMC’: The 5 Questions And 500 Words approach. The title pretty much serves as a descriptor: Instead of overloading both you the reader and I the critic with an avalanche of words about all major pilots about to premiere, I’ll cut to the chase as quickly as possible in order to save you time and me some sanity. It’s hopefully a win-win situation. With that in mind, here are three such reviews about showing premiering over the next seven days.