Steve Shill

CHICAGO – “The Goodwin Games” is bad, bad, bad. You know a show is likely to be awful when a network cuts back the order and buries its premiere in a time of year when most people are getting outside or going to see Summer blockbusters. While the networks are busy promoting Fall 2013 at Upfronts, who cares about a new show that won’t make it more than two months? And yet there is sometimes reason for hope that a network executive just missed the humor and is actually burying a hidden gem. Hope dies at “The Goodwin Games” and I wish they had buried it deeper.

CHICAGO – So you’re a young woman who decides to fall asleep in your car parked just off the highway. You’re awoken by the rapping fist of a chiseled cop who leers at you with the sexual appetite of a drooling wolf. Sounds like a meet cute straight out of Alfred Hitchcock’s “Psycho.” But in Marcio Garcia’s head-slapping dud, “Open Road,” it’s supposed to be heartwarming.