DAVID BIANCULLI

Founder / Editor

ERIC GOULD

Associate Editor

LINDA DONOVAN

Assistant Editor

Contributors

ALEX STRACHAN

MIKE HUGHES

KIM AKASS

MONIQUE NAZARETH

ROGER CATLIN

GARY EDGERTON

TOM BRINKMOELLER

GERALD JORDAN

NOEL HOLSTON

 
 
2018
Mar
13
 
 
This is the sixth night of Blind Auditions for The Voice. This segment of the show seems to expand each year – and if it is expanding, it’s with good reason. It’s the unique part of this show, and the most magical. And I love watching the faces of the judges as they hear the first notes from the contestants, trying to judge them sight unseen, and listening for talent and magic. It’s a pure, wonderful moment, and a totally hopeful and inspirational exercise.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2018
Mar
13
 
 
SEASON FINALE: This is the last show of the season for This Is Us. If nothing sad or emotional happens this episode, to end the year, it’ll be the first time all year So don’t expect the worst, necessarily – but expect something.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2018
Mar
13
 
 
SERIES PREMIERE: This new series comes from Jason Katims, one of my favorite TV creators, who’s given us both Friday Night Lights and Parenthood. Those are two adaptations of existing properties – one a book and movie, the other a movie and sitcom – that Katims somehow turned into original TV masterworks. So the fact that Rise is, like Friday Night Lights, based on a true story didn’t concern me. What concerns me, after watching the first half of this first season of Rise
 
 
 
  
 
 
2018
Mar
12
 
 
Last night, American Idol premiered in its new iteration, brought back by ABC with new judges, but the same host (Ryan Seacrest) and basic tone and approach. That was one test – but another arrives tonight, as the musical competition series that formerly ruled television now goes up directly against the reigning champ in that genre, NBC’s The Voice. And when you put the two head to head, to me it’s no contest at all. Katy Perry, the most attention-demanding of the new Idol judg
 
 
 
  
 
 
2018
Mar
12
 
 
The new cycle of The Voice, still in Blind Auditions in its third week, is a very enjoyable show to watch. The byplay among the four judges – this time, it’s Blake Shelton, Adam Levine, Alicia Keys and newcomer Kelly Clarkson – is genuinely giddy and boisterous. They’re all having a good time, and clearly in full-out competitive mode, doing whatever they can to amass talented rosters for their own teams while undercutting the other judges with verbal counter-arguments, sh
 
 
 
  
 
 
2018
Mar
12
 
 
DOCUMENTARY PREMIERE: This feature documentary makes its TV premiere uninterrupted by commercials tonight on the National Geographic Channel, and it’s a beautiful piece of work. It’s about the pioneering chimpanzee-study work of Jane Goodall, and is built around hundreds of hours of film footage that was taken more than 50 years ago, but stored in archives and never used until now. Filmmaker Brett Morgen, who has helmed dramatically compiled documentary studies of Kurt Cobain and Rob
 
 
 
  
 
 
2018
Mar
12
 
 
Last week’s opener in this miniseries study of the Egyptian queen traced her ascent to, and early exercise of, power. Tonight’s follow-up, “Love and Death,” succinctly summarizes tonight’s events – even if it does sound like a Woody Allen comedy.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2018
Mar
12
 
 
Tonight’s new episode, the first of a two-parter called “Brainless in Seattle,” has Liv (Rose McIver) hitting the clubs in town after ingesting the brains, and optimistic attitudes, of a hopeless romantic.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2018
Mar
12
 
 
This is the third episode of this new NBC series, which continues to entangle the three suburban buddies – played by Christina Hendricks (Mad Men, Another Period), Mae Whitman (pictured, from Parenthood) and Retta (Parks and Recreation) – as unwilling agents of a fierce local mobster. In tonight’s installment, “Borderline,” he sends them on a mission to cross the border into Canada and bring back a mysterious package. Making them reluctant agents of a powerful black
 
 
 
  
 
 
2018
Mar
12
 
 
This is far from the first Jane Goodall film, but it has something the others did not: excerpts from hundreds of hours of footage shot by Goodall’s soon-to-be husband Hugo Van Lawick during her early years in Africa...