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

 
 
2010
Oct
17
 
 
Set phasers for stun! That's what it felt like to wander into the convention lobby at Southern California's Universal Hilton this weekend and discover it was the home of something called Hollywood Xpo. I'd never heard of Hollywood Xpo, which ran Friday-Sunday at the Universal Hilton, but they had a crazy little lineup of guest stars, 100 by their tally...
 
 
 
  
 
 
2010
Oct
16
 
 
At a time when many established television networks have been cutting back on their publicity and promotion efforts, it is remarkable to watch one of them actually move in the opposite direction. That's what Syfy has done since 2007 with its annual Digital Press Tours, in which it brings executives and talent from its series together with dedicated bloggers, tweeters and Web writers for a day of press conferences and other activities...
 
 
 
  
 
 
2010
Oct
16
 
 
It's neither cool nor civilized to criticize someone who has recently died, and that's not the purpose of this effort. But the death Saturday of Barbara Billingsley, at age 94, brought to mind all the criticism and parody the moms of the Golden Age of Television attracted as the world slowly enlightened to the role of women as people versus patterns...
 
 
 
  
 
 
2010
Oct
15
 
 
By Tom Brinkmoeller PBS's lead affiliate station in Los Angeles, KCET, is dropping its network membership because of the amount of dues it was being asked to pay. Several public TV stations have decided to furlough employees to prop up weak budgets. One public-TV station in Texas and another in Michigan, each formerly owned by educational institutions, have been jettisoned, reportedly for reasons that include money. For public television near the end of 2010, that's only the top of the prob
 
 
 
  
 
 
2010
Oct
14
 
 
UPDATE: Compare and contrast! NBC has posted both versions of Thursday night's live episode at Hulu -- the east coast original performed Thursday at 8:30 ET and the west coast version restaged at 11:30 ET/8:30 PT. -- Ready for some live 30 Rock?
 
 
 
  
 
 
2010
Oct
13
 
 
For those who find the ordinary and everyday more startling than TV drama, a new Sundance/IFC documentary on the demise and suspended afterlife of Braddock, Pennsylvania, provides TV definitely worth watching...
 
 
 
  
 
 
2010
Oct
12
 
 
Last week in this space, Ed Bark convinced me and a lot of others, I hope, to watch "Michael Feinstein's Great American Songbook," a first-rate, three-part PBS series which premieres its second segment Oct. 13 at 8 p.m. ET. Feinstein has been collecting, preserving and archiving 20th century American popular music for almost 50 years...
 
 
 
  
 
 
2010
Oct
6
 
 
You see it? He's using our orange!! We here at TVWW Central have decided to simply consider this his tiny tribute to our trusty tribe of tubeheads...
 
 
 
  
 
 
2010
Oct
6
 
 
I guess I was looking for a miracle from Tuesday night's extra spiritual episode of Glee. Executive producer Ryan Murphy has faith in himself, I'll say that. Setting up his high school musical as a pop parable on modern day spirituality is a tall task. He's inviting scorn from the right and the left, from the Tea Partiers and the Agnostics. Only a producer with a two-year commitment and riding a ratings surge would get a network to sign off on a religion-in-schools storyline...
 
 
 
  
 
 
2010
Oct
6
 
 
Vocalist/pianist by night, collector/hoarder by day, here's a guy who knows what he likes. Michael Feinstein worships the kind of music that never goes out of fashion but almost assuredly will never be fully fashionable again. In other words, it's hard to imagine someone downloading Alexander's Ragtime Band on iTunes...