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

 
 
2011
Oct
2
 
 
Two months ago, while on the Television Critics Association press tour, I wrote about the then-upcoming documentary series Prohibition, co-directed for PBS by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick...However, I saved a fuller review of the show, and excerpts from a private chat with Burns and Novick before their TCA press conference, until now...
 
 
 
  
 
 
2011
Sep
29
 
 
Showtime's Homeland, a new drama series about a returning POW and the CIA agent who suspects him of having gone over to the enemy, is based on an Israeli series, but producers have made this Americanized version all their own. And, thanks to a superb cast and a brilliantly fresh approach to storytelling, they've also made it a better TV series than anything the broadcast networks have turned out this fall...
 
 
 
  
 
 
2011
Sep
26
 
 
Be patient a little longer. TV is about to improve greatly with a sudden crop of exciting new offerings -- starting Sunday with a sudden glut of quality TV. The newest Ken Burns documentary epic on PBS, Prohibition, begins Sunday, as do Showtime's new Homeland series and the same network's Season 6 premiere of Dexter. But between now and then, we've got four new less than superb prime-time premieres with which to contend...
 
 
 
  
 
 
2011
Sep
24
 
 
The TV fall season is an annual tradition that, anemic though it seems today, has endured for half a century -- but 50 years ago, broadcast TV gave us a lot more about which to be enthusiastic. In 1961, by this point, CBS already had introduced the brilliant courtroom drama The Defenders, and had Carl Reiner's superb The Dick Van Dyke Show waiting in the wings for an early October debut...
 
 
 
  
 
 
2011
Sep
23
 
 
In addition to all the other new series and fresh changes in the 2011 fall TV lineup, there were two very noteworthy -- and very impressive -- changes of the guard on network TV. Ted Danson stepped in as the new head of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation on CBS, and James Spader became the new CEO running things at NBC's The Office...
 
 
 
  
 
 
2011
Sep
22
 
 
Four new series are added to the 2011 Fall TV lineup Thursday night: Person of Interest on CBS, Whitney and Prime Suspect on NBC, and, last but least, Charlie's Angels on ABC. You won't find any of them in Thursday's Best Bets, though -- and here, briefly, is why not...
 
 
 
  
 
 
2011
Sep
20
 
 
Ashton Kutcher inherited the co-starring mantle from Charlie Sheen on CBS's Two and a Half Men Monday night -- the same night, and only a hour before, Sheen himself was shown sitting through a Roast of Charlie Sheen on Comedy Central. And yet, after all that high-intensity media hype smoke cleared, I was left thinking about other things: Dharma, Greg, and the meaning of that vanity card photo...
 
 
 
  
 
 
2011
Sep
18
 
 
AMC's Mad Men won again, deservedly, at the end of Sunday's 63d PrimeTime Emmy Awards on Fox. So did ABC's Modern Family, which won the final award of the night. Modern Family also won the first award of the night. And the second. And the third. And the fourth...
 
 
 
  
 
 
2011
Sep
15
 
 
The new fall season is looming, but some of my favorite shows of the summer have just ended, either until next year, or forever. And all of them -- including True Blood, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Damages, even Entourage -- concluded their seasons very, very nicely...
 
 
 
  
 
 
2011
Sep
14
 
 
Even with ABC's abysmal Charlie's Angels remake and other insipid new shows, CW's H8R, premiering Wednesday night at 8 ET, is an early lock as the worst new show of the 2011 fall TV season. Its premise is to identify someone who has posted snarky, nasty things about a particular celebrity, then dispatch that celebrity to ambush the "hater" and, by charming them and revealing their true selves...