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DAVID BIANCULLI

Founder / Editor

Bianculli's Blog

ERIC GOULD

Associate Editor

The Cold Light Reader

LINDA DONOVAN

Assistant Editor

Dateline Donovan
Contributors

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All Along the Watchtower

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Uncle Barky's Bytes

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TV That Matters

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Open Mike

ED MARTIN

Ed Martin's TV Mix

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MNtv

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TV Feeds My Family

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Must-Click TV

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Raised On MTM

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TVWW ARCHIVE

Contributors Archive
 
 
2013
May
5
MAD MEN By David Bianculli
 
 
This season’s shows, so far, have unfolded at a slow, deliberate pace. Long-time fans of this show, by now, are apt to assess, and accept, this as the calm before the storm – and it’s a good bet that a storm will arrive on tonight’s episode. In what form, I can’t say. It’s only a guess, but I feel we’re due for a 1968 bombshell right about… now.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2013
May
5
VEEP By David Bianculli
 
 
This comedy series has sharpened considerably this season – enough to earn it a recommendation this week, as a photo of Selina (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) appearing disengaged during a moment of political crisis becomes an embarrassing Internet sensation. Not her first, and surely not her last.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2013
May
5
LIFETIME'S 'DEAR MOM, LOVE CHER' HAS GEORGIA ON ITS MIND By Ed Bark
 
 
Many viewers might be left wanting more after this very watchable film breezes by. That’s the Old Hollywood way, and Dear Mom, Love Cher makes a virtue of it...
 
 
 
  
 
 
2013
May
4
SMASH By David Bianculli
 
 
The last frame of last week’s Smash suggested a smash hit – of an automobile smashing into one of the show’s street-crossing characters. So expect some dramatic backlash tonight, as the two shows vying for attention in this series’ plot – Hit List and Bombshell – shuffle the decks once again.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2013
May
4
DOCTOR WHO By David Bianculli
 
 
This week, the Doctor takes a trip back to the past – to Victorian Yorkshire, where he confronts a local urban legend known as “the Crimson horror.” Which, he soon learns, is true, and deadly.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2013
May
4
GOLD DIGGERS OF 1933 By David Bianculli
 
 
Love this movie. It’s a Depression-era musical about the Depression – and is meta enough to actually be about artists trying to band together and raise money to put on a show about the Depression. It starts off as goofy as you can get, with Ginger Rogers singing “We’re in the Money” in Pig Latin – but ends with a punch to the gut, a returning-war-veterans production number called “Remember My Forgotten Man.” Once you see it, you’ll never forg
 
 
 
  
 
 
2013
May
4
ORPHAN BLACK By David Bianculli
 
 
Tatiana Maslani, on this series, already not only has played several differently acting cloned versions of the main character, but has portrayed them acting, in disguise, as one another. Tonight she does it again, with another clone asked to impersonate another lookalike. Even with a scorecard, there’s no telling the players on this show — except that almost all of them are Maslani.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2013
May
4
SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE By David Bianculli
 
 
Tonight’s guest host, returning for this new edition, is the energetic and risk-taking Zach Galifianakis. Musical guests: Monsters of Men.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2013
May
3
THE ADDRESS IS CBS FOR PRIME-TIME'S MOST-COURTED VIEWERS By Ed Bark
 
 
Whatever its scheduling decisions, CBS will march into next season as the No. 1 network among 18-to-49-year-olds for the first time in 21 years...
 
 
 
  
 
 
2013
May
3
GALAXY QUEST By David Bianculli
 
 
What a delight this 1999 movie is. I know, because every time I recommend it – which is just about every time it pops up on TV – I end up watching it, and being entranced all over again. Tim Allen stars as a low-rent kind of Captain Kirk on a Star Trek-type TV series, an actor preening and grousing his way through fan conventions until outer space visitors visit, confusing him and his cast members for real interstellar heroes. And what a team: Sigourney Weaver and the hilariously dro
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
New From TVWW

PBS' 'Frontline’ Examines Pension Promises and — Spoiler Alert — Finds the Math Doesn’t Add Up
By Alex Strachan
 
 
 
 
The Decadence of ‘Versailles’ Comes to Ovation
By David Hinckley
 
 
 
 
Prescribing Mamie Gummer in 'Emily Owens, M.D.'
By Ed Bark
 
 
 
 
Looking for a Free Ride? HBO Can Deliver
By Christy Slewinski
 
 
 
 
'Pass the Biscuits' Part of the Hatfield-McCoy Pop-Culture Legacy
By Noel Holston
 
 
 
 

Dispatches From TVWW

'Extinction: The Facts' is a Sobering Call to Action
By David Hinckley
 
 
 
 
How 'Mayans' Has Been Influenced by the Show's Creator Elgin James
By Mike Hughes
 
 
 
 
For Whom the Bell Tolls: Ken Burns and Lynn Novick Take on Ernest Hemingway, the Man and the Myth
By Alex Strachan
 
 
 
 
In the Final Season, Sutton Foster's Liza is Now the Genuine Version of Her 'Younger' Self
By Monique Nazareth
 
 
 
 
Season 2 of 'City on a Hill' Returns with Kevin Bacon, Aldis Hodge, and Boston Corruption
By David Hinckley