There’s a new Doctor Who special arriving on Christmas Day – and in the meantime, BBC America is filling its schedule, all this week, with a marathon “Doctor Who Takeover.” I mention it in progress because, though BBC America also did this last year, I find myself, and my TV, gravitating that way again. These old episodes from the modern era, working their way through the various Doctors, hold up very well to repeated viewings: As I write this, I’m watching an old e

2015

Dec

I LOVE LUCY CHRISTMAS SPECIAL By David Bianculli

CBS is repeating a treat, or trick, from last year, and once again going into its vaults to present a different pair of vintage I Love Lucy episodes – colorized for the occasion. I detest the idea of colorizing old classics merely to make them palatable for a new, monochrome-averse generation, but I also show one of the episodes presented tonight, the 1952 classic in which Lucille Ball’s Lucy prepares to pitch Vitameatavegamin in a live TV commercial, in my TV History college class e

2015

Dec

SUPERBAD By David Bianculli

Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg wrote this script about high-school seniors planning a blowout, booze-filled party back when they were teenagers, then had it produced by Judd Apatow in 2007, launching a whole new posse of young stars. Jonah Hill and Michael Cera play high school buddies named, notably, Seth and Evan, and co-stars include Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Bill Hader, Emma Stone (pictured with Hill)… and Seth Rogen. Greg Mottola directs, very deftly.

2015

Dec

HAPPY HOLIDAYS WITH BING AND FRANK By David Bianculli

This was a special episode of The Frank Sinatra Show in 1957 – special not only because it was a holiday show teaming Sinatra with Bing Crosby to sing an hour of Christmas carols and other numbers, but because Sinatra had the foresight to film it in color, where the rest of his TV show output was recorded in black and white. So expect TCM to give this the full-color treatment, without having to resort to colorization – and also expect, at the end, Bing Crosby to sing “White Chr

2015

Dec

ADELE LIVE IN NEW YORK CITY By David Bianculli

In case you missed it last week: Here’s a same-month NBC repeat of its concert special, from Radio City Music Hall, featuring 2015’s mega-popular Adele.

2015

Dec

ANOTHER GREAT YEAR FOR TV: DAVID BIANCULLI ON THE BEST (AND WORST) OF 2015 By David Bianculli

(From NPR) When it came to new programming, broadcast TV didn't impress critic David Bianculli much this year. But if you add in cable and streaming services, then the story changes...

2015

Dec

PROHIBITION By David Bianculli

Part 2. This is the second part of Ken Burns’ three-night, six-hour study of Prohibition – and it’s the installment in which Prohibition, the banning of alcohol for general use in the 1920s, actually comes into practice. Part 1 was all about setting the scene, and explaining what came before – and doing that, so thoroughly, is what makes a Ken Burns documentary so singular, and so satisfying. That, and what Apple calls “the Ken Burns effect.” Check local listi

2015

Dec

DESK SET By David Bianculli

This Spencer Tracy-Katharine Hepburn comedy was released in 1957, and concerns a subject that ought to be especially interesting to TV enthusiasts in general and Mad Men fans in particular. It looks behind the scenes at a television network, and the unsettling but unavoidable decision to bring new-fangled computer technology into the network’s research department. This takes place, in Desk Set, just before the era we saw on Mad Men, and you can remember how unsettling the introduction of c

2015

Dec

DISNEY'S A CHRISTMAS CAROL By David Bianculli

With this 2009 3-D motion-capture holiday film directed by Robert Zemeckis, Jim Carrey became the first actor to portray both of the Christmas season’s most heinous humbuggers: The Grinch in 2000’s Dr. Seuss’ How the Grinch Stole Christmas, and Ebenezer Scrooge in this latest Disney retelling of the Charles Dickens classic tale. But wait – that’s not all. In this Disney’s A Christmas Carol, Carrey not only plays Scrooge, but also plays all three of the spirits

2015

Dec

THE YEAR: 2015 By David Bianculli

Robin Roberts hosts this ABC look back at 2015, tallying the most memorable and outrageous moments. Expect more than a fair share of Donald Trump clips.

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