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

 
 
2015
Dec
23
 
 
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
23
 
 
(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
22
 
 
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
22
 
 
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
22
 
 
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
22
 
 
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.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2015
Dec
22
 
 
This HBO sports magazine series has been around for 21 seasons now – and tonight’s end-of-year wrap-up looks back not only at the year 2015, with host Bryant Gumbel debriefing his regular, and valuable, correspondents, but also takes a second look at the show’s entire 20-year stretch.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2015
Dec
22
 
 
The shows aren’t necessarily the year’s best, though some are. But they all offered a level of delight, fun, truth, insight or sheer entertainment that reminded us why, no matter how much we grumble about it, most of us watch television...
 
 
 
  
 
 
2015
Dec
21
 
 
It’s another holiday showing for this 1947 movie, starring Edmund Gwenn as a department-store Santa Claus who may be the real deal – but as holiday movies go, this one is easy to rewatch, over and over again. Which is convenient, since AMC shows it twice in prime time tonight, at 8 p.m. ET and again at 10:15 p.m. ET.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2015
Dec
21
 
 
Marilyn Monroe and Jane Russell are paired as conniving singers in this 1953 comedy – and while Monroe walked (or strutted) away with the most iconic production number, singing “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend,” Russell scored her own big and outrageous moments too. Watch for her number where she sings as an entire men’s Olympics team, on board the same cruise ship, serves as nothing more than objectified props.