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

 
 
2016
Dec
3
 
 
Jordan Peele and Keegan-Michael Key go from Comedy Central’s Key & Peele to the big screen in this 2016 comedy, playing cousins who adopt a stray cat they name Keanu, then spend most of the movie trying to retrieve the animal from a drug dealer, played by Method Man. Opposite Key and Peele, he’s very funny, and really gets into his role. And why not? After all, he’s Method acting…
 
 
 
  
 
 
2016
Dec
3
 
 
Tom Hanks, whenever he appears opposite the likes of David Letterman or James Corden on an American talk show, comes ready to play, with plenty of material to delight his host and audience. Showing up on Graham Norton’s laid-back British talk fest, Hanks is liable to take it easier. But expect just as many laughs, because no one is better than Norton at making his guests feel at ease, and to get very, very funny moments out of them. Other guests sharing couch space with Hanks tonight inclu
 
 
 
  
 
 
2016
Dec
3
 
 
On tonight’s new outing, Emma Stone returns as guest host. It’s her third appearance, and she’s been very game, and very funny, on previous outings. Musical guest: Shawn Mendes.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2016
Dec
2
 
 
SERIES PREMIERE: Today, Netflix – which has presented a large tonnage of new series this month – presents another, with the Season One unveiling of an animated comedy series called Pacific Heat, about an investigative squad Down Under. Think of it as an Australian Archer – which is a compliment, because this show is just as verbally quick and naughty and unexpected as that delightful FX animated spy spoof. Try it. Bet you can’t watch just one. For a full review, see David
 
 
 
  
 
 
2016
Dec
2
 
 
SPECIAL: Two episodes of the classic 1950s series I Love Lucy are colorized for the holidays, as they were last year. One is a repeat of the colorized “The Christmas Episode,” and the other is the newly colorized episode “Lucy Gets in Pictures,” in which Lucy (Lucille Ball) gets a part as a chorus girl in a Hollywood movie. It’s one in which the colorization really works, no matter what you pink of the whole computer-coloring issue. I’m sorry. I meant to type,
 
 
 
  
 
 
2016
Dec
2
 
 
Tonight’s episode is called “Who Needs Josh When You Have a Girl Group?,” and by focusing on the old and new women in Rebecca’s life, this hour is positively spicy – as in, it makes room for a musical number paying homage to the Spice Girls.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2016
Dec
2
 
 
SEASON FINALE: This is the Season 1 finale for Tracey Ullman’s Show, and I certainly hope HBO picks up the show for its sophomore season, which already has been announced back in Ullman’s home turf of England. Her gift for impersonation, and immersion into characters, has, if anything, gotten better over the years, though that would have been impossible. Except that the first time Dame Judi Dench showed up, I thought it was Judi Dench, as a guest star – but it was Ullman. And t
 
 
 
  
 
 
2016
Dec
2
 
 
SERIES FINALE: This series ends tonight, with a doubleheader of episodes that culminate with Andrew Lloyd Webber as a special star. If that seems odd – well, so is this entire series, so there you go. And it’s not really Andrew Lloyd Webber, just comic Paul F. Tompkins making one final guest appearance playing him, which is even odder…
 
 
 
  
 
 
2016
Dec
2
 
 
If you love FX’s Archer – and who, to be honest, cannot love Archer? – you need to check out Netflix’s new Pacific Heat...
 
 
 
  
 
 
2016
Dec
1
 
 
The loss of Grant Tinker this week feels very personal to me – even though I never even met the man, and not because so many of the shows he was responsible for in the Seventies and Eighties...