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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

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Ed Martin's TV Mix

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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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Crossing Jordan

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TVWW ARCHIVE

Contributors Archive
 
 
2016
May
25
THE AMERICANS By David Bianculli
 
 
Elizabeth does what she needs to do in this week’s episode – but what she needs to do definitely will have lasting ramifications, and very close to home.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2016
May
24
THE MANY FACES OF BILL MAHER – HOW ‘REAL TIME’ HAS BECOME ONE OF TV’S MOST THOUGHTFUL PROGRAMS By Alex Strachan
 
 
“I know why you’re happy tonight,” Bill Maher says at the opening of his Real Time monologue each week...
 
 
 
  
 
 
2016
May
24
JASON PATRIC REPLACES MATT DILLON: TRYING TO SURVIVE IN ‘WAYWARD PINES’ By David Hinckley
 
 
New faces don’t mean things have gotten any kinder and gentler in the rustic town of Wayward Pines, Idaho...
 
 
 
  
 
 
2016
May
24
THE VOICE By David Bianculli
 
 
SEASON FINALE: A summary of the season’s highlights begins at 8 p.m. ET, for viewers who want or need a refresher, and the two-hour live finale, filled out with lots of guest performances, follows at 9. Yesterday, the four finalists sang for the right to be crowned this season’s winner – and with Alisan Porter given the closing spot to sing “Somewhere” from West Side Story, the late advantage was in her favor. Will she be the first female winner of The Voice? Probab
 
 
 
  
 
 
2016
May
24
SLEEPER By David Bianculli
 
 
Tonight’s TCM lineup is devoted to movies in which one character arrives from another place and/or time. This 1973 Woody Allen film is a deliciously giddy comedy with which to start: Allen plays a nerd who awakens far into the future and deals with future inventions, insurrections, and Diane Keaton. Oh, and there’s a great joke in there somewhere about a VW Beetle, a car that, at the time, was thought to be almost preternaturally reliable.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2016
May
24
FRONTLINE: "BUSINESS OF DISASTER" By David Bianculli
 
 
This week’s Frontline is a journalistic collaboration with NPR. Together, they look at the economic opportunists, and in some case vultures, who descend upon an area after a natural disaster. Using Hurricane Sandy as a case in point, Business of Disaster follows the money: what was promised, what was delivered, and who profited. Check local listings.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2016
May
24
THE NIGHT MANAGER By David Bianculli
 
 
MINISERIES CONCLUSION: Part 6. The deception has carried to this point, but not for much longer: Tom Hiddleston’s “hotel manager” is closer than ever before, to both completing his mission against Hugh Laurie’s arms dealer and falling deeply in love with his target’s mistress. But the woman’s life is in danger now, which, in this tense concluding hour, makes her the same as everyone else.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2016
May
24
REAL SPORTS WITH BRYANT GUMBEL By David Bianculli
 
 
This week, Bryant Gumbel looks at his own sports brethren, and examines the state of investigative sports journalism.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2016
May
23
GETTING FAST MONEY FOR A ‘CLEAN BREAK’ By David Hinckley
 
 
As a business plan, kidnapping so rarely works out. But that doesn’t always deter the desperate, and desperate seems to describe Frank Mallon in Clean Break...
 
 
 
  
 
 
2016
May
23
THE VOICE By David Bianculli
 
 
SEASON FINALE: Live Finale, Part 1. Tonight is the day, or night, of reckoning for the remaining four contestants: Laith Al-Saadi, Hannah Huston, Alisan Porter, and Adam Wakefield. Tonight they perform, but only one of them will emerge, eventually, as the season’s winner. My guess: It’ll be either Al-Saadi or Porter. They both have an abundance of talent, and Al-Saadi is an impressive musician as well but Porter has the more compelling backstory, which counts with viewers. Porter als
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
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