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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

DAVID HINCKLEY

All Along the Watchtower

ED BARK

Uncle Barky's Bytes

ALEX STRACHAN

TV That Matters

MIKE HUGHES

Open Mike

ED MARTIN

Ed Martin's TV Mix

KIM AKASS

Aerial View

MONIQUE NAZARETH

MNtv

BILL BRIOUX

TV Feeds My Family

ROGER CATLIN

TV Eye

GARY EDGERTON

Must-Click TV

TOM BRINKMOELLER

Raised On MTM

GERALD JORDAN

Crossing Jordan

NOEL HOLSTON

The Grassy Noel

TVWW ARCHIVE

Contributors Archive
 
 
2017
Jun
17
THE ESSENTIALS: PHILIP MARLOWE By David Bianculli
 
 
Alec Baldwin has been in charge of TCM’s Saturday night movie showcase, The Essentials, this season, and tonight he winds up an entertaining stretch in which his guest co-host is David Letterman. This evening’s salute is to the Raymond Chandler film noir classic detective character, Philip Marlowe, and it’s a well-chosen triple feature. First up, at 8 p.m. ET: 1946’s The Big Sleep, with Humphrey Bogart as gumshoe Marlowe, and young Lauren Bacall positively bursting off th
 
 
 
  
 
 
2017
Jun
17
TURN: WASHINGTON'S SPIES By David Bianculli
 
 
SEASON PREMIERE: This fourth and final season of Turn: Washington’s Spies begins tonight, getting to the end of its revolutionary story – and I mean that literally. Ian Kahn stars as Gen. George Washington.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2017
Jun
17
DOCTOR WHO By David Bianculli
 
 
As we time-travel through this latest season of Doctor Who, we’re also rapidly approaching the moment when Peter Capaldi will leave the title role, and turn it over to someone else. Meanwhile, tonight the Doctor and his companions go backward in time, to ancient Scotland – where they pursue the long-standing mystery of the vanished Ninth Roman Legion.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2017
Jun
17
ALL THE PRESIDENT'S MEN REVISITED By David Bianculli
 
 
Of all of tonight’s TV events, this is the one I’m anticipating most eagerly. Last night, ABC presented a two-hour special on the Watergate scandal, and it was very clearly structured, and at times unexpectedly emotional. Tonight, MSNBC covers similar ground, but through a particularly fascinating prism: the movie made, starring Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman, who played Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein in All the President’s Men. “Arguably the
 
 
 
  
 
 
2017
Jun
17
ORPHAN BLACK By David Bianculli
 
 
This final season of Orphan Black already is shaking things up considerably, with the clones dividing, reuniting, and tentatively agreeing to new alliances. The emotional stakes are high – and they work because Tatiana Maslany, in every role she plays here, is believable, sympathetic (even Rachel), and identifiable.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2017
Jun
17
T.J. MILLER: METICULOUSLY RIDICULOUS By David Bianculli
 
 
One of the standout stars of HBO’s Silicon Valley gets what he’s more than earned from his dryly hilarious work there: His first solo HBO standup comedy special.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2017
Jun
17
THE LOST WEST EPISODE By Eric Gould
 
 
DC has just released the unaired episode of the NBC comedy Powerless, featuring the late Adam West as chairman of the Gotham City Wayne Industries... West spoofed his ‘60s Batman series sign-off’s with a tongue-in-cheek take to the audience, teasing them to tune in next week...
 
 
 
  
 
 
2017
Jun
16
‘THE CARMICHAEL SHOW’ GOES “VERY SPECIAL,” AND BRAVELY SO By Linda Donovan
 
 
Despite the platinum-plated offerings of Fargo, Better Call Saul, and so many others, for some of us, sitcoms are still a preferred form of television. Drama is good. Comedy is essential...
 
 
 
  
 
 
2017
Jun
16
CARDINAL By David Bianculli
 
 
SERIES PREMIERE: In this new six-part weekly series based on the mystery novels of Giles Blunt, stars Billy Campbell (The Killing, Once and Again) as John Cardinal, a police detective working in the very cold northern landscape of Ontario’s Algonquin Bay. This Canadian series opens with a central mystery – a missing indigenous teen girl – but also spends time establishing Cardinal’s virtues, and vices. His personality is as chilly as the snowpack around him, and that envi
 
 
 
  
 
 
2017
Jun
16
THE RANCH By David Bianculli
 
 
SEASON PREMIERE: Season 3 of The Ranch, Ashton Kutcher’s Netflix sitcom, premieres today. He stars as Colt, a former semi-pro football player who grudgingly agrees to run the family ranch. If you’ve never seen, or heard of, this particular Kutcher program, that’s sort of my point. Yet here it is.
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
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