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

 
 
2017
Jun
20
 
 
SEASON PREMIERE: Just letting you know:  If you’re a bigger fan than I am of this modern-day Gilligan’s Island comedy about people stranded on a deserted island, Season 2 begins tonight.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2017
Jun
20
 
 
Predicting TV awards is a fool’s game at the best of times, but this year’s just-announced shortlist for the 33rd Annual Television Critics Association Awards is not just a window into the TV industry as it stands today but also a window into where we are as a society...
 
 
 
  
 
 
2017
Jun
19
 
 
It launched earlier this month as The Loch on the United Kingdom’s ITV network. Oh, but that’s just too drab for American audiences. So how about a little extra marketing punch?...
 
 
 
  
 
 
2017
Jun
19
 
 
The new murder mystery Loch Ness introduces us to some monsters who live around Scotland’s most famous lake and, alas, are not mythological...
 
 
 
  
 
 
2017
Jun
19
 
 
Two of the best shows on TV wrap up their current seasons this week, Fargo on FX and Better Call Saul on AMC, and I’ve spent several weeks trying to figure out why my reactions toward them are so different...
 
 
 
  
 
 
2017
Jun
19
 
 
SERIES PREMIERE: Acorn TV will roll this series out weekly, as the latest British import (in the U.K., it was shown as The Loch) offering streaming viewers a chance to catch another across-the-pond mystery with local scenery, characters, flavor, and intrigue. This time it’s Scotland’s Loch Ness, home of the famed, elusive Loch Ness Monster purported to live deep in its depths. The opening scene of Loch Ness shows us a different mystery at the loch floor: a dead body, floating vertica
 
 
 
  
 
 
2017
Jun
19
 
 
This show isn’t what you’d call appointment television. But it’s such fun television – and so innocent, even when it’s being a little PG-rated naughty – that it’s the kind of show you can watch as a family without embarrassment, and enjoy thoroughly. And the antics of these improv comics invariably make me laugh out loud, an accomplishment very few actual scripted comedies these days manage to achieve.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2017
Jun
19
 
 
SEASON FINALE: We critics here at TVWW often agree to disagree, in a congenial clash of opinions that encourages frank but civil discussions of our opinions of television. Better Call Saul is a perfect example. David Hinckley has a new All Along the Watchtower column in which he admits to not caring much about the season finale of Saul because, he argues, there’s no one worth rooting for. Yet my reaction is so different that I consider Saul, even more than Fargo, this season’s very b
 
 
 
  
 
 
2017
Jun
19
 
 
Audrey Hepburn Mondays on TCM this month continue, and tonight the schedule includes one of her best, and darkest, roles. In 1967’s Wait Until Dark, she plays a blind woman who runs afoul of, and eventually becomes terrorized by, a ruthless drug smuggler, played by a young, scary Alan Arkin. This movie thrilled me as a kid – and since it’s a thriller, that reaction was entirely appropriate. Watch it now: It still works perfectly, and there’s still one scene, set in almost
 
 
 
  
 
 
2017
Jun
19
 
 
SPECIAL: I don’t usually recommend these talking postmortems in Best Bets – but after a season finale, when we’re likely to hear from series creators Vince Gilligan and Peter Gould themselves, I’ll happily make an exception. And these Saul deconstructions are rare: Instead of being televised after every episode, host Chris Hardwick has shown up to preside over a Talking Saul only twice this year: Once for the season premiere, and again tonight.