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
Sep
21
 
 
The line between comedy and tragedy remains thin and the ambience remains familiar as Doc Martin strides firmly into its long-awaited eighth season this week...
 
 
 
  
 
 
2017
Sep
21
 
 
SEASON PREMIERE: This new season of Gotham, Season 4, moves forward in its character studies, bringing the principals even closer to the costumed heroes, and villains, familiar from the Batman canon. In fact, by the end of next week’s episode, young Bruce Wayne will don a mask, and costume, as he decides to fight evil on the dark streets of Gotham. And this week, we get even bolder power grabs by the people we know, or soon will know, as the Penguin, Catwoman, Poison Ivy and the Scarecrow.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2017
Sep
21
 
 
Part 5. Tonight’s episode covers the last half of 1967, when both the war and the body count escalated significantly – on both sides. It’s a period during which President Lyndon Johnson assures the American public that victory is around the corner. Instead, what’s around the corner, in the next episode, is the demoralizing surprise Vietnamese attack known as the Tet offensive. For a full review of this episode, see Alex Strachan’s TV That Matters. Check local listin
 
 
 
  
 
 
2017
Sep
21
 
 
TCM tonight offers an evening of movies about music – not movie musicals, but films capturing the energy and evolution of rock music. And how rapid an evolution it was. The evening begins with 1968’s Monterey Pop, chronicling the first major music festival,1967’s gathering at Monterey, where Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Otis Redding and others all broke through as major stars. The evening ends, at 1:30 a.m. ET, with 1970’s Woodstock, which famously captured the peace, love
 
 
 
  
 
 
2017
Sep
21
 
 
This third episode of The Orville plays more like a standard episode of Star Trek than anything else – and that’s not a complaint. The plot is pure Sixties-era Trek, with questions asked that are properly allegorical and philosophical. Two crew members have a baby, but there are certain sci-fi twists. The crew members are both male, the child is hatched from an egg, and is born healthy – healthy, but female, which is such a rare and unwanted occurrence in that species’ cu
 
 
 
  
 
 
2017
Sep
21
 
 
This 1967 documentary film by D.A. Pennebaker follows Bob Dylan on his 1965 concert tour of England. By the time the movie was released, Dylan already had solidified his next musical transformation, and released the groundbreaking, genre-busting, game-changing “Like a Rolling Stone.” But he’s just as potent a force here, too, whether seen mocking Donovan, performing mesmerizingly in concert, or – in the opening filmed sequence – prefiguring both music videos and rap
 
 
 
  
 
 
2017
Sep
21
 
 
In the summer of 1969 came Woodstock, building on the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival and ushering in a new age of multi-act, multi-day musical festivals. This new age didn’t last more than a few months. In Florida, I attended two that year, in West Palm Beach and Miami – in the former, the closing three acts on the final night were, in order, Jefferson Airplane, The Who, and the Rolling Stones. Not too shabby. But then, before 1969 was out, came Altamont, where the Rolling Stones, one of
 
 
 
  
 
 
2017
Sep
21
 
 
This 1970 movie has been updated, over the years, with several director’s cut editions adding formerly unused footage of performances and interviews. No matter which version of this documentary is shown by TCM tonight, though, it’s guaranteed to include the highlights, which include Joe Cocker singing “With a Little Help from My Friends” and Jimi Hendrix performing “The Star-Spangled Banner.” Watch comfortably from your living rooms, because the New York State
 
 
 
  
 
 
2017
Sep
20
 
 
NBC’s The Good Place did something pretty cool to end its first season last spring. It blew up its whole premise...
 
 
 
  
 
 
2017
Sep
20
 
 
So far, Ken Burns and Lynn Novick’s The Vietnam War has shied away from tired tropes as it slowly and often exquisitely lays down the historical underpinnings of America’s most divisive war...