This new AMC series, which began last week with a two-hour premiere, is interesting because its setting and mood are equally chilly and foreboding. It tells of two 19th-century British ships trying to find a sailable path through the frozen Arctic – and having an increasingly tough time of it. The sounds, at times, are quite spooky – and so is the sight of red on white, as blood stains ice.

2018

Apr

THE CROSSING By David Bianculli

SERIES PREMIERE: This is not a recommendation. This new series starts with a visual stunner: bodies, many dozens of them, found floating by the seashore – some dead, but others alive. And as the mysterious premise of this show quickly reveals, the waterborne refugees actually are from the distant future, emerging from the sea to escape some sort of genocide yet to come. Viewers have to buy into the idea instantly, then stick around for the long run – but after seeing the pilot, starr

2018

Apr

RIP STEVEN BOCHCO, WHO WILLED BROADCAST TV INTO ADULTHOOD By Ed Bark

Steven Bochco occasionally would give an inch, but only if you first gave him a mile. Perhaps that’s a stretch, but here’s a guy who gave a damn...

2018

Apr

'THE CHILD IN TIME' IS DIFFICULT YET WORTHWHILE TELEVISION By David Hinckley

I would watch Benedict Cumberbatch and Kelly Macdonald as the lead team in a needlepoint circle if they were appearing there...

2018

Apr

THE ROSEANNE ROSEANNADANNA SHOW By David Bianculli

SERIES PREMIERE: No sooner did the mammoth ratings come back for the premiere episode of ABC’s reboot of Roseanne than networks scrambled to launch their own instant nostalgia series – as close to Roseanne as possible. NBC is first out of the gate, thanks to Saturday Night Live creator Lorne Michaels, who had both the vision and the contacts (not to mention the broadcast rights) to revive, almost instantly, TV’s second most famous Roseanne: The wild-haired, cranky news commenta

2018

Apr

THE BIG BONG THEORY By David Bianculli

SERIES PREMIERE: All the networks are going crazy for reboots and revivals at the moment, and CBS, which already has tasted success this year with its Big Bang Theory spinoff Young Sheldon, tonight launches another prequel spinoff – this one, appropriately, not just an extended flashback, but a time-traveling continuation of the Big Bang story line. Sheldon and Leonard, playing around one day after watching a marathon of time-travel movies, attempt to build a time machine with spare parts

2018

Apr

RUSSIAN IDOL By David Bianculli

SERIES PREMIERE: The final season of FX’s The Americans began last week, surfacing at a time when tensions between the United States and Russia are more heightened than at any time since the end of the Cold War. FX’s sister network, FXX, is aware of the free publicity to be gained by any Russian-based programming – and since ABC has just revived Fox's former music-competition American Idol powerhouse, Fox is importing a spring cycle of the latest edition of the international ph

2018

Apr

CALL THE EX-WIFE By David Bianculli

SPECIAL PREMIERE: Many British programs, between seasons, offer up one-shot specials on Christmas Day, presenting stand-alone episodes of some of England’s most popular long-running programs. Doctor Who is one such show given the holiday special treatment, and Call the Midwife is another. This latest special has been withheld from U.S. distribution until now, because PBS programmers feared it might be too bleak for the holidays. Its plot, which skips forward a year, finds several of the mi

2018

Apr

1440 MINUTES By David Bianculli

NETWORK LAUNCH: Blame this on Stormy Daniels, and on the media’s never-ending reverence for anniversaries. The CBS streaming network All Access has been unabashed and unapologetic from the start about cashing in on the CBS broadcast network’s inventory and legacy to lure subscribers to its pay site. It started with The Good Fight (a spinoff continuation of The Good Wife), and later this year will launch a reboot of The Twilight Zone, helmed by Jordan Peele. But with the massive ratin

2018

Apr

STEVEN BOCHCO, 1943-2018 By David Bianculli

Steven Bochco, the pioneering TV writer-producer who changed the content and direction of television with such landmark shows as NBC’s Hill Street Blues and ABC’s NYPD Blue, has died at age 74. He had as great an impact on TV as almost anyone in the history of the medium…

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