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

 
 
2019
Dec
8
 
 
You're pouring out all your desperation to your therapist. Your life's a wreck, and you feel like you have no connections or purpose...
 
 
 
  
 
 
2019
Dec
8
 
 
By sheer dint of its storytelling and directorial flair, Watchmen has become Sunday’s best TV show – and the closest thing to brilliantly told graphic novel television since FX’s Legion left the air. Once Angela (Regina King) followed the IV line patched into her arm and discovered that the other end was hooked to an… elephant, while Jeremy Irons’ Smartest Man in the World was convicted in court by a jury of his… pigs, I gave up trying to
 
 
 
  
 
 
2019
Dec
8
 
 
SERIES PREMIERE: This sequel to The L Word, which ran from 2006-09 on Showtime, returns with some of the same characters – but, a decade later, also introduces and follows a new generation of characters, expanding its universe in other ways as well. Jennifer Beals, Leisha Hailey and the aforementioned Katherine Moennig reprise their original roles.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2019
Dec
8
 
 
SERIES FINALE: This long-running HBO comedy, Mike Judge’s caustic and prescient satire of Silicon Valley, ends tonight. And given Judge’s sense of humor, and perspective, don’t be surprised if the ending to this take on Internet profiteers is more than a little apocalyptic.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2019
Dec
8
 
 
SEASON FINALE: HBO has promoted this dramatization of the Tom Perrotta novel as a “limited series,” which should mean a miniseries with a definite end, which, in turn, should mean that tonight’s season finale is indeed the show’s final episode, period. But Big Little Lies was promoted and described by HBO the same way, and its popularity prompted an initially unplanned Season 2. So we’ll see. And, as long as HBO keeps making Mrs. Fletcher, I&rsqu
 
 
 
  
 
 
2019
Dec
8
 
 
Jennifer Beals returns to TV tonight in The L Word: Generation Q, which premieres 10 years after the original L Word ended in 2009. But a full 20 years before that, in 1989, Beals starred opposite Nicolas Cage in this wildly original, criminally underappreciated black comedy film, about a lowly book editor (Cage) who becomes convinced the girl he met at a party actually was a vampiress who bewitched him and turned him into one of the walking undead. Having a knowledge of the
 
 
 
  
 
 
2019
Dec
7
 
 
This 2005 documentary by Martin Scorsese is an insightful and inspirational biography, and artistic examination, of the life and work of Bob Dylan, one of the most important musical figures of his, and succeeding, generations. The documentary is a very long one – but today, AXS shows it all at once, at all deliberate speed, like a rolling stone…
 
 
 
  
 
 
2019
Dec
7
 
 
“Absorbent and yellow and porous is he!” Yes, it’s SpongeBob SquarePants, the animated sponge whose animated series premiered on Nickelodeon 20 years ago, and soon went from the porifera of pop culture (see what I did there?) to the absolute center. (My college students at Rowan University may initially be unfamiliar with some of TV’s older icons, but they all know SpongeBob.) The popularity of the TV show led, in 2017, to a Broadway musical set at Bikini Bottom
 
 
 
  
 
 
2019
Dec
7
 
 
On Christmas Eve, as is now traditional, one of the Turner networks will repeat this 1983 comedy in a marathon 24-hour cycle. But tonight, as a teaser, one of those networks, TNT, presents A Christmas Story as a prime-time double feature. Beware of those B-B guns… and that lamp.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2019
Dec
7
 
 
Tonight’s guest host, making her third such appearance, is Jennifer Lopez. The musical guest – because this time, she’s not doing official double duty – is DaBaby. And dat’s DaScoop.