This is the penultimate episode of this CBS sitcom’s neverending story – the episode in which Barney and Robin finally get married, after an entire season (no kidding) of comedic foreplay.
In case you missed it last night (which was likely, since Sunday night is so full of must-see TV), here’s a next-day repeat of the season’s best episode yet of Shameless. It sends both Frank and his daughter Fiona to new absolute lows, but in a way that humanizes the latter and uses the former as a leading though mostly silent player in one of TV’s most clever plot twists of the year. William H. Macy, Emmy Rossum star.
Based on the promos, this new episode, “Ivan,” is one in which we learn the truth – more of it, anyway – about Tom. At which point, if the truth is damning, James Spader, as Red, gets to deliver a season-long “I-told-you-so.”
Last week, Norma (Vera Farmiga) delivered a shocker that was the reverse-gender equivalent of the stunner in Chinatown – “He’s your uncle and your father!” But is it really that surprising that the Bates family tree has some very unstable branches?
This week’s guests on David Steinberg’s talk show about comedy features separate interviews with Richard Lewis and Gilbert Gottfried. Should be interesting: the latter isn’t interviewed on TV very often, and the former, whenever he is, goes straight for the honesty, whether or not the laughter that ensues is riotous or nervous.
David Bianculli has been a TV critic since 1975, including a 14-year stint at the New York Daily News, and sees no reason to stop now. Currently, he's TV critic for NPR's Fresh Air with Terry Gross, and is an occasional substitute host for that show. He's also an author and teaches TV and film history at New Jersey's Rowan University. His 2009 Dangerously Funny: The Uncensored Story of 'The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour', has been purchased for film rights. His latest, The Platinum Age of Television: From I Love Lucy to the Walking Dead, How TV Became Terrific, is an effusive guidebook that plots the path from the 1950s’ Golden Age to today’s era of quality TV.