SUNDAY
NOVEMBER 4
2018

BIANCULLI’S BEST BETS

 

ABC, 8:00 p.m. ET

SPECIAL PREMIERE: The cartoon character Mickey Mouse turning 90 is a big deal – especially on ABC, since the network has been owned by Disney for quite a while now. And as cartoon characters go, there are few whose history goes back that far on TV, when Mickey and his cohorts helped launch ABC’s Disneyland in 1955, and the daytime Mickey Mouse Club shortly thereafter. (Okay, maybe you can count TV’s first video test, Felix the Cat, but that’s a blurry stretch.) Disney’s arrival on TV in the Fifties changed television’s relationship with Hollywood studios, and thus changed the medium. But changing media is nothing new for Walt Disney’s centerpiece rodent: It was in 1928, a full 90 years ago, that Mickey took center stage, whistling and steering, in the pioneering sound cartoon Steamboat Willie (pictured).

 

 
  
 
 

Showtime, 8:00 p.m. ET

This is the last edition of The Circus before Tuesday’s midterm election – after which, one political party is all but certain to assert, the real circus begins.

 
  
 
 

AMC, 9:00 p.m. ET

This is the final episode featuring Andrew Lincoln as Rick Grimes, whose character is leaving the show. And, if the promos are not misleading it, he’s leaving the way he began: riding on horseback, and returning to Atlanta and beyond, where we first met him, in that zombie-overrun hospital. For a full review, see David Hinckley’s All Along the Watchtower.

 
  
 
 

HBO, 9:00 p.m. ET

SEASON FINALE: Tonight’s new episode is the Season 2 finale of The Deuce – and, as part of the plot, the premiere of “Red Hot,” Candy’s X-rated, female-empowerment take on the story of Little Red Riding Hood.

 
  
 
 

Showtime, 9:00 p.m. ET

Last week’s season premiere brought Ray Donovan back from the (almost) dead, and (eventually) back into the web of Susan Sarandon’s power broker, who pulls Ray into an intrigue with the familiar nexus of politics, sex, betrayal, and death. Welcome back, Ray. Meanwhile, Ray’s dad has induced his own heart attack to get out of prison – and it’s a desperate ploy that just might work.

 
  
 
 

HBO, 11:10 p.m. ET

I never know, and seldom guess correctly, which special topic John Oliver will address each week on this show. All I know is, after I watch it, I know a little more – and, at the same time, laugh a lot more than I do watching most other TV comedies.

 
  
 
 
 
 
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3801 Comments
 
 
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Apr 21, 2026   |  Reply
 
Dave Bianculli
Hey sweetie,

It's not that complicated! It's TV!!! Do what I do!!!!! Grab a six pack of Miller Lite, crack the first one open and drink it. Rinse and repeat!!!!!!! ROTFLMBFFAO!!!!!!!!!

Just let the TV flow over you.

Good luck!!!!!!!!!!

Dave
Apr 21, 2026
 
 
 
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David Bianculli

Founder / Editor

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.