FRIDAY
FEBRUARY 6
2015

BIANCULLI’S BEST BETS

 

TCM, 8:00 p.m. ET

Before there was goth, there was gothic – and this 1939 film version of Emily Bronte’s beloved romance novel is a prime example, moor or less. Laurence Olivier stars as Heathcliff, and Merle Oberon as Cathy, in a film that’s beautifully directed (by William Wyler) and cleverly adapted – by famous screenwriters Charles MacArthur and Ben Hecht.

 
  
 
 

PBS, 9:00 p.m. ET

This second season of close analysis of William Shakespeare’s plays continues tonight with another double dose – and, again, starts with a classic comedy and concludes with a dark drama. This week, the opening salvo comes courtesy of host Morgan Freeman, who takes us through a very lively guided tour of The Taming of the Shrew – including, of course, the famous Elizabeth Taylor-Richard Burton teaming. Check local listings.

 
  
 
 

PBS, 10:00 p.m. ET

The dramatic portion of tonight’s Shakespeare-loving double bill is a close and very smart look at Othello, with David Harewood serving as the show’s guide through the play’s history, stage productions and film versions. This Shakespeare Uncovered series is the best thing to happen to Shakespeare on PBS since the complete mounting of The Shakespeare Plays – and that was back in the Seventies and Eighties. Check local listings.

 
  
 
 

HBO, 10:00 p.m. ET

The uneven roundtable discussions of Larry Wilmore’s new The Nightly Show on Comedy Central demonstrate just how hard it is to handle a coherent, much less entertaining, TV conversation among several volatile guests – yet Bill Maher has proven impressively adept at it, week in and week out. And on weeks such as this one, where there’s no superstar big name to dominate the proceedings, both Maher and his panel tend to be at their very best.

 
  
 
 

TCM, 10:00 p.m. ET

Sometimes, I unearth some TV statistics that positively astound me. Here’s one. For the decade of the Seventies, the Top 20 programs for the entire 10-year period didn’t have a single TV series on the list – just miniseries, Super Bowls, specials and theatrical films, in those days before premium cable and VCRs changed the delivery system for movies on TV. The concluding episode of ABC’s Roots topped the list, but – getting larger audiences than any other Roots episode, or any Super Bowl that year, or any Oscar telecast or Bob Hope Christmas special – guess what ranked second and third on that list? NBC’s two-part 1976 TV premiere of 1939’s Gone with the Wind. And now, almost 40 years later, that same movie appears, without commercials or fanfare, as a cable presentation on TCM. But it’s still an epic film, and the always cinema-respectful TCM is an epic network on which to watch it. Vivien Leigh stars.

 
  
 
 
 
 
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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.