MONDAY
MAY 6
2019

BIANCULLI’S BEST BETS

 

HBO, 9:00 p.m. ET

MINISERIES PREMIERE: This is not a recommendation. This five-part miniseries, an account of the tragic Soviet nuclear disaster in 1986, comes from an unusual source. And I don’t just mean the British network Sky, which co-produces with HBO. I’m referring to series creator and writer Craig Mazin, whose previous writing credits include the third and fourth editions of Scary Movie and the two sequels to The Hangover. So yes, he’s written disaster movies before… but not in a dramatic sense. For full reviews, see Ed Bark's Uncle Barky's Bytes and David Hinckley's All Along the Watchtower.
 
  
 
 

Sundance, 10:00 p.m. ET

MINISERIES PREMIERE: This is an almost startlingly original experiment by Sundance. It’s a 10-part drama series presented in daily installments over two weeks – but each installment is a mere 10 minutes long. Monday through Friday this week and next, you can watch the story of a husband and wife, played by Chris O’Dowd and Rosamund Pike, who meet at a pub before entering their regularly scheduled marital therapy sessions. It’s all dialogue, and unfolds deliberately, and is similar, in its two-character structure and verbally heavy content, to HBO’s excellent series In Treatment. But that show, starring Gabriel Byrne as a therapist, was set inside the counseling sessions. State of the Union is set outside, before the start of those sessions. And each episode in this 10-part series is written by Nick Hornby and directed by Stephen Frears, who collaborated on the wonderful movie version of High Fidelity. For a full review, see David Hinckley's All Along the Watchtower.

 
  
 
 
 
 
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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.