WEDNESDAY
JANUARY 9
2019

BIANCULLI’S BEST BETS

 

PBS, 8:00 p.m. ET

SPECIAL PREMIERE: Any time Sir David Attenborough is attached to a nature documentary, whether as narrator or host, it’s Must-See TV because the man simply doesn’t make a bad television program – and he’s been making good and great ones for more than 60 years. This month, he has two new ones coming to our shores. Later in January on BBC America, he hosts Dynasties, a new nature series from the Planet Earth team. And tonight, the PBS Nature series imports the recent British one-shot documentary, Attenborough and the Sea Dragon. The creature getting equal billing with TV’s greatest living naturalist is a long-dead prehistoric denizen of the deep: the ichthyosaur, a Jurassic-era giant reptile. Chris Moore, a British fossil collector, discovered and identified a portion of the front paddles of this so-called “sea dragon” on Monmouth Beach at Lyme Regis. (Good thing he found it and marked its location, or he might have been an ichthyosaur loser.) If more of this fossil were intact (and it was), Moore would have to get official permission from the landowners to extract the rock and relocate it for further study. He not only did that, but he contacted Attenborough, who not only came along for the ride, but helped put together and solve pieces of the puzzle. How did this creature die? Attenborough, like a detective tackling an extremely cold case, saw signs of… murder! Check local listings.
 
  
 
 

Fox, 9:00 p.m. ET

Okay, so I watched the premiere of this series last week – and as an American approach to a South Korean singing competition format, it retains enough essential goofiness to keep me interested. The elaborate costumes are part of it (tonight, for example, we’re introduced to Pineapple, who already has won me over with his, or her, Hawaiian shirt) – but the rest will depend on whether there’s at least one genuine singing celebrity in the mix.

 
  
 
 

PBS, 10:00 p.m. ET

SERIES PREMIERE: This six-part documentary series devotes each installment to a different dictator, from Benito Mussolini to Saddam Hussein, to examine how they attained, maintained and lost power. Check local listings.

 
  
 
 
 
 
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4483 Comments
 
 
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Aug 18, 2026   |  Reply
 
 
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Aug 18, 2026   |  Reply
 
 
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Aug 18, 2026   |  Reply
 
 
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Aug 18, 2026   |  Reply
 
 
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Aug 18, 2026   |  Reply
 
 
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Aug 18, 2026   |  Reply
 
 
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Aug 18, 2026   |  Reply
 
 
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Aug 18, 2026   |  Reply
 
 
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Aug 18, 2026   |  Reply
 
 
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Aug 18, 2026   |  Reply
 
 
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Aug 18, 2026   |  Reply
 
 
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Aug 18, 2026   |  Reply
 
 
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Aug 18, 2026   |  Reply
 
 
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Aug 18, 2026   |  Reply
 
 
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Aug 18, 2026   |  Reply
 
 
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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.