Representatives on both sides of the Writers Guild of America strike are scheduled to meet tomorrow, for the first time in weeks, and talk. They're supposed to be negotiating a settlement - and both sides better talk fast. All around them - and all around us - the TV season is starting to evaporate...

2007

Nov

SUPPORTING THE STRIKE, ONE FRAME AT A TIME By David Bianculli

Ordinarily, the biggest weapon in a TV writer's arsenal, when a point needs to be made, is the national soapbox of his or her television show. But when you're a writer on strike, you can't even pick up your mightier-than-a-sword pen. So what's a writer-producer to do?...

2007

Nov

ONE-WORD ADVICE, FROM PLASTICS TO QUARTERLIFE By David Bianculli

Remember that classic scene in "The Graduate," when Dustin Hoffman's Benjamin Braddock was corralled at his college graduation party by an older-generation businessman friend of his father's? He uttered one word of advice, a word which was supposed to unlock the future, and future fortunes: "Plastics"...

2007

Nov

HAPPY THANKSGIVING - PASS THE TV TURKEY By David Bianculli

Happy Thanksgiving. We who care about quality TV have a lot about which to be thankful on this particular Thanksgiving. And no, I'm not talking about tonight's ABC season premiere of the sappy "October Road"...

2007

Nov

FINAL BODY COUNT FOR "THE WAR" By David Bianculli

Final audience numbers for the 15-hour PBS documentary series "The War" were released yesterday - and for quality TV lovers, they're reason for celebration. Sort of. PBS is boasting that the Ken Burns-Lynn Novick production is "the most watched series in the last 10 years on PBS..."

2007

Nov

QUARTERLIFE'S NEXT LIFE...AND OTHER GOOD NEWS By David Bianculli

A week ago Monday in this blog, I raved about a new dramatic series by Marshall Herskovitz and Ed Zwick called "Quarterlife" - available, at the time, only on the Internet (on MySpace and its own brand-new website, Quarterlife.com), presented twice weekly in eight-minute chunks...

2007

Nov

DAY 14: VIEWERS HELD HOSTAGE By David Bianculli

This is the start of the third week of the Writers Guild of America strike - and no news, in this instance, is the closest we'll get to good news for quite a while. That's because both the writers and producers have agreed to resume talks one week from today, after Thanksgiving weekend, and, in the meantime, to issue no official press releases...

2007

Nov

MISSION: IMPASSE-ABLE By David Bianculli

"Mission: Impossible," the 1996 Brian De Palma movie that launched the Tom Cruise "M:I" franchise, is televised tonight at 8 p.m. ET by American Movie Classics. I recommend you don't watch it. But I do recommend you think about it - for reasons I'm about to explain...

2007

Nov

LIVE, BUT ONLY IN NEW YORK, IT'S SATURDAY NIGHT! By David Bianculli

At 11:30 ET tonight, for the first time in two weeks, the show "Saturday Night Live" will go on. But only in New York, as a staged Writers Guild of America benefit at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre. Michael Cera, of "Superbad" and formerly of "Arrested Development," is scheduled to be the guest host of this sold-out event - and though nothing's confirmed, it's rumored...

2007

Nov

ICON BELIEVE TV LAND'S "50 GREATEST TV ICONS" LIST By David Bianculli

Tonight at 8 p.m. ET, the cable network TV Land, in collaboration with Entertainment Weekly, presents what it calls "a definitive list" of The 50 Greatest TV Icons. Not even close - and some of the omissions and inclusions are nothing short of maddening. Of the top 50 all-time TV icons on this list, 30 of them first established their iconic status in the 1970s or later...

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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.

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