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...

2007

Nov

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME By David Bianculli

Today is my birthday. Yesterday, I spent most of the day answering the last of the letters wishing me farewell from the New York Daily News, and good luck on whatever I was doing next...Besides, as I celebrate my birthday today, this website is only 10 days old...

2007

Nov

EVEN ON BROADWAY, THE SHOW MUSTN'T GO ON By David Bianculli

The day I launched this website, the Writers Guild of America went on strike. Less than a week later, the Local One union of stagehands went on strike in New York. Both strikes are still going on strong - which means, among other things, that Aaron Sorkin's "The Farnsworth Invention," scheduled to have its opening night tonight on Broadway, isn't. His drama about TV has, in effect, been turned off...

2007

Nov

GATHER YE TV SHOWS WHILE YE MAY By David Bianculli

You know that feeling, in the middle of May, when you're watching the last few first-run installments of your favorite shows - and feel a little sad because you know you're going to have to wait four months to see them again? Just into the second week of the strike, I feel the same way. Actually, I feel worse...

2007

Nov

IS THERE QUARTERLIFE AFTER TELEVISION? YES. By David Bianculli

Today, on its own website called www.quarterlife.com, a new TV series, also called "Quarterlife," is scheduled to be unveiled. Actually, it was unveiled yesterday as a sneak preview on MySpace -- where, as I watched on my laptop that afternoon, a MySpace counter announced that "Quarterlifehas 856 friends..."

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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.