TV Worth Watching Welcomes Its First Other Contributor: Diane Werts

Since November 5, when TV Worth Watching was launched, I've written every word of every review, blog, best bet and feature that's appeared on this website. Beginning today, I'm happy to report, that's no longer the case.

Did I say "happy"? I meant "ecstatic."

Diane Werts, a very friendly competitor to me when she was TV critic at Newsday and I was TV critic at the New York Daily News, left Newsday recently, and one of the places she's landed is... right here. She's a veteran TV critic, a former president of the Television Critics Association, a smart judge of quality and enjoyable television, and a really good writer.

Beginning today, she'll provide her own column, "For Better or Werts," appearing on the home page just below my daily Best Bets. So for the first time in a long time, there's a reason to scroll down beneath Bianculli's Best Bets. Get used to it, and enjoy!

(And farewell, George Lucas, whose interview has been a bottom-of-page place-setter since the site began. May the force be with you...)

She'll also provide many of the DVD reviews, which, from now on, will be bylined: DVDs and books reviewed by Diane will bear her name; new ones by me will bear mine, and existing ones, now uncredited, are mine, too. I'll claim credit for those when I get the chance.

But time to do all this is elusive and precious, so getting even this far has been a group effort. Not only by Diane, who conceived and wrote her columns and stockpiled some reviews, but by Eric Gould and Rich Baniewicz, who redesigned and/or instituted the page elements. Thanks, all.

Diane's enthusiasm for TV is infectious, and she watches and enjoys enough super-esoteric stuff that her recommendations, I'm sure, will not often echo mine. But even they do, I'm excited about welcoming another critical voice to TV Worth Watching -- and proud to say there are a few other voices poised to join the choir very soon.

I'm not leaving. The cavalry is arriving...