DAVID BIANCULLI

Founder / Editor

ERIC GOULD

Associate Editor

LINDA DONOVAN

Assistant Editor

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NOEL HOLSTON

 
 
2017
Jan
1
 
 
The first day of 2017 presents 24 more hours of Syfy’s Twilight Zone marathon, making it a Happy New Year indeed. In prime time, beginning at 8 p.m ET, the network is inaugurating a new wrinkle in its schedule: a three-hour block in which classic episodes vow for supremacy, and the right to be screened in this arena-type bracket format, via Twitter voting. Rather watch The Eye of the Beholder than To Serve Man at 8:30 ET? Better get that #TZEyeofBeholder hashtag out there. Personally, I sa
 
 
 
  
 
 
2017
Jan
1
 
 
A couple of TV offerings are starting the New Year in a last-minute scheduling shift to honor the passing of Carrie Fisher. One is here on MeTV, when the regularly scheduled repeat of Laverne & Shirley is substituted by a special episode featuring Carrie Fisher as special guest star. First televised in 1982, a handful of years after the first Star Wars movie, it features Fisher and series star Penny Marshall as wannabe Playboy bunnies who interact with Hugh Hefner, who plays himself. The epi
 
 
 
  
 
 
2017
Jan
1
 
 
SERIES PREMIERE: This is a warning, not a recommendation. This new Fox series comes from the folks at FXX’s It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, and stars one of that proudly crass sitcom’s central players, Kaitlin Olson (as Dee). She plays an ultra-loose cannon reprobate who, through a series of well-timed crises, finds herself temporarily in charge of her sister’s three kids. Think of it as Auntie Buck, then don’t give it a second thought. The opening sequence alone
 
 
 
  
 
 
2017
Jan
1
 
 
The last week of the regular NFL season is filled with meaningless games, because many teams already are eliminated from playoff contention. But other games still matter, including tonight’s prime-time game between the Green Bay Packers and Detroit Lions. Both teams are 9-6 heading into tonight’s game, and facing all sorts of possible fates. The Packers, who have surged towards the postseason with five consecutive victories, can clinch the NFC North division title with a win against
 
 
 
  
 
 
2017
Jan
1
 
 
SEASON PREMIERE: It’s been seven years since Sherlock arrived on PBS, bowling over critics and viewers instantly with its fresh take on the Sir Arthur Conan Doyle mysteries, and making a star of Benedict Cumberbatch as Sherlock Holmes. (Martin Freeman, as his Dr. Watson, already was a beloved British figure, thanks to his co-starring role on the original BBC incarnation of The Office.) And not counting the most recent, stand-alone Christmas special, Sherlock hasn’t given us a new ins
 
 
 
  
 
 
2017
Jan
1
 
 
HBO has added its 2010 special, Wishful Drinking, to tonight’s schedule, as a timely reaction to the deaths of Carrie Fisher and her mother, Debbie Reynolds. Both are represented in this televised version of Fisher’s autobiographical one-woman stage show. Fisher discusses her parents, actress Reynolds and singer Eddie Fisher, at length, and her mother is interviewed in film segments during the program. With Carrie Fisher talking frankly about everything from Star Wars to ex-husband P
 
 
 
  
 
 
2017
Jan
1
 
 

In the beginning there were the heavens and the earth. Planet Earth II has come and gone on BBC TV in the UK, and word is, it was good. Not just good, in fact, but special...

 
 
 
  
 
 
2017
Jan
1
 
 
CBS’s new crime suspense drama Ransom won’t make anybody forget Law & Order, but it probably deserves better than the Saturday night slot to which it has been sentenced...