DAVID BIANCULLI

Founder / Editor

ERIC GOULD

Associate Editor

LINDA DONOVAN

Assistant Editor

Contributors

ALEX STRACHAN

MIKE HUGHES

KIM AKASS

MONIQUE NAZARETH

ROGER CATLIN

GARY EDGERTON

TOM BRINKMOELLER

GERALD JORDAN

NOEL HOLSTON

 
 
2020
Apr
4
 
 
This particular episode of The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour was televised in December 1968, as part of the variety show’s third and final season. By now, Tom and Dick Smothers had all but abandoned their previous approach of booking guests from several generations of show business, and were focusing on young performers and performances of interest to the Brothers’ young CBS audience. So in this episode, Tom and Dick host comedian Bob Newhart, as well as Kenny Rogers (who d
 
 
 
  
 
 
2020
Apr
4
 
 
War doesn't victimize only people wearing uniforms, a sadly well-documented fact that gets another expansive dramatization in the new PBS series World On Fire...
 
 
 
  
 
 
2020
Apr
4
 
 
As Europe began crumbling in 1939, a new generation was jolted. That's true of the fictional characters at the core of World on Fire...
 
 
 
  
 
 
2020
Apr
3
 
 
SPECIAL PREMIERE: London’s National Theatre, for people in its own country as well as globally who are staying in their own homes at the moment to fight the spread of the coronavirus, has just started something wonderful. Once a week, the National Theatre, on its YouTube channel of the same name, will upload and present a production from its archives – a complete performance, filmed during the original stage run, of one of its acclaimed comedies, dramas or musicals. Each production w
 
 
 
  
 
 
2020
Apr
3
 
 
SERIES PREMIERE: This new limited series starts with a mysterious man addressing the camera, as in Dispatches from Elsewhere. Almost instantly, it establishes a mysterious and remote research facility, as in Devs, only this time it’s a subterranean Ohio place known as The Loop. There are mysteries of science and nature, and wandering robots and abandoned children, and bleak winter landscapes, and an inquisitive set of youngsters who encounter all sorts of strange things
 
 
 
  
 
 
2020
Apr
3
 
 
DOCUMENTARY PREMIERES: Today on Disney+, two new films from its nature documentary unit premiere on the streaming service. Both are films intended to entertain and inform the entire family, and each has a very popular subject – and narrator. Dolphin Reef is narrated by Natalie Portman, and Elephant is narrated by Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex. Good to know, after exercising a bit of social distancing from the Royal Family, she was able to find work…
 
 
 
  
 
 
2020
Apr
3
 
 
Next summer, this George Lucas-Lawrence Kasdan-Steven Spielberg collaboration will be 40 years old. Let that sink in. But for now, revel in the Friday night TV availability of this 1981 salute to cinematic adventure serials. Harrison Ford stars as Indiana Jones – a role, and a franchise, that he, Lucas, Spielberg and company are planning to revive next year. Many films are described as “nonstop fun.” Raiders of the Lost Ark really is.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2020
Apr
3
 
 
In 2009, Zombieland was a sort of surprise hit: an apocalyptic zombie film that was as funny as it was eccentric – and which featured Bill Murray as himself, an unlikely (albeit temporary) survivor in this imagined dystopian future. tarred Same director and writers. Woody Harrelson starred as Tallahassee, and Jesse Eisenberg as Columbus – two hardy souls with their own lists of rules for survival – and the non-zombies they encountered while roaming the desolate landsc
 
 
 
  
 
 
2020
Apr
3
 
 
Two weeks ago, Bill Maher did his show without an audience, to respect social distancing guidelines. Last week, he didn’t put on a show at all. But this week, he’s mounting a show that includes several guests, but still has no audience – which, for Maher (who has gotten increasingly frustrated with his own liberally “woke” studio audience members over the years), may be the only silver lining to this bleak pandemic. Certainly, his show bookers have no problem reachi
 
 
 
  
 
 
2020
Apr
3
 
 
On this day in 1994, CBS News' Sunday Morning host Charles Kuralt passed the torch to his successor, Charles Osgood...