[EDITOR'S NOTE: TVWW contributor Noel Holston is the author of Life After Deaf: My Misadventures in Hearing Loss and Recovery, a memoir to be published Nov. 5 by Skyhorse.]

2018

Dec

'LAW & ORDER' NEVER SAID IT WOULD BE THIS WAY By Noel Holston

Weird. It's like we're all watching Back to the Future in a huge movie theater and a third of the audience is pulling for Biff. Feeling mischievous and snarky, I posted that analogy on Facebook not long ago...

2017

Jun

CAPTIONS COURAGEOUS AND OUTRAGEOUS By Noel Holston

The closed captioning of television programs is of course a great boon to the deaf and hearing impaired, a true godsend, right? Well, not quite. Take it from a deaf viewer...

2017

Mar

HOW TO RESCUE PBS? LET’S DEPLOY ARMED FORCES TELETHONS By Noel Holston

The White House's budget proposal cuts Corporation for Public Broadcasting... but maybe give them the money and let the U.S. Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines and Coast Guard have a week-long pledge drive every year on PBS...

2016

Dec

FAREWELL TO THE KING OF QUALITY TELEVISION By Noel Holston

The first time I met Grant Tinker, on my wide-eyed first TV critics press tour way back in 1973, I wanted to be him. I mean, c'mon. He looked like the distinguished gentleman in the Hathaway shirt magazine ads and he was married to Mary Tyler Moore...

2015

Sep

KERMIT THE FROG: HEARTFELT AND EVERGREEN By Noel Holston

James Arness’s Gunsmoke marshal, Matt Dillon, made his first appearance on television in 1955. So did Hugh O’Brien’s dandified Wyatt Earp...But only one of these iconic TV characters’ chronological contemporaries is still with us and, amazingly, still getting work. That would be Kermit the Frog...

2015

Sep

'THE CIVIL WAR' RETURNS IN UNCIVIL TIMES By Noel Holston

Almost 40 million people saw at least part of The Civil War when Ken Burns’ multipart documentary premiered in September 1990...It’s coming back Monday, September 7, for a special anniversary encore on PBS. Two things will be different...

2015

Aug

MORTON DOWNEY JR. FINDS HIS FANGS By Noel Holston

Contrary to his atomic-fireball TV persona, the Morton Downey Jr. I knew was a pussycat. A pussycat o’nine tails sometimes, but a pussycat all the same...

2015

Aug

A PATRIOTIC SALUTE AND COMBAT SMOKE WITH JON STEWART By Noel Holston

Liberals who have American flags (a larger contingent than our more conservative fellow citizens typically acknowledge) are likely flying them at half-mast to mark the retirement from Comedy Central of Jon Stewart...

2015

Feb

BOB SIMON: 1941-2015 By Noel Holston

The news hit hard – and then the irony. Bob Simon, the decorated journalist and 60 Minutes mainstay, was dead, killed in an automobile crash Wednesday in New York City. Simon had survived as many war zones and hot spots in his 47-year career as any reporter alive...

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Noel Holston

Noel Holston wrote about TV, radio and popular culture for the Orlando Sentinel, Minneapolis Star Tribune and Newsday before going to grow wine bottles near Athens, GA.

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