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DAVID BIANCULLI

Founder / Editor

Bianculli's Blog

ERIC GOULD

Associate Editor

The Cold Light Reader

LINDA DONOVAN

Assistant Editor

Dateline Donovan
Contributors

DAVID HINCKLEY

All Along the Watchtower

ED BARK

Uncle Barky's Bytes

ALEX STRACHAN

TV That Matters

MIKE HUGHES

Open Mike

ED MARTIN

Ed Martin's TV Mix

KIM AKASS

Aerial View

MONIQUE NAZARETH

MNtv

BILL BRIOUX

TV Feeds My Family

ROGER CATLIN

TV Eye

GARY EDGERTON

Must-Click TV

TOM BRINKMOELLER

Raised On MTM

GERALD JORDAN

Crossing Jordan

NOEL HOLSTON

The Grassy Noel

TVWW ARCHIVE

Contributors Archive
 
 
 
 
 
2011
May
5
'JUSTIFIED' SEASON FINALE: FX SERIES DELIVERS POTENT KICK By David Bianculli
 
 
If you're not ready to read about Wednesday's stellar second-season finale of FX's Justified, then don't read past this paragraph. Because I can't wait to write about it -- and I don't intend to... More than any episode to date, this most recent episode mirrored all the satisfying elements of its inspirational source, an Elmore Leonard story. Characters fleshed out with both wit and menace finally quit circling each other, and moved in for a tense, anything-can-happen confrontation...
 
 
 
  
 
 
2011
May
3
TV COMEDIANS: WITH BREAKING BIN LADEN NEWS, IT'S NOT JUST FUNNY BUSINESS By David Bianculli
 
 
After watching traditional news coverage of Osama bin Laden's death at the hands of U.S. forces Sunday night and Monday morning, perhaps you tuned to "lighter fare" for a few laughs. But if you wound up watching, say, Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, David Letterman and Craig Ferguson, you got a lot more, and a lot more thoughtful perspective, than you may have been expecting...
 
 
 
  
 
 
2011
May
2
TV DELIVERS THE NEWS: BIN LADEN KILLED IN NAVY SEALS RAID ON PAKISTAN COMPOUND By David Bianculli
 
 
The news came suddenly Sunday night, and still dominated newscasts and news channels Monday morning: The FBI's #1 Most Wanted fugitive, Osama bin Laden, had been found and killed in a U.S. Navy SEALs raid on a secret compound in urban Pakistan. The mood of most reports was unabashedly, sometimes even uncomfortably, jubilant...
 
 
 
  
 
 
2011
Apr
29
ROYAL WEDDING PHOTO ALBUM REVIEW: MAJESTIC INDEED By David Bianculli
 
 
Okay, so I ate my scones, drank my tea and watched the Royal Wedding, transmitted live on BBC America. So here's my personal instant wedding album, of quick screen grabs of some of my favorite moments...
 
 
 
  
 
 
2011
Apr
28
WATCH ME PULL A RABBIT OUT OF MY HAT! AW, THAT TRICK NEVER WORKS... By David Bianculli
 
 
Last-second warning -- and, I hope, a treat, at least to some. On Thursday's edition of NPR's Fresh Air with Terry Gross, I review a boxed set I've been meaning to get to for a while. It's Rocky & Bullwinkle & Friends: The Complete Series...
 
 
 
  
 
 
2011
Apr
27
OUTRAGEOUS IN THE BEST WAY: TV'S 'SOUTH PARK,' BROADWAY'S 'BOOK OF MORMON' By David Bianculli
 
 
Embarking on their 15th season of Comedy Central's South Park, have that show's creators, Trey Parker and Matt Stone, lost their edge? Uh. no. Not when Wednesday's season premiere (10 p.m. ET) imagines a new Apple piece of firmware that requires a human three-way -- and not when their hit Broadway musical, The Book of Mormon, includes such indelible lyrics as "I have maggots in my scrotum"...
 
 
 
  
 
 
2011
Apr
25
PBS 'STONEWALL UPRISING': IT'S A RIOT, BUT IT'S SERIOUS By David Bianculli
 
 
Monday's new PBS American Experience offering, Stonewall Uprising, is a 2010 documentary about the landmark clash between police and the patrons of a Greenwich Village gay bar in the summer of 1969 -- but filmmakers Kate Davis and David Heilbroner save that pivotal confrontation for last. The rest of their 90-minute study (9 p.m. ET; check local listings) is an often scary condensed summary of historical local and national attitudes regarding homosexuality...
 
 
 
  
 
 
2011
Apr
21
'TALKING FUNNY,' 'CINEMA VERITE,' 'TREME': HBO GOES 3 FOR 3 By David Bianculli
 
 
In round one of its April assault of fresh TV programming, HBO last weekend presented the premiere of its fantasy epic series, Game of Thrones, and immediately renewed. This weekend, in round two, HBO fires off three more shots, all of them bullseyes...
 
 
 
  
 
 
2011
Apr
19
'ERNIE KOVACS COLLECTION': A DVD SET THAT BELONGS IN YOURS By David Bianculli
 
 
One of my absolute favorite TV heroes and icons, Ernie Kovacs, is celebrated in a lavish new DVD boxed set released today (Tuesday) by Shout! Factory. Like its subject, who was TV's first visual genius (and so much more), it's amazingly entertaining...
 
 
 
  
 
 
2011
Apr
18
FOR EARTH DAY, PUBLIC TV PROFILES ENVIRONMENTAL PIONEERS - NATURALLY By David Bianculli
 
 
Just in time for Thursday's Earth Day 2011, public television presents two new documentaries devoted to pioneers in the field (so to speak) of public parks and environmental preservation...many local public TV stations are presenting a study of New York's Central Park planner Frederick Law Olmsted...
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 

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.
 
 
New From TVWW

PBS' 'Frontline’ Examines Pension Promises and — Spoiler Alert — Finds the Math Doesn’t Add Up
By Alex Strachan
 
 
 
 
The Decadence of ‘Versailles’ Comes to Ovation
By David Hinckley
 
 
 
 
Prescribing Mamie Gummer in 'Emily Owens, M.D.'
By Ed Bark
 
 
 
 
Looking for a Free Ride? HBO Can Deliver
By Christy Slewinski
 
 
 
 
'Pass the Biscuits' Part of the Hatfield-McCoy Pop-Culture Legacy
By Noel Holston
 
 
 
 

Dispatches From TVWW

'Extinction: The Facts' is a Sobering Call to Action
By David Hinckley
 
 
 
 
How 'Mayans' Has Been Influenced by the Show's Creator Elgin James
By Mike Hughes
 
 
 
 
For Whom the Bell Tolls: Ken Burns and Lynn Novick Take on Ernest Hemingway, the Man and the Myth
By Alex Strachan
 
 
 
 
In the Final Season, Sutton Foster's Liza is Now the Genuine Version of Her 'Younger' Self
By Monique Nazareth
 
 
 
 
Season 2 of 'City on a Hill' Returns with Kevin Bacon, Aldis Hodge, and Boston Corruption
By David Hinckley
 
 
 
 

This Day in TV History

1957: Julie Andrews Stars in 'Cinderella'
By TV WW