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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
Jan
18
'CIVIL WAR' IS COMING BACK -- TO PBS, IN APRIL By David Bianculli
 
 
The Civil War, the landmark 1990 documentary miniseries that put Ken Burns and company on the map (on both sides of the Mason-Dixon Line), is being repeated in April, PBS announced today. It's timed to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the start of the actual Civil War... give or take a few days...
 
 
 
  
 
 
2011
Jan
17
QUICK QUESTION: ANYBODY WANNA COME OUT AND PLAY AFTER 'AMERICAN IDOL'? By David Bianculli
 
 
[UPDATE: Based on your valuable feedback, we've decided to pursue the live chat idea, but NOT with American Idol. So you're on your own Wednesday night -- but we'll let you know when we've got the right show, and technology, in place to have us gather together to react to a show right after it airs. Thanks for all the smart suggestions, which you can read below...] The TV WORTH WATCHING brain trust (and trust me, that's described with all due irony) met over the weekend to plan the next alte
 
 
 
  
 
 
2011
Jan
14
TWICE AS MANY BEST BETS AS TVWW CAN FIT TO PRINT? SOME DAYS, YES... AS IN THIS SUNDAY By David Bianculli
 
 
Not a complaint -- just the reverse -- but there really IS a lot of good TV to watch these days. Especially Sundays. This week, after compiling the five choices that made the cut for this Sunday's BIANCULLI'S BEST BETS, I realized I had just as many worthwhile options left over...
 
 
 
  
 
 
2011
Jan
12
TIME SLOT SHIFTS: SOME ARE PROMOTIONS, OTHERS ARE DEATH KISSES By David Bianculli
 
 
Midseason brings not only new TV shows, but new time slots for a few old shows. Sometimes, a move is a reward for performing better than expected, as with CBS moving Blue Bloods from Fridays to higher-profile Wednesdays starting next week. Other times, no matter how superb a show is, the move is a slap in the face, a future pink slip, a slow-acting death sentence. That's what NBC is doing this week to 30 Rock...
 
 
 
  
 
 
2011
Jan
11
FX'S 'LIGHTS OUT': ANOTHER GREAT NEW SHOW TO START THE NEW YEAR CORRECTLY By David Bianculli
 
 
Today on NPR's Fresh Air with Terry Gross, I'm previewing the engrossing new FX series "Lights Out"... It's a show about a heavyweight boxer, but it's really a show about a family man pulled in several directions at once, a guy faced with several unattractive options for his future, and a man who isn't sure where his money went, or how to get more of it. In other words, it's a fairly universal story...
 
 
 
  
 
 
2011
Jan
10
HAPPY 40TH ANNIVERSARY, ARCHIE BUNKER By David Bianculli
 
 
Hard to believe, but the pioneering CBS sitcom All in the Family turns 40 years old Wednesday, having premiered as a midseason entry with a timid disclaimer on January 12, 1971. Harder to believe, but some of the stuff in that pilot wouldn't pass today's politically uber-correct prime-time broadcast TV standards... The history of All in the Family, in which Carroll O'Connor embodied one of television's most original and iconic roles as cab-driver bigot Archie Bunker, is as unusual and unlikel
 
 
 
  
 
 
2011
Jan
7
FIVE NEW SHOWS PREMIERE SUNDAY, RANGING FROM EXCELLENT TO EXCREMENT By David Bianculli
 
 
TV's traditional start-of-the-year dormant period is officially over. This Sunday, five new shows premiere -- two that are excellent, one that is very good, one that is not very good, and one that is horrid. On the high end of the spectrum, there's the fabulous Downton Abbey on PBS's Masterpiece Classic and the surprisingly clever Episodes, starring Matt LeBlanc, on Showtime. On the other end...
 
 
 
  
 
 
2011
Jan
5
ADVANCE WARNING ON TWO THURSDAY TV OFFERINGS -- ONE TO CATCH, ONE TO THROW BACK By David Bianculli
 
 
Just a fast note of warning about two impending TV offerings televised Thursday night, Jan. 6 -- one not to be missed, and the other not to be watched. One of them is the third-season premiere of MTV's Jersey Shore. And, thank the TV gods, the other one isn't. Instead, it's a very special episode of CBS's The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson...
 
 
 
  
 
 
2011
Jan
4
HERE COME DE JUDGES! HERE COME DE JUDGES! By David Bianculli
 
 
It's still a couple of weeks before new judges Steven Tyler and Jennifer Lopez show up on Fox's American Idol, and before Piers Morgan, familiar as both a judge on NBC's America's Got Talent and a winner of the same network's Celebrity Apprentice, fills Larry King's interview chair on CNN. But another familiar TV judge can be judged tonight at 8 ET on CBS, when the new Live to Dance series showcases, yes, Paula Abdul...
 
 
 
  
 
 
2011
Jan
3
LIFETIME STARTS THE NEW YEAR WITH AN OLD TRICK: WOMEN-AS-VICTIMS MOVIES By David Bianculli
 
 
Since cable TV is now dominating the genres in which the broadcast networks once did their best (drama and comedy series), it makes sense they'd also inherit what broadcast TV used to do worst -- namely, tacky ripped-from-the-headlines telemovies. This particularly puerile subgenre of television isn't extinct these days. It's alive, and not very well, on Lifetime...
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 

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