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

'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

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...

2011

Apr

HBO'S 'GAME OF THRONES': HARD TO FOLLOW, BUT NOT TO WATCH By David Bianculli

HBO's new Game of Thrones series, which premieres Sunday night at 9 ET, is a TV fantasy epic with grand ambitions -- more mature than Syfy's Merlin or Starz's Camelot, less cartoonish and video-game violent than Starz's Spartacus, and telling a more complicated story, with a more sprawling cast of characters, than anything this side of Middle Earth. But even WITH a scorecard, which HBO provided me, it's confusing at times, and only occasionally satisfying...

2011

Apr

MORE BRILLIANT TV IDIOCY AHEAD: SCIENCE CHANNEL ORDERS 'AN IDIOT ABROAD 2' By David Bianculli

My favorite TV idiot savant is about to strike again. Karl Pilkington, whose quirky conversations with Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant make me howl each Friday at 9 p.m. ET on HBO's The Ricky Gervais Show, and whose An Idiot Abroad reluctant travel series for The Science Channel is, to date, my unexpected TV delight of the year, has just agreed to star in a follow-up series, An Idiot Abroad 2...

2011

Apr

AT THE PALEY MUSEUM: HEARING, RATHER THAN LECTURING, ABOUT ERNIE KOVACS By David Bianculli

kovacs-tub-2-top.jpg Tuesday night, instead of teaching a college TV History class about Ernie Kovacs, I went to New York to attend a Paley Museum presentation ABOUT Ernie Kovacs -- moderated by Keith Olbermann, who, even before opening his mouth, honored the spirit of Ernie Kovacs by delivering a memorable, visual ad lib...

2011

Apr

REPORTS OF THE DEATH OF BROADCAST TV DRAMAS ARE PREMATURE: JUST WATCH THESE THREE OUTSTANDING SERIES By David Bianculli

Cable TV dramas may outshine their broadcast counterparts, but major-network broadcast dramas aren't dead yet -- not so long as CBS's The Good Wife and NBC's Parenthood are battling it out on Tuesdays at 10 p.m. ET, and not when Friday Night Lights begins its final-season NBC run this Friday at 8 p.m. ET...

2011

Apr

TV AND BROADWAY INTERMINGLE NICELY IN NY PHILHARMONIC'S 'COMPANY' AND HBO'S 'COLIN QUINN: LONG STORY SHORT' By David Bianculli

WORTH WATCHING's column space to review a Broadway show presented on HBO makes perfect sense, as with last month's Pee Wee Herman Show on Broadway special and this weekend's Colin Quinn: Long Story Short. But why also review the current, four-performance New York Philharmonic presentation of the Stephen Sondheim-George Furth musical Company?

2011

Apr

GLENN BECK AND 'UPSTAIRS, DOWNSTAIRS': DIFFERENT (KEY)STROKES FOR DIFFERENT FOLKS By David Bianculli

If you're wondering why things are a bit sluggish at TV WORTH WATCHING at the moment, it's because our managing editor, Diane Werts, has been traveling, and I've been busier than usual, which is busy enough. I've written stories on Glenn Beck for CNN.com, and on the new Upstairs, Downstairs PBS miniseries for NPR's Fresh Air with Terry Gross. Keep reading here, and I'll steer you in the right directions...

2011

Apr

'MAD MEN,' 'FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS': WATCH ONE WHILE WAITING FOR NEW EPISODES, WATCH THE OTHER INSTEAD OF WAITING By David Bianculli

Season five of AMC's Mad Men won't arrive until 2012, but season four has just been released on home video. And while NBC is waiting until April 15 to begin broadcasting the fifth and final season of Friday Night Lights (already shown on DirecTV), it, too, has just been released on home video. Thank the TV gods for DVD boxed sets...

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