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

 
 
2013
Jan
9
 
 
Better late than never: This ABC sitcom, one of the best comedies on television, presents its New Year’s Eve episode. The extended family descends upon Palm Springs for the night – and for a series of adventures, misadventures and card games at a local resort hotel.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2013
Jan
9
 
 
These post-season editions are my favorite episodes of this series. With fewer games to analyze and preview, the content is deeper, the conversations more fluid, and the conflicts among analysts even more obvious and energized.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2013
Jan
9
 
 
Juliette (Hayden Panettiere), in this new episode, questions why Rayna (Connie Britton) is so eager to have them go out on a joint tour together. “You hate me,” Juliette tells her, but Rayna corrects her: “I only hate sunburns and hangovers,” she says. “This is just business.” Welcome to Nashville, 2013.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2013
Jan
9
 
 
The ending of last week’s episode was the most outrageous cliffhanger ending of any episode all year – you might call it the cremation of the crop. But this week, other characters are still around to carry the story line, including the Monsignor (Joseph Fiennes), whose daily newspaper delivers some bad news indeed.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2013
Jan
9
 
 
On this day in 1995, CBS introduced the post-Late Show talk show, Late, Late Show with Tom Snyder...
 
 
 
  
 
 
2013
Jan
8
 
 
On this day in 2004, Survivor producer Mark Burnett brought his successful elimination-style format to the boardroom with the reality game show, The Apprentice...
 
 
 
  
 
 
2013
Jan
8
 
 
As always, a lot is going on in this show, where there are significant developments on the work front (at the recording studio, seen in photo) and on the personal front. Especially the personal front – where there’s a new pregnancy to confront.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2013
Jan
8
 
 
SEASON PREMIERE: One of my favorite series of 2012 returns for a new season in 2013, kicking off with a twisted mystery (a 40-year-old satchel, found hidden behind some drywall) and the latest in a long series of inspired casting choices. This time it’s Patton Oswalt, who plays a small-town lawman to whom Raylan (the outstanding Timothy Olyphant) goes for unexpected, unorthodox assistance. Denver Post TV critic Joanne Ostrow describes Oswalt’s character perfectly, and hilariously, as
 
 
 
  
 
 
2013
Jan
8
 
 
SERIES PREMIERE: This isn’t a recommendation, necessarily, but the return of this reality-series improv-comedy hybrid certainly is worth noting. The original The Joe Schmo Show, also televised by Spike TV, was, like many cheaply made series in the reality-TV-obsessed world of 2003, a ripoff of such close-quarters competition shows as Survivor and Big Brother. The difference here was that everyone, save for one hapless contestant cast for his good nature and gullibility, was an actor playin
 
 
 
  
 
 
2013
Jan
8
 
 
SEASON PREMIERE: After a long absence, this former ABC series returns on a new network – a cable one – but otherwise continues its very heightened brand of pleased-with-itself humor. A flashback sequence in one of this season’s new episodes made me laugh, but that’s about all. Even so, there are some adept comic performers here – and it may be the first TV show in history where the drinking games are played by the characters, not the viewers. Courteney Cox stars.