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

 
 
2014
Jan
26
 
 
The friction between Anna (Joanne Froggatt) and Bates (Brendan Coyle) continues to escalate, because she refuses to tell him of her being sexually assaulted because she fears – she knows – that her husband will exact revenge by murder, and thus return to prison. But Bates is anything but stupid – and tonight, despite all of Anna’s efforts and protestations and denials, he begins to put the pieces of the puzzle together. Check local listings.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2014
Jan
26
 
 
Woody Harrelson and Matthew McConaughey’s detectives get deeper into the case in tonight’s episode, in this show’s extended, complicated flashbacks. But they also get deeper into each other’s lives, in ways that don’t always mesh, and sometimes lead only to more friction. And in the present, McConaughey’s time in “the box,” interviewed by modern counterparts to his old police partnership, spins into more and more strange behavior.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2014
Jan
26
 
 
Tonight’s episode is called Sign of Three, and takes place at the wedding of Watson (Martin Freeman) to Mary (Amanda Abbington), with Sherlock Holmes (Benedict Cumberbatch) as a very surprised, and distracted, best man.  Check local listings.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2014
Jan
26
 
 
The sitcom-within-a-sitcom on this show, Pucks, is in danger of imminent cancellation. Its star, Matt Le Blanc, couldn’t be happier, because he’s jockeying for another, better job – but the way he’s behaving, especially towards show writers Beverly and Sean (Tamsin Greig, Stephen Mangan), has them much less happy. And not because Matt is hoping for cancellation – because they are, too.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2014
Jan
26
 
 
On this day in 1979, CBS introduced The Dukes of Hazzard...
 
 
 
  
 
 
2014
Jan
25
 
 
Toby Stephens, whose mother is Maggie Smith, the Dowager Countess on PBS's Downton Abbey, has set sail on his own show -- as a pirate on Starz's Black Sails...
 
 
 
  
 
 
2014
Jan
25
 
 
This new Lifetime telemovie is so bad, it’s not even a hot mess – it’s a warm one. But it’s worth a peek, in a voyeuristic or masochistic way, because almost everything about it is so astoundingly wrong. Excluded from this harsh verdict is Christina Ricci, whose portrayal of the titular ax murderer is the one solid element in the entire project. What, otherwise, is so bad? The absurdly anachronistic and inappropriate musical score. The variously visited and revisited murd
 
 
 
  
 
 
2014
Jan
25
 
 
Tonight, this 1975 movie classic is presented on TCM – which means it’s televised in the proper screen ratio, and without commercial interruptions or edits for violence or language. In other words, it’s one of the best ways to watch one of my favorite films of all time. Roy Scheider, Robert Shaw and Richard Dreyfuss star. Steven Spielberg directs. And when Shaw, as grizzled sailor Quint, tells of his wartime experiences during a late-night drinking session on his shark-hunting
 
 
 
  
 
 
2014
Jan
25
 
 
MINISERIES PREMIERE: This is more warning than recommendation. This Michael Bay TV production has all the action set pieces and random violence and nudity you’ve come to expect from his movies – with characters just as thin, and actors who, for the most part, look a lot better than they act. In the case of Black Sails, this is a shame, because it’s borrowing characters from another, much better pirate story. Black Sails is a prequel to Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Is
 
 
 
  
 
 
2014
Jan
25
 
 
Tonight’s new show features Idris Elba from Luther, Olivia Colenan from Broadchurch, and a guest who might be of special interest even to those who aren’t following quality imported British miniseries: Lena Dunham from HBO’s Girls.