Last week, the Paramount network premiered, replacing Spike TV, and launched with a big-budget live installment of Spike’s signature show, the pantomime competition series Lip Sync Battle. It was a big waste of time, money and, though they didn’t really display it, talent, with such guest stars as Taraji P. Henson and Neil Patrick Harris lip-syncing to Michael Jackson songs while a stage full of dancers cavorted around them. Either the cameras covered the dancers, in which case you c

2018

Jan

GREAT NEWS By David Bianculli

SEASON FINALE: In tonight’s Season 2 finale, Tina Fey’s Diana St. Tropez returns with a new offer for the news staff: The lawsuit against the show will be dismissed so long as Chuck delivers an intentionally embarrassing on-air apology, then quits. Tonight’s episode title: “Early Retirement.”

2018

Jan

PORTLANDIA By David Bianculli

It’s Episode 2 of Season 8, which Portlandia has proclaimed will be its final season. And Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein have created so many characters for this show over the years, any appearance by any of those characters could well be their last. So enjoy…

2018

Jan

THE X-FILES By David Bianculli

Last year, the best, most entertaining and most absurdly comic and cosmic episode of The X-Files came courtesy of writer Darin Morgan, whose small but superb contributions to that show’s canon include such rule-breaking, playful, self-aware installments as “Clyde Bruckman’s Final Repose,” “Jose Chung’s ‘From Outer Space’ and last season’s ‘Mulder & Scully Meet the Were-Monster.” Tonight, Morgan is at it again, with a new episo

2018

Jan

SECRETS OF THE DEAD: "SCANNING THE PYRAMIDS" By David Bianculli

When you go to the dentist, the discovery of cavities is bad news. But when you’re using a new scientific technique to scan for hitherto undiscovered secret rooms in the Great Pyramid of Giza, finding cavities is about as exciting as it gets. Last November, the Scan Pyramids research team, given special permission by the Egyptian government to use the non-invasive technique of bombarding the structure with sub-atomic particles, tracing their trajectories, and looking for temperature differ

2018

Jan

THE ASSASSINATION OF GIANNI VERSACE: AMERICAN CRIME STORY By David Bianculli

In tonight’s episode two, the extended flashbacks continue as we spend most of our time not with murder victim Gianni Versace (though, played by Edgar Ramirez, Versace is shown mounting one of his glamorous fashion runway shows), but with his eventual killer, Andrew Cunanan (Darren Criss, pictured). This hour of The Assassination of Gianni Versace shows Cunanan fleeing from other murders and arriving in Miami, setting up base near Versace’s opulent mansion.

2018

Jan

WACO By David Bianculli

MINISERIES PREMIERE: This six-part dramatization of the 1993 faceoff between the FBI and David Koresh and his Branch Davidian religious sect is the first major dramatic production by the Paramount Network – which, until last week, was the network known as Spike TV. Now it’s trying to project a new, more mature image, and Waco, starring Taylor Kitsch from Friday Night Lights, is the first salvo in that new campaign. Michael Shannon from Boardwalk Empire co-stars as the FBI hostage neg

2018

Jan

FULL FRONTAL WITH SAMANTHA BEE By David Bianculli

I wonder if Samantha Bee will ever experience a tough day in the writers’ room, where she gathers her staff and says, “How in the world are we going to turn this slow news week into an interesting satirical take on the headlines?” So far, that hasn’t exactly been her problem. And this week, again, is a newsy doozy…

2018

Jan

'WE'LL MEET AGAIN' REMINDS US OF THE ENDURING IMPACT PEOPLE HAVE ON OUR LIVES By David Hinckley

The new PBS series We’ll Meet Again takes us on a heartwarming journey to happy endings...

2018

Jan

WE'LL MEET AGAIN By David Bianculli

SERIES PREMIERE: The song “We’ll Meet Again,” popularized by British singer Vera Lynn when it was released at the start of her nation’s involvement in what would become WWII, has since been utilized to conclude two of the best pieces of entertainment ever made: Stanley Kubrick’s 1964 film, Dr. Strangelove…or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, and Dennis Potter’s 1986 TV miniseries, The Singing Detective. (“We’ll meet again / D

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