[Bianculli here: Contributing writer Tom Brinkmoeller delights in unearthing TV treasures from the remote spectrum of broadcast TV. This time he's outdone himself, and champions a show I've never even HEARD of, much less seen...]

2009

Oct

TAKING A TRAVEL DAY -- TO MISTER ROGERS' NEIGHBORHOOD By David Bianculli

Today I'm heading out over the Ben Franklin Bridge and deep into the western part of Pennsylvania, heading for Latrobe, PA, for the annual meeting of the Fred Rogers Center Advisory Council. This year, for the first time, I'm a member of the council...

2009

Oct

THE LATEST: FOX REALITY BECOMES NATGEO WILD By Diane Werts

Turns out those crazy folks at Fox already had plans for their Fox Reality channel position before declaring the end of FRC this week. They quickly announced that NatGeo Wild will soon be airing animals in place of . . . well, that one is just too tempting, isn't it?...

2009

Oct

ON DVD: 'MTM' SEASON 5 FINALLY MAKES IT, AFTER ALL By Diane Werts

How long have we been waiting for Season 5 of The Mary Tyler Moore Show? Well, the Season 4 DVD set came out in June 2006, so it was more than a three-year wait for Season 5 to hit shelves Oct. 6...

2009

Oct

WEIRD & WILD: DUCT TAPE DOES IT ALL! By Diane Werts

Because you can just never learn enough about duct tape, here's a new hour of Mythbusters (Wednesday at 9 p.m. and midnight ET, Discovery) in which Adam and Jamie somehow manage to keep their giddy tests of this beloved product down to the show's usual hour length...

2009

Oct

WHAT A BLAST: TWO BLASTS FROM MY DISTANT PAST CHECK BACK IN By David Bianculli

When I teach my film and TV courses at Rowan University, I tell my students that I started writing, as a TV critic for a daily newspaper, when I was about their age. This weekend, I heard from the newspaper editor who gave me that opportunity -- as well as from a college professor who made me want to be one myself...

2009

Oct

FLICK PICKS: MUNI-FICENT HISTORY By Diane Werts

While the Warner Bros. studio was making a mint making gritty gangster pix in their 1930s heyday, they were also making "prestige" pictures with one chameleonic actor...

2009

Oct

WEIRD & WILD: 'SOUTH PARK' VS. CELEBS By Diane Werts

The boys are back in town. South Park returns with new episodes Wednesdays at 10 p.m. ET on Comedy Central. Tonight's Season 13 entry may be hitting two trendy birds with one stone...it also involves ghost hunters, another current reality TV obsession...

2009

Oct

GOOD SPORTS: FILMMAKERS DIVE DEEPER ON ESPN By Diane Werts

Think "sports documentaries," and you think of elegiac baseball histories or NFL Films mythologizing that game into a patriotic religion. Certainly ESPN hasn't done much to change this perspective, but maybe that's changing...

2009

Oct

THE BIG DAY: NO ONE EXPECTS THE SPANISH INQUISITION! By Diane Werts

And no one expects Monty Python's Flying Circus to be 40 years old. But Britain's seminal silly surreality first hit the air that long ago today, with all its dead parrots and fish-slapping dances. Wait two more weeks, and IFC commemmorates the event...

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Season 2 of 'City on a Hill' Returns with Kevin Bacon, Aldis Hodge, and Boston Corruption