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

 
 
2017
Nov
8
 
 
Two weeks ago, Nature told the story of a man who raised some orphaned otters and released them successfully back into the wild. Tonight, there’s a similar theme, as a nature photographer develops an unexpected and unusual relationship with some newborn cheetah cubs, or kittens, or Cheetos, or whatever tiny cheetahs are called. The mom is still around, too, which allows for some “up close and personal” footage of the way a cheetah family relates, plays, hunts, and sleeps. But y
 
 
 
  
 
 
2017
Nov
8
 
 
Ernst Lubitsch directed this 1940 comedy, based on the Nikolaus Laszlo play, about two people who work together with friction and animosity, yet unknowingly are in love with each other as anonymous pen pals. It’s the same story recycled for both the Tom Hanks-Meg Ryan movie You’ve Got Mail and the Broadway musical She Loves Me – and here, the passionate postal lovers are played by James Stewart and Margaret Sullavan.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2017
Nov
8
 
 
USA is promoting this particular episode as one that will stun the Mr. Robot fan universe, and is being presented without commercial interruption. Given that the hero of this story has been targeted by one of his own, in a conspiracy with his own alter ego, expect that whatever happens tonight, it will not be a simple plot twist.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2017
Nov
7
 
 
More Knockout Round, and more Kelly Clarkson as the guest advisor – and more of a hint about what to expect this fall, when she’ll return as a judge. Not on American Idol, mind you, which launched Clarkson to stardom – but on this series, which she reportedly considers a more fair and positive way of finding and, initially, judging talent.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2017
Nov
7
 
 
Randall is in the foster system, and Jack and Rebecca are fighting to finalize his adoption. But there are factors about which the judge expresses concern, including race. It’s how Jack and Rebecca react that will, and does, make the difference.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2017
Nov
7
 
 
Part 2. Yesterday’s Part 1 of this authorized documentary history of Rolling Stone began with the founding of the magazine in 1967 to the death of John Lennon in 1980 – a 13-year stretch covering everything from Patty Hearst and Hunter S. Thompson to Cameron Crowe and Bruce Springsteen. It’s worth watching, with some exciting film clips and memorable blasts from the past. But there’s also a notable whitewashing of certain aspects, as when Lennon famously broke with Wenner
 
 
 
  
 
 
2017
Nov
7
 
 
MINISERIES PREMIERE: This eight-part miniseries, based on the book by Martha Radditz, takes a Rashomon approach to a 2004 battle in Iraq, when a U.S. Army platoon suddenly found itself surrounded by well-armed insurgents in a fight for control of the Sadr City section of Baghdad. Each largely fictionalized episode is shown from the point of view of a different individual, whether a soldier, an Iraqi, or a loved one back in Fort Hood. Jason Ritter and Kate Bosworth star. For full reviews, see Ed
 
 
 
  
 
 
2017
Nov
7
 
 
SEASON FINALE: This season of American Horror Story, a violent and sometimes meandering examination of murder cult mentality, concludes tonight. The series has been called Cult, and the title of tonight’s episode may say it all, at least about this season’s mixture of mayhem and flippancy: It’s titled “Charles (Manson) in Charge.”
 
 
 
  
 
 
2017
Nov
7
 
 
SERIES PREMIERE: This new series is set during the Dust Bowl Depression era, and has two people coming to town, on opposite sides, to steer the local population: an Iowa preacher (played by Killian Scott) urging an insurrection among the working class, and a strikebreaker (played by Logan Marshall-Green) determined to stop it. For a full review, see David Hinckley's All Along the Watchtower.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2017
Nov
7
 
 
For the next seven Tuesdays and extending to just six days before Christmas, the National Geographic channel will bear arms with its most ambitious, expensive and heavily promoted venture to date...