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

 
 
2016
Nov
21
 
 
Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa. Last week, I described this excellent documentary series on recorded music as a five-part series. I’d blame my pain meds, but I stopped taking them two months ago. Several of you noted my mistake, and I’m happy to report that you’re right and I’m wrong. There are still three episodes left, thank goodness, starting with tonight’s installment, which includes the rise of hip-hop, the development of musical “sampling,”
 
 
 
  
 
 
2016
Nov
21
 
 
SERIES PREMIERE: Alia Shawkat from Arrested Development stars in this new TBS series, which is being unveiled in late night, two episodes per night, for a one-week burst, beginning tonight. (Though if, like Soundbreaking, it ends up leaking into next week as well, then I’ll be 0 for 2.)  She plays Dory, a pampered housewife’s personal assistant who impulsively takes on a mission in life she deems more meaningful: rounding up a posse of friends in hopes of locating a former colle
 
 
 
  
 
 
2016
Nov
20
 
 
This live awards show is heavy on performances – and though it’s no Grammys, it does have its share of chart-topping, spotlight-grabbing talent, usually hot pop artists with new CDs to promote. Tonight’s roster, for example, includes Bruno Mars, Lady Gaga, and Green Day.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2016
Nov
20
 
 
After spending last week in Alexandria, and with Rick (Andrew Lincoln) and his fellow cowering cohorts, tonight’s episode spends much of its time with other characters, other potential or definite adversaries, and yet another ominous setting: the Hilltop.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2016
Nov
20
 
 
This is the eighth episode of this series – and by now, it’s bent our understanding of the program’s reality so far into itself that it’s almost like a DNA strand of alternate consciousness. And as a reality-bending concept, Westworld is so resonant that it was used last night as a reference with which to end a sketch of increasingly anxious (and ultimately robotic and malfunctioning) CNN anchors.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2016
Nov
20
 
 
I empathize more with the characters on this series than on most – because I tend to forget I’m watching a scripted program, and just feel bad for the new crises in which these poor folks keep embroiling themselves. These days, those include Fiona’s efforts to run yet another business, this time a laundromat, and Lip’s determined fight to get back on track, at least academically.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2016
Nov
20
 
 
SEASON PREMIERE: This new, third season of The Affair gets even more complicated – because it adds yet another perspective to its twisted tapestry of a narrative. Talk about untrustworthy narrators: on this show, they’re all untrustworthy, and the truth is found, if it is at all, only by sifting through their various stories and biased accounts. For a full review, see David Hinckley's All Along the Watchtower.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2016
Nov
19
 
 
Stephan James stars as Jesse Owens in this 2016 drama about the celebrated runner who grabbed and held the world stage by representing the U.S. at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin – the ones hosted by Adolf Hitler, whose theories of white supremacy were dashed by Owen’s dashing around the race track. Co-stars include Jason Sudeikis, Jeremy Irons, William Hurt, and, as Nazi propaganda filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl, Carice van Houten.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2016
Nov
19
 
 
SERIES PREMIERE: Just as many early videotapes of Johnny Carson hosting NBC’s The Tonight Show in the 1970s and early 1970s were erased for reuse or trashed to save storage costs, many early TV shows in England suffered a similarly maddening and insensitive fate. One of them was the 1960s series Doctor Who, where some key early adventures were so disrespected, they had their master negatives destroyed. But audio recordings, photos, and some film clips survive – and from them, modern
 
 
 
  
 
 
2016
Nov
19
 
 
This Douglas Adams mystery comedy has gotten so strange, it’s not even worth it trying to summarize the plot thus far, or what’s about to happen tonight. Just go with it. Which, in a sense, is the author’s message here anyway…