The three-night, six-hour telecast of "Tin Man" just earned Sci Fi Channel the biggest audience for a miniseries in the network's history, outdoing even "Taken" and "Dune." Average audience for the imaginative reworking of L. Frank Baum's Wonderful Wizard of Oz: 5.3 million viewers...

2007

Dec

WGA STRIKE REACHES ONE-MONTH MARK - AND SO DOES TV WORTH WATCHING By David Bianculli

One month ago today, the Writers Guild of America went on strike, and this website was launched. A month later, I'm still writing... and the writers still aren't. Meanwhile, the networks have begun announcing their strike-affected revised lineups for January and beyond. Among the most interesting moves comes from CBS, which is talking about importing edited versions of such Showtime series as "Dexter"...

2007

Dec

THE MORNING AFTER... "HEROES," "MONDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL" AND "LAST CALL WITH CARSON DALY" By David Bianculli

If you watched TV last night, you were witness to, among other things, two abrupt endings and one uneasy beginning. ESPN's "Monday Night Football" went down to the last second...NBC's "Heroes" ended its second volume with a gunshot and, just to tease us, showed the first seconds of volume three...

2007

Dec

"YOU GUYS KNOW WHO PHILO FARNSWORTH WAS?" By David Bianculli

That quote - "You guys know who Philo Farnsworth was?" - was the way William H. Macy, playing a ratings expert on the ABC comedy "Sports Night," began lecturing a trio of meddling network executives on the true inventor of electronic television. That speech, and that episode, was written by "Sports Night" creator Aaron Sorkin in 1999...

2007

Dec

"TIN MAN": SCI-FI CHANNEL DARES TO DREAM, WHILE THE BROADCAST NETWORKS MERELY SLEEP By David Bianculli

For months now, Sci-Fi Channel has been publicizing "Tin Man," its six-hour miniseries, arriving tonight, that offers a rebooted take on L. Frank Baum's "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz." It's worth watching because (after a slow start) it builds nicely and imaginatively. It's also worth applauding because - well, because it's a risk, the type the networks mostly are avoiding these days...

2007

Dec

ALL HAIL THE QUEEN OF CHRISTMAS TV By David Bianculli

In certain areas of TV criticism and history, I bow to no one. (I should, but I don't.) But when it comes to holiday television, I bow quite humbly to The Queen of Christmas TV. She Who Cannot Be Equalled, during this time of year, is "Newsday" TV columnist Diane Werts. When it comes to December holiday shows on television, she wrote the book...

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