This 1976 movie, written by Paddy Chayefsky and starring Peter Finch, Faye Dunaway and William Holden, is an utterly brilliant satire of network TV in the mid-1970s. It’s also so prescient about what was to come, from a successful fourth network to corporate purchases of networks and the demand for news divisions to show profits. Oh, and reality TV, and so much more, including the great Ned Beatty speech that Bob Odenkirk recreated so hilariously on last year’s Better Call Saul opene

2016

Feb

BONNIE AND CLYDE By David Bianculli

From 1967, here’s another Faye Dunaway movie – this one pairing her with Warren Beatty in a period gangster film that’s as stylish as it is cinematically groundbreaking. Gene Hackman is in here as brother Buck, and in a few years became a star in his own right in The French Connection.

2016

Feb

MCCABE AND MRS. MILLER By David Bianculli

And from 1971, here’s another Warren Beatty movie – and another Robert Altman-directed film as well. Not until Deadwood showed up on HBO would a Western town look so gritty, so atmospheric, and so utterly real. And, in this case, so isolated by the depths of winter. The Mrs. Miller in the title, by the way, is played by Julie Christie.

2016

Feb

FINDING YOUR ROOTS WITH HENRY LOUIS GATES By David Bianculli

The three guests learning about blasts from their pasts tonight are Neil Patrick Harris, Gloria Steinem, and Sandra Cisneros – and Harris is in for a particularly unexpected jolt. Check local listings.

2016

Feb

MARVEL'S AGENT CARTER By David Bianculli

Tonight’s episode is called “A Little Song and Dance,” and is built around a musical plot, and number, designed to corral and stop the dangerous Whitney Frost. Whether it works or not depends on the fancy footwork of Agent Carter and company – but the company, this time, includes guest star dancers recruited from another ABC series, Dancing with the Stars.

2016

Feb

FRONTLINE: "CHASING HEROIN" By David Bianculli

Producer Marcela Gaviria, who did the penetrating and instructive The Drug Wars, is back chasing the path, popularity and problems associated with drugs – focusing, this time, on heroin, and its major emergence in places you might not suspect initially. Check local listings.

2016

Feb

THE GRINDER By David Bianculli

When Dean (Rob Lowe) first descended upon his family’s law practice, he wanted to start at the top – even without taking the bar exam. In tonight’s episode, he goes the opposite route, and decides to start at the bottom – as a coffee-fetching, paper-shredding intern.

2016

Feb

AMERICAN CRIME STORY: "THE PEOPLE V. O.J. SIMPSON By David Bianculli

Episode 4. Tonight’s episode is called “100% Not Guilty,” and it’s the one in which the prosecution holds a focus group, and is stunned to discover that the question of O.J. Simpson’s guilt or innocence divides cleanly along racial lines. Equally stunning, for its inspired casting: Friday Night Lights and Nashville star Connie Britton, making another appearance as opportunistic “character witness” Faye Resnick. Had there been a Real Housewives of Beverly

2016

Feb

POLITICS: THE STUFF OF DREAMS By Jonathan Storm

The Simpsons trundles along as history’s longest-running scripted series, 27 years... One of the reasons for the show’s success is that it stays up-to-the-minute...

2016

Feb

SUNDAY BLOODY SUNDAY: MORE SIGNS OF TV'S CURRENT MURDER-SUICIDE PACT By Alex Strachan

I have seen the future, and it looks a lot like the TV-network equivalent of a murder-suicide pact. It was Sunday night, the most heavily viewed night of the TV week, and there was too much for the DVR to keep up with...

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