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
Mar
11
 
 
If you’re not hooked on this nature series by now, you should be. And you can jump aboard this particular band wagon any time, so whether you’re returning, or a first-timer to Planet Earth II, enjoy tonight’s astoundingly photographed installment, called “Deserts,” which includes more than one thrillingly photographed chase scene.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2017
Mar
11
 
 
SERIES RETURN: Samurai Jack was an animated series about a time-traveling samurai warrior. It was a visually bold, Emmy-winning adventure series created by Genndy Tartakovsky, and ran for four seasons on the Cartoon Network from 2001-2004. Tonight it returns, with new installments, and with Tartakovsky again in charge, on Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim. It seems altogether fitting: a series about a Japanese warrior displaced in time resurfaces in a strikingly different era…
 
 
 
  
 
 
2017
Mar
11
 
 
Tonight's show features a reunion of X-Men co-stars Hugh Jackman, Ian McKellan and Patrick Stewart, but not technically for that series of movies. Stewart and Jackman are visiting Graham Norton tonight to promote Logan, Jackman's newest Marvel Comics entry in his Wolverine spinoff series, while McKellan is on hand to promote the new live-action movie version of Beauty in the Beast, in which he plays Cogsworth.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2017
Mar
11
 
 
On tonight’s new edition, Scarlett Johansson hosts Saturday Night Live for the fifth time – earning her entrance into the show’s ultra-exclusive Five-Timers Club, a group ranging from old-time SNL veterans Tom Hanks and Steve Martin to more modern frequent SNL flyers Alec Baldwin and Justin Timberlake. And Johansson, on SNL, deserves her return invitations: She’s been consistently funny and increasingly fearless. Tonight’s musical guest: Lorde.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2017
Mar
10
 
 
SEASON PREMIERE: This is the second season of this Amazon drama series, and the final one. It’s already been announced that this series, starring Ron Perlman and Dana Delany as a controversial judge and his wife, will stop production after this new round of episodes, which unspool today. The couple faces a murder trial – and, as with last season, there’s an unpredictability to the plots and the characters, and a high talent level among the starring and supporting actors, that m
 
 
 
  
 
 
2017
Mar
10
 
 
SEASON PREMIERE: Gillian Jacobs stars as Mickey, and Paul Rust as Gus, in this uncomfortable love story returning with its entirety of Season 2 today on Netflix. They play very flawed, complicated and verbal people who are attracted to each other despite their own hesitations and foibles – and watching their love blossom in Love is not so much seeing a flower slowly and beautifully unfurl, but a wheezy old car jerk through a series of bad gear-shift changes. But, some would say, that&rsquo
 
 
 
  
 
 
2017
Mar
10
 
 
Alfred Hitchcock not only made a series of great films, he kept himself interested along the way by giving himself some very formidable challenges. In 1948’s Rope, his goal was to direct a film that looked like one long, unbroken scene, from start to finish, with continuous and unedited action. Because of the technology of the day, and the length and limitation of film reels, all he could do was film in 10-minute blocks, and concoct clever edit points to connect those scenes as unobtrusive
 
 
 
  
 
 
2017
Mar
10
 
 
SERIES FINALE: At 8 p.m. ET, the CW provides a retrospective special, trying to encapsulate and summarize, for long-standing fans and curious last-second viewers, exactly what the hell this vampire romance drama was all about. Basically, it was about two vampire brothers, played by Paul Wesley and Ian Somerhalder – but truly, it was about Nina Dobrev, who in her years with the show played no fewer than four roles: not only doppelganger rivals Katherine and Elena, but also lesser figures Ta
 
 
 
  
 
 
2017
Mar
9
 
 
The living arrangements continue to change like musical chairs on this long-running series – as Raj, whose financial security blanket (courtesy of his father) has been yanked away, saves money by moving into Sheldon’s old room. Meanwhile, Leonard gets another visit from his mom, played so brilliantly by recurring guest star Christine Baranski. And that means tonight’s Big Bang Theory is a place on CBS where Baranski can be seen for free – unlike her new Good Wife spinoff,
 
 
 
  
 
 
2017
Mar
9
 
 
This 1966 drama is being presented tonight as part of TCM’s month-long salute to Richard Burton – but there are two other compelling reasons to watch this 51-year-old movie all over again (or, certainly, for the first time). One is for the ferocious, take-no-prisoners performance by Elizabeth Taylor. The other is for a young stage director, and former comic, making his feature film debut as a director: Mike Nichols. The very next film he made, the next year, was a little movie called