DAVID BIANCULLI

Founder / Editor

ERIC GOULD

Associate Editor

LINDA DONOVAN

Assistant Editor

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NOEL HOLSTON

 
 
2015
Apr
12
 
 
SEASON PREMIERE: Is this series starting its new season with strength, purpose, direction and confidence? You betcha. And while there’s no “Red Wedding” in this season opener, there’s certainly a reduction in the population figures before the episode is over. And when Tyrion (Peter Dinklage) makes his first appearance, safely absconded from the palace after last season’s climactic act, both he and Game are very welcome returnees. And Lena Headey as Cersei, and Emili
 
 
 
  
 
 
2015
Apr
12
 
 
SEASON PREMIERE: Season 7, this show’s final season, begins tonight with Jackie (Edie Falco) having to climb out from her deepest hole yet: she’s arrested, out of a job, and seemingly without friends. But she’s more than proven her resourcefulness over the years, so you know she’ll be back, working at the hospital again somehow. (And I know it, too, because I’ve previewed the episode.)
 
 
 
  
 
 
2015
Apr
12
 
 
Part 2 of 6. In last week’s premiere of this meticulously filmed and slyly adapted miniseries version of Hilary Mantel’s novels about intrigue in and around the court of King Henry VIII, we barely saw the king at all. The central figure in this drama, and the reason it seems so fresh a take on the subject, is the usually maligned Thomas Cromwell, the royal advisor played by British stage actor Mark Rylance. Tonight, though, King Henry VIII, played by Homeland star Damian Lewis, gets
 
 
 
  
 
 
2015
Apr
12
 
 
Last week’s midseason return, a beginning of the end for this final cluster of Mad Men episodes, began by dropping hints and defying expectations – with the faces that were seen, the faces that weren’t (at least for now), and, on most men but Don Draper, the faces with silly-looking moustaches, such as John Slattery’s Roger Sterling. Still, most of the midseason premiere episode set the scene for things to come – and tonight, we get to see some of those very things.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2015
Apr
12
 
 
SEASON PREMIERE: The news broke recently that Veep series creator Armando Iannucci has left the series after four seasons – replaced by David Mandel, who worked with series star Julia Louis-Dreyfus on Seinfeld, and also was an executive producer, writer and director on Curb Your Enthusiasm. Here’s hoping the transition will be a smooth one, because the first Season 4 episodes, beginning with tonight’s premiere showing Louis-Dreyfus’ Selina Meyer settling in as President o
 
 
 
  
 
 
2015
Apr
12
 
 
So-called “event television” is seldom as advertised. But with HBO's Game of Thrones, this might be an understatement...
 
 
 
  
 
 
2015
Apr
11
 
 
CBS provides four offers of coverage from the third round of the 2015 Masters at Augusta, and it’ll be fun. TV coverage begins just minutes after the two-day leader by 5 strokes, 21-year-old Jordan Spieth, begins his round. But it won’t be long, promise, before CBS provides tape-delayed coverage of how and what Tiger Woods has been doing on Day 3. He made the weekend cut by scoring an overall 2 under par on the first two rounds – putting him way back in a tie for 19th place, bu
 
 
 
  
 
 
2015
Apr
11
 
 
For this 2014 entry in the film franchise that first established Marvel as a movie powerhouse, the storylines are split between past and present, as in The Godfather Part II. Except here, in this genre, what happens as Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) travels into the past can affect the future significantly. In fact, everyone’s counting on it. Meanwhile, this new film gives a much more prominent role to one of its cast members, who has become more of a movie star every year, largely because of he
 
 
 
  
 
 
2015
Apr
11
 
 
This 1974 character study stars Ellen Burstyn as a widow with a young son, with dreams of being a singer and the reality of working in a down-home local diner. Diane Ladd plays a sassy waitress named Flo, Vic Tayback plays the diner owner named Mel – and if that’s starting to sound a bit familiar, it’s because this movie inspired the long-running CBS sitcom Alice, which starred Linda Lavin in the title role, and featured Polly Holliday as Flo, and Tayback, reprising his movie r
 
 
 
  
 
 
2015
Apr
11
 
 
BBC America has made it trickier to ascertain precisely which installment of this show will air each Saturday – conflicting information makes it tough to pin down for the moment. But I think, and I hope, that tonight’s two-parter will begin with another appearance by Dame Judi Dench, who always is so entertaining when she visits Norton. And based on an advance clip, she is again tonight (I hope tonight), reacting with a swoon to Norton’s cheekily displayed photo of a butt tatto