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
Apr
22
 
 
Katherine Kelly continues to star as Miss Quill, head of the Coal Hill School – which, it’s worth noting, was part of the plot of the very first episode of Doctor Who. And that was back in 1963.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2017
Apr
22
 
 
I’d call this the best talk show in America – except it’s not in America. It’s imported from England – and imports more genuine moments of both humor and conversation than any of our current home-grown talk shows. Try it; you’ll love it.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2017
Apr
21
 
 
This one is different. There are similarities, to be sure. A writer picketing outside a studio during the 2007 writers’ strike sported a placard...
 
 
 
  
 
 
2017
Apr
21
 
 
A lot of troubled TV cops start to soften a little around the third season. Not Harry Bosch...
 
 
 
  
 
 
2017
Apr
21
 
 
SEASON PREMIERE: Titus Welliver returns as LAPD homicide detective Harry Bosch for Season 3, which takes place 18 months after the events ending Season 2. Conceivably, that gives the emotionally battered detective time to heal, at least emotionally – but apparently, that’s not the direction the show is taking. For a full review, see David Hinckley's All Along the Watchtower.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2017
Apr
21
 
 
SERIES PREMIERE: This new Netflix original series stars Bill Nye, formerly the host of the Disney Channel science series Bill Nye the Science Guy. In TV history terms, there’s a straight line from Don Herbert’s Mr. Wizard to Nye’s more modern counterpart – and last week in one of my TV history classes at Rowan University, after showing a series of old Watch Mr. Wizard clips, I mentioned that Bill Nye was returning with a new series on Netflix, and my college students went
 
 
 
  
 
 
2017
Apr
21
 
 
This is not a recommendation. SERIES PREMIERE: This new series, starring Britt Robertson, is very loosely based on the memoir of the same name by Sophia Amoruso, and is created by Pitch Perfect screenwriter Kay Cannon. So the snark is sharp here – and set a decade ago, this comedy series presents its central character as an abrasive person you’re supposed to like despite all the faults and frostinesss. We’ve seen it already, and better, in You’re the Worst, and already, a
 
 
 
  
 
 
2017
Apr
21
 
 
MOVIE PREMIERE: This 2016 film stars Callum Turner and Grace Van Patten as two young people drawn into a mysterious, though not very probable, world of valise exchanges, mysterious meetings and threatening repercussions, all in an around New York City, filmed in what looks to be a lot of guerrilla style, non-permit location shots. The filmmaking is interesting, the acting is good – but the plot, which aims for modern Hitchcock, doesn’t come close.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2017
Apr
21
 
 
This 2017 documentary is one of several documentaries this week looking at the 25th anniversary of the Los Angeles riots, or protests (depending upon whom was doing the describing), reacting to the not guilty verdicts in the Rodney King police brutality case.  
 
 
 
  
 
 
2017
Apr
21
 
 
After a week off, Bill Maher returns, with a show devoid of celebrity guests – but filled, instead, with journalists, activists, authors and politicians. Usually, these turn out to be the liveliest, and most informative, shows of all.