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

 
 
2016
May
5
 
 
Last week’s episode was able to mix humor and horror, juggling plots about unearthing a long-buried corpse and trying to extricate, from at least one of the clones, a potentially lethal and definitely mysterious parasite burrowed into her cheek. And tonight, Rachel gets stronger, while some of the other clones try to, in essence, heal thyselves.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2016
May
4
 
 
Tonight’s ABC sitcoms are a wall-to-wall celebration of Mother’s Day – though celebration may be too strong a word. That’s especially true of the leadoff comedy, The Middle, in which Frankie (Patricia Heaton) votes to take the holiday off the family calendar. The family, understandably, is a bit suspicious…
 
 
 
  
 
 
2016
May
4
 
 
Also in time for Mother’s Day, Lucious’ mother returns – and it’s not a warm welcome she receives, but a very heated one. And there are volatile moments related to the other women of Empire also…
 
 
 
  
 
 
2016
May
4
 
 
One of the prominent historical landmarks on Martha’s Vineyard is the Gay Head Lighthouse, which has watched over Vineyard Sound since 1856, but whose cliffside location has been endangered in recent years by natural erosion of the coastline. Local townspeople voted, and raised the money, to save the lighthouse, and engineers were brought in to figure out a way to move it, intact, deeper inland. And if expending that much effort for a lighthouse in that area seems excessive, just think of
 
 
 
  
 
 
2016
May
4
 
 
SEASON PREMIERE: The first two episodes of Season 4 of Maron are presented tonight on IFC, with Marc Maron and continuing the spiral in which his TV character found himself last season. He ended the year losing a TV job because of his newly developed addiction to Oxycontin, and this season begins finding him even lower, having lost his manager, his house, even his podcast. But he still has a few friends – and if he listens to their advice, maybe he can crawl back into the sunlight.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2016
May
4
 
 
I actually was surprised that Martha survived to the end of last week’s episode – and given how Elizabeth (Keri Russell) seems to be seething about how much Philip’s “other wife” means to him, I’ll be just as surprised if she makes it to the end of tonight’s episode, much less to her new home in Russia, which she doesn’t want anyway, but can’t stay in the US, because the FBI is close on her heels. What a dilemma. What a show. And here comes M
 
 
 
  
 
 
2016
May
3
 
 
When Amy Berg started working on a documentary about the late Janis Joplin, one of the suggestions she heard was that Joplin was “the Judy Garland of rock.”
 
 
 
  
 
 
2016
May
3
 
 
The Top 10 becomes the Top 9 at the end of tonight’s results show. I don’t know what the results are likely to be, because there were so many strong performances last night – but one contender who should be safe, if there is any justice, is Laith Al-Saadi, who was as impressive playing electric guitar on “The Thrill Is Gone” as he was singing the song. Wow.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2016
May
3
 
 
Amy Berg wrote and directed this portrait of 1960s singing star Janis Joplin, and tells her story in a captivating way. Watching it, I realized I was aware of her career high points – blowing them away at Monterey in 1967 and Woodstock in 1969, chatting honestly on The Dick Cavett Show, and releasing Kris Kristofferson’s “Me and Bobby McGee” as a posthumous hit – but little else. This documentary takes us back to her small Texas town, her high school days, and even,
 
 
 
  
 
 
2016
May
3
 
 
The season finale of this episode is two weeks away, but already the tensions and stakes are high, as Grant Ward, now transmogrified into a mind-controlling alien known as The Hive, has converted some of the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents to his side – including Daisy, one of the team’s most central and powerful operatives.