The best scene in The Wizard of Lies, Barry Levinson’s restrained character study of Bernie Madoff and family, is when Michelle Pfeiffer, playing Ruth Madoff, the wife of Robert De Niro’s almost mythologically dishonest financier, rides the elevator down from her penthouse apartment to the building lobby. This is after Madoff’s elaborate Ponzi scheme, defrauding friends, clients and even family of billions of fraudulently “invested” dollars, was revealed in the pres

2017

May

12 MONKEYS By David Bianculli

Yesterday, today, and tomorrow, Syfy serves up the entire concluding Season 3 of this 12 Monkeys TV spinoff – all 10 episodes – in a three-night prime-time mini-marathon. The marathon began Friday, continues tonight at 8 p.m. ET, and concludes Sunday, opposite the return of Showtime’s Twin Peaks. Good luck with that. And if you missed yesterday’s initial Season 3 episodes of this relentlessly mobile time-travel sci-fi spinoff, there are two ways to catch up. Watch Syfy On

2017

May

DOCTOR WHO By David Bianculli

Michelle Gomez guest stars in tonight’s new episode, reprising her increasingly important and imposing villainess role as Missy. It’s an episode written by current Doctor Who show runner Steven Moffatt, and is set in the Vatican. So in the same week President Trump visits Vatican City, so does the Doctor…

2017

May

SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE By David Bianculli

SEASON FINALE: It’s the last first-run Saturday Night Live installment of the season, a time when the show’s writers and performers simultaneously are wheezing their way to the finish line and marshaling energies for one last great push of inspiration. The week in politics has given no end of inspiration – and with tonight’s show being the last time to play until fall, even pop-in players like Alec Baldwin and Melissa McCarthy are good bets to show up. The guest host is D

2017

May

CABLE BLUES By Eric Gould

Here’s Last Week Tonight’s recent (and perhaps ultimate) super cut of cable news panels. In case you didn’t already agree, this might help illustrate how cable news food fights might make for good ratings but not for public good...

2017

May

'WIZARD OF LIES' SHOWS CLIENTS NOT IN CASH ANYMORE By David Hinckley

Just when you may have thought the Bernie Madoff story couldn’t get any sadder, along comes HBO’s The Wizard of Lies, which shows that the real Madoff was far too often a cruel bully who delighted in taunting and humiliating those around him...

2017

May

THE UNBREAKABLE KIMMY SCHMIDT By David Bianculli

SEASON PREMIERE: Season 3 of this very funny, impressively multi-layered character comedy launches today, with Ellie Kemper continuing to persist, and in most cases evolve, as former cult captive Ellie Kemper. Last year’s cliffhanger had the charismatic but criminal leader of that cult, played by Jon Hamm, threatening to resurface with plans for a new marriage. Ellie’s not the targeted intended bride, though – because she already was forcibly “married” to him back w

2017

May

12 MONKEYS By David Bianculli

SEASON PREMIERE: It’s Season 3 for this Syfy series as well – and though Syfy isn’t dropping it all at once, as Netflix is doing with the aforementioned The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, it is rolling it out in unusual fashion. This year’s 10 new episodes of 12 Monkeys will be televised over three nights, tonight through Sunday, in a weekend mini-marathon premiere event. Technically, that makes it 10 Monkeys, not a dozen – but why quibble? The first few new episodes ar

2017

May

THE NEW 'I LOVE LUCY' SPECIAL By David Bianculli

CBS has done this before, with this vintage, beloved CBS series, and with The Dick Van Dyke Show: Take a pair of classic episodes, colorize them by new computer techniques, and show them in prime time. And tonight, CBS is doing it again, showing a pair of Lucille Ball’s later I Love Lucy “Hollywood” episode. The classic one, truly, is the one with Lucy and Harpo Marx, recreating the seminal broken-mirror scene from the riotous Marx Brothers movie Duck Soup. I used to be totally

2017

May

AMERICAN MASTERS: “JAMES BEARD: AMERICA’S FIRST FOODIE” By David Bianculli

American Masters, this week and next, is serving up a quartet of shows that food-loving cooking enthusiasts will enjoy. One new program will be paired each Friday with one related rerun, and tonight the new production is James Beard: America’s First Foodie. That title may sound like a stretch, but in TV terms, it’s absolutely and incontrovertibly accurate: His first TV series about food and food preparation, NBC’s I Love to Eat, was a 15-minute show that was shown in 1946, as o

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