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DAVID BIANCULLI

Founder / Editor

Bianculli's Blog

ERIC GOULD

Associate Editor

The Cold Light Reader

LINDA DONOVAN

Assistant Editor

Dateline Donovan
Contributors

DAVID HINCKLEY

All Along the Watchtower

ED BARK

Uncle Barky's Bytes

ALEX STRACHAN

TV That Matters

MIKE HUGHES

Open Mike

ED MARTIN

Ed Martin's TV Mix

KIM AKASS

Aerial View

MONIQUE NAZARETH

MNtv

BILL BRIOUX

TV Feeds My Family

ROGER CATLIN

TV Eye

GARY EDGERTON

Must-Click TV

TOM BRINKMOELLER

Raised On MTM

GERALD JORDAN

Crossing Jordan

NOEL HOLSTON

The Grassy Noel

TVWW ARCHIVE

Contributors Archive
 
 
2019
Jun
6
THE LONGEST DAY By David Bianculli
 
 
The broadcast and cable news operations presented live TV coverage this morning of the D-Day 75th anniversary tribute from Normandy, with Donald Trump giving what easily was the most measured and well-delivered speech of his presidency to date. Much of his speech was spent describing, and trying to paint vivid pictures of, what the young men were facing who stormed the beaches and jumped from airplanes that fateful, momentum-changing day of war in France. The Longest Day, released in 1962 (a mer
 
 
 
  
 
 
2019
Jun
6
2019 STANLEY CUP FINALS By David Bianculli
 
 
Boston Bruins captain Zdeno Chara left Monday’s Game 4 early, after being smacked in the face with a deflected puck, and never got back on the ice. Boston lost the game, the St. Louis Blues tied the series at 2-2, and tonight is Game 5. Chara’s status, as of this morning, remains uncertain. The team is saying officially only that the Bruins defenseman suffered a “facial injury,” but reports are circulating that the blow from the errant puck was forceful enough to have bro
 
 
 
  
 
 
2019
Jun
6
THE COLD BLUE By David Bianculli
 
 
DOCUMENTARY PREMIERE: William Wyler was one of the handful of filmmakers who lent his talents, and bravely went into battle zones, to film the exploits of his fellow men in uniform during WWII. For The Cold Blue, director Erik Nelson takes Wyler’s wartime footage of the Eighth Air Force (some used in his 1944 documentary, The Memphis Belle), restores it, and refashions it into this new documentary about this particular, airborne band of brothers. For a full review, see David Hinckley's All
 
 
 
  
 
 
2019
Jun
5
“OH-OHH, YEA-ESSSSS” By Eric Gould
 
 
One of Bill Hader’s funnier SNL bits was playing Keith Morrison, host of NBC’s Dateline, with Morrison’s trademark delivery and borderline amusement at some of the more macabre turns in the show's murder stories. Hader was being interviewed for Sunday Today by Willie Geist when he got a surprise visitor...
 
 
 
  
 
 
2019
Jun
5
STILL BLEAK AND GRIM, 'THE HANDMAID'S TALE' IS BACK WITH THE GLORIOUS ELISABETH MOSS By David Hinckley
 
 
Hulu’s intense The Handmaid’s Tale enters its third season with probably a bit less buzz than it generated after the first, and the reason may be mildly ironic...
 
 
 
  
 
 
2019
Jun
5
THE HANDMAID'S TALE By David Bianculli
 
 
SEASON PREMIERE: Season 3 of The Handmaid’s Tale begins tonight on Hulu – which, with this series, copies the long-established broadcast TV formula of presenting one new episode per week, rather than dropping an entire season at once. The season begins, though, with a triple-header, treating fans to the first three hours of the new crop of shows. And they begin precisely where last season’s cliffhanger left off: with Offred (Elisabeth Moss) smuggling Serena’s baby off to
 
 
 
  
 
 
2019
Jun
5
BLACK MIRROR By David Bianculli
 
 
SEASON PREMIERE: Season 5 of Black Mirror is only three episodes long – but that was true of Season 1, and look how well that turned out. All three of these new editions are impressive, one is astounding, and every one is better than anything CBS has yet served up with its Twilight Zone reboot. Black Mirror is the modern spiritual and creative descendent of Rod Serling’s classic anthology series, yet Black Mirror creators Charlie Brooker and Annabel Jones have made this series their
 
 
 
  
 
 
2019
Jun
5
INSOMNIA By David Bianculli
 
 
SERIES PREMIERE: Coming on the stiletto heels of Netflix’s Bonding comes another series flirting with the slowly expanding “sexual desire” genre of TV pay-for-play players, which may have originated with Showtime’s Secret Diary of a Call Girl. This new entry, like Bonding, adopts the male point of view, and tells of a struggling writer named Nikhil (Vishaal Reddy) who decides to raise money by working as a male escort. And as with Fleabag, another obvious influence along
 
 
 
  
 
 
2019
Jun
5
ARCHER: 1999 By David Bianculli
 
 
Tonight’s episode of Archer: 1999 has Archer and his team used by aliens as entertainment: forced to compete in arenas, battling one another for survival, as in a vintage Star Trek episode.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2019
Jun
4
EXPLORE THE DUSTY NOIR OF ‘PERPETUAL GRACE LTD’ By Roger Catlin
 
 
I highly recommend: Perpetual Grace LTD. Yes, it has a terrible title, and it was switched from the even worse Our Lady LTD. But its cast list is remarkable, even in an era of quality TV...
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
New From TVWW

PBS' 'Frontline’ Examines Pension Promises and — Spoiler Alert — Finds the Math Doesn’t Add Up
By Alex Strachan
 
 
 
 
The Decadence of ‘Versailles’ Comes to Ovation
By David Hinckley
 
 
 
 
Prescribing Mamie Gummer in 'Emily Owens, M.D.'
By Ed Bark
 
 
 
 
Looking for a Free Ride? HBO Can Deliver
By Christy Slewinski
 
 
 
 
'Pass the Biscuits' Part of the Hatfield-McCoy Pop-Culture Legacy
By Noel Holston
 
 
 
 

Dispatches From TVWW

'Extinction: The Facts' is a Sobering Call to Action
By David Hinckley
 
 
 
 
How 'Mayans' Has Been Influenced by the Show's Creator Elgin James
By Mike Hughes
 
 
 
 
For Whom the Bell Tolls: Ken Burns and Lynn Novick Take on Ernest Hemingway, the Man and the Myth
By Alex Strachan
 
 
 
 
In the Final Season, Sutton Foster's Liza is Now the Genuine Version of Her 'Younger' Self
By Monique Nazareth
 
 
 
 
Season 2 of 'City on a Hill' Returns with Kevin Bacon, Aldis Hodge, and Boston Corruption
By David Hinckley