SEASON FINALE: Jackie (Edie Falco) has spent this series in an on-again, off-again battle with her drug addiction. This season, it’s been on again – and in tonight’s season finale, she’s confronted about this at work, and ordered to take a drug test or admit her addiction. It’s her move… and she just might.

2014

Jun

CALIFORNICATION By David Bianculli

SERIES FINALE: After seven seasons, David Duchovny’s rebellious writer Hank Moody finally gets to the end of his own story. Does it end happily? And for Hank, what does happily really mean?

2014

Jun

THE LEFTOVERS By David Bianculli

SERIES PREMIERE: Tom Perrotta’s novel, which he helped adapt for television with Damon Lindelof from Lost, is a really odd TV show to wrestle to the ground. It’s built around a fascinating and unique premise: a Rapture-type event results in the sudden disappearance of millions of people across the globe, with the focus on the people left behind to wonder why. And it’s got some excellent performances, starting with series stars Justin Theroux (pictured) and Amy Brenneman. But af

2014

Jun

PENNY DREADFUL By David Bianculli

SEASON FINALE: This series has done so well its first season, in introducing new characters and doing new things with established ones from Victorian-era literary ones, that this Season 1 finale is something to approach with great anticipation. That’s especially true since it’s titled, and set in the on-stage world of, “Grand Guignol” – the early theatrical equivalent of splatter films and horror movies. Meanwhile, the characters who have stood together up to now be

2014

Jun

LAST WEEK TONIGHT WITH JOHN OLIVER By David Bianculli

Just a reminder: Any show that features an interview with Stephen Hawking, in which the theoretical physicist jokes with its host by firing off computer-voice-aided one-liners, is a show not to miss. If you weren’t watching recently, you did miss it – but that’s the sort of unexpected treat to expect when John Oliver is recapping the week in news.

2014

Jun

HOW 'BEWITCHED' TACKLED TV VIOLENCE -- MORE THAN 40 YEARS AGO By Ed Martin

I’m noticing a significant uptick in concerned comments by television critics and bloggers about the rising tide of graphic ultra-violence in television programming. Television violence is certainly nothing new... but since when has bloodlust been so hot?...

2014

Jun

2014 WORLD CUP By David Bianculli

We’re now into the knockout round of the World Cup: 16 teams playing eight games, with the winner advancing and the loser going home, forced to wait until 2018 to try, try again. The first two games are played today, and both are broadcast live by ABC. At noon ET, host country Brazil plays Chile – and at 4 p.m. ET, it’s Uruguay vs. Colombia. These games are easy to sink your teeth into: Not only are they high-stakes, single-elimination games, but the last time Uruguay played, o

2014

Jun

TO BE OR NOT TO BE By David Bianculli

Jack Benny is saluted tonight by TCM, and rightly so – more so than almost any other performer in show-biz history, Benny dominated first radio, then TV, for decades at a time, while also enjoying success in the cinema. Tonight, some of those movie successes are televised, beginning with this 1942 satire in which Benny plays an egotistical Polish actor who uses his thespian skills to confound the Nazis. Carole Lombard stars, in what turns out to be her final screen appearance, and this Ern

2014

Jun

ALMOST ROYAL By David Bianculli

In this new satirical “reality series,” Ed Gamble plays Georgie, and Amy Hoggart steals the spotlight as Poppy, playing clueless siblings who profess to be members of the extended British royal family. In this very funny series, Georgie and Poppy tour the United States (in this particular episode, Texas), asking bizarre questions and making absurd comments as the locals try to make sense of their nonsense.

2014

Jun

THE BIG BROADCAST OF 1937 By David Bianculli

It’s one of the oldest plots in show business: Hey, kids, let’s put on a show! In this 1936 movie, the cause they’re trying to benefit is a radio station that’s about to go bankrupt, and Jack Benny spearheads a “big broadcast” to save them. And what a broadcast: Benny Goodman and Gene Krupa play, George Burns and Gracie Allen play loosely disguised variations of themselves, and Benny himself ends up, as he should, on the business end of the mic. It’s a m

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