Tonight’s installment is called Crimes and Cults – and if you think it’s just an excuse to revisit Charles Manson and his murderous cult from the early Seventies, the decade actually was a hotbed for serial killers and homicidal cultists. Ted Bundy, John Wayne Gacy, the Zodiac Killer, Jim Jones (whose stunning mass suicide staging at Jonestown is pictured here), “Son of Sam” David Berkowitz, the Hillside Strangler – in this scary episode about disenfranchiseme

2015

Jul

THE SPOILS BEFORE DYING By David Bianculli

Parts 3 and 4. In tonight’s episodes, watch for a short but very attention-getting appearance by Kate McKinnon of Saturday Night Live, playing a train wreck of a jazz groupie. She commits to her scenes, and her characters, in a way that’s funny on its own – adding spark to this goofball spoof just when it needs a lift. Michael K. Williams stars.

2015

Jul

RECTIFY By David Bianculli

SEASON PREMIERE: The new season of Rectify begins with a plot twist that throws the entire series in a different direction. And as with all directions this brooding, fascinating, Peabody-winning series has taken thus far, it’s unexpected, and quietly riveting. For a full preview, see Ed Bark’s Uncle Barky’s Bytes. Aden Young stars as the long-imprisoned, recently released former Death Row inmate.

2015

Jul

THE CW TAKES A MORE MATURE APPROACH WITH BRITISH IMPORT 'DATES' By Ed Bark

Daring to range outside its 18-to-34-year-old target demographic, the CW network continues to invite praise instead of ridicule with the summertime British import Dates...

2015

Jul

STILL STEEPED IN SADNESS, 'RECTIFY' RETURNS FOR A SHORTER SEASON 3 By Ed Bark

Ever more damaged and downcast, the core characters of Sundance TV’s most acclaimed series return this week. Rectify starts its Season 3 on July 9 at 10 p.m. ET. But it’s composed of just six episodes, down from last season’s 10 and back to the level of Season 1..

2015

Jul

2015 WIMBLEDON TENNIS By David Bianculli

All four of the top men’s seeds play today – including No. 1 seed Novak Djokovic, who will be playing singles championship tennis at Wimbledon for the third consecutive day. After falling two sets down to No. 14 seed Kevin Anderson Monday in a fiercely competitive match, Djokovic rallied to tie the match at two sets apiece, only to have the game suspended because of impending darkness. Anderson and Djokovic returned to play their final set yesterday, with Djokovic prevailing in anoth

2015

Jul

THE SPOILS BEFORE DYING By David Bianculli

MINISERIES PREMIERE: This sequel to last year’s IFC comedy miniseries, The Spoils of Babylon, embraces the same goofy conceit – to equally winning but weird effect. Will Ferrell plays Eric Jonrosh, a late-period, low-rent Orson Welles-ish filmmaker equally besotted by booze and his own inflated ego. Once again, Jonrosh introduces and summarizes each episode, appearing (while drinking, eating and complaining) as a framing device to present the long-delayed premiere of his long-dormant

2015

Jul

KEY & PEELE By David Bianculli

SEASON PREMIERE: Season 5 of this increasingly assured sketch series begins tonight, and Jordan Peele and Keegan-Michael Key are as thoughtful, daring and funny as ever. The only difference, this season, is one of format: No more appearances before a live audience to introduce sketches. And that’s a good change, because these two, like the repertory company of SCTV, shine most when they disappear into their wildly diverse characters. And this season, we not only get Barack Obama’s &l

2015

Jul

NORTH BY NORTHWEST By David Bianculli

TCM’s two-day salute to Technicolor, on its 100th birthday, continues all day today and tonight – and to me, it’s crowned by a showing of this 1959 Alfred Hitchcock thriller, a masterpiece of images, plotting, pacing and acting. Cary Grant plays a Madison Avenue advertising executive forced to run for his life across the country, in the same general direction, after being mistaken for a secret agent and pursued by foreign spies. It’s fun to imagine Jon Hamm, as Don Draper

2015

Jul

WHY? WITH HANNIBAL BURESS By David Bianculli

SERIES PREMIERE: This new series is produced and put together so closely to its air date that no episode will be available for preview. So prejudging this new series is tricky. On the one hand, it’s a vehicle for Hannibal Buress, whose outspokenness about the allegations surrounding Bill Cosby put that long-simmering issue on boil – and whose Comedy Central appearance at the recent roast of Justin Bieber was hilarious (he told Bieber, to his face, “I hate your music more than B

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