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

 
 
2020
Jul
19
 
 
This day in 1991 marked the debut of the sitcom Hi Honey, I'm Home!...
 
 
 
  
 
 
2020
Jul
18
 
 
This day marked the premiere of the Fox sitcom, Karen's Song, starring Patty Duke...
 
 
 
  
 
 
2020
Jul
18
 
 
Here’s a show that hasn’t been televised or circulated hardly at all since its original run on CBS – though it ran for four years (1996-2000), and starred a then-unknown actor who would soon become a beloved TV star thanks to Friday Night Lights. Its star is Kyle Chandler, and the premise of Early Edition, in those mostly pre-Internet days, was that the main character, Chandler’s Gary Hobson, would pick up the daily newspaper delivered to his doorstep,
 
 
 
  
 
 
2020
Jul
18
 
 
In 1989, Spike Lee made an audacious and impressive splash as the director, writer and co-star of Do the Right Thing, his (literally) incendiary character study of racial tensions in Brooklyn. More than 30 years later, Do the Right Thing remains intensely and unfortunately relevant – right down to the choke hold. And what performances: Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee co-star, and future stars John Turturro and Giancarlo Esposito are here too, along with Danny Aiello.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2020
Jul
18
 
 
Even with some Academy Award nominations to its credit, this movie didn’t make enough of a splash when it was released last year, but that just makes it even more of a treat during these stay-at-home pandemic weekends. (Which are different from the weekdays how, at this point?) Anyway, this is the dramatized story of Harriet Tubman, who went from being a slave herself to helping hundreds of other slaves make their way to freedom. And what a cast: In addition to Cynthia Erivo from HBO&rsquo
 
 
 
  
 
 
2020
Jul
18
 
 
Brad Bird, director of both Ratatouille and Mission Impossible – Ghost Protocol, has displayed terrific taste since guest programming TCM’s “The Essentials” showcase of classic films. Since he began presenting and discussing films in May with TCM’s Ben Mankiewicz, Bird’s roster of movies has included Singin’ in the Rain, The Searchers, Dr. Strangelove: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, The Music Man, A Har
 
 
 
  
 
 
2020
Jul
17
 
 
DOCUMENTARY PREMIERE: For those who saw last year’s reunion performances of the improv hip-hop group Freestyle Love Supreme, and are expecting this new Hulu special to be a TV account of that limited-run celebration at the Greenwich House Theatre, We Are Freestyle Love Supreme is that, but less – and also more. It contains snippets from that reunion show, but it’s not a complete account. It does, however, take you backstage as well, showing the buildup to the 2019 per
 
 
 
  
 
 
2020
Jul
17
 
 
For fans of Broadway musicals, and of opera, this is a must, too. From earlier this year, just before the lights went out on Broadway, the Metropolitan Opera staged a version of a classic jazz opera it called Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess, emphasizing its fidelity to the original musical score George and Ira Gershwin first presented in 1935, and to its large-scale vision and staging. Based on the novel by DuBose Heyward, and the play by Dubose and Dorothy Heyward, this Porgy and
 
 
 
  
 
 
2020
Jul
17
 
 
Actually, it’s not a one-time special, because it premiered last night, and here it is again. Last night, though many, many NBC affiliates boycotted the program, the network presented the premiere of a one-shot 30 Rock special, to which the offended affiliates objected because it included several promotional segments about NBC Universal’s new streaming service, Peacock. Broadcast TV stations see streaming as the enemy, just as they used to perceive cable. But the&
 
 
 
  
 
 
2020
Jul
17
 
 
On this day in 1983, the NBC police drama aired its last original episode...