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

 
 
2017
Aug
29
 
 
Part 5. This fact-based miniseries continues to play fast and loose, and increasingly faster and looser, with the facts of the case it’s dramatizing. Because of the performances, though, and some of the details that do indeed match the official record, this Discovery docudrama continues to be worth recommending, and viewing. I do wish, however, that Discovery would have discovered that, in a dramatization based on fact, the closer a TV adaptation can get to those facts is better all around
 
 
 
  
 
 
2017
Aug
29
 
 
Today is Marion Davies day on TCM. If her name isn’t that familiar as a star in the Hollywood constellation, try this: She was the B-list actress who was the mistress of media tycoon William Randolph Hearst, a relationship that was alluded to, and parodied, by Orson Welles in his classic film Citizen Kane. Her films are shown all day and evening, including 1928’s The Patsy at 6:30 p.m. ET, where she does her impressions of other silent-movie stars such as Lillian Gish. But the treasu
 
 
 
  
 
 
2017
Aug
28
 
 
There’s been so much bleak news blaring across TV since Friday, I feel obliged to reveal that tonight’s P.O.V. documentary, Raising Bertie, is hopeful, and ends with an uplifting conclusion. Normally, that would require some sort of Spoiler Alert – but today, in particular, I suspect that the last thing viewers will be seeking out on TV is bad news or bleak outlooks. The Bertie in the title isn’t a person, but a place. It’s Bertie County in rural North Carolina, whe
 
 
 
  
 
 
2017
Aug
28
 
 
Mel Brooks told TVWW a few years ago that he was toying with the idea of, and writing songs for, a possible Broadway musical based on Blazing Saddles. Watch this 1974 comedy classic with that in mind, and it makes so much sense – from the opening theme song to the railroad “work song.” Cleavon Little and Gene Wilder are partnered brilliantly here – and Richard Pryor, who would partner with Wilder even more brilliantly in future films, is one of the writers, with Brooks, o
 
 
 
  
 
 
2017
Aug
28
 
 
We’re getting near the end of the 10-episode first season of this freewheeling dramatization of the early life of William Shakespeare – and right now, to be or not to be renewed, that is the question…
 
 
 
  
 
 
2017
Aug
28
 
 
Today, TVWW welcomes veteran TV critic, to the fold: Roger Catlin, formerly of the Hartford Courant, who now writes for Smithsonian magazine and other publications, including his own website... Meet our very smart, extremely friendly readers...
 
 
 
  
 
 
2017
Aug
28
 
 
And now for something completely different: a good-news story for a change. That’s good news, at least, for those wondering if their favorite TV show is coming back...
 
 
 
  
 
 
2017
Aug
27
 
 
In an exciting, come-from-behind game, Texas’s Lufkin Little League All-Stars fought from a large deficit to beat the heavily favored team from Greenville, NC, and win the U.S. Little League crown. Today, Lufkin takes on the international winner, Japan, for a shot at the world title.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2017
Aug
27
 
 
Katy Perry hosts. Ed Sheeran and Miley Cyrus are among the artists scheduled to perform live. But I ask you: When’s the last time you saw a music video on MTV? Or, to be mean about it, when’s the last time you saw MTV?
 
 
 
  
 
 
2017
Aug
27
 
 
Last week, Dougie – the version of Dale Cooper who’s been stuck for 15 episodes in some kind of childlike, amnesiac state, dropped to his knees and stuck the handle of a fork in an electrical socket. That was about halfway through the show, and we haven’t seen him since, or learned what happened – but it’s not too much to ask that the shock brought him, and the show, back to self-aware life at long last.