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

 
 
2014
Aug
17
 
 
The star of the upcoming HBO documentary on the sensational Pamela Smart trial is a hand-held mini-cassette recorder sitting on an empty desk... a substitute for Juror 13 – who held out for part of the deliberations for acquittal...
 
 
 
  
 
 
2014
Aug
17
 
 
Alfred Hitchcock’s 1944 character drama and wartime thriller, based on a story by John Steinbeck, featured one of the most interesting technical challenges of Hitchcock’s entire career. How do you maintain the drama and suspense of a movie when the entire thing takes place in the confines of a single lifeboat at sea, after a ship is torpedoed by a WWII German U-boat? Just watch closely, and you’ll see. William Bendix, Tallulah Bankhead star. And watch closely, too, for how Hitc
 
 
 
  
 
 
2014
Aug
17
 
 
This is the penultimate episode of True Blood, and boy, is it satisfying. The emphasis this week is on character, not action, and we get a lot of well-written, well-acted scenes, usually involving familiar characters in relatively unfamiliar pairings. But there’s a lot here that long-time fans will enjoy, all while ramping up to a tense cliffhanger showdown for next Sunday’s series finale. Key supporting actors Ryan Kwanten as Jason Stackhouse, and Deborah Ann Woll as young vamp Jess
 
 
 
  
 
 
2014
Aug
17
 
 
The more the evil spreads in this series, the creepier it gets – and I wouldn’t have thought, after watching the first four episodes, that The Strain could get much creepier. I was wrong. The visuals tonight are right up there with the most vividly scary TV horror moments from American Horror Story – and then some.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2014
Aug
17
 
 
The tension has been building steadily on this series from the start, especially between the scientists and the MPs on the secret scientific camp at Los Alamos, where the atomic bomb is being developed in a desert of intellectual rivalries and emotional paranoia. On tonight’s episode, the whole thing turns explosive, and not just figuratively.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2014
Aug
17
 
 
We’re closing in on the final month of shows by John Oliver this season, and give the man credit for finding a unique approach, as well as comic voice, in that short a time. Oliver, in this series, has done something so many times that it has to be considered a design rather than a happy accident. He’s taken the Sunday night placement of his Last Week Tonight series and utilized it the way newspapers (you remember newspapers) used to devote extra space and time on special Sunday stor
 
 
 
  
 
 
2014
Aug
17
 
 

What do a video streaming site, a radio website, an audio podcast, and an audio CD and YouTube clip have in common? Very little – except that today, on this site usually devoted to television, I want to write about, and lead you to, them all…

 
 
 
  
 
 
2014
Aug
16
 
 
SERIES PREMIERE: This new spinoff series takes the Too Cute concept, of cramming lots of adorable animal footage into one place, and thinks smaller. Specifically, it presents its cuddly creatures in 30-minute doses instead of hour-long shows, and focuses exclusively on the tinier spectrum of playful pets. Tonight, the series launches with a double-dose premiere. First, at 8 p.m. ET, is an episode devoted to English bulldogs and mixed breeds, followed at 8:30 p.m. ET by a show giving other animal
 
 
 
  
 
 
2014
Aug
16
 
 
Denzel Washington and Mark Wahlberg co-star in this 2013 action movie as undercover agents who are coming at the same case from opposite angles – then realize the only hope they have of surviving, as they’re targeted in a wider conspiracy, is to work together.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2014
Aug
16
 
 
The last evening of Shark Week ends with one last bite at the apple – one last evening of prime-time special programming, including this special that, like every other Discovery prime-time program this week, has something to do with sharks. It doesn’t have to be new information, or even verifiable information in some cases – just sharky. But in my view, that’s okay. In our current multimedia landscape, sharky beats snarky any day. Or any week.