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DAVID BIANCULLI

Founder / Editor

Bianculli's Blog

ERIC GOULD

Associate Editor

The Cold Light Reader

LINDA DONOVAN

Assistant Editor

Dateline Donovan
Contributors

DAVID HINCKLEY

All Along the Watchtower

ED BARK

Uncle Barky's Bytes

ALEX STRACHAN

TV That Matters

MIKE HUGHES

Open Mike

ED MARTIN

Ed Martin's TV Mix

KIM AKASS

Aerial View

MONIQUE NAZARETH

MNtv

BILL BRIOUX

TV Feeds My Family

ROGER CATLIN

TV Eye

GARY EDGERTON

Must-Click TV

TOM BRINKMOELLER

Raised On MTM

GERALD JORDAN

Crossing Jordan

NOEL HOLSTON

The Grassy Noel

TVWW ARCHIVE

Contributors Archive
 
 
2017
Sep
27
SURVIVOR: HEROES VS. HEALERS VS. HUSTLERS By David Bianculli
 
 
CYCLE PREMIERE: This is not a recommendation. This is the 35th different contest for Survivor, and the desperation to find new ways to repackage the same old product no longer is wearing thin. It’s worn straight through. The competition for this new 2017 edition is set in Fiji, and the three teams starting out pitted against one another are, as the title suggests, heroes, healers and hustlers. If this alliterative approach to Survivor continues, I’ll tune back in for Vixens vs. Virgi
 
 
 
  
 
 
2017
Sep
27
EMPIRE By David Bianculli
 
 
SEASON PREMIERE: This is Season 4 for Empire. If you remember what happened in the cliffhanger last season, you’re in better shape than Lucious (Terrence Howard), who’s still suffering from amnesia. And Cookie (Taraji P. Henson sees his condition as she sees just about everything else: as an opportunity.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2017
Sep
27
MR. MERCEDES By David Bianculli
 
 
Tonight, Brady (Harry Treadaway) gets even more wound up, angry and determined. Considering that, in the past, he’s killed people by driving his car into a crowd of helpless victims, that’s a dangerous escalation indeed.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2017
Sep
27
SEAL TEAM By David Bianculli
 
 
SERIES PREMIERE: The photography for this new CBS series pilot is way above average – but it’s not uncommon for a production company to invest lots of money in a pilot to sell it, then pull back both financially and artistically once the series begins. What’s most trustworthy about this series, for now, is the presence of David Boreanaz as the star. This guy has lived on TV, with one successful series after another, since co-starring in the first season of Buffy the Vampire Sla
 
 
 
  
 
 
2017
Sep
27
LIAR By David Bianculli
 
 
MINISERIES PREMIERE: This six-part British miniseries import stars Joanna Froggatt, who engendered such love and sympathy as lady’s maid Anna Bates on PBS’s Downton Abbey. Here, she plays a schoolteacher who accepts a date with a handsome doctor, played by Ioan Gruffudd, then awakens convinced that she was raped. Liar begins as a he-said, she-said drama, but eventually shifts to something more mysterious.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2017
Sep
27
JON BOKENKAMP ON THE MYSTERIES OF ‘THE BLACKLIST’ By David Hinckley
 
 
Jon Bokenkamp, who created NBC’s The Blacklist, knows where his shadowy tale is going. He’s just unsure about a few details like exactly how and exactly when...
 
 
 
  
 
 
2017
Sep
26
‘THE VIETNAM WAR’ “EPISODE 8 - THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD (APRIL 1969 - MAY 1970)” By Alex Strachan
 
 
“My older sister and I one time were watching the movie So Proudly We Hail! on TV,” ex-Army nurse Joan Furey recalls in the opening moments of “The History of the World,” tonight’s latest chapter in The Vietnam War...
 
 
 
  
 
 
2017
Sep
26
THE MENENDEZ BROTHERS GET ANOTHER WHIRL, THIS TIME WITH NBC'S ‘LAW & ORDER’ ATTACHED By Ed Bark
 
 
Yes, the Menendez murders have been “done” before, dating back to a pair of spring 1994 productions on Fox and CBS, and resuming this year with a two-hour ABC documentary and a scripted Lifetime movie. No, that lamentably doesn’t mean enough is enough...
 
 
 
  
 
 
2017
Sep
26
NBC PREMIERES 'LAW & ORDER TRUE CRIME: THE MENENDEZ MURDERS By David Hinckley
 
 
Recounting sensational real-life crimes used to be a regular menu item for budget-conscious cable channels...
 
 
 
  
 
 
2017
Sep
26
NCIS By David Bianculli
 
 
SERIES PREMIERE: The popularity and durability of this CBS series, itself a spinoff of another series (JAG, which began on NBC and was rescued from oblivion a season later by CBS), is by now a modern marvel. Tonight, for NCIS, is the Season 15 premiere, more than twice the length of the usual run of a successful broadcast drama series. And Season 15 begins by continuing with last season’s cliffhanger drama, months after Gibbs (Mark Harmon) and McGee (Sean Murray), in mid-mission to locate
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
New From TVWW

PBS' 'Frontline’ Examines Pension Promises and — Spoiler Alert — Finds the Math Doesn’t Add Up
By Alex Strachan
 
 
 
 
The Decadence of ‘Versailles’ Comes to Ovation
By David Hinckley
 
 
 
 
Prescribing Mamie Gummer in 'Emily Owens, M.D.'
By Ed Bark
 
 
 
 
Looking for a Free Ride? HBO Can Deliver
By Christy Slewinski
 
 
 
 
'Pass the Biscuits' Part of the Hatfield-McCoy Pop-Culture Legacy
By Noel Holston
 
 
 
 

Dispatches From TVWW

'Extinction: The Facts' is a Sobering Call to Action
By David Hinckley
 
 
 
 
How 'Mayans' Has Been Influenced by the Show's Creator Elgin James
By Mike Hughes
 
 
 
 
For Whom the Bell Tolls: Ken Burns and Lynn Novick Take on Ernest Hemingway, the Man and the Myth
By Alex Strachan
 
 
 
 
In the Final Season, Sutton Foster's Liza is Now the Genuine Version of Her 'Younger' Self
By Monique Nazareth
 
 
 
 
Season 2 of 'City on a Hill' Returns with Kevin Bacon, Aldis Hodge, and Boston Corruption
By David Hinckley