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
Jul
5
 
 
ABC presents the first World Cup quarterfinal game today, and the game, Argentina vs. Belgium, features one of the sport’s biggest current superstars: Argentina’s Lionel Messi. If you’ve followed the team through this year’s World Cup, you’ve seen why he’s earned such high praise. He scored four goals in the three-game group stage, and when he wasn’t scoring, he was assisting, or drawing defenders to him so others could get open. And if you need another
 
 
 
  
 
 
2014
Jul
5
 
 
In the last of this year’s World Cup quarterfinals, the Netherlands face Costa Rica – and Costa Rica faces yet another formidable foe in a story line that has developed as the Cinderella story of the 2014 World Cup. Costa Rica has never made it to a quarterfinal before, and wasn’t expected to even make it past the group stage this year. It was placed in a group that, for the first time in World Cup history, included three former World Cup winners: Italy, Uruguay and England. Ye
 
 
 
  
 
 
2014
Jul
5
 
 
In tonight’s episode of this faux documentary series, fake royals Georgie (Ed Gamble) and Poppy (Amy Hoggart) visit Brooklyn, then take in Fashion Week in New York. And at the latter, Poppy shows off some model behavior by consenting to a backstage makeover, where, she explains, the bigger the hair, the better.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2014
Jul
5
 
 
The current season of The Graham Norton Show just ended – but here’s a highlights episode to give you a hint of what you missed, or to relive some of the year’s best moments. Surely, those will include some of Seth MacFarlane’s vocal hijinks on the show that also included Tom Cruise, Charlize Theron, Emily Blunt and Coldplay. And that’s just one show. For other highlights, and my appreciation of this imported talk show series, see Bianculli’s Blog.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2014
Jul
5
 
 
Barring major breaking news, CNN will devote its Sunday night, beginning at 8 p.m. ET, to a repeat telecast of the five episodes of The Sixties documentary series it’s shown to date. Here’s a very brief snippet from the opening installment, which focuses on the Smothers Brothers...
 
 
 
  
 
 
2014
Jul
4
 
 
Holy marathon, Batman! Make that: Holy Batman marathon! For a giant chunk of time today, and resuming tomorrow morning at the same time, IFC is running through all three seasons of the still-not-on-home-video Batman series that camped it up beginning in 1966. Sorry if this surprises or disappoints anyone, but I find this silly series charmingly entertaining – both despite and because of the stubbornly stilted acting by Adam West and Burt Ward as Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson, a.k.a. Batman
 
 
 
  
 
 
2014
Jul
4
 
 
Nothing says stay-at-home holidays like Syfy marathons of Rod Serling’s classic anthology series. Impatient viewers can tune in at 8:30 a.m. ET for a half hour, then return at 7:30 p.m. ET, to catch two of William Shatner’s Twilight Zone classics: first, as the superstitious fortune reader in “Nick of Time” (pictured), then as the frightened airplane passenger in “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet.” But for the TV faithful who are really in the Zone, the treats are ser
 
 
 
  
 
 
2014
Jul
4
 
 
Another great marathon rolling out all weekend, this one, from AMC, presents every episode of The Walking Dead to date, stretched over several days. Start a drinking game where you down a shot every time a regular character is killed, and you’ll have a very inebriated weekend indeed.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2014
Jul
4
 
 
Note, please, that this first game is televised on ESPN2, not on ESPN. In today’s first World Cup quarterfinal, France and Germany, which emerged from the Group Round leading their divisions with identical 2-0-1 records and won their initial knockout round games rather easily (against, respectively, Nigeria and Algeria), now face one another. Both teams are dangerous, crafty, and intermittently explosive – and the fact that the U.S. team couldn’t make it this far should leave u
 
 
 
  
 
 
2014
Jul
4
 
 
Today’s second quarterfinal, televised on ESPN, is the big World Cup game of the day – and, indeed, of the week. It pits Colombia against Brazil. Colombia, which breezed through Group C winning every game, and defeating Uruguay 2-0 in the knockout round, has excited fans with its passionate play and overall jubilance at advancing this far. And Brazil, which advanced with a 2-0-1 record in group play and won its last game, against Chile, only after completing bonus time and besting th