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

 
 
2015
Jun
29
 
 
The 2015 Wimbledon tournament begins today, and while first-round play doesn’t always offer surprises and upsets, there have been enough, in recent years, to tune in early. And by early, I mean early, because the time difference from England means that live coverage on ESPN begins at 7 a.m. ET.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2015
Jun
29
 
 
Here’s a new documentary profile of Larry Kramer, the writer and gay activist – and though this profile was scheduled long before last week’s groundbreaking Supreme Court decision on gay marriage rights, it certainly provides the program with a timely and happy context.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2015
Jun
29
 
 
This fall, ABC is scheduled to present a new series, Blood & Oil, starring Don Johnson and Chace Crawford, about people pursuing dreams of instant fortune in the ongoing North Dakota oil boom. This P.O.V. documentary, The Overnighters, takes on the same subject – but for real. Check local listings.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2015
Jun
29
 
 
Treasure Jon Stewart while you still can. Tonight, his guest is Taylor Schilling from Netflix’s Orange Is the New Black – and his take on politics and the media is Stewart’s own.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2015
Jun
28
 
 
The plan for the filmmakers was to follow Glen Campbell around for about a month – but as his health changed and his memory began to weaken, they stuck around, to capture the highs and lows of a man who still connected with his music and his audiences, even as he failed to recognize the younger version of himself on television.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2015
Jun
28
 
 
Whatever you thought of last week’s premiere of Season 2 of True Detective, please stick with it for tonight’s episode. If you aren’t persuaded by the end of the hour that this is another season and story worth watching, then you’re absolved. But the conclusion of tonight’s episode is what sold me, and why I’m still attempting to sell you. Colin Farrell stars. For my review on NPR’s Fresh Air with Terry Gross, visit the Fresh Air website. And for a full
 
 
 
  
 
 
2015
Jun
28
 
 
SERIES PREMIERE: This new AMC series, co-produced by Britain’s Channel 4 (where it premiered earlier this month to the channel’s largest audience in decades), is based on a Swedish series called Real Humans, and imagines a contemporary reality in which artificial intelligence has developed to the point where human-looking, and human-acting, helpers called “synths” can be purchased and dispatched, either for domestic home use or as pleasure units in brothels. The concept,
 
 
 
  
 
 
2015
Jun
28
 
 
SERIES FINALE: Tony Shalhoub’s descent into doctoral unpredictability has been both sad and funny to watch – but what his character has gone through this season is nothing compared to the ups and downs, and uppers and downers, of Edie Falco’s Jackie. Last week, Jackie finally got reinstated as a nurse at the hospital – just in time for this week’s series finale. Edie Falco, on television, has been on three strong, daring cable TV series – Oz, The Sopranos, and
 
 
 
  
 
 
2015
Jun
28
 
 
SEASON FINALE: This hasn’t been a good season for Salem witch Mary Sibley (Janet Montgomery), who, this year, lost her bewitched husband, her power and standing in the community, her last name, and even her child, who was abducted by the evil sorceress Countess Marburg (Lucy Lawless), as the centerpiece of a devil-raising ritual. All the spells and scheming have led up to whatever happens tonight – and with at least four witches on the proverbial Salem battleground (the two others ar
 
 
 
  
 
 
2015
Jun
28
 
 
Of the three new Sunday HBO series – True Detective Season 2, Ballers and The Brink – this is the one that impresses me the most. This second episode deepens our knowledge and understanding of all the primary characters – Tim Robbins’ Secretary of State, Pablo Schreiber’s fighter pilot, and Aasif Mandvi and Jack Black’s guys on the ground in Pakistan. But it also heats up the plot from simmer to boil, with enough surprises and confrontations that behind the cl