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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
 
 
2014
May
30
WEIRD SCIENCE By David Bianculli
 
 
Oh, why not? It’s a slow TV tonight, and it’s fun to watch a 1985 John Hughes movie in which sex-obsessed, but sexually ignorant, teens can use their then-primitive home computer to conjure up a fully realized dream girl, as played by Kelly LeBrock. Almost 30 years later, not even today’s most sophisticated 3-D printers can pull off that trick. But I’m waiting…
 
 
 
  
 
 
2014
May
30
CROSSBONES By David Bianculli
 
 
SERIES PREMIERE: Wil Wheaton, in his debut edition of Syfy’s The Wil Wheaton Project last week, poked fun at John Malkovich’s starring role, as the dreaded pirate Blackbeard, in this new NBC series – using clips from Malkovich’s own TV interviews to present what looked like an overwhelming emotion of boredom and detachment from the star, describing his own series. Tune in to Crossbones, and you may see why. This is the sort of project you can imagine the actor appearing i
 
 
 
  
 
 
2014
May
30
PEABODY AWARDS CEREMONY, SOON AT A TV OR DEVICE NEAR YOU By Noel Holston
 
 
Pivot, a cable and online network, will be televising a condensed, impressionistic version of the May 19 Peabody Awards ceremony on Sunday, June 1, at 9 p.m. ET, with online access the next day. Less will almost certainly be more...
 
 
 
  
 
 
2014
May
29
HOLLYWOOD GAME NIGHT By David Bianculli
 
 
Tonight’s new episode has to get points, at least, for eclecticism. Guests include Arsenio Hall (picured, at far right), Bradley Whitford and Tony Hale.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2014
May
29
2014 SCRIPPS NATIONAL SPELLING BEE By David Bianculli
 
 
Forget the odds about becoming an American Idol or the next winner of The Voice. For this annual national spelling bee competition, there are some 11 million competitors in the original field – a number winnowed, through various local and regional contests, to the 281 super-spellers who make it to tonight’s final rounds, televised live on ESPN. I don’t know why it is that I’m so drawn to this particular event, or so accepting of the fact that ESPN presents it as a “
 
 
 
  
 
 
2014
May
29
CITIZEN KANE By David Bianculli
 
 
The best movie ever made? Quite arguably, yes. One of the most influential? Inarguably. And I still marvel, whenever Orson Welles’ 1941 cinematic debut is presented on television, that it’s so easy to see something that, when I was in college in those pre-VCR days, the only way to see Citizen Kane was to wait for it to be screened at a local movie revival house. But now, in prime time, here it is: Welles and company, skewering media baron William Randolph Hearst with both a bludgeon
 
 
 
  
 
 
2014
May
29
THE SIXTIES: "TELEVISION COMES OF AGE" By David Bianculli
 
 
MINISERIES PREMIERE: This 10-part documentary series begins with Television Comes of Age, a scene-setter that works perfectly, because just about everything of importance that happened in the Sixties, except for Woodstock, was filtered directly though the TV screen. I have to admit to what has the appearance of a conflict of interest, since I appear in and advised on this opening installment of The Sixties. But there’s no conflict, as I see it, in me praising the results very highly &ndash
 
 
 
  
 
 
2014
May
29
UNDATEABLE By David Bianculli
 
 
SERIES PREMIERE: The praiseworthy elements of this new NBC sitcom – that its characters and their relationships actually change a bit, if only temporarily, over time – are, unfortunately, mitigated by the fact that I can’t imagine anyone but a stubbornly dedicated TV critic to stick around to watch that many episodes. Even with Bill Lawrence attached as a co-executive producer, Undateable feels eerily, and wearily, familiar, like another of those endlessly subpar sitcoms NBC us
 
 
 
  
 
 
2014
May
28
WHETHER OR NOT YOU'RE A BABY BOOMER, DON'T MISS CNN'S 'THE SIXTIES' By David Bianculli
 
 

Two installments of CNN’s new ambitious documentary series The Sixties have been televised already, as anniversary-timed previews of the JFK assassination and the British invasion. Starting Thursday, you can, and should, see the rest…

 
 
 
  
 
 
2014
May
28
SO YOU THINK YOU CAN DANCE By David Bianculli
 
 
SEASON PREMIERE: This dance-competition begins Season 11 tonight, with a tweak in format: After two years of pronouncing male and female winners, as in the Oscars, it’s reverting to an overall winner, as in American Idol or Dancing with the Stars. And while many of those shows have lost some of their spark over the years, So You Think You Can Dance maintains its energy levels, largely because, year in and year out, the outrageously talented contestants do the same.
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
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