One of the very first images in director Martin Scorsese's fab four-hour HBO documentary biography, George Harrison: Living in the Material World, shows the former Beatle playing hide-and-seek with the camera, partly obscured by a bunch of colorful tulips. By the next time we see that same image, near the end of the two-part program, it's saturated not only with color, but with meaning...

2011

Oct

AND THEN HE TRIPPED OVER THE OTTOMAN By Bill Brioux

People often ask, "What's your favorite all-time TV show?" I never hesitate to answer: "The Dick Van Dyke Show". Sure, part of it is nostalgia. I grew up with the black-and-white CBS comedy, which premiered 50 years ago on Oct. 3, 1961. It was very much rooted in the Kennedy era, with the pilot having been shot the same day that John F. Kennedy was inaugurated, Jan. 20, 1961...

2011

Oct

KEN BURNS & LYNN NOVICK: THE TVWW INTERVIEW (PLUS, A REVIEW OF 'PROHIBITION') By David Bianculli

Two months ago, while on the Television Critics Association press tour, I wrote about the then-upcoming documentary series Prohibition, co-directed for PBS by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick...However, I saved a fuller review of the show, and excerpts from a private chat with Burns and Novick before their TCA press conference, until now...

2011

Oct

PBS'S 'PROHIBITION' PRESENTS THE REAL BOARDWALK EMPIRE By Eric Gould

HBO's Boardwalk Empire is, of course, a visual triumph, with the art direction up front and center as a major character in the series. Wardrobe, interiors, automobiles and product design are done with so much attention to detail, we can palpably sense the time and day of Atlantic City...Turns out, the new Ken Burns documentary for PBS, Prohibition, confirms all that mayhem and corruption...

2011

Oct

FLICK PICKS: BUSTER KEATON ON TCM ALL MONTH By Diane Werts

Maybe you've heard the story about a rambunctious baby boy who fell down an entire flight of stairs and popped right back up unharmed. "That's a buster!" exclaimed a nearby observer. And little Joe was thereafter called Buster -- as in Keaton. Those nimble acrobatics are on wondrous display on Turner Classic Movies all throughout October, along with grown-up Buster's great stone face and gravelly voice...

2011

Oct

FIRST, AND SECOND, IMPRESSIONS OF SOME NEW, AND RETURNING, FALL SERIES By Theresa Corigliano

This fall TV season has been particularly disillusioning. Could every single show I watched be as bad as it seemed? Second viewings of almost everything told the sad truth. Other than a few shows, there was nothing that was must-see...Which is why it was a happy accident that I recently watched previews of "American Horror Story," and "Homeland"...

2011

Sep

'DEXTER' KEEPS UP THE CARNAGE, SPICES IT WITH SPIRITUALITY By Ed Bark

Showtime's latest publicity artwork for Dexter bills him as an "Avenging Angel" while picturing him in both a crucifixion pose and with bloody wings. So there's an overriding religious motif at work as Dexter Morgan (Michael C. Hall) again cuts to the chase while also eluding capture in Season 6 of the pay cable network's longest-running and most successful drama series...

2011

Sep

CHRIS CHRISTIE: SNOOKI HATER? By David Bianculli

(CNN) -- The name of New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie surfaced once again in the national news this week...but he got even more attention on his own by heading straight to the "Jersey Shore" -- the TV show...

2011

Sep

SHOWTIME'S 'HOMELAND' ONE OF YEAR'S BEST -- AND MOST UNSETTLING -- NEW DRAMAS By David Bianculli

Showtime's Homeland, a new drama series about a returning POW and the CIA agent who suspects him of having gone over to the enemy, is based on an Israeli series, but producers have made this Americanized version all their own. And, thanks to a superb cast and a brilliantly fresh approach to storytelling, they've also made it a better TV series than anything the broadcast networks have turned out this fall...

2011

Sep

IS THIS A $16 MUFFIN? (NO.) By Noel Holston

Speaking at an RTDNA conference the other day, Jeff Fager, chairman of CBS News, decried the lack of investigative reporting by television news operations these days. "I think a lot of people shy away from it because it's expensive and it's difficult and it takes a lot of time...We succeed at 60 Minutes by doing it and by caring about it and by working hard to make it as interesting as we can, because there is a place for it and I think there's a hunger for it out there..."

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PBS' 'Frontline’ Examines Pension Promises and — Spoiler Alert — Finds the Math Doesn’t Add Up

The Decadence of ‘Versailles’ Comes to Ovation

Prescribing Mamie Gummer in 'Emily Owens, M.D.'

Looking for a Free Ride? HBO Can Deliver

'Pass the Biscuits' Part of the Hatfield-McCoy Pop-Culture Legacy

Dispatches From TVWW

'Extinction: The Facts' is a Sobering Call to Action

How 'Mayans' Has Been Influenced by the Show's Creator Elgin James

For Whom the Bell Tolls: Ken Burns and Lynn Novick Take on Ernest Hemingway, the Man and the Myth

In the Final Season, Sutton Foster's Liza is Now the Genuine Version of Her 'Younger' Self

Season 2 of 'City on a Hill' Returns with Kevin Bacon, Aldis Hodge, and Boston Corruption