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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
 
 
2019
Feb
9
PLANET EARTH: DYNASTIES By David Bianculli
 
 
This is such an enjoyable new nature documentary series, in part because it’s such an inspired hybrid of the old and new. Its storytelling approach, singling out one family of creatures (tonight: painted wolves) and following them like a drama, goes all the way back to the early Walt Disney and Wild Kingdom nature shorts. Yet the technological tools it uses, capturing the sound and sight of these animals, day and night, over a period of years, provide breathtakingly modern new perspectives
 
 
 
  
 
 
2019
Feb
9
SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE By David Bianculli
 
 
Tonight’s guest host, on this new installment, is Halsey. The musical guest also is Halsey, which means she’s pulling double duty – and following in the footsteps of such SNL host-and-musical-performers as Bruno Mars, Britney Spears, Paul Simon, Ray Charles, Justin Timberlake, Taylor Swift, Donald Glover, and the first-ever “I’ll-do-both” host/musician, Desi Arnaz. (Technically, the musical guest for that 1976 episode was his son, Desi Arnaz Jr., but the elder
 
 
 
  
 
 
2019
Feb
8
TCA WINTER PRESS TOUR 2019 – IT'S FX'S TURN By Roger Catlin
 
 
PASADENA, CA – Peak TV took a pause last year. Instead of steady, explosive growth of the number of scripted TV series with original episodes, there was just a 2 percent increase from 2017...
 
 
 
  
 
 
2019
Feb
8
'WHITE DRAGON' IS A GRITTY THRILLER THAT SHOWCASES THE BEAUTY OF HONG KONG By David Hinckley
 
 
Professor Jonah Mulray’s story in White Dragon begins with your basic unspeakable tragedy. He’s pulled out of his classroom in London to hear that his wife has been killed in a car crash in Hong Kong...
 
 
 
  
 
 
2019
Feb
8
'TEDDY PENDERGRASS: IF YOU DON’T KNOW ME BY NOW' PREMIERES ON SHOWTIME By David Hinckley
 
 
The tragic turn in the life of the late Teddy Pendergrass has, for some reason, rarely had the resonance of tragedies that befell other popular singers...
 
 
 
  
 
 
2019
Feb
8
'PEN15' TAKES A CANDID AND VERY ADULT COMEDIC LOOK AT ADOLESCENCE By David Hinckley
 
 
Hulu’s new series Pen15 calls to mind the old line about how comedy is when someone else slips on a banana peel and tragedy is when you slip on a banana peel...
 
 
 
  
 
 
2019
Feb
8
PEN15 By David Bianculli
 
 
SERIES PREMIERE: Maya Erskine and Anna Konkle are two of the three co-creators of this comedy series, which looks at life from the perspective of 13-year-old girls just embarking on seventh grade in the year 2000. It’s the same basic framework, with the genders reversed, of when Kevin Arnold and his friend Paul attended the first day of a new school on ABC’s The Wonder Years. Except that series was set in 1968, and the adult Kevin looked back on his life as the unseen narrator of his
 
 
 
  
 
 
2019
Feb
8
ONE DAY AT A TIME By David Bianculli
 
 
SEASON PREMIERE: This updated remake of the Norman Lear 1070s sitcom returns for its third season, with Justina Machado starring as Penelope. Rita Moreno, whose character of Lydia had a stroke last season, is back – and her character is recovering, for now.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2019
Feb
8
REAL TIME WITH BILL MAHER By David Bianculli
 
 
Quite a lineup: In addition to the week’s three panelists, tonight’s Real Time has Chris Christie scheduled to open the show, and Eric Idle to join it midway through.  
 
 
 
  
 
 
2019
Feb
8
2 DOPE QUEENS By David Bianculli
 
 
SEASON PREMIERE: Jessica Williams and Phoebe Robinson are back with four new shows. Fun costumes, fun wigs and hair, for sure, but the most fun is their attitude.
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
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