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

 
 
2016
Jan
6
 
 
SEASON PREMIERE: It’s Season 2 for American Crime, which takes the approach of American Horror Story by telling an all-new story while retaining many members of the original cast – but playing new characters entirely. So Timothy Hutton and Felicity Huffman, who last year played a divorced couple whose son was killed, are back for Season 2, but in completely different roles. So is Regina King, who won a Supporting Actress Emmy last year for playing the Muslim sister of a murder suspec
 
 
 
  
 
 
2016
Jan
6
 
 
SEASON PREMIERE: It’s the Season 11 premiere for this broad and bawdy comedy, which moved to FXX after years on more prominent sister network FX. What’s amazing is that – well, what’s really amazing is that this show has survived for 10 seasons. Let’s leave it at that.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2016
Jan
6
 
 
SEASON PREMIERE: This is Season 2 for this outrageously surrealistic sitcom, which takes the idea of a character looking at life differently – think of the visual fantasies on Ally McBeal or, going back even more, My World and Welcome to It – and amplifies it. The images here are unexpected, unsetting, and sometimes unforgettable, all of which makes me look forward to a new batch of episodes. And the first shows of Season 2 more than meet my expectations, starting with the opener, wh
 
 
 
  
 
 
2016
Jan
6
 
 
Cable network series, particularly dramas, were seriously challenged to measure up to the broadcast network counterparts. Now it’s a rarity when old-line networks equal or exceed the best that cable or streamers have been pouring out in abundance. ABC's Season 2 of American Crime is an exception to those new rules...
 
 
 
  
 
 
2016
Jan
5
 
 
MTV’s new Shannara Chronicles may be set thousands of years in the future, but to some of us old-timers, it feels like 1963 all over again..
 
 
 
  
 
 
2016
Jan
5
 
 
SEASON PREMIERE: These are very personal stories, as Gates, with help from genealogists and DNA testing, uncovers the past of his celebrity guests, working back through many, many generations. This season, he’ll uncover some amazing facts about Bill O’Reilly and Bill Maher (including something they have in common), and even more amazing ones about Bill Hader – but tonight, his guests include Donna Brazile and Modern Family star Ty Burrell (pictured), who in this Season 3 opener
 
 
 
  
 
 
2016
Jan
5
 
 
Willis O’Brien created the stop-motion effects in this 1933 monster-movie classic, inspiring several generations of special-effects wizards to come. Some are more effective than others, especially looking at them more than 80 years later – but imagine how amazing they must have seemed to audiences at the time. Fay Wray stars.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2016
Jan
5
 
 
Filmmaker Michael Kirk has provided some of the best Frontline programs since the series’ conception, so any time he produces a new one, it’s well worth the attention. Tonight, he examines a particularly timely and volatile issue in global politics, by probing the history and temperament of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – including his dealings with Palestinians and his often flinty relationships with U.S. Presidents, including our current one. Check local listings.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2016
Jan
5
 
 
MIDSEASON RETURN: This very entertaining sitcom returns with the first new episode of 2016, and it provides an interesting twist: One of the brothers is jealous, but this time the jealous sibling is Rob Lowe’s Dean, not Fred Savage’s Stewart. It’s partly because a newspaper reporter is coming to town to write a profile of Stewart – but it’s also because one of Dean’s former Hollywood “friends,” Timothy Olyphant (in a recurring role as himself), is
 
 
 
  
 
 
2016
Jan
5
 
 
SERIES PREMIERE: This new nonfiction series, launching with a six-episode re-examination of a 19-year-old murder case from Louisiana, obviously owes its existence to such popular recent series as the podcast Serial and HBO’s Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst, and arrives right on the heels of Netflix’s headline-grabbing Making a Murderer. What may make this new Discovery series stand out, in the long run, is its storytelling: Its executive producers are Barry Levinson and Tom