The late Ruth Brown, doubtless not alone among artists, used to say that if it were all the same to everyone else, she’d prefer to get the roses while she was still around to smell them...

2018

Jan

MY NEXT GUEST NEEDS NO INTRODUCTION WITH DAVID LETTERMAN By David Bianculli

SERIES PREMIERE: This new Netflix talk show brings David Letterman back to television – and to non-broadcast TV, in a regular series, for the first time, after sitting behind a desk at NBC and CBS starting in 1980. For this new series, there’s no desk. There’s also no band, though Paul Shaffer wrote the theme music – and there is an audience, courtesy of the City College in New York. The idea is to present one hour-long talk show per month for six months, starting with to

2018

Jan

PHILIP K. DICK'S ELECTRIC DREAMS By David Bianculli

SERIES PREMIERE: This new anthology series is along the lines of Black Mirror, but because all stories are inspired by the works of Philip K. Dick, the original author should get credit for getting there first. Dick, after all, is the writer whose stories led to the movies Blade Runner and Total Recall, and the recent Amazon series The Man in the High Castle. This new series is part Twilight Zone, part Outer Limits – and, like Black Mirror, is best when it stresses both character and techn

2018

Jan

SOMEBODY FEED PHIL By David Bianculli

SERIES PREMIERE: A sort of sequel to Phil Rosenthal’s PBS travel and food-sampling series, I’ll Have What Phil’s Having, this new Netflix series provides the same tasty and friendly stew with all the same loving ingredients as his previous show. The executive producer of Everybody Loves Raymond knows how to be, and find, funny, and wherever he goes, he finds warm meals, and even warmer people. If you need another series to make you feel good and calm, and have run out of episod

2018

Jan

MARVEL'S AGENTS OF S.H.I.E.L.D. By David Bianculli

This is turning out to be the best season yet for this series – and as it gets closer to the climax, it also get closer to a very big bang, which might well come tonight. This may be the episode, fulfilling a prophecy, in which Daisy, a.k.a. Quake, unleashes her full power and wipes out a planet or two. Meanwhile, her colleagues (including the ones pictured) are being hunted – either by green humanoids under the planet’s surface or, on the barren planet’s surface itself,

2018

Jan

TONY BENNETT: THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS GERSHWIN PRIZE FOR POPULAR SONG By David Bianculli

This is a very laid-back affair, but that’s only fitting – and while some of the guests who are there to honor the veteran crooner, serenading him with their versions of songs from his great American songbook sampler, the best comes at the end, when Bennett himself gets on stage, grabs the mic, and steers his own tribute home. For a full review, see David Hinckley’s All Along the Watchtower. Check local listings.

2018

Jan

‘ELECTRIC DREAMS’ IS A NEW ZONE FOR MORALITY By Eric Gould

You might not recognize the late Philip K. Dick by name, but you’ll be well aware of film adaptations of his work including Blade Runner... Now, a new TV anthology of ten episodes based on Dick’s short stories is being released for streaming...

2018

Jan

THE BIG BANG THEORY By David Bianculli

From the beginning, which by now is a very long time ago, The Big Bang Theory (which premiered in 2007) has been especially adept at two things: introducing and developing new characters, and finding ways to pair off its players in unexpected combinations. The introduction of former Blossom star Mayim Bialik as Sheldon’s girlfriend, Amy Farrah Fowler, has been a comic godsend since she first appeared as Amy in 2010. And tonight, with Amy and Sheldon (Jim Parsons) now planning their wedding

2018

Jan

GASLIGHT By David Bianculli

Ingrid Bergman stars as a young, newly married woman whose husband (Charles Boyer) takes her back to her old home, the site of a family tragedy. And from there, things get… complicated, and very, very confusing. So confusing, with so many layers of deception and obfuscation, that even today, more than 70 years after this 1944 movie was directed by the great George Cukor, the title and term Gaslight continues to be used to describe efforts to hide, deny or alter reality simply by fabricati

2018

Jan

THE GOOD PLACE By David Bianculli

All of Season 1 of The Good Place was a treat, and a trick. Since the start of its current Season 2, The Good Place has been one reboot after another, each one a delight. Last week’s episode, the first new one of 2018, ended by throwing yet another curveball, with Ted Danson’s Michael saving the very people he’d been called upon to torture for eternity. And now, he’s been told to scrap his just-abandoned experimental alternate hell neighborhood – but that’s wh

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