Just what Rupert Murdoch needed -- a shaving cream pie to the puss. Actually, it may have been exactly what he needed to perhaps gain a little sympathy after a long Tuesday morning (U.S. time) of taking no direct responsibility for the phone-hacking scandal bedeviling his far-flung world News Corporation...

2011

Jul

WHY 'MEN OF A CERTAIN AGE' SHOULD BE SENT TO A HOME -- FOR TERRIFIC, UNDERAPPRECIATED TV By David Bianculli

The same year it earned a Peabody Award, and the same week it was handed a second Emmy nomination for Andre Braugher as Outstanding Supporting Dramatic Actor, Men of a Certain Age was awarded by TNT Friday by being given its pink slip. After two excellent seasons...It deserved to be shipped off to a home...

2011

Jul

'FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS' LEAVES, 'BREAKING BAD' RETURNS By David Bianculli

What a weekend for quality TV. I don't know whether it's coming or going -- and this weekend, with Friday Night Lights leaving NBC and Breaking Bad returning to AMC, it's doing both...In both cases, I'll end up referring you elsewhere...

2011

Jul

AMC'S 'BREAKING BAD': 'WARNING -- EXTREMELY VOLATILE' By Eric Gould

The 2011 critics' preview DVDs for AMC's Breaking Bad, which launches Season 4 Sunday night at 10 ET, are subtitled: "Warning: Extremely Volatile." And, as usual with this sly show, it's an understatement...our journey with Walter, at this point, puts him approximately at Dante's seventh circle of hell (out of nine) --the circle known as "Violence," with its unhappy occupants of tyrants, murderers and squanderers...

2011

Jul

EMMY NOMINATIONS 2011: NODS AND SNUBS FOR 'JUSTIFIED,' 'EPISODES,' OTHERS By David Bianculli

Many of the nominations I most wanted to see this year, acknowledging such superb work as Margo Martindale's sinister Mags in FX's Justified and Kelly Macdonald in HBO's Boardwalk Empire, ended up making the cut. But others, as usual, did not, starting with egregious snubs in the Outstanding Drama category for FX's Rescue Me and Justified, and HBO's Treme and True Blood...

2011

Jul

IS THERE A LIFEBOAT DRILL IN PBS'S NEAR FUTURE? By Tom Brinkmoeller

It hasn't been a year to brag about for the Public Broadcasting Service. Four television stations so far this year have dropped their PBS memberships, three at the start of this month...

2011

Jul

'RESCUE ME," 'DAMAGES': TWO GREAT TV SERIES RETURN, FIERY AS EVER By David Bianculli

Wednesday night at 10 ET, FX's Rescue Me returns with the first of its final nine episodes about New York firefighters, in a run culminating with a finale scheduled, fittingly, the week of the 10th anniversary of 9/11. Damages, the Glenn Close legal drama formerly seen on FX, returns for a new season, its fourth, Wednesday night at 10 ET as well -- but in a new location, on DirecTV's exclusive Audience network. Both series are great, and both should, must, be seen...

2011

Jul

'WE LAID WASTE TO EVERYTHING IN OUR PATH, J.R. AND FOR WHAT?' By Ed Bark

Larry Hagman took more nasty spills as J.R. Ewing Monday night, informing viewers that younger brother Bobby "was always a fool" before vowing to take another turn as Texas' oiliest oil baron. "I'm the one who belongs on Southfork. It's mine. And only mine," he said at the close of TNT's one-minute promos for its new Dallas series, scheduled to premiere next summer...

2011

Jul

SUMMERTIME BOUNTY: TV, LIKE FRUIT, IS RIPE AND DELICIOUS By David Bianculli

It's almost laughable that September still is considered the start of the TV season -- because if you think of seasons in terms of a bountiful harvest, now is the season of our contentment. This month, in particular, brings back fresh episodes of more great shows than we have a reason to expect at any one time. Put it this way: How many series you're watching each week right now are likely to end up on your end-of-year Top 10 TV list? For me, it's a lot...

2011

Jul

HBO REVIVES 'FLOOD' OF MEMORIES By Eric Mink

Curt Flood started in center field for the St. Louis Cardinals of my childhood and adolescence. He was an alcoholic. He abandoned his family. He ran away from a team in the middle of a season and never came back...He helped the Cardinals win World Series titles in 1964 and 1967, but in the '68 Series, he missed a fly ball in the seventh inning of the seventh game that arguably made the Detroit Tigers that year's champions.

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