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

 
 
2015
Nov
23
 
 
Some accounts of this year’s Mark Twain Prize ceremony say that Eddie Murphy, in accepting the award this year, does his first onstage joke in 28 years. I haven’t kept count, but I know he didn’t tell any jokes during his appearance on the prime-time NBC special celebrating 40 years of Saturday Night Live. And I know that even broaching the subject he does here – Bill Cosby, a previous recipient of this award – is bold enough to earn a comedy award of its own. Check
 
 
 
  
 
 
2015
Nov
23
 
 
MINISERIES CONCLUSION: Last night, National Geographic served up the first of two parts of this scripted drama about the Pilgrims, the Native Americans, and the first Thanksgiving. In tonight’s concluding installment, everyone feasting at that table gets his or her just desserts. Make mine pumpkin pie, please…
 
 
 
  
 
 
2015
Nov
23
 
 
Thus far in Fargo this season, Ted Danson, as Fargo Sheriff Hank Larssen, has used his stoic manner and quiet demeanor to defuse many a volatile situation. But this week, he’s outnumbered, and facing a group of hotheads who do anything but speak softly. One of them, however, does carry a heavy stick – and it’s electrified. Which, of course, makes this showdown, and this hour, positively electrifying.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2015
Nov
22
 
 
He’s bearded, bedraggled, has a firm moral compass and is almost three-and-a-half centuries removed from Mad Men’s times. That’s how Vincent Kartheiser has chosen to divest himself of smarmy, conniving ad man Pete Campbel...
 
 
 
  
 
 
2015
Nov
22
 
 
You might not think you need a four-hour National Geographic miniseries to understand the first Thanksgiving. What more is there to know? All we’ve really done since then is add a football game, right? Well, maybe not...
 
 
 
  
 
 
2015
Nov
22
 
 
Tonight’s new episode sounds like one of those where the show’s music guru, Alf Clausen, can and probably will have an awful lot of fun. It imagines Lisa transplanted to Broadway for a month, and being taken in by the Great White Way. Even the episode’s title, “Lisa with an S,” suggests this particular half-hour of The Simpsons is concocted by playful Broadway enthusiasts: It’s a play on Liza with a Z, the name of an Emmy-winning 1972 Liza Minnelli musical spe
 
 
 
  
 
 
2015
Nov
22
 
 
MINISERIES PREMIERE: This new National Geographic miniseries is a drama, not a documentary, so proceed accordingly. It’s the story of the Pilgrims’ arrival in the New Land, and, eventually, the first Thanksgiving – but the approach, this time, isn’t all pleasantries and corn on the cob. Pilgrim leader William Bradford is played by Vincent Kartheiser, late of Mad Men, and other co-stars in this period drama include Ron Livingston, Anna Camp and Natascha McElhone. And if yo
 
 
 
  
 
 
2015
Nov
22
 
 
I’d prefer that TBS sister station TCM were showing this 1939 family classic instead, because then it would run without commercials. But it isn’t, so if you want to continue the once-beloved tradition of gathering the family over the Thanksgiving holidays to watch Dorothy and Toto and the rest, this may be as close as you get. Unless you have it on DVD. Or can find it on a streaming site…
 
 
 
  
 
 
2015
Nov
22
 
 
Tonight’s new episode is called “Heads Up.” And here’s a “Heads Up” heads up: Tonight, finally, we may learn the fate of Glenn, who was last seen with zombies surrounding him and chewing on entrails. But they hay not have been his intestines, so there’s hope for a happy ending. Maybe even a happy theme song: “Happy entrails to you / until we meet again…”
 
 
 
  
 
 
2015
Nov
22
 
 
Tonight’s new episode involves a case about abortion, and a case in which Diane (Christine Baranski) finds herself battling both the judge and her own beliefs.