kovacs-tub-2-top.jpg Tuesday night, instead of teaching a college TV History class about Ernie Kovacs, I went to New York to attend a Paley Museum presentation ABOUT Ernie Kovacs -- moderated by Keith Olbermann, who, even before opening his mouth, honored the spirit of Ernie Kovacs by delivering a memorable, visual ad lib...

2011

Apr

ABC'S 'HAPPY ENDINGS' FINDS ITS FOOTING By Ed Bark

It begins pretty clumsily with a wedding stoppage scene straight out of The Graduate. Friends also quickly comes to mind. Still, this is an otherwise new ABC comedy called Happy Endings. And after viewing three available episodes, let's dust off another old saw: All's well that ends well...

2011

Apr

REPORTS OF THE DEATH OF BROADCAST TV DRAMAS ARE PREMATURE: JUST WATCH THESE THREE OUTSTANDING SERIES By David Bianculli

Cable TV dramas may outshine their broadcast counterparts, but major-network broadcast dramas aren't dead yet -- not so long as CBS's The Good Wife and NBC's Parenthood are battling it out on Tuesdays at 10 p.m. ET, and not when Friday Night Lights begins its final-season NBC run this Friday at 8 p.m. ET...

2011

Apr

TV AND BROADWAY INTERMINGLE NICELY IN NY PHILHARMONIC'S 'COMPANY' AND HBO'S 'COLIN QUINN: LONG STORY SHORT' By David Bianculli

WORTH WATCHING's column space to review a Broadway show presented on HBO makes perfect sense, as with last month's Pee Wee Herman Show on Broadway special and this weekend's Colin Quinn: Long Story Short. But why also review the current, four-performance New York Philharmonic presentation of the Stephen Sondheim-George Furth musical Company?

2011

Apr

FLASHBACK: 'AN AMERICAN FAMILY' (RE)SURFACES By Diane Werts

I'm not sure if "reality" TV starts here, or ends here. But "here" is TV's original docusoap miniseries, from 1973 -- PBS's "An American Family". HBO revisits that landmark societal moment in its fact-based April 23 movie drama "Cinema Verite" -- and the next day, PBS's WORLD channel encores the original source material, all 12 aired hours of it, for the first time in 20 years...

2011

Apr

TALKING WITH DICK CAVETT: REMEMBERING WHEN TV TALK SHOWS WEREN'T INFORMERCIALS By Tom Brinkmoeller

During a phone interview with Dick Cavett, when he mentions being at the home of Groucho Marx and one of the other dinner guests was Carly Simon, name-dropping just isn't suspected. On his television shows, and off the air too, he has talked with some of the more interesting people in the world...

2011

Apr

GLENN BECK AND 'UPSTAIRS, DOWNSTAIRS': DIFFERENT (KEY)STROKES FOR DIFFERENT FOLKS By David Bianculli

If you're wondering why things are a bit sluggish at TV WORTH WATCHING at the moment, it's because our managing editor, Diane Werts, has been traveling, and I've been busier than usual, which is busy enough. I've written stories on Glenn Beck for CNN.com, and on the new Upstairs, Downstairs PBS miniseries for NPR's Fresh Air with Terry Gross. Keep reading here, and I'll steer you in the right directions...

2011

Apr

CURRENT TV SUCCEEDS (AND FAILS) BY PURSUING INTERACTIVITY, BAR (KARMA) NONE By Eric Gould

Last week, Bill Maher said that finding the Reelz channel, new home of the orphaned Kennedy miniseries, was harder than finding Al Jazeera. With a thousand channels, narrowcasting, or niche broadcasting, has something for everyone. That includes Current TV, which is something Al Gore actually DID invent...

2011

Apr

'MAD MEN,' 'FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS': WATCH ONE WHILE WAITING FOR NEW EPISODES, WATCH THE OTHER INSTEAD OF WAITING By David Bianculli

Season five of AMC's Mad Men won't arrive until 2012, but season four has just been released on home video. And while NBC is waiting until April 15 to begin broadcasting the fifth and final season of Friday Night Lights (already shown on DirecTV), it, too, has just been released on home video. Thank the TV gods for DVD boxed sets...

2011

Apr

HBO DOCUMENTARY 'HIS WAY' SALUTES REAL-LIFE BROADWAY DANNY ROSE By David Bianculli

The first minute of His Way, HBO's new documentary about veteran show-biz producer Jerry Weintraub, hooks you with the people lining up to tell stories about him: George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Julia Roberts and lots more. And from then on, Weintraub himself shows up to hook you for the duration...

Posts 321-330 of 441

32 33 34 35 36

New From TVWW

PBS' 'Frontline’ Examines Pension Promises and — Spoiler Alert — Finds the Math Doesn’t Add Up

The Decadence of ‘Versailles’ Comes to Ovation

Prescribing Mamie Gummer in 'Emily Owens, M.D.'

Looking for a Free Ride? HBO Can Deliver

'Pass the Biscuits' Part of the Hatfield-McCoy Pop-Culture Legacy

Dispatches From TVWW

'Extinction: The Facts' is a Sobering Call to Action

How 'Mayans' Has Been Influenced by the Show's Creator Elgin James

For Whom the Bell Tolls: Ken Burns and Lynn Novick Take on Ernest Hemingway, the Man and the Myth

In the Final Season, Sutton Foster's Liza is Now the Genuine Version of Her 'Younger' Self

Season 2 of 'City on a Hill' Returns with Kevin Bacon, Aldis Hodge, and Boston Corruption