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DAVID BIANCULLI

Founder / Editor

Bianculli's Blog

ERIC GOULD

Associate Editor

The Cold Light Reader

LINDA DONOVAN

Assistant Editor

Dateline Donovan
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All Along the Watchtower

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Ed Martin's TV Mix

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TVWW ARCHIVE

Contributors Archive
 
 
2020
Jul
3
1958: THE ANDY WILLIAMS SHOW By TV WW
 
 
On this day in 1958, ABC introduced The Andy Williams Show...
 
 
 
  
 
 
2020
Jul
3
HAMILTON By David Bianculli
 
 
MOVIE PREMIERE: Lin-Manual Miranda’s cultural phenomenon of a musical, Hamilton, opened at the Public Theater in 2015, moved uptown to Broadway later that same year, and won 11 Tonys. In June 2016 – the week before those Tonys were awarded – Miranda and his co-stars filmed Hamilton three times for a future movie. It was filmed twice with an audience, once on a closed-theater Monday so cameras could roam and swoop freely on and above the stage. The plan was t
 
 
 
  
 
 
2020
Jul
3
THE SEARCHERS By David Bianculli
 
 
Director John Ford made many wonderful movies, in several different genres, but this 1956 film may be his best Western, and anyone’s. A family’s home and ranch is attacked by a Comanche raiding party, and the marauders massacre everyone but the youngest daughter, who is taken prisoner. Her uncle Ethan, played by John Wayne, and her adopted brother Martin, played by Jeffrey Hunter, set out in search of her – a search that ends up taking years. And what complicates the quest, and
 
 
 
  
 
 
2020
Jul
3
THE DICK VAN DYKE SHOW – NOW IN LIVING COLOR! A SPECIAL TRIBUTE TO CARL REINER! By David Bianculli
 
 
The newly colorized episodes shown tonight in what CBS is calling its Tribute to Carl Reiner have been shown by the network in prime time before: “October Eve,” in which Reiner plays an artist who paints Mary Tyler Moore’s Laura Petrie in the nude, was shown in color tones in 2017. (For the record: Laura wasn’t nude. The artist just painted her that way from his imagination.) And the show’s classic “Coast to Coast Big Mouth” episode, in which L
 
 
 
  
 
 
2020
Jul
3
A COVID-19 'A CAPITOL FOURTH' ON PBS By Mike Hughes
 
 
For four decades, A Capitol Fourth has had a cozy place in holiday plans...
 
 
 
  
 
 
2020
Jul
2
'BLINDED,' A DRAMA OF LOVE, MONEY, AND LOVE OF MONEY By David Hinckley
 
 
If Billions has whetted your appetite for a soapy mystery about shady dealings in the usually impenetrable world of high finance, the Swedish drama (with subtitles) Blinded could provide another eight hours of viewing pleasure...
 
 
 
  
 
 
2020
Jul
2
THE BLACK STALLION By David Bianculli
 
 
This is a gorgeously photographed movie that’s appropriate for the entire family – the rare kind of film that you can watch as a family, taking in a dramatic story as well as a breathtaking work of art. The story, of a boy who’s shipwrecked on a remote island with a horse who also survived the wreck, is based on Walter Farley’s novel, and is divided into two different, equally important segments: the time on the island, and the return to civilization, when the boy and the
 
 
 
  
 
 
2020
Jul
2
1951: NBC INTRODUCES 'ERNIE IN KOVACSLAND' By TV WW
 
 
On this day in 1951, NBC debuted Ernie Kovacs' first prime-time network variety show, Ernie in Kovacsland...
 
 
 
  
 
 
2020
Jul
1
1956: ELVIS PRESLEY APPEARS ON 'THE STEVE ALLEN SHOW' By Linda Donovan
 
 
Elvis Presley appeared on The Steve Allen Show on this date in 1956 while crooning to someone special...
 
 
 
  
 
 
2020
Jul
1
SINGIN' IN THE RAIN By David Bianculli
 
 
Gene Kelly, Donald O’Connor and newcomer Debbie Reynolds deserve all the praise and attention they get for their roles in this 1952 movie, arguably the best film musical ever made. And they get a lot. But pay attention, this time around, to two of the invaluable supporting players whose contributions also are vital to making this movie, about Hollywood’s transition from silent to sound cinema, such a classic. There’s Jean Hagen as silent screen siren Lina Lamont (pictured), who
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
New From TVWW

PBS' 'Frontline’ Examines Pension Promises and — Spoiler Alert — Finds the Math Doesn’t Add Up
By Alex Strachan
 
 
 
 
The Decadence of ‘Versailles’ Comes to Ovation
By David Hinckley
 
 
 
 
Prescribing Mamie Gummer in 'Emily Owens, M.D.'
By Ed Bark
 
 
 
 
Looking for a Free Ride? HBO Can Deliver
By Christy Slewinski
 
 
 
 
'Pass the Biscuits' Part of the Hatfield-McCoy Pop-Culture Legacy
By Noel Holston
 
 
 
 

Dispatches From TVWW

'Extinction: The Facts' is a Sobering Call to Action
By David Hinckley
 
 
 
 
How 'Mayans' Has Been Influenced by the Show's Creator Elgin James
By Mike Hughes
 
 
 
 
For Whom the Bell Tolls: Ken Burns and Lynn Novick Take on Ernest Hemingway, the Man and the Myth
By Alex Strachan
 
 
 
 
In the Final Season, Sutton Foster's Liza is Now the Genuine Version of Her 'Younger' Self
By Monique Nazareth
 
 
 
 
Season 2 of 'City on a Hill' Returns with Kevin Bacon, Aldis Hodge, and Boston Corruption
By David Hinckley