2012
Jan
20
KARL PILKINGTON TALKS TO TVWW ABOUT 'AN IDIOT ABROAD 2: THE BUCKET LIST' By David Bianculli
 
 
You've seen similar scenes dozens of times on CBS's Survivor, even on the same South Pacific islands of Vanuatu: people stranded and working frantically to build a makeshift shelter as the rain pelts them mercilessly...except, this time, one of the people marooned is Karl Pilkington, the reluctant world traveller sent around the globe by Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant for the new season of the Science Channel TV series An Idiot Abroad...
 
 
 
  
 
 
2011
Oct
29
TOM YELLIN: THE TV WORTH WATCHING INTERVIEW By David Bianculli
 
 
Tom Yellin, co-founder of The Documentary Group, used to produce the ABC News Peter Jennings Reporting specials, among other fine programs. His latest project, created with director Lloyd Kramer and others, is America in Primetime, the four-part PBS documentary series premiering Sunday at 8 p.m. ET (check local listings). I'm so impressed with this study of television that I wrote about it for TVWW and for NPR...
 
 
 
  
 
 
2011
Oct
2
KEN BURNS & LYNN NOVICK: THE TVWW INTERVIEW (PLUS, A REVIEW OF 'PROHIBITION') By David Bianculli
 
 
Two months ago, while on the Television Critics Association press tour, I wrote about the then-upcoming documentary series Prohibition, co-directed for PBS by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick...However, I saved a fuller review of the show, and excerpts from a private chat with Burns and Novick before their TCA press conference, until now...
 
 
 
  
 
 
2011
Sep
8
MEL BROOKS: THE TV WORTH WATCHING INTERVIEW By David Bianculli
 
 
Friday night on HBO, Mel Brooks sits down with Dick Cavett to tell jokes, swap stories and regale a theater audience of nearly 2,000 appreciative fans with tales of his life and friends in show business. He did the same earlier this week with TVWW...
 
 
 
  
 
 
2011
Aug
1
PRESS TOUR: PBS 'PROHIBITION' ANOTHER POTENT CONCOCTION FROM THE KEN BURNS TEAM By David Bianculli
 
 
The next documentary from Ken Burns and company, a six-hour look at Prohibition, will run Oct. 2-4 on PBS. It's another strong entry in the Burns canon, directed by Burns and Lynn Novick, written by Geoffrey C. Ward, and featuring, among many others, Last Call author Daniel Okrent. Except for Ward, all of them attended a Television Critics Association press conference Sunday night to discuss the new series -- and, afterward, to raise a glass or two...
 
 
 
  
 
 
2011
Apr
7
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
Jan
21
LOOKING BACK ON 'DOOGIE HOWSER' WITH SERIES CREATOR STEVEN BOCHCO By Tom Brinkmoeller
 
 
Decades before Neil Patrick Harris was Barney Stinson, the prodigal, he played Doogie Howser, the prodigy. Since late last year, lucky viewers have been learning that -- hot as "How I Met Your Mother" may be -- Harris shined even more brightly in his first series, "Doogie Howser, M.D." The entertaining and thoughtful writing, bullseye casting and enlightened production of this four-season comedy about a boy-genius physician give it a singular spot on the list of extraordinary TV...
 
 
 
  
 
 
2010
Jun
11
CABLE COMEDY PIONEER ROBERT KLEIN STRIKES AGAIN -- ON HBO, AGAIN By David Bianculli
 
 
Robert Klein opens his latest HBO special, "Robert Klein: Unfair & Unbalanced" with a very funny song, backed by a full orchestra. By contrast, he opened our interview with a joke about TV WORTH WATCHING: "It's a small website, I take it..."
 
 
 
  
 
 
2008
Oct
13
BOB SCHIEFFER: HAVING CANDIDATES SCRAP DEBATE RULES WOULD BE "THE DREAM" By David Bianculli
 
 
While interviewing CBS's Bob Schieffer for my "Broadcasting & Cable" column, about his preparations and expectations for Wednesday's final 2008 presidential debate, I threw him what might have been a curve, but which he caught gracefully and gratefully...
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
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