ABC's Academy Awards telecast Sunday night had too much filler, fell far too flat, and had too few special moments -- though it did have a few. A few presenters scored, Billy Crystal was solid though not quippily quotable, the fashion scene-stealers of the night were Jennifer Lopez and Angelina Jolie, and Cirque du Soleil soared, literally...

2012

Feb

GOT A MINUTE? HELP US CHOOSE SOME NEW TVWW SLOGANS By David Bianculli

We here at TV WORTH WATCHING are so close to launching the next version of our website that it's time to reach out, and start asking for help. So we want to tap your brains, and ask your help -- in coming up with some new slogans for TV WORTH WATCHING...

2012

Feb

'OCEAN GIANTS' PBS 'NATURE' SPECIAL IS ONE WHALE OF A SHOW By David Bianculli

PBS surrenders its entire prime-time Wednesday lineup tonight at 8 ET to a three-hour, three-part Nature special called Ocean Giants. Originally aired on the BBC, it follows filmmakers and divers Doug Allen and Didier Noirot as they go around the world photographing, swimming with, and trying to understand the behavior of various species of whales and dolphins...

2012

Feb

NBC'S 'SMASH' STAR ON BROADWAY IN MARILYN MONROE ROLE: LIFE IMITATES ART IMITATES LIFE IMITATES... WHERE WAS I? By David Bianculli

Megan Hilty, who in NBC's Smash plays one of the actresses vying to play the lead in a new musical about Marilyn Monroe, will star in May in a New York City Center Encores! musical production of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, the movie version of which featured Monroe singing the ultra-iconic "Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend"...

2012

Feb

HBO'S 'LIFE'S TOO SHORT': ONCE AGAIN, RICKY GERVAIS EXPLORES UNEASE AS AN ART FORM By David Bianculli

The newest scripted Ricky Gervais-Stephen Merchant collaboration, HBO's Life's Too Short, features many of the same elements as their previous TV triumphs, The Office and Extras -- with one small exception. That exception is British actor Warwick Davis, the central focus of this new comic mockumentary series. He's 3'6"...

2012

Feb

KEN BURNS VISITS BARACK OBAMA, THEN ME -- BUT ONLY ONE OF US FED HIM HOAGIES By David Bianculli

On Monday, I picked up Ken Burns at the 30th Street train station in Philadelphia and brought him to the campus at Rowan University in New Jersey, for a semi-stealth visit at a deliberately underpublicized Talking Pictures campus event in which he slipped into class for a two-hour talk -- showing clips from recent and upcoming productions, fielding questions from students, and telling some great stories and bad jokes along the way. I may not have mentioned it here -- but as an under-the-radar

2012

Feb

MORE THAN 25 YEARS LATER, STILL THE BEST THAT TV HAS TO OFFER By David Bianculli

England botched its chance to mount a proper 25th-anniversary salute to the greatest drama ever written expressly for television -- but is making up for it now, by presenting a prime-time rebroadcast, 26 years later, of Dennis Potter's miniseries masterpiece, 1986's The Singing Detective. And America still has time to plan for our own silver anniversary, because the drama didn't air in this country until 1988...

2012

Feb

NEW DVD RELEASES OF OLD TV SHOWS FEATURING MEL BROOKS AND DAVID STEINBERG ARE A RIOT -- AND STILL SEEM CAPABLE OF INSPIRING ONE By David Bianculli

They're old TV shows, newly released on DVD, and they're both hilarious - but they're not sitcoms. They're talk shows: one is a seminar that gathers most of the writers who worked on Sid Caesar's comedy programs of the 50s and 60s, the other is an old episode of The David Susskind Show that invites its prominent guests to explore the topic How to Be a Jewish Son...

2012

Feb

PBS 'NATURE' SHOW REMINDS ME OF MY OWN ROCKY 'RACCOON' HISTORY By David Bianculli

Wednesday night at 8 p.m. ET on PBS, Nature presents a new installment, called Raccoon Nation, that includes night footage of the prowlers sneaking around city streets and back yards, like the masked bandits they resemble. But as I watch, I can't help but think about my personal battles with raccoons...

2012

Feb

'DOWNTON ABBEY' SEASON 2 -- SEE IT END ON DVD BEFORE IT ENDS ON PBS! By David Bianculli

Here's a strange, aggressive bit of salesmanship: PBS Video is releasing Season 2 of Downton Abbey today (Tuesday, Feb. 7) on both DVD and Blu-Ray. But on television, here in the U.S., the series doesn't complete Season 2 for two more Sundays. So if you don't want to wait to see how this year's Downton Abbey adventures end, you don't have to...

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