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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
Contributors

DAVID HINCKLEY

All Along the Watchtower

ED BARK

Uncle Barky's Bytes

ALEX STRACHAN

TV That Matters

MIKE HUGHES

Open Mike

ED MARTIN

Ed Martin's TV Mix

KIM AKASS

Aerial View

MONIQUE NAZARETH

MNtv

BILL BRIOUX

TV Feeds My Family

ROGER CATLIN

TV Eye

GARY EDGERTON

Must-Click TV

TOM BRINKMOELLER

Raised On MTM

GERALD JORDAN

Crossing Jordan

NOEL HOLSTON

The Grassy Noel

TVWW ARCHIVE

Contributors Archive
 
 
2016
Nov
30
GRANT TINKER: 1925-2016 By David Bianculli
 
 

Grant Tinker, the TV executive arguably most responsible for the evolution of quality TV, died Monday at age 90. His legacy lives on, but even though I haven’t spoken to him in years, I really, really miss him already…

 
 
 
  
 
 
2016
Nov
30
RIP GRANT TINKER By Ed Bark
 
 
Grant Tinker, the self-deprecating visionary who founded a legendary TV studio and resurrected a comatose network has died at age 90 in his home. Lamentably a bygone relic to most younger viewers, his death wasn’t even made public until two days after the fact...
 
 
 
  
 
 
2016
Nov
30
GRANT TINKER: AN APPRECIATION By Tom Brinkmoeller
 
 
I didn’t house the work I have done for TV Worth Watching under the “Raised on MTM” roof without reason. So much of what I consider valuable about television has its roots in Grant Tinker...
 
 
 
  
 
 
2016
Nov
30
REMEMBERING GRANT TINKER: "I HOPE THAT TELEVISION IS, ON BALANCE, A FORCE FOR GOOD” By David Hinckley
 
 
The late Grant Tinker is being remembered today as a man who brought out the best in television, and his legacy supports that almost mystical accolade. It’s worth adding, however, that Tinker also lived in the real TV world, where your whole menu can’t be shiitake mushroom soufflés. Sometimes you also need burgers and fries or you won’t stay in business. When Tinker died Monday at the age of 90, the gems of his career deserved everything that’s being said about
 
 
 
  
 
 
2016
Nov
30
THREE LAUGHS AND A FUNERAL By Eric Gould
 
 
With Grant Tinker’s passing, there are many milestone moments in the MTM archive that helped transform television into what it is today... One of our favorite MTM moments was from the 1975 Mary Tyler Moore Show episode, “Chuckles Bites the Dust." Mary, stricken by grief at the news of Chuckles the Clown's death, had been scolding the WJM staff for making repeated clown jokes about the tragedy. Except that all, memorably, changes at Chuckles’ funeral...
 
 
 
  
 
 
2016
Nov
30
MORE FUTURE SHOCKS IN SYFY'S SOBERING 'INCORPORATED' By Ed Bark
 
 
Our imminent real-life futures may be problematic enough after a certain power shift takes hold early next year. But time will tell...
 
 
 
  
 
 
2016
Nov
30
CHRISTMAS IN ROCKEFELLER CENTER By David Bianculli
 
 
It’s one for the money, two for the show, and tree to get ready. Tonight’s the lighting of the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree, an annual ceremony that only in the past decade or so has been deemed worthy of being televised. But here it is, with not only the visuals of the lights, but the sounds of the holidays – as delivered in song by Tony Bennett, Josh Groban, Dolly Parton, Garth Brooks, and others.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2016
Nov
30
ARROW SUPERHERO CROSSOVER By David Bianculli
 
 
The CW superhero parade of DC Comics characters continues tonight, as Arrow – a.k.a. Green Arrow, at least in the vintage comics – hosts the latest hour in this week’s four-episode, four-series crossover story. And if the prospect of that make you all a-quiver – well, Arrow is the place for quivers, so why not?
 
 
 
  
 
 
2016
Nov
30
DOLLY PARTON’S CHRISTMAS OF MANY COLORS: THE CIRCLE OF LOVE By David Bianculli
 
 
This new NBC holiday telemovie is a sequel to last year’s Coat of Many Colors Dolly Parton holiday biography. If anything, the sentimental quotient is upped for this continuation movie, which once again stars Alyvia Alyn Lind as the young Dolly Parton – and the current Dolly Parton as a vision of herself billed as the Painted Lady.
 
 
 
  
 
 
2016
Nov
30
SOUTH PARK By David Bianculli
 
 
There are only two episodes left in this season’s new shows, and its continuing story line of an international computer hack aimed at trolls in general – and, in tonight’s episode, at South Park residents in particular.
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
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