The tributes to Bob Newhart last week were universal in tone. A great comic, great sitcom star, great guy. If there was anyone who had a bad word to say about Newhart, I didn’t hear it or read it. The passing of Newhart brought back memories for those of us lucky enough to remember his
One day, the date I cannot remember, I was scanning my cable TV listings when I came upon an unfamiliar station. It was called Turner Classic Movies, and it played nothing but movies, movies and more movies. And, blessedly, they were commercial-free. Well, I thought I had died and gone to movie heaven. I’ve added
Before there was Netflix, or Apple TV+, or Amazon or any of the myriad of streaming services, there was only one place to go for ‘prestige’ TV, and that was HBO. HBO changed television forever with the debut of The Sopranos 25 years ago. Since then, HBO has produced a raft of the best TV
OK, so I have Netflix, Crave, Disney (for a month, anyway) , Amazon Prime and CBC Gem. Why can’t I find a series I want to watch? I tried True Detective on Crave, but it seemed more like sci-fi than detective. I got a few episodes into Fool Me Once on Netflix, but gave up
The Christmas/holiday season is upon us. Once the shopping is done, the kids have been put to bed and/or the out-of-town relatives have gone home, it’s a good time to put up your feet, decompress, and watch some TV. But where to turn? What to watch? If I may, a few humble suggestions about TV
What’s the opposite of a Golden Age? Tin? Aluminum? Plastic? Whatever it is, we are definitely NOT in a golden age of network TV comedy. NBC has just two lame programs, the revived Night Court and something called Lopez vs. Lopez. ABC has Abbott Elementary, which despite critical acclaim, is at best feel-good pablum. The
With Hollywood’s writers and actors still out on strike, and with no resolution in sight, you may be wondering when you’ll be getting new episodes of NCIS: Des Moines or Peoria Fire. Well, even if these shows existed, who really cares? As someone who watches exactly zero network drama series, I frankly don’t care when
In this edition of Under the Radar, I have a miniseries that works, a movie that does not, and a documentary that cleans up the mess left by the movie. The Watergate scandal, which brought down the presidency of Richard Nixon, forever altered America’s opinion of politics and saddled us with thousands of cheap ‘Scandalgate’