One of the best new offerings of the 2014 Fall TV season begins Sunday night: The Roosevelts: An Intimate History. The seven-part, 14-hour miniseries airs every night this week through to the 20th on PBS. It chronicles the lives of Theodore, Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt, three well-to-do Americans who had a tremendous impact on the lives of
I was working as a busboy at a restaurant in Ontario Place at the foot of Toronto the summer Richard Nixon resigned from the White House. I was a high school student and it was a pretty good summer job; $2:10 an hour and all the chips you could eat. The restaurant faced East so I
BEVERLY HILLS, Calif.—Downton Abbey is PBS’s Super Bowl. The ITV import draws the highest ratings on the public broadcaster and network officials once again gave it red carpet treatment at press tour. Reporters were given yellow wrist bands to get into Tuesday night’s dinner event, where four cast members, along with a couple of producers, sat
BEVERLY HILLS, Calif.—Bill Carter started something on this press tour I can’t get out of my head. It’ all has to do with this cool book idea which involves gathering names of celebrities that can also be interpreted as sentences. Think Hugh Downs, or W.C. Fields, or Jeremy Irons. Or Ken Burns. PBS’s documentarian-in-residence and frequent
The passing of film legend Mickey Rooney, dead at 93, brings to mind one of the most entertaining TCA press tour sessions ever. Rooney was part of a gathering of greats brought together by PBS to launch their series Pioneers of Television. The 2005 panel also included Sid Caesar, Red Buttons, Rose Marie, Carl Reiner
PASADENA, CA–That Ken Burns. He pays attention to detail.Monday afternoon, he was back at press tour for the umpteenth time, this season promoting The Address. At 90 minutes, The Address is about four score and seven years shorter than many of Burns’ epic docu-films of the past. That’s because it is based on Abraham Lincoln’s
Benedict Cumberbatch (left) with Sherlock co-star Amanda Abbington UPDATEDPASADENA, CA–Julia Roberts, Matthew McConaughey, Jimmy Fallon…stand aside. The biggest draw at this Winter’s Television Critics Association press tour was from PBS.No, not Grover or Cookie Monster, or even Ken Burns. The star who caused the biggest stir this January was Benedict Cumberbatch.Fans with autograph books, some
Lady Mary (Michelle Dockery, left) looks for the baby off switch Take a close look at Downton Abbey as it returns for a fourth season Sunday night (9/8c, PBS).It’s a sneaky show. On the surface, it looks like an old-fashioned miniseries, a throwback to Upstairs, Downstairs, Brideshead Revisited and other period dramas from the ’70s and