TV Reviews

Arts

Highly Watchable, Yet Lacking Spark: 'Little Fires Everywhere' Fails To Ignite

1:34pm March 17, 2020

by John Powers

Hulu's new eight-part series uses the fraught encounter between two families — one well-off and white, one bohemian and black — to raise tricky questions about race and social class.

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Books
Arts

'The Plot Against America' Asks: What If The U.S. Had Sided With The Nazis?

1:49pm March 13, 2020

David Bianculli reviews HBO's new miniseries, which imagines that Charles Lindbergh became president in 1940. And we listen back to a 2004 with Philip Roth, who wrote the novel the series is based on.

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Arts

'Devs' And 'Amazing Stories' Bring Fresh Sci-Fi Drama To Streaming

1:28pm March 06, 2020

by David Bianculli

Hulu's new 8-part miniseries Devs is a definite must-see, while the Disney TV+ show Amazing Stories, based on the 1985 NBC anthology series by Steven Spielberg, is more of a wait-and-see.

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Lily (Sonoya Mizuno) contemplates the (golden) gates of perception in the moody, ruminative tech-thriller series Devs.

Arts

Tech Bubble: 'Devs' Is Stylish, But Hollow At The Center

10:11am March 05, 2020

by Glen Weldon

Writer/director Alex Garland's techno-thriller limited series tries to be many things at once, but it parcels out its pulpy delights sparingly, in favor of ponderous navel-gazing.

Yes, Al Pacino (seen here with Logan Lerman) is in Hunters, Amazon's new show about a band of Nazi hunters in the 1970s, but he's not the most interesting thing about it.

Arts

Flashy, Splashy 'Hunters' Is More Fun Than It Should Be

4:26pm February 21, 2020

by Eric Deggans

Al Pacino is the marquee attraction in Hunters, Amazon's new show about Nazi hunters in the 1970s — but the story is splashy and electric enough that he's not the most interesting thing in it.

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Arts

Back For Season 5, 'Better Call Saul' Keeps The Fun And Narrative Going

1:13pm February 21, 2020

by David Bianculli

Fans of Breaking Bad will love some of the faces that show up this season in Vince Gilligan and Peter Gould's prequel/sequel series. It's already clear this show will be one of the year's best.

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Arts

A Vigilante Group Seeks Revenge On Nazis In Amazon's Garish 'Hunters'

1:25pm February 19, 2020

by John Powers

A jaunty new 10-part series plays as an amped-up comic book, blending an old-school revenge saga with a grim history lesson. Hunters exhibits a desire to be inventive that doesn't always pay off.

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Podcaster Leon Neyfakh leads you through some of Watergate's lesser-known twists and turns on the EPIX series Slow Burn.

Arts

'Slow Burn' Captures The Drip-Drip-Drip Of Watergate

9:00am February 16, 2020

by Glen Weldon

By focusing on figures who "played roles in the story that are larger than history remembers" this gripping adaptation of a hit podcast reminds us how slowly the Watergate scandal unfolded.

Wait a minute, that's Lara Jean, but that's not Peter Kavinsky! (Jordan Fisher and Lana Condor play John Ambrose and Lara Jean Song Covey.)

Arts

In 'P.S. I Still Love You,' The 'To All The Boys' Story Gets More Complicated

5:00am February 12, 2020

by Linda Holmes

The follow-up to Netflix's well-received YA romcom To All The Boys I've Loved Before finds its principals working on what happens after that closing kiss.

Arts

Edie Falco Shines As LA's Top Cop In The CBS Drama 'Tommy'

1:36pm February 06, 2020

by David Bianculli

In addition to solving a case each week, Tommy features ongoing story lines involving the police chief's interactions with colleagues and family members. The scripts aren't fantastic — but Falco is.

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