David Bianculli
David Bianculli is a guest host and TV critic on NPR's Fresh Air with Terry Gross. A contributor to the show since its inception, he has been a TV critic since 1975.
From 1993 to 2007, Bianculli was a TV critic for the New York Daily News.
Bianculli has written four books: The Platinum Age Of Television: From I Love Lucy to The Walking Dead, How TV Became Terrific (2016); Dangerously Funny: The Uncensored Story of 'The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour (Simon & Schuster/Touchstone, 2009); Teleliteracy: Taking Television Seriously (1992); and Dictionary of Teleliteracy (1996).
A professor of TV and film at Rowan University, Bianculli is also the founder and editor of the website, TVWorthWatching.com.
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Before his death in 2023, Reubens filmed an HBO documentary in which he explained why he refused to be seen or interviewed as himself for the whole time Pee-Wee Herman was starring in TV and films.
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Ian had her first hit record as a teenager in the 1960s and went on to win two Grammys. A new documentary tells her life story through a combination of vintage footage and newly recorded interviews.
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Back in March, a group of comic luminaries — from John Mulaney to Nikki Glaser — gathered at the Kennedy Center to celebrate O'Brien for receiving the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor.
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Tina Fey co-created and stars in a Netflix series about three middle-aged couples who meet for four short vacations each year. It's a mature, laid-back show, evoking more smiles than belly laughs.
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By examining the value of libraries in the distant and recent past, this PBS film makes a compelling case for the importance of the American public library system today. -
The Max show uses actors and real people to stage elaborate recreations and imaginings of events. It's like a mystery tour, because you aren't given any clues about the final destination.
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A long-married woman with terminal cancer leaves her husband and embarks on a quest for sexual satisfaction in a miniseries that's so real and so raw it's likely to make you both laugh and cry.
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An outstanding new Apple TV+ comedy series sends up Hollywood's movie-making machine. You don't have to be a movie lover to appreciate The Studio, but the more you know, the more you'll laugh.
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When a police inspector goes missing, his identical twin assumes his identity in an effort to solve the disappearance. Ludwig is one of the most original takes on the TV mystery genre.
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Each episode HBO's The Pitt presents an hour of a shift in a Pittsburgh ER, while each episode of Netflix's brilliant Adolescence considers the murder of a teenage girl from a different point of view.
