Shortly before Christmas, the eminent British critic and broadcaster Matthew Sweet embarked on a sponsored, round-the-clock watch of a new DVD set of “Crossroads,” the dogged ITV soap that first ran between 1964 and 1988. The prevailing idea was that negotiating the boxset’s 700 episodes might be as arduous —…
TV review
Spend any time talking with those in the documentary sector, and they’ll lament how hard it is to land commissions without having a celebrity aboard – a precondition that invariably impacts on journalistic rigour. If you’re seeking the greenlight for a magazine show on 21st century sexuality, however, attaching model-turned-actor…
The nighttime soap, with its amped-up rivalries and luxurious trappings, may be somewhat out of fashion on broadcast TV right now. In the years since “Empire,” there hasn’t been a new show with commensurate vivid ambition, or such a shameless desire to thrill. Which has created an opening for streamers.…
In an episode of ABC’s “The Goldbergs,” youngest son Adam (Sean Giambrone, playing the creator of the autobiographical sitcom) suffers a grievous lapse in judgment. It’s Mother’s Day, but rather than spend time with his devoted, if meddling mother, he wants to see “Willow,” the potentially life-changing new George Lucas…
Adapting a beloved book series into a television show that doesn’t lose the author’s carefully crafted nuance is a tough job. Doing so while expanding upon that world and elevating the original work is an even more challenging task. Yet “Three Pines” does both with aplomb. “Three Pines” is based…
The ambitions of “George & Tammy,” a new limited series about two of the entertainment industry’s true individuals, seem to be to duplicate another show’s success. In its structure and its concerns, the series feels as though it owes a debt to “Fosse/Verdon,” FX’s excellent 2019 series about two creative…
There will be no coal in James Gunn’s stocking this year. His “Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special” is stuffed with funny, feel-good Christmas joy, and it’s one of the best pieces of content Marvel Studios has released in years. Just like Marvel and Disney+’s Halloween-themed “Werewolf by Night” Special…
The ultimate victor in the streaming wars has been the audience, which now enjoys the spoils of a content-starved environment in which death is never final, and any familiar TV franchise has a good shot at being resurrected. For proof, as if any more is needed, look to the motley…
If anyone came away from “Pitch Perfect” with a burning desire to know what happens to male a cappella diva Bumper Allen (Adam Devine), I’d like to meet and study them for science. Of all the characters to earn their own spinoff from this franchise about the transformative power of…
It’s hard to talk about “The Walking Dead” without talking about death. It built its reputation as a show where anyone could be killed off, and indeed, it turned over roughly a third of its cast every season in its early years. (Lest you forget them, the series finale gives…
The new Netflix series “Wednesday” is a supernatural mystery about Wednesday Addams’ time as a student at the boarding school Nevermore Academy.
Mystery-thriller “Dark” handed Netflix one of its first big international hits, while announcing German creators Baran bo Odar and Jantje Friese as potential masters of the atmospheric puzzle-show. The pair’s latest, “1899,” presents an even more elaborate conundrum, expanding outwards from its escape-room opening: a blanched heroine (Emily Beecham) awaking…