BC Review

May 11, 2008 | Link This | Email this | Comments (1)

    The latest return of NBC’s Saturday Night Live, after another mini-break, was its least political show since returning from the writers’ strike. A lengthy sketch featuring Amy Poehler as Hillary Clinton opened the show – but after that, nothing. Not even any political jokes during “Weekend Update.”
    The kickoff skit, though, was lengthy, pointed and strong. Poehler, in a solo spot, was introduced as “the next President of the United States,” and explained her allegedly unavoidable victory as the eventual Democratic candidate as being due to three key reasons, which she enumerated and upon which she elaborated.
    “First, I am a sore loser,” she said, explaining that if Barack Obama won, she would support him only half-heartedly, to set up his loss in 2008 and her opp...Read More
Industries: Programming

May 8, 2008 | Link This | Email this | Comments (0)

In Hear and Now, Ilene Taylor Brodsky’s loving but unflinching portrait of her deaf parents, we get a very close look – and an equally close listen – at a loving relationship that is about to test itself in a new way.

Both Paul and Sally Taylor were born deaf, and lived their lives without hearing a thing. They met and married as young adults, and have been together ever since, raising their daughter Ilene (who is not hearing-impaired) and surrounding themselves with loved ones, a comfy home, and the sound of silence.

Sally enjoys heavy-metal music while she drives, cranking the volume up high, but only because she can feel the vibrations. Paul, a professor and amateur inventor, has rigged up ...Read More

Industries: Programming

May 5, 2008 | Link This | Email this | Comments (0)

Of the 42 U.S. Presidents, the PBS documentary series American Experience has now profiled 15 of them. Tonight and tomorrow night, the series presents a two-part, four-hour biographical study of, and titled, George H.W. Bush.

Viewed in the context of 2008, the one-term Bush presidency of 1989-93 hits a lot of eerily familiar touchstones: a Gulf War, a recession, Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden, concerns about global oil reserves and availability. But there’s also a lot here that’s viewed through a less familiar prism, including how Bush, no less than Ronald Reagan, deserves credit for ending the Cold War.

...Read More
Industries: Programming

April 30, 2008 | Link This | Email this | Comments (0)

In the spirit of throwing anything against American Idol to see if it sticks, or at least to fill the hour, the CW tonight presents its newest reality series: Farmer Wants a Wife.

Not Farmer Gets a Wife, because that would promise some sort of resolution – and on CW, the network that searched for the next Pussycat Doll only to have the Doll say “Thanks, but no thanks,” it’s the journey, not the destination, that matters.

So here we have a new show that seems old, and overly familiar, from the start. Farmer Wants a Wife is the same show as Outback Jack, only without the Aussie accent. It’s the same p...Read More

Industries: Programming

April 25, 2008 | Link This | Email this | Comments (0)

The last of the broadcast networks to do so, ABC last night fielded a lineup with all-new episodes of its Thursday night series. There was a birthday gone awry on Ugly Betty, a contest spun out of control on Grey’s Anatomy, and a whirlwind of jaw-dropping activity on Lost.

The best was saved for last. Grey’s had an interesting medical subplot, and Betty some sweet moments, but Lost just never let up for a second.

With Lost last night, we got to see how dangerous Ben, in a flash-forward, really is. On the island, in the series’ “present” timeline, we also saw his d...Read More

Industries: Programming