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). He is at work on a fifth.
Bianculli is professor of Television Studies at Rowan University in New Jersey.
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David Attenborough's acclaimed nature series Life on Earth began production 50 years ago. Now, a PBS documentary captures the host looking back on that series as it's projected in a screening room.
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Netflix's new four-part miniseries dives into the plot to assassinate President James Garfield. Death by Lightning is full of recognizable arrogance, political intrigue and unexpected betrayal. -
The issues facing journalism these days — from online clickbait to corporate interference — run throughout The Paper. But it's primarily a comedy, with characters and actors that will win you over.
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CBS canceled Stephen Colbert's late night show last week. By not appreciating, defending and nurturing The Late Show Paramount is muzzling its best voices, and diluting its own broadcast future.
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Warner Bros. Discovery recently announced a shake-up at the network, which for years has offered a well curated film selection. Critic David Bianculli says TCM wasn't broken — and didn't need fixing. -
Amazon's Lord of the Rings and HBO's Game of Thrones prequels should please fans of the original works. Time will tell how well the shows set up, and are faithful to, the stories they're expanding.
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The burly actor, who died April 15, played the leading role in Death of a Salesman,in both the Broadway production as well as the 2000 TV movie. Dennehy spoke to David Bianculli in 1999.
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Critic David Bianculli says both shows have uncanny parallels to today's world. Homeland'sfinal season has been truly unnerving, while Penny Dreadful's new season centers on a supernatural villain.
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TV critic David Bianculli recommends new shows, including FX's Mrs. America, as well as some off-the-beaten-path viewing alternatives, like free web showings of musicals from London's West End.
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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.
