Television

Arts

'The Good Wife' Delivers A Game-Changing Stunner

2:20pm March 28, 2014

by David Bianculli

Last Sunday, the CBS drama delivered something major and unexpected. If you don't know what happened, and don't wish to, you may not want to listen, but Fresh Air's critic has a lot to say about it.

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Over the course of Breaking Bad, Walter White (Bryan Cranston) metamorphosed from a high school chemistry teacher to a notorious outlaw.

Arts

From Walter White To LBJ, Bryan Cranston Is A Master Of Transformation

3:15pm March 27, 2014

While Breaking Bad fans were watching him portray Walt in the series' final episodes, Cranston was already reinventing himself — playing Lyndon B. Johnson in the play All the Way.

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Matthew Goode (left) as Finn Polmar and Josh Charles (right) as Will Gardner in Sunday night's episode of CBS's The Good Wife.

Arts

Fans Of 'The Good Wife' Rocked By [Spoiler Alert]

6:46pm March 24, 2014

by Elizabeth Blair

Fans of the TV program The Good Wife are reeling from a shocking episode — one that saw one of its most beloved characters exit the scene suddenly and with finality.

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Hugh Bonneville (left) stars as Lord Grantham and Jim Carter as Mr. Carson, the formidable butler of Downton Abbey.

Arts

'Downton Abbey' Cast: It's More Fun Downstairs

4:41pm March 20, 2014

by NPR Staff

NPR's David Greene speaks with some of the cast members of the British TV hit Downton Abbey. The third season premieres in the U.S. Sunday on PBS.

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Dolly Wells (left) and Emily Mortimer have been real-life friends since childhood. Now they're co-starring in an inside-showbiz comedy airing on HBO.

Arts

When Your Best Friend Is A Star — And You're Her Minion

3:29pm March 19, 2014

by David Bianculli

The British import Doll & Em is another inside-Hollywood comedy from HBO; Emily Mortimer and her real-life friend Dolly Wells play outsize versions of themselves.

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Remembering Cory Monteith — Not Finn Hudson In 'Glee'

4:29pm March 18, 2014

by Nathan Rott

Cory Monteith was known to most Americans as the star of TV's Glee. But Monteith, who died at age 31, was a former high school dropout who used an unorthodox audition tape to get noticed.

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Bryan Cranston and Fred Armisen in character as The Bjelland Brothers, a sibling soft rock duo dreamed up by Armisen for a 2010 sketch on Saturday Night Live.

Music & Culture

Fred Armisen's Fake Bands (And Their Real Songs)

2:57pm March 18, 2014

by NPR Staff

The Saturday Night Live alum's sketches about fictional musicians strike a believable chord. Fitting, then, that the original songs he wrote for them are now getting a proper release.

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Lance Gross plays Marcus Finley. Think of him as the show's Jack Bauer.

Arts

NBC Hostage Drama 'Crisis' Takes Viewers On A Rare TV Trip

4:44pm March 14, 2014

by David Bianculli

The show's season-long crime story follows a busload of kids whose field trip gets detoured by kidnappers. Critic David Bianculli says it could wind up being just as good — and intense-- as 24.

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'Everything But The News' Lightens Up Staid PBS News

7:32am March 12, 2014

PBS pokes fun at itself in the new show Everything But the News. Former NewsHour producer Steve Goldbloom plays a cub reporter covering the tech beat in San Francisco to varying degrees of success.

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Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson hosts a new TV series called Cosmos: A Space-Time Odyssey. It's an update of the influential 1980 PBS series Cosmos: A Personal Journey, hosted by Carl Sagan.

Science
Arts

Neil DeGrasse Tyson Explains Why The Cosmos Shouldn't Make You Feel Small

9:45am February 28, 2014

The astrophysicist says that participating in a "great unfolding of a cosmic story" should make us feel large, not small. This spring, Tyson hosts a TV series called Cosmos: A Space-Time Odyssey.

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