TV Reviews

An HBO adaptation of Stephen King's novel The Outsider follows police detective Ralph Anderson (Ben Mendelsohn) and private eye Holly Gibney (Cynthia Erivo) as they investigate the murder of an 11-year-old boy.

Arts

TV Adaption Of 'The Outsider' Takes Stephen King's Scary Story Seriously

1:18pm January 10, 2020

by John Powers

A 10-part series based on the 2018 novel centers on the murder of a young boy — then spirals out to draw connections between our inner demons and the ones roaming out in the world.

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The Navarro College team competes at the national championships.

Arts

'Cheer' Is An Incisive Look At Injury, Coaching And Competition

5:00am January 08, 2020

by Linda Holmes

The Netflix series Cheer may not be quite as cleanly inspirational as it intends to be, but it tells a gripping story of a coach who knows her team will give until it hurts if she tells them to.

After an earthquake strikes during an MRI, Zoey (Jane Levy) finds that her brain is infused with music in Zoey's Extraordinary Playlist.

Arts

'Zoey's Extraordinary Playlist' May, Or May Not, Be Your Jam

11:38am January 07, 2020

by David Bianculli

NBC mixes music and drama in a risky new TV show about a woman who sees (and hears) people express their innermost thoughts in song.

Examining The Last Decade In Television

5:12am December 30, 2019

by Eric Deggans

The two big stories of the decade boiled down to: volume and streaming. Viewers had thousands of new shows to choose from and they could binge-watch as many as they wanted and they didn't need cable.

Review: 'Party Of Five' Reboot

5:01am December 26, 2019

by Eric Deggans

The cable channel Freeform will air a humanizing, emotional reboot of the '90s drama Party of Five. It's centered on a Latinx family of five siblings whose parents are deported to Mexico.

Merritt Wever and Toni Collette play two detectives investigating a series of sexual assaults in the Netflix show Unbelievable.

Books

A Critic Returns To The Books, TV, Music And Movies He Didn't Get To In 2019

1:33pm December 23, 2019

by John Powers

Few things haunt a critic more than loving something and not being able to share it. This year, Fresh Air critic John Powers circles back to Unbelievable, Atlantics, Where the Light Falls and more.

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Dan Stevens plays a young man who's haunted by the voices in his head in Legion. Kristen Bell explores what it means to be a good person on The Good Place.

Arts

Nothing Beats 'The Good Place': David Bianculli Picks The Best TV Of 2019

1:31pm December 23, 2019

by David Bianculli

There were a lot of great shows to watch on television this year — many of them on streaming services. At the top of the list is NBC's comedy about life after death.

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Clockwise: Watchmen, Russian Doll, Los Espookys, The Crown, When They See Us and Documentary Now! made NPR critics' list of the best television of 2019.

Arts

NPR's Favorite TV Shows Of 2019

10:30am December 13, 2019

Series such as Fleabag, Watchmen and Succession highlight our pop culture critics' list of the 19 best television and serial streaming programs of 2019.

Mason Davis, Elizabeth Ho, Hayes MacArthur, Lucas Jaye, Ashley Tisdale, Dennis Quaid, Brent Morin, Bridgit Mendler, Siobhan Murphy, and Adam Rose in Merry Happy Whatever.

Arts

The Dismal 'Merry Happy Whatever' Is The Downside Of Binge-Watching

5:00am November 28, 2019

by Linda Holmes

You can understand why Netflix thought people might want a holiday-themed family comedy to watch this season. But unfortunately, the one they made is a big miss.

Paul Reiser and Helen Hunt return in Mad About You, 20 years after the original show ended.

Arts

'Mad About You': If A Reboot Falls In A Very Particular Forest, Is It Really On?

5:14pm November 21, 2019

by Linda Holmes

You might not even know that there's a reboot of Mad About You coming this week. But that might not matter, because unless you have the right cable provider, you can't watch it.