Stories

It’s a fresh take on history’s giants

Most of us have learned the grand stories of the American revolution — Valley Forge and Bunker Hill and crossing the Delaware and more.
Many of them were epic; most were true. “What I learned in school was not wrong,” David Schmidt said. “It was just incomplete.”
Now the story gets filled out, in depth. PBS’ “The American Revolution” — a sprawling saga, produced by Ken Burns (see previous story),, Sara Botstein and Schmidt — is at 8 p.m. (repeating at 10) for six nights, starting Sunday, Nov. 16. Read more…

By Mike Hughes / November 10, 2025

Stories

After 35-year gap, it’s Ken Burns’ revolution

Back in 1990, Ken Burns showed TV critics an extraordinary film.
He was 37 then, but looked much younger. He was a cherubic-looking guy with the enthusiasm of a kid and the vocabulary of an ancient scholar.
Burns (shown here, nowadays) had already made seven films on subjects — from Huey Long to the Statue of Liberty — that could be grasped in one night. But this was something else — the Civil War, spread over nine nights and 18 hours.
Members of the Television Critics Association praised it; still, he recalls, many wanted to “warn me that no one was gonna watch it, because there are these things called MTV videos that (have) eroded people’s attention span.”
The result? The film, he said, “remains the highest-rated program in the history of public programming.” Read more…

By Mike Hughes / November 10, 2025

Stories

Loving all that sunshine? It takes a while

Some New Yorkers, we’re told, hate moving to Los Angeles.
There’s all that annoying warmth and sunshine and open space. They can’t wait to get back to real life.
They might go west, Rachel Sennott said, with their “guard up, being, ‘I hate it here. I’m going back to New York; I miss how cold I was …. I want to carry my laundry up the stairs.’ Then you slowly relax into it.”
At least, she did. Now she writes, produces, stars in and sometimes directs the comedy “I Love LA” (shown here), at 10:30 p.m. Sundays on HBO and Max. Read more…

By Mike Hughes / November 4, 2025

Stories

ABC shuffles “Idol,” “Will Trent,” Bachelorette,” more

When the holiday season ends, ABC’s schedule will see some sharp changes:
— “American Idol” will be back … but only on Mondays. And this season’s “Hollywood Week” will be in Nashville, 2,004 miles from Hollywood.
— The long-delayed “Bachelorette” season will finally arrive in March … taking the Sunday spot that used to belong to “Idol.”
— There will finally be a full night of dramas on Tuesdays, with “Will Trent” (shown here) and “The Rookie” starting their seasons. Read more…

By Mike Hughes / October 29, 2025

Stories

In this small town, friends and neighbors collide

Life gets hectic in the fictional world of Edgewater.
Fires are fought, marijuana is grown, laws are broken. But alongside that are sturdy, everyday people and serene scenery.
That’s the setting for “Sheriff Country” (shown here) and “Fire Country,” at 8 and 9 p.m. Fridays on CBS. Both are from actor-writer Max Thieriot.
“What really inspired me to create ‘Fire Country’ was this opportunity to tell a story rooted in the community I grew up in,” Thieriot said by Zoom. “It’s about resilience, redemption, the human spirit.” Plus messier things. Read more…

By Mike Hughes / October 27, 2025

Stories

Kissinger film: History repeats, “Experience” fades

As “Kissinger” sprawls across two nights on PBS, an irony appears.
The documentary (9-10:30 p.m. Monday and Tuesday, Oct. 27-28) includes Richard Nixon’s unsuccessful efforts to plug leaks and muzzle the press. Agents tapped reporters’ homes, reporting on mundane conversations.
And now, 50-some years later? This film is sort of the last survivor of a successful muzzling.
Bitter about PBS’ occasional news coverage, Donald Trump stripped away all of its federal funding. That left producers scrambling; the acclaimed “American Experience” series was suspended.
Its final shows (for now) were last month’s “Hard Hat Riot” and, now, a profile of Henry Kissinger (shown here). Others in the works — including ones about the national highway system and the GI Bill — are in limbo. Read more…

By Mike Hughes / October 24, 2025

Stories

This time, she does less scaring, more listening

Big things seem to happen in Ryan Kiera Armstrong’s shows.
She kicks people, shoots people, sets them on fire. She kills and is killed. Also, she plays the violin.
For someone who’s only 15, she’s been busy. But in “The Lowdown,” she has an opposite experience.
The show (on Hulu and 9 p.m. Tuesdays on FX) stars Ethan Hawke as a Lee, a writer who is brash, booming and a bit foolhardy; Armstrong (shown here) plays his daughter Francis, watching and absorbing and, on occasion, salvaging. “You have to be the counterbalance,” she said. Read more…

By Mike Hughes / October 21, 2025

Stories

“Brady Bunch”: silly fun, simmering anger

Bright and bouncy, “The Brady Bunch” just wanted to have fun.
It had cute kids, pretty parents and lots of sight gags. So what was it like making the show?
Rough, Lloyd Schwartz says in “TV We Love,” at 8 p.m. Monday (Oct. 20) on CW. Robert Reed (shown here, alongside his TV wife Florence Henderson and two of their daughters) “fought constantly” about scripts.
Reed — who died of cancer in 1992, at 59 — was outspoken about his anger, especially toward the “Brady” creator.
“It was a well-known fact in Hollywood that Sherwood Schwartz was absolutely the worst writer working in television,” he once said. “But that all changed one day (with) one writer who was even worse. It was Lloyd, Sherwood’s son.” Read more…

By Mike Hughes / October 17, 2025

Stories

Ah yes, the joy of being an opening act

Being an opening act can be a matter of extremes.
You get a small space on a big stage, a brief set in a long day. You see lots of people, few of them interested in seeing you.
“We’ve all been in that position of (facing people who) not only don’t know who we are, but don’t care,” Keith Urban recalled in a Zoom press conference. “We’ve got to try and grab them in that minimal amount of time.”
Now he’s at the other end, in “The Road.”
The 90-minute opener (9 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 19) ends with a song by Urban — whom the crowd came to see. Before that, a dozen contestants do one song each, while Blake Shelton (shown here) and Keith Urban watch. Both of them know the turf. Read more…

By Mike Hughes / October 15, 2025

Stories

Her simple life is Earthbound and zombie-free

Even when she’s chasing killers and saving lives, Sonequa Martin-Green can almost relax.
It’s refreshing, she said, “not having to save the actual universe all the time.”
For five seasons of “The Walking Dead,” she fought zombies; for all five seasons of “Star Trek: Discovery,” she was the main character, facing crises in new worlds. Now her new duty — as a “Boston Blue” police detective (shown here)– might feel like a breeze.
The show — debuting at 10 p.m. Friday (Oct. 17) on CBS — is a spin-off of “Blue Bloods.” For 14 seasons, Danny Reagan (Donnie Wahlberg, left) played a tough New York cop. As that show was ending, producers hatched the new plan: He goes to Boston, where his son is a rookie cop; at times, they link. Read more…

By Mike Hughes / October 14, 2025