We all have some relic taking up space in our homes. Maybe it’s a great-aunt’s armoire, or a box of old letters and photographs. Often the stuff sits in an attic or in the back of a closet, waiting for us to figure out what to do with it. Two home improvement shows — “Home […]
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All the principal actors went to “vet boot camp,” as Ralph put it. “We got up close and personal to horses, cows, sheep, everything, and went through some of the processes, like looking for abscesses. It was intimidating, but you want every detail right; how a vet would touch the animal, wash his hands, or […]
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“We were two separate societies divided by color until a king fell in love with one of us,” the quick-witted Lady Danbury (Adjoa Andoh) tells her protégé, the Duke of Hastings. “Look at everything it is doing for us, allowing us to become.” She insists, “Love, Your Grace, conquers all.” Appearing in the fourth episode […]
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What becomes of Times Square when you take away hundreds of thousands of cheering, shivering New Year’s Eve revelers? It may no longer be the “biggest, most exciting New Year’s Eve party on Earth.” But it may still be the night’s biggest TV production set. For this year’s pandemic New Year’s Eve, many television traditions […]
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I don’t know if it was midcentury liberalism or the midcentury record of the Boston Red Sox, but Mark instinctively identifies with the underdog. Every year he invites me to do an event with him with Catholic social workers. These are people who serve the poor and live among the poor. They have really inexpensive […]
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It was all too fitting that an anti-commercialism Christmas classic, broadcast over the public airwaves every year since 1965, would be sidelined in 2020 to a paid streaming service operated by a tech giant. Such was the widespread reaction in October when Apple TV Plus obtained the exclusive rights to the “Peanuts” catalog, including the […]
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MUNCIE, Ind. — Lexi Vann was losing her race with Bob Ross. The 19-year-old from Carmel, Ind., sporting a bushy brown Bob wig that defied the stiff Halloween afternoon breeze, dipped her brush into a pool of purple paint and began tracing the outline of a mountain range, taking her cue from an episode of […]
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Times Insider explains who we are and what we do, and delivers behind-the-scenes insights into how our journalism comes together. As a theater-obsessed middle school kid in Santa Monica, Calif., Alexis Soloski watched a 1991 recording of PBS’s “American Playhouse” broadcast of “Into the Woods” so many times that her VHS tape became nearly unplayable. […]
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“Would you like to subscribe to public television or would you prefer a knee in the groin?” asks a reporter with a microphone. “I’m not quite sure,” a man in an unconvincing wig answers. This surreal exchange was part of a 1975 pledge spot for WTTW, Chicago’s PBS affiliate, created by and starring Graham Chapman […]
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We asked our writers to reflect on PBS’s lasting imprint on our culture, while Rachael Ray, Gary Clark Jr., Damon Lindelof, Kal Penn and others share first-person reminiscences about the television that changed their lives. Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood 1. Empathy and honesty wrapped in a cardigan. Death, war, divorce: None of these seem like auspicious […]
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As satires go, Robert Wuhl’s “Open Season” seemed particularly far-fetched when it was released in 1996. The film’s high concept? After the television industry’s all-powerful ratings system malfunctions, a thinly disguised Public Broadcasting Service becomes the most popular network in the country. Educational programs such as “Kennedy: What’s Left to Say?” and a history of […]
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The greatest hits of PBS, which was formed 50 years ago to serve what were then known as educational television stations, could broadly be described as instructive. “Sesame Street” and Julia Child and Ken Burns, no argument. “Downton Abbey” and “Antiques Roadshow,” well, they’re primers on the management of inherited wealth, perhaps a topic of […]
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Dance Travel the World From Home ImageFinding a safe harbor in a forest: Sreelakshmy Govardhanan will appear in a woodland performance for the Battery Dance Festival on Saturday.Credit…Santu Brahma If this were a typical August, dance fans would be heading to the southern tip of Manhattan right about now for the annual Battery Dance Festival, […]
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Among the things the Covid-19 pandemic has taken away from us, at least temporarily, new American-made television series are not the most important. But for those who keep track of these things, the paucity of domestic scripted shows premiering in the next 10 days or so is striking. There’s a “Star Trek” cartoon, a DreamWorks […]
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