‘Call Your Mother’ Is a Formulaic Empty-Nest Sitcom: TV Review

Daniel D'Addario Chief TV CriticBy now, you’d think, we would have learned to leave Clarice Starling alone.The dogged, haunted FBI trainee was so memorably played by Jodie Foster in 1991’s “The Silence of the Lambs” that Foster’s refusal to reprise the role made the sequel, 2001’s “Hannibal,” fatally unbalanced. No less a talent than Julianne Moore drowned in the role, unable to make the part her own and perhaps unwilling to try.

Daniel D'Addario Chief TV CriticTowards the end of the new limited series “The Investigation,” the show’s central police inquiry seems stalled. Nothing is moving in the right direction, and all players seem understandably frustrated.

Cole DeBoer is over the moon to be a father again. The Teen Mom 2 alum, 32, posted an adorable photo of himself holding his newborn daughter on Instagram, and accompanied it with a lovely message about his love for Walker June and her mama, Chelsea Houska.

Daniel D'Addario Chief TV CriticBritney Spears was a symbol for her entire public life. And, even in her seclusion, we can’t stop seeing her as something more, and less, than simply a person.The new Samantha Stark-directed documentary “Framing Britney Spears,” produced by the New York Times and airing on Feb.

Blanche, well, blanch.Mix the senior sass of “The Golden Girls” with the bawdiness of “Broad City” and the punchy humor of “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel,” and you get the new podcast “Call Your Grandmother.” While most grandparents have no clue what a podcast is, hip New York grandmas Rita Kaye and Ellin Grodsky are co-hosting one overflowing with juicy stories, sage advice and nostalgia.

Chelsea Houska and Cole DeBoer are parents once again! The couple welcomed their sweet baby girl, Walker June into the world on January 25 — the same day the Teen Mom 2 alum gave birth to their son, Watson Cole in 2017.

Busybody Norris Cole is leaving Coronation Street for good – and viewers aren't even going to get to see him say goodbye. Actor Malcolm Hebden, who has stayed away due to the pandemic, has retired after 27 years of service on the Street.

Daniel D'Addario Chief TV CriticThe Dale was too good to be true. A three-wheeled two-seater, the jaunty, rounded little auto sallied forth at the height of the 1970s oil crisis, with a supposed 70 mile-per-gallon fuel efficiency that rebuked all other automakers.

direct to your inboxCorrie star Malcolm Hebden has retired from the soap after 27 years of playing busybody Norris Cole.The 81-year-old actor has called it a day after suffering a heart attack in 2017. He briefly returned to the Coronation Street cobbles in 2019, swapping his beloved newsagents shop The Kabin for life at Stillwaters retirement complex with his new love Freda.

Daniel D'Addario Chief TV CriticIn its first season, “Euphoria” was a lightning bolt.The HBO series, crackling with oddity and possibility, generated noise and light in a manner that felt new, and overdue. The show told stories about the TikTok generation with all the emotional excess that comes with actually being a teen.

Daniel D'Addario Chief TV CriticRussell Tovey is one of TV’s great discoveries of the last several years. The British actor seems perpetually cast as the cad, the overly assured fellow whose pride brings him in for a fall — and yet his charm and some innate vulnerable quality a couple of layers down keep us, if not ever on his side, then at least engaged in what lies ahead for him.

Daniel D'Addario Chief TV CriticThe CBS drama “Walker, Texas Ranger” — co-created by eventual Oscar-winner Paul Haggis and airing from 1993 to 2001 — was foundational to the myth of Chuck Norris.

“One Night in Miami,” and now actor Regina King makes her directorial debut with an assured, electrifying film adaptation.

Grief and trauma are often so unbearable, so emotionally devastating, to survive, sometimes one has to escape reality and transform life into a… stylized situation comedy coping mechanism. That appears to be the linear way of explaining Marvel Studios’ “WandaVision,” a new romantic comedy mystery limited-series about loss, mental fragility, and anguish—the first of its kind for Disney+, in what promises to be a long line of further-connected Marvel storytelling.

Call Your Mother creator Kari Lizer shared that the ongoing coronavirus pandemic has impacted her new ABC sitcom, starring Kyra Sedgwick, in more ways than one.

The most memorable character on “Call Your Mother” is a cute, cuddly golden retriever — which speaks volumes about the show’s chances going forward.ABC’s new sitcom, premiering Wednesday at 9:30 p.m., doesn’t offer much in terms of originality or laughs.

Daniel D'Addario Chief TV CriticRichard Ramirez’s spree of terror through the Los Angeles and San Francisco Bay Areas in 1984 and 1985 made for a psyche-shredding media fixation: The so-called “Night Stalker’s” rapaciousness — targeting people seemingly at random and with an appetite for violence that set him apart even among the history of psychopaths — provided insatiable fodder for television reports, a side effect that both burnished Ramirez’s legend and increased the effects of his reign

For a certain kind of parent, the circumstances in which Kyra Sedgwick’s Jean Raines finds herself at the start of the new ABC sitcom Call Your Mother would be a dream. Both of her adult kids fled the coop some years ago, leaving the retired Iowa widow free to do whatever she wants in her empty nest.

Say it ain’t so! Luke Evans and his boyfriend, Rafa Olarra, have called it quits after less than one year of dating.