I Love Lucy season 6

Robert Bianco was the TV critic for USA Today for nearly 20 years. Of series I loved, he was a passionate defender of some (Elementary) and a fanatical detractor of others (Everybody Loves Raymond). He wasn’t shy about doubling down on an unpopular opinion, yet his greatest strength was his willingness to reassess. If he panned a pilot, then saw the show steadily improve over the fall months (Selfie), he’d speak up; if he realized he’d underestimated a star’s potential to anchor a series (Limitless), he’d pen a proper mea culpa. I enjoyed his insights and turns of phrase even when we found ourselves at critical odds.

There’s only one remark of his that struck me as so odd that — as kids today are wont to say — it continues to live rent-free in my head.

The 10 Best Screwball Comedies

In 1967, Pauline Kael wrote a seminal piece in The New Yorker entitled “Movies on Television,” examining what it was like to revisit films on the small screen: which ones survived the transfer largely unscathed, and which lost much of their majesty and meaning reduced to screens a fraction of their original size.