Articles by Jeff Pfeiffer

PBS’ wonderful series Pioneers of Television returns tonight for a run of four new episodes looking back at groundbreaking people, shows and themes that have helped turn television into the medium that it is today. This season’s episodes are: “Standup to Sitcom,” featuring new interviews with Jerry Seinfeld, Roseanne Barr, Tim Allen, Ray Romano and Bob Newhart; “Doctors and Nurses,” which examines TV’s love affair with the medical profession, from Dr. Kildare to ER and beyond; “Breaking Barriers,” which traces the story of people of color in television; and “Acting Funny,” a look at the backstage techniques of America’s favorite […]

Last November was the commemoration of the 150th anniversary of President Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, a brief but impactful speech that has gone down in history as one of our nation’s greatest. Perhaps befitting the brilliant conciseness of that address, filmmaker Ken Burns looks at the speech in one of his shortest projects, the 90-minute film The Address. While it is nowhere near as sprawling as Burns’ other works, like The Civil War or Baseball, it — as the original address did — delivers an effective message in its brief time. The Address differs from most of Burns’ other projects […]