Have you heard the one where Stephen Colbert, Whoopi Goldberg and Conan O’Brien walked into the Vatican?

“Shogun” is a dire portrait of the Catholic Church’s role in colonial history, but the Japanese are not mere victims in this story.

Ric Burns’s splendid two-part PBS documentary, “Dante: Inferno to Paradise,” has brought Dante’s achievement beyond the groves of academe and into America’s living rooms.

Lorna Brady has been traumatized by her time in a Magdalene Laundry in Ireland. But when she receives a mysterious note regarding the whereabouts of her missing daughter, she pushes past her trauma to reveal the truth.

“Fellow Travelers” is a broad and intimate depiction of late 20th century gay life and the events that shaped it.

Television as a popular medium died 25 years ago. It’s time to mourn.