FX’s “Feud” is the Program of the Year

You’ve read the message in that headline before -- right here at MediaVillage.com in my very first report from the January 2017 Television Critics Association tour.  On the night of our first day at TCA – valuable real estate that no network had claimed – FX, which one week later presented a full day of panels, took dozens of displaced critics to a movie theater in Pasadena for a screening of the first episode of Feud: Bette and Joan. I was so impressed with it that, upon returning later that night to the hotel, I added a new intro to my report about day one declaring that Ryan Murphy’s limited series about Old Hollywood and the tumultuous relationship between screen legends Joan Crawford and Bette Davis would likely be the best thing we were going to see over the two weeks to follow at the tour. Publicity executives at other networks complained, suggesting that I was jumping the gun and shouldn’t make such a proclamation until I had seen what they had to offer. Two weeks and more than 125 programming presentations later I still thought Feud was the best in show.