TV CRITIC FUMES ABOUT ESPN’S “THE BRONX IS BURNING”: Glenn Garvin of the MIAMI HERALD reviews the latest ESPN offering, “The Bronx Is Burning”, a series about the 1977 New York Yankees:

Garvin believes that 1978 would have been a better year, but as he points out, “that would have required ESPN to do actual research, produce original scripts, and all that other stuff that’s so unfamiliar for a network that’s all attitude and no content.”

Garvin sees the series’ setting and references as a rip-off of Spike Lee’s “Summer of Sam”, which he feels is an attempt “to disguise the fact that you’re a third-rate sports network making a miniseries about some baseball games played 30 years ago.”

However, Garvin feels that the series has its good points, namely that “Chris Berman, Dick Vitale and the usual gang of ESPN blowhard idiots do not appear in it.”

Will “The Bronx Is Burning” enjoy the same respect and admiration of “Who’s Now?” Only time will tell.