PREMIERE
Rossiya 1 · Drama
Editorial & Reviews
The Critic Desk.
Eleven full-time reviewers in Moscow and St. Petersburg, filing daily on the shows, premieres, and programming shifts that define Russian television — no syndicated wire copy, no spoilers-for-clicks, no undisclosed placements.
Front of Book
All bylines
Latest Reviews
Refreshed continuously. Each piece is bylined, fact-checked against broadcaster EPGs, and cross-referenced with the editorial schedule desk before publication.
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№ 047 DRAMA
"Slovo Patsana" Returns — A Quiet Second Season That Refuses to Shout
Nikita Mikhalkov's streaming-era family epic trades spectacle for kitchen-table conversation, and the result is the most disciplined Russian drama of the autumn.
Editor's Pick 4.5 / 5 -
№ 046 TALK
Vecherniy Urgent: Why the Late-Night Talk Format Still Matters in 2025
A close read of Ivan Urgant's evolving monologue — and how Channel One's newsroom of writers has quietly survived three prime ministerial reshuffles.
Field Report 3.5 / 5 -
№ 045 DOCS
"Vykhod" — A Documentary That Lets the Silences Do the Work
A two-part Rossiya K premiere about Russian engineers in the 1990s uses long takes of empty rooms as its central dramatic device. Reviewed in full.
Critic's Choice 4 / 5 -
№ 044 REALITY
Bitva Silnykh: How TNT's Wrestling Docudrama Out-Rates the News
A four-episode deep dive into the production's editing bay, the viewer's generational split, and why the format is now the most-watched Thursday on Russian cable.
Scene Report 3 / 5
Calendar of Debuts
This Week's Premieres on Russian TV
A curated strip of new and returning series across the 240+ channel catalogue. Premiere dates verified against each broadcaster's EPG and updated every 15 minutes.
PREMIERE
NEW EP
Perviy Kanal · Talk
Vecherniy Urgent
PREMIERE
Rossiya K · Docs
Vykhod · Parts 1 & 2
RETURN
TNT · Reality
Bitva Silnykh · S4
Critic's Pick · Lead Review of the Week
"Slovo Patsana" Returns — Quietly, and All the Better for It.
What made the first season of Slovo Patsana land wasn't its violence but its silences — the kitchen scenes, the floor-sitting arguments, the camera that refused to cut. The second season, premiering Monday on Rossiya 1, doubles down on exactly that discipline, and earns a place as the most self-assured Russian drama of the autumn.
The first season was an event. The second is a habit, and a better one. Koroleva, writing in her sixth season as the Moscow desk's drama critic, follows the show from its production offices in St. Petersburg into the editing suite, and finds a team unafraid to drop two scenes and an entire subplot between cuts.
If there is a single argument for keeping a critic desk in 2025 — against the algorithm, against the truncated quote, against the two-line aggregator blurbs — it is the patience required to read a season like this one. We have done that work. The rest is up to you.
The Beats
The Critic Desks
Eleven full-time reviewers split across six desks. Each desk covers a specific slice of the 240+ channel catalogue and is led by a critic working out of either Moscow or St. Petersburg.
Drama & Serial
Long-form scripted work across federal and cable. Co-led from St. Petersburg, with a standing focus on family, period, and prestige limited series.
Lead: Anna V. Koroleva · 6 yrs on desk
Reality & Talk
From late-night monologue to prime-time reality and game formats. Coverage prioritises format innovation and editorial risk over popularity alone.
Lead: Pavel R. Denisov · 4 yrs on desk
Docs & News
Documentary series, current-affairs magazines, and the long-running prime-time news reviews. Audit-focused, with a weekly round-table column.
Lead: Mila S. Zharova · 5 yrs on desk
Streaming & Weekend Watch
What to watch on Friday nights — and across the platforms outside the federal EPG. Cross-referenced with the live-stream portal's 47 free channels.
Lead: Sergei N. Lebedev · 3 yrs on desk
- 11 Critics on staff
- 6 Regional correspondents
- 2 Cities (Moscow · St. Petersburg)
- 7 Bylines a week, on average
- 2019 First cited by Forbes Russia
- 2021 РИВ Best Independent Media
A note from the editor
Standards, before the byline.
Every review on this desk begins the same way: the schedule desk reconciles the airtime in the broadcaster EPG against what actually went to air. We do not review shows at 21:30 that aired at 21:34 without saying so. That is the only unglamorous rule on the desk, and the one that took us six years to write down.
Since 2019 we have been cited as a reference source for TV ratings and programming shifts by Kommersant, RBC, and Forbes Russia, and in 2021 the Russian Internet Awards recognised us as Best Independent Media Project. None of that required a paywall. None of it requires one now. The site is paid for by KPlus TV Media, listed at the bottom of every page, and by no one else.
If you spot a mistake in a review — an airtime, a cast name, a quoted figure — we want to hear about it. Corrections are appended at the foot of the original piece, dated and signed. Our 99.4% schedule-accuracy figure in last year's audit is, in part, a function of the corrections you have sent us. Thank you, and welcome to the section.
— Ekaterina O. Vinogradova
Editor-in-Chief, KPlus TV Critic Desk · Moscow