The Season 2 road trip that the HBO Max comedy embarks on "makes Deborah’s interior struggles real," says Alex Abad-Santos. But it also shows what life is like for somebody for whom working is all that matters. "The way Deborah interprets the world around her — its ills, its tragedy, its happiness — is through comedy, a notoriously fickle artform," says Abad-Santos. "If Deborah’s life flashed before her eyes, it would consist of standup, her late-night show, her missed opportunities, her Vegas residency. The montage wouldn’t include her husband, her child, her sister’s betrayal, or her husband’s death. To Deborah, nothing really matters if it isn’t related to comedy. Hacks works this season because you slowly realize that this road trip is a total gamble for Deborah. There is no backup plan. Who she is, the way she needs the world to see her, her understanding of joy and pain — it’s all on the line. This comedy tour is a matter of her own survival. But is that all too ghoulish, too narcissistic to admit?"
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# TOPICS: Hacks, HBO Max, I Love That For You, Hannah Einbinder, Jean Smart, Laraine Newman
Thieriot is the star, co-creator and executive producer of CBS' new inmate firefighter drama. But those busy jobs won't keep him from leaving SEAL Team. According to Deadline's Nellie Andreeva, "Thieriot has closed a deal for Season 6 of SEAL Team, which is slated to begin production soon. After wrapping the military drama, Thieriot is expected to segue to Fire Country as it starts filming its first season. The one-year arrangement applies to the upcoming sixth season of SEAL Team; it is unclear yet what will happen beyond that with him and the rest of the cast whose contracts are up then. The new SEAL Team deal eliminates the uncertainty, which prompted the Season 5 finale to end in a cliffhanger for Thieriot’s character Clay Spense."
# TOPICS: Max Thieriot, CBS, Fire Country, SEAL Team
"To understand what’s happening now at The CW, it’s best to look back to why the network was launched in the first place," explains The Hollywood Reporter's Lesley Goldberg of The CW axing more series (10) than it renewed (eight). "Warners and CBS Studios saw the network as a cash cow: both studios would supply low-cost scripted series to the network and cash in with lucrative international rights. Then, in 2011, Warners and CBS Studios added revenue from a $1 billion Netflix streaming deal as shows like (Julie) Plec’s The Vampire Diaries spinoffs The Originals and the unceremoniously canceled Legacies added a secondary revenue stream. It didn’t matter that The CW was never profitable because both studios — then part of Viacom and Time Warner, respectively — made money hand over fist via foreign sales and the Netflix output deal. The business model was so lucrative that The CW expanded to original programming on Fridays and Sundays and largely stopped canceling much of anything. The CW canceled (or gave a proper farewell) to an average of only 3.3 shows during the past decade — a far cry from this season’s 10. In the same time frame, The CW renewed an average of 10.3 shows annually (vs. eight this year), while new show volume (three) is a bit below the norm (3.9)." So why did shows like Dynasty stop being viable? "Blame streaming. And mergers. And The CW’s impending sale," says Goldberg. She adds that those factors have combined in a loss of billions of dollars in revenue, making Dynasty and its low-rated ilk no longer profitable. ALSO: Broadcasting had a great year, so why end the season with a "Red Wedding's" cancelation dump?
# TOPICS: Dynasty (2017 series), The CW
Stefani, who last starred on the NBC reality competition in fall 2020, will return this fall to coach alongside husband Blake Shelton.
# TOPICS: Gwen Stefani, NBC, The Voice, Reality TV
Lee Daniels and Karin Gist's Our Kind of People, which aired its final episode in January, was one of Fox's first series given a straight-to-series order, skipping the pilot process. Pivoting had a decent debut after an NFL game in January, but averaged 1.85 million viewers over its 10-episode run.
# TOPICS: Our Kind of People, FOX, Pivoting, Cancelations, Renewals & Pickups
Following the cancelations of Our Kind of People and Pivoting, "no announcement has been made yet on Fox’s two other bubble shows, comedies Call Me Kat and Welcome to Flatch," reports Nellie Andreeva. "I hear both are being renewed, the latter after strong Season 2 pitch, including cast additions plan, as well as some creative dealmaking from Lionsgate TV." According to Variety, freshman comedy Welcome to Flatch tied for the lowest-rated scripted show of the 2021-2022 season. Andreeva adds: "Surprisingly, Fox also has not announced yet formal renewals for some of its strongest series, dramas 9-1-1, 9-1-1: Lone Star and The Resident. I hear all three are still in pickup negotiations with 20th Television, along with the studio’s contingent of animated Fox veterans, The Simpsons, Family Guy and Bob’s Burgers."
# TOPICS: Call Me Kat, FOX, 9-1-1, 9-1-1: Lone Star, Bob's Burgers, Family Guy, The Resident, The Simpsons, Welcome to Flatch
The Wall Street Journal reports fired staffers were “mistakenly” mailed items such as ink pens, headphones, popcorn makers and other items for food and drinks bearing the CNN+ logo. Some of the swag contained a "welcome" message, telling the ex-staffers: "This is an incredible time to be part of CNN."
# TOPICS: CNN+, CNN, Cable News
What many of Brown's fans may not realize is that him joining Netflix's Iron Chef: Quest for an Iron Legend is also him leaving Food Network, which he has called home for the past two decades. "You know what? I don't think goodbye," he tells EW. "Goodbye is really final. Perhaps au revoir or adieu for now. I don't really think of myself as having left a place as much as I simply crossed the street to join one of my first loves. I had 20 pretty spectacular years at Food Network. I built a brand there. I became part of Iron Chef America there. But to be honest, if Netflix had taken a shot at Iron Chef without me, that would have broken my heart. (Laughs) So I had to follow that franchise, which has been such a big part of my life and a really big part of my career. And as it evolves into something new and spectacular, I just had to be a part of it." Brown adds: "I simply knew that if Netflix was going to have a go at rebooting Iron Chef — and they have in a magnificent way — if I was going to be invited to the party, I was going to the party, and there was nothing that would have kept me from doing that. It is such an incredibly vital franchise to me. I've learned through many, many years of doing hundreds of episodes of that show, to have a chance of being part of this new reimagining which is amazingly brilliant, it's just not something that I could not do. So no, it was a very easy decision."
# TOPICS: Alton Brown, Food Network, Netflix, Iron Chef: Quest for an Iron Legend, Reality TV
"Winning Time mostly works because it’s willing to push back on the notion of a shared 'official' history, break from the usual hymns of nostalgic sports lore, and dig into the messy subjectivity that gets smoothed over in the construction of a legacy," says Nicholas Quah. "Which is why the season finale ultimately felt so inert. As we barrel through the finals and zero in on the Lakers’ eventual triumph, the show becomes increasingly conventional, doubling back way too hard toward the underdog-sports-flick component of its DNA. The interesting work the show had been doing with its characters is pushed to the side in order to give this fictional iteration of the Showtime Lakers the glory that syncs them up with the image held by their real-world counterparts. Winning forgives everything, as they say, but watching a preordained win is unforgiving in its insipidity. This may well prove to be a fundamental storytelling problem for the show as it continues: Because the Showtime Lakers won so much, as a fictionalized story 'based on true events,' it seems like Winning Time can only lose."
Carmichael, who recently came out and who last visited The Ellen DeGeneres Show in 2016, told DeGeneres, according to The Hollywood Reporter: “You faced coming out at a time when, I mean, it just was impossible. There was no precedent. There was no Ellen DeGeneres to come out to show you what it’s like. I watched it with my mom. I watched all of it. I watched your sitcom. I watched you talk to Oprah. I watched the interpretive dance in the special. My mom watched you and she laughed at you and you were welcome in the home. It’s no small thing. I don’t want to discount that, because it’s really huge. Being Southern and Christian and these things — the idea of having a gay person welcome in my mother’s home — it seemed impossible. And you did it.” DeGeneres responded by calling Carmichael "my hero" and revealing she texted him soon after watching his recent Rothaniel special.
# TOPICS: Jerrod Carmichael, The Ellen DeGeneres Show, Ellen DeGeneres, Daytime TV, LGBTQ
While Kendall Jenner and Kylie Jenner, who is Travis Scott's girlfriend, were watching him perform at Astroworld last fall, the rest of the Karadashian family were celebrating Kris Jenner's birthday on the same night. "But, of course, Kendall and Kylie were notably absent that evening, and viewers were horrified by the way that the show handled the reason why," says Stephanie Soteriou. "Not only was the festival completely ignored, a storyline involving Kendall was seemingly faked to avoid mentioning Astroworld." ALSO: Why The Kardashians is a better show than Keeping Up with the Kardashians ever was.
# TOPICS: The Kardashians, Hulu, Keeping Up With the Kardashians, Kendall Jenner, Kylie Jenner, Travis Scott, Astroworld, Reality TV
"As much as we may have been looking forward to the return of Law & Order after a 10-year hiatus, this season of the long-running series has been a failure," says Dustin Rowles. "The series has forgotten what we loved about it — the staid predictability, the novel legal theories, the detached characters — and instead leaned too hard into the 'ripped from the headlines' aspect. That element of the series went off the deep end in this week’s episode, which somehow managed to combine Anna Delvey and the goddamn Sackler family into one episode. How, you might ask? By arresting a murderer in the first half and then trying a completely separate murder case in the latter half."
# TOPICS: Law & Order, NBC
"RuPaul has made it clear time and time again that he’ll do just about anything for a check. It’s why there are no less than 17,000 Drag Race spinoff franchises airing at any one time in RuPaul’s Multiverse of Mama’dness," says Coleman Spilde. "It’s why he’ll cut the worst Charli XCX knockoff you could ever imagine. It’s why he’ll lease his Wyoming ranch to become America’s Next Frack Superstar. Your name does not become synonymous with an art form in 2022 unless you’re willing to sign it on a dotted line without hesitation. But in his quest to build his global empire, RuPaul has continually allowed the legacy of his subversive landmark reality show to be slowly chipped away at. The commercialization of drag under RuPaul’s guide is a sticky thing. On one hand, it’s a critical part of bringing empowering inclusivity to the forefront of mainstream culture, where it can be accessible to all who may need it. On the other, it invites the ire of its own ever-growing toxic fanbase and contributes to multimillion-dollar companies revving the engines of their Pride parade floats for an exhausting show of rainbow capitalism every summer. Maybe that’s the nature of the beast: one can’t exist without the other."
# TOPICS: RuPaul’s Drag Race, RuPaul Charles, Reality TV
The comedy that James Corden co-created and co-starred in with Ruth Jones about an Essex boy (Matthew Horne) and a Welsh girl (Joanna Page) "whose long-distance relationship quickly turns into an engagement and then a marriage — blending their eccentric families in a culture clash equal parts charming and hilarious," says Tom Smyth. "As a testament to just how beloved this series still is, when the cast reunited for a 2019 Christmas special, it garnered 18.49 million viewers — half of all the people watching television in the U.K. at the time. Despite that incredible success in Britain, Gavin & Stacey has never found a strong American audience. That’s ironic considering that one of its creators and stars, James Corden, has found fame in the States completely separate from the show that made him a star back home. But that cultural gap in the series’ success isn’t for lack of trying. There were three failed attempts to adapt the show in America: first in 2008 by NBC, then in 2009 by ABC, and lastly a 2013 Fox attempt that made it the furthest. Titled Us & Them, the Fox remake starred Jason Ritter and Alexis Bledel and shot seven episodes, none of which made it to air."
# TOPICS: Gavin & Stacey, BBC3, James Corden, Joanna Page, Mathew Horne, Ruth Jones, Retro TV
"If we’re all currently leaning into the pile-on phase against Netflix, the true-crime doc remains perhaps the only untouchable bread and butter for the content giant," says Brandon Yu. "While profits are down, it’s still a boom-time for programs that take you down the rabbit hole of serial killers, scammers, scandals, and the like (and that probably won’t change, considering how cheap they likely are for Netflix and how reliably well they do). Most of these series and films are not exceptionally well-made, but the material tends to be juicy, if morally ambivalent, enough. Few, though, have covered the kind of unique horror that is at the center of the new Netflix doc Our Father."
# TOPICS: Our Father, Netflix, Documentaries
"Under the Banner of Heaven is in some ways a milestone for Mormon representation: though none of the main cast members are active or former Mormons, creator Dustin Lance Black was raised in the church and became an industry name as the only writer of Mormon experience in the writer’s room for Big Love, HBO’s notorious series about a polygamous family in Salt Lake City," says Nadine Smith. "Both Big Love and the original Jon Krakauer book about the real-life murder of a Mormon mother and her daughter on which Under the Banner of Heaven is based were highly controversial flashpoints for Mormons around the same point in the mid-2000s. While Under the Banner of Heaven attracted ire for unveiling violent incidents in Mormonism’s past, Big Love caught heat for its focus on polygamy and scenes recreating sacred temple ceremonies. Big Love often strove for cultural fidelity and verisimilitude, but it was ultimately about Mormonism in the same way The Sopranos was about the mafia: a rich setting and context for a larger thematic portrait of tragic masculinity. But the TV adaptation of Under the Banner of Heaven takes the faith of Black’s youth as its direct subject in a way Big Love never did."
# TOPICS: Under the Banner of Heaven, FX, Mormon Church
Amazon's Josh Brolin-led sci-fi western seems, at first, like a knockoff of Taylor Sheridan’s brand of western mythmaking. But then it takes a turn for the weird. "The modern American West is deeply weird," says Nicholas Quah. "It’s a place where religious fundamentalists buy up whole towns, billionaires colonize to cosplay as cowboys, and the vast expanse of land can hide all sorts of strange and worrisome things. That weirdness is alive in Outer Range, and in that sense, the show feels as true, if not truer, to the modern American West than anything on Paramount Network right now."
# TOPICS: Outer Range, Amazon Prime Video, Yellowstone
With its viewers binging network shows like Friends, The Office and Grey's Anatomy, Netflix executives became obsessed with having bingeable full seasons, says Jake Ures. In 2022, as he points out, Netflix will release over 120 seasons of television. "Initially Netflix’s model for original content was a slate of decent marquee shows like Orange is the New Black, Stranger Things, and David Fincher’s House of Cards," says Ures. "Known for his visual exactitude, Fincher’s show starred an A-list cast and was able to tell a slower-paced story. This was the promise of the streamer-studio exemplified: Netflix would offer auteurs freedom and money to tell stories no other network would allow. First-look deals with filmmakers and showrunners with fan bases seemed like a mutually beneficial arrangement, especially when it seemed like independent filmmaking and mid-tier budget films were getting harder to come by. The problem is that this tenuous arrangement was dependent on a model that HBO had fine-tuned and that Netflix chose to reject. HBO’s model of weekly Sunday night premium programming had allowed it to focus on fewer shows with much stricter quality assurance. HBO shows thus stayed on the air longer and stayed relevant for longer, which allowed the network to keep quality high and be more discerning with which shows it green-lit. But Netflix needed full seasons, it needed a lot of them, and it needed them now. To make content at the desired speed and volume, the company took advantage of its status as 'new media,' which meant that its union contracts could be negotiated with much lower rates and less costly penalties for making crews work substandard hours. The streamer-studio was supposed to be an incubator for creator creativity. Instead, it increasingly resembled a sweatshop."
“I had to ask myself, ‘How do you create characters that are going to stand up over time?’” costume designer Heather Pain tells Indiewire. “You have to tell the story, but you’re also thinking ahead in terms of the different scenarios the writers might come up with later. What if the characters go outside? How can we replicate the costumes if they have stunts?”
# TOPICS: Ghosts, CBS, Heather Pain, Costume Design
"Plenty of shows and movies have been faced with this dilemma: how do you convey the same caliber of emotional scenes when they’re happening in written words – sometimes even shorthand?" says Lauren Waters. "So much power and detail is lost this way. Yet, removing important dialogue that happens in text message conversations makes it impossible to tell so many important stories. The Girl From Plainville is a perfect example of this. The series’ main characters, Coco and Michelle, communicate almost entirely via text message. This means that this is how many of the important moments, conflict, and relationship-building between the two characters happens. From texts scrawled across the screen to closeups of characters' phones or message bubbles popping up in the middle of scenes to voiceovers, viewers have seen many attempts at conveying text conversations in an engaging way to television audiences. The Girl From Plainville had its work cut out for it in this way, but in the end, the decision was both risky and smart. Rather than trying to convey layers of emotion through the text messages, the text messages were brought to life."
# TOPICS: The Girl From Plainville, Hulu
The former Paramount Studios executive, who has voiced his displeasure with the Paramount+ series before, explains in a Deadline conversation: "I’m not mad about anything, but am greatly concerned about the legacy of The Godfather. Those who admire the movie, including film students and cinema scholars, deserve accurate insight into the problems surrounding its creation. Paramount has done a disservice in supporting a project like The Offer that distorts the roles of its principals and suggests that its producing team was essentially under the control of the mob during key sections of the shooting schedule. First, a note about the filmmaking team: The Offer portrays a sort of 'buddy' relationship between the principals. In reality, Al Ruddy and Francis Coppola were not on speaking terms during most of the shooting schedule and Bob Evans looked upon Ruddy with both distrust and disdain. In The Offer, the three hug each other at the end of the shoot and vow to join forces on its sequel. In reality, the contracts for The Godfather Part II specified that Ruddy would have no connection with the project, and that Coppola would not be required to communicate with Evans on any issue. The sequel would be Coppola’s show this time, with no arguments about casting or editing."
# TOPICS: The Offer, Paramount+, Peter Bart, The Godfather
"The idea of a revived Kids in the Hall series, like so many other revivals of the past decade, comes packaged with intense trepidation," says Kathryn VanArendonk. "What if that nervy, surreal absurdism is blunted by nostalgic fondness? Is it possible to look back in celebration, without undercutting the past or, worse, being smugly self-congratulatory? Let’s also be honest: Who can truly feel confident that their male comedic heroes of the past are not at any moment about to reveal themselves to be anti-cancel-culture prophets, railing against political correctness and censorship?" VanArendonk adds: "After the treacherously high expectations of reviving a beloved comedy series plus a swooning documentary, the cumulative experience of the new Kids in the Hall feels nearly miraculous. It’s wonderful to have so many things to dread, and to instead be greeted with strange, goofy, self-referential, yet self-deprecating sketches. The Kids, now around 60 years old, are still obsessed with absurdity and the inevitability of endings. If anything, they’re even sillier and darker than before."
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# TOPICS: The Kids in the Hall, Amazon Prime Video, Dave Foley
"One day at work, a 28-year-old librarian meets the 20-year-old woman who will become his wife," says Judy Berman. "The thing is, she already knows him—knows that they will fall in love, marry, spend many happy years together—because he is a time traveler. Ever since she was a little girl, an older version of the man has been periodically journeying back through the decades to spend time with her. So she already adores him. And now, he’s younger and more attractive than she’s ever known him to be. Unfortunately, because he’s just now meeting her, he has yet to experience the true love that eased his various youthful traumas and is still a total mess of a human being. This is the premise of HBO’s latest epic drama, The Time Traveler’s Wife. If you find it extremely confusing as described above, that’s because it is indeed extremely confusing. If, however, the summary makes even a lick of sense to you, chances are you’ve already encountered the story of Clare and her time-traveling soulmate Henry, in the form of the megahit 2003 novel by Audrey Niffenegger or the major motion picture starring Rachel McAdams and Eric Bana, from 2009. The plot has always been absurd. But after nearly two decades and one widely seen, remarkably bad adaptation, it has also aged poorly and grown redundant. It would, at this point, take a truly inspired interpretation to make a Time Traveler’s Wife series work. Sadly, this ain’t it."
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# TOPICS: The Time Traveler's Wife, HBO, Rose Leslie, Steven Moffat, Theo James
"How much you enjoy The Essex Serpent, an Apple TV Plus adaptation of Sarah Perry’s 2016 novel, might depend on how much you enjoy seeing Tom Hiddleston brooding in a misty field while wearing cozy wool sweaters," says Andrew Webster of the limited series starring Hiddleston and Claire Danes. "For a lot of people, that will probably be enough of a hook. (It was for me.) But thankfully, the six-episode series offers a lot more than great hair blowing in the wind — it’s a tense and heartfelt exploration of grief and belief and how much those two things can mess with you. The great sweaters are just a bonus." Webster adds: "Much of the show hinges on watching the three of them navigate this awkward dynamic while being too British and polite to just come out and say how they feel. This is balanced with all of the aforementioned struggles like finding a mythical sea serpent or perfecting a radical kind of surgery. It’s a slow burn of a show, which doesn’t reveal its true intentions until a few episodes in. But once it finds its footing, The Essex Serpent becomes a drama that treats its subjects with a refreshing kind of honesty that makes them all the more interesting. Falling in and out of love is always messy, but especially when the world around you is also a complete mess. The Essex Serpent captures that perfectly. And at six episodes long, it does so without overstaying its welcome."
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# TOPICS: The Essex Serpent, Apple TV+, Claire Danes, Tom Hiddleston
"The 10-part Netflix original series The Lincoln Lawyer is set in the present day and the title character is indeed an attorney, but it has the comfort-viewing vibe of the classic hourlong cop and private-eye dramas of the 1970s and 1980s, e.g., The Rockford Files, McCloud, Magnum, P.I. and Baretta,” says Richard Roeper. "It contains many of the familiar elements and characters from those shows, including a likable anti-hero, the traditional authority figures who are always throwing up obstacles, the rogue sidekick and a rotating gallery of colorful suspects. It’s Netflix, but it feels like old-fashioned network TV—and that’s probably no coincidence, given the showrunner is the prolific David E. Kelley, whose credits include Boston Public, Ally McBeal, Picket Fences, Chicago Hope, The Practice, Big Sky and we’re just getting warmed up. Based on the second of Michael Connelly’s five Lincoln Lawyer novels (the first was made it into a 2011 feature film starring Matthew McConaughey), this is a slick, easily digested and well-acted legal thriller featuring an outstanding ensemble cast and a juicy, lurid murder mystery that keeps us guessing throughout—not that we can’t see some of the twists coming a mile down the road."
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# TOPICS: The Lincoln Lawyer, Netflix, David E. Kelley, Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, Michael Connelly
Sally Rooney's "Conversations With Friends — her great first novel, about a college student whose relationship with a married man becomes all-consuming — bears similarities to her second (Normal People)," says Caroline Framke. "Nevertheless, it tells an entirely different kind of story that should require a more tailored approach from an adaptation. Without that, or the crackling chemistry that pulsed throughout Normal People, this show’s 12 episodes... meander hesitantly along until it finally just runs out of steam." Framke adds that, quickly, "the real problem presents itself and never truly goes away: (Alison) Oliver and (Joe) Alwyn simply don’t have the chemistry, sexual or otherwise, to pull off Frances and Nick’s supposedly overwhelming attraction to each other. While Paul Mescal and Daisy Edgar-Jones made it all too easy to understand just how thick the tension was between their characters, Oliver and Alwyn can’t summon half the same intensity, which only makes Nick and Frances’ dynamic that much harder to believe."
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# TOPICS: Conversations with Friends, BBC, Hulu, Normal People, Alice Oseman, Joe Alwyn, Lenny Abrahamson , Meadhbh McHugh, Sally Rooney
Jean-Xavier de Lestrade, the Oscar-winning filmmaker behind the acclaimed 2004 true-crime documentary series The Staircase, is listed as a co-executive producer on HBO Max's scripted adaptation. He shared footage, notes and tips on an unused video with Antonio Campos, the creator of the scripted The Staircase. Yet while de Lestrade was paid for the HBO Max series, he was hands off with regard to its content. “Because I trust Antonio, I didn’t ask him to read the script. I was respecting his liberty as an author, as a creator, as a filmmaker. And I never asked to watch the episodes before they were shown because I was quite confident,” de Lestrade explains to Vanity Fair. So de Lestrade was surprised that HBO Max's The Staircase portrays him and his team in what he considers a negative and inaccurate light. De Lestrade, who is portrayed by Vincent Vermignon on the series, says he knew that he and his crew would be part of the story. But as Vanity Fair's Julie Miller explains, "HBO Max’s dramatized The Staircase undermines the very documentary it purports to pay tribute to, the filmmakers allege, by suggesting that they purposefully tipped the scales to manipulate audiences." De Lestrade also alleges the HBO Max series inaccurately portrays a relationship one of his editors, Sophie Brunet (played by Juliette Binoche), had with Michael Peterson. “I understand if you dramatize. But when you attack the credibility of my work, that’s really not acceptable to me,” says de Lestrade. “It’s alleged that we cut the documentary series in a way to help Peterson’s appeal, which is not true.” Meanwhile, De Lestrade insists he hasn’t made up his mind about Peterson: “I can’t tell you if he had something to do with the death of Kathleen, because I don’t know.”
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# TOPICS: The Staircase (2022), The Staircase (2004), Antonio Campos, Colin Firth, Jean-Xavier de Lestrade, Patrick Schwarzenegger, Toni Collette
Nash's The Rookie FBI spinoff will join Spotlight Oscar winner Tom McCarthy's journalism-themed drama Alaska and comedy Not Dead Yet starring Rodriguez on ABC's 2022-2023 schedule.
# TOPICS: The Rookie: Feds, ABC, Alaska, Not Dead Yet, Cancelations, Renewals & Pickups, In Development
The network is not moving forward with the L.A. Law reboot led by original stars Blair Underwood and Corbin Bernsen and comedian Jo Koy's semi-autobiographical comedy Josep.
# TOPICS: L.A. Law (2022 Series), ABC, Josep, Cancelations, Renewals & Pickups
The streamer "plans to roll out the capability, which Netflix confirmed was in the early stages of development, for its swathe of unscripted shows and stand-up specials," reports Deadline's Peter White. "It would mean that Netflix would be able to use it for live voting for competition series and talent contests such as its upcoming dance competition series Dance 100 from The Circle producer Studio Lambert. Similarly, it could use it if it decides to bring back its Netflix Is A Joke festival."
Hulu has opted not to move forward with The Affair co-creator Sarah Treem's adaptation of Curtis Sittenfeld's novel that has been in the works since 2020. But 20th Television is shopping the project to other streamers now that Danes and Fanning have signed on to play Clinton at different points in her life. Rodham imagines what would've happened if Hillary never married Bill Clinton and ends up running for president in 2016 anyway.
# TOPICS: Rodham, Hulu, Claire Danes, Dakota Fanning, Cancelations, Renewals & Pickups, In Development
The 95th Academy Awards have been scheduled for March 12, 2023, two weeks earlier than this year's March 27 ceremony. Before the pandemic, the Oscars aired in February. But last year's Oscars were moved to April 25, while this year's ceremony was pushed back to late March.
# TOPICS: Oscars, ABC, 95th Academy Awards, Award Shows
The Wonder Years has been picked up for Season 2, Home Economics and Big Sky are each returning for Season 3 and A Million Little Things and The Conners are each returning for a fifth season.
# TOPICS: The Wonder Years (2021 Series), ABC, Big Sky, The Conners, Home Economics, A Million Little Things, Cancelations, Renewals & Pickups
Che, Saturday Night Live's co-head writer and second-longest serving "Weekend Update" anchor, was asked in a New York Times profile about his comments reported in March that this is his last season. “Who doesn’t say they’re going to quit their job when they’re at their other job?” he said, continuing to play his comments as a joke. “I’m sure Biden says that twice a week.” In a more sincere tone, Che said: “My head has been at leaving for the past five seasons.” Che added: "I do think that I’ve been here longer than I’ll be here. This show is built for younger voices and, at some point, there’ll be something more exciting to watch at the halfway mark of the show than me and dumb Jost.” Meanwhile, SNL boss Lorne Michaels, who produces Che's HBO Max sketch comedy show That Damn Michael Che, said he hopes Che stays. “If I had my way, he’ll be here,” says Michaels. “And I don’t always get my way. But when you have someone who’s the real thing, you want to hold on as long as you can.”
# TOPICS: Michael Che, NBC, Saturday Night Live, Lorne Michaels
The Bachelor has been renewed for Season 27, while Idol will be return for its sixth season on ABC and 21st season overall. America’s Funniest Home Videos was renewed for Season 33, Shark Tank for Season 14 and Celebrity Wheel of Fortune for Season 3.
# TOPICS: The Bachelor, ABC, American Idol, America’s Funniest Home Videos, Celebrity Wheel of Fortune, Shark Tank, Cancelations, Renewals & Pickups, Game Shows, Reality TV
Ackles, who will guest on the Season 2 finale as a temporary sheriff, and Sigler, who has recurred as a waitress, will become series regulars for Season 3 of the ABC drama.
# TOPICS: Jensen Ackles, ABC, Big Sky, Jamie-Lynn Sigler
Beatriz will star on the Sony PlayStation game-based series as Quiet, a ferocious, bada** car thief who acts purely on instinct.
# TOPICS: Stephanie Beatriz, Peacock, Twisted Metal, In Development
Matt Wolpert and Ben Nedivi offered a first look at Season of their Apple TV+ alternative history series to EW. "When we premiered, this idea of a Cold War was very foreign to our younger viewers, and the idea that by season 3 it's become almost more relevant than ever is fascinating — also when it comes to the space race, the reignited interest in missions to the moon that NASA is doing, the private space industry, to Mars, and even some of the locations on the moon and Mars that we've looked at in terms of where to land, where to go," says Wolpert. "We find ourselves many times interacting with real research that's happening in real time right now. We're seeing footage that's coming back from Mars — the colors and the feel, the texture, the rocks — and we're incorporating that into the show through the visual effects and everything in real time. We're telling the story of an alternate history, but we speak to what's actually happening in the present more and more as the show gets further and further into this alternate future."
# TOPICS: For All Mankind, Apple TV+, Matt Wolpert
The Patton Oswalt-led stop-motion animated series premiered has been canceled a year after its premiere.
# TOPICS: Marvel’s M.O.D.O.K., Hulu, Cancelations, Renewals & Pickups, Marvel
The Amber Ruffin Show and Late Night with Seth Meyers colleagues will develop and produce series for the studio under their new deal. They are also launching their own production company called Straight to Cards.
# TOPICS: Amber Ruffin, Jenny Hagel, NBC Universal
What We Do in the Shadows returns to FX for Season 4 on July 12, while Reservation Dogs kicks off its second season on Hulu on Aug. 3. Jeff Bridges' The Old Man debuts on FX on June 16. Aubrey Plaza's Little Demon premieres Aug. 25 with two episodes on FXX. Steve Carell's The Patient debuts Aug. 30 on Hulu. Jeremy Allen White's The Bear premieres on Hulu on June 23. American Horror Stories returns for Season 2 on July 21 on FX. Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney's docuseries Welcome to Wrexham debuts with two episodes on FX on Aug. 24.
# TOPICS: Reservation Dogs, FX, American Horror Stories, The Bear, Little Demon, The Old Man, The Patient, Welcome to Wrexham, What We Do in the Shadows
"I couldn't believe he was still sitting there, like an a**hole," the 94th Academy Awards co-host said during a standup performance in Orlando last night, according to People. "Shouldn't you be sitting there with a lawyer or LAPD, motherf*cker?" Sykes added: "I hope he gets his sh*t together. Until then, f*ck him."
# TOPICS: Wanda Sykes, 94th Academy Awards, Chris Rock, Will Smith, Standup Comedy
Snake in the Grass is a social experiment that will drop four strangers in the wild with the chance to win $100,000. The catch is one of them is a saboteur called the "snake." The previously announced Barmageddon will feature bar games from Blake Shelton and Carson Daly. Rust Hunters follows a family business that restores old cars and antiques. Winter Watchman follows four pairs of amateur survivalists become real winter watchman, who defend properties against man, beast and the elements in remote wilds. And The Chain: Alaska is an outdoor competition series that sees adventure racers and survival experts clash in high-stakes challenges while navigating through some of the most remote islands in the world.
# TOPICS: Barmageddon, USA Network, The Chain: Alaska , Rust Hunters, Snake in the Grass, Winter Watchman, Bobby Bones, Reality TV
From Lucy’s School to The Snoopy Show to classic Peanuts movies, Apple TV+ has scheduled a full summer lineup of Peanuts content.
# TOPICS: Peanuts, Apple TV+, Lucy’s School, The Snoopy Show
A reboot of James Cameron's 1994 action comedy film starring Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jamie Lee Curtis has been finally ordered to series, completing a six-year journey for McG. "Bringing True Lies to television has been a longtime passion for McG," says Deadline's Nellie Andreeva. "He started pursuing the idea in 2016, shortly after he signed an overall deal with 20th TV, whose sister feature studio produced the movie. The following year, a TV series reboot with Marc Guggenheim as a writer sold to Fox with a put pilot commitment. It did not go beyond the script stage but McG continued his efforts. In a 2019 interview, he indicated that a True Lies TV series could still happen, possibly at Disney+."
# TOPICS: True Lies, CBS, Cancelations, Renewals & Pickups, In Development
Sunday's live Naomi Judd: A River of Time Celebration on CMT will include a special message from the late singer's daughters, Wynonna and Ashley Judd, appearances by Salma Hayek, Morgan Freeman, Martina McBride and Bono. Brandi Carlile, Ashley McBryde, Emmylou Harris and Allison Russell, Little Big Town and the Gaithers will perform, while Carly Pearce and Cody Alan will provide commentary for CMT.
# TOPICS: Naomi Judd, CMT, Bono, Oprah Winfrey, Robin Roberts
Katey Sagal, Ed O’Neill, Christina Applegate and David Faustino are poised to make an animated comeback reprising the Fox characters they played for 11 seasons between 1987 and 1997. Sony Pictures Television is shopping the animated revival to networks and streamers after closing deals with the four actors. Family Guy executive producer Alex Carter has been developing the animated Married… with Children for more than a year. Deadline's Nellie Andreeva reports Fox, Hulu and Peacock are considered logical destinations. "Married… with Children, which aired from 1987-97 on Fox, is a signature series for the network. Considered one of the most influential TV shows in pop culture, it was one of the very first original scripted series on the then-fledgeling network which helped put it on the map and establish its edgy comedy brand," says Andreeva. "What’s more, adult animation is in Fox’s DNA, and. the network has several animated family comedies, most notably juggernauts The Simpsons and Family Guy." But Hulu and Peacock also make sense because they carry the original series.
# TOPICS: Married with Children, Married with Children (Animated Series), Alex Carter, Christina Applegate, David Faustino, Ed O'Neill, Katey Sagal, In Development, Sony TV
The original Teen Wolf star is back and ready to reprise his Derek Hale role after negotiating for his return for the past few months.
# TOPICS: Tyler Hoechlin, Paramount+, Teen Wolf
Inspired by the life of series creator Tracy McMillan, the eight-episode Unprisoned the show follows a messy but perfectionist relationship therapist and single mom (Washington) who has her life turned right-side-up when her dad (Lindo) gets out of prison and moves in with her and her teenage son. Unprisoned is Onyx Collective's first comedy. “From the moment Tracy McMillan brought this project to Simpson Street, we knew that it had the potential to be provocative, groundbreaking and life-affirming,” says Washington. “I love this show. I love these characters and the stories that they inspire. And I’m extremely excited to be working, once again, with both Onyx collective and ABC signature, and honored to be collaborating with this talented group of creative partners.”
# TOPICS: Kerry Washington, Hulu, Unprisoned, Delroy Lindo, Tracy McMillan, In Development, Onyx Collective
The Russian Doll star will host the May 21 Season 47 finale of Saturday Night Live. She and Japanese Breakfast will perform on the show for the first time.
# TOPICS: Natasha Lyonne, NBC, Saturday Night Live, Japanese Breakfast
Hulu has opted to enter the star-studded David E. Kelley-created miniseries set at a health-and-wellness resort as an ongoing series for this year's Primetime Emmys. "Details on season two are still being firmed up ahead of an expected formal renewal announcement," reports The Hollywood Reporter's Lesley Goldberg. "Kelley co-wrote the first season alongside John Henry Butterworth and Samantha Strauss. Kelley, who has multiple other shows for a range of other platforms, is not expected to return as showrunner. It’s also unclear if Nine Perfect Strangers will become an anthology with a new cast every season or if it’ll follow Big Little Lies and feature the same group of characters."
# TOPICS: Nine Perfect Strangers, Hulu, Emmys
He'll play a character named Ulysses on the wedding-set Season 2 of the Apple TV+ mystery comedy from Chris Miller and Phil Lord.
# TOPICS: John Cho, Apple TV+, The Afterparty
Business Insider recently reported on internal documents that Netflix would love to greenlight a New Girl-esque comedy, plus a "high-concept replacement” for Grace and Frankie. The streamer wants “big, broad stories that can be told on a budget” that also contain a “hook” and distinct perspective—series that emulate Netflix originals Emily in Paris and Never Have I Ever. "But perhaps more tellingly, the documents also cite New Girl—a broadcast show whose seven seasons all now stream exclusively on Netflix," says Savannah Walsh. "Many of the popular sitcoms that once drew subscribers to Netflix’s library have since left for other platforms: Friends for HBO Max, The Office for Peacock, and—this fall—Schitt’s Creek for Hulu. But New Girl, the quintessential hangout show with a quirky edge, has been a tried-and-true title for the streamer since 2013. The series stars Zooey Deschanel as Jess, who rebounds from a breakup by moving into a loft with a group of male roommates she met on Craigslist. What sounds like the start of a true-crime plot is made charming by the charisma of said roommates—fumbling Nick (Jake Johnson), nerdy Winston (Lamorne Morris), and womanizing Schmidt (Max Greenfield), who will eventually fall for Jess’s elusive friend, Cece (Hannah Simone). Damon Wayans Jr.’s Coach, who left after the show’s first episode for the short-lived but adored ABC sitcom Happy Endings before returning to the loft in season three, rounds out the cast. After wrapping its 146-episode run in 2018, New Girl’s legacy was established as a comfort show for younger millennials and members of Gen-Z. But what was once a well-regarded sitcom morphed into an essential rewatch in March 2020. At the pandemic’s onset, a flurry of essays about New Girl’s bingeability circulated online. Viewers celebrated Jess and Nick’s well-executed will they, won’t they romance, the gang’s rowdy drinking game True American, and the nontoxic male friendships at the show’s center. In a time when many classic shows are being reconsidered for their problematic themes, it seems New Girl has aged remarkably well."
# TOPICS: New Girl, Netflix, Grace and Frankie, Retro TV
During a performance Thursday in London, Rock said of Smith's Oscars slap, according to the Times of London: “I’m OK, if anybody was wondering. I got most of my hearing back...People expect me to talk about the bullsh*t, I’m not going to talk about it right now, I’ll get to it eventually, on Netflix."
# TOPICS: Chris Rock, 94th Academy Awards, Will Smith, Standup Comedy
This week's episode featured Kevin Samuels, the controversial YouTube star who died last Thursday at age 57. "To call his appearance untimely would suggest that there was ever an appropriate time to cast the personal stylist who spent the latter part of his career dishing out blatantly misogynistic relationship advice on YouTube," says Kyndall Cunningham. "But the fact that his behavior is currently being discussed online is unfortunate when the show is already fielding allegations of misogynoir—so much so that it needs to be pointlessly addressed in the episode description. Likewise, this season has been strangely preoccupied with featuring famously problematic men, maybe for intentional trolling purposes or what the show believes is insightful social commentary that just isn’t landing (probably a mixture of both)." Samuels' appearance on Atlanta comes one week after Liam Neesons's surprise appearance to discuss his racism controversy and two weeks after Chet Hanks.
# TOPICS: Atlanta, FX, Kevin Samuels
Since the living room-shot special, titled Nothing Special, is premiering May 30, it'll make the May 31 cutoff for next year's Primetime Emmys. The late Macdonald was never nominated for an Emmy.
# TOPICS: Norm Macdonald, Netflix, Norm Macdonald: Nothing Special, Emmys, Standup Comedy
The Trebek Center, funded in part by a $500,000 donation from the Trebek family and featuring a mural of the late Jeopardy! host on the outside, opened at a former ice skating rink in Los Angeles' San Fernando Valley on Thursday. The shelter contains 107 beds and will provide help for people to find permanent housing, supplying services, a library and outreach.
# TOPICS: Alex Trebek
In a memo to staff titled "Netflix Culture — Seeking Excellence," the streaming service tells employees: "As employees we support the principle that Netflix offers a diversity of stories, even if we find some titles counter to our own personal values." The memo, which comes after last year's Dave Chappelle trans controversy led to an employee walkout, adds: “Depending on your role, you may need to work on titles you perceive to be harmful. If you’d find it hard to support our content breadth, Netflix may not be the best place for you.”
Bernardeau and Mexican actress Renata Notni will lead what will be the third Zorro series in the works. Wilmer Valderrama is starring in a Disney+ Zorro series, while Robert Rodriguez is developing a female-led Zorro for The CW. The Amazon Zorro, from director Javier Quintas, "will be shaped by relationships from his youth, love and disappointment in love which will forge his development as a character and reflect a kind of masculinity far from stereotypes," per Variety. "His battle also takes in discovering who murdered his father, a personal mission which leads him to discover family secrets that will change for ever his destiny."
# TOPICS: Miguel Bernardeau, Zorro (Amazon Series), Javier Quintas, In Development
Bibb will play a lovely, but vulnerable member of the high society, joining Wiig and Allison Janney in the comedy set in 1970s Palm Beach high society.
# TOPICS: Leslie Bibb, Apple TV+, Mrs. American Pie , In Development
While promoting their new book Office BFFs: Tales of The Office From Two Best Friends Who Were There, the Office Ladies podcast co-hosts recalled that the cast thinking that The Office wouldn't work with so many key people exiting for other projects. "As soon as we collectively made that decision, then we could start — the writers in particular — could start developing an end and having a story and having all the characters have their arc towards the same goal," says Kinsey. She adds that Greg Daniels invited the cast to pitch storylines for their characters for the final season. "He invited us all in to meet with him, to talk about, 'What is something we always had hoped for our character?' or what we always hoped for the show, and we got to share with him. I mean, that was just such a gracious thing that he did."
# TOPICS: The Office (US), Angela Kinsey, Jenna Fischer, Retro TV
Thursday's Star Wars premiere featured some great photos that could inspire fan fiction.
# TOPICS: Star Wars: Obi-Wan Kenobi, Disney+, Ewan McGregor, Hayden Christensen, Star Wars
They'll become series regulars after recurring as guest-stars in Season 1 of the NBC action drama series.
# TOPICS: La Brea, NBC, Michelle Vergara Moore , Tonantzin Carmelo
According to EW, Cattrall and Lewis "lean into their camp icon credentials as two very different mothers to two very different kids who find themselves suddenly drawn together."
# TOPICS: Queer as Folk (Peacock), Peacock, Juliette Lewis, Kim Cattrall, Trailers & Teasers
Ward, best known for his movie roles in The Right Stuff and Tremors, recurred on three episodes of ER as the father of Maura Tierney's Abby Lockhart. On Grey's Anatomy, he appeared in one episode as Denny Duquette, Sr. And he appeared on two episodes of the second season of True Detective as the father of Colin Farrell's character.
# TOPICS: True Detective, E.R., Grey's Anatomy, Fred Ward, Obits
When Love, Victor returns next month for its third and final season, it will finally get to what co-showrunner Brian Tanen calls "the fun part" about the journey of a gay teenager. "The fun part being teenagehood, of course—that of first crushes, first kisses, first flings—the kind of swoon-worthy milestones that straight characters have enjoyed without the baggage of having to define their sexuality," says Shirley Li. "Reframing the queer coming-of-age experience as, simply, coming-of-age may seem like a subtle shift, but it helps illuminate how the emphasis on coming out has perhaps limited queer storytelling." As Li notes of Netflix's Heartstopper, based on Alice Oseman’s graphic novels, "mainstream coming-of-age stories about LGBTQ teenagers don’t normally look like Charlie's. These works tend to treat coming out as the core emotional conflict, portraying the experience as an internal crisis rife with secret keeping and anxiety. But Netflix’s popular adaptation of Heartstopper shifts the focus, prioritizing the depiction of celebration over that of repression—and it’s not the only recent, widely accessible project to do so." Li notes that past coming-out stories have been told with straight audiences in mind. Crucially on Heartstopper, Li adds, "the story of Nick and Charlie is sweet but not saccharine—the pair stumble on the way to becoming a couple, because adolescence is a minefield of heady emotions and dating mishaps—and Nick’s coming out is characterized less by fear than by curiosity. In a sly bit of meta commentary, he searches on the internet for films he could watch about the LGBTQ experience as he begins to feel attracted to Charlie. The list he lands on recommends Brokeback Mountain and Moonlight, but rather than watching either, Nick indulges in an old favorite, Pirates of the Caribbean."
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# TOPICS: Heartstopper, Netflix, Love, Victor, Alice Oseman, Brian Tanen, Joe Locke, Kit Connor, LGBTQ, Teen TV
After years of expansion, The CW went down to 11 new and returning shows on Thursday with Legacies, Charmed, Dynasty, Roswell, New Mexico, In the Dark, 4400 and Naomi joining the recently canceled Legends of Tomorrow and Batwoman. The cancelations are a result of the pending sale to Nexstar and a change in the fundamental way The CW operates and makes decisions, as Deadline's Nellie Andreeva explains. "Having functioned as an extension of its parent companies’ studios, Warner Bros. TV and CBS TV Studios, the CW’s role had been to help launch series which the two studios can exploit in streaming and international," says Andreeva. "A number of renewals over the years were dictated by the shows’ value to the studios, not the network, which explained why the low-rated Dynasty ran for five seasons on the CW. The show, which was canceled today, was the subject of a rich deal between CBS Studios and Netflix and making money for the studio regardless of its performance on the CW. After the CW’s sale, while Warner Bros. and Paramount are expected to retain minority stakes and continue to supply programming for it, their interests will no longer be above those of the network. The 2019 end of WBTV and CBS Studios’ Netflix output deal for the CW programming also played a role in some of the cancellations as newer series go to HBO Max/Paramount+ and do not bring in external streaming revenue, putting more pressure on them to deliver for the studios. (The end of the Netflix pact has been beneficial for the CW, which can now monetize its shows with a full-season stack for all of but The Flash, Riverdale and All American.)" ALSO: Julie Plec, who saw the cancelations of two of her CW shows and one NBC show on Thursday, compared the axings to Red Wedding.
# TOPICS: The CW, Julie Plec, Nexstar
According to The Wrap, the Twitter polls allowing regular people to vote for their favorite movies "appear to have been rigged by automated online bot accounts backing the work of Justice League filmmaker Zack Snyder."
# TOPICS: 94th Academy Awards, ABC, Award Shows, Film Academy, Twitter
Woodruff, who has been anchoring NewsHour solo since her co-anchor Gwen Ifill's death in 2016, is expected to leave the PBS news show after the midterms, according to Puck News. Nawaz and Bennett are expected to become the new co-anchors if all goes to plan. PBS won't confirm or deny the news, but Woodruff is expected to stay at PBS in some capacity.
# TOPICS: Judy Woodruff, PBS, PBS Newshour, Amna Nawaz, Geoff Bennett
"Finally I can admit it,” Moffat told The Telegraph. “I’ve seen the new Doctor in action. Russell (T Davies) showed me the audition tape a while back. He is magnificent: all at once a brand new hero and the same wonderful mad old Doctor we’ve always known. Trust me, we are all in for a treat."
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# TOPICS: Ncuti Gatwa, BBC, Doctor Who, David Tennant, Jodie Whittaker, Matt Smith, Steven Moffat
Luke Aikins and Andy Farrington went ahead with their livestreamed stunt for Hulu last month, in which they attempted to trade planes mid-air, despite FAA rejecting their waiver. One of the planes crashed, but both pilots weren't injured. The Federal Aviation Administration has revoked the licenses of pilots Luke Aikins and Farrington, calling their actions “reckless” and “egregious.” The FAA also fined Aikins, whom the agency called the lead pilot, $4,932 for abandoning his pilot seat and operating his plane in a “careless and reckless."
# TOPICS: Plane Swap, Hulu, Federal Aviation Administration, Reality TV
"At first glance, as the show is well aware and leans into every chance it gets, Gloria is the most unlikely member of Girls5Eva," says Caroline Framke of Pell's character. "With her gray hair and omnipresent frown, and standing a good several inches shorter than everyone else, she immediately goes against the visual grain of the group. Dawn, Wickie, and Summer haven’t changed so much from their younger selves that they’ve become unrecognizable. Gloria, though, has not just aged, but settled into herself as the straight-talking lesbian she always was underneath all the painfully heterosexual girl group glam. She’s evolved so much from her 2000s era self, in fact, that when an episode includes her in a flashback, Gloria’s played not by Pell, but by another actor entirely (Erika Henningsen, making the most of it). As far as character journeys go, Gloria’s is simply the most varied and compelling — though it helps, of course, to have someone like Pell playing her, too."
# TOPICS: Paula Pell, Peacock, Girls5eva
"CBS is responsible for 17 of the top 30 titles on sibling streamer Paramount+," says Josef Adalian. "Given the emphasis all streamers, including Paramount+, put on their own ever-lengthening rosters of pricey originals, it might seem surprising that more than half of the most popular programs on Paramount Global’s signature streamer come from the decidedly unsexy world of network TV. And yet, when you think about it, it’s actually not that much of a shock. Nielsen’s weekly lists of top SVOD shows regularly include multiple network TV staples, both current (NCIS, Grey’s Anatomy) and past (Seinfeld, Criminal Minds). During Netflix’s formative years as a streaming platform, network comedies such as Friends, The Office, and Parks and Recreation consistently tallied more viewing hours than many of the company’s own early slate of originals, which is why those shows are are now being used to build the subscriber base for NBCUniversal’s Peacock and WB Discovery’s HBO Max. And some of the biggest streaming success stories in recent years have been series that were either aired on (or were originally developed for) broadcast and basic cable platforms, including You (Lifetime), Emily in Paris (Paramount Network), Lucifer (Fox), and Manifest (NBC.)" Adalian adds: "Instead of green-lighting fancy period dramas or Emmy-bait anthology series in a bid to compete with the premium fare on streaming, it opted to keep evolving its proven formula of procedural dramas and big-laugh comedies."
# TOPICS: Paramount+, CBS
"I don’t know why the first game of the Yankees doubleheader Sunday disappeared behind a nascent Amazon Prime streaming pay wall after last Friday’s originally scheduled streaming game was rained out, and I don’t know why tonight’s Yanks-White Sox audience will be similarly minimized," says Phil Mushnick. "Beyond short-term greed and long-term continuing neglect, I have no answers. The best team in baseball again lost from greatest-access TV on a Friday night? Exclusive deals with coming added-subscription Apple TV+, Peacock and Amazon Prime, made on the very quiet as if to duck the shame, deals made before these services, in the throes of record inflation, have been established and prior to knowing if they’re even sustainable? MLB has allowed itself to become a lab rat, baseball fans used as rat bait. That’s all I’ve got."
# TOPICS: Major League Baseball, Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV+, Peacock
"Whoever gets to decide? Certainly not in this industry," Corden told E.T. of ending his show next year. "Who ever gets to make their own decisions? Never. And you'll never find out (what is waiting for you) unless you just take a run and jump."
# TOPICS: James Corden, CBS, The Late Late Show with James Corden, Late Night
The Chargers, known for having one of the best NFL social media teams, released a two-minute anime skewering everybody from ESPN's Adam Schefter to Mina Kimes and Grey's Anatomy dead characters Denny Duquette, George O'Malley, Lexie Grey, McSteamy and McDreamy. ALSO: Check out the NFL's 2022 schedule, including a Christmas triple-header.
# TOPICS: NFL, Grey's Anatomy, Adam Schefter, Mina Kimes
"I’d honestly like to know how Survivor’s producers justify twists that completely nullify actual game play," says Andy Dehnart. "I understand Probst’s boner for forcing the cast to make choices (even though that happens without his intervention, but I digress). But why allow those choices to obliterate organic choices? Clearly, they sometimes create a good moment of television, and that’s all that matters, I guess?"
# TOPICS: Survivor, CBS, Reality TV
Creator Sarah Streicher and fellow showrunner Amy B. Harris explains what the Season 2 cliffhanger means for a potential Season 3, which they already have mapped out.
# TOPICS: The Wilds, Amazon Prime Video, Amy B. Harris, Sarah Streicher
"Sonos Voice Control understands the nuance of human communication and will respond to natural commands like 'turn it up!" the speaker company said in a press release. "After a careful search, Sonos chose award-winning actor Giancarlo Esposito - best known for his roles in Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul and The Mandalorian - to deliver a familiar voice for US customers. With careful recording, advanced processing and mastering, the voice is natural, unobtrusive, yet confident and engaging. Sonos’ first voice will be joined by others over time as Sonos continues to expand the experience to new people and places."
# TOPICS: Giancarlo Esposito, Sonos
The Only Murders in the Building star takes offense to being referred to as a pop-star for her Saturday Night Live debut.
# TOPICS: Selena Gomez, NBC, Saturday Night Live, Trailers & Teasers
Hacks creators Lucia Aniello, Paul W. Downs and Jen Statsky's acclaimed comedy's Season 1 finale left some trepidation that it would undermine Deborah and Ava's dynamic in Season 2. But the events of the Season 1 finale instead makes their relationship richer and even more complicated, says Alan Sepinwall. "If anything, Season Two leans even more into the series’ strengths," says Sepinwall. "Having lost her casino residency, Deborah is eager to hit the road immediately to try out the new, more confessional material she and Ava have worked on together. So after a quick pit stop in Vegas — which allows Jean Smart to deliver a classic sports-movie speech at an MMA fight featuring the new husband of her daughter DJ (Kaitlin Olson) — Deborah and Ava begin traveling the country together, first in Deborah’s car, and then on her tricked-out tour bus. There is no getting away for Ava, or for Deborah, and the close quarters force them to keep working through their issues. It’s a smart embrace of the core concept, even if it comes at the expense of the show’s supporting cast."
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# TOPICS: Hacks, HBO Max, Hannah Einbinder, Jean Smart, Jen Statsky, Lucia Aniello, Paul W. Downs