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☆ Where New Yorkers Start Being Polite and Stop Getting Real
▼ + stars: | 2024-05-24 | by ( James Poniewozik | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

At 2:45 p.m. on a sunny Wednesday in a plaza near the Flatiron Building, a crowd of a few dozen was watching, and appearing in, New York City’s most infamous new reality show. On a round video screen, encased in a porthole-like structure behind a railing, they could see a livestream of onlookers across the Atlantic, in the center of Dublin. “They can see you just like you see them!” a staff member minding the exhibit told the crowd. From the Irish side, people displayed images of swastikas and of the 2001 World Trade Center attack. The transgressions went viral, not the sort of global connection and sharing that the organizers were hoping for.

Persons: minding Organizations: Trade Locations: New York, Dublin, “

☆ The Comfortable Problem of Mid TV
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-27 | by ( James Poniewozik | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

A few years ago, “Atlanta” and “PEN15” were teaching TV new tricks. In “PEN15,” Maya Erskine and Anna Konkle created a minutely observed, universal-yet-specific picture of adolescent awkwardness. In February, Glover and Erskine returned in the action thriller “Mr. But I would never have wasted an episode of “Atlanta” or “PEN15” on in-flight entertainment. Keri Russell, a ruthless and complicated Russian spy in “The Americans,” is now in “The Diplomat,” a forgettably fun dramedy.

Persons: PEN15, ” Donald Glover, ” Maya Erskine, Anna Konkle, Glover, Erskine, Smith, Keri Russell, ”, Natasha Lyonne, ” Idris Elba, Stringer Bell, “ Organizations: Atlanta, Amazon Prime Locations: Atlanta, America, The, Russian

☆ O.J., Made in America, Made by TV
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-11 | by ( James Poniewozik | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

One of the strangest quotes I can remember associated with O.J. Simpson came from the broadcaster Al Michaels during the notorious freeway chase in 1994. Michaels, a sports commentator now covering the flight from the law of one of America’s biggest celebrities, said that he had spoken with his friend Simpson on the phone earlier. Simpson, during and after his pro football career, was a creature of the media business. With the freeway chase, and the acrimonious trial on live TV, he would essentially become the media business.

Persons: O.J, Simpson, Al Michaels, Michaels, “ Al, ” Michaels, “, Nicole Brown Simpson, Ron Goldman

☆ Why Are People Obsessed With TV Finales ‘Sticking the Landing’?
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-06 | by ( James Poniewozik | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Larry David is just fine with how “Seinfeld” ended. OK, I can’t read his mind — but “Larry David,” the version of himself he plays on “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” is cool with that much-maligned finale. But the rest of the viewership is more likely to look at the final episode the way we have become conditioned to view a series finale: as a high-stakes, legacy-defining challenge. There are plenty of clichés in TV criticism, and I am not immune to using them. But “stick the landing” is one that awakens my cantankerous inner Larry David — not just because it is an overused phrase, but because of what it says about art and endings and what matters in both.

Persons: Larry David, “ Seinfeld ”, “, Jerry Seinfeld, ”, Seinfeld, Larry, Larry David —

☆ NBC’s Ronna McDaniel Hire Wasn’t Politics, or TV, as Usual
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-27 | by ( James Poniewozik | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

For the past week the best drama on NBC — apologies to Dick Wolf — has been in the news department. On Friday, NBC News announced that it was hiring Ronna McDaniel, the former chairwoman of the Republican National Committee, as a political analyst. By Sunday morning, Kristen Welker was grilling Ms. McDaniel on “Meet the Press,” after which the former host Chuck Todd told his successor on-air that their bosses “owe you an apology.” By Monday morning, the hosts of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” condemned the hire. This kind of full-on, on-air revolt was something else — because Ms. McDaniel’s hiring was something else. The fiasco at NBC was in part a sign of how media outlets are struggling to cover politics in unusual times.

Persons: Dick Wolf —, Ronna McDaniel, Kristen Welker, McDaniel, Chuck Todd, “, ”, Joe ”, MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow Organizations: NBC, NBC News, Republican National Committee, “, Press Locations: MSNBC’s

☆ For Donald Trump, the Recriminations Will Be Televised
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-17 | by ( James Poniewozik | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The civil-fraud case against Donald J. Trump’s businesses in New York, in which he was ordered to pay a penalty of $355 million, was not televised. In each case, Mr. Trump has sought out the cameras, or brought in his own, to offer a stream-of-consciousness heave of legal complaints and re-election arguments. To TV producers, because Mr. Trump is a former president, a candidate and high-profile defendant, his on-camera tirades are news. Mr. Trump’s appearances give them sound, fury and B-roll. At the same time, Mr. Trump gets the kind of unfiltered access to the airwaves that networks were, once upon a brief time, wary of giving a candidate notorious for fabrications and conspiracy theories.

Persons: Donald J, Jean Carroll, Nor, Trump Locations: New York

☆ Review: ‘The Vince Staples Show’ Is a Hip-Hop Head Trip
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-15 | by ( James Poniewozik | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

There have been enough offbeat comedies about rappers and hip-hop lately to make up their own genre — the shape-shifting surreality of “Atlanta,” the scatological farce of “Dave,” the social-media savvy of “Rap Sh!t” — not to mention a list of dramas and docu-series from “Empire” to “Wu-Tang: An American Saga.”On Thursday, Netflix adds “The Vince Staples Show,” an impressionistic alt-comedy built around the deadpan sensibility of its star. It is mordantly funny and visually arresting, although at five brief episodes, it’s more of an EP than a magnum opus. Staples, once affiliated with the alternative hip-hop collective Odd Future, is known not just for his music but for a self-aware sense of humor that’s made him a sharp presence on social media. In the series, whose executive producers include Staples and Kenya Barris (“black-ish”), he plays a version of himself, flexing his sardonic voice while playing with the sense of danger that informs many of his lyrics. In the first episode, Vince is pulled over after making a U-turn in his home town of Long Beach, Calif.

Persons: Dave, “ Wu, Vince Staples, Staples, that’s, Vince, “ Organizations: Netflix, Staples, Kenya Barris Locations: Atlanta, Kenya, Long Beach, Calif

☆ You Might Not Like What Jon Stewart Has to Tell You
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-13 | by ( James Poniewozik | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

“Why am I back?” asked Jon Stewart, returning to “The Daily Show” chair as Monday night host after leaving the program in 2015. He was there in part because Comedy Central ended a yearlong search unable to pick a full-time replacement for Trevor Noah. He was there because his Apple TV+ show “The Problem” ended, after Apple discovered that when you hire a famous political comedian, he’ll want to talk about topics that upset people. His timing was so sharp, his comic exasperation so familiar, you’d think he’d been away for a long weekend instead of more than two presidential terms. Now he was back to tell us that the two likely candidates for president are super, super old.

Persons: ”, Jon Stewart, Trevor Noah, he’ll, —, he’d Organizations: Comedy Central, Apple

☆ The Supreme Court Ballot Case Made for Must-Hear TV
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-08 | by ( James Poniewozik | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

If you were to list the ingredients of riveting live television, you would probably not include still photos, empty TV studios and parsing the nuances between the nouns “office” and “officer.”Thursday’s Supreme Court arguments over Colorado’s attempt to remove former President Donald J. Trump from the ballot on the grounds of insurrection had all of those. But the proceedings, carried via live audio on cable news, also had two essentials of must-watch (or -hear) TV: High stakes and novelty. The stakes were clear, whether or not you could follow the dissection of the insurrection clause of the 14th Amendment. The Supreme Court only began livestreaming oral arguments in 2020, during the pandemic. Having such consequential arguments take over cable news for a full morning is a rarity.

Persons: ”, Donald J, Trump Locations: ” Thursday’s

2/2 Larry Says the Darndest Things What did Larry say to this child? “I got some gratitude sex coming to me, and you’re not gonna ruin it.” “Hitler was a bad man.” “It’s not boring if you torture them.” “Have you heard of Switzerland? It’s a country in Europe and they don’t like to fight.” “NO I DON’T WATCH ‘WIZARDS OF WAVERLY PLACE.’ I’M AN ADULT!!!!

Persons: Larry Says, Larry, “, you’re, ” “ Hitler, ” Locations: Switzerland, Europe

☆ Fox News Suddenly Wants Celebrities Out of Politics. Well, One Celebrity.
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-03 | by ( James Poniewozik | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

And now she’s living rent-free in Fox News hosts’ heads. was rigging the Super Bowl for the Chiefs; and that it was all an unholy plot to supercharge an eventual Biden endorsement. The Fox host Jesse Watters even flirted with the speculation, floating the idea that Swift’s success was a psyop masterminded by the Defense Department. Of course, people are entitled to their opinions on celebrity political speech or the possible existence of a secret Pentagon diva lab. But if Fox News’s hosts truly believe that it’s irresponsible and dangerous to invite celebrities to weigh in on politics, they might want to turn their attention to … Fox News.

Persons: Taylor Swift, Travis Kelce, Biden, Don’t, ” Jeanine Pirro, Charly Arnolt, “, ” Sean Hannity, ”, MAGA, Swift, Jesse Watters, “ Paul, Fox, … Organizations: Kansas City Chiefs, Fox News, Biden, Bowl, Chiefs, Fox, Defense Department, … Fox News

☆ ‘Happy Days’ Got Us Unstuck in Time
▼ + stars: | 2024-01-15 | by ( James Poniewozik | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

Mention “Happy Days” to TV viewers of a certain age (raises hand) and the first thing they remember might be not an episode or a scene or a catchphrase but a lunchbox. To remember “Happy Days” is to remember your youth, which was also the function of “Happy Days” when it premiered in 1974. Now “Happy Days” is 50 years old. Last year, that series’s sequel, “That ’90s Show,” created a ’90s version of the ’70s version of the ’50s. “Happy Days” was nostalgic because the teenagers weren’t smoking weed.

Persons: Henry Winkler, greaser, Arthur Fonzarelli, Spike Jonze, Buddy Holly, ” Organizations: Smithsonian Locations: Wisconsin

☆ They’re Not Presidential Front-Runners. But They Played Them on TV.
▼ + stars: | 2023-12-01 | by ( James Poniewozik | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

But “The Great Red vs. Blue State Debate” on Fox News was really a work of speculative fiction. In this reality, maybe Joseph R. Biden Jr., president of America-2, decided to pass the baton rather than dig his fingernails into it. Maybe the former president Donald J. Trump gracefully conceded defeat in 2020 and retired from politics to spend more time with his lawyers. In our timeline, Mr. Newsom is not running for president, though his media ubiquity has spurred speculation that, were an opening to come available, he could fit it into his calendar. Mr. DeSantis is running for president, but he has been losing ground in the polls and supporter momentum.

Persons: Thursday’s, Ron DeSantis, Gavin Newsom, Joseph R, Biden, Donald J, Trump, Newsom, DeSantis Organizations: Gov, Fox News, America Locations: Florida, California, America

James PoniewozikBest Shows of 2023TV in 2023 was like synchronized swimming. A number of hall-of-fame series left the air, with no clear plan of, as it were, succession. As usual, I made it a rule not to repeat shows from the previous year, and as usual, I broke that rule. Even if Peak TV is dead, Off-Peak TV should keep us plenty busy. Now “The Bear” has that pride of place (at least until “Abbott Elementary” makes it back on my list).

Persons: James Poniewozik, ’, whittle, ”, “ Abbott Organizations: Hulu

☆ The ‘Squid Game’ Reality Show Is More Depressing Than the Original
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-22 | by ( James Poniewozik | More About James Poniewozik | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Late in the first season of Netflix’s “Squid Game” — two-year-old spoiler alert, I guess — an elaborate, deadly contest among 456 needy contestants is revealed to be an entertainment for the viewing pleasure of a handful of crass, wealthy “VIPs,” who watch the gruesome proceedings wearing golden animal masks. You could look at that situation and see a dramatization of the way a decadent system exploits desperate souls. Or you could look at it and say: All that production effort and they couldn’t monetize the show for a bigger audience? For everyone in the latter group, there is now “Squid Game: The Challenge.” The reality spinoff, whose first five episodes premiered Wednesday on Netflix, keeps the drama’s kaleidoscopic set design, its outfits and many of its competitions. It gets rid of the messy murder business — sort of — along with most of the uncomfortable ideas.

Persons: ”, What’s Organizations: Netflix

☆ ‘A Murder at the End of the World’ Review: P.I. Meets A.I.
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-13 | by ( James Poniewozik | More About James Poniewozik | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

An eccentric tech billionaire invites a slew of notables to a private retreat, where a detective must solve a mysterious death. The murder mystery, in comparison, is among the most literal, plot-reliant of genres. Could Marling and Batmanglij really have made something that … ordinary? FX’s “Murder,” which begins Tuesday on Hulu, is neither as weird as you might hope or as conventional as you might fear. Think of it as “Glass OAnion.”The detective here is a relative newcomer.

Persons: Rian Johnson’s, Brit Marling, Agatha Christie, ”, Darby Hart, Emma Corrin, Bill Farrah, Harris Dickinson, Andy Ronson, Clive Owen, — Locations: Hulu, Iceland

☆ ‘The Curse’ Review: People Who Live in Glass Houses
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-09 | by ( James Poniewozik | More About James Poniewozik | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

“It’s a mishegas,” Whitney Siegel (Emma Stone), a convert to Judaism, says to her husband, Asher Siegel (Nathan Fielder), as they do a good deed for a needy family. “Mitzvah,” Asher corrects her. “Mishegas means something else.” (It means, roughly, “craziness” in Yiddish.) “The Curse,” which has its streaming premiere on Paramount+ with Showtime Friday and its on-air premiere on Showtime Sunday, is also something else — several things else. Above all, “The Curse” is an unnerving, erratic, dizzyingly original exploration of the fine line between mitzvah and mishegas.

Persons: “, ” Whitney Siegel, Emma Stone, Asher Siegel, Nathan Fielder, ” Asher Organizations: Paramount, Showtime, HGTV Locations: New Mexico, Española

☆ HBO's CEO admits he used fake Twitter accounts, including one of a vegan Texas mom named Kelly, to troll critics who left negative reviews
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-02 | by ( Sarah Jackson | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

HBO's CEO admitted to using fake Twitter accounts to hit back at critics' negative reviews. One of the fake accounts was reportedly for a fake Texas mom named Kelly Shepherd. download the app Email address Sign up By clicking “Sign Up”, you accept our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy . Bloys admitted Thursday that he made secret Twitter accounts to take digs at critics' negative reviews of HBO's programming. One of the troll accounts was created in the name of a fake Texas mom named Kelly Shepherd, whose bio describes her (ahem, Bloys) as a vegan, aromatherapist, and herbalist.

Persons: Casey Bloys, Kelly Shepherd, —, Bloys, Sully Temori, Stone, Kathleen McCaffrey, McCaffrey, Temori, James Poniewozik, Joss, Shepherd, Hale, Mike Hale, — Kelly Shepherd, Alan Sepinwall, Alan Organizations: Service, HBO, Max, Variety, Bloys, New York Times, Times Locations: Texas, York

☆ The First of Our Friends to Go
▼ + stars: | 2023-10-31 | by ( James Poniewozik | More About James Poniewozik | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

Instead, “Friends” became a show about the first decade of adult life. This may be part of the reason it found a perpetually renewing audience among Millennials, who found it in syndication, and Gen Z, who found it streaming. Your job might be a joke, you might be broke, your love life D.O.A., but it would get better. You and your friends would make it better. The “Friends” finale, in 2004, left the characters at the end of the beginning, getting married, having kids, moving away.

Persons: Kurt Cobain’s, Marcel the, ”, Millennials, Gen Z, D.O.A, Matthew Perry’s Chandler, Joey, Matt LeBlanc Locations: Manhattan

☆ Review: ‘Scavengers Reign’ Is a Gorgeous, Hypnotic Space Trip
▼ + stars: | 2023-10-18 | by ( James Poniewozik | More About James Poniewozik | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

If the survivors are living a nightmare — there is no lack of toxic, parasitic and stabby wildlife all around them — it is a gorgeous one. But while “Scavengers Reign” looks epic, there is no sprawling lore or mythology as in recent sci-fi serials like “Foundation” and “Raised by Wolves.” It’s a man-and-woman-and-robot-vs.-nature struggle, full of ingenuity, ooze and blood. (Parents note: This is definitely an adult animated series, both in language and in the level of occasional gore.) There is not a clear line, on this planet, between plant and animal life, if the categories apply at all. “Scavengers Reign” imagines a future in which humanity treats the universe, like it did Earth, as a grab bag of extractable resources.

Persons: David Cronenberg, ”, Bennett, Huettner, Levi Organizations: Ghibli, Wolves Locations: Vesta

☆ Rupert Murdoch Turned Passion and Grievance Into Money and Power
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-21 | by ( James Poniewozik | More About James Poniewozik | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The polite way to describe the legacy of a man like Rupert Murdoch is to leave aside whether his accomplishments were good or bad and simply focus on how big they were. Maybe he had “a terrible force,” as Kendall put it, but “he built, and he acted. … He made life happen.”But the polite way is exactly the wrong way to assess Mr. Murdoch, who on Thursday announced his retirement from the boards of Fox and News Corporation. Mr. Murdoch achieved nothing the polite way. Rupert Murdoch’s empire used passion and grievance as fuel and turned it into money and power.

Persons: Rupert Murdoch, Kendall Roy memorializing, Logan, Kendall, …, Murdoch, Rupert Murdoch’s, pinups Organizations: HBO, Fox and News Corporation, Mr Locations: “

☆ The Talk Shows Have Labor Pains
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-18 | by ( James Poniewozik | More About James Poniewozik | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

But as this year’s strike went on, the guild and its vocal supporters made clear that any hosts restarting their shows during this walkout would not be showered with likes. members have said that something like his return to air would today be considered strikebreaking because airing the show inevitably involves creative work that constitutes writing. The producers of today’s returning talk shows, of course, disagree. Regardless, I don’t think today’s backlash is the result of contract wording or a philosophical shift on the nature of the scribe’s craft. (David Letterman returned to air with a full staff because his production company, Worldwide Pants, struck its own deal with the writers.)

Persons: Conan O’Brien’s, NBC’s, ’, O’Brien, ”, —, today’s, peck, Ellen DeGeneres, Jay Leno, David Letterman, Jon Stewart, aughts iconhood Organizations: Gallup Locations: Kentucky, America

☆ ‘Black’ Like Each Other
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-12 | by ( James Poniewozik | More About James Poniewozik | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Early in Hulu’s “The Other Black Girl,” Nella (Sinclair Daniel), an editorial assistant at the august and very white publishing company Wagner Books, is delighted to meet Hazel (Ashleigh Murray), the new hire to whom the title refers. She’s talking publishing, but she could be talking TV as well. So it’s fitting that “The Other Black Girl” isn’t alone. It’s one of two ambitious new series about young Black culture workers, in different countries and with different goals, dealing with the tension between representing one’s people and representing one’s self. The British import “Dreaming Whilst Black,” on Showtime, follows the aspiring filmmaker Kwabena (Adjani Salmon, who cocreated the series and the web comedy it is adapted from).

Persons: ” Nella, Sinclair Daniel, Wagner, Hazel, Ashleigh Murray, “ It’s, we’re, ”, Kwabena, Adjani Salmon Organizations: Showtime Locations: Hulu’s, one’s

☆ It Only Seems Like Everything on Streaming Gets Canceled Now
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-08 | by ( James Poniewozik | More About James Poniewozik | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Streaming TV, which once seemed to be infinitely expanding, is experiencing shrinkage. Disney+ recently precanceled its already-made children’s fantasy adaptation, “The Spiderwick Chronicles.” Hulu’s acclaimed Russian-monarchy comedy “The Great” has been deposed. A string of high-profile Netflix cancellations has become the stuff of protests and memes. With all this has come a new belief: That TV series are now being canceled at an unprecedented rate, and you can’t count on any show sticking around anymore. The streaming era, in truth, has nothing on the blood baths of the regular-old-TV era.

Persons: ’, Max, ”, ” Hulu’s Organizations: Starz, Amazon, Disney, Netflix

☆ The First Republican Debate Starred Eight Candidates and a Ghost
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-24 | by ( James Poniewozik | More About James Poniewozik | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

The former New Jersey governor Chris Christie, who short-circuited Marco Rubio in a 2016 debate, entered the race with the goal of hammering Mr. Trump over his attempts to overturn his loss in 2020. Initially, he went after Mr. Ramaswamy as the next best thing, saying that he “sounds like ChatGPT” and likening him to Barack Obama; Mr. Ramaswamy reminded Mr. Christie that the then-governor notoriously hugged Mr. Obama in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, just before the 2012 election. Around an hour in, Mr. Baier finally invoked Mr. Trump — “the elephant not in the room” — and his indictments, to the boos of the crowd. The hand raise began with Mr. Ramaswamy and moved across the stage like a sluggish wave at a stadium, stopping at Mr. Christie. But Mr. Trump was not there to make his own noise, which left more room for one of the main goals of a first debate: to let candidates introduce themselves to a broader audience.

Persons: Chris Christie, circuited Marco Rubio, Trump, Ramaswamy, Barack Obama, Christie, Obama, Baier, —, “ Rich Organizations: New, Mr, Fox, North, Richmond ” — Locations: New Jersey, Hurricane

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