Eliana Willis

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    ‘The Bachelor’ Promises True Love. So Why Does It Rarely Work Out?

    Of the 40 combined seasons of “The Bachelor” and “The Bachelorette,” only eight couples have stayed together. We spoke to former contestants and leads about roadblocks to a happy ending.The season premiere of any installment in “The Bachelor” franchise always starts the same: with the host talking directly to camera about the lead’s almost-certain path to finding lasting love. Unlike other popular reality dating shows, the franchise markets itself as a genuine chance to find love without any other incentives like cash prizes.But it’s actually not all that probable: Of the 40 combined seasons of “The Bachelor” and “The Bachelorette,” only eight couples have stayed together — not great betting odds.Morale in the franchise was low going into 2023, with no recently minted couples still together, until ABC announced a hopeful new twist. “The Golden Bachelor” pledged to aid then-72 year-old Gerry Turner make the most of a second chance at love following the death of his wife. At season’s end, he proposed to Theresa Nist in a teary finale. In January their wedding was televised on ABC. By April, they’d announced plans to divorce.That breakup felt like the last straw in believing this franchise could foster lasting love, so to look into why “The Bachelor” rarely makes good on its premise, we spoke to the former Bachelorettes Kaitlyn Bristowe and Tayshia Adams, as well as the former contestants Tyler Cameron and Melissa Rycroft about the flaws that doom the reality franchises’ lovebirds.“When you’re in that ‘Bachelor’ bubble, all you do is focus on and be brainwashed toward that person,” said Tyler Cameron, the runner-up on Hannah Brown’s “Bachelorette” season.Mark Bourdillon/ABC, via Getty ImagesThe main prize might not be the catch you thought.Many love-related reality television shows that are on the air today — think “Love Island,” “Are You the One?” or even “Bachelor in Paradise” — allow for participants to intermingle in environments specifically designed to mimic some version of real life.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    How ‘Law & Order: SVU,’ ‘NCIS’ and ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ Have Kept Fans Hooked

    Shows like “Law & Order: SVU,” “NCIS” and “Grey’s Anatomy” have kept fans hooked for 20 seasons or more. How do they do it?Breanna DePasquale grew up watching “Law & Order: SVU” with her mother, Christina, in Brooklyn. Breanna loved Detective Olivia Benson on the show, while Christina was all in for Detective Elliot Stabler.Few were surprised when Breanna became Detective DePasquale with the New York Police Department. The show, she said, “absolutely” contributed to her pursuing a career in law enforcement.As they have for many fans, the characters and story arcs that seem ripped from the headlines keep Detective DePasquale, 29, coming back. Fans like her helped cement “SVU,” now in its 25th season, as the longest-running prime-time drama in history.“I always call her my own Olivia Benson,” Christina DePasquale said.Prime-time drama super fans like the DePasquales can reference their favorite episodes at the flip of a remote. They can quote lines by the protagonists — some have even turned them into tattoos.Regardless of whether the characters commit a crime, or a friend teases them about their dedication to a television show that has passed the legal drinking age, these fans are along for the ride.Yvonne Macklin, an “SVU” fan from Baltimore, at the show’s fan event in New York City.Hiroko Masuike/The New York TimesBrandi Burgos, at a recent “SVU” fan event, shows off her tattoo — a line in a letter from Detective Stabler to Captain Benson.Hiroko Masuike/The New York TimesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Sarah Paulson Dares to Play the People You Love to Hate

    Sarah Paulson still doesn’t fully understand why fans call her “mother.”At first, when she started seeing the word used online to describe her, she was bewildered and a bit irritated. She was in her 40s and childless. Did these people really think she looked like their mother?Once she began to understand it as an age-neutral compliment — a term Gen Z likes to use for famous women they adore — she leaned into the meme, appearing on “Saturday Night Live” last year, alongside Pedro Pascal, in a sketch in which he was “father” and she “mother” to a group of enamored high schoolers.“How did this happen to us?” Paulson wondered about her and Pascal, a longtime friend. “We were two 18-year-old kids who used to go to Sheep Meadow and smoke pot and go see Peter Weir movies. How did we become the mother and father of children on the internet?”For Paulson, the answer is a 30-year career that has wound its way from television bit parts to meaty lead roles as fraught real-life people. It is animated by an eclectic cast of characters orchestrated by the television producer Ryan Murphy, including conjoined twins, a Craigslist psychic, a ghost with a past as a heroin addict, an evil nurse and two of the most ridiculed and obsessed-over women of the 1990s.Paulson has long dared to play characters that viewers are liable to dislike — or downright loathe — and the role that has led to her first Tony nomination is one of her most provocative yet.In Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’s family drama “Appropriate,” her character is often the one audience members are rooting against: a sharp-tongued elder sister who lashes out against mounting suspicions that her recently deceased father harbored racist convictions.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Bo Burnham Has Turned His Absence Into Performance

    He’s managed to turn his supposed absence into a performance, whether on “The Jerrod Carmichael Reality Show” or in your social media feed.Early in his bold and vexing new reality show, Jerrod Carmichael hears a knock at the door and opens it to find a very tall man in a ski mask and goggles just standing there. He pauses to process, then concludes: “This makes sense.”Most viewers probably thought: Really? But certain comedy fans would come to a different response: Welcome back, Bo Burnham.Sure, we don’t know it’s him. On “The Jerrod Carmichael Reality Show” (HBO), this lanky masked man is referred to as Anonymous and his voice is disguised. But if this isn’t Bo Burnham, it’s a pretty good impression — or at least, one of him dressed to rob a bank.Burnham has been conspicuously quiet since rocketing to superstar status by producing one of the signal works of art about the pandemic, the 2021 musical comedy “Inside.” He dropped out of a role in a TV series and appeared in no new specials, movies or live shows. Except for “Inside” outtakes, he hasn’t shown up in any new work — until, possibly, now.Starring in three of the eight episodes, Anonymous comes off like a performance piece, half-abstraction and half-person, with no background, identity, face. He stands out more by revealing little, which is only one of the ways he’s in opposition to Carmichael, who is seen doing stand-up in short clips and having thorny, difficult conversations with his loved ones. Anonymous plays a crucial role, an exasperated ombudsman, picking apart the entire enterprise from the inside, providing a critique of its authenticity and the perils of performing for an audience.These are hallmarks of Bo Burnham’s work dating at least to his far-too-overlooked MTV sitcom, “Zach Stone Is Gonna Be Famous,” a satire of reality shows.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    What’s on TV This Week: ‘Mary & George’ and Lots of ‘Law & Order’

    The Starz show starring Nicholas Galitzine and Julianne Moore wraps up. Three versions of the crime procedural air finales.For those who still haven’t cut the cord, here is a selection of cable and network TV shows, movies and specials that broadcast this week, May 6-12. Details and times are subject to change.MondayTHE PARENT TRAP (1998) 8 p.m. on Freeform. With Lindsay Lohan returning to the screen in “Irish Wish,” why not go back down memory lane? This movie stars Lohan as both Annie and Hallie (some flawless split-screening was involved), twins separated at birth who meet at summer camp and team up to get their divorced parents back together. One of their roadblocks is their dad’s girlfriend, Meredith Blake (Elaine Hendrix), who has gone down in Y2K history as one of its chicest villains.TuesdayAriana Madix and Andy Cohen at last year’s “Vanderpump Rules” reunion.BravoVANDERPUMP RULES REUNION 8 p.m. on Bravo. This three-part reunion, which will rehash Season 11 of “Vanderpump Rules,” is a must-watch after the finale left lots of questions up in air, starting with: Is there a post-#Scandoval future for this reality show? The episode last week ended on a cliffhanger, with Ariana Madix walking out of filming after her ex boyfriend Tom Sandoval approached her at a party.WednesdayROYAL RULES OF OHIO 10:30 p.m. on Freeform. On this brand-new reality show, three sisters, who claim to be descendants of Ghana royalty, try to balance day-to-day life in Columbus, Ohio, with their parents’ upper-crust expectations — shenanigans and mischief ensue. Since I blasted through all eight seasons of “Summer House” at an inappropriately fast rate, it’s exciting that there is a new reality show in the mix.ThursdayChristopher Meloni and Mariska Hargitay in “Law & Order: Organized Crime.”NBCWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Jean Smart of ‘Hacks’ Is Having a Third Act for the Ages

    Calling someone a “hack” is a particularly vicious insult. It implies that they have no talent or, worse, that they have wasted it. The slight is hurled early on in “Hacks,” the popular HBO series starring Jean Smart as Deborah Vance, a seasoned comedian who teams up with a younger one named Ava (Hannah Einbinder) to freshen up her act. When they meet, Ava takes stock of Deborah — her glitzy mansion, her residency at a casino in Las Vegas, a hustle selling branded merchandise on cable TV — and sees her as the definition of a hack, a sellout cashing in on her former fame. Deborah is unfazed. Amused, even. What does this kid know about her career, about years of hard work, about the unfairness, sexism and disregard? Deborah, meanwhile, sees Ava as a bit of a hack herself — an entitled and spoiled young internet persona who was canceled for posting a joke about a closeted senator. (“Sounds like a Tuesday for me,” Deborah retorts when Ava complains about it.) Deborah is a workaholic on the verge of bitter, someone who grew tired of being cut and so became a knife. She’s shameless, litigious, petty, vengeful, stubborn — qualities that become a comedic asset for the character and a narrative engine for the show. Just how far is Deborah Vance willing to go? Throughout the first two seasons, much of the drama — and delight — is in seeing Ava puncture Deborah’s carefully lacquered facade with her Gen Z earnestness and sharp wit. In one of the show’s funniest moments, Deborah bluntly asks Ava, “You a lesbian?” Ava leans back in her chair while considering the question. She responds with a treatise reflecting the identity politics of a generation raised with nonexistent boundaries and zero sexual shame, ending with a graphic description of how she orgasms. Deborah doesn’t miss a beat. “Jesus Christ!” she exclaims. “I was just wondering why you were dressed like Rachel Maddow’s mechanic!” Deborah and Ava are mirrors for each other, gifted and perspicacious performers at opposite ends of their careers, both trying to be their most audacious selves in an industry that will dispose of them the moment they cross an invisible line.Over the last three years, “Hacks” has earned its two Emmy nominations for outstanding comedy series by cultivating a polyphonic, fast-paced humor relentless as Deborah’s own quick mind. There are constant insult jokes about Ava’s appearance (“Your manicurist must use a paint roller!”); manic banter between Jimmy, Deborah’s beleaguered agent, and his delusional assistant (played brilliantly by the comedian Meg Stalter); antic bits like a seemingly poignant scene of Deborah’s daughter playing classical piano as a reflection of her gilded upbringing, before it devolves into absurdity when the music is revealed to be the theme song from “Jurassic Park.” And then there are the battles royale in which Ava and Deborah fire hilarious barbs back and forth until their frustration gives way to awe at each other’s cleverness and something like respect blooms. It’s weaponized therapy.Hannah Einbinder and Jean Smart in the new season of ‘‘Hacks.’’MaxWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    ‘Saturday Night Live’ Wishes You a Happy Mother’s Day

    The “S.N.L.” veteran Maya Rudolph hosted an episode that featured multiple sketches celebrating moms.Sorry, dads: Because your holiday doesn’t come until June, when “Saturday Night Live” is in reruns, you don’t get anything special from “S.N.L.” But moms, since Mother’s Day arrives the morning after the second-to-last live episode of the season — when everyone at the show has an eye on the door and is saving those last few drops of topical content for the finale — you get a whole brunch-load of “S.N.L.” sketches dedicated to motherhood, beginning with a now-traditional segment in which the cast members trade jokes with their real-life mothers.This week’s “S.N.L.” broadcast, which was hosted by Maya Rudolph and featured the musical guest Vampire Weekend, used the occasion of Mother’s Day to take a break from opening sketches that satirize current events, much to the disappointment of Kenan Thompson’s mother. “That’s too bad,” she said, standing on the stage of Studio 8H with her son. “I was excited to see who was going to play Stormy Daniels.”Andrew Dismukes’s mom shared embarrassing photos of her son in the bathtub, the mothers of Chloe Fineman and Bowen Yang told jokes intended for the Netflix roast of Tom Brady, and Sarah Sherman’s mom pitched her daughter an idea: “R.F.K. Jr. said they found a worm in his brain — you could be the worm,” she said. (Stash that away in your own brains for later.)Rudolph, the “S.N.L.” alumna who returned to host for her third time, used her opening monologue to note the fact that she not only is a mother of four children — she is mother. That ubiquitous bit of internet slang was the framework for a surprisingly synchronized live musical number (à la Madonna’s “Vogue”) where Rudolph navigated some quick costume changes, referenced her roles in movies like “Bridesmaids” and her past “S.N.L.” impersonations of Vice President Kamala Harris and Oprah Winfrey, while also shouting out other beloved female “S.N.L.” characters like the Sweeney Sisters, Debbie Downer and Mary Katherine Gallagher.If all of that wasn’t enough to make you O.D. on M-O-M, there was also a filmed segment featuring Rudolph as a beleaguered mother repeatedly rescuing her daughter from slumber parties, and Heidi Gardner offering Mother’s Day gift suggestions on Weekend Update as the character A Woman Who Says She’s Not Mad. Oh, mother.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Sam Rubin, Los Angeles TV Anchor and Entertainment Reporter, Dies at 64

    Mr. Rubin began at the Los Angeles television news station KTLA in 1991 and became a staple of morning viewing through his interviews with celebrities.Sam Rubin, a journalist for the television station KTLA 5 in Los Angeles whose morning interviews with celebrities became requisite viewing for much of the entertainment industry and who endeared himself to Hollywood insiders with his geniality and knowledge of their work, died on Friday. He was 64.Mr. Rubin’s death was announced by a KTLA anchor, Frank Buckley. A tribute segment that aired on the station said the cause was a heart attack.In an industry known for its changing names and evolving trends, Mr. Rubin was for decades a mainstay for viewers across the city and an interview with him was considered a rite of passage for many stars.His ability to make celebrities feel comfortable as he asked them about their craft spanned generations.Although it was clear that Mr. Rubin was immersed in the minutiae of his beat, part of his enduring appeal came from the antics he himself brought to the studio and his ability to change the pace of what could be a rote interview.“Is it shampoo and conditioner, or just shampoo — what is the hair regimen, Jared?” he said in an interview with the actor Jared Leto.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More