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    Geoffrey Palmer, Judi Dench’s Sitcom Co-Star, Is Dead at 93

    Geoffrey Palmer, a British character actor whose career peaked during the long run of “As Time Goes By,” the romantic BBC sitcom in which he and Judi Dench played lovers reunited after 38 years apart, died on Nov. 5 at his home in Buckinghamshire, near London. He was 93.His agent, Deborah Charlton, confirmed the death.Mr. Palmer, worked in films and theater but was best known for his work in television, including comedies like “The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin” and “Butterflies” as well as several episodes of “Doctor Who.”His hangdog expression and grumpy demeanor also made a memorable appearance on a 1979 episode of the sitcom “Fawlty Towers” as a guest who finds it difficult to get his breakfast order while Basil Fawlty (John Cleese), the hapless proprietor of a run-down hotel, is hiding a corpse.“I’m a doctor,” Mr. Palmer says to a waiter, with great exasperation. “I want my sausages!”Over 67 episodes between 1992 and 2005, “As Time Goes By” became popular in Britain (and on PBS stations in the United States) largely because of the chemistry between Mr. Palmer and Ms. Dench.“When you acted with him, you’d just feel very safe,” Ms. Dench told Radio Times, the British television and radio magazine, after Mr. Palmer’s death. “Geoffers was so sure on comedy that you could be pretty secure knowing he would get you through it and make it funny.”Mr. Palmer’s character on “As Time Goes By,” Lionel Hardcastle, had been a coffee planter in Kenya. Ms. Dench portrayed Jean Pargetter, the owner of a secretarial agency. They fell in love in 1953, before the British Army sent Lionel to serve in Korea. A letter he had written to Jean with his military address never arrived, and they went about their lives.They reunite in a bar in England.“Why didn’t you write?” she asks in that scene.“Let’s not play games,” he says. “Why didn’t you write?”“Where to?” she asks. “Second Lieutenant Hardcastle, somewhere in Korea?”“I sent you the full address as soon as I had one,” he says.“I didn’t get a letter,” she says firmly.“Well, I sent it,” he says with finality, then quickly realizes all they had missed.“As ridiculously simple as that?” he asks, with a chuckle. “A lost letter?”Mr. Palmer and Ms. Dench appeared in two films together in 1997: the James Bond movie “Tomorrow Never Dies” and “Mrs. Brown,” in which Mr. Palmer played the private secretary to Ms. Dench’s Queen Victoria.Mr. Palmer told The Chicago Tribune in 1999 that Ms. Dench “is an actress who anyone would give their eyeteeth to work with.”“She drags you up to her standards,” he added. “She’s extraordinary.”Geoffrey Dyson Palmer was born on June 4, 1927, in London. His father was a surveyor, his mother a homemaker.After serving in the Royal Marines as World War II was ending, Mr. Palmer joined an amateur theater group while working as an accountant. After becoming the assistant stage manager of the Grand Theater in Croydon, he began acting in regional theater.He got his first television roles in the mid-1950s. Early in the ’60s he appeared on “The Saint,” with Roger Moore, and in three episodes of “The Avengers,” in three different roles.He mixed television, film and stage roles for the rest of his career; did voice-over work for commercials; and narrated “Grumpy Old Men,” a BBC talk show on which men aired their gripes about modern life, from 2003 to 2006.His recent film roles included a geographer in “Paddington” (2015), about a bear looking for a home in London, and Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin in “W.E” (2011), which was inspired by the romance between King Edward VIII and Wallis Simpson.His survivors include his wife, Sally (Green) Palmer; a son, Charles; and a daughter, Harriet.The last season of “As Time Goes By” consisted of two episodes in 2005, sort of a Christmas reunion, to wrap up the series. Mr. Palmer said that the impetus for the revival, two years after the previous episodes had aired, came from the United States.“It is ludicrously popular over there,” he told The Times of London. “I think it’s because it’s rather understated, English and well mannered, and nobody is seen in full-frontal nudity.” More

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    Trump Brought Back Michael Flynn for the Finale, Fallon Says

    Welcome to Best of Late Night, a rundown of the previous night’s highlights that lets you sleep — and lets us get paid to watch comedy. Many of us are stuck at home at the moment, so here are the 50 best movies on Netflix right now.Just in Time for the FinalePresident Trump pardoned his former national security adviser Michael Flynn on Wednesday, announcing the decision on Twitter.“On one hand, Flynn is thrilled,” Jimmy Fallon said. “On the other, he’s like, ‘You pardoned the turkey before me?’”[embedded content]“When people heard the name Michael Flynn, they were like, ‘Wow, they brought back a character from Season 1 for the finale — cool. That’s how you do it.’” — JIMMY FALLON“Seriously, there’s a name from the past. Even Michael Flynn was like, ‘Damn, I totally forgot about Michael Flynn.’” — JIMMY FALLON“But Thanksgiving is a perfect day to pardon Flynn. After all, it’s all about turkey.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“I can’t believe this, but I guess I should have known. Kind of suspicious about yesterday’s turkey pardon.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“The country he was being paid to represent secretly while he was supposed to be working for America. Still, it’s in keeping with tradition with the first Thanksgiving, when the pilgrims and Native Americans came together in harmony to establish a secret back channel with the Russian ambassador and then lie about it to the F.B.I. — or as they called it, maize.” — STEPHEN COLBERTThe Punchiest Punchlines (Daily Briefs Edition)“Well, that’s going to be a nice change of pace for the briefers to give a list of national security threats to a president who’s not on it.” — STEPHEN COLBERT, on Joe Biden’s receiving President Trump’s daily intelligence briefs“It’s OK, Trump doesn’t need the daily brief anymore. He gets all his intelligence from Randy Quaid’s tweets.” — JIMMY FALLON“Thanks to Trump’s daily brief, Biden will now be well versed in foreign and domestic threats and who got eliminated on ‘The Bachelorette.’” — JIMMY FALLON“Actually, it does turn out that the brief they give Biden is a little different than the one they give Trump. I’ll show you what I mean. For instance, Biden’s brief says, ‘Iran building nuclear arsenal,’ while Trump’s brief says, ‘Iran make big fireworks that go boom-boom.’” — JIMMY FALLON“Next up, Biden’s brief says, ‘Norway experiencing harsh climate change,’ while Trump’s says, ‘Soon Olaf will be a puddle.’” — JIMMY FALLON“And finally, Biden’s brief says, ‘Canada extends border restrictions with U.S.,’ while Trump’s says, ‘Americans betrayed by Beliebers.’” — JIMMY FALLONThe Bits Worth WatchingAmy Adams told Seth Meyers about trying (and failing) to learn a Billie Eilish song on the ukulele during quarantine.What We’re Excited About on Thursday NightJimmy Fallon and Seth Meyers will host Thanksgiving shows with Jerry Seinfeld and the Meyers family, respectively.Also, Check This OutMelissa McCarthy joins Tilda Swinton, Viola Davis and Denzel Washington on this list of the 25 greatest actors of the 21st century. More

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    'Chappelle's Show' Off Netflix as Comedian Fights ViacomCBS

    The comedian Dave Chappelle said that he was a broke 28-year-old expectant father when he signed a contract with Comedy Central about two decades ago.“I was desperate, I needed a way out,” Chappelle recalled in a clip of a stand-up set that he posted on Instagram on Tuesday.It was that signature, Chappelle said, that laid the groundwork for his current tension with ViacomCBS. He said that the company had licensed his old Comedy Central sketch show, “Chappelle’s Show,” to both Netflix and HBO Max without providing additional compensation — or even informing him about the deal.“Perfectly legal because I signed the contract,” he said in the video. “But is that right? I didn’t think so either.”In response, Chappelle went to Netflix, the home of several of his stand-up specials, and asked the service to stop streaming “Chappelle’s Show,” which had been broadcast on Comedy Central from 2003 to 2006. Netflix agreed, and pulled the show early on Tuesday morning after streaming it for less than a month. Hours later, Chappelle, 47, posted the 18-minute video on Instagram, which he described as “publicly flogging a network,” referring to ViacomCBS, which owns Comedy Central.A spokeswoman for Netflix confirmed that the service had removed the sketch show overnight at Chappelle’s request but declined to comment further. ViacomCBS and HBO did not immediately respond to requests for comment.“Chappelle’s Show” lasted for two full seasons before Chappelle, the show’s star and creator, walked away from it, sparking questions about how he could have abandoned what could have amounted to a $50 million deal. In 2006, Chappelle told Oprah Winfrey in the first interview after his departure that he had left the show in part because of stress and in part because he felt conflicted about the material he was producing, saying, “I was doing sketches that were funny, but were socially irresponsible.”The show often dealt with issues of race and sexuality in Chappelle’s notoriously uncensored, boundary-pushing style. In one famous sketch, Chappelle played a blind white supremacist who does not know he is Black.In his Instagram video, titled “Unforgiven,” Chappelle said he felt he was never properly paid for “Chappelle’s Show” after he left. At the time, Comedy Central released three episodes of an abbreviated third season from material it already had.Chappelle framed his experience as reflective of an unfair system that mistreats artists in comedy and television, comparing it to the abuses in the industry revealed by the #MeToo movement. While he praised Netflix for its decision to remove the show, he skewered Comedy Central for giving him a “raw deal” that he said made it difficult to recreate the show elsewhere.“If I do,” Chappelle said, “I can’t call it ‘Chappelle’s Show’ because my name and likeness is being used by them in perpetuity throughout the universe. It’s in the contract.”Chappelle also pointed out the irony that HBO had rejected his initial pitch for the sketch show, then ended up streaming it years later. “Chappelle’s Show” is still available to watch on Comedy Central, CBS All Access and HBO Max.Earlier this month, Chappelle mentioned the conflict in his “Saturday Night Live” monologue when he joked about how his great-grandfather, who was born enslaved, might react upon learning that a show bearing his name was being streamed, but that he was not being paid for it.All of Comedy Central’s actions seemed to be within the contract’s terms, according to Chappelle’s recounting, but it was those terms that the comedian was objecting to in the first place.Chappelle’s proposed solution was not legal action — it was harnessing the power of his fan base to send television executives a message.“Boycott ‘Chappelle’s Show,’” Chappelle said in the video posted Tuesday. “Do not watch it unless they pay me.” More