Eliana Willis

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    In Shows Like ‘Love Island USA,’ the Setting Is Another Character

    Reality TV staples like “Love Island” and “Bachelor in Paradise” often take place in luxury resorts to set the mood. But not all resorts love the attention.Last summer, while filming an episode during the fifth season of the hit reality TV show “Love Island USA,” the executive producer Simon Thomas had a stroke of luck that most reality show producers could only dream of. It was golden hour, and two of the contestants — attractive young singles looking for love — were sitting on the veranda of the souped-up luxury resort that was the “Love Island” set. Exquisitely framed, they shared a tender, passionate kiss.“Make no mistake: They did not stay together, and they did not even remain together for the duration of the show,” Thomas said in an interview. “But that moment was magic. You couldn’t have filmed it better for a scripted show.”Since its debut on British television in 2015, “Love Island” and its American remake, “Love Island USA,” have made a unique spectacle of their exotic island settings, from the all-inclusive resorts of Majorca (in the U.K. version) to the coastal villas of Fiji (in the U.S., since 2023). The locale is more than a mere backdrop to the action: To invoke an old movie cliché, the setting is like a character itself.“The whole point of this show isn’t to show some reality TV hopefuls in a box and produce them,” Thomas said. “It’s to find some reality TV hopefuls who want to find love and give them an environment in which they can authentically fall in love.”“What better way to fall in love,” he added, “than on a Fijian beach at sunset?”With its breezy tone and low-stakes drama, reality TV is typically designed to create a feeling of escapism already, and tropical settings can offer an additional layer of satisfying secondhand pleasure. Such locations are appealing particularly for dating shows, which have the added incentive of needing to kindle new relationships — an easier feat on a sun-kissed Caribbean island than on a network backlot. Programs like “Bachelor in Paradise,” “Love Island,” “Perfect Match,” “Too Hot to Handle” and many more have found a great deal of success by following this simple formula: Put men and women together on an island resort to flirt and fall in love.The creator of “90 Day Fiancé: Love In Paradise” said the tropical settings give the show “a totally different personality” from the original.TLCWe 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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    Stephen Colbert Mocks Trump for Recycling His Old Insults

    Colbert said the ex-president was “focused on the real issue gripping the country: desperately workshopping a new nickname for Kamala Harris.”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. Here are the 50 best movies on Netflix right now.Who’s the Boss?Former President Donald Trump held a campaign rally in Charlotte, N.C., on Wednesday.Stephen Colbert said Trump spent most of the evening “focused on the real issue gripping the country: desperately workshopping a new nickname for Kamala Harris.”“[imitating Trump] K as in Kamala, A as in Amala, M as in Malala, A as in Ah, L as in Lyin’ Kamala — L-Y-I-N-apostrophe — oh God, I’m back at the beginning again.” — STEPHEN COLBERTColbert blasted Trump for resorting to his old “Apprentice” tagline, “You’re fired.” “That’s a 10-year-old reference!” — STEPHEN COLBERTThe Punchiest Punchlines (Biden Goes Live Edition)“Well guys, last night President Biden gave an Oval Office address and talked about his decision to drop out of the race. Things got off to a fun start when Biden said, ‘My fellow Americans, Kamala is brat.’” — JIMMY FALLON“That humility, that self-sacrifice, is so beautiful, truly patriotic and a refreshing change from the last guy.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“Once the speech was done, Biden joined staff out in the Rose Garden for ice cream. Not only was there an ice cream party, sources say President Biden also had a great time in the bouncy castle.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“By the way, can you imagine all the cool [expletive] Biden’s going to take on his way out of the White House? You got your pens, your paper clips, maybe a couple of nuclear warheads.” — LAMORNE MORRIS, guest host of “Jimmy Kimmel Live”The Bits Worth WatchingRob Lowe auditioned for the role of Kamala Harris’s running mate on Thursday’s “Tonight Show.”Also, Check This OutDavid Bowie and Rosanna Arquette in “The Linguini Incident.”IsolarRichard Shepherd’s director’s cut of “The Linguini Incident,” his low-budget, hard-to-find ’90s rom-com starring David Bowie and Rosanna Arquette, is soon to be available on Blu-ray. More

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    ‘Playground’ Is Throwback Reality TV, in More Ways Than One

    The new Hulu series, set at a prestigious Los Angeles dance studio, harks back to the vibes of an earlier age.Alexis Beauregard and Roman Royale in a scene from “Playground.”HuluTime-loop shows are everywhere these days, and now TV itself is looping back, scooping up folks from shows of yesteryear to bring their skills and wisdom to the present fight. “Playground,” which arrives Friday on Hulu, is ostensibly a new reality show set in a Los Angeles dance studio.But the series is also multiple throwbacks in one, a new team reassembled from the people and vibes of earlier reality programming. The second episode includes a 2000s-themed birthday party; meanwhile, “Playground” is itself a 2000s-style show.An awful lot of contemporary reality shows follow a Bravo model of contrivance and repetition, in which seasons use the same segments so many times they feel like reruns of themselves. Based on the two episodes available for review, “Playground” does not, to its tremendous credit, play like a descendant of “Vanderpump Rules” — its closer ancestor is “The Hills.” Oh, the testy al fresco lunches! Oh, the intriguing young women who debase themselves for the attentions of immature men!Long-term fans of dance shows will spot a few familiar faces immediately (in addition to Megan Thee Stallion, who is an executive producer, and Tinashe, among other stars). Robin Antin and Kenny Wormald not only run Playground LA; they’ve also both been on dance reality shows before — Antin on multiple Pussycat Dolls shows in the late aughts and Wormald on the single-season “Dancelife.” (Not to be confused with the recent Australian reality show “Dance Life,” which is also great.) Here, they’re the prickly mom and dad to a family bursting with talent and strife.Part of what makes “Playground” so perfect in its electric garbage way is the conflict between Alexis, the golden child, and Deanna, who proudly describes herself as “Satan’s daughter.” Those of us raised in the faith of days-long “Real World” marathons require angry people on TV shouting “Say it to my face!” in order to have a full life, and “Playground” delivers, largely via Deanna.For all its retro glory, “Playground” also feels refreshingly new in its editing and momentum. Many streaming reality shows mimic the pacing of basic cable (especially now that plenty of streamers also include commercials). But those filler recapitulations that come after each commercial break are tedious enough — and in a streaming context are vestigial at best. “Playground” doesn’t bother with them and is instead filled with real material: dancing, squabbling, vying, gossiping, all the essential food groups of a summer show. More

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    Why the Olympics’ Parade of Nations Is the Heart of the Opening Ceremony

    When the athletes march in — or float in, as they will in Paris on Friday — you can enjoy the illusion that it’s a small world after all.Welcome back to the Olympics, and a five-ringed circus of sport and security, national pride and international sponsorship.This summer’s Games officially begin in Paris this Friday, with an uncommon opening ceremony: athletes and acrobats floating along the Seine for as many spectators as the antiterror police will allow. “No other country would have tried this,” crowed President Emmanuel Macron in an interview this week, though the ministers by his side will be from a caretaker government. France is still processing its recent snap legislative election, which nearly brought the far right to power. The ceremony will be all about France’s openness to the world. Not all the local spectators will approve of the message.A rendering of the opening ceremony of the Paris Games. Participants will sail upriver to the Eiffel Tower and the Trocadéro: two landmarks of the capital that were built for 19th-century World’s Fairs.Florian Hulleu/Paris 2024, Agence France-Presse, via Getty ImagesA big modern show, then, after the Covid-shocked, zero-spectator Summer Games in Tokyo. But for all its contemporary soft power — the “Emily in Paris” tie-in, the medals displayed in Louis Vuitton trunks — these Paris Olympics will also be a throwback.The modern Games are a French invention, after all: a projection of Panhellenic manhood onto contemporary Europe by a romantic educator and “fanatical colonialist” (as Pierre de Coubertin, the founder of the modern Games, called himself). The opening ceremony, especially, plunges the world’s athletes into the nationalist structures of the late 19th century. The flag-waving of the Olympics, the it’s-a-small-world amusements of the universal exhibition, or the repellent human zoos at colonial fairs: there have been many ways to bring the whole world to Paris.This year’s parade of nations will be on the water. Teams will process through the city center on nearly 100 boats before arriving at the Trocadéro.Florian Hulleu/Paris 2024, Agence France-Presse, via Getty ImagesWe 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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    ‘The Decameron’ Review: They Take a Holiday. Death Doesn’t.

    A loose Netflix adaptation turns Boccaccio’s story cycle into a gleeful satire of class war in plague times.TV audiences have an appetite for a good class-conscious satire of rich people on holiday in a fabulous location — say, a stunning Italian getaway — and the servants who attend them. The new Netflix series “The Decameron” draws on medieval literature to offer a raucous twist on this premise, heightened with the looming threat of bubonic plague.“The White Lotus,” meet the Black Death.In the 14th-century work by Giovanni Boccaccio, a precursor to Chaucer’s “Canterbury Tales,” 10 young people flee to a rural estate from disease-ridden Florence, entertaining one another by telling stories both dramatic and raunchy. The 10 tales per refugee, as told over 10 days, makes for a cycle of 100 stories, proving that even before streaming media, creators know how to stretch out material to series length.The eight-episode Netflix series, arriving Thursday, is a loose adaptation — very loose, like a caftan. It borrows Boccaccio’s character names and setting, with some nods to the source stories. But the creator, Kathleen Jordan (of the gone-too-soon “Teenage Bounty Hunters”), reimagines it as a rollicking social comedy of striving and survival.Jordan introduces four sets of characters, offered respite at a villa in, as the invitation puts it, “the beautiful, not-infected countryside.”We meet Pampinea (Zosia Mamet), a noblewoman anxious about being unmarried as “a shriveled-up, 28-year-old maid,” and her perhaps-too-devoted servant, Misia (Saoirse-Monica Jackson); Tindaro (Douggie McMeekin), a sickly and pompous young noble attended by his quackish physician, Dioneo (Amar Chadha-Patel); the devout and secretly randy Neifile (Lou Gala) and her social-climbing husband, Panfilo (Karan Gill); and Licisca (Tanya Reynolds), the eccentric and put-upon handmaiden to the imperious Filomena (Jessica Plummer).The holiday offers a chance at life, solace and social advancement — especially for Pampinea, who has managed a sight-unseen engagement to the villa’s absent lord. But despite the estate’s gorgeous furnishings and manicured maze gardens, there are deceptions and dangers.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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    Stephen Colbert Wants a Kamala Harris-Glen Powell Ticket

    “I guarantee he will attract suburban women, and I already have his slogan: ‘Yes, We Glen!’” Colbert said.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. Here are the 50 best movies on Netflix right now.Four More Abs!Vice President Kamala Harris raised more than $100 million ahead of her first campaign rally in Wisconsin on Tuesday.“That means that Kamala Harris had a bigger opening weekend than ‘Twisters,’” Stephen Colbert said on Wednesday’s “Late Show.”“Oh wait, hold on, hear me out, no more ideas, this is it: Glen Powell becomes Harris’s running mate. I guarantee — I guarantee he will attract suburban women, and I already have his slogan: ‘Yes, We Glen.’ Four more abs! Four more abs!” — STEPHEN COLBERT“I’ve got to say, it was refreshing to see a presidential rally without a single wrestler from the 1980s.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“In fact, the turnout was so large that organizers said they had to move the rally to a larger venue. Wow, needing a bigger space for your rally used to be Trump’s whole thing. Maybe she should take something else — maybe she should start selling her own celebrity Bible. But instead of Lee Greenwood, it’s Beyoncé — ‘The Beyble.’” — STEPHEN COLBERTThe Punchiest Punchlines (The Switch Up Edition)“I’m a little worried because since Sunday afternoon, I haven’t been that worried, and that is deeply troubling. I personally blame our next president, Kamala Harris.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“Earlier tonight, President Biden gave a prime-time address from the Oval Office about his decision to drop out of the race. Basically, on Sunday, he broke up with the country over text, and tonight, he met us for coffee to explain.” — JIMMY FALLON“Yep, Biden delivered the address, although it was hard for people to focus with Kamala’s interior designer in the background.” — JIMMY FALLONThe Bits Worth WatchingMatt Damon and Jimmy Fallon led the “Tonight Show” audience in a singalong to “Sweet Caroline.”What We’re Excited About on Thursday NightThe comedian and actor Marlon Wayans will appear on Thursday’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live.”Also, Check This OutChappell Roan onstage at the Capitol Hill Block Party in Seattle last Friday.Chappell Roan’s star has risen so quickly that the pop star scrambled to upgrade to larger venues on her summer tour. More

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    N.B.A. Announces Lucrative Rights Deals With Disney, Comcast and Amazon

    The league rejected a bid by Warner Bros. Discovery to match Amazon’s offer.The National Basketball Association announced new rights agreements with Disney, Comcast and Amazon on Wednesday after rejecting a rival bid by Warner Bros. Discovery that would have kept games on its TNT network, which has broadcast the N.B.A. since the 1980s.The companies will collectively pay more than $76 billion over 11 years, according to four people familiar with the negotiations who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the financial details. That will substantially increase the league’s annual revenue and reflects the continued importance of live sports programming even as streaming has reconfigured the entertainment industry.In making the announcement, the league said it had rejected Warner Bros. Discovery’s bid this week to match Amazon’s offer for its share of the package.“Throughout these negotiations, our primary objective has been to maximize the reach and accessibility of our games for our fans,” the league said in a statement. “Our new arrangement with Amazon supports this goal by complementing the broadcast, cable and streaming packages that are already part of our new Disney and NBCUniversal arrangements.” (NBCUniversal is owned by Comcast.)“All three partners have also committed substantial resources to promote the league and enhance the fan experience,” the statement added.The new deals, which include N.B.A. and some W.N.B.A. games, will take effect with the 2025-26 season and are more than two and a half times the average annual value of the league’s current rights agreements.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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    This Year’s BroadwayCon Raises the Curtain on Mental Health

    The ninth annual fan event will include discussions on topics such as sobriety, self-care and body image. Here are six to look out for.Watching a Broadway musical can be an overwhelming experience — to say nothing of the actors performing in it.“If you die onstage, or your character’s screamed at, your body believes that’s really happening to you every night,” said Hannah Cruz, who made her Broadway debut this spring in the women’s suffrage musical “Suffs.”For decades, the industry fostered a “suck it up” culture of steely toughness. But one focus of this year’s BroadwayCon, which will draw thousands of theater lovers to the New York Hilton Midtown from Friday through Sunday, is to facilitate conversations about how performers deal with mental health, both on and offstage.The planned discussions and events address a variety of topics, including the challenges of staying sober while working in the business and increasing accessibility for autistic audiences. Here are six events you’ll want to catch.Autism and accessibility discussionsTheatergoers who want to share their experiences being on the autism spectrum, know someone who is or just want a safe space to learn more can take part in this event hosted by Skylar Reiner, a longtime Broadway fan.“Autism and Broadway: What It Means To Be a Fan While on the Spectrum,” Friday, 10 a.m.Five autistic performing arts professionals — including Conor Tague, Desmond Luis Edwards and Madison Kopec, who recently made their Broadway debuts in “How to Dance in Ohio” — will discuss their personal experiences with accessibility in the arts, as well as best practices for collaborating with autistic creators.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