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    Pat Sajak Bids Farewell to ‘Wheel of Fortune’: ‘The Time Has Come to Say Goodbye’

    The host thanked the show’s viewers and had special words for his co-star, Vanna White, before he signed off for the final time.On Friday night, Pat Sajak said goodbye to “Wheel of Fortune,” expressing gratitude to the countless viewers who had tuned in during his more than 40 years at the helm. “Thank you for allowing me into your lives,” he said.After the final game on his watch concluded, Sajak returned from a final commercial break and addressed the camera directly. “Well, the time has come to say goodbye,” he said. “It’s been an incredible privilege to be invited into millions of homes night after night, year after year, decade after decade. I always felt that the privilege came with the responsibility to keep this daily half-hour a safe place for family fun. No social issues, no politics, nothing embarrassing I hope, just a game.”Still, Sajak, who began his run in 1981, acknowledged that “Wheel of Fortune” had evolved into more than just frivolous, fleeting fun for many. “It became,” he said, “a place where kids learned their letters, where people from other countries honed their English skills, where families came together along with friends and neighbors, and entire generations.”He praised the show’s crew and thanked his family, including his daughter Maggie, who joined “Wheel” as a social correspondent in 2021. And he of course had many kind words for his co-star of more than four decades, Vanna White, whom he called his “professional other half.” (The farewell episode was filmed in early April.)“Like me, she takes the show very seriously but not herself,” Sajak said. “I shudder to think what these 40-plus years might have been like had they brought someone in all full of themselves, playing the prima donna role. Vanna is as sweet and unassuming as she seems.” (He noted that while he’ll miss seeing her at work, they’ll see plenty of each other: They live about five miles apart.) They embraced onstage after his remarks as the episode ended like any other, with the two of them speaking to each other as the credits rolled.On Thursday night, it was White who, through tears, took a moment to address Sajak directly.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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    ‘Doctor Who’ Episode 6 Recap: A Charming Rogue

    The Doctor and Ruby head back to Regency England in a meta meditation on cosplay and obsessive TV fandom.Season 1, Episode 6: ‘Rogue’For decades, cosplay has been a huge part of the “Doctor Who” fandom, with hardcore viewers rocking up to conventions or gathering to watch the show decked out in Tom Baker’s striped scarf or David Tennant’s slim suit.“Rogue,” this season’s sixth episode, is a meta meditation on cosplay — a portmanteau of costume play — and obsessive TV fandom, as the Doctor (Ncuti Gatwa) and Ruby (Millie Gibson) travel to Regency-era England and face off against a shape-shifting alien species who want to “dress up and play at ‘Bridgerton.’”Initially, the repeated explicit references to Netflix’s blockbuster show — as well as the enemies-to-lovers plot, the copious wisteria and the orchestral covers of pop songs — feel unnecessary. But it soon becomes clear that “Doctor Who” is engaging in cultural cosplay of its own.The year is 1813, and the Doctor and Ruby set about immersing themselves in the party of the season. Ruby quickly gains the attention of the night’s host, the proud Duchess of Pemberton (Indira Varma, “Game of Thrones”) and shocks the rude Lord Barton (Paul Forman) with her 21st-century slang and feminist principles.More than just an old-fashioned misogynist, Lord Barton is secretly a Chuldur, a member of a species of intergalactic social climbers who rise up the ranks by taking over the bodies of the powerful and interesting. First, they go for Lord Barton; later, the duchess becomes their next victim.The Doctor has never met a Chuldur before — not that he knows of, anyway — but he can tell something’s up. Scanning the room, his eyes fall upon a brooding, aloof nobleman called Rogue (Jonathan Groff, a notable King George in “Hamilton”) and the orchestra plays Billie Eilish’s “Bad Guy” to really hammer the point home.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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    Andy Cohen, Fran Lebowitz and Others Gather for Little Island Performance

    “It’s a miracle on the water,” the actress Candice Bergen said, gazing at a grove of trees on Thursday evening as she took shelter from the sun beneath a canopy.It was the opening night of the summer performance season at Little Island, the three-year-old floating park built on a reconstructed pier in the Hudson River.Despite thunderstorms earlier in the afternoon, around 700 actors, designers and media moguls turned up under a smattering of canopies near the island’s amphitheater, among them Andy Cohen, the Bravo host and executive producer; Annie Leibovitz, the photographer; Fran Lebowitz, the writer; Natasha Lyonne, the actress; Bryan Lourd, the chief executive of the talent agency CAA; and Jason Blum, the film producer.As waiters ferried watermelon spears and cartons of boxed water on silver platters, attendees trickled into the glade over twin gangways on the north and south sides of the island.The writer Fran Lebowitz.Rebecca Smeyne for The New York TimesAnnie Leibovitz, right, with her daughter, Sam Leibovitz.Rebecca Smeyne for The New York TimesBryan Lourd, the chief executive of the talent agency CAA, and Natasha Lyonne, the actress.Rebecca Smeyne for 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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    Candice Carty Williams’s ‘Queenie’ Captures Black British Womanhood

    The coming-of-age show, streaming on Hulu, follows a 25-year-old living in south London, navigating the gulf between her reality and what she wants.In 2022, British television producers released an open casting call, looking for a Black full-figured woman, aged 22 to 30, with a London accent.Thousands of people sent in audition tapes, hoping to land the role of Queenie Jenkins, whom many in Britain already knew as the titular character in Candice Carty-Williams’s best-selling debut novel.Carty-Williams, who was also the TV adaptation’s showrunner, knew that she was looking for an actress who could convey Queenie’s introspection. Dionne Brown — whom she had met during auditions for another show — had the right temperament. “Dionne is constantly thinking in a way that Queenie is,” Carty-Williams said. “You see her standing there and her head is whirring — that was important to me.”“Queenie,” streaming on Hulu, is a coming-of-age story about the titular 25-year-old Londoner navigating the gulf, in love and life, between her reality and what she wants. She is a social media assistant at a newspaper, but has ambitions to write meaningful journalism; her relationship with her boyfriend is falling apart despite her efforts; and she wants carefree sex, but her encounters often leave her feeling disempowered.All the while, Queenie grapples with her childhood trauma and how those experiences complicated her relationship with her mother. The show also explores how culture influences mental health issues: Queenie’s background as the descendant of Jamaican immigrants, her religious upbringing and British society’s emotional repression converge, Carty-Williams said, to create “the Holy Trinity of how to have a nervous breakdown.”When Brown read the script for the eight-episode adaptation, she found Queenie instantly relatable, thinking, “Oh my gosh, I didn’t know other women felt like this,” the actress said recently in an interview. “There was a lot of truth in a lot of the dialogue.”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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    As Pat Sajak Leaves ‘Wheel of Fortune,’ a Look Back at Memorable Moments

    The host departs this week after more than four decades leading one of the most watched shows on syndicated American TV.Since 1981, Pat Sajak has anchored “Wheel of Fortune” with an affable and even disposition. On Friday, viewers will see him give the big wheel his final spin, capping one of the most impressive runs in television history — and the longest ever for a game show host.Sajak, 77, announced his retirement last year. In an interview with his daughter, Maggie, that aired Monday on “Good Morning America,” he said he felt “surprisingly OK” going into his final week. The farewell episode was filmed in early April.“I do know that somewhere along the line, we became more than a popular show, we became part of the popular culture, and more importantly, we became part of people’s lives,” he said. “And that’s been awfully gratifying.”“Wheel of Fortune,” which debuted in 1975 with Chuck Woolery as its host, became a hallmark of family-friendly programming — a game show where everyone regardless of age or background could watch and play along, with Sajak as its trusted conductor. Perhaps fittingly, Ryan Seacrest, who rose to fame as the good-natured host of “American Idol,” will take the reins from Sajak when the show returns for Season 42 in September.It remains among the most watched syndicated shows on American TV. As of last year, it was still drawing more than nine million viewers daily, second only to “Jeopardy!” for syndicated shows. In the mid-1980s, more than 40 million viewers tuned in daily.As Sajak’s era ends, here’s a look back at the show’s legacy, impact and memorable moments.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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    Pat Sajak, Cool and Reliable Host of ‘Wheel of Fortune,’ Signs Off

    In 41 seasons at the helm of “Wheel of Fortune,” Mr. Sajak, whose final episode as host airs on Friday, has been a durable fixture of the American cultural landscape.If AI were ever prompted to generate an avatar of a game show host, surely the result would be Pat Sajak.After four decades on the air, Mr. Sajak, 77, presides over his last episode of “Wheel of Fortune” on Friday. And his departure — Mr. Sajak has suggested in a series of televised exit interviews with Maggie Sajak, his daughter, that this will be a welcome retirement — offered a chance to reappraise what it is that made him such a durable fixture of the American cultural landscape.Mr. Sajak, it is probably worth remembering, has been with viewers through seven presidents, wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, both the AIDS and the Covid pandemics, the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the 2008 financial crash and, oh, the Kardashians. Not incidentally, he has outlasted the internet’s incursions into broadcast television’s long-held primacy.Through it all he’s been with the American game show audience, unflappably prompting contestants to choose a consonant or buy a vowel. He calmed contestants as they guessed at Hangman-style word puzzles. He bantered inoffensively with the imperturbable Vanna White in her parade of sparkly gowns. He blandly exchanged quips with an ever-changing roster of celebrity guests as they spun a carnival-style wheel, willing it to clatter past “Lose a Turn” and “Bankruptcy” to land on big money.And, for 41 seasons, this avuncular figure in a jacket and tie hovered into millions of households a night, a perma-tanned deity ruling over a placid empyrean.Against a backdrop of lives filled with workaday stress and debt, “Wheel of Fortune” was a refuge, notably less as game of chance than bulwark against everyday humdrum. How oddly easy is it to forget that overdue electric bill as Mr. Sajak asks, in his peppy tenor, “How do you feel about ampersands?”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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    Julio Torres Is His Own Thing

    In an interview, he discusses “Fantasmas,” his new HBO show combining a fanciful quest and wild comic detours with a critique of modern bureaucracy.Julio Torres has never had a credit card. He doesn’t even have a credit score, he said, and doesn’t want one, even though trying to rent an apartment is hellish without it.“I don’t want to do a symbolical gesture to bow down to the system so that I can have a home,” he said.Torres’s new HBO show, “Fantasmas,” reflects his contempt for the bureaucracy of modern life. It is ostensibly about his character Julio’s mission to find a lost golden oyster earring, but he is stymied every step of the way by technology, systems and corporations. A form of ID called “proof of existence” is required to do pretty much anything, but Julio is as defiant as the man who plays him. “I’m different,” he says in the show. “I’m my own thing. I’m the exception. So no, I don’t need proof of existence.”Torres, who also created, wrote and directed the series, described it as “free, roaming, surreal, but grounded in human emotion and very curious.” Julio’s quest frequently detours into absurd comedic vignettes featuring actors including Emma Stone, Steve Buscemi, Dylan O’Brien, Rosie Perez and Aidy Bryant.On the whole, however, the show is a shade darker than previous work like “Problemista,” Torres’s feature directorial debut, from earlier this year, about a toy designer from El Salvador racing to renew his work visa before it expires. A former writer for “Saturday Night Live,” Torres released an HBO comedy special, “My Favorite Shapes,” in 2019. The same year, he cocreated and starred in the Spanglish comedy series “Los Espookys,” also on HBO.In late May, Torres sat down in his office in the Greenpoint neighborhood of Brooklyn to discuss turning the tangible into the abstract and why representation onscreen must come from an honest place. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.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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    Jimmy Fallon Teases Trump for His Criteria for a Running Mate

    “He likes people who are rich and have hot wives,” Fallon said. “Well, at least he’s taking this seriously.”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.The Real Hot Wives of Trump’s V.P. PicksLate night hosts reacted to reports that former President Donald Trump is vetting four potential running mates as he attempts to regain the nation’s highest office.Jimmy Fallon wished the hopefuls luck on Thursday, saying, “It’s like signing up to be the babysitter in ‘The Exorcist.’”“Yeah, the chance to be Trump’s V.P. Right now, people are, like, ‘What should I wear to my interview — antlers or bigger antlers?” — JIMMY FALLON“You’ve got to appreciate the irony of a convicted felon running a background check.” — JIMMY FALLON“My question is, what can they possibly dig up that would be a red flag for Trump? It’s like [imitating Trump] ‘This person only committed arson — not a deal-breaker.’” — JIMMY FALLON“One source said that Trump’s V.P. pick could be influenced by the fact that he likes people who are rich and have hot wives. Well, at least he’s taking this seriously.” — JIMMY FALLON“Anyway, don’t be surprised when you hear him say, ‘Please welcome my new V.P., Jelly Roll!’” — JIMMY FALLONThe Punchiest Punchlines (D-Day Edition)“Eighty years ago on this day, American, British and Canadian troops stormed the beaches of Normandy to fight the forces of good people on both sides.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“While speaking today at the 80th anniversary of D-Day, President Biden removed his aviator sunglasses and said, ‘Hitler and those with him thought democracies were weak.’ Oh, man, you know he’s mad when he takes off his shades. I would not want to be Hitler right now.” — SETH MEYERS“And don’t forget — and this is true — Joe Biden was actually alive back when D-Day happened. And I’m pretty sure when A-Day, B-Day and C-Day happened, too.” — RONNY CHIENG“Once again, these vets did an incredible service to their nation — they made Joe Biden look young.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“Donald Trump in 2018 infamously opted not to visit the graves of American soldiers in France because he didn’t want to get his hair wet, and, also, he called them suckers and losers. That’s not a joke, even though the only thing that he ever stormed was Daniels.” — JIMMY KIMMELThe Bits Worth WatchingJimmy Kimmel’s sidekick, Guillermo Rodriguez, interviewed members of the Boston Celtics and Dallas Mavericks before the start of the N.B.A. finals.Also, Check This OutDolly Parton has been working on the musical for about a decade.Nina Prommer/EPA, via ShutterstockA new Broadway musical based on the life of Dolly Parton will debut on Broadway in 2026. More