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    Netflix and Amazon Drive Bump in TV Show Market

    Netflix and Amazon are driving a small bump in the market for TV shows after a major slowdown.It has been nearly seven months since Hollywood resolved its strikes, but momentum still hasn’t taken hold in the entertainment industry. “Survive till ’25” has become an informal slogan among entertainment workers.But the global market for ordering new TV shows is beginning to show some signs of life, and it’s been overwhelmingly driven by two players — Netflix and Amazon.Netflix greenlit more scripted television projects through the first quarter of this year than in any quarter since 2022, according to Ampere Analysis, a research firm. Amazon had its most active quarter since Ampere started tracking market activity five years ago, the firm said.Many of their competitors are still taking a more cautious approach. As a result, Netflix and Amazon collectively accounted for 53 percent of the scripted television series orders among the major studios through the first three months of the year, according to Ampere.Most of the series orders have been made internationally. Netflix has been particularly active in Britain, Germany, Spain and South Korea, the research showed, while Amazon has been investing aggressively in India.Netflix and Amazon have also purchased more projects in the United States compared with the tail end of 2023, but the increases have been more modest. Netflix had its most active quarter domestically since the first quarter of last year. Amazon had its biggest quarter since the spring of last year, according to the research.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: Shark Week and Macy’s Firework Show

    Discovery airs its annual lineup of ocean terrors. And NBC airs the annual firework show in New York City.For those who still enjoy a cable subscription, here is a selection of cable and network TV shows, movies and specials that broadcast this week, July 1 – 6. Details and times are subject to change.MondayBASKETBALL WIVES 8 p.m. on VH1. This show about the wives (and ex-wives and girlfriends) of N.B.A. players, is back for the second half of Season 11. In this world, the success of your partner dictates your power within the group and that continues to play out as the show goes on. Thankfully, these ladies are around to stir up drama because with most “Real Housewives” franchises in between seasons, it has been a little too quiet.TuesdayDISCO: SOUNDTRACK OF A REVOLUTION 9 p.m. on PBS (check local listings). This three-part documentary series uses different songs from the disco era to highlight the impact the musical genre had on its listeners. In the first episode, the focus is on “Stayin’ Alive” with conversations about how Middle America reacted to the genre’s queer and hedonistic themes.From left: Brandon Brown and Joe Schoen on “Hard Knocks: Offseason.”Matt Swensen/HBOHARD KNOCKS: OFFSEASON 9 p.m. on HBO. Since 2001, this series has shown us behind the scenes moments from over 20 teams in the N.F.L. season. This new version will instead follow a single team — this year it’s the New York Giants, as the team prepares for its 100th season.WednesdayHOPE IN THE WATER 9 p.m. on PBS (check local listings). Documentaries like “Seaspiracy” and “A Plastic Ocean” have warned us about the dangers of the fishing industry and the consequences of ignoring climate change. This documentary series is bit more hopeful since it outlines a solution: sustainable aquaculture, a method of fostering and harvesting seafood for people to eat, while protecting fragile ocean ecosystems.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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    ‘Interview With the Vampire’: Ben Daniels on That Bloody Season 2 Finale

    “He has an energy that’s fun to hate,” the British actor said of his swaggering vampire character in AMC’s series-length Anne Rice adaptation.This interview contains spoilers for the Season 2 finale of “Interview With the Vampire.”Until his time in AMC’s “Interview With the Vampire” was cut short — along with his head — in the Season 2 finale, Santiago was the toast of the vampiric theater scene.Played by the British actor Ben Daniels, himself an Olivier Award-winning veteran of the stage, Santiago was a dashing and devilish performer at the Théâtre des Vampires, in postwar Paris. Formerly known as Francis, a failed English actor, Santiago transformed himself into an underworld dandy after becoming a bloodsucker — and took a cooler-sounding name — rarely seen without a vampiress on each arm and a theatrically hateful twinkle in his eye.“He’s so awful and delicious at the same time!” Daniels said in a video interview last week. “And it’s his relish of it as well, his glee. He just loves being a vampire.”Daniels added: “He has an energy that’s fun to hate.”Unfortunately for Santiago, the show’s title vampire was his hater-in-chief. Over the course of Season 2, which concluded on Sunday, Santiago seized control of the theater troupe, which turned out to be a coven of vampires in disguise. At the season’s climax, Santiago staged a mock trial that ended with the real execution-by-sunlight of Claudia (Delainey Hayles) and her companion, Madeleine (Roxane Duran). It was for this crime that Santiago lost his head to their father figure, the vampire Louis (Jacob Anderson), in the finale.Based on the novels of Anne Rice’s Vampire Chronicles series, the AMC show, created and overseen by Rolin Jones, has already been renewed for a third season. But Daniels doesn’t feel too bad that his character won’t live to see Season 3. Santiago had it coming given his bad behavior — particularly by the end.“If you didn’t want him dead before,” Daniels said, “you certainly do then.”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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    ‘House of the Dragon’ Season 2, Episode 3 Recap: Let’s Talk

    Rhaenyra acts on a risky hope that cooler heads might prevail. But are there really any cool heads left?Season 2, Episode 3:“We read fantasy to find the colors again, I think,” George R.R. Martin wrote in his short 1996 essay “On Fantasy.” “To taste strong spices and hear the songs the sirens sang.” By that standard, this week’s episode of “House of the Dragon,” a series based on Martin’s book “Fire and Blood,” is spicy fantasy indeed.I don’t just mean the sex and nudity, though what there was of both blew my hair back on my head. For Martin, fantasy is about more than ribaldry. Describing it as a genre of “silver and scarlet, indigo and azure, obsidian veined with gold and lapis lazuli,” he goes on to write of how its very largeness, the unbounded scope of its imagination, “speaks to something deep within us.” This episode certainly spoke to something deep within this critic.Crumbling gothic castles and grotesque charnel-house battlefields, nightmares of murder and desperate pleas for peace, breakneck dragon chases and it-was-all-a-big-misunderstandings — this week offered the kind of maximalist storytelling that felt both over-the-top and vital. (Indeed it’s hard to have great TV without at least a smidgen of the outlandish.) From a story perspective, the episode’s biggest moment arrived right near the end. The brewing war between the Blacks and the Greens over the Iron Throne comes down to the wishes of one dead man, King Viserys. For years, he proclaimed his daughter, Rhaenyra, to be his heir to all and sundry. But on the night it most counted, the night of his death, he told his wife, Queen Alicent, that his eldest son, Aegon, must be the one to unite the realm — “The Prince That Was Promised,” as Viserys called the callow lad.Or so it seemed to Alicent. We in the audience knew that when he mentioned the name Aegon, he was referring to his prophetic ancestor, Aegon the Conqueror, and to Aegon’s vision of an apocalyptic battle against the darkness, as depicted in the final season of “Game of Thrones.”Did Alicent truly believe that Viserys was talking about their son? Or was that merely what she wished to believe? (As important, should a drama hinge its central conflict on the kind of verbal mix-up better suited to a sitcom? Answering that is, at this advanced stage, perhaps beyond the scope of this recap.)The daring stealth mission in which Rhaenyra sneaks back into King’s Landing (with Mysaria’s help) to force a one-on-one meeting with her frenemy of frenemies clears all this up. Alicent really believes Viserys wanted Aegon. For her part, Rhaenyra really believes Alicent really believes it. But once the dowager queen mentions the Conqueror’s “Song of Ice and Fire,” Rhaenyra figures out what went wrong and offers a clarification … which Alicent refuses to heed, although she seems to knows in her heart that it is true.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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    Can Japan’s First Same-Sex Dating Reality Show Change Hearts and Minds?

    Producers of “The Boyfriend” on Netflix hope it will encourage broader acceptance of the L.G.B.T.Q. community in Japan, which still has not legalized same-sex unions.Japan is the only country among the world’s wealthiest democracies that has not legalized same-sex unions. Few celebrities are openly gay. Conservative groups oppose legislative efforts to protect the L.G.B.T.Q. community.But now, Netflix is introducing the country’s first same-sex dating reality series.Over 10 episodes of “The Boyfriend,” which will be available in 190 countries beginning on July 9, a group of nine men gather in a luxury beach house outside Tokyo. The format evokes Japan’s most popular romantic reality show, “Terrace House,” with its assembly of clean cut and exceedingly polite cast members, overseen by a panel of jovial commentators.The vibe is wholesome and mostly chaste. The men, who range in age from 22 to 36, operate a coffee truck during the day and cook dinner at night, with occasional forays outside for dates. One of the biggest (among very few) conflicts of the series revolves around the cost of buying raw chicken to make protein shakes for a club dancer who is trying to maintain his physique. Sex rarely comes up, and friendship and self-improvement feature as prominently as romance.In Japan, the handful of openly gay and transgender performers who regularly appear on television are typically flamboyant, effeminate comic foils who are shoehorned into exaggerated stereotypes. With “The Boyfriend,” Dai Ota, the executive producer, said he wanted to “portray same-sex relationships as they really are.”Mr. Ota, who was also a producer of “Terrace House,” which was made by Fuji TV and licensed and distributed globally by Netflix, said he had avoided “the approach of ‘let’s include people who cause problems.’”“The Boyfriend,” he said, represents diversity in another way — with cast members of South Korean, Taiwanese and multiethnic heritages.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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    Anything Can Happen, and Usually Does, on ‘Watch What Happens Live’

    Two miniature horses, Aidan and Pearl, stood on the terrace of a tiny TV studio in SoHo earlier this month on a sweltering evening, one more equine guest than the producers of “Watch What Happens Live With Andy Cohen” anticipated. They were part of a bit for taping the late-night talk show’s 15th anniversary special and, apparently, booking a horse requires also booking it an emotional support horse.Andy Cohen, the show’s host and creator, brought his two children Ben, 5, and Lucy, 2, to meet the mini horses as producers whispered questions about the surplus. He soon headed back inside to provide emotional support of a different kind for the show’s humans. Gliding effortlessly between posing for photos with guests, including Sonja Morgan, a mainstay of “The Real Housewives of New York” who arrived in a diamond-studded (she said they’re fake) tiara, Cohen listened to instructions from his producers while also recording behind-the-scenes footage for social media.It was a lot of wrangling, even for Cohen — the core moderator and pot-stirrer of “W.W.H.L.,” the recap show that somehow manages to lure A-list celebrities like Oprah Winfrey and Jennifer Lawrence to marvel at the antics of the stars in Bravo’s ever-expanding reality universe. Five nights a week, viewers can see Oscar-winners re-enact scenes from “Real Housewives of Salt Lake City”; so-called Bravo-lebrities dish about just-aired dirty laundry; or Cohen and Hillary Clinton drink from a shotski, a ski with shot glasses glued to it that allows multiple people to simultaneously knock one back.Cohen backstage with Bravo cast members (and Jerry O’Connell).Hunter Abrams for The New York TimesThe show, and the reality TV universe it obsesses over, delight in outrageous behavior that is under scrutiny as Bravo currently faces multiple lawsuits. Former cast members from several series accused the network and producers of racial discrimination, running an alcohol-fueled workplace and failing to respond properly to reports of harassment and assault. After an internal investigation, the network said it cleared Cohen of claims made against him by two former Housewives, including those detailed in a lawsuit from a former cast member who said the show’s producers had encouraged her to relapse to boost ratings. Cohen also apologized for sending one former cast member a video message that she said constituted sexual harassment.Many of the regular bits on “W.W.H.L.” are related to alcohol: Each episode begins with Cohen revealing a word of the night for viewers to drink to every time it’s uttered; each ends with him encouraging the audience to drink responsibly. Regardless, Cohen and his team maintained that drinking on set was optional and not essential to the show.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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    Martin Mull, Comic Actor Who Starred in ‘Mary Hartman,’ Dies at 80

    Mr. Mull was also known for his roles in “Clue,” “Roseanne” and “Veep.”Martin Mull, the comedic actor, musician and artist who gained widespread attention in the 1970s in shows such as “Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman” and “Fernwood 2-Night,” and remained active in television and film over the next half-century, died on Thursday at his home in Los Angeles. He was 80.His wife, Wendy Mull, confirmed his death. He died after a long illness, his family said. No cause was given.In “Mary Hartman,” Mr. Mull played Garth Gimble, a domestic abuser who met his demise by being impaled on the star atop an aluminum Christmas tree.He starred in the show’s subsequent spinoff, “Fernwood 2-Night,” a parody of talk shows that aired in 1977. He played the talk-show host Barth Gimble, the twin brother of Garth Gimble.The actors Fred Willard, Martin Mull and Frank De Vol on “Fernwood 2-Night” in 1977.Everett Collection“With an undistinguished blond mustache, which may or may not be intended as a joke, Barth copes manic‐depressively with a shaky job situation and some hazy allegations about charges pending against him in Florida,” John J. O’Connor of The New York Times wrote in a review in 1977 of the show’s opening week. “Barth will say only that his lawyer thinks he has ‘a pretty darn good case for entrapment.’”He was also known for his roles in “Clue” (1985) and the television shows “Roseanne” and “Arrested Development.” He also played the character Bob Bradley, an aide to the main character in the political sitcom “Veep.”More recently, Mr. Mull appeared in the Fox television series “The Cool Kids,” about a group of rule-breaking friends living in a retirement community.Martin E. Mull was born on Aug. 18, 1943, in Chicago to Harold and Betty Mull. He earned degrees from the Rhode Island School of Design. His work appeared in gallery shows and in the Whitney and Metropolitan museums.In addition to his wife, he is survived by a daughter, Maggie Mull.In a 2018 interview with The Times, he described his approach to his art as “going back and finding old Life and Look magazines, people’s family photos and things like that, and then I collage from those, make my own images and then paint them.”A full obituary will follow.Alain Delaquérière More

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    5 International Shows Worth Watching, From Kafka to a Human Kaiju

    The return of “Babylon Berlin” was the international TV news of the week, but here are five other recent series to check out.The long-awaited American premiere of a new season of the German hit “Babylon Berlin” was the big news this week in the realm of international television series. But interesting shows from other countries arrive on an almost daily basis. Here are five recent series to check out.‘All This I Will Give to You’This six-episode mini-series on MHz Choice is a lot like a British country-house mystery, except that it’s French. So the matriarch of the aristocratic family visited by murder is even colder and more controlling, her out-of-control second son is an even more dire cokehead, and the food looks edible. Also, everyone is better looking than they would be in a British series, particularly the artisanally scruffy husband (David Kammenos) of the suspiciously dead eldest son, who kept the husband a secret from his family and the family a secret from his husband. (To stir the cultural pot further, the series is based on a novel set in Galicia by Dolores Redondo, the popular Spanish mystery writer.)Viewers weary of the variously arch or dreary contrivances of most modern American thriller mini-series may appreciate the straightforward traditionalism of “All This I Will Give to You,” which has enough narrative pull to overcome the usual fits of melodrama that break out as the mystery nears solving. Kammenos’s Manuel, shocked by the discovery of his husband’s hidden life and disgusted by his new in-laws, is a testy, twitchy, holier-than-thou pain in the derrière for more than half the show, which is a nice change of pace. And the camaraderie that slowly develops between him and a retired cop with a personal interest in the husband’s death is nicely drawn.‘Kafka’This German mini-series demonstrates that, even in an era of consolidation, distinctive shows still sneak in through the side door of the streaming business, in this case via ChaiFlicks, which specializes in Jewish-themed content. (The fourth of six episodes premiered this week.) The series takes a meta-fictional, Wes Anderson-ish approach to the life of the writer Franz Kafka (Joel Basman) — it moves back and forth in time and among Kafka’s acquaintances, looking for crucial moments, and characters break the fourth wall to reinforce or angrily disagree with the narrator’s observations.Each of the six episodes focuses on a different character from Kafka’s life, showing us what it was like to be the best friend, the lover or the much-maligned father. Stars of central European culture show up, some played by actors familiar to American audiences from “Babylon Berlin” (Lars Eidinger as Rilke, Christian Friedel as Franz Werfel, Liv Lisa Fries as Milena Jesenská). Some viewers may feel that the dryly humorous peak-TV approach undersells the seriousness of Kaka’s work and the momentousness of the times he lived in, but “Kafka” is never less than entertaining.In “Kaiju No. 8,” a laborer gains the ability to turn into a monster.JAKDF 3rd Division Naoya Matsumoto/ShueishaWe 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