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      Late Night Wastes No Time Jumping on Jim Jordan’s Troubles

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      The guest host of “The Daily Show,” Michael Kosta, likened Congress to Mitch McConnell on Tuesday: “totally frozen, and no one knows how to fix it.”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.Only 14 More Rounds to GoJim Jordan lost a vote to be elected speaker of the House on Tuesday, with 20 Republicans withholding support from the ultraconservative representative from Ohio.With Jordan struggling in the face of unyielding opposition, a second vote was delayed. The guest host of “The Daily Show,” Michael Kosta, likened Congress to Mitch McConnell: “totally frozen, and no one knows how to fix it.”“During the first ballot in today’s House speakership vote, Ohio congressman Jim Jordan fell short of the 217 votes necessary to become speaker, but Republicans are determined to keep trying until they finally get it wrong.” — SETH MEYERS“Insiders are saying that one of Jordan’s biggest hurdles is that no one likes him.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“They did this once before with Kevin McCarthy, where it took 15 votes to get elected — so only 14 more rounds to go.” — JIMMY FALLON“You can tell after the first vote that Jordan was getting desperate, because he changed his name from Jim to ‘Michael B.,’ and it didn’t help.” — JIMMY FALLON, referring to Michael B. Jordan, the actor“They haven’t had a speaker for two weeks; there’s no end in sight. Maybe it’s time we take away their right to choose.” — JIMMY KIMMELThe Punchiest Punchlines (Danger Zone Edition)“President Biden is headed to Israel tomorrow, which, wasn’t sending an 80-year-old on a dangerous mission across the globe the plot of the last Indiana Jones movie? And I’m not sure that went great.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“President Biden is facing this issue head-on and going straight into a war zone. He is flying to Israel tonight, although, he is 80 years old, so he did get to the airport two days ago.” — MICHAEL KOSTA“I am proud of Biden for putting himself in harm’s way. Although, let’s be honest, Biden doing anything pretty much puts him in harm’s way. A rocket strike is dangerous, but so’s a bicycle.” — MICHAEL KOSTA“I bet he can cool things down there because if there is one thing Biden is good at, it’s cooling things down, whether it is a war, heated rhetoric or voter enthusiasm.” — MICHAEL KOSTAThe Bits Worth WatchingSeth Meyers delivered his lost “Ya Burnt” segment, which had been scheduled to air the night after the writers’ strike kicked off in May.What We’re Excited About on Wednesday NightIssa Rae, the star of the film “American Fiction,” will appear on Wednesday’s “Tonight Show.”Also, Check This Out“I never thought I would get here,” Cher said of this stage of her career. “While I was busy being Cher, how did this happen? No one’s given me any info.”Nina Westervelt for The New York TimesCher’s new holiday album, “Christmas,” includes a re-up of “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)” featuring Darlene Love — whose classic 1963 version of the song featured a then-17-year-old Cher on backup vocals. More

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      Jimmy Kimmel Wants to Be Included in Trump’s Gag Order

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      “I don’t know about you — I saw the whole thing happen,” Kimmel said Monday, wondering who counted as a witness in Trump’s election interference case.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.Trump Gets GaggedA judge imposed a limited gag order on former President Donald Trump on Monday, barring him from publicly attacking court staff members, specific prosecutors and witnesses involved in the federal case over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election.Jimmy Kimmel wondered who exactly counted as a witness, telling viewers, “I don’t know about you — I saw the whole thing happen.”“Trump’s lawyer said he had no intention of intimidating any witnesses or court staff, including the judge, Tanya Chutkan, the one who lives at 2747 Maple View Lane, white Nissan Sentra parked outside.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“That’s right, Trump is prohibited from posting statements about the special counsel, his staff, the judge’s staff, witnesses and, here’s where it gets worse for him: windmills, windmills killing birds, windmills killing whales, windmills killing birds that come back to life and kill whales, toilets, toilets that don’t flush, toilets that do flush, and toilets that flush louder than windmills killing killer whales that come back to life to kill birds.” — SETH MEYERS“Good luck getting Donald Trump to stop talking. The guy is probably still spilling national secrets, just out on the golf course like, [imitating Trump] ‘Should I go with a 4-iron or a 5-iron? That reminds me, four and five — first two numbers in the nuclear codes. And guess what numbers come next? You’ll never guess; I’ll just tell you.’” — MICHAEL KOSTA“But even with this gag order, Trump’s still allowed to disparage the Justice Department, President Biden and other perceived enemies as long as what he says doesn’t directly reference his case, which, that should be no problem. This is a man who chooses his words very carefully.” — JIMMY KIMMELThe Punchiest Punchlines (Speak For Yourself Edition)“Jim Jordan has been in Congress for 16 years. He hasn’t sponsored a single bill that passed. For real — zero bills passed in 16. Even George Santos is like, ‘You suck, man.’” — JIMMY KIMMEL“But these Republicans are in a tough spot. I mean, either they cave to the extremists in their party who want to impeach Joe Biden and hand Ukraine over to Putin, or they work with the Democrats who want to fight climate change and give sick people health care. So it’s a no-win situation, really. “ — JIMMY KIMMEL“You could not pick a worse man for speaker of the House, and keep in mind the G.O.P. just had Kevin McCarthy, so they tried.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“Now, Republicans and Democrats are talking about a bipartisan solution to finding a speaker. That’s how crazy things have gotten; our government is so dysfunctional, it might become functional.” — JIMMY FALLONThe Bits Worth WatchingUma Thurman and Jimmy Fallon compared notes about parenting daughters on Monday’s “The Tonight Show.”What We’re Excited About on Tuesday NightRachel Maddow will discuss her new book, “Prequel: An American Fight Against Fascism,” on Tuesday’s “Late Show.”Also, Check This OutMadonna performing in London on Saturday, her first time on the road since 2020.Kevin Mazur/WireImage for Live NationMadonna’s career-spanning Celebration Tour is a bona fide dance party to the pop icon’s biggest hits. More

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      Suzanne Somers, Star of ‘Three’s Company,’ Is Dead at 76

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      She became famous for playing, as she put it, “one of the best dumb blondes that’s ever been done,” then became a sex-positive health and diet mogul.Suzanne Somers, who gained fame by playing a ditsy blonde on the sitcom “Three’s Company” and then later built a health and diet business empire, most notably with the ThighMaster, died on Sunday at her home in Palm Springs, Calif. She was one day away from turning 77.The cause was breast cancer, Caroline Somers, her daughter-in-law, said.“Three’s Company” first went on the air in 1977. The show told the story of two roommates — Chrissy Snow, a secretary, played by Ms. Somers; and Janet Wood, a florist, played by Joyce DeWitt — who welomed a man to join them as a third roommate: Jack Tripper, a culinary student played by John Ritter. Since their landlord would frown on an unmarried man living with two single women, the group pretended that Jack was gay.High jinks ensued. The show featured slapstick comedy, lighthearted misunderstandings and jokey one-liners.By the show’s fifth season, “Three’s Company” was one of the nation’s most popular sitcoms. Ms. Somers’s acrimonious contract negotiations with ABC became news. In 1982, The Times reported that she had wanted a raise to $50,000 from $30,000 an episode. In recent years, Ms. Somers repeatedly said that she had sought $150,000, in line with Mr. Ritter’s pay.She did not get the pay increase. Instead, she was fired.“I’ve been playing what I think is one of the best dumb blondes that’s ever been done, but I never got any credit,” she told The Times that year. “I did it so well that everyone thought I really was a dumb blonde.”Ms. Somers’s first notable role came in the 1973 film “American Graffiti.” She appeared only briefly, mouthing “I love you” to one of the stars, Richard Dreyfuss; the credits listed her as “Blonde in T-Bird.”But that scene was beguiling enough to earn her a spot on “The Tonight Show” with Johnny Carson, who, Ms. Somers recalled earlier this year in an interview with Page Six, introduced her as “the mysterious blonde in the Thunderbird from ‘American Graffiti.’”Ms. Somers in New York in 2020. After leaving “Three’s Company,” she appeared in many other television shows, including “Step by Step.”Mark Sommerfeld for The New York TimesAppearing on “The Tonight Show,” she said, got her the audition for “Three’s Company.”In the years after “Three’s Company,” Ms. Somers remained recognizable for frequent appearances in movies and on television, including the 1990s sitcom “Step by Step,” a stint co-hosting the television series “Candid Camera” and a wide variety of talk shows.But her later reputation sprang from her business acumen — which proved to be more formidable than ABC’s executives appreciated in 1980.She and her husband, Alan Hamel, made the ThighMaster, a workout device, one of the most recognizable products in infomercial history, thanks in part to Ms. Somers’s many leggy appearances alongside the product. The ads showcased her beauty and her advice that is “it’s easy to squeeze, squeeze your way to shapely hips and thighs.”More than 10 million units of the ThighMaster have been sold over the years at an average price of about $30, Caroline Somers said. She is not only Ms. Somers’s daughter-in-law but also the president of her mother-in-law’s company, which owns the ThighMaster and has overseen Ms. Somers’s other business and entertainment activities.In the mid-2000s, Ms. Somers was appearing on the Home Shopping Network for more than 25 hours every month. She was the pitchperson for everything from cowboy boots to waffle irons.Ms. Somers also wrote more than 27 books, including 14 best sellers, which tended to focus on issues related to the body and aging.Some of the methods she promoted — particularly bioidentical hormone replacement therapy, a treatment that she called “the juice of youth” for menopausal women — have often been criticized by doctors as unproven and possibly unsafe, even as the market for them has grown.The foundation of her business efforts was the sex positivity that she had embodied since “Three’s Company.”“A sexual person,” she told The Times for a profile in 2020, “is a healthy person.”Suzanne Marie Mahoney was born on Oct. 16, 1946, in San Bruno, Calif. Her father, Francis, had some success as an athlete but not enough for a lasting career, and he spent much of Suzanne’s youth working at a brewery. Her mother, Marion (Turner) Mahoney, was a medical secretary.Suzanne Mahoney was kicked out of a Catholic high school when nuns discovered love letters she had written. She graduated from Capuchino High School, a public high school, in San Bruno.She attended Lone Mountain College (which later became part of the University of San Francisco), but she dropped out after she discovered in 1965 that she was pregnant, and she married the baby’s father, Bruce Somers.They divorced in the late 1960s. Not long afterward, she worked as a prize model on a game show hosted by Alan Hamel, a frequent TV host. They quickly began dating and married in 1977.In addition to Caroline Somers and Mr. Hamel, Ms. Somers is survived by Bruce Somers, her son from her first marriage; two stepchildren, Stephen and Leslie Hamel; two siblings, Maureen Gilmartin and Dan Mahoney; two granddaughters; and four step-grandchildren.Ms. Somers was first diagnosed with an aggressive form of breast cancer more than 20 years ago. She pivoted from selling mainly jewelry, apparel and weight loss and diet products to focusing on organic skin care and cleaning goods, along with her promotion of hormones.She managed to sustain an energetic calendar of live performances. An autobiographical show on Broadway, “The Blonde in the Thunderbird,” was critically panned and closed after only 15 performances, but she had better luck in Las Vegas, where she enjoyed many years of song-and-dance gigs, featuring flamboyant costumes and no small amount of glitter.At the time of her Times profile in 2020, Ms. Somers had recently fallen from the private tram on her 93-acre compound in Palm Springs while partying with friends. Yet a reporter observed her at a spa in New York City managing the feat of walking with “a vampy strut” even while using crutches. More

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      Phyllis Coates, the First Lois Lane on TV’s ‘Superman,’ Dies at 96

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      She replaced Noel Neill, who had played Lois in two Superman movie serials; Ms. Neill in turn replaced her after one season.Phyllis Coates, who played the reporter Lois Lane, one of the most enduring characters in popular culture, in a theatrical film and the first season of the popular “Adventures of Superman” television series, died on Wednesday in Woodland Hills, Calif. She was 96.Her daughter Laura Press confirmed the death, at the Motion Picture & Television Fund’s retirement community.Ms. Coates was a busy if not well-known actress when she became the second onscreen Lois. Noel Neill had played the role in two 15-part movie serials, “Superman” (1948) and “Atom Man vs. Superman” (1950), in which Kirk Alyn played the Man of Steel.“But when there were talks about making a theatrical film — which would become ‘Superman and the Mole Men’ — Kirk Alyn didn’t want to do the role anymore,” Larry T. Ward, the author of “Truth, Justice & the American Way,” a biography of Ms. Neill, said in a phone interview. “He felt he had been typecast. So rather than just replacing Superman, they replaced the entire cast.”In “Mole Men” (1951), Lois and her fellow Daily Planet reporter Clark Kent, who is also Superman (George Reeves replaced Mr. Alyn in the role), witness the panic in a small town when two small, glowing, balding underground beings emerge from their home deep in an oil well.The “Adventures of Superman” TV series debuted the next year, with Ms. Coates, Mr. Reeves, Jack Larson as the cub reporter Jimmy Olsen and John Hamilton as Perry White, The Daily Planet’s cantankerous top editor.Ms. Coates’s Lois was serious and sometimes bullheaded. But she sometimes needed Superman to save her; Lois was an archetypal damsel in distress (and was even more so when Ms. Neill played her). This was the case when she was trapped in a mine, held on a ledge outside the newspaper’s building by a man who had strapped dynamite to himself, and captured by thugs smuggling fugitives into Canada.The series was not lavishly produced, as was evident in the characters’ wardrobes, which rarely changed.“Oh boy — I had one suit! One suit, and a double in case I got egg on it!” Ms. Coates told The Los Angeles Times in 1994 when she was cast as the mother of another Lois, Teri Hatcher, in an episode of “Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman.” “George’s dresser dressed me. My makeup man was Harry Thomas, who made up every monster in Hollywood.”In a statement, Ms. Hatcher said, “I’m sure she was aware of how much the fans would enjoy that inside nod to her work on the original TV series.”Ms. Coates stayed through the show’s first season but did not return in the fall of 1953, Mr. Ward said, because she had a commitment to film a pilot, which was ultimately not picked up as a series.In the book “Science Fiction Stars and Horror Heroes” (2006), by Tom Weaver, Ms. Coates was quoted as saying that the producer of “Adventures of Superman,” Whitney Ellsworth, offered her “about four or five times what I was getting if I’d come back, but that she “really wanted to get out of ‘Superman.’”Ms. Press said that difficult working conditions and a desire to play other roles led Ms. Coates to leave the series.Re-enter Ms. Neill, who played Lois until the series ended in 1958.Mr. Reeves died of a gunshot wound a year later. The death was ruled a suicide.Ms. Coates “got a lot of fan mail,” her daughter said, “most of it for ‘Superman,’ but also for the westerns she did with Whip Wilson and Johnny Mack Brown.”Everett CollectionPhyllis Coates was born Gypsie Ann Stell on Jan. 15, 1927, in Wichita Falls, Texas, to William Stell, known as Rush, and Jackie Evarts. After graduating from high school, Gypsie moved to Los Angeles, where she was a chorus girl in shows produced by Earl Carroll and acted in sketches in a variety revue. She also performed on a European U.S.O. tour. In 1948, she signed a contract with Warner Bros.Ms. Coates’s credits include Alice McDoakes, the wife of Joe McDoakes (played by George O’Hanlon), in a long-running series of comedy shorts, with names like “So You Want to Be a Baby Sitter” and “So You Want to Get Rich Quick,” between 1948 and 1956. She was also the star of a serial, “Panther Girl of the Kongo” (1955), in which she rode an elephant; a guest star on episodes of TV series like “Gunsmoke,” “Rawhide” and “Perry Mason,” as well as “Leave It to Beaver,” which was directed by Norman Tokar, her husband at the time.“She got a lot of fan mail, most of it for ‘Superman,’ but also for the westerns she did with Whip Wilson and Johnny Mack Brown,” Ms. Press said.In addition to Ms. Press, Ms. Coates is survived by another daughter, Zoe Christopher, and a granddaughter. Her marriages to Richard Bare (who directed the McDoakes shorts), Robert Nelms, Mr. Tokar and Howard Press all ended in divorce. A son, David Tokar, died in 2011.In 1953, while she was still portraying Lois Lane, Ms. Coates told The Los Angeles Times that her 4-year-old daughter questioned (as many fans did) why Superman’s Clark Kent disguise fooled people, even though it was just a pair of glasses, a hat and a suit over his Superman outfit.Her daughter, Ms. Coates said, “just can’t understand why I can’t see through Superman’s disguise in the telecasts. She thinks I’m quite stupid about the whole thing.” More

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      Mark Goddard, a Star of the ’60s Series ‘Lost in Space,’ Dies at 87

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      For three seasons, he and a family of five, a wily (and annoying) saboteur and a talking robot were marooned on a distant planet in the far-off future: 1997.Mark Goddard, the actor best known for playing Maj. Don West on the fanciful and popular 1960s science-fiction series “Lost in Space,” died on Tuesday at a hospice center in Hingham, Mass. He was 87.His son John said the cause was pulmonary fibrosis. Major West was the pilot of a spaceship carrying a family of five, a stowaway and a robot in the far distant future — the year 1997. On their way to help colonize a planet in the Alpha Centauri system, their ship went seriously off course, leaving the cast marooned on a different, inhospitable one (though luckily the atmosphere was suitable for human life).That set the stage for encounters with giant spiders, rock monsters, frog people, cyborg armies, space hippies, alien prisons, intergalactic beauty pageants and titanium shortages.The show — created by Irwin Allen, a producer later known for popular disaster films like “The Towering Inferno” — ran for three seasons (1965-68) on CBS. Major West was theoretically the romantic lead, a handsome single man in a uniform, and the first season hinted at a budding romantic relationship between him and the family’s oldest child, Judy (Marta Kristen). But that subplot soon faded into the background.For various reasons, including being scheduled opposite the new comic-book-like “Batman,” “Lost in Space” changed in the second and third seasons from a science-fiction project to a campy series that was more comedy than adventure.Mr. Goddard’s character no longer found himself setting up force fields, aiming his ray gun at rock-throwing giants, navigating rugged new planetary terrain or fending off kidnappers from another dimension. He was more likely to be left behind analyzing soil samples while Dr. Smith (Jonathan Harris), the saboteur stowaway, little Will (Billy Mumy) and the robot (Bob May, with the voice of Dick Tufeld) were off getting into trouble with a new creature or machine.Mr. Goddard’s co-stars on “Lost in Space” included, from left, Marta Kristen, Billy Mumy and Angela Cartwright.20th Century Fox Film Corp./Everett CollectionThe other regulars in the cast were Guy Williams and June Lockhart as the space-traveling parents and Angela Cartwright as their other daughter.Don was always the character most annoyed by Dr. Smith, and least sympathetic to him. He could be both hot-tempered and coldhearted, but he dutifully took a spacewalk, against his better judgment, to rescue Smith from the clutches of a seductive alien creature. If it had been up to him alone, he admitted, he would have let Dr. Smith drift through space for eternity.Major West was a role Mr. Goddard had taken reluctantly, not being a fan of science fiction. In his 2008 memoir, “To Space and Back,” he referred to his space uniform, his wardrobe for the show, as “silver lamé pajamas and my pretty silver ski boots.”Charles Harvey Goddard was born in Lowell, Mass., on July 24, 1936. He was the youngest of five children of Clarence and Ruth (Delaronde) Goddard. He grew up in nearby Scituate, Mass., where his father owned and managed the local five-and-ten-cent store.Chuck, as he was known at the time, attended Holy Cross College in Worcester, about 70 miles away, with no particular career ambition. He became interested in acting after appearing in one college play, George M. Cohan’s “Seven Keys to Baldpate.” In 1957, in the middle of his junior year, he transferred to the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York. Two years later, he moved to Los Angeles.He made his screen debut in a 1959 television movie that was meant to be a pilot for “The Joan Crawford Show.” (The series never happened.) He changed his first name to Mark at the suggestion of Chuck Connors, the star of “The Rifleman,” a western series on which Mr. Goddard made a guest appearance — no need to have two Chucks in the show’s credits.After only three weeks in town, Mr. Goddard was cast in a network series. He played Cully, the young deputy sheriff in the short-lived western “Johnny Ringo” (1959-60). A former sharpshooter at a carnival, Cully was brave enough to stand up to armed robbers and bloodthirsty bounty hunters but sensitive enough to be traumatized after killing a man for the first time.“All this time I’ve been handling guns and not knowing what they do,” Cully said after shooting a man dead in a saloon, in self-defense.From left, Mr. Goddard, Robert Taylor and Tige Andrews in a publicity photo for the crime series “The Detectives.” The New York Times described Mr. Goddard’s character as “a brash but efficient young police lieutenant.”Everett CollectionWhen “Johnny Ringo” ended after a year, Mr. Goddard joined the second season of “The Detectives,” a crime drama starring Robert Taylor. Mr. Goddard’s character, Sgt. Chris Ballard, was described by The New York Times as “a brash but efficient young police lieutenant.” “The Detectives” ended its run in 1962. Mr. Goddard’s next series, “Many Happy Returns” (1964-65), a comedy with Elinor Donahue, was also canceled after just a year. Then “Lost in Space” came along.When the show ended in 1968, he had difficulty finding acting jobs. He worked as an actors’ agent for a while, then had the opportunity to make his Broadway debut — in “The Act,” with Liza Minnelli, in 1977. Richard Eder of The Times said the production was “a first-rate cabaret show” but not really theater. It ran for eight months on star power alone.After that, Mr. Goddard appeared in a horror movie, “Blue Sunshine” (1978), and made guest appearances on several series. He entered the world of soap operas in the 1980s, appearing briefly on “One Life to Live” in 1981 and “General Hospital” in 1985 and 1986.Mr. Goddard was married three times. His marriage to Marcia Rogers (1960-68), a press agent at the time, ended in divorce, as did his marriage to the actress Susan Anspach (1970-78). In 1994 he married Evelyn Pezzulich, an English professor, who survives him. In addition to his son John, from that marriage, his survivors include two children from his marriage to Ms. Rogers, Melissa and Michael Goddard; two stepchildren from his marriage to Susan Anspach, Caleb and Catherine Goddard; two sisters, June Merrill and Patricia Panet-Raymond; and several grandchildren.In his 50s, Mr. Goddard went home again. Returning to college after 30 years, he earned a bachelor’s degree in communications and a master’s degree in education from Bridgewater State College in Massachusetts. In 1991, he became a special-education teacher in Middleborough, Mass.Even after he began teaching, he took a screen acting job every now and then. He made a cameo appearance in the movie version of “Lost in Space” (1998) and was seen in the more movie dramas “Overnight Sensation” (2000) and “Soupernatural” (2010). But he no longer thought of himself as an actor.“I had a wonderful life as an actor,” he told The Houston Chronicle in 1997. “But I didn’t want to be sitting around in Hollywood, kind of a halfway celebrity looking for his next job.”Bernard Mokam More

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      ‘Annika’ Review: The Detective Would Like to Have a Word With You

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      Nicola Walker plays a cop who works out her issues by talking to the audience in a “Masterpiece” mystery on PBS.A detective whose unit investigates waterborne crimes walks onto a bridge, looks into the camera and says, “Call me Annika.” She then proceeds to chat with the audience about Ahab and his white whale while she watches a murder victim being pulled from the River Clyde.That was our introduction to the British crime drama “Annika,” and through two seasons (the second premieres Sunday as part of PBS’s “Masterpiece”) the heroine has continued to talk to the audience: agonizing over her complicated relationships, thinking through her cases, delivering deadpan ripostes unheard by the other characters onscreen. And in each episode she invokes a literary work — “Twelfth Night,” “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,” a Scottish ballad about a kidnapped child — that ties into that week’s story in subtle or, somewhat more often, obvious ways.That might sound like a double deal-breaker, and I clicked away from “Annika” the first time I heard the words “Moby-Dick.” But I knew I would return to it, because Annika Strandhed, the Norwegian-born, Glasgow-based cop, is played by Nicola Walker — an actress whose ubiquity on British television is entirely justified by the wry, layered humanity she brings to all her characters. Walker’s ability to flesh out the emotions lurking beneath self-consciousness and awkwardness makes the first-person conceit of “Annika” not just tolerable but apt and engaging.The prominence of her voice in the series also flows naturally from the show’s source, “Annika Stranded,” a BBC drama podcast about an Oslo homicide detective that was a solo showcase for Walker. (Both shows were created by Nick Walker, who is no relation to Nicola Walker, if you can believe it.) The television show supplies Annika, who relocates to Glasgow to lead a fictional outfit called the Marine Homicide Unit, with a three-person investigative team, a lonely but good-humored teenage daughter and a sometime love interest, who happens to be the daughter’s therapist.That’s a standard complement for a series of this type, and aside from the protagonist’s fourth-wall-breaking, “Annika” is a typical British cop show, in the categories of regional and serio-comic. It boasts lovely Scottish scenery, with side trips to places like Edinburgh and the Hebrides, and spends a lot of its time on or near the water. It’s a dead-body-of-the-week show with a sense of humor that is perched comfortably between dark and twee; it could be a more literate, more serious cousin of “Midsomer Murders” or “Monk.”The homicide cases mostly have the eccentric origins that this subgenre calls for — a tech billionaire drowned in his basement aquarium; a body pulled out of the North Sea encased in a block of ice — and their solutions can seem almost beside the point, an impression that grows stronger in the new season. The forensics sessions and computer searches and sudden flashes of deduction have a cookie-cutter familiarity; the most invigorating aspect of the police work is the show’s fetish for slapstick foot chases, which commence about twice an episode.A little perfunctoriness in the mysteries can be excused, though, given the overall pleasure to be had from Walker’s performance. Annika tends to her team more or less ably, but her work suffers from the strain she puts on herself by making a hash of her personal life. She is buoyant and fun-loving beneath a heavy mantle of fierce Nordic repression, and Walker’s mastery of stumbles, stammers and brief, piercing embarrassment keeps us on the character’s side.Walker has a natural genius for establishing rapport with an audience, demonstrated in domestic melodramas like “The Split” and “Last Tango in Halifax” and in a succession of crime dramas. The best of those was the wonderful cold-case series “Unforgotten,” which she led for four seasons until her character was killed off in an arbitrary and dramatically unsatisfying fashion. “Unforgotten” returned for a fifth season last month (also on “Masterpiece”) with a new detective played by Sinead Keenan, and it was still very good — taken as a whole, it’s superior in writing (by Chris Lang) and direction (by Andy Wilson) to “Annika.” But without Walker, it doesn’t speak to us in quite the same way. More

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      ‘Billions’ Season 7, Episode 10: Mutually Assured Destruction

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      Axe’s fixer skills are tested after Prince issues an order.Season 7, Episode 10: ‘Enemies List’To borrow some terminology from professional wrestling, an art form much beloved by the traders and lawyers of “Billions” (to say nothing of the show’s writers), Mike Prince is a monster heel champion. He is a bad guy at the top of the heap, gold around his waist and his last defeat a distant memory. Seemingly impervious to attack, Prince steamrolls every babyface contender who comes his way. He is an effective villain because he has been booked to be unstoppable — all to better set up the moment when he is stopped.This week’s episode of “Billions” is that moment. And the babyface responsible for handing Prince his first real setback? Bobby Axelrod.It takes some doing to get Axe in position to block Prince’s progress. But eventually he literally blocks Prince’s progress, standing in the man’s way wearing a leather jacket and Slayer T-shirt as the tuxedoed Mike strides to a campaign kickoff party at the Met. (U2’s “Beautiful Day” cuts off so hard the moment Axe appears that your brain will supply the needle-scratch sound effect.) The look of not just surprise, but anger on Prince’s face as he realizes he is being defied speaks volumes.Indeed, Axe defies Prince’s direct order not to make a move against him under the threat that Prince would destroy Wendy’s life. When Wendy signed on as chief executive of that mental health start-up, neither she nor her adviser, Rian, realized Mike had hidden reams of financial misconduct behind the scenes. With her name on the contract, those crimes are hers to own. Decades of prison time are facing Wendy if the truth comes out.With Taylor by his side and Chuck pestering him to come through with his promised aid in the anti-Prince efforts, Axe tries and fails to extricate Wendy through financial means. It isn’t until he takes Taylor’s advice to come up with a play no other Wall Street brain could see coming that he succeeds.Axe figures out a play using a forgotten bargaining chip: the imprisoned son of one of Prince’s Taiwanese business partners. Jailed by Chuck over an NFT scam earlier in the season, Chuck “releases” him to Taiwanese authorities with this maneuver in mind. Axe sets up a prisoner swap, instead delivering the scammer to China in order to secure the release of Derek (Derek Wilson), the mountaineer Prince left to be captured there. More to the point, Derek is the former lover of Prince’s wife, Andy, and he will tell all if Prince rats out Wendy. That wouldn’t just hurt Andy, it would hurt Prince’s chances; as Axe puts it, no one will vote for “a man who couldn’t satisfy his own wife.”So no, the monster heel isn’t down for the count. This is less a victory than a mutually assured destruction pact, in which Axe and Prince have neutralized the people they love most as potential lines of attack. But the behemoth has been staggered for the first time in a long time, and Axe is now back in the United States and free to plot with Chuck, Wendy, Wags and Ira.Things get nearly as cutthroat inside Prince Cap as outside it this week. After confronting Axe with his knowledge of the conspiracy against him within MPC, Prince reveals the company’s new organizational chart to the traders. If the marginalization of Wendy and Wags, and the complete absence of Taylor, weren’t alarming enough, the creation of three new partner slots is announced — good for the group in theory, but bad in practice, as the competition will be brutal.This is music to the ears of a killer like Victor, and he happily swipes a strong idea from the timid Tuk to burnish his own chances. By contrast, Rian, disgusted by how Prince duped her and Wendy, rejects the job when Philip all but hands it to her. Ironically, it’s a pep talk from Victor, who tells her she is afraid of her own killer nature, that persuades her to just walk right in and demand the partnership. Her self-confidence convinces Philip she’s right for it, after all.It’s too bad, really. Just when it seemed like the likable Rian might extricate herself from Mike Prince’s moral morass, perhaps even joining the fight against him, she joins his brain trust. Or is that precisely the idea? Could she be the insider Chuck’s cabal needs, now that Wendy, Wags and Taylor have all been frozen out?Think too hard about “Billions,” and you will be thinking like a “Billions” character before too long, looking for attacks from all quarters at once.Loose change:The use of Slayer’s “Angel of Death” as the episode’s climactic needle drop made my metalhead night. I like how Bobby Axelrod has his own trademark musical genre on this show.In a revealing moment, Kate tells Chuck’s new up-and-comer, Amanda, why she ultimately left the Southern District for the greener pastures of Prince Capital: Unlike Chuck, Prince is honest about who and what he is. So does that mean this Kate, the new Kate, is being honest about who and what she is? Yikes. If you want evidence that learning Chuck’s methods can make you a monster, Kate is exhibit A.“Whimsy has a half life, and you’ve reached it,” Philip tells Rian regarding her general vibe of wisecrackery. I prefer the Rian who laughs off the insult to the one who winds up taking it into consideration.We get a price tag for how much Taylor stands to lose if Prince makes good on his threats: $650 million. That is a price Taylor is willing to pay, which tells Axe an awful lot.A common criticism of “Billions” is that its constant pop-culture references can seem forced. This time around, that’s the idea, as Prince bobbles two separate Quentin Tarantino references during the standoffs with Bobby that begin and end the show. Axe goes so far as to point this out — sure, it’s the show hanging a lampshade on what is either a tic or a signature, but it makes sense.Mike Prince’s Bobby Axelrod impression: not half bad!As Axe’s exile period concludes, it’s worth considering how he continued to live like a winner even after his big loss to Prince. The man’s home is, in fact, his castle, and from there he has built a new financial empire, expanding it like a conquering king reclaiming his rightful territory. His only concessions of defeat were fleeing the United States and leaving Prince unpunished. Now, thanks to Chuck, Axe is back on American soil, leaving just one more item, or should I say person, on his to-do list. More

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      Jimmy Kimmel Mocks George Santos

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      “Santos likes Jordan because when Jim Jordan sees a crime, he keeps his mouth shut,” Kimmel joked.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.Missed ConnectionsLate night shows were taped before the news broke Thursday evening about Steve Scalise withdrawing as a candidate for speaker of the House. Instead, most hosts chose to poke fun at Representative George Santos for a social media post on Wednesday refusing to support Steve Scalise in favor of Jim Jordan.“It must have been very frustrating for George Santos sitting by the phone, waiting to hear from Scalise,” Jimmy Kimmel said. “You know, they only give you one call in prison.”“Santos then tweeted his support for Jim Jordan. Santos likes Jordan because when Jim Jordan sees a crime, he keeps his mouth shut.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“Wow, I haven’t seen him this upset since he lost the N.B.A. championship to Michael Jordan and the Toon Squad.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“What a mess. The House only has until Nov. 17 to pass legislation to fund the government or there will be a shutdown. But they can’t do anything until they have a speaker. In the meantime, we’re all just waiting around like we’re customers in line at the CVS pharmacy window: ‘Any chance we’ll get our insulin?’ Not looking good.” — JIMMY KIMMELThe Punchiest Punchlines (Not-So-Hot Mic Edition)”Speaking of fools, Donald Trump.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“Last night, he addressed the horrific terrorist attack on Israel by attacking Israel.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“Capt. Bone Spurs gave a doozy of a speech where, among other things, he said Hamas would never have gone into Israel if his election hadn’t been rigged. He called Israel’s defense minister a jerk. He did some ax-grinding about Netanyahu and had some complimentary words about Israel’s enemies in Lebanon. He’s really angling for that Nobel Piece of [expletive] Prize.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“[imitating Trump] This is my worst mic since Pence!” — JIMMY FALLON, on Trump’s complaints about a microphone that he then refused to pay for“It’s always fun to see him come up with new reasons not to pay people.” — JIMMY KIMMELThe Bits Worth WatchingThe comedian John Mulaney sat down with his friend Stephen Colbert to discuss his recovery and getting David Byrne to score his new comedy album, “Baby J.”Also, Check This Out“City of Ladies,” a show within a show, puts Judy Chicago’s bronze female figures and other works alongside a sisterhood of more than 80 inspirations.Judy Chicago/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York; Photo by Clark Hodgin for The New York TimesSpanning four floors at the New Museum in New York, Judy Chicago’s “Herstory” show features the work of more than 80 artists and thinkers, including her own. More