Television

Subterms

    More stories

    • 125 Shares179 Views

      in Television

      Annie Wersching, Star of ‘Star Trek: Picard,’ Dies at 45

      by

      Ms. Wersching was best known for playing the Borg Queen on the Paramount+ “Star Trek” series. She was also on the television series “24,” “Bosch” and “Timeless.”The actress Annie Wersching, best known for her roles on the television series “Star Trek: Picard,” “24,” “Bosch” and “Timeless,” died on Sunday morning in Los Angeles. She was 45.Ms. Wersching’s death was confirmed by her publicist, Craig Schneider. The cause was cancer, Mr. Schneider said in a statement released on Sunday. He noted that Ms. Wersching was diagnosed in 2020 but had continued her acting work, playing the Borg Queen on the second season of “Picard,” a “Star Trek” spinoff on Paramount+, as well as the serial killer Rosalind Dyer on the ABC crime series “The Rookie.”Ms. Wersching was also known for playing Julia Brasher, a police officer on the Amazon series “Bosch,” and Emma Whitmore, an engineer, on the NBC series “Timeless.” On Fox’s “24,” she played the special F.B.I. agent Renee Walker.Ms. Wersching, with Kiefer Sutherland, starred in two seasons of “24” on Fox.FoxMs. Wersching also provided the voice for the character Tess in The Last of Us, a 2013 video game that has recently been adapted into a television series on HBO.“There is a cavernous hole in the soul of this family today,” Ms. Wersching’s husband, the actor Stephen Full, said in a statement. “But she left us the tools to fill it. She found wonder in the simplest moment. She didn’t require music to dance. She taught us not to wait for adventure to find you.”Mr. Full noted that whenever he and his sons left their house, Ms. Wersching would shout “Bye!” until they were out of earshot.“I can still hear it ringing,” he added. “Bye, my Buddie.”In an interview with the Paramount+ show “The Ready Room,” Ms. Wersching described playing the Borg Queen as “certainly a little intimidating.” She noted that she had familiarized herself with the role and those who had previously played it before going forward with her own interpretation and performance. “It’s such an iconic role,” she said. “I’m incredibly excited to have everyone see.”Ms. Wersching starred as the Borg Queen on “Star Trek: Picard.”Paramount+In a statement released on Sunday, Akiva Goldsman, an executive producer of “Picard,” described Ms. Wersching as a “gift” and an “utter joy” to work with. “Her entire ‘Star Trek’ family is heartbroken,” he said.Jon Cassar, director and producer of “24,” said in a statement that he mourned the loss of a colleague and a friend. “Annie came into my world with an open heart and a contagious smile,” he said. “Brandishing such talent, she took my breath away.” He added, “She’ll be truly missed.”Ms. Wersching was born and raised by her parents, Sandy and Frank Wersching, in St. Louis. She is survived by her husband and their three children, Freddie, Ozzie and Archie Full. More

    • 138 Shares139 Views

      in Television

      What’s on TV This Week: ‘Fight the Power’ and ‘The Ark’

      by

      Chuck D hosts a documentary about hip-hop on PBS. And a new science fiction series debuts on Syfy.Between network, cable and streaming, the modern television landscape is a vast one. Here are some of the shows, specials and movies coming to TV this week, Jan. 30 to Feb. 5. Details and times are subject to change.MondayEAST OF EDEN (1955) 3:45 p.m. on TCM. In this classic adaptation, the director Elia Kazan brings to the screen John Steinbeck’s semi-autobiographical work of fiction, which incorporates the history of his family into a modern-day retelling of the Book of Genesis’s story of Cain and Abel. The film is set in California’s Salinas Valley on the eve of World War I and follows the ever-changing and evolving dynamics between the Trask family — a lettuce farmer, Adam (Raymond Massey), and his twin sons, Aron (Richard Davalos), the favorite, and Caleb (James Dean), the jealous rebel who yearns for Adam’s love. “This is not a simple tale of good and evil, of crime and punishment,” A.O. Scott, the New York Times co-chief film critic, described in a 2011 video feature on the film. And “this is not what you find in the Bible,” Scott said. “In place of a religious conception of human nature based on fixed ideas of good and bad, ‘East of Eden’ proposes a psychological dynamic of complicated human relationships.”TuesdayFIGHT THE POWER: HOW HIP HOP CHANGED THE WORLD 9 p.m. on PBS. From the Grammy-nominated rapper Chuck D and his producing partner, Lorrie Boula, comes a new series that examines the relationship between hip-hop and the political history of the United States. The series features interviews with Killer Mike, Will.i.am, Monie Love, Ice-T, Roxanne Shante, MC Lyte and others as it traces the genre from its start as an underground movement in the Bronx to its emergence as one of the most popular music categories in the country. Tuesday’s premiere begins with an exploration of the art form’s origins.WednesdayTiana Upcheva in “The Ark.”Aleksandar Letic/Ark TV Holdings, Inc./SyfyTHE ARK 10 p.m. on Syfy. This new science fiction series from Dean Devlin, a producer of the films “Stargate,” “Independence Day” and “Godzilla,” and Jonathan Glassner, a producer of the TV show “Stargate SG-1,” takes place 100 years in the future aboard a self-sustaining spaceship tasked with finding humanity a new home as Earth becomes uninhabitable. The series focuses on the human condition as a diverse cast of characters reacts to unforeseen catastrophes aboard the vessel.ThursdayJude Hill in “Belfast.”Rob Youngson/Focus FeaturesBELFAST (2021) 6:20 p.m. on FX. An Academy Award nominee and a winner of the People’s Choice Award, “Belfast” is a semi-autobiographical film from Kenneth Branagh that is based on his childhood in Northern Ireland during the conflict known as “The Troubles.” Set in 1969, the film follows 9-year-old Buddy (Jude Hill), the fictional version of Branagh, as he lives through an ethnonationalist conflict between the loyalists (mostly Protestants) and unionists (referred to as the Catholics) that he doesn’t understand. “While ‘Belfast’ is, in one sense, a deeply personal coming-of-age tale, it’s also a more universal story of displacement and detachment,” Jeannette Catsoulis wrote in her review for The Times.FridayRENT (2005) 4:05 p.m. on HBO2. Adapted from the Pulitzer- and Tony-winning Broadway musical loosely based on Giacomo Puccini’s opera “La Bohème,” “Rent” focuses on the trials and tribulations of a group of friends living in an unheated East Village apartment in New York during the H.I.V. and AIDS crisis. Beginning on Christmas Eve 1989 and ending a year later, the film follows Mark (Anthony Rapp), an aspiring filmmaker; Roger (Adam Pascal), an H.I.V.-positive recovering addict; Benny (Taye Diggs), a roommate turned landlord; and Maureen (Idina Menzel), an activist and Mark’s ex-girlfriend, on their journeys through love, addiction and disease. “The movie applied a cinematic sheen to the scenes of this seedier New York,” the Times critic Maya Phillips wrote in a 2020 essay. Still, she wrote, “the message of ‘Rent’ isn’t just a glib carpe diem but a resounding declaration of ‘stand with your community despite’ and ‘make art despite.’”SaturdayFrom left, Corin Rogers, Joseph Carter Wilson, Glynn Turman and Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs in “Cooley High.”Olive FilmsMALCOLM X (1992), COOLEY HIGH (1975) and SOUNDER (1972) at 4:30 p.m., 8 p.m. and 10 p.m. on TCM. During its Black History Month Saturdays, Turner Classic Movies is celebrating with eight works of Black cinema. Its roundup is a collection of both obscure and highly regarded films that work together to represent a range of actors, directors and stories. The three films playing on Saturday are representative of that collection, starting with a biographical drama on the life of Malcolm X (played by Denzel Washington) from Spike Lee, who used Malcolm X’s autobiography and an unfinished screenplay by Arnold Perl to inform the film. Next are two coming-of-age films, starting with “Cooley High,” which “documents perhaps that last moment in modern American history — 1964 — when it was possible for young Blacks to see their color as simply one of the components of their personalities,” Jack Slater wrote in his 1975 review of the film for The Times. The film, based on the experiences of its writer, Eric Monte, and produced by Michael Schultz, who today is credited as one of the longest-working Black directors in history, is set on Chicago’s Near North Side and follows the high jinks of a group of friends in their last year of high school. The night is rounded off with the Oscar-nominated classic “Sounder,” a Depression-era movie that centers on two Louisiana sharecroppers, Nathan (Paul Winfield) and Rebecca (Cicely Tyson), their three children and the family dog, Sounder.SundayAMERICAN PAIN 9 p.m. on CNN. This special, directed by the documentary filmmaker Darren Foster (“Science Fair”), traces the rise and fall of two of America’s most prolific opioid kingpins: the identical twins Chris and Jeff George, who trafficked more than $500 million in opioid pills. Through F.B.I. wiretap recordings, undercover videos and jailhouse interviews, the documentary explores the lives of the George twins and how they helped fuel one of the worst drug epidemics in U.S. history. More

    • 150 Shares99 Views

      in Television

      ‘The Last of Us’ Season 1, Episode 3: One More Good Day

      by

      This week’s episode, starring Nick Offerman and Murray Bartlett, stepped away from the main action, offering a melancholy vignette about companionship.‘The Last of Us’ Season 1, Episode 3: ‘Long Long Time’In last week’s episode of “The Last of Us,” Ellie waded through a flooded hotel lobby, delighting in the decaying grandeur of a social institution she had only read about. This week, she spends a few hours in an elegant old house, filled with vintage furniture and a piano. She has no context — not even from books — for what a home like this really means.Joel, on the other hand, has dined with and traded with the house’s former residents, Bill (Nick Offerman) and Frank (Murray Bartlett), many times over the previous 15 years. Joel keeps his feelings to himself, but it is easy to imagine that for him this home was a portal to a safer, cozier past, like the one he lived back in Austin.How must Joel feel then, when he finds Bill and Frank dead?This is the first episode in this season to skip the pre-credits scene, which in the previous two weeks had been devoted to a brief flashback. Instead, most of the 70-minute running time is spent on one long journey into the past, stretching from the frantic early days of the cordyceps plague, in 2003, to one quietly bittersweet day in 2023, not long before Joel and Ellie knock on Bill and Frank’s door. Over that 20-year stretch, we see the story of a love affair — doubling as a short, sweet lesson about what survival really means.As someone whose favorite post-apocalyptic movie is George Romero’s “Dawn of the Dead” — with all of its long scenes of survivors constructing a combination fortress-oasis in a shopping mall — I could have lingered forever in this episode’s 2003 segment. After the government has evacuated his neighbors, Bill, a doomsday prepper in a quaint Massachusetts town, raids the Home Depot, the gas plant and the wine store, and he eventually builds a fence around his neighborhood and its nearby shops, fortifying it with security cameras, electric fencing and booby traps.With his gardening and hunting skills, Bill has all he needs to survive. But he lacks a larger sense of purpose. Four years later, when a stranger, Frank, falls into one of his pits, Bill softens. Frank, a refugee from Baltimore’s failed Quarantine Zone, persuades his captor to give him some food and let him take a shower. With someone — at last — to show off his skills to, Bill delivers an elegant gourmet rabbit lunch, paired with a fine Beaujolais.Inside the Dystopian World of ‘The Last of Us’The post-apocalyptic video game that inspired the TV series “The Last of Us” won over players with its photorealistic animation and a morally complex story.Game Review: “I found it hard to get past what it embraces with a depressing sameness, particularly its handling of its female characters,” our critic wrote of “The Last of Us” in 2013.‘Left Behind’: “The Last of Us: Left Behind,” a prologue designed to be played in a single sitting, was an unexpected hit in 2014.2020 Sequel: “The Last of Us Part II,” a tale of entrenched tribalism in a world undone by a pandemic, took a darker and unpredictable tone that left critics in awe.Playing the Game: Two Times reporters spent weeks playing the sequel in the run-up to its release. These were their first impressions.Later, the two men take turns playing the piano and singing the Gary White love song “Long, Long Time,” made famous by Linda Ronstadt. The lyrics prove prescient. After Frank coaxes Bill to admit that he has never acted on his attraction to men, they slip into bed together, with Frank promising, “I’m going to start with the simple things.”What follows are two more poignant vignettes, from 2010 and 2013, showing the comfortable life these two lovers settle into. Bill can’t entirely shake his fear of losing everything to the authorities or to the infected — a paranoia more intense now that he has someone to protect. But Frank nevertheless urges him to make their immediate surroundings more attractive and permanent. Then he invites over some friends he met on the radio: Joel and Tess. All this domesticity leads Bill to worry that taking pleasure in basic human interactions will be a distraction from his mission to survive, leading to near-fatal mistakes — like the night when raiders try to infiltrate the compound, and Bill gets shot.But Bill survives that attack, and instead it’s Frank who falls apart, succumbing to some unspecified illness in 2023. In their house, now filled with Frank’s paintings instead of Bill’s mother’s cross-stitch samplers, the men agree to have “one more good day” together before drinking wine laced with a lethal dose of painkillers.Some time later — perhaps weeks — Joel and Ellie find the couple’s dirty dishes, along with a note urging them not to open the bedroom door and see the corpses. (We never see them either. The episode closes with a shot drifting backward into their room’s open window; but it never shows the bed.)It’s frankly remarkable that what is ostensibly an action-horror series could make time — in its third episode, no less — for an alternately heartwarming and heartbreaking short film about companionship. It’s as though the opening montage from the movie “Up” were extended to about 45 minutes and then dropped into the middle of “World War Z.”It’s even more remarkable that the writer Craig Mazin and the director Neil Druckmann have made this little interlude not only relevant to the plot but also potentially essential to what this series is going to be about. On a surface level, what happens here is that Joel and Ellie get access to Bill and Frank’s stash, including a truck, a lot of guns and other essential supplies. But on a deeper level, this episode is about how even amid a world-ending crisis, the taste of a fresh strawberry can make a person want to stick around for another day.“Paying attention to things — it’s how we show love,” Frank says; and Mazin and Druckmann back that up with their own small details, like how when Frank first arrives, Bill’s dining room furniture is covered in dust. But by their last day, Bill is voluntarily watering the flowers. Again: It’s the simple things.The episode is also about Joel’s growing dependency on Ellie — he is starting to need her as much as she needs him. Bill’s goodbye note says to Joel that “men like you and me” are meant to take care of people, and that so long as there is “one person worth saving,” they can live a fulfilling life. In the note, Bill tells Joel to look after Tess — a line that hits our man so hard that he has to step outside for a few minutes. (Joel won’t talk about Tess with Ellie, though at one point we do see him building a tower of rocks by a creek, presumably in her honor.)So he needs to refocus; and he needs to start caring more about Ellie, the foul-mouthed chatterbox who until now he has mostly just ordered around. (Not that she ever obeys.) This kid who is fascinated by tales of video games, restaurants and airplanes may help him see the world differently. When they hop into Bill’s truck to head off to Joel’s brother’s Firefly compound in Wyoming, Ellie is excited about everything in the vehicle, which she’s seeing for the first time. (“It’s like a spaceship!”) As they pull out of the compound, she pops in a cassette tape, and Joel is moved to hear “Long, Long Time,” a song that clearly means a lot to him, too, for his own unspoken reasons.Ellie, of course, has no emotional associations with this song. (“You know I don’t know who Linda Ronstadt is.”) But right there, at that moment, they are making a new connection, together.Side QuestsOn their way to Bill and Frank’s, Ellie pesters Joel with questions about the pandemic, and he explains to her — and to us — more about what happened. Although the origins of the cordyceps mutation remain unknown, many believe the fungus contaminated some common worldwide grocery staple, like flour. Infections began taking hold on a Thursday. By the following Monday, society collapsed, as people were either herded into Quarantine Zones or slaughtered by the military. Everything happened so fast that no one had time to prepare. Rash choices made during a frenzied weekend still linger.Those radio broadcasts that let Joel know about trouble outside the Q.Z.? It turns out they originated from Bill and Frank’s place. (The decade-specific pop music code was Frank’s idea.)In a parallel to the sequence in which Bill fortifies his neighborhood, we see Joel and Ellie stock up for their road trip, grabbing clean clothes, toilet paper, deodorant and other basics. Joel won’t let Ellie take a gun; but when he isn’t looking, she finds the pistol Frank kept stashed in a writing desk, and she shoves into her backpack. This will undoubtedly appear again later.Mazin’s dialogue captures the easy affection Bill and Frank have toward each other. It’s all about their gentle pokes and running jokes — the stuff that becomes the foundation of a long relationship. It’s clear these guys are going to hit it off from the moment they meet, when Bill says he is hesitant to feed Frank because he doesn’t want other bums to come by looking for a free lunch — “This is not an Arby’s,” he grumbles. And even though Frank is facing a gun-wielding paranoiac, he can’t help but reply, “Arby’s didn’t have free lunch; it was a restaurant.” More

    • 150 Shares189 Views

      in Television

      “The Traitors” Host Alan Cumming Wore His Own Clothes on the Show

      by

      On “The Traitors,” a reality game show framed as a whodunit, host Alan Cumming’s wardrobe has some viewers on the edge of their seats.“The Traitors,” a new reality game show, hinges on startling revelations. In episodes of the series, which is framed as a whodunit, cast members are regularly “murdered” (kicked off). Others are “banished” (also kicked off). But some of the most astonishing reveals have nothing to do with the plot — and everything to do with what outfit the show’s host, the actor Alan Cumming, will appear in next.There are pink plaid suits. Herringbone tweed capes. Sleek little kilts. “Perhaps, rather alarmingly,” Mr. Cumming said, “the vast majority of the clothes were mine.”Some fans of “The Traitors,” which premiered this month on Peacock, said Mr. Cumming’s knack for turning natty looks became a favorite part of tuning in. “I really appreciated that he was dressing in so many colors,” said Catherine Maddox, 39, a lab manager in Boston.The series, which is based on a show from the Netherlands, arrived in the United States after a British adaptation (not hosted by Mr. Cumming) became a surprise hit last year. Contestants on the American version are a mix of celebrities made famous by past reality shows — including Arie Luyendyk (“The Bachelor”), Cirie Fields (“Survivor”), and Kate Chastain (“Below Deck”) — and people who have yet to earn their 15 minutes of fame.Mr. Cumming, whose demeanor is at once macabre and flirtatious, presides over them as they compete for a cash prize on the grounds of Ardross Castle, an estate in the Scottish Highlands once owned by an heir to the Lea & Perrins Worcestershire sauce empire.Many of the clothes Mr. Cumming wears on the show came from his own closet.Photographs by Euan Cherry/PeacockSam Spector, who styled Mr. Cumming for “The Traitors,” wanted to achieve an aesthetic that he described as Sherlock Holmes, with a touch of “villain from a James Bond movie.”Euan Cherry/PeacockThe set was meant to evoke “Clue,” the murder-mystery board game turned movie, said Mathieu Weekes, the production designer of “The Traitors.” To freshen up the 19th-century castle, his team decorated it with ruby red dining room chairs, a crimson love seat, an emerald couch and other vibrant furniture. “Our first reference for color was the film ‘Knives Out,’” Mr. Weekes said. “We wanted to make it feel quite quirky.”Rarely do reality show sets “have this vintage maximalism,” said Rachel Trombetta, an architectural researcher who works in film and TV. Mr. Weekes, the production designer, said that the set of “The Traitors” was “quite different to create” than those of previous reality shows he has worked on (among them: “I’m a Celebrity…Get Me Out of Here!”) “We wanted to break from the norm and try to give it sort of its own identity,” he said.Setting the show at such a spectacular location meant its host needed a wardrobe that would “relate to the craziness of this beautiful castle,” said Sam Spector, who styled Mr. Cumming for “The Traitors.” Thankfully, Mr. Cumming, who is Scottish, had a closet full of suits, kilts and plus fours that could serve as a foundation for the aesthetic he and Mr. Spector wanted to achieve. “We talked about trying to make this sort of dandy,” Mr. Cumming said, “this eccentric Scottish laird.” Or, as Mr. Spector put it: Sherlock Holmes, with a touch of “villain from a James Bond movie.”Robin Emry, a 31-year-old researcher in London who has seen both the British and American versions of “The Traitors,” described Mr. Cumming’s wardrobe as “Vivienne Westwood meets Vincent Price.”To make Mr. Cumming’s clothes pop even more, Mr. Spector accessorized the host in fly plaids, a type of Scottish scarf worn over one shoulder, hats, capes, sashes and opulent brooches, which tied many of his outfits together (literally and figuratively). Some of his accessories, like a pair of blue opera-length gloves, were made especially for the show.“The gloves are just hilarious,” Mr. Cumming said. He wears them with what he called “a little policeman’s cape” and a porkpie hat — an eccentric get-up that even he said pushed the limits of an already theatrical wardrobe.“It’s the most mental look,” Mr. Cumming said, “but I love it.” More

    • 100 Shares189 Views

      in Television

      ‘S.N.L.’ Spoofs Merrick Garland’s Hunt for Classified Documents

      by

      Michael B. Jordan hosted an episode that was saved by a couple of commercial parodies.Classified documents are all the rage these days: They’re turning up in the homes of President Joe Biden, former President Donald Trump and former Vice President Mike Pence, and on “Saturday Night Live,” which used these recent discoveries as grist for its opening sketch.This weekend’s “S.N.L.” broadcast, hosted by Michael B. Jordan and featuring the musical guest Lil Baby, began with a dramatic voice-over intoning, “Criminals beware. There’s a new sheriff in town, and he means business.” This person had already put away the Jan. 6 insurrectionists and, the voice-over added, “Now he’s searching for classified documents and he’s coming for whoever has them — Democrat, Republican or whatever Trump is now.”That person turned out to be Attorney General Merrick Garland, played by Mikey Day in an especially nebbishy manner. “I may look like I was born in a library,” Day said as Garland, “but there’s something you should know: Merrick Garland don’t play.” Though his voice was hardly intimidating, his bold assertions were often punctuated with head shakes and whip-crack sound effects.Day noted that “some have said the federal government classifies too many documents.” He added, “This has led people to ask, ‘Does recovering these documents even matter?’ To which I say: I don’t know. But it’s the law. And I am the law.” A pair of pixelated sunglasses then descended upon his face, accompanied by a caption that read “Deal With It.”He introduced three special agents that he had dispatched to the residences of elected officials, starting with Kenan Thompson playing an agent who said he had conducted a search of Pence’s home.“I knew right away this man needed a friend,” Thompson recounted. “When he opened the door, he said, ‘You came!’ with a big smile, and he offered to make us pancakes.”His search turned up no documents, but, Thompson said, “In an envelope marked ‘tax stuff,’ we discovered photographs of the country pop-singer Shania Twain, cut out from several magazines. When confronted with this, Mr. Pence said, ‘I’m sorry; I’m disgusting.’ ”Ego Nwodim played an agent who had searched the home of Vice President Kamala Harris. “Come on now — Joe Biden won’t even give this woman a pen,” Nwodim said. “You think she has classified documents?”Finally, Bowen Yang appeared as an agent who was still star-struck by a recent visit to the home of former President Barack Obama. “No big deal, but it was really fun,” Yang said, adding that Obama had possessed “175 letters from Lin-Manuel Miranda begging the president to attend a performance of ‘Hamilton.’ ”Day shared a final message for anyone still potentially holding onto classified documents: “Do you think this is a game?” he said. “Who do you think you’re playing with?”Thompson said to him, “Hey boss, when we done playing with these little papers, we gonna head down to Memphis and make sure justice is served down there, too, right?”“I sincerely hope so,” Day replied.Commercial Parody No. 1 of the WeekA pair of pretaped commercial parodies really rescued this week’s broadcast, beginning with this segment poking fun at the recent difficulties faced by Southwest Airlines. The carrier canceled thousands of flights around the holiday season, costing the company more than $1 billion.As the airline’s employees (played by Jordan, Heidi Gardner, Devon Walker and others) explain, Southwest has since taken steps to provide customers with a better, more modern experience: The company has upgraded its entire communications system — to 2008 Dell computers, replacing their old 2002 IBM ThinkPad laptops. And the airline has ditched its old pen-and-paper method of air-traffic control in favor of computers: that’s right, 2002 IBM ThinkPad laptops.Commercial Parody No. 2 of the WeekThis weekend’s second noteworthy commercial parody is also an effective little suspense thriller.It begins innocuously by lampooning a line of State Farm insurance ads, with Day and Gardner playing a married couple seeking the consultation of the company’s red-shirted spokesman, Jake From State Farm (Jordan). But as the story progresses, Jordan — who never fully exits the family’s house — begins to displace Day in all of his household roles, taking his wife and children out for pizza and to church and even supplanting Day in his marital bed.Day’s efforts to change insurance providers don’t go so well either: You’ll never hear anyone make a basic sales pitch sound as sinister as Jordan does when he says, “Even if you do find cheaper coverage, we’ll just match it.”Weekend Update Jokes of the WeekOver at the Weekend Update desk, the anchors Colin Jost and Michael Che continued to riff on the discovery of classified documents in the homes of Trump, Biden and Pence. Other jokes targeted Facebook’s decision to reinstate Trump’s account and a Senate hearing investigating the concert promoter Live Nation.Jost began:Facebook announced that it will reinstate former President Donald Trump’s account, but this time they’ll put guard rails in place to keep him under control. Which I think is the same thing they said every time they tried to reopen Jurassic Park. Also, what even are guard rails on Facebook? And can they apply to my uncle? Because he’s posted some very disturbing fan fiction about the green M&M.In the wake of the classified document scandal, representatives for Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama issued statements saying they all turned over all classified records before leaving office. While Jimmy Carter issued a statement saying, “Come and get ’em, you bastards” [his screen showed a photo of President Carter wielding heavy firepower].Che continued:A lawyer for Mike Pence says that after they discovered classified documents in his home, Pence stands ready and willing to fully cooperate. Incidentally, “I stand ready and willing to cooperate” is also what Pence says before sex. During the Senate hearings investigating Live Nation and their monopoly on concert ticket sales, fans of Taylor Swift protested outside the Capitol. Aw, that’s sweet. And only two years after their dads were there [his screen showed a photo of Jan. 6 rioters at the Capitol building]. More

    • 125 Shares199 Views

      in Television

      Jay Leno Is Recovering From Surgery After a Motorcycle Accident

      by

      The former late-night host and comedian drove into a wire a few miles from his garage in Burbank, Calif., he said in an interview. It comes two months after he sustained burns while working on his cars.Jay Leno, the former “Tonight Show” host also known for his obsession with cars, had surgery on Tuesday to repair multiple broken bones after a motorcycle accident in early January, he said in an interview on Friday.He seemed to be back in good spirits: “A 72-year-old man driving an 83-year-old motorcycle. What could go wrong?” he quipped.In his latest accident, two months after he sustained burns while working on cars in his garage, Mr. Leno said he was test riding a 1940 Indian four-cylinder motorcycle with a sidecar on Jan. 17, when he noticed the smell of gas coming from the bike.He turned down a side street to check the motorcycle and was thrown off it after riding through a wire he could not see. The accident left him with a scar across his neck, two broken ribs, two broken kneecaps and a snapped collarbone that he had surgically repaired.“It’s a little painful, but it’s not the end of the world,” he said. “Luckily, I’m only 72. If I had been an older man, this could have been very serious.”Despite the injuries, the comedian insisted during the interview that he was in good physical condition and said he would be recovered enough to work this weekend.His Sunday night show at the Comedy and Magic Club in Hermosa Beach, Calif., which he still plans to do, is sold out. He also has shows scheduled in Arizona and Ohio in the coming weeks.Mr. Leno cracked a joke about the crash on Twitter, writing on Friday, “I was riding my motorcycle up in Lake Tahoe and I came around the corner and bam, I crashed into Jeremy Renner’s snowplow.”Mr. Leno first shared the news of the motorcycle accident in an interview with a Las Vegas Review-Journal columnist on Thursday.The columnist, John Katsilometes, had asked about his recovery from a gasoline fire at his Burbank, Calif., garage in late 2022 that left him with serious burns. “That was the first accident,” Mr. Leno replied.He said in the Review-Journal interview that he had not wanted to talk publicly about the motorcycle accident because of the widespread attention around his previous accident just a couple of months before.In November, Mr. Leno had surgery after sustaining what doctors called “significant burns” to his face, chest and hands while working on one of his cars. After that fire, Mr. Leno said in a statement that he would “just need a week or two” to get back on his feet.He joked about the accidents on Friday: “I try to crash within five or six miles of my garage all the time so I can get stuff back,” he said.The comedian and car aficionado’s injury also comes amid CNBC’s decision not to renew his show “Jay Leno’s Garage,” he said, a program that since 2015 has showcased his extensive automobile collection alongside celebrity interviews.The move was part of a larger restructuring of programming at CNBC, Mr. Leno said. Representatives for the network did not respond to requests for comment.“I’d like to continue my relationship with NBC. So, you know, there’s no bad blood or ill feeling, right?” he said, adding: “I wish them luck in everything there. We had a good time while we were there.”Mr. Leno, who has been a mainstay of NBC’s television content for three decades, said he was looking for a new home for the show, possibly on a streaming platform, which he said “seems to be the wave of the future.” More

    • 100 Shares129 Views

      in Television

      ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live’ Celebrates 20 Years on Air

      by

      Kimmel reminisced about his show’s highs and lows on its milestone anniversary.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.‘Jimmy Kimmel Live’ Turns 20“Jimmy Kimmel Live” celebrated its 20th anniversary on Thursday with a special prime-time episode. During his monologue, Kimmel read from early reviews that panned the show and said “very few people expected us to make it this far, but we did. One reason he cited: “I made a great deal with the devil.”“When we started, there were no iPhones. There was no YouTube, there was no Uber, no Twitter, no Wi-Fi, no Netflix, no Google. We had Nokias and Ask Jeeves, and that was it. We’ve been through two wars, a worldwide pandemic, four presidents, one insurrection, at least three different Kanyes.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“You want to know how long our show has been around? We still have — this is real — a Blockbuster card. That’s how long. If you told me we were going to last longer than Blockbuster, I would have sooner believed I would be working at Blockbuster in 20 years.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“Every day, it takes a lot of people to make something this dumb, and we’ve covered a lot of dumb stuff over the past 20 years, from Snooki to Honey Boo Boo. Ken Bone to Sarah Palin. Sanjaya. Clay Aiken. ‘Chocolate Rain,’ double rainbow, Stormy Daniels, William Hung, the astronaut diaper lady. Kim Kardashian’s sex tape. Hulk Hogan’s sex tape. Pam and Tommy’s sex tape. The Octomom — I think she made a sex tape. Nicki Minaj’s cousin’s friend’s balls.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“I have been allowed to use this platform to speak out about issues that matter to me, like health care, sensible gun laws. I’ve encouraged thousands of parents to eat their children’s Halloween candy.” — JIMMY KIMMELThe Punchiest Punchlines (Facebook Edition)“After a two-year suspension, Meta is reinstating former President Trump’s Facebook and Instagram accounts. Trump hasn’t been on Facebook for two years, so, pretty much just like the rest of us.” — JIMMY FALLON“I mean, letting Trump back on Facebook is crazy. You’re just asking for trouble. It’s like letting Hannibal Lecter babysit your most delicious child.” — WANDA SYKES“Look, we all know Facebook is losing a ton of money, and they want that Trump attention back. They need a hit. Trump is their ‘White Lotus.’” — WANDA SYKES“Well, yeah, that’s a punishment for all of us! If you’ll remember, back in 2021, the ex-president got kicked off of the platform for a Facebook violation known as trying to overthrow the U.S. government.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“Meta, what are you thinking? You can’t allow him to post conspiracy theories on Facebook — that’s your mom’s friend’s job.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“So what are these new rules? For starters, the ex-president will be required to follow Meta’s updated community guidelines, which prohibit violence and incitement, fraud and deception, and hate speech. So, all of the former president’s love languages.” — STEPHEN COLBERTThe Bits Worth WatchingStephen Colbert and his “Late Show” guest Tom Hanks shared posters from new movies they may or may have not co-starred in.Also, Check This OutJoan Didion transcended ordinary literary fame to become a symbol of bicoastal chic and, with her husband, John Gregory Dunne, an ideal of intellectual-conjugal partnership.The archives of Joan Didion and John Gregory Dunne/New York Public LibraryThe New York Public Library has acquired Joan Didion’s papers from her joint archive with her husband, John Gregory Dunne. More

    • 150 Shares119 Views

      in Television

      Lance Kerwin, ‘James at 15’ and ‘Salem’s Lot’ Star, Dies at 62

      by

      “James,” which followed the adventures of a sandy-haired teenager who moves with his family to Boston from Oregon, made him a teenage idol.Lance Kerwin, a former child actor who played the title role in the 1970s coming-of-age drama “James at 15” and a vampire hunter in a mini-series based on the Stephen King novel “Salem’s Lot,” died on Tuesday at his home in San Clemente, Calif. He was 62.His death was confirmed by his daughter Savanah Kerwin, who said that a cause had not been determined and that the family was awaiting the results of an autopsy.In 1977, when Mr. Kerwin was 16, he was cast in a television movie, “James at 15,” that served as the pilot episode for the NBC series of the same name. The show, which ran for 21 episodes, followed the adolescent adventures of a sandy-haired budding photographer, James Hunter, who has moved with his family to Boston from Oregon.The show tackled serious themes like sex, alcoholism and pregnancy. It also made Mr. Kerwin a teenage idol.Writing in The Washington Post a few weeks into the show’s run, the critic Tom Shales said that while “James at 15” was “not perfect, not revolutionary, not always deliriously urgent,” it was “still the most respectable new entertainment series of the season.”“And if it romanticizes adolescence through the weekly trials and triumphs of its teenage hero,” he continued, “at least it does so in more ambitious, inquisitive and authentic ways than the average TV teeny-bop.”The show ran into trouble with NBC’s censors over a script that called for James to lose his virginity, to a Swedish exchange student, on his 16th birthday (when the program would be retitled “James at 16”). The network objected to the script’s use of the word “responsible” as a euphemism for birth control, and agreed to air the episode only “if the boy suffers for it and is somehow punished,” the novelist Dan Wakefield, the show’s creator, told The New York Times in 1978.The disagreement led to Mr. Wakefield’s resignation before the episode was broadcast, on Feb. 9, 1978. “James at 16” was canceled in May of that year.Lance Michael Kerwin was born on Nov. 6, 1960, in Newport Beach, Calif., to Don and Lois Kerwin. When he was growing up, he told The Times in 1982, he was so addicted to television that he could not read when he reached the fourth grade.After his parents divorced, his mother and stepfather “unplugged the television,” he said.“Every day after school I would come home and read out loud with my mother and stepfather — stories, plays and scripts that they would bring home from work,” he said.In addition to his daughter Savanah, Mr. Kerwin’s survivors include his wife, Yvonne Kerwin, and four other children: Fox, Terah, Kailani and Justus. Complete information on survivors was not immediately available.Mr. Kerwin’s acting career began in the early 1970s with small roles on popular TV shows like “Little House on the Prairie,” “Gunsmoke” and “Wonder Woman.” From 1974 to 1976, he appeared in five installments of “ABC Afterschool Special,” the daytime educational anthology series aimed at young people.Mr. Kerwin in 2022. After dealing with a drug problem for many years, he helped run a rehabilitation program and was a youth pastor.AFF/AlamyIn 1979, he starred in the mini-series adaptation of “Salem’s Lot.” The series followed a novelist who returns to his New England hometown to write a book and encounters vampires who have invaded the town. Mr. Kerwin played Mark Petrie, a teenager who helps the author stop the vampires.Mr. Kerwin continued acting through the 1980s and into 1990s. He appeared in the 1985 science fiction movie “Enemy Mine” and the 1995 thriller “Outbreak,” about a deadly plague.By the time he was making “Outbreak,” Mr. Kerwin “was actively struggling with sobriety,” Savanah Kerwin said, which may have played a role in his decision to walk away from acting.In 2010, Mr. Kerwin pleaded guilty to a charge of second-degree theft for falsifying documents to obtain state medical assistance and food stamps in Hawaii, The Associated Press reported. He was sentenced to five years of probation and was ordered to perform 300 hours of community service.“I’ve been struggling with the sin of drug use for a long time,” Mr. Kerwin told The Los Angeles Daily News in 1999, in an interview conducted while he was in a rehabilitation center in Perris, Calif. “I’ve gotten in years of abstinence. The last time I found myself turning to drugs again, I came here to restore my walk with the Lord.”Later, his daughter said, he helped run the rehabilitation program U-Turn for Christ and was a youth pastor there for several years.“He was constantly trying to help people who were struggling to find God or become sober,” she said. “That was his focus for the rest of his life.”Sheelagh McNeill More