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      Ellen DeGeneres, a Signature Star of the Obama Era, Says Goodbye

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      The host had apologized after reports of misconduct at the “Ellen” workplace, but it wasn’t enough to undo a ratings crash. She makes her exit from daytime TV after a 19-year run.In the days leading up to the finale, the ovations grew longer and louder. Fans blew kisses, made heart shapes with their hands and screamed the host’s name. The outpouring signaled the end of “The Ellen DeGeneres Show,” a daily hour of daytime escapism that had reached its peak in less contentious times, when Beyoncé, Madonna, and Barack and Michelle Obama were happy to show off their goofiest dance moves side by side with the show’s star before an audience of millions.When the program made its debut in 2003, it seemed unlikely to be a hit. Ellen DeGeneres had been in limbo five years at that point, ever since ABC had canceled her sitcom a year after her groundbreaking announcement that she was gay. On Thursday, at the start of the 3,339th and final episode of her talk show, she recalled what she had been through and how much times had changed.“When we started this show, I couldn’t say ‘gay,’” Ms. DeGeneres said. “I said it at home a lot. ‘What are we having for our gay breakfast?’ Or, ‘Pass the gay salt.’”After mentioning that she also couldn’t say the word “wife” in the time before gay marriage was legal, the camera turned to the audience to capture Ms. DeGeneres’s spouse, the actress Portia de Rossi, before returning to the host.“Twenty-five years ago, they canceled my sitcom, because they didn’t want a lesbian to be in prime time once a week,” she continued. “And I said, ‘OK, then, I’ll be on daytime every day. How about that?’”But by the time of Thursday’s finale, Ms. DeGeneres, 64, was no longer at the forefront of social change. And despite the heartfelt send-offs delivered by fans and celebrity guests including Oprah Winfrey, Jennifer Aniston, and Pink, she was not going out on top.A turning point came in 2020, when BuzzFeed News reported allegations of workplace misconduct on the show’s set, which prompted an investigation and the firing of three high-ranking producers. Not long afterward, the ratings for “The Ellen DeGeneres Show,” also known as “Ellen,” cratered. The show lost more than a million viewers for the 2020-2021 season, a 44 percent decline.Ms. DeGeneres took the stage at the 2014 Oscars, the second time she served as the ceremony’s host.John Shearer/Invision, via Associated PressMs. DeGeneres apologized to her staff and her viewers, but the show remained well behind onetime competitors like “Dr. Phil,” “Live With Kelly and Ryan” and “The View.” It seemed her fans had a tough time puzzling out the discrepancy between her sunny stage persona and the realities of the workplace she oversaw.In her just-concluded final season, she settled into a place atop the second tier of daytime talk, with a gap of about 100,000 viewers between her program and “The Kelly Clarkson Show,” and a greater lead over also-rans like“Maury” and “Rachael Ray.” In the final weeks of “Ellen,” some guests hinted at the difficulties of the last two years and implored the host to appreciate her contribution. Julia Louis-Dreyfus said she hoped Ms. DeGeneres understood “what a great thing it is that you’ve done with this show.”“Really,” Ms. Louis-Dreyfus added. “Honestly.”The comedian Howie Mandel continued the pep talk on the next episode: “I want nothing for you but the happiness that you have spread to everyone else — I want you to just bask in that. I want you to be happy. And I hope you’re happy.”Ms. DeGeneres and her wife, Portia de Rossi, at the Governor’s Ball in 2014.Noel West for The New York TimesMs. DeGeneres’s closest supporters blamed the ratings slide on Covid-19, which necessitated the taping of shows with no studio audience, rather than attributing it to the reports on the “Ellen” workplace, which included staff members’ complaints that they had faced “racism, fear and intimidation,” as well as sexual harassment from top producers.“It was a pandemic problem,” said Mike Darnell, the president of Warner Bros.’ unscripted division, which oversaw the show. “I think for a comedian — which, there’s very few in daytime — not having an audience makes an enormous difference.”Ms. DeGeneres, born in Metairie, La., started her out in a New Orleans comedy club, making a name for herself with observational material that sometimes veered into the absurd. An early routine, “Phone Call to God,” was inspired by the death of her girlfriend in a car crash. When she came up with it, she could see herself doing it on “The Tonight Show,” then the ultimate venue for stand-up comics.She was shortly into her career in 1984, when the cable network Showtime declared her the “Funniest Person in America.” Two years later, she was performing “Phone Call to God” on “The Tonight Show.” Johnny Carson called on her to sit beside him, a gesture he reserved for comedians whom he held in high esteem. She was the first female comic to be summoned by the longtime king of late night during a debut appearance.“Carson didn’t have many female comedians on the show,” said Wayne Federman, a stand-up comic and author of “The History of Stand-Up: From Mark Twain to Dave Chappelle.” “It was extra hard to get on as a female comedian. And sure enough, Ellen, the charming, disarming comedian that she was, did the show. And getting called over to the couch was remarkable. Carson was smitten.”Before taking on daytime talk, Ms. DeGeneres, shown here in a scene with Laura Dern, battled with ABC executives over the content of her 1990s sitcom, “Ellen.”ABC, via Getty ImagesIn 1994 she was starring in the sitcom “These Friends of Mine,” which ABC retitled “Ellen” after one season. It lasted more than 100 episodes — the benchmark for a network success — and made television history when Ms. DeGeneres, as well as the character Ellen, came out of the closet in 1997.She appeared on the cover of Time and sat for an “Oprah” interview, but the next season was the show’s last. As The New York Times reported at the time, she clashed with ABC executives over the sitcom’s story lines, which her bosses deemed overly focused on gay themes. At one point, the executives demanded that a special content advisory be included as part of the show.It took another five years before Jim Paratore, an executive at Telepictures, a division of Warner Bros., helped engineer her comeback. Executives at local TV affiliates were resistant to the idea of an out gay person hosting a daytime talk show, fearing a backlash. And when “The Ellen DeGeneres Show” premiered in 2003, executives at Warner Bros. were talking up another daytime property they had in the works, “The Sharon Osbourne Show,” in the belief that it had the better chance of catching on.“Sharon Osbourne was flying high at that point, and Ellen was coming out of a cancellation, and people didn’t want her to talk about being gay,” David Decker, an executive vice president at Warner Bros., said. “She wasn’t launched with a lot of tailwind — she was launched with a lot of headwind.”Little by little she proved her doubters wrong. Mr. Federman, the stand-up comic and historian, attributed her success to her unusual approach.“She always thought it was the job of the comedian to set the pace of the room — that she wasn’t going to let the audience dictate how hard she was going to have to tell the jokes or how fast she was going to have to do her routine,” he said. “She felt if she was in control, the audience would come to her — and that is exactly what happened.“Most comedians, if you don’t get the laughs, you speed up,” he continued. “She was always the one who slowed it down. Ellen had an uncommon confidence in her comedic rhythm. She was like, ‘I’m going to do this comedy at a very casual rate that people will easily fall into this.’ That was perfect for daytime television.”In awarding Ms. DeGeneres the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2016, President Obama credited her with pushing “our country in the direction of justice.”Al Drago/The New York TimesAfter a few years, the identity of “Ellen” was firmly in place. The host lavished her audience members, and people in need, with cash and prizes. She danced with fans and celebrity guests, reveling in the awkwardness — just be yourself, she said. As the internet gained traction, she invited early viral stars to her show, elevating them to wider fame.She came to embody a cultural moment — a time when Mr. Obama was president, gay marriage was newly legal and social media was regarded as a benevolent force. The feel-good vibe of “Ellen” fit in with a prevailing mood, and the show won dozens of Emmys. Ms. DeGeneres hit a peak in 2016, when Mr. Obama awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom. During the White House ceremony, he credited her with pushing “our country in the direction of justice,” saying she had pulled it off “one joke, one dance, at a time.”About a decade ago, moving beyond the jokes and dancing, Ms. DeGeneres adopted “Be Kind” as a motto, and it soon morphed into its own endeavor. Today, a yearly subscription to “Be Kind” costs $219.96. Those who sign up receive a box every four months containing items selected by Ms. DeGeneres. (The summer collection includes sunglasses, a planner and a bracelet.)Ms. DeGeneres at her talk show’s finale, which took place years after the height of her cultural influence.Michael Rozman/Warner Bros., via Associated PressFor Ms. DeGeneres, the Be Kind persona came in handy. When she was twice selected to host the Oscars (in 2007 and 2014), it was to clean up the messes left behind by performers whose performances were perceived as too biting or caustic — Chris Rock, Jon Stewart, Seth MacFarlane.Later, with Donald J. Trump dominating the news from his White House pulpit and the onetime tech darlings Facebook and Twitter becoming battlegrounds for heated cultural debates, Ms. DeGeneres’s lighthearted approach started falling out of favor. Even the viral sensations who once got a boost from her show didn’t need her anymore — TikTok was more than enough. Then came the workplace scandal, which seemed to undercut the “Be Kind” message.“Being known as the Be Kind Lady is a tricky position to be in,” she told viewers in the wake of the reports. “So let me give you some advice. If anyone is thinking of changing their title or giving yourself a nickname, do not go with the Be Kind Lady.”Daytime talk remains arguably the hardest TV genre to crack. Since Ms. DeGeneres entered the fray, the list of reality stars, news anchors and actors who have given it a go includes Queen Latifah, Jane Pauley, Kris Jenner, Bethenny Frankel, Bonnie Hunt, Tony Danza, RuPaul, Jeff Probst, Anderson Cooper and Ms. Osbourne. All came and went in a flash.The high price of daily television adds to the challenge. “The economics to produce north of 150 hours of television a year, with 34 weeks of originals and 170 episodes a year, is really expensive,” Mr. Decker, the executive, said. A new show may cost $20 million to $30 million to launch, he added. Further costs must go to hundreds of employees, sound stages (“Ellen” occupied three of on the Warner Bros. lot) and flying in celebrity guests.“You need a big rating to even cover your costs year over year,” Mr. Decker said. “It’s a very challenging economic model, and to lay that out over two decades of real secular change in our industry? It’s unbelievable, to keep a show going that long.”Ms. DeGeneres has said she plans to take some time off, but whatever comes next, the talk show will be the centerpiece of her legacy.“There will be other things, other great things, but there will never be a time like this,” Ms. Winfrey told Ms. DeGeneres on the third-to-last episode of “Ellen.” “Know that these are the glory days.” More

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      ‘Pistol’ Tells Steve Jones’s Story. With a Touch of Showbiz.

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      A new limited series is based on a memoir by the Sex Pistol’s guitarist. Just don’t confuse it with a documentary, he says.LONDON — For Steve Jones, direct has always been best. The Sex Pistols guitarist is known for rejecting what he describes as fancy “Beatle chords” in favor of a sound without frills, and for drunken retorts on prime time British television.This approach is at the fore in his 2016 book, “Lonely Boy: Tales from a Sex Pistol.” In the introduction, he writes, “I’m not gonna come out of this smelling of roses,” before detailing the rampant kleptomania of his late teens and his sex addictions. There are also details of the sexual abuse by his stepfather, his descent into addiction after the band collapsed and the near illiteracy that hampered him until well into his adult life.The book forms the basis for “Pistol,” a six-part series directed by Danny Boyle and arriving on FX/Hulu on Tuesday. The show stars Toby Wallace as Jones and Anson Boon as the Sex Pistols’ lead singer, John Lydon, known as Johnny Rotten.Toby Wallace plays Steve Jones in “Pistol.”Miya Mizuno/FXIn the series, tensions abound between the exceptional and the ordinary, and dramatic license often overcomes fidelity to Jones’s experience. Preparations have been tense, too, with Lydon losing a lawsuit to the rest of the band over the use of Pistols music in the show.In a recent phone interview, Jones discussed what he would do if he ran into Lydon, how his story got changed to fit a TV format and the impact of the band’s manager, Malcolm McLaren. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.What motivated you to write the memoir?There was just a lot of stuff I wanted to get out there, even the dodgy stuff. It was weird at first, but I got such a lot of feedback from it — from men, young guys, who experienced a lot of similar trauma stuff as kids. I didn’t realize that kind of thing happens a lot. Most guys don’t tell anybody, they take it to their grave, and it’s very unhealthy to do that. You can’t carry that stuff around with you, you’ve got to move on.In the book, you say you hadn’t minded playing second fiddle to Lydon, but when Sid Vicious joined the Pistols, you were left playing third fiddle. How does it feel to now be the dominant voice in “Pistol?”I mean, it’s OK. I’m a team player, I don’t really like being the center of attention. I’d rather be playing guitar than singing, I’ve always had that approach. I don’t really like all the spotlight at this stage of the game, at 66 years old. But it is what it is.From left, Louis Partridge, Anson Boon, Jacob Slater and Wallace in the show.Miya Mizuno/FXBut surely that was a consideration when Danny Boyle approached you, that you’d be thrust into the spotlight?Well, of course. But Boyle liked the fact that it was coming from my view. He said I was like the engine room of the Sex Pistols, and liked coming from that angle, as opposed to the obvious angle.Through the eyes of Lydon?Exactly. That’s normally the way it goes. I got a shot at telling my story, based on my book. But you’ve got to remember, it’s not a documentary. It’s a six-part series.“Lonely Boy” is a pretty frank tale that asks for little forgiveness. How well do you think that comes across in “Pistol?”Like I said, it’s based on my book. You’ve got to showbiz it up a little bit, you’ve got to make it interesting — even the relationship between me and Chrissie Hynde, the “love interest.” She watched it the other day, and she was surprised: She said, “I didn’t realize I was about this much.”“Pistol” presents that as a recurring relationship. Is that quite how it happened?I knew Chrissie, we did hang out a bit in the early days, she wanted to be a musician, and I kind of brushed her off, so that is all true. But she was shocked when she saw it last week.But I do think it’s a good story. Even if it wasn’t as long as that, my relationship with her, I just think the way it’s been written makes it interesting. If you’re a train spotter, you’re going to hate it, because it’s not in the timeline, but whatever.In “Pistol,” Chrissie Hynde, played by Sydney Chandler, is the love interest to Wallace’s Jones.Miya Mizuno/FXAnother unexpected narrative is the way Malcolm McLaren (played by Thomas Brodie-Sangster) and Vivienne Westwood (Talulah Riley) are presented as parent figures. What was your relationship with the pair of them like?They had a flat in Clapham, and I used to go and stay over there. They had Ben and Joe [Westwood’s children], but Ben didn’t stay over much, so I would sleep in one of the bunk beds with Joe. I just used to hang out with them, at Cranks, the vegetarian restaurant in Carnaby Street. I used to drive Malcolm around to the tailors in the East End because he couldn’t drive.[Meeting them] was a real turning point for me, and that’s where my loyalty lay. Malcolm showed me a different side of life — that whole avant-garde, Chelsea “posh toffs” scene. And I loved it. I was not headed anywhere good the way I was going, so I’m always grateful for him and Viv for that. Even though you couldn’t trust him, I still didn’t care.Early in your relationship, McLaren helped you avoid a prison sentence. Repaying that debt seems to justify a lot of your actions in “Pistol.” Did that weigh heavily on your relationship?That was only one part of it. I actually liked hanging out with him. One minute he’d be talking like a toff, and the next like a cop. In all honesty, he really made it all happen, and he doesn’t get enough credit for it. I don’t think it would have happened without him.Did it bother you that Lydon didn’t want to be involved in “Pistol?”We wanted him to be involved. It would have been good if he had been on board. If the shoe was on the other foot, we’d have all been thrilled, if it had been his book and Danny Boyle wanted to do something similar. At this stage of the game, we’re grown men, I don’t know why he’s not interested. But it’s par for his personality for him not to want to be involved. Maybe he’ll secretly watch it and have a chuckle.The show includes the disastrous Sex Pistols tour of the United States, which saw the band implode.Miya Mizuno/FXIs the “Pistol” fallout the final straw in your relationship with Lydon?I don’t know, I haven’t thought about it. It’s not like we hang out anyway. I live in L.A., he lives in L.A., I’ve been here 35 years, and he came just after me, and we’ve never been interested in hanging out. The last time I saw him was in 2008, when we played a load of European gigs. We don’t need to hang out, I’m good with that, we don’t need to be pals. But I do have respect for him, absolutely.What would you do if you ran into him at the shops?I’d probably run and hide behind the baked beans.Danny Boyle has said “Pistol” imagines “breaking into the world of ‘The Crown’ and ‘Downton Abbey’ with your mates and screaming your songs and your fury at all they represent.” When did you realize you had the power to shake things up?The Grundy thing [a notorious interview of the Sex Pistols by Bill Grundy on British TV in 1976] took it into a different sphere. The power came from having a label, then them giving us the boot, getting a label, getting the boot again. We were calling it on our terms, which was unheard-of back then.The Grundy thing was the beginning of the end. As far as making any more music, the creative side was out the window. The way I looked at it, then it became the leather-jacket brigade everywhere. It became mainstream, it lost its originality. Before Grundy, you had the Clash, the Buzzcocks, a bunch of bands that were very creative in their own ways.“You don’t want to fall asleep listening to what I’ve been doing after the Pistols,” Jones said.Alex Ingram for The New York TimesThe end of “Pistol” ties things up quite neatly. Were you happy with where the series ended?I did like the way it ended. There were a couple of different endings that I wasn’t keen about; [this one] left you with a feel-good-y kind of way as opposed to not being cheesy about it.What were the other endings?There was one where the cast were interviewed about their experiences, and one of those “Where are they now?” kind of endings, which was horrible to be honest with you. I’m so happy Danny ditched that one.It does leave out the third part of your book though, the fallout of the Pistols and your quite tragic personal aftermath. Were you OK with that?It could have gone on, but it would have started getting boring afterward. You don’t want to fall asleep listening to what I’ve been doing after the Pistols. More

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      ‘Stranger Things’ Is Back. Here’s Where We Left Off in Season 3.

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      It’s been three years since we last saw the kids from Hawkins take on the Mind Flayer (and the Russians). This refresher should help jog your memory.When the fourth season of “Stranger Things” kicks off on Netflix on Friday, nearly three years will have passed since the previous season was released, but only six months will have passed in the fictional town of Hawkins, Ind. Viewers may wonder why their favorite young characters are aging like the cast of “Grease,” but when you spend your childhood fleeing predatory humanoid creatures unleashed by an alternate dimension, you tend to grow up in a hurry.The break between hauntings may not leave our heroes much time to catch their collective breath, but three years is an usually long gap between seasons, especially for a serialized show as dense with supernatural mythology, ensemble relationships and open-ended questions as “Stranger Things.” If you don’t have a spare 449 minutes to catch up with the third season in full, here’s what you need to remember.Steve and Dustin (Joe Keery, left, and Gaten Matarazzo) helped intercept and decode Russian communiqués to discover clandestine activities under the Starcourt mall.NetflixRed dawnSet in the summer of 1985, the third season took place at the height of Cold War tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union, before glasnost and Rocky Balboa started to thaw out their relationship. Looking for an edge beyond nuclear proliferation, the Soviets sneaked into Hawkins, where they deployed a giant laser beam to crack open the same gate to the Upside Down that Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown) and her friends labored so hard to seal up.It was a little like the rationale Paul Reiser, who was introduced as Dr. Owens in the second season, used as a corporate villain in “Aliens”: If this powerful otherworldly force could be harnessed, it could be deployed as an unstoppable weapon of war. Who needs hydrogen bombs when you’ve got the Mind Flayer terrorizing the Heartland?Happily for the citizens of Hawkins, the new Starcourt Mall has opened outside town, a pastel-colored consumer oasis with a Sam Goody, a Jazzercise place and a multiplex showing “Back to the Future.” Unfortunately, all the ma-and-pa businesses downtown are also starting to shutter, including the general store where Joyce Byers (Winona Ryder) clerks. And it turns out, those pesky Russians, through secret dealings with the corrupt mayor (Cary Elwes), have gobbled up the Starcourt and surrounding properties for their nefarious purposes.Through intercepted and decoded Russian communiqués, Dustin (Gaten Matarazzo) and Steve (Joe Keery), along with Robin (Maya Hawke), Steve’s co-worker at the Scoops Ahoy ice cream parlor, uncovered the operation under the mall.Billy (Dacre Montgomery) took the bad-boy thing to a whole new level. NetflixRe-animatorAs it prepared to exert its psychic force on Hawkins once again, the Mind Flayer started possessing rats and humans, melting down their biomass and combining it to form a spider-like monster used to wreak havoc on earth. Some of the possessed, including the bad-boy lifeguard Billy Hargrove (Dacre Montgomery), returned to their lives as hallowed-out clones of their former selves, who became “active” at the malevolent entity’s discretion.As interns at The Hawkins Post newspaper — the one downtown business that’s apparently still thriving — Nancy Wheeler (Natalia Dyer) and Jonathan Byers (Charlie Heaton) tried to get the scoop, but their deranged rodent story proved unfit for print.Max and Lucas (Sadie Sink and Caleb McLaughlin) had a few ups and downs. NetflixLove will tear us apartWith the core characters moving deeper into adolescence, marathon sessions of Dungeons & Dragons were set aside for romantic intrigue — much to the annoyance of the dungeon master Will Byers (Noah Schnapp), who would rather have had life return to normal after his time in the Upside Down. Dustin returned from science camp raving about Suzie, who was reportedly “hotter than Phoebe Cates” but whose existence was questioned. (She exists. And loves the theme to “The Neverending Story.”)Eleven and Mike Wheeler (Finn Wolfhard) were playing kissy-face all summer until Chief Jim Hopper (David Harbour), El’s adoptive father, put his foot down. That left Lucas (Caleb McLaughlin), who had his own on-again/off-again fling with Max (Sadie Sink), to give terrible advice based on what little he understood about girls. Steve used to understand plenty about girls, but he whiffed with Robin, who is into them herself.It took most of the season for the kids to come together, so they have the Mind Flayer to thank for saving their fractured relationships. Nancy and Jonathan stayed on a low simmer as they investigated the rat-and-human possession story, and the will-they-or-won’t-they vibe between Hopper and Joyce continued, despite their obvious feelings for each other.But they had to put their love on hold, too, after they kidnapped a Russian scientist and recruited Murray (Brett Gelman), the former reporter turned private eye, to translate info on how to infiltrate the Soviet operation and shut down the machine that has opened the transdimensional gate.Lucas’s little sister, Erica (Priah Ferguson) used her diminutive size to her advantage in helping save the world.NetflixFright nightThe climatic episode turned the Starcourt Mall into a multilevel battleground over the Fourth of July, with some of the fireworks moved inside. In the mall atrium, the Mind Flayer, by way of the spider monster, squared off against the wildly overmatched kids.A weakened El summoned every last drop of energy to beat back the monster. At the same time, her friends blasted away at it with a cache of stolen fireworks. For a moment, El manages to loosen Billy from the Mind Flayer’s psychic grip, and in a last-ditch moment of heroism, he sacrifices himself in order to save her.As that was happening, Dustin and Erica (Priah Ferguson), Lucas’s little sister and an ice cream sample enthusiast, used Dustin’s radio to lead Hopper, Joyce and Murray through the tunnel system below the mall, where they posed as Russian agents to gain access to the giant laser. Although Hopper successfully battled a superagent, who was a dead ringer for Robert Patrick’s T-1000 in “Terminator 2,” he was also vaporized in the course of destroying the machine. Or so it seemed …So long, Hopper (David Harbour). Or maybe not?NetflixEvery time you go awayEarlier in the season, Hopper had vowed to make Joyce feel like Hawkins was a safe place for her to call home. With his presumed death putting an end to that promise, Joyce finally decided to move out of the cursed town that had tormented her family so relentlessly. She and her boys moved to California, joined by El, who had lost both her adoptive father and her powers while fighting the Mind Flayer.In a postscript set in a Russian military complex, the guards sought out a prisoner to feed to a Demogorgon, somehow captured from the Upside Down and kept in an enclosure, like a velociraptor in “Jurassic Park.” The guards were told not to pick “the American” for the Demogorgon’s lunch, which left fans with the obvious question: Who is the American? Is it Hopper?A trailer from early 2020 confirmed that it was, indeed, Hopper. Based on Netflix’s release last week of the first scene (a video since taken down), he and El will have a lot of catching up to do if they manage to reunite. More

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      Leah McSweeney of ‘Real Housewives’ Takes a Cold Plunge

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      The reality TV star and clothing designer has a new memoir about her drug-fueled partying days.“Oh my God, this is insane,” said Leah McSweeney, the reality TV star. “I might die. You might have to call. …” Her voice cut off as her head slipped below the water. It bobbed back up a second later as Ms. McSweeney fled the frigid plunge pool and reached for a towel. “I was honestly afraid you would have to call an ambulance.”­­­This was on a recent afternoon at Wall Street Bath, a Russian bathhouse behind scaffolding, in a basement, on the fringes of the financial district in Manhattan. Ms. McSweeney, 39, a star of the latter seasons of “The Real Housewives of New York City,” has been a regular patron for nearly a decade, enjoying the sauna, the shvitz, the treatments. In the 12th season of “RHONY,” she brought her moneyed co-stars to the spa. Ramona Singer called it “rustic.”But, as Ms. McSweeney told the camera, “This is my oasis for relaxation and detoxing.”Now that Ms. McSweeney is sober, she has fewer toxins to dispose of, but on this breezy spring afternoon, a few weeks after the publication of her first book, “Chaos Theory: Finding Meaning in the Madness, One Bad Decision at a Time,” she returned to steam, sweat and calm herself down.“It’s so nice to be able to disconnect,” she said. “It’s probably good to work that part of your brain.”Ms. McSweeney with Dorinda Medley, left, in a scene from “The Real Housewives of New York City.”NBC, via Getty ImagesAfter signing a waiver, she made her way down to a no-frills locker room, which smelled worryingly of feet. Trading her jeans and black bodysuit for a coral string bikini, she slid into lavender slides and a matching robe from her sleepwear line, Happy Place.She began downstairs, in a hot tub next to a large pool. “Moby used to have ragers here,” she said with a twinge of nostalgia. “My daughter learned how to swim here.”Gingerly, she lowered herself into the hot tub; the water looked less than crystalline. “Me and my sister joke that you can probably get pregnant if you go in here,” Ms. McSweeney said. An employee turned on the bubbles. A mosaic mermaid cavorted above.After a 10-minute warm-up, she entered the shvitz, a wet sauna, deserted except for a middle-age man, his skin the pink of a cooked lobster. Ms. McSweeney arranged herself on the bench and began to sweat.“I like the way I feel after I sweat,” she said. “I don’t enjoy sweating itself.” After a few minutes, she got up and doused herself with a bucket of cold water. She shvitzed again. And doused again. More men entered. One told her to smile more. Her studs had begun to burn her ears, as did the chai necklace on her chest, which she bought to celebrate her conversion to Judaism. She left.Next up was the infrared sauna, though it smelled of something worse than feet. “Is that cedar or some really stinky guy?” she said. She left less than a minute later, entering the dry sauna, with a temperature set to 190 degrees. Two men were already in there, beating each other with oak leaves. Ms. McSweeney sat atop her towel, her skin peaching and pinking.“There’s something about this experience that’s uncomfortable,” she said. “You push yourself to the limit. How high up in the sauna can you go?”“I can’t believe I’m just telling people that I had a crystal meth addiction,” Ms. McSweeney said. Sara Naomi Lewkowicz for The New York TimesJoining a famously contentious reality show is a way of testing limits, too. She was surprised that the Bravo producers were interested in her. She lived downtown. She was a generation younger than most of the other cast members. She lacked their financial resources. Still, she couldn’t refuse. “I’m a sensation seeker, an adventure seeker,” she said. “There was no way I was saying no.”She mostly enjoyed her first season, even if it included a drunken episode involving tiki torches and some gossip at her expense that prompted her indelible declaration, “Don’t talk about my vagina and don’t talk about my mental health!” Yet she made friends — Dorinda Medley and Tinsley Mortimer, chiefly.The publicity for her femme street wear line, Married to the Mob, didn’t hurt either.But her second season, which aired in last year, felt different. And not only because she had quit drinking, a decision motivated by how she saw herself onscreen. “The show is a good mirror,” she said.Returning sober and, in the middle of the pandemic, with her grandmother dying, she struggled to deliver. “The producers were like, ‘Leah, lighten up,’” she said. “I just couldn’t. I’m so new to it. The other women are good at compartmentalizing. I can’t turn that part of myself off.”She persevered and when the season finished, with the fate of “RHONY” undetermined, she began to write her book, which details her mental health struggles and a history of substance abuse. The first version was exceptionally raw. And even after working with an editor, the book remains raw.“I can’t believe I’m just telling people that I had a crystal meth addiction,” Ms. McSweeney said, describing a period in her teenage years when she went in and out of rehab. “This is not something that I talk about openly. It happened a long time ago. It’s kind of a world away. To open up about it was scary.”Scary, but also apparently healing. “I think it just got me in touch with myself,” she said. “I had kind of lost myself.”Ms. McSweeney had no problem finding herself at the spa. After maxing out at 10 minutes in the sauna, she threw herself into the ice-cold plunge pool, then recovered with a warm shower, which left her feeling serene, floaty. “You’re aligning your body mind and soul,” she said.In the brightly lit restaurant, back in her robe, she relaxed with a ginger juice and a bowl of vegetarian borscht. Hurricane Leah, a nickname that became the title of a “RHONY” episode, had been downgraded to a light drizzle. Wall Street Bath had done its work. More

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      A Darker ‘Borgen’ Returns, and Heads to Greenland

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      ILULISSAT, Greenland — From the top floor of a hotel here the view of Disko Bay, a vast inlet in western Greenland dotted with icebergs, was captivating.But as the Danish actor Sidse Babett Knudsen stared out the window at what appeared to be a frozen ghost city glinting in the early September sun, she looked more pained than enthralled. Knudsen was in Greenland to shoot scenes for a new season of “Borgen,” the acclaimed series that seemingly came to an end nearly a decade ago.In the intervening years, her character Birgitte Nyborg, Denmark’s first female prime minister, has undergone some changes that were making Knudsen uneasy. “She goes bad places,” the actor said of the revived Birgitte. “Which intellectually is interesting, but is actually a bit hard to do because I feel this incredible responsibility to take care of her.”Sidse Babett Knudsen was initially wary of reviving her beloved “Borgen” character, Birgitte Nyborg.Mike Kollöffel/NetflixThat dilemma of beloved characters going bad places is at the heart of the fourth season of “Borgen,” which, after a long hiatus and a February debut on Danish public television, begins streaming on Netflix on June 2. In its fundamentals, the show is unchanged: It still navigates a surprisingly engaging path through politics’ thicket, and it still focuses on the double bind that women in positions of power face in their public and private lives.But now the stakes are higher: instead of episodic stories of interparty sparring, this “Borgen” follows a single plotline across the entire season: Large reserves of oil are discovered in Greenland, and geopolitical tensions erupt around issues of sovereignty, climate change and decolonization. And all this among characters who themselves have grown not merely older, but darker: less “West Wing,” more “House of Cards.”When “Borgen” aired what seemed like its final episode on Danish television in 2013, the show was already on its way to becoming an international hit; eventually syndicated in 70 countries, it would launch Hollywood careers for several of its stars, including Knudsen, Birgitte Hjort Sorensen and Pilou Asbaek.Knudsen’s immensely likable portrayal of a political idealist who was both a determined leader and a vulnerable woman (the first episode famously had her struggling to fit into the suit she planned to wear to an important debate) may even have helped audiences accept the idea of a female prime minister; Denmark elected its first, Helle Thorning-Schmidt, a year after “Borgen” debuted in 2010. But it also turned Birgitte into a feminist icon globally. “I was in London once,” Knudsen said. “And a woman came up to me and told me that she had something on her refrigerator that said, ‘What would Birgitte Nyborg do?’”Filming in Greenland took place in August and September 2021, and the production had to contend with many logistical difficulties.Mike Kolloffel/NetflixFor all its popularity, the show was never intended to last more than its original three seasons, and Knudsen was initially reluctant, she said, to do a fourth, believing fans would inevitably be disappointed. She was won over by the trajectory for the new season presented by the show’s creator and screenwriter, Adam Price, and her affection for her character.Several other key actors, including Hjort Sorensen, who plays the journalist Katrine Fonsmark, also came back. “What’s brilliant,” Hjort Sorensen said, “is that 10 years have passed, both in real time and for the characters. So when I read the first script, it felt like finding old friends on Facebook: Oh, this is what you’ve been doing!”In the new season, Katrine returns to journalism and becomes head of a newsroom, only to discover that the traits that served her well earlier in her career — her relentlessness and uncompromising nature — make her an unsympathetic boss. “I definitely struggled with my vanity on her behalf,” Hjort Sorensen said. But she also welcomed the chance to explore a character who’s come to understand with age “that the world is less black and white.”Birgitte, now the foreign minister, also compromises on her ideals. “She’s faced with a choice: Are you going to leave the scene gracefully, or are you going to remain in the game?” Price said. “Knowing that remaining in the game means that your hands will be very dirty.” The real action of this “Borgen” happens on the massive, ice-covered island of Greenland, 5,000 miles from Copenhagen. When oil is discovered there, it falls to Birgitte to not only navigate the competing interests of the United States, China and Russia but, even more trickily, to negotiate with the Greenlandic government over its extraction.Everything the production needed for filming was shipped to Greenland by boat from Denmark.Carsten Snejbjerg for The New York TimesGreenland is an autonomous region of the kingdom of Denmark, from which it receives an annual grant.Carsten Snejbjerg for The New York TimesThe harbor in Ilulissat, a town of less than 5,000 people.Carsten Snejbjerg for The New York Times“Borgen” has always winked at real-life political events, and here, too, the corollaries resonate. An autonomous region of the kingdom of Denmark, Greenland has power over several policy areas, but still depends heavily on the Danish government for its operating expenses; an annual grant of more than $600 million comprises about 20 percent of Greenlandic gross domestic product. On the show and in real life, the discovery of valuable natural resources in Greenland could offer a path for ending the country’s dependence on Denmark.Focusing the new season on that arc brought immense challenges. The logistics were daunting: Filming took place in August and September 2021, when Greenland’s strict coronavirus policies had reduced the already sparse number of international flights. Greenland has no roads to connect its settlements, and everything needed for the several weeks of shooting in Ilulissat, Greenland’s third largest city, and Nuuk, the capital, had to be shipped from Copenhagen by boat. This included a full-sized prop submarine and the crates of chemical hand warmers that would keep the team from freezing on set.Even more delicate was the task of representing a country and a people still very much in the process of decolonization. “We have this huge history together,” Price said of the tensions that drew him to the season’s story line. “There’s so much guilt, and there’s so much an undercurrent of anger.”But as a Danish production making a story about Greenlanders, “Borgen” ran the risk of replicating historical patterns. “We are so used to being represented by others,” Nivi Pedersen, an actor who plays the Greenlandic premier’s attaché in the series and is also a documentary filmmaker, said. “And we are only just now starting to tell our own stories, both inward to ourselves and out to the rest of the world.”Nivi Pedersen, who plays the Greenlandic premier’s attaché in the series, said Greenlanders are “only just now starting to tell our own stories.”Mike Kollöffel/NetflixPrice admits that in early drafts, “some of the Greenlandic characters bordered on cliché, because I didn’t know better.” He tried to counteract that with deep research and by giving Greenland “as many voices as possible in the show,” he said. In addition to hiring the novelist Niviaq Korneliussen to handle the translation of the Greenlandic dialogue, the directorial team was influenced by a research trip organized by the prominent local businessman Svend Hardenberg, who said he tried to introduce the team to the real Greenland.While production was underway, the show’s Greenlandic actors expressed concern in interviews that certain cultural elements they considered important for authenticity — the local accents that would make a character’s origins immediately obvious to other Greenlanders; the deeply-ingrained codes that would keep another from making a public outburst — were not being accurately represented. And since the show premiered, reviews in the Greenlandic press have been mixed. “It quickly becomes a caricatured depiction of a beautiful land with noble people who are submissive,” wrote the newspaper Sermitsiaq.But both Danes and Greenlanders involved in the production expect the season to open their audience’s eyes in important ways. “I think it will have an impact on how others see the relationship between Danes and Greenlanders, and maybe on how the Danes perceive themselves,” Hardenberg said. “That’s the wonderful thing about a vehicle like ‘Borgen,’” Price agreed. “We can actually inform and entertain at the same time.”Carsten Snejbjerg for The New York TimesCarsten Snejbjerg for The New York TimesIlulissat looks out over Disko Bay, where the icebergs can look like a frozen ghost city.Carsten Snejbjerg for The New York TimesThat the new season does so in tones darker than previous ones feels like an honest reflection of the last decade. Months after her time in Ilulissat, Knudsen was no longer wondering if she had made the right decision in returning to “Borgen.” Like the others, she felt hopeful that the show would help raise awareness about Denmark’s relationship with Greenland, and she said she felt permanently altered by her encounters with those spectacular icebergs in Disko Bay.Asked what she thought that woman in London would feel about Birgitte now, who the actor portrays again with skillful nuance, Knudsen smiled with the adorable wrinkling of her nose for which her character is known.“There might not be so much advice on her refrigerator from Birgitte Nyborg,” she said. “But I hope she finds the journey interesting.” More

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      Jurnee Smollett: ‘The Past Few Years Have Been Heartbreaking’

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      The “Lovecraft Country” star has faced setbacks but emerged with new projects, including the Netflix movie “Spiderhead.”Jurnee Smollett learned she had received a best actress Emmy nomination for her starring role on the HBO series “Lovecraft Country” when she was in the hair and makeup trailer for another project, the coming Netflix film “Lou.”“I started screaming,” she recalled. “I was screaming, and crying.”That joy was tempered somewhat when she heard that her first Emmy nomination — one of 18 for the critically acclaimed series — was also the first time two Black leads from the same drama series had been nominated in the same year. “I thought, it can’t be,” she said. “We’re still making firsts, in 2021? It was sobering, I’m not going to lie.”That first season of “Lovecraft Country,” a horror drama which featured monsters of all sorts, from tentacled demons to racist cops, looked to be the start of something big — until it wasn’t. A much-anticipated second season never came to pass. Meanwhile, Smollett’s life, going back to the death of her father in 2015 after years of estrangement, has been beset by sadness and setbacks.“The past few years have been heartbreaking,” she admitted.But Smollett never stopped working, even in the midst of the pandemic. Among her forthcoming projects are “Lou,” a female-led thriller co-starring Allison Janney, and “The Burial,” a courtroom dramedy in which Smollett and Jamie Foxx square off as rival attorneys. She’s also preparing to reprise her role as Black Canary, the chanteuse superhero with pipes of steel she played in the 2020 film “Birds of Prey.”Courtney B. Vance, left, and Jonathan Majors with Jurnee Smollett in “Lovecraft Country.”Eli Joshua Ade/HBOAnd then there’s “Spiderhead,” a sci-fi thriller based on a 2010 short story by George Saunders, author of the Booker Prize-winning novel “Lincoln in the Bardo.” In the film, which premieres June 17, Steve Abnesti, the overseer of an eerily cushy island prison, is conducting drug-fueled psychological experiments on his charges, which include Jeff, a convict serving time for involuntary manslaughter, and Lizzy, a fellow convict who harbors her own dark secret.Chris Hemsworth (the “Thor” franchise) plays the unctuous overseer, while Miles Teller (“Whiplash”) and Smollett play his two primary lab rats. “For a drama like this, a character-driven film where you’re really only talking about three characters, you need to have some heavy hitters,” said the director, Joseph Kosinski, who also directed Teller in the upcoming “Top Gun: Maverick.”“Spiderhead” was shot in Australia in 2020, during the pandemic. Like the controversial Milgram experiment of the early 1960s, in which subjects were ordered by lab coat-wearing “scientists” to administer what they thought were painful electric shocks to other study participants, Jeff and Lizzy are urged to administer drugs with names like Verbaluce (instant verbosity!) and Darkenfloxx (pain beyond imagining!) to each other — you know, for science. (Smooth soundtrack jams from Chuck Mangione and the Doobie Brothers accompany the action.)“Jurnee and Miles make a good on-screen couple for this because they can both play damaged,” Kosinski said.The movie forced Smollett to question what she herself might do under similar circumstances. Would she administer excruciatingly painful drugs to somebody, say, Miles Teller, if someone like Chris Hemsworth asked her to? “I believe, in the comfort of my home, that I would say no,” she said.In a video interview this month, Smollett, 35, looked back on an acting career that has spanned three decades, from sitcoms to feature films, with detours on the stage. “I’ve done this so long,” she said with a laugh. She talked about everything from childhood crushes (“Paul Newman, Denzel Washington and Wesley Snipes”) to motherhood (“It’s true what they say, that it’s your heart living outside of your body”), to how she got her name.That name. Her parents, Smollett explained, both had names starting with J, so they decided all six of their children should, too. Smollett’s brother Jojo thinks “Jurnee” might be a play on Sojourner Truth, the 19th-century abolitionist, but Smollett’s mother has a different story.“My mom was in labor for two hours, and I fell asleep in the middle of coming down the birth canal,” Jurnee Smollett said. “And my mom kept saying, ‘This little girl’s a trip.’ I guess I wasn’t ready to come out, and so she said I took her on a journey.”Smollett’s earliest memories have been on sets and stages. At 3, she played Debbie Allen’s daughter — and Diahann Carroll’s granddaughter — on a pilot for an unsold series, “Sunday in Paris.” At 4, she was cast as Denise Frazer, Michelle Tanner’s pal, on the long-running sitcom “Full House.” The young actress resisted the persistent siren call of the Disney Channel.“I was blessed because I wasn’t a child star,” Smollett said. “I was a kid who acted.”Smollett with Miles Teller in “Spiderhead.”NetflixFilm roles soon followed. In 1996, she appeared in the first of them, Francis Ford Coppola’s “Jack,” alongside Robin Williams. “Robin Williams taught me how to improv when I was 8 years old,” she said. At 11, she was starring alongside Samuel L. Jackson in “Eve’s Bayou,” which also featured Carroll — Smollett’s second role with the pioneering actress before she had even hit her teens. “We were old pals by then,” she said.Over the years, she has shared the stage of the Ahmanson Theater in Los Angeles with Cicely Tyson in a 2014 revival of “The Trip to Bountiful,” and played Angela Bassett’s daughter (the 2001 TV movie “Ruby’s Bucket of Blood”) and Denzel Washington’s pupil (“The Great Debaters”). That 2007 drama “was like taking a master class,” she said.In 2018, Smollett was cast in “Lovecraft Country.” For her role as Leti Lewis, a young Black woman traveling through segregated 1950s America, Smollett drew inspiration from her maternal grandmother, who died before Smollett was born but whom the actress described as “always this mystical figure in our household.”“One of my teachers pointed out to me this idea of blood memory,” she said. “Having that Black and Jewish ancestry, I come from survivors. It’s part of our DNA. My grandmother was a survivor, and her spirit is what I called upon when I approached Leti.”Family has played a major role in Smollett’s life over the past several years. In 2015, her father, whom she had been estranged from for most of her life, died, only two years after reconnecting with Smollett and the rest of her family. “We reunited at my sister’s wedding,” she said. “It was the first time I had seen him in years. It was such a healing moment for my entire family.”Four years later, her brother Jussie Smollett told police he had been the victim of a racist attack and was later charged with filing a false police report; in the end, her brother was sentenced to 150 days in county jail. Smollett declined to talk about the situation, but “it’s no secret how heartbroken my family is,” she said.“I am so close to Jussie,” she added. “I love that man so much. He’s always been there for me, as all my siblings have. If I didn’t have my family, if I didn’t have my mom and my siblings, I don’t know where I’d be.”And then in 2020, as the pandemic set in, Smollett filed for divorce from her husband, the musician Josiah Bell, after nearly 10 years of marriage. The two had a child together, Hunter, now 5. When asked what it’s like being a mom, Smollett clarified, “A single working mom!”She explained: “It’s the biggest blessing and the biggest challenge, simultaneously. But I’m lucky I’m in a situation in which, as a working mom, I’m able to bring him with me wherever I go. I know not all moms have that benefit.”In the coming years, Smollett hopes to be doing more producing. “‘Lou’ was the first film I produced, and I definitely see myself stepping more into that role,” she said. “I hope to usher more unique voices and filmmakers who are creating inclusive stories, centering folks who aren’t normally centered in these types of stories.”Even so, Smollett isn’t giving up acting any time soon. “I’m very excited about the slate of films we have coming down the pipeline,” she said. “They’re dream roles.”Those include the Black Canary movie, which is being written by the “Lovecraft Country” creator Misha Green. “Jurnee shows up on the day, and she has thought about 900 different ways to approach her character,” said Green, who also worked with the actress on the series “Underground.”Yet even as Smollett looks forward, she’s trying to appreciate the present, if even just a bit. “I’m trying to find a balance between enjoying the now, because that’s something I struggle with, and always looking to the future,” she said. “I’m always like, OK, been there, done that. What’s next?” More

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      Josh Duggar Is Sentenced to 12 Years for Downloading Images of Child Sex Abuse

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      Mr. Duggar, 34, a former star of the TLC reality show “19 Kids and Counting,” was convicted in December after he tried to covertly download graphic images to his computer in Arkansas.Josh Duggar, a onetime star of the TLC reality show “19 Kids and Counting,” about a large family guided by conservative Christian values, was sentenced to more than 12 years in prison on Wednesday for downloading child sexual abuse imagery.The sentencing, in U.S. District Court in Fayetteville, Ark., concluded Mr. Duggar’s downfall from the eldest sibling on one of the most popular cable reality shows to a convicted criminal, capping a reversal that began with his arrest in April 2021.Prosecutors said that, in May 2019, Mr. Duggar installed a password-protected partition on the hard drive of his desktop computer at his used-car lot in Springdale, Ark., to avoid software that detects explicit images of children.Mr. Duggar, 34, who is married with seven children, downloaded around 600 photographs and seven videos of violent child sexual abuse, according to a sentencing memorandum filed this month by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Arkansas.He was caught after a Little Rock police detective found an I.P. address that had been sharing child sexual abuse material, according to a memorandum opinion filed by Judge Timothy L. Brooks in August 2021. The detective sent the information to an agent from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security who later tracked the I.P. address to Mr. Duggar, Judge Brooks wrote.A jury deliberated for two days before finding Mr. Duggar guilty in December of one count of receiving child pornography and one count of possessing child pornography. Each charge carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison and $250,000 in fines.Prosecutors had asked for a 20-year sentence while Mr. Duggar’s lawyers asked for five years. He was sentenced to 12 years and seven months.On Wednesday, Judge Brooks vacated the charge of child pornography possession, one of Mr. Duggar’s lawyers, Justin K. Gelfand, said.Mr. Gelfand added that he and the rest of Mr. Duggar’s defense team were grateful that the judge had dismissed the charge. “We look forward to continuing the fight on appeal,” he said in a statement after the sentencing.The U.S. attorney’s office did not immediately respond to emails or phone calls on Wednesday.On Tuesday, Judge Brooks denied a request that Mr. Duggar’s lawyers filed in January asking that he be acquitted or receive a new trial. The lawyers argued that, among other things, the prosecutors had not disclosed certain evidence in a timely manner.From 2008 to 2015, Mr. Duggar and his siblings starred with their parents in “19 Kids and Counting,” a reality show following the family’s life in Arkansas. TLC canceled the show after In Touch Weekly reported on a 2006 police report that said Mr. Duggar had molested several girls when he was a teenager.Representatives for Discovery, the company that owns TLC, did not immediately return emails or phone calls on Wednesday.Mr. Duggar was not charged in connection with those earlier allegations, for which the statute of limitations had passed. Mr. Duggar’s parents told Fox News in 2015 that four of the five girls he molested were his sisters.His parents said they had sent him to counseling and had him talk to the police.He apologized at the time in a statement to People magazine, saying, “As a young teenager, I acted inexcusably for which I am extremely sorry.”Mr. Duggar also resigned from his position as the director of the lobbying arm of the conservative Family Research Council. More

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      The Pitfalls of Oven-Ready TV

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      Prestige shows like “Winning Time” love to dramatize the real people at the heart of recent-ish events. It doesn’t always go well.It’s May 1980 at the Forum in Los Angeles, and the crowd is in a frenzy as the rookie Magic Johnson and the legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar lead the Lakers to their first N.B.A. championship in eight years. This is the setting for the recently completed first season of HBO’s “Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty,” which dives into its subject matter with brio. Helmed by the ubiquitous Adam McKay — director of “The Big Short,” “Don’t Look Up” and a parade of successful film comedies — “Winning Time” is an antic chronicle of the Lakers’ highly eventful 1979-80 season, with main characters that include not just Johnson and Abdul-Jabbar but other Lakers titans like the coach Pat Riley and the owner Jerry Buss. Its 10-episode arc is fast and fun, full of on-court magnetism and off-court machismo, and it all actually happened. Sort of.Many of the people depicted in the show will be familiar to basketball-loving viewers, and that’s part of the appeal: There is a giddy thrill in watching the origin stories of icons still in the public consciousness. And for those who lived through this total blast of a Lakers season, it has to be unbelievably fun reliving it on HBO. But while the acknowledged source material for “Winning Time” is the longtime reporter Jeff Pearlman’s 2014 book “Showtime: Magic, Kareem, Riley and the Los Angeles Lakers Dynasty of the 1980s,” the process of adapting it seems to have been as freewheeling as the team’s run-and-gun offense. This is most apparent in the show’s treatment of the Hall of Fame guard turned coach turned legendary league executive Jerry West.West’s character on “Winning Time” is a doozy. As played by the Australian actor Jason Clarke, he is a basketball savant with serious rage issues, prone to throwing trophies, breaking golf clubs and drinking to excess. It’s a humorous and not completely unsympathetic portrait. At one point in the show, just after Buss, the new team owner, has given his staff a motivational speech, West makes a grandiose public display of quitting his job as head coach, completely souring the vibe. Eventually West returns to the office without much explanation. Reinstalled as a sort of omniscient consultant on a highly informal basis, he remains a profane, hair-trigger wild card through the rest of the season.There is a giddy thrill in watching the origin stories of icons still in the public consciousness.But the West in “Winning Time” doesn’t square with the real Jerry West’s recollections, or with the recollections of many others who were part of the Lakers organization at the time. When West recently asked HBO for a retraction and an apology, several figures from the show, including Abdul-Jabbar (who also objected to his own portrayal) and the former Forum executive Claire Rothman, were quick to take his side. They maintain that West was not a yeller and not erratic in his work and that they never saw him drinking in his office. And while it’s always possible that time and friendship have softened everyone’s memories, it’s notable that West’s more outrageous moments on the show aren’t in Pearlman’s book. In response to West’s criticism, HBO released a statement saying that “Winning Time” is “based on extensive factual research and reliable sourcing,” but that it is “not a documentary.”You could say the same for a lot of shows these days. From the latest iteration of “The Staircase,” dramatizing a mysterious death in North Carolina that was chronicled in a 2004 documentary, to “WeCrashed,” about the failed start-up WeWork, to “Pam & Tommy,” which reimagines Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee’s marriage and sex tape, contemporary television is awash in semi-fictionalized accounts of recent-ish events. These shows elide the logistical and cost concerns associated with telling a new story from scratch by falling back on a prefabricated narrative. The reason for this boomlet — call it Oven-Ready TV — is the same reason Hollywood churns out superhero movies: It’s seen as a safe form of intellectual property to invest in. “Everything’s expensive to make, and everyone wants to keep their job,” the journalist turned true-crime TV writer Bruce Bennett told me. “If you walk in the door pitching something that’s been done in some other medium or arena, there’s a built-in sense of safety and familiarity for the development and production people who have to pay for the thing.”The most prominent recent example of this phenomenon is “The Dropout,” Hulu’s arch dramatization of the rise and fall of the Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes, which followed the 2018 book “Bad Blood,” a raft of overlapping podcasts and an HBO documentary by Alex Gibney called “The Inventor.” Watching the dramatization back-to-back with Gibney’s film, it’s striking how much stranger Holmes seems in real life when compared with Amanda Seyfried’s excellent, humanizing portrayal. Where “Winning Time” uses West’s character to amp up the drama, “The Dropout” seems to tone Holmes down for its own purposes — making her more likable, more sympathetic. It’s an understandable narrative decision, but also a curious one, given how easy it is to observe the real Holmes in so many venues and notice the glaring difference. (Another recent example, “Inventing Anna,” made many journalists’ eyes roll for its inauthentic portrayal of the reporting process and life at New York magazine.)‘If you walk in the door pitching something that’s been done in some other medium or arena, there’s a built-in sense of safety and familiarity.’But what do any of these shows owe to the people they are depicting, and to the viewer who spends many, many hours with characters they might reasonably expect to be something like the real thing? West, a victim of child poverty and domestic violence, has been painfully candid about the adverse circumstances that shaped him and his desperate bouts with anxiety and depression. He wrote about this in his 2011 autobiography, “West By West: My Charmed, Tormented Life,” and a beautiful Sports Illustrated feature that same year went even further in chronicling West’s struggles with self-loathing and suicidal thoughts.The producers of “Winning Time” are clearly familiar with this part of West’s story — at one point in the show, he lies catatonic in a dark room for days — which makes the decision to render him a fool even stranger. Perhaps McKay’s taste for clownish characterization explains it. The director made his bones with gloriously absurd fare like “Talladega Nights” and “Anchorman,” but even his more topical films are full of outsize satirical portrayals. As one critic wrote about McKay’s version of Dick Cheney in “Vice,” “McKay seems to think we can’t be trusted to grasp what he sees as Cheney’s Machiavellian villainy unless he spells it out in cartoon language.”The West in “Winning Time” is certainly a cartoon. Now that the series has been greenlit for a second season, it will be interesting to see whether the showrunners take West’s pushback and deep love for the Lakers into account as they develop his character and lay out his coming achievements. These include five championships in the 1980s and the signing of Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant, setting off another Lakers dynasty in the ’90s. Perhaps in future episodes a more nuanced West will emerge. Or maybe, just as in the Showtime era that “Winning Time” reanimates, the mandate to entertain will always prevail.Source photographs: Warrick Page/HBOElizabeth Nelson is a journalist and singer-songwriter based in Washington. Her band, the Paranoid Style, will release its new LP, “For Executive Meeting,” in August on the Bar/None Records label. More