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      What’s on TV This Week: CMA Fest and ‘Becoming Elizabeth’

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      ABC airs footage from the 2022 CMA Fest. And a period drama on Starz wraps up its first season.With 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, Aug. 1-7. Details and times are subject to change.MondayCAPTAIN AMERICA: CIVIL WAR (2016) 7 p.m. on TNT. Usually the Avengers work together to fight against alien armies or a supervillain warlord trying to decimate the planet. But in this movie, Captain America (Chris Evans) and Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.) make it personal and battle over political beliefs: Captain America thinks that superheroes should operate without interference, but Iron Man wants the government to be involved. A.O. Scott called it a “very crowded, reasonably enjoyable installment in the Avengers cycle” in his review for The New York Times. “The best part of the movie,” Scott wrote, “is a six-on-six rumble at an airport, in which two teams of costumed co-workers, with a few ringers in the mix, face off to work out their issues.” The battle, he said, “is entertaining precisely because the stakes are relatively low.”TuesdayTian Richards in “Tom Swift.”Fernando Decillis/The CWTOM SWIFT 9 p.m. on CW. This mystery show, named after the long-running series of young adult books that inspired it, ends this week after just one season. It has followed the title character, played by Tian Richards, as he sifts through conspiracy theories and mysterious phenomena to solve the disappearance of his father with the help of his best friend (Ashleigh Murray), his bodyguard (Marquise Vilson) and his A.I. companion (LeVar Burton).EDGE OF THE EARTH 9 p.m. on HBO. Skiers, kayakers, climbers and surfers show off their skills and put themselves to the test by completing near-impossible challenges around the world in this four-part documentary mini-series. The first three episodes featured skiing in Alaska’s Glacier Bay National Park; kayaking in the Chalupas River in Ecuador; and climbing around Pik Slesova in Kyrgyzstan. The final installment, airing Tuesday, brings the surfers Ian Walsh and Grant Baker (known as Twiggy) to Africa’s western coast.WednesdayCMA FEST 8 p.m. on ABC. This music festival that took place at Nissan Stadium in Nashville in early June comes to small screens, with footage of select performances airing on Wednesday. Elle King and Dierks Bentley, who previously worked together on the songs “Worth a Shot” and “Different for Girls,” host the three-hour broadcast. It will feature performances from Carrie Underwood, Luke Bryan, Luke Combs, Thomas Rhett and others, as well as collaborations between Bentley and Billy Ray Cyrus; Wynonna Judd and Carly Pearce; Zac Brown Band with Darius Rucker; and more.ThursdayFrom left, James Murray, Sal Vulcano and Brian Quinn in “Impractical Jokers.”truTVIMPRACTICAL JOKERS 10 p.m. on TruTV. The ninth season of this long-running prank show has not been without speed bumps: Production had to adhere to Covid-19 protocols, which required the show to rethink its entire format — instead of going up to strangers in public places, they rent out locations and film over longer periods of time. Since Joe Gatto, one of the series’s founders, abruptly stopped appearing on the show earlier this year, it has brought in celebrity guests including Jillian Bell, Adam Pally and Colin Jost. Brooke Shields will join for this week’s season finale.FridayAN ORSON WELLES MARATHON from 2 p.m. on TCM. See the varied talents of Orson Welles — as a director, actor and screenwriter — in this lineup of classics. The marathon starts off at 2 p.m. with THE STRANGER (1946), followed by MR. ARKADIN (1955) at 4 — both of which Welles directed, starred in and wrote. Then, OTHELLO (1952) — which Welles acted in and directed — airs at 6, followed by THE THIRD MAN (1949), directed by Carol Reed, which Welles acted in and was a writer of. THE LADY FROM SHANGHAI (1948) follows at 10, with CITIZEN KANE (1941) at 11:45.THE INN AT LITTLE WASHINGTON: A DELICIOUS DOCUMENTARY (2020) 10 p.m. on PBS (check local listings). A fight for three Michelin stars, an old garage converted into an inn and a seasoned chef: This documentary follows the cook Patrick O’Connell as he plans the 40th anniversary celebration for the Inn at Little Washington, a quaint hotel and restaurant that he founded in 1978. The documentary shows the execution of many of O’Connell’s culinary creations and discusses the tumultuous history of the inn.SaturdayROMAN HOLIDAY (1953) 8 p.m. on TCM. Audrey Hepburn was only 24 when this romantic comedy was released, and it turned out to be her breakout movie. The story follows a European princess, Ann (Hepburn), who takes a night off from her overwhelming life. Instead of having an enjoyable night out, things go awry and she is rescued by Joe Bradley (Gregory Peck), an American reporter. A love story begins, despite Bradley’s intentions to take advantage of the princess’s fame.SundayFrom left, Alicia von Rittberg, Romola Garai and Oliver Zetterström in “Becoming Elizabeth.”StarzBECOMING ELIZABETH 8 p.m. on Starz. In 1547, Queen Elizabeth I — then known as Elizabeth Tudor — watched her 9-year-old half brother become king after the death of her long-absent father, the infamous King Henry VIII. These are the true circumstances that set off the fictionalized telling of Elizabeth’s teenage years in this series. The show, which ends its first season on Sunday, centers on Elizabeth (Alicia von Rittberg) and her siblings, Mary (Romola Garai) and Edward (Oliver Zetterström), as their personal lives are scrutinized by the royal court and the public.BET SPECIAL: 37TH ANNUAL STELLAR GOSPEL MUSIC AWARDS 8 p.m. on BET. The gospel artists Jekalyn Carr and Kierra Sheard host this awards show, which was recorded live in Atlanta in mid-July. The ceremony features performances by Kirk Franklin, Erica Campbell, Maverick City Music, Marvin Sapp and others. More

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      Pat Carroll, Stage Star Who Voiced Disney’s “Ursula,” Dies at 95

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      Tired of sitcoms and game shows, she reinvented herself in a one-woman show about Gertrude Stein — and, later, in a gender-bending Shakespeare role.Pat Carroll, who after many years on television as the self-described “dowager queen of game shows” went on to earn critical acclaim for her work on the stage, died on Saturday at her home on Cape Cod, Mass. She was 95. Her daughter Kerry Karsian, confirmed the death to The Associated Press. She did not specify the cause.Ms. Carroll broke into television as a sketch comedian in the 1950s and later became a fixture on “Password,” “I’ve Got a Secret” and other game shows. She was also seen frequently on sitcoms like “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” and dramas like “Police Woman.” But a part she took in 1977, when she was 50, inspired her to change direction.In a 1979 interview with The New York Times, she recalled being cast as Pearl Markowitz, an overly protective mother, on the short-lived comedy “Busting Loose,” and asking herself, “Is this all there is left — playing mothers on TV?”Rather than sinking comfortably into that stereotype, Ms. Carroll provided a bold answer to her own question by commissioning Marty Martin, a young Texas playwright, to write a one-woman play for her about the poet Gertrude Stein.“Gertrude Stein Gertrude Stein Gertrude Stein” opened Off Broadway in 1979 and received glowing reviews. Ms. Carroll won Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle awards in 1980 for the performance, and in 1981 her recording of the play won a Grammy Award in the “best spoken word” category.“It was the jewel in my crown,” Ms. Carroll said in an interview for this obituary in 2011, recalling how the play came about. “I was recently divorced, I had gained a lot of weight, and the phone was not ringing. It was not the agents’ or directors’ or producers’ fault that the phone was not ringing. I thought, ‘I am responsible for creating some kind of work.’ And I began thinking of people to do.”Ms. Carroll in 1979 in the title role in the Marty Martin play “Gertrude Stein Gertrude Stein Gertrude Stein” at the Circle Repertory Theater. “It was the jewel in my crown,” she said of the play.Gerry GoodsteinA decade later, Ms. Carroll, still looking for challenging work, sought out the role of the conniving, overweight — and, obviously, male — Falstaff in a production of “The Merry Wives of Windsor” in Washington.“When Ms. Carroll makes her first entrance,” Frank Rich wrote in The Times, “a nervous silence falls over the audience at the Shakespeare Theater at the Folger here, as hundreds of eyes search for some trace of the woman they’ve seen in a thousand television reruns. What they find instead is a Falstaff who could have stepped out of a formal painted portrait: a balding, aged knight with scattered tufts of silver hair and whiskers, an enormous belly, pink cheeks and squinting, froggy eyes that peer out through boozy mists. The sight is so eerie you grab onto your seat.”“One realizes,” Mr. Rich continued, “that it is Shakespeare’s character, and not a camp parody, that is being served.”Patricia Ann Carroll was born on May 5, 1927, in Shreveport, La., and grew up in Los Angeles. Her father, Maurice, worked for the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power; her mother, Kathryn (Meagher) Carroll, worked in real estate and office management.Ms. Carroll attended Immaculate Heart College in Los Angeles on an English scholarship but left before graduating. “I realized that what I was learning was not going to advance what I wished to do,” she said in 2011. “I always thought experience was the best preparation.”In 1947, Ms. Carroll left Los Angeles for Plymouth, Mass., where she worked at the Priscilla Beach Theater and, she said, ate, drank and breathed the theater. She made her professional stage debut there that year in “A Goose for the Gander,” starring Gloria Swanson. Soon after, she made it to New York, where, among other odd jobs, she shined shoes.She initially made her mark in the early 1950s as a comedian — first at Le Ruban Bleu, the Village Vanguard and other nightclubs, then on television, on “The Red Buttons Show” and other variety series.She was a regular on the Sid Caesar sketch show “Caesar’s Hour,” for which she won an Emmy in 1957, and, in the early 1960s, on “The Danny Thomas Show,” on which she played the wife of the Thomas character’s manager.Ms. Carroll made the first of her four Broadway appearances in 1955 in “Catch a Star!,” a revue written by Neil and Danny Simon. Her performance did not win the kind of notices that foreshadow stage success: Brooks Atkinson of The Times, for example, wrote that she did not have “a bold enough technique to come alive in the theater.”The response was different in 1959 when she played Hildy, the flirtatious cabdriver who tries to persuade a shy sailor on 24-hour shore leave to come to her apartment with the song “I Can Cook, Too,” in a revival of the Leonard Bernstein-Betty Comden-Adolph Green musical “On the Town” at the Carnegie Hall Playhouse. “If the evening has a star,” Arthur Gelb of The Times wrote, “it is Pat Carroll, a blue-eyed blonde with a genius for the deadpan and double take.”Ms. Carroll’s work at the Folger Theater garnered her three Helen Hayes Awards: outstanding lead actress for her roles in “The Merry Wives of Windsor” and Bertolt Brecht’s “Mother Courage and Her Children” and outstanding supporting actress for her role as the nurse in “Romeo and Juliet.”Ms. Carroll married Lee Karsian, a William Morris agent, in 1955. The couple, who divorced in 1975, had three children: a son, Sean, who died in 2009, and two daughters, Kerry Karsian and Tara Karsian, who survive her. Ms. Carroll played an Appalachian grandmother in the film “Songcatcher.” The role earned her an Independent Spirit Award nomination and a jury prize at the Sundance Film Festival.James Bridges/Lions Gate FilmsAlthough she spent most of her career on television (where her later work included appearances on “ER” and “Designing Women”) and the stage, Ms. Carroll also had some memorable roles on the big screen. In 1968 she played Doris Day’s sister in “With Six You Get Eggroll.” In 2000 she played an Appalachian grandmother in “Songcatcher,” a role that earned her an Independent Spirit Award nomination and a jury prize at the Sundance Film Festival.For many of her film and TV performances, Ms. Carroll went unseen: She provided voices for numerous cartoon characters, most notably Ursula, the menacing sea witch, in Disney’s “The Little Mermaid” in 1989. That role, she once said, was “the one thing in my life that I’m probably most proud of.”“I don’t even care if, after I’m gone, the only thing that I’m associated with is Ursula,” she added. “That’s OK with me, because that’s a pretty wonderful character and a pretty marvelous film to be remembered by.” More

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      Nichelle Nichols, Lieutenant Uhura on ‘Star Trek,’ Dies at 89

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      She was among the first Black women to have a leading role in a TV series. She later worked with NASA to recruit minorities for the space program.Nichelle Nichols, the actress revered by “Star Trek” fans everywhere for her role as Lieutenant Uhura, the communications officer on the starship U.S.S. Enterprise, died on Saturday in Silver City, N.M. She was 89.The cause was heart failure, said Sky Conway, a writer and a film producer who was asked by Kyle Johnson, Ms. Nichols’s son, to speak for the family.Ms. Nichols had a long career as an entertainer, beginning as a teenage supper-club singer and dancer in Chicago, her hometown, and later appearing on television.But she will forever be best remembered for her work on “Star Trek,” the cult-inspiring space adventure series that aired from 1966 to 1969 and starred William Shatner as Captain Kirk, the heroic leader of the starship crew; Leonard Nimoy (who died in 2015) as his science officer and adviser, Mr. Spock, an ultralogical humanoid from the planet Vulcan; and DeForest Kelley (who died in 1999) as Dr. McCoy, a.k.a. Bones, the ship’s physician.A striking beauty, Ms. Nichols provided a frisson of sexiness on the bridge of the Enterprise. She was generally clad in a snug red doublet and black tights; Ebony magazine called her the “most heavenly body in ‘Star Trek’” on its 1967 cover. Her role, however, was both substantial and historically significant.Uhura was an officer and a highly educated and well-trained technician who maintained a businesslike demeanor while performing her high-minded duties. Ms. Nichols was among the first Black women to have a leading role on a network television series, making her an anomaly on the small screen, which until that time had rarely depicted Black women in anything other than subservient roles.In a November 1968 episode, during the show’s third and final season, Captain Kirk and Lieutenant Uhura are forced to embrace by the inhabitants of a strange planet, resulting in what is widely thought to be the first interracial kiss in television history.Ms. Nichols’s first appearances on “Star Trek” predated the 1968 sitcom “Julia,” in which Diahann Carroll, playing a widowed mother who works as a nurse, became the first Black woman to star in a non-stereotypical role in a network series.Ms. Nichols and William Shatner on “Star Trek,” sharing what is believed to be the first interracial kiss on television.CBS via Getty Images(A series called “Beulah,” also called “The Beulah Show,” starring Ethel Waters — and later Louise Beavers and Hattie McDaniel — as the maid for a white family, was broadcast on ABC in the early 1950s and subsequently cited by civil rights activists for its demeaning portraits of Black people.)But Uhura’s influence reached far beyond television. In 1977, Ms. Nichols began an association with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, contracting as a representative and speaker to help recruit female and minority candidates for spaceflight training; the following year’s class of astronaut candidates was the first to include women and members of minority groups.In subsequent years, Ms. Nichols made public appearances and recorded public service announcements on behalf of the agency. In 2012, after she was the keynote speaker at the Goddard Space Center during a celebration of African American History Month, a NASA news release about the event lauded her help for the cause of diversity in space exploration.“Nichols’s role as one of television’s first Black characters to be more than just a stereotype and one of the first women in a position of authority (she was fourth in command of the Enterprise) inspired thousands of applications from women and minorities,” the release said. “Among them: Ronald McNair, Frederick Gregory, Judith Resnick, first American woman in space Sally Ride and current NASA administrator Charlie Bolden.”Grace Dell Nichols was born in Robbins, Ill., on Dec. 28, 1932 (some sources give a later year), and grew up in Chicago. Her father was, for a time, the mayor of Robbins, and a chemist. At 13 or 14, tired of being called Gracie by her friends, she requested a different name from her mother, who liked Michelle but suggested Nichelle for the alliteration.She was a ballet dancer as a child and had a singing voice with a naturally wide range — more than four octaves, she later said. While attending Englewood High School, she landed her first professional gig in a revue at the College Inn, a well-known Chicago nightspot.There she was seen by Duke Ellington, who employed her a year or two later with his touring orchestra as a dancer in one of his jazz suites.Ms. Nichols appeared in several musical theater productions around the country during the 1950s. In an interview with the Archive of American Television, she recalled performing at the Playboy Club in New York City while serving as an understudy for Ms. Carroll in the Broadway musical “No Strings” (though she never went on).In 1959, she was a dancer in Otto Preminger’s film version of “Porgy and Bess.” She made her television debut in 1963 in an episode of “The Lieutenant,” a short-lived dramatic series about Marines at Camp Pendleton created by Gene Roddenberry, who went on to create “Star Trek.”Ms. Nichols appeared on other television shows over the years — among them “Peyton Place” (1966), “Head of the Class” (1988) and “Heroes” (2007). She also appeared onstage occasionally in Los Angeles, including in a one-woman show in which she did impressions of, and paid homage to, Black female entertainers who preceded her, including Lena Horne, Pearl Bailey and Eartha Kitt.At the 15th annual “Star Trek” convention in Las Vegas in 2016, Ms. Nichols was the subject of a panel titled “Tribute to Nichelle Nichols.” Gabe Ginsberg/Getty ImagesBut Uhura was to be her legacy: A decade after “Star Trek” went off the air, Ms. Nichols reprised the role in “Star Trek: The Motion Picture,” and she appeared as Uhura, by then a commander, in five subsequent movie sequels through 1991.Besides a son, her survivors include two sisters, Marian Smothers and Diane Robinson.Ms. Nichols was married and divorced twice. In her 1995 autobiography, “Beyond Uhura: Star Trek and Other Memories,” she disclosed that she and Roddenberry, who died in 1991, had been romantically involved for a time. In an interview in 2010 for the Archive of American Television, she said that he had little to do with her casting in “Star Trek” but that he defended her when studio executives wanted to replace her.When she took the role of Uhura, Ms. Nichols said, she thought of it as a mere job at the time, valuable as a résumé enhancer; she fully intended to return to the stage, as she wanted a career on Broadway. Indeed, she threatened to leave the show after its first season and submitted her resignation to Roddenberry. He told her to think it over for a few days.In a story she often told, that Saturday night she was a guest at an event in Beverly Hills, Calif. — “I believe it was an N.A.A.C.P. fund-raiser,” she recalled in the Archive interview — where the organizer introduced her to someone he described as “your biggest fan.”“He’s desperate to meet you,” she recalled the organizer saying.The fan, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., introduced himself.“He said, ‘We admire you greatly, you know,’ ” Ms. Nichols said, and she thanked him and told him that she was about to leave the show. “He said, ‘You cannot. You cannot.’”Dr. King told her that her role as a dignified, authoritative figure in a popular show was too important to the cause of civil rights for her to forgo. As Ms. Nichols recalled it, he said, “For the first time, we will be seen on television the way we should be seen every day.”On Monday morning, she returned to Roddenberry’s office and told him what had happened.“And I said, ‘If you still want me to stay, I’ll stay. I have to.’”Eduardo Medina contributed reporting. More

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      Stephen Colbert Can’t Believe ‘Joe Manchin Is Fighting Climate Change’

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      “Wait, am I dreaming? I have all my teeth, I’m not a skeleton, you’re all wearing clothes, I’m rich and famous — no, this is real,” Colbert joked.Welcome to Best of Late Night, a rundown of the previous night’s highlights that lets you sleep — and lets us get paid to watch comedy. Here are the 50 best movies on Netflix right now.Don’t Wake Me if I’m DreamingIn a major surprise this week, Senator Joe Manchin III agreed to support a climate, energy and tax package after previously saying that he wouldn’t. The bill is being hailed as a major step in U.S. efforts to combat global warming. On Thursday, Stephen Colbert was relieved but confused.“Joe Manchin is fighting climate change?” Colbert said. “Wait, am I dreaming? I have all my teeth, I’m not a skeleton, you’re all wearing clothes, I’m rich and famous — no, this is real.”“I can’t believe it! Joe Manchin agreed to vote for a bill? Which means Democrats might actually get something done? Am I — am I dreaming? And if so, what a boring dream!” — TREVOR NOAH“People, I am told, are very excited about the bill, including President Biden, who said, ‘This is the action the American people have been waiting for.’ Technically, sir, technically, that was ‘Top Gun: Maverick.’ Cruise — Cruise has still got it.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“Also, what a week for Joe Biden, huh? First he defeated Covid, then he defeated low expectations. Look at you, Joe, look at you!” — TREVOR NOAH“This is a huge victory for Biden. In fact, right after the announcement, his approval rating skyrocketed to 11 percent.” — JIMMY FALLONThe Punchiest Punchlines (JetBlue Has Spirit Edition)“In business news. JetBlue has officially announced that it will buy Spirit Airlines for $3.8 billion. Yeah, 3.8 billion. Yeah. What’s crazy is that Spirit still charged them $30 for a carry-on bag.” — TREVOR NOAH“Yes. JetBlue and Spirit, it’s the perfect marriage between broken TVs and broken planes.” — JIMMY FALLON“That’s right, Spirit agreed to a deal with JetBlue and canceled their merger with Frontier Airlines. Today, Frontier was like, ‘Well, it’s Spirit, how did we not see this cancellation coming?’” — JIMMY FALLON“But, I mean, this is a smart move for JetBlue. You know, a lot of people are confused. They’re like, ‘Why?’ But it makes sense. As a business you want to diversify, you know? Think about it — why just be an airline when you can be both an airline and a flying Porta-Potty?” — TREVOR NOAHThe Bits Worth WatchingBilly Porter belted the “Dreamgirls” hit “And I Am Telling You I’m Not Going” on Thursday’s “Tonight Show.”Also, Check This OutRebecca Hall in “Resurrection.”IFC MidnightRebecca Hall stars as a successful single mother haunted by a terrifying man from her past in the new horror film “Resurrection.” More

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      Stephen Colbert Thinks a New Trump Investigation Has Potential

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      Colbert said he was “potentially very excited” about the Department of Justice’s “potential” investigation into Trump.Welcome to Best of Late Night, a rundown of the previous night’s highlights that lets you sleep — and lets us get paid to watch comedy. Here are the 50 best movies on Netflix right now.Trump’s Full of ItThe Justice Department, as part of its Jan. 6 investigation, is looking into information about former President Donald Trump’s potential crimes in attempting to overturn the 2020 election.“‘Potential’ fraud? It’s the ‘false-electors scheme’!’” Stephen Colbert said on Wednesday. “You don’t call something a ‘scheme’ and ‘false’ if it’s on the level.”“It is about damn time. At this point, the investigators are like the last person at the office to catch on to a popular TV show: ‘So get this, guys — there are dragons, but they hardly ever show them. There’s lots of nudity. I’m really looking forward to the Red Wedding episode. I’m so happy for Robb Stark. He deserves all the love. Everyone in the family’s going to be there!’” — STEPHEN COLBERT“I am potentially very excited, because all of this is potentially huge, because no former president has ever been charged with a crime in the country’s history. So what? Before John Wayne Gacy, no one ever executed a birthday clown.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“Yeah, another investigation, and I don’t know, guys, at this point, I feel like the Justice Department is just going to have to dedicate an entire division to Trump, you know? Just give him his own one. You know, like they’ll have national security division, the civil rights division and the ‘What the hell did Donald Trump do now’ division?” — TREVOR NOAHThe Punchiest Punchlines (Back in Action, Jack Edition)“Well, guys, here’s some good news today. President Biden officially ended his quarantine after testing negative for Covid. That’s right. And now that he’s got a few weeks of immunity, Biden’s about to rage, oooh. ‘[imitating Biden] Jill, we’re having dinner at seven tonight. Oh, yeah.’” — JIMMY FALLON“First of all, President Biden has officially tested negative for Covid and he got his doctor’s approval to come out of isolation. Yes, it’s great. Really is great. It is also the only positive approval he has at the moment, you know. But that’s a start.” — TREVOR NOAH“Yeah, Biden beat Covid, and luckily, Covid conceded gracefully.” — JIMMY FALLON“Even though he tested negative, not that much changes for Biden. He still works from home, avoids crowds, and takes 20 pills a day.” — JIMMY FALLONThe Bits Worth Watching“The Daily Show” correspondent Ronny Chieng investigated why some Eastern Oregon citizens want to adjust the Idaho border.What We’re Excited About on Thursday NightBilly Porter will appear on Thursday’s “Tonight Show” to talk about his directorial debut with “Anything’s Possible.”Also, Check This OutLauren Ridloff, who became the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s first deaf superhero, in “Eternals.”Marvel/DisneyA new study shows that disability representation onscreen is improving but still falls short, especially on television. More

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      Final ‘Jeopardy!’: Ken Jennings and Mayim Bialik to Split Hosting Duties

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      The popular game show, which has had trouble finding a new host since Alex Trebek died in 2020, will stick with the hosts who served temporarily this year.For more than a year, there was one question that fans of “Jeopardy!” could never seem to get a clear answer to: Who would succeed its popular longtime host Alex Trebek after his death, becoming the new face of the popular quiz show?First came a rotating cast of temporary hosts — including LeVar Burton, who had a legion of online fans boosting him as the permanent choice, and Mehmet Oz, a celebrity doctor who followed his hosting stint with a bid for U.S. Senate. Then, the show announced its succession plan — its executive producer, Mike Richards, would take over as host during the regular season, while Mayim Bialik would tape prime-time specials. That plan imploded after revelations that Richards had made offensive comments on a podcast.To fill the hosting vacuum, the program then turned to Bialik and to the former champion Ken Jennings, asking them to fill in temporarily and split hosting duties. It was a temporary arrangement that got extended, and on Wednesday, the show made it permanent, opting for the status quo rather than another major shake-up.“I write today with the exciting news that we have closed and signed deals with Mayim Bialik and Ken Jennings to be the hosts of ‘Jeopardy!’ moving forward,” the show’s executive producer, Michael Davies, wrote in an announcement posted to the show’s website.The rationale for two hosts, he explained, was the show’s rapidly expanding brand, which includes a “Celebrity Jeopardy!” spinoff and a Second Chance tournament that invites standout contestants back to compete.Read More About ‘Jeopardy!’A New Legend: When Amy Schneider’s 40-game streak ended, she left as the highest-winning woman in the show’s history.Star Players: Schneider’s success is not a one-off. “Jeopardy!” has seen an unusual trend of big winners lately.A Signature Look: Mattea Roach, the show’s most high-profile Gen Zer, has a personal style that reflects her generation and helped make her a star.“The fact is, we have so much ‘Jeopardy!’ to make, and so many plans for the future, that we always knew we would need multiple hosts for the franchise,” Davies wrote.Jennings will be hosting the regular season shows through December, and Bialik will take over in January, according to the announcement.In a gesture to the show’s loyal but vocal fan base, Davies sought to give them some reassurances: “We know you value consistency, so we will not flip-flop the hosts constantly and will keep you informed about the hosting schedule.”The new arrangement makes official the stopgap solution the show hit upon after Richards departed the show last August. The program initially announced that Bialik and Jennings would share the job through the remainder of 2021. Then, in December, the show said the arrangement would continue into 2022.But while the show was struggling to find its footing behind the scenes, it continued to generate excitement — and ratings — with a series of star contestants. Within just one season, four new champions were added to the show’s all-time leaderboard, fueling plenty of theorizing among fans about what was behind the new streak of winning streaks. For a while, the growing celebrity of the winning contestants — including Amy Schneider, Matt Amodio and Mattea Roach — offered a welcome distraction from the lack of clarity around who would become the permanent face of the show.Jennings remains the champion with the highest number of consecutive wins (74) and the highest amount of money won in regular-season games ($2.5 million) in the show’s history. Bialik, who has a Ph.D. in neuroscience and is best known for her role as a scientist in the sitcom “The Big Bang Theory,” has made clear from the beginning that she is interested in getting the job permanently, though she has had to balance it with the demands of her sitcom “Call Me Kat,” and faced criticism for endorsing a “brain health supplement” for a company that settled a lawsuit accusing it of false advertising. Jennings has also received criticism for old social media posts, apologizing for tweeting “unartful and insensitive things” after he was initially revealed as a “Jeopardy!” guest host following Trebek’s death.After Richards’s departure, Davies, a veteran game-show producer who developed the original American version of “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?,” took over temporarily as executive producer — and that job, too, soon became permanent.Under Davies, the show has worked to expand beyond its traditional structure and to cater to its passionate fans, announcing daily statistics for each contestant and, on Wednesday, a new podcast.And there are more specials coming. Bialik will host “Celebrity Jeopardy!,” which debuts on ABC in September, while Jennings will host the first Second Chance Tournament, as well as the upcoming Tournament of Champions. In his announcement, Davies hinted that there could be more spinoffs ahead, noting that Bialik would also host a couple of new tournaments, in addition to the college championship. More

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      Review: In ‘Mr. Burns,’ Apocalypse Now, With ‘The Simpsons’ and Songs

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      Anne Washburn’s 2012 play about a post-pandemic society reckoning with loss has not aged at all, our critic writes.Stories, like viruses, are transmissible. In the brain, in the blood, they mutate and change. Tragedies become comedies; dramas become myths. And in Anne Washburn’s visionary and wackadoo “Mr. Burns, a Post-Electric Play,” revived by the Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival, an episode of “The Simpsons” becomes an opera and that opera becomes a way for a post-apocalyptic society to reckon with all it has lost.After a devastating contagion and concomitant nuclear meltdowns, the American population has shrunk to maybe a million, maybe half that. In the first act, set in the very near future, somewhere in the northeast, a few survivors have gathered around what should be a campfire (did the fire marshal not allow it?) to tell stories. Or as on this night, one particular story. Collectively, they piece together the events and jokes of “Cape Feare,” a Season 5 episode of “The Simpsons.”Recalling Sideshow Bob’s flourishes and Homer’s doofus behavior connects them to a lost world in a way that feels bearable. Real memories are too painful. Memories of a television show — in a time when televisions no longer work — are what they can manage. In the second act, these scattershot remembrances have been refashioned into a revue. The third act, set decades later and entirely sung through, with music from the composer Michael Friedman, transmutes them further.“Mr. Burns” debuted in May 2012 at the Woolly Mammoth Theater in Washington, and then moved to Playwrights Horizons. Sept. 11 was more vivid in the cultural memory a decade ago. One passage includes a haunting reference to twin towers of light. But with the pandemic, we have a new cataclysm to absorb, which makes “Mr. Burns,” directed by the festival’s artistic director, Davis McCallum, a timely selection. (Will there always be some new disaster? Will this play always seem of the moment? Yes. Probably. Ugh.) In its invention, its cool ruthlessness, its interrogation of why and how we use narrative, it has not aged at all.Sean McNall, Merritt Janson, Quintero, Karaman, Ota, and Zack Fine. With three-quarter seating, the director and his designers sometimes struggle to make the action visible to all.T. Charles EricksonIn some ways, the festival, with its sandy floor and jaunty tent, provides an ideal location. The opening at the back of the tent looks out into some old-growth trees. Even considering the mowed lawn — a concession to picnickers and the tick-averse — it suggests what the landscape might look like if nature made a comeback. (If the vista had shown the recently decommissioned Indian Point nuclear plant, located just down the Hudson, that might have been even more evocative.) But the play was built for a proscenium stage, not three-quarter seating, and McCallum and his designers sometimes struggle to make the action visible to all, particularly in the final act.The acting is uneven here, the rhythms sometimes off, though Sean McNall, a festival veteran, has a terrific turn as a newcomer in the first act, and Merritt Janson, a welcome Off-Broadway presence, does pointed and specific work as an actor-manager in the second. Zachary Fine, who operates on a very low-key in the first two acts, triumphs in the third. During that act, a chorus member banged a drum straight into my ear, which I could have done without.And yet, if you are in the area, and you can book a seat away from that drum, you should see “Mr. Burns.” Here’s why: It seems to me that no new work of art — theater, television, film, fiction — produced in these past few years has really represented the pandemic, at least as I’ve experienced it. Sometimes the more on the nose they were (“Station Eleven,” say) the further away they felt.“Mr. Burns” doesn’t exactly capture it either, but it captures something else. In these past two years, when I have had a moment of downtime, I have turned to comedies and procedurals, shows that made the world feel regular and knowable. “Mr. Burns” explores the ways that we use stories, even seemingly irrelevant stories, to make sense of our lives. “Mr. Burns” is a play about where we find comfort and it is also, more chillingly, about the limits of that comfort, about how reality can intrude even before the credits roll.Reality sometimes intruded, even here, out of the city, out of doors. The show’s opening had been delayed owing to coronavirus cases among the cast. The spectators closest to the actors were asked to wear masks; most did. Still, we could lose ourselves for a while, in imagining how a society much like ours might handle a disaster much worse than this one, how we might or might not come through it. To watch this feels pleasurable and painful and mysterious and weird. Or to put it another way: D’Oh.Mr. Burns, a Post-Electric PlayThrough Sept. 17 at the Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival, Garrison, N.Y.; hvshakespeare.org. Running time: 2 hours 30 minutes. More

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      Trevor Noah Is a Fan of Pope Francis

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      “He’s reached out to other faiths, he said gay people can get into heaven, and don’t forget he added a pop and lock to the sign of the cross,” Noah joked on Tuesday.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.Catholic Guilt Takes CanadaPope Francis issued an apology to Indigenous Canadians on Monday, saying he was “deeply sorry” for the ways in which “many Christians supported the colonizing mentality of the powers that oppressed the Indigenous peoples.”“I’m glad he is doing that,” Trevor Noah said on Tuesday. “It also must have been a shock to Canadians, you know? Someone coming and apologizing to them?”“You know, say what you want, I love this pope. I really do. Yeah, because ever since he has come into office, or into power, or ever since he has gotten the gig, what do they even say? Whatever it is, he has done a really good job of trying to right the Catholic Church’s wrongs, you know? He’s reached out to other faiths, he said gay people can get into heaven, and don’t forget he added a pop and lock to the sign of the cross.” — TREVOR NOAH“And you know beyond the pope, the pope is great in all of this but you know who the heroes of the story are? The Indigenous people, yeah. For not just speaking to the pope but for forgiving him, even letting him wear their traditional headdress. That was amazing. It was gracious, you know? Unless they were just setting him up for a trap, you know? Like, ‘We let bygones be bygones, please accept this headdress,’ snap photo, ‘And you’re canceled, mother [bleep]! We got you — cultural appropriation.’” — TREVOR NOAH“Now, apparently in addition to the apology the church has also agreed to pay a settlement for what they did, which I think is fantastic, especially on the tribe for actually insisting on it. Yeah, because so many people’s lives have been destroyed and a generation was thrust into poverty. So sorry is nice, but money goes a long way, yeah. In fact, you know what, they should put ‘I’m sorry’ in the caption of the Venmo payments, that is what they should do.” — TREVOR NOAHThe Punchiest Punchlines (R.I.P. Choco Taco Edition)“I’m going to shoot you straight: Things are looking a little rough right now. The climate is on fire, democracy is hanging on by a pube, and just when we thought we couldn’t take another punch to the national gut, we’ve learned that Klondike’s Choco Taco has been discontinued after almost 40 years. No, not the Choco Taco! It was the only dessert with as much real beef as Taco Bell!” — STEPHEN COLBERT“Well, I guess the answer to ‘What would you do for a Klondike bar?’ is ‘ruin childhood.’” — STEPHEN COLBERT“The Choco Taco is the perfect American fusion of cultures. right? It’s Mexican and sugar.” — TREVOR NOAH“[Singing in the vein of Elton John] ’Cause it seems to me you lived your life like a taco in the fridge. You’re an ice cream waffle taco covered in chocolate, and I sure did love to eat you when I was just a kid. Your choco melted long before your taco ever did.” — JIMMY FALLON“And may I point out, we learned this shocking news on a Taco Tuesday. That’s just salted caramel in the wound.” — STEPHEN COLBERTThe Bits Worth WatchingMaggie Rogers performed her song “Want Want” on Tuesday’s “Tonight Show.”Also, Check This OutPaul Sorvino as the mob underboss who gave orders with just a nod of his head in “Goodfellas.”Warner Bros.The late Paul Sorvino is perhaps known for playing the underboss Paulie Cicero in “Goodfellas,” but he almost walked away from the role. More