Television

The streaming part of the ceremony actually did a better job conveying the electricity of being in a theater than the CBS special billed as “Broadway’s Back!”It’s no surprise that the Tony Awards ceremony on Sunday night took much more time and bandwidth than usual, swallowing up more than four hours that were split between two platforms. After all, it had a big agenda: to honor the shortened 2019-2020 season and everything that came after, including the ongoing pandemic and a cultural reckoning in the theater, as in the world. Also, of course, with special urgency now, the event wanted to encourage possibly wary theatergoers to buy tickets to shows by highlighting Broadway’s performers as they return to the stage.With so much on its to do list, how did the Tonys do? Jesse Green, The New York Times’s chief theater critic, discussed the presentation — or, rather, the presentations: one on Paramount+ and one on CBS — with James Poniewozik, The Times’s chief television critic, and the contributor Elisabeth Vincentelli.JESSE GREEN The Tony Awards ceremony was deliberately broken into two halves: the first more like a private industry dinner, on Paramount+, to give out most of the awards efficiently; the second more like a desperate advertisement, on broadcast television, to lure tourists back to Broadway. (The second was even called, somewhat ambitiously, “Broadway’s Back!”) But did either of you feel, as I did intensely, that the two shows were almost psychotically different, even if they were written and directed by the same team? One half gave us the art form that wants to speak in serious terms of the human soul and cultural change. The other gave us weak comedy bits and bad timing.ELISABETH VINCENTELLI It felt like one of those horror films where a lab-made creature’s parts suddenly take on a life of their own: What used to be an awkward — but often very entertaining, in its own way — whole suddenly became split into separate bits and pieces. Mind you, those bits and pieces meant that even with four hours of airtime, the show still ran long!JAMES PONIEWOZIK The two shows were undeniably different. I’m not sure I mind that, though, at least in theory — we can get to my issues with the execution. Broadway was hit by the pandemic uniquely among art forms, but the Tonys really have the same challenge that all televised awards shows have now: Who is this production for? Is it for the die-hards or the casuals? Is it for the artists or the audience? Is it meant to honor the creative work of the past year(s) or sell tickets for the next? The Tonys answer was essentially, “Why not both?” There was definitely whiplash for those of us who managed to find Paramount+ and watch both halves. But I’m not sure how big that audience was compared with the CBS-only crowd.VINCENTELLI Splitting the awards from the musical numbers is what, I suspect, CBS had wanted to do for ages: shove the awards to the side because nobody (in the network’s view) cares, and focus on the fun stuff. I wouldn’t be surprised if they continued with that format in the future.PONIEWOZIK That split, by the way, is what the Grammys have done on CBS for years — shunt most of the awards off prime time and put on a big show for the general audience. That worked pretty well for them this year.GREEN The difference, and what makes the split feel more neurotic to me, is that the theater, abetted by pretentious theater critics like myself, often tries to imagine it is upholding a more noble tradition. Certainly it’s an older tradition. In any case, given the choice to divide the awards, it’s surprising how the first half managed to provide everything the second half was supposed to — warmth, dignity in a difficult time, Jennifer Holliday live! — and the second half largely failed to, except in the recorded segments from the nominated musicals.VINCENTELLI The combination of Sheryl Lee Ralph’s introduction and Jennifer Holliday’s performance of “And I Am Telling You I’m Not Going” is bound to become a YouTube classic. CBS might be trying to turn the Tonys into the Kennedy Center Honors, which they also broadcast — they’re well placed to know that in 2019, the Honors scored more viewers than the Tonys. So that’s the model: celebrity presenters of big numbers. Having the awards themselves on Paramount+ also testifies to the siloing of audiences.Danny Burstein in a performance by the “Moulin Rouge! The Musical” cast. The critics agreed that the number worked well on TV.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesPONIEWOZIK I would question whether the theater is more inherently “noble” than TV or any other art form. But another argument, another day. More to the point, if the theater wants to celebrate its hard work and creative spirit, you can rent a nice hall for that and do it privately. If you expect a broadcast TV audience, your obligations are different — no one is entitled to the attention of millions of people. But I agree that (to my surprise) the first, industry-awards part actually did a better job of conveying the excitement and electricity of being in a theater!GREEN The “concert” half, not a bad idea in theory, was in fact so poorly routined and timed that it erased all the gains of the “awards” half. The final 30 minutes, which felt like an entire additional day, was a train wreck of bad calls: ballads, duets, redundant improv from “Freestyle Love Supreme” — when what you really wanted in that spot was the “Moulin Rouge!” kickline and confetti cannons.VINCENTELLI I don’t think I ever need “Moulin Rouge!” anything. That said, that number worked on TV and may well have done its job, which is to sell tickets.GREEN I’m not a huge fan of “Moulin Rouge!” myself, but I thought it looked fantastic on the screen, using the cool medium to tone down its manic red hotness. Even if it hadn’t won 10 awards, the most of any show, it would have done itself a lot of good with that performance.PONIEWOZIK The flow of the CBS portion was just weird. The “concert” wasn’t an awards show, but there were three major awards, and the last one was given out a half-hour before the end, sabotaging the momentum. I also question whether the song choices — between the general nostalgia of the production and Broadway’s reliance on jukebox musicals — did much to sell an audience on experiencing new theater. (Disclosure: I already have tickets for “Caroline, or Change.”) You’re telling me to feel excited (and safe) going back to a theater in 2021, and giving me a selection of songs I could have heard on one night of “American Idol” in 2005.VINCENTELLI And as on “American Idol,” there was no mention of plays, which the Tonys still don’t know what to do about. Unless I blinked and missed it, there was no attempt to even describe them, let alone feature excerpts.PONIEWOZIK Yes, Elisabeth! Four hours (plus overtime!!!), and you can’t even give us a taste of the plays you want us to come back to Broadway for?GREEN Generally you can’t come back for the plays; they’ve closed. But the world of Broadway is changing, even when the awards don’t. “The Inheritance” swept the big play categories, winning four major awards, and “Slave Play,” its main competition, got skunked — but it was “Slave Play” that has announced a return Broadway engagement, starting in November. I’m shocked “Slave Play” didn’t win, but there’s no point in litigating the voters’ choices; they are always unintelligible and, as far as television is concerned, beside the point. Unintelligibility may even be a plus. Drama!Daniel J. Watts, right, and Jared Grimes during their performance. The spoken word piece, featuring tap, addressed the racial equity concerns of the Broadway Advocacy Coalition, which received a special Tony.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesVINCENTELLI In terms of the overall tone, I was very happy to be spared the usual self-conscious posture of theater, which thinks of itself as a beleaguered band of misfits toiling for an underappreciated art form/industry and reacts with a bizarre mix of self-importance and defensiveness. Theater folks feel like the Marvel and “Star Wars” nerds of yore, before they became the de facto rulers of popular culture. Sunday night had a much more interesting, and overall healthier, balance of positivity, eagerness and joy. Of course at times there was frustration and anger, too, expressed most starkly in Daniel J. Watts’s spoken-word number, but that’s another way to let passion speak.PONIEWOZIK To me, the job of the whole shebang was to convey through TV the excitement of seeing theater live, in a room. What did that well? Jennifer Holliday’s performance, of course — not just because she’s a legend, but because it was a theatrical performance. She was in character. (Whereas too many of the duets, however beautifully sung, simply felt like watching two celebrities I like enjoy being back together.) I thought the recorded performances from other theaters might kill the live vibe, but it helped that they had audiences. And the buzz of the first awards portion — you could just feel how pumped everyone was to be in the room — in a way recreated the live experience better than some of the performances.GREEN Yes: What was good was whatever felt like live theater, not like an “I Love New York” commercial. Still, it’s very strange to me that the main thing all these Broadway creatives couldn’t pull off was a Broadway entertainment spectacular. (Who puts all the socko material at the beginning, leaving none for the end?) I think it’s time to give other writers and directors a chance.VINCENTELLI The second half of the show felt a little rote because something changed over the past 18 months in terms of access. The Tonys used to be the only place we could catch Broadway stars do a number on a screen. But in 2020, we streamed them a lot, and the newness of watching, say, Kelli O’Hara or Audra McDonald slay a number was dulled — because we watched Kelli O’Hara and Audra McDonald slay a lot of numbers online last year.PONIEWOZIK It would not be awful for the Tonys (and other awards) to learn a little from streaming. The most entertaining work of theater I saw during the pandemic may have been Annaleigh Ashford doing an insane version of “Mr. Mistoffelees” from “Cats” while cooped up at home for Miscast21.VINCENTELLI Yes! The Tonys need a good dose of that freewheeling social-media spirit.GREEN And maybe, hear me out, it should keep to a TikTok length. More

Other “S.N.L.” veterans including Pete Davidson, Cecily Strong and Kate McKinnon will return to the show, which is adding three new featured players.“Saturday Night Live” isn’t necessarily a series known for its season-ending cliffhangers, but when this long-running NBC sketch show reached its finale last May, there were question marks hanging over many of its veteran cast members.Pete Davidson concluded a monologue by telling viewers, “It’s been an honor to grow up in front of you guys, so thanks.” Cecily Strong finished what felt like a valedictory performance as Jeanine Pirro by dunking herself in a glass tank that said “Boxed Wine.” Other long-tenured players, including Aidy Bryant and Kate McKinnon, were simply seen looking especially tearful, fueling speculation about their future at the show.But on Monday, NBC announced that nearly all of the “S.N.L.” cast members from last season will be returning to the show: That includes Davidson, Strong, Bryant and McKinnon, as well as the Weekend Update anchors Colin Jost and Michael Che, players like Chris Redd, Heidi Gardner and Ego Nwodim, as well as Kenan Thompson, who has appeared on the show since 2003.However, Beck Bennett, who joined “S.N.L.” in 2013 and portrayed characters like Wolf Blitzer, Mike Pence, Vladimir Putin and Vin Diesel, is not returning to the program. In a post on his Instagram account, Bennett did not give a reason for his departure but wrote, “Thank you for 8 years of remarkable people and incredible experiences that completely changed my life.”Lauren Holt, who appeared on “S.N.L.” as a featured player last season is also not returning to the show.Bowen Yang and Chloe Fineman, who had both been appearing as featured players have been promoted to full cast members, NBC said.“S.N.L.” is also adding three new featured players for the coming season: Aristotle Athari, a member of the sketch group Goatface; James Austin Johnson, who has acted in shows like “Tuca & Bertie” and in the film “Hail, Caesar!”, and has a viral series of Donald Trump impressions; and Sarah Sherman, who has worked on “The Eric Andre Show.”“Saturday Night Live” will begin its 47th season this Saturday with an episode hosted by Owen Wilson and featuring the musical guest Kacey Musgraves. More

The ceremony, held for the first time in more than two years, honored shows that opened before the pandemic and tried to lure crowds back to Broadway.It was the first Tony Awards in 27 months. It followed the longest Broadway closing in history. It arrived during a pandemic that has already killed 687,000 Americans, and as the theater industry, like many other sectors of society, is wrestling with intensifying demands for racial equity.The Tony Awards ceremony Sunday night was unlike any that came before — still a mix of prizes and performances, but now with a mission to lure audiences back as the imperiled industry and the enduring art form seek to rebound.The ceremony’s biggest prize, for best musical, went to “Moulin Rouge! The Musical,” a sumptuously eye-popping stage adaptation of the 2001 Baz Luhrmann film about a love triangle in fin-de-siècle Paris. The musical, jam-packed with present-day pop songs, swept the musical categories, picking up 10 prizes.“I feel that every show of last season deserves to be thought of as the best musical,” said the “Moulin Rouge!” lead producer, Carmen Pavlovic, “The shows that opened, the shows that closed — not to return — the shows that nearly opened, and of course the shows that paused and are fortunate enough to be reborn.”The best play award went to “The Inheritance,” a two-part drama, written by Matthew López and inspired by “Howards End,” about two generations of gay men in New York City. The win was an upset; “The Inheritance” had received, at best, mixed reviews in the U.S., and many observers had expected Jeremy O. Harris’s “Slave Play” to pick up the prize. López, whose father is from Puerto Rico, described himself as the first Latino writer to win the best play Tony, which he said was a point of pride but also suggested the industry needs to do better.“We constitute 19 percent of the United States population, and we represent about two percent of the playwrights having plays on Broadway in the last decade,” López said. “This must change.”Right from the start, there were reminders of the extraordinary difficulties theater artists have faced. Danny Burstein, a much-loved Broadway veteran who had a life-threatening bout of Covid-19 and then lost his wife, the actress Rebecca Luker, to a neurodegenerative disease, won his first Tony. It was the seventh time he was nominated, for his performance as a cabaret impresario in “Moulin Rouge! The Musical,” a show in which at least 25 company members fell ill.In his speech Burstein thanked the Broadway community for its support. “You were there for us whether you just sent a note or sent your love, sent your prayers, sent bagels,” he said. “It meant the world to us, and it’s something I’ll never forget. I love being an actor on Broadway.”The ceremony was held at Broadway’s Winter Garden Theater, which holds 1,500 people, far fewer than the 6,000 who can fit into Radio City Music Hall, where the event was often held in previous years. Attendees were subjected to the same restrictions as patrons at Broadway shows: they were required to demonstrate proof of vaccination, and they were asked to wear masks that cover their mouths and noses.With the majority of the awards given out earlier, most of the CBS telecast, which featured Leslie Odom Jr. as host, was devoted to musical numbers aimed at enticing potential ticket buyers as Broadway reopens after the longest shutdown in its history. Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesThe bifurcated four-hour show relegated most of the awards to an all-business first half, which was viewable only on the Paramount+ streaming service. That freed up the second half, which was telecast on CBS and hosted by Leslie Odom Jr., to emphasize artistry over awards, as a parade of musical theater stars, including “Wicked” alumnae Kristin Chenoweth and Idina Menzel, as well as “Rent” alumni Adam Pascal and Anthony Rapp and “Ragtime” original cast members Audra McDonald and Brian Stokes Mitchell, sought to remind viewers and potential ticket buyers of the joys of theatergoing.Early in the streamed portion of the show, the appeal to nostalgia began: Marissa Jaret Winokur and Matthew Morrison opened by leading alumni of the original cast of “Hairspray” in a rendition of that 2002 musical’s ode to irrepressibility, “You Can’t Stop the Beat.” And, just in case anyone missed the message, the awards ceremony’s host, McDonald, a six-time Tony winner, spelled it out, saying, “You can’t stop the beat of Broadway, the heart of New York City.”“We’re a little late, but we are here,” McDonald added. Then she urged the industry to “commit to the change that will bring more awareness, action and accountability to make our theatrical industry more inclusive and equitable for all.”“Broadway is back,” she said, “and it must, and it will, be better.”An early emotional highlight came when Jennifer Holliday, whose performance of “And I Am Telling You I’m Not Going” from “Dreamgirls” at the 1982 Tony Awards has been described as the best Tonys performance of all time, returned to sing the song again. The audience leapt to its feet midway through the song, and stayed there through her final, wrenching, hand-thrust-in-the-air, wail.The road to this 74th Tony Awards — honoring a set of plays and musicals from the pandemic-truncated 2019-2020 season, which abruptly ended when Broadway was forced to shut down on March 12, 2020 — was long.Only 18 shows were deemed eligible to compete for awards, which is about half the normal number, and only 15 shows scored nominations.The nominees, chosen by 41 theater experts who saw every eligible show, were announced last October. Electronic voting, by 778 producers, performers and other industry insiders, took place in March.The long-delayed ceremony — originally scheduled to take place in June of 2020 — was ultimately scheduled by the Broadway League and the American Theater Wing, which present the awards, to coincide with the reopening of Broadway. Those reopening plans were complicated by the spread of the Delta variant, which drove caseloads up over the summer and added new uncertainty to the question of when tourism, which typically accounts for roughly two-thirds of the Broadway audience, will return to prepandemic levels.But there are already 15 shows running on Broadway — which is home to 41 theaters — and each week more arrive. Adrienne Warren won for her performance as the title character in “Tina — The Tina Turner Musical.” She urged the industry to transform. “The world has been screaming for us to change,” she said.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesAmong the shows returning are all three nominees for best musical. “Moulin Rouge!” began performances on Friday; “Tina — The Tina Turner Musical,” a biographical musical about the life and career of Tina Turner, returns Oct. 8; and “Jagged Little Pill,” a contemporary family drama inspired by the Alanis Morissette album, returns Oct. 21.All three musicals scored some wins.The star of “Tina,” Adrienne Warren, won for her jaw-dropping performance as the title character. Warren, who is one of the founders of the antiracism Broadway Advocacy Coalition, is leaving the role at the end of October; she too urged the industry to transform. “The world has been screaming for us to change,” she said.“Jagged” won for best book, by Diablo Cody, and for best featured actress, Lauren Patten, who electrifies audiences with her showstopping rendition of Alanis Morissette’s “You Oughta Know.” Patten’s performance is the subject of some controversy, because some fans had perceived the character as nonbinary in a pre-Broadway production and were unhappy with how the role evolved; the show’s producers said that the character was “on a gender expansive journey without a known outcome.” In her acceptance speech, Patten thanked “my trans and nonbinary friends and colleagues who have engaged with me in difficult conversations and joined me in dialogue about my character.”Among the multiple awards won by “Moulin Rouge” were a first Tony for the director, Alex Timbers, and a record-breaking eighth for the costume designer, Catherine Zuber. The show’s leading man, Aaron Tveit, won for the first time, in an unusual way — he was the only nominee in his category, but needed support from 60 percent of those who cast ballots in the category to win, which he got. He teared up as he thanked the nominators and the voters.“Let’s continue to strive to tell the stories that represent the many and not the few, by the many and not the few, for the many and not the few,” he said. “Because what we do changes people’s lives.”None of the nominees for best musical had an original score, so for the first time that award went to a play — Jack Thorne’s new adaptation of “A Christmas Carol,” which featured music composed by Christopher Nightingale. That sparkly production, from the Old Vic in London, also won for scenic design, costume design, lighting design and sound design.There was no best musical revival category this year, because the only one that opened before the pandemic, “West Side Story,” also was not seen by enough voters. It also wasn’t seen by many theatergoers: Its producers have decided not to reopen it.A production of “A Soldier’s Play,” directed by Kenny Leon and produced by the nonprofit Roundabout Theater Company, won the Tony for best play revival. The play, a 1981 drama by Charles Fuller, is about the murder of a Black sergeant in the U.S. Army; it won the Pulitzer Prize when it was first published and was later adapted into a Hollywood film, but it didn’t make it to Broadway until 2020.The production starred Blair Underwood and David Alan Grier. Grier picked up the first award of the night, for best featured actor in a play.Leon gave a fiery acceptance speech, repeating the names Breonna Taylor and George Floyd — both of whom were killed by police last year — as he began, saying “We will never ever forget you.” And then, he exhorted the audience, “Let’s do better.”Kenny Leon, the director of “A Soldier’s Play,” gave an impassioned acceptance speech, repeating the names of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor and saying, “We will never ever forget you.”Sara Krulwich/The New York Times“No diss to Shakespeare, no diss to Ibsen, to Chekhov, to Shaw; they’re all at the table,” he said. “But the table’s got to be bigger.”The outcome in the best play category was startling enough that gasps could be heard in the theater when the winner was announced. “Slave Play,” with 12 nominations, had been the most nominated play in history, and a win would have made it the first play by a Black writer to claim the Tony since 1987, but the play won no prizes. “The Inheritance,” which had been hailed in London but then greeted tepidly in New York, won four, including for Stephen Daldry as director, Andrew Burnap as an actor, and for 90-year-old Lois Smith as a featured actress. Smith is now the oldest person ever to win a Tony Award for acting, a record previously held by Cicely Tyson, who won at 88.The best leading actress in a play award went to Mary-Louise Parker for her spellbinding performance as a writing professor with cancer in Adam Rapp’s “The Sound Inside.”The Tonys also bestowed a number of noncompetitive awards. Special Tony Awards were given to “American Utopia,” David Byrne’s concert show; “Freestyle Love Supreme,” an improv troupe co-founded by Lin-Manuel Miranda, and the Broadway Advocacy Coalition, a group pushing for racial justice.“I want to acknowledge that I’m only standing here because George Floyd and a global pandemic stopped all of us, brought us to our knees and reminded us that beyond costume, beyond glamour, beyond design was pain that we weren’t yet seeing,” said the coalition’s president, Britton Smith. “It created this beautiful opening that allowed us to say ‘Enough.’”Sarah Bahr, Nancy Coleman, Julia Jacobs and Matt Stevens contributed reporting. More

A two-part documentary about William Randolph Hearst debuts on PBS. And “SNL” returns to NBC for its 47th season.Between network, cable and streaming, the modern television landscape is a vast one. Here are some of the shows, specials and movies coming to TV this week, Sept. 27-Oct. 3. Details and times are subject to change.MondayAMERICAN EXPERIENCE: CITIZEN HEARST 9 p.m. on PBS (check local listings). Any onscreen exploration of the life of the 20th-century media mogul William Randolph Hearst has to contend with an inconvenient fact: Orson Welles’s “Citizen Kane” (1941) basically did that, to historically great effect. This two-part documentary on Hearst leans into that inconvenient truth, both nodding at Welles with its title and including a discussion of “Citizen Kane” itself. The focus, though, is on Hearst and his life — from his days at Harvard, where, the film notes, he was known for keeping a pet alligator, to his death in 1951 in Beverly Hills. (If you’d prefer to watch Welles’s take, you can see that on Monday night, too: “Citizen Kane” airs at 8 p.m. on TCM.)TuesdayLA BREA 9 p.m. on NBC. The first episode of this new sci-fi drama begins with a mother and her two children navigating a distinctly terrestrial horror: Los Angeles traffic. But the situation becomes otherworldly quickly when a sinkhole opens up, transporting those that fall into it to a prehistoric world. The family gets broken up; the series follows them as they work to reunite.WednesdayThe filmmaker Alice Guy-Blaché, as seen in “Be Natural: The Untold Story of Alice Guy-Blaché.”Zeitgeist Films and Kino LorberBE NATURAL: THE UNTOLD STORY OF ALICE GUY-BLACHÉ (2019) 9:45 on TCM. The director Pamela B. Green revisits the life and work of the foundational early filmmaker Alice Guy-Blaché in this documentary. Guy-Blaché was born in 1873 in France, and became one of the first people to innovate with the narrative possibilities that film allows — both as a director and producer, and eventually as the head of her own movie company, Solax Studios. Green’s documentary makes a case for Guy-Blaché’s importance while exploring the ways in which she has traditionally been written out of film history. The documentary also includes a fair amount of archival detective work, following Green’s efforts to research Guy-Blaché — the difficulty of which is telling in itself. It’s a “lively and informative” documentary, A.O. Scott wrote in his review for The New York Times. “By the end of ‘Be Natural,’” Scott wrote, “you won’t only have a clear idea of who this remarkable woman was; you may well have acquired a new taste in old movies.”ThursdayCAKE 10 p.m. on FXX. Despite its title, this comedy showcase series is really more a box of semisweet comedy truffles than it is a cake. Each season mixes bite-sized animated and live-action comedy pieces from an array of creators. The fifth season, which debuts on Thursday night, includes TV versions of two cult comic series: Reza Farazmand’s “Poorly Drawn Lines” and Branson Reese’s “Swan Boy.”FridayJeté Laurence in “Pet Sematary.”Kerry Hayes/Paramount PicturesPET SEMATARY (2019) 7 p.m. and 9:30 p.m. on Paramount Network. Stephen King’s 1983 novel of undead, sometimes four-legged, horrors is reincarnated in this modern movie adaptation. Following in the paw prints of both King’s novel and the 1989 film, this version stars Jason Clarke and Amy Seimetz as a husband and wife who move their family to a small town in Maine. In the woods behind their new house, they discover a cemetery with supernatural traits that turn from horrific to alluring and back again. The directors Kevin Kölsch and Dennis Widmyer “overload the movie with arbitrary jump scares,” Glenn Kenny wrote in his review for The Times. But, Kenny added, “when they settle into a groove that aligns with the novel’s, the movie delivers great unsettling jolts that approximate the power of King’s vision.” John Lithgow co-stars as the family’s new neighbor.THE KENNEDY CENTER AT 50 9 p.m. on PBS (check local listings). Audra McDonald hosts this tribute to the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. Filmed earlier this month, the special includes performances from a formidable group of artists including the singer-songwriter Ben Folds, the soprano Renée Fleming, the jazz bass player Christian McBride and the folk quintet the Punch Brothers. Caroline Kennedy is a special guest.SaturdaySATURDAY NIGHT LIVE 11:30 p.m. on NBC. The continued cultural might of “Saturday Night Live” was on display earlier this month at the 73rd Emmy Awards, and not just because “S.N.L.” won the Emmy for best variety sketch series. The show’s reverberations were felt elsewhere during the ceremony. The “S.N.L.” alum Jason Sudeikis’s Apple TV+ show, “Ted Lasso,” was one of the night’s biggest winners. And the “S.N.L.” alum Norm Macdonald, who died on Sept. 14, was the subject of several tributes. Kenan Thompson was nominated in acting categories for both his work on the series and on his own sitcom, “Kenan” — a show that has surely gotten a boost from Thompson’s “S.N.L.” fame. And Bowen Yang’s silver boots were a red carpet show stealer. “S.N.L.” will return for its 47th season this Saturday, hosted by Owen Wilson. Kacey Musgraves is the musical guest.SundayA scene from “Nuclear Family.”HBONUCLEAR FAMILY 10:10 p.m. on HBO. The filmmaker Ry Russo-Young, known for indie movies including “Nobody Walks” (2012) and teen dramas like “The Sun is Also a Star” (2019), takes an autobiographical turn in this three-part documentary series. In “Nuclear Family,” Russo-Young revisits her childhood as the younger daughter of Sandy Russo and Robin Young. Russo-Young was part of the first generation of children raised by openly gay and lesbian parents. In 1991, her mothers were sued by the man who had donated the sperm for Russo-Young’s conception, Thomas Steel, in a case that made national news and resulted in Steel being granted legal standing as Russo-Young’s father. Russo-Young explores that history through home movies, photographs and present-day interviews. “It feels like this is my first film,” Russo-Young said in a recent interview with The Times. “Or all the films I’ve been making in my whole life have led up to this film.” The second of the three parts debuts on Sunday; the first is available now on HBO platforms including HBO Max. More

Acclaimed for his work on “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” and “The Cosby Show,” he also made a crucial casting decision about “The Golden Girls.”Jay Sandrich, a prolific sitcom director who won Emmy Awards for the two series he worked on most often, “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” and “The Cosby Show,” died on Wednesday at his home in Los Angeles. He was 89.The cause was dementia, his wife, Linda Sandrich, said.Mr. Sandrich did not think of himself as funny, but he knew how to guide a cast of comic actors through half-hour episodes. He understood the mechanics of directing (move the cameras, not the actors) and knew how to make scenes work.“Sitcom directors have a reputation as traffic cops because it’s a writers’ medium,” James Burrows, whose directing credits include “Cheers,” “Frasier” and “Will & Grace,” and who considered Mr. Sandrich a mentor, said by phone. “But Jay taught me to speak up and say what I thought so that you’re contributing to the show, not just parroting what everybody wants.”By 1970, Mr. Sandrich was a sitcom veteran, but he did not believe he had done “anything great”; his credits at that point included “He & She,” “That Girl,” “The Ghost & Mrs. Muir” and, perhaps most notably, “Get Smart.” Then, after another director dropped out, he was asked to direct the pilot episode of “The Mary Tyler Moore Show.”When the cast gathered for a run-through in front of an audience, nothing worked.“It was a disaster,” he told the Television Academy in an interview in 2001. “I don’t think we got six laughs.”Afterward, he told the cast to trust the material and keep rehearsing. By the time the episode was taped, the performances had sharpened and the laughs had been found.The cast of “The Golden Girls,” from left: Rue McClanahan, Bea Arthur, Estelle Getty and Betty White. It was Mr. Sandrich who suggested that Ms. McClanahan play the role originally intended for Ms. White, and vice versa.Walt Disney Television, via Getty ImagesReferring to a moment in the scene where Mary Richards, played by Ms. Moore, is interviewing for a television news job with Lou Grant, played by Ed Asner (who died last month), he said, “Ed, I remember, when he said, ‘You’ve got spunk — I hate spunk,’ he did it so loud” that the audience gasped. “He had found the perfect level.”Over the next seven years, Mr. Sandrich directed 118 more episodes of “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” including the series finale, and won two Emmys for his work on the show. He also directed other series under the banner of Ms. Moore’s company, MTM Enterprises, including “Rhoda,” “The Bob Newhart Show,” “Phyllis” and “Lou Grant.”In the late 1970s, he directed 53 episodes of “Soap,” Susan Harris’s parody of soap operas. In 1980 he directed the movie “Seems Like Old Times,” written by Neil Simon and starring Goldie Hawn and Chevy Chase. It was a hit, grossing $44 million — about $139 million in today’s dollars — but he never made another feature film.Jay Henry Sandrich was born on Feb. 24, 1932, in Los Angeles. His father, Mark, was a director whose films included the Fred Astaire-Ginger Rogers musical “Top Hat.” His mother, Freda (Wirtschalter) Sandrich, was a homemaker.As a child, Jay saw snow falling for the first time — on the set of “Holiday Inn” (1942), with Astaire and Bing Crosby, which his father was directing. It was an exciting sight, even if the snow was plastic.Goldie Hawn in “Seems Like Old Times” (1980), the only feature film Mr. Sandrich directed.Columbia Pictures, via Getty ImagesAfter graduating in 1953 from U.C.L.A., where he studied theater arts and film, he joined the Army and shot training films for the Signal Corps.Following his discharge, he wrote to W. Argyle Nelson, the head of production at Desilu Productions — Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz’s production company — and he was hired as a second assistant director, working on “I Love Lucy,” “Our Miss Brooks” and “December Bride.” He later discovered that he had gotten the job because Mr. Nelson had been an assistant to his father on a film years earlier. Mr. Sandrich went on to become an assistant director on “The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour,” the successor to “I Love Lucy,” from 1957 to 1959.He had similar positions on “The Dick Van Dyke Show” and on “Make Room for Daddy,” starring Danny Thomas, where he started his directingcareer.“I remember waking up in the middle of the night,” fearful before directing his first episodes of “Daddy,” he told the Television Academy. “I was so scared. Nobody was going to listen to me.”People listened to him for the next 40 years.In the 1980s, he directed 100 episodes of “The Cosby Show,” for which he won two Emmys. In 1985, he directed the pilot for “The Golden Girls,” and he played a critical role in casting Betty White as Rose, the naïve character, and Rue McClanahan as the libidinous Blanche, the opposite of what had been originally planned — in part because Ms. White had already played a similar role, Sue Ann Nivens, on “The Mary Tyler Moore Show.”“Jay Sandrich, in his genius, said if Betty plays another man-hungry, they’ll think it’s Sue Ann revisited. So let’s make her Rose,” Ms. White said at a 2006 “Golden Girls” reunion in Los Angeles staged by the Paley Center. She added, gesturing to Ms. McClanahan, “They got a real neighborhood nymphomaniac to play Blanche.”Mr. Sandrich at an Academy of Television Arts and Sciences panel discussion in Los Angeles in 2013. His TV career began in the 1950s and continued into the 21st century. Frank Micelotta/Invision for Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, via Associated PressMr. Sandrich continued to work into the 21st century. His last assignment was an episode of “Two and a Half Men” in 2003.He married Linda Silverstein in 1984. In addition to her, he is survived by his daughter, Wendy Steiner; his sons, Eric and Tony; and four grandchildren. His marriage to Nina Kramer ended in divorce.Mr. Sandrich’s association with “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” ended when the series itself did, in 1977. He later recalled that as the cast rehearsed the last episode, Mr. Asner’s emotional line, “I treasure you people,” caused tears to stream from Mr. Asner’s eyes.And when Ms. Moore talked about how much her co-workers meant to her, Mr. Sandrich said, “My only direction to her was to hold off crying as long as you can.”“If you see the show,” he added, “you see the tears well up and I started crying and the audience started crying.” More

His humorous touch was evident in commercials for Wendy’s, Little Caesars, Fox Sports and many other clients. “We have to win with wit,” he once said.Cliff Freeman, the award-winning copywriter and creative director behind many witty television commercials, most memorably the one for Wendy’s in which a gravelly-voiced old woman shouts, “Where’s the beef?,” at the sight of a puny hamburger patty in an oversized bun, died on Sept. 5 at his home in Manhattan. He was 80.The cause was pneumonia, his wife, Susan (Kellner) Freeman, said.In a career of nearly 40 years, Mr. Freeman’s antic sense of humor made brands stand out — first at the advertising agency Dancer Fitzgerald Sample and then, starting in 1987, at his own small agency, Cliff Freeman & Partners.“Cliff has consistently done some of the funniest, smartest ads on TV,” Jim Patterson, the chairman of J. Walter Thompson’s North American operations, told The Tampa Bay Times in 2005. Mr. Freeman’s work, he added, “is always fresh and original.”For the candy bars Almond Joy and Mounds, Mr. Freeman coined the song lyrics “Sometimes you feel like a nut/Sometimes you don’t.” For Little Caesars, he scripted (and voiced) the toga-clad Roman gnome who declares, “Pizza! Pizza!” and “Cheeser! Cheeser!”For Philips, Mr. Freeman’s “Time to change your light bulb” campaign featured a commercial in which a man inadvertently flirts with a burly workman in an elevator, instead of the beautiful woman he thought was beside him before the lights went out.And for Outpost.com, an online computer retailer looking to raise its profile, gerbils (not real ones) were fired from a cannon, aimed at the second “o” in an Outpost sign.“Almost all our clients are Davids up against Goliaths,” Mr. Freeman told New York magazine in 1993. “We have to win with wit.”From left, Elizabeth Shaw, Mildred Lane and Clara Peller in what was probably Mr. Freeman’s best-known commercial: the 1989 spot for Wendy’s in which Ms. Peller asks, “Where’s the beef?”Cliff Freeman and CompanyIn 1984, Wendy’s was looking to differentiate its burger, the modestly named Single, from McDonald’s Big Mac and Burger King’s Whopper. Research found that the Wendy’s Single patty was larger than the patties of the Big Mac and Whopper.Working with the director Joe Sedelmaier, Mr. Freeman created separate commercials, one with three old women and one with three old men, scrutinizing the fluffy hamburger bun before seeing the tiny patty inside. The breakout version was the one with the women, specifically the squawky octogenarian Clara Peller, who demands to know where the beef is.“It went viral globally before the term was coined,” Dan Dahlen, the former director of national advertising for Wendy’s International, said in a phone interview. “And as we got into the election, Walter Mondale turned to Gary Hart” — during a debate among candidates for the 1984 Democratic presidential nomination — “and asked, ‘Where’s the beef?’”Mr. Freeman was still at Dancer Fitzgerald a year later when he wrote another popular Wendy’s commercial, which promoted the chain’s breadth of food choices by parodying the lack of choices in Soviet society. In a faux Russian fashion show, a heavyset woman struts on a runway, modeling the same shapeless dress for day wear, evening wear (accessorized with a flashlight) and swimwear (with a beach ball).Mr. Freeman said it was his favorite ad, in part because of the response.“The entire Russian government protested it,” he told The Wall Street Journal in 2003. “How much more reaction can you get than that?”In 1985, Mr. Freeman wrote another popular Wendy’s commercial, which promoted the chain’s breadth of choices by parodying the lack of them in a faux Soviet fashion show. “The entire Russian government protested it,” he said proudly.Freeman and CompanyClifford Lee Freeman was born on Feb. 14, 1941, in Vicksburg, Miss., outside Jackson, and moved with his family to St. Petersburg, Fla., when he was 6. His father, James, and his mother, Lillian (Pennebaker) Freeman, owned a dairy business and motels.After graduating from Florida State University in 1963 with a bachelor’s degree in advertising, Mr. Freeman joined Liller Neal Battle & Lindsey, an Atlanta agency. He moved to McCann Erickson in 1968 and, two years later, to Dancer Fitzgerald, where he worked for 17 years.The Little Caesars pizza chain was one of the first accounts Mr. Freeman won after starting his own agency, and it remained a signature client for 11 years as it fought for market share against competitors like Pizza Hut and Domino’s.“Well, you know, pizza is a fun product,” Mr. Freeman told Luerzer’s Archive, an industry magazine, in a 1998 interview. “Everyone sits around and eats pizza together, so you’ve got to have fun when you advertise it. You certainly can’t treat it seriously.”One ad Mr. Freeman devised emphasized the stretchiness of pizza cheese, to slapstick effect (a baby goes on a wild ride in her high chair throughout the house while holding onto a slice). In another, a goofy worker for an unnamed rival chain tries to impress a customer by contorting a pizza box, origami-style, into the shape of a pterodactyl (underscoring its offering of just a pizza and a box, compared with Little Caesars’s two pizzas for one low price).Those commercials helped lift sales of Little Caesars 138 percent from 1988 to 1993. Nonetheless, after sales flattened and Little Caesars considered changing ad agencies, Mr. Freeman ended his firm’s association with the chain in 1998.Over the years, Mr. Freeman’s agency won many Clio Awards for advertising excellence. It won for commercials created for clients like Little Caesars, Philips and Outpost.com, and for a series of ads for Fox Sports’ National Hockey League coverage that demonstrated how basketball, bowling, billiards and golf would be better if they were played more physically, like hockey.Neal Tiles, a marketing executive for Fox Sports, told The New York Times in 1998 that it had chosen Mr. Freeman’s agency because it took “creative risks in a strategic way” on so many campaigns.But Cliff Freeman & Partners lasted only 11 more years. Amid a recession, executive turmoil and client departures, it shut down in 2009.In addition to his wife, Mr. Freeman is survived by his son, Scott; his sister, Chase McEwen; and his brother, Hunter. His marriage to Ann Angell ended in divorce.Mr. Freeman was well aware that markets like fast food were hypercompetitive, but he tried not to take his work too seriously; success, he maintained, often required a humorous touch.“I think when you’re slamming the competition, people find it kind of hard to take unless you do it in a way that is really fun,” he told Luerzer’s Archive. “Then they are able to accept it.” More

The Ph.D. student in computer science at Yale is only the third contestant to reach that level of winnings.“Jeopardy!” has another seemingly unstoppable sensation.On Friday, Matt Amodio, a Ph.D. student in computer science at Yale, won his 28th game, amassing over $1 million in winnings. He is only the third contestant to do so in regular-season gameplay, after Ken Jennings, the contestant-turned-producer for the show, and James Holzhauer, the phenom who captured audiences with his winning streak in 2019.Amodio’s success is no doubt a welcome distraction for the game show, which has been struggling to permanently fill the role of host after Alex Trebek died last year. Some of the shows during Amodio’s streak were hosted by Mike Richards, who was then the show’s executive producer. (Richards was named host of the show — but then stepped down after The Ringer reported that he had made offensive comments on a podcast taped years ago.) The actress Mayim Bialik, who had already been chosen to host the show’s prime-time specials, took over in his place. (She and Jennings will host the show until the end of the year.)Amodio — whose winnings currently stand at $1,004,001 — researches artificial intelligence at Yale and has said that he has been watching “Jeopardy!” since before he was “even able to understand the words.”He is a reliably dominant player. According to the website The Jeopardy! Fan, he gets more than 90 percent of clues that he answers correct and is first to the buzzer more than half of the time. In betting, he tends not to take as many risks as Holzhauer, who surpassed $1 million in half the time as Amodio.But there is another way Amodio can surpass his record-breaking rivals. If he wins five more games, he will surpass Holzhauer’s 32-game streak; he has much longer to go on Jennings, who won 74 games. Because the game show is taped ahead of time (Friday’s episode was taped a month ago), it is possible that Amodio’s fate has already been sealed, but audiences will not know until next week’s episodes air.It is obvious that Holzhauer — a sports bettor whose “Jeopardy!” stardom propelled him to a role on the ABC game show “The Chase,” alongside Jennings and Brad Rutter, another “Jeopardy!” champion — knows that Amodio is on his heels. He ribbed Amodio on Twitter earlier this week, pointing out that Amodio had made much less money than him during the same number of games.Amodio playfully sniped back, tweeting, “Must be nice having time to throw shade on Twitter. Us ‘Jeopardy!’ champions with zero career losses have actual work to do.” More

Alison Leiby has an hourlong set looking at the experience of an unwanted pregnancy. She’s among a spate of female artists finding humor in the issue.A stand-up show about abortion sounds like a bad idea. The comic Alison Leiby knows that. Just look at her title: “Oh God, an Hour About Abortion.”Leiby doesn’t just anticipate your expectations. She subverts them. As states like Texas pass laws dramatically restricting abortion rights, and the Supreme Court prepares to hear a case in December that could overturn Roe v. Wade, her deftly funny, jarringly understated show doesn’t respond to the news so much as clarify it.Abortion is not new territory in comedy, and there’s a long history of male comics doing against-the-grain bits staking out an abortion-rights position while also poking fun at the idea that a fetus isn’t a person. I saw this done decades ago by George Carlin, and again this month by Bill Burr. Neal Brennan also has a quick joke in his current show, “Unacceptable,” about how liberals show empathy for everyone — but fetuses. Leiby is part of a recent spate of female artists making comedy about reproductive rights that digs into the realities of abortion today more than abstract arguments about it.Leiby, who has been performing her show around New York City (next up: Caveat on Tuesday), employs none of the debating-society smirk of those jokes about the life of the fetus. Without a trace of didacticism, she finds humor in the messy, confusing, sometimes banal experience of an unwanted pregnancy and an abortion. This is comedy about the heartbeat of the mother — and to the extent it engages with the abstract question of life, it’s when Leiby mentions her friends’ first Instagram post of their newborn, which, she says, “I think we can all agree is when life really begins.”Her offhandedness is part of her charm, but it has a purpose. Leiby wants to give us a portrait of abortion not as a crisis or a moral question, but as a common and confusing medical procedure. The broader context of this show, as she reminds the audience, is a culture of silence surrounding women. From sex education to birth control, she explains how much is unspoken, rushed through or hidden from view. Leiby even shocked herself when she called Planned Parenthood, she says, and in asking about an abortion, whispered the word. She mocks the vague ads for birth control and imagines an honest one in which a 37-year-old woman wakes up in a cold sweat screaming next to a mediocre white man, which leads to a scene of him eating Cheetos in a hospital room as she gives birth.Leiby doesn’t move much onstage, and her gestures are limited. Her comedy leans on her nimble writing, which displays a range and density of spiky jokes — puns, metaphors, misdirection. She knows how to set a scene and is alert to the details of nightmares. She is terrified of scary movies and has a ticklishly amusing podcast, “Ruined,” in which a friend, Halle Kiefer, explains the plots of horror films to her. It’s like listening to a play-by-play announcer and color commentator of a game on the radio, except instead of balls or strikes, it’s about beheadings and exorcisms.What comes across on the podcast and in this show is a sensitivity to anxiety and fear mitigated by curiosity. Leiby understands that whether to have a child is a subject fraught with confusion for many, and she acknowledges it, but that’s not her issue. She presents herself as a wry if bumbling protagonist of her own story, describing her attitude toward the prospect of children like this: “I acted like my eggs were Fabergé: feminine but decorative.”In 2004, The New York Times published an article about culture and abortion titled “Television’s Most Persistent Taboo.” That has changed. In a short set on “The Comedy Lineup,” on Netflix, the comic Kate Willett has a sharp joke about how men looking to hook up should care about abortion rights. “I don’t even know if the men that I know understand that sex can make a kid,” she said. “They are super worried that sex can make someone your girlfriend.”In the past year, streaming services have put out two comedies, “Plan B” (directed by Natalie Morales) and “Unpregnant” (directed by Rachel Lee Goldenberg), about girls who go on the road with a friend to get reproductive help. These knockabout buddy films aren’t explicitly about the recent state-level pushes for anti-abortion legislation, but they certainly haunt the action, with closed clinics and ideologues providing key plot points.Like Leiby’s show, these movies present getting an abortion or taking the morning-after pill, often called Plan B, as ordinary decisions made relatively easily, but because of the dictates of a commercial comedy, their plots are full of incident and action, romantic and villainous turns. They make the process of getting an abortion into a high-stakes adventure.Haley Lu Richardson, left, and Barbie Ferreira in “Unpregnant.”Ursula Coyote/HBO MaxVictoria Moroles, left, and Kuhoo Verma in “Plan B.”Brett Roedel/HuluIn observational comedy, Leiby has found a form better suited to what she wants to say. “Oh God” is about details, and by zeroing in on them, it navigates the difficult terrain of making a funny hour about a difficult, polarizing subject. Even so, this isn’t one of those comedy shows interrupted by grave talk or political speeches. It’s one where the response to the person at the clinic asking if she wants “pills or procedure” is: “That’s a real fries or salad.”There’s a power in the relatable details of storytelling. Before Leiby gets the procedure, she’s asked a series of questions: Does she want to know if there’s a heartbeat? Does she want to know if it’s twins? In her telling, these are poignant, even painful moments leavened by quips. To the question about twins, she wonders: “Does it cost more?”Leiby proves that light comedy can be as pointed and meaningful as that which advertises its own weightiness. For while she tells a story about a safe, legal and quick abortion, she doesn’t ignore other more fraught situations, either today or in a potential post-Roe future. She explores this indirectly through her relationship with her mother, which gives her an opportunity to dig into the issue before abortion was legal. Through this historical perspective, she frames the stakes of the next year, when abortion could grow even more prominent in the American discourse.Political stand-up typically lends itself to argumentative point-making, but it can use other tools. In repositioning abortion not as a political battle of ideas but as the real-world choices in the lives of flawed human beings, she brings this charged issue down to earth. More