Television

Season 3, Episode 1: Parce DomineThe opening sequence of the third season of “Westworld” naturally recalls the opening sequence of the first, when the wholesome rancher’s daughter Dolores Abernathy (Evan Rachel Wood) was still stuck in her loop, greeting beautiful days that typically ended in rape and murder. Now she remembers everything, including the 1 percenters who made her part of their bachelor weekends, and she’s finally in their world, leading an android vendetta that turns these people’s own technology against them. She can not only breach their security systems but also cue up a killer track from their Spotify playlists.The original idea of “Westworld” was that the hosts were more human than humans — too complex to be understood simply as machines, yet completely vulnerable to man’s worst instincts. Last season muddied that line of thinking, especially as Dolores was concerned. It was not clear how different hosts might respond to liberation, which offers the possibilities and moral responsibilities of being fully human, but it had the curious effect of making Dolores more remote and one-dimensional. The quest for revenge had flattened her out as a character and made her unrecognizable even to Teddy (James Marsden), who took his own life after she engineered the sweetness out of him.Among the many virtues of “Parce Domine,” the first episode of the new season, are distinct signs that Dolores may rediscover her earlier self. In the opening, she is still the righteous angel of vengeance, taking down a Delos mega-investor (Thomas Kretschmann) who didn’t limit his violence against women to the park alone. She has read his “unauthorized autobiography” in the Forge, so she knows everything he’s done, and she swiftly commandeers his high-tech security system, which turns his fortress into a prison. (“You want to be the dominant species, but you’ve built your whole world with things more like me.”)When she makes references to his own “loops,” it’s clear that humans are almost as easy to exploit in their home as the hosts were in Westworld.The subtle revelation in this episode, however, is that Dolores is going to have to come to terms with innocent people. The technicians and guests responsible for her oppression in Westworld are clear targets for revenge, but her assumptions about humanity at large can’t be safely extrapolated from there. Again and again, she is confronted by people who reveal other dimensions: Her first target’s second wife, who is now freed from domestic violence; Liam Dempsey Jr. (John Gallagher Jr.), who she wrongly presumes operates Incite, the insidious data-mining operation founded by his father; and Caleb Nichols (Aaron Paul), the construction worker and part-time mercenary crook who comes to her aid in the closing moments.The sum of these encounters is a promising sign for “Westworld,” which is attempting a hard reboot after a second season that often twisted itself in knots to stay ahead of the Reddit prognosticators. With the addition of new replicants and powerful algorithms this episode, the show will surely become its confounding self in due time. But Dolores is the character at the center of the maze, and it’s crucial that she restore some of the soul that has been coarsened by her relentless pursuit of robot justice. Otherwise, “Westworld” risks becoming an empty puzzle-box or leaning too heavily on supporting characters like Maeve (Thandie Newton) to carry that flicker of humanity.In the meantime, the change in location has given the show a boost. The future looks expensive, like a cross between “Blade Runner” and a credibly advanced version our own, filled with around-the-corner developments like driverless vehicles, smart houses, holograms and other sophisticated forms of automation. Dolores’s efforts to infiltrate Incite have the quality of a spy thriller, complete with automated-car-and-motorcycle chases, open-air shootouts and well-planted twists and double-crosses. After last season’s bloated, confusing finale, there seems to be renewed effort to inject fresh life into the show and emphasize action over talky philosophizing.Still, you can take the show out of Westworld, but you can’t take Westworld out of the show. Questions linger from last season about the host version of Charlotte Hale (Tessa Thompson) and what she has planned for Delos, and the “pearls” Charlotte-bot sneaked out of the park will have to materialize, too.Then there’s Bernard (Jeffrey Wright), who starts the episode in hiding after getting blamed for the park massacre and ends it by commissioning a boat back to Westworld, for purposes unknown. “Westworld” 2.0 may have a gorgeous redesign and increased functionality, but it’s still the same ungainly hunk of hardware.Paranoid Androids:The seamless interactivity of the holograms is good for a couple of fake-outs this episode when it seems at first as if a flesh-and-blood human were present. This future society appears to have no shortage of advancements that will come back to haunt it.Dolores’s makeup (and Wood’s performance) makes her robotic nature stand out more in the human world than it did in the park. Her face and body have a glossy finish, and her movements in the action sequences read as distinctly nonhuman.Caleb’s turning to a disembodied therapeutic version of a fallen comrade plays up humanity’s reliance on simulated humans to stand in for the real thing, to the point where it’s hard to know the difference without asking. Again, another regrettable leap forward for mankind.Black-market crimes? There’s an app for that.Bernard’s doing his own diagnostic while hiding out on an industrial farm opens up new frontiers for self-deception: “Would you ever lie to me, Bernard?” “No, of course not.” Ask Elsie how reassuring that is.Pulp’s “Common People” isn’t the subtlest needle drop for a show about robots aspiring to be more human (“I wanna live like common people/ I wanna do whatever common people do”), but it has a propulsive future-sound that’s ideal. Sometimes the straightforward choice is the right one. More

Walt Disney Pictures

Earlier this week, the Sebastian Stan-starring show was put on delay, where it is filming in Eastern Europe, and similar precautions have been put in place on other shows.
Mar 16, 2020
AceShowbiz – Bosses at Marvel have decided to pause production on “The Falcon And The Winter Soldier”, “Loki”, and “WandaVision” due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Earlier this week, “The Falcon and the Winter Soldier” was put on delay, where it is filming in Eastern Europe, and similar precautions have been put in place on other shows, which will air exclusively on the Disney+ streaming service, reported Variety.
Disney has also paused production on all of its live-action movies, including the Marvel film “Shang-Chi” and “The Legend of the Ten Rings”, and has made the decision to release various flicks on home entertainment platforms ahead of schedule to encourage fans to self-isolate amid the health crisis.
On Friday (19Mar20), it was announced that “Frozen II” will be added to the streaming service Disney+ this weekend, three months earlier than planned, to provide “families with some fun and joy during this challenging period”.
The most recent “Star Wars” movie, “The Rise of Skywalker”, has also been released earlier than planned, likely due to the pandemic.
It comes as various TV shows and movie productions have been halted due to the Covid-19 situation, with Robert Pattinson’s “The Batman” among the latest films to shut down in London.
Production was due to move to Liverpool, but the move is being put on hold amid the shut down, with representatives from Warner Bros. telling The Hollywood Reporter: “Warner Bros. Pictures feature production of The Batman will hiatus filming for two weeks beginning today. The studio will continue to monitor the situation closely.”
Work on various Universal productions, including Chris Pratt’s “Jurassic World: Dominion”, has also been halted, while TV shows including “The Ellen DeGeneres Show”, “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon”, “Late Night with Seth Meyers”, and “The Wendy Williams Show” have been axed.

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There’s a repeating motif in David Simon’s passionate, gutting adaptation of Philip Roth’s 2004 novel “The Plot Against America.” A Jewish boy in early 1940s Newark is sitting in his bedroom when he hears an airplane overhead. Maybe it’s a warplane. Maybe it’s the president. Neither is a comforting thought.The president is Charles Lindbergh (Ben Cole), the famous aviator who, in this alternative past, defeated Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1940 on a platform of antiwar isolationism laced with anti-Semitism, made nice with the Nazis and began a gradual program of persecuting American Jews in the name of assimilation.That airplane motoring overhead is a symbol of what Simon and Ed Burns’s dazzling mini-series so mightily conveys: the ominous approach of history from a vantage where you can hear and see it but can’t touch it. It can only touch you.“Plot,” beginning Monday on HBO, asks the audience to imagine the outlandish idea that the presidency might have been won by a celebrity demagogue new to politics who appeals to bigotry and fear, who ran on the slogan of “America First,” who boasts of having “taken our country back,” who sees fine people on the most reprehensible side of history, who cozies up to despots and behaves as if he were their puppet.Roth, who died in 2018, insisted that he did not intend “Plot” as a political allegory. But history doesn’t always care what you intend.In the 2020 version, Simon draws not a frighteningly different America — as in “The Man in the High Castle” or “The Handmaid’s Tale” — but a chillingly familiar one, both in its echoes of current fears and in its evocation of the past. The opening of “Plot” could be any remembrance of urban life just before World War II. Families gather for dinner, kids chalk up the street to play games, “Begin the Beguine” plays on the radio.Roth created an unsettling intimacy by writing his novel like a memoir, from the point-of-view of 10-year-old Roth — Philip Levin (Azhy Robertson) in the series — as his family suffers from the rise and triumph of Lindberghism: first open bigotry on the street corners, then official singling out from Washington.Simon and Burns trade Roth’s internal perspective for a third-person that captures the sweep of history as experienced by the whole Levin family. Philip’s father, Herman (Morgan Spector), an outspoken F.D.R. Democrat, unwinds by listening to Walter Winchell, the MSNBC of the anti-Lindbergh movement. Philip’s cousin Alvin (Anthony Boyle) is itching to take more direct and physical action.America’s turn to smiley-faced fascism hits home when President Lindbergh establishes Just Folks, a program to foster urban Jewish children with gentile families in the country — deracination disguised as integration — which attracts Philip’s rebellious older brother, Sandy (Caleb Malis). The program, ironically, is the brainchild of Rabbi Lionel Bengelsdorf (John Turturro, with southern-fried smarm), an accommodationist convinced that Lindbergh has made anti-Semitic comments “out of ignorance” but regrets them “privately.”When Lionel begins dating Philip’s rudderless, impressionable aunt Evelyn (Winona Ryder), she clashes with Philip’s mother, Bess (Zoe Kazan), who is both more cautious than her hotheaded husband and less starry-eyed about their chances in a country of emboldened bigots.“Like it or not,” she says, “Lindbergh is teaching us what it means to be Jews.”It’s a frog-in-boiling-water situation, and Simon keeps a steady hand on the burner dial, patiently moving through the stages — denial, anger, desperation — of realizing that you are a stranger in your own country.The six-episode series builds to a fevered, violent climax. But arguably the most disturbing episode follows the Levins on a long-planned vacation to Washington, D.C. What should be a patriotic, educational family trip becomes a pilgrimage to the fallen monuments of a now-dead pluralism, a frightening recon mission into occupied territory. Herman, unable to stifle his disgust at what’s become of the country, is dismissed by pro-Lindy tourists as a “mouthy Jew.”It’s a depressingly believable horror story, an invasion of the body-politic-snatchers. Even Philip’s stamp collection becomes a symbol of what’s been lost: tiny portraits of the wide world and of America’s idealized past brought into one book, as America is slamming the door on that world and renouncing those ideals.“Plot” is a departure for Simon, who has not adapted a work of fiction before, yet it feels natural. Simon is an artist of granular realism, and the lived-in middle-to-working-class Jewish New Jersey he creates gives the series its power.The Levins are a family in full, not just plot-advancement devices, and Kazan and Spector are especially strong anchors. (The depictions of fictionalized historical figures — Lindbergh, Winchell, the anti-Semitic Henry Ford, now treasury secretary — are thinner.)Simon, like Roth, loves a good argument, and the ones here are all too familiar and believable. The accommodationists believe that they can guide the administration away from its worst tendencies. The resisters debate whether simply listening to the radio and getting mad counts as action, or if more active steps are needed.“Plot” is something of a thematic risk for Simon, too. His past work — “The Wire,” “Show Me a Hero,” “The Deuce” — is driven by the belief that individual acts can do only so much in the face of overpowering social systems. That might have made “Plot,” the story of how one man’s run for president might have nudged history off course, an uneasy fit for Simon’s philosophy, as much as it might mesh with his politics.Instead, he’s produced a translation that’s at once fully Rothian and fully Simonian. He hasn’t changed a lot in the story, but where he has, it’s to emphasize that the charismatic bigot in the White House is not simply an aberration who can be erased and forgotten like a bad dream. The problem is as much the passions and cynicism that made him possible: the citizens whose prejudice was validated, the officials who got a taste of thugocracy, the society that learned the norms of decent behavior were always optional, the minorities who found that equality is revocable.That merger of visions makes the difference between a dutiful adaptation of a great novel and a series that is great in itself. There is plenty of pugilistic optimism in this “Plot,” but it’s tough-minded. Maybe the clouds will part. Maybe the next plane to fly overhead will be a friendly one. But you will never feel as safe under that sky again. More

Warner Bros.

The talk show initially decided to tape without live audience, but eventually made the decision to suspend production until April due to the disease that has killed more than 4,000 people.
Mar 15, 2020
AceShowbiz – Ellen DeGeneres is at a loose end after her hit TV talk show halted production due to coronavirus concerns.
Earlier this week, bosses at “The Ellen DeGeneres Show” made the decision to tape without live audiences, but on Friday the star announced the decision had been made to suspend production until April.
Sharing the news on Twitter, the 62-year-old comedian wrote: “Hey there. Me again. So, after some more thought, we have decided to suspend production completely until March 30th.”
“We just want to take every precaution to ensure that we do our part to keep everyone healthy,” she added. “I love you guys, and can’t wait to come back. I’m already bored.”
Numerous TV talk shows have either been shut down or will record without a live studio audience due to the outbreak, which has seen more than 145,000 cases of the illness registered, resulting in more than 5,400 deaths since it began in December.
It was also announced on Friday that Sharon Osbourne’s panel show “The Talk” would stop filming, with a statement on Twitter reading: “In light of the current events, @TheTalkCBS has decided to suspend production for now. We hope to be back LIVE soon.”
“In the meantime, enjoy some of our favorite episodes starting Mon., 3/16. We can still laugh and share moments. We’re in this together.”
“The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon”, “Late Night with Seth Meyers”, and “The Wendy Williams Show” will also go dark from Friday, as the Governor and Major of the Big Apple introduce restrictions on public gatherings, venues and events. Broadway is also affected, with all shows cancelled until 12 April.

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Season 1, Episode 8: ‘Broken Pieces’Man, “Star Trek: Picard” is dark. That is the thought that kept running through my head during this week’s episode. There have been other dark moments throughout the series — but this is the episode when the darkness really stood out. From the start of the episode — when several Romulans stand in a circle, go insane and commit suicide — to Admiral Clancy’s randomly telling Picard to shut up with an unnecessary expletive, I kept thinking that this is a grim world Picard inhabits — and a much different one than the franchise creator, Gene Roddenberry, had in mind decades ago.But we are what is in front of us. And when Soji meets Rios for the first time, he has a moment of confusion and seemingly, panic. We finally get a bit of Rios’s back story and his history with a former captain, Alonzo Vandermeer — a father figure in his life. And filed under “What an Incredible Coincidence”: In a past life, Rios and Vandermeer picked up “a diplomatic mission out of nowhere” with two passengers. Vandermeer eventually murdered these two based on a directive from Starfleet and then killed himself, an incident that Rios covered up.Remarkable, the two ended up being synths. Thank goodness that Rios happened to be hired as the pilot for a synth-related mission for Picard!The uniting characteristic of the La Sirena crew is that all of them withdraw in times of deep discomfort, except, perhaps, for Picard. They are also all fundamentally broken human beings, as the episode’s title suggests. But in this showing, the members make an effort to look after one another: Raffi shows a compassionate side in dealing with Rios’s heartbreak (just as he did with her when she was rejected by her son). Soji is sympathetic toward Jurati, even though Jurati has orders to kill her and previously murdered her father. The crew recognizes that they are kindred spirits, having started off as distrusting strangers.The crew has uncovered a new mystery here that feeds into the current one they are trying to solve: It turns out that the Romulan quest to stop the development of androids actually stretches back hundreds of thousands of years and that they were behind the attack on Mars. Commodore Oh is a deeply embedded plant.I will admit that seeing yet another layer of plot on top of an already complicated plot muddles the central story line for me. And it is a bit difficult for me to believe that Oh would have risen up to near the top of Starfleet given the tensions between the Romulans and the Federation. (I realize that Worf became a Starfleet officer, but still.)But by the end of the episode, Picard and his merry band are in a race to beat the Romulan fleet to the synth planet — so it feels as if this story were finally coming to a head.And yet, even with all the darkness in the episode, Picard gives one of his trademark monologues — this one about optimism — as this chapter comes to a close.“The past is written but the future is left for us to write,” Picard tells Rios, doing his best Natasha Bedingfield impersonation.It’s the kind of dialogue Patrick Stewart really bites into and thank goodness, because otherwise, we were in for a bleak “Iceman Cometh”-type viewing experience. Fundamentally, Picard cannot help who he is: a duty focused, morally bound optimist. He is Roddenberry’s ideal. Borg drones being ejected into space? Not so much.Even with the extra layer of plot, I enjoyed the episode, but I do wonder how many of these threads will be wrapped up by the end of the season.Odds and Ends:I enjoyed the moment when all the Rios holograms hit themselves on the head at once. A lighthearted scene in an episode that sorely needed one.This episode was a lovely showcase for Santiago Cabrera as Rios (and his holograms). He has put together a very versatile performance.The B story line in the episode is the return of Seven of Nine. With Elnor’s help, she somehow reintegrates into the Borg hive mind and retakes the cube — even though Rizzo has thousands of drones sucked into space. Essentially, Seven of Nine grudgingly becomes the Borg Queen for a moment, which seems like a pretty cool experience. She just plugged herself in!Narek! Where are you?! (On a separate note, I continue to wonder what Elnor is supposed to be doing.)My favorite moment in the episode was when Picard described Data’s characteristics to Soji. It was a testament to what Brent Spiner brought to the character and a reminder of why Data is one of the most fascinating characters in all of Trek.Admiral Clancy cursing at Picard and then simultaneously sending a fleet to Deep Space 12 made me laugh. There was no apology from her about not taking Picard seriously. She shows the same contempt for him she did previously. What a strange character.So, Jurati says she is going to turn herself in for the murder of Bruce Maddox. The crew seems to accept readily that she has reformed and is no longer a murderer. Why? Commodore Oh has proved herself to be an effective double agent. Why would Picard and company believe Jurati?It’s kind of amazing that the Federation never showed more skepticism about the Mars attacks. More

The decision taken ‘out of an abundance of caution’ amid the coronavirus pandemic comes after judge Heidi Klum missed two days of auditions in Pasadena, California after falling ill.
Mar 14, 2020
AceShowbiz – “America’s Got Talent” is holding the remainder of its auditions without the usual live audience due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Production sources told TMZ the show will continue filming without fans for the foreseeable future, due to fears over the spread of the virus, as fans received emails informing them the auditions would continue behind closed doors.
“Out of an abundance of caution, America’s Got Talent is suspending all tapings with a studio audience until further notice,” the emails, shared by several fans on social media, read.
The decision comes after judge Heidi Klum was forced to skip auditions in Pasadena, California on Tuesday, March 10 and Wednesday after falling ill, with “Modern Family” star Eric Stonestreet stepped in alongside his co-star and judge Sofia Vergara, Howie Mandel, and Simon Cowell.
The decision comes after multiple TV shows axed live audiences to help inhibit the spread of the virus, with more than 134,000 cases registered worldwide since the outbreak began in December (2019), resulting in over 4,900 deaths in total.
Producers of the programme previously said they planned to continue with an audience, but vowed to monitor the situation and ensured they are taking every precaution necessary to make sure the audience, judges, and guests are safe.

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Bravo

It starts after Cynthia and Kenya decide to bury the hatchet as they share a friendly hug, prompting NeNe to call Cynthia out for being too easy to Kenya.
Mar 14, 2020
AceShowbiz – The upcoming episode of “The Real Housewives of Atlanta” season 12 will see another heated confrontation involving cast members NeNe Leakes and Kenya Moore. In a new promo, which was released on Friday, March 13, the two nemesis are having a verbal fight with NeNe calling Kenya a “b***h.”
It starts after Cynthia Bailey confronts Kenya for doing shady things to her including ruining her surprise engagement to Mike Hill and challenging her wine expertise. Kenya then apologizes to Cynthia, saying, “I’m sorry for hurting your feelings. I think your business speaks for itself. I’m always gonna applaud you. You’re a queen, you’re my sister, and that’s not gonna change.”
Cynthia and Kenya then decide to bury the hatchet as they share a friendly hug. Seeing that, NeNe calls out Cynthia for being too easy to Kenya. “Cynthia would never hold Kenya accountable. Your supposed ‘good friend’ ruined your engangement and your business but that’s all ‘friends make mistakes.’ I don’t ever recall Cynthia say ‘friends make mistakes’ when I was concerned,” NeNe shares in a confessional. “Cynthia is Kenya’s punk, believe me.”
NeNe later tells Chyntia, “I know that it was me, then you would have gone harder. We’re closer than anybody in this circle and that includes her.” Kenya chimes in, “But things change,” prompting NeNe to lash out at her and call her a “big a** bully, b***h.”
Offended, Kenya replies, “Wait a minute. Did you just call me a b***h? What is this?” NeNe is backing not down and further challenging Kenya, “What are you gonna say about it, though? What are you gonna do about it?”
“Do you want me to fight you? What are talking about?” Kenya asks, to which NeNe responds, “No, you can’t fight me, girl. You would lose. So all you’re gonna do is run your mouth.” With that, all hell breaks loose. Based on previous clip that the show released before, the heated argument will lead to the moment when Kenya accused NeNe of “almost” spitting on her.
NeNe denied the allegations, though she admitted that she should have done it. “She need 2 be spit on wit all the horrible things she has said & done! From constantly startin s**t wit me all season, lying on me, sayin I’m on drugs & bipolar,” she reacted to the video on a tweet back in January. “Plus that recent tweet she posted so enjoy the moment! I DID the act but DIDNT SPIT! I Wish i had tho! No regrets.”

“The Real Housewives of Atlanta” airs Sundays at 8 P.M. ET on Bravo.

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ABC

Netflix’s ‘Stranger Things’ also halts production on its fourth season as the streaming giant has decided to postpone all films and TV productions in the U.S. and Canada.
Mar 14, 2020
AceShowbiz – “The Bachelorette” is the latest Coronavirus casualty. Warner Bros., which produces the spin-off of “The Bachelor”, announced on Friday, March 13 that it decided to halt the production on season 16, which is set to feature Clare Crawley, due to the virus outbreak.
“With the rapidly changing events related to COVID-19, and out of an abundance of caution, Warner Bros. Television Group is halting production on some of our 70+ series and pilots currently filming or about to begin,” read the statement. “There have been no confirmed cases of COVID-19 on any of our productions, but the health and safety of our employees, casts and crews remains our top priority.”
“During this time, we will continue to follow the guidance of the Centers for Disease Control as well as local officials and public health professionals in each city where our productions are based,” the statement concluded.
Host Chris Harrison also announced the decision on his Instagram account. “Hello Bachelor Nation, it is with a heavy heart that I come to you tonight because right now, at this very minute, I should be standing on a very wet driveway with a very excited woman, ready to change lives. But in a fact lives have been changed,” he said in a video.
“Production of ‘The Bachelorette’ has been postponed for two weeks, at least. In two weeks we will reassess where we are in the world and figure out what’s happening, and if we can move forward,” he continued.
Chris also gave a lovely shout-out to Clare, who will make history as the oldest woman to ever lead the show. “To my friend Clare, you’re still my Bachelorette and hopefully we’re still going to get the opportunity to help you find love and make this work,” so he stated.

Joining “The Bachelorette” is Netflix’s “Stranger Things”, which has been filming its fourth season. The streaming giant has decided to postpone production on all films and TV productions in the U.S. and Canada starting on Monday, March 16 for the next two weeks. Also being affected by the outbreak is “Sex/Life” and Ryan Murphy’s Netflix movie “The Prom”.

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