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      in Television

      As N.B.A. TV Deal Nears, Warner Bros. Discovery Is on the Outside

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      The company’s TNT channel and the N.B.A. have long been inextricably linked, but that may end after next season. Plus, Charles Barkley is retiring.Warner Bros. Discovery executives thought they had given the National Basketball Association a proposal it would accept.In April, after months of negotiations, the company made an offer to pay billions of dollars to the league for the rights to continue showing its games on TNT, as well as its Max streaming service. TNT has shown N.B.A. games since the 1980s, and its “Inside the NBA” is widely considered one of the best-ever sports studio shows.But with the end of Warner Bros. Discovery’s exclusive negotiating window looming, the N.B.A. insisted on changing the package of games the company would receive, according to two people familiar with the negotiations, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the private dealings. Warner Bros. Discovery balked, and while the two sides have continued negotiating, the company now finds itself on the verge of losing the rights to televise the sport with which it has become inextricably linked. And on Friday night, the beating heart of “Inside the NBA,” the Hall of Famer Charles Barkley, said he would be retiring from TV after next season.“The first thing anybody thinks about when you say TNT is the N.B.A.,” said John Skipper, the former president of ESPN.Media companies, including Warner Bros. Discovery, were prepared for bruising negotiations with the N.B.A. Sports rights remain an extremely valuable commodity for traditional TV networks, and companies increasingly also see them as a way to attract more subscribers to their streaming services.The league made clear it wanted a sizable increase on the roughly $2.66 billion in total it receives annually, on average, from Warner Bros. Discovery and ESPN under its current rights agreements, which went into effect in 2016. Executives at those companies knew if they wanted to retain N.B.A. rights they would have to pay more for fewer games so that the N.B.A. could create a third package of games to sell.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in Television

      Erin Moriarty Is a Woman Among ‘The Boys’

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      The actress in the hit superhero satire mulled her role in an age of online bullying and token feminism: “Thank God there are characters like this.”Erin Moriarty just stopped a stranger in his tracks. But it wasn’t because he recognized her as a star on one of TV’s most popular shows, or because he was taken by her charm.We were tucked into a quiet corner table on an outdoor patio in West Hollywood, where an attentive server had been mid-stride when he overheard Moriarty, a star of the hit Amazon show “The Boys,” describe her belief that feminism had become an “obligatory thing for studios to exhibit.” He tentatively performed the briefest of check-ins and scurried away.“I love how he hears the word ‘feminism’ and his approach starts to slow,” she said with a laugh. She took a sip of black iced coffee and resumed her thoughts.“I think it’s dangerous,” she said. “I feel like we’re putting a Band-Aid on systemic diseases that we’re not inoculating against.”As the highest-billed actress on “The Boys,” Moriarty, 29, has had to think a lot about performative feminism lately, and whether the show that made her famous is really part of the solution. On one level, the series, which returned for Season 4 on Thursday, is satire, centered on the exploits of a team of morally depraved superheroes known as the Seven.The show targets the steroidal conventions of the genre, along with the corporate pandering and exhibitionist feminism that often accompany it. Much of that critique is focused through Moriarty’s character, Annie January, better known as Starlight.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      ‘The Curse’ Is a Pulpy and Self-Aware Heist Series

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      In the best ways, this endearing and very bingeable British show feels as if “Breaking Bad” were happening to “Bob’s Burgers.”From left, Hugo Chegwin, Allan Mustafa, Emer Kenny and Tom Davis in a scene from “The Curse.”BritBox“Some of this might have happened,” “The Curse” declares at the top of each episode. The show is loosely inspired by the 1983 Brink’s-Mat robbery in London, when robbers stole a mountain of gold bullion from a vault and largely evaded capture. As with many plundered caches, though, those bricks came at a cost, and where money led, misery followed.But veracity claims feel beside the point for “The Curse” — a British show that debuted in 2022, not to be confused with the unrelated 2023 Showtime series starring Nathan Fielder and Emma Stone — which shines bright enough on its specifics, its self-aware pulp and especially its antsy momentum.Our doomed squad centers on the calculating cafe owner Natasha (Emer Kenny), her bumbling husband, Albert (Allan Mustafa), and her even more bumbling brother, Sidney (Steve Stamp, who also created the show). Mick (Tom Davis) is the muscle, but definitely not the brains, and Phil (Hugo Chegwin) is convinced he is the group’s leader — which the others dispute.In the best ways, the show feels as if “Breaking Bad” were happening to “Bob’s Burgers.” Anxious wannabe-tough guys argue over inane minutiae while fumbling their way through the criminal underworld. After Phil gives a grandiose pronouncement, Mick asks if he is quoting the Bible. “It’s our new Bible,” Phil says. “‘Scarface.’”The Brink’s-Mat robbery was recently the basis for the also terrific 2023 mini-series “The Gold,” which is witty but takes a more grounded approach. “The Curse” is more cartoonish, blending sitcom one-liners with flashes of abrupt violence — neurotic, endearing infighting in the foreground, international crime rings in the background. The plotting is brisk approaching breakneck, which highlights just how much its ding-a-ling characters are struggling to keep up, getting both luckier and unluckier at every turn.Episodes of “The Curse” are a half-hour, and most end on cliffhangers, so the show is practically begging to be binged. Season 1, available on Amazon Prime Video and BritBox, starts with the heist and ends with a great escape; Season 2, available on BritBox only, is set in Spain, where characters are avoiding extradition, building a water park and trying to break into the cocaine industry. More

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      in Television

      ‘Outer Range’ Is a Dizzying Sci-Fi Drama, With Buffalo

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      The second season of this Amazon series, all of which is available now, cranks up both the time-travel and the outrageous soapiness.Season 1 of “Outer Range,” on Amazon, was intriguing and unsatisfying — lush, expansive and compelling, but also marred by abundant faux-deep nonsense and a total lack of resolution. It’s a “this is my family’s land, grumble grumble” ranch drama ostensibly starring Josh Brolin, but the real star of the show is a big hole. And not just any hole — a magic hole! A hole that transports you through time! Sometimes people disappear. Sometimes the hole disappears.I happily devoured that first season but didn’t think I cared much about it. And yet, I kept thinking about “Outer Range” in the two years since its debut. When I watched other shows in which people dejectedly shook their heads, slowly put on their cowboy hats and then sadly — maybe … sexy-sadly? — stammered wisdom, I thought, “What ever happened to that hole show?” When I saw other dramas include bar fights that went way wrong, I wondered, “Is that the exterior of that bar from that hole show?” What was that other series where people were constantly tripping on earthy psychedelics? Where did I just see that actress play a different zany lady? Ah, right: the hole show.I don’t know if Season 2, which premiered last week, rewards my devotion per se, but I also marathoned its seven episodes, bouncing between enchantment and eye-rolling. I love my dumb show! Sometimes you just want to see a Native American sheriff fall into a hole, travel back to 1882, reconnect with her Shoshone ancestors, meet another time traveler à la “Outlander,” come back to the present day and be driven to the hospital by Josh Brolin under tense circumstances. Sometimes you want to see people’s eyes go black like in that episode of “The X-Files” with the snake lady. There’s something invigorating about a show that just does not care if the actors playing the younger and older versions of the same person resemble one another whatsoever.“Outer Range” emphasized drama over sci-fi in Season 1, but Season 2, all of which is available now, cranks up both the time-travel-portal aspect and the outrageous soapiness. The hole is less a profound mystery and more an incredibly handy mechanism for creating bananas telenovela moments. I’m your son! Or I didn’t die! Or I’m … you! Work your magic, magic hole.The show loves its musings and mantras about time. “Time doesn’t have a beginning or an end, it just is,” we’re told. “Time is a river.” “Time reveals all.” Such lines are fine on their own, though they inevitably recall “time is a flat circle,” the “True Detective” quote that has become synonymous with TV shows getting high on their own supply.The performances in “Outer Range” hail from different planets. Brolin grounds his work as Royal, who is secretly a time-traveler from the 1800s, in a simmering, fragile stoicism, whereas Lili Taylor, as his long-suffering wife, channels the aggression and frustration of a Melissa McCarthy character. Imogen Poots is the dreamy, dangerous boho blonde, out of the “Orphan Black” Rolodex of crazy sages, while Shaun Sipos and Noah Reid, as embittered brothers, would be at home in “The Righteous Gemstones.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 75 Shares189 Views

      in Television

      The Comfortable Problem of Mid TV

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      A few years ago, “Atlanta” and “PEN15” were teaching TV new tricks.In “Atlanta,” Donald Glover sketched a funhouse-mirror image of Black experience in America (and outside it), telling stories set in and around the hip-hop business with an unsettling, comic-surreal language. In “PEN15,” Maya Erskine and Anna Konkle created a minutely observed, universal-yet-specific picture of adolescent awkwardness.In February, Glover and Erskine returned in the action thriller “Mr. & Mrs. Smith” on Amazon Prime Video. It’s … fine? A takeoff on the 2005 film, it updates the story of a married duo of spies by imagining the espionage business as gig work. The stars have chemistry and charisma; the series avails itself of an impressive cast of guest stars and delectable Italian shooting locations. It’s breezy and goes down easy. I watched several episodes on a recent long-haul flight and they helped the hours pass.But I would never have wasted an episode of “Atlanta” or “PEN15” on in-flight entertainment. The work was too good, the nuances too fine, to lose a line of dialogue to engine noise.I do not mean to single out Glover and Erskine here. They are not alone — far from it. Keri Russell, a ruthless and complicated Russian spy in “The Americans,” is now in “The Diplomat,” a forgettably fun dramedy. Natasha Lyonne, of the provocative “Orange Is the New Black” and the psychotropic “Russian Doll,” now plays a retro-revamped Columbo figure in “Poker Face.” Idris Elba, once the macroeconomics-student gangster Stringer Bell in “The Wire,” more recently starred in “Hijack,” a by-the-numbers airplane thriller.I’ve watched all of these shows. They’re not bad. They’re simply … mid. Which is what makes them, frustratingly, as emblematic of the current moment in TV as their stars’ previous shows were of the ambitions of the past.What we have now is a profusion of well-cast, sleekly produced competence. We have tasteful remakes of familiar titles. We have the evidence of healthy budgets spent on impressive locations. We have good-enough new shows that resemble great old ones.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 125 Shares199 Views

      in Movies

      Video Shows Crash That Injured Crew Members of ‘The Pickup’

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      The collision on the set of “The Pickup” is under investigation. Video shows an armored truck and an S.U.V. veering off a road before the truck flips onto the smaller vehicle.A two-vehicle crash that injured several crew members on the set of the movie “The Pickup” is being investigated by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, the federal agency said on Wednesday.Amazon MGM Studios said the crash occurred on Saturday but did not provide any details about the injuries. According to two people with direct knowledge of the situation who were not authorized to speak publicly about it, at least a half-dozen people who were inside the vehicles sustained injuries and were transported to a hospital. One person remained hospitalized on Wednesday with a back injury, those people said.They said that none of the actors in the film, which features Eddie Murphy, Keke Palmer and Pete Davidson, were involved in the crash. An OSHA inspection report said it occurred at a small airport outside Atlanta.Video of the crash that was obtained by The New York Times shows an armored truck pulling up alongside an S.U.V. before swerving into it. After the collision, both vehicles veer off the road in tandem and drive onto grass, where the armored truck flips on top of the S.U.V.Both vehicles completely roll over and end up upright but mangled. As a back door of the armored truck swings open, one person inside can be seen lying limp.The video is a cellphone recording of a monitor playing back the footage of the crash.Several crew members of the movie “The Pickup” were injured when two vehicles collided during filming. The crash is under investigation by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in Television

      ‘Fallout’ Finds the Fun in an Apocalyptic Hellscape

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      TV’s latest big-ticket video game adaptation, from the creators of “Westworld,” takes a satirical, self-aware approach to the End Times.The scream was just right — bloodcurdling, if also very funny — and the practical effects crew had finally found the proper volume and trajectory of the water cannon. The idea was to film what might happen if you ripped a man from the throat of a mutant salamander, exploding its guts like a giant water balloon.All that remained was to decide what color of bile to slather on the actor (Johnny Pemberton) and on the salamander’s many teeth, which nuclear radiation had transformed into rows of humanlike fingers.Based on observations made during a visit to the Brooklyn set of “Fallout” in early 2023, Amazon had spared no expense to make the show, the latest genre-bending series from Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy, the creators of “Westworld.” So it was no surprise when Nolan, on set to direct that chilly afternoon, was presented with not one but some half-dozen buckets of bile to choose from, in a variety of revolting hues. He settled on a pukey pinkish yellow.“This is the closest thing to comedy that I’ve worked on,” he said later by phone. With writing credits on films like “Memento,” “The Dark Knight” and “The Prestige,” Nolan has tended to skew dark. Comically exploding monster guts — this was new territory.“It’s a lot of fun,” he said.A fun apocalypse? Amid all the doom and gloom of most sci-fi spectacles and social media feeds? Yes, please.“Fallout” premieres Wednesday on Prime Video, and at first it may sound familiar to viewers of a certain postapocalyptic HBO hit from last year, “The Last of Us.” Imagine: a sprawling, expensive adaptation of a beloved videogame franchise that features an unlikely duo — a nihilistic old gunslinger with a tortured past and a tough young woman whose mission overlaps with his. Together, they travel a lawless America plagued by criminals, fanatics, killer mutants and trigger-happy survivors.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      ‘Hazbin Hotel’ Is a Childhood Dream Streamed Out to the World

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      Vivienne Medrano’s animated musical series went from middle-school sketches to YouTube to a series streaming on Amazon.On Oct. 28, 2019, the animator and YouTube personality Vivienne Medrano celebrated a milestone: the release of “Hazbin Hotel,” a 30-minute pilot for an animated musical-comedy about a rehabilitation program that aspires to help Hell’s repentant demons get to Heaven.Produced and directed by Medrano and brought to life by a team of several dozen freelance animators, the pilot was self-financed with contributions from Medrano’s Patreon subscribers, who helped support her and the project with monthly donations during the episode’s more than two-year development process. When she finally uploaded it to YouTube, Medrano was both relieved and excited — it felt like the culmination of something a long time in the making, and she was eager to show her work to her small but dedicated group of fans.She was not prepared for what happened next. Almost immediately, the video went viral, attracting fans of adult animation, Broadway musicals and ribald comedy who, based on the comments and other online reactions, were charmed by the project’s original voice and punky, carefree style. Within months, it drew tens of millions of views and sent Medrano’s Patreon subscriptions skyrocketing; admirers coalesced into an ardent fandom that generated fan fiction, tribute art and elaborate costumes. (As of late January, it had nearly 95 million views.)“I’ve been an artist online basically my whole life, and I had an audience,” Medrano said in a phone interview earlier this month. “But when the pilot came out, it just exploded — there were so many people so fast and so suddenly. It became this massive hit in a way that I never expected.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?  More