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      The Best Movies and TV Shows Coming to Amazon, HBO, Hulu and More in November

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      Every month, streaming services add movies and TV shows to its library. Here are our picks for some of November’s most promising new titles.(Note: Streaming services occasionally change schedules without giving notice. For more recommendations on what to stream, sign up for our Watching newsletter here.)Rosamund Pike, center, as the mystic Moiraine escorting the young heroes of “The Wheel of Time.”Jan Thijs/Amazon Studios New to Amazon‘The Wheel of Time’ Season 1Starts streaming: Nov. 19Robert Jordan’s “The Wheel of Time” saga spans 14 fantasy novels plus various supplemental works, with the last of the books having been completed posthumously by the author’s colleague Brandon Sanderson. So if Amazon’s TV version of catches on, there’ll be enough story to tell to keep the show running longer than the “Game of Thrones” series and “The Lord of the Rings” movies combined. “The Wheel of Time” starts as simply as the novels do: with the tale of the mystic Moiraine (Rosamund Pike) who helps a group of young people escape the shadow forces pursuing them, while knowing that someone in her charge may be their land’s long-prophesied champion in an ancient, eternally recurring battle against civilization-destroying chaos agents. As with the books, the TV series is as much character-driven as it is lore-driven.Also arriving:Nov. 5“The Electrical Life of Louis Wain”“A Man Named Scott”“Tampa Baes”Nov. 12“Always Jane”“Mayor Pete”Nov. 19“Everybody Loves Natti”Nov. 29“Burning”Jeremy Renner and Hailee Stanfield in “Hawkeye.”Chuck Zlotnick/Marvel StudiosNew to Disney+‘Hawkeye’Starts streaming: Nov. 24The recent run of Marvel Cinematic Universe TV series have featured some real departures, with shows like “WandaVision,” “Loki” and “What If…?” sporting unusual narrative structures and stories that ventured into the more mystical areas of Marvel Comics. But the six-part mini-series “Hawkeye” promises to be more of a grounded action-adventure, in the vein of “The Falcon and the Winter Soldier” (and with some of the same characters). Jeremy Renner reprises his role as the Avengers’ resident archer and family man Clint Barton, who finds himself training a protégée, Kate Bishop (Hailee Steinfeld), in hopes that he can take care of his latest crisis and get home in time for Christmas. “Hawkeye” was inspired in part by comic book stories penned by Matt Fraction, who brought a playful quality to the title character that should carry over well to television.‘The Beatles: Get Back’Starts streaming: Nov. 25The 1970 documentary “Let It Be” captured both the recording of one of the Beatles’ final albums and the personality conflicts that ultimately led to the band’s breakup. The director Peter Jackson’s three-part docuseries “Get Back” takes the original footage from that documentary (supervised at the time by the director Michael Lindsay-Hogg) and refashions it into a larger story: about the making of the original film, and about what was really happening in the Beatles’ lives back then that even a fly-on-the-wall camera couldn’t catch. Jackson’s version is meant to be a more nuanced take on the band circa 1970, catching the passive-aggressive sniping but also the genuine pleasure these musicians took in working together on classic songs like “Don’t Let Me Down” and “The Long and Winding Road.”Also arriving:Nov. 12“Ciao Alberto”“Home Sweet Home Alone”“Olaf Presents”“The World According to Jeff Goldblum”From left, Douglas Hodge, Elle Fanning and Sacha Dhawan in “The Great.”Gareth Gatrell/Hulu New to Hulu‘The Great’ Season 2Starts streaming: Nov. 19Season one of “The Great” introduced the “occasionally true” story of Catherine II (Elle Fanning), who marries the cruel and capricious Russian emperor Peter III (Nicholas Hoult) and then begins trying to wrest power from him in ways both subtle and overt. The second season picks up not long after the events of last year’s finale, in which the two headstrong aristocrats reached a wary rapprochement, for the sake of their unborn child and for their own private agendas. The series’ creator Tony McNamara was one of the Oscar-nominated screenwriters of “The Favourite,” another unapologetically anachronistic historical dramedy. Expect more of McNamara’s sensibility in year two — along with an exciting new cast addition in Gillian Anderson, playing Catherine’s mother.Also arriving:Nov. 4“Taste the Nation With Padma Lakshmi: Holiday Edition”Nov. 5“Animaniacs” Season 2Nov. 11“3212 Un-Redacted”.css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-1kpebx{margin:0 auto;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1kpebx{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-1gtxqqv{margin-bottom:0;}.css-1g3vlj0{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1g3vlj0{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-1g3vlj0 strong{font-weight:600;}.css-1g3vlj0 em{font-style:italic;}.css-1g3vlj0{margin-bottom:0;margin-top:0.25rem;}.css-19zsuqr{display:block;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}.css-m80ywj header{margin-bottom:5px;}.css-m80ywj header h4{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:500;font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.5625rem;margin-bottom:0;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-m80ywj header h4{font-size:1.5625rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-qjk116{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-qjk116 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-qjk116 em{font-style:italic;}.css-qjk116 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:visited{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}Nov. 17“Marvel’s Hit-Monkey”Tom Hanks as Finch and Caleb Landry voicing Finch’s creation in the film “Finch.”Apple TV+New to Apple TV+‘Dickinson’ Season 3Starts streaming: Nov. 5Although the dramedy “Dickinson” is based on the life of the poet Emily Dickinson, it’s impossible to predict what will happen in the show’s third and final season. “Dickinson” has always been proudly off-kilter, with its creator, Alena Smith, taking the proven facts of writer’s life and then spinning whimsical and at times humorously impossible fantasies about the historical figures Dickinson might have met in mid-19th century Massachusetts, as well as the decadent parties she might’ve attended as a young woman with a thirst for independence. However the series eventually ends, its star, Hailee Steinfeld, continues to bring wit and passion to the role of an artist who wants badly to leave a lasting legacy, but a stubborn patriarchy and the looming threat of Civil War have her fearing that she’ll never get the chance to be heard.‘Finch’Starts streaming: Nov. 5Tom Hanks gets back into “Cast Away” mode in the science-fiction drama “Finch,” playing the title character: a resourceful scientist who is one of the few survivors of an Earth ravaged by environmental disasters. Fearing he is dying of radiation poisoning, Finch builds a robot named Jeff (voiced by Caleb Landry Jones) and fills it with as much useful knowledge as he can, hoping Jeff will help him drive from St. Louis to San Francisco — and that the machine will take care of Finch’s dog after his master is dead. The road trip is filled with surprises and dangers, but most of the movie is just a long conversation between a man and his well-meaning but frequently bumbling creation, as Finch tries to explain to Jeff both how and why to survive tough times.‘The Shrink Next Door’Starts streaming: Nov. 12The journalist Joe Nocera’s true-crime podcast “The Shrink Next Door” tells the story of Dr. Isaac Herschkopf, a psychiatrist who allegedly took control of his patient Martin Markowitz’s life, moving into his ritzy Hamptons estate and eventually guiding his financial decisions. In the TV adaptation, Paul Rudd plays the doctor and Will Ferrell plays Marty. The two actors lean into both the comic and the dramatic possibilities of the codependent relationship that develops between these two men: One who is pushy and the other a pushover. The mini-series’s narrative stretches across decades, as the writer Georgia Pritchett and the director Michael Showalter seek to explain how this situation got out of hand, between a charming opportunist and a person who desperately needed his approval.Also arriving:Nov. 3“Dr. Brain”Nov. 5“Hello, Jack! The Kindness Show”Nov. 19“Harriet the Spy” Season 1“The Line”The cinematographer John Wilson as seen in “How to With John Wilson.”Thomas Wilson/HBONew to HBO Max‘How to With John Wilson’ Season 2Starts streaming: Nov. 26Uniquely strange and sweet, this comic docuseries is built around the eccentric worldview of the persistently upbeat but profoundly confused videographer John Wilson, who tries to make sense of modern human existence by filming the mundane chaos of daily life in New York City and then commenting on it in halting voice-overs. In Season 1, Wilson tried to get a handle on basic concepts like friendship, ownership, security and memory. By the end of the run, he (like everyone else on the planet) saw his life upended by disease and death. It should be exciting — if that’s the right word for a show as gentle as “How to” — to see how Wilson and his crew capture and interpret everything that’s happened in the world since 2020.Also arriving:Nov. 4“Aida Rodriguez: Fighting Words”“Head of the Class” Season 1Nov. 9“Dear Rider”Nov. 16“Simple as Water”Nov. 18“The Sex Lives of College Girls”Nov. 19“King Richard”Nov. 23“Black and Missing” More

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      The Best Movies and TV Shows Coming to Amazon, HBO, Hulu and More in October

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      Every month, streaming services add movies and TV shows to its library. Here are our picks for some of October’s most promising new titles.(Note: Streaming services occasionally change schedules without giving notice. For more recommendations on what to stream, sign up for our Watching newsletter here.)Brian Cox as the Roy family patriarch in “Succession.”David M. Russell/HBONew to HBO Max‘The Many Saints of Newark’Starts streaming: Oct. 1This movie-length prequel to the groundbreaking cable series “The Sopranos” looks back at life in the late 1960s for a notorious family of New Jersey mobsters and their various colleagues and enemies. It’s a film about the evolving nature of organized crime and race relations, at a time when the United States was experiencing rapid social changes that some sectors — like the old-school Mafia — resisted. Written by “The Sopranos” creator David Chase and directed by Alan Taylor (one of the show’s regulars), “The Many Saints of Newark” tells a sprawling story of criminal rivalries, balancing pulpy violence with dark comedy. Chase also returns to one of his core themes, considering how parental pressure and macho pride affect the choices of a young Tony Soprano, played here by Michael Gandolfini (the son of TV’s Tony, James Gandolfini).‘Succession’ Season 3Starts streaming: Oct. 17It has been nearly two years since HBO aired the Season 2 finale of this Emmy Award-winning drama. During the long, pandemic-fueled delay, fans have been eager to find out what will happen to the mega-rich Roy family and their right-wing media empire, after the troubled son Kendall (Jeremy Strong) and his goofy cousin Greg (Nicholas Braun) went public with evidence of a messy scandal. That cliffhanger ending set up a bloody fight between Kendall and his cantankerous, megalomaniacal father, Logan (Brian Cox), with the other power-hungry Roy kids Siobhan (Sarah Snook) and Roman (Kieran Culkin) left to decide where their loyalties should lie. Expect another year of jarring twists and unsparing satire from “Succession,” one of TV’s most exhilarating shows.Also arriving:Oct. 7“15 Minutes of Shame”Oct. 11“We’re Here” Season 2Oct. 14“Aquaman: King of Atlantis”“Phoebe Robinson: Sorry, Harriet Tubman”“What Happened, Brittany Murphy?”Oct. 18“Women Is Losers”Oct. 20“Four Hours at the Capitol”Oct. 21“Reign of Superwomen”Oct. 22“Dune”Oct. 24“Curb Your Enthusiasm” Season 11“Insecure” Season 5Oct. 26“The Mopes”Oct. 28“Love Life” Season 2From left, John Cale, Sterling Morrison and Lou Reed as seen in “The Velvet Underground.”Apple TV+New to Apple TV+‘The Velvet Underground’Starts streaming: Oct. 15It would be hard for any filmmaker to make a documentary about the influential 1960s band the Velvet Underground as inventive and mind-expanding as the group itself, but Todd Haynes sure comes close. The director behind “Velvet Goldmine” and “I’m Not There” clearly understands not just the primitivist art-rock that the singer-songwriters Lou Reed and John Cale pioneered — a sound that inspired thousands of punk, New Wave and power-pop acts in the decades that followed — but also the New York underground culture that nurtured the Velvets. Combining new interviews, vintage audio clips and hypnotic old avant-garde films from the likes of Andy Warhol and Jonas Mekas, “The Velvet Underground” captures both the brilliance and the chaos surrounding a band who documented both the ugliness and the beauty underlying the hippie era.‘Invasion’Starts streaming: Oct. 22Shot in locations around the world, this big-budget science-fiction series employs an ensemble cast to tell a story about the arrival of an Earth-threatening alien species. The show stars Sam Neill as a small-town sheriff, Shamier Anderson as a soldier stationed overseas, Shioli Kutsuna a mission-control engineer in Japan’s space program and Golshifteh Farahani and Firas Nassar as married Syrian immigrants living in New York. The “Hunters” creator David Weil and the writer-producer Simon Kinberg (best-known for his work on blockbuster superhero movies, including multiple X-Men films) collaborated on “Invasion,” which uses a fantastical, action-packed plot as a way to examine something relevant to today: how people cope with escalating crises that could wipe out life as we know it.Also arriving:Oct. 8“Acapulco”“Get Rolling With Otis”Oct. 15“Puppy Place”Oct. 29“Swagger”Rosario Dawson as a Drug Enforcement Administration agent facing down the opioid epidemic in “Dopesick.”Gene Page/HuluNew to Hulu‘Dopesick’Starts streaming: Oct. 13An all-star cast tackles the origins of the opioid crisis in this mini-series, based on the journalist Beth Macy’s 2018 nonfiction book “Dopesick: Dealers, Doctors and the Drug Company that Addicted America.” The director Barry Levinson and the writer-producer Danny Strong turn the complicated saga of how Purdue Pharma marketed the painkiller OxyContin into a focused story, mostly about the people in one small mining town: including a compassionate doctor (Michael Keaton) and an addict (Kaitlyn Dever). Michael Stuhlbarg (as a former Purdue leader, Richard Sackler), Rosario Dawson (as a Drug Enforcement Administration agent) and Peter Sarsgaard (as a crusading lawyer trying to expose the insidious effects of a community-wide addiction) add their own strong personalities.Also arriving:Oct. 7“Baker’s Dozen”Oct. 8“Jacinta”Oct. 12“Champaign ILL”Oct. 14“Censor”Oct. 21“The Evil Next Door”“The Next Thing You Eat” Season 1Oct. 22“Gaia”Kermit the Frog and Miss Piggy in “Muppets Haunted Mansion.”Mitch Haaseth/DisneyNew to Disney+‘Muppets Haunted Mansion’Starts streaming: Oct. 8The Muppets’ first Halloween special leans on a classic horror-comedy plot, as the Great Gonzo and Pepe the King Prawn explore a ghost-infested house and deal with its baffling secret passageways and untrustworthy human hosts (played by Will Arnett, Taraji P. Henson and Darren Criss, among others). In just under an hour, the Muppets and their guests deliver a rapid-fire assortment of songs and puns, along with some Halloween-themed parodies of “The Muppet Show” itself — plus plenty of references to the original Disneyland attraction that gives this special its name. “Muppets Haunted Mansion” is geared toward longtime Muppets fans, but it should also appeal to anyone who loves old-fashioned gothic horror stories.Also arriving:Oct. 1“LEGO Star Wars Terrifying Tales”Oct. 6“Among the Stars”Oct. 13“Just Beyond”New to Amazon‘I Know What You Did Last Summer’ Season 1Starts streaming: Oct. 15Back in 1997, Lois Duncan’s 1973 young adult novel “I Know What You Did Last Summer” inspired a hit slasher film, which itself spawned multiple sequels. Now the book has become a TV series, which updates the original’s premise to the age of social media. Once again the story is about a circle of self-involved high school friends who have to grow up in a hurry when a mysterious killer starts a campaign of revenge against them after a fatal hit-and-run accident. But the themes this time out are more up-to-the-minute, dealing with the disconnect between how some young people present themselves online and the troubles in their personal lives. It’s a thriller where the threat of public embarrassment is as scary as any murderer.‘Fairfax’ Season 1Starts streaming: Oct. 29Fans of “Bojack Horseman” and Adult Swim cartoons will recognize the sensibility of this adult animated series about a handful of Los Angeles teenagers who behave like “extremely online” mini-adults, obsessed with hard-to-find fashions and exclusive experiences. Skyler Gisondo, Kiersey Clemons, Peter Kim and Jaboukie Young-White voice the kids, whose problems include the commonplace (like desperately wanting to buy a kitschy limited edition T-shirt) and the strange (like finding an underground fighting pit beneath a hip boutique). “Fairfax” — named for the Los Angeles avenue — is part slice-of-life comedy, part absurdist satire of Gen Z consumerism, spoofing the next wave of wannabe influencers.Also arriving:Oct. 1“All or Nothing: Toronto Maple Leafs”“My Name Is Pauli Murray”“Welcome to the Blumhouse” Season 2Oct. 8“Justin Bieber: Our World” More

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      Review: The Math of ‘Foundation’ Doesn’t Add Up

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      An ambitious reimagining of the Isaac Asimov epic suffers from by-the-numbers sci-fi plotting.The science-fiction author Arthur C. Clarke once decreed that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. At the core of “Foundation,” the Apple TV+ series based on the novels of Isaac Asimov, is a similar idea: that any sufficiently advanced math is indistinguishable from prophecy.But in this ambitious, overstuffed epic, that intriguing idea often gets lost in space. Like Trantor, the imperial capital in “Foundation” whose surface is buried beneath man-made layers, the story’s core ends up enveloped in levels upon levels of machinery.The instigating figure remains the same as in the saga that Asimov began spinning in the 1940s: Hari Seldon (Jared Harris), a “psychohistorian” who purports to be able to predict the future by number-crunching the data on mass populations. (He’s the Nate Silver of space.) When his calculations determine that the ruling empire will collapse, the bearer of bad news and his followers are exiled to a planet in the dusty cheap seats of the galaxy, where they work on a grand plan to shape mankind’s fate and shorten the coming era of chaos.At a time when “follow the science” has become a political statement, “Foundation” can play like a none-too-subtle commentary. Hari’s protégé, Gaal Dornick (Lou Llobell), comes from a world whose leaders condemn scientists as heretics and refuse to acknowledge the rising of the oceans. And Harris plays the visionary with a doomed-prophet rectitude that recalls his turn as a Soviet scientist in “Chernobyl.”This echoes the Asimov books’ atom-age belief in the power of reason over superstition. But the “Foundation” showrunner David S. Goyer is also willing to depart from the source material. Asimov’s galaxy was largely a boys’ club, for instance, so “Foundation” recasts key roles with women, including Gaal — as close to a central figure as the series has, though she’s sidelined in the middle of the season — and Salvor Hardin (Leah Harvey), a leader of the Foundation’s remote colony.Elsewhere, the series adds or shuffles story elements to create the kind of baroque intrigues viewers are used to from the likes of “Game of Thrones.” The role of the emperor is expanded — to be precise, it’s tripled. In the empire’s “genetic dynasty,” Emperor Cleon (conveniently an anagram for “clone”) has been replicated for centuries in three persons: the young Brother Dawn, the middle-aged Brother Day and the elderly Brother Dusk.Every generation, the eldest member of this living Sphinx riddle is ceremonially (and lethally) retired, a fresh baby emperor is uncorked from the cloning vat, Dawn is promoted to Day and Day to Dusk. (I told you there would be math.)Jared Harris plays a “psychohistorian” who claims to be able to predict the future with complex mathematics.Helen Sloan/Apple TV+, via Associated PressLee Pace, sheathed in electric-blue gladiator armor, plays a succession of Brother Days. His matinee-villain hauteur risks ridiculousness — say, when having an underling exploded like Mr. Creosote in “Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life” — but he energizes an often stilted production.In a way, the genetic dynasty and the Foundation are two solutions to the same dilemma: How do you achieve ambitions that take longer to realize than a human life span? For Cleon, the answer is to live serially. For Hari, it’s to craft a plan that will outlive him, in part by creating a quasi-messianic myth around himself. (Dealing with mortality is also the project of religion, yet another story thread in the series.)But this is also the challenge of “Foundation” itself. Its premise and Asimov’s blueprint suggest a story that needs to unfold over centuries, shuffling cast members in and out, focusing more on larger systems of society than on individuals. Serial TV, on the other hand, relies on audiences connecting to specific characters over the long haul.The cloning device is one way to keep characters around over the ages; there are more spoilery contrivances, too. Other changes Goyer makes serve to translate Asimov’s talky novels of ideas into a pageant of explosions and special effects.For instance, much of the 10-episode first season gets bogged down in an extended terrorism and revenge story that makes Salvor into an action hero. The thriller sequences — involving an enemy straight out of the Klingon-Dothraki warrior-society school — most resemble what viewers expect from a sci-fi epic. And I found myself increasingly tuning them out the longer “Foundation” went on.The images are certainly arresting. There are spacecraft with interiors like art installations; alien worlds with beringed and bemooned skyscapes; and some sort of mysterious giant lozenge that floats near the Foundation camp like a portentous piñata, promising to burst open and spill forth plot twists and dei ex machina.But there are things you can’t digitize: a surprise, a genuine laugh, the breath of creative life. Beneath the gunplay and C.G.I., there’s a much weirder show struggling to get out, about statistics and space popes, decadent clone emperors and millennia-old robots.OK, there’s only one robot, but “Foundation” makes her count. As the undying aide to a long line of emperors, Demerzel (the name will ring a bell for hard-core Asimov fans), the Finnish actress Laura Birn gives an eccentric performance that is both disconcertingly mechanical and the most vulnerably human of the series.This and some of the odder inventions of “Foundation” reminded me stylistically of last year’s “Raised by Wolves,” the HBO Max drama of obsessive android maternal love. It was hardly the best show of 2020, but it was so committed to its passion, so willing to cut open a vein and bleed weird robot milk, that I was held rapt even by its worst moments.“Foundation” is more consistent than “Wolves,” but less magnetic because of its concessions to sci-fi expectations. It could have been better, if only, like Hari Seldon’s disciples, it had faith in the plan. More

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      2021 Emmy Winners: Complete List

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      The list of winners for the 73rd annual Emmy Awards.Streaming services dominated many people’s pandemic lives. Will they dominate at this year’s Emmys, too?The 73rd annual Emmy Awards are happening right now in Los Angeles. The ceremony is primarily in person this year — in contrast to last year’s largely virtual event — and it is being hosted by the comedian Cedric the Entertainer.Netflix’s British royal drama “The Crown” and the Disney+ “Star Wars” series “The Mandalorian” have the most nominations, with 24 each. HBO led all networks with 130 nominations. Apple TV+ has a good chance of winning its first major Emmy with “Ted Lasso,” which is the favorite in the comedy category.In the acting categories, Mj Rodriguez (FX’s “Pose”) could make history as the first transgender actor to win a Primetime Emmy in a lead acting category. And Michael K. Williams, who was found dead on Sept. 6, could win the best supporting actor in a drama award posthumously, for his work on the HBO series “Lovecraft Country.”Whatever happens, we will be following along live. See the list of winners, which will be updated throughout the night, below.Writing for a Drama SeriesPeter Morgan, “The Crown” (“War”)Supporting Actor, Limited Series or MovieEvan Peters, “Mare of Easttown”Supporting Actress, Limited Series or a MovieJulianne Nicholson, “Mare of Easttown”Supporting Actor, ComedyBrett Goldstein, “Ted Lasso”Supporting Actress, ComedyHannah Waddingham, “Ted Lasso”Directing for a Variety SpecialBo Burnham, “Inside”Directing for a Variety SeriesDon Roy King, “Saturday Night Live”Guest Actress, ComedyMaya Rudolph, “Saturday Night Live”Guest Actor, ComedyDave Chappelle, “Saturday Night Live”Guest Actress, DramaClaire Foy, “The Crown”Guest Actor, DramaCourtney B. Vance, “Lovecraft Country”Television Movie“Dolly Parton’s Christmas on the Square” (Netflix) More

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      Netflix and ‘The Queen’s Gambit’ dominate the Creative Arts Emmys.

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      Fueled by “The Queen’s Gambit” and “The Crown,” Netflix dominated the competition at the Creative Arts Emmy Awards over the weekend.Netflix took home 34 Emmys at three separate ceremonies on Saturday and Sunday, while Disney+, the streamer’s closest competitor, won 13 awards. HBO and its streaming service, HBO Max, the perennial Emmys heavyweight, won just 10 awards.Each year, the Television Academy, which organizes the Emmys, announces the winners for dozens of technical awards in the lead-up to the biggest prizes that are announced at the main event, the Primetime Emmy Awards. This year’s prime-time ceremony will take place on Sunday and will be broadcast on CBS.“The Queen’s Gambit,” a limited series about a chess prodigy, won nine Creative Arts Emmys over the weekend, more than any other series. Its closest competitors, with seven awards each, were the Disney+ Star Wars action adventure show “The Mandalorian” and the NBC stalwart “Saturday Night Live.”Although the Creative Arts Emmys are not quite prime-time ready — they include awards like best stunt performance, best hairstyling and outstanding lighting direction for a variety series — they count all the same in the Hollywood record books, and the leaderboard for the 73rd Emmy Awards is now officially underway.The weekend ceremonies also handed out a few key acting awards. “The Queen’s Gambit” took the prize for best cast in a limited series. It beat out a pair of acclaimed HBO series, “I May Destroy You” and “Mare of Easttown.” “The Crown” won for best cast in a drama, and the Apple TV+ show “Ted Lasso” won for best cast in a comedy. Both are favored to take more prizes at the main event.Netflix’s dominance all but guarantees that it will win more Emmys than any other TV network, studio or streaming platform, making 2021 the first year it will beat out its chief rival, HBO, to claim ultimate bragging rights. Three years ago, in a first, Netflix tied HBO for top honors. Going into this year’s Emmys ceremonies, HBO, aided by HBO Max, led all networks with 130 nominations, one more than Netflix.The 73rd Emmy Awards will effectively be a showcase for television achievement during the pandemic. Because of production shutdowns and delays, the number of TV shows in the second half of last year and the first half of this year declined. Submissions for the top categories this year were down 30 percent.The ceremony, hosted by Cedric the Entertainer, will take place indoors and outdoors on the Event Deck at L.A. Live, near the Emmys’ usual home at the Microsoft Theater in downtown Los Angeles. Attendance will be drastically reduced, but in contrast to last year’s remote ceremony, most winners are likely to deliver their acceptance speeches in person. More

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      After ‘Game of Thrones,’ Can TV Get Big Again?

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      After “Game of Thrones,” many said the blockbuster series was dead. Maybe not — but the future of TV epics may look more like the movies’ recent past.In spring 2019, as “Game of Thrones” aired its final season, the talk among TV-industry pundits was that the age of dragons was not the only era coming to an end. “Thrones,” the thinking went, might just be the last big TV series ever: That is, the last blockbuster-level behemoth that would dazzle and focus the obsession of a mass audience.I don’t know if anyone’s told you this, but a lot has changed since spring 2019.The pandemic, obviously, bolstered TV’s status as a virtual arena. “Tiger King” was a TV event, and so was “Hamilton” and “Godzilla Vs. Kong.” If theaters’ strength is to bring audiences together, TV’s is to bring audiences together, apart. And as with the shift to working from home, it’s not clear how much of this ground TV will cede back, now that we know how much it’s possible to do without leaving your couch. “Dune,” when it’s released this fall, will be partly a TV event too, via HBO Max, even though theaters have reopened.But if we focus just on the TV part of TV — that is, series made for home-and-device distribution rather than for theaters — the post-“Thrones” question remains: Can any one program, in an age of bingeing, streaming and thousands of choices, bring together a mass audience?This fall and later, several high-profile genre spectacles — from sci-fi to fantasy to dystopian fiction — are betting on yes. On Sept. 24, Apple TV+ premieres “Foundation,” based on the Isaac Asimov novels about the attempt to use “psychohistory” to shape the future of a galactic empire. Earlier this month, FX unveiled the ambitious and long-gestating “Y: The Last Man,” about an apocalypse that kills every human with a Y chromosome save for one.Later in the fall: Amazon’s “The Wheel of Time,” another long-in-the-making epic, based on the sprawling fantasy series by Robert Jordan. Next year: also from Amazon, a series based on one of the few remaining megamythologies not to get a major series adaptation, “The Lord of the Rings”; plus HBO’s “Thrones” prequel, “House of the Dragon,” about Westeros’s messiest platinum blondes, the Targaryen family.From left, Emmy D’Arcy and Matt Smith in HBO’s “Thrones” prequel, “House of the Dragon.” HBO MaxIf the age of blockbuster TV is over, the coming season has not been informed.And there is evidence that event TV is not dead, even if “events” no longer involve us all gathering around our TV sets at 9 p.m. on Sundays. Since the end of “Thrones,” we’ve seen the rise of the next generation of streaming platforms, which provided a direct pipeline from the biggest megatainment companies to the screens in your living room and in your pocket.Disney in particular has driven this change. Its engulfing of the Star Wars and Marvel franchises put two of the movies’ biggest universes into one company, and Disney+ promptly started turning them into TV. It was not long ago that the appearance of a Star Wars or superhero entertainment was a rare treat; now it’s a Wednesday. (Still to come this year: a series built around Star Wars’ Boba Fett and one about the Avengers’ Hawkeye.)The platform showed that, even in the difficult-to-quantify world of streaming, the right TV series can get a mass audience chattering. But Disney+ shows got big by aiming small. That is, they worked best when they fit their big-screen universes into packages that worked for serial TV — intimate, conversational or (relatively) quiet — rather than two hours of movie-house pyrotechnics.Amazon’s “The Wheel of Time” is based on the sprawling fantasy series by Robert Jordan. Amazon StudiosSo “WandaVision” moved a peripheral “Avengers” story line onto a series of classic-TV sets, recreating period sitcoms from half a century to tell a story of grief. (It was less effective, in fact, when it built to an action climax — that is, when it tried to be a Marvel movie.) “The Mandalorian” built on the old-time Western element already present in Star Wars to make a gunslinger-and-sidekick bromance. “Loki” portioned out the superpowered ham of Tom Hiddleston’s film performance in a playful sci-fi story that prioritized talk over effects.Of course, Disney had the advantage of making big TV from already-big intellectual property that it owned. It’s pointless by now to distinguish whether Marvel and Star Wars are movie universes that extend to TV or vice versa; the shows and films are just tributaries in a giant network of content, each promoting the other.The drawback of TV’s new blockbusters, then, may be that they’re doomed to become more like the movies’ blockbusters: dragon-like in scale, mouse-like in creative ambition, at least when it comes to anything that doesn’t involve an established brand. Efforts by other outlets to world-build original genre franchises, like HBO’s labyrinthine steampunk serial “The Nevers,” have been less successful.On the one hand, the fact that the next “The Lord of the Rings” expansion is coming to your living room rather than your local multiplex is a sign of a more TV-centric entertainment future. On the other hand, that future, at least for high-profile TV, may be more and more like the movies’ recent past: big-budget but cautious renderings of stories with built-in followings, endless revisits of corporate properties that you already like.If we’re stuck with old stories expensively retold, the hope is that they at least have something to say to a new moment. From what we know of the new season’s genre epics (most of which, at press time, critics have yet to see), it’s nothing cheerful.Alfred Enoch in “Foundation” on Apple TV+, which is based on the Isaac Asimov novels.Helen Sloan/Apple TV+If there’s a common thread to many of them, it’s world-changing catastrophe. Granted, that’s often a given in high fantasy and sci-fi, but the disasters at the core of these series — the revenge of nature, self-destruction through hubris — could speak loudly now (if you can hear them over the extreme weather alerts).Even the series that aren’t prequels are often preludes to a fall. “The Lord of the Rings” movies, for instance, arrived through an accident of timing as a kind of rallying call after the 9/11 attacks. The new series takes place thousands of years before the events of the films, in Middle-earth’s Second Age — which, if you know your Tolkien, ended with the fabled kingdom of Númenor being swallowed by the sea in a cataclysm it brought on itself.Likewise, “Foundation,” telling the story of a pending man-made disaster that cannot be stopped, only mitigated, could have a lot to say to a society that has been through and is looking ahead to [gestures at everything]. We have a doomed royal house in “Dragon”; in “Y,” a pandemic story that combines apocalyptic political intrigue with a more sex- and gender-conscious version of “The Walking Dead.”And “The Wheel of Time,” already renewed for a second season before its first has appeared, is built on a mythology that involves a repeating cycle of renewal and destruction. That theme may mirror not just an anxious world, but the rise and fall of media trends that produced this series and its peers.The epic TV event, that most elusive and awe-inspiring of fabulous beasts, may well have been pronounced dead. But that doesn’t mean it can’t rise again — even if it’s in a too-familiar form. More

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      The Best Movies and TV Shows Coming to Amazon, HBO, Hulu and More in September

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      Every month, streaming services add movies and TV shows to its library. Here are our favorites for September.Every month, streaming services add movies and TV shows to its library. Here are our picks for some of September’s most promising new titles. (Note: Streaming services occasionally change schedules without giving notice. For more recommendations on what to stream, sign up for our Watching newsletter here.)New to Amazon Prime VideoBilly Bob Thornton in “Goliath.”Greg Lewis/Amazon Prime Video‘Goliath’ Season 4Starts streaming: Sept. 24Billy Bob Thornton says goodbye to one of the best characters of his career with the fourth and final season of “Goliath,” a California legal drama inspired by film noir. Thornton has spent three seasons playing Billy McBride, a formerly high-powered and high-living lawyer who crashed hard and has since been trying to redeem himself, one seemingly unwinnable case at a time. For this last run of episodes, Billy finds himself in San Francisco, fighting his mental, physical and emotional frailties while helping a big-time law firm earn a potential billion-dollar settlement against some opioid-peddling pharmaceutical companies. Once again, an ace supporting cast (including the series regular Nina Arianda and the newcomers Bruce Dern, Jena Malone, J.K. Simmons and Elias Koteas) works magnificently to deliver a moody and complex mystery with juicy twists.Also arriving:Sept. 3“Cinderella”Sept. 10“LuLaRich”“Pretty Hard Cases”“The Voyeurs”Sept. 17“Do, Re & Mi”“Everyone’s Talking About Jamie”“The Mad Women’s Ball”New to Apple TV+Jared Harris in a scene from “Foundation.”Helen Sloan/Apple TV+‘Come From Away’Starts streaming: Sept. 10Two national tragedies — the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and the COVID-19 pandemic — play a role in this recording of the Tony-winning musical “Come From Away,” shot in a Broadway theater earlier this year in front of a specially selected live audience of emergency responders, health care workers and 9/11 survivors. The show is a tuneful and impressionistic document of a true story from that day, describing the moments of kindness and connection that happened when the friendly Canadian small town of Gander, in Newfoundland, took care of over 7,000 passengers from planes diverted to its airport. Both an imaginative piece of journalism and an emotional recollection of a difficult time, “Come From Away” is a cathartic entertainment, tempering heartbreak with hope.‘Foundation’ Season 1Starts streaming: Sept. 24One of the most influential science-fiction franchises of all time, Isaac Asimov’s “Foundation” is as relevant today as it was when the original trilogy of books was written in the 1940s and ’50s. The long-in-development, flashy-looking TV version embraces the modern parallels. Jared Harris plays the brilliant mathematician Hari Seldon, who has crunched the numbers and has determined that the millennia-old galactic empire is due for an irreversible collapse in a few centuries, leading to 30,000 years of chaos. But that chaos could be reduced to a mere 1,000 years if society took immediate steps to preserve its knowledge and culture. The show’s creators, David S. Goyer and Josh Friedman, tell a story that spans multiple planets and decades but is ultimately about how ordinary human weaknesses and fears sometimes keep us from realizing our grandest ambitions.Also arriving:Sept. 17“The Morning Show” Season 2New to Disney+From left, Jeffrey Bowyer-Chapman, Peyton Elizabeth Lee and Mapuana Makia in a scene from “Doogie Kamealoha, M.D.”Karen Neal/Disney‘Doogie Kamealoha, M.D.’ Season 1Starts streaming: Sept. 8This remake of the ’90s family dramedy “Doogie Howser, M.D.” moves the action from Los Angeles to Hawaii and changes the protagonist from a teenage boy to a teenage girl (played by the Disney Channel favorite Peyton Elizabeth Lee). But the premise remains the same: What if a child genius finished college and medical school early and became a licensed doctor by age 16? Like the original, this new “Doogie” is a coming-of-age story about a precocious kid, who discovers that knowing a lot about how to fix human bodies hasn’t wholly prepared her for the more adult problems of romantic heartbreak and workplace woes.Also arriving:Sept. 1“Dug Days” Season 1Sept. 3“Happier Than Ever: A Love Letter to Los Angeles”Sept. 22“Star Wars: Visions” Season 1New to HBO MaxOscar Isaac and Jessica Chastain in the HBO remake of the Ingmar Bergman series “Scenes From a Marriage.”Jojo Whilden/HBO‘Scenes From a Marriage’Starts streaming: Sept. 12Based on the acclaimed 1973 TV mini-series from Ingmar Bergman, “Scenes From a Marriage” stars Jessica Chastain and Oscar Isaac as a seemingly content upper-middle-class couple whose relationship begins to splinter when the circumstances in their lives prompt them to scrutinize what they have. Written by the playwright Amy Herzog and the writer-producer-director Hagai Levi (best-known for the original Israeli version of the show that became HBO’s “In Treatment”), this new “Scenes” follows the arc of Bergman’s original story while taking into account what has changed in the past 50 years of gender dynamics. Chastain and Isaac anchor the series, playing a husband and wife who still love and appreciate each other but who have outgrown their old expectations.Also arriving:Sept. 2“Adventure Time: Distant Lands — Wizard City”Sept. 10“Malignant”Sept. 15“A la Calle”Sept. 17“Cry Macho”Sept. 23“Ahir Shah: Dots”“Doom Patrol” Season 3Sept. 26“Nuclear Family”Sept. 30“The Way Down”New to HuluKayvan Novak as Nandor in a scene from Season 3 of “What We Do in the Shadows.”Russ Martin/FX‘What We Do in the Shadows’ Season 3Starts streaming: Sept. 3This hilarious horror mockumentary had a great run last year, with the cast and writers expanding on the show’s initial concept: a Staten Island version of the 2014 New Zealand movie about bickering vampire roommates. “What We Do in the Shadows” is still an episodic sitcom, with each chapter telling its own story. But the larger arc that started to develop in Season 2 continues in Season 3 as this band of slacker bloodsuckers and their shrewd human assistant Guillermo (Harvey Guillén) find themselves presented with new opportunities. Although the characters have richer back stories now — filled with bizarre, centuries-old grudges — this show’s primary asset is still its performances, as some very funny actors react with deadpan irritation at the paranormal craziness surrounding them.‘Y: The Last Man’ Season 1Starts streaming: Sept. 13For over a decade, the Brian K. Vaughan and Pia Guerra comic book series “Y: The Last Man” has been in development for a screen adaptation — first for the movies and then for TV. There’s a good reason the project’s producers have been so persistent: “Y” has an irresistibly juicy premise, depicting a society where an apocalyptic event has killed every mammal with a Y chromosome on Earth except for one. The comics are also filled with memorable characters and thrilling plot twists. This version retains both the grabby story and the fascinatingly eclectic cast — including the title hero, Yorick Brown (Ben Schnetzer). But the series’s head writer, Eliza Clark, has also updated the original’s exploration of gender roles.Also arriving:Sept. 2“Trolls: TrollsTopia” Season 4Sept. 3“The D’Amelio Show” Season 1Sept. 8“Wu-Tang: An American Saga” Season 2Sept. 10“The Killing of Two Lovers”Sept. 16“The Premise” Season 1“Riders of Justice”“Stalker”Sept. 29“Minor Premise”New to PeacockFrom left, Sumalee Montano, Ashley Zukerman and Rick Gonzalez in a scene from “Dan Brown’s the Lost Symbol.”Rafy/Peacock‘Dan Brown’s The Lost Symbol’Starts streaming: Sept. 16“The Lost Symbol” is the third novel in Dan Brown’s popular series of books about Robert Langdon, a Harvard professor who specializes in symbology and classical art — and who often ends up using his know-how to help the authorities crack the secret codes underlying international conspiracies. Tom Hanks has played Langdon in the movie versions of Brown’s stories. Ashley Zukerman has taken on the role for a TV adaptation that is meant to serve as an entry point for newcomers. As with the books and the films, this version is a complicated tale of good versus evil, featuring a lot of scenes of smart folks solving ancient puzzles in dark and dangerous chambers.Also arriving:Sept. 2“A.P. Bio” Season 4 More

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      Nick Mohammed Has Been Faking It on ‘Ted Lasso’

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      The British actor and soccer non-fan scored his first Emmy nomination playing a sharp soccer coach in the hit Apple TV+ comedy.Voting is underway for the 73rd Primetime Emmys, and this week we’re talking to several first-time Emmy nominees. The awards will be presented Sept. 19 on CBS.The first season of “Ted Lasso” follows a sunny American who moves to England to take on a quintessentially British institution: the Premier League. Nick Mohammed, the British actor who plays Ted’s underdog assistant coach Nate, is about to follow the opposite trajectory. His first trip to the United States will be to attend next month’s Emmy Awards, honoring the best of American television. (Assuming there’s an in-person ceremony, of course.)Mohammed was one of seven “Ted Lasso” stars to receive Emmy nods this year, among the 20 total the Apple TV+ series received, the most of any comedy. He was nominated for best supporting actor in a comedy, and he will compete with three of his co-stars in the category: Brett Goldstein, who plays the prickly retired footballer Roy Kent; Brendan Hunt, the laconic assistant Coach Beard; and Jeremy Swift, the amiable team executive Higgins.It’s a not terribly predictable turn for a man who at one time was pursuing a Ph.D. in geophysics at Cambridge, with plans to work in the oil industry. But a stint in the Footlights, the university’s famous comedy troupe (celebrity alumni include John Cleese, Olivia Colman and John Oliver, among many others), set him on a different path.Mohammed with Jason Sudeikis in a scene from Season 1. Mohammed said that playing Nate had given him a new appreciation for soccer, but he is still not a fan.Apple TV Plus, via Associated PressMohammed has since been a fairly regular presence on British radio and TV, though he has only felt comfortable calling himself an actor “really for the last five years or so,” he said. Before “Ted Lasso,” he was probably best-known to American viewers as a creator and star of the cybersecurity sitcom “Intelligence,” streaming on Peacock.“It was a bit of a slow burn,” he said. “A bit like Nate, I guess: Just plugging away at it for a while. But I love it, and I feel very lucky and grateful to call it a living.”In a recent phone interview, Mohammed talked about Season 2 pressures, Nate’s coming “spiral” and what it’s like to play a soccer coach when you don’t care about soccer. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.“Ted Lasso” received the most ever Emmy nominations for a first-year comedy. I doubt anyone would have predicted that when it premiered in August 2020.It was quite a strange thing, really. We loved the show and obviously we all hoped that it would resonate with lots of people and so on, but you can’t really predict that kind of success. I get recognized every day, which is weird. Then with Season 2 coming off the back of the success of Season 1, there was suddenly a lot of attention on the show and a responsibility for us to deliver as well.Did you feel added pressure when you were shooting the second season?Absolutely, I think everyone did. There was a degree of, we’ve got a duty of care here because there was a growing fan base who will be putting quite a lot of expectation on Season 2. The show has communicated to people at a time when people really did need a bit of a pick up, I think. As much as it felt like a responsibility, it’s a privileged position to be in.The creators — Jason Sudeikis, Bill Lawrence, Joe Kelly and Hunt — have said they have a three-season plan for almost every main character. What did you know about Nate when you started out?I initially went out for Higgins, which I didn’t get. They asked me to tape for Nate, and once I’d got the part, Jason and Bill explained that Nate is going places, with that underdog arc in Season 1. Then I think we were filming the gala episode, and I sat next to Jason and he outlined exactly where Nate goes in Season 2 — which, we can’t give anything away, but Nate goes on a very different journey. He’s told me where it goes in Season 3 as well.So you don’t get killed off this season?It’s not a spoiler to suggest that I don’t get killed off this season. Virtually every member of the cast has a little journey. Often that’s not the case with minor parts, where your job is to be a constant so the major players can change and adapt and grow. But everyone in “Ted Lasso” goes somewhere.So far this season, Nate seems to be feeling disregarded, and not afforded the respect he thinks he deserves.What’s interesting now is this is a character who still has the same demons and insecurities, but he’s now got this position of power. But he’s struggling because he’s still awkward. We’re about to find out — and this isn’t really a spoiler — that it is connected to the relationship with his dad, in that he’s never been able to please him. So I think Nate is quite an embittered soul, sadly. We are going to see him spiral a bit, but I won’t give anything more away.When I interviewed the creators last month, they seemed very interested in things like social media and the thirst for attention and how it can bring out the worst in people. To what extent will that shape Nate’s story?That absolutely resonates, the rise of social media and how it affects anyone in the public eye and how they act. One thing Jason did say is that just through his experience on “Saturday Night Live,” you can see a change in people. When they first start out, they’re really hungry and loving it and being really creative. But there is a tipping point when they get a little recognition, when it starts to go to people’s heads. Not everyone, but some people — things can take a slightly different turn. So I think Nate’s story is absolutely based on a truth.Is any of that playing out in your own life now that you’re getting recognized for “Ted Lasso”?[Laughs.] I hope not. It’s a weird old thing though, especially because I actually live in Richmond, where the show is set. I go jogging over Richmond green and people are like, “Nate the Great! Nate the Great!” I’m a little nervous now because of Season 2, and particularly the way Season 2 ends — I hope there won’t be an aftermath to that. We’ll see how it pans out.Nate’s underdog arc in Season 1 endeared him to many viewers, but Mohammed (pictured with Sudeikis and Brendan Hunt) said he was a little nervous about how they would feel after Season 2. Apple TV+Nate has proved himself a cagey coach, but I read that you don’t really care about soccer. Are you more of a fan now that you’ve shot a couple seasons of this soccer show?Sadly I’m not. I’ve got a newfound respect for the sport — I just wish I could be a little bit more enthused about it. I was brought up in a football household, and I’d get taken to matches, but I just couldn’t delight in it in the way my friends and family could. The guys on the show who are big soccer fans — some of the stadiums that we got to shoot in, they’re just like, “This is incredible!” I try and engage with that enthusiasm for it, but I am faking it, absolutely.When it comes to acting, particularly when I’m talking tactics, there were scenes when I had to ask Brendan, “Is this a noun or a verb?” Because I literally don’t know what I’m referring to.Who else on the show is faking it?Brett, who plays angry Roy Kent — particularly in Season 1 until the mask slipped — I mean, Brett is an absolute sweetheart. We started doing the London comedy circuit around the same time, and so we’ve gigged together a lot. Phil Dunster is so different to Jamie Tartt — really nice, not posh, just a real gentleman. Maybe apart from Phil, actually, everyone’s got an element of their character in them. I can sometimes lack a bit of confidence, or I’m happy to just sit back and not be too vocal.You performed as a magician when you were young but ended up pursuing a Ph.D. in geophysics at Cambridge. What is the overlap between geophysics, magic and comedy?I think everyone’s trying to find the missing link. Magic and performing, obviously — I had that performing bug since I was kid. But geophysics? I was all lined up to go work for an oil company, and then I just got bitten by the comedy bug and thought, this is just far more entertaining than drilling for oil.Your greatest trick was going from a Ph.D. program to an Apple TV program.No one saw that coming. I certainly wouldn’t recommend that people do a Ph.D. in geophysics to become an actor. I think that’s probably the long way round. More