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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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      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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      Rosie Perez Hates Flying, but She Soared in ‘The Flight Attendant’

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      The HBO Max show brought the veteran performer her first acting Emmy nomination. “To be recognized now, at my age, for something that I did just for the art of it all?” she said. “That really moves me.”Voting is underway for the 73rd Primetime Emmys, and this week we’re talking to several first-time Emmy nominees (at least for acting, in this case; Rosie Perez had been previously nominated, but as a choreographer). The awards will be presented Sept. 19 on CBS.This interview includes spoilers for “The Flight Attendant.”On Rosie Perez’s third day of production on the HBO Max series “The Flight Attendant,” she was shooting a scene in which several characters congregated in an airplane’s galley. As the director Susanna Fogel set up a shot, she asked Perez to turn toward the camera because “we can’t see your face.”“I know,” Perez replied. “I want to seem invisible.”She had a personal reason for this acting strategy. Now in her mid-50s, she understands a thing or two about the plight of menopausal women, some of whom have an acute sense of losing themselves, of their diminishing social value and relevancy. Perez recalled how difficult it was to acknowledge her own menopause onset — to come to terms with the hormonal imbalance and the way it made her feel.“I was like, ‘Why am I a nervous wreck all the time?’” she said. “‘Why do I have so much anxiety? Why am I questioning my life? What is going on?’”“It’s a strange, strange feeling,” she added.She wanted to bring those conflicted feelings to her character, Megan Briscoe, and the show’s writers and producers agreed to incorporate the idea. She told them: “I don’t ever want you to mention the fact that Megan is menopausal. I just want to play it.”This surprise acting choice provided a better rationale for her character to keep a nervous eye on her fellow flight attendant Cassie (Kaley Cuoco), a hot mess who has gotten embroiled in a mysterious conspiracy. And it set up a more sympathetic view of Megan’s own dangerous situation after a series of poor decisions leads her to accidentally commit treason.It also inspired one of the showrunners, Steve Yockey, to pen an “invisible woman” speech for Perez to deliver in the season finale, in a poignant scene that likely helped secure Perez her first Emmy nomination as an actor. (She was nominated three times as a choreographer for her work on the early ’90s sketch show “In Living Color.”)“I get choked up thinking about it now,” Perez said of the additional material she was given. “These moments don’t always come to me, as a brown woman. And when they come, you better deliver because, baby, you want to make it count.”Perez previously made the most of her moments in films like “Do the Right Thing” and “White Men Can’t Jump,” and her performance in the plane crash drama “Fearless” brought Oscar and Golden Globe nominations — an experience she now recalls with some ambivalence. She talked about it in a phone conversation from Spain, where she was shooting the upcoming Apple TV+ series “Now and Then,” and she also discussed “The Flight Attendant,” her moving monologue and her former life as a dancer and choreographer. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.You initially turned down “The Flight Attendant,” partly because you hate flying. Where did this fear come from?Two things. One, I hate traveling, and it doesn’t just pertain to flying on airplanes. I think it’s because of my childhood, traveling back and forth from the home [St. Joseph’s Catholic Home for Children in Peekskill, N.Y.] to Brooklyn to Puerto Rico, then back to Brooklyn and back to the home. I just couldn’t stand it. It gives me anxiety, which I’ve been working on with my psychiatrist. It’s getting better, slowly but surely.The second thing is that when I did “Fearless,” I was really traumatized. When we were filming in the cornfields, it felt so real and so shocking to me. The research I did on plane crashes heightened everything.You caught Covid-19 while shooting the show in Bangkok, early on in the pandemic. Did that affect your performance?It was scary being in a foreign country and getting sick to that magnitude. I remember being carted into the I.C.U. I remember telling people: “Don’t let me die in Bangkok. Please tell my husband.” Those were my initial thoughts, and then the isolation and the worry. The head of I.C.U. was telling me that I had this new unknown virus, that people were dying from it. I had been sickly as a child, but this was on a whole different level.That said, did it affect my performance? No. It affected my flying because I was even more paranoid, and I had to fly from Bangkok back to New York for “The Flight Attendant,” then to Brazil and Los Angeles for “Birds of Prey,” then to New York and Rome for more “Flight Attendant,” then to Utah for “The Last Thing He Wanted,” then to London for “Birds of Prey” press, then back to New York. I was a nervous wreck!It was comforting to have work, so I was able to just let it go and feed it back into Megan. And I was already there. By my third day of filming, I was able to tell the showrunners, “I know you think Megan is this, but I think she’s that.”What do you mean?What I could bring to Megan is how I felt turning 50, how I felt having hormonal imbalances. You question everything. If you’re not happy, if you don’t have happiness around you, you’re going to go out and buy a new car, or in Megan’s case, you’re going to start working for North Korea. [Laughs] Something is going to manifest itself.I wanted Megan to be too eager to participate. Everyone else is young, except her. My character is trying her hardest to be the person in charge, to be mature, but she wants to be Cassie, as messed up as Cassie is. I wanted Megan’s nervousness and anxiety to be conveyed through her smile, or asking, “What’s going on with Cassie?” Usually when you make suggestions like that, you get pushback, but the showrunners said OK to this idea. I was like: “Oh my god! Thank you!” Because what rational 50-year-old woman would idolize Cassie? She’s a train wreck! And that was the whole point.Is that how the “invisible woman” speech came about? Did they incorporate the idea into the script?I remember Steve Yockey going, [imitates a teasing singsong voice], “You’re going to love Episode 8.” When I got the script, I couldn’t stop crying. I remember calling Steve, sobbing, saying, “Thank you, thank you.” I didn’t ask them to write it in. They just actually listened to what I was saying and doing.That scene happened to be my last day of shooting. I was so filled with emotion, and I looked at Kaley, and she said: “Don’t do it, Perez. Don’t you cry yet! You’re going to make me cry!” We both started laughing. Then we both sat down on the bed. We didn’t discuss how we were going to do that scene. They said, “Action!” and bam! We got it on the first take. It was magic.When I get these kinds of chances as an actor, it just fills my heart with joy. I told my husband: “I’m going to work so hard on this show. I don’t even care if no one sees it.” He said, “That makes no sense.” I said: “It does, though. I did this one for myself.” If people enjoy it, that’s just icing on the cake with a cherry on top because there have been multiple times where I was never recognized for my work. To be recognized now, at my age, for something that I did just for the art of it all? That really moves me. It’s like when my husband goes, “Yeah, but you were nominated for an Emmy before,” and I go, “Yeah, but this is for acting.”You were nominated three times as a choreographer for “In Living Color.”I think I was a little before my time. Hip-hop was not new to me, or to New York, but it was new to the world. And I think that classism and racism came into play, where they downplayed my ability as a choreographer. They didn’t think it was hard work and real creativity. I had to come up with eight to 10 different routines a week. That’s insane!I was blown away by the Emmy nominations for “In Living Color.” The first time I was nominated, [the “In Living Color” creator, Keenen Ivory Wayans,] told me, “You should have won.” I said, “But I’m at the Emmys, Keenen!” He was like, “You’re the happiest loser I’ve ever known.” And I said: “We’re putting hip-hop on the map. How big is that?” To be one of the pioneers? Wow.And then because of this acting nomination, people are asking me: “You were nominated before as a choreographer? You were a dancer?” And I’m like, “Yeah, I was.” [Laughs.]Do you have conflicted feelings about the Academy Award nomination you got for supporting actress for “Fearless”? You talked recently about how the Academy never invited you back to the ceremony.I never mentioned it for years until somebody else brought it up. It’s not like I would sit there and cry about it. It was more of a feeling like, “Wow, that’s just so [expletive] up,” because it wasn’t only about me. It was about every other brown-skinned girl. When I saw my girls Viola Davis and Halle Berry win, I was screaming my head off, I was so happy for them. I just told the Academy Awards: “Well, OK, you didn’t invite me back. All right. That’s on you, honey.”I think the other part of why I wasn’t invited back is that I don’t know how to play the game. I don’t schmooze. But a lot of [awards season] is campaigning and who do you know. The silver lining of this horrible pandemic is that I don’t have to leave the house. I can do interviews, meet the other nominees and all that stuff, and I don’t have to get dressed up or do my hair! It’s such a blessing because I don’t do well in those Hollywood settings. I’m getting better, but it’s just a little overwhelming for me.Being nominated for the Oscars and the Golden Globes, I wasn’t ready. I didn’t fully appreciate what was going on. So many journalists asked me: “This is weird. This is a fluke, isn’t it, that you got nominated?” That just angered me to the point where I became numb to the whole process. My anxiety and depression took over and kind of shut down the joy of it all. Now that I’ve addressed my mental health issues, and I’ve been in therapy for so long, I’m able to embrace the joy.Someone recently asked me, “Don’t you feel like this [Emmy nomination] is like, ‘Aha! Look at me now!’” And I don’t. In the grand scheme of things, this is small potatoes compared to the hell I went through as a child. The things that people take for granted — moments of joy and happiness — are like a ticker-tape parade for me, every day. I get to do what I do. I have a wonderful home, a wonderful husband, good friends and good family members. I don’t have to worry about being poor.My husband says, “That’s so simplistic.” And I say, “But life is that simplistic.” It really is. You come from the depths of hell, and you rise up like a phoenix. I don’t want to show off; I just want to fly. More

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      In ‘The Other Two,’ Drew Tarver and Heléne Yorke Are Almost Famous

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      What’s it like to be fame-adjacent? The premise of this dark HBO Max comedy was in some ways familiar territory for its two stars. That may not last.Drew Tarver’s room at the Bowery Hotel was bright. It was comfortable. It overlooked a cemetery, but not in a creepy way. When Tarver arrived, jet-lagged and rain-soaked after a late flight from Los Angeles, he found a Bowery-branded teddy bear on the bed and a bottle of red wine on the cafe table, compliments of the manager.The next morning, the actress Heléne Yorke, 36, took the elevator to his room. As Tarver hid his retainer case, Yorke read the manager’s note, which addressed him as Mr. Tarver. “Who do they think you are?” Yorke teased.Tarver, 35, is a star of the dark comedy “The Other Two,” which began its life on Comedy Central but returns for Season 2 on HBO Max, starting Thursday. He plays Cary Dubek, a gay aspiring actor. Yorke plays his sister, Brooke, a former dancer. Harassed by survival jobs, man troubles and housing crises, they lead lives of loud desperation until their much younger brother, Chase (Case Walker), becomes a tween sensation — or, as one newscaster puts it, “the next big white kid.”During the first season, Brooke and Cary ride Chase’s designer coattails, clumsily. In the second, each has achieved some success. Drew now presents a red carpet segment called “Age Net Worth Feet.” Brooke manages Chase and their mother, Pat (Molly Shannon), who has become a talk-show host.In some ways, this limited celebrity parallels Tarver’s and Yorke’s own lives. After years of appearing in niche fare, they are finally fame-adjacent. “We’re still not famous,” Yorke said. She looked out of Tarver’s window. The rooms next to his, she noticed, were nicer. They had little balconies.“Turns out my bottle of wine isn’t so great after all,” Tarver said.“Being in your late 20s, early 30s, watching other people surpass you, it’s really disorienting,” Yorke said. “It gives you this hunger and this thirst that is all-encompassing.”Nina Westervelt for The New York TimesEven as “The Other Two,” created by the former “Saturday Night Live” writers Chris Kelly and Sarah Schneider, is a rapier-sharp satire of the entertainment industry, it also presents an unusually warm and functional relationship between Cary and Brooke, undergirded by a real affection that the actors seem to share. (Or maybe they’re just very good actors?)During an hourlong conversation in the lobby (Henri, the failed hurricane, had scotched a planned mini-golf outing), the two discussed the show, their poor pandemic choices and their hopes for their characters. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.Who was cast first?YORKE Drew was cast before me. In true sexist fashion. Drew is also No. 1 on the call sheet, two years running, which is devastating for me as a woman.TARVER I have constantly said we need to make her No. 1. No one listens to me.YORKE Drew knew Chris from the improv and sketch comedy scene. I was not a part of that world at all. I got called back to read with Drew. They were like, “Feel free to do a little improv.” And I was sweating through my clothes.TARVER In her audition, it just felt like siblings.YORKE In showbiz, if you’re a duo, it’s not always roses. But it genuinely is for us. We just have fun all day.But who’s the better actor?TARVER HeléneYORKE [Simultaneously:] Drew. Everything Drew does is so true. This is a person who is very funny and very off the cuff but also has a deep connection to what’s important. [To Tarver:] Now is when you talk about me.TARVER She just comes in and kills it.Yorke and Tarver in a scene from Season 2, in which their characters have begun to achieve some measure of success. Greg Endries/Hbo MaxSo you always related to these characters? You never saw them as monsters?YORKE I saw myself in them. Being in your late 20s, early 30s, watching other people surpass you, it’s really disorienting. It gives you this hunger and this thirst that is all-encompassing. That’s what happens to Brooke and Cary. That’s what you watch them go through. I remember riding the subway and looking at people on commutes to real jobs, being like, they have health insurance and a full collection of pots and pans. That was so beyond me.TARVER You were riding the subway with just that one egg pan.YORKE It was all I had to make breakfast! But I have a lot of sympathy for Brooke and Cary. Anything they do that is bad or crazy is out of that hunger.In the second season, they’re tasting success. Does it change them?TARVER It’s surprising how little it does for them. They’re realizing, like: “Oh, I would have killed for this last year. But now I have it. Why didn’t that fix me? Why am I already used to it?”YORKE It’s devastating to realize that you are still who you are. Success is not a magic wand. You think, “Oh, I’ll get success and all of a sudden, I’ll be this better person who’s happier and more settled in my life.” You get it, and all of your [expletive] comes with you.TARVER The third season is just them real-time in therapy.YORKE It’s “In Treatment.”You had begun the second season when the shutdown hit. How did you spend the year off?YORKE I became a five-star chef. And I started writing. I was saying yes to new experiences. I was like, I’m going to try skiing. I learned how to ski on YouTube, and I tore my ACL two weeks before going back to this job. So, yeah: cooking and being stupid.And what were your injuries, Drew?TARVER I lost both my feet. No. My two sisters live in L.A. We all packed up and went back to Georgia. I also got on YouTube. My grandma had this old Airstream trailer, all grown over with weeds, with raccoons living in it. Me and my little brother started watching YouTube videos where people get Airstreams and restore them. It’s always like, “Hey, I’m Mike.” “And I’m Diane. And we bought an Airstream.” Then the next video is like, “We’re cleaning out the Airstream, we’re throwing everything away.” The third video is like, “We’re done with this and we’re getting a divorce.”YORKE He grew his hair out so long and a full Georgia trash beard. There are pictures, a time-lapse of him shaving it into mutton chops.TARVER I shaved it a day before we started filming. It was shocking seeing my mouth again. I wasn’t convinced it worked right. The first morning I came in, I was like: “Hey, real quick, before we get out there, does this look like me? Am I my smiling right?”YORKE We came back in real rough shape.But you won. You made it onto a show that people actually watch. Are there downsides?TARVER Sometimes it feels a little scarier. When you’re coming up, you’re just fearless with your choices because you’re just like, yes, anything. Then when you have a job, you have something to lose. Fear sets in.YORKE This thing that never goes away — and it’s so sick — is that every good thing will be the last thing. So if it comes to an end, nobody will ask me to do anything.It must be nice having a low-key kind of fame, though. People recognize you, but you don’t have to flee the paparazzi.TARVER I mean, I do that. Even if it’s just one person, I will push them over and flee.If this show has more seasons, what do you want for these characters?YORKE I hope that the situations become even fancier.TARVER I want to see them continue to struggle. But in palaces.YORKE It’s so easy to say you want them to figure it out. But I don’t want them to because I’m comforted by the fact that they don’t. It makes me feel less alone.TARVER It does feel nice to come to work and play a bumbling person. Because it’s like, OK, yeah, this feels real.YORKE We want them to always feel lost and bad. That’s what’s universal. More

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      Is Jeremy O. Harris’s Play for ‘Gossip Girl’ Real? Now It Is.

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      Joshua Safran’s “Gossip Girl” reboot filmed a scene from an imaginary work by the “Slave Play” playwright. Then the Public Theater commissioned it.We hear him before we see him come across the screen: Aaron howls and barks then gallops, on all fours, onto a white, wooden thrust stage, ringed on three sides by the audience. This enraged man — the son of Aaron the Moor from “Titus Andronicus” — is stark naked and covered in blood.“What? What? Have I not arrived as you assumed I would? Like a black dog, as the saying is,” he demands, panting and sniffing, shouting into the faces of the seated theatergoers.He backs away slowly. “You do know who I am, riiight?” Aaron drawls. “The inhuman dog. Unhallowed slave.”This intense scene from a play-within-a-TV-show commands viewers’ attention in Episode 3 of HBO Max’s “Gossip Girl” reboot. And it’s all courtesy of Jeremy O. Harris, the Tony-nominated playwright of “Slave Play.” Shortly after the episode dropped, though, people began to speculate on social media if the play was real or not.With a tweet, Harris recently confirmed that “The Bloody and Lamentable Tale of Aaron” is, in fact, a real play. He began writing his dream Public Theater play for “Gossip Girl” after chatting with the show’s creator, Joshua Safran (“Smash,” “Soundtrack”).The series’ showrunner, Joshua Safran, left, and Jeremy O. Harris during the taping.Karolina Wojtasik, via HBO MaxUpon seeing the play’s opening scene during the taping, Oskar Eustis, artistic director of the Public Theater — who makes a cameo as an audience member in the episode — turned to Harris and asked, “Can we commission this?” Harris said he had a contract the next day.“I was dreaming this play into existence,” Harris said in an interview. It’s a play he’s been thinking about for seven years, since he started studying “Titus Andronicus” — his favorite Shakespeare play.“Titus Andronicus,” thought to be Shakespeare’s earliest tragedy, tells the bloody tale of the downfall of Titus, a Roman general. Titus returns home from war with Tamora, Queen of the Goths, as a prisoner to the Roman emperor; her lover, Aaron the Moor, is in tow.Tamora gives birth to a child, fathered by Aaron, who then kills the nurse to keep the child’s race a secret and flees with the baby to save it from the emperor. But Lucius, Titus’s son, captures Aaron and threatens to kill the child. To save his son, Aaron confesses to a plot for revenge. Lucius, who is later proclaimed emperor, orders Aaron be buried up to his chest and left to die. The baby, however, survives.Harris’s play, then, picks up where Shakespeare left off. We meet Aaron (portrayed by Paul James in the “Gossip Girl” episode), named after his father, in his 20s. He has been raised, ironically, by Lucius Andronicus, now in his 60s. And he’s thirsty for revenge.“The thing that I think makes Aaron a complex character in literature is because he’s like, ‘I’m evil because I’m Black,’” Harris said of Shakespeare’s play. “And this time, he’s like, ‘No, I’m evil because you guys have socialized me. You have socialized rules around what Black means and what maleness means.’”When the opportunity to shoot at the Public arose, Harris knew two things: He wanted to do “Aaron.” And he wanted the director to be Machel Ross, who also directed his play “Black Exhibition” at Bushwick Starr in 2019. Lila Feinberg wrote and Jennifer Lynch directed the “Gossip Girl” episode, in which several characters grapple with what to make of the challenging work.“I loved it. But it’d be committing theatrical seppuku to transfer it,” a theater critic mutters to another at the show’s after party.The other responds: “It would close in a week, especially without a star. I just wish it wasn’t so confrontational.”In an interview, Ross said she “knew that the text was evoking a very specific sort of confrontation between audience and performer.”How could they thrust the “Gossip Girl” cast and universe into this play from the moment it begins, she wondered? Enter: a naked Paul James.“I was like, ‘All right, I’m going to have to be comfortable. I’m going to have to make other people uncomfortable, and own the stage, and be very physical,’” James said in an interview.Harris described the play to Safran, the show’s creator and showrunner, as the audience’s worst nightmare: A naked Black man covered in blood, coming up to them and asking them to touch him. It’s a confrontational idea, and one that the “Gossip Girl” character Zoya Lott — a newcomer to the world of glitz and glamour depicted in the series — can identify with.“Are you kidding me? A provocative play like ‘Aaron’ is exactly what Broadway needs after a year on pause,” Zoya (played by Whitney Peak) fires back at the naysayers. “What it doesn’t is another ‘revisal’ of — of anything. Especially one devised by white people, about white people, starring white people.“That’s why the theater was invented, right? To challenge audience members to — to think beyond their own narratives. I mean, come on, have you never read Shange? Albee? Fornés?”About that exchange, Safran said in an interview: “That’s what Zoya is wrestling with in this world with these people. Can I actually speak my mind, or do I have to fit myself into a box and just observe?”In the show, Harris sweeps into the room, playing himself. “Hey. Who are you?” he asks Zoya. “You seem very much like someone to me. Let’s find a less confrontational space and have a little talk,” he says.“Zoya is one of the only people that can look at their world and process it and call out things as they are,” Harris said. “And make a little mess along the way as she does that.”In fact, Harris will be returning as himself to the show in the second half of its first season, in Episode 10, as a fairy godfather of sorts to Zoya. As for the status of the play itself? “I think it’ll be done when it’s done,” Harris said. More