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      in Movies

      ‘Reinventing Elvis: The ’68 Comeback’ Review: Fully in the Building

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      Elvis Presley’s 1968 TV special showcased the king of rock ‘n’ roll in his unadulterated glory. A new documentary shows how it happened.“I heard the news/There’s good rockin’ tonight.” That’s what Elvis Presley sang in 1954, on his second single, a cover of a jump blues tune originated by Roy Brown. The lyrics come to mind while watching the new documentary, “Reinventing Elvis: The ’68 Comeback,” directed by John Scheinfeld, because the movie seems explicitly formulated to reach people who have not, so to speak, heard the news about Presley: his impact on pop culture and his preternatural performing charisma.Both of those realities were inarguably blunted by Presley’s manager, the slippery Col. Tom Parker. Baz Luhrmann’s fictionalized biopic of Presley from last year managed to both villainize and at least slightly humanize the guy who turned Presley from an alluring danger to youth morals into a cheesy family entertainment attraction. This movie outright brands him the villain and brings on a shot of a smoking cigar every time he’s reintroduced.The hero of the story is the television producer-director Steve Binder, who put together the 1968 television special that briefly made Elvis electric and provocative again. (Binder is also an executive producer of the movie.)In addition, the movie is a celebration and defense of Presley. While not overtly mentioning the accusation that Presley was guilty of cultural appropriation, the film counters it from several directions, including the critic Kelefa Sanneh’s assertion that what Presley accomplished was a fusion of modes, not theft. And contemporary musicians here sing Presley’s praises, including the Black country singer Darius Rucker and the Dominican recording artist Maffio.The clips from the special itself are irresistible, as when Elvis, chatting with old bandmates, mocks his signature lip curl, saying, “I got news for you, baby, I did 29 pictures like that.” He also sings up a storm. If today Presley really needs a sales pitch, this movie is a good one.Reinventing Elvis: The ’68 ComebackNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 44 minutes. Watch on Paramount+. More

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      in Television

      Different Sides of Bill Walton and Wilt Chamberlain in New Series

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      New documentaries explore the star-crossed careers and delicate spirits of Wilt Chamberlain and Bill Walton, two of basketball’s greatest.Pity the poor 7-footer.That’s the message of two new documentary series about storied basketball players: “The Luckiest Guy in the World,” about Bill Walton (available in the “30 for 30” hub at ESPN Plus), and “Goliath,” about Wilt Chamberlain (premiering Friday at Paramount+ and Sunday on Showtime).Serious and thorough, “Luckiest Guy” and “Goliath” are positioned to draft on the success of an earlier basketball biography, ESPN’s popular Michael Jordan series, “The Last Dance.” But while they are also portraits of men with supreme physical gifts, they are less focused on their subjects’ on-court exploits and more determined to get inside the players’ heads. The sportswriter Jackie MacMullan delivers what could be a thesis statement for both in “Goliath”: “I’ve found that big men are much more sensitive than we realize.”Chamberlain, who died of heart failure in 1999, and Walton both have well-defined personas, which they participated in creating. Each series spends a lot of its time picking apart the received wisdom about its subject while also indulging, for the sake of dramatic impact and storytelling shorthand, the very stereotypes it wants to deconstruct: Chamberlain the unstoppable, insatiable giant; Walton the goofy, fragile flower child.The four-episode “Luckiest Guy” was directed by the accomplished documentarian Steve James, always to be remembered for “Hoop Dreams,” and was made with the full cooperation of Walton, 70, who revisits old haunts and sits down for an entertaining round table with Portland Trail Blazers teammates like Lionel Hollins and Dave Twardzik. It’s engagingly introspective and personal, in part because James pushes back against Walton’s incessant recitation of the title phrase. How can Walton call himself the luckiest guy in the world, James asks from behind the camera, when his career was utterly ravaged by injuries that eventually crippled him and drove him to consider suicide?That, broadly speaking, is the idea that haunts both documentaries. The conundrum of Walton’s and Chamberlain’s careers is that they were marked by success — college and professional championships, statistical domination (in Chamberlain’s case), reputations for unmatched athletic skills — and defined by disappointment. Neither won as often or as easily as he should have, in Walton’s case because of injury and in Chamberlain’s because of the dominance during the 1960s of the rival Boston Celtics and their center, Bill Russell, enshrined in sports mythology as the hard-working Everyman to Chamberlain’s sex-and-statistics-obsessed egotist.“Goliath,” directed by Rob Ford and Christopher Dillon, is a more workmanlike and conventional project than “Luckiest Guy.” But across three episodes it makes a persuasive case for Chamberlain as a generous, sensitive soul who was both blessed and constrained by his stature and his extraordinary all-around athletic ability.It does its sports-documentary duty, laying out Chamberlain’s triumphs and more frequent setbacks on the court. But it is more interested in the trails he blazed as a Black cultural figure and self-determining professional athlete, and it favors writers, pundits and scholars over basketball players in its interviews. (The scarcity of images from Chamberlain’s younger days in the 1940s and ’50s is compensated for with shadow-puppet scenes reminiscent of the work of Kara Walker.)Watching the series side by side, the differences between the two men are less interesting than the sense of commonality that emerges. Both were self-conscious stutterers who learned to endure, and perform under, the most intense scrutiny. Chamberlain may have been more flamboyant, but Walton, in “Luckiest Guy,” is just as conscious of his affect — there’s an ostentatiousness, and no small amount of ego, in the way he performs modesty. (James also challenges Walton’s lifelong, generally debunked claim to be only 6 feet 11 inches tall.)The veteran sports fan might see another commonality: As good as they are, neither “The Luckiest Guy in the World” nor “Goliath” is as exciting to watch as “The Last Dance.” This is a bit of a conundrum, because both Chamberlain and Walton are, quite arguably, more complex, interesting and moving figures than Michael Jordan. But Michael Jordan is a nearly unparalleled winner. And while winning isn’t the only thing, it is, for better or worse, the most compelling thing about the subject of a sports documentary. More

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      in Theater

      Unscripted or Not, the Tonys Were Mostly Predictable

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      The writing is on the wall: With or without writers, the Broadway awards are a strangely bland and canned way to celebrate a thrillingly live medium.No writers’ names crawled up the screen at the end of Sunday night’s telecast of the Tony Awards, and though the writers might not like to hear it, their absence made little difference. The names of the show’s producers and director were the same as always, and in television as in the theater, they call the game.Naturally, the strike by the Writers Guild of America against film and television conglomerates — including Paramount, which presented the event on its various platforms — had no effect on what was produced on Broadway during the 2022-23 season honored by these Tonys, nor on who won.Mostly those things bore out the predictions, and many people’s predilections too. “Kimberly Akimbo,” the sweet, intimate, tragicomic “nerdical” by Jeanine Tesori and David Lindsay-Abaire, won the most musical prizes, including one for its star, Victoria Clark, and one for the show itself. “Some Like It Hot” followed with a reasonable haul, and though “Parade” picked up just two, they were good ones: best direction of a musical and best musical revival.Producers and members of the cast and crew of “Kimberly Akimbo,” which took home the prize for best musical.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesAmong the plays, “Leopoldstadt,” Tom Stoppard’s semi-autobiographical Holocaust drama, took the top awards, almost a foregone conclusion with that author and that subject — a subject he strangely did not mention in his acceptance. “Life of Pi,” a spectacular staging of the adventure novel by Yann Martel, fittingly won three technical awards, though I wish its astonishing tiger puppet had picked up one of the medallions in person, and perhaps eaten someone.Failing that, the only surprise, Sean Hayes’s win over Stephen McKinley Henderson in the leading actor category for plays, was not really that surprising, if a little disappointing.But since a little disappointment is normal, and probably desirable, all was comfy on the prize front. Perhaps too comfy. The pleasant predictability of the outcomes (and most of the performances) made the telecast, though once again divided awkwardly into two segments on separate Paramount platforms, seem canned, which is one thing we don’t want the Tonys to be. Leave that to programs that honor recorded performance, like the Oscars and the Emmys. The theater, a live medium, wants spontaneity and weirdness and even a taste of tackiness on its big night out.J. Harrison Ghee, the first out nonbinary performer to win a Tony for best lead actor in a musical.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesAlex Newell, the first out nonbinary performer to win a Tony for best featured actor in a musical.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesAs it happens, outness was a big theme, with J. Harrison Ghee and Alex Newell becoming the first openly nonbinary performers to win Tonys in acting categories. They were among the many winners and presenters who used their brief platforms to express support for diversity of all kinds: gender, orientation, race, religion, body type, ability, looks. But though heartening, that too was mostly dignified and predictable, except when the director Michael Arden turned a gay slur into a vector of vengeance upon winning for his staging of “Parade” and when the actress Denée Benton, introducing the education award to a teacher in Plantation, Fla., referred to Ron DeSantis as “the current Grand Wizard — I’m sorry, excuse me, governor” of her home state.For me, such vivid moments were striking exceptions in an even-tempered evening, if only for the brazenness of making political sentiments regardless of the risk of alienating some part of the audience that does not share them.Otherwise, the unscriptedness was a wash. Some performers offered banter that was just as inane as what writers usually provide. At one point, Julianne Hough, who with Skylar Astin hosted the first 90 minutes, on Pluto TV, ad-libbed, apropos of nothing, “When in doubt, shake it out.”Ariana DeBose, center, was the host of the main show.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesOn the other hand, the sententious segues and gassed-up encomiums to whatever B-list star was arriving onstage were eliminated. Near the evening’s end, the host of the main show, Ariana DeBose, seemed unable to read notes she had scribbled on her arm. “Please welcome whoever walks out on stage next,” she said.And the luck of her being a dancer meant that the lack of a purpose-written opening number could be finessed. Instead she performed a wordless choreographed sequence that also functioned as a tour of the spectacular United Palace theater in Manhattan’s Washington Heights neighborhood.Not that I saw DeBose do it. Paramount did not win any allies in the strike standoff by offering what felt like a deliberately confusing menu for streaming the evening’s events online. During the switchover from Pluto TV, on which I saw the first part, to Paramount+, on which I saw the second, I found myself (along with many others, who tweeted about it) misled into watching the 2022 awards show — also hosted by DeBose — for several minutes instead of this year’s.That it took so long for me to realize the problem says almost too much about the blandness and sameness of the Tonys under any circumstances. Even when writers aren’t striking, the tone is set by the people at the top of the credits crawl, who since 2003 have been Glenn Weiss and Ricky Kirshner of White Cherry Entertainment. (They also directed and produced the Oscars in March.) However competent they are at television, they do a mediocre job of presenting the excitement of live theater — and especially its excellence.When in doubt, shake it out. More

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      in Television

      The Tony Awards Are Sunday. Here’s How to Watch.

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      Here is all the information you’ll need to tune in on Sunday to the annual ceremony honoring Broadway’s top productions and performers.When are the Tony Awards? We’re so glad you asked!The Tony Awards, which each year honor the best plays and musicals staged on Broadway, are Sunday night.The main event, with lots of song-and-dance numbers between the prizes, is at 8 p.m. Eastern, and will be televised on CBS and streamed on Paramount+. And before that, starting at 6:30 p.m. Eastern, is a preshow at which a number of awards for creative work, such as design, will be handed out. That will stream on Pluto TV.This year is going to be different from the usual in several ways.First, the ceremony will take place in a new location: the United Palace, a former movie house in Washington Heights, which is one of Manhattan’s northernmost neighborhoods. The reasons for the move are predominantly financial; the United Palace proved much less expensive to rent than Radio City Music Hall, where the show often takes place.Second, screenwriters are on strike, and that strike initially threatened to disrupt the Tonys as it has disrupted other televised awards shows. In order to secure an agreement from the Writers Guild of America not to picket the telecast, the Tony Awards had to pledge not to use any scripted writing during the awards ceremony. The result is that there will be more singing, and less talking, than in normal years.Who’s hosting?The broadcast will be hosted for a second consecutive year by Ariana DeBose, who this year, because of the absence of writers, is expected to dance more and to make fewer jokes. She won an Academy Award last year for her performance in Steven Spielberg’s “West Side Story” remake, and she was nominated for a Tony Award in 2018 as one of three actresses playing Donna Summer in the jukebox musical “Summer.” This year’s Tonys preshow will be hosted by Julianne Hough (“POTUS”) and Skylar Astin (“Spring Awakening”).Who’s performing?Each of the five shows nominated for best musical will do a song — that’s “& Juliet,” “Kimberly Akimbo,” “New York, New York,” “Shucked” and “Some Like It Hot.” And all four shows nominated for best musical revival will also perform — that’s “Camelot,” “Into the Woods,” “Parade” and “Sweeney Todd.”But wait, there’s more! Lea Michele is going to lead a number from the revival of “Funny Girl” that opened a year ago. The cast of “A Beautiful Noise,” a jukebox musical about Neil Diamond, will also perform. And Joaquina Kalukango, one of last year’s Tony winners, will sing a song to accompany the In Memoriam segment.Why do the Tonys matter?Broadway is still struggling to recover from the lengthy coronavirus shutdown — attendance remains 17 percent below prepandemic levels — and producers view the Tony Awards as an important way to introduce a large audience to the newest shows.Also, the Tonys are a way to lift up theater as an art form, often boosting the careers of the artists involved. Wins and nominations help plays get staged at regional theaters and taught in colleges, and telecast performances help musicals sell tickets and tour.The Tony Awards, named for the actress and philanthropist Antoinette Perry, are presented by the Broadway League and the American Theater Wing. The winners are chosen by voters — there are 769 of them this year — who are mostly industry insiders: producers, investors, actors, writers, directors, designers and many others with theater-connected lives and livelihoods.This Sunday’s ceremony will be the 76th Tony Awards. More

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      in Television

      Mo Brings Plenty Was About to Quit Acting. Then Came ‘Yellowstone.’

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      The actor wasn’t satisfied with the Native representation he saw onscreen. Now he’s helping TV’s biggest drama get it right.In a scene from Season 3 of the hit neo-Western series “Yellowstone,” Mo, the steady right hand and loyal fixer of the Native American power broker Thomas Rainwater, lights some sage and lets the smoke waft through Rainwater’s office. They’re about to meet with Angela Blue Thunder (Q’orianka Kilcher), a hard-charging Native lawyer with a take-no-prisoners attitude toward going after the Montana ranch land owned by John Dutton (Kevin Costner).Angela contemptuously douses the sage with water, but Mo — played by the actor Mo Brings Plenty — with a “who is this person?” look on his face, relights it after she leaves, allowing his boss to breathe in some of its healing powers. The moment contains both seriousness and subtle humor.“In our culture, we use these items to cleanse the space and protect the mind,” Brings Plenty said in a recent video interview from Fort Worth, Texas, where “Yellowstone,” on Paramount Network, had its Season 5 premiere screening this month. “But burning sage and sweet grass has become a fad and has been culturally misappropriated,” he added, and those substances “are sacred to us.” For Brings Plenty, getting these details right is crucial.“On and off the set, Mo really tries to be a bridge connecting Indigenous people with our industry in film,” said Kilcher, who is of Indigenous South American heritage. “It’s amazing to see all the good work that he’s doing.”In a series that takes great care with its Native American characters and story lines, Brings Plenty keeps it as real as anyone. Onscreen he exudes a quiet strength, even when his character is executing some of the show’s frequently unsavory business. Offscreen he’s an adviser and a trusted confidante of the “Yellowstone” creator Taylor Sheridan and his creative team. He even wrangles horses.Playing a character who started off as Rainwater’s nameless driver, Brings Plenty has gradually become a regular presence, especially in episodes that involve Native rituals. At the end of Season 4, he conducts a hanbleceya, a sort of vision quest, for Kayce Dutton (Luke Grimes), a white character married to a Native American woman, Monica (Kelsey Asbille). In a moving scene from the most recent episode, which aired on Sunday, he oversees a burial ritual for the son that died at birth after Monica was in a car accident.From left, Gil Birmingham, Brings Plenty and Luke Grimes in Season 5.Paramount NetworkThat last sequence hit home for Brings Plenty, whose mother lost three infant sons when he was a child. “It was a powerful moment, and very real for me,” he said.Brings Plenty, 53, was born and raised on the Pine Ridge Reservation, in South Dakota — though his mother is from the Cheyenne River Reservation and he has relatives on the Rosebud Reservation, also both in South Dakota.“I spent time on all three reservations, so I always say I grew up in the Lakota Nation,” he said.His interest in acting dates back to the days when he would ask children on the reservation why they didn’t have more pride in their identity. The most common answer? They never saw themselves on TV.“So I thought, ‘How do I change that?’” he said. “Because I wasn’t on TV either.”He added: “The misrepresentation of us has been occurring for so long.” He saw an opportunity to be the change he wanted to see.He started in theater, worked his way into stunt riding (“I knew I could fall off a horse and take it”), then began landing supporting roles in film and television (“Hell on Wheels,” “The Revenant”).But just a few years ago, he was ready to pack it in and return to his ranch in Kansas. Appreciative of his opportunities, he wasn’t entirely satisfied with the Native representation he saw onscreen. He felt discouraged. He and his family agreed that he would wait until the end of the year to make a decision. That’s when “Yellowstone” came calling.Gil Birmingham, who plays Thomas Rainwater and has been friends with Brings Plenty for several years, likes to tell the story of how the character Mo got his name on the show. Sheridan had not given the character a name — he was just Rainwater’s driver — and during one of the many scenes between Birmingham and Brings Plenty, Birmingham called his old friend by his real name: “Mo”(short for Moses).“So Taylor decided that he was going to use that name for the character as well,” Birmingham said in a phone interview. “When Mo is out and about, it’s pretty funny because people tend to call you by your character name, and it happens to be his real name. There’s no distinction there for fans.”When fans do recognize Brings Plenty in public, it’s often because of his braids, which hang below his waist. As with most matters in Mo’s world, the braids carry cultural significance.“We wear two braids as men to honor the gifts of the women,” he said.“One strand” of each braid “represents the higher power,” he continued. “The second strand represents the Earth, which is also a physical being. The third strand represents our spirit. It’s a reminder that if we can live with that balance of all things, and we bring them all together, it makes a braid that is strong.”For Sheridan, Brings Plenty’s overriding quality is truthfulness.“There is a real honesty to Mo’s acting — a comfortable vulnerability,” Sheridan said in an email. “One of the great things about long-form storytelling is that it allows me to react to actors who really shine. Mo began as a co-star on the show, and now he is a series regular. That is how much his portrayal leapt from the screen.”“Mo brings a great stability and a great loyalty, and you just have a sense that you’re being protected and you’re safe with Mo around,” Birmingham says of Brings Plenty’s character. Barrett Emke for The New York TimesThe dynamics among the Native American characters on the broadly drawn “Yellowstone” are probably the show’s most nuanced. Thomas Rainwater, the most prominent Native character, did not grow up on the reservation; he is a suit-and-tie-wearing graduate of Harvard Business School who applies his knowledge to his duties as chairman of the Confederated Tribes of Broken Rock. Mo did grow up on the reservation; one could argue that he operates closer to the culture than his boss. Angela Blue Thunder is also from the reservation, and she has scores to settle with the Dutton family.They all have one thing in common: They want the land that they see as rightfully theirs — and that the Duttons fiercely protect as their own.“Mo brings a great cultural anchoring, and a perspective that tries to balance out the kind of world that Thomas Rainwater is operating in — that is, a system of laws and paradigms that aren’t familiar for, or operated by, the Native people,” Birmingham said of Brings Plenty’s character. “Mo brings a great stability and a great loyalty, and you just have a sense that you’re being protected and you’re safe with Mo around.”These are heady times for Native American representation on television, with a great quantity and range of characters and stories. “Dark Winds,” on AMC +, follows two Navajo policemen investigating a mysterious double murder. ABC’s “Alaska Daily,” about the doings of a scrappy Anchorage newspaper, shines a light on the crisis of murdered and missing Indigenous women, a subject also featured on “Yellowstone” and in Sheridan’s 2017 film “Wind River” (its cast includes Birmingham and Asbille of “Yellowstone”). Hulu’s “Reservation Dogs,” a droll comedy about four teenagers growing up on an Oklahoma reservation, won a prestigious Peabody Award.“‘Yellowstone’ was the catalyst to make room, to give space and inspiration for others to get involved with Native stories and give Native people opportunities,” Brings Plenty said. “We’ve often been left behind, but the way I see it and understand it, Taylor Sheridan said: ‘Come on, let’s go. That’s enough of you guys being back there. Let’s bring you up to the forefront.’”Sheridan says it’s a matter of accuracy.“One cannot accurately tell the story of the West without telling the story of the original inhabitants of the region,” he said. “Sure, ‘Yellowstone’ is highly dramatized, but the story lines are all rooted in truth. To ignore the impact of our settlement on Native people is to tell half the story. And the Native American half has been habitually ignored by the entertainment industry. We don’t ignore it. We look right at it.”For Brings Plenty, it’s all about honoring his culture and his ancestors — not just other Lakota, but all Native Americans.“My grandparents, they always said: ‘Speak Indian. Dance Indian. Sing Indian,’” he said. “They never said, ‘Speak Lakota’ — everything was Indian. So we try to remember those teachings and pass them on.” More

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      in Movies

      ‘Beavis and Butt-Head’ Was the ’90s Cartoon That Mattered

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      It doesn’t make best-of lists, but the series, then and now, was always much smarter than its characters, and it didn’t try too hard. Sorry, Bart Simpson.When “Beavis and Butt-Head” premiered in spring 1993, “The Simpsons” was finishing up what many now consider not just its greatest season, but perhaps the greatest ever. Beloved by critics and comedy nerds, it was producing classic episodes like “Marge vs. the Monorail” (written by Conan O’Brien), building a reputation that earned it second place on a recent Rolling Stone list of the 100 greatest shows in history. “Beavis and Butt-Head” didn’t make the cut.Yet if you talked to me back then, I would have told you with sniggering teenage confidence that the critically ignored “Beavis and Butt-Head,” a crudely drawn cartoon about two idiots chuckling over music videos, was clearly better. This was no provocation but a considered take — one I don’t regret. Can I explain why Beavis pulling his T-shirt over his blond bouffant and declaring himself the Great Cornholio made me laugh louder than anything Bart Simpson has ever done? No, but it’s true. Sometimes life (and thus comedy) is stupid.Mike Judge, who created the cartoon along with directing cult movies like “Idiocracy” and “Office Space,” is a master of the moronic. It’s why Paramount+ made a major investment in his dormant animated creation, putting old seasons online while rolling out a solid new movie, “Beavis and Butt-Head Do the Universe,” and an even better rebooted series that captures just enough of the original delirious spirit to make you want to imitate the old catchphrases. (“Are you threatening me?” “Fire! Fire!”)This is part of a broader corporate strategy playing on the nostalgic impulses of those of us raised on a steady diet of MTV and VH1. There’s a reunion of the original two casts of “The Real World” (takeaway: time heals few wounds) and a revival of “Behind the Music.” While the reality and music-documentary genres have grown plentiful enough to make those shows seem unnecessary, “Beavis and Butt-Head” remains singular. Its new version includes the title characters as teenagers, but also a few episodes depicting them in middle age, and they all hit comic notes ‌with moseying cadences you can’t find elsewhere.The film “Beavis and Butt-Head Do the Universe” is among the new Paramount+ offerings.Paramount+“Beavis and Butt-Head” was always much smarter than its characters, but it resonated with young people because it pulled this off without trying to appeal to their parents. Most ambitious animation, including Pixar movies, tries this trick of telling jokes for one generation layered with references for another. It can be done well, but there’s a price, because kids can tell when you’re talking over their heads. Mike Judge would never smuggle in a satire of Gilbert and Sullivan, as “The Simpsons” did, and his plotting was pointedly indifferent. What mattered to him was capturing the language and attitude of a specific kind of bored, nihilistic boy. As it happens, he also created one of the most memorable acerbic girls of the era, Daria, who started on “Beavis and Butt-Head” before getting her own show.When Butt-Head tittered at a vaguely sexual-sounding word (“He said ‘hanging’”), it was juvenile but familiar. So was the perspective that identified some things that were cool (explosions, lizards, breaking stuff), others that sucked (college, words, alt rock) and nothing in between. When television children were still speaking in zingers, these guys were defiantly inarticulate. In the rare moments that Beavis made a point eloquently, Butt-Head slapped him. But there was a catchy music to their stammering (the way Butt-Head said “hey baby” sticks in the mind), betraying an unmistakable love of the sound of words.Judge’s dialogue was most famous for its steady bass line of grunting laughter. This only seemed stylized. There’s much more laughing in the real world than in our entertainment, most of it not a response to a joke. “Beavis and Butt-Head” was the only show that reflected this.The series belonged to the last decade when sneering at television, and those who watch it, was a respectable prejudice. It’s tempting to say the show came about before the culture war politicized everything, but “Beavis and Butt-Head” was actually a magnet for criticism and moralizing. Controversies about viewers imitating the cartoon were of great interest to journalists but seemed ridiculous to fans. Who would want to be like Beavis, the sycophant forever trying and failing to “score” with girls? Or his alpha pal in braces?Judge satirized liberal teachers and hypocritical authority figures, but his primary source of mockery were the title characters, who spent entire episodes trying and failing to pull off the prank of ringing someone’s doorbell and running way. The heart of the show was them watching and commenting on music videos, a form no serious critic spent much time on. And while it was not the first pop culture product to regularly portray characters analyzing other pop culture products (“Mystery Science Theater 3000” premiered earlier), a big part of the humor of “Beavis and Butt-Head,” particularly for a budding critic like myself, was essentially watching the performance of criticism.The original series satirized authority figures and its own stars alike.MTV, via Everett CollectionThe boys could be withering, as when Butt-Head asked of an Amy Grant video, “Is this a Clearasil commercial?” And they could surprise you, as when they were won over by the Bee Gees. Judge realized years before Jon Stewart did on “The Daily Show” that showing something absurd, then making a face, is all you need for television comedy. Music videos matter less today, but certain themes from the show are only more relevant. In a running joke from the beginning of the series, nothing seemed real or important to these guys unless it was on a screen — even moments you would expect them to find hilarious, like walking in on the principal getting spanked.The reboot, now called “Mike Judge’s Beavis and Butt-Head,” drills down on this point and updates the content they critique to include TikTok videos, YouTube how-tos and A.S.M.R. footage.The new show’s look is a mite slicker and the comic situations are set up and executed better, including Episode 1 in which Beavis and Butt-Head mistake an escape room’s bathroom for the place they need to escape. When Butt-Head stares into a toilet, sticks a finger in the air and says: “Now why would someone put a turd in a toilet?” you know the rightful stupidity has been preserved. It’s also a nice surprise to see the new show understand that there are more laughs to be had from Beavis repeating the word “manslaughter” than from any clever joke.But the writers can’t help but jack up the ambition. Butt-Head takes antidepressants (his new gentle laugh is disconcerting) and imagines an alternative universe where Beavis and Butt-Head are smart. In a religion-themed episode, Beavis sees Jesus Christ in a nacho. Seeing what happens to these delinquents in middle age is perhaps inevitably dark, with Beavis, in pants (the horror), sounding like a MAGA fan, albeit one too clueless to vote. Shoehorning Beavis and Butt-Head into a “12 Angry Men” satire is an amusing premise but feels like something “The Simpsons” would do. There are signs of strain.One of the most telling moments in the original show came when Butt-Head spotted a guy in a video and asked, “Is that that Christian Slater dude?” Beavis tried a pun: “It’s like, uh, Christians? Later, dude.” Butt-Head responded with disdain: “Beavis, quit trying to be funny. It never works.”To Butt-Head, nothing sucks more than trying. On this point, teenage affectation and a certain philosophy of wit overlap. Mike Judge understood that while comedy is hard work, hard work isn’t funny. Butt-Head would probably agree, chuckle, then add, “You said ‘hard.’” More

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      in Television

      41 TV Shows to Watch This Fall

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      Noteworthy premieres include new seasons of buzzy hits (“Abbott Elementary,” “The Handmaid’s Tale”), reboots and revivals (“Quantum Leap,” “Willow”) and more.The fall television season got off to an early start this year with the arrival of the dueling franchise extensions and hopeful blockbusters, “House of the Dragon” on HBO and “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power” on Amazon Prime Video. But TV’s vast landscape offers a lot more than expensively produced, effects-laden fantasy. From the relatable delights of “Abbott Elementary” to the highly specific hilarity of “Documentary Now!,” here are some noteworthy fall premieres, arranged in chronological order.All dates are subject to change.THE SERPENT QUEEN The story of Catherine de’ Medici, the 16th-century queen of France, in a satirical, talking-to-the-camera 21st-century telling, with Samantha Morton and Liv Hill as Catherine and a large cast, including Charles Dance, Colm Meaney and Ludivine Sagnier, as the clerics and aristocrats who underestimate her at their peril. Starz, Sept. 11.THE JENNIFER HUDSON SHOW The success of daytime talk-show hosts is notoriously hard to predict, and whether Hudson will have the right skill set and personality for the role is about to be seen. But she immediately becomes the most talented singer and actress in the field, for what that’s worth. Syndicated, Sept. 12.THE HANDMAID’S TALE This bleak allegory and nonlinear-TV pioneer — the first streaming show to win an Emmy for outstanding drama series — soldiers into its fifth season, with June (Elisabeth Moss) quickly coming down from the cathartic high of Season 4’s bloody conclusion. Hulu, Sept. 14.Elisabeth Moss in “The Handmaid’s Tale,” returning for its fifth season on Sept. 14.HuluATLANTA After a third season, ending in May, that was quietly received — and that dropped more than half of the show’s previous broadcast audience — Donald Glover’s prickly comedy quickly returns for a fourth and final go-round. FX, Sept. 15.THE U.S. AND THE HOLOCAUST Ken Burns, directing with Lynn Novick and Sarah Botstein, devotes six hours to an uncomfortable chapter of American history with an alarmingly familiar backdrop of racism and xenophobia. PBS, Sept. 18.QUANTUM LEAP Raymond Lee (the sympathetic diner owner in “Kevin Can F**k Himself”) plays a new time-jumping do-gooder in this reboot of the early-90s sci-fi series. The Quantum Leap project is restarted and the original hero, Sam Beckett, is still missing, so a Scott Bakula guest appearance seems pretty much preordained. NBC, Sept. 19.PARIS POLICE 1900 In the spirit of “Babylon Berlin,” this period policier sets standard crime drama against a vivid historical backdrop: the Dreyfus affair, organized and violent antisemitism, the rise of the pioneering lawyer Jeanne Chauvin (Eugenie Derouand) and the sometimes deadly career of the Parisian courtesan Marguerite Steinheil (Evelyne Brochu). MHz Choice, Sept. 20.REBOOT Steven Levitan, who grabbed the network-sitcom brass ring with “Just Shoot Me!” and “Modern Family,” indulges in some gentle self-parody. Judy Greer, Keegan-Michael Key and Johnny Knoxville play the cast of a hacky early-aughts family comedy who reunite for a new version written by a young woman (Rachel Bloom of “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend”) who is strangely obsessed with the original show. Hulu, Sept. 20.ABBOTT ELEMENTARY Quinta Brunson’s sitcom about struggling teachers at a Philadelphia elementary school, a breakout hit in the spring and an Emmy nominee for best comedy series, embarks on its second season. ABC, Sept. 21.Lisa Ann Walter, left, and Sheryl Lee Ralph in “Abbott Elementary,” returning for its second season on Sept. 21, on ABC.Scott Everett White/ABCANDOR Tony Gilroy has more on his résumé than a writing credit for “Rogue One,” and it looks as if his new “Star Wars” series might incorporate some of the real-world grit he displayed a feel for in the Bourne movies. That would be a good thing, though don’t tell it to your friend with the lightsaber collection. Disney+, Sept. 21.REASONABLE DOUBT Kerry Washington is an executive producer and a director of this legal melodrama created by Raamla Mohamed, who was a writer and producer on Washington’s breakthrough series, “Scandal.” Emayatzy Corinealdi plays a high-rent, high-stress Los Angeles lawyer whose conscience begins to bite her in the first scripted series from Disney’s Onyx Collective brand for creators of color. Hulu, Sept. 27.THE DARK HEART Gustav Möller, director of the Swedish film “The Guilty” (remade in America starring Jake Gyllenhaal), oversaw this five-part thriller inspired by real events. A woman who manages a civilian search team for missing persons takes on the case of a landowner and lumber baron who alienated a lot of people, including his ambitious daughter, before he disappeared. Topic, Sept. 29.SO HELP ME TODD A quirky-funny mystery series — in the long lineage of “Monk” — starring Marcia Gay Harden as a Type-A lawyer and Skylar Astin as her son, who’s better at investigating than he is at adulting. CBS, Sept. 29.Marcia Gay Harden stars in “So Help Me Todd,” premiering Sept. 29 on CBS.Michael Courtney/CBSANNE RICE’S INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE AMC takes its first step toward an Anne Rice universe, under the aegis of the veteran producer Mark Johnson (“Better Call Saul”). Jacob Anderson, the eunuch warrior Grey Worm in “Game of Thrones,” plays Louis, the Brad Pitt role from the movie version; Sam Reid steps in for Tom Cruise as Lestat; and the newcomer Bailey Bass, soon to be seen in several “Avatar” sequels, replaces Kirsten Dunst as the child vampire, Claudia. AMC, Oct. 2.EAST NEW YORK William Finkelstein, a creator of this cop drama, spent the 1990s and early 2000s writing and producing for a good roster of shows: “L.A. Law,” “Murder One,” “Brooklyn South,” “Law & Order” and “NYPD Blue.” On the other hand, he also created “Cop Rock” with Steven Bochco. Amanda Warren (the mayor in “The Leftovers”) plays a new precinct boss in the Brooklyn neighborhood of the title, heading a cast that includes Jimmy Smits, Richard Kind and Ruben Santiago-Hudson. CBS, Oct. 2.THE WALKING DEAD There was a time — and it was only six years ago — when “The Walking Dead” was drawing more than 12 million viewers an episode and the death of a major character was Monday morning news. Now more important as intellectual property than as weekly storytelling, the original series shuffles to the finish line with its final eight episodes. AMC, Oct. 2.Norman Reedus in AMC’s “The Walking Dead,” returning for its final season on Oct. 2.Jace Downs/AMCMAKING BLACK AMERICA: THROUGH THE GRAPEVINE Henry Louis Gates Jr. explores the codes, networks and private societies that Black Americans have created “behind the veil” of the color line in a four-part documentary series. PBS, Oct. 4.ALASKA DAILY Tom McCarthy, who made one of the best newspaper dramas of our time in the film “Spotlight,” created this series about an abrasive reporter (Hilary Swank) who gets canceled in New York and takes a job in Anchorage, lured by a story about the deaths of Indigenous women. The presence of Jeff Perry as her new boss probably isn’t the only thing that will remind you of the shows of the ABC stalwart Shonda Rhimes. ABC, Oct. 6.A FRIEND OF THE FAMILY Anna Paquin and Colin Hanks star in this true-crime mini-series as the parents of the actress Jan Broberg, who was kidnapped when she was 12 and again when she was 14 by the same family friend (played by Jake Lacy). The bizarre story has also been told in the 2017 feature documentary “Abducted in Plain Sight.” Peacock, Oct. 6.Jake Lacy and Anna Paquin in the Peacock mini-series “A Friend of the Family.”PeacockPENNYWORTH: THE ORIGIN OF BATMAN’S BUTLER This stylish “Batman” prequel series, about the former special-forces soldier who will one day be Bruce Wayne’s butler (as the show’s awkward new title makes clear), leaves Epix for a platform closer to its DC Comics roots. Season 3 also mostly leaves behind the alt-history British civil war that occupied the first two installments, jumping ahead five years and introducing superheroes. HBO Max, Oct. 6.LET THE RIGHT ONE IN John Ajvide Lindqvist’s ultra-bleak 2004 novel about a child vampire keeps circulating through the culture: It has inspired films, plays, a comic book and a TV pilot, with Thomas Kretschmann, that wasn’t picked up. Now the story makes it to TV with Demián Bichir as the father of the girl vampire (Madison Taylor Baez) who’s forever 12. Showtime, online Oct. 7, cable Oct. 9.THE MIDNIGHT CLUB The latest from Mike Flanagan, whose atmospheric horror series (“The Haunting of Hill House,” “Midnight Mass”) have won a following on Netflix. Heather Langenkamp plays the doctor at a hospice where the patients like to tell one another scary stories. Netflix, Oct. 7.BECOMING FREDERICK DOUGLASS The documentarian Stanley Nelson (“Attica,” “Freedom Riders”) fills in some important chapters in his epic yet quotidian history of Black life in America with this film and with “Harriet Tubman: Visions of Freedom” (Oct. 4), both directed by Nelson and Nicole London. PBS, Oct. 11.CHAINSAW MAN Anticipation is running high in the anime world for the MAPPA animation studio’s adaptation of “Chainsaw Man,” a dark-comic, body-horror manga about a young devil hunter with a deadly appendage. Crunchyroll, Oct. 11.SHERWOOD The cast of this BBC mystery series is a lengthy British-TV who’s who: David Morrissey, Lesley Manville, Claire Rushbrook, Philip Jackson, Joanne Froggatt, Terence Maynard, Kevin Doyle, Robert Glenister, Clare Holman, Lorraine Ashbourne, Adeel Akhtar, Pip Torrens and Mark Addy, among others. Morrissey is the detective investigating a bow-and-arrow murder in Robin Hood’s old Nottinghamshire haunts that brings up hatreds from a 1980s miners’ strike. BritBox, Oct. 11.THE WINCHESTERS Jensen Ackles returns to the “Supernatural” universe, reassuming his role as the monster hunter Dean Winchester in this prequel series. This time Dean, in a supporting role, is tracking down the real story of the younger days of his mother and father (Meg Donnelly and Drake Rodger), which sounds like a good strategy for avoiding pesky continuity questions. CW, Oct. 11Drake Rodger and Meg Donnelly in “The Winchesters,” premiering Oct. 11 on the CW.Matt Miller/CWDOCUMENTARY NOW! One of TV’s greatest pleasures returns after a more than three-year hiatus. The fourth season, hosted, as always, by Dame Helen Mirren, will include sendups of “My Octopus Teacher,” “The September Issue,” “When We Were Kings” and Werner Herzog’s “Burden of Dreams.” IFC, Oct. 19.FROM SCRATCH Zoe Saldana stars in a mini-series that crosses cultures — a Black American woman falls in love with a Sicilian chef during her Wanderjahr in Italy — and genres, mixing picturesque Euroromance and sorrowful survivor’s tale. Netflix, Oct. 21.THE PERIPHERAL Scott B. Smith, who wrote the screenplay (based on his own novel) of the excellent 1998 thriller “A Simple Plan,” is the creator and showrunner of this series based on a dystopian, alternate-futures mystery by William Gibson; Chloë Grace Moretz stars; and Lisa Joy and Jonathan Nolan are among the executive producers. That’s an awful lot of bleak-noir experience. Amazon Prime Video, Oct. 21.GUILLERMO DEL TORO’S CABINET OF CURIOSITIES Del Toro takes on the Alfred Hitchcock role, playing master of ceremonies for an eight-episode horror anthology. (A previous title included the words “Guillermo del Toro Presents.”) The first season’s directors include Jennifer Kent (“The Babadook”), Catherine Hardwicke (“Twilight”) and Ana Lily Amirpour (“A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night”). Netflix, Oct. 25.SHERMAN’S SHOWCASE Diallo Riddle and Bashir Salahuddin’s consistently clever, stealthily sophisticated, unabashedly nostalgic sendup of old-school variety shows finally returns for a second season. IFC, Oct. 26.Bashir Salahuddin, foreground, in “Sherman’s Showcase,” returning for its second season on Oct. 26, on IFC.Michael Moriatis/IFCTRUE CRIME STORY: INDEFENSIBLE Back for a second season, the comedian Jena Friedman applies the adversarial techniques of topical late-night humor to the true-crime genre, in 20-minute episodes that are less investigations — the facts of the cases are generally pretty plain, at least in Friedman’s eyes — than expressions of darkly comic outrage. SundanceTV, Oct. 27.BIG MOUTH Since Nick Kroll broke the third-dimensional wall in the Season 5 finale and had a heart-to-heart with his animated character, Nick Birch, will any of his castmates get to follow suit in the sixth season of this raunchy paean to puberty? The real-life John Mulaney would probably have some interesting things to say to his animated counterpart, randy Andy Glouberman. Netflix, Oct. 28.MANIFEST A hit in reruns on Netflix after being canceled by NBC, this paranormal mystery-melodrama gets a fourth and final season at its streaming home. Netflix, Nov. 4.DANGEROUS LIAISONS This new adaptation of the Choderlos de Laclos novel was announced nearly a decade ago, with Christopher Hampton, who had already based a play and a film on the novel, attached as writer once again. Hampton didn’t remain as the writer — he gets an executive producer credit — but the mini-series has arrived billed as the “origin story” of the Marquise de Merteuil and the Vicomte de Valmont. Apparently they weren’t always jaded monsters. Starz, Nov. 6.MOOD Like Phoebe Waller-Bridge (“Fleabag”) and Michaela Coel (“Chewing Gum”) before her, Nicole Lecky turns a hit one-woman play into a buzzy British TV series. She plays Sasha, a broke and unemployed young Londoner who finds herself in the potentially lucrative and liberating — and also potentially exploitative and dangerous — world of the influencer economy. BBC America, Nov. 6.Nicole Lecky in “Mood,” premiering Nov. 6 on BBC America.Natalie Seery/BBC Studios, via Bonafide FilmsTULSA KING On the same night that Tyler Sheridan’s flagship show, “Yellowstone,” begins its fifth season, his portfolio of manly genre dramas grows with the addition of this mash-up of gangster story and neo-western. It’s also Sheridan’s latest action-hero reclamation project: Sylvester Stallone stars as a Mafia capo sent to oversee operations in the foreign territory of Tulsa, Okla. Paramount+, Nov. 13.LIMITLESS WITH CHRIS HEMSWORTH Deploying the charm he brings to his depiction of the Norse god Thor for Marvel, Hemsworth headlines a wellness-and-longevity documentary series for Marvel’s corporate parent, Disney. (The sound of his unadulterated Australian accent makes him even more charming, if that’s possible.) Subjects like how to deal with stress and the value of fasting are addressed with superheroic energy. Disney+, Nov. 16.WELCOME TO CHIPPENDALES Robert Siegel, fresh off “Pam & Tommy,” and Jenni Konner of “Girls” are the showrunners of a mini-series starring Kumail Nanjiani as Steve Banerjee, the unlikely and eventually ill-fated founder of a male-stripping colossus. Hulu, Nov. 22.WILLOW Ron Howard’s 1988 fantasy film “Willow” is not the first piece of intellectual property anyone would have predicted for a reboot, but when George Lucas is involved — he received “story by” credit on the film — anything can happen. Lucasfilm and Howard’s Imagine Entertainment are producing this sequel series; Warwick Davis, now 52, returns as the title character. Maybe Willow will be a more consistent spell caster than he was as a teenager. Disney+, Nov. 30.Warwick Davis in “Willow,” premiering Nov. 30 on Disney+.Lucasfilm/Disney+THE ADVENTURES OF SAUL BELLOW Asaf Galay’s documentary, an “American Masters” offering, recruits wives, children and innocent bystanders to talk about being the real-life sources of Bellow’s books. Meanwhile, fellow novelists and critics like Charles Johnson, Salman Rushdie, Stanley Crouch and, in what may have been his last interview, a captivating Philip Roth certify or question Bellow’s place in the American pantheon. PBS, Dec. 12.And if all that isn’t enough for you, these new and returning shows are also coming this fall (new shows in bold):Sept. 11: “Monarch,” Fox; Sept. 12: “War of the Worlds,” Epix; Sept. 13: “The Come Up,” Freeform; Sept. 15: “La Otra Mirada,” PBS; “Vampire Academy,” Peacock; “The Light in the Hall,” Sundance Now; Sept. 16: “Los Espookys,” HBO; Sept. 18: “60 Minutes,” CBS; “SEAL Team,” Paramount+; Sept. 19: “Bob Hearts Abishola,” “NCIS,” “NCIS: Hawai’i,” “The Neighborhood,” CBS; “9-1-1,” “The Cleaning Lady,” Fox; Sept. 20: “FBI,” “FBI: International,” “FBI: Most Wanted,” CBS; “The Resident,” Fox; “New Amsterdam,” NBC; Sept. 21: “The Conners,” “The Goldbergs,” “Home Economics,” “Big Sky,” ABC; “Survivor,” “The Amazing Race,” CBS; “Chicago Fire,” “Chicago Med,” “Chicago P.D.,” NBC; Sept. 22: “The Kardashians,” Hulu; “Law & Order,” “Law & Order: Organized Crime,” “Law & Order: SVU,” NBC; “Thai Cave Rescue,” Netflix; Sept. 23: “Who’s Talking to Chris Wallace,” HBO Max; Sept. 24: “Finding Happy,” Bounce; Sept. 25: “The Rookie,” ABC; “The Simpsons,” “The Great North,” “Bob’s Burgers,” “Family Guy,” Fox; “Van der Valk,” PBS; Sept. 27: “The Rookie: Feds,” ABC; “La Brea,” NBC; “Mighty Ducks: Game Changers,” Disney+; Sept. 28: “The D’Amelio Show,” Hulu; Sept. 29: “Young Sheldon,” “Ghosts,” “CSI: Vegas,” CBS; “Welcome to Flatch,” “Call Me Kat,” Fox; “Dragons Rescue Riders: Heroes of the Sky,” Peacock; Sept. 30: “Ramy,” Hulu; Oct. 2: “The Equalizer,” CBS: “Family Law,” “The Coroner,” CW: Oct. 3: “The Good Doctor,” ABC: Oct. 5: “Kung Fu,” CW: “Reginald the Vampire,” Syfy; “Chucky,” Syfy/USA; Oct. 6: “Grey’s Anatomy,” “Station 19,” ABC; “Walker, Independence,” “Walker” CW; Oct. 7: “The Problem With Jon Stewart,” Apple TV+; “Fire Country,” “Blue Bloods,” “SWAT,” CBS; Oct. 9: “NCIS: Los Angeles,” CBS; “Secrets of the Dead,” PBS; Oct. 10: “All American,” “All American: Homecoming,” CW; Oct. 11: “Professionals,” CW; Oct. 14: “Shantaram,” Apple TV+; Oct. 16: “Magpie Murders,” “Miss Scarlet and the Duke,” PBS; Oct. 20: “One of Us Is Lying,” Peacock; Oct. 21: “Acapulco,” Apple TV+; Oct. 26: “Mysterious Benedict Society” Disney+; Nov. 3: “Blockbuster,” Netflix; “The Capture,” Peacock; “The Suspect,” Sundance Now; “Kold x Windy,” WE; Nov. 4: “Lopez vs. Lopez,” “Young Rock,” NBC; Nov. 9: “Zootopia+,” Disney+; Nov. 10: “The Calling,” Peacock; Nov. 11: “The English,” Amazon Prime Video; Nov. 13: “Yellowstone,” Paramount; Nov. 18: “The L Word: Generation Q,” Showtime; “Planet Sex With Clara Delevingne,” Hulu; Nov. 23: “Pitch Perfect: Bumper in Berlin,” Peacock; Nov. 30: “Irreverent,” Peacock; Dec. 1: “Wicked City,” “Hush,” AllBlk; Dec. 22: “The Best Man: The Final Chapters,” Peacock. 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      September 2022: What’s New on Amazon, Hulu, Apple TV+ and More

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      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.)Morfydd Clark and Benjamin Walker, center, in “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power.”Amazon StudiosNew to Amazon Prime‘The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power’ Season 1Starts streaming: Sept. 1When J.R.R. Tolkien died, the author of “The Hobbit” and “The Lord of the Rings” left behind thousands of pages of partial stories and detailed notes, which collectively expanded on the history of his fictional Middle Earth and its surrounding lands, across many cycles of war and peace. The expensive Prime Video series “The Rings of Power” — which could cost around a billion dollars by the time its planned five-season run ends — draws on some of those stray Tolkien tales as the inspiration for an epic saga set thousands of years before “The Hobbit,” at a time when the world’s different races formed wary alliances in an effort to thwart the dark power of Sauron. The show maintains the bright look and sense of wonder that made Peter Jackson’s “Lord of the Rings” movies so popular, though the large cast and varied settings also recall “Game of Thrones.”Also arriving:Sept. 9“Flight/Risk”Sept. 16“Goodnight Mommy”Sept. 21“Prisma”Sept. 23“September Mornings”Sept. 30“Jungle” Season 1“My Best Friend’s Exorcism”Maddie, voiced by Katie Chang, and David, voiced by Daniel Dae Kim, in the animated series “Pantheon.”Titmouse Inc/AMCNew to AMC+‘Pantheon’ Season 1Starts streaming: Sept. 1The acclaimed Chinese American science fiction and fantasy author Ken Liu is known for stories that consider ordinary human lives and relationships in the context of pulpy scenarios that are not too far removed from reality. The animated series “Pantheon” combines multiple Liu short stories into one interconnected drama. At the show’s center is a troubled teen named Maddie (voiced by Katie Chang) who receives advice on the internet from someone who may be her late father (Daniel Dad Kim) living on in the cloud as an “uploaded intelligence.” Her situation swells into a broader crisis, keyed to the potential dangers of a future where people’s lives feel “realer” online than in physical reality.Also arriving:Sept. 2“Rubikon”Sept. 9“There Are No Saints”Sept. 16“Official Competition”Sept. 23“Section 8”Sept. 30“Sissy”Sidney Poitier as seen in the documentary “Sidney.”Apple TV+New to Apple TV+‘Sidney’Starts streaming: Sept. 23The actor Sidney Poitier, who died earlier this year at 94, set a standard of excellence that placed him among the all-time greats. The documentary “Sidney” (directed by Reginald Hudlin for Oprah Winfrey’s production company Harpo) covers Poitier’s life from his childhood in the Bahamas through his rapid rise in the theater and then in Hollywood at a time when the opportunities for Black actors were slim. The film features an impressive slate of A-list actors and directors — plus one of the final interviews with the man himself — all explaining how Poitier’s influence as an artist and as a Civil Rights pioneer continues to endure.Also arriving:Sept. 9“Central Park” Season 3“Gutsy”Sept. 30“The Greatest Beer Run Ever”Diego Luna as the title character in the new Stars Wars series “Andor.”Disney+New to Disney+‘Cars on the Road’Starts streaming: Sept. 8The “Cars” crew is among the most popular of Pixar’s creations, inspiring three feature films, a spinoff franchise (“Planes”) and countless toys, games and theme park attractions. The new series “Cars on the Road” sends the champion racer Lightning McQueen (voiced by Owen Wilson) and his tow-truck buddy Mater (Larry the Cable Guy) on a trip across the country, parceled out across nine short episodes that more or less add up to an hourlong “Cars” mini-movie. Unlike the grander big-screen adventures, these little eight-minute morsels are comic vignettes, set in a variety of locations and always rooted in the unlikely bond between these two mismatched pals.‘Andor’ Season 1Starts streaming: Sept. 21The latest addition to the “Star Wars” TV universe is a prequel to a prequel, filling in the backstory of one of the major characters from the 2016 movie “Rogue One” — and, in the process, fleshing out more of the pre-“A New Hope” saga of the Rebel Alliance’s rise as a legitimate challenge to the dominance of the Galactic Empire. Diego Luna reprises his role as Cassian Andor, a cynical crook with a tragic past, who is persuaded to use his talents for deception and thievery to aid the Rebel cause. The 12-episode first season will be followed later by an already in-the-works 12-episode second season, which will take “Andor” all the way up to to the part of the “Star Wars” timeline where “Rogue One” begins.Also arriving:Sept. 8“Epic Adventures with Bertie Gregory” Season 1“Growing Up” Season 1“Pinocchio”“Remembering”“Tierra Incognita”Sept. 16“Mija”Sept. 19“Dancing with the Stars” Season 31Sept. 21“Super/Natural” Season 1Sept. 28“The Mighty Ducks: Game Changers” Season 2Sept. 30“Hocus Pocus 2”From left, Fred Armisen, Ana Fabrega, Julio Torres, Bernardo Velasco and Cassandra Ciangherotti in the second season of “Los Espookys.”HBONew to HBO Max‘Los Espookys’ Season 2Starts streaming: Sept. 16For their unclassifiable “Los Espookys,” the creators Julio Torres, Ana Fabrega and Fred Armisen have brought a gently surreal comic sensibility to the weird adventures of a horror-loving theater troupe in a fictional Latin American country. Torres and Fabrega play two members of the troupe, Andrés and Tati, who alongside their visionary leader Renaldo (Bernardo Velasco) and their more pragmatic partner Úrsula (Cassandra Ciangherotti) hire themselves out to people looking for someone to provide realistic haunted house effects. Season 1 introduced this eccentric crew and featured subplots with Renaldo’s Uncle Tico (Armisen), a valet parking attendant who lives in Hollywood. It’s hard to predict what’s in store for Season 2, given that the first run featured such a unique mix of supernatural fantasy and low-key hangout comedy.Also arriving:Sept. 17“Secret Origin of the Batwheels”Sept. 21“Escape from Kabul”Sept. 22“The Hype” Season 2Sept. 28“Hostages”Rachel Bloom, left, and Krista Marie Yu in Hulu’s show-within-a-show comedy “Reboot.”Michael Desmond/HuluNew to Hulu‘Reboot’ Season 1Starts streaming: Sept. 20This inside-Hollywood farce pokes fun at the modern phenomenon of streaming services and TV networks reviving classic shows. “Reboot” is about a neurotic writer (Rachel Bloom) who sells Hulu an edgy update of a long-cancelled family sitcom, but then discovers that the original showrunner (Paul Reiser) still has the rights to make new episodes. The show-within-the-show’s cast members — Keegan-Michael Key, Judy Greer and Johnny Knoxville — encourage the old guard and the new to work together to bring some heat back to their own flagging careers. The veteran TV writer Steven Levitan (“Modern Family”) created “Reboot,” drawing on his own years in the complicated business of making “comfort” comedies that are equal parts funny and true.‘Ramy’ Season 3Starts streaming: Sept. 28In Season 2 of the comedian Ramy Youssef’s semi-autobiographical dramedy, his title character tried hard to straighten out his life by recommitting himself to his Muslim faith and even pursuing a traditional marriage. Then all of Ramy’s plans fell apart, leaving him with a choice at the end of the finale: to stay on the righteous path he had been on, or to backslide. The belated Season 3 will pick up that larger story, about one man’s attempts to balance his interest in religious traditions with the pleasures of a secular American life. “Ramy” will also continue to spend time with the character’s eclectic batch of friends and family members, who face traumas and hangups of their own.Also arriving:Sept. 1“The Mighty Ones” Season 3Sept. 7“Grid” Season 1“Tell Me Lies”Sept. 8“Wedding Season” Season 1“The Zone: Survival Mission” Season 1Sept. 14“The Handmaid’s Tale” Season 5Sept. 16“Atlanta” Season 4Sept. 19“Best in Dough” Season 1Sept. 22“The Kardashians” Season 2Sept. 26“A Chiara”“Chefs vs. Wild” Season 1Sept. 27“Reasonable Doubt” Season 1Sept. 28“The D’Amelio Show” Season 2New to Paramount+‘The Good Fight’ Season 6Starts streaming: Sept. 8The sixth and final season of one of TV’s best dramas adds Andre Braugher and John Slattery to its ace cast, as part of the aftermath to a Season 5 finale which saw the venerable attorney Diane Lockhart (Christine Baranski) step away from her partnership with Liz Reddick (Audra McDonald) in their progressive Chicago law firm. Braugher plays the firm’s charismatic new partner, while Slattery plays Diane’s doctor, helping her adjust to whatever comes next. “The Good Fight” — a spinoff of the long-running legal drama “The Good Wife” — has been through multiple on-screen and behind-the-scenes upheavals since its 2017 debut, but what has remained consistent is the head writers Michelle and Robert King’s sharp-witted approach to ripped-from-the-headlines political stories, which playfully examine how the American justice system is trying to hold the line against the tumult of our crazy times.Also arriving:Sept. 3“Taylor Hawkins Tribute Concert”Sept. 7“Ink Master” Season 14Sept. 23“On the Come Up”New to Peacock‘Last Light’Starts streaming: Sept. 8Though based on a 2007 Alex Scarrow novel, the thriller miniseries “Last Light” is very much of the moment, with its story of a society thrown into chaos by a sudden drop in the oil supply. Matthew Fox plays Andy Yeats, a brilliant chemical engineer who gets summoned to a key Middle Eastern petroleum reserve to investigate a potentially catastrophic problem. Joanne Froggatt plays his wife Elena, who is in Paris helping their young son through an experimental eye operation, while their college-aged daughter Laura (Alyth Ross) is home in London raising awareness about climate change. When the long-feared fuel crisis hits, the family has to race across the world to reunite, dodging street-riots and a cabal of powerful people who don’t want Andy to make public what he knows.Also arriving:Sept. 2“Honk for Jesus. Save Your Soul.”Sept. 14“Hell of a Cruise”Sept. 15“’Til Jail Do Us Part” Season 1“Vampire Academy” Season 1Sept. 21“Meet Cute”“Shadowland”Sept. 28“Sex, Lies and the College Cult” More