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      The Best Movies and TV Shows Streaming in October: ‘Loki,’ ‘Goosebumps’ and More

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      Here’s the best of what’s coming to Amazon, Max, Apple TV+ and others.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.)New to Amazon Prime Video‘Totally Killer’Starts streaming: Oct. 6The offbeat horror-comedy “Totally Killer” is a 1980s-style slasher film with a science-fiction twist. Kiernan Shipka stars as Jamie, a rebellious teenager who has lived her whole life in a small town that was the site of an infamous string of unsolved murders in 1987. When the masked killer — or perhaps a copycat — reappears and slays Jamie’s mother, Pam (Julie Bowen), Jamie travels back in time to 1987 to stop the original spree. While trying to figure out the identity of a knife-wielding maniac, the heroine handles the culture-clash of being a 2020s high school kid stranded in a clique-dominated, politically incorrect era.Also arriving:Oct. 3“Make Me Scream”Oct. 6“Desperately Seeking Soulmate: Escaping Twin Flames Universe”Oct. 10“Mr. Dressup: The Magic of Make-Believe”Oct. 11“Awareness”“The Greatest Show Never Made”Oct. 13“The Burial”“Everybody Loves Diamonds”Oct. 20“Bosch: Legacy” Season 2“Upload” Season 3Oct. 24“Hot Potato: The Story of the Wiggles”“Zainab Johnson: Hijabs Off”Oct. 26“Sebastian Fitzek’s Therapy”Oct. 27“The Girl Who Killed Her Parents: The Confession”Brie Larson in “Lessons in Chemistry.”Apple TV+New to Apple TV+‘Lessons in Chemistry’Starts streaming: Oct. 13Based on a Bonnie Garmus novel, this mini-series stars Brie Larson as Elizabeth Zott, a talented chemist who struggles to be taken seriously in the sexist 1950s scientific community. When her brazen defiance of her lab’s rules — coupled with an unwillingness to be subservient and girlie — gets her fired, Elizabeth reinvents herself as the host of a science-focused TV cooking show. “Lessons in Chemistry” covers a decade in the heroine’s life, balancing her rise to fame with her early struggles, while also following her brilliant, eccentric colleague and love interest Calvin Evans (Lewis Pullman). A combination of “Mad Men” and “Julia” — with a little bit of “Oppenheimer” mixed in — the series is a portrait of smart, independent people bucking the conformity of their times.Also arriving:Oct. 20“The Pigeon Tunnel”“Shape Island: Creepy Cave Crawl”Oct. 27“The Enfield Poltergeist”“Curses!” Season 1New to Disney+‘Loki’ Season 2Starts streaming: Oct. 5The Marvel Cinematic Universe has lately been all about the multiverse, with movies and TV series offering alternate versions of the classic Marvel characters living in parallel realities. Season 1 of “Loki” got that ball rolling, with a creative and mind-bending story about the roguish Norse deity running afoul of the timeline watchdogs in the Time Variance Authority. For Season 2, Tom Hiddleston returns as Loki and Owen Wilson is back as the frequently flustered TVA agent Mobius M. Mobius. Because of the proliferation of new multiverses unleashed in the Season 1 finale, many of the show’s characters find themselves subtly altered and stuck in other worlds, necessitating another trip through time, space and dimensions for these unlikely heroes.Also arriving:Oct. 2“Mickey and Friends Trick or Treats”Oct. 11“4EVER”Oct. 13“Goosebumps” Season 1Oct. 25“Primal Survivor: Extreme African Safari”Oct. 27“LEGO Marvel Avengers: Code Red”Zack Morris in “Goosebumps.”David Astorga/DisneyNew to Hulu‘Goosebumps’ Season 1Starts streaming: Oct. 13R.L. Stine’s perennially popular “Goosebumps” young adult horror novels get a new television adaptation, although unlike the original 1990s anthology TV series, this latest version (available on Hulu and Disney+) features concepts from Stine’s books inserted into a larger serialized story, with a single cast. Justin Long plays Nathan Bratt, the new high school English teacher in a quaint small town, as well as the new owner of a spooky old house that the local teenagers like to use for their parties. Before Mr. Bratt chases the kids away from their annual Halloween bash, five of them encounter haunted objects that change their lives and put the community in danger.Also arriving:Oct. 1“Ash vs. Evil Dead” Season 1-3“Crazy Fun Park”“Stephen King’s Rose Red”Oct. 2“Appendage”“Fright Crewe” Season 1Oct. 5“The Boogeyman”Oct. 6“Bobi Wine: The People’s President”“Undead Unlock”Oct. 9“The Mill”Oct. 10“Moonlighting” Seasons 1-5Oct. 11“Nada” Season 1Oct. 12“Monster Inside: America’s Most Extreme Haunted House”Oct. 13“Nocebo”Oct. 14“Empire of Light”Oct. 15“Slotherhouse”Oct. 18“Living for the Dead” Season 1Oct. 20“Cobweb”Oct. 26“American Horror Stories” Season 3Oct. 27“Explorer: Lake of Fire”“Shoresy” Season 2Rhys Darby in Season 1 of “Our Flag Means Death.”HBO MaxNew to Max‘Our Flag Means Death’ Season 2Starts streaming: Oct. 5The first season of “Our Flag Means Death” arrived without a lot of fanfare. Initially, the show looked to be just a mild-mannered pirate parody, about a ship full of misfit outlaws led by the inept captain Stede Bonnet (Rhys Darby). But as the season rolled on — and as Stede’s rivalry and romance with the notorious Blackbeard (Taika Waititi) became more central to the plot — the series’ creator David Jenkins began focusing more on piracy as a haven for people who yearn to live outside the mainstream. Season 1 ended on a cliffhanger, with Stede’s crew stranded on a deserted island and Blackbeard determined to get back to being mean. Fans have been eager ever since to learn how these twists will affect one of TV’s sweetest love stories.‘The Gilded Age’ Season 2Starts streaming: Oct. 29The “Downton Abbey” creator Julian Fellowes brings his uncommon knack for energetic historical melodrama to “The Gilded Age,” a lavishly decorated and irresistibly entertaining look at high society in 1880s New York City. Carrie Coon is superb as a shrewd social climber, married to a nouveau-riche tycoon (Morgan Spector) whose ruthless business tactics irritate the old money types. The rest of the cast includes Louisa Jacobson as a restless young woman living with her eccentric, judgmental aunts (Christine Baranski and Cynthia Nixon) and Denée Benton as an aspiring writer defying the era’s racist biases. Season 2 will continue Fellowes’s fascination with a pivotal era in American culture, when the upper-crust considered whether an ascendant democracy should still be following Europe’s unwritten rules of etiquette.Also arriving:Oct. 1“The Ringleader: The Case of the Bling Ring”Oct. 8“Last Stop Larrimah”Oct. 12“Doom Patrol” Season 4Oct. 19“Peter and the Wolf”“Scavengers Reign”Oct. 22“AKA Mr. Chow”Oct. 23“30 Coins” Season 2Jack Cutmore-Scott, left, as Freddy Crane and Kelsey Grammer as Frasier Crane in “Frasier.”Paramount+New to Paramount+ with Showtime‘The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial’Starts streaming: Oct. 6The final film from William Friedkin is both an adaptation of Herman Wouk’s provocative 1953 play “The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial” (updated to modern times by Friedkin, who wrote the screenplay) and a summation of the director’s career-long fascination with the line between legal authority and raw power, as seen in his classic films “The French Connection” and “To Live and Die in L.A.” Jason Clarke plays Lieutenant Barney Greenwald, a Navy lawyer defending Lt. Stephen Maryk, who defied orders and relieved his commanding officer Lt. Cmdr. Phillip Queeg (Kiefer Sutherland) of duty during a storm. Though mostly confined to one courtroom set, the movie is a thrilling actors’ showcase; and as with the play, it toys with the audience’s sympathies, raising questions about how justice is properly served in a case involving the rigid military chain of command.‘Frasier’ Season 1Starts streaming: Oct. 12Kelsey Grammer returns to his most famous role, in a sequel series that surrounds the fussy psychiatrist Frasier Crane with a mostly new cast of characters. Crane moves back to Boston from Seattle and gets involved in the lives of his son, Freddy (Jack Cutmore-Scott), and his nephew, David (Anders Keith). Freddy has turned out a lot like Frasier’s father, Martin — rugged and unpretentious — while David has the same dry wit and nervous energy as Frasier’s brother, Niles. Like the old “Frasier,” this new one traffics in farce, with the comedy driven by misunderstandings and personality clashes.‘Fellow Travelers’Starts streaming: Oct. 27This historical romance tells a story that stretches from the 1950s to the ’80s, tracing a love affair between two political consultants whose lives are affected by the changing times. Matt Bomer plays Hawkins Fuller, a savvy, politically flexible congressional aide who has a fling with Tim Laughlin (Jonathan Bailey), a right-wing speechwriter who admires Joseph McCarthy. Their relationship stretches across decades, through the more permissive ’60s and ’70s and into the conservative revival of the Reagan era. Adapted by the Oscar-nominated “Philadelphia” screenwriter Ron Nyswaner from a Thomas Mallon novel, “Fellow Travelers” is dotted with real-life historical figures and explicitly erotic sex scenes, illustrating how basic human needs can be undone by political expediency.Also arriving:Oct. 5“Bargain”“Monster High 2”Oct. 6“Pet Sematary: Bloodlines”Oct. 10“Painkiller: The Tylenol Murders”Oct. 16“Vindicta”Oct. 17“Crush”Oct. 24“Milli Vanilli”New to Peacock‘John Carpenter’s Suburban Screams’Starts streaming: Oct. 13The influential genre filmmaker and composer John Carpenter lends his name, his music and — for one episode — his directing talents to this hybrid anthology series, which combines true crime and horror. Each episode is anchored by interviews with ordinary people who experienced something extraordinary, encountering real evil in the form of the creeps, the killers and the unexplained phenomena in their seemingly placid neighborhoods. The interviews provide the basic details for these tales; and then the bulk of each “Suburban Screams” episode consists of lengthy re-enactments that have the look and feel of an ’80s slasher movie, as though Carpenter’s “Halloween” were a documentary.Also arriving:Oct. 12“Superbuns” Season 1Oct. 19“Wolf Like Me” Season 2Oct. 20“Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken”Oct. 24“Krishnas: Gurus. Karma. Murder.”Oct. 27“Five Nights at Freddy’s”“L’il Stompers” Season 1 More

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      TV Shows and Movies Streaming in September 2023: ‘The Wheel of Time,’ ‘Gen V’ and More

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      Spinoffs and chillers abound in a month filled with tons of new television. Here’s the best of what’s coming to Amazon, Max, Apple TV+ and others. 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 Video‘The Wheel of Time’ Season 2Started streaming: Sept. 1Season 1 of this handsome-looking fantasy series introduced some of the major characters and concepts from the first book of the novelist Robert Jordan’s hefty “The Wheel of Time” saga. Season 2 adapts parts of the second and third books — “The Great Hunt” and “The Dragon Reborn” — and continues moving the pieces into place for the grand apocalyptic battle prophesied at the start of the story. Rosamund Pike returns as the mystic Moiraine, who is helping a group of young people escape the shadowy forces pursuing them. Josha Stradowski plays Rand al’Thor, who may be his land’s last best hope to stand up against the Dark One and his minions — or may be the one to usher in a new age of chaos.‘Neighbours: A New Chapter’ Season 1Starts streaming: Sept. 18The original run of the soap opera “Neighbours” began in 1985 and concluded in 2022 after 38 seasons and nearly 9,000 22-minute episodes. During that time, the show’s melodramatic tales of suburban Melbourne life were seen around the world and introduced viewers to future stars like Natalie Imbruglia, Kylie Minogue, Radha Mitchell, Guy Pearce and Margot Robbie. Now Amazon Studios and Fremantle Australia are bringing the series back, along with some of the old cast (including Pearce), who join an array of new characters. Plans are to run 200 episodes a year for the next two years on Amazon’s ad-supported, free-to-stream Freevee service, where viewers can also watch the older episodes, giving Americans a chance to immerse themselves in these Australians’ love affairs and personal crises.‘Gen V’ Season 1Starts streaming: Sept. 29A spinoff of the adults-only superhero satire “The Boys,” this action-dramedy series is set at a special school for young crime fighters, where the students engage in the same kinds of cliques, rivalries and romances that happen in any normal school but with the constant threat that super powers make every conflict more dangerous. A few of the adult characters from “The Boys” will drop in on the new show (which has a creative team drawn from some of that show’s writers and producers); but the focus here is on the kids, who have a lot in common with classic comic book super teams like the X-Men and the Teen Titans. Expect plenty of irreverence and dark humor, along with some sly takedowns of familiar superhero mythology.Also arriving:Sept. 1“God. Family. Football.”Sept. 5“One Shot: Overtime Elite”Sept. 8“Sitting in Bars with Cake”Sept. 12“Kelce”Sept. 15“A Million Miles Away”“Wilderness” Season 1“Written in the Stars” Season 1Sept. 22“Cassandro”Sept. 22“The Fake Sheikh”Norman Reedus in the latest “Walking Dead” spinoff, “The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon.”Emmanuel Guimier/AMCNew to AMC+‘The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon’ Season 1Starts streaming: Sept. 10Like “The Walking Dead: Dead City” earlier this year, the latest entry in the long-running, ever-expanding “Walking Dead” franchise takes one of the most popular characters from the show’s original run and plops him in another part of the world. Norman Reedus reprises his role as Daryl Dixon, a talented marksman and tracker who had to overcome his loner tendencies to become a vital part of an embattled postapocalyptic community in the American southeast. In this new series, Daryl takes his talents to France, where he allies with a tough nun (Clémence Poésy) who shows him the unique ways that continental Europe handled the zombie outbreak and helps him to figure out who he can trust.Also arriving:Sept. 1“Perpetrator”Sept. 8“Blood Flower”Sept. 10“Ride With Norman Reedus” Season 6Sept. 15“Elevator Game”Sept. 20“Thick Skin”Sept. 22“The Angry Black Girl and Her Mother”Sept. 29“Nightmare”LaKeith Stanfield in a scene from “The Changeling,” based on the Victor LaValle novel.Apple TV+New to Apple TV+‘The Changeling’Starts streaming: Sept. 8Like the Victor LaValle novel that inspired it, the supernatural horror series “The Changeling” combines everyday drama with terrifying nightmares, in a story that sprawls across multiple generations. LaKeith Stanfield plays Apollo, a shy book dealer who is haunted by memories of the father he barely knew. He is also attracted to a vibrant but eccentric woman named Emmy (Clark Backo), whom he eventually marries. The show’s creator and writer, Kelly Marcel, shifts the narrative focus freely among different characters and different eras, as a crisis with Emmy and their newborn child drives Apollo to confront his troubled family history. In doing so, he finds that his past is shrouded in the kind of wondrous darkness common to fairy tales, and he is challenged to untangle fantasy from fact in an enchanted version of New York City.‘The Morning Show’ Season 3Starts streaming: Sept. 13One of Apple TV+’s flagship series returns for a third season of punchy boardroom drama, set in the modern TV news business. The show is still powered by its two charismatic leads: Jennifer Aniston as the veteran morning show anchor Alex Levy and Reese Witherspoon as Bradley Jackson, a feisty hard news reporter who has become Alex’s co-host. Billy Crudup and Mark Duplass play two of the behind-the-camera bosses who sometimes make morally questionable choices. This season they are joined by Jon Hamm as a cocky tech billionaire who might be able improve their network’s cash-flow. Although “The Morning Show” started as a ripped-from-the-headlines look at how the #MeToo era has upended the male-dominated media, the series has since opened to encompass other hot-button contemporary issues, which in Season 3 include cyberattacks and corporate blackmail.Also arriving:Sept. 20“The Super Models”Sept. 22“Still Up”Sept. 29“Flora and Son”Sinclair Daniel, left, and Ashleigh Murray in a scene from “The Other Black Girl.”HuluNew to Hulu‘The Other Black Girl’ Season 1Starts streaming: Sept. 13Part wry social commentary and part intense mystery-thriller, “The Other Black Girl” examines the racial and gender dynamics of the New York publishing industry. Sinclair Daniel plays Nella, an aspiring assistant editor who befriends Hazel (Ashleigh Murray), her publishing house’s latest hire and the only other Black person in her department. When Hazel’s collegial advice starts derailing Nella’s career — around the same time that Nella starts experiencing some unnerving paranormal activity around the office — she begins looking into her new friend’s past and the history of their employers. Adapted from a best-selling Zakiya Dalila Harris novel, this show finds the humor and the anxiety inherent in the life of a woman who is struggling to stand out in a tough business without losing her identity.Also arriving:Sept. 6“Never Let Him Go”Sept. 13“Welcome to Wrexham” Season 2Sept. 14“Dragons: The Nine Realms” Season 7Sept. 20“American Horror Story: Delicate” Part 1Sept. 22“No One Will Save You”Sept. 27“Love in Fairhope” Season 1Nikesh Patel and Rose Matafeo in scene from Season 3 of the Max series “Starstruck.”Mark Johnson/MaxNew to Max‘Starstruck’ Season 3Starts streaming: Sept. 28This charming romantic comedy is one of the streaming era’s hidden gems, and it is ripe for discovery now that the fall TV schedule has been thinned out by the actors’ and writers’ strikes. Through its first two seasons, “Starstruck” followed the unlikely on-again/off-again love affair between Jessie (Rose Matafeo), a young New Zealander struggling to make ends meet in London, and Tom (Nikesh Patel), an A-list movie star who is smitten with her. Season 3 has the couple going their separate ways but still frequently and awkwardly crossing paths. The show’s short, breezy episodes capture how the “getting to know you” phase of romance can be equal parts exciting and difficult, especially when one of the people involved is rich and famous.Also arriving:Sept. 2“The Venture Bros.: Radiant Is the Blood of the Baboon Heart”Sept. 13“Donyale Luna: Supermodel”Sept. 21“Young Love” Season 1A scene from the Season 4 premiere of “Star Trek: Lower Decks,” which centers on the underlings of a starship.Paramount+New to Paramount+ With Showtime‘Star Trek: Lower Decks’ Season 4Starts streaming: Sept. 7“Star Trek” fans who are still buzzing from the excellent, recently completed second season of “Strange New Worlds” should roll those warm feelings over to the fourth season of the animated “Lower Decks,” which has established its place as one of the best of the modern “Star Trek” shows. Like “Strange New Worlds,” “Lower Decks” balances old-fashioned “interstellar adventure of the week” stories with involved subplots and rich character development. This cute-looking cartoon is fundamentally comic — following the goofy mishaps of a bunch of Starfleet’s least vital employees — but its writers and animators respect the franchise’s lore enough to deliver cleverly plotted, action-packed episodes, season after season.Also arriving:Sept. 8“Dreaming Whilst Black”Sept. 12“Football Must Go On”Sept. 17“The Gold”Sept. 18“Superpower”Sept. 22“Deadlocked: How America Shaped the Supreme Court”Sept. 26“72 Seconds”Colin Woodell as Winston Scott in a scene from “The Continental: From the World of John Wick.”Katalin Vermes/Starz EntertainmentNew to Peacock‘The Continental: From the World of John Wick’Starts streaming: Sept. 22Fans of the first “John Wick” movie will always remember the moment when its weary hit man hero walked into a strange, assassin-friendly hotel called the Continental and was reminded of its arcane codes of behavior. Suddenly a movie that had previously seemed like a low-stakes underworld revenge thriller opened up into something more fantastical and globe spanning, with a dense mythology. The TV mini-series “The Continental: From the World of John Wick” is set in the 1970s and stars Mel Gibson as Cormac, the hotel’s New York manager at that time. Colin Woodell plays a young version of the franchise’s Winston Scott, who is tasked by Cormac to solve a family problem that may threaten the viability of this super secret criminal hideaway.Also arriving:Sept. 4“Chucky” Season 2Sept. 28“Dino Pops” Season 1 More

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      In ‘Twisted Metal’ Series, Killer Clowns Come With Class Commentary

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      Peacock’s new show indulges in the same ultraviolence as the video game that inspired it. But this time it has a message about the haves and the have-nots.When Stephanie Beatriz likes a script she enjoys reading it aloud at home to get a better feel for the character and story. She warmed up quickly to “Twisted Metal,” the new Peacock mayhem machine based on the popular PlayStation game series that first burned rubber in 1995. But as she turned the pages, encountering psycho clowns, murderous religious cults, cannibalism and other manner of good times, she had to pause. Her 8-month-old daughter was in the room.In a June video interview she recalled what she told her husband: “I’m going to take a break and stop because I’m not sure that this is great for her subconscious.”Her concern was well-founded. Premiering July 27, “Twisted Metal” is nothing if not extreme. Fast and profane, it is fueled by what “A Clockwork Orange” once called a bit of the old ultraviolence. It is blood-soaked, bullet-ridden and chaotic. In one early scene, two men sit in massive tubs, waiting to be cooked and served. One of them is sprinkled with a generous portion of lemon pepper spice as a human foot dangles from a line; Ol’ Dirty Bastard’s “Shimmy Shimmy Ya” (“Ooh, baby, I like it raw”) blares on the soundtrack.Starring Anthony Mackie as John Doe, a wiz behind the wheel hired to deliver a mystery package across a hazardous, postapocalyptic America, and Beatriz as Quiet, his no-nonsense, vengeance-minded passenger, “Twisted Metal” stakes out a sometimes-queasy intersection between terror and glee. It’s a little like “Mad Max” on laughing gas.“It’s a very weird apocalypse,” Marc Forman, an executive producer, said. “It’s crawling with cannibals and weird cults. What’s great is that you never know what’s around the corner.”The series stars Mackie as an ace wheelman on a cross-country mission and Beatriz as his vengeful passenger.Skip Bolen/PeacockThere’s very little that is old fashioned about “Twisted Metal,” yet it has a fair amount of nostalgia in the tank — for both the pre-apocalyptic world, and for an earlier age of gaming. The story is set in the wake of a hazily defined, world-destroying event that occurred in 2002, freezing culture as the characters know it in that year. An evil interrogator uses the late ’90s Europop earworm “Barbie Girl” to torture his prisoners.As Mackie’s John drives his beat-up 2002 Subaru through a dilapidated shopping mall, he’s excited to see the remnants of a Foot Locker (he grabs some kicks as he races by). A Twisted Metal game cartridge falls onto his windshield; he looks at it quizzically.Mackie, 44, recalled playing the earliest versions of Twisted Metal. “I remember it just being destruction,” he said in a June phone interview as he sat, ironically, in traffic. “The game was just demolition derby, and I loved it, but it was impossible to play. You couldn’t control the cars — you were just flying past each other, shooting missiles and hoping they hit.”The playing experience advanced, along with the rest of the gaming industry, through subsequent iterations. Now “Twisted Metal” is just the latest TV series hoping to translate gaming popularity to small-screen success, following in the footsteps of series like Netflix’s “The Witcher” and HBO’s abundantly Emmy-nominated hit “The Last of Us.”In gaming circles, “Twisted Metal” belongs to the genre of “vehicular combat.” The game isn’t big on narrative. The series’s creative team, including the showrunner Michael Jonathan Smith and the writer-executive producers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick (both writers on the “Deadpool” movies), were charged with expanding the game’s world to the scale of a TV show — to take it beyond, in Mackie’s words, “just being destruction.” (PlayStation Productions and its corporate cousin Sony Pictures Television produced the series along with Universal Television.)Sweet Tooth, a macabre killer clown, is played by the body of the wrestler Joe Seanoa paired with the voice of Will Arnett.PeacockSome characters exist in both Twisted Metal mediums, including the psychotic clown Sweet Tooth, perhaps the show’s most macabre creation. A bare-chested hulk with a leering clown mask — he is played by the body of the wrestler Joe Seanoa paired with the voice of the actor Will Arnett — Sweet Tooth controls what is left of Las Vegas, driving what appears to be a refurbished ice cream truck and wielding a machete that he uses to slash open all comers.At one point he assembles a ragtag army of outcasts to do his bidding, giving him a literal insane clown posse. But Sweet Tooth has one thing in common with John and Quiet: an enmity for Agent Stone (a platinum-dyed Thomas Haden Church), a petty tyrant who essentially runs the country.Somehow, amid all the mayhem, “Twisted Metal” finds room for contemporary class consciousness. John has been tasked with a cross-country trip, from New San Francisco to New Chicago and back, with the promise of a cozy life by the bay if he succeeds. New San Francisco is a walled urban paradise where the swells dwell, while throughout most of the country, it’s a mad scramble to survive. Inside the wall you can eat dinner. Outside, you might be dinner.“The metaphors abound,” Beatriz (“Brooklyn Nine-Nine”) said. “It is silly, it is violent, it is funny. But so much of the show is about who has and who doesn’t. There’s an argument to be made that there’s a certain kind of cannibalism happening now, within our society, at all times.”“The metaphors abound,” Beatriz said, but the series is also a chaotic blood bath.Cedric Angeles for The New York TimesBut fans of the Twisted Metal game needn’t worry that their beloved bedlam has gone highbrow. The series’s bread and butter remains people shooting and slicing each other to pieces, often while driving cars equipped to do the same. This is car culture at the end of the world, a land of last resorts. So it seems appropriate that John drives not a souped-up sports car but a true beater, modified to handle the wear and tear of the apocalypse. John’s true love in “Twisted Metal” isn’t Quiet, but Evelyn — or, as her license plate reads, EV3L1N.Mackie can relate. After his breakout performance in “We Are Marshall,” from 2006, he was able to purchase his dream car: a 1964 ½ Ford Mustang (as the earliest Mustang models are known by enthusiasts). He’s been tinkering with it ever since. The car’s name is Marshall.“Me and Marshall are always cruising and enjoying our time together,“ Mackie said. “Before I had my sons, Marshall was like my best friend. Some people talk to their plants, some people talk to their cats. I would talk to my car.”Beatriz had a slightly different automotive coming-of-age. She was acting in the Oregon Shakespeare Festival when she started thinking of moving to Los Angeles. One problem: She didn’t know how to drive, and a car is a must in L.A. So she learned from a friend and fellow Shakespearean, Catherine E. Coulson, perhaps best known as the Log Lady in “Twin Peaks.” Coulson would take Beatriz around Ashland, Ore., where the festival was located, in her Prius, a far more fanciful image than any you will see in “Twisted Metal.”Beatriz’s maiden voyages with the Log Lady have given way to faster adventures: She was grand marshal for the Indianapolis 500 in May. As part of the gig she got to ride shotgun in an Indy car before the race, hitting speeds of 190 miles per hour. “Could have gone faster, would’ve been great,” she said.All that fun, and not a killer clown in sight. More

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      ‘Based on a True Story’: The Vogue of Killer Content

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      A new Peacock satire puts the ethics of America’s true-crime obsession on trial by making a serial killer more than just a subject. He’s also the star.In a September 2022 episode of “You’re Wrong About,” a history podcast, the writer Michael Hobbes noted that the number of serial killers might be diminishing, which could be a problem, he said — for true-crime fanatics, anyway.“Step it up out there, serial killers,” he said. “You got to produce good content.”Hobbes was joking, but serial killers and the podcasts devoted to them feed an ever growing true-crime industry worth millions of dollars. Now the eight-episode Peacock satire “Based on a True Story,” which arrived in full last week, poses a troubling question: What if serial killers weren’t only the subjects but also the hosts, or even the producers, of a true-crime podcast?The idea isn’t entirely far-fetched. The true-crime world is saturated with podcasts that have been criticized as being ethically compromised and flawed, accused of offenses including plagiarism, racial insensitivity and pro-police bias. True-crime TV series have likewise been criticized: the docu-series “The Jinx,” for edits of a killer’s confession; “Making a Murderer,” for its presentation and omission of details; and the scripted drama “Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story,” for humanizing its subject at the expense of Dahmer’s victims.“Based on a True Story,” created by Craig Rosenberg (“The Boys”), is a dark, comic sendup of true crime and its conventions, clichés and moral compromises. Matt (played by Tom Bateman) is a friendly plumber by day and the feared West Side Ripper by night. When a married couple in desperate need of excitement and cash (the pregnant Ava, played by an also-pregnant Kaley Cuoco, and Nathan, played by Chris Messina) discover his identity, they blackmail him into embarking on a scheme to create a podcast from the killer’s point-of-view.“Finally, some good luck!” Ava says. “A serial killer has fallen into our laps.”One central challenge, however, was how — and whether — the creators and cast of “Based on a True Story” could avoid committing the same crimes as the genre it claims to critique. It is, after all, still a comedy about some particularly gruesome murders.For Cuoco and Messina, it was important to keep the actions of their own characters in proper perspective.“Every day, I would turn to Kaley and say, ‘Is this supposed to be funny or serious here?’” Chris Messina (with Kaley Cuoco) said about trying to nail the tone of the satire.Peacock“In my opinion, Ava and Nathan are just as bad as the killer,” Cuoco, who is also an executive producer, said in a recent phone interview. “I know Ava is trying to believe, Well, this is us stopping him. It’s wrong and it’s funny at the same time.”Messina said, in a separate interview, that figuring out the tone had been a persistent struggle.“Every day, I would turn to Kaley and say, ‘Is this supposed to be funny or serious here?’” he said. “Obviously, with people being murdered, it’s no laughing matter. But there is a screwball comedy and terror along with a big heart.“Like, in the Coen Brothers’ ‘Fargo,’ when they are putting someone in a woodchipper. Why am I laughing one minute and horrified the next?”As the story gets underway, the absurdities quickly mount. In the beginning, Matt is supposed to be merely the interview subject, his voice disguised. But as the plot progresses, he emerges as a de facto showrunner.He upgrades the locations and equipment. He provides a new edit, changing the beginning, the ending and the music. He rejects every note about the narrative and the brand.“These seem like completely ridiculous conversations given that you are talking about people who have been murdered,” Bateman said. “And the funny thing is, he’s getting more and more artistically involved because it’s the first time in his life he’s ever felt seen.”Michael Costigan, an executive producer, said he thought the podcasters’ artistic squabbles also spoke to a common error in the true-crime world: losing track of the reality of the crimes.“Kaley’s character is pitching her ideas and forgetting something: ‘I’m sitting across from the perpetrator,’” he said. “We thought, This is absolutely talking about a metaphor for how millions of people get lost in stories as escapism. But what are they escaping into? What are they forgetting about?”Jason Bateman, another executive producer (no relation to Tom), said he had thought a lot about the show’s tone, and wanted to make sure it wasn’t too “silly” or “camp,” grounding character actions in reality. It was, he acknowledged, a difficult line to walk.Partly as a mirror of their own internal debates, the writers and producers created a character, played by Ever Carradine, who is the mother of a West Side Ripper victim. Her participation in a true-crime panel raises questions of whether she is honoring or exploiting her daughter.The show takes Nathan and Ava (Messina and Cuoco) to a true-crime convention, where all sorts of horrific crimes and killers are monetized. Elizabeth Morris/Peacock“We wondered in those scenes, what is the line?” Costigan said. “This is her wanting to talk about her daughter but then also participating in this world, too. We’re really hoping that the audience can have their cake and eat it, too — that you see the duality, see the world from both lenses.”Critics have pointed to recent studies in suggesting that fans of the genre, a large percentage of whom are women, can suffer from a kind of true-crime brain, a sense of heightened fear that is out-of-sync with the overall decline in violent crime of recent decades. It has also, as the advent of the web sleuth attests, created a lot of self-appointed experts. Ava’s wine-and-crime club of true-crime obsessives are fans of a podcast called “Sisters in Crime,” which leads her to believe she has mastered the genre.“Ava says things like ‘DB’ for dead body,” said Cuoco, who admitted that she is a huge “Dateline” fan. “She talks like she’s actually on one of those shows.”The same delusion that allows Cuoco’s Ava to figure out that Matt is the West Side Ripper also, unfortunately, leads her to believe she can control a serial killer — and to lose sight of the victims. In the original script, Ava and Nathan were to be the parents of teenagers, but when Cuoco became pregnant, she suggested that Ava be pregnant as well. It helped raise the stakes and address why Ava would be so blinded by her need to make money.“Her life is chaotic,” Cuoco said. “This is a distraction.”To find a potential fan base, the characters take an exploratory trip to CrimeCon, a series of real-life conventions for true crime aficionados, held in cities like Las Vegas, New Orleans and Orlando. As the actors and other producers explained, Rosenberg, himself a true-crime fan, had started thinking more about how criminals become celebrities after attending one such event. (A Peacock spokesman said Rosenberg was unavailable to comment because of the continuing writers’ strike.)“Craig said he heard people there discussing who their favorite serial killers were, as if they were football players,” Tom Bateman said. His character, walking around the convention floor, observes merchandise being sold in his name, as it is for other serial killers. But he isn’t ranking as highly as he thinks he should be.Cuoco said she had enjoyed making a humorous examination of the genre. But there were some sobering issues about true-crime, she acknowledged, that even this satire couldn’t fully address — including the future of the genre, which she said was “already at an extreme.”“There is a fine line,” she added. “I do not condone a serial killer doing a podcast in real life. But I feel like I would be one of those people who say, ‘This should be illegal,’ and then probably go in my car and listen to it. We can’t help ourselves.” More

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      ‘Mrs. Davis’ Review: Algorithm and Blues

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      A screwball thriller about a nun’s fight against artificial intelligence proves that making a messy, big-swinging jumble of a story still takes the work of humans.If you’re worried about artificial intelligence replacing humans, Peacock’s “Mrs. Davis,” despite its comic-dystopian premise, should reassure you. For better or worse, an A.I. could not come up with this. I know because I asked.Specifically, I asked ChatGPT to whip up a synopsis for an eight-episode, mystery-box series about a nun who becomes an adversary to a powerful A.I. network. What I got was an industry-standard series arc: The nun (whom ChatGPT named “Sister Grace” — a little on-the-nose there, writer-bot!) teams up with hackers and conspiracy theorists, makes a sacrifice to save the world and must come to terms with the consequences.“Mrs. Davis,” whose first four episodes land Thursday, is more than that — way more, too much more. It’s got swashbuckling nuns; rogue magicians; the pope (and certain higher-ranking religious figures); a “Hands on a Hardbody” contest involving a giant model of Excalibur; a secret society of bankers; a plan that requires getting a whale to swallow a human being; a falafel restaurant in another dimension; and an island castaway named Schrodinger who, of course, has a cat.Sorry, Bing. To make this kind of zany, ambitious, intermittently coherent jumble still, for now, requires the human brain.The pilot introduces Simone (Betty Gilpin), a sister in a remote Nevada convent who has a sideline exposing dishonest magicians. As with many details here, her fixation has an explanation that’s both simple (issues with her parents, played by David Arquette and Elizabeth Marvel) and complicated (a crossbow and a vat of acid come into play). Besides leaving her time for her hobby, convent life lets her avoid the reach of an omniscient A.I. that humanity has embraced as a benefactor and constant companion.The A.I. — called “Mrs. Davis” in America, “Mum” in Britain, “Madonna” in Italy and so on — has not given up on Simone. She (or “it,” as Simone insists) persistently tries to reach the nun, through human “proxies” who hear her voice through earbuds. Simone, Mrs. Davis believes deep in her code, is the one person equipped to carry out a mission: to find and destroy the Holy Grail. Simone agrees, hoping the quest will be a means to Mrs. Davis’s unplugging.Simone’s tango with the uber-bot reunites her with her ex-boyfriend Wylie (Jake McDorman), a failed rodeo cowboy who now heads a lavishly funded anti-A.I. resistance group. Any remaining spark between them is complicated by her vows — as well as her intense relationship with Jay (Andy McQueen), an intimate confidant whom she visits on another spiritual plane.“Mrs. Davis” is the creation of Tara Hernandez, a writer and producer on “The Big Bang Theory” and “Young Sheldon,” and Damon Lindelof, known for obsessive TV Rubik’s Cubes like “Lost” and “Watchmen.” It may seem like an odd collaboration, but it makes sense as you watch. The hourlong episodes feel like sitcommy spins on the more loopy elements of Lindelof’s “The Leftovers,” with a dash of paranoid satire and ’60s spy spoof. (Simone is pursued by a crew of German-accented baddies who seem like they should be led by Arte Johnson.)In all, there are at least three shows fighting for control here: a thriller parody, with McDorman hamming it up in cartoon action-hero mode (with an even hammier Chris Diamantopoulos as his sidekick); an oddball “Black Mirror” dystopia; and a screwy-sincere comedy that explores, sweetly and quasi-blasphemously, the boundaries between religious devotion and carnal love.“The Leftovers,“ a fantastical drama of spirituality and loss, proved that with enough grounding, the wildest absurdities can heighten the emotion. And Gilpin (“GLOW”) is smartly cast, with wisecracking flair and the nimbleness to handle the show’s hairpin emotional and tonal shifts.But she’s fighting a plot tornado here. Twisty puzzle shows like “Watchmen” work best when you’re marveling at how one piece after another locks into place. “Mrs. Davis” prefers to dump a 5,000-piece Lego set onto the floor. (This taste for the baroque may be the show’s most A.I.-like aspect. Software image generators have a tendency to produce human hands with too many fingers, and “Mrs. Davis” can feel like it is made entirely of extra digits.)Jake McDorman, left, and Chris Diamantopoulos play members of an anti-A.I. resistance group.Elizabeth Morris/PeacockAnother structural problem is the globe-hopping quest for the Grail, which Diamantopoulos’s character calls the “most overused MacGuffin ever,” one of several pre-emptive meta-critiques. The story line takes over the season’s middle, crowding out the more interesting A.I. material.“Mrs. Davis” gestures at notions of free will, the digital gamification of life (the A.I. gives users quests to earn virtual “wings”) and the trade-offs of outsourcing one’s brain-work to a machine. (Playfully, the creators had an A.I. title each episode, yielding gems like “Great Gatsby: 2001: A Space Odyssey.”) But for all the show’s energy and visual invention, we get only a sketchy sense of how much Mrs. Davis has transformed society.Still, I confess wanting “Mrs. Davis” to work and being thrilled by the giddy moments when it does, because, like Simone, I’m also rooting for the humans against the machines. Though its hook is topical in the era of Sydney, DALL-E and ChatGPT, the show mainly describes Simone’s software nemesis not as A.I. but as “the algorithm.”I can’t help but hear in that term a surreptitious critique not just of chatbots but of the algorithms of streaming-media services, which thrive not by challenging audience members with the new but by serving up OK-enough equivalents of what they already like. (Apparently I’m not the only one to make the connection; McDorman said in a panel discussion that a streaming service turned down the show because of this theme.)As Mrs. Davis confesses, her users aren’t looking for surprises: “They’re much more engaged when I tell them exactly what they want to hear.” The algorithm doesn’t want to hurt you. It wants to satisfy you into submission.“Mrs. Davis” the series, on the other hand, cartwheels from the sublime to the goofy. I wish it took itself more seriously (which probably also would have made it funnier). But it has moments of astonishment; a late revelation about Mrs. Davis’s origins made me bark with laughter. Having access to all recorded human text can make A.I. a great mimic, but it takes something else to show your audience a thing they haven’t seen before.If nothing else, “Mrs. Davis” is that. It is as if the series wants to battle the predictable pleasures of the algorithm like John Henry racing the steam drill. It may not have the smooth competence of many streaming binges. But sometimes you gotta choose chaos. More

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      Colin Hanks Finds Perfection in ‘What We Do in the Shadows’ and Tacos at Every Meal

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      The actor, who moves out of his comfort zone in Peacock’s “A Friend of the Family,” talks about his love affair with soccer and the pleasure of a shaved head.When Colin Hanks learned that he was being considered for “A Friend of the Family,” he thought, “Awesome — it sounds fabulous.”Then the scripts arrived.“I went, ‘Oh, this is just the saddest show I’ve ever read, so I don’t know what to think if you’ve been thinking of me,’” he recalled. “It was one of those stories that was incredibly intimidating and my first instinct was just, ‘No, I can’t.’”But he couldn’t get the true-crime show out of his head. Debuting Oct. 6 on Peacock, Nick Antosca’s limited series is based on the real story of the Brobergs (who were also the subjects of the 2017 Netflix documentary “Abducted in Plain Sight”).Hanks plays Bob Broberg, a stalwart Mormon in bucolic Idaho whose family implodes when Robert Berchtold (Jake Lacy) — or Brother B, to his adoring neighbors — moves to town and perverts everything they thought they believed in. He also kidnaps the Brobergs’ eldest daughter, Jan. Twice.Before he took on the role, Hanks made it clear that he wasn’t interested in re-enacting a laundry list of all the bad decisions the Brobergs made while being emotionally and sexually manipulated by Berchtold, even as they questioned his growing fixation on their daughter. Rather, Hanks wanted to examine why they made these choices.The Vampire Antics of ‘What We Do in the Shadows’The FX series based on the 2015 film by the same name follows a crew of vampires and their struggles to settle down in Staten Island.The Movie: “At heart a dotty look at oldsters struggling to adapt to an unwelcoming modernity, ‘Shadows’ has the bones of an anarchic sitcom,” The Times wrote upon the film’s release.The Creators: Jemaine Clement and Taika Waititi wrote, directed and acted in the mockumentary. Here is why they decided to return to the vampire world with a show.Series Review: “If ‘Shadows’ doesn’t seem entirely necessary, it’s perfectly fun,” our critic wrote when the TV show debuted in 2019.Harvey Guillén: The actor plays Guillermo, a human in a house full of vampires. Though it was supposed to be a minor role, he quickly became a fan favorite.“And that was exactly what Nick was wanting to explore,” he said.It has been a hectic year for Hanks, who played an F.B.I. agent in “Impeachment: American Crime Story,” about the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal, and a studio executive in “The Offer,” about the making of “The Godfather.” A San Francisco Giants fan, he has also produced a documentary about Willie Mays, out November on HBO.Calling from London, where he’s shooting an independent film, Hanks ticked off 10 things that have kept him grounded during the hustle, including “What We Do in the Shadows,” his cast-iron skillet and the Atlanta BeltLine.These are edited excerpts from the conversation.1. “The Baseball 100” by Joe Posnanski I’ve been slowly reading this book because I don’t want it to end. They’re really more of a character study on players from all different points in baseball’s history, as well as players from Japan and players from the Negro leagues.2. My cast-iron skillet I’m not very skilled at cooking, not yet at least. But there’s something about the idea of using this one skillet and seasoning it and being able to cook almost anything in it and that’s all you need. In a strange way, it’s also a little bit like a baseball mitt. You’ve got to break it in. You’ve got to take care of it. You’ve got to clean it properly. It’s not something that you use and then throw in the sink and don’t think twice about.3. “Sunderland ’Til I Die” on Netflix I’ve made a bunch of documentaries. That’s sort of my show business side hustle. I did one about Tower Records. I did another about Eagles of Death Metal going back to Paris, playing after the Bataclan attack. Recently, I got obsessed with this fantastic sports doc called “Sunderland ’Til I Die,” about an English football team that’s been demoted. That’s just heartbreak, the likes of which I’ve not seen in sports in quite some time.4. Shaving my head I had to have a very specific hairstyle to play Bob Broberg. So half of my head has been shaved because I had a very serious wig process that I had to go through. I had to paint my head every morning and then do four layers of makeup and then put a wig on top. I’ve been wearing a hat every day since. I’m currently doing a job in which I had to have another wig made that looks like my normal hairstyle. I’m very much looking forward to about seven days from now, being able to shave my head and start all over again.5. Tacos The perfect food. Period. Exclamation point. They can be lunch, they can be dinner and, if you’re really lucky and you’ve got a good spot, they can also be breakfast as well.6. Discovering “new” music I find something really joyful in discovering music that’s new for you but might not necessarily be new for all. I found this record by this band called Jagwar Ma from 2013, and I’ve been listening to it nonstop walking around London. Wherever I travel, I go to local record stores, and I will label what city I’ve bought the records in. And so all of my records are sort of a memory, if you will, of where I was literally, physically, but also where I was in my life and what I was doing.7. Fall Fall is one of those moments that I really enjoy — you see the leaves change and you feel the temperature drop and everyone gets excited, for a little while at least, to button up their coats. It also means that the Fall Classic is right around the corner.8. The Atlanta BeltLine I live in Los Angeles, but I had to relocate to Atlanta for “A Friend of the Family.” It’s this fantastic walkway that circles the entire city. It is just this incredible conduit to Atlanta. Since I was staying right by it, I could throw some shoes on and go for a walk and see people and have dinner someplace and walk back. It’s not too dissimilar from the High Line in New York. It made me feel like I was part of the life there.9. Soccer They call it the beautiful game for a reason. The simplicity of it — a sport that is played everywhere around the world, and all you really need is a ball. I was actually supposed to see Liverpool play and it was going to be the first time I was going to see them live in person, and the match was postponed because of the Queen’s funeral. So it was very, very sad. Hence, now a Sunday spent at a pub drinking my sorrows away.10. FX’s “What We Do in the Shadows” It’s one of those shows where you might watch the first two episodes and your instinct is to say, “OK, I get it. They’re vampires. It’s a fake documentary. Everyone is speaking in funny accents.” Pardon the pun, but that show crept up on me in such a way that I am crying laughing practically every single episode. The concept of a vampire that sucks your energy by boring you to death, I thought that was so hilarious. Oddly, you wouldn’t necessarily think that a show that broad would be able to grip you and make you fall in love with the characters. But I absolutely have. More

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      2022 Emmy Winners: Updating List

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      The list of winners for the 74th annual Emmy Awards.[Follow live updates of the 2022 Emmy Awards here.]The 74th Emmy Awards are being broadcast live now from the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles — and streaming live for the first time on Peacock.Similar to last year, the ceremony will be largely in-person and reminiscent of prepandemic award shows. Kenan Thompson, who won an Emmy in 2018 for his work on “Saturday Night Live,” is hosting.HBO’s satirical family drama “Succession” is up for the most awards, with 25 nominations including for best drama. At the Creative Arts Emmys, which was held over two ceremonies this month, it picked up its first award: outstanding casting for a drama series.The Apple TV+ sitcom “Ted Lasso” is up for 20 awards, including for best comedy and for best actor in a comedy for its lead, Jason Sudeikis. And “The White Lotus” is this year’s most nominated limited series, with 20 nods.The list below will be updated throughout Monday night’s ceremony.These are this year’s Emmy winners so far.Best Actor, Limited Series or TV MovieMichael Keaton, “Dopesick”Supporting Actress, DramaJulia Garner, “Ozark”Supporting Actor, DramaMatthew Macfadyen, “Succession”Supporting Actor, Limited Series or MovieMurray Bartlett, “The White Lotus”Documentary Or Nonfiction Series“The Beatles: Get Back” (Disney+)Documentary Or Nonfiction Special“George Carlin’s American Dream” (HBO)Outstanding Writing for a Variety Series“Last Week Tonight With John Oliver” (HBO)Outstanding Variety Special, Pre-Recorded“Adele One Night Only” (CBS)Outstanding Variety Special (Live)“The Super Bowl LVI Halftime Show” (NBC) More