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    Art Spiegelman Documentary Had Trump Criticism Removed Before Airing on Public TV

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    A segment in a documentary about the cartoonist Art Spiegelman was edited two weeks before it was set to air on public television stations across the country.The executive producer of the Emmy Award-winning “American Masters” series insisted on removing a scene critical of President Trump from a documentary about the comic artist Art Spiegelman two weeks before it was set to air nationwide on public television stations.The filmmakers say it is another example of public media organizations bowing to pressure as the Trump administration tries to defund the sector, while the programmers say their decision was a matter of taste.Alicia Sams, a producer of “Art Spiegelman: Disaster Is My Muse,” said in an interview that approximately two weeks before the movie’s April 15 airdate, she received a call from Michael Kantor, the executive producer of “American Masters,” informing her that roughly 90 seconds featuring a cartoon critical of Trump would need to be excised from the film. The series is produced by the WNET Group, the parent company of several New York public television channels.Stephen Segaller, the vice president of programming for WNET, confirmed in an interview that the station had informed the filmmakers that it needed to make the change. Segaller said WNET felt the scatological imagery in the comic, which Spiegelman drew shortly after the 2016 election — it portrays what appears to be fly-infested feces on Trump’s head — was a “breach of taste” that might prove unpalatable to some of the hundreds of stations that air the series. But the filmmakers have questioned whether political considerations played a role. They have noted that earlier this year, according to Documentary Magazine, which first reported the “American Masters” decision, PBS postponed indefinitely a documentary set to air about a transgender video-gamer for fear of political backlash.Sams pointed out that their film had already been approved for broadcast — the filmmakers agreed it would be shown at 10 p.m. rather than 8 p.m., so that certain obscenities would not need to be blurred or bleeped — and that the call came a week after a Capitol Hill hearing in which Congressional Republicans accused public television and radio executives of biased coverage (the executives denied that accusation in sworn testimony).We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Two Miss Austens, Asterix & Obelix and Robot Chambermaids

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      New international series include a drama about Jane Austen and her sister, a Netflix reboot of a French institution and a whimsical sci-fi anime.In this roundup of recent series from other shores, we go tripping through time and space: from Roman Empire high jinks to Regency England melodrama, and from contemporary British mystery to a postapocalyptic Japanese hotel.‘Apocalypse Hotel’This whimsical, oddball science-fiction anime has not ranked highly in surveys of this spring’s season of Japanese animated series, perhaps because it doesn’t fit precisely into a standard category. (It also has the disadvantage of being a rare original series, with no ties to an already popular manga or light-novel franchise.) In a Tokyo slowly being reclaimed by nature, on an Earth abandoned by humans because of an environmental catastrophe, an intrepid band of robots keep the lights on at a luxury hotel, prepping every day for nonexistent guests. The staff members’ intelligence may be artificial, but their commitment to service is touchingly genuine.When guests do appear — sometimes decades or even centuries apart — they are not humans but wandering aliens whose habits and needs test the robots’ resourcefulness. A family of shape-shifting interstellar tanuki (raccoon dogs) decorate their rooms with towers of dung; a superpowered kangaroo with boxing gloves for paws is intent on destroying the planet’s civilization, not realizing the job is already done. As the travelers and the staff adjust to one another, the robots enact their own version of exquisite Japanese tact and hospitality, with results that are both melancholy and raucously comic. (Streaming at Crunchyroll.)‘Asterix & Obelix: The Big Fight’The tremendous success of the Asterix comics and their offshoots across more than 60 years — hundreds of millions of books sold, a panoply of movies, a popular theme park outside Paris — has never translated particularly well to the United States. The heroes of the stories, a village of 1st-century-B.C. Gauls with egregiously punny names, may hold out against Roman occupation because of the magic strength potion brewed by their druid priest. But their true power, in literary terms, is a projection of insular French wit and wordplay and rough-and-ready Gallic sang-froid. For Americans, the humor can seem both beneath our standards and over our heads.“Asterix & Obelix: The Big Fight” is based on the long-running Asterix comics.2025 Les éditions Albert René/Goscinny-Uderzo/NetflixNow that Netflix is involved, however, it is a sure bet that the intention is to cross over into as many markets as possible, not least the United States. This five-episode adaptation of an early (1966) Asterix book accomplishes that goal with sufficient style, primarily through its brightly colorful 3-D animation. The images are vivid and pleasing, and they hold your interest even when the action kicks in and the storytelling loses some of its French particularity, sliding into a Pixar-derived international-blockbuster groove. (Streaming at Netflix.)We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      International TV Series to Stream Now: ‘Miss Austen,’ ‘I, Jack Wright’ and More

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      New international series include a drama about Jane Austen and her sister, a Netflix reboot of a French institution and a whimsical sci-fi anime.In this roundup of recent series from other shores, we go tripping through time and space: from Roman Empire high jinks to Regency England melodrama, and from contemporary British mystery to a postapocalyptic Japanese hotel.‘Apocalypse Hotel’This whimsical, oddball science-fiction anime has not ranked highly in surveys of this spring’s season of Japanese animated series, perhaps because it doesn’t fit precisely into a standard category. (It also has the disadvantage of being a rare original series, with no ties to an already popular manga or light-novel franchise.) In a Tokyo slowly being reclaimed by nature, on an Earth abandoned by humans because of an environmental catastrophe, an intrepid band of robots keep the lights on at a luxury hotel, prepping every day for nonexistent guests. The staff members’ intelligence may be artificial, but their commitment to service is touchingly genuine.When guests do appear — sometimes decades or even centuries apart — they are not humans but wandering aliens whose habits and needs test the robots’ resourcefulness. A family of shape-shifting interstellar tanuki (raccoon dogs) decorate their rooms with towers of dung; a superpowered kangaroo with boxing gloves for paws is intent on destroying the planet’s civilization, not realizing the job is already done. As the travelers and the staff adjust to one another, the robots enact their own version of exquisite Japanese tact and hospitality, with results that are both melancholy and raucously comic. (Streaming at Crunchyroll.)‘Asterix & Obelix: The Big Fight’The tremendous success of the Asterix comics and their offshoots across more than 60 years — hundreds of millions of books sold, a panoply of movies, a popular theme park outside Paris — has never translated particularly well to the United States. The heroes of the stories, a village of 1st-century-B.C. Gauls with egregiously punny names, may hold out against Roman occupation because of the magic strength potion brewed by their druid priest. But their true power, in literary terms, is a projection of insular French wit and wordplay and rough-and-ready Gallic sang-froid. For Americans, the humor can seem both beneath our standards and over our heads.“Asterix & Obelix: The Big Fight” is based on the long-running Asterix comics.2025 Les éditions Albert René/Goscinny-Uderzo/NetflixNow that Netflix is involved, however, it is a sure bet that the intention is to cross over into as many markets as possible, not least the United States. This five-episode adaptation of an early (1966) Asterix book accomplishes that goal with sufficient style, primarily through its brightly colorful 3-D animation. The images are vivid and pleasing, and they hold your interest even when the action kicks in and the storytelling loses some of its French particularity, sliding into a Pixar-derived international-blockbuster groove. (Streaming at Netflix.)We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Rediscovered Thomas the Tank Engine Pilot Is Released

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      The episode, from 1983, was found in storage by accident. It was restored and made available for viewing for the first time on Friday.Thomas the Tank Engine notices a funny smell. He breaks a rule, has a mishap and gets stuck. He is rescued and learns a lesson. Ringo Starr provides the narration.If you have ever seen any of the more than 500 episodes of the children’s show “Thomas & Friends,” you might imagine you have seen it before. But you really have not, because this scene is from the newly rediscovered pilot episode, which has been restored and was made available for viewing for the first time on Friday.The episode, filmed in 1983 and titled “Down the Mine,” was found accidentally in storage, Ian McCue, a producer of the series for a decade, told the BBC.Ian McCue, a producer, examined the newly discovered film.MattelThe episode was pieced together from multiple film stripsMattelThe five-minute episode was pieced together from multiple 35-millimeter film strips. The picture and sound were cleaned up, and newly composed music was added.“I think there’s a sort of a lovely charm and innocence about it, and I think even as a pilot, as a test piece, it still has that lovely, classic, timeless story to it, and the voices, everything is just so delightful,” Mr. McCue said.For the uninitiated, Thomas is a cheerful blue locomotive with an expressive face who first appeared in British children’s books by the Rev. W. Awdry. The character and his fellow locomotives, like Percy (green) and James (red), rose to new levels of popularity when they were animated for the popular program, which premiered in 1984.The show became a favorite of children and parents alike, many of whom were drawn to its relaxed rhythms. “Children live these days in a fast-paced world, but I don’t think children really change,” the producer Britt Allcroft, who brought the characters to television, said in a 1995 BBC documentary. “They need in their lives gentleness, comfort.”Clips of the show were repackaged for a PBS show, “Shining Time Station,” starting in 1989. Toys, movies and a theme park followed, and humble Thomas became a billion-dollar business.Mr. Starr was the original narrator of the series. George Carlin, Alec Baldwin, Pierce Brosnan and others followed.Ringo Starr, fourth from left, was the original narrator of “Thomas & Friends.”MattelA vast majority of the many characters were originally male — and, apparently, white. More recently, the show made efforts to diversify, adding new engines like Yong Bao of China and Ashima of India.Loyal fans of the series of all ages were thrilled by news that the pilot episode had been found, expressing eagerness to see the footage and amazement that it had been lost for so long. Enthusiasts on Reddit posted words like “finally,” “I’m so happy” and “let’s go!” punctuated by other words that Thomas and his friends would never utter.Once the restored episode was out, the reactions veered to softer sentiments. As one fan wrote, “Feels like being a kid again.”Thomas, cheerful as always.Mattel More

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      ‘The Class’ Is a Poignant Docuseries About Covid and College

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      The PBS series is a both a coming-of-age story and a historical document, about the lasting effects on young people of the pandemic shutdown.“The Class” is a six-episode documentary that follows a group of Bay Area high school seniors and their college adviser during the 2020-21 school year. From its opening moments, you know in your bones that the “Where are they now?” updates at the end are going to wreck you, and indeed they do.The mini-series, available on the PBS app and website, is a Covid story, a coming-of-age story and a stress test for how much you can watch someone procrastinate before your brain explodes. (I barely made it.) The students are all ambitious, successful, capable — they get good grades, participate in sports, sing in the choir. But then their school closes for a year during the pandemic, and everyone’s spark dims. Remote learning is awfully remote, and the idea of going to college on Zoom is not particularly motivating.“I think when the dust settles, this is going to be really bad,” sighs Cameron Schmidt-Temple, known by his students as Mr. Cam, their devoted adviser who is the heart — and the tear ducts — of the documentary. He relates deeply to his advisees at Deer Valley: He is an alum, who graduated in 2015, and he is applying to graduate programs, so he knows the indignities of the personal essay. He has so many spreadsheets. He texts, he video chats, he gives pep talk after pep talk. But his Google Calendar invites can do only so much against the entropy of despair.While the emotional access here is unimpeachable, “The Class” can, like its subjects, lose a little focus, and scenes of football and basketball games drag on. We learn very little about the actual academic work the students are doing (or not doing) or how the even more vulnerable and less accomplished students at the school fare.The college application process can be overwhelming in the best of circumstances. And beyond the catastrophes specific to the pandemic, the students here also face tragedies and instability on other fronts; a parent and a mentor both die during the show, and one student sinks into a suicidal depression. The sense of loss grows and grows, so much so that when activities resume at long last, even a flag called on a touchdown play feels like another injustice.“Describe the most significant challenge you have faced,” the essay prompt asks. No wonder the kids have a hard time knowing where to start.SIDE QUESTS“The Class” reminded me a lot of one of the best and most memorable TV documentaries of the past decade, the 10-part 2018 series “America to Me.” That’s available on Amazon Prime Video and the Roku Channel.If you are moved by Mr. Cam’s indefatigable support, you will also be moved by Brittany Wagner, a junior college adviser in the first two seasons of the fantastic series “Last Chance U.” That’s on Netflix. More

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      ‘Wolf Hall: The Mirror and the Light’ Review: No Century for Old Men

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      In the long-awaited sequel to “Wolf Hall,” Henry VIII’s royal fixer pays the price for success. (It’s his head.)“Wolf Hall: The Mirror and the Light” picks up where “Wolf Hall” left off, amid the gruesome beheading of Anne Boleyn in 1536, which we get to see this time in even more gruesome detail.In real life, however, there has been an unusually long gap between series and sequel. It has been 10 years since the release of “Wolf Hall,” based on the first two novels in Hilary Mantel’s Thomas Cromwell series. This means that in “The Mirror and the Light,” based on the final novel, the actor Mark Rylance is a decade older than the 50-something character he is playing.And it works, because the Cromwell in the new six-episode series (beginning Sunday on PBS’s “Masterpiece”) is haunted and beaten down by his work as Henry VIII’s political and matrimonial fixer, a job that included fabricating the evidence that led to Boleyn’s murder. In that first scene both we and Cromwell are reliving the beheading (necessary, from Henry’s point of view, because Anne, his second wife, had not borne a son).“The Mirror and the Light” is very much of a piece with the earlier “Wolf Hall,” written and directed by the same men — Peter Straughan and Peter Kosminsky — and with many actors returning to their roles, including Rylance and, as Henry, Damian Lewis. Among relatively recent historical costume dramas, the shows set a standard for polish and seriousness.But as the story of the commoner Cromwell’s decline and abrupt fall, “The Mirror and the Light” has an entirely different feel than the up-by-the-boot-straps, grimly celebratory “Wolf Hall.” The mood is nervous and ominous, as Cromwell begins to make errors and give in to his emotions. And it habitually casts its eye back in time, as Cromwell reassesses the often dirty work he has done. Picking up on a device from the novel, “The Mirror and the Light” continually drops in snippets of Cromwell’s guilty memories in the form of bits of film we have already seen across the two series.His guilt even has a supporting role in the form of the dead Cardinal Wolsey, the beloved master and mentor whose downfall Cromwell was unable to prevent. Cromwell now has late-night conversations with Wolsey’s slightly diaphanous ghost, scenes that are a little cringey but that do us the favor of keeping Jonathan Pryce and his archly disapproving eyebrows in the show.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      HBO Ends Partnership With ‘Sesame Street’

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      The venerable children’s series must find a new home after about a decade on HBO and its streaming service, Max. Old episodes will be available through 2027.“Sesame Street” is relocating.Sesame Workshop, the nonprofit company that makes the venerable children’s educational program, is looking for a new distribution partner after Warner Bros. Discovery decided not to renew its agreement to air new episodes of the show on HBO and its streaming platform, Max.Max said the decision was part of a broader corporate shift away from children’s programming. The 55th season of “Sesame Street” — featuring Big Bird, Elmo, Cookie Monster and other colorful Muppets — will be the last to arrive on Max, in January. Old episodes will remain available through 2027.“Based on consumer usage and feedback, we’ve had to prioritize our focus on stories for adults and families,” a Max spokesman said. “And so new episodes from ‘Sesame Street,’ at this time, are not as core to our strategy.”Sesame Workshop partnered with HBO in 2015, granting the premium cable outlet a nine-month window of exclusivity for new episodes. Under the agreement, the episodes were later broadcast for free on PBS, which has aired “Sesame Street” since 1970.The deal provided a significant cash infusion for Sesame Workshop, which expanded its production schedule to 35 episodes a year from 18. It is unclear which platform might pick up the series, but contenders could include Apple TV+ (which aired three seasons of “Helpsters,” another Sesame Workshop children’s series), Netflix and Amazon.“We will continue to invest in our best-in-class programming and look forward to announcing our new distribution plans in the coming months,” a spokesman for Sesame Workshop said in a statement.Sesame Workshop and HBO have been accused of contributing to inequality by allowing families who can afford premium cable to get new episodes of the show before others. In 2022, nearly 200 episodes of the show were pulled from Max.“HBO is holding hostage underprivileged families from having access to timely first-run episodes of perhaps the single most educational children’s franchise in the history of electronic media,” Tim Winter, who was then the president of the Parents Television Council, said in a statement in 2019. More

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      ‘Leonardo da Vinci’ Is a Humanizing Look Into a Great Mind

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      Beyond the appropriate awe, this two-part PBS documentary, co-directed by Ken Burns, adds human texture to the hagiography.“Leonardo da Vinci,” a four-hour, two-part documentary airing on PBS on Monday and Tuesday at 8 p.m. (check local listings), is a thorough and engrossing biography that can’t help but feel incomplete, so vast and unusual is its subject. “Leonardo, for his time, possesses the most knowledge in the world,” one expert explains.Narrated by Keith David and directed by Ken Burns, Sarah Burns and David McMahon, this is a straightforward but still lyrical analysis. We learn about da Vinci’s early life, family, education and lovers, and the doc does an admirable job of explaining not just excellence but innovation. Enumerating the areas of his curiosity alone could take four hours, so the focus here is more on his output, whose scope and impact are singular even now. (Though maybe we could revive a few more aspects of his influence: Painting is cool, but why are there so few weddings in which performers dressed as Greek gods bless the union and cavort around a giant gilded half-egg? Something to consider, party planners; da Vinci orchestrated one such event in 1490.)“For the first time in the history of Western culture, the process becomes the interesting aspect of how art is made,” another expert points out, and “Leonardo da Vinci” follows that path, too.But beyond the appropriate awe, there’s a through line here of half-starts, dead drafts and lemons — flying machines that can never work, hydroarchitecture that fails completely, paintings never realized for reasons unknown. Those efforts are presented here with an endearing “well, nobody bats a thousand” shrug, adding human texture to the hagiography. One of the greatest minds in human history trails off in one of his final mathematic exegeses because, he writes, “the soup is getting cold.” Geniuses: They’re just like us.Also this weekFrom left, Gracie Lawrence, Alyah Chanelle Scott, Pauline Chalamet and Amrit Kaur in a scene from Season 3 of “The Sex Lives of College Girls.”Tina Thorpe/Max“Interior Chinatown,” based on the novel by Charles Yu, arrives Tuesday, on Hulu.“Our Oceans,” narrated by Barack Obama, arrives Wednesday, on Netflix.After many failed attempts over the years, a TV adaptation of “Cruel Intentions” finally arrives Thursday, on Amazon Prime Video.In the vein of “Floor Is Lava” comes “Human vs. Hamster,” a doofy obstacle course series arriving Thursday, on Max.Season 3 of “The Sex Lives of College Girls” begins Thursday at 9 p.m., on Max. More

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      Ofra Bikel, Filmmaker With a Focus on Criminal Justice, Dies at 94

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      Her award-winning documentaries for PBS’s “Frontline” series shed light on serious flaws in several cases and helped lead to the release of 13 prisoners.Ofra Bikel, a crusading filmmaker for PBS’s “Frontline” investigative series whose documentaries about the criminal justice system in the United States exposed deep flaws in the convictions of 13 people, died on Aug. 11 at her home in Tel Aviv. She was 94.Her niece Tamar Ichilov confirmed the death. She left no immediate survivors.After making an eclectic mix of “Frontline” documentaries, including ones about the war in El Salvador, people over 75 who were beset with spiraling medical costs and the Solidarity movement in Poland, Ms. Bikel’s focus shifted mainly to criminal justice cases.“I hate injustice,” Ms. Bikel told The New York Times in 2005. “It just bugs me.”One case, in particular, consumed her for seven years.In 1990, she started looking into a case in Edenton, N.C., where seven people, including Bob and Betsy Kelly, a married couple who owned the Little Rascals Day Care Center, were charged with sexually abusing 29 children.Mr. Kelly was convicted and received 12 consecutive life sentences, but his conviction was overturned. His wife pleaded no contest after 30 months in jail. The other five defendants, including three of the Kellys’ employees, also spent long periods in prison before their releases.The case, which lacked physical and conclusive medical evidence, relied on testimony from many children who defense lawyers said had been manipulated by therapists.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More