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    ‘The Smoking Room’ Is a Brilliant British Office Comedy

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    And yet, compared with the British “Office,” it is a model of restraint.Robert Webb, left, and Jeremy Swift in a scene from the short-lived comedy “The Smoking Room.”Roku ChannelThe two-season comedy “The Smoking Room” (on the Roku Channel) premiered in Britain in 2004, and in some ways it can feel even older: A designated indoor cigarette-smoking lounge at an office? Nary a phone in sight, and only glancing mentions of the internet? Next you’re going to tell me they’re rendering tallow and writing out the Bible by hand.But “Smoking,” written and created by Brian Dooley, has a fascinating timelessness in its format. The show is set in a dingy break room and almost never leaves it — think “oops, all bottle episodes.” It’s a single-camera comedy, but it isn’t a mockumentary; this alone makes its rhythms more like a stage play’s than a sitcom’s. That’s heightened by the fact that there is no score, and many episodes unfold essentially in real time.Its true TV self comes through with the show’s episodic sensibilities, in which the same things always happen. The coffee machine is always on the fritz; Annie (Debbie Chazen) always bums a smoke but never brings one; Heidi (Emma Kennedy) always mentions her drippy husband. Barry (Jeremy Swift) is always doing a shabby job with the crossword puzzle, and Robin (Robert Webb) always knows both the answer to the clue and some other shred of wisdom. Episodes don’t feel repetitive, though; instead, the quirks land as a clever ritual. Every smoke break is different, but every smoke break is the same.There is no major plot to speak of, and almost nothing happens-happens, so “The Smoking Room” relies mostly on dialogue and character. In some ways it is a show carved in relief or composed only of scraps — it has the patter and inconsequence of a cold open but for a half-hour, until the shape of what has not been said is as stark as what has. Some characters never appear at all, their arcs instead fleshed out fully through everyone else’s gossip. Entire love stories play out this way.The obvious comparison here is the British “Office,” but that show feels cacophonous, almost explosive in comparison — a parade versus a snow globe. Plenty of British comedies can be described as being about restraint, but “The Smoking Room” takes this to a funny, brilliant extreme. More

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      ‘Prosper’ Is a Juicy Megachurch Drama

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      This Australian series has enough tawdry scandals to qualify as a soap and enough Shakespearean power lust to qualify as a fancy drama.Richard Roxburgh stars as a megachurch leader in “Prosper.”StanThe Australian drama “Prosper,” on the Roku channel, follows the Quinn family and their megachurch franchise. Dad Cal (Richard Roxburgh) is the slick, energetic leader, the kind of pastor who does not turn the other cheek but instead punches the guy right back, harder. Mom Abi (Rebecca Gibney) is the tough power player, willing though not always happy to cover up her family’s transgressions — a task that takes up nearly all of her time.The eldest son, Dion (Ewen Leslie), might be too milquetoast to take over. “If you want to inherit the earth, Dion, you’re going to have to be a little less meek,” says one attaché. Dion’s wife, Taz (Ming-Zhu Hii), is more than happy to push him, though. God helps those who help their spouses, right? Issy (Hayley McCarthy) is the pop singer with a showbiz-Jesus husband (Jordi Webber) who would love his own chance to preach, while Jed (Jacob Collins-Levy) is the prodigal son who ditched the megachurch in favor of a soup kitchen but now finds himself sucked back into the fold. And the baby of the family, the adopted, teenage Moses (Alexander D’Souza), is trying to contact his birth parents amid a self-destructive spiral.“Nobody does church like us,” Cal brags. One hopes! His plan to plant a church in Los Angeles sends his children scrambling for top position, trying to prove both their spiritual and commercial mettle. They compete to baptize a famous young D.J. the way the “Succession” kids tried to close deals. Jesus is lord, but cash is king, and those sprawling buildings, rock-concert stages, private helicopters and image consultants don’t pay for themselves.“Prosper” has enough tawdry scandals to qualify as a soap and enough Shakespearean power lust to qualify as a fancy drama. Unlike some of its more prestige-chasing brethren, “Prosper” moves; it almost feels distilled. Episodes zip along, and characters tend to announce their schemes and allegiances, and what the show lacks in nuance it makes up for in momentum. Many of its juiciest arcs are ripped from tabloid headlines, but the series avoids tinny caricature and instead finds the real light and longing in its characters, the sincerity of the search within the hypocrisy of the outcomes. More

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      Disney Scrapped ‘The Spiderwick Chronicles.’ Roku Saved It.

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      Canceled by Disney before it even aired, “The Spiderwick Chronicles” found a new home at Roku and has so far “delivered results beyond expectations,” its creator said.Last summer, the writer and producer Aron Eli Coleite was on holiday in Las Vegas with his wife when he received an urgent call from Nicole Clemens, the president of Paramount Television.Coleite was the showrunner on “The Spiderwick Chronicles,” a fantasy series Paramount was producing for Disney+. The show had recently finished production on its first season, but Clemens was calling with bad news: Disney had decided to pull the plug, effectively canceling the series before it made it to air.Without warning, “The Spiderwick Chronicles” was “being turned into one of those tax write-offs that I’d heard so much about,” Coleite said in an interview. Christine McCarthy, the chief financial officer for Disney, had said on an earnings call in May 2023 that Disney was in the process of a strategic shift that would lead to downsizing and cost-cutting across the board, beginning with the removal and cancellation of some shows on their streaming platforms. “Spiderwick” was a casualty of these cuts, and “there was no fighting against it,” Coleite said. (Disney declined to comment.)Clemens said in an interview that she was shocked by the move. “We’d started a second season, and there was a lot of love and excitement for the project,” she said. “It was like, whoa.”But after facing certain extinction, “The Spiderwick Chronicles” was rescued by an unlikely savior: The Roku Channel, the ad-supported streaming platform built into the company’s smart TV interfaces and stand-alone streaming devices. All eight episodes of “The Spiderwick Chronicles” debuted on Roku last week, joining the platform’s modest but growing library of original content, including the movie “Weird: The Al Yankovic Story” and its reboot of “The Great American Baking Show.”So far the move has paid off: Roku announced on Tuesday that “Spiderwick” had the best first weekend of any on-demand title on the Roku Channel, in terms of total hours streamed. (The streamer also offers live channels and sports.) Roku declined to give specific numbers, saying only that “Spiderwick” was watched by “millions of streamers” in its first three days on the platform.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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      Who Are All Those Celebrities at the Weird Al Pool Party? A Guide

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      We break down that star-studded scene from “Weird: The Al Yankovic Story,” the sorta kinda true portrait of the pop star’s life, now on the Roku Channel.Here’s how Weird Al Yankovic, the accordian-playing king of parody, would like you to think “Another One Rides the Bus” was written: At a pool party, the radio personality Wolfman Jack challenged him to devise a sendup of Queen’s “Another One Bites the Dust” on the spot.In a scene from “Weird: The Al Yankovic Story,” the true-except-when-it’s-not biopic now streaming on the Roku Channel, the title character (played by Daniel Radcliffe in a big curly wig) proceeds to knock out Jack’s challenge swiftly, then grabs his accordion to serenade 1970s and ’80s counterculture names like Andy Warhol (Conan O’Brien) and Divine (Nina West) with a fully formed rendition of the tune. (Probably the real story of the comedian carrying around a big, blue loose-leaf notebook to write down ideas, followed by hourslong trips to the library to research topics like ducks, wasn’t quite as exciting.)How did all those starry cameos came together? Yankovic revealed at a New York Comic Con panel in October that he extended invitations to celebrities on his “holiday card mailing list.”“I went through my address book, emailed a bunch of my friends, and said, ‘Hey, we’re shooting this crazy pool party in the Valley. Do you want to come out and spend half a day doing it?’” he said. “Thankfully a bunch of people showed up and we were able to pull it off!”You probably spotted Jack Black’s Wolfman Jack at the front of the crowd — he’s hard to miss in a neon-pink-and-cheetah-print scarf and lusciously thick beard — and Salvador Dalí (that mustache!), but did you catch Pee-wee Herman and Tiny Tim?Here’s a guide to nine of the famous faces at the fictional party, held by Yankovic’s real mentor, the radio host Dr. Demento (Rainn Wilson).Wolfman JackPlayed by Jack BlackThe Weird World of Weird AlThe musician has cracked the Top 40 for decades with his song parodies. With the sham biopic “Weird: The Al Yankovic Story,” he makes a joke of his own life.Review: “Like Yankovic’s music, ‘Weird’ is a note-for-note parody of a genre,” our critic writes of the movie. “Here, the target is the prestige biography.”Face to Face: The actor Daniel Radcliffe, an enthusiastic Yankovic fan, plays Weird Al in the film, while Yankovic himself is a co-writer. When the two met, they found themselves on the same wavelength.Getting Weird: The director Eric Appel discussed a scene in the movie featuring a college-age Yankovic as he comes up with his first parody.A Weirdly Enduring Appeal: National economies collapse, species go extinct, political movements rise and fizzle. But somehow, Weird Al keeps rocking.The rock ’n’ roll DJ was known for his gravelly radio voice and wolf howls. He was part of a group of disc jockeys in the early 1960s who pioneered the genre known as border radio, because it was broadcast from just over the border in Mexico. (He died in 1995.)This isn’t the first time Jack Black has shown up flamboyantly attired in close proximity to Yankovic. The actor previously appeared in the 2014 music video for Weird Al’s “Tacky,” a parody of Pharrell Williams’s smash “Happy” (in a tie-dye pants-and-sequin-fanny-pack ensemble that makes his Wolfman Jack garb look tame).John DeaconPlayed by David DastmalchianIt’s OK, we didn’t recognize his name, either. But his work speaks for itself: Deacon was the original bassist for Queen, seeing the British rock band through No. 1 singles like “Crazy Little Thing Called Love” and “Another One Bites the Dust” before leaving in 1997, six years after the death of the group’s lead singer, Freddie Mercury. Now retired, the 71-year-old, who has often been described as the quiet member of the band, has lived a low-key life out of the public eye, raising six children in the London home he bought with his first Queen paycheck.Andy WarholPlayed by Conan O’BrienIt wouldn’t be a party without the king of Pop Art, whose works featuring presidents, movie stars, soup cans and other cultural icons are themselves iconic. He died in 1987.It’s no surprise that Conan O’Brien, who portrays Warhol in a black turtleneck and white wig, is on Yankovic’s holiday card list — the two have been friends for years. Yankovic appeared during O’Brien’s weeklong Comic Con celebration in 2016 and was a guest on his “Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend” podcast in 2021.)Salvador DalíPlayed by Emo PhillipsThe pioneering Spanish surrealist who explored subconscious imagery was the creator of the much-parodied 1931 painting “The Persistence of Memory” (think melting watches and swarming ants). By the time he died in 1989, he had become known as “an inveterate irritant, a tease who never gave up teasing and a prankster who made headlines for decades,” as his New York Times obituary characterized him.The standup Emo Phillips has been opening for Yankovic on his tour this year.DivinePlayed by Nina WestThe drag queen Divine became a cult favorite as the longtime muse of John Waters, who cast the star in “Pink Flamingos,” “Hairspray” and other films. Divine appears in “Weird” in — what else? — the red dress made famous in “Pink Flamingos.” (Divine died in 1988 at 42.)For Nina West, a “RuPaul’s Drag Race” queen, Divine is her first film role, and it’s a fitting choice: She grew up a Weird Al fan and has become known for performing as Edna Turnblad, the “Hairspray” character Divine originated in Waters’s 1988 film.Pee-wee HermanPlayed by Jorma TacconeThe ’80s-greats party wouldn’t be complete without Pee-wee Herman, lounging poolside in his too-small suit. He’s the comedic alter ego of the actor and comedian Paul Reubens, who started out with the Los Angeles improv troupe the Groundlings in the 1970s and made a career out of playing the man-child character, most notably in the hit 1985 comedy “Pee-wee’s Big Adventure.” More recently, Reubens, now 70, starred in “The Pee-wee Herman Show” on Broadway in 2010, as well as in the 2016 Netflix film “Pee-wee’s Big Holiday,” which he co-wrote.Alice CooperPlayed by Akiva SchafferEven though he’s at the back of the gaggle, we’d know those dripping, sad-panda eyes a mile away. Cooper, the godfather of shock rock who at 74 is still touring and regularly donning a full face of goth makeup, is known for his raspy voice and illusion-filled stage shows packed with pyrotechnics, fake blood, baby dolls, guillotines and reptiles.Cooper and Yankvoic have met in real life — they wound up singing a rendition of the Beatles’s “Come Together” with Steven Tyler in 2012 when the trio found themselves together in Hawaii on New Year’s Eve. (While Yankovic and Tyler held their own, Cooper had to read the lyrics off a cheat sheet.)Tiny TimPlayed by Demetri MartinYankovic has long been among the biggest fans of Tiny Tim, the falsetto-voice ukulele whiz whose “Tiptoe Through the Tulips” became a novelty hit in 1968. Yankovic even read aloud Tiny Tim’s letters and diary entries for a 2021 documentary about his life, “Tiny Tim: King for a Day.” (The musician died in 1996 at 64.)GallagherPlayed by Paul F. TompkinsIf there were a Guinness world record for the most times a human has smashed a watermelon, the comedian Gallagher — and his oversize Sledge-O-Matic mallet — would certainly be the person to beat. The standup, known for his prop comedy, has starred in more than a dozen specials, occasionally mixing up the melon-murdering by subbing apples or oranges but always promising a smashing ending. More

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      More Than ‘Weird’: Roku Embraces Original Programming

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      The streaming media device company wants to attract more viewers and advertisers to its channel. A coming biopic of “Weird Al” Yankovic is its most ambitious project to date. The gray, rainy weather of an early March day was no match for the joy emanating from a rented bungalow on the campus of the California State Polytechnic University in Pomona.Accordion music wafted over a production set that was tucked into a tree-lined street and teeming with crew members wearing Hawaiian shirts. Welcome to the set of “Weird: The Al Yankovic Story,” the unconventional biopic of the beloved parodist “Weird Al” Yankovic, featuring Daniel Radcliffe in the titular role.It was Mr. Radcliffe’s last day shooting — and Julianne Nicholson stood in front of the camera portraying Mr. Yankovic’s mother, a woman much more interested in discussing her son’s dietary issues than his burgeoning career. In the scene, Al has called to tell her he just landed a 25-night residency at Madison Square Garden. (Mr. Yankovic never actually landed a 25-night engagement at the arena.) She wants to know if he’s eating enough bran.“The script is kind of ridiculous,” said Mr. Yankovic, who is a co-writer on the film. He was reluctant to reveal plot details but appeared giddy about the whole experience. “It’s just fun having these top-notch actors doing this silly material,” he said. “I just can’t believe that we’re actually getting to do this.”The reason the film exists is Roku, the streaming media device company with more than 63 million active accounts in the United States. In the past year, Roku has moved into original programming, acquiring the library of the short-lived Quibi app and paying $97.8 million in cash for This Old House Ventures, the company behind the long-running home improvement show.Roku Originals has since made a two-hour movie adaptation of the canceled NBC show “Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist,” greenlit second seasons of Quibi content, like Kevin Hart’s action-comedy show “Die Hart,” and the odd home renovation show “Murder House Flip,” where notorious crime scenes are turned into sparkly remodels. It has also signed deals with Martha Stewart, Emeril Lagasse and Jessica Alba for unscripted content and is planning a broadcast next month of a live-captured performance from London’s West End of “Heathers: The Musical.”Roku paid almost $98 million in cash to buy This Old House Ventures.This Old House Ventures“Weird” is the company’s most ambitious programming move. The film, produced by the comedy studio Funny or Die, cost around $12 million to make. “Weird” will debut at the Toronto International Film Festival in September, before becoming free on Roku in November.“I can’t say there was a bidding war,” Mr. Yankovic said with a laugh, before adding that other parties were interested. “Roku was the only company that whipped out their checkbook. Because of them, this movie is getting made.”The film is part of Roku’s effort to persuade those who use the device to access paid apps like Netflix and Disney+ to spend more time perusing the free content offered on the Roku Channel, which now includes 40,000 movies and television shows and 150 linear channels. Keeping viewers on the platform longer is a way to bolster its advertising revenue for a business that has come to rely more heavily on ad spending and content distribution than device sales. Currently, device sales contribute just 12 percent to the company’s bottom line. Keeping users on the Roku Channel is imperative to its success.David Eilenberg, Roku’s head of originals, said in an interview that the company’s strategy in this early phase of creating new content was to assure the creative community that when Roku takes on a new project, it will be willing to spend the money to support it properly.“The spending strategy has always been surprise and delight rather than shock and awe,” he said. “‘Weird’ is a nice indicator of that, which is the sort of the thing nobody knew they wanted until it existed. That’s a very tricky thing to commission, but when you get one of those, you put both arms around it and support it to the best of your ability.”Roku became a trending topic on Twitter at the end of July when it released the trailer for “Weird” as part of its upfront presentation, which the company says resulted in $1 billion in commitments from the seven major advertising agency holding companies for the upcoming television season.Yet Roku’s expansion into originals comes at a difficult time for the company. During its second-quarter earnings call last month, the company pulled its full-year guidance because of the challenging advertising environment and lowered its third-quarter estimates to only 3 percent growth in total net revenues. (The analyst firm MoffettNathanson previously estimated growth for that quarter could reach 29 percent.)The company has sought to assure investors that it won’t be laying off employees or changing its business strategy as it deals with the advertising slowdown. That hasn’t stopped some analysts from lowering their price targets for the stock, but most remain bullish on the company’s future as the connected television market continues to grow and consumers are increasingly interested in finding all their different streaming channels in one place (much like traditional cable).MoffettNathanson detailed the challenges facing the company in a recent investor note, calling Roku’s hurdles a “three-sided war.” On the connected TV side, Roku is fighting against Amazon, Alphabet and others. For audience, it is up against “nearly every streaming platform under the sun.” And for advertising dollars, its competitors now include Netflix, Disney, Amazon, YouTube, Warner Bros. Discovery and Paramount Global.“Obviously this is not an ideal market structure,” the firm said in the report.A scene from “Weird.” Mr. Yankovic said working with Roku made him feel like “a big fish” because of the attention the company was giving the production.RokuFor Rob Holmes, the head of the Roku Channel, the strategy has always been to rely primarily on licensing content with a smattering of new originals — the company has yet to find another project with “Weird”-level enthusiasm — to pique consumers’ interests. It recently announced the revival of ABC’s “The Great American Baking Show,” with Ellie Kemper (“Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt”) and Zach Cherry (“Severance”) set to host. The show, which will bow in 2023, is intended as a companion to all 12 seasons of the long-running “The Great British Baking Show,” which will become available on the Roku Channel at the end of this year.Reports suggest that the annual amount the company spends on content is $1 billion, far beneath Netflix’s $17 billion content budget or the $30 billion Disney will spend across all its divisions for 2022. (Roku declined to confirm its annual budget.)“One of the things about ad-supported streaming versus SVOD is if I watch one thing on SVOD, that month I still sign up and pay,” said Mr. Holmes, referring to subscription video on demand services like Netflix and Disney+. “But from an AVOD standpoint” — that’s advertising video on demand — “you need that engagement to generate that volume that allows you to support that advertising business.”Complicating matters is the fact that Roku’s competitors are also its partners. Mr. Eilenberg admitted that when he is pursuing new content his primary competitors are often other advertising VOD services like Amazon’s Freevee, Fox’s Tubi and Paramount’s Pluto. But there’s significant overlap: The Roku Channel is available on Amazon Fire devices, for example, while Tubi is a popular channel on Roku. Paramount+ will be joining the Roku Channel later this month.But Roku can also find itself competing against Netflix. What’s the pitch when facing such a behemoth, albeit one that’s been knocked down a bit recently?“The very fact that we’re actually not doing a zillion shows, allows us to sort of credibly say to creators, ‘Your show will have its day in the sun,’” Mr. Eilenberg said. “There’s only one Roku Originals slate. Creators are going to be attended to.”Mr. Yankovic certainly feels that way.“I think we’re sort of like — what’s the saying? — a big fish,” he said. “We’re not going to get lost in somebody’s lineup. They’re very invested in having this be successful, as we all are. It’s nice that we’re all on the same team.” More

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      Quibi is selling content to Roku

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyQuibi Is Dead, but Roku TV May Resurrect Its ContentThe failed streaming company led by Jeffrey Katzenberg and Meg Whitman is in talks with Roku about a deal.Christoph Waltz in Quibi’s “Most Dangerous Game.” The streaming service’s programming has attracted interest from Roku. Credit…Quibi, via Associated PressJan. 4, 2021Updated 4:19 p.m. ETQuibi was the biggest bust of the streaming boom. But it has something Roku wants — more than 100 original programs.Quibi, which announced that it was closing six months after a much-hyped introduction, is in talks to sell its content to Roku, the streaming device maker with a streaming app of its own.The deal is close to completion, said one person with knowledge of the discussions, who was not authorized to speak publicly. Quibi and Roku declined to comment.Started by Jeffrey Katzenberg and Meg Whitman, who raised more than $1.75 billion from major Hollywood studios and other investors, Quibi was a quixotic attempt to capitalize on the streaming boom. Its shows, chopped into installments no longer than 10 minutes, were meant to be watched on smartphones.The approach assumed that people wanted this kind of viewing experience to help them through their daily commutes or while they were in line for coffee, but the coronavirus pandemic meant that potential customers were out of their on-the-go workday routines when the platform went live in April.Mr. Katzenberg blamed the pandemic for Quibi’s quick downfall, while others cited its unusual format and some of its creative choices, including a show starring the Emmy-winning actress Rachel Brosnahan as a character obsessed with her own golden arm.Business & EconomyLatest UpdatesUpdated Jan. 4, 2021, 3:39 p.m. ETMore than 170 business executives urge Congress to certify Biden’s win.Haven, the health care venture of Amazon, Berkshire and JPMorgan, is shutting down.A trickle of trucks continues to ease Britain into life outside the E.U.Still, Quibi won two Emmy Awards in the short-form category, for the actors Laurence Fishburne and Jasmine Cephas Jones in the series “#FreeRayshawn.” Two of its other shows scored nominations: “Most Dangerous Game,” which starred Christoph Waltz and Liam Hemsworth, and a reboot of the comedy “Reno 911!”That’s where Roku comes in. The company needs material for its Roku TV app. And Quibi, which has not yet gone dark, will soon have plenty of material that could go unseen.Complicating the talks, which were first reported by The Wall Street Journal, is Quibi’s unusual business strategy. Mr. Katzenberg and Ms. Whitman didn’t pursue ownership of the platform’s content, instead buying exclusive rights from creators to stream their shows for seven years. The arrangement was attractive to producers, who retained the right to later resell the shows to another service, such as Netflix. It is unclear how a sale would affect the rights of content producers.Roku, known primarily for its easy-to-use streaming devices, generates almost two-thirds of its revenue from its media division. Roku TV, a free, ad-supported streaming channel, offers movies and shows made by other companies, without a significant lineup of its own original content.Despite the relatively low cost of digital platforms, streaming bills are starting to add up as the digital media industry matures and expands. The average household pays for only three services at a time, and exclusive content on a free app is likely to attract an audience.The latest entrant, Discovery+, a platform built on 55,000 hours of unscripted shows, went live on Monday, arriving in a crowded field that includes, in addition to Netflix, Peacock from NBCUniversal, HBO Max, Disney+, AppleTV+, CBS All Access (soon to be renamed Paramount+) and Hulu.Roku has become a streaming force by exercising its distribution power — it claims 46 million accounts — to lift its media business. After a long disagreement, Roku recently forged a deal with AT&T to carry its HBO Max service. Roku wanted more access to advertising inventory on AT&T’s forthcoming ad-based streaming platform as well as rights to Warner Bros. content.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More