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      Colman Domingo Makes Sense of ‘The Madness’

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      The Netflix thriller uses a murder mystery to explore the dangers of misinformation and conspiracy theories. “It’s this flood of not knowing what to believe,” the actor says.The actor Colman Domingo had recently finished back-to-back shoots for the films “Rustin” and “The Color Purple.” He was not looking to star in a series, let alone a series in which the main character seemingly never stops talking. “I’ll be very honest,” he said. “I was trying to rest.” But when his agent sent him the scripts for “The Madness,” he couldn’t help himself.“I thought, Yeah, this is just too good,” he said.This was on a recent evening, and Domingo had joined a video call to discuss “The Madness,” an eight-episode thriller that premieres Thursday on Netflix. Domingo stars as Muncie Daniels, a CNN pundit who has become increasingly alienated from his family, his community and even his own beliefs. When a white supremacist is murdered and Muncie is falsely accused of the crime, he goes on the run, embarking on a journey that reconnects him with what he values. (It also connects him to television’s current favorite villain: a shady billionaire.)A suspenseful series, set largely in Philadelphia and the Poconos, “The Madness” is a showcase for Domingo and a meditation on the dangers of misinformation, disinformation and conspiracy theories, though some of those theories turn out to be true. Domingo, who is currently shooting a new project in Beacon, N.Y. (he is bad at resting), joined the showrunners Stephen Belber, based in New York, and V.J. Boyd, who called in from Los Angeles, to discuss conflict, repair and why cable news is never the answer. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.Why did you want Colman?STEPHEN BELBER I’ve been a fan since his theater days. I wanted this weirdly beautiful blend of grace and force that Colman brings to everything he touches. It was what Muncie required. There’s a certain bombast to him, but there’s a certain vulnerability. And then remembering that Colman is from West Philly, the universe was speaking to us.V.J. BOYD It was very important that we had someone who had great presence, because this is a show where the protagonist is front and center.And Colman, why did you want to do the series?COLMAN DOMINGO I had questions about our society, about who’s pulling the strings, about disinformation, about why we’re so divided. All these questions that I had, they were uncovering. They were saying, “Let’s bring this to the forefront.” I wanted to be the instrument. I understand this character deeply.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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      Late Night Makes Its Last Jokes About Biden Pardoning Turkeys

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      Although Thanksgiving was still three days away, “the turkeys looked at Biden and said, ‘We better get this done,’” Jimmy Fallon said.Welcome to Best of Late Night, a rundown of the previous night’s highlights that lets you sleep — and lets us get paid to watch comedy. Here are the 50 best movies on Netflix right now.Lucky BirdsPresident Biden pardoned his last two Thanksgiving turkeys on Monday.Although the holiday was still three days away, “the turkeys looked at Biden and said, ‘We better get this done,’” Jimmy Fallon said.“Today on the South Lawn of the White House, President Biden pardoned two turkeys from Minnesota named Peach and Blossom. Those aren’t turkey names. Peach and Blossom sound like the special guests at a bachelor party.” — JIMMY FALLON“President Biden today presided over the annual White House turkey pardon. Well, he didn’t exactly pardon them, he just turned the investigation over to Merrick Garland, and then it just kind of petered out.” — SETH MEYERS“It’s kind of miraculous that these turkeys were able to get pardons without Ryan Murphy even doing a show about them on Netflix.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“That’s right, President Biden presided over the annual White House turkey pardon and granted clemency to Peach, Blossom and, before anyone noticed, Hunter.” — SETH MEYERS“Yep, Biden promised that the turkeys would not get killed this November. Democrats were like, ‘Hey, that’s what you said to us.’” — JIMMY FALLON“I hope everyone enjoyed the pardoning, because next year, under Trump, those turkeys will be Matt Gaetz and Rudy Giuliani.” — JIMMY FALLONBah, HumbugOn his last episode of “Real Time” for the year, Bill Maher argued that Americans should forget politics and enjoy Christmas.“Enough! It’s [expletive] Christmas, and you will act like it,” Maher said. “’Tis the season, and all that.”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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      ‘Get Millie Black’ Is a Fresh Take on the Cop Drama

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      Created by the Booker Prize-winning author Marlon James, the HBO series puts a new spin on a lot of old crime show conventions.“Get Millie Black,” beginning on Monday at 9 p.m., is another high-end HBO crime drama about a cop who does things her own way — against the rules, no matter what her angry boss says. She does so on account of her too-personal investment in this and all cases because of the way they remind her of her childhood. (Her lousy childhood, obviously.)And yet this rogue officer may be the only truly ethical one around, the only one who actually gets things done, the only one who actually cares about the people everyone else ignores! Why must corruption follow her, even though she herself is more or less upstanding? And hey — has anyone else noticed that the rich get richer?One twist here is that “Get Millie Black” is also pretty dang good; perceptive, aerodynamic, rich in artistry and in specifics. “This crime story is old,” Millie (Tamara Lawrance) tells us in the pilot. “But people make it new every day.” When she’s right, she’s right, and part of the premise of the show is that Millie is often right.Created by the Booker Prize-winning author Marlon James, “Millie” is set in Jamaica, where Millie, the prodigal daughter of an abusive mother, has returned after 18 years in England and is now a police officer. Millie thought her brother, Orville, had died while she was gone, but in fact Orville has transitioned and is now Hibiscus (Chyna McQueen). She is very much alive, though often in peril.The catalyzing incident here is the disappearance of a teen girl, which of course turns into a much larger investigation of more widespread and depraved criminality, as these cases always do on TV. When a white Scotland Yard detective (Joe Dempsie) arrives on the scene, Millie is not enthusiastic. “Here to colonize our case?” she half jokes.Crime shows, especially missing girl shows, often feel barren, or at least frozen in their Scandinavian snowscapes. “Millie,” on the other hand, feels abundant. Each episode has a different anchor character providing the perspective and narration, and each character, including the one-offs, has a clear voice. Millie is our star, but she is part of a bright constellation.There are only five episodes (four of which were made available for review), and new installments air on Mondays.Also this weekA dish seen in the Ángel León episode of Season 7 of “Chef’s Table.”Netflix“Anthony Jeselnik: Bones and All” arrives Tuesday, on Netflix.The season finale of “Dancing With the Stars” airs on Tuesday at 8 p.m., on ABC.A new batch of “Chef’s Table” episodes arrive Wednesday, on Netflix.“The Madness,” starring Colman Domingo, arrives Thursday, on Netflix. More

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      Your Thanksgiving Day Watching Lineup, Plus 6 Things to Watch on TV This Week

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      Watch the Macy’s Day Parade, the dog show and football while the turkey is cooking, and catch up on true crime and two new shows.Football, puppies and floats: Here’s what to watch on Thanksgiving.Whether you’re big on cooking, big on eating or big on avoiding Thanksgiving altogether, one of the best parts of the holiday is that there are endless options on TV throughout the day.First up is the annual Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, which started 100 years ago in 1924 (though this year isn’t the 100th parade because of a hiatus during World War II). It will follow its usual route in New York City, with Savannah Guthrie, Hoda Kotb and Al Roker returning as hosts. Jennifer Hudson, Kylie Minogue, Loud Luxury and Cynthia Erivo are just a few of the many performers — along with balloons of Minnie Mouse, Spider-Man and Goku, of course. Thursday at 8:30 a.m. on NBC and streaming on Peacock.Once the parade is over and cooking is in full swing, it’s time to watch the National Dog Show, with 2,000 cute, preening dogs representing 205 breeds. Last year a Sealyham terrier named Stache took home the gold. Thursday at 12 p.m. on NBC and streaming on Peacock.A Tibetan Mastiff who will be featured in the 2024 National Dog Show.Scott Gries/NBCAnd for many, the best part of the day is watching not one, not two, but three football games, back to back. First, it’s the Chicago Bears at the Detroit Lions at 12:30 p.m. on CBS. Then, the New York Giants play the Dallas Cowboys at 4:30 p.m. on Fox. Finally, once you’re hopefully a couple of pie slices deep, the Miami Dolphins square off against the Green Bay Packers at 8:15 p.m. on NBC. I’ll be skipping the real football and queuing up a thematic “Friends” episode: “The One With the Football,” on Max.Send shivers up your spine with lots of true crime.The house where JonBenét Ramsey was found murdered in Boulder, Colo., in a photo from 1997.David Zalubowski/Associated PressWe 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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      ‘Dune: Prophecy’ Season 1, Episode 2 Recap: The Agony

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      Valya has shown that she is clearly willing to sacrifice whatever, and whomever, it takes to accomplish her goal. Season 1, Episode 2: ‘Two Wolves’Desmond Hart is an anomaly. He is alive after a sandworm attack that should have left him in the belly of the beast. He knows of the Sisterhood’s secret plan to play puppet master with the universe’s rulers as their marionettes. He can burn people to death using only his mind, apparently from light years away. He can resist the Voice, with which Mother Superior Valya Harkonnen has subdued even other powerful members of her own Sisterhood.He has no compunction about consigning a child to an agonizing death, or about torturing that child’s father for displaying insolence toward the emperor he serves. He’s a scary dude.He also has a point.There’s no question where “Dune: Prophecy” wants your sympathies to lie regarding this guy; burning a little boy to death won’t win you many fans. However, in its second episode, the show reveals that Mother Valya is playing a game in which, up until recently, she was the only real player on the field. By installing her Truthsayers throughout the Imperium, she has managed to manipulate not only the emperor and his aristocratic frenemy, Duke Richese, but also the rebel forces responsible for taking down spice harvesters on Arrakis and infiltrating the imperial palace. When the rebel cell has outgrown its usefulness, she has no problem ordering its exposure and destruction. It’s all for the greater good, after all.The same is true of the orders she gives back at the Sisterhood’s home base. To her sister Tula’s dismay, Valya orders that Tula’s star pupil, Lila (Chloe Lea), undergo “the Agony.” This portentously named process, a version of which is undergone by Paul Atreides and his mother, Lady Jessica, in the “Dune” films, involves ingesting a poison with no antidote. With proper command of the body on a cellular level, an acolyte can break the poison down, unlocking her “genetic memory” — the collected knowledge and wisdom of all her maternal forebears — and becoming a Reverend Mother in the process.Why Lila? A powerful empath, she is secretly the great-great-granddaughter of Mother Raquella, the Sisterhood’s founder and the first woman to (involuntarily) undergo this process. If Lila is able to contact Raquella within her own mind, Valya believes that they can learn more about their founder’s prophecy concerning “the Reckoning” and “the Burning Truth.”But training for the Agony usually takes many years, and this is a rush job, precipitated by the coming of Desmond Hart and the monkey wrench he has thrown into the Sisterhood’s plans.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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      Chuck Woolery, Host of ‘Love Connection,’ Dies at 83

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      After a career that included stints on “Wheel of Fortune” and other popular game shows, he took a combative turn as a right-wing podcast host.Chuck Woolery, the affable host of “Love Connection,” “Wheel of Fortune” and other television game shows, who later criticized liberal values and the Democratic Party as the co-host of a popular right-wing podcast, died on Saturday at his home in Texas. He was 83.His death was confirmed by Mark Young, the co-host of his podcast, “Blunt Force Truth.” He did not specify the cause.In the late 1970s, Mr. Woolery was the inaugural host of “Wheel of Fortune,” now one of the longest-running game shows on television. And in the early 1980s, he was tapped to host “Love Connection,” a dating show that helped to make him a household name.On a stage flush with red and pink cutout hearts, he maneuvered with an easy charm through interactions that could be both endearing and irreverent.At times he could be a coaxing Cupid; at others, a referee as contestants traded barbs over who was complaining or who had skipped out on dinner.“I felt more like the audience,” Mr. Woolery said in a 2020 interview with the journalist Adam Wurtzel. “What would the audience ask? What would the audience feel?”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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      The Voice of Milhouse on Saying Goodbye to ‘The Simpsons’

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      After 35 years of voicing Bart’s unlucky but indefatigable best friend, Pamela Hayden is retiring. She still has high hopes for his future.When you answer your phone to hear a grown woman shouting “Wazzzuuuuup?” in the voice of a 10-year-old boy, you can be pretty sure that you’re talking with Pamela Hayden. For some 35 years, Hayden has played many distinctive characters on “The Simpsons,” the long-running animated Fox sitcom, but none with more nerdy exuberance than Milhouse Van Houten, the hapless but good-hearted best friend of Bart Simpson.On Wednesday, however, Hayden announced that after having played Milhouse since before “The Simpsons” was even its own series (and having amassed a roster of other roles including the bully Jimbo Jones and Bart’s sweetly pious neighbor Rod Flanders), she has retired from voice acting. Her final “Simpsons” performances as Milhouse and Jimbo will be shown on Sunday night.Hayden, 70, whose voices have been heard on numerous animated shows since the 1980s, said in a phone interview on Thursday that voice acting is not vastly different from on-camera acting. When you’re putting yourself in the mind-set of a voice character, she said: “You’re thinking to yourself, what do I want? How bad do I want it? What happens if I don’t get it? And Milhouse has to think a lot about what happens if he doesn’t get it, because he hardly ever does.”Dave gets a surprise greetingOur reporter was expecting a call from Pamela Hayden, just not her opening line.And with the same soft-spoken compassion she has brought to her performances, Hayden said she understood why Milhouse became the most enduring and best-known of all the characters she played.“Milhouse is somebody who’s having a rough time a lot of times, but he doesn’t take it personally,” she said. “It doesn’t ruin his life. He wakes up the next day and he still feels like things are going to be better, even if they’re not.”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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      ‘Glicked’ Fans Rejoice in Bloodshed and Broadway Songs

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      Swords clashing and blood curdling screams of gladiators emanate from one room. Across the hallway, witches belt out show tunes.That’s the sound of “Glicked.”Last year, moviegoers swarmed to see “Barbenheimer” — the combined name for “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer” — when the films opened on the same day. Now, there is a push from the casts and fans of “Gladiator II” and “Wicked” — which both opened across the country on Friday — to recreate that energy for another double feature with a blended name.Isabelle Deveaux and Emma Rabuano skipped out of theater six at the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema in Brooklyn at 2:38 p.m. on Friday, after watching “Gladiator II.”At 6:15 p.m., the pair, both 25, planned to return to the Alamo Drafthouse to see “Wicked.” The crossover, Ms. Deveaux said, “felt so specifically catered to our interests.”Diego Gasca of Los Angeles went with friends to the opening day of “Wicked” at AMC Lincoln Square 13 in Manhattan, but he said that he was not interested in seeing “Gladiator II.”Colin Clark for The New York TimesOn the surface, the two films, which have a combined running time of over five hours, appear vastly different. One is a family friendly musical prequel to “The Wizard of Oz,” while the other is an R-rated epic sequel about murder, war and the Roman Empire. But Ms. Deveaux and Ms. Rabuano see some common ground in the films.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