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      What’s on TV This Week: Holiday Films and the iHeartRadio Jingle Ball

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      The star-studded concert comes to small screens. “How the Grinch Stole Christmas,” “The Polar Express” and “A Christmas Carol” air on various networks.With network, cable and streaming, the modern television landscape is a vast one. Here are some of the shows, specials and movies coming to TV this week, Dec. 18-24. Details and times are subject to change.MondayA CHRISTMAS CAROL (1938) 6:45 p.m. on TCM. There are 16 film and TV adaptations (and counting!) of Charles Dickens’s 1843 novella, but this is one of the first. Staring Reginald Owen as Ebenezer Scrooge, this film tells the story pretty much as we all know it: Scrooge hates Christmas and mistreats his employees, including Bob Cratchit (Gene Lockhart), until a series of ghostly visitors show him the error of his ways and a vision of the future.TuesdayTaylor Momsen and Jim Carrey in “How the Grinch Stole Christmas.”Ron Batzdorff, Universal PicturesHOW THE GRINCH STOLE CHRISTMAS (2000) 8:20 p.m. on Freeform. This live-action version of Dr. Seuss’s 1957 children’s book might be the most popular, with Jim Carrey donning a full-body green fur suit and a strange accent. As the people of Whoville are preparing for their favorite holiday, Christmas, the Grinch comes down from his lair on Mount Crumpit with a plan to sabotage it all — until he comes face to face with the sweet and endearing Cindy Lou Who. And (spoiler!) by the end, the Grinch’s heart grows three sizes.WednesdayTHE POLAR EXPRESS (2004) 10 p.m. on AMC. As a child, I was terrified of this movie’s premise: a train pulling up outside of my house to take me who-knows-where. But by the end, I was charmed by the Christmas spirit just like everyone else. The children ride the magical train to the North Pole so that the little skeptical protagonist, Billy, can be proved wrong — Santa Claus actually is real!ThursdayIHEARTRADIO JINGLE BALL 2023 8 p.m. on ABC. The 2023 Jingle Ball show has been touring the U.S. since the beginning of December, but if you’d rather cozy up on the couch to watch instead of filing into an arena, you’re in luck. This broadcast will feature performances by Olivia Rodrigo, Usher, Nicki Minaj, SZA, Niall Horan and many more. I’m most excited to see Sabrina Carpenter perform her Christmas version of “Nonsense.”Ryan Gosling and Margot Robbie in “Barbie.”Warner Bros. PicturesBARBIE (2023) 9 p.m. on HBO. After a blockbuster summer at the box office, Greta Gerwig’s film has finally landed on the small screen. The movie follows Barbie (Margot Robbie) as she leaves Barbie Land and has the unfortunate realization that, outside, misogyny is alive and well; Ken (Ryan Gosling) obviously thrives. “It’s amusing when Barbie points out a billboard filled with women, mistaking them for the Supreme Court because that’s what the court looks like in Barbie Land, just with more pink,” Manohla Dargis wrote in her review for The New York Times. “However politically sharp, the gag is an unpleasant reminder of all the profoundly unfunny ways in which this world, with its visible and invisible hands, tries to control women, putting them into little boxes,” she added. For that reason, I can’t help but tear up every time I hear the movie’s anthem by Billie Eilish: “What Was I Made For?”DICK VAN DYKE 98 YEARS OF MAGIC 9 p.m. on CBS. Dick Van Dyke is celebrating his 98th birthday with a two-hour special featuring guests who include Zachary Levi and Rita Ora as well as archival footage from “The Dick Van Dyke Show,” “Mary Poppins” and “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.”FridayCary Grant and Deborah Kerr in “An Affair to Remember.”20th Century Fox/PhotofestAN AFFAIR TO REMEMBER (1957) 10 p.m. on TCM. Before there was “Sleepless in Seattle,” there was this classic: Nickie Ferrante (Cary Grant) and Terry McKay (Deborah Kerr) meet on a trans-Atlantic ocean liner and strike up a friendship and maybe something more — but since they are both with other people, they decide to set a time, six months off, to meet at the Empire State Building. But when the day comes Terry doesn’t show up.SaturdayEXTENDED FAMILY 8 p.m. on NBC. There’s a new sitcom in town, and this one focuses on the peaks and pits of managing family life after divorce. Abigail Spencer and Jon Cryer play Julia and Jim, a former couple who agree that the day they divorced was the best day of their lives, but they find that co-parenting with an ex can be complicated. Episodes will air weekly in January.SundayCHRISTMAS EVE MASS 11:30 p.m. on NBC. Pope Francis leads the traditional annual service from St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican. More

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      Carrie Coon Likes to ‘Play the Baddie’ in ‘The Gilded Age’

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      Playing a new-money upstart in “The Gilded Age,” the actor isn’t afraid to go big. “You can’t take it too seriously,” she said. “You can’t take yourself too seriously.”Carrie Coon remembers vividly the first time she walked onto the Long Island set of the HBO series “The Gilded Age” and into the regal foyer of the mansion she occupies as Bertha Russell, wife of the railway tycoon George Russell (Morgan Spector).“I thought, ‘Oh, oh, oh, I have to fill this,’” she recalled.Delectably, Coon has. In Season 2 of the series, a rococo drama set in 1880s New York City, Bertha takes her fight to join Manhattan’s elite to the opera. She sponsors the nascent Metropolitan Opera as an alternative to the Academy of Music, which won’t accept her new money. Whether in intimate scenes or grand ones, Coon (“The Leftovers,” “Fargo”), as Bertha, gives a full-bodied, deep-voiced performance. A foyer? That’s nothing. This is a woman who can fill the Met.On an afternoon in late November, a few weeks before the “Gilded Age” finale aired, Coon joined a Zoom call in a white bathrobe and satiny makeup. She was attending the Met herself that night, along with many of her castmates. (In an unusually elegant publicity stunt, they would occupy a box at “Tannhauser.”)Although the show’s cast doesn’t lack for acting talent, Coon has become a fan favorite. This is probably because Bertha seems to enjoy herself so much, embracing each of the script’s melodramatic turns. Whether interfering in the relationships of her children, Larry (Harry Richardson) and Gladys (Taissa Farmiga), or tangling with her former lady’s maid (Kelley Curran), now a rival, Bertha seems to savor each squabble and brawl. So does Coon.“I love that feeling of taking over a space,” she said. “It’s a really satisfying and rare feeling as a woman to have that.”As the wife of a railway tycoon, Coon’s character, Bertha Russell, whose parents were potato farmers has to fight hard for recognition and access among New York’s social elite.Barbara Nitke/HBOIn between bites of a lunchtime sandwich, Coon discussed ambition, big choices and why no one recognizes her offscreen, even now. These are edited excerpts from the conversation. Mild Season 2 spoilers follow.Who is Bertha and what drives her?If Bertha had been of another time, Bertha would have been a C.E.O., an executive, a senator. She’s an ambitious woman in a time where there was no place for ambitious women besides the social sphere. The heart of Bertha is her interest in her children. Her son is fine — her son is a white man with lots of money. Her daughter, however, does need to be protected.Yet Bertha often sacrifices her children’s happiness in favor of the family’s social standing.Her myopia is really frustrating because what we see in the Russell’s marriage is that Bertha has, in fact, married for love and respect and ambition. But Bertha understands very well the obstacles for women, even women of a certain class. We’re not even touching on what’s going on for women of color and immigrants who are all working in this capitalist system that will crush them. Bertha is wrong about what she’s doing. But when it comes to our children, we do have these blind spots. It is ultimately about love and protection. She just goes about it without any nuance.Are there any limits to her ambition?I don’t think so. Limits are imposed on her externally. I don’t feel that she intrinsically has a sense of limits. Her cause is meritocratic in a way. She believes that you can and should be able to earn your place.You seem to move through the world more humbly. Is it freeing to play someone so different from you?It’s fun to play the baddie. It’s fun to traffic in your own capacity for ruthlessness. You are correct in assuming that’s not the way I move through the world. And yet in order to have any longevity in a business as ruthless as ours can be, for women in particular, you really have to have some of that gumption. Anybody who’s still in it, even if they don’t admit it, they have ambition at the root. But it’s terrific fun. In my life I’ve played a lot of really hapless moms — frenzied and lost and grasping. Grasping at this level is a much more delightful way to be at work.From left, Harry Richardson, Taissa Farmiga, Coon and Morgan Spector in a scene from Season 2, in which Bertha helps bring the New York Metropolitan Opera into being.Barbara Nitke/HBODoes Bertha know that she’s a villain?She’s not a villain. She helps build the Met! She believes that doors should be open to her. What makes anyone else better than she is? She comes from potato farmers, and here she is. Why wouldn’t you open the door to someone who’s worked that hard? That’s how I feel about people who pick up their children and carry them across rivers and deserts from Central America to get here. Those are the kind of people you want here. Those are resilient, astonishing people who will do anything for their loved ones.Your voice is pitched higher than Bertha’s. How did you find the particular pitch and rhythm of it?Certainly the rhythm came out of the writing. And then, in Season 1, when I come in and say, “Oh, what an interesting moment for me to arrive,” somehow my voice was just lower that day. I was like, Oh, there she is. It’s fun to be working down there. I never get recognized on the street; I don’t even get recognized by my crew when I’m out of my wig. Even my castmates at a party a couple of weeks ago didn’t recognize me. But people recognize the voice, though very rarely.And then her gait, her gestures. How did you find those?These costumes shape you in such a particular way. Women were supposed to glide, to be smooth. You weren’t supposed to see movement. But Bertha is an upstart and I felt that her hips should be involved. I don’t know how conscious that choice was. When you’re asked to walk into that foyer in a hat and a cashmere coat, you just have to sashay.In this season the show has leaned further into melodrama. How does it feel to play those big theatrical scenes?Terrifying, but wonderful. It just feels like you’re doing Eugene O’Neill all the time. But oh, gosh, we really do have fun. That’s the key to it: You can’t take it too seriously. You can’t take yourself too seriously. I’m not afraid of big choices, and I’m not afraid of people not liking Bertha, just like I’m not afraid, now that I’m 42, of anybody not liking me. So I try to have fun. There was one take when Bertha first saw Turner (Curran’s character) that was so hilariously broad. I staggered; I grabbed Morgan’s arm; I fell a little bit. As soon as the take was over, we howled because it was a hat on a hat on a hat on a hat.Walking in that first day, we had no idea what we were doing. We didn’t know how big it was going to be. We didn’t know how much space there was. But as we were shooting, we were like, OK, I think we can handle a little more size. In Season 2, some of the exposition is out of the way, we’ve got the characters introduced. Now we get to have a little more fun.This season focuses largely on the real-life battle between the Academy of Music and the nascent Metropolitan Opera. What is it a proxy war for?We always draw a parallel with the moment when the Kardashians were invited to the Met Ball. The world of celebrity and what money can afford you, it’s really emblematic of that. The opera also represents the struggle in this country, this feeling of people resisting inevitable change and holding on very tightly to an older way of life.Bertha ends the season in triumph. Could she have ended in any other way?I don’t think so. The show is exploring a very particular time, an extraordinary time of industry and change and growth. We know already that the moneyed people won, the new people won. Where they weren’t invited, they built something new from the ground up. So her rise is really inevitable. She’s an inexorable force. There’s nothing that will stop her. More

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      Disney Is a Language. Do We Still Speak It?

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      President Dwight D. Eisenhower once praised Walt Disney for his “genius as a creator of folklore.” When Disney died in 1966, the line made it into his obituary, evidence of its accuracy. Folklore, defined broadly, is an oral tradition that stretches across generations. It tells people who they are, how they got here and how they should live in the future. The company Disney created appointed itself keeper of these traditions for Americans, spinning up fresh tales and (more often) deftly repackaging old ones to appeal to a new century.It started with Mickey Mouse, but as his company turns 100, Disney’s legacy — advanced in hundreds of films and shorts and shows, mass-produced tie-in merchandise, marvelous technical advancements, gargantuan theme parks around the world — was the production of a modern shared language, a set of reference points instantly recognizable to almost everyone, and an encouragement to dream out loud about a utopian future. Walt Disney was a man who gazed backward and forward: speaking at the opening of Disneyland in 1955, he proclaimed: “Here age relives fond memories of the past, and here youth may savor the challenge and promise of the future.” But what happens when that promise is broken and the reference points are siloed? When his company struggles at the box office like a regular studio and faces cultural headwinds like any artist?Walt Disney at the opening of Disneyland, extolling the hope of a brighter tomorrow.USC Libraries/Corbis, via Getty ImagesDisney told stories of folk heroes (Davy Crockett, Paul Bunyan), princes and princesses, and even, occasionally, a mouse, all while leading the pack on ever-shifting technologies. (He was, among other things, the first major movie producer to make a TV show.) A sense of optimism ruled Disney’s ethos, built on homemade mythologies. The lessons of his stories were simple, uplifting and distinctly American: believe in yourself, believe in your dreams, don’t let anyone make you feel bad for being you, be your own hero and, most of all, don’t be afraid to wish upon a star. Fairy tales and legends are often disquieting, but once cast in a Disney light they became soft and sweet, their darker and less comforting lessons re-engineered to fit the Disney ideal. It was a distinctly postwar vision of the world.And we ate it up, and we exported it, and we wanted to be part of it, too. “One of the most astounding exhibitions of popular devotion came in the wake of Mr. Disney’s films about Davy Crockett,” Disney’s obituary explained, referring to a live-action 1950s shows about the frontiersman. “In a matter of months, youngsters all over the country who would balk at wearing a hat in winter were adorned in coonskin caps in midsummer.”The coonskin caps were a harbinger of things to come. Halloween would be dominated by princesses and mermaids. Bedsheets and pajamas would be printed with lions and mopey donkeys. Adults would plan weddings at a magical kingdom in Florida. Audiences around the world would join in the legends. Once-closed countries like China would eventually open their doors, leading the company — aware that success in this new market meant fast-tracking children’s introduction to Mickey, Ariel and Buzz Lightyear — to open English-language schools using their characters and stories as the teaching tools. History would show that Eisenhower was onto something when he referred to Disney as a creator, not just a reteller, of folklore.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?  More

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      Mayim Bialik Out as ‘Jeopardy!’ Host

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      The departure of Bialik, who had been absent from the show for months, leaves Ken Jennings, a former champion, as the sole host.Mayim Bialik, who received an Emmy nomination for her work on “Jeopardy!” after the death of longtime host Alex Trebek, said on Friday that she would not return to the popular game show, leaving Ken Jennings as the sole host.Bialik began hosting “Jeopardy!” on an interim basis in 2021, and on a permanent one last year. She has not appeared on the program or its “Celebrity Jeopardy!” offshoot for the past few months. In May, the entertainment news site Deadline reported that she had stepped away from “Jeopardy!” in solidarity with the Hollywood writers’ strike.“Sony has informed me that I will no longer be hosting the syndicated version of Jeopardy!” Bialik wrote on social media on Friday, referring to the firm that produces the show. “I am deeply grateful for the opportunity to have been part of the Jeopardy! family.”She did not mention the strike, which ended in the fall.Sony confirmed Bialik’s departure in a separate statement, saying only that the decision for Jennings to continue alone was made “to maintain continuity for our viewers.” The company thanked Bialik for her contributions and said that it hoped to continue to work with her on prime time specials, without elaborating.The shake up at “Jeopardy!” is the latest for a show that struggled to find a replacement for Trebek after his death in November 2020. Following a string of celebrity hosts, including LeVar Burton and Mehmet Oz, and a botched plan for executive producer Mike Richards to take over, Bialik filled in as a temporary host and split duties with Ken Jennings, a former champion.Bialik, who has a Ph.D. in neuroscience and is best known for starring in “The Big Bang Theory,” a television show, made it clear when she stepped in as interim host in 2021 that she wanted the position to become permanent.Some critics questioned her impartiality. Trebek had been celebrated for having a neutral and impartial air, while Ms. Bialik was outspoken on topics such as vaccines.But in July 2022, Bialik and Jennings were named permanent joint hosts, and both were nominated this year for an Emmy for “Outstanding Host for a Game Show.” More

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      ‘The Crown’: The History Behind the Final Episodes

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      To close the show’s six-season run, the episodes open in 1997 and depict a heartthrob prince, an offensive party costume, several deaths and a marriage.After seven years of seamlessly blending royal fact and fiction, the second part of “The Crown” Season 6 brings the lavish Netflix show to a close.The final six episodes, which arrived on Thursday, open in 1997, and follow several story lines concerning members of the royal family and aspects of Tony Blair’s tenure as Britain’s prime minister. (Bertie Carvel plays Blair.)A grieving Prince William (Ed McVey) unexpectedly becomes a worldwide heartthrob and falls in love while studying at the University of St. Andrews. The queen (Imelda Staunton) grapples with her own mortality following the loss of her sister, Princess Margaret (Lesley Manville), and the Queen Mother (Marcia Warren), in a short space of time. In the finale, set in 2005, Prince Charles (Dominic West) finally marries his longtime partner, Camilla Parker Bowles (Olivia Williams).Here is a look at what The Times and other news outlets reported at the time. You can find more in the TimesMachine archive browser. (Warning: This feature contains spoilers for Season 6 of “The Crown.”)Episode 5, ‘Willsmania’Prince William (Ed McVey) returns to boarding school soon after the death of his mother. NetflixIn this episode, Prince William returns to school soon after Princess Diana’s funeral. He attended Eton College, the prestigious British boarding school known for educating prime ministers, Nobel laureates and, of course, aristocracy.In April 2017, the British tabloid The Sun reported that William returned to school just four days after the ceremony and received handwritten condolence letters from more than half of his fellow students.On the show, he is also handed a sack of letters from his fans across the globe, especially adoring young women. It is the beginning of the so-called “Willsmania” of the late ’90s, when William became the focus of intense international attention. This new heartthrob status is also made clear when he visits Vancouver with his father and younger brother Harry (Luther Ford), and young women line up to catch a glimpse.Young fans of Prince William cheered and screamed as he visited Vancouver, Canada, in 1998.Tim Graham Photo Library, via Getty ImagesOn June 22, 1998, The Times reported that the trip to Vancouver in March of that year “alerted the palace to what a pinup the 6-foot-1-inch prince with the shock of blond hair, blue eyes and downward looking shy smile so reminiscent of his mother has become to teenage girls.”The following year, Christina Ferrari, the managing editor of Teen People, a youth-focused version of People magazine, told The Times that Will was “an international superstar almost on the level of Leonardo DiCaprio.”Episode 6, ‘Ruritania’In the sixth season, Prime Minister Tony Blair is played by Bertie Carvel.Justin Downing/NetflixIn Episode 6, Queen Elizabeth seems threatened by the public’s positive reception of Blair, the new prime minister. “People really do seem to love him, and see him as a true son of England,” she says, “and a unifying national symbol, in a way they used to see me.”In February 1999, Warren Hoge wrote in The Times that Blair was a “youthful, articulate and visionary leader” and “the most popular prime minister in British history.”On the show, we see Blair telling the queen about his attempts to persuade President Bill Clinton to send troops to Kosovo to drive Serb forces out. The queen is concerned to learn that the prime minister has a new nickname: “King Tony.” According to a Times report from 1999, he was given that sarcastic nickname by attendees of that year’s NATO Summit, because of all the media attention he was getting.Queen Elizabeth and Blair toasting the New Year in London at the turn of the millennium.Pool photo by Tim GrahamAccording to that Times report, Blair made a “grand entrance” in Washington before embarking on a “media blitz” to garner American public support for fighting the Yugoslav president, Slobodan Milosevic. (White House officials said Clinton “did not feel upstaged.”)Episode 7, ‘Alma Mater’Meg Bellamy as Kate Middleton and McVey as Prince William.Justin Downing/NetflixViewers meet an 18-year-old Prince William, who informs journalists that he has met the requirements to attend his chosen college, St. Andrews, where he will go after taking a year off from his studies.In “The Crown,” the prince receives his exam results while with his family, but in reality, he had already left Britain for his year abroad. In video footage by ITN of Prince William at a news conference on Sept. 29, 2000, he told journalists that when he received his results, he was “in the middle of nowhere” in a jungle in Belize.At St. Andrews, the episode follows Kate Middleton (Meg Bellamy) and William as they adjust to university life. Despite William initially dating a woman named Lola Airdale-Cavendish-Kincaid and Middleton a man named Rupert, there is clear romantic chemistry between the pair.According to The Times of London, Prince William dated two women before Kate: Olivia Hunt, who they newspaper called “a brainy sort,” and Carly Massy-Birch, whom “William had a two-week snog with,” according to an anonymous source. Somebody else (also anonymous) told the paper that Kate had apparently dated Rupert Finch, “a handsome Norfolk boy,” whom she met when she arrived at college.Episode 8, ‘Ritz’In a flashback, the young princesses, Elizabeth (Viola Prettejohn), left, and Margaret (Beau Gadsdon), sneak out of Buckingham Palace to celebrate V-E Day.NetflixFlashbacks to the young princesses Margaret (Beau Gadsdon) and Elizabeth (Viola Prettejohn) celebrating the end of World World II on May 8, 1945, or V-E Day, show the pair sneaking out of Buckingham Palace to party among the public on the streets and at the Ritz hotel. An initially shy Elizabeth finds a large group of Americans swing dancing, and she joins in after some initial hesitation.“You dark horse. Who’d have known you could jive,” Margaret says to her older sister on their way back to the palace. “There must have been 50 men chasing you.”In reality, while Margaret and Elizabeth did take to the streets of London to celebrate the war’s end, it seems they had their parents’ permission. In 1985, the queen gave a televised speech to the British public, in which she “for the first time told her subjects how she and Princess Margaret had slipped into the crowds outside Buckingham Palace to join the V-E Day celebrations and had walked for miles through the city,” according to The Times.“I remember we were terrified of being recognized,” Queen Elizabeth is reported to have said.In May 2020, during another televised address, the queen spoke of the “jubilant scenes” the royal family saw from the balcony of Buckingham Palace earlier on V-E Day. “The sense of joy in the crowds who gathered outside and across the country was profound,” she said.Crowds in Piccadilly Circus, in London, celebrating the end of World War II in 1945.F Greaves/Daily Herald Archive/National Science & Media Museum, via Getty ImagesThis episode also follows Princess Margaret’s declining health, and a series of strokes she suffered between 1998 and 2001. The first was at a party on the Caribbean island of Mustique; in a second, in a bathtub, she suffered severe burns; and one more, in her bedroom, left her hospitalized. Margaret died soon after, in February 2002.“The Crown” shows the princess smoking and drinking against her doctor’s orders, but Margaret’s friends have refuted that she lived such a lifestyle. “I have seen far too much suggesting that Margaret was an unashamed hedonist who spent her life partying,” a friend told The Guardian after she died. “It truly misunderstands her.”Margaret’s obituary in The Times describes her as an “attractive and fun-loving” woman who “earned a reputation in her youth as a free spirit.”Episode 9, ‘Hope Street’The Egyptian businessman Mohamed al-Fayed (Salim Daw), who accuses the royal family of murdering Princess Diana.NetflixIn a television interview at the start of the ninth episode, the Egyptian businessman Mohamed al-Fayed (Salim Daw) calls the royal family “gangsters” who intentionally killed Princess Diana and his son, Dodi. Al-Fayed claims that when the “dracular British royal family” discovered that Diana was pregnant “with a Muslim child” — Dodi’s — “they killed her.”In reality, much like the show depicts, al-Fayed gave several interviews over many years in which he accused the royal family of playing a significant role in Princess Diana’s death.In 1998, The Times reported that al-Fayed told the British media that “there was a conspiracy, and I will not rest until I have established exactly what happened”; speaking on “60 Minutes Australia” in 1999, al-Fayed also claimed that MI6, aided by the C.I.A., had been spying on Dodi and Diana; and in a 2007 interview with Al Jazeera English, he called the crash “absolute clear horrendous murder.”The show also shows Operation Paget, a police inquiry that was opened to re-examine the incidents leading up to the car crash that killed the couple. In December 2006, The Times reported that the inquiry took three years, and cost British taxpayers 3.69 million pounds, about $7 million at the time. It concluded that Princess Diana “was killed the way the authorities always said she had been killed: in a car accident, along with her boyfriend, Dodi Fayed, and their driver, Henri Paul,” Sarah Lyall wrote.While the investigation into Diana’s death is ongoing on “The Crown,” Prince William continues his studies at St. Andrews, where the recently single Kate Middleton models in a charity fashion show. The show recreates the sheer dress the real-life Kate wore in 2002 for the college show, a piece designed by Charlotte Todd, who was a college student at the time. In 2011, and following the announcement of William and Kate’s engagement, Todd sold the dress for £78,000, according to The Daily Telegraph (around $125, 000 at the time).“The Crown” recreates the sheer dress Kate Middleton (Meg Bellamy) wore in 2002 for a college fashion show.Justin Downing/NetflixOn the show, soon after William attends the fashion show, the pair start formally dating and move in together, along with two friends. According to The Sun, the couple moved into 13A Hope Street with Olivia Bleasdale and a fellow Etonian, Fergus Boyd.Back at the palace, the queen is dealing with her mother’s death and the Golden Jubilee, an international celebration to mark 50 years of her reign. Elizabeth spends most of the episode worried about a lack of public interest, and whether a crowd will gather for her balcony appearance at Buckingham Palace. She is pleasantly surprised by the masses of people who attend.On June 5, 2002, The Times reported that over one million people cheered outside the gates of the palace for the jubilee. On the same day, The Guardian reported that the event was more successful than both critics and organizers had anticipated.Episode 10, ‘Sleep, Dearie Sleep’In the final episode, the queen contemplates plans for her funeral.NetflixTo wrap the show up, the final episode of “The Crown” finds a way to address the queen’s death — she died in 2022 — while still being set in 2005. We see her planning her own funeral, including choosing the bagpipe lament “Sleep, Dearie Sleep” to play at the funeral.According to The Times of London, it took 20 years to plan the queen’s real funeral, with the task falling to Edward Fitzalan-Howard, the 18th Duke of Norfolk, whose ancestors have been responsible for planning significant royal occasions since 1672. Before the queen’s death, “we had annual meetings in the throne room of Buckingham Palace,” the duke told the newspaper in 2022. “It started off with 20 people; by April this year, it had reached 280. I have had a lot of help from Buckingham Palace staff.”The queen’s personal piper, Paul Burns, did indeed play “Sleep, Dearie Sleep” to close the queen’s funeral on Sept. 19, 2022.Paul Burns playing the bagpipes at Queen Elizabeth’s funeral in 2022.Pool photo by Gareth CattermoleNegative press surrounding Prince Harry during his younger years also gets some screen time. The prince is photographed at a “colonials and natives” costume party, wearing a military outfit with a swastika on the arm, which soon makes front-page news. In the aftermath of the scandal, William and Harry argue about the part each had played in the choice of costume, which the show depicts William encouraging when the brothers shop for their costumes.On Jan. 13, 2005, a photograph of Prince Harry in the outfit, holding a drink and a cigarette, ran on the front page of The Sun. Harry apologized for his unsuitable costume choice in the accompanying article: “I am very sorry if I have caused an offense,” he said. “It was a poor choice of costume.” In his recent memoir, “Spare,” Harry wrote that William and Kate “howled” with laughter when they saw the costume.“The Crown” also portrays Blair’s fall from public grace. He has a new nickname, “Tony Bliar,” because many believed he misled the public over the invasion of Iraq in 2003. That year, The Times reported that at least 750,000 antiwar protesters gathered at a demonstration in London, and noted that Blair had lost the British public’s approval. “I do not seek unpopularity as a badge of honor,” Blair is reported to have said. “But sometimes it is the price of leadership and the cost of conviction.”With the queen’s blessing, Charles and Camilla were finally married in a televised civil wedding ceremony. In April 2005, The Times said: “Given all the twists of fate and circumstance that have conspired against it, perhaps the most wondrous thing about the wedding on Saturday between Prince Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles is that it took place at all.” More

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      Readers on the Best Movies, TV, Music and Theater of 2023

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      When our critics shared their top film, TV, pop music and theater picks, readers suggested “Billions,” “The Holdovers,” “Sabbath’s Theater” and others.Every year, our critics review numerous movies, television shows, musicals, plays, operas, dance performances, music and more. And come December, they whittle down their favorites to a list of 10.But what are best-of lists if not an invitation to critique?Here’s a look at readers’ comments across several popular categories.Television | Movies | Theater | Pop MusicCharlie (Joe Locke) and Nick (Kit Connor) in Season 2 of “Heartstopper.”NetflixBest TVIn a year when the television industry was turned upside down by strikes, and when corporate fantasies of unlimited growth seemed to find some kind of ceiling, there was still almost too much good stuff to keep up with. Luckily, we have three critics who do that for a living — and luckier still, they offered three different prisms through which to view the year in TV, at home and abroad.Of course, there is no world in which “Succession” and “Reservation Dogs” weren’t each going to appear twice, and our readers seemed OK with that. As for other reader favorites like “Only Murders in the Building” and “The Gilded Age,” maybe next year. (Sorry, “Billions,” your time is up.)Here’s a look at what some of our readers said.Michel Forest of Montreal, Quebec:No love for “Billions”? Come on! Sure, it was cartoonish at times, but it was such a fun show to watch, with great acting and some of the best dialogue on TV. Anyway, I’ll watch anything with Paul Giamatti and Damian Lewis, they are such great actors!Jodi Schorb of Gainesville, Fla.:I thought Season Two of “Heartstopper” was honest and adorable. One can only take so many murder-mysteries and moody thrillers. It’s hard to make an earnest comedy, let alone one that treats gay, transgender, straight and (a surprise) asexual protagonists with such tenderness. If we are going to add one rom-com on the list, “Heartstopper” deserves some love.Richard Laible of Winnetka, Ill.:Great list EXCEPT you left off the best show of the year, “Lessons in Chemistry”! You should really send out an edited list … and maybe an apology (j/k).Barry Keoghan stars in “Saltburn.”Amazon StudiosBest Movies“Barbenheimer” signaled a great year for movies, and our critics recognized the “Oppenheimer” half of the phenomenon, along with “Killers of the Flower Moon,” “Menus-Plaisirs — Les Troisgros,” “Past Lives” and others. Readers, on the other hand, questioned the merits of “Asteroid City” and “Oppenheimer,” and named “The Holdovers,” “Anatomy of a Fall” and “Barbie” as favorites.Peter Malbin of New York City:I just saw “Saltburn,” and it was outstanding. Well-acted and original film set in Oxford and an English manor house. The story is entertaining and sexy. Barry Keoghan is brilliant! He was also in “Banshees of Inisherin.” “Saltburn” should be at the top of the lists!Beth Samuelson of Oakland, Calif.:Where is “Maestro” on these lists? A terrific film that should not be missed. And the reviews have been excellent!Charise M. Hoge of Bethesda, Md.:The exclusion of “Barbie” from this list is like putting her back in the box … that powerful (yes, powerful) film deserves recognition.Jill Krupnik of Brooklyn, N.Y.:I am a little surprised that my personal favorite — the wondrous “The Boy and the Heron” — didn’t make even an honorable mention, but here we are.Perhaps Brian Seifert of Cincinnati summed it up best:Critics see a lot of junk, so they like the intense, quality-issue movies that come along. Average people deal with a lot of junk, so they like lighter entertainment to escape and relax. The two groups have never been farther apart.From left, Grey Henson and Ashley D. Kelley in the musical “Shucked.”Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesBest Theater“Purlie Victorious,” “A Doll’s House” and “Just for Us” were among Jesse Green’s picks for the year’s best theater. Many of the plays and musicals that resonated in 2023 deftly married elements of drama and comedy. Our readers pointed out some of the shows that — despite being fan favorites or being beautifully performed — didn’t make our list.Eric Bogosian, the New York actor and playwright, praised “Sabbath’s Theater,” as did several other commenters. “What are you afraid of? Great performances by three of our greatest actors and actresses? Please …,” he wrote.Marcia W. Orange of Fort Lee, N.J.:“Shucked” deserved more love and attention. It was the most original and laugh-out-loud-funny show I have seen in years … even better than “Book of Mormon.” What a pity more people haven’t seen it.Joseph LaFalce of South Orange, N.J.:How can any roundup of the best of 2023 not include the phenomenal “Parade,” including the unique staging and heartbreaking performances by Ben Platt and Micaela Diamond?Raissa Lim of New York City:RIP to the magnificent “Here Lies Love” by David Byrne. It was the best Broadway show I saw this year, and the best theater experience of my life. Never again will Broadway see that same confluence of superb talents come together to create an extraordinary and indescribable experience. It was a brand-new kind of art form, not the standard narrative theater audiences have come to expect, so perhaps the wrong standards were sometimes applied when assessing it. Its minor narrative weaknesses were more than offset by other elements such as video artistry, lighting, set design, music, choreography — making for an overall spectacular whole. I’m sorry for those obstinate souls who didn’t see it for their own obscure reasons. They missed a once-in-a-lifetime experience (that does NOT glorify the Marcoses but instead pays tribute to a true hero). Indeed, perhaps bovine audiences get what they deserve when flying cars and dancing lions beat out truly groundbreaking artistic excellence at the box office.Caroline Polachek at the Montreux Jazz Festival in July.Valentin Flauraud/Keystone, via Associated PressBest Pop MusicOne of the albums that had the biggest impact in 2023 actually came out at the tail end of 2022: SZA’s “SOS.” Between their albums and song lists, our three pop music critics agreed “SOS” was one of the year’s best, along with LPs from Olivia Rodrigo and 100 gecs. Beyond that, their tastes widely diverged from one another — and, it turns out, from our readers’. (Michael Hasse, a reader in Paris, created this helpful Spotify playlist with albums recommended in the comments.)Roddy P Glass of London:I will add my vote to “Now and Then,” though secretly, in the quiet of my heart, I know it comes nowhere near the standard the Beatles have always given us: perfection.”Penny Beach of Boise, Idaho:Where is Noah Kahan? Definitely should be on this list.Charles Grissom of Raleigh, N.C.:I know these lists are about pop music, and that is driven by 20-somethings. But Jimmy Buffett’s posthumous 2023 album “Equal Strain on All Parts” is wonderful music and storytelling, and the song “Portugal or PEI” is an absolute gem.Patrick Tierney of Louisville, Ky.:I love these lists but [Lindsay] Zoladz’s in particular. Rodrigo, Polachek, and Debby Friday all made my top 10 and show how much the present and future of pop/rock/dance music is led by creative young women. I’d add to the group three very different artists — yeule, Die Spitz, Avalon Emerson — that made this a great year for new music.Scott McGlasson of Minneapolis, Minn.:None of my faves of the year were even mentioned: Tim Hecker, the Necks, the National, Blonde Redhead, PJ Harvey. I know, I’m old and not a music critic…John Franz of East Bangor, Pa.:I was shocked to see some songs and performers I’ve actually heard of. Peter Gabriel’s album is brilliant. Not sure if the new Stones album is their best work. I found Dolly’s album hilarious; she’s a gem who I never listened to much before this new album. That’s about it. Seems to me that any song from the Tedeschi Trucks album should be on the list. Kenny Wayne Shepherd. And how about Jason Isbell’s great new album.Dan Cain of Washington, D.C.:I vote for Yo La Tengo’s “This Stupid World.” Best album in a while from one of the founding bands of indie rock. Just listen to the first 30 seconds of the opening track, ideally at a very loud volume. It’s great.Paul Kevin Smith of Austin, Texas:I don’t know why she doesn’t get more attention, but Jessie Ware’s “Begin Again” was a perfect pop/disco song released this year.And we’ll leave the last words to John Weston of Chicago:So many comments here seem to rest on the idea that musical progress ended when John Bonham died, Lynyrd Skynyrd crashed, the Beatles broke up, the Big Bopper died, or Chuck Berry or Bessie Smith (let’s be honest, none of y’all would have cared when she died … like most of the world at the time), when “The Rite of Spring” was first performed, when Beethoven finished his Ninth Symphony or with Liszt’s use of the tritone in “Dante Sonata” (how dare he!).To all of those such commenters and thinkers, I shall quote the one and only Bob Dylan (referenced by many on this thread):Mothers and fathers throughout the land/Don’t criticize what you can’t understand/Your sons and your daughters are beyond your command/Your old road is rapidly aging/Please get out of the new one if you can’t lend a hand/For the times they are a changin’. 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      ‘The Curse’ Season 1, Episode 6 Recap: Guessing Game

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      Asher seems to be losing his grip, except when what’s in his grip is a bunch of nails.Season 1, Episode 6: ‘The Fires Burn On’The final line of this week’s episode of “The Curse” finds Asher saying, “I’m fine, don’t worry about me.” But I am starting to worry about him. It’s not quite sympathy — Asher hasn’t done enough to deserve that. Maybe it’s something more akin to concern. After all, as he says it, his left hand is dripping with blood. It’s his own fault. He filled his palm with nails to test whether Nala has some sort of psychic powers. This is a sign of a man losing his grip with reality.And there is another reason to feel worried for Asher: Whitney and Dougie have teamed up behind his back. Whitney’s hostility toward Dougie finally eases when she discovers that she needs him to make her show more interesting. And Dougie’s idea for making “Fliplanthropy” into something less utterly boring? Humiliate Asher on television.From the very first episode of “The Curse,” Dougie and Whitney have had conflicting ideas about what “Fliplanthropy” should be. Whitney sees it as a brand building exercise, a chance to show how good she is, a way of assuaging her guilt over her slumlord parents’ financial support. But that doesn’t make for entertaining television. Dougie, he of the burn victim dating show, understands that.In the first couple of moments of this week’s installment, we see what the Whitney version of “Fliplanthropy” looks like. It is incredibly dull. The term “like watching paint dry” has never been more apt: Literally, the show features a whole segment in which there’s a discussion of paint drying. Whitney finally realizes, “something feels off,” an almost painfully obvious revelation.Dougie proposes a solution. He knows she doesn’t want to create drama around Española itself, which means they can’t discuss any of the crime or racial tension in the community. But there is a ready source of drama staring them right in the face: Whitney and Asher. Of course their marital strife is evident onscreen — in one shot, you can see her rolling her eyes at him because he has his phone in his hand while giving a gift of pottery. Why not highlight that and make their conflict the driving force of the show?Dougie sells this to Whitney as a way to make herself more appealing, as well as a way to make the series entertaining. If the audience believes she is telling them the truth about her relationship with Asher, then they will believe she is telling them the truth about everything else. Whitney is into this plan, and she doesn’t really stop to consider the potential damage to her already fragile marriage. She even has a new idea for the title of the show: “Green Queen.” If that title refers to her, what does that make Asher? Dougie suggests: “the village idiot.” Whitney laughs. It’s so mean.No one runs this plan by Asher as what is still known as “Fliplanthropy” continues to film at a local Española firehouse. Whitney flirts shamelessly with the firemen to make Asher jealous, but any potential for a blowup over that indiscretion goes away once Asher makes a mysterious discovery in the bathroom. After peeing — yes, once again we see a shot of his small penis — Asher finds a pile of cooked chicken on the sink, holding it up to his nose to confirm that it is indeed poultry.He accuses Dougie of putting it there to mess with him, an accusation Dougie denies, and then goes on a crusade to find the culprit. He interrogates the firemen, trying to discern if they had any chicken in their meals recently. (They didn’t.) Then he convinces one of them to let him go through security footage. He is so preoccupied with this that he has no idea that Whitney and Dougie are conspiring to make him look like a fool on HGTV. His absent-minded stare during filming fits perfectly within the story they are creating. It doesn’t matter that he is thinking about chicken instead of Whitney.Without a clear answer as to where that chicken came from, Asher once again suspects that Nala might be behind it. So, while doing work on her house, he starts quizzing her in an effort to determine whether she has metaphysical powers. He does this at first by hiding nails under a bucket and asking her to guess how many there are. She is puzzled by his game, but she answers nonchalantly — and correctly, three times. Clearly unnerved and tense, Asher grabs a fistful of nails and asks her to guess again. But she is too upset to guess when she sees the blood running out of his palm.At under 40 minutes, this week’s episode is the shortest of the season yet, and it does feel more transitional than the rest. The plot moves along quickly. Even though it’s still deeply uncomfortable, it seems to linger less in each setup so as to get us faster to the episode’s unnervingly bloody end.The show seems to be entering a new phase with this Whitney and Dougie alliance, one in which Asher will grow more and more isolated. Already, he has no one. His own wife is actively undermining him with his supposed childhood pal. He even can’t reach out to his old casino friend Bill, who ignores him in the hardware store. All he has is himself and his spinning mind, trying to figure out whether something supernatural is happening to him or it’s just a prank. Asher is often awful and off-putting, and yet, I pity him, and yes, I am worried.Notes from EspañolaI’m really intrigued by the interlude featuring Abshir and the chiropractor, though I’m not sure what to fully make of it. The scene may be one of the most upsetting in “The Curse” so far, and that’s saying a lot. There’s a look of terror on Abshir’s face as his body is stretched and his bones are loudly cracked. This is supposed to be curing him of his pain, but evidently it is a deeply painful experience, and the scene is filmed in a particularly violent way. I can’t get it out of my head, especially the way it appears almost without context.Once again, I’m left wanting more of this budding Cara-Dougie relationship, even if he won’t actually date her because she smokes. (He doesn’t want another wife dying on him.) It’s making Whitney extremely jealous.Notice the charge that popped up on Whitney’s phone from the jeans store. How much has she paid for stolen jeans?”Green Queen” is a terrible title for a show. More

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      Studios Are Loosening Their Reluctance to Send Old Shows Back to Netflix

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      When building their own streaming companies, many entertainment studios ended lucrative licensing deals with Netflix. But they missed the money too much.For years, entertainment company executives happily licensed classic movies and television shows to Netflix. Both sides enjoyed the spoils: Netflix received popular content like “Friends” and Disney’s “Moana,” which satisfied its ever-growing subscriber base, and it sent bags of cash back to the companies.But around five years ago, executives realized they were “selling nuclear weapons technology” to a powerful rival, as Disney’s chief executive, Robert A. Iger, put it. Studios needed those same beloved movies and shows for the streaming services they were building from scratch, and fueling Netflix’s rise was only hurting them. The content spigots were, in large part, turned off.Then the harsh realities of streaming began to emerge.Confronting sizable debt burdens and the fact that most streaming services still don’t make money, studios like Disney and Warner Bros. Discovery have begun to soften their do-not-sell-to-Netflix stances. The companies are still holding back their most popular content — movies from the Disney-owned Star Wars and Marvel universes and blockbuster original series like HBO’s “Game of Thrones” aren’t going anywhere — but dozens of other films like “Dune” and “Prometheus” and series like “Young Sheldon” are being sent to the streaming behemoth in return for much-needed cash. And Netflix is once again benefiting.Ted Sarandos, one of Netflix’s co-chief executives, said at an investor conference last week that the “availability to license has opened up a lot more than it was in the past,” arguing that the studios’ earlier decision to hold back content was “unnatural.”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?  More