Television

Subterms

    More stories

    • 138 Shares99 Views

      in Theater

      10 Works and Performances That Helped Me Make Sense of 2023

      by

      Global conflict and personal loss encouraged our critic to seek out art that gave her a better understanding of grief and healing.“I hope you don’t mind if we carry on,” Juicy says at the end of “Fat Ham.” The other characters in the play then begin cleaning and clearing the stage, an act that affirms Juicy’s proposition and, in this work inspired by Shakespeare’s most famous tragedy, suggests that there might be a way for them to work through their shared trauma together.Those words hit me hard when I heard them last spring. I was staving off my own mourning as my family prepared for the 10th anniversary of my brother Shaka’s death from cancer. That, coupled with political crises and global despair, pushed me to find film, television and performances that helped me make sense of my grief and, hopefully, find a release for it.‘Fat Ham’I almost didn’t see what ended up as one of my favorite plays of the year. I could not wrap my head around the story line of a Black, queer, “Hamlet”-like play, even after it had won over my fellow critics and earned the Pulitzer Prize for best drama. Then I saw it on Broadway. I was startled by its clever transformation of an Elizabethan-era depressive into Gen Z ennui through its main character Juicy (Marcel Spears), a 20-something mourning his father’s death as well as the hyper-masculinity that his family and society impose on him. Though Juicy sneaks glances and shares asides with the audience, “Fat Ham” truly breaks theater’s fourth wall when the cast stages a surreal group cover of Radiohead’s “Creep” and then again with its unexpectedly liberatory final scene that invites us to join them in a party filled with glitter, gender fluidity and Black joy. (Read our review of “Fat Ham.”)The Last Season of ‘Succession’Who knew that if you killed off Logan Roy (Brian Cox), the show’s most dynamic character, his children would easily make up for his lost charisma? The “Succession” creator Jesse Armstrong, that’s who knew. I can’t think of three more heart-wrenching performances of parental loss than Shiv (Sarah Snook), her voice breaking as she pleads, “Daddy? I love you. Don’t go, please. Not now,” on the phone; Roman (Kieran Culkin), breaking down during his eulogy; and Kendall (Jeremy Strong), the most tragic, as he loses his bid to replace his father as chief executive. In the end, Kendall simply stares out at the water rather than being buoyed up or submerged in it as he has been in the past. A man without a company, it is a fate that, for him, is far worse than death. (Read our review of the “Succession” finale.)‘A Thousand and One’In “A Thousand and One,” Teyana Taylor plays Inez, a mother scarred by her childhood in foster care. Aaron Kingsley Adetola plays Terry.Focus FeaturesWinner of a grand jury prize at the Sundance Film Festival, A.V. Rockwell’s debut feature, “A Thousand and One,” sensitively explores the failure of society’s safety nets to protect Black families and the lengths Black mothers will go to ensure their children’s future. But underneath that story is another: one about the personal voids we try to fill. Appearing in her first leading role, Teyana Taylor plays Inez, a mother scarred by her childhood in foster care. She infused this character with such electricity and vitality that I found myself championing her every move, even, or especially, her most morally ambiguous decisions. (Read our interview with the director.)‘Past Lives’What if someone you pined for turns out to be your soul mate, not in this life, but another? This tension drives Celine Song’s debut film “Past Lives,” a tender portrait of two adults, Na Young (Greta Lee) and Hae Sung (Teo Yoo), who forged a special bond as classmates in Seoul but lost touch over the years. Their poignant performances and Song’s intimate directing style make the chemistry between these two characters believable. But, we, and they, are left with the sense that the chasm caused by immigration (and the self-invention it requires) is insurmountable, making longing the most consistent emotion available to them. (Read our review of “Past Lives.”)‘Purlie Victorious’When he first conceived of writing a play based on his childhood in rural, segregated Georgia, Ossie Davis tried to write it straight. Once he realized that satire was better suited to capture the absurdity and tragedy of American racism, he premiered his first play, “Purlie Victorious.” Back on Broadway 62 years later, the play, directed by Kenny Leon, stars Leslie Odom Jr. as the ambitious preacher Purlie and Kara Young as Lutibelle, a naïve young woman he brings home to impersonate a dead cousin whose inheritance Purlie wants. The resulting ruckus undercuts an enduring racial stereotype — that all Black people look alike — while sharing a radical vision of Black pride and interracial solidarity. Odom is a mesmerizing triumph and Young a hilarious tour de force, while this is Leon (“Fences,” “Topdog/Underdog”) at his very best. (Read our interview with the cast and director.)Jeffrey Wright in ‘American Fiction’Jeffrey Wright as Thelonious “Monk” Ellison in “American Fiction.” Ellison is torn between staying true to his highbrow literary vision and caricaturing Black life to make money and take care of his mother. via TIFFJeffrey Wright is a consummate screen stealer — this year alone, I wanted more speeches from his General Gibson in “Asteroid City” and more shade from his Adam Clayton Powell Jr. in “Rustin.” But not since “Basquiat” in 1996 have I seen Wright as a lead in a feature-length film, and his performance in Cord Jefferson’s “American Fiction” reminds us what an actual loss this is for those of us who love watching movies. He wholly embodies Thelonious “Monk” Ellison, a novelist who, in the process of mourning the death of his father and sister, is torn between staying true to his highbrow literary vision and caricaturing Black life to make money and take care of his mother. Wright gives a nuanced, captivating performance, punctuated with humor, anger, desire and vulnerability, while his character conveys the frustrations of Black artists who refuse to conform to the white gaze.‘The Last of Us’There are so many painful separations and sentimental reunions on “The Last of Us,” the dystopian HBO series based on the video game of the same name, that it is hard for me to pick the most affecting one. I am choosing the story in which Ellie (Bella Ramsey), a 14-year-old orphan who is immune to the brain infection that has decimated most of the world, reconnects with her former roommate Riley (Storm Reid), who left to join the resistance. When Riley takes Ellie on an overnight trip to an abandoned mall, we see how liberating their adolescent female desire for each other is, making this night of last memories even more apocalyptic. (Read our review of “The Last of Us.”)Jodie Comer in ‘Prima Facie’When Jodie Comer, best known as an assassin on “Killing Eve,” decided to do her first major stage role, she went big with “Prima Facie.” Alone on a Broadway stage for 100 minutes, Comer commands our attention as Tessa Ensler, a barrister who has moved up in the British class system only to be pulled back down as a victim of a sexual assault. Tessa finds herself in a paradox: In the past, she has defended male clients from assault accusations. Comer moves through the emotions of grief, shame, self-doubt, rage and hope with such intensity that it still seems impossible to me that this was her professional stage debut. (Read our review of “Prima Facie.”)‘Reservation Dogs’Graham Greene as Maximus, left, and D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai as Bear in “Reservation Dogs,” a show that redefined American television.Shane Brown/FXDespite its notable lack of Emmy nods, “Reservation Dogs,” the first television show where every writer, director and main character was Indigenous, redefined American television over three seasons. While it is primarily a coming-of-age story, this final season’s episodes veered thrillingly into family drama, horror, science fiction and comedy. I am sad to say goodbye to these characters, but I am grateful for its brilliant ensemble and its affirmation of community, and how a people who lived and grieved together can, through ritual and remembrance, find their way back to each other and teach themselves, and those watching them, how to heal. (Read our interview with the “Reservation Dogs” showrunner.)Beyoncé’s Renaissance World Tour“Uncle Jonny made my dress,” Beyoncé rhymes on “Heated,” a single from her 2022 album “Renaissance.” “That cheap spandex, she looks a mess.” That playful line reminds us that she dedicated this album to her maternal uncle Jonny, a Black gay man who helped raise her and died of H.I.V./AIDS-related causes. (She released her concert film on Friday, which was World AIDS Day.) The lyric also declares the political aesthetics of “Renaissance” and the house music and Black queer ballroom cultures that inspired its sound and her style on this year’s behemoth world tour. She encouraged us to wear our most fabulous silver fashions and become human disco balls that mirrored “each other’s joy.” And so we came, witnessed and participated in what was more like a Black church revival than just a stadium concert, in which we left feeling as beautiful in our skin (and our clothing) as she appeared to us onstage. (Read our review of Beyoncé’s tour.) More

    • 50 Shares129 Views

      in Television

      I Survived ‘Guiding Light’

      by

      The long-running CBS soap opera had plenty of drama, onstage and off. A former cast member looks back on its last days.Deep inside the CBS Broadcast Center in Midtown Manhattan, I stood in a corridor observing a melee.The soap opera where I worked was going off the air, and the wardrobe department had filled an empty suite of offices with piles of designer purses and handbags. With a limit of four per person, everything was first come, first served — and free.I saw secretaries, producers, executives, actors and security guards crawling, clawing and snatching up bags. Every other person was on a cellphone, and someone shouted, “You gotta get down here!” A Daytime Emmy Award-winner dove for a purple bag with a silver clasp in the shape of a jaguar. I fled before I got trampled.It was the late summer of 2009, the final weeks of “Guiding Light,” which had started as a radio program in 1937 and moved to television in 1952. “Only love can save the world,” ran the refrain of the show’s theme song. Not true! Only ratings could save us, and we didn’t have them.People who work in daytime drama excel at suspending disbelief. It came naturally to us as we toiled in an environment where it was normal to see angels, clones and time-traveling housewives strolling the halls with a script in one hand and a coffee in the other. But now that “Guiding Light” was coming to an end, we had to face reality.It wasn’t supposed to be this way. Soap operas were supposed to be forever. They were what New York actors did between theater roles, commercials and “Law & Order” guest spots. And if you left a daytime drama, you could always come back, sometimes as your evil twin.Soaps were in their big-hair heyday in the 1980s, when I started playing an orderly on “Guiding Light.” My character was a loyal employee of Cedars Hospital, a place where paternity results were routinely switched, nobody was ever asked about their insurance and every patient had a private room.I had what was probably the smallest recurring role on the show, and I loved it. My acting responsibilities included trailing Dr. Bauer on his rounds and agreeing with every single thing Nurse Lillian said. Many of my lines consisted of one word, like “Stat!” During surgery, I sometimes yelled it extra loud, just to remind people I was there. By the end of my 26 years on the show, there wasn’t an actor alive who could beat my “Stat!”My greatest challenge had to do with the side-by-side doors to the Cedars Hospital emergency room. These were the most counterintuitive doors I had ever encountered. To go into the E.R., a “Guiding Light” player had to grab the metal bars and pull them back; to get the doors to open on the way out, an actor had to pull the metal bars ever so slightly — and then push them forward.So it was common for the show’s emergency room scenes to be ruined when someone got stuck as they tried to make their way in or out. The presence of a weeping ingénue or a flying gurney would only complicate matters. As the show’s orderly, I was the one who had to deal with this vexing issue most often.In the waning days of “Guiding Light,” the plots got zanier and the budgets got smaller. One character, who had previously starred in a story line about her struggle with menopause, miraculously gave birth. Another developed superpowers that allowed her to shoot electricity from her fingertips.In the studio, someone remarked that our last few episodes would be bittersweet. “What’s sweet about it?” a technician growled. “It’s all bitter.”To unload decades worth of props, costumes and furniture, the producers set up a tag sale in the rehearsal hall, with no item priced above $20. It was jarring to hear strangers crowing about a light fixture they had snagged for 50 cents or the Armani suit they would have bought if it hadn’t had a bullet hole in the back.One afternoon, a woman barged into the dressing room I shared with a fellow actor. She was carrying an armful of gowns and a fur coat.“Mind if I change in here?” she asked.“Yes!” I said. “This is our dressing room.”She gave us a dirty look and left. I just sighed. It was like when a family member dies and relatives you’ve never seen show up to cart stuff away.On our last day in the CBS studio, I made my way down to the set. As if it were any other episode, the wardrobe girl snapped a picture of me in my scrubs for continuity purposes. This suddenly seemed absurd. She must have had the same thought. Right after taking the photo, she shrugged her shoulders and laughed.People seemed distracted. Everyone was talking about the sale down the hall and the giveaway still taking place upstairs.“Focus, people!” the director pleaded. “We have a show to do!”An older actress approached as I sat on a gurney.“Do you think now would be a good time to say a few words?” she said.“Like what?”“Well, I feel that ‘Guiding Light’ has chronicled the emotional history of the United States and —”I interrupted her to suggest that maybe she could wait until the end of the day, when the episode was done. She looked a bit deflated as I stepped away to stand beside Dr. Bauer. He draped an arm around my shoulders in what struck me as a brotherly gesture.In the final Cedars Hospital scene, I followed Dr. Bauer as he led the show’s matriarch to the bedside of her dying brother. During their deathbed heart-to-heart chat, the doctor and I withdrew discreetly. While making our exit, Dr. Bauer grappled awkwardly with the troublesome E.R. doors, causing a loud bang, as I sneaked a look at the camera. This would normally be considered a huge no-no, but today I didn’t care. Nobody did.“Cut!” the director shouted. “Moving on!”A prop guy snatched the stethoscope off my neck. Like a thundering herd, the crew headed to the next set. Before returning to his dressing room, Dr. Bauer reminded me to be sure to come to the party later.I was now alone in Cedars Hospital. I had logged so many hours in this fictional place, through three different studios, four casting directors, nearly my entire adult life. Now it was time to say goodbye. And that is one thing that people on soap operas are absolutely, positively not good at — endings.I took a slow pass through the set, just for nostalgia’s sake. I must have been in a daze, because I exited via the E.R. doors without thinking. For the first time ever, they gave way smoothly at my touch.I resisted the urge to look back. Striding down the hallway, I tossed my CBS I.D. card into a wastebasket. Above me, the On Air sign was dark.Raul A. Reyes is a contributor to NBC Latino and CNN Opinion More

    • 88 Shares99 Views

      in Television

      Netflix’s ‘Verified’ Gives Comedians a Path Forward

      by

      The path forward for comedians is especially confusing now. Netflix’s “Verified” showcases are giving them a national stage, even if they have to share it.How in the world do you make it in stand-up comedy?This question has long kept aspiring stars up at night, and we are living in a moment when the route to a successful career is more confusing than ever. Do you have to get on TikTok? Does Comedy Central still matter? The days of being told you just need a spot on “The Tonight Show” are gone, and with myriad platforms, there appear to be many roads, most leading nowhere. And yet, the one that still has the biggest reputation for elevating comics is Netflix. But it’s unclear how much the streaming service, known for specials by boldfaced names like John Mulaney and Adam Sandler, cares about minting stars.That’s why Netflix’s “Verified” is important. It’s two showcases, each about an hour, featuring emerging comics doing short sets. There is a promising precedent: The streamer aired “The Comedy Lineup,” originally in 2018, which starred relative unknowns doing 15 minutes of jokes. Three in the Class of ’18 have since gotten their own series (Taylor Tomlinson, Michelle Buteau, Sam Jay). One just played Carnegie Hall (Tim Dillon). Another has been a head writer and sidekick on late night (Ian Karmel, a James Corden stalwart).Rosebud Baker brought her hard-boiled persona to “Verified.”Marcus Russell Price/Netflix“Comedy Lineup” didn’t vault these performers to fame, but it helped. And in retrospect, the selection of the entire group (including Jak Knight, Phil Wang and Sabrina Jalees) reflected foresight and taste. The artists in the new showcases are not exactly newcomers. There’s a correspondent for “The Daily Show” (Dulcé Sloan) and a comic who recently played the theater at Madison Square Garden (Nimesh Patel). There are jokes about dating in your mid-30s (Leslie Liao) and a comic showing off her pregnant belly (Rosebud Baker, whose hard-boiled persona backs up a strong, spiky set).“Verified” doesn’t amount to more than a perfectly fine tasting menu of comedy. Sometimes, though, that’s all you want.There’s something pleasing about following the transgressive intensity of Robby Hoffman with the laid-back charm of Patel. In a recent column on Hoffman’s podcast, “Too Far,” I compared that bulldozing stand-up to Larry David because of her mountain-out-of-a-molehill kvetching, but her hilarious rage over people who complain about interruptions during a conversation makes her sound like a modern lesbian Andrew Dice Clay. I didn’t even think that was possible.Patel takes a leisurely pace, mixing crowd work and topical jokes (some solid roasting of Vivek Ramaswamy) with dated bits (a Mike Pence joke). Patel makes this hour seem casual, offhand, just another night at the club.Sloan may adjust to the form best because she starts quickly (“How y’all doing? Great”), ends abruptly and sticks to a couple of nontopical subjects, including a bit about the benefits of dating a poor man and a great observational joke that might have you looking differently at the way people buy weed. In less than 15 minutes, her set packs a wallop.It’s interesting what seeing all these comics in one place reveals about what is missing from most Netflix specials. Isiah Kelly begins his set with a joke about being broke, and how you know you’re having a bad week when you have to check your bank account before finishing an order at McDonald’s. Financial hardship is one of the most common subjects in live comedy, inevitably relatable to audiences today, but you’re less likely to hear about it from Ricky Gervais or Kevin Hart.Sabrina Yu brought nervous energy to the showcase. Marcus Russell Price/NetflixOne of the revelations for me was Sabrina Wu, who barrels into jokes with a nervous energy, then exploits it. “Oh my God,” Wu says to the roar of applause, sounding grateful, then offended: “That’s it?” This is a young comic who knows how to pivot. Wu’s standout bit involves talking trash about Amanda Gorman, the former National Youth Poet Laureate, at a contest early in her career, then describing the futility of a rivalry with her. It’s one of the better jokes from a comic on an eternally rich subject: jealousy.Class does not come up as much as race and ethnicity. Comics tend to introduce themselves by playing with their own background. Along with jokes about her deep voice and impatience with first dates, Liao, a Chinese American comic, draws attention to how Asian people’s faces are “gender neutral.” Asif Ali does some shouty jokes connecting the large Indian population to the lack of sex education. “You know why we’re not talking about it,” he says, before pointing in the air with mock aggression: “We’re too busy being about it.”Gianmarco Soresi, a Jewish comic who alternates between silkily feline physicality and frenetic gesticulation, digs into antisemitism, but only as it affects his act. His jokes parody his own solipsism. “I just feel if white people would stop complaining all the time about cancel culture and actually fought,” he says with passion, shaking his fist, “then all of us could do the Chinese accent again.”He then turns his back to the crowd and the camera shifts, giving viewers a moody shot of him looking downcast from backstage, adding a visual joke that stands out because it’s such a dramatically different camera angle. I have no idea how he convinced the producers to do this, but the effort was worth it.This shot is notable because there is something modest and safe about these sets. (Patel’s “Lucky Lefty” on YouTube is a better showcase of his work.) Partly, the length makes it feel low risk, but also maybe the stakes. If Netflix is where comics go to make it, then YouTube is where you go to complain about why you haven’t.Louis Katz, a bald, filthy veteran comic with slingshot punchlines, opens his new self-released special, “Present/Tense,” with better-known comics explaining why he never became famous. Nate Bargatze says he’s too dirty. Marc Maron points to his hair line. Dave Attell blames personality.It’s a funny way to begin a special, which goes on to offer its own theory. People today, Katz argues, don’t want jokes. They want comics to bare their soul. Perhaps. But in a way, his lament about the state of his career (“Stand-up comedy does not have a great retirement plan”) is his best attempt.David Drake, a strong joke writer, begins his latest YouTube special, “That’s It!,” with a pointed joke that has the ring of truth. “Here’s how you make it in this business,” he says. “Have a famous dad.” More

    • 163 Shares189 Views

      in Movies

      Best Movies and TV Shows Streaming in December: ‘Reacher,’ ‘Doctor Who’ and More

      by

      Holiday fare arrives, with “Candy Cane Lane,” and “Dr. Who” and “Shape Island” specials. “Percy Jackson” and “Culprits” also land this month.Every month, streaming services add movies and TV shows to its library. Here are our picks for some of December’s most promising new titles. (Note: Streaming services occasionally change schedules without giving notice. For more recommendations on what to stream, sign up for our Watching newsletter here.)New to Amazon Prime Video‘Candy Cane Lane’Starts streaming: Dec. 1Eddie Murphy reunites with his “Boomerang” director Reginald Hudlin for this fantastical, special-effects-driven holiday comedy. Murphy plays Chris Carver, a suburbanite whose obsession with winning his neighborhood’s lights and display contest leads to him making a deal with a malevolent elf named Pepper (Jillian Bell), who secretly plans to trap her new client permanently in the form of a plastic figurine. When Pepper’s dark magic leads to every gift in the song “The 12 Days of Christmas” coming to life and wreaking havoc in the Carver family’s quaint community, Chris and his wife, Carol (Tracee Ellis Ross), have to enlist their children and Pepper’s previous victims to try and prevent the spell from ruining Christmas.‘Reacher’ Season 2Starts streaming: Dec. 15Alan Ritchson returns as the hulking, nomadic ex-military policeman Jack Reacher, for a second season of mystery-unraveling and bone crunching. This batch of episodes is based on Lee Child’s novel “Bad Luck and Trouble,” and sees the beefy do-gooder calling on some old colleagues — Frances Neagley (Maria Sten), Karla Dixon (Serinda Swan) and David O’Donnell (Shaun Sipos) — to help him figure out who is killing the members of Reacher’s former U.S. Army MP Special Investigations unit. As with Season 1, this latest round of “Reacher” combines fisticuffs and shootouts with scenes of friends and strangers alike marveling at the eccentricities and capabilities of the stoic hero.Also arriving:Dec. 6“Hollywood Houselift With Jeff Lewis” Season 2Dec. 7“Coach Prime” Season 2Dec. 8“Merry Little Batman”Dec. 12“The Farads” Season 1Circle (voiced by Gideon Adlon), Square (voiced by Harvey Guillen) and Triangle (voiced by Scott Adsit) in “Shape Island: The Winter Blues,” a holiday special.Apple TV+New to Apple TV+‘Shape Island: The Winter Blues’Starts streaming: Dec. 1Based on a series of picture books by the author Mac Barnett and the illustrator Jon Klassen, the charming animated series “Shape Island” teaches young kids about friendship via quiet, simple stories about three very different shapes: the nerdy Square (voiced by Harvey Guillén), the goofy Triangle (Scott Adsit) and the cool and wise Circle (Gideon Adlon). In the holiday special “The Winter Blues,” Circle and Triangle try to cheer Square up by inventing a monster-themed holiday; but they struggle to maintain the illusion when their pal starts asking too many questions about the magical yeti they created. The show’s adorable sets and characters look even more enchanting covered in ice and snow, though as always the core appeal is the interactions between these three, who reap the rewards of companionship by making an extra effort to get along.Also arriving:Dec. 1“Frog and Toad: Christmas Eve”“The Snoopy Show: Happiness Is Holiday Traditions”Dec. 6“John Lennon: Murder Without a Trial”Dec. 15“The Family Plan”From left: Leah Sava Jeffries, Aryan Simhadri and Walker Scobell in “Percy Jackson and the Olympians.”Disney+New to Disney+“Percy Jackson and the Olympians” Season 1Starts streaming: Dec. 20A decade ago, when pretty much every popular young adult fantasy fiction series was being adapted into megahit movies, the first two books in Rick Riordan’s Percy Jackson saga hit the big screen. Both did OK with audiences, but neither became a sensation on the level of the Harry Potter or Hunger Games films. So Riordan and the writer-producer Jonathan E. Steinberg are now trying something different with the novels, starting over at the beginning and telling Percy’s story as a Disney+ TV show. Walker Scobell plays the young hero, who discovers he is the secret son of Poseidon. Percy joins forces with other gods, demigods and magical creatures for adventures that bring the perils of ancient myths into the modern world.“Doctor Who Holiday Special: The Church on Ruby Road”Starts streaming: Dec. 25For the 60th anniversary of the long-running British science-fiction series “Doctor Who,” the show’s former writer-producer Russell T Davies is overseeing a series of specials that feature — for a brief stretch — the return of the actor David Tennant, playing a new version of the time-traveling Doctor he had previously played from 2005 to 2010. Disney+ will be carrying all three of those specials (“The Star Beast,” “Wild Blue Yonder” and “The Giggle”); and then with that nostalgia trip out of the way, Davies will begin the new “Doctor Who” season with a holiday-themed special, “The Church on Ruby Road,” which will properly introduce the next Doctor, played by Ncuti Gatwa. Details about what Davies has planned are being kept under wraps for now; but fans of the franchise are looking forward to some of the series’ biggest changes in years.Also arriving:Dec. 1“The Shepherd”Dec. 2“Doctor Who: Wild Blue Yonder”Dec. 8“Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Christmas Cabin Fever”Dec. 9“Doctor Who: The Giggle”Dec. 22“What If…?” Season 2From left: Tara Abboud, Nathan Stewart-Jarrett, Gemma Arterton and Kirby in “Culprits.”Des Willie/DisneyNew to Hulu‘Culprits’ Season 1Starts streaming: Dec. 8The writer-director J Blakeson — best-known for the clever thriller films “The Disappearance of Alice Creed” and “I Care a Lot” — adapts the crime fiction anthology “Culprits: The Heist Was Just the Beginning” into a pulpy, structurally complex series, set in the aftermath of a caper. Nathan Stewart-Jarrett plays an aspiring restaurateur who is living a peaceful life with his fiancé when he discovers that someone is trying to kill everyone who was involved in a heist he participated in years ago. Each “Culprits” episode jumps between the present day and the past, filling in the details about the original crime, which was masterminded by a hyper-controlling boss (Gemma Arterton). The show is partly a mystery and partly a character study, considering the long-term effects of a criminal gang’s big score.‘The Mission’Starts streaming: Dec. 8Back in 2018, the Christian missionary John Allen Chau made international news when he was killed while illegally trying to make contact with a secluded island tribe. The National Geographic documentary “The Mission” digs beneath all the online jokes and outraged reactions to Chau’s death, offering a more thoughtful reflection on who this young man was — and a more detailed consideration of how the drive to convert hostile strangers has had a long and often tragic history. The film’s co-directors, Amanda McBaine and Jesse Moss (who previously made the excellent documentary “Boys State”), bring a fair-minded approach throughout, taking fervent faith seriously while also acknowledging the damage it can do.Also arriving:Dec. 6“We Live Here: The Midwest”Dec. 9“Maestra”Dec. 11“Science Fair: The Series”Dec. 13“Moving” Season 1“Undead Unlock” Season 1Dec. 14“Blue Jean”“Dragons: The Nine Realms” Season 8Dec. 15“CMA Country Christmas”“Such Brave Girls” Season 1Dec. 18“Archer: Into the Cold”Dec. 20“Dragons of Wonderhatch” Season 1Dec. 22“Maggie Moore(s)”Dec. 26“Letterkenny” Season 12Carol and Charles Stuart, as seen in “Murder In Boston: Roots, Rampage & Reckoning.” Ira Wyman/Sygma via Getty Images/HBONew to Max‘Murder in Boston: Roots, Rampage & Reckoning’Starts streaming: Dec. 4In 1989, a woman named Carol Stuart was shot and killed in Boston. During the investigation into the murder, her husband, Chuck, described the shooter as a Black man. It was later discovered that he wasn’t being entirely truthful; but by the time the case was closed, the city’s long-simmering racial hostilities had boiled over. Directed by Jason Hehir (best-known for the Emmy-winning Chicago Bulls docu-series “The Last Dance”), the three-part “Murder in Boston” features archival news footage and new interviews that, working in conjunction, explain what the cultural environment was like in Boston in the 1970s and ’80s and how the Stuart case represented a turning point.Also arriving:Dec. 5“Great Photo, Lovely Life: Facing a Family’s Secrets”Dec. 12“Trees and Other Entanglements”Dec. 16“Leo Reich: Literally Who Cares?”Dec. 21“Gary Gulman: Born on 3rd Base”Dec. 28“Oprah and ‘The Color Purple’ Journey”Dec. 30“Time Bomb Y2K”Michael Jackson, center, in the documentary “Thriller 40.” Paramount+ with SHOWTIMENew to Paramount+ with Showtime‘Thriller 40’Starts streaming: Dec. 2The director Nelson George’s “Thriller 40” goes deep on one of the best-selling albums of all time, serving as an unofficial conclusion to a trilogy that was begun by Spike Lee’s two Michael Jackson documentaries (one about the years leading up to “Off the Wall,” and one about the making of “Bad”). George and his crew interview some of the personnel who worked on the “Thriller” LP and its groundbreaking music videos; and they also speak with some famous fans (including Usher, Misty Copeland, Mark Ronson and Mary J. Blige), who talk passionately about what “Thriller” means to them. The main selling point for this documentary, though, is all of the rare video and audio from the studio, where Jackson and his producer Quincy Jones shaped the songs that would go on to dominate the pop charts, expanding the commercial and creative possibilities for Black artists.Also arriving:Dec. 1“The World According to Football”Dec. 5“Geddy Lee Asks: Are Bass Players Human Too?”Dec. 7“The Envoys” Season 2Dec. 8“Baby Shark’s Big Movie”Dec. 11“The Billion Dollar Goal”Dec. 12“Born in Synanon”Dec. 15“Finestkind”Tony Shalhoub returns as Adrian Monk in “Mr. Monk’s Last Case: A Monk Movie.”Peter Stranks/PEACOCKNew to Peacock‘Mr. Monk’s Last Case: A Monk Movie’Starts streaming: Dec. 8Fourteen years after the USA Network’s long-running, Emmy-winning detective dramedy “Monk” aired its series finale, most of the cast returns for this sequel movie, which catches fans up on how the obsessive-compulsive sleuth Adrian Monk (Tony Shalhoub) has been doing in the decade since he finally solved his wife’s murder. In short? Not great! Rattled by the pandemic and feeling adrift without murders to investigate, Monk finds a renewed sense of purpose when someone close to his family dies under mysterious circumstances, possibly at the direction of an arrogant billionaire (James Purefoy). In “Mr. Monk’s Last Case,” Monk once again has to overcome his neuroses with the help of his friends and former colleagues, working together to make the world feel a little saner.Also arriving:Dec. 1“The Exorcist: Believer”Dec. 8“Christmas at the Opry”Dec. 12“Barry Manilow’s a Very Barry Christmas”Dec. 15“A Saturday Night Live Christmas Special”Dec. 21“Dr. Death” Season 2 More

    • 113 Shares139 Views

      in Television

      Henry Kissinger, Often Impersonated and Skewered by Sketch Comics

      by

      Countless depictions on “Saturday Night Live” and beyond cast light on the idiosyncrasies and vanities of this diplomatic hard liner.In a November 1976 episode of “Saturday Night Live,” Gilda Radner, in her recurring impression of Barbara Walters — a.k.a. Baba Wawa — interviews Henry Kissinger, played by John Belushi. After inquiring about his “silly, silly” accent, which she says “really, really irritates” her, Radner asks Belushi to repeat after her: “I am a really, really fat, roly poly diplomat.” He does.The sketch includes a joke about Kissinger’s German-Jewish background. In a 1987 episode of “S.N.L.,” his religion comes up again in a sketch called “The Assimilated Jew’s Hanukkah.” In it, Al Franken imitates Kissinger, who is selling an album of Jewish Christmas songs. “Dozens of your favorite Christmas songs with lyrics a responsible Jew can feel comfortable singing,” he says — songs like “Silent Eight Nights” and “White Yom Tov.”After Kissinger’s death on Wednesday at 100 years old, Franken posted a memory on social media that referred to an American bombing campaign in North Vietnam in December 1972: “Kissinger called SNL once late on a Friday night looking for tix for his son. The Stones were playing that week. I told him that if it hadn’t been for the Xmas bombing, he’d have the tickets.”It is of little surprise that Kissinger, a polarizing figure who advised 12 American presidents and was the most powerful secretary of state of the postwar era, has been skewered and caricatured by comics for decades. His pronounced accent and manner of speaking were primed for satire, as was how he would regularly make statements that he seemed to think were quite profound but many found trite or ingratiating. (“Power is the ultimate aphrodisiac,” for instance.) He also appeared to be an irresistible target to those on the left in particular, who perceived him as an attention-seeking egotist and seemed to relish taking him down a peg by casting him as silly, albeit sinister.In the 1980s, the British comedy troupe Monty Python released a song titled “Henry Kissinger.” Among its lyrics: “You’re the doctor of my dreams/with your crinkly hair/and your glassy stare/and your Machiavellian schemes/I know they say that you are very vain/and short and fat and pushy/but at least you’re not insane.”In 1983, on “SCTV,” Eugene Levy took a drunken, stumblebum approach to Kissinger in a sketch that had him appear as a guest on a fictional late-night show hosted by Sammy Maudlin (Joe Flaherty). “I don’t want to talk about Watergate,” he says belligerently. “I don’t want to talk about Richard Nixon. He was a great president. He will go down as one of the great presidents in history. What do you know about Richard Nixon?” he yells, slamming his fist on the desk.At the start of the 2015 documentary “Call Me Lucky” about his life, the comedian and political satirist Barry Crimmins is seen giving a speech at an antiwar rally in Boston Common in 1990. “They tell us it’s not another Vietnam, and then they wheel out Henry Kissinger to tell us about it!” he yells before asking, “What, was Goebbels unavailable that day?” in reference to the Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels. Switching into a Kissinger voice, Crimmins says, “We must be very careful or war will be averted.”In 2015, Crimmins told The New Yorker that he was once in a green room with Kissinger, where he avoided being introduced. “I have a policy about not shaking hands with war criminals,” Crimmins said. Aside from being a guest in 2014, Kissinger himself made appearances in sketches (which drew pointed criticism) on “The Colbert Report,” Stephen Colbert’s satirical news program on Comedy Central in which he portrayed a conservative blowhard caricature for nine years. In 2013, Colbert danced to Daft Punk’s “Get Lucky” through various scenes that featured several stars and notable names, including Bryan Cranston, Jeff Bridges, the Rockettes and Kissinger, who picks up the phone and calls security.Years earlier, in 2006, Kissinger weighed in on a rock music contest in which Colbert and Peter Frampton competed against the Decemberists. In the episode, Kissinger said, “It’s time to rock,” and “I think the American people won.” In 2013, in an event at the New York Comedy Festival, Colbert said that Kissinger was also supposed to say, “Where are my pancakes? I was promised pancakes,” but he didn’t appreciate the line. “We have the tape of him reading the copy,” Colbert said, “and then he goes, ‘That is too much,’” quoting him with his accent.Jason Zinoman More

    • 163 Shares199 Views

      in Theater

      Frances Sternhagen, ‘Sex and the City’ Actress and Tony Winner, Dies at 93

      by

      Her Tony-winning Broadway career included “Driving Miss Daisy,” “On Golden Pond” and “The Heiress.” On TV she had maternal roles in “Cheers” and “Sex and the City.”Frances Sternhagen, the Tony Award-winning actress who played leading roles in stage productions of “Driving Miss Daisy” and “On Golden Pond” as formidable older women when she was so young that she had to wear aging makeup, died on Monday at her home in New Rochelle, N.Y. She was 93.Her son Tony Carlin confirmed the death.Ms. Sternhagen won Tonys as featured actress in a play for her performances in two very different productions. In a 1995 Broadway revival of “The Heiress,” based on Henry James’s novel “Washington Square,” she was Cherry Jones’s well-meaning, matchmaking Aunt Lavinia. In “The Good Doctor,” Neil Simon’s 1973 take on Chekhov, she played multiple roles in comedy sketches.Ms. Sternhagen came into her own in mature Off Broadway roles: as the strong-willed 70-something-and-up Southern widow in Alfred Uhry’s “Driving Miss Daisy” in 1988, when she was still in her 50s, and the concerned retirement-age wife in Ernest Thompson’s “On Golden Pond” in 1979, when she was 49.She received Tony nominations for her roles in the original productions of “On Golden Pond,” “Equus” and the musical “Angel” and in revivals of “Morning’s at Seven” and “The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window.”People who never saw a Broadway show or even went to the movies may have known Ms. Sternhagen’s face from television. Beginning in the 1980s, when she played the controlling working-class mother of the oddball postal carrier Cliff Clavin on “Cheers,” she sailed through a period of playing maternal figures in memorable recurring roles in a number of hit series.Ms. Sternhagen in a 1990 episode of the sitcom “Cheers.” She played the controlling working-class mother of the oddball postal carrier Cliff Clavin (John Ratzenberger, right).Kim Gottlieb-Walker/NBC Universal, via Getty ImagesOn “ER,” she was Dr. John Carter’s aristocratic Chicago grandmother. On “Sex and the City,” she was Trey MacDougal’s rich but peculiar mom. Most recently she played the mother of Kyra Sedgwick’s Southern character on the police procedural “The Closer.” She received three Emmy Award nominations, two for “Cheers” and one for “Sex and the City.”Ms. Sternhagen was known to turn down movie roles because they would take her away from her family for too long, but over the years she did appear in some two dozen films. She was Burt Reynolds’s intensely caring sister-in-law in “Starting Over” (1979), a perfectionist magazine researcher in “Bright Lights, Big City” (1988), and the cookbook author Irma Rombauer in “Julie & Julia” (2009). Her other films included “The Hospital” (1971), “Independence Day” (1983) and “Misery” (1990).But stage was her first home, and her career flourished in Off Broadway productions. She made her New York stage debut at 25 in Jean Anouilh’s “Thieves’ Carnival” at the Cherry Lane Theater, and she won her first Obie Award the next year, for George Bernard Shaw’s “The Admirable Bashville” (1956). She won again in 1965 for two performances (“The Room” and “A Slight Ache”) and received a lifetime achievement Obie in 2013.Ms. Sternhagen, right, and Cherry Jones in the 1995 Broadway revival of “The Heiress.” In a Tony-winning performance, Ms. Sternhagen played the well-meaning, matchmaking Aunt Lavinia.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesHer reviews were positive from the beginning. “When an intellectual comedy is about to be staged, it is always a wise notion to send for Frances Sternhagen,” Brooks Atkinson wrote in The New York Times in 1959, reviewing “The Saintliness of Margery Kempe,” an Off Broadway comedy. “She is the mistress of sardonic fooling.”Frances Hussey Sternhagen was born on Jan. 13, 1930, in Washington, D.C. She was the only child of John Meier Sternhagen, a United States tax court judge, and Gertrude (Hussey) Sternhagen, a World War I nurse who became a homemaker.Frances attended the Potomac School and the Madeira School, both in Virginia. At Vassar College, she originally studied history but was persuaded by an adviser to give drama a try.Ms. Sternhagen in 1999 at her home in New Rochelle. “It’s through working on characters in plays that I’ve learned about myself, about how people operate,” she said in 2001.Chris Maynard for The New York TimesAfter graduation in 1951, Ms. Sternhagen taught briefly at the Milton Academy in Milton, Mass. When she auditioned at the Brattle Street Theater in nearby Cambridge, she was rejected. “They said I read every part as if I was leading a troop of Girl Scouts out onto a hockey field,” she told The Toronto Star decades later.Returning to Washington, she took theater courses at the Catholic University of America and began appearing in Arena Stage productions.At the same time she began working in New York theater, Ms. Sternhagen also ventured into television work; she made her small-screen debut in 1955 in Thornton Wilder’s “The Skin of Our Teeth,” alongside Helen Hayes, on the series “Producers’ Showcase.” But she didn’t make her feature film debut until a decade later, with a supporting role as a high school librarian in “Up the Down Staircase” (1967). Like many working actors, she appeared on soap operas, including “Love of Life,” and in television commercials.She continued working into her 80s. Her last Broadway appearance was in a 2005 production of Edward Albee’s “Seascape.” Her last New York stage appearance was Off Broadway in “The Madrid” (2013) at City Center, playing the mother of a kindergarten teacher, played by Edie Falco, who up and leaves her job and family.In Ms. Sternhagen’s final film, “And So It Goes” (2014), a comic drama with Michael Douglas and Diane Keaton, she played a wise, snarky and chain-smoking real estate agent.Ms. Sternhagen and Phoebe Strole in an Off Broadway production of “The Madrid,” at City Center in Manhattan in 2013. It was Ms. Sternhagen’s last stage performance.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesMs. Sternhagen married Thomas Carlin, a fellow actor, in 1956, and they had six children. The couple had met briefly at Catholic University, acted together in “The Skin of Our Teeth” in Maryland and fell in love when both were in the cast of “Thieves’ Carnival” in New York. Mr. Carlin died in 1991.In addition to their son Tony, she is survived by three other sons, Paul, Peter and John; two daughters, Amanda Carlin Sanders and Sarah Carlin; nine grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren. She lived in New Rochelle for more than 60 years.In 2001, Ms. Sternhagen talked to drama students at Vassar and gave an interview to the college’s alumni publication. She revealed that as an actress she liked working from the outside in, starting with how a character speaks and walks rather than with her inner motivation. And she attributed a good deal of her personal emotional development to acting.“It’s through working on characters in plays that I’ve learned about myself, about how people operate,” she said.As for young aspiring actors who look down on paying their dues by appearing in commercials, Ms. Sternhagen suggested, “Think of it as children’s theater.”Alex Traub More

    • 63 Shares189 Views

      in Television

      Best TV Shows of 2023

      by

      Series like “The Bear,” “Beef,” “Happy Valley,” “Reservation Dogs” and “Succession” dazzled in a year when much of the TV business was in disarray.Best Shows of 2023 | Best International | Best Shows That EndedJames PoniewozikBest Shows of 2023TV in 2023 was like synchronized swimming. Below the surface, there was roiling and churn. The writers’ and actors’ strikes wiped out much of the production year. The hangover from the corporate binge on streaming platforms led to cancellations and cutbacks. A number of hall-of-fame series left the air, with no clear plan of, as it were, succession.But above the waterline, the dance went on. As usual, it was challenging to whittle down my year-end list to 10. (So I picked 11.) As usual, I am listing it in alphabetical, not ranked order. As usual, I made it a rule not to repeat shows from the previous year, and as usual, I broke that rule. (I couldn’t not include “Reservation Dogs.”)And as usual, I probably missed stuff: I have the same number of hours in the day as you, even if I spend more of them in front of a screen. Herewith, the best of what I did see, for your catching-up pleasure. Even if Peak TV is dead, Off-Peak TV should keep us plenty busy.‘The Bear’ (FX)When “The Americans” was on the air, I used to say that it was good it came first on my list alphabetically, because it was probably the series I would rank No. 1 if pushed. Now “The Bear” has that pride of place (at least until “Abbott Elementary” makes it back on my list). After a much-hyped 2022 premiere, the restaurant dramedy leveled up, exploring the volcanic dysfunction of its central family and celebrating the care and feeding of guests as a quasi-spiritual calling. This show is cooking with gas. (Streaming on Hulu.)‘Beef’ (Netflix)Steven Yeun in “Beef,” which used a road rage incident to explore many different modern tensions.Andrew Cooper/Netflix“Beef” was a good story about people getting mad: Amy Lau (Ali Wong) and Danny Cho (Steven Yeun), whose road-rage encounter descends into a quagmire of terrible choices. But it was a great story about why people get mad. It unpeeled the blazing onion of their conflict to expose class differences, family resentments and inter- and intragroup tensions among its Asian American characters, in an unsparing but empathetic telling. A big enough collection of last straws, “Beef” said, can build a highly flammable house. (Streaming on Netflix.)‘The Curse’ (Showtime)Like the mirrored eco-houses that its two lead characters build, “The Curse” is a polarizing creation. The collaboration between Nathan Fielder and Benny Safdie, with a stunning performance by Emma Stone, is deeply uncomfortable. It is also an entrancing, original, astute, creepy — and funny! — study of guilt, marriage and benighted altruism. Enter this haunted house if you dare, but watch your step. (Streaming on Paramount+.)‘Dead Ringers’ (Amazon Prime Video)We’d have been just fine without so many remakes, reboots and adaptations in 2023. “Dead Ringers” was a bloody, brilliant exception. Rachel Weisz — playing twin gynecologists in a gender-swapped version of the Jeremy Irons film role — and the writer Alice Birch delivered a truly distinctive reimagining of this story that kept the body horror while adding a contemporary take on scientific hubris and big-money medicine. (Streaming on Amazon Prime Video.)‘I’m a Virgo’ (Amazon Prime Video)Boots Riley’s Brobdingnagian satire was both fabulistic and fabulous. Through the misadventures and explorations of Cootie (a marvelous Jharrel Jerome), a 13-foot-tall teen in Oakland, Riley personified the idea of the young Black man as threat, while spinning a wild, political and relentlessly entertaining tale that incorporated superhero mythology and anticapitalist critique. The series strained to control its outsized ambitions, but it was proof that you can never aim too big. (Streaming on Amazon Prime Video.)‘Jury Duty’ (Amazon Freevee)Like a jury summons, this innovative reality-comedy was a surprise. But in this case, it was a pleasant one. An unsuspecting citizen, Ronald Gladden, was called to serve on a fictional case, joining a jury of his fake peers played by actors (as well as the actor James Marsden, playing himself). Miraculously, the production pulled off the elaborate “trial” without blowing its cover. And marvelously, what might have sounded like a cruel joke turned out to be a feel-good, hilarious test of decency, in which Gladden, er, acquitted himself with charm and integrity. (Streaming on Amazon Freevee.)‘The Last of Us’ and ‘Somebody Somewhere’ (HBO)You might think that a thriller about a fungal zombie apocalypse has nothing in common with a slice-of-life account of friendships, queer life and cabaret music. But these very different HBO series showcased two of 2023’s great duos. (Each of them involving a Joel!) In “Last of Us,” Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey starred as Joel and Ellie, an odd couple forced to consider what they would sacrifice for endangered humanity. Season 2 of “Somewhere” tested the bond of Sam (Bridget Everett) and Joel (Jeff Hiller) in an endearing story of heartland eccentrics. One series splattered more guts than the other, but each had heart to spare. (Streaming on Max.)‘Reservation Dogs’ (FX)From left, Paulina Alexis, Devery Jacobs, D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai, Lane Factor and Elva Guerra in “Reservation Dogs,” which ended this year.Shane Brown/FXIt is fitting that the final season of this comedy, set on a Native reservation in Oklahoma, had a story line involving extraterrestrial life. This was a story of a small community that, over its three seasons, managed to fill an entire universe. A rare coming-of-age story that does as well by its elder characters as its young leads, it left me with my heart brimming and my eyes wanting more. (Streaming on Hulu.)‘South Side’ (Max)What is a “year,” really? Yes, eagle-eyed readers will note that the final season of this comedy aired at the end of 2022, but it arrived too late for my previous list. Over a too-short, three-season run, “South Side” expanded a workplace comedy about a Chicago rent-to-own shop into a fantastical universe of eccentrics, scammers and hapless police and pols, and the final season packed years’ worth of ideas into a final blaze of surreal world-building. This was one for the ages, even if it lived on borrowed — or rented — time. (Streaming on Max.)‘Succession’ (HBO)Like the Roy family empire, the final season of this corporate saga dominated all available media. But the saturation coverage was deserved. The drama followed its dark instincts to the end, giving a send-off for the ages to the patriarch Logan Roy (Brian Cox) and living up to its title in his heirs fight for his legacy. The C-suite brawl — in which American democracy was collateral damage — managed to be cynically satisfying and deeply emotional. Money could not buy the Roys happiness, but their misery was priceless. (Streaming on Max.)Honorable mention: “Barry” (HBO); “Blue Eye Samurai” (Netflix); “Dave” (FXX); “Happy Valley” (BBC America); “How To With John Wilson” (HBO); “I Think You Should Leave with Tim Robinson” (Netflix); “Killing It” (Peacock); “Minx” (Starz); “Mrs. Davis” (Peacock); “Party Down” (Starz); “Scavengers Reign” (Max); “The Traitors” (Peacock).Flawed but fascinating: “Foundation” (Apple TV+); “Hello Tomorrow!” (Apple TV+); “Three-Body” (Rakuten Viki); “The Wheel of Time” (Amazon Prime Video).MIKE HALEBest International ShowsIt cannot be overemphasized: The wild proliferation of series, especially imported ones, makes the word “best” at the top of any list a hazy approximation at, you know, best. Here are 10 shows from outside the United States, in alphabetical order, that I particularly enjoyed in 2023.‘A Spy Among Friends’ (MGM+)“A Spy Among Friends,” with Guy Pearce, left, and Damian Lewis, was based on actual events.Adi Marineci/Sony Pictures TelevisionThis languorous yet nail-biting variation on the espionage thriller dramatized the end of the friendship between Kim Philby, the British spy who was a double agent for the Soviets, and Nicholas Elliott, the fellow spy sent to bring Philby home and then suspected of treason himself when Philby escaped. Written by Alex Cary (“Homeland”) based on Ben Macintyre’s book, it was a smart and complicated puzzle play and an icy dissection of the British class system; most of all, it was a tour de force for Guy Pearce as Philby, Damian Lewis as Elliott and Anna Maxwell Martin as a fictional agent caught in the middle. (Streaming on MGM+.)‘C.B. Strike’ (Max)The rapport between Tom Burke, as the gruff British private eye Cormoran Strike, and Holliday Grainger, as his assistant and then fellow investigator Robin Ellacott, has always been more than enough reason to watch this series based on J.K. Rowling’s Strike mystery novels (written under the name Robert Galbraith). The show’s balance of detection and thorny, soulful friendship-cum-romance is close to ideal; the fifth season, based on Rowling’s book “Troubled Blood,” combined a cluster of family crises with a deft, surprising mystery involving the 40-year-old case of a missing doctor. (Streaming on Max.)‘Happy Valley’ (BBC America)Siobhan Finneran, left, and Sarah Lancashire in “Happy Valley,” which wrapped up this year. Matt Squire/AMCSally Wainwright’s intimate, everyday epic about the life-or-death struggle between a Yorkshire police officer and her nemesis, the blandly brutal sociopath who was also the father of her grandson, reached its reckoning in its third and final season. Sarah Lancashire and James Norton were terrific to the end, along with Siobhan Finneran as the cop’s ruinously, redemptively softhearted sister. (Streaming on AMC+ and Acorn TV.)‘Oshi no Ko’ (Hidive)From idol singing groups to TV dramas, reality-dating shows, anime musicals, modeling, YouTube stardom, performing-arts high schools, celebrity journalism and online trolling, this animated series offers an almost documentary-style account of the wages of success in the Japanese entertainment industry. Because it is a sprightly, goofy anime, its darkly earnest accounts of struggle and exploitation share space with teenage romance and a murder mystery, and its hero and heroine are a young doctor and his teenage patient reincarnated as the twin babies of a pop singer they both idolized. (Streaming on Hidive.)‘Paris Police 1905’ (MHz Choice)The latest winner from the French network Canal+ (progenitor of “Spiral” and “The Bureau”) is a police procedural that doubles as a panorama of French society at a time when overwhelming change barrels into ossified conservatism and privilege. (The first season was titled “Paris Police 1900.”) The plot of the new season of this highly entertaining melodrama, which matches a grisly sang-froid with the driest humor, is driven by syphilis, homophobia and a deadly new menace, the automobile. (Streaming on MHz Choice.)‘Slow Horses’ (Apple TV+)“Slow Horses” had even more twists in its second season. With Aimee-Ffion Edwards and Gary Oldman.Apple TV+The second season of this wonderfully sardonic British series about a cadre of misfit, career-stalled MI5 agents (which premiered on Dec. 2, 2022, after last year’s edition of these lists appeared) was, if anything, better than the first — its mystery twistier, its action more tense and shocking. Season 3, premiering Wednesday, is a slight step back — the bullet count goes way up, which is always a bad sign — but the average of the two seasons is still awfully high. (Streaming on Apple TV+.)‘Somewhere Boy’ (Hulu)In its flashbacks, this compact drama is a dark fable: a bereaved Welsh husband, terrified of also losing his young son, keeps the boy captive by telling him that the world outside their isolated home is populated by monsters. In the present, it’s an astringent coming-of-age story, as Danny (Lewis Gribben), now nearly an adult, emerges into the confusing, disappointing, equally frightening real world. Gribben and Samuel Bottomley, as the cousin suddenly saddled with being Danny’s protector, are excellent. (Streaming on Hulu.)‘30 Coins’ (Max)“It’s all quite incomprehensible,” a character says of events in the second season of Álex de la Iglesia’s apocalyptic theological thriller. “But life is incomprehensible, too.” That’s the correct spirit in which to watch de la Iglesia’s rococo riot of a series about a handful of ordinary, though in some cases extraordinarily attractive people — a small-town mayor, a veterinarian, a lapsed cop, a YouTube ghostbuster — battling Satan, the Vatican, Paul Giamatti (as an L. Ron Hubbard-style cult leader) and possibly God over the fate of the world. (Streaming on Max.)‘Wolf Like Me’ (Peacock)Abe Forsythe’s charming, sometimes extremely bloody Australian dramedy is a moving and tartly comic account of a blended family in which part of the blend is a werewolf. Isla Fisher is enormously appealing as the no-nonsense, highly suspicious wolf, Mary, who spent the second season pregnant by her lumpenly human boyfriend (Josh Gad); the season-ending cliffhanger promises to radically change the show. (Streaming on Peacock.)‘Yosi, the Regretful Spy’ (Amazon Prime Video)The Argentine writer and director Daniel Burman based this absorbing drama on the true story of a government agent who infiltrated the Jewish community of Buenos Aires in the years leading up to the horrific terrorist bombings that targeted that community in the early 1990s. Through two seasons, its depiction of the automatic, paranoiac anti-Semitism of the country’s establishment is all the more chilling for being utterly matter-of-fact. (Streaming on Amazon Prime Video.)Margaret LyonsBest Shows That EndedThis year brought a few banner finales and a few shows unjustly cut off in their primes, some slow fades and some purposeful but (to a fan) premature endings. So goes my lament each year.To qualify for my list, arranged below in alphabetical order, shows had to air in 2023 (or just about) and also officially end; renewal limbo is the enemy of the fan and the list-maker alike. Miniseries and limited series did not count (God bless, though), and I considered shows in toto, not just their final runs.‘Barry’ (HBO)“Barry,” cocreated by and starring Bill Hader, was by turns both brooding and snappy.Merrick Morton/HBOBill Hader cocreated, starred in and directed most of this assassin black comedy, which was among television’s most brooding and violent shows but still bubbled over with snappy one-liners and zippy satire. The show’s virtuosic action sequences and fight choreography were only part of its appeal, though. Barry discovering a love of and aptitude for acting; his relationship with his grandiose mentor, Gene (Henry Winkler); his abusive romance with Sally (Sarah Goldberg) — all of these marvelous facets refracted light through a dark gem. (Streaming on Max.)‘Doom Patrol’ (Max)The first two seasons of this show are much better than the second two, but, man, they are a ton of fun. While a lot of comic book fare is trite, didactic and redundant, “Doom” was raucous, silly, arch — but with a fairy-tale wistfulness and a real, beating heart. It was filthy and funny, and not particularly attached to always making sense, full of a vibrant strangeness that allowed for both immature humor and richly depicted sorrow and longing. (Streaming on Max.)‘The Great’ (Hulu)Nicholas Hoult and Elle Fanning starred as Peter III and Catherine the Great in “The Great.”Christian Black/HuluFew shows, if any, wring as much from each fiber of their existence as “The Great” did: Every line, every gesture, every hat, every plate conveyed something rich and thrilling, a ballerina telling an entire tragedy through the tilt of her pinkie. Elle Fanning and Nicholas Hoult cultivated an electrified sense of menace and then a real but twisted love between Catherine the Great and Peter III. So many period dramas just feel like inert, expensive Wikipedia entries, but “The Great,” through its irreverence and artistry, was alive at every turn. (Streaming on Hulu.)‘Happy Valley’ (BBC America)“Happy Valley” debuted in 2014, when the bleak foreign crime show was more in fashion, but it was never strictly a misery-murder show. Sarah Lancashire starred as Catherine Cawood, a police sergeant in West Yorkshire still tormented by her daughter’s suicide and raising her grandson in the shadow of that grief. Where lots of sad cop shows flatten their characters, “Valley” always sought depth and fullness — characters make jokes, the relationships have texture, choices have emotional heft. (Streaming on AMC+ and Acorn TV.)‘How To With John Wilson’ (HBO)This mesmerizing collage series always felt maybe a little too fragile for this harsh world, its tender musings and awkward but reverential curiosity leading to moments of human resonance that were so lovely they were almost painful. John Wilson reassembled his obsessive catalogs of New York City (and occasionally elsewhere) into poems about yearning, growing, belonging, changing — all these snippets of minutiae that would add up to a beautiful, illuminating gut punch. The end of this show stings harder than most because there won’t ever be anything else quite like it. (Streaming on Max.)‘The Other Two’ (Max)Drew Tarver and Heléne Yorke in “The Other Two,” which mocked both fame and its characters’ thirst for it. Greg Endries/MaxOver its three seasons, “The Other Two” was thrillingly catty and cynical while keeping a tiny ember of sweetness burning all the way through. Heléne Yorke and Drew Tarver starred as the older siblings to a teeny-bopper idol who each crave the spotlight in their own ways, too. The show loved mocking their thirst for fame and especially ridiculing the hollowness of much of the entertainment industry and media. The Season 3 episode about a play called “8 Gay Men with AIDS: A Poem in Many Hours” is a particular treat. (Streaming on Max.)‘Reservation Dogs’ (FX)“Reservation Dogs” was so suffused with death and absence, maybe I shouldn’t feel so aggrieved that it is ending after just three seasons. Maybe I should internalize one of the central ideas of the show, that the end of a life is not the end of a relationship. Maybe someday I will be that sanguine, but for now, I’m still bummed out! In its short run, this coming-of-age series about Native American teens in Oklahoma was as gorgeous, surprising and nimble as TV gets — funny and whimsical, daring and important. (Streaming on Hulu.)‘Single Drunk Female’ (Freeform)This is one of our unjustly canceled specimens this year, a show cut off mid-blossom. In Season 1, we met Sam (Sofia Black-D’Elia) as she hit rock bottom, moved home with her difficult mother, joined Alcoholics Anonymous and tried to crawl out of her despair. In Season 2, the show, like Sam, found its footing, and its warm approach made grim themes accessible to Freeform’s younger audience and to anyone drained by sad-coms who still wanted something with depth. Adding insult to injury, Disney, which owns Freeform, also pulled the show off its streaming platforms. (Buy it on Amazon Prime Video.)‘South Side’ (Max)This is our asterisk entry this year — “South Side” did not air in 2023, but its third and final season aired in December 2022, after last year’s list went to print, and its cancellation wasn’t official until February of this year. So it is sneaking through on multiple technicalities. Also because it was so dang funny, with among the highest jokes-per-minute rate of any contemporary show. The show, set on the South Side of Chicago, had one of the most fully developed worlds on television, where characters who were onscreen for only a line or two still felt woven in. (Streaming on Max.)‘Succession’ (HBO)From left, Fisher Stevens, Kieran Culkin, Jeremy Strong and Sarah Snook in the final season of “Succession.”Macall B. Polay/HBOI mean … it’s “Succession.” Bury me in its fine textiles and viciousness, its fascinating ability to depict its characters as piñatas filled with more emptiness, its filthy rejoinders and knack for detail. A show this grand had to go out big, too, and killing off Logan not as its denouement but rather as its 11 o’clock number gave its final batch of episodes a swirling urgency. (Streaming on Max.)Honorable mention: “A Black Lady Sketch Show” (HBO); “Miracle Workers” (TBS); “Painting With John” (HBO); “Sex Education” (Netflix); “Summer Camp Island” (Cartoon Network). More

    • 138 Shares139 Views

      in Television

      ‘Fargo’ Season 5, Episode 3 Recap: Preparing for a Blood Bath

      by

      Dot’s pursuers seem to be on the verge of being pursued themselves.Season 5, Episode 3: ‘The Paradox of Intermediate Transactions’The Coen brothers filmography is speckled with a specific type of abstract character, a dark and indomitable force of nature who isn’t quite human and operates on a code that is known only to him. Think Leonard Smalls (Randall “Tex” Cobb) in “Raising Arizona,” a mercenary biker who seems manifested from a nightmare, or Charlie Meadows (John Goodman) in “Barton Fink,” a gregarious insurance man who presents himself as “the common man” but reveals a second identity that is exceptionally uncommon. Then there’s the gun-for-hire Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem) in “No Country for Old Men,” who asks his victims to “flip a coin,” but always seems in control of their fate regardless. He may represent Death itself, but his agenda has an odd rigor and consistency to it.We have seen these types in Noah Hawley’s TV “Fargo,” too, like David Thewlis as a mirthless, ruthless British business V.M. Varga in the third season or Billy Bob Thornton as the hit man Lorne Malvo in the first season, a satanic figure who believes people are primal beasts and acts accordingly. And now for this new season, Hawley has offered Sam Spruell as Ole Munch, who seemed at first like a highly seasoned contract killer — nothing like the rank amateurs played by Steve Buscemi and Peter Stormare in the movie — but who takes a leap to the mythic in the third episode. His clients are now his targets and it is safe to say they don’t know much about him.Neither do we, frankly, even after the episode makes an unexpected leap to early 16th-century Wales, when Munch or a Munch-like ancestor takes part in a sin-eating ritual. He’s asked, “In forgiveness of your debts to man, will you consume his lordship’s sins to god?” And so he does, a poor man collecting coins for absorbing a rich man’s wrongdoings so he can ascend to heaven.That is the spiritual burden his earthly humility has forced him to take on, perhaps. In 2019 Munch has accepted coins to do a dirty job for Roy Tillman, who was neither clear about the difficulties of the work nor honorable about paying the money he owed. That has turned Munch into a 21st-century debt collector, owed much more than money.Though Hawley owes the Coens a debt of his own for his open-ended lease on their audacity, he keeps moving the season forward with a confidence that often tilts into swagger. When Munch lays in bed listening to a police radio, the show samples a music cue from “The Shining,” if to suggest that he is an eternal presence like Jack Torrance at the Overlook Hotel, where Jack was told he had “always been the caretaker.” That’s terrible news for Munch’s mother, who looks uncomfortable with the prospect of her creepy son occupying the rocking chair upstairs indefinitely. And it is even worse news for Roy and his half-wit son, Gator, who underpaid, undermined and underestimated Munch and now have to anticipate his revenge.But first, Gator has to prove to his father that he is not a loser, which isn’t easy for a kid with a Confederate flag posted over his bed. All this business with Dot comes as the Hillmans appear to stocking munitions for an insurrection-to-be-detailed-later, but Dot has prepared herself for a second abduction attempt.Last week she enlisted Scotty’s help to improvise a security system like Macaulay Culkin in “Home Alone.” This week she switches up the street signs to confuse the Hillmans and brings her husband on a trip to Gun World, where she racks up $5,000 worth of weapons before learning about a federally mandated waiting period. Her cheerful Midwestern pivot to the clerk (“Let’s take a look at that pepper spray then”) echoes the opening scene of the movie, when Buscemi gets impatient with Jerry and asks to “take a look at that Cierra” he stole off the lot.Dot’s insistence on digging into this domestic life that she has built with Wayne and Scotty puts her in a fascinating spot, because those are the only two people who accept her absurd denials. She has been unmasked as a fraud to the police and to her mother-in-law, and she has the Hillmans and various contract goons who are not only after her, but know exactly where she lives. We do not know what her former life was like as “Nadine,” Roy Tillman’s wife, but their relationship now feels a lot like Uma Thurman and David Carradine’s in the “Kill Bill” movies, in that epic revenge is all that stands between the heroine and the peaceful, normal life she thinks she deserves.Getting there will be a blood bath, it would appear. The episode ends on the sort of cliffhanger that leaves you wishing for back-to-back hours like the premiere. Gator and his crack team of masked yahoos have found Dot, despite their confusion over the mixed-up street signs, and Munch has reverted to a scary, primal state to stalk his prey. One sequence seems set up for folly, the other for a disturbing spasm of violence. That’s a balanced “Fargo” diet.Lamorne Morris in “Fargo.”Michelle Faye/FX3-Cent StampsUsing the phrase “Antecedently on …” for “Previously on …” sequence continues to be an eye roller. This show can get too cute for its own good.Roy’s preoccupation with Dot keeps him from getting aroused by a truck full of sexual role-playing costumes, like “helpless hitchhiker” or “angry feminist.” (It says something about Roy’s view of women that those specific types turn him on.)Another small callback to the movie: Dot tells Wayne that Scotty “signed off on” the change in costume to zombie hunters. This is what Jerry tells his father-in-law’s lawyer about the parking lot deal.The return of Witt Farr, the North Dakota state trooper injured in a shootout at the convenience store, suggests a possible lifeline for Dot. Witt catches Gator pocketing evidence from a case file and isn’t intimidated by the young man’s threats.The overt politics of the season come out in a spicy monologue from Lorraine, who’s annoyed that the police are still asking questions about Dot. In her estimation, their job is to “separate those who have money, class and intellect from those who don’t.” They’re not supposed to interrogate people like her. More