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      ‘Star Trek: Picard’ Season 3, Episode 9 Recap: A Familiar Home

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      Home is where the ship is. In this week’s episode of “Picard,” the crew goes home.Season 3, Episode 9: ‘Vox’If you’re going to lean into nostalgia, might as well go the whole way. If you’re going to bring back the old cast, bring back the old ship and the old villains, too.Resistance to fan service is futile. Recall that in this season’s premiere, Jean-Luc wanted to give Geordi a gift of a painting of the Enterprise D.“She wasn’t the first,” he said. “But she was certainly my favorite.”Little did he know that Geordi was preparing a gift himself the whole time: the real Enterprise D, somehow excavated from Verdian III, where the ship unceremoniously crash landed in “Generations.” It’s the ship that many of us fell in love with, just as much as we did with the characters that served on the ship. The “Picard” showrunner, Terry Matalas, has used this season of “Picard” to right many of the previous wrongs of the “Next Generation” franchise. Giving the Enterprise D a proper send-off seems as appropriate as giving the crew one.Seeing the crew take its familiar stations on the bridge felt like putting on your favorite sweater that you can never throw out. It just fits, no matter what. Seeing the renovated ship in high definition? Even better.It’s not too much nostalgia at the expense of story either. It turns out only an old Starfleet ship can be dusted off to save the day, not one of these newfangled, high-tech ones Starfleet is at the mercy of now.Once again, the Enterprise crew is all that stands between — surprise — the Borg and the Earth’s annihilation. The face that Vadic was referring to the whole time was Jean-Luc’s old nemesis: The Borg Queen. Just as the “Trek” universe keeps finding ways to bring Data back to life, it does the same with the Borg. I must confess some disappointment in seeing this become the Big Reveal that the season was building up to. Ever since “First Contact,” the Borg have been the well “Trek” writers keep going back to, including in “Voyager” and both seasons of “Picard.”It shouldn’t have been much of a surprise: Vadic hinted at this on the bridge with Seven in last week’s episode.The Borg Queen was already a major part of the story line last season with Picard’s friend Agnes Jurati (Alison Pill). You might remember, and it’s likely you don’t, since the season was so convoluted, that Jurati became the leader of a new, benevolent Borg. This goes totally unmentioned by Jean-Luc here. This felt odd, especially when Beverly said, “No one has seen or heard from the Borg in over a decade.” Well, it has assuredly not been a decade since Season 2. And what about the Borg cube in the first season that was being repurposed as a Romulan reclamation site? And the season ended with an unexplained transwarp conduit that Queen Jurati suggests is a threat! Worth a mention from Jean-Luc, methinks.It’s possible there is some timeline shift or something I’m missing, and I am eager to see the comments correcting me. (Annie Wersching, who played the queen in Season 2, died earlier this year.)Now, it’s a New and Improved Borg. When Jean-Luc was Locutus, they implanted an assimilation gene inside Jean-Luc that would be passed on to his offspring. The changelings helped the Borg place the altered DNA into the transporter systems to assimilate anybody who uses them, which explains why changelings wanted to use shuttles before. But it affects only the youngest members of the crew, not anyone over, say, the age of the main cast of “Picard.” Got it? Me either. The Borg essentially have taken over Starfleet without anyone noticing: a coup without a shot fired. Until the shots are fired. And now, Earth can be saved only by the Olds.Poor Jean-Luc: First he finds out that he has unwittingly been an absentee father and now he may have accidentally turned his son into a homicidal robot. As Jean-Luc remarks to Beverly: “He inherited the best of you. And the worst of me.”(Also: Poor Jack, who now doesn’t have a solid answer to his question, “How much of me is me?”)Jack is, in many ways, not your ideal candidate to lead the Borg collective. He has long been an independent, rogue actor who doesn’t want to play by the rules, while the very notion of individuality is anathema to the Borg. Jean-Luc’s use of Starfleet protocols to try to keep him confined to quarters was always doomed to fail, especially after he told Jack that the solution was to institutionalize him on Vulcan. Not exactly a great parental approach from Jean- Luc! In his defense, he is not exactly experienced.Jack snarls: “What about the protocols of a father? Or were you never issued those?”A fair point, and one that stands out even more when one considers how many times Jean-Luc broke protocol in this season alone. Remember when he stole a ship and put members of the Titan in mortal danger?Jean-Luc has not had his fastball this season, but luckily, his former teammates have. Geordi dusting off the Enterprise D was a shrewd maneuver. Beverly and Data are able to quickly figure out what happened to Jack and the plot to overrun Starfleet. Troi discovers the Borg connection to begin with. Riker and Worf are in prime quip form and absorbing punches when necessary.Now, they’ll have to find a way to keep Jack from becoming chief executive officer of the New Borg, which they have experience with from Data’s experience on “First Contact.”All in all, a fun penultimate episode.Odds and endsIn the opening scene with Troi and Jack, Jack references a planet Beverly used to take him to as a boy: Raritan IV. The planet is named after Matalas’s hometown, Raritan, N.J., and is also featured in the second season of “Picard.” Soji and Jurati visited deltans there in last season’s premiere.Beverly mentions her other son, Wesley, again. That guy just doesn’t seem to be checking his phone as the universe threatens to implode again!Some fun ship names in the fleet: Reliant (the commandeered ship in “Wrath of Khan”); Okuda (a reference to Michael Okuda, the longtime “Trek” graphic designer; and Sutherland (a ship that Data briefly took over as captain in “Next Generation”).Cool cameo from the now Admiral Shelby (Elizabeth Dennehy). We met her in the classic “Next Generation” episode “The Best of Both Worlds” as the ambitious commander angling to take Jean-Luc’s chair. She makes a rare reference to “Enterprise” and the NX-01. Jean-Luc points out the irony of Shelby’s schilling for a synchronous Starfleet system that is similar to the Borg, given her own history of fighting them. We don’t get to see her for very long before she is killed. At least she died doing what she loved: being in charge.A bit unclear on why the Borg need Jack to begin with. They’re already assimilating the fleet! (This is similar to “First Contact,” in which the Borg Queen didn’t really need Data. Or going back further, did the Borg need Locutus?)How did Starfleet set up fireworks to go off in space?A (presumed) goodbye to Captain Shaw. He handed command of the Titan to Seven as he dies, which felt like an unearned moment given what their dynamic had been all season. Seven’s competence has been, shall we say, not exactly high, and in a similar moment earlier in the season, he gave command to Riker, not Seven. Seven hasn’t done much since then to justify earning Shaw’s trust. Even so, after all time spent being a huge jerk to the elder Starfleet officers, Shaw still dies saving them — a contribution which is barely mentioned by Jean-Luc and the rest of the crew. He also refers to Seven by her preferred name, instead of Hansen. Overall, his character seemed like a wasted opportunity.I’m curious about the Enterprise E, which gets a glancing mention. It appears the ship was destroyed, somehow, and Worf had a lot to do with it. More

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      ‘Harry Potter’ to Become a TV Series

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      The author J.K. Rowling is expected to executive produce the show, which will appear on Max, the streaming service from Warner Bros. Discovery.Harry Potter fans, some of whom have been casting spells for years in hopes of a television series about the boy wizard, can finally put their wands down and rejoice.Max, the new streaming service from Warner Bros. Discovery announced on Wednesday that it had ordered a “Harry Potter” television series based on the novels by the British author J.K. Rowling.“We are delighted to give audiences the opportunity to discover Hogwarts in a whole new way,” Casey Bloys, the chairman and chief executive of HBO and Max content, said in a statement.“Harry Potter is a cultural phenomenon and it is clear there is such an enduring love and thirst for the Wizarding World,” he said. A news release announcing the series said it would be a “faithful adaptation” of the best-selling book series, which spans seven books published between 1997 and 2007. Eight hit films based on the books were released between 2001 and 2011.The upcoming show, which is described as a decade-long series, “will feature a new cast to lead a new generation of fandom, full of the fantastic detail, much-loved characters and dramatic locations that Harry Potter fans have loved for over 25 years,” according to the release. It will be available on Max in the United States and around the world. No time frame for the show’s release was given.Ms. Rowling, who has drawn waves of criticism in recent years over her remarks on gender identity issues, will be an executive producer for the series.“Max’s commitment to preserving the integrity of my books is important to me, and I’m looking forward to being part of this new adaptation which will allow for a degree of depth and detail only afforded by a long form television series,” she said in a statement.Ms. Rowling, who has drawn criticism in recent years over her remarks on gender identity issues, will executive produce the series.Krista Schlueter for The New York TimesPotterheads, a term used to describe super fans of “Harry Potter,” have been grappling with the author’s comments on transgender issues for years. In 2020, she published an essay in which she said a movement of transgender activists was “seeking to erode ‘woman’ as a political and biological class and offering cover to predators.”While Ms. Rowling has denied being anti-transgender, her remarks have pitted fans against each other, with some vowing to stop supporting the Potter franchise.Despite the continued debate over Ms. Rowling, products related to Harry Potter continue to sell. Earlier this year, The Hogwarts Legacy video game sold more than 12 million copies in two weeks.The television show is the latest moneymaking arm of the Potter universe, which also include feature films, a stage play, live entertainment at theme parks, studio tours and retail stores.Max, the latest entry into the crowded streaming market, will debut next month, and will cost roughly $16 a month for a commercial-free version and less for an advertising-supported tier.Last April, WarnerMedia and Discovery Inc. merged, adding a new media giant to the entertainment industry. David Zaslav, the president and chief executive of Warner Bros. Discovery, sold shareholders on the deal in part by arguing that the combined company could have a successful app.But over the last year, the company has seen some obstacles, including shelving at least two projects and laying off part of its work force. More

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      Jimmy Kimmel Skewers Trump for Tucker Carlson Interview

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      Kimmel called the interview “a 45-minute blabfest,” saying it made “one thing very clear: the fact that Donald Trump is a profoundly stupid person.”Welcome to Best of Late Night, a rundown of the previous night’s highlights that lets you sleep — and lets us get paid to watch comedy. Here are the 50 best movies on Netflix right now.Together AgainFormer President Donald Trump sat down for a lengthy interview with Tucker Carlson on Fox News on Tuesday.Jimmy Kimmel called the interview “a 45-minute blabfest,” saying it made “one thing very clear: the fact that Donald Trump is a profoundly stupid person.”“It was quite a chat. Trump covered everything from World War III, which he seems to be rooting for, to wanting to take the president of China to a Broadway show, and also he — as he often does — managed to shoo in some thoughts about the N-word.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“He does not have the best words. He is not a stable genius. That mental competency test he’s always bragging that he passed? This is something the average 7-year-old could pass, OK? — JIMMY KIMMELThe Punchiest Punchlines (‘Harsh Accurate Words’ Edition)“Last night, the former sat down with Tucker Carlson who, thanks to revelations from the Dominion lawsuit, we now know hates the president passionately, privately texting that he’s ‘a demonic force.’ Harsh, accurate words.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“He’s terrified because three weeks ago, we found out he’d been texting his co-workers about Trump saying, ‘I hate him passionately,’ he’s ‘a demonic force,’ he’s ‘a destroyer, he’s not going to destroy us,’ ‘I’ve been thinking about this every day for four years.’ And then, after thinking about it for four years, Tuck sat down with the demonic force and slobbered all over his Christmas ornaments.” — JIMMY KIMMELThe Bits Worth WatchingJoan Baez, visiting the “Late Show,” talked with Stephen Colbert about singing “We Shall Overcome” with Representative Justin Jones in Nashville this week.What We’re Excited About on Thursday NightBen Affleck, star of “Air,” will pop by Thursday’s “Late Late Show.”Also, Check This OutOver the last two decades, Rita Indiana has become one of the Caribbean’s foremost cultural agitators.Luisa Opalesky for The New York TimesThe Novelist/musician Rita Indiana’s new show “Tu nombre verdadero” (“Your Real Name”) debuts in New York on Friday. More

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      The Mandalorian’ Season 3, Episode 7 Recap: Out of the Shadows

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      It is up to Bo-Katan to try to play peacemaker with her people. But she harbors a sad secret that won’t make it easy.Season 3, Episode 7: ‘The Spies’The original “Star Wars” opens with a Rebel Alliance ship being pursued by an enormous Imperial Star Destroyer, which — in one of the most famous and fearsome images in the entire series — slowly fills the screen, obscuring everything else in the frame. This week’s episode of “The Mandalorian” features an echo of that moment, as Bo-Katan’s reassembled army of Mandalorian privateers descends on Nevarro in an old Imperial Light Cruiser, sending the locals into a momentary panic.High Magistrate Greef Karga though reassures his anxious droids, however, that this massive warship is a welcome sight. It is, perhaps, a harbinger of a brighter tomorrow, signaling that the scattered Mandalorian tribes are reuniting.I say “perhaps” because one of the themes of this episode is that “getting the band back together” may not always be such a good thing. While the Mandalorians are gathering on Nevarro, the freed Moff Gideon (Giancarlo Esposito) is meeting virtually with “the Shadow Council,” consisting of former Imperial warlords who have been dismissed by the New Republic as a mere disorganized “remnant” of the former Empire.With the Grand Admiral Thrawn still in hiding (including from “Star Wars” fans, who have been waiting for him to make his debut on this show), Gideon takes control of the cabal, insisting that the time has come for them to stop focusing only on their own territories and to begin sharing resources. Specifically, he would like them to give some of their arsenal to him so that he can eliminate the growing Mandalorian threat.“The Spies” is an odd title for this chapter given that there is not a whole lot of cloak-and-dagger action. Instead, the bulk of this nearly hourlong episode is about the different Mandalorian sects struggling to put aside old grudges. The more devout types, like Paz Vizsla, seethe in the presence of the more independent types, like Axe Woves. Those two get into a dispute over the proper rules of a combat board game, letting their lingering anger over what happened to their planet spill over into a violent skirmish. (To be fair to Axe, though, Paz should have known that only a wing guard can flank-jump.)It is up to Bo-Katan to try to play peacemaker with her people. But she harbors a sad secret that won’t make it easy. When a large cohort of Mandalorians travels to Mandalore to assess the state of their home-world and plan for its future, they run into a group of haggard Bo-Katan loyalists, who stubbornly survived “the Night of a Thousand Tears” because they knew their leader would never surrender to the Empire.But the thing is: The Princess did, in fact, surrender. She handed over the Darksaber to Gideon to save her people. And then he slaughtered most of them anyway, leaving the divided remainder to fight among themselves.Something unexpected happens, though, after Bo-Katan admits what she did. Din picks up on something she says — about how “Mandalore has always been too powerful for any enemy to defeat” and how “it is always our own division that destroys us” — and he acknowledges that the planet was probably dying long before the Empire swooped in.“We were taught that everyone but us had forsaken the Way,” he says, noting that his faction did not even care about the Darksaber or its meaning. “Your song is not yet written,” he tells the Princess. “I will serve you until it is.”The director Rick Famuyiwa and the credited screenwriters, Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni, bring a sense of grandeur and heft to this episode, with a lot of scenes that survey the assembled forces and their various vehicles and weapons. The action sequences really pop, too — including one that is not necessarily essential to the plot but is still very cool, as the giant land ship piloted by the survivors on Mandalore is wrecked by an underground monster.Everything builds steadily and cleverly to the big climactic twist, when the Mandalorians arrive at the planet’s Great Forge only to find a secret Imperial base, filled with fighter ships that hang from the ceiling like bats. They also find Gideon, surrounded by next-level stormtroopers and protected by three Praetorian guards. He is sporting his new state-of-the-art beskar alloy armor, boasting, “The most impressive improvement is that it has me in it.” In the ensuing attack, Bo-Katan is able to lead a safe retreat for almost all of her people; but Vizsla is killed and Din is captured, setting up next week’s finale.What is most troubling about Gideon’s ambush is what he says to the Mandalorians before he orders their destruction. He ties many of the threads from the past few seasons together, saying that with the help of old and new technology he is building a new Dark Trooper army that will combine the ancient skills and lethal modern power of the galaxy’s strongest factions: like the Jedi, the cloners and the Mandalorians.In other words: He is reassembling the broken pieces of the old order. And this particular reunion is not so sweet.This is the wayThe closing credits this week feature a softer orchestral version of the theme music, sounding a note of solemnity rather than the usual triumphant fanfare. A nice touch.Famuyiwa and the crew bring some cool noir vibes to the opening scene, which sees Elia Kane slipping stealthily into Coruscant’s red light district — bathed in “Blade Runner”-style neon and mist — to deliver a message to Moff Gideon.Grogu has a new toy! The Anzellan mechanics have remade the killer droid IG-11 into the armed and armored vehicle IG-12, with a little seat for a Baby Yoda-sized pilot and buttons that make the machine’s voice say “yes” or “no.” In a rare bit of comic relief in this episode, Grogu has fun grabbing things and lurching dangerously about while pushing the “yes” button repeatedly. (As the Anzellans would say, “Bad Baby!”)This was a good episode overall, but it remains somewhat troublesome just how much Favreau is leaning into the B-movie roots of “Star Wars” this season, with even clunkier dialogue and hammier acting than in seasons past. Esposito is an excellent actor who usually has a keen grasp of behavioral subtleties, but he goes distractingly broad at times this week as Gideon. And some lines — as when Din says, “This isn’t working for me,” to Grogu after his IG-12 adventures cause him problems — sound jarringly modern.Isn’t it weird that Karga still calls Din “Mando” when Nevarro is now full of Mandalorians? More

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      Inside the Pods With ‘Love Is Blind,’ the Reality TV Juggernaut

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      SANTA CLARITA, Calif. — Peahens choose peacocks with more elaborate feathers, earthworms mate based on size, and baboons judge on hierarchy, but humans, as more intellectually evolved creatures, have been socialized instead to seek out love.For a tiny subset of the species, this mating ritual involves 10 days on a television set in Greater Los Angeles, where participants sit alone in 12-by-14-foot rooms listening to the disembodied voices of potential mates discuss such topics as their ideal number of offspring.That is the basis for “Love Is Blind,” the voyeuristic Netflix reality series built around buzzwords, booze and mild sensory deprivation that is set to release its Season 4 finale on Friday and air a live reunion special on Sunday. On the show, 30 singles sign up to date each other, separated inside these rooms — known as “pods” — with their conversations fed through speakers. They don’t see whom they’re talking to until they decide to get engaged — a commitment that also comes with a hastily arranged wedding where they can say “I do” or walk away.Pods are set up to film, hydrate and intoxicate contestants.Jamie Lee Taete for The New York TimesIf it all sounds rushed, chaotic, a bit unhinged, the show’s creator, Chris Coelen, understands. Brandon Riegg, the Netflix executive who greenlighted the pitch about five years ago, described the idea with a synonym for bat guano, and he recalled telling Coelen that he would be lucky to get even one couple out of it.Despite the naysayers, Coelen felt confident that people would get engaged. After all, contestants on his show “Married at First Sight” had been marrying strangers for years.“People want to find love,” he said in an interview last month on the “Love Is Blind” set, where production was beginning on a new season, “and they’re willing to do some pretty wild things to find it.”The show premiered in February 2020, taking off as viewers were adjusting to their own versions of pandemic-mandated pod life, and has continued to captivate audiences. More than 30 million Netflix subscribers watched during the first four weeks after its premiere, the company reported, and Season 4, which kicked off in March, topped the previous seasons’ opening weekends by hours watched. Last year, according to Nielsen, “Love Is Blind” was the eighth most-watched original streaming series in the United States, ahead of “The Crown” and the “Lord of the Rings” spinoff “The Rings of Power.” Versions of the show based in Japan and Brazil have already been released, with U.K. and Swedish adaptations in the works.Kim Kardashian, Lizzo, Billie Eilish and Daniel Radcliffe are among the show’s celebrity fans, and contestants have built gigantic social media followings, with one married participant from Season 1, Lauren Speed-Hamilton, reaching 2.5 million followers on Instagram. The series has also fueled cottage industries on TikTok of amateur detectives digging into the contestants’ back stories and of therapists analyzing the relationship dynamics onscreen. At times, “Love Is Blind” has prompted musings on our fraying social fabric, with commentators declaring that the show “speaks to the state of modern romance” and “holds a mirror to a reality we’d rather ignore.”Shake Chatterjee, one of the contestants in the second season of “Love Is Blind.”Patrick Wymore/NetflixContestants don’t meet in person until they have gotten engaged.NetflixFor Netflix, its appeal was more fundamental. It matched the streamer’s ethos around unscripted programming, Riegg said: relatable and optimistic.“If you look at some of the most beloved and established unscripted franchises, they’ve been running for a very long time,” he added. “And I don’t think there’s any reason that ours can’t do the same.”‘Whatever happens, happens.’So how did “Love Is Blind,” with its absurd conceit, manage to position itself as the closest thing to “The Bachelor” for the cable-less generation?Coelen said it’s because the show puts it all out there, revealing contestants’ explosive dramatics and romantic indifference without coaxing anything out of them.Producers have included footage of one participant, Andrew Liu, appearing to apply eye drops to simulate tears for the camera after he was dumped in Season 3. One couple in the current season had enough of each other and split before they got to the altar. And when Shake Chatterjee, from Season 2, tried to suss out what his dates looked like by asking if he could feasibly carry them on his shoulders, the producers said they never considered intervening.The hosts are a married couple, Vanessa and Nick Lachey — the latter of whom was the subject of his own early-aughts reality series when he married Jessica Simpson. They rarely interact with participants, occasionally dropping in during the season and serving as therapist-like mediators during the reunions.“We just watch. We involve ourselves in nothing,” said Ally Simpson (no relation to Jessica), one of the show’s executive producers. During production, she sits next to Coelen in the control room, where they monitor as many as 10 dates happening simultaneously.Chris Coelen and Ally Simpson working behind the scenes. “We involve ourselves in nothing,” Simpson said.Jamie Lee Taete for The New York TimesBut the concept of authenticity gets complicated when the location for the dates is a 68,000-square-foot studio next to an Amazon warehouse, where dozens of crew members zip around with walkie talkies and 81 cameras pan and zoom to catch every blush and giggle. (Contestants stay in hotels overnight, though the napping and cooking can sometimes make it appear as though they’re living on set à la “The Real World.”)Inside the two single-sex lounges where the singles congregate, the plants are plastic, a digital fire roars onscreen, and those metallic goblets that have become the show’s mascots are adhered to the shelves so that guests don’t knock them over.When Kwame Appiah, a tech worker who appears on the current season, says of a woman he has never seen, “I’ve just been smitten for a really long time,” he means six days.Then there’s the influencer industrial complex. In the three years since the show’s debut, cast members with new followings have promoted Smirnoff Spicy Tamarind vodka, Bud Light hard seltzer and Fenty lipstick, as well as yogurt and laxatives.When it comes to choosing a cast, the producers say they try to weed out those seeking social media fame or joining on a whim, but if such types slip into the roster, Coelen said, he believes they still tend to become invested in the process.“We build the machinery, and whatever happens, happens,” he said.A crew member affixes goblets to a shelf with mounting tape.Jamie Lee Taete for The New York TimesThe contents of the fridge in the “men’s lounge.”Jamie Lee Taete for The New York TimesThe machinery starts with Donna Driscoll, the show’s head of casting, who has been with Coelen’s production company, Kinetic Content, since the second season of “Married at First Sight.” Interested singles apply online, but Driscoll’s team also seeks people out on social media and at bars, grocery stores and church groups.A third-party company conducts background checks and psychological evaluations, and the casting team creates what are called “compatibility grids,” a spreadsheet listing key characteristics, including the desire to have children. They are effectively trying to “stack the deck,” Coelen said, so that each person comes in with some compatibility, at least on paper, with others. (If love really is blind, it is also heavily vetted.)On the show, the contestants describe being at their wits’ end with dating norms of the 2020s, which tend to involve more swiping on touchscreens than IRL spontaneity.“My parents are like, ‘Why don’t you just go meet a guy at a bar?” said Chelsea Griffin, a speech-language pathologist from Seattle who is on the current season. “Who does that anymore?”Instead, with her phone confiscated, she met a guy at a production facility where a maze of dark hallways leads to pods and to a room where contestants sit for one-on-one interviews with a blurred backdrop positioned behind them.Coelen in the show’s control room.Jamie Lee Taete for The New York TimesA camera inside the wall of one of the pods.Jamie Lee Taete for The New York TimesAt the start of filming, budding romances begin with 10-minute speed dates, lengthening each day until the most lovestruck couples chat for hours, sometimes lingering until 3 a.m.“The rate at which you go in this experience, it’s hard for my mom to fathom. It’s hard for my brother to fathom,” Griffin said. “I could sit and try to articulate and explain the entire thing, and people still wouldn’t get it.”Members of the production team listen on headsets, logging moments like when someone says “I love you” or tears flow. They move contestant headshots around a bulletin board as they pair off and break up, like detectives on a crime procedural.At the end of the day, the contestants rank their dates on paper. The team then uses a variation on a Nobel Prize-winning algorithm, created by two mathematicians in the 1960s, to find a dating schedule in which everyone has matches. For the first four seasons, Simpson and Coelen organized the data by hand to determine the next day’s lineup of dates, but more recently, Simpson plugs the rankings into computer software.By day seven, the men are able to pick out engagement rings provided by the show. By day nine, after couples have typically spent about 30 total hours dating — albeit in separate rooms — some of them pop the question. If the answer is a yes, they finally meet.Then, it’s time to plan the wedding. Singles have been choosing among suitors they couldn’t see as far back as the 1960s (see “The Dating Game”), but “Love Is Blind” makes marriage its clear, televised conclusion.“You think about reality shows as being these zany, deviant enterprises, but when it comes right down to it, they promulgate some of our most conservative values,” said Danielle Lindemann, a sociologist who wrote a book about reality television. “Ultimately, this show is about heterosexual coupling that ends in marriage.”The lounge where male contestants gather between dates. On the show, contestants often describe being at their wits’ end with the norms of dating in the 2020s.Jamie Lee Taete for The New York TimesSuccess, and scrutinyThe inherent limits of the show have opened it to critique. Though “Love Is Blind” might be more diverse than some reality shows in terms of race and body type, those selected for the “experiment” tend to be conventionally attractive heterosexual men and women in their 20s and 30s.Speed-Hamilton, who has gone on to co-host a podcast for Netflix about its reality series, accused the show last season of “cutting all the Black women” after the pods portion, adding that most of the couples seemed “forced” and only established “for entertainment purposes.”There have been other musings that this season of the show is falling into typical reality TV traps, zooming in on “mean girl” drama and casting people whose true intentions some viewers question. There have also been suggestions that the show has edited footage to ramp up the drama. Jackelina Bonds, a dental assistant from this season, wrote on Instagram that footage had been reordered so that it appears she went on a date before she broke up with her fiancé, when in fact, the date was afterward.Coelen said the production team works to portray the “accurate essence of each person’s journey.” He said the show focuses on building a diverse pool of participants from the start and chooses to follow the engagements that seem most genuine. Any “mean girl” behavior happened without their influence, he said.One of the most vocal skeptics of the show’s authenticity has been a former contestant, Jeremy Hartwell, who was not closely followed during his season. He filed a class-action lawsuit last year against Netflix and Kinetic Content, saying that the defendants cut off the cast from the outside world, plied them with unlimited alcohol and withheld food and sleep with the objective of leading the cast to make “manipulated decisions for the benefit of the show’s entertainment value.”Female and male contestants are kept separate throughout much of the filming of “Love Is Blind.”Jamie Lee Taete for The New York TimesThe crux of the lawsuit was an objection to the show’s payment structure at the time, which, the complaint said, involved a $1,000 stipend per filming week with a maximum of $8,000 in possible earnings. His lawsuit argued that the participants had been “willfully misclassified” as independent contractors rather than as employees who were entitled to minimum wage, overtime pay and various labor protections.Chantal McCoy Payton, a lawyer for Hartwell, declined to comment, citing the continuing litigation.Lawyers for Kinetic Content, which has said that the claims are without merit, asserted in court documents that Hartwell had been part of the show for only six days and did not qualify as an employee. Netflix lawyers argued that Hartwell had brought forward “extreme allegations” because he was “upset” about not being chosen by another contestant.Coelen declined to discuss the lawsuit, but his description of the show’s process was at odds with Hartwell’s claims.Daters are provided meals and can order food to the pods, he said, and while the alcohol supply is ample (the fridge in the lounge is stocked with champagne, beer, wine and hard seltzer), everyone decides for themselves whether they want to drink. There are two psychologists on the set, he noted, and the show offers to cover postproduction therapy for participants.Although the producers say they don’t interfere in relationships, Coelen, who is 54 and has been married for 16 years, said that they do suggest that the couples talk about important subjects like finances, parenting and religion, comparing the producers’ level of influence to Pre-Cana, a course for couples preparing to be married by the Roman Catholic Church. For instance, in Season 1, production team members encouraged one participant, Amber Pike, to tell her fiancé, Matt Barnett, that she had about $20,000 in student debt. The conversation did not go particularly well, but the pair got married anyway.“We really get invested in these relationships,” said Simpson, 45, who has been married for six years.Inside the single-sex lounges where the singles congregate, the plants are plastic and a digital fire roars onscreen.Jamie Lee Taete for The New York TimesMembers of the production team listen to the contestants on headsets, logging moments like when someone says “I love you” or when tears flow.Jamie Lee Taete for The New York TimesCoelen has tried to sell similarly gimmicky dating shows before. In 2017, his production company released an American version of a show called “Kiss Bang Love” in which singles met each other by kissing blindfolded. In “The Spouse House,” 14 singles bent on marriage moved in together. Both shows lasted only one season.With “Love Is Blind,” the numbers are starting to add up. From the first three seasons of the show, 17 couples came out of the pods engaged, six got legally married on the show, and four are still together.In an interview last month, Brett Brown, a design director at Nike whose marital fate will be unveiled Friday, said it is those early successes that keep viewers watching, curious to find out if this bizarre dating formula can spit out happy couples.Brown acknowledged that some participants might exaggerate their feelings in exchange for the global attention that comes with being a reality TV star.But not him.“I can only speak from my experience,” he said, “and I know that I was there for the right reason.”Susan Beachy contributed research. More

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      ‘Ted Lasso,’ Season 3, Episode 5 Recap: Anthology

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      Rebecca, Nate, Ted, Keeley, and Zava all move forward.Season 3, Episode 5: ‘Signs’This episode of “Ted Lasso” was a bit disjointed — what Raymond Chandler would have called “passagework” — following individual stories that were only loosely connected. But it did push forward several important subplots.The episode opens with the news that despite the heroics of Zava, AFC Richmond is on an epic losing streak that dates back to their loss to West Ham last episode. I’ll have more to say about Zava below, but first let’s address the arcs of a few of the show’s central characters.RebeccaThe predictions of the psychic she visited in Episode 3 continue to materialize. First it was the green matchbook. Now it’s the spoonerism for “knight in shining armor,” i.e., “[expletive] in nining armor.” (This is a family newspaper, even when the swears are distinctly British.) At the coffee shop where Rebecca dumped the unfortunate John Wingsnight last season, she runs into him with his new fiancée, who immediately blurts out that precise inverted phrase. Rebecca is, understandably, more than a little freaked out.The remaining question regarding the “nining armor” phrase is whether it has any meaning beyond its repetition in the coffee shop. The green matchbook, for instance, doesn’t seem to have any significance beyond the fact that its appearance was foreseen by the psychic.If the phrase does have further significance, it seems all but certain that it will involve Jamie, who sharper observers than I am quickly noted wears the No. 9 on his jersey. (It is typically the number worn by the striker on a Premier League team, which Jamie was until Zava showed up and surely will be again now that Zava is gone.) And here I can see two obvious possibilities, one more appealing than the other. It could mean that Rebecca is going to hook up in some way with Jamie, but that would be bizarre, given that it’s very difficult to believe either would be remotely attracted to the other. It would also be, forgive me if you must, gross. After Sam, Rebecca really can’t date another 20-something subordinate, or we are entering the territory of a damaged psyche and probable lawsuits.A far better — and more plausible — reading is that under the 4 a.m. tutelage of Roy, Jamie emerges as a true star and begins leading Richmond to wins again. This, in fact, seems to be where we’re headed, psychic prediction or no psychic prediction.It’s perhaps worth noting here that so far the psychic’s predictions have occurred in the order she predicted them: the matchbook first, and the nining armor second. Does this mean that her third prediction — “Thunder and lightning, and you, and you’re upside down, and you’re drenched” — is imminent? Time will tell.But Rebecca is obviously far more interested in the psychic’s final prediction: that she will become a mother. So she heads to a doctor who gives her hope that her age might not be an obstacle to pregnancy and then, after tests, dashes that hope. Rebecca will not have a baby.There has been much speculation, here in the comments and elsewhere, about how and for whom Rebecca might become a surrogate mother. Put me in the camp that thinks Bex will leave Rupert (presumably after learning of his affair with Ms. Kakes) and that Rebecca will somehow help to raise her awful ex-husband’s infant child. But feel free to offer alternative theories.Hannah Waddingham offers a magnificently subtle performance here, some of the best acting she’s done on the entire show. And she is at her peak when she is not speaking at all, when her face oscillates seamlessly between hope and disappointment, sometimes conveying both at once. Her work during the devastating call from her doctor and immediately afterward is beautiful and heartbreaking, and the choice of music, “Quiet,” by Rachael Yamagata, is perfect.NateNate is oscillating too, as he has been for a few episodes now, between his true self — decent but hopelessly insecure — and the mask of the bullying egotist he keeps trying to wear, with limited success. After a nice bit in which he calls his mum to practice how he will ask the supermodel Anastasia on a date, he does in fact call her, and they go out for dinner.Nate being Nate, of course, he takes her to the relatively downscale restaurant where he and his family have celebrated special occasions for years. With Anastasia in tow, he tries once again to impress the hostess, Jade, and she is once again entirely unimpressed.Anastasia is unimpressed, too, but with the restaurant itself. If Nate were truly the big shot he is trying so hard to be, he would have foreseen this and taken her someplace “cool.” But he didn’t, and Anastasia, worried that she might appear on social media in a place “so dumpy and sad,” makes a quarter-hearted excuse and flees the premises.At which point Jade sees the true Nate, wounded and vulnerable, and joins him at his table, where we see them drinking wine and laughing easily. The mask is off, at least for now. I found it a lovely, if perhaps improbable, twist. It is certainly further evidence that in the battle for Nate’s soul, Good Nate is gaining the upper hand over Bad Nate.TedLast episode, we saw signs that Ted was tiring of his own mask of perpetual affability when he voiced his displeasure about Dr. Jacob to his ex-wife, Michelle. This episode, he has to contend with the news that his son, Henry, has been involved in a bullying incident at school.The immediate assumption is that Henry was the one bullied, leading to a hilarious scene in which Coach Beard suggests that they fly to Kansas and burn the bully’s house down, before Roy offers the sensible advice that the “best thing you can do with bullies is ignore them.” This advice is not quite what it seems, however, as Roy goes on to paint a late-at-night vengeance scenario, involving a heavy rope soaked in red paint, worthy of a Bond villain. (I can’t be the only one who was reminded of a particular scene in “Casino Royale.”)But it turns out that Henry was not the bullied but the bully. And as much as Ted is upset at this news, it’s clear that he is equally upset that he is not there, in Kansas, to be a father to his son. Despite Ted’s absence, though, Henry is still a Lasso, and he corrects his error in the most Lasso manner imaginable: “I let him know I was sorry by doing an apology rap in front of the whole class.”Ted, too, is gaining firmer control of himself. He begins to have a panic attack before his call with Henry, and it becomes full blown after he gets off the phone. He envisions the last time he saw Henry in person, as he vanished down an escalator at Heathrow on his way back to Kansas. But he gains control of himself, whispering, “He’s OK, he’s OK,” and to his own apparent surprise, the panic attack is over.I don’t know whether Ted will reunite with Michelle, or whether he should. But I have a very difficult time believing he will not wind up back in Kansas to be a father to Henry. This is a show, after all, supremely concerned with the failures of fathers: Ted’s, Nate’s, Jamie’s, Rebecca’s. (Sam’s is the exception that proves the rule.) Ted is surely not eager to join that list.Later, after the brutal loss to Man City — Beard’s joke that it has the same name as the strip club he worked at in college is priceless — Ted addresses the team about the things we let bring us down: “Crap like envy or fear or shame. I don’t want to mess around with any of that [expletive] anymore.” It’s an admission of something we’ve already seen: Ted has been suffering from all three of those feelings. But there’s hope. Ted is committed to “believing that things can get better, that I can get better.” This, again, appears to be Ted’s trajectory for the season: Becoming a better man and a better father. This doesn’t mean being a less generous person. But it may mean stashing away at least a little of his perpetually chirpy, upbeat facade.KeeleyPlease tell me we have seen the last of Shandy. Her character arc was evident from the moment Keeley hired her, and the decision to play it for broad laughs (“condoms for balls”!) just made it feel like a weekly dose of last season’s “Led Tasso” misfire. She seemed to have walked in from another, much worse sitcom. Her over-the-top tirade on the way out the door — and subsequent experiment in animal husbandry — served only as a reminder of what a feeble character she has been from the start.Jack, on the other hand, is kind of awesome, at least from what we’ve seen so far. “Compliment sandwich,” “talent dysmorphia,” sex with a birthday clown in a car with 30 of his clown buddies? Sign me up. Essentially trading Shandy for Jack could improve the Keeley story line by an order of magnitude. I’m not sure I fully buy the sudden romantic attraction. But I’m not sure I care.Even the dour chief financial officer Barbara gets in a worthy zinger upon Shandy’s departure.Barbara: “Well, I’m not going to say it.”Keeley: “But you’re going to think it.”Barbara: “Yes. Often and forever.”There may be hope for this subplot yet.ZavaHe was in only three episodes meaningfully, but Zava was a pleasant surprise. The obvious way to present him was as an astonishing egomaniac and horrible teammate — indeed that seemed to be how they were setting him back in Episode 2. (It also captures the real-life superstar he is based on, Zlatan Ibrahimovic, who is famous for his many verbal and violent physical altercations, many of them with teammates.) But the show went with something weirder and at least a bit more interesting. Egoist? Sure. Messianic? Definitely. But not the living nightmare we were led to expect. And his retiring, as opposed to being kicked off the team or demanding a trade, was a pleasantly unexpected exit as well.I confess I found his description of his love for his wife modestly adorable. And even though it doubled as a semi-dirty joke (more on this category later), his line at the end of the video he posted captured the Ted Lasso ethos about as well as anyone has: “If you put your energy into the things you truly love, the universe puts its thing back into you.” Yet another hint that Ted will return home to Henry?Odds and endsI loved it when Colin noted that “She’s All That” was based on “My Fair Lady,” and Sam one-upped him by noting that the latter was itself based on “Pygmalion.” Now that’s a locker room where I could feel at home.I enjoy watching Jamie’s progression, which I’m sure we’ll see on the field as well now that Zava is gone. “Hey, enough of that negativity,” he scolds his teammates. “Stop acting like a bunch of little bunny rabbits and let’s [expletive] do this.”Poor Coach Beard, whom Gina Gershon evidently left to meet her soul mate.Anyone else notice that when, in his big speech, Ted mentions, “Maybe we’ve hurt someone else,” the camera immediately fixes on Roy? Of course you did. We still don’t know precisely why he broke up with Keeley. But I’m quite certain it goes well beyond “we’re both too busy.”Was Higgins’s early reading of a cellphone note about the team’s poor play — I’ll omit the setup for obvious reasons, and cite only the punchline — “This is a text from my father” the dirtiest joke that has yet appeared on Ted Lasso? I say yes, but anyone who wants to offer an alternative candidate should go right ahead. Although watch your language if you want to get it past the moderators. More

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      Late Night Reacts to the Official End of the Covid Era

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      Jimmy Kimmel joked that President Biden declared the pandemic’s end “about a year after the rest of us did.”Welcome to Best of Late Night, a rundown of the previous night’s highlights that lets you sleep — and lets us get paid to watch comedy. Here are the 50 best movies on Netflix right now.The End of an EraPresident Biden signed a congressional resolution into law on Monday, officially ending the U.S. national emergency response to the Covid-19 pandemic.Jimmy Kimmel called it “the dawn of a new era,” joking that Biden declared the pandemic’s end “about a year after the rest of us did.”“I’m not sure what it means for our health, but here this means that we here can finally get back to some of our favorite prepandemic ‘Late Show’ segments, like ‘subway blind taste test.’” — STEPHEN COLBERT“I have to say, I learned a lot during the pandemic. I learned that people who are most resistant to the government telling them what to do also happen to be the people who most need the government to tell them what to do and ironically are the same people who are most supportive of the government telling other people what to do.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“But it wasn’t all bad. There were some positives. People helped each other. We found out who in our communities care about others, and maybe most importantly, we now have enough toilet paper to last the rest of our lives.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“The end of the Covid era is surprisingly kind of bittersweet. This morning, I did something — I wiped down my groceries just for old-time sake. I actually bought a bottle of Purell and wiped it down with Purell.” — JIMMY KIMMELThe Punchiest Punchlines (Biden Goes to Belfast Edition)“Then this morning Biden was off to the emerald Ireland. The trip is part diplomacy and part homecoming, because Biden’s ancestors came to the U.S. from Ireland in the mid-1800s, when Biden was just a teen.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“Biden is a proud Irish American. He’s planning to visit relatives over there from the Blewitt family — that’s his family’s name — and I really hope the visit goes well, because if Biden blows it with the Blewitts, Fox News is going to have a field day tomorrow.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“Biden is making the trip to discuss Brexit, address Ireland’s parliament, and, if he’s got time later in the week, to meet with Brendan Gleeson and Colin Farrell to see if he can’t just patch up all of this silliness.” — JAMES CORDEN, referring to the plot and stars of “The Banshees of Inisherin”The Bits Worth WatchingTuesday’s “Late Show” guest Jennifer Garner recalled how she once landed Jennifer Coolidge’s dream role, playing a dolphin.What We’re Excited About on Wednesday Night“Mrs. Davis” star Betty Gilpin will appear on Wednesday’s “Late Late Show.”Also, Check This OutAlison Goldfrapp in London. The singer, best known for her duo, Goldfrapp, is going solo in May.Rosie Marks for The New York TimesAlison Goldfrapp’s new solo album, “The Love Invention,” is a disco-tinged departure from her usual. More

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      ‘The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel’ Takes Its Final Curtsy

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      In its final season, the pioneering Amazon hit wanted to go out the way it came in: fabulously, in heels and with a dizzying words-to-minutes ratio.Rachel Brosnahan during filming for the final season of “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.” As the hit Amazon comedy wraps up, her character finally makes good.Heather Sten for The New York TimesOn a morning in mid-October, on the set of the Amazon comedy “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel,” set dressers readied the grimy Midtown office of Susie Myerson, the talent manager played with a newsboy cap and signature glare by Alex Borstein. An animal wrangler oversaw a flock of pigeons outside a false window as a scenic artist painted on their droppings. In a haze of herbal cigarette smoke, the actors — Borstein, Alfie Fuller and Rachel Brosnahan — ran the scene again, again, again, until the pauses vanished and the dialogue sang.If you have seen “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel,” the first streaming show to win an Emmy for best comedy series (one of 20 Emmys overall), you will suspect, correctly, that the lighting was gorgeous, the costumes sumptuous, the hair and makeup luxuriant. Each pigeon gleamed. (The fake excreta looked very nice, too.) A show that has never met a situation it couldn’t prettify and frill, that’s “Mrs. Maisel.”In this scene, Midge, Brosnahan’s exuberant comedian, receives news of a long-awaited break.“Are you serious?” Midge asks once Susie fills her in.“I’m ‘Antigone’ without the laughs,” Susie replies.As always, the final season features remarkably detailed production design. “We leaned into the vibrancy of the time,” said Amy Sherman-Palladino, the show’s creator.Heather Sten for The New York TimesHeather Sten for The New York TimesHeather Sten for The New York TimesSo yes, in its final season, which premieres on Friday and is set in 1961, Midge Maisel, the only Upper West Side doyenne to work blue, finally makes good. (Just when, where and how? You’ll have to ask a pigeon.) Amy Sherman-Palladino, who created the show, and her husband, Dan Palladino, an executive producer, always imagined that it would end this way — brisk and bouncy and dressed to thrill.“Everyone knew Midge was going to be famous,” Palladino said. “This would have been a very disappointing journey for people to take if she just decides to be a housewife.”“A very funny, fabulous housewife,” his wife amended. “But that wasn’t the ride.”The ride, instead, was an ascending swirl of jewel tones and kick pleats and a chirpy soundtrack (three of those Emmys were for outstanding music supervision), a midcentury fever dream in candy coating. Underneath that coating was the story of a woman — actually two women, including Susie — triumphing in a male-dominated industry through moxie and native skill.The pilot for “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” was shot in 2016, not so long ago as the calendar goes but a lifetime in terms of streaming content. Even while making it, Sherman-Palladino and Palladino (“Gilmore Girls,” “Bunheads”) thought they might have a hit.“It was a show that was kind of popping off of our monitors while we were shooting it,” Palladino said. But a couple of decades in the business had taught him that all the popping in the world couldn’t guarantee that executives would OK it or that an audience would find it.The series tracked two women triumphing in a male-dominated industry: Midge and her manager, Susie Myerson, played by Alex Borstein. “It was exciting to see a three-dimensional female character and not just an empty sidekick,” she said.Heather Sten for The New York TimesBrosnahan, then 26 and best known for a multiepisode arc as a doomed call girl in “House of Cards,” also had doubts. After years spent, as she put it in a recent interview, “crying and dying,” she could hardly believe that the creators had trusted her to play a standup comic.“It felt daunting and impossible, petrifying and exhilarating,” she said. But she worried that a pilot about a woman who knew her way around a sweetheart neckline and a casserole dish would be perceived as too niche.“I remember finishing it and going, ‘But who’s going to watch it?’” she said.People did watch the pilot, though because Amazon keeps its viewing numbers secret, the creators have never known how many. Enough, anyway, for Amazon to give the show a two-season order, its first ever multiseason commitment. Its Prime Video service has gone through several paradigm shifts since, but year after year (and Emmy after Emmy), the company kept faith with “Mrs. Maisel.”“You would expect, at some point, someone to go, ‘Do they really need that many skirts?’” Sherman-Palladino said. “It never happened.”Heather Sten for The New York TimesHeather Sten for The New York TimesThe creators said they had been given whatever they needed to create the world of the series. “We felt a very strong sense of pride about this project that we never experienced before,” said Dan Palladino, an executive producer. Heather Sten for The New York TimesBut all skirts have to come to an end sometime. Palladino described the decision to conclude the show with its fifth season as a mutual one.“It became a mutual decision once we were told it was the last season,” his wife clarified. In these last episodes, while tying off any dangling plot strands, they wanted to give viewers a sense not only of how Midge finally breaks into the big time but also what that break ultimately means for the show’s main characters. The nine-episode final season is larded with flash-forwards, designed to show what becomes of Midge and her extended family.These time jumps lend the show a gravitas it has not always offered. “Life is a series of choices, and some of them are stupid choices and some great choices,” Sherman-Palladino explained. “Part of what those flash-forwards did for us is show the consequences of the choices that she did make.”Until now, “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” has largely presented Midge’s arc as a dauntless upward climb. When her marriage shattered like so much dropped Fiestaware, she pulled herself onto a nightclub stage and she has stayed onstage ever since.Midge’s marriage ended early in the series but her former husband, Joel, played by Michael Zegen (left, with Joel Johnstone) remained a key character.Heather Sten for The New York Times“I have found her resilience inspiring and her courage to keep confronting change inspiring,” Brosnahan said. But did that resilience and that courage come at some cost? This final season, however breezy, confirms that it did.Earlier seasons have glossed over Midge’s neglect of her children. This final one strips some of that gloss away, even as it emphasizes the robust support system — an engaged father, a hypercompetent housekeeper, two sets of devoted grandparents — that the youngest Maisels enjoy.And yet, according to the creators, Midge’s success or failure as a mother wasn’t especially important. “I wasn’t setting out to do a story about a mother,” Sherman-Palladino said. “This was a story about a woman discovering her own ambition in a time when women were not supposed to have ambition.”Brosnahan echoed this. “I don’t know that it matters what kind of mom she is,” she said, noting that the go-getting men of prestige television have not been subject to the same critique. “We just didn’t have this conversation at this volume about Don Draper or even Walter White.”The show allowed many people beyond Midge to fulfill their personal ambitions. Borstein, who won two Emmys for the show, had nearly quit the business when she received the script for the pilot. She admired Susie’s toughness and also her vulnerability.Luke Kirby during filming. The final episodes will reveal both how Midge breaks into the big time and what that break ultimately means for the show’s main characters.Heather Sten for The New York TimesHeather Sten for The New York Times“It was exciting to see a three-dimensional female character and not just an empty sidekick,” she said. And she saw parallels between her own career and those of Susie and Midge.“It rang really true for me,” she said. “I’ve always had to machete my own path.”Palladino and Sherman-Palladino never had to resort to machetes. But they did describe “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” as the first project on which they had been given every resource that they needed, the chance to realize nearly every dream.“We felt a very strong sense of pride about this project that we never experienced before,” Palladino said. They are particularly delighted with the show’s exhaustive, spirited production design.“We leaned into the vibrancy of the time,” Sherman-Palladino said. “The cars were beautiful. The [expletive] toasters were gorgeous. People really did dress like that.”To walk through the production studio, even during the final weeks of the shoot, was to feel immersed in this fictional world. A bar set included custom-printed matchbooks on the hostess stand. There were coordinated dishes on kitchen shelves, signed photos and engraved awards in the offices of a late-night talk show.Reid Scott, who plays the host of that show, marveled at the level of detail. A new addition to “Mrs. Maisel,” he noticed during his first day on set that every piece of paper in every typewriter had custom letterhead.“The camera is never going to focus on what this person in the secretary pool is typing, yet they went all the way,” he said in a phone interview. “It infuses the entire production, and it makes everyone really step up.”Even stars of the show were surprised by the level of detail. “It infuses the entire production, and it makes everyone really step up,” Reid Scott said.Heather Sten for The New York TimesHeather Sten for The New York TimesHeather Sten for The New York TimesSaying goodbye to all of that letterhead wasn’t easy. The creators arranged for the final week to require the entire cast. Borstein said that there was a bet going to see who would cry first. (She lost.) There were tears in rehearsal, tears walking to rehearsal, tears at the coffee station.“Grown men crying all over the place,” Sherman-Palladino said. Brosnahan said that even on days when members of the main cast weren’t required, they would show up anyway, just to be together.The final day was especially wrenching. “We didn’t want to wrap,” said Tony Shalhoub, who won his own Emmy for playing Midge’s father, Abe Weissman. “We didn’t want to finish that last shot.”There were wrap gifts, too many. (“Because I believe in buying love,” Sherman-Palladino said.) And wrap parties. But it still hurt, though sometimes in a bittersweet way.“The end of the show, it leaves a hole in my heart,” Borstein said. “It’s difficult, but it’s also a wonderful empty space. Because I know what once filled it, and I know what I’m capable of.”Sherman-Palladino and Palladino feel that same poignancy, even as they’re working on a new show. (They might have talked more about it, but an Amazon publicist came on the line to politely dissuade them.) Mostly they feel grateful — for the cast, the crew, the skirts, the sense of shared endeavor.“Many people have lovely careers and never get to experience this kind of unity,” Sherman-Palladino said. “We’re very lucky. If we get hit by a bus right now, we’re fine.”She kidded that this was how “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” actually closes — with style, with flair and in multiple vehicular homicides.“Giant buses come out and run over everybody,” she cracked. “It’s just a blood bath.”“It’s the ending we dreamed of,” Palladino said.In the end, “this was a story about a woman discovering her own ambition in a time when women were not supposed to have ambition,” Sherman-Palladino said.Heather Sten for The New York Times More