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      Man Sentenced for Threats to the Actress Eva LaRue and Her Daughter

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      Eva LaRue, an actress known for her roles on “CSI: Miami” and “All My Children,” said her family lived in fear. James David Rogers, 58, was sentenced to just over three years.A man in Ohio was sentenced to more than three years in prison after 12 years of harassing the actress Eva LaRue and her daughter. He had threatened via letters and phone calls to torture, kill and rape them, the authorities said.Judge John A. Kronstadt of the United States District Court for the Central District of California sentenced the man, James David Rogers, to 40 months in prison on Thursday, for what prosecutors in a sentencing memorandum called a “campaign of torment” in which he “terrorized a mother and her daughter.”Mr. Rogers, 58, had pleaded guilty on April 28 to “two counts of mailing threatening communications, one count of threats by interstate communications and two counts of stalking,” according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California.Ms. LaRue is known for her roles as the DNA analyst Natalia Boa Vista on the crime series “CSI: Miami” and Maria Santos on the soap opera “All My Children.” Her daughter, Kaya Callahan, was as young as 5 years old when the threats against her began, court documents said. She is now 20. Mr. Rogers wrote threats to Ms. LaRue’s partner at the time as well.An apparent lawyer for Mr. Rogers did not respond to a request for comment.In March 2007, he began to send menacing letters to the family, court documents show, and stalking behavior continued until his arrest in November 2019. Between March 2007 and June 2015, Mr. Rogers mailed about 37 handwritten and typed letters with threats. He signed many of the letters with the name Freddy Krueger, a fictional serial killer from the horror movie “A Nightmare on Elm Street.”“I want to make your life so miserable that you can’t stand it,” he wrote in one letter, according to court documents. “You should be very scared,” another read.The letters were first sent to Ms. LaRue’s publicist, then to her manager, she said. Finally, she received them at home and her husband’s office at the time.“The letters were anywhere between three to six or seven pages long, detailing in the most heinous, evil, grotesque, depraved way, how he wanted to kidnap my then-5-year-old daughter and I,” she said.The family moved several times in the hopes that Mr. Rogers wouldn’t find their address again, even deciding to sell a home during the 2008 financial recession, she said. They also avoided receiving mail and packages at their home address.“They drove circuitous routes home, slept with weapons nearby and had discussions about how to seek help quickly if defendant found them and tried to harm them,” prosecutors said.Ms. LaRue never knew where the person writing the letters lived. She operated as if he could have been around the corner at any point, she said in an interview.During a “CSI: Miami” hiatus, Ms. LaRue said she fled the country. She and her daughter temporarily lived at a friend’s house in Europe because they were afraid he would come to her home.In October and November 2019, Mr. Rogers called the school Ms. Callahan attended 18 times, often posing as her father and asking questions about her whereabouts, according to court documents. In another incident, he left a voice message at the school with vulgar threats, identifying himself under the serial killer pseudonym. She was a high school senior at the time, Ms. LaRue said.Weeks later, when he was arrested, his call log had been cleared. But the phone was registered to the same number that he had called the school from, prosecutors said. It also had photos of Ms. LaRue and her daughter on it.Until his arrest, Mr. Rogers had been working as a nurse’s assistant at a nursing home, according to court documents. He said he was the caretaker for his mother.Mr. Rogers said in mitigation that he had grown up a social outcast with difficulties with his parents and struggles in school, according to court documents. He also said he had limited mobility, but prosecutors said the F.B.I. found that claim to be false. He said at his sentencing that he was receiving mental health treatment, Ms. LaRue said.Before the sentencing, Ms. LaRue and her daughter had only seen a photo of Mr. Rogers. They did not want to see him in person but they decided to go into the courtroom when they learned that he would be joining via video conference. They were left unnerved.“At one point, my brother was holding my hand because I was shaking,” she said. “And that’s not me. I’m not easily rattled by anybody or anything.”Mr. Rogers, indicted in 2019, was identified using genetic genealogy, which uses databases to match DNA to a large network of people, said Stephen Busch, a former F.B.I. special agent who worked the case. The authorities used DNA left on a discarded straw to place him, leading to his arrest.“Forensic genealogy is the greatest investigative technique since the fingerprint for law enforcement,” said Mr. Busch, who is now the CEO of a DNA investigations company. “And we’re just scratching the surface with it right now.”Genetic genealogy has been used to solve many high-profile cases in recent years, including in 2018 to identify Joseph James DeAngelo as the Golden State Killer. On “CSI: Miami,” Ms. LaRue played a DNA analyst who conducted work similar to the one used to solve this case, she said, except the technology wasn’t as developed at the time.“DNA, oddly enough, has just played such an interesting role in my life in so many ways,” she said.Ms. LaRue is now writing a show that is partly autobiographical about her experiences over the past 12 years, and which will delve into some of the new DNA methods.Mr. Rogers apologized to Ms. LaRue at the sentencing’s video conference on Thursday. But for Ms. La Rue and her daughter, the damage had been done. They both lived in fear and paranoia after more than a decade of threats, Ms. La Rue said.Every school that Ms. Callahan attended had to be notified of the stalking, and she and her daughter were surrounded by security.“This was her formative years,” Ms. LaRue said.“I was afraid for my life,” her daughter said in court.The F.B.I. investigated the case, and the violent and organized crime section of the U.S. Attorney’s Office prosecuted it. More

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      ‘War of the Worlds’ Review: Dystopia à la Française

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      A new season of the dark science-fiction thriller on Epix continues a tradition of smart, atmospheric genre series from the French channel Canal+.This review contains spoilers for the first two seasons of “War of the Worlds.”As you make your way through the cavernous emporium that television has become, brand loyalty may be your best hedge against disappointment. It can be limiting, sure. But if you know you are likely to enjoy the latest Taylor Sheridan drama or Adult Swim animated comedy, that’s valuable time saved.There is a logo that signals happiness for me, but it’s a little farther afield. Someone in Paris has my number: For the last decade or so, a handful of my very favorite shows have begun life on the French channel Canal+.A lot of shows from Canal+ — an ad-free subscription service analogous to HBO — don’t make it to America, and I’m sure there are plenty that I wouldn’t care for. But its programmers have a taste for atmospheric, complicated genre pieces, and over the years there has been a succession of its series that I’ve eagerly consumed: the Paris police procedural “Spiral,” the eerie supernatural-metaphysical melodrama “The Returned,” the superlative spy thriller “The Bureau.” My fixation continues with “War of the Worlds,” a particularly dark and dystopian science-fiction adventure whose third season begins Monday on Epix. (Seasons of all four shows are available at Amazon Prime Video.)“War of the Worlds” differs in being a French-English coproduction (with the Fox Networks Group) whose action, especially in recent episodes, mostly takes place in London, with English dialogue. It was created, and to this point has been written by, the British TV veteran Howard Overman, best known for creating the award-winning supernatural dramedy “Misfits.”Overman’s story has points of connection with the H.G. Wells novel he very loosely adapts: Invaders (who turn out to be physically compromised) arrive in gigantic ships and assert their dominance, while human refugees do a lot of fleeing and hunkering down. There are fewer of these refugees than Wells imagined, however. In the show’s first episode, the spacecraft that land emit a signal that kills nearly everyone on Earth, sparing only those who are underground or otherwise shielded.The first two seasons followed increasingly smaller bands of survivors in France and England who eventually coalesced in London around Bill Ward (Gabriel Byrne), a scientist whose existence the invaders were somehow aware of. The feel was clammy and claustrophobic — there was no word from the rest of the world — with a steady drip-drip-drip of horror as the humans were picked off by the mechanical attack dogs the invaders deployed. The whirring, clanking noises the robots made were an eerie signature.But the show isn’t just a video-game-style thriller. Overman does a good job with the human relationships, which are marked by the anger, despair and pettiness the dire situation gives rise to. Characters backbite, bellyache, reluctantly pitch in and commit mundane acts of heroism in a largely believable manner, and there’s blessedly little inspirational speechmaking.The show is also a big-idea science fiction fantasy, of course, and that is both a strength and a weakness. The delayed revelation of who and what the invaders were, and how they connected with the show’s human characters, was intriguing — which was the minimum requirement for plugging you into the show — but the science involved felt a little more fictional than usual. And there are some fundamental questions about the plot that are still unclear, and which you suspect may remain so.Byrne in Season 2 of “War of the Worlds.”Simon Ridgway/EpixIf you’ve watched the first two seasons — here come the big spoilers — you know that the invaders are actually humans who have apparently traveled back in time on a mission of self-preservation, and that Bill stands in their way. And you know that the second season ended with Bill using the invaders’ technology to time travel himself, arriving before the invasion and committing a murder that would prevent the invaders from ever existing.So Season 3 is one of those sci-fi reboots in which things never happened and the world is back to normal, except that Bill is in prison, there’s a black hole hovering over Earth (there’s that dodgy science again) and people are having visions that look a lot like memories of the invasion that didn’t happen.The visions, presumably being experienced by people who, in the original timeline, were survivors, are a smart device for keeping the cast together — characters like the resourceful cop Zoe (Pearl Chanda), the compassionate immigrant Kariem (Bayo Gbadamosi) and the awkward French scientist Catherine (Léa Drucker), who will eventually recognize one another, and Bill. And they still have a battle to fight, since a few of the invaders, including the implacable Adina (Ania Sowinski), stowed away with Bill in the time machine and are working on building a new one.The mood and story lines in the new season are more like those of a conventional mystery — there are police chases now — with the dramatic spice of a handful of characters knowing an earthshaking secret that they can’t talk about without being considered crazy.It’s a great situation for Byrne, whose grumpy, weary performance as Bill drives the show. With a prison sentence as his reward for saving the world, Bill is now more completely fed up than ever, and his reaction when Zoe tells him he needs to do it again is succinct and profane. Byrne, in a way that feels more French than British, makes you understand exactly how big a bother this world-saving business is. More

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      Marsha Hunt, Actress Turned Activist, Is Dead at 104

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      She seemed well on her way to stardom until her career was derailed by the Hollywood blacklist. She then turned her attention to social causes.Marsha Hunt, who appeared in more than 50 movies between 1935 and 1949 and seemed well on her way to stardom until her career was damaged by the Hollywood blacklist, and who, for the rest of her career, was as much an activist as she was an actress, died on Wednesday at her home in Los Angeles. She was 104.Her death was announced by Roger C. Memos, the director of the 2015 documentary “Marsha Hunt’s Sweet Adversity.”Early in her career, Ms. Hunt was one of the busiest and most versatile actresses in Hollywood, playing parts big and small in a variety of movies, including romances, period pieces and the kind of dark, stylish crime dramas that came to be known as film noir. She starred in “Pride and Prejudice” alongside Greer Garson and Laurence Olivier in 1940, and in “The Human Comedy” with Mickey Rooney in 1943. In later years, she was a familiar face on television, playing character roles on “Matlock,” “Murder, She Wrote,” “Star Trek: The Next Generation” and other shows.But in between, her career hit a roadblock: the Red Scare.Ms. Hunt’s problems began in October 1947, when she traveled to Washington along with cinematic luminaries like John Huston, Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall as part of a group called the Committee for the First Amendment. Their mission was to observe and protest the actions of the House Un-American Activities Committee, which was investigating what it said was Communist infiltration of the film industry.Many of those who made that trip subsequently denounced it, calling it ill-advised, but Ms. Hunt did not. And although she was never a member of the Communist Party — her only apparent misdeed, besides going to Washington, was signing petitions to support causes related to civil liberties — producers began eyeing her with suspicion.Ms. Hunt, second from left, with other members of the Committee for the First Amendment in Washington in October 1947. (Among the others pictured are John Huston, Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall, center, and Danny Kaye, sixth from right.) Her political activism led movie studios to stop offering her work.Associated PressHer status in Hollywood was already precarious when “Red Channels,” an influential pamphlet containing the names of people in the entertainment industry said to be Communists or Communist sympathizers, was published in 1950. Among the people named were Orson Welles, Pete Seeger, Leonard Bernstein and Marsha Hunt.By then, she had won praise for her portrayal of Viola in a live telecast of “Twelfth Night” in 1949. At the time, Jack Gould of The New York Times called her “an actress of striking and mellow beauty who also was at home with the verse and couplets of Shakespeare.” Her star turn in a 1950 revival of George Bernard Shaw’s “Devil’s Disciple,” the second of her six appearances on Broadway, had been the subject of a cover article in Life magazine. Yet, the movie offers all but stopped.In 1955, with little work to keep her at home, Ms. Hunt and her husband, the screenwriter Robert Presnell Jr., took a yearlong trip around the world. As a result of her travels, she told the website The Globalist in 2008, she “fell in love with the planet.”She became an active supporter of the United Nations, delivering lectures on behalf of the World Health Organization and other U.N. agencies. She wrote and produced “A Call From the Stars,” a 1960 television documentary about the plight of refugees.She also addressed issues closer to home. In her capacity as honorary mayor of the Sherman Oaks area of Los Angeles, a post she held from 1983 to 2001, she worked to increase awareness of homelessness in Southern California and organized a coalition of honorary mayors that raised money to build shelters.Ms. Hunt with Franchot Tone, left, and Gene Kelly in the 1943 movie “Pilot No. 5.”Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), via IMDbMarcia Virginia Hunt (she later changed the spelling of her first name) was born in Chicago on Oct. 17, 1917, to Earl Hunt, a lawyer, and Minabel (Morris) Hunt, a vocal coach. The family soon moved to New York City, where Ms. Hunt attended P.S. 9 and the Horace Mann School for Girls in Manhattan.A talent scout who saw her in a school play in 1935 offered her a screen test; nothing came of the offer, but that summer she visited her uncle in Hollywood and ended up being pursued by several studios. She signed with Paramount and made her screen debut that year in a quickly forgotten film called “The Virginia Judge.”She was soon being cast in small roles in a dizzying array of films. In “Easy Living” (1937), starring Jean Arthur, she had an unbilled but crucial part as a woman who has a coat fall on her head in the last scene. Bigger roles soon followed, especially after she joined Hollywood’s largest and most prestigious studio, MGM, in 1939.In 1943, she was the subject of a profile in The New York Herald Tribune that predicted a bright future. “She’s a quiet, well-bred, good-looking number with the concealed fire of a banked furnace,” the profile said. “She’s been in Hollywood for seven years, made 34 pictures. But, beginning now, you can start counting the days before she is one of the top movie names.”It never happened. In the aftermath of the blacklist, however, she began working frequently on television, appearing on “The Twilight Zone,” “Gunsmoke,” “Ben Casey” and other shows. She remained active on the small screen until the late 1980s.Her only notable movie in those years was “Johnny Got His Gun” (1971), an antiwar film written and directed by Dalton Trumbo, also a victim of the Hollywood blacklist, in which she played a wounded soldier’s mother.Ms. Hunt at her home in Los Angeles in 2007. She began working frequently on television in the wake of the Hollywood blacklist and continued acting until the late 1980s.Nick Ut/Associated PressMs. Hunt’s marriage to Jerry Hopper, a junior executive at Paramount, ended in divorce in 1945. The following year, she married Mr. Presnell. Their marriage lasted until his death in 1986. She is survived by several nieces and nephews.Ms. Hunt’s commitment to political and social causes did not diminish with age.In a 2021 interview with Fox News, she dismissed the notion that celebrities should avoid speaking out on political issues (“Nonsense — we’re all citizens of the world”) and explained what she considered to be the essential message of the documentary:“When injustice occurs, go on with your convictions. Giving in and being silent is what they want you to do.”Peter Keepnews contributed reporting. More

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      James Corden Pays Tribute to the Queen

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      The British host of “The Late Late Show” called Queen Elizabeth II “a guiding light.” Other hosts went a bit lighter with their commentary.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.Long Did She ReignQueen Elizabeth II died on Thursday, after seven decades on the throne. Late night’s British import, James Corden, delivered a joke-free opening segment on “The Late Late Show,” calling the queen “a guiding light; always gracious, always dignified, always a shining example of leadership.”“I, like the rest of the world, am so sad tonight, but also so thankful and grateful to the queen for the most incredible service and leadership she has shown during all of our lifetimes.” — JAMES CORDENThe other hosts went lighter with their commentary on the queen’s lengthy reign.“She was the queen for 70 years, longer than any monarch in British history. To put it in perspective for Americans, this would be like if Kris Jenner died here.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“The queen is known as England’s rock. We don’t have a rock. The closest thing we have to a rock in America is The Rock.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“But 96 — that’s a pretty good run. I feel like if you die anywhere on the FM radio dial, it’s — you know? My goal is to make it to Hot 97 — or maybe even Power 106, who knows?” — JIMMY KIMMEL“When you think about all the people that the queen has met with over the last 70 years, it’s really remarkable. She’s met with everyone from Lady Bird Johnson to Lady Gaga, from Bill Clinton to Will.i.am. She met J.F.K. and J.Lo. She’s met the Beatles and the Spice Girls. … Then, after all these years, this week she saw Harry Styles spit on Chris Pine and said, ‘OK, I’ve had enough.’” — JIMMY KIMMEL“She came to power in 1952. You understand how long that is? That means she’s seen Adam West as Batman, Michael Keaton as Batman, Christian Bale as Batman, Ben Affleck as Batman — survived that — and then Robert Pattinson as Batman. And look, I’m sure there’s a better way to measure time than in Batman, but you get it. She’s been in the game for a minute.”— TREVOR NOAHThe Punchiest Punchlines (Bannon’s Dirty Deeds Edition)“Former Trump strategist Steve Bannon turned himself in to New York authorities today to face state criminal charges. Well, the good news is, I’m positive this man knows how to make toilet wine.” — SETH MEYERS“He has been charged with multiple felonies, including money laundering, which is definitely the first time in Steve Bannon’s life he’s been accused of doing laundry.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“This guy doesn’t look like he has $15. Look at him! Millions of dollars? He looks like he sublets from Oscar the Grouch.” — TREVOR NOAH“When the judge asked Bannon how he pleads, he said ‘grimy.’” — JIMMY FALLONThe Bits Worth WatchingJimmy Fallon and Blake Shelton premiered their new football-season-inspired song “I’ll Bring the Ice” on Thursday’s “Tonight Show.”Also, Check This OutThe real Weird Al Yankovic, left, and his movie double, Daniel Radcliffe. “I hope this confuses a lot of people,” the musician said of their biopic.Sinna Nasseri for The New York TimesWeird Al Yankovic and Daniel Radcliffe formed an unlikely bond on the set of “Weird: The Al Yankovic Story.” More

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      Olivia Colman and Claire Foy on Playing Queen Elizabeth II on ‘The Crown’

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      Queen Elizabeth II was for most people unknowable, but there was one place where the curious could feel close to her: onscreen.And whether it was Helen Mirren in “The Queen,” a movie about the monarch’s life in the days after Princess Diana’s death, or Claire Foy and Olivia Colman in Netflix’s “The Crown,” the actors all took different approaches to try to get under the skin of such an enigmatic figure.Ms. Mirren told The New York Times in 2006 that she had not just relied on a gray wig and upper-crust accent but also had steeped herself in every aspect of Elizabeth’s life, reading biographies and watching old film clips to try to get a sense of the monarch’s character and even mannerisms, both on and off duty.Ms. Foy, who portrayed the young queen as she ascended the throne in the first two series of “The Crown,” said that she hadn’t been able to do much research because there were no accounts of what the monarch had really thought in those moments.“I just had to imagine what it was like, being a girl who wanted to live in the countryside with her husband and children and dogs and horses,” Ms. Foy said at a 2016 media event, according to the magazine Variety. “She was a shy, retiring type, very close to her lovely sister, and suddenly she’s given the top job, and she’s the most unlikely person to have it.”Ms. Foy portrayed the queen as distant from her children, but she said that Elizabeth shouldn’t be criticized for that. “She had a job to do, and if she was a man, no one would have questioned it,” the actress said in an interview in The Guardian in 2017.Ms. Colman seems to be the actor most affected by playing the monarch. “I’ve fallen in love with the queen,” she said in a 2019 interview with The Radio Times, a British magazine.Elizabeth was “the ultimate feminist,” she added, noting that the monarch was the family’s breadwinner at a time when few women were in Britain, and that in 1998, the queen drove King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia around her Balmoral estate in Scotland at a time when women were barred from driving in his country.“She’s extraordinary,” Ms. Colman said. “She’s changed my views on everything.” More

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      An Inscrutable Monarch, Endlessly Scrutinized Onstage and Onscreen

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      Queen Elizabeth II was portrayed in plays and highbrow films, in made-for-TV movies and broad comedies and, of course, in “The Crown.” Many sought to answer the question: What was she like?She was the most opaque of celebrities, a silent film star somehow thriving in a TikTok world. If no one except her closest friends and family knew what Queen Elizabeth was really like, that’s exactly how she wanted it.Her regal reserve, her impassive expressions, her resistance to personal revelation — all of it made the queen, who died Thursday at 96, an irresistible object of imaginative speculation. She was an outline of a woman that people could fill in however they fancied. And fill it in they did. Over the years, Elizabeth was a character in an endless stream of feature films, made-for-TV movies and television series — biopics, satires, dramas, comedies, you name it — as well as in the occasional documentary, play, musical and novel.Her life was remarkable for being long, her reign remarkable for encompassing so much history. But no one was beheaded, no one was plotted against, no one was imprisoned in a tower. Dramas about her predecessors in the job — Elizabeth I, Henry V, Henry VIII, Richard II, to name a few — are full of grand plots and high stakes. Dramas about Elizabeth II were more inward-looking, all trying to address the tantalizing and unanswerable question about her: What sort of person was she?In “The Crown,” three actors played Elizabeth at different ages. From left, Claire Foy, Olivia Colman and Imelda Staunton. From left, Alex Bailey/Netflix; Sophie Mutevelian/Netflix; Alex Bailey/NetflixThe actors who have wrestled with that issue are too many to count. “The Crown” alone needed three different women to portray Elizabeth at different eras of her life: Claire Foy in her early life, Olivia Colman in the middle years, and Imelda Staunton as the queen in winter.Here are some additional highlights of the portrayals of Queen Elizabeth on film and onstage, and occasionally in fiction, over the years.As PrincessIn the 2010 film “The King’s Speech,” a very young Princess Elizabeth was played by Freya Wilson, right.The Weinstein Company, via AlamyElizabeth’s early years were marked by two cataclysmic events: her uncle King Edward VIII’s abdication, in 1936, from the throne, which automatically catapulted her fragile father into the job of king and put her next in the line of succession; and World War II, which took place when she was still a teenager.In “The King’s Speech” (2010), the young Princess Elizabeth, played by Freya Wilson, appears briefly in the backdrop of the drama about the efforts of her father, now King George VI, to overcome his stutter and address the nation with confidence and authority when Britain enters the war, in 1939. (The real-life queen was said to have found the movie “moving and enjoyable.”)“A Royal Night Out” (2015) takes place amid the euphoria of V-E Day in London in 1945. Sprung from Buckingham Palace to mingle, incognito, with the ecstatic crowds, Princess Elizabeth (Sarah Gadon) and her younger sister, Princess Margaret (Bel Powley), indulge in a wild night of drinking, dancing, flirting, wading in a fountain and riding a city bus.Some Key Moments in Queen Elizabeth’s ReignCard 1 of 9Becoming queen. More

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      41 TV Shows to Watch This Fall

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      Noteworthy premieres include new seasons of buzzy hits (“Abbott Elementary,” “The Handmaid’s Tale”), reboots and revivals (“Quantum Leap,” “Willow”) and more.The fall television season got off to an early start this year with the arrival of the dueling franchise extensions and hopeful blockbusters, “House of the Dragon” on HBO and “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power” on Amazon Prime Video. But TV’s vast landscape offers a lot more than expensively produced, effects-laden fantasy. From the relatable delights of “Abbott Elementary” to the highly specific hilarity of “Documentary Now!,” here are some noteworthy fall premieres, arranged in chronological order.All dates are subject to change.THE SERPENT QUEEN The story of Catherine de’ Medici, the 16th-century queen of France, in a satirical, talking-to-the-camera 21st-century telling, with Samantha Morton and Liv Hill as Catherine and a large cast, including Charles Dance, Colm Meaney and Ludivine Sagnier, as the clerics and aristocrats who underestimate her at their peril. Starz, Sept. 11.THE JENNIFER HUDSON SHOW The success of daytime talk-show hosts is notoriously hard to predict, and whether Hudson will have the right skill set and personality for the role is about to be seen. But she immediately becomes the most talented singer and actress in the field, for what that’s worth. Syndicated, Sept. 12.THE HANDMAID’S TALE This bleak allegory and nonlinear-TV pioneer — the first streaming show to win an Emmy for outstanding drama series — soldiers into its fifth season, with June (Elisabeth Moss) quickly coming down from the cathartic high of Season 4’s bloody conclusion. Hulu, Sept. 14.Elisabeth Moss in “The Handmaid’s Tale,” returning for its fifth season on Sept. 14.HuluATLANTA After a third season, ending in May, that was quietly received — and that dropped more than half of the show’s previous broadcast audience — Donald Glover’s prickly comedy quickly returns for a fourth and final go-round. FX, Sept. 15.THE U.S. AND THE HOLOCAUST Ken Burns, directing with Lynn Novick and Sarah Botstein, devotes six hours to an uncomfortable chapter of American history with an alarmingly familiar backdrop of racism and xenophobia. PBS, Sept. 18.QUANTUM LEAP Raymond Lee (the sympathetic diner owner in “Kevin Can F**k Himself”) plays a new time-jumping do-gooder in this reboot of the early-90s sci-fi series. The Quantum Leap project is restarted and the original hero, Sam Beckett, is still missing, so a Scott Bakula guest appearance seems pretty much preordained. NBC, Sept. 19.PARIS POLICE 1900 In the spirit of “Babylon Berlin,” this period policier sets standard crime drama against a vivid historical backdrop: the Dreyfus affair, organized and violent antisemitism, the rise of the pioneering lawyer Jeanne Chauvin (Eugenie Derouand) and the sometimes deadly career of the Parisian courtesan Marguerite Steinheil (Evelyne Brochu). MHz Choice, Sept. 20.REBOOT Steven Levitan, who grabbed the network-sitcom brass ring with “Just Shoot Me!” and “Modern Family,” indulges in some gentle self-parody. Judy Greer, Keegan-Michael Key and Johnny Knoxville play the cast of a hacky early-aughts family comedy who reunite for a new version written by a young woman (Rachel Bloom of “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend”) who is strangely obsessed with the original show. Hulu, Sept. 20.ABBOTT ELEMENTARY Quinta Brunson’s sitcom about struggling teachers at a Philadelphia elementary school, a breakout hit in the spring and an Emmy nominee for best comedy series, embarks on its second season. ABC, Sept. 21.Lisa Ann Walter, left, and Sheryl Lee Ralph in “Abbott Elementary,” returning for its second season on Sept. 21, on ABC.Scott Everett White/ABCANDOR Tony Gilroy has more on his résumé than a writing credit for “Rogue One,” and it looks as if his new “Star Wars” series might incorporate some of the real-world grit he displayed a feel for in the Bourne movies. That would be a good thing, though don’t tell it to your friend with the lightsaber collection. Disney+, Sept. 21.REASONABLE DOUBT Kerry Washington is an executive producer and a director of this legal melodrama created by Raamla Mohamed, who was a writer and producer on Washington’s breakthrough series, “Scandal.” Emayatzy Corinealdi plays a high-rent, high-stress Los Angeles lawyer whose conscience begins to bite her in the first scripted series from Disney’s Onyx Collective brand for creators of color. Hulu, Sept. 27.THE DARK HEART Gustav Möller, director of the Swedish film “The Guilty” (remade in America starring Jake Gyllenhaal), oversaw this five-part thriller inspired by real events. A woman who manages a civilian search team for missing persons takes on the case of a landowner and lumber baron who alienated a lot of people, including his ambitious daughter, before he disappeared. Topic, Sept. 29.SO HELP ME TODD A quirky-funny mystery series — in the long lineage of “Monk” — starring Marcia Gay Harden as a Type-A lawyer and Skylar Astin as her son, who’s better at investigating than he is at adulting. CBS, Sept. 29.Marcia Gay Harden stars in “So Help Me Todd,” premiering Sept. 29 on CBS.Michael Courtney/CBSANNE RICE’S INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE AMC takes its first step toward an Anne Rice universe, under the aegis of the veteran producer Mark Johnson (“Better Call Saul”). Jacob Anderson, the eunuch warrior Grey Worm in “Game of Thrones,” plays Louis, the Brad Pitt role from the movie version; Sam Reid steps in for Tom Cruise as Lestat; and the newcomer Bailey Bass, soon to be seen in several “Avatar” sequels, replaces Kirsten Dunst as the child vampire, Claudia. AMC, Oct. 2.EAST NEW YORK William Finkelstein, a creator of this cop drama, spent the 1990s and early 2000s writing and producing for a good roster of shows: “L.A. Law,” “Murder One,” “Brooklyn South,” “Law & Order” and “NYPD Blue.” On the other hand, he also created “Cop Rock” with Steven Bochco. Amanda Warren (the mayor in “The Leftovers”) plays a new precinct boss in the Brooklyn neighborhood of the title, heading a cast that includes Jimmy Smits, Richard Kind and Ruben Santiago-Hudson. CBS, Oct. 2.THE WALKING DEAD There was a time — and it was only six years ago — when “The Walking Dead” was drawing more than 12 million viewers an episode and the death of a major character was Monday morning news. Now more important as intellectual property than as weekly storytelling, the original series shuffles to the finish line with its final eight episodes. AMC, Oct. 2.Norman Reedus in AMC’s “The Walking Dead,” returning for its final season on Oct. 2.Jace Downs/AMCMAKING BLACK AMERICA: THROUGH THE GRAPEVINE Henry Louis Gates Jr. explores the codes, networks and private societies that Black Americans have created “behind the veil” of the color line in a four-part documentary series. PBS, Oct. 4.ALASKA DAILY Tom McCarthy, who made one of the best newspaper dramas of our time in the film “Spotlight,” created this series about an abrasive reporter (Hilary Swank) who gets canceled in New York and takes a job in Anchorage, lured by a story about the deaths of Indigenous women. The presence of Jeff Perry as her new boss probably isn’t the only thing that will remind you of the shows of the ABC stalwart Shonda Rhimes. ABC, Oct. 6.A FRIEND OF THE FAMILY Anna Paquin and Colin Hanks star in this true-crime mini-series as the parents of the actress Jan Broberg, who was kidnapped when she was 12 and again when she was 14 by the same family friend (played by Jake Lacy). The bizarre story has also been told in the 2017 feature documentary “Abducted in Plain Sight.” Peacock, Oct. 6.Jake Lacy and Anna Paquin in the Peacock mini-series “A Friend of the Family.”PeacockPENNYWORTH: THE ORIGIN OF BATMAN’S BUTLER This stylish “Batman” prequel series, about the former special-forces soldier who will one day be Bruce Wayne’s butler (as the show’s awkward new title makes clear), leaves Epix for a platform closer to its DC Comics roots. Season 3 also mostly leaves behind the alt-history British civil war that occupied the first two installments, jumping ahead five years and introducing superheroes. HBO Max, Oct. 6.LET THE RIGHT ONE IN John Ajvide Lindqvist’s ultra-bleak 2004 novel about a child vampire keeps circulating through the culture: It has inspired films, plays, a comic book and a TV pilot, with Thomas Kretschmann, that wasn’t picked up. Now the story makes it to TV with Demián Bichir as the father of the girl vampire (Madison Taylor Baez) who’s forever 12. Showtime, online Oct. 7, cable Oct. 9.THE MIDNIGHT CLUB The latest from Mike Flanagan, whose atmospheric horror series (“The Haunting of Hill House,” “Midnight Mass”) have won a following on Netflix. Heather Langenkamp plays the doctor at a hospice where the patients like to tell one another scary stories. Netflix, Oct. 7.BECOMING FREDERICK DOUGLASS The documentarian Stanley Nelson (“Attica,” “Freedom Riders”) fills in some important chapters in his epic yet quotidian history of Black life in America with this film and with “Harriet Tubman: Visions of Freedom” (Oct. 4), both directed by Nelson and Nicole London. PBS, Oct. 11.CHAINSAW MAN Anticipation is running high in the anime world for the MAPPA animation studio’s adaptation of “Chainsaw Man,” a dark-comic, body-horror manga about a young devil hunter with a deadly appendage. Crunchyroll, Oct. 11.SHERWOOD The cast of this BBC mystery series is a lengthy British-TV who’s who: David Morrissey, Lesley Manville, Claire Rushbrook, Philip Jackson, Joanne Froggatt, Terence Maynard, Kevin Doyle, Robert Glenister, Clare Holman, Lorraine Ashbourne, Adeel Akhtar, Pip Torrens and Mark Addy, among others. Morrissey is the detective investigating a bow-and-arrow murder in Robin Hood’s old Nottinghamshire haunts that brings up hatreds from a 1980s miners’ strike. BritBox, Oct. 11.THE WINCHESTERS Jensen Ackles returns to the “Supernatural” universe, reassuming his role as the monster hunter Dean Winchester in this prequel series. This time Dean, in a supporting role, is tracking down the real story of the younger days of his mother and father (Meg Donnelly and Drake Rodger), which sounds like a good strategy for avoiding pesky continuity questions. CW, Oct. 11Drake Rodger and Meg Donnelly in “The Winchesters,” premiering Oct. 11 on the CW.Matt Miller/CWDOCUMENTARY NOW! One of TV’s greatest pleasures returns after a more than three-year hiatus. The fourth season, hosted, as always, by Dame Helen Mirren, will include sendups of “My Octopus Teacher,” “The September Issue,” “When We Were Kings” and Werner Herzog’s “Burden of Dreams.” IFC, Oct. 19.FROM SCRATCH Zoe Saldana stars in a mini-series that crosses cultures — a Black American woman falls in love with a Sicilian chef during her Wanderjahr in Italy — and genres, mixing picturesque Euroromance and sorrowful survivor’s tale. Netflix, Oct. 21.THE PERIPHERAL Scott B. Smith, who wrote the screenplay (based on his own novel) of the excellent 1998 thriller “A Simple Plan,” is the creator and showrunner of this series based on a dystopian, alternate-futures mystery by William Gibson; Chloë Grace Moretz stars; and Lisa Joy and Jonathan Nolan are among the executive producers. That’s an awful lot of bleak-noir experience. Amazon Prime Video, Oct. 21.GUILLERMO DEL TORO’S CABINET OF CURIOSITIES Del Toro takes on the Alfred Hitchcock role, playing master of ceremonies for an eight-episode horror anthology. (A previous title included the words “Guillermo del Toro Presents.”) The first season’s directors include Jennifer Kent (“The Babadook”), Catherine Hardwicke (“Twilight”) and Ana Lily Amirpour (“A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night”). Netflix, Oct. 25.SHERMAN’S SHOWCASE Diallo Riddle and Bashir Salahuddin’s consistently clever, stealthily sophisticated, unabashedly nostalgic sendup of old-school variety shows finally returns for a second season. IFC, Oct. 26.Bashir Salahuddin, foreground, in “Sherman’s Showcase,” returning for its second season on Oct. 26, on IFC.Michael Moriatis/IFCTRUE CRIME STORY: INDEFENSIBLE Back for a second season, the comedian Jena Friedman applies the adversarial techniques of topical late-night humor to the true-crime genre, in 20-minute episodes that are less investigations — the facts of the cases are generally pretty plain, at least in Friedman’s eyes — than expressions of darkly comic outrage. SundanceTV, Oct. 27.BIG MOUTH Since Nick Kroll broke the third-dimensional wall in the Season 5 finale and had a heart-to-heart with his animated character, Nick Birch, will any of his castmates get to follow suit in the sixth season of this raunchy paean to puberty? The real-life John Mulaney would probably have some interesting things to say to his animated counterpart, randy Andy Glouberman. Netflix, Oct. 28.MANIFEST A hit in reruns on Netflix after being canceled by NBC, this paranormal mystery-melodrama gets a fourth and final season at its streaming home. Netflix, Nov. 4.DANGEROUS LIAISONS This new adaptation of the Choderlos de Laclos novel was announced nearly a decade ago, with Christopher Hampton, who had already based a play and a film on the novel, attached as writer once again. Hampton didn’t remain as the writer — he gets an executive producer credit — but the mini-series has arrived billed as the “origin story” of the Marquise de Merteuil and the Vicomte de Valmont. Apparently they weren’t always jaded monsters. Starz, Nov. 6.MOOD Like Phoebe Waller-Bridge (“Fleabag”) and Michaela Coel (“Chewing Gum”) before her, Nicole Lecky turns a hit one-woman play into a buzzy British TV series. She plays Sasha, a broke and unemployed young Londoner who finds herself in the potentially lucrative and liberating — and also potentially exploitative and dangerous — world of the influencer economy. BBC America, Nov. 6.Nicole Lecky in “Mood,” premiering Nov. 6 on BBC America.Natalie Seery/BBC Studios, via Bonafide FilmsTULSA KING On the same night that Tyler Sheridan’s flagship show, “Yellowstone,” begins its fifth season, his portfolio of manly genre dramas grows with the addition of this mash-up of gangster story and neo-western. It’s also Sheridan’s latest action-hero reclamation project: Sylvester Stallone stars as a Mafia capo sent to oversee operations in the foreign territory of Tulsa, Okla. Paramount+, Nov. 13.LIMITLESS WITH CHRIS HEMSWORTH Deploying the charm he brings to his depiction of the Norse god Thor for Marvel, Hemsworth headlines a wellness-and-longevity documentary series for Marvel’s corporate parent, Disney. (The sound of his unadulterated Australian accent makes him even more charming, if that’s possible.) Subjects like how to deal with stress and the value of fasting are addressed with superheroic energy. Disney+, Nov. 16.WELCOME TO CHIPPENDALES Robert Siegel, fresh off “Pam & Tommy,” and Jenni Konner of “Girls” are the showrunners of a mini-series starring Kumail Nanjiani as Steve Banerjee, the unlikely and eventually ill-fated founder of a male-stripping colossus. Hulu, Nov. 22.WILLOW Ron Howard’s 1988 fantasy film “Willow” is not the first piece of intellectual property anyone would have predicted for a reboot, but when George Lucas is involved — he received “story by” credit on the film — anything can happen. Lucasfilm and Howard’s Imagine Entertainment are producing this sequel series; Warwick Davis, now 52, returns as the title character. Maybe Willow will be a more consistent spell caster than he was as a teenager. Disney+, Nov. 30.Warwick Davis in “Willow,” premiering Nov. 30 on Disney+.Lucasfilm/Disney+THE ADVENTURES OF SAUL BELLOW Asaf Galay’s documentary, an “American Masters” offering, recruits wives, children and innocent bystanders to talk about being the real-life sources of Bellow’s books. Meanwhile, fellow novelists and critics like Charles Johnson, Salman Rushdie, Stanley Crouch and, in what may have been his last interview, a captivating Philip Roth certify or question Bellow’s place in the American pantheon. PBS, Dec. 12.And if all that isn’t enough for you, these new and returning shows are also coming this fall (new shows in bold):Sept. 11: “Monarch,” Fox; Sept. 12: “War of the Worlds,” Epix; Sept. 13: “The Come Up,” Freeform; Sept. 15: “La Otra Mirada,” PBS; “Vampire Academy,” Peacock; “The Light in the Hall,” Sundance Now; Sept. 16: “Los Espookys,” HBO; Sept. 18: “60 Minutes,” CBS; “SEAL Team,” Paramount+; Sept. 19: “Bob Hearts Abishola,” “NCIS,” “NCIS: Hawai’i,” “The Neighborhood,” CBS; “9-1-1,” “The Cleaning Lady,” Fox; Sept. 20: “FBI,” “FBI: International,” “FBI: Most Wanted,” CBS; “The Resident,” Fox; “New Amsterdam,” NBC; Sept. 21: “The Conners,” “The Goldbergs,” “Home Economics,” “Big Sky,” ABC; “Survivor,” “The Amazing Race,” CBS; “Chicago Fire,” “Chicago Med,” “Chicago P.D.,” NBC; Sept. 22: “The Kardashians,” Hulu; “Law & Order,” “Law & Order: Organized Crime,” “Law & Order: SVU,” NBC; “Thai Cave Rescue,” Netflix; Sept. 23: “Who’s Talking to Chris Wallace,” HBO Max; Sept. 24: “Finding Happy,” Bounce; Sept. 25: “The Rookie,” ABC; “The Simpsons,” “The Great North,” “Bob’s Burgers,” “Family Guy,” Fox; “Van der Valk,” PBS; Sept. 27: “The Rookie: Feds,” ABC; “La Brea,” NBC; “Mighty Ducks: Game Changers,” Disney+; Sept. 28: “The D’Amelio Show,” Hulu; Sept. 29: “Young Sheldon,” “Ghosts,” “CSI: Vegas,” CBS; “Welcome to Flatch,” “Call Me Kat,” Fox; “Dragons Rescue Riders: Heroes of the Sky,” Peacock; Sept. 30: “Ramy,” Hulu; Oct. 2: “The Equalizer,” CBS: “Family Law,” “The Coroner,” CW: Oct. 3: “The Good Doctor,” ABC: Oct. 5: “Kung Fu,” CW: “Reginald the Vampire,” Syfy; “Chucky,” Syfy/USA; Oct. 6: “Grey’s Anatomy,” “Station 19,” ABC; “Walker, Independence,” “Walker” CW; Oct. 7: “The Problem With Jon Stewart,” Apple TV+; “Fire Country,” “Blue Bloods,” “SWAT,” CBS; Oct. 9: “NCIS: Los Angeles,” CBS; “Secrets of the Dead,” PBS; Oct. 10: “All American,” “All American: Homecoming,” CW; Oct. 11: “Professionals,” CW; Oct. 14: “Shantaram,” Apple TV+; Oct. 16: “Magpie Murders,” “Miss Scarlet and the Duke,” PBS; Oct. 20: “One of Us Is Lying,” Peacock; Oct. 21: “Acapulco,” Apple TV+; Oct. 26: “Mysterious Benedict Society” Disney+; Nov. 3: “Blockbuster,” Netflix; “The Capture,” Peacock; “The Suspect,” Sundance Now; “Kold x Windy,” WE; Nov. 4: “Lopez vs. Lopez,” “Young Rock,” NBC; Nov. 9: “Zootopia+,” Disney+; Nov. 10: “The Calling,” Peacock; Nov. 11: “The English,” Amazon Prime Video; Nov. 13: “Yellowstone,” Paramount; Nov. 18: “The L Word: Generation Q,” Showtime; “Planet Sex With Clara Delevingne,” Hulu; Nov. 23: “Pitch Perfect: Bumper in Berlin,” Peacock; Nov. 30: “Irreverent,” Peacock; Dec. 1: “Wicked City,” “Hush,” AllBlk; Dec. 22: “The Best Man: The Final Chapters,” Peacock. 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      Jimmy Kimmel Declares Trump ‘the Worst Ex Ever’

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      “After four years of putting up with his nonsense, we finally throw him out of the house, he takes 40 boxes of our stuff,” Kimmel said.Welcome to Best of Late Night, a rundown of the previous night’s highlights that lets you sleep — and lets us get paid to watch comedy. Here are the 50 best movies on Netflix right now.‘Ménage a treason’The F.B.I.’s search at Mar-a-Lago continued to dominate late night on Wednesday, as further details emerge on its findings.Jimmy Kimmel called Trump “the worst ex ever.”“After four years of putting up with his nonsense, we finally throw him out of the house, he takes 40 boxes of our stuff.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“These documents — these are so protected they can’t even be viewed by most members of Trump’s or the president’s national security team. The only people who are allowed to see them are the president of the United States and a few highly cleared members of his council, and anyone who goes into Trump’s closet looking for a broom, I guess.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“So this time, the ex-president wasn’t just betraying our country, he brought in another country for a ménage a treason.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“Investigators reportedly found the nuclear documents hidden in the club’s storage closet, next to a bag of golf tees, a box of old pool noodles, and Melania, who was hiding in there.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“He took top secret documents from the White House and had them sitting in boxes in a room where workers regularly went in and out. They would have been more secure inside the claw machine at Dave and Buster’s, OK?” — JIMMY KIMMELThe Punchiest Punchlines (Nuclear Stress Test Edition)“More details are emerging about the sensitive documents found inside Donald Trump’s Florida home, and it turns out some of those documents included information about a foreign nation’s military defenses and their nuclear capabilities. It’s pretty shocking. Hard to imagine such recklessness from an otherwise perfectly buttoned-up administration.” — JAMES CORDEN“How do you explain this to our allies? ‘Don’t worry, prime minister, your country’s nuclear secrets are perfectly, safely stored at the Mar-a-Lago waffle bar between the syrup and the Nutella bucket.’” — STEPHEN COLBERT“These nuclear secrets could have been stolen by foreign agents, they could have been published on the internet, Eric could have eaten them — we don’t know!” — JIMMY KIMMEL“Imagine being a guest at Mar-a-Lago and using the bathroom, and out of the corner of your eye you just notice something and are you like, ‘Hang on. Is that — is that Norway’s nuclear codes?’” — JAMES CORDENThe Bits Worth WatchingAmber Ruffin, a writer for “Late Night,” skewered the people who misidentified famous Black women at the U.S. Open tennis tournament and at a New York Liberty W.N.B.A. game during Wednesday’s “Amber Says What?”What We’re Excited About on Thursday NightRyan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney will talk about their new series “Welcome to Wrexham” on Thursday’s “Late Show.”Also, Check This OutSimone Niamani Thompson for The New York TimesThe women of “Black Panther” leaned on each other to get through the grief-stricken shoot without their late co-star Chadwick Boseman while filming the sequel, “Wakanda Forever.” More