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      ‘Saturday Night Live’ Revisits the Vice-Presidential Debate

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      The comic Nate Bargatze hosted an episode that opened with another political sketch featuring the guest stars Dana Carvey, Jim Gaffigan, Maya Rudolph and Andy Samberg.Last week, America got the answer to the question: Who would play the presidential and vice-presidential nominees this season on “Saturday Night Live”?This week, another pressing question arose: How quickly would “S.N.L.” reference Senator JD Vance’s quote, “The rules were that you guys weren’t going to fact-check” from Tuesday’s vice-presidential debate?The answer came late in an opening sketch that parodied the debate, and which featured most of the same players from last weekend’s opening, including Bowen Yang as Vance and Jim Gaffigan as Gov. Tim Walz.Welcomed to their podiums by Heidi Gardner (as Norah O’Donnell) and Chloe Fineman (as Margaret Brennan), the candidates each made a brief opening statement.Yang, observing that he wanted to make an appeal to women voters, said, “I understand that both moderators tonight are mothers, and I like that.”Gaffigan was observed scribbling furiously on a notepad and explained that he was not taking notes for the debate. “I got to grade these papers,” he said. “Got a stack of midterms.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Ella Purnell Is a TV Star Who Hasn’t Lost Touch With Her Barista Roots

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      “Sometimes, before I go to bed,” the “Sweetpea” actress and executive producer said, “I think about how good my coffee’s going to be in the morning.”You might think twice about overlooking the office wallflower after watching Ella Purnell play a sad sack gone sadist on the new Starz dramedy “Sweetpea.”The British actress, who is also an executive producer on the series, plays Rhiannon, a shrinking violet who develops a thirst for vengeance after her childhood bully resurfaces.Purnell, 28, is best known for playing a high-school princess on Showtime’s teen survival drama “Yellowjackets” and a sheltered innocent on the postapocalyptic Prime Video series “Fallout.” Now she’s traded their perkiness for pent-up rage. She called Rhiannon “a case of arrested development” during a phone interview in September from Los Angeles, where she’d attended the Emmy Awards ceremony the day before.“She’s stuck in the past and unable to move on,” Purnell said, adding that she’s the opposite in real life. “I really love processing things. You can’t just stuff things away in a little box in your brain and not think about it. It will find other ways to come out if you don’t feel your feelings.”Still, there are some things Purnell — a self-described creature of comfort — won’t let go of.“I like to do the same things every day. I like to eat the same things every day. I get hyper-fixations,” she said before discussing worn-in footwear, a miraculous beauty product and the American meal she craves. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.Breville Espresso MachineI spent a lot of money on that machine; it’s not going to waste. I used to work in a coffee shop, so I have experience tamping down and getting the right grind size and pressure. Sometimes, before I go to bed, I think about how good my coffee’s going to be in the morning.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      ‘The Franchise’ Review: Cutting Marvel Down to Size

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      A new HBO comedy takes a jaundiced look at the making of a second-rate superhero film.The new HBO series “The Franchise” satirizes the making of a superhero movie by a fictional movie studio that is Marvel in all but name. (The actual fictional name is Maximum Studios.) Warner Bros. Discovery, HBO’s parent, is Marvel’s bitter rival in the superhero field, so you might expect the show to offer an extra measure of savage mockery.But the eight half-hour episodes (premiering Sunday), while nominally dark and sardonic, do not have anything approaching the visceral pleasure that the genre they are spoofing can often provide. “When you make movies like this, but good, there’s nothing better,” the beleaguered first assistant director, Daniel (Himesh Patel), says in one of the show’s few moments of genuine feeling.The movie-within-the-show, a second-tier effort called “Tecto,” is clearly not one of the good ones. “The Franchise,” somewhat perversely, operates on the same tepid, clichéd level as the production it is supposed to be mocking.More could have been expected. The show’s creator, Jon Brown, wrote for “Succession” and, way back, for the barbed British comedy “Misfits.” And the list of executive producers includes the accomplished veterans Sam Mendes and Armando Iannucci. Mendes directed the first episode, and his touch can be seen in an early three-minute shot that follows Daniel as he walks through the cavernous set of “Tecto,” putting out fires (and encountering many of the other central characters). It is a virtuoso moment that nothing else in the show approaches.Iannucci, of course, is a specialist in the specific sort of satire “The Franchise” undertakes: the acidic depiction of institutional vanity, insecurity and ineptitude. But the vitality of Iannucci creations like “The Thick of It” and “Veep” is exactly what the new show is missing. It has more in common with Iannucci’s most recent show, the scattered outer-space cruise comedy “Avenue 5,” on which Brown worked as a writer and producer. (The sinking-ship metaphor that underlies “The Franchise” was explicit in “Avenue 5.”)“The Franchise” leapfrogs through the 117-day shoot of “Tecto,” named for its hero, an off-brand Thor (Billy Magnussen) who wields an invisible jackhammer. Each episode finds Daniel and the power-hungry third assistant director, Dag (Lolly Adefope), confronting crises drawn from the musty archives of the Hollywood backstage comedy and then tweaked to fit the world of contemporary big-money filmmaking. Bowing to commercial reality means product-placing Chinese tractors; last-minute rewrites are driven by protests over the studio’s “woman problem”; a temperamental director melts down because Martin Scorsese accuses the studio of killing cinema.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      In ‘La Máquina,’ Gael García Bernal and Diego Luna Get a Rematch

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      Sitting cross-legged on the floor at the Château Marmont in Los Angeles, Gael García Bernal stared with admiration at his lifelong friend and fellow actor Diego Luna. Just the night before, they had walked onstage at the Peacock Theater and, as expected, presented the Emmy for best director of a limited or anthology series or TV movie.Less expected, in a move they said wasn’t preapproved, they had given the award in Spanish.“We were just told that the Emmys are losing a big chunk of its audience,” García Bernal told the crowd and the nearly 7 million live TV viewers. “So me and Diego decided to do something to push the limits, to erase the boundaries.”Luna saluted the United States’ more than 50 million Spanish speakers. Then the award went to Steven Zaillian of “Ripley” — for “mejor dirección” in a limited series.Whatever its provocative qualities — in our interview, García Bernal cited Donald Trump’s divisive immigration rhetoric as motivation — the speech was also a canny bit of promotion. As much of the ensuing coverage noted, the two actors have their own limited series coming on Oct. 9, “La Máquina,” Hulu’s first original Spanish-language production.In “La Máquina,” Luna, left, plays the spray-tanned, plastic-surgery obsessed manager of a boxer played by García Bernal (with Eiza González as the boxer’s ex-wife).Cristian Salvatierra/HuluFriends since they were children in Mexico City, García Bernal, 45, and Luna, 44, are indelibly linked, not least because of their breakout roles in Alfonso Cuarón’s breakout film, “Y Tu Mamá También” (2002), in which they played best pals from different social classes on a life-changing road trip.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Late Night Heaps Scorn on Trump’s Latest Defense

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      Jimmy Kimmel said Donald Trump was “partially right” in denying interference in the 2020 election: “He tried to rig the election and failed to rig the election.’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.‘Rignoramus’A newly unsealed court filing in the special counsel’s case against former President Donald Trump detailed attempts at election interference in 2020. Trump refuted those claims, saying that it wasn’t he who rigged the election, “they did.”“He’s actually right about some of that; he didn’t rig the election. He tried to rig the election and failed to rig the election. He’s a rignoramus, is what he is.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“What a baby. That’s just as bad as Jeffrey Dahmer’s famous defense, ‘No, you ate my neighbor!’” — STEPHEN COLBERT“I know this is going to sound controversial, but I’m just going to come out and say it: I think Trump might have done something wrong.” — JIMMY FALLONThe Punchiest Punchlines (October Surprise Edition)“A federal judge yesterday unsealed a 165-page motion detailing evidence against former President Trump in his election interference case. OK, well, there’s only one way he’s reading 165 pages, and it’s at the Cheesecake Factory.” — SETH MEYERS“According to the filing, Trump told the staff that he was going to declare victory regardless of the results. Vladimir Putin heard and was like, ‘[imitating Putin] My little man is growing up.’” — JIMMY FALLON“The news of Trump’s alleged crimes are being called an ‘October surprise,’ while most Americans were like, ‘Um, we’re not that surprised.’” — JIMMY FALLONThe Bits Worth WatchingDemi Lovato and Jimmy Fallon shrieked their way through a new haunted house experience, “Tonightmares.”Also, Check This OutSaoirse Ronan in “The Outrun.”Martin Scott Powell/Sony Pictures ClassicsSaoirse Ronan delivers another stunning performance as an alcoholic desperately clinging to sobriety. More

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      When John Amos Had Enough of the ‘Good Times’

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      The actor, whose death was announced this week, made it known he didn’t like the direction the hit show was going. His character was then killed off.It was the role John Amos had worked toward his entire acting career. For three seasons, to many accolades and impressive ratings, Amos played the patriarch, James Evans Sr., on “Good Times.” The character was hardworking, earnest and serious-minded — traits largely unseen in Black television characters up to that point in the mid-1970s. And “Good Times” was a hit, part of a string of sitcom successes from the executive producer Norman Lear.But suddenly, Amos was no longer a part of the cast. The groundbreaking show explained the absence to viewers by having Evans die in an offscreen car accident while preparing the family for a move to Mississippi.“Damn! Damn! Damn!” the actress Esther Rolle, who played Evans’s wife, Florida, famously lamented while mourning his death.“Good Times” rumbled on for another three seasons without its fatherly anchor, and with diminishing viewership each season until it concluded in 1979.The actor’s actual death, at the age of 84, was made public on Tuesday although he died in August. The lag between his death and the announcement has widened a longstanding rift between his two children, Shannon Amos and K.C. Amos His daughter, Shannon, said that she had only learned of her father’s death through media reports.“This tragic news has left us in shock and heartache,” Shannon Amos said in a statement attributed to her, close friends and family members. “We are deeply concerned that our father may have been neglected and isolated during his final days.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      ‘Where’s Wanda?’ Is a Charming German Dramedy

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      A small-town European murder mystery but more stylish than most — and less miserable.Heike Makatsch and Axel Stein in a scene from “Where’s Wanda?”Apple TV+The Apple TV+ series “Where’s Wanda?” (in German, with subtitles, or dubbed) is another “suburbanites find themselves by committing mild crimes” dramedy, where the comfortably domestic are suddenly in close contact with the Bad Guys and discovering a bit about themselves along the way.But “Wanda” is set atilt because Carlotta (Heike Makatsch) and Dedo (Axel Stein) aren’t trying to make bank in the drug trade or expose white-collar crime. They’re searching for their missing teenage daughter, Wanda (Lea Drinda), and if they have to surveil every house in the neighborhood to achieve what the police can’t, they’ll do it.“Wanda” nails this tonal balance, braiding fish-out-of-water criminal ineptitude and the sexy warmth of a marital adventure with anguish and helplessness. This is not another miserable, high-end missing child drama set among the weepy wealthy. It’s a colorful, quirky caper.Carlotta and Dedo convince themselves they have 100 days to find their daughter, which sets the timer ticking. Their investigative skills are minimal, and the strategies they come up with don’t seem particularly effective — but that’s sort of the point. Of course they have no idea what they’re doing, and of course in a moment of crisis one’s creative problem-solving strategies would suffer. They think Wanda has to be nearby, in someone’s house, and with the eventual help of their son, Ole (Leo Simon), they wind up putting spy cams in their neighbors’ houses, hoping to hear or see something helpful.What they discover is mostly that their neighbors are all odd ducks, which they sort of knew already. Carlotta and Dedo fixate on other couples’ squabbles and compatibility, caving to the allure of voyeurism and jealousy. Even worse, everyone seems to be conducting business as usual — they just get to live their regular lives while Wanda’s family is turned inside out.Part of what keeps the show from being droopy and gloomy is its overt stylishness. Every dang top is textured and sculptural, each house an angular dream. Funky glass jugs and enviable art chairs fill each room, and everyone drives distinctive retro cars. Insular small towns are often murder bogs on European shows, but the citizens of Sundersheim are mostly the goofy kind of weirdos.There are eight episodes, all made available to critics in advance, and as with many contemporary mystery series, it could probably stand to be six. So far two are streaming, and new episodes arrive on Wednesdays. More

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      ‘The Rings of Power’ Season 2 Finale Recap: Highs and Lows

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      The second season ended in a whirlwind of fire and steel, darkness and light, capping an eight-episode run with many ups and downs.Season 2, Episode 8: ‘Shadow and Flame’If you were to describe “The Rings of Power” in the simplest terms, the show would sound like a parody of prequels. An epic TV drama about how the rings in “The Lord of the Rings” were forged? What’s next? A detailed, multi-season history of Batman’s utility belt?So give the “Rings” creators J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay credit for finding a purpose for their premise — beyond trying to squeeze more money out of a popular I.P., that is. Through two seasons now, they have been telling a complex story about what Middle-earth was like in the years when Sauron was consolidating power. And they have been and exploring how tantalizing and corrupting Sauron’s vision could be to the elves, dwarves, orcs, halflings, wizards and humans within his immediate reach. It’s a story similar to the one J.R.R. Tolkien told in “The Lord of the Rings” but set in a time when Sauron could still perhaps have been bested.Like Season 1, the second season has been a shaky ride, hampered by characters and story lines that never fully popped. But the underlying concept for the series remains strong; and the final two episodes of Season 2 are, on the whole, exciting television.Here are five takeaways and observations from the season finale:Darkness in NumenorIf “Rings of Power” is renewed for a third season — which seems likely, given how much has been invested in it — Numenor will probably have a major role to play in the next phase of the story. I won’t spoil what might happen, assuming that the writers continue to follow Middle-earth history as laid out by Tolkien. But let it suffice to say that Sauron’s plans very much include the island kingdom; and the schism between Pharazon and Elendil will become one of humankind’s defining divisions. This place matters. These people matter.Anyway, I hope you repeated those thoughts to yourself like a mantra as you were saying goodbye to Numenor for this season — after another round of middling political melodrama, of course. The main takeaway from the Numenor scenes this week was that Miriel’s showdown with the Sea Worm did nothing to slow Pharazon’s rise. Instead he has declared the Valar’s “faithful” to be traitors, in league with Sauron.In response, Miriel commands Elendil to leave her behind as a martyr to the cause and to regroup with the faithful outside the city; and she gifts him with a significant old sword called Narsil (“the white flame”). This exodus also gets Elendil away from his daughter, Earien, who now feels terrible about what her loyalty to Pharazon has wrought. (There is a lot of “maybe our great leader isn’t so great” hindsight in “The Lord of the Rings” stories, isn’t there?)We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More