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    ‘Severance’ and ‘The White Lotus’ Dominate the Emmy Acting Nominations

    The buzzy series are the early favorites in the drama category.TV buzz doesn’t always translate into Emmy nominations. But it did this year for “Severance” and “The White Lotus,” which have amassed rabid fandoms that gather online and in real life to dissect and celebrate the dramas.The second season of “Severance,” the mind-bending sci-fi workplace thriller on Apple TV+, earned 27 nominations on Tuesday morning, the most of any show this year. Nine of those went to its cast, including Adam Scott and Britt Lower for best lead actor and actress in a drama.Supporting nods went to Patricia Arquette, Zach Cherry, Tramell Tillman and John Turturro. Guest acting nominations went to Jane Alexander, Gwendoline Christie and Merritt Wever.Season 3 of “The White Lotus,” the darkly comic HBO drama that skewers self-absorbed luxury travelers, earned 23 nominations, including eight for its cast, which is mostly refreshed with each new season. This year, Carrie Coon, Walton Goggins, Jason Isaacs, Parker Posey, Sam Rockwell, Natasha Rothwell and Aimee Lou Wood received supporting acting nominations. Scott Glenn was nominated for best guest actor in a drama.“Severance” and “The White Lotus” were both nominated for best drama. The other contenders are: “Andor,” “The Diplomat,” “The Last of Us,” “Paradise,” “The Pitt” and “Slow Horses.”Originally considered a limited series, “The White Lotus” cleaned up in that category at the 2022 Emmys, winning 10 awards, more than any other show, including best limited series. The show moved to the drama category for its second season.“Severance” and “The White Lotus” were not eligible for Emmys in 2024, and in previous years, they were mostly thwarted in the drama category by the former juggernaut “Succession.” With that series over and last year’s record-breaking drama “Shogun” out of contention this time around, there’s a good chance “Severance” and “The White Lotus” will be duking it out for the night’s biggest haul.The 77th Primetime Emmy Awards will be held on Sept. 14 in Los Angeles. CBS will broadcast the ceremony. More

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    2025 Emmy Award Nominations: First Nominees Are Announced

    The nominees for best talk show and reality series were named, with the slates for the other categories set to be announced later this morning at the Television Academy’s Los Angeles headquarters.The Television Academy began unveiling nominations for the 77th Emmy Awards on Tuesday morning, announcing the contenders for best talk show and reality series. The academy will announce the other categories starting at 11:30 a.m. Eastern.Shows hosted by Jon Stewart (“The Daily Show”), Stephen Colbert (“The Late Show”) and Jimmy Kimmel (“Jimmy Kimmel Live”) will compete for best talk series. Only three series were nominated this year, leaving “Late Night With Seth Meyers” and “Everybody’s Live With John Mulaney” out in the cold.Late-night TV talk series are struggling these days, with ratings, advertising revenue and even the number of shows dropping fast. In 2019, there were as many as six nominees for best talk show, but that’s back when there were many more series up for eligibility.For best competition reality series, “The Traitors,” the Alan Cumming-hosted reality show on Peacock, was nominated once again. The show, which won last year, will face off against “RuPaul’s Drag Race” as well as “Survivor,” “Top Chef” and “The Amazing Race.”Some of the scripted shows considered strong contenders for the biggest categories — like best drama, comedy and limited series, to be announced later — include “Severance,” “The Pitt,” “Adolescence” and “The Studio.”TV series eligible for Emmy consideration had to premiere between June 2024 and May 2025. The prime-time Emmys ceremony will be held on Sept. 14.The nominations are being announced at a moment when the entertainment industry is still locked in a contraction. Media companies are investing much less into new programming than they did during the so-called Peak TV era of a few years ago. The industry is also still recovering from a pair of strikes that effectively shut down the American entertainment world for much of 2023.The number of programs that TV studios submitted for Emmy consideration in the best drama, comedy, limited series and TV movie categories declined modestly from last year — at 267 series overall, compared with 271. But that also represents a 33 percent decline from the number of shows submitted in 2022, when the Peak TV era was thriving.Drama submissions showed signs of life during the latest eligibility period, increasing 17 percent compared with the period a year earlier. The number of comedies fell by 5 percent, and limited series submissions fell off a cliff, declining by a third.Nearly 100 Emmys, many of them in technical categories, will be given out at a pair of ceremonies in early September. The biggest awards — including best drama, comedy and limited series, and all of the major acting categories — will be unveiled during the live prime-time ceremony on CBS in September. The ceremony will be hosted by the comedian Nate Bargatze.This is a developing story. Check back for updates and the list of nominees. More

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    Theater to Stream: Morgan Freeman in ‘Gospel at Colonus’ and More

    Can’t catch the live revival of this retelling of “Oedipus at Colonus”? Stream a version with Freeman and Robert Earl Jones, or four more stage-related shows.‘The Gospel at Colonus’Stream it on YouTube.“The Gospel of Colonus” has built a fervent following over the past four decades or so — its number “How Shall I See You Through My Tears?” even popped up in the cult-favorite movie “Camp” — so expectations are running high for the new revival at Little Island in Manhattan (through July 26). Those not in New York or who couldn’t get a ticket to Shayok Misha Chowdhury’s new staging can check out a production from the American Music Theater Festival in Philadelphia, from 1985, that’s streaming on YouTube. This superlative take on Lee Breuer and Bob Telson’s gospel retelling of Sophocles’ tragedy of Oedipus boasts a powerhouse cast, including Morgan Freeman, Jevetta Steele and Robert Earl Jones (James’s father), who went on to Broadway with the show three years later. The score, which features some of the funkiest, most rousing numbers ever heard in a musical, surges to vivid life. Tip: Blast this at full volume.‘Frozen: The Hit Broadway Musical’Stream it on Disney+.The stage version of the animated megahit movie “Frozen” played just two years on Broadway (a short spell by Disney standards), but this newly available capture of the West End production may well kick-start renewed interest in the United States. For the stage version, Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez expanded their score with a dozen new songs — my favorite is the catchy duet “What Do You Know About Love?” between Anna (Laura Dawkes) and Kristoff (Jammy Kasongo). The movie and the show share a bone structure, but they are different animals, with the show able to spend more time on the complicated bond between the sisters, Anna and Elsa (an excellent Samantha Barks). Michael Grandage’s staging captures the story’s supernatural side well, and, let’s face it: We’re all going to watch Elsa’s eye-popping costume change during “Let It Go” a million times, wondering how they pulled it off.Krista Apple in “A Summer Day” by Jon Fosse.Johanna Austin, AustinArt.org‘A Summer Day’Stream it from the Wilma Theater.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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    Seth Meyers Is Amused by MAGA’s Epstein Infighting

    President Trump’s most conspiracy-minded supporters can’t believe he wants them to forget about the Jeffrey Epstein conspiracy theories.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.A MAGA MeltdownSome fans of President Trump have felt betrayed since he dismissed the conspiracy theories about Jeffrey Epstein’s death in a lengthy social media post, basically telling them to move on.On Monday, Seth Meyers called the MAGA infighting “a monster of their own making.”“They made the Epstein conspiracy a center of their worldview, despite the fact that Trump and Epstein were photographed together, and partied together, and Trump called Epstein a terrific guy, and Epstein called Trump his closest friend of 10 years.” — SETH MEYERS“In a post over the weekend on Truth Social, President Trump told his supporters to ‘not waste time and energy on Jeffrey Epstein, somebody that nobody cares about.’ Yeah, nobody cares about him! The guy only had, like, one friend.” — SETH MEYERS, referring to Trump“How dare you fixate on a story from the past, something Donald Trump has never done? He’s focused on the issues of today, not the 2020 election, or the Russia investigation, or Hunter Biden’s laptop, or Hillary Clinton’s email server, Joe Biden’s autopen, or Rosie O’Donnell making fun of him, or his ratings for ‘The Apprentice,’ which ended in 2015, or deceased golfer Arnold Palmer’s unusually large penis, which, by the way, we have yet to see definitive proof of.” — SETH MEYERS“That’s right, President Trump reprimanded his supporters on Truth Social for focusing on the Epstein files — and maybe some other stuff. I only made it through Chapter 1.” — SETH MEYERS“This is the most Trump’s written since Hooters got on Yelp. Look, I don’t know if Jeffrey Epstein killed himself, but I’m sure, after this, some of Trump’s advisers did.” — SETH MEYERSThe Punchiest Punchlines (Flat Earth Edition)“Oh, here’s a sentence I’ve never said: There’s some fun news involving Jeffrey Epstein.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“Wait a second. If it was sitting on Pam Bondi’s desk in February and now it doesn’t exist, that can only mean one thing: Someone stole Pam Bondi’s desk.” — STEPHEN COLBERT, referring to Epstein’s supposed client list“Yeah, everyone from Trump supporters to Democrats are asking to see the Epstein files, and everyone who isn’t is definitely in those files.” — JIMMY FALLON“You can’t take this away from your base — that is MAGA’s favorite conspiracy. What are we going to find out next? That immigrants aren’t eating cats? That if you sail to the horizon, you don’t fall off the world?” — STEPHEN COLBERTThe Bits Worth WatchingElmo stopped by “The Daily Show” to explain his recent out-of-character X posts to Jon Stewart.What We’re Excited About on Tuesday NightThe “Too Much” star Megan Stalter will appear on “The Late Show.”Also, Check This OutThe famous shower scene from “Psycho.” With so many cuts, you can only see a piece of the action.Peek behind the curtain to see what made Alfred Hitchcock the master of suspense. More

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    When Americans Agreed on History, for 60 Seconds

    Fifty years ago on CBS, the revolution was televised, if only for a minute at a time.From July 4, 1974, through the end of 1976, “Bicentennial Minutes” took 60 seconds in prime time between some of TV’s most popular shows to have celebrities, artists and politicians tell viewers what had happened 200 years ago that day, in the early years of the American Revolution.Charlton Heston kicked off the series, backed by a giant American flag, telling of George Washington’s worries after the Boston Tea Party. Representative Bella Abzug, in her trademark hat and thick New York accent, related a British man-o-war attack on the city’s waterfront. Lucille Ball described “corn-shucking parties” in colonial New England. (Not every day in history can be equally action-packed.) In a twist on the CBS anchor Walter Cronkite’s famous sign-off, each one concluded, “That’s the way it was.”The series was a simple act of civic education — earnest, unflashy, a little corny and mockable. It was not big on geopolitics, gray areas or the moral failings of the home-team rebels. Writing in The New York Times, the TV critic John J. O’Connor called its early episodes “so insubstantial as to be almost meaningless.” (The series nonetheless won an Emmy in 1976.)But a half-century later, as America prepares to celebrate a bigger mouthful of a birthday, the Semiquincentennial, the “Bicentennial Minutes” series is educational in a different way. It’s a time capsule of 20th-century mass civics, a reminder of how — for good, bad or mediocre — TV once formed a kind of public square that is probably irretrievable.Clockwise, from top left: President Gerald Ford, the actress Dina Merrill, Senator Joseph R. Biden and the activist Gloria Steinem in the 1970s educational shorts “Bicentennial Minutes.” CBS, via IMBDPro“Bicentennial Minutes,” like many American inventions, was a creation of commerce. Shell Oil bought each minute of airtime for two years, its logo ending each star-spangled broadcast. (Other sponsors took over after July 4, 1976.) It was a crossover ad for gasoline and America.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 Summer I Turned Pretty,’ Plus 6 Things to Watch on TV This Week

    The Prime Video show returns with its third and final season — and maybe an answer for Lola’s love triangle.Teenage DreamsTeam Jeremiah? Team Conrad? I’m team “date someone outside the family who aren’t brothers,” but maybe that’s just me. “The Summer I Turned Pretty” follows Lola Tung as Belly, who navigates high school, then college. But the central plot is the will-they-won’t-they relationships between her and two brothers, Jeremiah (Gavin Casalegno) and Conrad (Christopher Briney). Based on the young adult novels of the same name by Jenny Han, the series returns with its third and final season, dropping one episode each week — which means we won’t find out whom Belly ultimately chooses until mid-September. Han, who also serves as the creator, co-showrunner, and an executive producer on the show, has teased that the ending of the show might differ from the book’s, so only time will tell. Streaming Wednesday on Prime Video.Musical SpecialsMiley Cyrus at the premiere of “Something Beautiful.”Dia Dipasupil/Getty Images for Tribeca FestivaMiley Cyrus’s visual album movie “Something Beautiful,” which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival last month, is now coming to streaming. The film, which has the same name as her new album, features 13 songs with their corresponding visuals, all based on a world of fantasy. Streaming Wednesday on Disney+.Charlie Brown, Snoopy and the rest of the gang seem to be quite busy this summer — they’re on Coach bags, Uniqlo T-shirts, an entire Kith collection, and now they have to save their favorite summer camp. In “Snoopy Presents: A Summer Musical,” the first musical in the franchise in over 30 years, the group is headed on an outdoorsy adventure: Sally is nervous as a first-time camper, Snoopy and Woodstock go on a treasure hunt, and Charlie Brown works to keep their beloved camp’s doors open. Streaming Friday on Apple TV+.Missing PersonsIn 1995, Jodi Huisentruit was 27 years old and working as an anchor for the local news station, KIMT, in Mason City, Iowa. On the morning of June 27, she didn’t show up for work, and when the police later went to her apartment to investigate, they found some of her personal items — including car keys and red high heels — strewn near her car in the complex’s parking lot. She was never found and, in 2001, was declared legally dead. The new three-part documentary series “Her Last Broadcast: The Abduction of Jodi Huisentruit” features interviews with family members, detectives, witnesses and friends in an attempt to figure out what happened. Streaming Tuesday on Hulu.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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    ‘Love Island USA’: The Finale and Season’s Biggest Moments

    After the finale, here are the big moments and takeaways for the seventh season of the show.After a dramatic six weeks of “Love Island USA” that generated constant headlines and social media controversy, the seventh season wrapped up on Sunday night with a lukewarm outlook on love.The show was a pop culture constant this summer, with Peacock airing six new episodes per week. It became one of the most streamed programs, and its popularity was also reflected in the millions of votes that viewers cast to try to keep their favorite islanders in the villa on the Pacific island of Fiji.Just because the season is wrapped doesn’t mean that “Love Island” will be off our screens for long. Far from it. The show’s host, Ariana Madix, will be joined by Andy Cohen for a reunion special on Aug. 25. And on Sept. 16, Peacock will begin airing “Love Island Games,” a spinoff coming back for its second season. It features contestants from different iterations of the show — U.S., U.K., Australia and others — as they compete in challenges while also trying to date.After the finale, here are the big moments and takeaways for the show’s seventh season.A finale usually celebrating love instead featured a breakup.Though “Love Island” seasons are often unpredictable, finales always tend to follow a set formula. The four final couples go on elaborate dates, film slow-motion make-out scenes and talk about how they will approach their relationship outside the villa.And then, based on viewer votes, a winning couple is crowned.On Sunday night’s finale, most things went according to that blueprint — until the date between Huda Mustafa, 24, and Chris Seeley, 27. Instead of sharing kind words and dreaming about the future, they broke up and decided to go “no-contact” after leaving the villa — a franchise first. While other couples literally rode off into the sunset, Mustafa downed a glass of champagne before walking away from dinner by herself. In the past, couples have broken up shortly after the finale wrapped but never during.Because fans’ votes were locked in before the finale, the noncouple of Mustafa and Seeley took home third place, ahead of Iris Kendall and Pepe Garcia.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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    How ‘Superman’ Star David Corenswet Won the Role

    Even before he became the linchpin of a new superhero universe, David Corenswet took great pride in being reliable.“I don’t know whether I’m a good actor in the sense that I see people onscreen and think, that’s a good actor,” he said. But what he does know, and what he aspires to, is that people can count on him. It’s a reputation Corenswet has cultivated since he was a child actor, when he once delivered his lines so efficiently during a commercial shoot that the crew got to go home early.“I want people to feel that every day that my name is on the call sheet is going to be a better day — a little bit of an easier day, and maybe a more fulfilling day,” he said.Now, Corenswet’s reliability will be put to its ultimate test. The 32-year-old is playing the iconic title character in James Gunn’s “Superman” reboot, which arrives in theaters this weekend burdened by big expectations. It’s the first feature from the newly rebranded DC Studios, which previously managed some successes (“Wonder Woman,” “Man of Steel”) and a passel of bruising bombs (“Justice League,” “The Flash,” “Shazam: Fury of the Gods”) in its efforts to keep pace with Marvel’s highly lucrative cinematic universe.David Corenswet wasn’t immediately sold on the role of Superman: “When the easy conversation is so exciting, I want to have the hard conversation: Let’s talk about what could go wrong.”These days, though, even Marvel is facing headwinds: In a market saturated with comic-book content, audiences don’t always show up for cape-and-tights spectaculars the way they used to. Warner Bros. is betting that Gunn, who was hired to co-lead DC Studios after directing Marvel’s “Guardians of the Galaxy” trilogy, can restore the luster to its superhero shingle. But the future of the DC slate, including next year’s “Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow,” hinges largely on just how high “Superman” can soar.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