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      Jon Stewart Thinks Congress Is Basically Pro Wrestling Without the Fun

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      The “Daily Show” host said the drama around President Trump’s big policy bill was about as authentic as a World Wrestling Entertainment match.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.ShenanigansPresident Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” became law last week while most late-night hosts were off for the holiday.On Monday’s “Daily Show,” Jon Stewart dismissed the drama around the domestic policy bill as Washington theater. He accused lawmakers and the news media of “fake narrative shenanigans and hypocrisies and fecklessness,” comparing the Republicans who denounced the bill (before voting for it) to pro wrestlers: “The only difference between that vote and wrestling is that wrestling is fun and takes actual courage.”“Ooh! It surprisingly got through! Like every other [expletive] thing Trump has wanted, from Qatari jet bribes to Epstein file secrecy to extorted media conglomerate protection money.” — JON STEWART“Now, there’s a lot of ways that we can walk through this tax and spending bill and how this bill encapsulates a ton of general Washington [expletive]. For instance, political hypocrisy. This bill was 970 pages. They jammed it through with barely any time to read it.” — JON STEWART“When it happens to them, it’s ‘shoving it down their throat. It’s an outrage!’ But when it’s for Republicans, it’s just, ‘Come on, America, relax the glottis, breathe through your nose.’” — JON STEWARTThe Punchiest Punchlines (July 4 Edition)“Joe Biden was seen struggling to set up a beach chair on July 4 weekend. It’s not his fault — he’s not used to a seat without a hole in the center of it.” — GREG GUTFELD“On the Fourth of July, Kamala Harris posted ‘Things are probably going to get worse before they get better.’ That’s also how she starts her speaking engagements.” — GREG GUTFELD“Yes, U.F.C., which stands for ‘U [Expletive] Crazy’?” — ANTHONY ANDERSON, guest host of “Jimmy Kimmel Live,” on Trump wanting a July 4 U.F.C. fight at the White House next year“I actually agree with the president. There should be a U.F.C. fight at the White House, between Donald Trump and Elon Musk. Right? It’ll be Golf Clubber Lang versus the Ketamine Machine.” — ANTHONY ANDERSONThe Bits Worth WatchingBlack Americans were asked to share the whitest thing about themselves on Monday’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live.”What We’re Excited About on Tuesday NightCedric the Entertainer will reunite with Anthony Anderson on “Jimmy Kimmel Live.”Also, Check This OutOzzy Osbourne onstage in Birmingham, England, on Saturday.Ross HalfinAt 76, Ozzy Osbourne officially retired from Black Sabbath with a farewell performance in his hometown. More

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      How a Show About Truly Terrible People Became the Defining American Sitcom

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      As one of my last acts as a suburban teenager, about two weeks before moving out of my parents’ house for college, I watched the pilot episode of “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” in my family’s living room. This would have been Aug. 4, 2005, a Thursday. A comedy about a group of malignant narcissists who own a trashy bar in Philly called Paddy’s, “Always Sunny” was, from Day 1, offensive even for an era in which offensiveness was so ingrained in our culture that it went largely unremarked upon. George W. Bush was seven months into his second term as president. You could still smoke in most bars. If you watched cable TV past 9 p.m., you would reliably see long infomercials for direct-to-video series like “Girls Gone Wild” or “Bumfights,” both of which were somehow less offensive than “Entourage,” then considered one of the smarter shows on HBO.Listen to this article, read by Robert PetkoffMy high school friends and I had all just received .edu email addresses from the colleges that accepted us, which was a prerequisite for joining a new social network called The Facebook, a website founded only the year before by a computer-science major in his Harvard dorm room; he made it shortly after creating another website, Facemash, a campuswide ranking system of female coeds by order of attractiveness. In a parking lot at NBC’s studios in Los Angeles, Donald Trump, who was the host of a reality show on that network, spoke into a hot mic during an interview with a host from “Access Hollywood” — who was George W. Bush’s first cousin — and remarked upon how he treats the women he encounters: “I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything.”You can do anything. That was just how it was then. “Always Sunny” stood out to me immediately as the greatest sendup of a time when the bad guys kept getting away with it and the ignorance of an American culture that was happy to let them. Being so young, I didn’t know at the time that this would remain an evergreen topic 20 years later. Nor did I realize that “Always Sunny” would become — as it begins its 17th season this month on FX — the longest-running live-action sitcom ever to appear on television by a fairly wide margin.Our very method of viewing TV has changed immeasurably and continually over this period. Being a chronic “Always Sunny” watcher, I can track time, in a big-picture sort of way, by recalling how I viewed certain seasons of the show — basic cable, DVD box set, pirated online, streaming. And I’ll forever remember the spring of 2025 as the year I interviewed the show’s main cast over a series of Zoom calls and watched its 17th season in an early-look unfinished copy somewhere deep in the bowels of the Disney corporation’s online library. Through everything — mergers, acquisitions, wars, a life-altering pandemic, seismic technological and ideological shifts — the show remained itself, on the same network, using the same sets and writers and production staff, with the same actors doing the same characters.The series creator, Rob McElhenney, plays Mac, a closeted and deeply insecure man who serves, poorly and unnecessarily (because there are rarely any customers), as the bar’s bouncer. Last month, McElhenney legally changed his last name to Mac. But Charlie Day has always shared a name with his character, Charlie, the bar’s janitor, an illiterate stalker who suffers from what the DSM-5 has labeled pica, or the compulsive consumption of inedible objects, especially viscous chemicals like paint, bleach and suntan lotion. Working behind the bar are Dee (Kaitlin Olson), a failed actress with no self-worth, and her fraternal twin, Dennis (Glenn Howerton), who is the closest thing the group has to a true leader but is also a Ted Bundy-esque tyrant who keeps a kill kit in a hidden compartment in the trunk of his car. Worst of all is Dennis and Dee’s father, Frank, played against type by national treasure Danny DeVito, who is a little bit of all of the above. In his first appearance on the show, as part of a story line in which all members of the main cast fake being disabled, each for a distinctly idiotic reason, he pretends to be paraplegic in order to receive special treatment from the dancers at a strip club.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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      ‘Too Much,’ Plus 7 Things on TV this Week

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      Lena Dunham’s new rom-com comes to Netflix, and two reality shows air.Between streaming and cable, there is a seemingly endless variety of things to watch. Here is a selection of TV shows and specials that are airing or streaming this week, July 7- 13. Details and times are subject to change.Fresh starts.For many millennial women, despite the fact that the finale of “Girls” aired in 2017, it’s never been too far out of the cultural zeitgeist. But now there will be fresh characters, plots and content to analyze with Lena Dunham’s new show, “Too Much.” The story follows Jessica (Megan Stalter), who, fresh off a breakup, moves to London for a new job and ends up falling for Felix (Will Sharpe), an indie musician who has seemingly countless red flags (I am having Adam flashbacks). The story is loosely based on Dunham’s real life — after working in Britain and meeting her now-husband, Luis Felber, there, she said she wanted to examine American expats’ fantasy of London versus the actual experience. All 10 episodes will be released at once. Streaming Thursday on Netflix.Kat Sadler, left, and Lizzie Davidson in “Such Brave Girls.”Courtesy of HuluThe real-life sisters Kat Sadler and Lizzie Davidson created a British sitcom in which they star as … sisters. The first season of “Such Brave Girls” tells the story of a mother, Deb (Louise Brealey), and her two daughters, Josie (Sadler) and Billie (Davidson), who navigate life after their father (Deb’s husband) leaves. In the second season, coming out this week, no topic is off limits — depression, medication, sex and affairs are all on the table. Streaming Monday on Hulu.Does he love me? Does he love me not?After a two-year hiatus, “Bachelor in Paradise” is back this week. The show features former contestants who head to a beach, this time in Costa Rica, for a second (or third, or fourth) chance at love. This season, the contestants from “The Golden Bachelor” franchise are also joining, but it’s unclear if there will be intergenerational dating. Jesse Palmer will serve as host, Wells Adams is returning as the bartender and for a new addition, the former “Bachelorette” Hannah Brown is taking on a role entitled “paradise relations,” in which she will help with rose ceremonies. Monday at 8 p.m. on ABC and streaming the next day 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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      Julian McMahon, ‘Nip/Tuck’ and ‘Fantastic Four’ Star, Dies at 56

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      He played the half-human, half-demon Cole Turner in the WB supernatural series “Charmed” and a self-destructive playboy in the FX series “Nip/Tuck.”Julian McMahon, an actor known for playing the promiscuous plastic surgeon Dr. Christian Troy in the television show “Nip/Tuck,” as well as the egoistical evil scientist Dr. Victor Von Doom in two “Fantastic Four” movies, died on Wednesday in Florida. He was 56.His death was confirmed by his wife, Kelly McMahon, who said in a statement that the cause was cancer.Mr. McMahon began acting in Australian soap operas in the early 1990s and first found success in the United States on the NBC soap opera “Another World” in 1993.After switching to prime-time television, his breakout role came when he played the half-human, half-demon Cole Turner on three seasons of the WB supernatural series “Charmed.”Mr. McMahon achieved leading-man status when he began starring in the FX series “Nip/Tuck” in 2003.His performance as Dr. Christian Troy, a self-destructive playboy, contrasted with Dr. Troy’s strait-laced best friend, Dr. Sean McNamara, played by Dylan Walsh.On the show, which ran from 2003-10, the pair ran a plastic surgery practice, first in Miami and later in Los Angeles, and frequently sparred over the morality of their profession.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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      ‘Dexter’ Has Been Resurrected Again. He Has Company.

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      Networks are releasing fewer scripted series than they did several years ago, but brand extension mania has only intensified in franchises like “Dexter,” “Yellowstone” and “Power.”On a morning in mid-May, inside a trailer at the base of a Long Island hotel, Kat St. John, a set costumer, attacked a gray collared shirt with a spray bottle. The shirt was bloodstained. Between shooting days, the stains had dried.“We have to add new blood,” she said as she sprayed.This was on the set of “Dexter: Resurrection,” the newest iteration of the Showtime franchise surrounding Dexter Morgan, the vigilante serial killer played by Michael C. Hall. The original series debuted in 2006 and ended in 2013. A reprise, “Dexter: New Blood,” premiered in 2021. A prequel, “Dexter: Original Sin,” followed in 2024 and has since been renewed.Though “New Blood” seemingly left Dexter bleeding out in the snow, “Resurrection,” which begins July 11 on Paramount+ with Showtime, returns Hall’s killer to TV. His survival is a miracle, but given television’s suffocating embrace of reboots, revivals, sequels, prequels and TV movies, also not really a surprise. This trend isn’t new: The New York Times’s James Poniewozik surveyed it back in 2018, arguing that with the expanding volume of TV, “it’s a battle for anything new to get attention.”But while that proliferation has since slowed, with networks and streamers now releasing fewer scripted series than they did several years ago, brand extension mania has only intensified. Until fairly recently, franchises were the small screen purview of procedurals, unscripted series, “Star Trek” and the occasional Norman Lear sitcom. Now the impulse toward world building extends to even prestige or prestige-adjacent dramas.”Dexter,” with Lauren Velez and Hall, ran from 2006-13 on Showtime. Early seasons were acclaimed but the ending was widely criticized.Dan Littlejohn/ShowtimeIt is easy enough to imagine a “Dexter” of past decades justifying a spinoff or a remake. But not three of them. And three isn’t even a lot anymore.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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      ‘And Just Like That …’ Season 3, Episode 6 Recap: The Dams Break

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      Charlotte decides she can no longer keep a secret. Tensions between Aidan and his ex erupt, just not the way Carrie would have wanted.Season 3, Episode 6: ‘Silent Mode’I didn’t think it was possible for the relationship between Carrie and Aidan to become any more disconcerting. But wow, in this regard, the writers have succeeded.Toward the end of this week’s episode, Aidan drops a bomb: He slept with Kathy. He and his ex-wife were both upset after a failed attempt to send their troubled son Wyatt off on a wilderness trip, and somewhere in between sobs, they fell into bed.Carrie is stunned at this confession for all of about 45 seconds. I know because I counted while watching this scene for the fourth or fifth time. In less than a minute, she bypasses any pain and skips completely ahead to grace and empathy. “I understand how that could happen,” she says.I’ve written before that I think Aidan has become, or maybe always was, a covert narcissist. His behavior is, unfortunately, not very surprising. But is Carrie really so far under his thumb that she doesn’t even spare a second for her own hurt?Or, perchance, is she feeling a sense of karmic relief? After all, in another life known as the original “Sex and the City” series, Carrie cheated on Aidan with Mr. Big (Chris Noth) — whom she subsequently married. She also cheated on Big with Aidan when they shared a kiss in Abu Dhabi in the movie “Sex and the City 2” — all of which is to say, maybe Carrie really can see how that could happen.A few things about this plot point, though, are a little tough to square. First, nothing we have seen this season would suggest that there is any compassion, let alone physical passion, left between Aidan and Kathy. They’re not just exes, they’re at odds. They disagree, to the point of contempt, on how to handle Wyatt, as we saw in the blowup just two episodes back. It’s difficult to imagine them finding comfort in each other over yet another Wyatt debacle.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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      ‘Bet Your Life’ Is a Perky, Ghostly Dramedy

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      This Turkish Netflix series puts a metaphysical spin on the small-town murder mystery formula.Ata Demirer, left, and Ugur Yücel in a scene from “Bet Your Life.”Nazim Serhat FiratThe Turkish dramedy “Bet Your Life,” on Netflix (in Turkish, with subtitles, or dubbed), is a prototypical, even generic streaming show on most fronts. Guy returns to small hometown and gets roped into solving a mystery — one he’s more connected to than he realizes — while flanked by a pesky sidekick and a beautiful love interest. Along the way, he has to resolve some daddy issues, which he resists for the majority of the season until a big meltdown in the penultimate or maybe antepenultimate episode breaks down his defenses, at which point he will pant, weep and transform. Solve the crime, get the girl, mature from man-child to man.The spin here is that the pesky sidekick is a ghost, the mystery surrounds his murder, and everything plays out in a small Turkish town.Isa (Ata Demirer) is a gambling columnist who hasn’t made a good bet in years. Now he’s in a mountain of debt, and some unsavory types are after him. Before he can flee home, Refik (Ugur Yücel) shows up at his apartment — Refik, the local richie rich whose suicide was just on the news. Refik knew Isa’s late father, who in his day also channeled the spirit world, and Refik’s estranged daughter, Seda (Esra Bilgic), owns the vineyard where Isa’s aunt and cousin work. Perhaps they can help each other.Refik and Isa bicker to no end while Isa also clumsily romances Seda and learns more about his own family. Isa shows off his vintner skills, dreaming up a wine coupage to save Seda’s business, but she eventually grows concerned with his habit of having conversations with what appears to her to be thin air. But how can he say, “Actually, I’m talking to your dead dad, whom you hated and who is indeed a pain, though he and I have grown to love each other in gruff ways”? How indeed.The formula for these kinds of shows is a formula for a reason, and it works shockingly well here, even as various facets of “Bet” are either not very good or get lost in translation. A lot of the series exists on a wholesome, hokey plane, but flashes of cleverness, especially from Yücel’s performance, help, and the mysticism is fun and appealing. It’s not that the show qua show is so wonderful, but the same-but-different intrigue of an international McDonald’s applies here, too. More

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      Somebody Explain Why Everybody Loves Phil Rosenthal

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      When Phil Rosenthal, host of the Netflix food and travel show “Somebody Feed Phil” and creator of the enduring sitcom “Everybody Loves Raymond,” began selling out live shows last year, no one was more surprised than Ray Romano.Mr. Romano, the sitcom’s star, showed up at the Paramount concert hall on Long Island, expecting to stir up excitement among fans and help out during the Q&A. No one had a question for him, he said; they just wanted to tell Phil about their favorite places to eat in Lisbon or Nashville.“How did this happen?” the actor asked me over the phone last week. “I’ve been doing stand-up for 30 years. He goes to Poland and eats meatloaf and sells out theaters around the world?”There is no shortage of armchair-travel television: It pours from Hulu, Amazon Prime, National Geographic and Food Network, not to mention the fire hose that is social media. But somehow, Mr. Rosenthal has broken through and become a global star.Ray Romano, left, the star of “Everybody Loves Raymond,” said Mr. Rosenthal forced him to travel overseas for the first time by writing episodes set in Italy. (Brad Garrett, right, played Mr. Romano’s brother.) NetflixSeason 8 of his show dropped on June 18, making it the longest-running unscripted show on Netflix. In August he’ll start a North American tour, and a second cookbook, “Phil’s Favorites” — the first was a New York Times best seller — will come out in November.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