Tag: Television

Terry Carter, Barrier-Breaking Actor and Documentarian, Dies at 95

Terry Carter, who broke color barriers onstage and on television in the 1950s and ’60s and later produced multicultural documentaries on the jazz luminary Duke Ellington and the dancer-choreographer Katherine Dunham, died on Tuesday at his home in Midtown Manhattan. He was 95. His death was confirmed by his son, Miguel Carter DeCoste. Mr. Carter […]

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Americans’ New TV Habit: Subscribe. Watch. Cancel. Repeat.

Early last year, Josh Meisel and his wife wanted to watch a new buzzy Peacock drama, “Poker Face,” starring Natasha Lyonne. But Mr. Meisel, a scientist who lives outside Boston, did not subscribe to Peacock. He paid for half a dozen other streaming services and was reluctant to sign up for another. So he and […]

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‘Under the Bridge’ With Riley Keough and Lily Gladstone

“We’ve been teenage girls,” Lily Gladstone said. Which means that Gladstone and her co-star, Riley Keough, know what teenage girls can do. In “Under the Bridge,” a limited series now streaming on Hulu, Keough and Gladstone play a writer and a cop investigating the 1997 beating and murder of Reena Virk, a 14-year-old Indo-Canadian girl. […]

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‘Modern Love Podcast’: Why John Magaro of ‘Past Lives’ Could Never Love a Picky Eater

This transcript was created using speech recognition software. While it has been reviewed by human transcribers, it may contain errors. Please review the episode audio before quoting from this transcript and email transcripts@nytimes.com with any questions. anna martin From “The New York Times,” I’m Anna Martin. This is “Modern Love.” I’m a rapid fire you […]

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News Outlets Urge Trump and Biden to Commit to Presidential Debates

A group of major news organizations — including The Associated Press and the five big broadcast and cable networks — issued an unusual joint statement on Sunday urging President Biden and former President Donald J. Trump to commit to participating in televised debates before Election Day. “General election debates have a rich tradition in our […]

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How a Reality TV Show Turned the U.F.C. From Pariah to Juggernaut

Twenty years ago, the Ultimate Fighting Championship was on life support. Broadcasters scoffed at the idea of televising half-naked men pummeling each other inside a caged octagon, engaged in a sport where broken bones and dislodged teeth were common. Venues closed their doors and advertisers their wallets. The extreme violence meant there was no way […]

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How the O.J. Simpson Trial Changed What Comics Could Roast

The weekend after a jury found O.J. Simpson not guilty of murder, the comedian Norm Macdonald opened Weekend Update on “Saturday Night Live” at his desk next to a photo of the defendant. “Well, it is finally official,” he said. “Murder is legal in the state of California.” The 1995 trial of Simpson, who died […]

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Robert MacNeil, Earnest News Anchor for PBS, Dies at 93

Robert MacNeil, the Canadian-born journalist who delivered sober evening newscasts for more than two decades on PBS as the co-anchor of “The MacNeil/Lehrer Report,” later expanded as “The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour,” died early Friday in Manhattan. He was 93. His death, at NewYork–Presbyterian Hospital, was confirmed by his daughter Alison MacNeil. Mr. MacNeil spent time at […]

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O.J. Was an Earthquake. We’re Still Living With His Aftershocks.

When our Great Americans go, we know how to mourn them. Their lives were so grand, so architectural, infrastructural, awesome, admired, adventurous, outsize, so representative of some (or many) of this country’s ideals that the elegies come gushing. But there’s a Great American subset — where the adventure rocks the infrastructure and the life leaves […]

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How Hertz Turned O.J. Simpson Into the ‘Superstar in Rent‐a‐Car’

Executives at the rental car company Hertz knew what they wanted to project to potential business travelers in the 1970s: speed, reliability and efficiency. They quickly realized that one man radiated all of those qualities. So they made the football player O.J. Simpson, who died on Wednesday at the age of 76, the first Black […]

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How Hertz Turned O.J. Simpson Into the ‘Superstar in Rent‐a‐Car’

Executives at the rental car company Hertz knew what they wanted to project to potential business travelers in the 1970s: speed, reliability and efficiency. They quickly realized that one man radiated all of those qualities. So they made the football player O.J. Simpson, who died on Wednesday at the age of 76, the first Black […]

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O.J. Simpson: Made in America, Made by TV

One of the strangest quotes I can remember associated with O.J. Simpson came from the broadcaster Al Michaels during the notorious freeway chase in 1994. Michaels, a sports commentator now covering the flight from the law of one of America’s biggest celebrities, said that he had spoken with his friend Simpson on the phone earlier. […]

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JoJo Siwa Tries to Grow Up With ‘Karma,’ Her New Single

JoJo Siwa drives a car covered in her own face. Actually, the child star turned children’s entertainer drives a couple. On a Thursday afternoon in late March, it’s a Tesla Model X wrapped in a patchwork of her blond, ponytail-topped head complete with a signature hair bow. The tire rims are a kaleidoscope of cotton […]

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TV Networks to Urge Biden and Trump to Debate, Wading Into a Fraught Topic

In an unusual move, the five major broadcast and cable news networks have prepared a joint open letter that urges President Biden and former President Donald J. Trump to participate in televised debates ahead of Election Day, according to two people with direct knowledge of their plans. The letter — endorsed by ABC, CBS, CNN, […]

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Jeff Schaffer and Susie Essman on the ‘Curb Your Enthusiasm’ Finale

With a parade of callbacks and a twist a quarter-century in the making, “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” the HBO series starring Larry David as a heightened version of himself, ended its 20-plus-year run on Sunday. The final episode, which referenced the polarizing 1998 finale of “Seinfeld,” David’s previous show, was replete with the usual out-of-bounds commentary […]

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The ‘Curb Your Enthusiasm’ Series Finale Wraps Up Like ‘Seinfeld’: Review

After 12 seasons, spread across 25 years, the HBO comedy staple “Curb Your Enthusiasm” ends with an episode that sees Larry David put on trial. Witness after witness testifies to Larry’s lifetime of selfish and antisocial behavior. The jury finds him guilty, of course. Then he gets out of jail on a technicality and goes […]

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‘3 Body Problem’: What Social Media Reaction Says About China

The first five minutes of the Netflix series “3 Body Problem” were hard to watch. I tried not to shut my eyes at the coldblooded beating of a physics professor at the height of the Cultural Revolution in 1967. By the end of it, he was dead, with blood and gruesome wounds all over his […]

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Cole Brings Plenty, ’1923’ Actor, Is Found Dead

Cole Brings Plenty, an actor in the television series “1923,” was found dead on Friday in Kansas after his family reported him missing earlier in the week, officials said. The Johnson County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement that its deputies had found Mr. Brings Plenty, 27, in a wooded area in Johnson County, which […]

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Oklahoma’s Booming Film Industry Has Texas’ Attention

For a very brief moment, Taylor Sheridan’s hit television series starring Sylvester Stallone had the working title “Kansas City Mob.” But at the time, Missouri had no state funding for film subsidies. “Tulsa King” was born. “We had the incentive, so we got the name,” said Rachel Cannon, the founder of Prairie Surf Studios in […]

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The New Yorker Who Cracked the U.K.’s Premier Quiz Show

Brandon Blackwell sits in his apartment in the Jamaica section of Queens, training with a collection of 30,000 homemade flash cards the way weight lifters train with barbells. Each card contains an obscure fact about the world. Which country is home to Lake Assal, the largest salt reserve on earth? (Djibouti). Which metal is smelted […]

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‘Curb Your Enthusiasm’ Finale Brings Memories of Divisive ‘Seinfeld’ Ending

Larry David has long defended the “Seinfeld” finale. He’s often been its lone champion as critics, fans and the cast, including Jerry Seinfeld, have continued to lament the conclusion of one of television’s most successful, enduring sitcoms. On Sunday, David — the “Seinfeld” co-creator who left the show after its seventh season but returned to […]

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Why Are People Obsessed With TV Finales ‘Sticking the Landing’?

Larry David is just fine with how “Seinfeld” ended. OK, I can’t read his mind — but “Larry David,” the version of himself he plays on “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” is cool with that much-maligned finale. He insisted on it, vehemently, during a season of “Curb” that was almost entirely about a fictional do-over of the […]

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“Curb Your Enthusiasm” Was Larry David’s Book of Manners

Suppose you’re out at brunch and find yourself in a buffet line that a fellow diner does not appear to have noticed. He casually approaches with his plate and tries to serve himself. Do you A. join the hangry mob cursing him or B. rise to this man’s defense, because you can see that he’s […]

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Larry David’s Unsung Fashion Criticism on ‘Curb Your Enthusiasm’

In a midseries episode of “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” Larry David, the HBO show’s star and creator, greets his No. 1 frenemy, Susie, (Susie Essman), who has turned up at a fancy gathering wearing a top hat and a morning coat. He gives her a once-over, then announces, with all the finesse of a carnival barker, […]

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The Necessary Discomfort of Jerrod Carmichael’s ‘Reality’

The comedian Jerrod Carmichael spends a remarkable amount of time in his new HBO series, “Jerrod Carmichael Reality Show,” with his head in his hands like Henri Vidal’s 19th-century statue of Cain after he has killed his brother Abel. Maybe that’s fitting, since the series focuses on Carmichael’s tortured process of coming out, and like […]

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New PBS Documentary Brings Elon Musk (and His 3-Year-Old) to the MoMA

The future looked bright despite the rain on Tuesday evening at the Museum of Modern Art, where guests — including Elon Musk and Seth Meyers — gathered for a screening of a new PBS documentary series, “A Brief History of the Future.” Mr. Musk, flanked by security, came with a preschooler in tow, his 3-year-old […]

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As ‘Ripley’ Revives the ‘Talented’ Con Man, Here Are Earlier Versions

One of fiction’s most famous impostors returns on Thursday with the debut of Netflix’s “Ripley,” the latest adaptation of a character invented in the 1950s by the author Patricia Highsmith. In eight episodes, all written and directed by the Oscar-winning screenwriter Steven Zaillian (“Schindler’s List,” “The Night Of”), a classic chameleon changes colors yet again, […]

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How Curb Your Enthusiasm Went Beyond Cringe

This show about an abrasive prick also turns out to be a show about a sprawling, gregarious community of friends and rivals. And it’s precisely that formulaic shape, that perfection of design, that’s allowed Curb to become great. Specifically, it’s allowed the show to become an institution. Larry’s counterintuitively sprawling in-universe friend group, paired with […]

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Kristen Wiig and Maya Rudolph Just Want You to Like Them

Sometimes Maya Rudolph will watch a movie and marvel at how miserable an actor looks. “They’re covered in fake blood and broken glass, and they’re crying the whole time,” she said. “I don’t know how people do that for work! That looks so hard and stressful.” “And how do you get all of that glass […]

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