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      ‘Fifteen-Love’ Is a Tense Tennis Drama

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      A British import on Sundance Now, the series balances sports sudsiness with prickly, fraught drama about sex, maturity, consent and power.Ella Lily Hyland and Aidan Turner in a scene from “Fifteen-Love.”Rob Youngson/Sundance NowJustine (Ella Lily Hyland) was a promising tennis player in her teens, and the French Open seemed like it would be her breakthrough tournament. But a gnarly wrist injury and an total emotional breakdown derailed her. Now she’s in her early 20s, working as a physical therapist at her old tennis academy, stewing in self-loathing and coming to terms with the fact that her coach, Glenn (Aidan Turner), assaulted and manipulated her. Part of her wants to leave that in the past, but when Glenn re-emerges at the club, coaching other teen girls, she can’t.“Fifteen-Love,” a British import on Sundance Now, balances sports sudsiness with prickly, fraught drama about sex, maturity, consent and power. Justine has great instincts but terrible impulses; she knows Glenn preyed on her, but there’s no real mechanism for justice or restitution. Some people in her life believe her; some don’t. But worst of all are the ones, like her mother, who mostly believe her but think what happened is no big deal — always a victim, they say. In Justine’s eyes, though, she never got to be a victim at all.Hyland’s performance here is mesmerizing but grounded, showing us how in some ways Justine grew up too fast, and in others she hasn’t grown up at all. She is angry and can be self-destructive, and the show shines in its argument scenes. Tennis players know how to volley. “You used to be on my side,” Justine spits at her best friend and fellow player. “No,” says the friend. “I was in your shadow.”Over its six episodes, “Fifteen-Love” loses steam, especially when it kicks into thriller mode toward the end. More characters does not always mean more story, and the show is most interesting when it is narrowly focused, probing the dynamic between Justine and Glenn. It’s not as pat as just victim and abuser — where do the other feelings go?Even as the plot sags, the specifics still land. In one scene, Justine and a comrade comb through years of possibly incriminating emails, looking for leads on other victims. What should they search for? “Sexual?” the friend suggests. “Inappropriate?” Justine instead types in “emotional.”So far four episodes are available, with new installments arriving Thursdays. More

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      ‘The Rings of Power’ Season 2, Episode 4 Recap: The Trees Have Thoughts

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      This week’s episode, which included several Tolkien fan-favorite characters and creatures, is the best of the season thus far.Season 2, Episode 4: ‘Eldest’“Rings of Power” Season 2 debuted last week with three plot-heavy episodes, which was probably necessary given that the show had been on hiatus for nearly two years — and given that it took all three to get each of Season 1’s story lines back into play. Unfortunately, Episode 3 was easily the dreariest of the first batch, ending last week’s three-part premiere on a sour note. Light on action and heavy on earnest proclamations, the episode represented “Rings of Power” at its stiffest.Episode 4, though? It’s the best of the season thus far. It’s thrilling and strange, and populated with J.R.R. Tolkien fan-favorite characters and creatures. Even the opening scene has an uncommon flair, transpiring across a single shot that begins on an idyllic image of the waters outside Lindon before tracking a contentious conversation between Galadriel and Elrond, then rising into the sky. It sets the tone for a lively hour.Here are five takeaways and observations from Episode 4:Enter the entsIn Episode 3, Theo encountered some wild men out in the wilderness, and with them he was menaced by some unseen creature — and apparently a very tall one, given the high camera angle on Theo’s face before the scene ended. This week, Isildur enlists Arondir and Estrid in a search for Theo; and the three of them have a wild adventure, which includes Isildur and Arondir getting pulled under quicksand by a huge, writhing mud-beast (which the trio then slays and eats).The massive worm-thing isn’t even the party’s most bizarre encounter. Not long after Arondir warns his companions about the ever-present possibility of “nameless things in the deep places,” they discover that Theo and the wild men are being held captive by sapient trees. These are the forest-guarding entities known in Tolkien lore as ents — seen in “The Lord of the Rings” movies in the form of Treebeard, a brave and helpful ent who nonetheless laments the damage done to the trees during centuries of war in Middle-earth.The ents in this episode are more angry than wistful, because Adar’s orc army has recently marched through, “maiming” the forest. It takes some diplomacy from Arondir to calm the ents’ leader, Snaggleroot (voiced by Jim Broadbent), and to convince them to release Theo.In terms of this season’s plot, the scenes in and around the ancient town of Pelargir serve a few purposes. Arondir’s rescue of Theo helps to soften the kid’s resentment toward the elf. In this section we also see Isildur helping the Southlanders understand the Numenorean technology of their new home, and we hear Estrid confess to having been branded by Adar.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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      Brian Stelter Returns to CNN as Chief Media Analyst

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      Mr. Stelter, who left CNN two years ago, will be helming his newsletter for the network, but without a Sunday show.CNN’s “Reliable Sources” is back. Kind of.Brian Stelter, a media reporter and pundit who left CNN two years ago amid differences with the network’s previous leadership, is returning to the company as its chief media analyst and writer of its “Reliable Sources” newsletter.The network’s Sunday morning round table of media criticism that he had hosted, also called “Reliable Sources,” will not return. In his new role, Mr. Stelter will serve as an on-air analyst in addition to writing his newsletter and reporting for the network.Mr. Stelter, 39, announced his return to CNN on Tuesday in the newsletter he founded, saying he was back at the network in a somewhat different capacity.“I loved my old life as the anchor of a Sunday morning show but, to borrow some lingo from my video game blogger days, I finished that level of the game,” Mr. Stelter said. “Time for new levels, new challenges.”Mark Thompson, CNN’s chief executive, said in a statement that he was “happy to welcome” Mr. Stelter back to CNN, calling him “one of the best global experts in media commentary.”Mr. Stelter replaces Oliver Darcy as author of the newsletter. Mr. Darcy recently left the network to start his own subscription-based news site, Status, which focuses on media and entertainment news. CNN also regularly calls upon Sara Fischer, a media reporter for Axios, as an on-air analyst.Mr. Stelter, a former New York Times reporter, joined CNN in 2013 as host of “Reliable Sources” under the network’s president at the time, Jeff Zucker, and left in 2022 after a new leader, Chris Licht, reprogrammed the network. When Mr. Licht took over, he sought to steer the network away from partisan analysis that had become popular on CNN during the administration of President Donald J. Trump. In some cases, that meant removing voices that he perceived as too liberal. Mr. Stelter was among the prominent network hosts who audience research showed were most closely associated with having a liberal tilt.Mr. Stelter began negotiating his return to CNN in the last three weeks, after Mr. Darcy announced plans to leave the network, according to a person familiar with the matter. Mr. Darcy’s decision was unrelated to Mr. Stelter’s appointment, another person said.In the inaugural edition of his new newsletter, Mr. Stelter was reflective about his bumpy departure from CNN, saying it allowed him to experience the news “more like an everyday consumer,” honing his focus on “the attention economy and the information ecosystem.”“I always scoffed at people who said ‘getting fired was the best thing that’s ever happened to me’ — until, well, it happened to me,” Mr. Stelter wrote. More

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      The Spies of ‘Slow Horses’ Are ‘as Useless as Everyone Else’

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      Will Smith, the showrunner, discusses the comic spy thriller, which returns for its fourth season on Wednesday and is up for nine Emmy Awards later this month.The British spies at the center of the Apple TV+ series “Slow Horses” aren’t particularly handsome, or efficient, or disciplined. They’re rejects from MI5, consigned to a dark, dingy London office run by Jackson Lamb (Gary Oldman), a slovenly, scotch-swilling, flatulent burnout. Early in Season 4, which premieres Wednesday, Lamb objects when a new no-nonsense MI5 officer (Ruth Bradley) handcuffs him during an investigation.“I’d rather not take any chances with a man who looks like he gropes people on buses,” she tells him.“You’re being hurtful about my appearance,” Lamb mutters. “I might have to call H.R.”Will Smith, the showrunner, knew he had been handed a gift when he was enlisted to ride “Slow Horses.” Based on the series of Slough House novels by Mick Herron, the TV adaptation has the kind of biting humor and dysfunctional, high-stakes office politics of two shows Smith wrote for under Armando Iannucci, “The Thick of It” and “Veep.” It also has Oldman, sinking his teeth into his first starring TV role, and Jonathan Pryce, who takes center stage in the new season as an old spy descending into dementia (which creates complications in the espionage world).Then there’s the short, bluesy theme song, performed by some bloke named Mick Jagger. Already a fan of Herron’s books, Jagger was happy to join the party.In July “Slow Horses” received nine Emmy nominations, including nods for best drama, lead actor in a drama (Oldman) and writing in a drama (Smith).Each season of the series unfolds in a quick, six-episode burst. The latest follows Pryce’s David Cartwright and his cocksure, generally overmatched Slow Horse grandson, River (Jack Lowden), as they try to keep a rogue ex-CIA agent (Hugo Weaving) from unleashing hell.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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      America’s New Female Right review – this lazy BBC documentary fails to tackle dangerously extreme views

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      I am going to go out on a limb and say that most Guardian readers who watch a BBC documentary called America’s New Female Right are unlikely to be in accord with the views espoused therein. We are not going to empathise with statements such as: “Women getting the right to vote has led to every form of degeneracy,” “Feminism was absolutely created to destabilise the family [and] western civilisation,” and: “Feminism is a thousand times more toxic than the ‘toxic masculinity’ we hear so much about.” We are unlikely to agree that “Satan’s agenda” is to destroy the nuclear family structure in order to control society.All these statements are uttered – with certainty and apparent sincerity – by women championing rightwing causes, often in a way that seems to run counter to what we would consider their best interests.The presenter, Layla Wright, has three main interviewees. There is the online influencer Morgonn McMichael, 24, who says she wants only to be a stay-at-home wife and mother. She believes that encouraging women to move into the corporate world is to encourage them to go against “our inherent nature”.There is middle-aged Christie Hutcherson, who leads Women Fighting for America – an online and slightly smaller real-life troop of volunteers who patrol parts of the US-Mexico border and livestream what they find. Wright accompanies her as she finds a rough camp created by people crossing. “What a great little setup they’ve got here,” she notes for her audience, gesturing towards propane tanks and mosquito repellent. She and her companions ignore the scattered children’s toys in favour of the “camo gear” they unearth (mainly sensible rucksacks) and talk of “high‑value targets being smuggled in”. “Do I think there are any innocent individuals in this camp? That would be a no.”Third is Hannah Faulkner, 17, who came to her particular brand of fame three years ago when she organised a Teens Against Genital Mutilation rally in her native Nashville, Tennessee, supporting a ban on medical intervention for young transgender people. She is one of several siblings homeschooled by devoutly Christian parents – her father is a former pastor – and is increasingly embraced as a darling of the right.There is so much to unpack with each of them (especially Faulkner). It’s a fascinating subject that deserves attention and rigorous interrogation of all the factors at play, especially with subjects as bright, articulate and confident as these (again, especially Faulkner). What we get instead is a cheap, shoddy programme apparently thrown together in 10 minutes, presumably on the grounds that everything and everyone is so obviously awful and evil and bad-bad-bad that it is enough just to film them, show Wright’s pained face occasionally and have her lob in a few wet questions to show that she is still listening and still on the side of right (which is, of course, left, not right).Sinister music is played in certain scenes, in case we are in danger of forgetting which side “we” are on – all of us, without doubt, without question, without occasionally wondering if the “other side” might have half a point buried in there that might be worth pulling out and examining in the light.It’s so lazy. “Point and weep” documentaries are only half a step removed from the “point and laugh” kind that commissioners have supposedly left behind as we move into a more sensitive, sophisticated era.If you are going to interview people such as McMichael, Hutcherson and Faulkner, you need a presenter who is capable and unafraid of going toe to toe with them. These are people with sincerely held beliefs. You need someone with the intellectual and temperamental firepower to challenge them – someone who is not afraid to, in British terms at least, be “rude” to their subjects and see if they can really defend assertions that are otherwise allowed to stand as truth. At one point, Wright tries to stand up to Hutcherson – who comes across as a bully, with “illegal immigrants” the perfect, self-serving target – but it’s the unfairest of fights.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionYes, some things said here are extraordinary – but only to the ears of those who are already on side. Without going further, the BBC is doing just what the influencers and ideologues it is condemning do – preaching to the choir and failing to move along the conversation. More

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      ESPN and ABC Go Dark on DirecTV in Feud With Disney

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      The outage struck on Sunday, cutting access for many DirecTV viewers to the U.S. Open tennis tournament on ABC.Disney’s channels went dark on DirecTV on Sunday, leaving millions of subscribers to the satellite TV service without access to marquee networks like ESPN and ABC and cutting off viewership to the U.S. Open tennis tournament.The dispute means that most of DirecTV’s roughly 11 million U.S. subscribers can’t watch ESPN; the ABC broadcast network, which airs the U.S. Open, was also blacked out for many customers.The outage is the latest instance of a routine dispute between a television programming company and its distributor resulting in a service disruption. Typically both sides must agree to new terms every few years, and failure to do so risks alienating customers who have grown increasingly disenchanted with having to pay for traditional TV. In the long run, these carriage disputes are unprofitable for both parties, and they are usually resolved in a few days.The contracts are usually written so they expire at periods of peak viewer interest, giving both sides an incentive to reach a deal before the channels go dark. Disney’s dispute with DirecTV was the latest example: the outage began on the eve of Labor Day, cutting off access for many customers who were settling in for the long weekend.Disney has found itself at the center of other disputes with TV distributors fed up with paying high fees for channels like ESPN when the company is spending lavishly to produce shows for Disney+ and its other streaming services. A year ago, Disney was locked in a standoff with the Charter cable system that was resolved after the two agreed to a pact that gave Charter’s customers access to Disney’s streaming services at a lower rate.The early hours of carriage disputes quickly involve lots of finger-pointing, with both sides blaming the other for making unrealistic financial demands that deprive customers of the channels they are paying for. In the streaming era, TV programmers sometimes encourage viewers to find their shows and events on a service like Hulu or Fubo that stream live sports.In a statement, Disney said it believed DirecTV was offering to pay too little for its programming.“We invest significantly to deliver the No. 1 brands in entertainment, news and sports because that’s what our viewers expect and deserve,” said the statement, from Dana Walden and Alan Bergman, co-chairmen of Disney Entertainment, and Jimmy Pitaro, the chairman of ESPN. “We urge DirecTV to do what’s in the best interest of their customers and finalize a deal that would immediately restore our programming.”Rob Thun, DirecTV’s chief content officer, said in a statement that Disney is shifting content to its streaming services, while expecting higher prices from distributors.“Disney is in the business of creating alternate realities, but this is the real world where we believe you earn your way and must answer for your own actions,” Mr. Thun said. He added: “Disney’s only magic is forcing prices to go up while simultaneously making its content disappear.” More

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      The Best Movies and TV Shows Coming to Disney+, Max, Hulu and More in September

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      “Fight Night: The Million Dollar Heist,” “A Very Royal Scandal,” a “Walking Dead” spinoff and “Agatha All Along” arrive.Every month, streaming services add movies and TV shows to their libraries. Here are our picks for some of September’s most promising new titles. (Note: Streaming services occasionally change schedules without giving notice. For more recommendations on what to stream, sign up for our Watching newsletter here.)New to Amazon Prime Video‘A Very Royal Scandal’Starts streaming: Sept. 19Earlier this year, Netflix debuted a movie called “Scoop,” about the complicated negotiations that led to Prince Andrew’s headline-making 2019 interview with BBC Two’s “Newsnight,” covering his relationship with the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. The three-part mini-series “A Very Royal Scandal” tells the same story in a little more detail, with a screenplay from Jeremy Brock (the co-writer of “The Last King of Scotland”). Michael Sheen plays Prince Andrew, while Ruth Wilson plays Emily Maitlis, the interviewer, who kept pressuring the prince with follow-up questions, asking him to account for all the time he had spent with Epstein over the years.Also arriving:Sept. 10“The Money Game”Sept. 24“Evolution of the Black Quarterback”Melissa McBride as Carol Peletier in “The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon — The Book of Carol.”Emmanuel Guimier/AMCNew to AMC+‘The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon – The Book of Carol’ Season 2Starts streaming: Sept. 29When this spinoff of “The Walking Dead” was first announced, it was supposed to be the story of the soulful hunter Daryl Dixon (Norman Reedus) and his hard-edge pal Carol Peletier (Melissa McBride) venturing into new territories together in a zombie-ravaged world. But when that territory turned out to be Europe, McBride had to drop out for what was described as logistical reasons. Her Carol made a cameo at the end of Season 1 though; and she is now on board for Season 2 (as well as an already announced Season 3). This new season will find Carol searching for her friend in France, while Daryl reluctantly gets more involved with the twisted political situation overseas, trying to help some good people make things better.Also arriving:Sept. 6“The Demon Disorder”Sept. 7“All You Need Is Death”Sept. 12“The Tailor of Sin City”Sept. 13“In a Violent Nature”Sept. 16“Candice Renoir” Season 10Sept. 20“Dandelion”Sept. 26“Wisting” Season 5Sept. 27“Oddity”Sept. 30“The Bench” Seasons 1-2We 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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      Maybe We Are Asking Presidential Candidates the Wrong Questions

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      If the goal of the CNN interview with Vice President Kamala Harris and Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota was to relitigate the campaign controversies of the last month — to get the candidates to talk about the major narratives of the election so far — then it was a rousing success. Harris easily dispatched questions about her identity and gave a strong defense of President Biden’s record. Walz, likewise, made short work of the charge that he had misled the public when he spoke about using one fertility treatment when it was actually another, similar treatment.But if the goal was to learn something about a prospective President Harris — to gain insight into how she might make decisions, order priorities and approach the job of chief executive — then I think the interview was not a success. Not so much for Harris or the viewing public.It might be interesting to journalists to know how Harris explains her changing views from 2019, when she ran for the Democratic nomination, to now, when she is the nominee. But it is not at all clear to me that it is interesting to viewers, who may be less concerned with how she deals with the question and more concerned with the actual substance of what she wants to do as president. A soft-focus question about a photograph, however iconic, seems less valuable than a question about Harris’s view of the presidency now that she’s spent almost four years in the passenger’s seat as vice president.Speaking for myself, I am less interested in hearing candidates navigate controversies or speak to narratives than I am in hearing them talk, for lack of a better term, about their theory of the office. How does a candidate for president conceptualize the presidency? What would she prioritize in office and how would she handle an endless onslaught of crises and issues that may, or may not, demand her attention? How does she imagine her relationship with Congress and how would she try to achieve her goals in the face of an opposition legislature? How does she imagine her relationship with the public and what value does she place on communication and the bully pulpit? Are there presidents she most admires — and why? Are there presidential accomplishments that stand out and how so? What are the worst mistakes a president can make? Why do you want this job in the first place?I can think of other questions along these lines, but you get the gist. To know what candidates for president think about the office and their role in it is, I believe, a better guide to what they may do in the White House than almost anything else. The only thing better is prior experience. These kinds of questions may not make for the most scintillating television, but I think they could provide the kind of insights that could actually help Americans decide what they want out of a national leader.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