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      ‘Doctor Who’ Episode 6 Recap: A Charming Rogue

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      The Doctor and Ruby head back to Regency England in a meta meditation on cosplay and obsessive TV fandom.Season 1, Episode 6: ‘Rogue’For decades, cosplay has been a huge part of the “Doctor Who” fandom, with hardcore viewers rocking up to conventions or gathering to watch the show decked out in Tom Baker’s striped scarf or David Tennant’s slim suit.“Rogue,” this season’s sixth episode, is a meta meditation on cosplay — a portmanteau of costume play — and obsessive TV fandom, as the Doctor (Ncuti Gatwa) and Ruby (Millie Gibson) travel to Regency-era England and face off against a shape-shifting alien species who want to “dress up and play at ‘Bridgerton.’”Initially, the repeated explicit references to Netflix’s blockbuster show — as well as the enemies-to-lovers plot, the copious wisteria and the orchestral covers of pop songs — feel unnecessary. But it soon becomes clear that “Doctor Who” is engaging in cultural cosplay of its own.The year is 1813, and the Doctor and Ruby set about immersing themselves in the party of the season. Ruby quickly gains the attention of the night’s host, the proud Duchess of Pemberton (Indira Varma, “Game of Thrones”) and shocks the rude Lord Barton (Paul Forman) with her 21st-century slang and feminist principles.More than just an old-fashioned misogynist, Lord Barton is secretly a Chuldur, a member of a species of intergalactic social climbers who rise up the ranks by taking over the bodies of the powerful and interesting. First, they go for Lord Barton; later, the duchess becomes their next victim.The Doctor has never met a Chuldur before — not that he knows of, anyway — but he can tell something’s up. Scanning the room, his eyes fall upon a brooding, aloof nobleman called Rogue (Jonathan Groff, a notable King George in “Hamilton”) and the orchestra plays Billie Eilish’s “Bad Guy” to really hammer the point home.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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      ‘Twisters’ Star Glen Powell Intends to Play the Hollywood Game

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      In a town littered with would-be superstars, he’s trying to beat the odds by giving studios what they crave. It’s no coincidence he’s everywhere.The cookies weren’t selling.It was a blustery day in suburban Austin, Texas, in 1996, and Lauren and Leslie Powell had a sales quota to meet for their Girl Scout troop. But it was that cookie time of year: Thin Mints and Caramel deLites were seemingly up for grabs everywhere.Glen, their 8-year-old brother, suggested a marketing gambit. “He had us make signs that advertised ‘free gift with every purchase,’ and we put them up around the neighborhood,” Leslie recalled.Glen was the gift.“He would hide in some honeysuckle bushes and pop out after a purchase to perform Elvis songs,” she said, laughing. “That’s my big brother. Ain’t nothin’ but a hound dog.”I confess: Until I heard stories like that one — and spent time with the hound dog himself — I didn’t have high hopes for this profile. Glen Powell? I figured he was a dumb jock who coasted into a movie career on his all-American good looks. Boring.Yes, fine, Powell has been having a bona fide Hollywood moment. He stood nude on a cliff top with Sydney Sweeney in “Anyone but You” at Christmas. He is currently starring on Netflix in “Hit Man,” a comedy-drama-thriller-romance. And in July, Powell will be outrunning big-budget tornadoes in “Twisters.”But a superstar in the making?C’mon.I met Powell, 35, for breakfast in April at the Sunset Tower Hotel in West Hollywood, Calif. He showed up in a tight blue polo accessorized with a chain necklace and chest hair. (Perhaps he was in character, I snarked to myself, as Good-Looking Frat Guy, a bit part he played in “Stuck in Love,” a 2012 romance.) An omelet was ordered. Tabasco sauce was summoned and squirted.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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      Candice Carty Williams’s ‘Queenie’ Captures Black British Womanhood

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      The coming-of-age show, streaming on Hulu, follows a 25-year-old living in south London, navigating the gulf between her reality and what she wants.In 2022, British television producers released an open casting call, looking for a Black full-figured woman, aged 22 to 30, with a London accent.Thousands of people sent in audition tapes, hoping to land the role of Queenie Jenkins, whom many in Britain already knew as the titular character in Candice Carty-Williams’s best-selling debut novel.Carty-Williams, who was also the TV adaptation’s showrunner, knew that she was looking for an actress who could convey Queenie’s introspection. Dionne Brown — whom she had met during auditions for another show — had the right temperament. “Dionne is constantly thinking in a way that Queenie is,” Carty-Williams said. “You see her standing there and her head is whirring — that was important to me.”“Queenie,” streaming on Hulu, is a coming-of-age story about the titular 25-year-old Londoner navigating the gulf, in love and life, between her reality and what she wants. She is a social media assistant at a newspaper, but has ambitions to write meaningful journalism; her relationship with her boyfriend is falling apart despite her efforts; and she wants carefree sex, but her encounters often leave her feeling disempowered.All the while, Queenie grapples with her childhood trauma and how those experiences complicated her relationship with her mother. The show also explores how culture influences mental health issues: Queenie’s background as the descendant of Jamaican immigrants, her religious upbringing and British society’s emotional repression converge, Carty-Williams said, to create “the Holy Trinity of how to have a nervous breakdown.”When Brown read the script for the eight-episode adaptation, she found Queenie instantly relatable, thinking, “Oh my gosh, I didn’t know other women felt like this,” the actress said recently in an interview. “There was a lot of truth in a lot of the dialogue.”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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      A Sticking Point in Paramount and Skydance Talks: Who Pays For a Lawsuit?

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      A special committee of Paramount’s board of directors supports a merger with Skydance, a studio that has increased its offer in recent days. But the deal isn’t done yet.Paramount and Skydance have haggled for months over an ambitious merger that would usher in a new ruler of a sprawling media kingdom that includes CBS, MTV and the film studio behind “Top Gun.”The talks reached an even greater intensity in the past week, but at least one major sticking point has emerged between Shari Redstone, Paramount’s controlling shareholder, and Skydance. In the event that Paramount’s investors sue over the merger, which party is on the hook to defend the deal in court?National Amusements, the parent company of Paramount, wants Skydance to provide legal protection in the event of a lawsuit, warding off shareholders that may file objections to the merger, according to three people familiar with the matter. Skydance has not yet signed off on that deal term.Legal protection — also known as indemnification — is among the crucial outstanding terms in this deal, which has already been condemned by some Paramount shareholders who protested that it would enrich Ms. Redstone at the expense of other investors.The deal could still fall through. There are several outstanding issues in the negotiations between Skydance and Paramount, which have recently resumed talks. A special committee of Paramount’s board of directors supports a deal with Skydance. (Puck reported earlier that the special committee had greenlit the deal.)Another issue that has yet to be settled is whether Paramount will be given a “go-shop” period to see if it can get a superior offer to the Skydance deal or submit the deal to a shareholder vote, according to two people familiar with the matter. A shareholder vote and a “go-shop” period would protect Paramount and National Amusements from lawsuits, but it could prolong the deal-making process.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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      ‘Doctor Who’ Episode 5 Recap: Bursting the Bubble

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      The Doctor saves a rich wannabe vlogger from being eaten by a giant slug, but a final twist leaves him reeling.Season 1, Episode 5: ‘Dot and Bubble’We’ve passed the midway point in this season of “Doctor Who,” and the show’s ambition shows no sign of subsiding. After playing with themes of religion and politics, it’s artificial intelligence, already touched on in the earlier episode “Boom,” that’s the topic du jour in “Dot and Bubble.”With its slick visuals and clear anti-technology viewpoint, Episode 5 has echoes of “Black Mirror,” Charlie Brooker’s dystopian TV anthology — as this season’s showrunner, Russell T Davies, who also wrote the episode, noted in a recent interview.But whereas Brooker can use each episode of “Black Mirror” to focus on a different aspect of contemporary technology, Davies has just 43 minutes to explore its overarching morality in “Dot and Bubble.”It makes for a slightly overstuffed episode — critiquing and parodying capitalism, YouTube and celebrity worship — that is saved, in part, by a genuinely unexpected twist in the final act.As with the previous episode, “73 Yards,” the Doctor doesn’t feature all that heavily in “Dot and Bubble” and the action feels less consequential to the season’s overall arc. Instead, the focus is on Lindy Pepper-Bean (Callie Cooke), a blonde-haired, blue-eyed wannabe vlogger with a penchant for pastels.Lindy’s life revolves around a two-part technology: Dot, a tiny robotic pearl that hovers in front of her, and Bubble, a virtual sphere of colorful screens beamed around her head. Within the Bubble, the perpetually peppy Lindy is in constant conversation with her friends; she chats away with the cadence — and vocal fry — of a family-friendly YouTuber, and they coo back.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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      Michelle Buteau Takes the Lead in ‘Babes’ and on Netflix

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      Once relegated to supporting roles, this comedian is a star of the film “Babes” and is moving to a bigger stage, Radio City Music Hall, for her new special.“Oh my God, are we best friends?” the comedian Michelle Buteau said, 27 seconds into meeting me.Honestly, it was a joke that felt like it could ricochet into reality. It didn’t. But that is the power of Buteau’s ebullient charisma, which telegraphs to audiences that her preternatural comic rhythm and dolled-up, side-eye style of delivery are in service of being a warmhearted bestie. To her TV, film, podcast and stand-up fans, she’s a moral center with a blue streak. “I truly, sincerely care,” she said, “about these bitches.”The B-word is one that Buteau and her friend and co-star in the new comedy “Babes,” Ilana Glazer, roll and dice into multiple syllables and meanings, in a sisterhood built on tell-it-like-it-is endearments, unfiltered but uplifting, like Buteau’s comedy.In “Babes,” which was directed by Pamela Adlon, Buteau plays an exhausted working mother of two young children, reconfiguring her life minute by minute, task by task, to accommodate her career, her family, her partner and her friendships. Also the occasional hallucinogenic trip and breast pump-destroying dance party.In real life, Buteau does that (or most of it), and is both cleareyed and funny about it: “Every day feels like a panic room — I’m just searching for the next clue.” Having 5-year-old twins with her Dutch husband, a house in the Bronx, some dogs and an ascending, multistrand career is undeniably a lot; the movie reflects that, too. “There’s no such thing as balance,” she said, during a recent lunch interview. “You do what you can, when you can.”Buteau, opposite Ilana Glazer in “Babes,” is “just a perfect comedy machine,” said the film’s director, Pamela Adlon.Gwen Capistran/Neon, via Associated PressIn the last five years, Buteau, 46, has made the leap from a 20-year stalwart of the New York comedy scene to a headliner and the star of her own scripted Netflix series, “Survival of the Thickest,” loosely based on her 2020 essay collection of the same name, and heading toward its second season. With “Babes,” now in wide release, she also moves up from the BFF and assistants she played in Ali Wong’s “Always Be My Maybe” and Jennifer Lopez’s “Marry Me,” to a lead: the movie is centered on the friendship between Glazer and Buteau’s characters. It arrives as Buteau is preparing to film her second hourlong Netflix special, “Full Heart, Tight Jeans,” on June 6 at Radio City Music Hall.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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      Summer Begins

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      Memorial Day is the starting gun of a new season. Here’s a guide on how to spend the summer months. Memorial Day is a starting gun. While other holidays can be like a finish line — the culmination of so much energy — Memorial Day marks the beginning. The whole summer stretches out in front of us, a track shimmering in the sun.If you’re not yet sure how to spend the long weekend, or the next few months, don’t worry. The Morning has compiled the best ideas and recommendations from The Times to get you ready for the summer. Starting now.For your time outdoorsHere’s motivation to get you back in your garden, or to start a new one.Make your outdoor space work for you with these design ideas.A friend of mine recently lamented not having summer break as an adult. Here are ideas to relax even if you work full-time, like her.Outdoor activities — in the mountains or in your backyard — mean a greater chance of injury. Know your first aid basics.Pools are open and families are hitting the beach this Memorial Day. Try these workouts in the water.More people are building ponds in their backyard for swimming. See some examples.The joy of gardening.Ike Edeani for The New York TimesFor your travelsIf you’re flying this weekend with some time to kill, test your airport I.Q. with this quiz.If you want some entertainment for a long road trip, here’s a collection of great audiobooks, organized by length.Europe is anticipating yet another season of heat waves. Read how locals, and tourists, are preparing.Here are the best beaches in the U.S. and Mexico for each activity, like swimming, surfing or sand-castle building.Fifty years after working at a Massachusetts hotel, a writer examines what’s changed.Stay at one of these five waterside hotels.For your leisureRead the best fiction and nonfiction of the year (so far).Watch these films this weekend — whether in a movie theater or on your couch.Play these video games if you don’t want to leave your house.Laugh with these new stand-up specials.THE LATEST NEWSIsrael-Hamas WarThe Israeli military continued its operation in Rafah, southern Gaza, despite an International Court of Justice order to immediately suspend its campaign there.Some in Rafah have chosen not to evacuate, while others have fled and then returned after being unable to find safety elsewhere.In an Israeli prison infirmary, a Jewish dentist aided a seriously ill Yahya Sinwar. Years later, Sinwar, the leader of Hamas in Gaza, was an author of the Oct. 7 attack.War in UkraineVladimir Putin, likely feeling confident about the war and his hold on power, has overhauled his Defense Ministry.Russia is carrying out arson attacks on sites in Europe in a low-level sabotage campaign to undermine support for Ukraine.Some American precision-guided weapons have proved ineffective against Russian electronic warfare, classified Ukrainian reports show.A military branch of professional musicians travels Ukraine’s front lines and taps into a tradition of music as resistance, The Washington Post reports.More International NewsIn Papua New Guinea.Andrew Ruing, via ReutersAt least 670 people are thought to have died after a landslide in Papua New Guinea, a local U.N. official said.“They knew that’s where they were supposed to be”: A family member of a missionary couple who were killed in gang violence in Haiti spoke with The Wall Street Journal. Read about why aid groups stay in the country.In India, Prime Minister Narendra Modi uses wide-reaching welfare programs to create loyal voters.PoliticsJohn FettermanKenny Holston/The New York TimesSenator John Fetterman, Democrat of Pennsylvania, is picking fights with the progressives he once courted on issues including Israel and immigration.Rates of violent crime in most U.S. cities are down from pandemic-era highs. But rising property crime has made lawlessness an election issue.In Montana, the voting intentions of an influx of wealthy out-of-state newcomers hang over this year’s Senate race.President Biden told West Point’s graduating class that they owed an oath to the U.S. Constitution, not to their commander in chief. See a video.Other Big StoriesSevere storms are likely across portions of the U.S., while summer heat settles in across the South.At least five people have died and three others have gone missing on Mount Everest since the beginning of the climbing season.THE SUNDAY DEBATEShould Justice Samuel Alito recuse himself from cases about the Jan. 6, 2021, attack?Yes. The flags in support of rioters on Jan. 6, waved on Alito’s properties, add to the Supreme Court’s crisis of confidence. This incident “is a stark reminder of the importance of maintaining a clear separation between personal beliefs and judicial responsibilities,” Aron Solomon writes for The Hill.No. Justices have expressed political opinions publicly before, such as Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg about Donald Trump. “In all matters of public interest, justices have opinions — and they are appointed to some extent due to their opinions,” Michael Broyde writes for CNN.FROM OPINIONThe Fresh Air Fund in New York City teaches children about nature — and invites them to dream big, the editorial board writes.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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      Zack Norman, Actor Who Juggled Multiple Professions, Dies at 83

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      Best known for movies like “Romancing the Stone,” he also made a mark as a producer, a real estate developer and the butt of a Generation X-friendly television gag.Zack Norman, who made his mark as an actor in films like “Romancing the Stone” and “Cadillac Man” and with appearances on television shows like “The A-Team” and “The Nanny” — and who, as a producer, also became known for a star-crossed movie that became a running punchline on the show “Mystery Science Theater 3000” — died on April 28 in Burbank, Calif. He was 83.The cause of his death, at a hospital, was bilateral pneumonia related to the coronavirus, his daughter Lori Zuker Briller said.While best known for scene-stealing appearances as a supporting player, Mr. Norman was always more than a character actor. He was also a painter, a real estate developer and an art collector who in the 1980s mingled with the likes of Andy Warhol and Jean-Michel Basquiat.Mr. Norman had a memorably menacing turn alongside Danny DeVito in the hit 1984 movie “Romancing the Stone.”20th Century Fox/Everett CollectionStarting in the early 1970s, Mr. Norman tallied nearly 40 movie and television acting credits. He had a memorably menacing turn as Danny DeVito’s crocodile-tending antiquities-smuggler sidekick in “Romancing the Stone,” Robert Zemeckis’s 1984 adventure comedy starring Kathleen Turner and Michael Douglas.He was abundantly familiar to fans of the indie director Henry Jaglom, appearing in many of Mr. Jaglom’s films, including “Sitting Ducks” (1980), a comedy in which he was one of two dimwitted hoods who steal from a gambling syndicate, and “Hollywood Dreams” (2006), in which he played a kindly film producer who looks after a fame-obsessed starlet (Tanna Frederick).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