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      ‘Doctor Who’ Episode 7 Recap: God of All Gods

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      In the first part of the season finale, a terrifying enemy from the Doctor’s past returns, as mysteries start to be solved.Season 1, Episode 7: ‘The Legend of Ruby Sunday’Over six decades, “Doctor Who” has introduced many villains — including big hitters like the Cybermen (first introduced in 1966) and memorable one-off monsters like the gas-mask wearing Empty Child (2005) — as the Doctor’s most fearsome enemy.But in “The Legend of Ruby Sunday,” the first episode in the season’s two-part finale, it seems his ultimate nemesis might finally have been identified — or rather, rediscovered. It turns out the mysterious villain who’s been pulling the strings this season (“the one who waits”) was first fought by Tom Baker’s Fourth Doctor back in 1975.This reveal is genuinely fear-inducing. But it’s the combination of Russell T Davies’s pacey, tricksy script and the show’s newly lavish production values that makes Episode 7 such a bone-chilling adventure — one far scarier, far more ambitious, than I expected from the show’s Disney era.As the finale opens, two mysteries, which Davies has threaded throughout the season, hang in the air. There’s the question of Ruby’s (Millie Gibson) back story, including the identity of her birth mother. And what about the mysterious woman (Susan Twist) who keeps popping up wherever the Doctor (Ncuti Gatwa) and Ruby travel?These questions are on the Doctor’s mind as the TARDIS crashes into the headquarters of the United Intelligence Taskforce, or UNIT, Britain’s supersecret extraterrestrial task force. He’s greeted by the organization’s head, Kate Lethbridge-Stewart (Jemma Redgrave), and her team, including the 13-year-old scientific prodigy Morris (Lenny Rush).Kate Lethbridge-Stewart, played by Jemma Redgrave, runs UNIT, Britain’s supersecret extraterrestrial task force.Bad Wolf/BBC StudiosWe 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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      ‘House of the Dragon’ Season 2 Review: It’s a Waiting Game

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      The second season of HBO’s very successful “Game of Thrones” prequel gets off to an earthbound start.Diplomacy versus violence. Dignity versus unbridled passion. Duty versus the selfish desire for revenge.Wait, wasn’t this supposed to be about dragons?HBO sent critics four of the eight episodes of the second season of “House of the Dragon,” its “Game of Thrones” spinoff. For three and three-quarters of those four hours, we are in one of this highly rated fantasy franchise’s less interesting regions: the land of the medieval civics lesson. Small Councils meet. Allies are recruited. Rivals for the throne strut and fret. When battles do start to break out, they take place offscreen.The two shows (based on the novels of George R.R. Martin) have traditionally used palace intrigue leavened with sex to fill the gaps between expensive scenes of mass violence and close-up dragon action. But nearly half a season is a long time to wait for the flames to fly.“Thrones,” which ended in 2019 after eight blockbuster seasons, compensated with the epic scale and sadistic frisson of its treachery and debauchery. It also had one great performance, by Peter Dinklage as the noble dwarf Tyrion Lannister, and big characters stylishly played by actors like Lena Headey, Charles Dance and Jonathan Pryce. And its dragons were truly terrifying beasts.“Dragon,” for all the money HBO has reportedly spent on it, is a more buttoned down and drab affair, a condition that carries into the second season. Besides Eve Best as the dragon-riding matriarch, Princess Rhaenys, and Ewan Mitchell as the fearsome Aemond, no one in the cast rises far enough above the show’s general level of dogged professionalism to make a significant impression. And when they do appear, its dragons look and sound more domesticated.The new season begins with the truculent alpha Targaryens, Rhaenyra (Emma D’Arcy) and Aegon (Tom Glynn-Carney), plotting in their respective castles. Rhaenyra, the rightful heir to the Iron Throne — it’s just easier to use the jargon — is in exile with her uncle-husband, Daemon (Matt Smith). Her half brother Aegon sits on the throne and governs like a petulant child, to the consternation of his mother, Alicent (Olivia Cooke), who was Rhaenyra’s best friend until she married Rhaenyra’s father, the previous king.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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      Erin Moriarty Is a Woman Among ‘The Boys’

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      The actress in the hit superhero satire mulled her role in an age of online bullying and token feminism: “Thank God there are characters like this.”Erin Moriarty just stopped a stranger in his tracks. But it wasn’t because he recognized her as a star on one of TV’s most popular shows, or because he was taken by her charm.We were tucked into a quiet corner table on an outdoor patio in West Hollywood, where an attentive server had been mid-stride when he overheard Moriarty, a star of the hit Amazon show “The Boys,” describe her belief that feminism had become an “obligatory thing for studios to exhibit.” He tentatively performed the briefest of check-ins and scurried away.“I love how he hears the word ‘feminism’ and his approach starts to slow,” she said with a laugh. She took a sip of black iced coffee and resumed her thoughts.“I think it’s dangerous,” she said. “I feel like we’re putting a Band-Aid on systemic diseases that we’re not inoculating against.”As the highest-billed actress on “The Boys,” Moriarty, 29, has had to think a lot about performative feminism lately, and whether the show that made her famous is really part of the solution. On one level, the series, which returned for Season 4 on Thursday, is satire, centered on the exploits of a team of morally depraved superheroes known as the Seven.The show targets the steroidal conventions of the genre, along with the corporate pandering and exhibitionist feminism that often accompany it. Much of that critique is focused through Moriarty’s character, Annie January, better known as Starlight.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 Animosity Tour and Other Promotional Movie Campaigns We Love

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      For Jennifer Lopez, Sterling K. Brown, Dakota Johnson and others, the standard publicity push isn’t so standard anymore.In the 1999 rom-com “Notting Hill,” the sheepish bookseller played by Hugh Grant goes to a hotel expecting a date with the megawatt star played by Julia Roberts. He is surprised to find he has arrived at a press junket and looks adorably flustered as he’s shuffled from room to room, pretending to be a reporter from Horse & Hound to interview the stars of her space movie.The sequence is a handy introduction to this strange custom of film publicity: actors sitting in sterile suites for a parade of brief interviews. But these days that almost seems quaint. The press tour has taken on a life of its own, with stars like Dakota Johnson, Jennifer Lopez and Zendaya making news for the tour itself with quippy sound bites, inscrutable looks and fashion moments.It can be grueling for celebrities. Lupita Nyong’o recently described junkets as a “torture technique” in an interview with Glamour. But these cycles can be more entertaining than the movies themselves. Grant’s bookseller would be baffled to learn that you can categorize the tours as follows:The Animosity TourFlorence Pugh was pointedly not at the Venice Film Festival news conference for “Don’t Worry Darling” in 2022.Jacopo Raule/Getty ImagesThe promotion stops for nothing, not even cast members who appear to hate being in one another’s company. This seemed to be the case during the cycle for “Atlas,” Netflix’s new sci-fi flick starring Jennifer Lopez and Sterling K. Brown.During joint interviews, Brown seemed unable to help himself from making fun of Lopez. In one viral moment, he feigned surprise when she said she was Puerto Rican, before repeating her comfort meal of “rice and beans and like, you know, chicken” in overemphasized Spanish.In another moment, he jumped in and helped her out when her own Spanish failed her. After supplying the right word, he did a little dance. That clip prompted social-media users to wonder what J. Lo did to Brown. During these interactions Lopez looked perturbed, leaving plenty of room for observers to jump to conclusions.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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      Pat Sajak Bids Farewell to ‘Wheel of Fortune’: ‘The Time Has Come to Say Goodbye’

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      The host thanked the show’s viewers and had special words for his co-star, Vanna White, before he signed off for the final time.On Friday night, Pat Sajak said goodbye to “Wheel of Fortune,” expressing gratitude to the countless viewers who had tuned in during his more than 40 years at the helm. “Thank you for allowing me into your lives,” he said.After the final game on his watch concluded, Sajak returned from a final commercial break and addressed the camera directly. “Well, the time has come to say goodbye,” he said. “It’s been an incredible privilege to be invited into millions of homes night after night, year after year, decade after decade. I always felt that the privilege came with the responsibility to keep this daily half-hour a safe place for family fun. No social issues, no politics, nothing embarrassing I hope, just a game.”Still, Sajak, who began his run in 1981, acknowledged that “Wheel of Fortune” had evolved into more than just frivolous, fleeting fun for many. “It became,” he said, “a place where kids learned their letters, where people from other countries honed their English skills, where families came together along with friends and neighbors, and entire generations.”He praised the show’s crew and thanked his family, including his daughter Maggie, who joined “Wheel” as a social correspondent in 2021. And he of course had many kind words for his co-star of more than four decades, Vanna White, whom he called his “professional other half.” (The farewell episode was filmed in early April.)“Like me, she takes the show very seriously but not herself,” Sajak said. “I shudder to think what these 40-plus years might have been like had they brought someone in all full of themselves, playing the prima donna role. Vanna is as sweet and unassuming as she seems.” (He noted that while he’ll miss seeing her at work, they’ll see plenty of each other: They live about five miles apart.) They embraced onstage after his remarks as the episode ended like any other, with the two of them speaking to each other as the credits rolled.On Thursday night, it was White who, through tears, took a moment to address Sajak directly.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 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