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      ‘Emily In Paris’ Goes on a Roman Holiday

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      The frothy Netflix show frustrated Parisians with its portrait of their city. Now its heroine is heading to Rome — and the showrunner doesn’t care if residents there feel the same way.“Emily in Paris,” the hit Netflix series about a young American living a life of romance and luxury in France, has ignited a blaze of indignation since it premiered in late 2020.Emily’s clumsy grasp of the native tongue, brash designer clothes and exaggerated encounters with dashing chefs and flamboyant artists left some Parisians irate and American expatriates embarrassed, even as it became one of Netflix’s most popular comedies.Now in its fourth season — split into two installments, with the second arriving Thursday — the show continues to both charm and vex with its sunny vision of what the French newspaper Liberation has called “Disneyland Paris.”But in the new batch of episodes, Emily (Lily Collins) departs Paris and heads to Rome. Invited by her new Italian love interest Marcello (Eugenio Franceschini), she zooms around on his scooter, offering a picture-postcard view of the Eternal City with stops at touristic hallmarks like the Trevi Fountain, the Colosseum and the Spanish Steps. As he entices Emily to move on to a new European capital, Marcello makes a pitch that doubles as the season’s mandate: “Forget about crepes. We’ll be eating pizza.”Darren Star, the creator and showrunner of “Emily in Paris,” said that Emily “was becoming very comfortable in Paris. I wanted to throw her into some unfamiliar waters.” He added that “we were able to live Emily’s life in Paris, and now we’re going to do the same thing in Rome.”Lily Collins as Emily, exploring her new surroundings.Giulia Parmigiani/NetflixWe 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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      South Park creators to ignore Trump when show returns in 2025

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      The creators of the Emmy-winning series South Park intend to ignore Donald Trump when the irreverent animated show returns for a 27th season in 2025, they said in a rare interview.“I don’t know what more we could possibly say about Trump,” Matt Stone told Vanity Fair in reference to the former US president whose life is seemingly consumed by unadulterated drama.Stone added that part of the strategy for intentionally avoiding mention of the current Republican nominee for November’s presidential race is how much of “a mind scramble” it can be to satirize such a contest.“We’ve tried to do South Park through four or five presidential elections, and it is such a hard thing,” said Stone, who launched the series in 1997 alongside Trey Parker on Comedy Central. “And it seems like it takes outsized importance.“Obviously, it’s fucking important, but it kind of takes over everything and we just have less fun,” he added in the interview, which was posted on Thursday.Part of the reason that South Park’s latest season received a tentative 2025 release date was to give time for Paramount+ – the platform which now streams the show – “to figure all their shit out”, Stone remarked. But Stone also said, “honestly, it’s on purpose,” that he and Parker were skipping the electoral showdown between Trump and his Democratic rival, Vice-President Kamala Harris.The posture that Stone laid out to Vanity Fair strikes a marked contrast with how South Park addressed the 2016 presidential race that Trump unexpectedly won against former secretary of state Hillary Clinton. In the show, an elementary school teacher character voiced by Parker ran for president, defeated Clinton and served in the Oval Office for multiple seasons, adopting a look and style that was clearly inspired by Trump.Thursday’s interview in Vanity Fair described how Stone and Parker mounted a “36-hour mad dash to make an episode about the 2016 election after being stunned (like most of the rest of the country) about Trump’s victory”.Trump has offered commentators – satirical or otherwise – plenty of more material since, including by losing the 2020 election to Joe Biden and being convicted in May of criminally falsifying business records to cover up hush-money payments to an adult film actor who has alleged an extramarital sexual encounter with him.Among numerous other legal problems, he is facing three more criminal indictments stemming from his efforts to nullify his defeat to Biden as well as his retention of government secrets after his presidency – and he survived an assassination attempt at a political rally in July.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionSouth Park centers on the adventures of a group of four, mostly foul-mouthed boys who are growing up in a town in Colorado. The show has profanely satirized an overwhelmingly wide range of topics, managing to win critical acclaim and establish itself as an unusually long-running program despite some viewers finding its content too offensive.Its creators are also famous for The Book of Mormon – their Tony-winning musical – along with the cult classic films BASEketball and Team America: World Police. More

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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