HBO Has Perfected the Art of Sibling Rivalry

It's nearly 10 minutes into the first episode of Poker Face, the clever and crackling new mystery series, before we see the show's star, Natasha Lyonne. By the time we meet her character, Charlie Cale, we've seen the bad guy, a murder has already been committed, and we know who did it. Every episode in this Peacock series is structured this way; the real suspense lies in Charlie's arrival. How will she find herself mixed up in this particular case? What's her angle going to be to nail the criminals? Charlie isn't a cop or a private eye; she's a woman on the run from a mobster, who has a habit of forging connections with doomed people and an uncanny ability to tell when someone is lying. That's the entire premise of Poker Face, and it works incredibly well on its own Columbo-esque charms.

It didn't take long for HBO to give fans of The Last of Us what they want — the apocalyptic drama is officially getting a second season. This comes as no surprise after HBO announced that The Last of Us is the network's second-largest debut after House of the Dragon, with the first episode drawing more than 22 million views in the U.S. alone. Still, the renewal comes early in the season, just before the third episode airs Sunday, January 29.

Jerrod Carmichael’s had a big year. Since his Emmy-winning comedy special, Rothaniel, dropped in April 2022, he’s gained widespread attention with major gigs like hosting Saturday Night Live and the Golden Globes. The latter allowed him to publicly criticize one of the entertainment industry’s largest institutions (the Hollywood Foreign Press Association), a move that during a different time may have made him a pariah in the business. But Carmichael seems to be doing just fine, and continues to be celebrated for the authenticity of his comedy — HBO just announced a comedy documentary project starring Carmichael has been ordered to series.

Communities often form in the aftermath of a tragedy, from neighbors standing outside a burning house to survivors founding an advocacy group, and in 21st-century television, these ad hoc societies are often tinged with terror: Think of the cult on Yellowjackets, the smoke monster that chases the Lost islanders, or the troupe of artists that learns to kill on Station Eleven. Considering the anxiety that’s pervaded this century — and the catastrophes that have stacked up like leaves on the ground — this fraught tone might almost feel necessary. And that’s why Dear Edward is such a heartrending surprise. Though it begins in grief, it refuses to stay there.

Peacock is getting out of the free streaming game. A sign-up page on Peacock's website reveals new customers are no longer able to create a free account, once a key component of the service's branding. As The Hollywood Reporter notes, NBCUniversal launched Peacock in 2020 with the promise that it...

Last week, Fox renewed The Simpsons, Family Guy, and Bob’s Burgers for at least two more seasons each through 2025, and this week a new deal with Hulu will ensure that every one of those episodes will be on the streaming service the day after it airs. Deadline reports that this deal came just ahead of when the companies’ previous deal was set to end in September.

[Editor's Note: This post contains spoilers for Poker Face Season 1, Episode 5.]. If it’s going to work, then “Time of the Monkey,” the fifth episode of Peacock's new mystery series Poker Face, has to trick us into loving the murderers. The gut-punch twist of the final act won’t land unless we spend the previous 30 minutes rooting for a pair of old hippies who have landed in an upscale retirement community. The script does a fantastic job of making them seem like counterculture heroines, but just as importantly, they’re played by Judith Light and S. Epatha Merkerson, whose careers have conditioned us to trust them on sight.

If you pay any attention at all to TV reviews and news, you’ve likely heard by now that Poker Face’s creator Rian Johnson and its star Natasha Lyonne intend their Peacock mystery-comedy series to be a throwback to classic ’70s and ’80s detective dramas like Columbo and The Rockford Files. If you’ve watched the show, it’s hard to miss the influences. The opening credits’s font looks charmingly vintage, for one thing.

Contracts for the members of the Writers Guild of America (WGA), the Directors Guild of America (DGA), and the Screen Actors Guild - American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) are up this summer. Contract negotiations have yet to begin, but already the effects of impending labor actions, such as a strike, are being felt across the industry, and could soon affect upcoming TV lineups.

Some of this year’s most anticipated series will make their debuts at the 2023 SXSW Film & Television Festival taking place March 10 through 19 in Austin, Texas. The festival kicks off with the first look at Donald Glover’s Swarm (yes, the Beyoncé-inspired show Malia Obama worked on) and closes with the premiere of the dark comedy Beef, starring Ali Wong and Steven Yuen. 10 more series representing every streaming service out there will screen in between.

It’s been 13 years since King of the Hill aired its final episode, but now the show will find new life with a reboot at Hulu after Fox dropped the project last year. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the revival has been in the works since 2017, when creators Mike Judge and Greg Daniels reunited with the original cast at Sketchfest in San Francisco to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the series premiere. But as certain recent animated reboots have proven, not every beloved cartoon needs a modern update.

It’s all fun and games until somebody uses their superpowers to start a violent revolution. The trailer for Prime Video’s The Power goes hard on the show's high-concept premise, about all the teenage girls in the world simultaneously developing the ability to conduct electricity through their hands. Playing...

On Tuesday, DC Studios co-chairmen James Gunn and Peter Safran shared the 10 projects that will chart the “first chapter” of their all-new, all-different DC cinematic universe. And while the usual DCU suspects feature prominently in their plans — hello, Superman; hiya, Batman — Gunn and Safran seem just as interested in plumbing the depths of DC Comics’ vast catalog to pull out some truly deep cuts. In an interview with DC.com, Safran, speaking with Gunn, stated that this first slate of projects will, in essence, resemble the structure and continuity of Marvel Studios’ film and television Phases, but the DC duo promises that their slate will be a bit more freaky. Says Safran: “[This] first chapter’s called ‘Gods and Monsters.’”

“I’m not like other people,” Paul T. Goldman says in the final episode of the Peacock series of the same name. And he’s absolutely right. In a time where originality is harder and harder to come by, everything about Goldman, from the way he purses his lips to his dogged determination to the supposed life he’s led up until now, is unlike anyone else. That’s part of what makes director Jason Woliner’s experimental hybrid docuseries, Paul T. Goldman, so compelling. It’s also what makes the show impossible to replicate.

The next time you’re at a drugstore, pay attention to the music being piped through the aisles. Those pleasant background tunes may not sound menacing, but sometimes, they’ve got histories that would make Ozzy Osbourne blush. That’s one of the fascinating revelations in Sometimes When We Touch, Paramount+’s new docuseries about the rise, fall, and rebirth of soft rock.

Freeform thriller The Watchful Eye may look like a spiritual successor to Cruel Summer, the anthology that became an instant hit when it debuted in 2021, but viewers would be wise to resist comparing the two. While Cruel Summer’s first season examined grooming and the villainization of women by 1990s media culture, The Watchful Eye layers a Hitchcockian premise with the “eat the rich” sentiment that has taken hold of contemporary pop culture. The result is a young adult drama that’s both compulsively watchable and socially aware, a rare combination in the genre.

When the Black vocal group The 5th Dimension released their 1969 anthem “Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In,” they sought to capture their community’s skepticism about the government. Taken from the counter-cultural musical Hair, the song’s lyrics are a call to action: regain control of your environment, let the sun shine in, and you will have “no more falsehoods and derisions.” Three years later, when Shirley Chisholm became the first Black woman to run for president of the United States, she echoed those sentiments in her announcement speech, calling for a need to “reshape our society and regain control of our destiny.” Music captured the feelings of a community, and the community responded with an organized social movement. The New PBS documentary Fight The Power: How Hip Hop Changed The World argues that this call and response helped hip hop become a tool for Black Liberation, but as it seeks to prove that thesis, it skims over the inherent challenge of advocating for radical political reform while trying to appeal to a mainstream audience.

[Spoilers abound for The Last of Us Episode 3, "Long Long Time," and both The Last of Us games.]. In the decade since its release, much has been written about representation within The Last of Us video game and, even more notably, its sequel Part II. The series has garnered as much praise for its handling of queer relationships in the midst of an apocalyptic scenario as criticism about the way the games approach everything from race to trans characters.

He may have the silliest name, but Tricki Woo is the most powerful dog on TV. Consider this clip from “What a Balls Up!,” the Season 3 episode of All Creatures Great and Small that aired January 29 on PBS. Clip provided by Masterpiece. Those who watch the...