Television

Anne Beatts, one of the original writers on Saturday Night Live, has died at the age of 74. Former SNL cast member Laraine Newman first tweeted news of Beatts’ death Wednesday, “Our Anne- an OG SNL writer passed away yesterday.” Film producer and Beatts’ friend Rona Edwards confirmed the writer’s death to the Hollywood Reporter. Beatts died Wednesday at her home in Los Angeles, but no cause of death was provided. “Anne was a pioneer – she truly paved the way for women in comedy and female comedy writers in...

Netflix has released a new trailer for its upcoming docuseries, The Sons of Sam: A Descent Into Darkness, which will premiere May 5th. Directed by Joshua Zeman, the series revisits the infamous string of murders that shook New York City in the late Seventies but also explores the argument that David Berkowitz wasn’t a lone killer. To that end, the series delves into the work of journalist Maury Terry, who became convinced Berkowitz hadn’t acted alone and spent decades trying to prove it. In an email to Rolling Stone, Zeman...

Jack Hanna — the former zookeeper, wildlife TV host and frequent late-night TV guest — has been diagnosed with dementia and will be stepping away from public life, his family said in a statement. “Doctors have diagnosed our dad, Jack Hanna, with dementia, now believed to be Alzheimer’s disease. His condition has progressed much faster in the last few months than any of us could have anticipated,” his family said in a statement signed by his three daughters, which the Columbus Zoo shared on Twitter. Hanna served as the director...

Here’s a horror story: You have an idea for a TV show. It’s a really clever idea, one that’s never quite been done on television before. Everyone you tell about it couldn’t sound more excited. But ideas don’t turn into finished series overnight, and the development process takes so long, another show with the exact same idea premieres before yours gets the chance. Worse, the other show is a better version of that idea than what you made. So now you not only appear to be copying them, but not...

Star Trek fans were given some amazing news yesterday when Paramount+ announced that not only has the new season of Star Trek: Picard started production, but John de Lancie will be returning as the omnipotent Q. “Despite 178 episodes of The Next Generation and four feature films,” Patrick Stewart said during a virtual discussion with Wil “Wesley Crusher” Wheaton at the announcement event, “there are events coming up in Season Two that have never been seen before.” John de Lancie then beamed in to the chat to break the news...

Products featured are independently selected by our editorial team and we may earn a commission from purchases made from our links; the retailer may also receive certain auditable data for accounting purposes. So you’ve watched the epic clash between Godzilla vs. Kong, streaming now on HBO Max. If you just tuned in to see these monster legends smackdown like it’s the WWE, you might not know that this is actually the fourth installment in Legendary Pictures’ MonsterVerse, spanning the past seven years and all leading up to this thrilling finale....

Products featured are independently selected by our editorial team and we may earn a commission from purchases made from our links; the retailer may also receive certain auditable data for accounting purposes. From low-budget romps to high-energy blockbuster films, Star Trek has become one of the most influential sci-fi franchises of all time. While Trek has decades worth of TV, film, and animated iterations that might rival Star Wars, it also has its own unique legacy and long-time, passionate cult following. With the release of Star Trek: Discovery in 2017, the Trek television universe has become...

Disney and Marvel Studio have released a new trailer for Loki, the upcoming series centered around Thor’s mischievous brother, set to premiere June 11th on Disney+. Loki is set after the events of Avengers: Endgame and finds Tom Hiddleston reprising his role as the titular God of Mischief. As the trailer shows, the series opens with Loki in a lot of hot water with the Time Variance Authority, a bureaucratic agency tasked with protecting the proper flow of time, which Loki rudely disrupted when he stole the Tesseract and broke reality....

Saturday Night Live returned to its Britney Spears talk show format for a cold open sketch revolving around a trio of newsmakers this week: Lil Nas X, Matt Gaetz and Pepe Le Pew. “This is the show that will shine a light on the social pariahs of the week, and I will decide if they’re innocent or not that innocent,” Chloe Fineman’s Spears said. “And speaking of pariah, shoutout to our sponsor: Georgia! Voted best place not to vote.” The singer first brought out rapper Lil Nas X (Chris Redd),...

Saturday Night Live‘s Weekend Update focused on the biggest news story of the week: Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz’s wild sex scandal. “Rep. Matt Gaetz, who looks like a caricature drawing of me, is reportedly under investigation for an alleged sexual relationship with an underage girl, because Gaetz believes only voters should have to show ID,” co-anchor Colin Jost said. “It’s also being reported that Gaetz may have paid for sex with women he met online. That story has since been confirmed by his whole vibe.” Jost then poked fun at...

Disney+ has released a new trailer for its upcoming animated Star Wars series, The Bad Batch, which will fittingly premiere on Star Wars Day, May 4th (as in “May the Fourth be with you”). Related: Here’s All the Star Wars content streaming on Disney+ The Bad Batch is a follow-up of sorts to the acclaimed Star Wars animated series, The Clone Wars. The new show is centered around Clone Force 99, a group of elite, experimental clones, each with their own special skill that separates them from the normal Clone...

The original Law & Order debuted in the fall of 1990, so long ago that the hot series it was scheduled against was thirtysomething, which nearly got revived last year as a show in which the kids from the original series would now be thirtysomething themselves. (Other new shows from that fall that have since in some stage of reboot, rumored or real, included The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Beverly Hills 90210, The Flash, and Parenthood.) It was so long ago that its other direct competition was a CBS movie-of-the-week...