Television

Television

The Paley Center for Media today announced the dates and first programs for PaleyFest LA 2026.

As a former English literature major, I really thought I was above reality TV. I don't watch a lot of content, and when I do, I'm more of a "Game of Thrones" person than a "Real Housewives" person. I love analyzing themes, motives, and emotional arcs, and I assumed the Bravo franchise had nothing to offer but mindless drama. For years, I had avoided the shows and would usually leave the room when my teenage daughter turned them on.

Those flashbacks featuring pre-ghoulified Cooper Howard take place around 2077. Specifically, the flashback showing the nukes falling on America takes place on October 23, 2077. The recap also claims that Lucy goes with the Ghoul at the end of the Fallout season finale because she has to choose between life and death. Wrong again, you dumb robot. She actually goes because she wants to track down her father and learn the truth. Something the Ghoul is interested in, too.

It's nearly impossible to describe the "Queen of all Media" in one sentence. Oprah Winfrey is a multihyphenate: A daytime talk show host who changed the business. A producer. An author. A philanthropist. An actress with accolades. A billionaire. An avid gardener. A champion of books and education. A media powerhouse. In 2014, a few years after ending the talk show that catapulted her to international renown, she was asked about the secret to her success.

Five years in the making, "Pole to Pole with Will Smith" follows the Oscar-winning actor's journey through the planet's most extreme environments from the South Pole to the North Pole. The 57-year-old celebrity travels across all seven continents, taking him from the icefields of Antarctica to the jungles of the Amazon, the mountains of the Himalayas, the deserts of Africa, the islands of the Pacific and the icebergs of the Arctic.

It will feature 12 celebrities teaming up with a professional dancer to perform a live routine every week, with each pair having just seven days to practice. They will be scored by four judges: Oti Mabuse, who replaced Loraine Barry after she departed the series, Brian Redmond, Arthur Gourounlian and Karen Byrne, as well as the viewing public at home, with the winning couple claiming the Glitterball Trophy.

"When I run into people in the street, they're very respectful," he went on. "They connect with my work, they recognize me, but they talk to me like you would talk to a person you don't know."

In the last episode, Steven read the description of his Block-A-Vote, and he said he plays it before tribal council to say whose vote he wants to block. That is a detail we had not heard before when talking about the A-Vote family, so I figured it would be important later. In the "Previously on Survivor," he mentions it again, which signals it will also be important this episode.

Among those who responded to Younger's assertion that Netflix is full of "gay porn" (we can't see any) was one person who wrote, "now you know how I feel when I'm subjected to watching heterosexual couples kiss on any TV programme." To that, Younger replied: "Heterosexuality is normal. Gay isn't." Someone else added: "'Porn' is overstating it a *bit* much," to which Younger cited " Mr. Robot, S1E3" as evidence (despite the fact the Rami Malek-fronted show originally aired on USA Network during its original run from 2015-2019).

TV's best ever video game adaptation screamed back to life with the year's most traumatic killing off of a beloved character. Losing one half of the show's central duo was no easy thing to move past, but The Last of Us morphed into a touching meditation on grief, loss and the pain of love left unspoken with added mushroom monsters. What we said: A gutsy and thoughtful rendering of humans on the edge. Read more

And, really, who deserves one of these more than Simon Cowell? Because here is a man who, as the face of The X Factor and Pop Idol, spent the first part of the 21st century at the top of the entertainment tree. He could make and break careers with a flick of his wrist. Discounting sport, royalty, Covid and (weirdly) Gavin & Stacey, the 2010 X Factor finale remains the most watched British TV show of the last 15 years.

"professor of biochemistry at Boston University School of Medicine"

Everything in life is just the fragile result of something that could have been so easily different. None of this would've been possible had my parents not emigrated out of China. My parents were the first class of students after Mao's death that were allowed to leave the country to pursue higher degrees. My sister was born in Australia. I would not have been born if they had stayed in China.

A rock could technically be nicer than Nate Jacobs was in for the past two seasons. Still, Jacob Elordi promises there have been some positive changes to Nate with the time jump for the upcoming season. Gwyneth Paltrow asked Elordi on Actors on Actors if his character was "nicer" than in previous seasons, as she became a fan after her kids recommended it to her. He gave us a little hope for Nate's character development.

Amazon's live action Tomb Raider TV show finally seems to be going ahead after a few false starts, with Game of Thrones alum Sophie Turner in the lead role. Now, reports suggest sci-fi legend Sigourney Weaver is up for a role in the TV adaptation. Deadline reports that Weaver is circling a role in the upcoming Tomb Raider TV show, though a deal has not yet been closed. It's unknown what role she would play if cast.

It's disappointing (but unsurprising) that Fallon didn't push back on that,

In an announcement, Elon Musk's AI company xAI unveiled a new tool called "Halftime" which "dynamically weaves AI-generated ads into the scenes you're watching." Instead of cutting to an ad break, Halftime manipulates the characters onscreen into deviating from the script and prominently brandishing a product of a marketer's choice. The tool is meant to make ad "breaks feel like part of the story instead of interruptions," the company said.

The FX half-hour comedy about a group of recent college graduates in New York begins, naturally, on the subway; what seems like an over-studied portrait of early adulthood intimacy tangled limbs, in-group references, aggressively relaxed banter quickly devolves into a standoff between a creepy subway masturbator and the group's instigator, Issa (Amita Rao), trying to out-masturbate him to make a wildly off point about feminism.

LEGO's newly announced 'Stranger Things: The Creel House' is a detailed diorama of TV's creepiest house: Henry 'Vecna' Creel 's '50s mansion. The perfect expansion pack for anyone mourning the end of the hit show in the new year, it's 2,593 pieces worth of Easter eggs like Steve's BMW, the WSQK van and Will's bike, as well as tinier items like Max's cassette tape and Henry's Mind Flayer sketch

If you're under 45, it's hard to remember a time when Andy Richter wasn't a TV fixture. Rising to prominence in 1993 as part of Late Night With Conan O'Brien, Richter has seemed an omnipresent affable Everyman ever since, both on the talk-show circuit and in his own work, such as the criminally underrated sitcoms Andy Richter Controls the Universe and Andy Barker, P.I.

The runaway box-office success of movies like Demon Slayer and Chainsaw Man may have been the splashiest anime story of 2025, but arguably, those films owe their returns entirely to the hype behind anime television. Both films dragged a rabid fandom to the cinema to catch the next "canonical" installments of their respective franchises. Though demon-killing shonen action ruled the silver screen (not to exclude films like 100 Meters and The Last Blossom), the smaller screen proved an embarrassment of riches across genres and tones

Bron Breakker got rawer and more shocking with his call out to CM Punk, begging (on his hands and knees) for the return of the "old Punk" -- the one who commanded respect during his 434-day WWE championship reign from 2011 to 2013. Bron said that if the current "nice guy" version of Punk shows up for their World Heavyweight Championship match on Jan. 5, Bron will beat him easily, take his title and, "while I'm at it, I'll take your wife, too."