Won’t you please spare a thought for all the right-wing grifters who are now realizing they have been grifted by this president?

Therese Odell

1 year ago

Here’s A BUNCH OF TV News

Reminder: The Oscars are on Sunday on ABC. Entertainment Weekly has made a handy guide for all the questions you might have.

The CW is going to turn a profit … next year. They swear.

NBCUniversal News Group is planning on making a subscription news platform that will be “mobile first” whatever the hell that means. Good luck!

Jessica Lange is VERY done with American Horror Story, thankyouverymuch.

Ella Purnell opens up about the tragedy of her Fallout-related “poop finger.”

Lenny Kravitz has seen every episode of Emily in Paris, God bless him.

Jennifer Coolidge is rooting for something terrible to happen to Tanya’s husband on The White Lotus: “Mike White can tell a story better than anybody. I mean, in the first episode [of season three], I felt like – Oh, this is going to be really good! I just felt like everything he set up — it’s really eerie — you’re not quite sure what people are up to yet. My guess? Something’s going to go horribly wrong. I think it’s really going to go wrong. Mike White, he wants us to have it all, I think. I can’t wait. As you know, [actor] Jon Gries has shown up [again as Tanya’s former husband, Greg]. I hope he gets it! I hope they do something terrible to him.” Me too, Jennifer. Me too.

Here’s your first peek at the upcoming Lanterns series. Reminder: it’s a crime series in the mold of True Detective that just happens to have superheroes in it written by Damon Lindelof and Chris Mundy, a writer on True Detective: Night Country. As a huge fan of Watchmen, I am irrationally excited for this. Still no word on a release window yet, boo.

It’s been a bloodbath over at General Hospital.

The rumors of Kathleen Kennedy’s retirement from Lucasfilm have been greatly exaggerated. Sorry, sad fanboys who are SO MAD about girls and people of color getting into your Star Wars. Go cry some more.

Y’all have to stop blaming Bowen Yang for Shane Gillis being fired from SNL unless you want Yang to come for you.

And Leslie Jones is still pissed off at a director she worked with on SNL on those Leslie and Kyle sketches. It was so bad, she and Tiffany Haddish were about to punch him in the Adam’s apple.

“The guy who would direct those was a f—king asshole,” Jones said. “And I don’t give a f—k if you see this. You still are, probably, a f—king d*ckhead. A f—king narcissistic dickhead.”

“He’s just like one of them white boys who thought he was doing f—king Shakespeare. No, this is a f—king sketch. You’re not funny, and you’re not creating anything beautiful. You’re just being an asshole. I can’t explain it. It’s like the way a person can look at you where you just know, ‘Yeah, I know you’re calling me a n———.’”

And here’s the fun background fact: that white boy? Folks are pretty sure it was Dave McCary, also known as Mr. Emma Stone. Keep your Adam’s apple hidden around Leslie, Dave.

@toureshow
#fyp #snl

♬ original sound – Toure YT: Rap Latte

PolUGHtics

Some media bullshit first:

Paramount, desperate for its merger with Skydance to go through, has announced they will be rolling back their DEI policies. It’s probably not going to be enough for the administration, though.

Warner Bros. Discovery is also planning to get rid of the D and the E, but keep the I. OK.

President Tim Apple demanded that Apple drop their DEI programs, but Apple’s shareholders told him to shove his suggestions up his ass.

In the battle between the White House and the press, the White House Correspondents Association has decided to stop distributing press pool reports, ceding control to the White House. As a result, Reuters and HuffPost were kicked out of the pool by the administration.

The AP, Reuters, and Bloomberg, the three major wire services, released a statement:

“It is essential in a democracy for the public to have access to news about their government from an independent, free press,” the editors of the services said in a joint statement. “We believe that any steps by the government to limit the number of wire services with access to the President threatens that principle. It also harms the spread of reliable information to people, communities, businesses and global financial markets that heavily depend on our reporting.”

I mean, even Megyn Kelly thinks taking control of the White House press pool out of the hands of the press is a bad idea:

I’m all for pushing back on a left-wing bias, I don’t have to prove that to anybody. But I do think the independence of the press is important. I realize the press has lost its mind, but it’s written right into the Bill of Rights that yeah, a free press is one of our most fundamental values, and I’m not sure I’m comfortable with the White House saying, ‘This is who will cover me. This is who I will allow to cover me at all.’ It’s one thing to say to the AP, ‘F you, you don’t-, you’ve lost your right to be in these intimate spaces.’ But there is a difference in saying, ‘We will decide, not you members of the press who gets to come into every space and ask questions of the president.’ I mean, we could be in a Democratic administration next, where they’re like ‘Nobody other than MSNBC and, you know, the the AP can have access and ask questions.’

She’s absolutely correct: having the WHCA choose who is in the pool helps maintain ideological balance, no matter who is in the White House. It’s important if you care about fair coverage, regardless of the President’s party. The problem here, though, is that Megyn Kelly believes there might be free and fair elections in four years in which Democrats could win, which is just silly.

Meanwhile, the White House Press Secretary is out here claiming they aren’t afraid to take questions from anyone.

In funnier news: the administration released the so-called “Epstein files” to a bunch of right-wing bloggers, only for them to discover there was nothing new in them. GEE, WONDER WHY?

So now, Attorney General Pam Bondi — who was the attorney general of Florida when the Jeffrey Epstein miscarriage of justice happened in the first place — has all the frothing right-wingers who were hoping to see Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama and James Carville’s names in these files calling for her resignation. It’s been 5 weeks!

So in turn, Pam Bondi is screaming at Kash Patel and the FBI to FIX THIS!

But Kash Patel is too busy negotiating with the UFC to come train FBI agents because this administration isn’t nearly Idiocracy enough.

And all the while, the administration that was supposed to be such a valiant warrior against human trafficking just brought back to this country two notorious sex traffickers while they make plans to deport unaccompanied minors.

Believe it or not, these things have made some lunatics on the right ask some questions:

If I’m gonna be fair these questions needs to be asked today.

Why is the release of the Epstein list always a shit show?

What’s the point of booting out illegals and criminals while somehow becoming a safe haven for the Tate brothers?

Why is Crypto in the toilet if Trump…

— Dave Portnoy (@stoolpresidente) February 27, 2025

Our government used children who were trafficked as a publicity stunt. Disgusting.

Release the files, now.

— Kevin Sorbo (@ksorbs) February 28, 2025

I will not hand it to Laura Loomer I will not hand it to Laura Loomer I will not hand it to Laura Loomer I will not hand it to Laura Loomer I will not hand it to Laura Loomer I will not hand it to Laura Loomer I will not hand it to Laura Loomer I will not hand it to Laura Loomer I will not hand it t

— Laura Jedeed (@laurajedeed.bsky.social) 2025-02-27T23:16:03.924Z

UH-OH! It’s ALMOST as if everything these idiots chose to believe were stupid conspiratorial lies designed to make them not just feel superior, but to allow them to demonize and dehumanize their so-called enemies on the Left. What if, after alllllll that, it was ALL BULLSHIT? What then, Laura and Kevin and Dave and all the millions of other Q-Anon-adjacent MAGAites? WHAT THEN?

In terrible news that impacts us all, a child here in Texas died of measles, the first death of that disease in this country in 10 years, and completely preventable. Some comments I’ve seen about this on social media:

“It was in the Mennonite community.” First and foremost, it’s still a child who did not make the choice to be unvaccinated, and they didn’t deserve to die. Keep your fucking humanity. But just because this death was in a small community that you might not have contact with doesn’t mean you or your family are safe: measles is one of the most transmissible diseases in the world that can linger in the air for hours. And if your child isn’t vaccinated — and we have the lowest vaccination rate in this country in decades thanks to a prolonged disinformation campaign against vaccines — they have a 9 in 10 chance of contracting it if they are exposed to it. And guess what? It’s in Texas, New Mexico, California, Alaska, New Jersey, New York, Georgia, and Rhode Island. You’re going to be exposed to it — just check out the video below — you better hope you’re protected.

@rubin_allergy
Hundreds of thousands of people in the San Antonio, Texas area may have been exposed to measles over Valentine’s Day weekend. #viral #outbreak #tiktokdoc #learnontiktok

♬ Mysterious and sad BGM(1120058) – S and N

“You can’t blame Robert F. Kennedy for this, he’s only been HHS Secretary for a couple of weeks.” And while that is true, Kennedy has been one of the biggest names in the anti-vaccination movement in this country for well over a decade. While he might not have influenced the Mennonite community to not vaccinate their children, he certainly has played a part in other parents not vaccinating their children, which not only helped spread the disease, but will lead to more deaths. So yeah, this is on his hands (and Andrew Wakefield and Jenny McCarthy’s and Alex Jones and everyone else who has cast doubt on vaccines and herd immunity). And besides, his response to this death has been less than comforting … or truthful:

Kennedy’s immediate response to news of the measles death, the first in the U.S. since 2015, was to say that such outbreaks are a commonplace event. He incorrectly alluded to two deaths and said that hospitalized patients were being kept “mainly for quarantine” reasons.
Public health experts said the Trump administration should be encouraging vaccination at the national level to help curb one of the largest U.S. outbreaks of measles in the past decade.
Overall, more than 130 cases have been reported in Texas and neighboring New Mexico. State officials said additional cases are likely to occur because measles is so contagious.
“There have been four measles outbreaks this year in this country. Last year there were 16. So it’s not unusual,” Kennedy said on Wednesday. “We have measles outbreaks every year.”

“This is what happens when you have open borders.” First of all, you’re a disgusting person if that is your first thought. That is not just racist, it’s dehumanizing, and the kind of thinking that leads down a dark path. But second of all, it wouldn’t matter if someone with measles crossed our border IF PEOPLE WERE VACCINATED. And, in fact, it hasn’t mattered for decades BECAUSE WE WERE VACCINATED. For there to be effective herd immunity — meaning that those people who CAN’T get vaccinated for health reasons to still be protected — 95% of the community needs to be vaccinated. Currently, we are at about 91% in this country, with some communities with MUCH lower rates. This isn’t an immigrant’s fault; this is the fault of willfully ignorant parents in this country. Protect yourselves — with this administration firing scientists and shutting down valuable information and communication and canceling vaccine meetings — we are all on our own. The government will no longer protect you — and this is the kind of thing that should be keeping you awake at night.

Renewals

Next Level Chef has been renewed for two more seasons on Fox extending into season 6.
Marvel’s Spidey and His Amazing Friends has been renewed for a fifth season on Disney Jr.
Where’s Wanda? has been renewed for a second season on Apple TV+.

In Development

An untitled monster limited series set in Newfoundland from Jesse McKeown, an Umbrella Academy writer, has been ordered at Netflix.
Impact Winter is being adapted into a TV series at Netflix.

Casting News

Oscar Nuñez has joined The Paper at Peacock, reviving his role as The Office’s “Oscar Martinez.”
Krysten Ritter is joining Dexter: Resurrection on Paramount+ with Showtime.
Sharon Stone has officially joined Euphoria on HBO.
Ed Harris has joined Wonder Man on Disney+.
Bill Nighy has joined Ride or Die on Prime Video.
David Alan Grier, Lauren Tom, Lili Taylor, Natasha Leggero, and Richard Kind have been added to the cast of Poker Face on Peacock.
Jamie Campbell Bower and Eddie Marsan are joining the cast of Lord of the Rings: Rings of Power on Prime Video.
Simon Helberg has joined the untitled Silicon Valley drama at AMC and AMC+.

Mark Your Calendar

The Rehearsal returns on HBO on April 20.

Control Freak debuts on Hulu on March 13.

Number One on the Call Sheet debuts on March 28 on Apple TV+.

Becoming Katharine Graham is streaming on Prime Video.

Bill Burr: Drop Dead Years will premiere on Hulu on March 14.

Stadium Lockup premieres on A&E on March 19.

Last One Laughing UK premieres on Prime Video on March 20.

Lazarus debuts on Adult Swim on April 5.

Art Detectives debuts on Acorn TV on June 9.
Pokemon Concierge returns on Netflix in September.

R.I.P.

Michael Preece, Script-supervisor turned director who worked on Hunter, Dallas and Walker, Texas Ranger among others, and Randy Newman’s father-in-law

Olive Sturgess, Actress known for The Raven, The Donna Reed Show, and Petticoat Junction and her extensive work on TV Westerns

Pilar Del Rey, Actress known for Giant, and guest roles on TV in Sea Hunt, Daniel Boone, Dragnet, Family Affair, My Three Sons, The Wild Wild West, Police Story, Mannix, Marcus Welby M.D., Barnaby Jones, Simon & Simon, and Hart to Hart and many others

Renen Schorr, Israeli filmmaker

Paul Bronfman, “Supplier of production equipment, soundstages and services to the Canadian and Hollywood film and TV industry”

As a mystery surrounds his and his wife Betsy Arakawa’s deaths, more tributes to Gene Hackman have since come in. Hackman obviously had so many brilliant roles, it’s too difficult to choose a favorite. That said, if you’ve never seen The Conversation, this would be a good weekend to rent it on one of your streamers (it looks like it’s available on Prime Video). It’s 50 years old, and yet shockingly relevant:

I was privileged to know Gene Hackman because he played tennis with another Gene—Gene Wilder. And that Gene told him about a little role called The Blind Hermit in our movie YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN…

— Mel Brooks (@officialmelbrooks.bsky.social) 2025-02-28T00:41:56.916Z

Extremely saddened by the passing of Gene Hackman, He will be deeply missed… pic.twitter.com/7OlSijbB1H

— Clint Eastwood (@EastwoodMalpaso) February 27, 2025

“I met Gene in acting school, at the Pasadena Playhouse, when he was 27 and I was 19. We used to play congas together on the roof, trying to be like our hero Marlon Brando. And Gene was like Brando, in that he brought something unprecedented to our craft, something people didn’t immediately understand as genius. He was expelled from our school after three months for ‘not having talent.’ It was the first time they ever did that. He was that good. Powerful, subtle, brilliant. A giant among actors. I miss him already.” -Dustin Hoffman

WATCH THIS

FRIDAY

Countdown to the Oscars with Robin Roberts: A quick refresher on the nominees for Sunday’s big ceremony. 7 p.m., ABC

Nickel Boys: This Oscar-nominated film follows the story of two teenagers who forge a bond while in a harsh Florida reform school. 7 p.m., MGM+

SATURDAY

Saturday Night Live: Shane Gillis & Tate McRae. 10:30 p.m., NBC

The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim: The animated telling of the legendary battle that set the Lord of the Rings story into motion. 7 p.m., HBO

Earth, Wind and Fire: iHeartRadio Live: A performance by the legendary R&B-funk-disco-soul band that is everyone’s favorite on a dance floor. 8 p.m., PBS

Midsommar: Because sometimes you’re just in the mood to burn it all down. 9:51 p.m., More Max

SUNDAY

The Oscars: After months of Hollywood celebrating itself, we have arrived at the biggest, most important celebration of all. Hosted by Conan O’Brien 7 p.m., ABC

American Idol: Thirty minutes or so of auditions with new host (and Trump fan) Carrie Underwood. 9:30 p.m. (after The Oscars), ABC

Ghostbusters: Don’t feel like watching an awards ceremony? How about a dose of spooky nostalgia? 7:44 p.m., HBO Zone West

FRI.

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ABC

Countdown to the Oscars
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