Tag: television-tag/news-features

Over the 236 episodes of Friends, Chandler has numerous laugh-out-loud moments, of which everyone will have their personal favourites. There’s season four, episode 15 where he pretends to be moving to Yemen to escape his annoying girlfriend, Janice, and in a beautiful moment of exquisitely-played farce, scuttles back through the airport gate, where Janice is waiting to see him off, pretending he doesn’t see her, before laugh-crying when he actually is forced to board the plane (“Well then, I guess I’m going to Yemen!”). Or there’s season one, episode seven when he’s stuck in an ATM vestibule with the Victoria’s Secret model Jill Goodacre and launches into a tortured inner monologue (“Gum would be perfection? I loathe myself,” he scolds) that hits every comic beat, all the while exposing Chandler’s crippling sense of inadequacy. But if there’s just one episode that encapsulates the scope of Perry’s gifts as Chandler, it’s perhaps The One Where Everybody Finds Out.

A glorious game of bluff

Coming halfway through season five, it is the climax to the storyline in which Chandler and Monica have been secretly seeing each other. When Phoebe accidentally observes the couple in the throes of passion, she and Rachel decide that she should seduce Chandler, in a bid to force him to admit he’s going out with Monica.

In the opening skit of the episode, we get an example of Perry’s unique delivery that famously changed the way millennials spoke, when the gang mention Monica and Rachel’s ever-nude neighbour Ugly Naked Guy’s butt. “And now we’re done with the chicken fried rice,” Chandler says, staring at his takeaway carton, his downward inflection on the sentence as ever serving as a counterpoint to the peppy and upwardly-rising intonation of his co-stars. Perry later explained in his 2022 memoir how he honed his niche in comedy via his distinct line-readings. “I read the words in an unexpected fashion, hitting emphases that no one else had hit… I didn’t know it yet, but my way of speaking would filter into the culture across the next few decades,” he wrote. “For now, though, I was just trying to find interesting ways into lines that were already funny, but that I thought I could truly make dance.”

The proceeding love-bluff game is a delightful display of slapstick, in which having cottoned on to the fact Phoebe and Rachel have found out about their relationship, Chandler and Monica decide to play them at their own game. “The messers become the messees!” exclaims Chandler delightedly.

The seduction scene perfectly demonstrates Perry’s impeccable comic creativity and timing. Chandler has to go through the push-pull of both pretending to be into the idea of a hook-up with Phoebe just enough, while stopping things from going too far. As Chandler tries to force an air of insouciant cool, Perry masterfully plays with the many layers of body language required of him, which really adds to the joke: take Chandler’s fake-jaunty little walk into his flat with Phoebe or his hand hovering over her breast then rising to lie awkwardly upon her shoulder instead, as he almost shudders.

While that might have been a relief for Murphy, he could have had greater difficulties to contend with in recent weeks. Angelica Ross – who previously appeared in two series of American Horror Story and another Murphy series, Pose – used her platform on X (formerly known as Twitter) to complain about Murphy and his shows. First she claimed that she had been ignored by Murphy after he said he wanted to go ahead with her idea for an American Horror Story season starring black women. She then followed up by claiming this had potentially cost her an opportunity working on a Marvel production.

Ross also made allegations about what happened on the set of American Horror Story: 1984. In an in-depth interview with the Hollywood Reporter, she claimed that she had to leave the set due to a crew member who was operating the vehicle she had to drive on camera “wearing a racist T-shirt” every day. She further claimed that after she tweeted “It’s a shame that I do all this work out in the world on anti-blackness and racism and have to come to a set and do the same work”, she was told by producer Tanase Popa that Murphy wanted her to take the tweet down.

Next, Ross alleged, Murphy himself rang her and angrily took issue with her feeling of being silenced, pointing to his advocacy for black trans women. In a statement to The Hollywood Reporter, however, Popa countered Ross’s account, saying that he overheard the phone call in question and what Murphy “basically” said was “I don’t understand why you would go to Twitter instead of coming to us”. BBC Culture contacted Murphy with regards to Ross’ allegations about her interaction with him and the behaviour on the American Horror Story set, but he has not responded.

This was surely not the publicity Murphy would have wanted for his longest-running series. But these events are just the most recent difficult headlines related to the TV empire of the industry’s golden boy, who was said to have secured one of the biggest ever deals for a TV producer in 2018 when he moved from Fox and FX over to Netflix in a contract reported to be worth as much as $300 million.

During the summer, amid the Hollywood writers’ strike, filming of the new season of American Horror Story was picketed by members of the Writers Guild of America (WGA) and Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFRA) as it was one of the few productions still up and running despite the strike, on the basis that the scripts had been submitted prior to the union action. “[Murphy is] a member [of the writers’ guild] and it just feels like keeping these things up and running is counterproductive to our overall mission,” WGA strike captain T Cooper said to the New York Times.

Murphy was then forced to deny an allegation on X, formerly known as Twitter, from WGA strike captain Warren Leight, who wrote that crew members for AHS would “be blackballed in Murphy-land” if they observed the picket. A spokesperson for Murphy told Variety this claim was “absolute nonsense. Categorically false” and then Leight did a follow-up post apologising and retracting his claim as “unsubstantiated” and “completely false and inaccurate”.

The rise of a super-showrunner

Murphy has had a remarkable rise to the top in Hollywood: having started off as an entertainment journalist writing for publications like the Los Angeles Times and Entertainment Weekly, he moved into screenwriting in the late 1990s, co-creating the teen drama, Popular, in 1999 for The WB. It was cancelled after two series, but he then went on to create the hit plastic surgery drama Nip/Tuck for FX, which ran from 2003 to 2010. Its watercooler success opened doors for Murphy, marking him out as someone who would begin to lead the TV zeitgeist.

This week’s season two finale ended on something of a high, despite at some points feeling like a laboured group-therapy session centred around Carrie’s “last supper” in her flat before potentially moving in with Aidan. In the end that didn’t happen, because they agreed to put their relationship on hold for five years so Aidan could devote himself to raising his teenage sons: instead we saw Carrie and Seema on holiday in Greece, both in relationships “on pause”, reflecting that they “ran at love”, but life got in the way.

Another positive element of this latest series for Dawson was the way it harked back to the original series’ sexual boldness: “It was great to see sex back in the city. Everyone is bonking and dating and that was always the source of SATC’s magic.” Dawson believes that some of the plotlines are beginning to make more sense, two seasons in, and that the writing is beginning to bed down a little more: “I also like to think it was always the plan to have Miranda lose her goddamn mind and then recover herself in season two”. Indeed perhaps the characters’ erraticity is more authentic than it has been given credit for, reflective of how we all might become a little more unpredictable as we grow older.

Journalist Evan Ross Katz said on his podcast Drop Your Buffs recently that he had found a way to consume And Just Like That, which is fitting for its unique appeal – watching every episode twice: “I make peace with the choices that were made and I’m able to say, ‘OK, if this is the dish being served, and I’m eating it, what are the some other flavours that I can find within this…’ . The more I watch it, the more I enjoy it.”

Ultimately perhaps the reason why viewers will always return to And Just Like That despite their misgivings is akin to how Miranda described her mid-life crisis in this week’s finale: 

“[It’s] like a good train wreck, in which nobody dies and you get off the train in a new place, a place where you needed to go to but only a place that a train could get you to.” All aboard for season three, then.

And Just Like That is available to watch on Max in the US and NOW in the UK

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Unlike his already well-established co-stars like Zendaya, a former Disney star, and Elordi, known from Netflix hit The Kissing Booth, Cloud was scouted by a casting agent while walking on the street in New York. He initially thought it was a set up, he told GQ: “I was confused and I didn’t want to give her my phone number. I thought it was a scam.”

What Cloud brought to Euphoria was vital to its success. Amid the show’s often whiplash-inducing plot twists and anxiety-inducing pace, Cloud was a stabilising, almost grounding presence: stoic in his demeanour, despite Fezco often being involved in much of the most terrifying action in the series.

In another actor’s hands, Fez might have been an overwrought, melodramatic stereotype – a macho, drug-dealing blowhard – but Cloud had a deadpan, understated quality that made the character feel authentic. “I had to change it a little bit,” he explained to GQ about amending the Sam Levinson-written script. “To make it sound real, like how I would say it.”

It obviously worked: as Cloud revealed to GQ, his co-star Elordi let slip to him that Fez was never meant to be a returning part. “I think Jacob told me, he was like, ‘oh yeah, you didn’t know? Your character gets [imitates brains getting blown out]’” he said, “I don’t know, but apparently, because they cast me off the street, I guess the character of Fezco was [never meant to stick around]. I don’t even know how. I never saw that script. No one ever told me.”

A many-layered performance

Cloud played a complex character of contradictions – a caring drug dealer, a gentle gangster, a protector and an enabler – and had exactly the depth and the range needed to depict them. His scenes with Zendaya, as his addict friend Rue, demonstrated this; he was crackingly intense as he showed Fez grappling with the idea of selling Rue the very thing that could kill her, set against his almost paternal desire (he often referred to her as “family”) to protect her from the underworld that he worked in.

To some extent, Fez was the voice of the show’s complicated conscience, flipping from mild-mannered soul into menace when wreaking revenge on those he believed deserved it: Nate, who Fez viciously attacked after he blackmailed and tormented Rue’s girlfriend, Jules and Nate’s hateful dad Cal, who had videoed himself abusing teenagers. What happens when the “bad” guys might be better than the “good”, upstanding members of society, the show asked? And can we forgive people’s actions when we understand their own traumatic backstories? These were questions that Cloud embodied.

Meanwhile Fezco’s gently understated and heartwarming flirtations with Lexi (Maude Apatow) were a real source of fan joy, and the scene where he sung Stand By Me with Lexi – “one the most beautiful moments I’ve ever watched,” in the words  of one Twitter user today – has now an acquired an extra poignance.

If Euphoria’s first series in 2019 established Fez as a compelling presence, it was the second series in 2022 that really deepened him as a character – particularly the first episode of the run, which focused on Fez’s origin story, highlighting how important to the show the character had become. It was a story that had parallels with Cloud’s own life. In Euphoria, we see a young teen Fez being accidentally hit in the head with an iron crowbar by his drug-dealing grandma, and in real life Cloud also suffered brain damage from a head injury, aged 14.

And TV viewers have learned to be especially wary on April Fool’s Day. As far back as 1 April 1957, the BBC’s current affairs programme Panorama carried a report about that year’s bountiful spaghetti tree harvest. Australia’s This Day Tonight once reported that Sydney Opera House was sinking. France 3 claimed that the French government was going to release giant pandas in the Pyrenees. Russian Public TV carried a story that a spring in the Caucasus mountains could cure male baldness.

But the TV hoax without equal was not an April Fool’s gag. British TV “event” Ghostwatch was broadcast on BBC One on Halloween 1992. Presented as a live broadcast hosted by Michael Parkinson, its supposed purpose was to gather evidence of the supernatural. It featured footage of poltergeist phenomena and culminated in a malevolent entity taking over the TV studio. It was genuinely terrifying, resulting in tens of thousands of calls to the BBC and outrage in the newspapers.

“Ghostwatch was always intended to be two things,” its writer Stephen Volk tells BBC Culture. “First of all, a scary ghost story. Secondly, there was going to be a subtext of satire regarding television itself and the way the media was going. The idea of a BBC light entertainment show exploring the metaphysics of paranormal research using well known TV personalities was just too delicious and potent and irresistible a mix.”

“Centrally, as a drama – and this gets overlooked in the obsession with it being a ‘prank’ – Ghostwatch was about, who do you trust? Do you trust this broadcaster? This expert, just because they have a caption in front of them? Do you trust this image we are showing you? Do you trust your eyes?

“We now live firmly in the age of fake news – even before we get into AI – so there’s never been a more important time to get people to question where they are getting their information, from whom, and whether they can trust it.”

The influence of Ghostwatch has been visible in a number of TV specials since, among them Derren Brown: Séance, in which the famed illusionist purported to hold a live séance. Who knows what future shows might be cooked up as a result of Miracle Meat?

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Spoiler alert: This article contains spoilers for season three of Bluey

We wait for new seasons of Bluey like we wait for Christmas in my house. There’s a breathless anticipation that reaches a fever pitch the closer we get to another fresh batch of bingeable, seven-minute-long episodes. And with the latest released on Wednesday on Disney+, even I was surprised by just how affected I was by one episode that left me in tears, having to explain to a five- and three-year-old why mummy is sobbing at Bluey.

The animated kids show – which The Guardian has called “arguably the best television series in the world” – is a tender examination of family life as seen through the eyes of six-year-old Bluey, the eldest of two blue heeler pups, living with her younger sister Bingo, dad Bandit and mum Chili. Life amongst this family of dogs revolves around joy, imaginative play and emotional vulnerability. It has tackled everything from sibling rivalry, jealousy, regret and technology addiction to miscarriage. It’s a cartoon that manages to engage children and yes, occasionally devastate their parents, too.

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This latest season is no different, with 10 new episodes that have captivated kids and one in particular that is driving countless conversations and arguments among adults online.

Episode 32 of season three (called Onesies) is, on the surface, a look at Bingo’s raucous imagination gone haywire, as Chili’s estranged sister Brandy finally comes to visit after four years. She arrives with two animal onesies, a cheetah for Bingo and a zebra for Bluey. Bluey is envious of Bingo’s cheetah costume but it doesn’t quite fit and Bingo has taken to her cheetah persona a little too intently. The outfits unleash a wild game of hunter and hunted, but throughout, Brandy seems uncomfortable, on the verge of leaving and seemingly full of unspoken regrets.

A sad fan theory confirmed

Eventually Bluey asks Chili why her aunt is so sad and why she’s only come to see them once before. As Brandy wrestles with a feral Bingo outside, we learn that much like Bluey’s desire for the cheetah costume, aunt Brandy had badly wished for something that no one could make fit and was ultimately not meant to be. Viewers extrapolated that Chili was talking about infertility, seeming to confirm fan theories around her own issues with child loss.

Some compared The Idol to the 2022 Netflix film Blonde, another production that seemed to revel in the relentless sexual violation of its female lead character (in that case, Marilyn Monroe, played by Ana De Armas), shot for the male gaze, by a male director, Andrew Dominik.

An identity crisis

Then there was the confusion over what exactly The Idol was meant to be. It seemed to be many shows masquerading as one: was it an erotic drama, exploring power dynamics in an S&M relationship? Was it a satire on the absurd nature of the music industry? Were we meant to fear Tedros, asked Vulture, or laugh at him? The show awkwardly flip-flopped about, never fully landing on what it wanted to deliver. Meanwhile, the seeming focus on being edgy – or “sick and twisted”, as early teaser trailers claimed the minds of Levinson and Tesfaye to be – came at a cost. The dialogue was appalling, the plot didn’t get moving until the penultimate episode – and even then was a confusing mess – and there was little to no character progression. Forget hard-core; “this is hard-bore,” quipped the Evening Standard.

Any positives were lost in the chaotic discourse around the show. But the actors, for the most part, did their best with a bad script – Depp’s performance cements her as a talent on the rise and other standouts from the series were Sivan, Da’Vine Joy Randolph and Susanna Son. While Tesfaye was panned for the conceiving of the idea and his lack of acting skills, his soundtrack was at least full of The Weeknd’s signature beguiling, dark electronic pop, conveying the themes of his TV show far more convincingly than the series itself. The track World Class Sinner / I’m A Freak, while presumed to be in part a parody of sexualised tracks young female singers are made to perform, has been heralded as a “banger”, leading GQ to ask “Is this the song of the summer?” (apologies to Kylie Minogue’s Padam Padam) after being streamed more than 11m times on Spotify since its release.

Are there any lessons to be learned from this blighted TV series? While an obvious one seems to be about allowing female directors to lead on traumatic, female-focused stories, another one might be that no superstar creative is too big to fail. Tesfaye’s desire to make the show fit his vision seems to have won out, for better, or in this case, most likely worse.

“From what I’ve seen, the show is great,” Tesfaye told W Magazine in May before the show’s premiere. “Everything is a risk: When you’ve done the best you can, I would call that a happy ending. And I got my voice back.” But at what cost to something that had the makings of an interesting production?

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