Gil Grissom, main character in CSI: Crime Scene Investigation and the upcoming spinoff CSI: Vegas, gets his name from Marquis Grissom, journeyman outfielder in the major leagues, according to CSI creator Anthony Zuiker. Grissom lasted for 17 seasons, playing for the Expos, Braves, Indians, Brewers, Dodgers and Giants, before retiring in 2005. 

Speaking on the Series Business podcast, Zuiker said Gil Grissom, who is played by William Petersen, is based on Daniel Holstein, who Zuiker met in a Vegas crime lab in 1989. Zuiker referred to the veteran investigator as “the mad scientist in real life.”

Holstein is a consultant on CSI: Vegas. 

But the character needed a name. Zuiker said it was initially Gil Sheinbaum, based on his preferred Cadillac dealer in Vegas, but that was changed to Gil Grissom, based on outfielder Marquis. 

Also Read: Why the Traditional TV Season Still (Mostly) Matters

Zuiker wasn’t a huge fan of Marquis Grissom, but said he’d probably smacked a couple homers for the Expos when Zuiker was brainstorming names for his main character, and Gil Grissom won out. 

He added that CBS wasn’t wild about the name for Jorja Fox’s character, Sara Sidle, thinking it sounded too much like “suicidal.” “I got some blowback on that from CBS,” he said. “But I won the argument.”

CSI launched in 2000. CSI: Vegas premieres Oct. 6 on CBS. Besides Petersen and Fox, Paula Newsome and Wallace Langham are in the cast. 

Petersen discussed revisiting Grissom during a TCA session. “I sort of jumped at it,” he said. “It’s a different world from what it was 20 years ago.”

Speaking with B+C over the summer, CBS Entertainment President Kelly Kahl said of the new show, “It was the right producers and the right idea, and being able to get Billy [Petersen] and Jorja [Fox] back was huge as well. We expect that to be a hook for viewers to come back to see — a couple of very, very popular characters in TV history.”

Janice Dean, senior meteorologist at Fox News, has added to her substantial book oeuvre with Make Your Own Sunshine: Inspiring Stories of People Who Find Light in Dark Times. As the title suggests, the book spotlights the people behind extreme acts of goodwill, such as a teen who outfitted dogs in bow ties to help them get adopted, a 5th grade teacher who offered free haircuts to students before their moving-on ceremony, and a FedEx driver who sanitized a box before delivering it to a family with an at-risk daughter. 

There has, of course, been plenty of doom and gloom around the nation, and world, across the past year-plus. Much of the goodwill in the book happens during the pandemic era. Make Your Own Sunshine makes a serious effort to restore readers’ faith in humanity.

Some stories in Make Your Own Sunshine stick with the reader after the book is put down. In “Principal Wallace”, a high school principal in North Carolina visited his graduating seniors, one by one, in the midst of the pandemic, and presented each with a personalized yard sign celebrating their graduation. His caravan visited 220 students and covered 485 square miles.

“It’s an old saying that when you plant the seeds of a tree, it’s 30 years before you would get to enjoy the shade that it produces,” Principal Tabari Wallace told Dean. “And I would advise all the students, not just the class of 2020 but everybody, that even though you’re in a different environment, you’re not at the school, you’re not without your friends, this is short-term. And we will get through this.”

The chapter “Ray of Light” is about Ray Pfeifer, a New York firefighter who fought on behalf of first responders from Sept. 11 suffering from cancer. Pfeifer pushed for guaranteed medical care for those first responders, and to get 32 “family vans” into the FDNY, used to transport firefighters and EMTs and their families to doctor and hospital visits, before he died of cancer that was attributed to his work at Ground Zero. 

Another one, called “Sometimes Your Last Chance is Just the Beginning,” is about Liz Smith, the director of nursing at a Massachusetts hospital--a single woman ends up adopting a baby she sees in the hospital, who was born premature to a mother battling drug addiction. 

“She was at this critical point,” said Smith. “So I said, ‘Well, I’ll do it.’ And at that point, the state was still working with her birth parents for reunification. But it didn’t matter to me. I was like, ‘This little girl needs me right now, and I need her, and we’re gonna do this.’”

Dean, morning meteorologist on Fox & Friends, has a bunch of books to her name, including Mostly Sunny: How I Learned to Keep Smiling Through the Rainiest Days, and her Freddy the Frogcaster children’s series. 

The writing in Make Your Own Sunshine is smooth and the upbeat stories are consumed easily, leaving the reader a wee bit happier than they were before picking up the book. 

A man from my town shared on Facebook a few weeks back that he was going to be on Jeopardy! Pasquale Palumbo said he began watching the show as a kid in the ‘80s, and has been “a semi-religious viewer” of it ever since.  

In his late 20s or early 30s, he thought about trying out for the beloved game show. Palumbo took the online Jeopardy! test a bunch of times, and finally got a call in summer 2019 to audition in New York City, a train ride from Hawthorne, the town we live in. 

After the audition, he was told by producers they’d contact him if interested over the course of the next 18 months. 

Around February 2020, a 310 area code popped up on his mobile phone, and Palumbo scanned his mental Rolodex for anyone he knew in Los Angeles. No one came to mind. 

It was Jeopardy!, and they wanted him to fly out. 

Palumbo, 45, checked with his wife, who reminded him that he’s a “Jeopardy! junkie,” and most definitely should. 

He was scheduled to fly out in April 2020, and then production was shut down due to COVID. He was set to come out again in the fall, but production was halted when host Alex Trebek needed surgery. Then Trebek died in November. 

Palumbo’s cross-country scheduling woes continued into 2021. He had a flight for February 1, but a blizzard in New York cancelled air travel. Palumbo, an insurance agent at New York Life, finally flew out a couple weeks later. 

He’d studied common topics, including state and world capitals and historical figures, but found the best preparation was simply watching lots of Jeopardy! Palumbo likened it to the New York Times crossword--the more you do it, the more comfortable you become with the format. 

He also mimicked buzzing in while watching from home. “Being quick on the buzzer is key,” said Palumbo. “It’s an art, in and of itself.”

The cancelled flight meant having Aaron Rodgers as guest host, instead of Dr. Mehmet Oz, who’d hosted before. “That was fantastic for me,” said Palumbo. “Football has been a huge part of my life.”

As he was introduced on Jeopardy! April 8, Palumbo, who played and coached at White Plains High School, explained to Rodgers, Green Bay Packers quarterback, how they were “football cousins” due to the lineage of coaches Palumbo played for. “That’s a good four degrees of separation there,” quipped Rodgers. 

Palumbo faced off against reigning champ Brandon Deutsch, who’d won over $70,000, and Palumbo ended up winning the game. “The guy I took on was amazing,” Palumbo said. 

Support flooded in, a ton of it on social media. “I heard from people I’d not heard from in an exceptionally long time,” said Palumbo. “The reception from people in my town has been amazing, and overwhelming.” (Palumbo shared about some of the ethnic slurs he saw on social media.)

He mentioned picking up his daughter at school, and the principal coming out to meet him. “Wow, I’m a Z-list celebrity,” Palumbo joked. “Wherever I go, it’s all anyone wants to talk about.”

Alas, he came up short his second night on the show, dethroned by Dennis Chase, who Palumbo describes as not only smart but “phenomenal on the buzzer.” 

With Jeopardy! shooting five episodes a day, Palumbo said he didn’t have much time to enjoy his championship. But it’s a memory he’ll hold onto for life. “I never thought I’d get chosen,” he said. “Dreams do come true sometimes.”

The only negative to his Jeopardy! appearance, he said, was not getting to meet Trebek. 

His Jeopardy! championship put a little cash in his pocket. “Maybe we’ll enjoy a couple extra perks this summer,” said Palumbo. “Instead of steak or lobster, I’ll get steak and lobster.”

I know what the Malones are watching tonight, and I know what we’re watching tomorrow. 

Contestants on some tropical island, strategizing over meager portions of rice. Immunity challenges. Tribal Council. Jeff Probst overseeing the whole affair. 

Survivor. 

The kids are obsessed with the unscripted staple, similar to how my wife and I were, along with much of America, when Survivor launched in 2000. (Surely you remember Richard Hatch, and maybe Rudy Boesch, and perhaps even Kelly Wiglesworth). 

Like many families, we seek out programming the family can watch together, to prevent the kids from ducking into rooms with no one else in them to watch YouTube. So a few years ago, I suggested the new season of Survivor. The kids went for it, watching Nick win the David vs. Goliath season, No. 37, and loved it right away. They learned of this archaic boomer concept known as appointment viewing. 

CBS announced that Survivor was not airing this fall due to the pandemic, so we crashed through old seasons of the show on Hulu, then CBS All Access, now Paramount Plus. Winners at War. Heroes vs. Villains. Ghost Island. 

Most nights, we watch two episodes. My kids, a boy and a girl, talk about Parvati, Boston Rob, Sandra, Cirie, Coach and slippery Russell Hantz as if they are our neighbors. They talk about Survivor locales--Tocantins, Cook Islands, Micronesia--as though they’ve lived in them. 

It was 21 years ago that my wife, who was not yet my wife, and I watched Survivor every week, and talked about it--Hatch’s conniving ways, Rudy’s cranky old-guy barbs, Susan’s odd way of saying tapioca (TAAApioca)--the rest of the week. 

After a few seasons--Colby and Jerri in season two, Ethan Zohn in season three, Boston Rob in season four--my wife and I lost interest, watching other stuff or going out, doing whatever it is you do as a young person in Manhattan.  

As we no longer do whatever you do as a young person in Manhattan, we are back to Survivor. We watch so much of it that the kids don’t want to watch much of anything else. We snuck in a whole season of Secrets of Sulphur Springs on Disney Channel--we enjoyed that--but pretty much everything else on the TV during prime has been Survivor. 

The kids say that each episode is unpredictable, and Survivor deftly works in new wrinkles of the game while keeping the framework essentially the same. “It’s a simple concept, but it feels original every time,” my son said. 

A season takes us a week on streaming. The kids note every minute difference season to season, and episode to episode--a truncated intro, Jeff Probst tweaking his usual rote proclamations, whether it’s “If anybody has the hidden immunity idol…” or “I’ll go tally the votes!”

Thanks to my daughter, who follows Probst on Instagram, I learned last week that a new season is finally in the works. “Survivor’s going back into production,” Probst said. “Fiji has invited us back to their beautiful country to shoot season 41. We have all of our COVID protocols in place so that everyone in Fiji will remain safe, all of our crew will be safe and of course our players will be safe.”

At times, it’s too much Survivor in our household. Doesn’t anyone want to try WandaVision? 

Then again, the kids are willing to watch TV with their mother and father, and we all have something to talk about besides the pandemic and school. 

This won’t last forever, so I might as well enjoy it while it does. 

Laurence Fishburne opened up about his career, the Black-ish universe and working with Cicely Tyson Friday, during an “In Conversation” session at the 2021 SCAD aTVFest.

Fishburne, who was honored with the SCAD aTVFest Lifetime Achievement Award, said he is always trying to look forward.

“I think what that does is it allows me to remain curious and excited about the possibilities,” he told moderator Angelique Jackson, a film and media reporter at Variety.

Over his 50-year career, he has starred on the big and small screen in films such as Apocalypse Now, The Matrix and Hoodlum and series such as CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, Hannibal, and most recently Black-ish.

“It’s just a different medium,” said Fishburne. “I’m an artist and like any artist they work in pencil, and they work in watercolor or they can work in oil. It’s just a different medium. It’s all acting. It’s all like painting or drawing or sketching.”

But, said Fishburne, there is a difference between working in film and TV.

“Because of the fact that television is in the home, you don’t have to go to the television,” he said. “You turn the television on and you become a member of the family when you’re on television. So there’s a familiarity. There’s a closeness that is different than the intimacy of watching a film or the intimacy of being in the theater.”

Fishburne has spent a lot of time in the home lately with his turn as Pops in the ABC sitcom Black-ish. Now in its seventh season, the series has spawned multiple spinoffs, including Grown-ish, Mixed-ish, and the upcoming Old-ish, which will star Fishburne as Pops and Jenifer Lewis as Ruby.

“I came to this thing [Black-ish] thinking, ‘Wow, are we really going to do this? Are we really going to do this? Are we really going to do this?,’” he said. “And then suddenly it was like ‘oh my God, they’re going to put us behind Modern Family. We might be a big hit.’”

“So I was more surprised than you can even imagine just that Black-ish was a success," he added. "The fact that Grown-ish came along and then Mixed-ish came along is just beyond my wildest dreams. It is so wonderful.”

Since Old-ish is still in development, Fishburne couldn’t say much about the show. But he did say the series will look at Pops’ and Ruby’s relationship in a different context, a “world of their own making with other people their own age.”

“It’s gonna be I think a marvelous exploration of what it is to be part of the, living in the age of elegance and mastery,” he said. 

Fishburne also talked about working with Cicely Tyson, who died in January at 96. 

“Cicely, as grand as she may have appeared to be was fundamentally a humble person,” he said. “I think she had tremendous humility and at the same time she had tremendous personal power.”

“But it was because she walked with gratitude and with grace that she had those things,” he continued. “She was not just an example of how to be in the world, particularly for Black women in the world, but for Black people she was an example of how to celebrate ourselves, our culture, our beauty, our intelligence, our artistry, our culture and ultimately our humanity. And that was really visible not just in her work but in her life and the way that she lived it.”

Also Read: TV Industry Remembers, Celebrates Cicely Tyson

When Larry King turned 70, I was serving as president and CEO of The Museum of Television & Radio. His family had surprised him by renting out the entire building in Beverly Hills for a memorable birthday bash.

Several months later, we held our annual black-tie gala at the Beverly Hills Hotel, about a mile away. Shortly before it was scheduled to begin, my staff told me that Carl Reiner, our evening’s emcee, had an emergency at home and would not be available that night. Panicked, I asked who else might be in the neighborhood and available to perform the hosting duties.

ALSO READ: Larry King Dies at 87

Within a half-hour, Larry King walked in, fully garbed in a tailored tux with suspenders underneath.

After I shook his hand in appreciation, telling him how amazing it was that he would step in on such short notice, King smiled and gave me a slightly sheepish look.

“Sorry I’m a bit late,” he said. “I actually went to the museum first and was waiting around there for 15 minutes. No one told me this dinner would be at a hotel. I thought for sure that since my birthday party had been so great, everyone was coming back to surprise me again.”

Clark Kent could not have undertaken this type of rescue so quickly and so well. In his own way, Larry King was Superman.

Stuart N. Brotman is the former president and CEO of The Museum of Television & Radio in New York and Los Angeles.

Comedy Dead Pixels begins on The CW Aug. 18. The show has run a couple short seasons in the U.K., on E4, and will air a dozen episodes in the U.S. 

It’s about three friends, Meg, Nicky and Usman, who are obsessed with a video game called Kingdom Scrolls. 

Kingdom Scrolls is made up. Creator/exec producer Jon Brown said the producers had The Elder Scrolls in mind, “maybe the third best role-playing game around,” he said, as players move on to the next new thing. “It’s something that quite appealed to me--people have an attachment to a world and are not quite ready to let it go.”

Brown dug into sunk-cost fallacy, which is about the many, many hours, and often a lot of money, people have invested in a game, which makes them reluctant to quit it. “That’s something a lot of people can relate to, whether it’s a relationship or a job,” Brown said. 

Brown is an executive producer on HBO smash Succession, and has worked on a handful of shows alongside Succession creator Jesse Armstrong. Is he surprised by the success of Succession, which is up for an Emmy for best drama next month?

“Being British, you expect everything to fail,” he quipped. 

Emmy top drama is between AMC’s Better Call Saul, The Crown, Stranger Things and Ozark on Netflix, The Handmaid’s Tale on Hulu, Killing Eve on BBC America, The Mandalorian on Disney+ and Succession on HBO. 

Brown said several of his projects alongside Armstrong have been well reviewed, but have not broken out. “It’s an honor to be on the fringes. We’re just so great that no one gets it,” he joked. “You tell yourself that.”

Brown added, “It surprised all of us how much Succession has caught fire.”

Shooting season three is held up due to the pandemic. Brown said it means more time tinkering with scripts. “We’re given bonus time to rewrite episodes and try to get our head around it all,” he said. 

Armstrong brings the same clever wit to Dead Pixels, according to Brown. “He’s got such a brilliant antenna for what’s funny and for character,” he said. 

Brown’s first job was reviewing video games for a magazine. He believes gaming has become mainstream enough for a show like Dead Pixels to connect. “What people realize nowadays is, most everybody plays some sort of video games. They’re not that niche anymore,” he said. “When I was growing up, video games were very much a dirty secret that you kept. There was nothing cool about playing them.”

The show’s U.S. premiere in summer 2020 is “accidentally timely,” he said. 

“We’re all living the lives of the characters,” added Brown. “Stuck inside, connected through virtual worlds.”

Ted Lasso premieres on Apple TV+, a comedy series about a football coach from Kansas who ends up coaching a Premier League team in England, where soccer is of course known as football. Jason Sudeikis plays the clueless Lasso. 

The show “is based on pre-existing format/characters from NBC Sports,” said Apple TV+, and that got me wondering how NBC Sports helped launch an Apple TV+ series. 

It turns out a series of NBC Sports short films, starring Sudeikis as Ted Lasso, helped promote Premier League action on NBC Sports. In the films, the moustachioed Lasso becomes manager of Tottenham Hotspur. Knowing nothing about soccer, he doesn’t last long in the role. 

The first clip, “An American Coach in London,”  came out in 2013 and shows Lasso learning about soccer as he makes his way in London. “Ties and no playoffs?” he wondered about English football at a press conference. “Why do you even do this?”

That clip has 14.2 million views on YouTube, so I’m not exactly sure how I missed it. 

Upon learning that one of his players is from Wales, Lasso wondered, “How many countries are in this country?”

His players call him Wanker, which he takes as a term of affection. “I think it just means great,” Lasso said. “A nice guy...a kind heart.”

Sudeikis of course was in the Saturday Night Live cast from 2005 to 2013. 

In 2014, a 6-minute clip, “The Return of Coach Lasso,” was shown on more than 19,000 movie screens, and Lasso starred in 30-second sports across the NBCUniversal network portfolio. It features Lasso doing studio work for NBC Sports back in the States, alongside Arlo White and Rebecca Lowe. Lasso has some trouble with the concept of relegation in English soccer. He coaches a girls team, and brings a “Premier League level of standards” to the girls, he said, coaching them on how to flop for non-existent penalties, and how to celebrate after a goal. 

Former U.S. goalkeeper Tim Howard turns up in the video. 

At the end of the clip, Lasso has hooked up with another Premier League team. “I just got asked to be the head coach of Lychester,” said Lasso. 

“You mean Leicester,” said his interviewer. 

Maria Bartiromo, host of Mornings with Maria on Fox Business Network, marked 25 years on the air by ringing the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange Aug. 4. 

Bartiromo also hosts weekly programs Maria Bartiromo’s Wall Street on Fox Business and Sunday Morning Futures on Fox News Channel. 

She called the New York Stock Exchange in 1995 “a sea of suits, all men.” That first time on the floor, for CNBC, was “scary,” she said. 

“I didn’t know what to expect,” Bartiromo added. “There was a fair amount of people who didn’t want me there.”

She described men yelling at her and ramming into her when she was on the air. “I earned my seat at the table--nobody gave it to me,” she said. “I had to deal with ignorance from time to time, people who did not understand what we were doing. I kept going back. I made sure I owned that job and knew my stuff and [detractors] didn’t have anything on me.” 

Bartiromo said she developed sharp elbows down on the floor. Over time, she was welcomed by the traders. “There’s amazing camaraderie down there and I was honored to be a part of it,” she said, mentioning the tradition of someone sneaking a ball and chain onto the ankle of a person about to get married, which a trader did to Bartiromo prior to her marriage.

She said the Exchange is a different place for women these days--way fewer traders, even pre-COVID, and a more welcoming environment. “Women don’t face the issues I faced, I don’t think,” she said. 

Bartiromo works from home amidst COVID-19. She said most every guest she reaches out to to be on the show is home as well, which has meant better guests for Mornings with Maria. “Guests have been off-the-charts phenomenal,” she said. 

In terms of what stands out in her mind across 25 years on the air, Bartiromo mentioned Sept. 11, when she saw the first plane crash into the World Trade Center from her office, ran outside, and saw the second plane smash into the skyscraper too. She stayed at the Exchange all day, then walked up to 14 Street and took the subway home, only to recall it was her birthday. 

Bartiromo also mentioned the Exchange reopening Sept. 17. Bob Wright, former NBC CEO, called and told her, “Maria, remember--the world is watching you today,” she said. 

She got on the floor and prepared to work. She saw politicians, firefighters and other first responders preparing to ring the opening bell. 

“I remember thinking, we are down but we are not out,” said Bartiromo. “We have been hit but we will rise again and we’ll rise again together. It was so empowering to watch that."

The fourth season of Room 104 premieres on HBO July 24. The series, from Mark and Jay Duplass, looks at a single room at a hotel, and all the funky stuff that happens in the room over time. HBO announced it is the final season, and the producers are keen to keep it going. 

“We hear, you’ve done 48 episodes inside those four walls--that’s enough,” said Mark, an executive producer. “The truth is, we have more ideas. We hope somehow, somewhere, there’s a new version of this show.”

Room 104 could take on another format, he added, such as a podcast. 

Exec producer Mel Eslyn said Room 104 has “limitless possibilities.”

“We would love to do season five, six, seven,” she said. 

But for now, it’s just season four. 

Kicking off the season, Mark Duplass will watch seasons one, two and three July 24, live tweeting all the while from @MarkDuplass. HBO is calling it “Open the Door to @MarkDuplass’ Mind.”

Eslyn said they formalized the writers’ room more for season four than they had in previous years. That would see the producers in a room together more than in seasons past, brainstorming ideas. “We’d talk about what was left inside of us, what we hadn’t explored in that room,” she said. 

The first episode, called The Murderer, is a fun one. A group of friends that are obsessed with this singer-songwriter who disappeared off the face of the earth after putting out an album as a teen finds the guy and gets him to perform in room 104. “I’m obsessed by what it means to be a fan,” said Mark, noting how music zealots tend to “take great joy out of pain” when listening to their favorite artists. 

Mark Duplass approached his friend Mark Kozelek, who has sung for Sun Kil Moon and Red House Painters, about playing the part of long-lost singer Graham. Kozelek turned it down, so Duplass, who has a musical background, took it on himself. He loved the idea of a mythologized, super-cool artist turning up in modern day, looking like a “sad uncle” in cargo shorts and cheesy golf shirt.

Eslyn loves the episode called “The Last Man”. “It pushes the boundaries of staying in the room more than the others,” she said. “And we got to have a swordfight!”

Exec producer Sydney Fleischmann directed her first episode, the season finale titled “Generations”. It’s about an older man reflecting on his life. Fleischmann envisioned her two 92-year-old grandfathers as the episode came together. “They’re in the winter of their lives, assessing the lives they’ve lived,” she said. 

Mark Duplass mentioned the “conscious uncoupling” of he and brother Jay over the course of the series, as the longtime partners pushed each other to find unique voices to take part in the series, and share the storytelling load. “It energized me, and it kept the show from becoming repetitive,” he said. 

Jay of course played Josh Pfefferman on Transparent. 

Asked for his favorite Room 104 episode, Mark mentioned a musical one, entitled “Arnold”, from season two. The episodes that took big risks, he said, ended up among his favorites. “That one not only didn’t fall on its face, but was one of our more creative and most successful episodes,” he said. 

Eslyn said Room 104 “took a lot of storytelling risks” over the course of its run. 

As they prepare to sign off, Eslyn will miss getting photos of friends in front of various hotels’ room 104s. Working on the show has changed her relationships with hotels. 

“I always think something’s up in the bathroom,” she said. “And I definitely look under the bed.”

Mrs. America, a drama series focused on the life of conservative activist Phyllis Schlafly, debuts on the newly established FX on Hulu hub April 15.

Schlafly twice ran for Congress, authored many, many books, published a conservative newsletter and advised lawmakers on defense issues.

Cate Blanchett plays Schlafly, who was wholeheartedly against the Equal Rights Amendment, thinking it would send women to war and bust up the traditional family structure. “She really did sell this notion that the Equal Rights Amendment would break apart the American family,” Blanchett said in a conference call with the media.

Related: FX on Hulu Launches

Mrs. America also looks at other feminist icons in the 1970s, including Shirley Chisholm, an African-American who ran for president in 1972, Gloria Steinem and Betty Friedan.

Dahvi Waller created the series and is an exec producer, along with Blanchett, Stacey Sher, Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck. Waller sought to “find the connective tissue between women on opposite ends of the ideological spectrum.”

Telling the story from the conservative viewpoint, she said, was a “fresher” option.

Schlafly, she said, was “unabashedly, unapologetically asking for, demanding a piece of the pie, a piece of the power of the political structure.”

Sher said the idea came from watching coverage of the 2016 election, and how not much had changed for women in politics since the 1970s. “Some of it was pretty misogynistic,” she said.

Tracey Ullman plays Betty Friedan and Uzo Aduba plays Shirley Chisholm. Margo Martindale portrays Bella Abzug, Rose Byrne plays Gloria Steinem and John Slattery plays Phyllis’s husband Fred.

Elizabeth Banks and Sarah Paulson are also in the cast.

Blanchett described Schlafly, who died in 2016, as “always the most overqualified person in the room.”

She said the feminists “underestimated [Schlafly’s] capabilities and her endurance, and her ability to simplify a message.”

At the TV Critics Association press tour in January, Waller called Mrs. America “an origin story of today’s culture wars.”

With many sitting at home, waiting out the coronavirus, Mrs. America might find an audience. “The series is about how people respond to change, and very disruptive change, and fear of change,” said Waller. “What we’re living in right now is a very sudden disruptive force, more than any social revolution could possibly be. All the uncertainty and fear that that’s bringing up, I think you’ll find elements of that in the series.”

Season three of Killing Eve begins on BBC America and AMC April 12. The season was set to start April 26, but the networks moved it up, Sarah Barnett, president of AMC Networks Entertainment Group and AMC Studios, mentioning “how keen people are for great content right now.”

Sandra Oh, Jodie Comer and Fiona Shaw are in the cast. Season three “continues the story of two women with brutal pasts, addicted to each other but now trying desperately to live their lives without their drug of choice,” said AMC Networks. “For Villanelle (Comer), the assassin without a job, Eve (Oh) is dead. For Eve, the ex-MI6 operative hiding in plain sight, Villanelle will never find her. All seems fine until a shocking and personal death sets them on a collision course yet again.”

Suzanne Heathcote is lead writer and executive producer for season three. Executive producers are Sally Woodward Gentle, Lee Morris, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Gina Mingacci, Damon Thomas, Jeff Melvoin, Heathcote and Oh.

The show was in post-production when coronavirus struck. Staffers hustled to get the episodes ready earlier than planned. “I’ve never encountered people working so hard and with such dedication to get something out,” said Sally Woodward Gentle.

I asked Woodward Gentle if she’s been surprised by the success of the series, which was nominated for a best drama Emmy in the fall. She has been.

“I think we all thought it might fly in under the radar — that we’d all love it and it might have a small but passionate audience,” she said.

Each season, Killing Eve gets a new lead writer. Heathcote worked in theater back in the U.K., before heading to the States to work in television. “Suzanne is brilliant,” said Woodward Gentle, who said she and the producers are focused on looking at “the emotional crises our characters are in, and how we keep moving the story forward.”

She said Killing Eve can go another three or four seasons. “It’s always changing and we never want to do the same thing with it. We always want to move it on,” said Woodward Gentle. “It will move on, but it will always be Killing Eve.”

The coronavirus epidemic has caused increased viewing in local TV. But it seems there’s always something, whether it’s wildfires or tornadoes or floods, that pushes more and more people to get the latest information from their most trusted station.

B+C is saluting the best in local broadcast programming.

Please send a nomination for:

Best Local A.M. Newscast.

Best Local Early-Evening Newscast.

Best Local Late News.

Best Local Non-News Program (Public Affairs, Lifestyle, etc.).

Please send nominations to Michael Malone at michael.malone@futurenet.com. Include video, reasons why and relevant ratings information.

Deadline for nominations is Monday, April 20. The winners will be celebrated in the June 22 issue of B+C. 

With our economy going through serious tumult, plenty of viewers are tuning in to CNBC to see how their stocks are holding up, and what’s next in terms of the coronavirus’ effect on our nation’s financial well being.

Facing stiff challenges to its traditional workflow, CNBC is getting creative to get the word out. The network is relying on 40 padcaster kits that allow reporters to go on air remotely. One inserts an iPad into the padcaster, which provides connectivity, camera and lighting for effective remote shots.

Dan Colarusso, senior VP of CNBC Business News, said CNBC obtained a lone padcaster a few months ago to test. “We always look for, one, good failsafes, and two, less expensive ways to go remote,” he said.

COVID-19: The Story of a Lifetime

Speaking March 25, Colarusso said CNBC’s Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey headquarters has less than 100 people in it day to day, down from its usual several hundred. “It’s a remarkably empty office,” he said.

Sections of the office are thoroughly cleaned, and then roped off. “We’re trying to give people a little piece of mind,” said Colarusso. “The whole thing seems to be very random, so you try to cut out whatever randomness you can.”

He said CNBC has selected a dedicated team to deploy “if all goes to hell” in Englewood Cliffs. Consisting of an executive producer, a few producers, and a few on-air hosts, they are kept at home. “If they ever need to be deployed somewhere else, we have the ability to bring them there,” he said.

Colarusso misses kicking around random story ideas on the fly. Most communication these days is planned well in advance. “It requires a lot more structure, and in this news cycle, it kind of becomes an obstacle course,” he said. “There are no deal-breakers, but it does make things a little more regimented and makes the improvisation that creates a great news cycle just a little bit harder.”

CNBC has a “secret weapon,” said Colarusso, in Scott Gottlieb, who announced his sign-off as FDA commissioner earlier this month. “We thought he was a smart guy with a lot of smart takes on things we care about covering,” said Colarusso, so the network signed him to a contributors deal. “He’s become one of the most reasonable expert voices on all this stuff.”

Clear communication with staff has been vital, said Colarusso, even regarding fairly trivial office matters. “People understand that when you pay attention to the little things, you pay attention to the big things,” he said. “People are a bit fraught by what’s going on, but they feel like the audience needs them more than ever. That’s a big motivating factor.”

Coronavirus has been a boon for evening news on broadcast, reported the NY Times, with viewers not only home and ready to watch TV, but hungering for fact-based content too. An average of 32.2 million people watching the evening newscasts last week, said the Times, a 42% gain from a year earlier. In viewers 25-54, the increase was 67%.

“I think the evening news plays a public service role and now we’re playing a public health role,” Norah O’Donnell, anchor on CBS Evening News, told the paper.

ABC’s World News Tonight and NBC’s NBC Nightly News averaged around 12 million per evening newscast last week. It was ABC’s highest number since 2000 and NBC’s highest since 2005. “I do feel the responsibility, more than ever before, that we don’t add to the noise,” said World News Tonight anchor David Muir. “We have to have a place where people can cut through it all and find the facts.”

CBS Evening News averaged 7.6 million viewers last week, up 21%, while the pickup was 30% among viewers 25-54.

This comes with many staffers stuck at home. The CBS Broadcast Center in Manhattan, for one, is closed. NBC is staggering the number of people coming and going at 30 Rock.

NBC News has built a studio in anchor Lester Holt’s Manhattan apartment, said the Times.

Holt called the newscasts “comfort food” in troublesome times.

Little Fires Everywhere is a tense drama that features the white-bread Richardson family in Shaker Heights, Ohio, and what happens when an African-American mother and daughter enter their lives. Reese Witherspoon plays Elena Richardson, an uber-uptight mother of four, and Joshua Jackson her husband.

Kerry Washington plays Mia Warren, and Lexi Underwood her teen daughter Pearl. Mia is a peripatetic artist, constantly moving Pearl around to new locales, at times living out of their car.

When Pearl becomes friends with the Richardson son Moody, Elena works hard to welcome the Warrens into their lives, all the while wrestling with her many anxieties about race, class and propriety.

Set in what looks like the late '80s/early '90s, with references to Toad the Wet Sprocket, The Real World and Planes, Trains and Automobiles, the series starts with a fire, and it’s hardly a little one. The Richardson house is ablaze, and the cops say it’s arson.

The show then flashes back to more tranquil times in the Richardson household. Elena is Type A+--she’ll only engage in sex with her husband on certain days of the week, and fights with punky daughter Izzy constantly--and Witherspoon handles her with aplomb. Washington is full of angst-y energy as Mia, at times kind to her daughter, most times a bit nasty. Put Elena and Mia together in the frame, and one could cut the tension with a knife.

Underwood is terrific as Pearl, a sweet girl who slowly learns to voice her wishes to her domineering mother.

Little Fires Everywhere is adapted from Celeste Ng’s 2017 novel. Liz Tigelaar created the show, and executive produces along with Witherspoon and Washington.

The pilot sustains much of the heat from the fire that kicks things off, and sets up an edgy and entertaining look at race and family in America.

Dave Lougee, president and CEO of Tegna, picked up the 2020 Golden Mike Award at the Plaza in New York March 4. The event is a fundraiser that supports the Broadcasters Foundation of America, which provides aid to broadcasters in need.

Deborah Norville, anchor of Inside Edition, hosted.

George Beasley, founder and chairman of Beasley Media Group, got the lifetime achievement award. Nile Rodgers and Chic performed.

Prior to rising to the top of Tegna, Lougee was executive VP of Belo. Earlier, he was VP of news at WRC Washington and news director at KUSA Denver.

Former Belo chief Jack Sander saluted Lougee from the stage. He noted Lougee’s local news background as an indicator of how much he loves and supports community content and those who gather it. “Congratulations and well done,” said Sander.

Gordon Smith, NAB president and CEO, described Lougee’s work from when he was chairman of the NAB board. “We love the passion you bring to broadcasting every single day,” said Smith.

Smith talked about how nothing makes Lougee happier than when a Tegna reporter picks up a Murrow or Cronkite award for reporting excellence. “At his heart, he’s a news guy,” said Smith.

Lynn Beall, Tegna executive VP and chief operating officer of media operations, was next. She spoke of Lougee’s focus on doing the right thing on a daily basis. “I have seen this play out countless times in the years we have worked together,” said Beall. “He stands for truth and he reminds us every day that what we do truly matters.”

Lougee stepped on stage. “If you would’ve told me you could get this room to simultaneously say ‘I’m up all night to get lucky,’ I wouldn’t have called that,” he quipped, referring to Rodgers’ performance.

Lougee said broadcasters are called upon to serve their communities every day. “We can’t [do that] if we don’t take care of our own,” he said.

Local broadcast relies on “facts, not fear,” he said, amidst the national confusion around coronavirus, and provides truth when so much fake news is floating around.

“I’ve never forgotten nor taken for granted the power we have as broadcasters,” said Lougee.

Past Golden Mike winners include Perry Sook, Emily Barr, David Barrett, Michael Bloomberg and Bob Pittman. 

The news networks are working hard to make sense of the utter confusion coming out of Iowa as the state’s caucuses concluded. Iowa is of course the first state to weigh in on the presidential hopefuls, and has not yet picked a winner among the Democratic candidates amidst rampant voter confusion.

“Iowa Meltdown Hands Opening to Trump,” said the CNN.com homepage.

Other headlines on the CNN homepage offered a similar sentiment.

“What is going on in Iowa? Local Officials Raise Concerns,” said one.

“Opinion: the Iowa Caucuses are an Embarrassment,” said another.

“Viable? Not Viable? Iowa Voters Navigate Tumultuous Caucus,” said another.

Those are the first three headlines on the left of the site as of 9:30 a.m. ET Tuesday.

One story read, “The Democratic 2020 crusade to oust President Donald Trump could not have got off to a more disastrous and embarrassing start. The party couldn't even deliver a first-in-the-nation election night winner after a vote-reporting debacle in Iowa — where candidates spent months and millions of dollars vying for a glittering opening prize in their nominating duel.

‘Iowa, you have shocked the nation,’ said former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg.”

Over on FoxNews.com, the headline said “Caucus Chaos.” The copy reads, “Team Trump mocks, confused candidates fume as Iowa Democrat Party botches 2020 kickoff.”

Headlines on the Fox News homepage read, “MEDIA BUZZ: Who won? Iowa caucus disaster highlights why the process is a mess” and “Trump calls Iowa caucuses an 'unmitigated disaster'.”

Precinct chairs all over the state were not comfortable using a new app to report caucus results, many phoning in the results, as they have traditionally done.

Iowa Democratic Party chair Troy Price said there was no hack of the state’s voting processes.

Hashtag #IowaCaucusDisaster is trending on Twitter.

The MSNBC homepage said “Chaos in Iowa: Caucus results delayed after reporting meltdown.”

Hardball host Chris Matthews added, “Get it right. This is our specialty, democracy … I got a problem with Iowa on this. If you want it first, do it right.”

The Des Moines Register said that “underlying data” collected on smartphone apps to report caucus results looked fine, but the system was only reporting partial data, meaning a delay in reporting final results. The error was caught early Monday, and accuracy checks ensued.

"We have determined that this was due to a coding issue in the reporting system. This issue was identified and fixed," said Troy Price in the statement. "The application’s reporting issue did not impact the ability of precinct chairs to report data accurately."

Elsewhere in the Iowa capital, Hearst TV’s KCCI.com reported that final results will be shared “later Tuesday.” Iowa, meanwhile, faces “fresh questions about whether Iowa can retain its coveted ‘first’ status.”

Back in New York, the NY Post spoke for many with its front-page headline: “Duh Moines.”

Competition series Lego Masters begins on Fox Feb. 5. Will Arnett hosts the show, which depicts serious Lego builders creating some crafty constructions.

The builders, known as AFOLs (Adult Fans of Legos), have an unlimited supply of Lego bricks--well, technically, three million of them--to play with.

The first episode sees a “Dream Park Theme Park” theme to the builds. The second episode is “Space Smash.” Later on in the season, it’s Star Wars. In that one, expect to see R2D2, C3PO and BB8, in Lego form.

“Seeing how differently everyone approaches the same problem to solve is really cool,” said Anthony Dominici, showrunner and executive producer.

Plan B is executive producing Lego Masters. Besides Dominici, exec producing are Sharon Levy, DJ Nurre and Michael Heyerman from Endemol Shine North America; Karen Smith and Steph Harris from Tuesday’s Child; and Jill Wilfert and Robert May from The Lego Group.

Ten teams enter and one will remain at the end. The winners get $100,000 and a trophy made of, yes, Legos. “It isn’t a show about building sets from a box,” said Levy. “It’s about real artistic people who are passionate in this medium, creating things that will blow your mind.”

Arnett was Batman in The Lego Movie. The judges are Amy Corbett and Jamie Berard, both designers for Lego.

Lego Masters has previously aired in the U.K., Australia and Germany.

The tone of the show is consistent with the tone of the movies, according to Levy. “It’s just an aspirational show--good storytelling, great characters, a great host, tons of humor,” Levy said.

Exec producer DJ Nurre mentioned his son sizing up the situation one morning. “He said, I’m going to go to school and you’re gonna watch TV and play with Legos. Is that what’s happening?”

Lego Masters leads out of episode two of The Masked Singer, which had its season premiere leading out of the Super Bowl.

The producers hope Lego Masters inspires kids to put the device down and get their mitts on some Legos. “It’s inspirational to anyone watching to go make something,” Levy said. “Get off the screens, and just go make something.”

Fox’s relentless build-up to the Super Bowl is well under way. FS1 is live from South Beach, Miami 12 hours a day, Monday through Friday, in advance of the big game. Fox, FS1 and Fox Deportes are all working out of the South Beach studio set-up.

When Sunday rolls around, Fox broadcast offers more than seven hours of pre-game programming--at the South Beach studio, and inside and outside Hard Rock Stadium.

At 11 a.m. ET it’s Skip & Shannon: Undisputed Super Bowl Special, with Skip Bayless and Shannon Sharpe, then NFL Films’ Road to the Super Bowl at noon.

At 1 p.m. ET on Super Bowl Sunday, Fox Super Bowl Kickoff airs, hosted by Charissa Thompson, then Fox Super Bowl Pregame Show, hosted by Curt Menefee, with about a thousand analysts and hosts contributing, including Terry Bradshaw and Howie Long. After that it’s 4 ½ hours of Fox NFL Sunday. That begins at 2 p.m. and goes until the game telecast at 6:30.

The Kansas City Chiefs face the San Francisco 49ers. Joe Buck and Troy Aikman handle the game. Erin Andrews and Chris Meyers report from the field, and Mike Pereira and Dean Blandino offer rules analysis. Fox Deportes has the Spanish-language telecast and FoxSports.com the live stream. Jennifer Lopez and Shakira perform for the halftime show.

Fox is also promoting its primetime shows this week. The Masked Singer, which leads out of the game with the start of season three, is the theme of a 70-foot Ferris wheel at Lummus Park, next to Fox’s broadcast compound on Ocean Drive. Lego Masters, which debuts Feb. 5, will also be promoted. Instagram opp: Fans can shoot photos of Lego versions of Fox Sports personalities.

“The Super Bowl is an event that brings America together, and we look forward to doing just that with our presentation of Super Bowl LIV in Miami,” said Brad Zager, Fox Sports executive producer/exec VP of production/head of operations. “Hundreds of men and women throughout the company have been working tirelessly on this production.”

Bill Hemmer Reports starts on Fox News Channel Jan. 20, taking over the 3 p.m. slot following Shepard Smith’s departure in October. Hemmer shifts out of three-hour morning program America’s Newsroom.

The aim of the new show is for viewers to get “the whole picture,” Hemmer said, which is hard to get right in this complicated world. “I do believe, over time, if the viewer says he’s fair, the show is fair, I’ll consider that a success,” he told B&C.

The program will be a mix of breaking news and sit-downs with newsmakers. “Things are not set in stone,” he said. “It will be a development in progress.”

Hemmer will be out in the field now and then for the show. “When it’s necessary, the answer is yes,” he said. “I’ve done a lot of that in my 12 years at Fox.”

Jay Wallace, president and executive editor at Fox News Media, said the host is well suited to tackle news today. “His ability to cut to the heart of the story while humanizing major events has made him a standout talent in news,” said Wallace. “As we start gearing up for the 2020 election, we are thrilled to have him lead our news division through what will sure to be an eventful year.”

America’s Newsroom launched in 2009. Ed Henry succeeds Hemmer on the show, hosting alongside Sandra Smith.

Prior to joining Fox News in 2005, Hemmer was co-anchor on CNN’s American Morning and anchor at CNN Live Today and CNN Tonight.

Hemmer’s news sources include the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post, CNN, NBC News and of course Fox News. “I’m pretty much paying attention to as much as I can,” he said.

President Trump’s impeachment trial will give Hemmer plenty to work with, but as is the nature of breaking news, lots of other stuff will happen on the fly. “When you look at the calendar, you see the events coming up,” he said. “What you cannot see is what happens in between. So many things can’t be anticipated and we have to be ready for it.”

Pasadena, Calif. — Mrs. America, a nine episode series about conservative activist Phyllis Schlafly, premieres on FX on Hulu April 15. FX will share the first three episodes on Hulu that day, with episodes premiering weekly thereafter.

Cate Blanchett plays Schlafly, who opposed the growing feminism movement in the ‘70s and pushed a conservative cause instead. She’s an exec producer as well. “There were two women’s movements in the ‘70s--the feminist movement and the conservative movement,” said Blanchett Thursday during FX's TCA winter press tour session.

Tracey Ullman plays Betty Friedan and Uzo Aduba plays Shirley Chisholm. Margo Martindale portrays Bella Abzug, Rose Byrne plays Gloria Steinem and John Slattery plays Fred Schlafly.

Related: FX on Hulu Premieres March 2

Elizabeth Banks and Sarah Paulson are also in the cast.

Dahvi Waller created the series and is an exec producer, along with Stacey Sher, Anna Boden, Ryan Fleck and Blanchett.

Blanchett said learning about Schlafly “has been an absolutely fascinating journey for me. She was profoundly influential...I was gobsmacked by her ability to galvanize and mobilize women.”

Complete Coverage: 2020 TCA Winter Press Tour

Blanchett described Schlafly as “a true alpha and an absolute force of nature.”

Waller said Mrs. America is particularly timely in 2020. “This series is an origin story of today’s culture wars,” she said, and “how we became such a divided nation.”

FX is premiering drama Devs on FX on Hulu March 5, and Mrs. America goes on FX on Hulu April 15. John Landgraf, chairman of FX Networks and FX Productions, called streaming on Hulu a “transformative opportunity” for the cable network.

Pasadena, Calif. — When longtime Jeopardy! host Alex Trebek steps down, he will announce it in a 30-second spot at the end of one of the shows. But don’t expect that to happen any time soon.

“I don’t foresee that 30-second segment moment coming in the near future,” said Trebek, during a panel for the show’s Greatest of All Time tournament at TCA winter press tour Wednesday.

Trebek, who has been battling pancreatic cancer, said that he will stay on Jeopardy! as long as he has the skills to host and enjoys what he does.

Related: 2019 Is the Year of ‘Jeopardy!’

The host, who has been on the program for 36 years, joked that after Jeopardy! he will “drink.”

Executive producer Harry Friedman said he will “cut the show off 30 seconds early” the day Trebek records his 30-second sign-off, adding that when that does happen there aren't plans to take any time off from the show. Friedman, who is set to retire this spring, also said they don't know who will host the show after Trebek.

Trebek and Friedman were joined on the TCA stage by Greatest of All Time tournament contestants James Holzhauer, Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter. The first episode of the GOAT aired in prime time Tuesday night. 

“From my point of view it doesn't get any better than this,” said Trebek of the GOAT. The tournament was not possible until Holzhauer came along last year because the show pits three contestants against each other and there had previously only been two greats, Jennings and Rutter.

The multi-night event continues Wednesday. "After that first match, they relaxed and their personalities came out,” said Trebek of the trio, adding that viewers should tune in.

Pasadena, Calif. —The cast and co-creator of Modern Family was onstage Jan. 8 at TCA winter press tour in Pasadena, talking about the series’ mark on society. ABC will air the series finale April 8.

Talking about shooting the pilot, the cast said there was a connection immediately. “It’s a moment in history I will always remember,” said Jesse Tyler Ferguson, who plays Mitch. “It all felt very natural very early on.”

Eric Stonestreet, who plays Cam, said, “The imperfect relationship is what made it so relatable and real.”

Related: ABC to Air Live ‘Young Frankenstein’ in October

Co-creator Steve Levitan said there are no plans for a spinoff.

Ty Burrell, who plays Phil, said it will be hard to do another show after Modern Family. “This show really does kind of ruin you -- the people, the quality of the material, the hours--everything about it, it’s gonna make it hard to follow this job,” he said.

Ferguson spoke about the show featuring a gay couple in the cast, and one that is relatable to many. “I hope that Mitch and Cam opened the door for other writers,” he said.

Complete Coverage: 2020 TCA Winter Press Tour

Modern Family premiered in fall 2009. Karey Burke, ABC entertainment president, said the family comedy genre was dead at the time, and now is a staple on ABC.

The cast saluted Ed O’Neill, who was not in attendance. “Ed is who you want to be at the top of the call sheet,” said Burrell, citing O’Neill’s “no drama” approach and how it sets the tone. “He comes to work and he comes prepared.”

On March 11, ABC will air the series premiere, followed by five episodes that viewers will choose. Voting begins Feb. 3 on Twitter.

Levitan spoke about the challenge of directing children in the cast, and said the ones on Modern Family, including Aubrey Anderson-Emmons, Nolan Gould and Ariel Winter, made the task relatively easy. “This group was professional from day one,” he said.

Modern Family is produced by Twentieth Century Fox Television in association with Steven Levitan Prods and Picador Productions. Steve Levitan and Christopher Lloyd are co-creators/executive producers.

Levitan said Modern Family had achieved something special during its 11 seasons. “It so rarely happens that the right characters are created and the right actors come along to play those characters,” he said, also saluting the writers. “Even our worst days were the best days you wish for.”

Lara Logan Has No Agenda begins on streaming platform Fox Nation Jan. 6. Logan, formerly a correspondent on 60 Minutes, hosts 16 episodes that focus on four topics. First up is immigration, followed by media bias, socialism and veterans.

According to Fox Nation, “Logan will report from the front lines of America’s political and ideological war zones and dive into a number of hot-button issues with on-the-ground coverage and expert interviews.”

Logan said she was intrigued with the prospect of going long on meaty issues. She sees No Agenda as “an opportunity to do along the lines of what I did at 60 Minutes--spending more time on one subject. That was kind of a no-brainer.”

Logan spent 16 years at CBS News, often reporting from the front lines around the world. She took a leave of absence in 2013 after a report on Benghazi was found to be faulty. Logan departed CBS News, where she was chief foreign correspondent, in 2018.

She cited 60 Minutes stars Ed Bradley and Mike Wallace as major influences in her career. “They were great at what they did and they were great people,” she said.

Being the mother of three children, ages 9, 10 and 14, means Logan is not going to drop everything to fly to a breaking story. “The whole breaking-news lifestyle, running out the door at the drop of a hat, doesn’t fit where I am in my life now,” she said.

Fox Nation launched in November 2018. It costs $5.99 monthly and $64.99 yearly. John Finley, Fox Nation executive VP, called No Agenda “the exact kind of compelling content we want to deliver to our subscribers and super fans.”

Logan does not see herself shifting into a host role on Fox News Channel. “I really don’t consider myself a host,” she said. “I’m still a journalist.”

The South Africa-born reporter joined Sinclair for a 90-day assignment last year, focusing on the U.S-Mexico border. She said she “enjoyed the work that I did there very much,” but did not have a long-term deal with the local broadcaster.

I asked Logan what goes through her mind when she hears the president call the media the enemy of the state. “My first reaction is to look inwards, to look at ourselves--why, where, what, how?” she said. “Why is he saying that? Is it valid from his perspective?”

Logan said many journalists “have strayed from the principles of objective journalism.”

She describes the “conversation” that goes on between journalists and those they cover, and wondered if journos are being consistently objective. “We have to take responsibility for the part of that conversation that’s our fault,” she said, “and there is some of it that is our fault.”

Logan touched on media bias when she sat for an interview on the Mike Ritland podcast “Mike Drop.” On her show, she promised “honest, independent journalism that will not bow to propagandists and political operatives who use the media as a weapon to silence, punish and bully.”

She said media bias is a topic that people feel particularly strongly about these days. “It’s one of those subjects that go to the heart of freedom and how we are living and how we communicate with each other,” she said. “And how we learn about what’s happening and how we made decisions based on that. It’s significant and it just strikes a chord with people.”

Logan does not know if No Agenda will go beyond those first four topics and 16 episodes. “I’m not having that conversation yet,” she said. “They have to like it first.”

KOTV Tulsa cameraman Jerome Akintunde went viral on Facebook this week after reporter Reagan Ledbetter shared that Akintunde gave the shoes off his feet to a man who had just gotten out of the Tulsa County Jail.

According to Ledbetter, it was around 7:30 a.m. Dec. 17 when Ledbetter and Akintunde had finished a live shot in front of the Tulsa County Jail. A man came out of the jail entrance walking into the freezing Tulsa air with only a long-sleeve shirt and shorts on.

The cameraman walked over to the man and spoke with him before giving him his shoes.

"As he [Akintunde] walked up [to Ledbetter], I looked at him and said 'did you just give away your shoes?' ... he looks at me and says 'he needed them more than me. It’s cold out here,'" wrote Ledbetter.

Read Ledbetter's full post below:

CBS affiliate KOTV is owned by Griffin Communications. 

William L. McGee, broadcast industry pioneer, died in Napa, Calif. on Oct. 30. McGee worked in syndicated programming, station management and sales, and wrote several books about his career and his eventful life.

McGee was born in 1925 in Livingston, Montana and grew up on a cattle ranch on the Montana Hi-Line. He dropped out of high school and worked as a welder in Vancouver, Washington. When he turned 17 in 1944, he joined the U.S. Navy and fought in the Pacific during World War II.

McGee started his career in broadcasting in 1958. His first job was with Interstate Television Corp., the television arm of Allied Artists that handled the licensing of all the studio’s off-network programs. He sold syndicated shows such as Lassie, Fury, Our Miss Brooks and My Little Margie.

Later the same year, McGee joined the new Jack Wrather/Lew Grade joint venture, Independent Television Corporation. From 1958 to 1962, he was on the road selling Four Just Men, Cannonball, Danger Man and other series. The ITC years were interrupted in 1960 by a brief stint at NBC Radio Spot Sales in New York.

In 1962, McGee became a television station sales rep for Peters, Griffin, Woodward (PGW) and managed their San Francisco office. In 1964, he received PGW’s Television Colonel of the Year award.

In 1968, McGee shifted to station management. He was on the team when Henry J. Kaiser’s UHF station, KBHK, Channel 44, signed on in San Francisco in January 1968 and aired the first-ever, color, live remote telecast, a Golden State Warriors-Los Angeles Lakers game at the Cow Palace.

Moving to U.S. Communications in 1970, McGee held sales and management positions with KEMO San Francisco and WATL Atlanta. He recalled taking a dejected Ted Turner to lunch before Turner changed the call letters of his struggling UHF station from WTCG to WTBS, and put his UHF television programming up on the satellite for national distribution.

In 1971, McGee launched Broadcast Marketing Company in San Francisco.

He authored nine “how-to” broadcast sales guidebooks, including Changes, Challenges and Opportunities in The New Electronic Media. In 1975, he created the nationally syndicated, monthly co-op advertising information service, CO-OPPORTUNITIES.

In 1976, McGee pioneered the use of film to sell radio advertising with his sales presentation film Get It On, Get It On Radio Now!! This was followed by How To Make Effective Low-Cost Television Commercials.

McGee received numerous broadcasting awards, including Broadcast Pioneer’s 1982 Pioneer Award and the Builders of Broadcasting honor in 1986 for “vision, dedication and achievement in the field of broadcasting.” He was a charter member of the Cooperative Advertising Hall of Fame.

In 1984, McGee sold CO-OPPORTUNITIES to Jefferson-Pilot Communications. He retired with his second wife, Sandra, to Incline Village, Nevada.

Bill and Sandra were married for 38 years and co-authored ten books, including The Divorce Seekers: A Photo Memoir of a Nevada Dude Wrangler and The Broadcasting Years, 1958-1989: Memoir of a Television Pioneer.

Sandra said they worked well together, “except for the urge to change each other’s copy.”

Mad About You, which aired on NBC from 1992 to 1999, is back with new episodes for Charter subscribers. Paul Reiser and Helen Hunt reprise their roles, as Paul and Jamie Buchman. Six episodes go live Nov. 20, on demand for subscribers, and six more turn up Dec. 18.

Buchman daughter Mabel is off to college--NYU, in fact, which is walking distance from the family apartment. After dropping Mabel off at school, Mom and Dad turn up at her dorm room frequently in the pilot, driving her nuts.

Peter Tolan is the showrunner. He did not work on the original Mad About You. “I didn’t watch the show much, but I remembered it being good," said Tolan, whose credits include Rescue Me and The Larry Sanders Show. “I thought to myself, I think I know how to write for Paul. That intrigued me. Sometimes you get a sense that you could write for a person, or you can’t.”

Sony Pictures Television produces the show for Spectrum Originals in association with Comedy Dynamics. All 164 original episodes are available free on-demand for subscribers.

Tolan starting asking around on the set and in the writers’ room, about which episodes he should watch as he got ready to produce the reboot. He heard from a few people that he had to watch the Thanksgiving episode in season three, where Jamie ends up pitching the turkey out the window.

Tolan said Sony did not find a partner network for the reboot right away, a number of networks saying they already had a reboot in the works. “They ran up against a lot of that stuff,” said Tolan, who added that he was surprised a legacy show such as Mad About You did not find a taker right away.

Plenty of the Mad About You fans are not Spectrum/Charter subscribers. One, named JR, commented on the B+C site: “Sucks for the many of us who loved this show back in the day and got all excited to watch this then learned it was only for a limited audience with a certain cable company that isn’t available to everyone. Really? Ugh.”

Tolan is hoping for what he calls a “second window” that will allow non-subscribers to watch the new episodes. Last week, a spokesperson said only Charter subs can watch at this time.

What is Tolan watching for fun? Like many out there, HBO’s Succession. “I’m a horrible fan, it’s disgusting,” he said.

Season two of Succession ended Oct. 13. The following Sunday, Tolan said he parked himself in front of his TV and its blank screen, just as he’d done on the 10 Sundays before.

“I’m hurting,” he said. 

Nine broadcasting luminaries were celebrated at the Giants of Broadcasting & Electronic Arts event in New York Thursday. Held at Gotham Hall, Nightline anchor Juju Chang hosted. The Library of American Broadcasting Foundation hosted the event.

Former CBS Evening News co-anchor Connie Chung, CBS Television Stations President Peter Dunn, NBC Nightly News anchor Lester Holt, PBS President/CEO Paula Kerger, Urban One CEO Alfred C. Liggins III, Patrick Communications founder Larry Patrick, The CW President Mark Pedowitz, Advanced Television Systems Committee President Emeritus Mark Richer and Premiere Networks President Julie Talbott were named Giants.

Chung shared a bit about getting a one-on-one with President Nixon in the midst of his Watergate mess. Doing a full impersonation, she spoke of Nixon asking the young reporter how much money she made. “Just remember one thing,” she said Nixon said. “You have to make more money!”

Chung admitted she was a bit confused by the interchange. “To this day, I don’t know what he said,” said Chung. “And that’s the way it was.”

Juju Chang then resumed hosting duties. “We expect impressions from all of you,” she quipped.

She spoke about Peter Dunn getting lost at the massive CBS Broadcast Center as a kid, visiting his father at work. “I still get lost at the CBS Broadcast Center,” said Dunn.

He admitted he wasn’t used to being labeled a giant. “Being here today makes me feel a few inches taller,” said Dunn.

Next up, Holt admitted he “broke a lot of rules along the way,” and did not enjoy a formal journalism education. “I made some spectacular mistakes and miscues,” he said. “Thank God there was no YouTube.”

He urged those in the room to “spot the raw talent” in their shops, and “make them better.”

Pedowitz, for his part, said he wasn’t a giant of anything, except, perhaps, “a giant pain in the ass” to those he works with. He said he was a little uneasy at the podium, preferring to “let the work speak for itself.”

Pedowitz said his longevity in broadcasting is an asset. “If you survive in this industry long enough,” he said, “someone might notice you.”

A sizable group of Harry Styles fans, most of them young women, are camping out outside Saturday Night Live headquarters in New York, hopeful about getting into the show when Styles hosts, and is musical guest, Nov. 16.

People starting turned up Tuesday night, Nov. 12. The week has turned quite cold in New York, temps dipping below freezing Nov. 13. With their blankets and makeshift bedding, the fans are camped on 6th Avenue and 48th Street. There were maybe 60-70 of them out Thursday morning, with the temperature at 35 degrees.

Jessica Paredes of Manhattan’s Financial District arrived around noon Nov. 13. She was by herself, but quickly got friendly with other solo campers, including Samiha Mazumder of Queens. How confident is Paredes about getting in? “Fairly,” she said.

Mazumder said she’s been a fan of Styles since she was 10 or 11, seeing him on Britain’s X Factor and following him during his time in One Direction.

“We’re stans, in Twitter language,” Mazumder said. “He’s a really big part of my life.” (Stans are super-fans, the term a nod to the Eminem track from 2000.)

Mazumder came out with several blankets and camping chairs, which her new friends, including Maribel Khouwes and Sonya Rios, were putting to good use. “The second he announced this, I made a list,” she said. “I had a plan.”

The women said NBC staffers will give out tickets early Saturday morning, and they’ll find out if they’re in. NBC pages brought the campers pizza and hot chocolate Wednesday night. (NBC did not comment on the campers.)

The Styles fans spend much of their day addressing questions from curious passers-by.

“You’re going to wait here until Saturday?” asked an Englishman of the women.

There is the bathroom matter to consider. The women said they used the public one in Rockefeller Center during that day, but that closes at 10:30 p.m., they said. Then it’s Starbucks or McDonald’s.

Maribel Khouwes of Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood said she almost gave up in the middle of the night, after Wednesday turned into Thursday. A quick warm-up sit in McDonald’s got her back on the street with renewed devotion.

Paredes did not sleep at all. “It wasn’t the cold, really,” she said. “I couldn’t sleep because of the noise.”

Mazumder said she hears buses coming and going all night long from her apartment, so the traffic on 6th Avenue did not bother her.

Paredes said the campout brings together the two largest passions in her life--Harry Styles, of course, and New York City. “If we get in it will be worth it,” she said. “Since I was 12, he’s been the most important figure in my life. Having this opportunity is so unreal.”

We got to chat with Chris Matthews, host of Hardball on MSNBC, for the cover story of the new Multichannel News. Hardball celebrated 20 years on MSNBC Nov. 8. I asked Matthews about his most memorable guest. He said Donald Trump, before he was president. He describes a version of Trump one might not expect, calling him “vulnerable.”

“He’s actually a person,” Matthews said. “When you're with him in the room with maybe one other person, he's not some big shot, yelling and pushing his way around the room. It’s different than you'd think.”

Matthews underwent prostate cancer surgery last month. We spoke before Michael Bloomberg hinted at entering the race for the Democratic nomination. Matthews saw Elizabeth Warren winning out, taking on President Trump, and winning the presidential election.

Trump is not the candidate he was in 2016, said Matthews. He came into the race “pretty clean” in 2016, despite the Access Hollywood matter alongside Billy Bush. “He looked better. He's getting old. He looks a little rough around the edges. He looks like he's gained weight, all the usual things that happen when you get older,” said Matthews.

Matthews said he’s had a hard time getting Joe Biden on the program, though Biden did turn up on Hardball back when he was VP. “You wouldn't believe how hard he is to get on the show,” said Matthews. “I guess they have a strategy. It's one thing for him not to do [the shows of] some of my friends, who are a little more skeptical of him than I am. I'm not skeptical, I just want to see him come alive.”

Game show CMT’s Nashville Squares begins on CMT Nov. 1. It’s Hollywood Squares with a country twist, and Bob Saget hosts.

Saget, a comedian, was host on America’s Funniest Home Videos and game show 1 vs. 100, and was in the cast on Full House. He said he’s been a fan of country music forever, at times incorporating quirky country songs into his standup act. That includes a tune from his 2007 tour called “My Dog Licked My--”, well, use your imagination. In Nashville Squares, Saget plays a song called Corn’s My Meat. He describes that one as “a vegan song.”

Saget counts Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson (“That voice, you go, oh!”) and Chris Stapleton (“I just think he’s another level”) among his top country acts. Tanya Tucker, he added, “is one helluva legend.”

Saget said the producers offered to let him riff as the host. “They said, we want you to do what you do,” he said. “When someone says that to me, I get excited.”

He described “a lot of screwing around” on the set. The celeb guests enjoy a cocktail or two on the show, said Saget, which loosens up the mood a bit. Guest stars include Carson Cressley, Gary Busey, Kyle Busch, Tanya Tucker and Ty Pennington.

Saget’s inspirations in terms of game-show hosts include Johnny Carson, who hosted Who Do You Trust?, and Groucho Marx, who hosted You Bet Your Life. He also mentioned Peter Marshall of Hollywood Squares and Gene Rayburn, who hosted Match Game. “The long stick mic,” he said. “You gotta like him for that.”

The host said getting Nashville Squares off the ground happened fairly easily. “It was really effortless,” Saget said. “If you’re having fun, the idea is, [viewers] will as well.”

Rita Ferro, president of Disney ad sales, picked up the Frank Stanton Award, given out by the Center For Communication, at a luncheon in New York Oct. 23. Every year the Center presents its Frank Stanton Award for Excellence in Communication, named for the former CBS president, and CFC founder, Dr. Frank Stanton.

The event happened at 583 Park Avenue.

“We’re going to turn this room into the happiest place on Earth,” teased Max Robins, CFC executive director, who emceed along with Megan Clarken, outgoing chief commercial officer at Nielsen.

Those saluting Ferro included anchor World News Tonight anchor Tom Llamas, who riffed off Dos Equis’ Most Interesting Man in the World to praise the sales chief, ESPN host Kenny Mayne, and Ed Erhardt, former ESPN sales president.

“I’m her mentor--that’s really what I’m trying to convey right here,” deadpanned Mayne.

Debra O’Connell, WABC New York president/general manager, Kevin Mayer, chairman of direct-to-consumer, and Karey Burke, ABC entertainment president, also stepped to the podium. O’Connell saluted Ferro for “making a difference in so many lives each and every day.”

Burke added, “Even if I had a stupid question or made a dumb mistake, she would have my back.”

Others appeared on video, including Bob Iger, Kobe Bryant, Michael Strahan, Sam Champion and Kerry Washington. “You are a leader, you are an innovator,” said Washington.

Related: Ferro, Mandato, Perry, Courtin In Line For LEA Awards on Nov. 8 

In the past, the event has saluted David Nevins, Debra Lee, Cesar Conde, Michael Bloomberg, Katharine Graham and Ted Turner, among other luminaries. The luncheon has been more of a roast in years past but was a tamer affair this time.

Ferro called the Stanton honor a “responsibility and a tremendous honor and privilege.” She mentioned being raised to “try and fail, but don’t ever fail to try.”

A Cuban-American, she pushed those in the room to open the door for women and people of color. “I’m inspired by the opportunity and the possibility because, if this room is a reflection of what we will be in the future, everything is to come,” said Ferro. 

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Ken Burns was on a panel to discuss his new PBS project Country Music Sept. 19. The event, at the Bank of America Tower in New York, celebrated the role of women in country music.

Bank of America underwrites Burns’ documentaries on PBS. “No one is going to give us 10 ½ years to make Vietnam, or 8 ½ years to make Country Music,” Burns said of his sponsor’s dedication to his films.

Susan Spencer, editor in chief of Woman’s Day, moderated the panel. Besides Burns, the director and producer of Country Music, the panelists were country artists Kathy Mattea and Sara Evans, Country Music producer Julie Dunfey and Live Nation president of Nashville Music Sally Williams.

Related: Ken Burns Documentary ‘Country Music’ on PBS Sept. 15

The panelists spoke at length about the state of country radio, which several noted is reluctant to play women’s artists. Streaming audio platforms, the panelists said, have the same issue. One mentioned how a person in their 20s might have only heard “bro-country” on the radio throughout their life, songs about trucks and beer and pretty women.

The Burns film looks into the role several female artists, including Loretta Lynn, Dolly Parton, Patsy Cline and Emmylou Harris, have played in shaping country. Lynn, Burns said, “was way ahead of rock ‘n roll and folk” in terms of examining social issues in her music, such as “The Pill” and “Don’t Come Home a Drinkin’ (With Loving on Your Mind).”

As the panel concluded, the panelists were asked to name a country song by a female artist they could listen to every day for the rest of their lives. For Burns, it was Parton’s “Jolene.”

Featuring eight parts, Country Music premiered on PBS Sept. 15. In an interview with Multichannel News recently, Burns spoke about how country is hardly the domain of white rural America, as many believe.

“Who would’ve thought that this music that conventional wisdom suggests is white and conservative is, in fact, all about race and class and strong women?” he said. “This was a wonderful revelation for all of us.”

Burns mentioned in the panel how all of his films, including The Vietnam War, Baseball and Prohibition, are “solely about the US—capital U, capital S.”

[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5fZ_S_wlx0Q[/embed]

It was ten years ago--Sept. 14, 2009--that The Jay Leno Show debuted on NBC. The show was widely viewed as a colossal fail. NBC scrapped scripted dramas in the 10 p.m. hour, moving Leno from The Tonight Show to host the new 10 p.m. program five nights a week.

Jeff Zucker headed up NBC at the time. Ben Silverman was co-chair of NBC Entertainment. He described The Jay Leno Show as an alternative to all the “crimetime” stuff in the 10 p.m. slot.

Leno was slated to retire from hosting The Tonight Show, with Conan O’Brien moving in. O’Brien’s time at The Tonight Show began in June 2009.

The Jay Leno Show had a monologue from Leno, and “Jay Walking” and “Headlines.” NBC spent mightily on its marketing.

“Now we can try some new things and some different things,” Leno said at the time.

The NBC affiliates had a big say in how The Jay Leno Show came together. The affiliates board had what it called a “working group” to weigh in on The Jay Leno Show, the group focused on serving up as many viewers to local late news as possible. 

Leno was always a pal to NBC’s station partners. He spoke about the importance of a good lead-in for affiliates. “That’s really where they make their money,” he said at the time.

A survey from Norman Hecht research firm showed that more than 50% of news viewers were interested in watching the new Leno show. Frank Magid did another survey for the stations.

Not all stations were down with The Jay Leno Show. WHDH Boston, owned by Ed Ansin, announced it would debut a 10 p.m. newscast instead of Jay Leno. Ansin told the Boston Globe that The Jay Leno Show “would be detrimental” to 11 p.m. news. “It would be very adverse to our finances,” he added.

NBC called WHDH’s move “a flagrant violation.”

A meeting went down, a deal was worked out, and WHDH was on board. “Upon further consideration, we have decided to telecast Jay Leno at 10:00 p.m. starting in September," said Sunbeam owner Ed Ansin in a statement. "Jay is from Andover where I went to school. I enjoy his humor. We hope the new show is a big success."

Jerry Seinfeld appeared in the first episode in mid September. So did Kanye West, who apologized for interrupting Taylor Swift at the VMAs the day before.

Soon, something that became known as “The Leno Effect” started to arise. That was the new program’s drain on stations’ late news, as viewers opted to watch The Mentalist or one of the CSI shows instead.

CBS, for its part, shared “Project L.E.N.O” with affiliates, a plan to bring more viewers to the network’s 10 p.m. slot, and more viewers to stations’ late news after. L.E.N.O stood for “Late-Prime Enhanced News Opportunity.”

“Our marketing group loves acronyms,” said CBS Marketing Group President George Schweitzer.

Bill Carter, author of The Late Shift:Letterman, Leno, and the Network Battle for the Night, did a book about NBC’s late-night fiasco at the time called The War For Late Night: When Leno Went Early and Television Went Crazy. The book starts with Leno doing a New York performance for affiliates and ad buyers in May 2009. Carter notes that affiliates may have had too much input in the show, leading to its downfall.

NBC thought about shortening The Jay Leno Show to 30 minutes, and pushing it back to 11:35 p.m. That meant The Tonight Show would begin at 12:05.

O’Brien wasn’t having it. “Six years ago, I signed a contract with NBC to take over The Tonight Show in June of 2009. Like a lot of us, I grew up watching Johnny Carson every night and the chance to one day sit in that chair has meant everything to me. I worked long and hard to get that opportunity, passed up far more lucrative offers, and since 2004 I have spent literally hundreds of hours thinking of ways to extend the franchise long into the future. It was my mistaken belief that, like my predecessor, I would have the benefit of some time and, just as important, some degree of ratings support from the prime-time schedule. Building a lasting audience at 11:30 is impossible without both,” he said in a statement put out in January 2010.

O’Brien was iffy about, among other things, bumping Late Night, which he inherited from David Letterman and passed along to Jimmy Fallon, to 1:05 a.m.

“The Tonight Show at 12:05 simply isn't The Tonight Show,” he added.

Also in January 2010, then NBC entertainment chief Jeff Gaspin addressed TV critics at TCA press tour in Los Angeles. “While it was performing at acceptable levels for the network, it did not meet our affiliates’ needs and we realized we had to make a change,” he said of The Jay Leno Show.

When the Winter Olympics began in February 2010, The Jay Leno Show was done. O’Brien got a $45 million check and moved on, and on March 1 Leno moved back to The Tonight Show. 

A new season of Mr Inbetween begins on FX Sept. 12. The dark comedy is set in Australia, and it’s a fun one to watch. Scott Ryan plays Ray Shoesmith. Ray “takes care of people,” in FX’s words--he collects debts, roughs people up, and is, at times, a hitman. He’s also the father of a young girl.

Season one had six episodes and season two has eleven. “Ray's work and personal life begin to collide and he finds himself struggling to keep both sides of his life from imploding,” said FX.

Ryan and I spoke about why people like Ray. He’s a goon, wrapped up in all sorts of shady business. But we root for him anyway. Ryan said we’ve all got some Ray in us--we all want to slap somebody sometime.

While it’s a vastly different series, I likened Mr Inbetween to Curb Your Enthusiasm. After all, we all can relate when Larry is calling someone out for their bad behavior. Exec producer/director Nash Edgerton called the comparison “a huge compliment.” He and Ryan said Curb, and Seinfeld, and Tarantino’s films, are a major influence. I saw a bit of Reservoir Dogs--Mr. Pink, Mr. Orange and the boys chatting in the diner--as Ray and a colleague discuss the actors who’ve played James Bond in episode three.

The guys said the series, which shoots in Australia, was initially going to shoot in the States. They said they may in the future shoot scenes in the U.S., but it’s an Aussie production for now.

Ryan directed the film The Magician, which was about a Melbourne hitman. It came out in 2005, and inspired the show.

Edgerton hinted at some back and forth early on as to who would play Ray in the series. Edgerton had one guy, and one guy only, in mind for the job. To him, it was a “deal-breaker” if Ryan didn’t play Ray.

Granted, he’s a relatively unproven actor, but Ryan is “very real in any scene you put him in,” said Edgerton.

Ryan promises a darker season this time around, with a deeper dive into what makes Ray tick. “It’s more of a character study,” he said. “It’s a look at why this guy is the way he is, more explanation of his character.”

Ryan and Edgerton will hardly be partying when the premiere episode airs Thursday. They’re still finishing up season two. “We won’t be celebrating,” said Ryan. “We’re still working.”

Dog’s Most Wanted, starring Duane “Dog” Chapman and his wife Beth, begins on WGN America September 4. Beth passed away June 26.

The show has Duane and Beth chasing down fugitives, with the help of a team of bounty hunters known as The Dirty Dozen.

Dog’s Most Wanted also depicts Beth’s losing battle with cancer. She was 51 when she died.

Dog’s Most Wanted is produced by Dorsey Pictures, a Red Arrow Studios company, along with Entertainment by Bonnie and Clyde. Chris Dorsey and Matt Assmus are executive producers for Dorsey Pictures. Duane and Beth Chapman exec produce for Bonnie & Clyde.

“Beth Chapman was the toughest woman I ever met,” said Dorsey, CEO of Dorsey Pictures. “She might be the toughest woman who ever lived. If she wanted to do something she did it, and when she said she wanted to hunt bad guys to the end that's exactly what she did. She famously told the crew, 'I want to die in my boots.'

“Cancer is a bitch and gravity gets us all in the end,” added Dorsey. “But in the process of dying she showed a lot of people how to live.”

Duane went from convicted felon to a high-profile bounty hunter. He starred on Dog the Bounty Hunter, which ran for eight seasons on A&E and helped redefine the network. WGN America began a two-day marathon of Dog the Bounty Hunter Sept. 3.

“My wife is, was, and always will be the heart and soul of Dog’s Most Wanted,” Duane said earlier this summer. “Beth wanted nothing more than for the show to go on, and I am so proud of the legacy that she left behind. She lived and died for this show, and she would be so proud of how hard we worked, bringing these criminals to justice.”

Dorsey said the new season is a fitting send-off for Beth Chapman. “While this season's shows were ostensibly about rounding up bad guys, I think Dog and Beth--like any of us faced with a terminal illness--were hunting for a way to say goodbye to one another,” he said. “For millions of fans around the world, Dog's Most Wanted was Beth's final gift for all the love they showed her.”

Dorsey added, “She died in her boots, all right...and those boots were big.”

The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance, a series based on the Jim Henson fantasy film from 1982, premieres on Netflix Aug. 30. The series is set before the film, which Henson directed with Frank Oz. The Gelfling are heroes in the Dark Crystal world and the Skeksis are heels.

The series has a stunning 180 puppet characters, said the NY Times, and 90 sets. Executive producers include Lisa Henson, Louis Leterrier and Halle Stanford. Co-exec producers are Jeffrey Addiss & Will Matthews, Javier Grillo-Marxuach and Blanca Lista.

Grillo-Marxuach calls the series “phenomenally huge, and phenomenally expensive.”

The Times referred to the film as a “gloomy new-age fantasy saga.” Addiss said its themes are timeless, and timely. “The show is about finding hope even in the darkest times,” he said.

Grillo-Marxuach said the story is relevant “anywhere good people are oppressed by venal, greedy and callous people.”

The voice cast on the show has big names, including Taron Egerton, Caitriona Balfe, Helena Bonham-Carter, Keegan Michael-Key, Eddie Izzard, Andy Samberg and Mark Hamill. “As power-hungry overlords drain life from the planet Thra, a group of brave Gelfling unite on a quest to save their world and fight off the darkness,” is how Netflix describes the series.

One doesn’t need to be familiar with the movie, and its storylines, to appreciate the ten-episode series. The producers said the show will be released in 32 languages, making it feel unique to every country Netflix puts it out in. “Everyone feels the show is made for them,” said Matthews.

Series with puppets of course include Sesame Street and Jim Henson’s The Muppet Show and Fraggle Rock. But there’s a paucity of puppet stuff for older viewers, with characters touching on darker themes. “There hasn’t been anything quite like The Dark Crystal since The Dark Crystal,” said Addiss. “That’s what’s unique about it, there’s not a lot of benchmarks.”

Grillo-Marxuach said a framed photo of Oz, Jim Henson and producer Gary Kurtz hung in the writers room, inspiring the writers and producers not to mess up the series.

The project has been a long time in the making. Matthews noted how his wife was not pregnant when he started on The Dark Crystal. As it premieres, he can watch it with his 2 ½-year-old child.

The producers hope for several seasons. “We have longer and more stories to tell,” said Addiss. “We hope we get to come back.”

The NY Times described the original film as Star Wars meets The Hobbit. Matthews said the movie scared the heck out of him when he was a kid. Addiss admitted he was fairly obsessed by it, drawing Gelfling in his textbooks.

The series was made by “true believers,” according to Grillo-Marxuach.

“We came here really to pay homage to something we truly adored,” he added.

Good Eats: The Return has arrived, a reimagining of the Alton Brown food show that premiered in 1999 and lasted until 2012. Brown is back on Food Network for new close-ups of the food we love; he calls the episodes “half-hour films” about a specific meal or ingredient.

Brown calls The Return “a continuation, not a reboot.” Cooking equipment is more advanced in 2019, and ingredients are much easier for viewers to find; Brown notes that Amazon was pretty much a book store back when the show premiered.

“A lot has changed during the life of this show,” he said.

That includes social media taking off, and making its mark on the dining scene, for better or worse. Brown isn’t all that psyched with young consumers’ urge to share their meals on Instagram. “We don’t taste our food anymore,” he said. “We just take photographs of it.”

Brown said the magic of food isn’t so much the food itself, but the person(s) you are sharing it with. Social media, he said, is getting in the way of that. “It has changed the way we unite and connect over food,” he said.

Besides hosting, Brown writes, produces and directs the series.

"Many of our viewers fell in love with food by watching Alton on Good Eats and they are not shy in letting us know they are hungry for more," said Courtney White, president, Food Network. "We also cannot wait to give the next generation of fans the opportunity to discover the show, which is chock-full of food facts, comedic skits and fantastic recipes, all in Alton's inimitable style."

In the seven years between episodes, Brown did live tours and hosted culinary game show Cutthroat Kitchen on Food Network.

In the season premiere of The Return, Brown makes the argument that Italian food was invented in America. Italy, he said, came to be a country in 1861. New York City’s tenements, and the people of various ethnicities inside of them, predate that. Chicken parm got its close-up in the premiere.

Brown said he watches little TV other than cuts of his own show. But he makes time for What We Do in the Shadows, FX’s funky series about vampires living in Staten Island. It’s based on the film by the Kiwis Jemaine Clement and Taika Waititi. What We Do debuted March 27.

“I’m a massive, massive fan,” said Brown.

For massive, massive fans of Good Eats, The Return is on Sundays at 10.

Why Women Kill, a new drama from Marc Cherry, begins on CBS All Access Aug. 15. Lucy Liu, Ginnifer Goodwin and Kirby Howell-Baptiste play three wives in three different eras--’60s, ‘80s and present day. They live in the same Pasadena home, at different times, and each one deals with a philandering husband.

Cherry, who created Desperate Housewives years after his time on Golden Girls, said the show examines how the three wives’ reactions to their predicaments is based on the time they live in. “It suddenly occurred to me that so much of how we behave, so much of our expectations for happiness, are based on the era in which we live,” he said at TCA Press Tour. “We are told by popular culture and the rules of the day what should make us happy, and I suddenly became kind of entranced with comparing three decades of three women, three marriages, and all dealing with the exact same problem, and their reactions to it would be based on the decade in which they lived.”

Cherry is getting a kick out of doing a show for a streaming network. “I’ve been having so much fun using the word ‘f---,’” he quipped. “I’m like a five-year-old.”

Streaming offers more creativity than broadcast, he suggested. “To get the freedom of time, more time, more money, less episodes, it leads to a different kind of storytelling, a richer kind of storytelling,” he said.

A New York Times reporter asked Cherry about former Desperate Housewives star Felicity Huffman, who pleaded guilty to charges stemming from a college admissions scandal that involved Huffman’s daughter and compromised SAT scores. His publicist cut them off, saying they want to stick to Why Women Kill.

But Cherry, to his credit, answered the question. “It’s a punch to the gut to find out that someone you love is involved in any kind of scandal,” he said. “If it seems like all of Hollywood is rooting for Felicity, it’s because she spent her entire career being kind and professional, and I am part of the community that adores her and prays for this whole time in her life to be over.”

CBS All Access is on board for ten episodes. If Why Women Kill moves onto a second season, it will be a new story and new cast.

Cherry said his knack for writing for female characters started on Golden Girls. At Press Tour, he spoke about his father traveling a ton for work and him spending a lot of time with his mother as a boy.

Mom would have friends over, and Cherry would listen to them chat. “I'd get a big thing of Legos, and I'd be behind the sofa, just playing,” he said. “She was trying to keep me out of trouble. And I would listen to her conversations and how she would talk to her friends and the things they would talk about. And I was just always so fascinated.”

The Viacom-CBS marriage has come to fruition, as the pair announced a $30 billion all-stock partnership. Every TV player is focused on being one of the handful of streaming networks consumers choose to pay for, as WarnerMedia and Disney prep their direct-to-consumer offerings. On that front, Viacom acquired Pluto TV for $340 million back in January, while CBS has CBS All Access.

Viacom’s holdings include cable networks MTV, Nickelodeon, Comedy Central, BET, Paramount Network, CMT and VH1. It also has Paramount Pictures. CBS has the CBS network and owned stations, Showtime, Pop TV, half of The CW and CBS All Access.

Bob Bakish will head up ViacomCBS, and Joseph Ianniello is chairman and CEO of CBS.

More: CBS and Viacom to Combine

Here’s what Viacom said of the marriage: “The combined company will include the largest television business in the U.S., with the highest share of broadcast and cable viewing across all key audience demographics, and strength in every key category, including News, Sports, General Entertainment, Pop Culture, Comedy, Music and Kids – making it a first-choice partner to distributors and advertisers.”

Viacom and CBS had split in 2006, the thinking being Viacom’s cable networks were in growth mode, and CBS’ broadcast network not so much.

But now all are focused on streaming.

CBS All Access launched in 2014, and has been stepping up its original productions. CBS All Access said last week it will offer children’s programming for the first time, including originals Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs and Danger Mouse.

New corporate partner Nickelodeon has a few hot children’s properties.

CBS also announced last week that direct-to-consumer news service CBSN Local will roll out in all 13 owned markets by early 2020. New York and Los Angeles have launched, and Boston is next.

CBS All Access has attracted big-name producers to the platform, including Marc Cherry, Jordan Peele and Kevin Williamson. It is home to a variety of current Star Trek series, including Star Trek: Discovery.

Marc DeBevoise, president/COO, CBS Interactive, spoke of the then-versus-now of streaming at TCA Press Tour a couple weeks ago. “Device proliferation and business model expansion has driven new services to launch, existing ones to expand, premium networks to become unbundled, basic networks to create standalone services,” he said. “And there has been a lot of talk of things to come. With all this growth and change in our industry, All Access has thrived.”

We shall see how the new ViacomCBS shakes up the streaming world soon.

An exhaustive report on the use of force by police officers comes from CBS News, which offers up “Policing in America: Five Years After Ferguson” Aug. 7. The five-year anniversary of the fatal shooting of unarmed African-American teen Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri by a police officer occurs Aug. 9, and CBS News reached out to some 155 police departments nationwide to see how they train officers to deal with racial bias.

CBS This Morning will feature two segments from the report Wednesday, and CBS Evening News picks it up that evening. CBSN will stream the report as well.

“I’ve been covering law enforcement for 30 years, and this is an eye opener,” said Jeff Pegues, CBS News Justice and Homeland Security correspondent.

Police officers--both brass and rank-and-file cops--share their viewpoints on whether their racial bias training has done good. CBS also reports on the FBI tracking use of force in departments across the U.S., a first for the bureau, according to Jonathan Blakely, supervising producer at CBS News. Blakely calls it a “massive, massive undertaking” for the FBI, but noted that universal standards don’t yet exist for use of force among police departments.

CBS This Morning reports on the FBI’s new database Aug. 8.

The various departments offer a mixed bag of reactions to the training. One officer in Mesa, Arizona said the training reinforces “that the police are racist, but specifically the white male police are racist.” Others say it has done good.

One police department that has undergone significant change since the Michael Brown incident is the one in Ferguson itself. Derided five years ago for a paucity of African-American officers in a town that is majority black, Blakely said the force is now mostly African American. “That department has come a long way,” he said.

CBS News has gone through some dramatic changes this year. Norah O’Donnell took over as anchor on CBS Evening News July 15. Pegues calls her a “tough, tough interviewer.” Susan Zirinsky was named CBS News president in January. Pegues and Blakely said this week’s report is indicative of the culture at CBS News under Zirinsky.

CBS News began this investigation over a year ago, and said it contacted departments that police about a fifth of the U.S. population.

“The amount of resources and time devoted to the topic is pretty unprecedented,” said Pegues.

Amazon will not make more episodes of anthology series The Romanoffs, funky spy drama Patriot or crime drama Too Old to Die Young. Amazon broke the news at TCA in Beverly Hills.

The Romanoffs came from Mad Men alumnus Matthew Weiner and the cinematic series was about people who claim to be descendants of the Russian royal family, which was wiped out by the Bolsheviks. With eight episodes, the cast included Amanda Peet, John Slattery, Aaron Eckhart, Diane Lane and Christina Hendricks.

Eckhart was in the pilot, which was set in Paris and had the star speaking a lot of French. “I read the script and said, wow!” Eckhart told B&C. “Matthew is a wonderful writer with a great sense of humor. It really was, wow, you’re gonna say that?”

Too Old to Die Young starred Miles Teller as a grieving police officer who shifts to an underworld filled with shady types. Augusto Aguilera, Cristina Rodlo and Nell Tiger Free were also in the cast. “Soon he finds himself lost on a surreal odyssey of murder, mysticism and vengeance, as his past sins close in on him,” Amazon said.

Season two of quirky intelligence drama Patriot began November 9. The latest season had U.S. intelligence officer John Tavner, played by Michael Dorman, focused on Iran’s presidential election as the nation works to go nuclear. He also dabbled in folk music, and put his body in all sorts of precarious positions.

Terry O’Quinn plays Tavner’s father, and his boss, and Debra Winger his mother.

Several critics are sad to see that one go. The Hollywood Reporter back in November said, “Arguably the best drama you're not watching, or haven't even discovered, Amazon's gem returns for more existential spy action, laughs and folk songs.”

Steven Conrad created Patriot. “It’s not so much a TV show but a movie that comes to you all at once,” Conrad told B&C before season two began, “every 18 months.”

Alas, no more.

Lights Out with David Spade begins on Comedy Central July 29, leading out of The Daily Show with Trevor Noah. Spade will offer his humorous take on pop culture and internet trends, and unlike its lead in, will avoid anything political.

“Politics is not Spade’s brand--he doesn’t dip his toe in that,” said exec producer Tom Brunelle. “He has said, a lot of people do it, and do it well.”

Spade has quipped that the only way he’s talking politics on Lights Out is if Cardi B announces a run for Senate.

The show airs Monday through Thursday each week. It is executive produced by Spade, Alex Murray, Marc Gurvitz, Brad Wollack and Brunelle, the latter two the showrunners. Wollack and Brunelle were exec producers on Chelsea Lately on E!

“The show provides a half hour break from the onslaught of politics,” said Brunelle.

Three comedians come on Lights Out daily, and serve as a panel for the pop-culture discussions. The celeb guests will also turn up on FaceTime. Opening night has Neal Brennan, Whitney Cummings and Erik Griffin. July 30, it’s Jen Kirkman, Theo Von, Amy Schumer and Nick Swardson. July 31, it’s Steve Byrne, Kaley Cuoco and Jim Jefferies. On August 1, you’ll see Dana Carvey, Al Madrigal and Sarah Tiana.

“They’ll come sit on the panel, and talk about stuff we’ve all been talking about anyway,” said Brunelle. “They’ll have some fun.”

The show shoots at Sunset Las Palmas in Hollywood. Spade will do a standup bit to open the show. There will be field pieces, and his producers are focused on circulating Lights Out clips after the show wraps on a given day. “In this day and age, you’ve got to get the word out,” said Wollack, mentioning the Lights Out dedicated digital team. “We’ll create a whole digital world online.”

Spade was a cast member on Saturday Night Live in the ‘90s, and starred in the comedies Rules of Engagement and Just Shoot Me! His films include Tommy Boy and Joe Dirt.

Spade hosted The Showbiz Show With David Spade on Comedy Central from 2005 to 2007. The NY Times reported that Comedy Central has research that revealed viewers’ huge affinity for Spade. “Not just familiarity, but affection and love and a desire to see him,” Kent Alterman, Comedy Central president, told the Times. “On the one hand it wasn’t surprising, and on the other hand it was like off the charts.”

Spade has been in Hollywood forever, and his showrunners mention that he is friends with a bunch of late-night hosts, including Jimmy Kimmel, Jimmy Fallon and Conan O’Brien. The hosts are disappointed to see Spade launch a show, they said, as one of their best guests may be too busy to turn up on their show.

It’s hard to imagine a late-night host not talking about President Trump, but that’s the game plan at Lights Out with David Spade. “You can relax while watching the Spade show,” said Brunelle, “and not dream about the Mueller report when you go to bed.”

Suits spinoff Pearson begins on USA Network July 17, showing disbarred lawyer Jessica Pearson, played by Gina Torres, setting out for Chicago and working for the mayor as a fixer.

UCP produces both Suits and Pearson. Suits starts its ninth and final season July 17 too, leading in to Pearson.

Suits was created and is executive produced by Aaron Korsh. Daniel Arkin is the showrunner on Pearson, and an exec producer.

Arkin said he developed “a real rapport” with Korsh while working on Suits, including heading to Toronto to write the finale. “I really developed a chemistry with him,” said Arkin.

Torres, and Pearson, departed Suits after six seasons. The NY Times noted how Torres never really split from her character:

Torres found Jessica haunting her daydreams and realized she wasn’t finished with the character after all. And then her obsession with the presidential election and its strange bedfellows took flight.

“I started thinking of Jessica in terms of a political fixer, and what would she do in that situation, and I started writing it down and sorting it out,” she recalled.

Arkin described Suits as blue sky, and Pearson as kind of gray. “It’s meant to be a little more rough around the edges,” he said.

That includes touching on real-life, real-world issues, such as racism. Arkin said Pearson is not a “ripped-from-the-headlines” show, as the issues are always examined in a character-driven way. But they are touched on.

“We do the real issues in a real way,” he said. “Hopefully without doing a lot of preaching.”

I asked Arkin if Jessica Pearson is modeled after any real-life women. He didn’t name anyone, but did note the wave of African-American women coming to power in Chicago politics. “It feels like we’re in the zeitgeist,” he added. “Jessica is a woman of her time and place.”

Torres told the NY Times her Pearson character looks a bit like President Trump advisor Kellyanne Conway:

When I would see Kellyanne Conway — and she wasn’t the only one, let me just put it that way — I just kept trying to figure out, Who are these people, really? Like, are they true believers? Are they opportunists? Are they making a power grab? What motivates them? With Kellyanne, there were people that loved her, and there were people that loved to hate her. You just never quite knew which it was. And then I thought, Oh, she’s like Jessica. No one really knows at the end of the day: Can she be trusted? Is she a moral person or is she just about the power?

Pearson is shot in Los Angeles, and Arkin said they spent a week in October banking Chicago shots. “It’s always a challenge, finding the look, the lighting, the color of Chicago” in Los Angeles, he said.

Arkin said Bonnie Hammer, chairman, NBCUniversal direct-to-consumer and digital enterprises, has long been a fan of both Jessica Pearson and Gina Torres. That helped Pearson emerge as a spinoff. “Bonnie has always loved Gina the actress and Pearson the character,” he said.

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Jim Taricani, veteran investigative reporter at WJAR Providence, died June 21 at the age of 69. He retired from WJAR in 2014, after a long career of shining a light on government corruption, and on the mafia exploits in Rhode Island, which were plentiful in his career.

Taricani also mentored a young Christiane Amanpour when the CNN chief international reporter was just out of college, down I-95 a bit at the University of Rhode Island. She was an intern in the WJAR investigative unit.

“It was such an amazing experience,” Amanpour said.

Amanpour started at CNN as an assistant on the international assignment desk in 1983. She’s covered countless wars and humanitarian crises across her 36-year career. Based in London, the B&C Hall of Famer hosts global affairs show Amanpour on both CNN and PBS.

While interns typically grab coffee for reporters or take care of busy work, Amanpour said Taricani pushed her pretty much right away at WJAR. She recalls her boss wiring her up and sending her to a mafia hangout. “I was pretty scared and pretty clueless,” said Amanpour.

The young reporter did not get usable sound, but did get experience in what she calls “the scary side of journalism.”

Amanpour learned a ton in those early days of her career. “It was the first time anybody put their trust in me, their confidence in me, in the world of journalism,” she said.

Taricani spent four months under house arrest after refusing to say who gave him an undercover FBI videotape related to Operation Plunder Dome, which was an investigation into corruption that began in the late 90s.

“He wouldn’t tell them anything,” said Amanpour. “That was really, really, really important.”

Amanpour describes Taricani’s house arrest as “a crazy way to treat a journalist for doing his job.”

She credits Taricani for helping her land a job at CNN in 1983. Amanpour said she still leans on lessons learned from Taricani to this day. “Stay true to your sources, don’t bend to government pressure to reveal confidential information,” she said.

Journalism “is a poorer place with his loss,” Amanpour added.

“Jim stood up for his principles and was one of the best local investigative reporters in the country,” she said. “I was fantastically luck to end up in his unit.”

Season three of Designated Survivor premieres on Netflix June 7, after the first two seasons were on ABC. Kiefer Sutherland plays President Tom Kirkman, and the new season has him campaigning as an independent.

Neal Baer is the showrunner and exec producer. He’s new to the show, but has been around forever, including stints as exec producer on ER, and E.P./showrunner on Law & Order: SVU and Under the Dome.

The political nature of Designated Survivor attracted him to the project. “I hadn’t done a political show,” he said. “I thought, this is a platform that will allow me to tell a range of stories.”

Baer said around two months went by after ABC cancelled Designated Survivor and Netflix grabbed it. Entertainment One produces.

It will be a somewhat different show on Netflix. Baer mentioned a “more cable-oriented” program. The language won’t be coarse, but it will be more realistic, he said. There’s “very, very little nudity,” said Baer, because it’s “not pertinent to the show.”

“We have the freedom to do what works for the characters,” he added.

Baer spoke of broadcast networks being fearful of offending viewers. That is much less of an issue at the subscription streamers. He mentioned Designated Survivor calling out rival nations by name--Afghanistan, Russia--instead of the producers dreaming up fake names for rogue nations.

Broadcast series might also be more formulaic, with a major risk each episode for the characters to sort out. “We won’t do an event-focused show every week,” said Baer, “where there’s a world threat that the president has to solve.”

All ten episodes launch June 7. Baer promises “a much more character-driven series” now.

Seasons one and two are on Netflix.

Besides Sutherland, the cast also includes Adan Canto, Italia Ricci, Kal Penn and Maggie Q. Anthony Edwards comes on as Kirkland’s chief of staff, and Lauren Holly plays Edwards’ wife, who is battling an opioid addiction.

David Guggenheim created the show, and executive produces alongside Mark Gordon, Sutherland, Suzan Bymel, Simon Kinberg, Aditya Sood, Peter Noah and Baer. Baer said Gordon brought him on board.

He gives Netflix high marks for its support. “The bottom line, to them, is, this is a great story--let’s tell it,” he said.

Look for shades of the Trump presidency in the new season, along with current issues such as voter suppression and white supremacy. Baer speaks of the show touching on the concept of “being a politician--and maintaining your honesty, your integrity, your dignity.”

The series can continue for some time on Netflix. “I’m hoping for four more years,” Baer said, “if [President Kirkman] can win the election.”

The Weekly, a docuseries about how the New York Times gets its big, world-impacting stories together, begins on FX June 2. A day after premiere, an episode streams on Hulu.

The first episode, “The Education of T.M. Landry,” is about a tiny school in rural Louisiana that has sent many students, lots of them working-class black children, to elite colleges. The Times report shows that the founder, Michael Landry, falsified information on student transcripts, and alleges that some students have been abused.

The story ran in the paper late in 2018. Here’s a trailer for the first episode.

Sam Dolnick, assistant managing editor at the NY Times and an executive producer on the show, said the Times’ aim is to show the laborious effort that goes into an impactful Times story, and give viewers a deeper and richer understanding of what the story details. That the series lands when the president so often dismisses the news business makes The Weekly that much more timely.

“Hopefully viewers realize how hard New York Times reporters work to nail down their stories,” said Dolnick. “I hope they realize how smart New York Times reporters are.”

FX and Hulu are on board for 30 episodes, which run 30 minutes a pop. Dolnick would like to see the series live on for several seasons. He said FX was a somewhat surprising partner amidst all of the Times’ pitch meetings in Hollywood, given that the network doesn’t do news and is known for its scripted programming. He said FX chief John Landgraf described reading the Times as an intellectual experience, and sought to make watching the series an emotional one.

“They’re really smart about what works on a TV screen,” he said. “Their notes were always insightful.”

Besides Dolnick, the executive producers of The Weekly are Mat Skene, Jason Stallman, Stephanie Preiss, Ken Druckerman and Banks Tarver.

Dolnick said the producers shot for “a new visual language” for the series, not the typical TV news formula. “We want it to feel cinematic,” said Dolnick. “We want it to feel lush, we want it to feel intimate.”

Other episodes are “The Myth of the Medallion,” about the collapse of the taxi medallion industry in New York City (cabbies need a pricey permit to operate), and what it has meant for drivers; and “Baby Constantin,” about the separation of children from their families at the border, including a baby who spent most of his first ten months apart from his parents.

Emerging as more than just bylines, reporters get their chance to star on screen. Viewers “see the lengths they go to to find stories,” said Dolnick, “and the lengths they go to to get stories right.”