Welcome to Clearing Out Our Queue, where we share TV news and recommendations to keep you filled in between episodes of our podcast. Every Friday, Adina and Kara will keep you in the loop about what’s going on in the entertainment world, and what you should be watching.
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AWARDS SEASON BACK ON
The Screen Actors’ Guild Awards are this weekend, and they’ll be airing on Netflix for the first time. They’ll play on Saturday at 8pm Eastern/5pm Pacific, awarding great film and TV acting performances this past year (which has been a big one for SAG-AFTRA, of course, with their historic strike). Barbra Streisand is also set to receive a lifetime achievement award.
Premieres this past week included Season 7 of The Good Doctor and Season 2 of Will Trent on ABC, Constellation on Apple TV+, Season 3 of Star Wars: The Bad Batch on Disney+, and the live-action Avatar: The Last Airbender remake on Netflix.
TV NEWS
Masters of the Air became Apple TV+’s most-watched series debut thus far. This proclamation comes right from Apple, though they’ve not specified exactly how many views or minutes the show racked up in its first weekend, only that it beat out other first season debuts for Apple originals like The Morning Show, Ted Lasso, and Severance.
The NCIS franchise is filming its 1000th overall episode, which will feature a special celebration involving plenty of homages and Easter eggs for longtime fans of the various procedural shows.
Paul W. Downs and Megan Stalter will be promoted to series regulars for Season 3 of Hacks. Downs, who plays Ava and Deborah’s manager, Jimmy, also serves as co-creator and co-showrunner; Stalter plays his assistant, Kayla. Both have been a notable supporting presence since the first season, but are likely to have larger roles in the upcoming return. Season 3 reportedly takes place a year after Season 2 left off, with Deborah and Ava having worked separately for that time. No release date has been announced, though it’s likely to be this Spring.
With rapid changes and increased competition, film and TV distributors are adapting in order to stay afloat. Especially when it comes to non-US productions, the market has changed and many buyers (such as streaming platforms) have become more risk-averse, not offering many global rights deals, and preferring to stick to content that’s a recognizable adaptation or that stars popular actors. Deadline’s breakdown helps illuminate how some distributors are strategizing in this new era of what they call the “thumbnail war.”
Academy Award winner Troy Kotsur has joined the cast for Season 3 of the Apple TV+ series Foundation. Kotsur, who was the first Deaf performer to win the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor and the second Deaf performer to win an Oscar overall for his work in CODA, will play Preem Palver, described as “the leader of a planet of psychics,” in the sci-fi show based on Isaac Asimov’s work.
New Girl star Lamorne Morris will join the cast of CBS’s sitcom Ghosts. He’ll appear as a new phantom who is able to visit the main ensemble of ghosts in Season 3.
CLEARING OUT OUR QUEUE
Or, what we’re watching this week.
Kara: I started watching the One Day limited series on Netflix. I’m really enjoying it. And of course, I’m still watching One Tree Hill. Next week is my spring break so I’m hoping to have some time to just sit and watch a bunch of things.
Adina: Haven’t watched very much this week due to travel, but last weekend I did finish up Mr. & Mrs. Smith (cute, fun, though I have no idea how they’ll continue it, kinda thought it’d be a limited series), and started the new season of Curb Your Enthusiasm (it’s still Larry… still doing hilarious, unacceptable things).