Lucy Liu to lead Peacock crime drama Superfakes / Desperate Housewives creator sets Netflix Charleston family drama / Nate Bargatze defends Emmys charity stunt
PLUS: The Witcher team says conversations over Henry Cavill’s exit happened “for a while."
Lucy Liu to lead Peacock crime drama Superfakes
In the crime drama created by Emmy-winning former Beef writer Alice Ju and executive produced by Josh Safdie and Benny Safdie, Liu will play a small-time Chinatown luxury counterfeit dealer who enters a dangerous black-market underworld in order to fund a life of suburban respectability for her family. Ju, who has also written for Poker Face, Russian Doll and The Other Two, will serve as showrunner with Liu also executive producing. Liu’s most recent TV credits include Netflix 2024 miniseries A Man in Full and 2024 Netflix animated series Jentry Chau vs. The Underworld.
Desperate Housewives creator Marc Cherry is developing a Netflix family drama series set in Charleston, South Carolina
According to Deadline, the untitled series “follows four couples—bound by family, marriage, and fate—who sit at the center of Charleston’s most powerful legacy families. With insider access to Charleston’s elite and high society, the show explores the tension between old money tradition, hidden scandals, and the pressures of contemporary life.” Cherry’s new Netflix series comes three years after he was working on psychic housewife drama series Jenny Is A Weapon, which failed to come to fruition at Fox.
New Jersey PBS will become the second public station to shut down following Trump budget cuts
NJ PBS, the state’s only public television station which launched in 2011, will shutter next year after suffering “very significant” budget cuts implemented by the Trump administration, the company announced. “We have been proud to serve the state of New Jersey with content that inspires, educates and informs,” WNET, which manages New Jersey PBS, said in a statement. NJ PBS will remain on the air through June 2026. New Jersey PBS is down to about 27 employees following a round of layoffs last month that cost about 11 staffers their jobs. NJ PBS is the second public station to shutter after Trump’s budget cuts, following Penn State’s decision to close WPSU, the university’s NPR and PBS affiliate.
Leslie Jones’ next standup special lands at Peacock
Leslie Jones: Life Part 2, the SNL alum’s follow-up to her 2020 Netflix special Time Machine, premieres Oct. 24. The special tackles “aging, relationships, fame and life’s unexpected twists with the kind of honesty and fire only she can bring,” per Deadline. This will be Jones’ third special overall. Her first, 2010’s Problem Child, was for Showtime.
William Shatner posts “I over indulged,” “I’m perfectly fine” and “don’t trust tabloids” after a report he was rushed to the hospital
“Rumors of my demise have been greatly exaggerated!” the 94-year-old Star Trek icon posted to social media this morning, adding: “I over indulged. I thank you all for caring but I’m perfectly fine. I keep telling you all: don’t trust tabloids or AI!” On Wednesday, TMZ reported that Shatner was rushed to the hospital on Wednesday and that his agent said he had a blood sugar issue.
Taylor Swift returning to The Tonight Show
Swift will visit Jimmy Fallon to promote her new album The Life of a Showgirl on Oct. 6. Her last appearance was in 2022 to promote Midnights.
South Park fans will have to wait another three weeks for the next episode
When Trey Parker and Matt Stone announced they were delaying last week’s episode this week, they also put out a schedule showing that Episode 6 will be released on Oct. 15. After that, South Park plans to go back to its schedule of two weeks between episodes.
Netflix to stream Major League Baseball’s 2026 Opening Day game
The streamer has signed a three-year deal with MLB that will begin with showing the March 25 Opening Day matchup between the New York Yankees and San Francisco Giants. “This primetime matchup is the only game that day, with the rest of the clubs opening the next day,” says The Athletic’s Andrew Marchand. “Netflix will also have the Home Run Derby and is expected to share a handful of special location event regular-season games with NBC/Peacock, including Field of Dreams, MLB at Rickwood Field and the MLB Speedway game, which debuted in August. Those games have been broadcast by Fox Sports in the past. Fox may still have unique regular-season event games.”
Running Point adds Robert Townsend, Ken Marino and Blake Anderson for Season 2, promotes Justin Theroux and Uche Agada
Tommy Dewey, Richa Moorjani, Aliyah Turner, Duby Maduegbunam and Jake Picking are also joining the Netflix basketball comedy for its second season, with Theroux and Agada getting promoted to series regulars.
The Witcher team says conversations over Henry Cavill’s exit happened “for a while”
“We all knew that a change was going to take place,” showrunner Lauren Hissrich tells EW. “And we were excited to think about what that change could be and, from my perspective, how that change could fit into story really well.” Some rumors suggested “creative differences,” a phrase Hissrich says could mean just about anything in this industry. “He had plans for other roles that he really wanted to commit himself to,” she says. “And for us, you don’t want to hold someone and force them to be doing something that they don’t want to do. I think that’s why it felt like a really symbiotic decision.” Meanwhile, Liam Hemsworth stayed off social media to avoid fan outcry over taking over the Geralt role from Cavill. “There was quite a bit of noise and I had to put that aside. It started to become a distraction,” Hemsworth tells EW. “I dealt with that sort of thing in the past a lot and, you know, at the end of the day, I love making movies and I love telling stories and acting. I just don’t want any of that to affect my way of telling the story that I’m trying to tell. I jumped off social media and the internet most of last year.”
Nate Bargatze defends Emmys Boys & Girls Club charity stunt: “I wasn’t trying to overshadow any of their speeches”
“A lot of reviews did not like that, but it came from a real place of heart,” Bargatze said on his Nateland podcast, per Variety “Everybody at home loved it. It was fun and entertaining to see money go down and all that. I wasn’t trying to put anyone on the spot or make someone donate money. In my head I thought, ‘Make it fun.’ We’re not using the charity as a tool.” Bargatze said the bit originated after CBS asked him to come up with a way to keep the acceptance speeches short. “I wasn’t trying to overshadow any of their speeches,” he said. “What I thought would happen in the room… I thought it was going to be like Netflix donating or Apple. I did not expect (15-year-old Adolescence winner Owen Cooper) to give money. In my head, I pictured it as [actors] could then go long but then be a hero. So it was like a win-win. Then the night becomes about love and giving to these kids that are there and all this kind of stuff. I don’t know if I just didn’t explain it enough in the room. There was no ill will. I was trying to have a very giving night. I thought if people were giving long speeches they’d be like, ‘Netflix is going to cover it.’ I could’ve explained it more.”
Surf’s Up movie is being adapted as a kids’ series
The 2007 Oscar-nominated animated 2007 mockumentary parodying surf documentaries from Ash Brannon and Chris Buck is being adapted for TV with a show featuring 11-minute episodes targeting kids ages 6 to 9. Shia LeBeouf, Jeff Bridges, Zooey Deschanel, Jon Heder and James Woods starred in the original movie. The Surf’s Up: The Series “will follow an over-confident teen penguin named Flip, who teams a zany bunch of young surfers in his attempt to become a surf legend,” per Deadline. “Things go spectacularly wrong and the wipeouts are spectacular, so they instead they build their own surf community on Pen Gu Island. Characters from the movie such as Cody, Big Z and Chicken Joe will return.”
Amazon to pay $2.5 billion, including $1.5 billion in refunds, over deceptive Prime enrollment practices
Amazon’s settlement with the Federal Trade Commission over allegations it tricked people into signing up for the free shipping service and made it difficult to cancel. The $1.5 billion in refunds are in addition to a $1 billion fine Amazon will pay the government, for a total settlement of $2.5 billion, one of the largest in U.S. history.
YouTube TV subscribers could lose NBC next week
The current deal between YouTube and NBC Universal expires on Sept. 30, with 10 million subscribers potentially losing TV’s No. 1 program Sunday Night Football. According to CNBC, YouTube TV is trying to pay less to its providers.
Nexstar pre-empting Jimmy Kimmel Live! may not be enough to appease Republicans in its $6.2 billion merger with Tegna
The merger is facing “significant opposition from Republicans on Capitol Hill and two right-leaning news networks, One America News Network and, more importantly, Newsmax,” according to the New York Post’s Charles Gasparino. “The latter is of particular concern as Newsmax’s CEO, Chris Ruddy, has close ties to top GOP lawmakers, the Trump White House and President Trump himself, according to insiders. The argument is that Nexstar’s continued suspension of Kimmel — who failed to apologize on Tuesday for his false claims about Charlie Kirk’s alleged assassin — is nothing more than a ruse to convince the White House its programming is watchful for left-wing bias as it seeks approval for the Tegna deal, and Nexstar will control far too much of the local broadcast market if the deal proceeds.”
Michael Che says Kanye West apologized after his 2018 pro-Trump SNL rant
The new documentary In Whose Name? shows Che confronting West after he hijacked the goodnights to deliver a pro-Trump speech while the cast looked on uncomfortably. Che said on the SiriusXM’s The Bonfire that he and West met backstage when the rapper attended Eddie Murphy’s SNL episode in December 2019. “I was running around crazy and people were just in my dressing room kind of using it as their green room,” Che said, per The Wrap. “And I couldn’t, I had no place to really go. And I’m walking through the hallway and he’s coming out the elevator bay and as soon as he sees me, he goes, ‘I owe you an apology.’”
The View scores its best premiere ratings in five years
The Season 29 premiere on Sept. 8 drew 2.602 million viewers, The View’s biggest premiere since September 2020.
Spartacus: House of Ashur reveals its Starz premiere date, teaser and first-look photos
The fifth Spartacus series, described as an “epic new saga which re-imagines possibilities and turns of fate from the original fan-favorite series,” premieres Dec. 5 with two episodes.
Jeff Probst recounts cutting two Survivor 49 cast members at the last minute: “The level of disrespect had reached an even more blatant level”
“Candidly, the decision was made in that moment to immediately remove those two players from the game and replace them with our alternates, Jason and MC,” Probst said on his On Fire podcast. “And it sent shock ways through the rest of the players as it was very clear that something was happening with those players.” It also reassured the rest of the cast that they would all be operating on a level playing field once the game began. “What really happened was the players, once they were able to talk, they thanked our producers because they said ‘We were all aware that this was happening,” he said. “And it felt like cheating. Like there was an advantage being had.’ And now they’re in the situation of: Should I do that as well?”
Apple TV+ French-language thriller series The Hunt gets a global release date
In the show from César-nominated director Cédric Anger premiering Dec. 3, Franck (Benoit Magimel) and his longtime friends, who spend weekends hunting together, come across another group who begin targeting them for no apparent reason. Despite one of their group being shot, they strike back and manage to escape. However, as Franck goes back to his normal life with wife Krystel (Melanie Laurent), he senses he is being watched or tracked by hunters now hell-bent on revenge.
Jimmy Kimmel says his mom cooked for him “relentlessly” during his suspension
Kimmel discussed his mom’s cooking after last night’s guest, Abbott Elementary’s Lisa Ann Walter, brought him macaroni alla pescorace to eat as a welcome back gift on his show. “My mom relentlessly kept making [food], she’s like, ‘Can I bring over some pasta fazool? Can I make—’ She brought cookies with my face on them to the show last night,” Kimmel said.
Landman stars Billy Bob Thornton and Mark Collie wrote and performed music for the show’s soundtrack
Their music that they wrote filming the first two season will be featured in the soundtrack album Landman - Songs From and Inspired by the Paramount+ Original Series (Volume I), which also includes an eclectic mix of rock, Americana, and country artists who have come together to perform songs that perfectly capture the show’s signature heart and grit.
Check out Stephen Colbert in Elsbeth’s Season 3 trailer
Colbert, Amy Sedaris, David Cross, Annaleigh Ashford, Andy Richter, Julia Fox, William Jackson Harper and Sarah Steele are among the celebrity guest-stars featured in the trailer for Season 3, premiering Sunday, Oct. 12 before shifting to its normal time slot on Thursday, Oct. 16.
Adam Brody and Kristen Bell reckon with their differences in Nobody Wants This’ Season 2 trailer, also featuring Leighton Meester and Seth Rogen
Meester joins husband Brody on the Netflix series as a mommy influencer, while Rogen is Rabbi Neil. Nobody Wants This Season 2 premieres on Netflix on Oct. 23.
9-1-1: Nashville’s trailer includes Kane Brown and a firenado
“This city needs us at our best, even when things are at their worst,” Chris O’Donnell’s Captain Don Hart says in the trailer for the latest 9-1-1 spinoff, premiering on ABC on Oct. 9.
Adult Swim unveils the trailer for Haha, You Clowns
Created by Joe Cappa and premiering Oct. 19, Haha, You Clowns is an unexpected new series from Adult Swim that celebrates wholesome family programming.
Watch Apple TV’s trailer for Ben Stiller’s Stiller & Meara: Nothing is Lost
Stiller examines the legacy of his parents, the late comedy icons Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara, exploring their impact both on popular culture and at home. Stiller & Meara: Nothing is Lost premieres Oct. 24 after a brief theatrical run.