Miranda Lambert is developing a Hulu drama series inspired by her music / Kennedy Center renamed "Trump-Kennedy Center" / CBS News announces a town hall and debate series
PLUS: President Trump used the primetime address to the nation to deliver a campaign speech.
Miranda Lambert is developing a Hulu drama series inspired by her music
The country superstar is teaming with The Boys and Daisy Jones & The Six vet Judalina Neira on an untitled series based on her music. “Billed as Big Little Lies gone honky-tonk, the series follows a messy female friendship as one friend helps the other escape her abusive marriage,” per Deadline. “But when they try to start over in a small Texas town, their past will threaten to catch up to them, and they’ll discover their new home has as many secrets as they do.” It’s unclear if Lambert, a three-time Grammy winner who is nominated for four more at next year’s ceremony, will appear on the Hulu series. Lambert’s only acting credit was a 2012 guest appearance on Law & Order: SVU.
The Kennedy Center is being renamed the “Trump-Kennedy Center” after President Trump
The Trump-appointed board of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts has voted unanimously to rename the storied arts institution the “Trump-Kennedy Center,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt announced today on X. As The Washington Post’s Kelsey Ables and Janay Kingsberry point out, “he apparent change comes after months of President Donald Trump repeatedly joking about it, including at the Kennedy Center Honors earlier this month. It follows a year of upheaval at the center, after Trump overhauled the institution in February, sparking a wave of firings and resignations. Trump is chairman of the Kennedy Center board. Ticket sales have fallen sharply in the center’s three largest venues, according to an October Post analysis.” But according to David Super, a Georgetown law professor, a name change would require Congress’ permission. “That statute is pretty unequivocal, and I can’t really find any loopholes in it that would allow this to happen,” he told The Post earlier this year. “So I assume that’s why they’re pushing legislation rather than sending letters to the board or whatever.”
President Trump used the primetime address to the nation to deliver a campaign speech
“There is a long-standing, mostly respected convention in American television: when all the major networks cut away from regular programming to carry a president live, something important is about to happen. A national tragedy. A military strike. A resignation. Occasionally, history,” says Mediaite’s Colby Hall. “What viewers got Wednesday night was none of those things. Instead, it was a campaign rally speech delivered from the White House, carried live on every major network, with no news to report. It was a president arguing not with political opponents, but with observable reality itself. That mismatch between format and content immediately made the speech feel strange. President Donald Trump spoke as though he were still on the campaign trail, loudly recycling familiar grievances, blaming former President Joe Biden for nearly everything, and insisting that the economy is roaring even as polls show voters remain unconvinced. The address felt less like an effort to inform the nation than an attempt to argue voters out of their own experience.” As some have pointed out on social media, TV networks in the past have avoided showing primetime speeches by President Joe Biden and President Barack Obama.
Jason Isaacs boards Amazon’s Tomb Raider series
The White Lotus alum’s role on the Sophie Turner-led Prime Video video game adaptation is being kept under wraps.
Craig Melvin to co-host NBC’s Rose Parade coverage with Al Roker and Hoda Kotb
Melvin will make his Rose Parade debut on New Year’s Day, reteaming his Today show veteran colleagues. This will be Roker’s 27th Rose Parade and Kotb’s 11th.
CBS News announces town hall and debate series Things That Matter
Following last weekend’s Bari Weiss-Erika Kirk town hall, CBS News announced Thursday that it planned to air a series called Things That Matter, featuring town halls and debates involving newsmakers and people shaping American life. “The events will be held in front of audiences with some stake in the issue, in venues across the nation,” says Variety’s Brian Steinberg. “The program will launch formally in the new year, with what a person familiar with the matter says is a rotating series of hosts.” Guests for the town halls will include Vice President JD Vance, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, while the debates will feature Isabel Brown and Harry Sisson; Ross Douthat and Steven Pinker. and Liz Plank and Allie Beth Stuckey. “We believe that the vast majority of Americans crave honest conversation and civil, passionate debate,” Bari Weiss, CBS News’ editor in chief, said in a statement. “This series is for them. In a moment in which people believe that truth is whatever they are served on their social media feed, we can think of nothing more important than insisting that the only way to get to the truth is by speaking to one another.”
Emily in Paris Season 5 pays tribute to late assistant director Diego Borella
Borella, an Italy crew member who died at age 47 in August after collapsing on-set on location in Venice, Italy, was honored in the Season 5 finale’s closing credits.
Harrison Ford to be honored with SAG-AFTRA’s Life Achievement Award at the Actor Awards
“I am deeply honored to be chosen as this year’s recipient of the SAG-AFTRA Life Achievement Award,” the Shrinking star said in a statement. “To be acknowledged by my fellow actors means a great deal to me. I’ve spent most of my life on film sets, working alongside incredible actors and crews, and I’ve always felt grateful to be part of this community.” Ford will be honored at the 32nd Annual Actor Awards on March 1, streaming live on Netflix.
Adult Swim renews Haha, You Clowns for two seasons
Joe Cappa’s animated series has been renewed for Seasons 2 and 3 after premiering Oct. 19. “It’s amazing that Joe and the team made something as radically heartfelt and strangely uncanny as Haha, You Clowns,” said Michael Ouweleen, president of Adult Swim. “But what’s even more amazing is that – in this cynical, uncertain time – all of you showed up for this new show, championed for it on social media, and grew it week over week so we could greenlight not one, but two more seasons. In the words of the show: ‘You are strong! You are loved!’”
Apple TV’s Imperfect Women starring Elisabeth Moss, Kerry Washington and Kate Mara in Imperfect Women reveals first look and premiere date
The TV adaptation of Araminta Hall’s novel of the same name will premiere with two episodes on March 18, followed by a weekly release. Imperfect Women “examines a crime that shatters the lives of a decades-long friendship of three women,” per Apple. “The unconventional thriller explores guilt and retribution, love and betrayal, and the compromises we make that alter our lives irrevocably. As the investigation unravels, so does the truth about how even the closest friendships may not be what they seem.”
Kevin Spacey to make his return to TV with Italian comedy series Minimarket
The disgraced former House of Card star is set to star in comedy series Minimarket for Italy’s state broadcaster RAI. “In the low-budget show, the two-time Oscar winner plays himself as the imaginary mentor of a young man who works in a Rome convenience store and dreams of becoming a TV star,” per Variety. According to the synopsis, Spacey plays Viganò’s “artistic conscience and unpredictable mentor,” with their rapport mostly grounded in “bickering, misunderstandings and mutual teasing.”
Survivor 49 winner Savannah Louie: “I don’t need to be liked by a 100% of people”
“What’s so interesting is I feel like people assume, because I do put out a really confident aura — I’m always gonna be my own biggest fan, right? — but even in moments where I feel a lot of self-doubt, I still present as someone who’s really confident,” Louie tells EW. “I feel like if you are self-talking in a really positive way, you’re gonna manifest good things. So going into the final Tribal, I felt like I had a good chance. But I also knew that Sage did play a really great strategic game. Very different from mine. And I knew Soph also played an incredible social game. She was also wonderful at strategy and I knew she was a lot better liked than I was, if I’m being honest. So I felt good and confident in my game, but I also recognized I had two other incredibly talented competitors I was up against.” ALSO: Runner-up Sophi Balerdi is the “happiest Survivor loser ever.”
CNN renews Roy Wood Jr.-hosted Have I Got News For You for Season 4
Wood and team captains Amber Ruffin and Michael Ian Black will be back for a fourth season of the Saturday night panel show premiering on Jan. 24.
Starz takes U.S. rights to South African action series Nowhere Man
Bonko Khoz stars in the six-episode series as a former Special Forces mercenary, with Naturi Naughton-Lewis starring as a woman named Ruby who helps him get his life back together. The six-episode Nowhere Man will premiere on Starz on Jan. 16. Watch the trailer.
Netflix orders drama series So Far Gone based on Jess Walter’s bestselling novel
Released in June, the novel So Far Gone “follows Rhys Kinnick, a reclusive journalist whose self-imposed exile in the woods is upended when his long-estranged grandchildren arrive on his doorstep after their mother disappears,” per Deadline. “When the children are kidnapped by a cult connected to their father, Rhys must re-enter the fractured world he abandoned. Joined by a bipolar retired detective and a sharp-tongued ex-girlfriend, he embarks on a wild and suspenseful quest to save them and track down his missing daughter, rediscovering his own capacity for connection along the way.”
ESPN to unveil a data-focused Monday Night Football altcast
MNF Playbook, which will debut on ESPN2 as part of next week’s San Francisco 49ers-Indianapolis Colts game, will feature Luke Kuechly, Dan Orlovsky and Field Yates commentating using an “all-22 camera” broadcast of the game. ESPN will also use a “live predictive engine capable of adjusting to personnel, formations, and pre-snap movement in real time.” The presentation will feature “dynamic run-pass probabilities, expected target distributions, blitz likelihoods, and more.”
Netflix officially hires ESPN’s Elle Duncan as its first sports anchor
The former SportsCenter anchor has inked a multiyear deal with Netflix to serve as a host across Netflix’s lineup of sports and cultural live events. Duncan will make her debut early next year with Skyscraper Live, which will show free solo climber Alex Honnold climbing the 1,667-feet Taipei 101, the tallest building in Taiwan.
Love Island UK named the most complained-about show in Britain
The ITV reality series was part of UK media regulator Ofcom’s annual countdown of the most complained-about moments on British television in 2025.
America’s Funniest Home Videos launches a FAST channel featuring Bob Saget and Tom Bergeron era episodes
“America’s Funniest Home Videos is a slapstick television classic, which my buddy Bob Saget and I had the pleasure of hosting for a combined 23 years,” Bergeron said in a statement. “I’m pleased that the streaming audience can now laugh along with some of our earlier seasons, and I know Bob would be too.” Another America’s Funniest Home Videos FAST channel, featuring current host Alfonso Ribeiro’s episodes, recently launched on Samsung TV Plus.
Amazon teases Guy Richie’s Young Sherlock
Hero Fiennes Tiffin stars as a youthful version of Sherlock Holmes in the Amazon Prime Video series that chronicles the detective’s origin story. Young Sherlock premieres March 4.
Apple TV shares the first look at Presumed Innocent Season 2, starring Rachel Brosnahan, Matthew Rhys and Fiona Shaw
The Scott Turow-based legal thriller from David E. Kelley has begun production on its second season in Los Angeles.
Watch Netflix’s trailer for Tom Segura’s Teacher
Segura’s fifth Netflix standup special drops on Dec. 24.