Padma Lakshmi pivots to comedy / Sissy Spacek boards FX's Dying for Sex / Wednesday recruits Thandiwe Newton

PLUS: Jon Stewart's The Daily Show ratings boost has held up.

Padma Lakshmi pivots to comedy after Top Chef: She’s pitching a "hard comedy" series with Paul Feig
Lakshmi is in a "period of professional uncertainty" following 17 years as host of Top Chef and with the future of her Hulu food docuseries Taste the Nation up in the air. ?So she's embracing comedy, Helen Rosner writes in a wide-ranging The New Yorker profile of Lakshmi. That includes trying to sell a scripted comedy series that she's developing with Freaks and Geeks creator and Bridesmaid director Paul Feig. Lakshmi wouldn’t disclose much about the project, except to say "it's hard comedy.” "Lakshmi’s interest in comedy is not new, nor is her desire to shake up her public perception," writes Rosner, pointing out that she's hosted “Padma Puts on a Comedy Show" in New York City since 2018. Asked if she was good at improv, Lakshmi said: “Yes, because I enjoy it. There’s no failure in improv—there’s comedy even in that tension or that discomfort. At least, that’s my attitude right now.” Lakshmi drew a comparison between doing comedy and hosting. “It’s about facilitating the conversation, and you want to move the scene,” said Lakshmi. Comedian Ali Wong, one of Lakshmi's friends and boosters, says of the former Top Chef host: “She’s smart, she’s cultured, she’s gorgeous. She’s your worst nightmare.” Last fall, Lakshmi played herself in SNL's "Chef's Show" sketch. Her goal is to return as an SNL host. “I got really great feedback,” she said. “And I didn’t get any feedback from Lorne (Michaels), which, from him, is great feedback.” ALSO: Lakshmi went by the less "exotic" name of "Angelique" in high school to the disappointment of her mother.

Sissy Spacek boards FX's Dying for Sex
The Oscar-winning actress will recur as the mother of Michelle Williams' character, who has a complicated history with her daughter, in the limited series from Liz Meriwether and Kim Rosenstock based on the hit Wondery podcast.

Wednesday recruits Thandiwe Newton
The Westworld alum is joining Season 2 of the Netflix series in a role that is being kept under wraps. She joins fellow newcomer Steve Buscemi.

Jon Stewart's The Daily Show ratings boost has held up
"Seven weeks into the Stewart-and-correspondents hosting arrangement, that pattern has mostly held up," says The Hollywood Reporter's Rick Porter. "Ratings have cooled some in April, but both Stewart’s Monday shows and the news team-led installments later in the week have consistently stayed well above both the show’s guest host era of 2023 and the final weeks of Trevor Noah’s tenure in 2022. Since Stewart’s return, The Daily Show has averaged about 546,000 viewers per episode (all figures in this story are for first airings on Comedy Central only and don’t include simulcasts or any delayed viewing or streaming). That’s a 62 percent increase over the 336,000 viewers the show averaged for the 22 weeks (plus one day) it aired original episodes last year; it was off the air from early May to mid-October during the writers strike."

Baby Reindeer creator: Stop looking for the real-life counterparts to the show's characters
Richard Gadd, who created and stars in the Netflix limited series inspired by real life, is urging fans to stop trying to make real-life connections to the characters in the show. “People I love, have worked with, and admire (including Sean Foley) are unfairly getting caught up in speculation,” Gadd wrote on his Instagram story on Monday. “Please don’t speculate on who any of the real-life people could be. That’s not the point of our show.”

Elon Musk's Twitter/X is launching a dedicated app for smart TV sets
The X TV app features a trending video algorithm, artificial intelligence-powered trending topics and cross-device compatibility, so users can start watching on their phone and continue watching on TV, according to The Hollywood Reporter. “We’re focusing on launching this new feature for consumers first, but we do plan to monetize it, and will discuss different forms of partnerships — and that may include ads,” the social media platform said Tuesday.

RuPaul’s Drag Race's Season 16 finale was its highest-rated episode in 13 years
Season 16 also wrapped as the highest-rated season of Drag Race in four years, since Season 12 in 2020.

Dancing with the Stars pro Gleb Savchenko to choreograph Danica McKellar and Oliver Rice in their Great American Family Christmas movie
McKellar and Rice will dance to waltzes choreographed by Savchenko in A Royal Christmas Ball.

Oscar-winning screenwriter Brian Helgeland says his Game of Thrones spinoff pitch Ten Thousand Ships would center on Queen Nymeria
Helgeland, who won an Oscar co-writing L.A. Confidential and earned an Oscar nomination for writing Mystic River, tells Inverse he thinks HBO hasn't been interested in his pitch, at least so far, because "they felt the period of my show was too far removed from the pillars of the original." “Essentially, it was the story of Moses but swapping him out for Nymeria,” said Helgeland, who also wrote Man on Fire and wrote and directed A Knight's Tale. “Her country gets ruined and her people are forced to live on the water, which is why the show was called Ten Thousand Ships. They end up having to leave and find a new home like the Israelites leaving Egypt. She’s leading all these people, trying to hold everyone together but things are always in danger of falling apart as they travel around a fictionalized version of the Mediterranean, looking for a new home to settle in.”

Netflix YA drama Geek Girl gets a premiere date
The series adaptation of Holly Smale’s debut novel premieres May 30.

The Simpsons fans mourn the passing of a minor character
Sunday's episode, “Cremains of the Day," explored the aftermath of one of the death of one of the show's oldest characters.

One Piece brings on Dash & Lily creator Joe Tracz as co-showrunner for Season 2
Tracz will succeed co-showrunner Steven Maeda, who developed the Netflix live-action manga adaptation with Matt Owens, who will continue to serve as co-showrunner.

Terry Carter dies: The Battlestar Galactica and McCloud star and Emmy-nominated documentarian was 95
Carter, who died this morning, was best known for playing Sgt. Joe Broadhurst on NBC's McCloud from 1970 to 1977 and the original Colonel Tigh on the original Battlestar Galactica on ABC in its single season from 1978 to 1979. Carter is also notable for being the only Black actor to portray a G.I. on ABC's 1962-1967 World War II drama Combat! Carter was also the only Black actor on CBS' 1955-1959 sitcom The Phil Silvers Show. “Well, I am the last living survivor of The Phil Silvers Show," Carter said in 2018. “But I’m reluctant to take too much credit for being the only Black man on the show. I was only a cog in the wheel. I slew the foe, but I was just a ham like everybody else. It was a wonderful bunch.” Carter went on to become a documentarian. He narrated and directed the two-part 1988 American Masters Duke Ellington documentary A Duke Named Ellington, which earned him an Emmy nomination.

Trying unveils its Season 4 trailer
The Apple TV+ family drama starring Rafe Spall and Esther Smith returns May 22.