A media reporter who will often publish analysts comments to him, often with little consideration as to whether it is smart analysis, is the high-profile Matt Belloni.

In his subscriber email on August 3, 2026, he published “an intriguing scenario that Wolfe Research analyst Peter Supino floated in a client note as an alternative to a long legal battle over the WarnerMount merger. He attributes this to a “senior media executive well-connected to Paramount-Warner”…”

“Paramount takes HBO, offloads Warner to Netflix, and sells the cable networks to private equity. In this deal, Paramount's streaming service vaults forward while its debt is far lower, Netflix gains the I.P. it covets, and opposing arguments about market share fizzle. In such a case, the $7 billion breakup fee to which Paramount has committed means that WBD shareholders would almost certainly get the $31+ [per share] to which they’re currently entitled.”

I’ve heard similar scenarios being floated by analysts and trade reporters alike in recent weeks as the WarnerMount merger starts to look increasingly wobbly. But, give it more than a cursory glance and it makes zero sense.

The value Paramount is placing on this merger is based on:

• Control over the deep Warner Bros film and TV library

• The IP assets that come with that library

• The linear channels, which still turn a greater profit than the streaming business and can be relied upon for a few more years to beef up revenue for the publicly traded company.

Warners is that library. It is that trove of IP.

What is less valuable to Paramount? HBO and its premium TV offer. You know what Paramount already has and does it fairly well? Premium scripted television shows. No, it doesn’t have The Sopranos and Sex & The City in its library, but a deal like this isn’t to pick up aged individual titles like that.

There’s an interesting article at The Hollywood Reporter from earlier this week about the pipeline of original productions being made for the new team at Paramount, under head of originals Jane Wiseman (who reports in to the Direct-to-consumer chair Cindy Holland, ie the woman responsible for the first five years or so of Netflix’s originals strategy).

Paramount originals, under Wiseman and Holland, are pivoting away from the focus on the male-skewed Yellowstone / Taylor Sheridan franchise shows, and are broadening the tent to include a lot more dramas courting female audiences.

Direct-to-consumer chair Cindy Holland, who hired Wiseman, has made no secret of this ambition, telegraphing as much at Paramount’s 2026 upfront presentation. And the focus on female viewers has been on display in series pickups from Wiseman’s team like Discretion, a legal thriller produced by A24 and starring Nicole Kidman and Elle Fanning; Fear Not, a true-crime limited series from MGM Television starring Anne Hathaway; and the sequel to Clueless with Alicia Silverstone. On the unscripted side, Paramount+ recently gave the go-ahead to a dating show from the Love Is Blind production company Kinetic Content (working title: Making Love) and the youth baseball reality series Team Moms from executive producer Kim Kardashian.

Around town, the streamer has been calling for female-fronted adult dramas; romance and family stories; soap opera-type fare; and thrillers that are serialized, say sources. They’re interested in work with major creatives and stars (“They are cost-conscious, although they’re looking for big names to drive marketing,” says a production company exec). The streamer is also dipping its toes in YA stories à la Outer Banks, The Summer I Turned Pretty, Riverdale and its own series School Spirits but seemingly doesn’t want to spend a fortune on these projects (more like $3 million to $5 million an episode), says another agent source.

A broader tent also means other types of dramas:

On the other end of things, the streamer is putting feelers out for “grounded genre” ideas — essentially big-concept genre (sci-fi, fantasy, supernatural) stories with relatable human drama. Wiseman’s hire, executive vp originals Chris Parnell, a former Apple TV creative exec who worked on Pluribus, is spearheading this push, where the streamer is said to be looking for projects along the line of, yes, Pluribus but also Silo, Severance, Fallout and Stranger Things.

This is the sort of strategy you put in place when you’re replicating the success of HBO and Apple TV, but not actively banking on needing HBO to drive your success.

Whether Paramount sinks or swims under David Ellison is really still to be determined, but should it fail it won’t be because of an HBO-sized hole in its structure. Paramount will be doing just fine in that space once the pipeline starts delivering.

Paramount spending billions on HBO is not a key objective for its takeover of Warner Brothers Discovery. What it needs is the film studio. What it needs is the linear channels (inclusive of CNN). Paramount won’t be making deals that will see it walking away from those.

Any analyst should be able to tell you that.

News Desk

Casting & greenlights

• It’s everything its fan has been calling for. Fox is reviving Joe Dirt as an animated series 25 years on, with David Spade back voicing the mulleted drifter — now married to Brandy and raising three teenage daughters. Read: Deadline

• James Marsden will star in and produce Bad News Dads, an Apple TV comedy from You’re the Worst creator Stephen Falk and Greg Berlanti, about a rec-league ballplayer who ropes his teammates into investigating whether a player’s wife was murdered. Read: Deadline

Snuffed out

• Apple has passed on David E. Kelley and Matt Reeves‘ long-gestating adaptation of The Bonfire of the Vanities after the sides fell out of creative alignment, with Warner Bros. Television now shopping it elsewhere. Read: Deadline

Warnermount passes UK regulation

• The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority has cleared Paramount Skydance’s roughly $111 billion takeover of Warner Bros. on competition and public-interest grounds, after Paramount firmed up commitments on UK programming and news. Read: Variety

Controller corner

• Rockstar will premiere a new extended look at Grand Theft Auto VI exclusively on Netflix on 27 August, a full six hours ahead of its official YouTube release and 15 minutes ahead of third-party accounts ripping it and uploading it to YouTube. Read: Polygon

• Ubisoft has confirmed the next Ghost Recon is in development after “years” of work, launching a Ghost Recon Insider Program that lets players sign up for early closed tests. Read: Polygon

Islands in the stream

• Green Day have launched Green Day TV, a 24/7 YouTube stream of music videos, live sets and unseen archival footage, plus a weekly variety show hosted by Tré Cool. Read: Consequence

• In a curious move, the director of Netflix’s sci-fi thriller The Last House filmed it for IMAX projection. Read: Polygon

• The cast of The Pitt — led by Noah Wyle as Captain Kirk — will stage a live reading of the classic Star Trek episode “The Man Trap” on 30 August, marking the Writers Guild Foundation’s 60th anniversary. Read: Deadline

• Minnie Driver was injured in a car accident in France while shooting the sixth and final season of Emily in Paris, though production has barely shifted — only one of her scenes moved — as she recovers. Read: Deadline

Trailer Park

Madden debuts on Prime Video Nov 18.

Coach. Broadcaster. Innovator. Legend. Nicolas Cage is John Madden.

War debuts on HBO Max Oct 1.

WAR is a high-stakes, legal drama following the lives of London's most powerful lawyers as firms Cathcarts & Sons and Taylor & Byrne clash over a headline-grabbing legal battle, drawing ambitious young lawyer Jonathan "Johnny" Warren (Archie Renaux) into a ruthless world where ambition is currency, betrayal is strategy, and winning is everything. Season one follows the explosive divorce of British tech entrepreneur Morgan Henderson (Dominic West) and international film star Carla Duval (Sienna Miller), as Cathcarts & Sons and Taylor & Byrne stop at nothing to secure victory for their clients.

Lion debuts on National Geographic August 13, with all four episoides debuting the next day August 19.

With narration by O.J. Lynch (Mufasa, "The Lion King" stage production), LION brings to life the extraordinary true story of the Maasai Mara's lion kings, queens and a new hero named Kio. Blending Favreau's distinctive storytelling and passion with Gunton's world-class natural history expertise, the ambitious series goes beyond traditional wildlife documentaries to deliver a gripping, blockbuster drama rooted in documentary truth.

Adam’s Law, a daytime court show hosted by Judge Judy’s son, debuts on US syndication Sept 14.

Lovesick debuts on Netflix Sept 2.

During the Mexican Revolution, Emilia Sauri pursues her dream of becoming a doctor, defying convention in search of love, purpose and independence.

Clash of the Thundermans debuts on Paramount+ Sept 3.

Based on the hit Nickelodeon live-action superhero comedy series, "Clash of the Thundermans" follows youngest sibling Chloe as she develops a new and unpredictable superpower, causing the Hero League to demand they send her away to a superhero boarding school to learn to control it.

Jonathan LaPaglia hosts new BINGE eight-part social experiment show Apocalypse. It is coming soon to BINGE in Australia and Channel 4 in the UK.

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Which brings me to two very different experiences I have had watching television this week.

Ted Lasso returned this week for season four. After a divisive season three which effectively brought the series to a close, three years later it is back on Apple TV.

Critics have been, quite fairly I’d suggest, been fairly brutal with its return.

The problem with the return of Ted Lasso is that it did a thorough job in closing off the series by the end of season three. A lot of viewers weren’t into the third season and I’d attribute a lot of that to two key reasons:

• The rhythms shifted considerably between seasons one and three, with episodes from the third season often nearly double the length of episodes in the first season. The extended runtime has the consequence of it no longer being a fun check-in with your football friends each week and is instead more of an intensive viewing experience.
  
  For what it’s worth, I generally liked season three, but it is a very different viewing experience to the show that blew up as a hugely successful and beloved TV comedy.

• A lot of that third season had the titular Ted character dealing with his demons and being very mopey as a result. Again, it’s a departure from what people liked about the show in that first season.

The new fourth season is a lot more in line with that third season of the show with episodes veering towards an hour long rather than a tighter thirty minutes. But instead of the show growing and evolving as it had from seasons one to three, this new season just feels like more of the same. But, uh… lesser.

A fourth season wasn’t originally on the cards. There’s a reason the show explored Ted’s psyche and set him up for a desire to return home to the US so he could be there for his son on a full-time basis. That third season was supposed to give his character closure.

But it is back and instead of growth, it feels like the show took the lazy way out and gave a reset to the show we knew from season three. It’s just Ted back at Richmond FC, only this time instead of coaching a mens football team, it’s women.

Does the show have anything interesting to say about that difference? That’s not evident from the first three episodes that I have seen (the show is rolling out weekly, with episode one now streaming). Instead, the show feels a lot more regressive with constant discussion about there being no interest by Richmond football fans in the women’s league, players are seen letting their trivial interpersonal squabbles play out on the field, and the quality of the players is in question.

The show is leaning in to fan service too often with the show busy celebrating characters being reunited, that Roy Kent fella continues to be gruff, and players from the mens team being checked by name in the spirit of eliciting warm sentiment at their very mention.

Instead, the show should just be getting on with the business of exploring what is interesting about its new status quo. Except, it’s hardly new, is it?

Now, I mentioned having two very different experiences with shows. While Ted Lasso season 4 is a fizzer, animated superhero show My Adventures with Superman has been blowing my socks off (tights?).

I watched the first season of this show when it debuted back in 2023 and was impressed with it, but it was hardly a show worth dancing about in the streets. Rewatching that first season and going straight into seasons two and three this past week I feel very differently.

My Adventures with Superman sets the gold standard of what a superhero show or movie should be doing in the modern era.

After this many adaptations of Superman over the years, there’s not a lot of takes on the character that could feel fresh and innovative. But this cartoon show has done an incredible job of making Superman relevant for the current moment, with a heavy lean towards the tone and themes that drive a lot of popular anime, while incorporating the Superman mythos in a way that feels wholly unique to this television show. The magic trick this show is doing with every episode is finding new perspectives on some very worn characters and reinterpreting them in a way that strengthens the narrative and thematic interests of the series.

Lex Luthor in this isn’t just a businessman, he’s an Elon Musk-type of figure who weaponises a melding of science, capitalism, and public political sentiment together. It’s a contrast to the idealism and community minded spirit of the three junior news reporters leading the series (Lois Lane, Jimmy Olsen, and, of course, Clark Kent). Superboy isn’t Clark Kent from when he was a teenager – he’s the recent comic book addition Jon Kent, the son of Lois and Clark. The gimmick here is that he’s their son from the future who, in addition to needing to save the timeline, he’s a threat to Lois Lane’s sense of self and independence. Knowing she fathers a son with Superman means saying goodbye to her youth and carefree current lifestyle and embracing commitment and greater responsibility.

And then there’s a host of side characters including a queer French gorilla and a Supergirl who is busy weaponising dating apps to capture the heart of the boy of her dreams.

It’s a weird assortment of ideas from across almost a century worth of Superman comics, TV shows, and movies all smashed together for a show that feels true to itself and has something it wants to say about understanding oneself and being accepted within communities.

But what you won’t find in this show is lazy writing and shameless fan service. That’s for the UK football show for grown-ups.

News Desk

Casting & greenlights

• Martin spinoff The Varnell Hill Show will premiere globally on Paramount+ on 1 September, launching with two episodes of its eight-episode first season. Read: The Hollywood Reporter

• Taron Egerton, Jamie Chung, Benjamin Norris, Dylan Arnold, Jessy Hodges and Milan Carter have joined the second season of HBO Max comedy I Love LA. Read: Deadline

• Richard Madden will star in Trauma, a hostage thriller co-commissioned by Paramount+ and Prime Video, playing a medic turned ER doctor who fights through a London hospital after terrorists take the Prime Minister hostage during surgery. Read: C21Media

• Cherry Jones, Corey Stoll, Rob Delaney and Abbey Lee have joined Netflix’s The Secret of Secrets, alongside previously cast Morgan Spector and Rebecca Hall in the Dan Brown adaptation. Read: thefutoncritic

• HBO and the BBC will co-produce 1536, a six-episode drama from Ava Pickett following three working-class women in a Tudor-era Essex village in the fallout of Anne Boleyn’s execution. Read: The Hollywood Reporter

Eh renewal

• Peacock has renewed The Five Star Weekend for a second season, after the drama ranked among the top five most-watched streaming original series in its first two weeks. Read: thefutoncritic

Important and serious documentaries

• HBO Max has ordered the first-ever authorised Gilmore Girls documentary, featuring new interviews with Amy Sherman-Palladino, Daniel Palladino and Lauren Graham. Read: thefutoncritic

Mouse business

• Disney CEO Josh D’Amaro confirmed the company is exploring free, ad-supported FAST channels, with CFO Hugh Johnston saying content spending is on track to hit roughly $24 billion this year. Read: Deadline

• Disney plans to add more live sports to Disney+ this fall, including additional college football simulcasts, as it looks to deepen ties between ESPN, Disney+ and Hulu. Read: The Hollywood Reporter

• Disney has sold out its Super Bowl LXI ad inventory and closed its 2026-27 upfront, with total ad volume commitments up by double digits on last year. Read: Deadline

Wired and wires

• Microsoft’s next-generation Xbox console is expected to offer native backward compatibility with Xbox 360, Xbox One and Xbox Series titles. Read: Radio Times

• Charlie Sheen is launching a podcast, Mostly Sheenius, produced by Red Seat Ventures, promising candid conversations with major names across entertainment, sports and pop culture. Read: The Hollywood Reporter

• Perez Hilton has been hospitalised after livestreaming footage of himself self-harming on TikTok on Tuesday night, with Miami-Dade sheriff’s deputies responding to his home and his family confirming he is now receiving medical care. Read: The Guardian

An aside

Look, after records of unfunny were broken with Super Troopers 2, I’m pretty reluctant to spend any money to see Super Troopers 3 in the cinema (I’ll admit to having a very soft spot for the first one though…. meow…). But I have to question sending Frank Scheck at THR in to review the movie.

I mean, consider this admission in the middle of his review panning the film:

What business does anyone have reviewing a juvenile comedy when they don’t have a simple understanding of the fundamentals?

Trailer Park

The X-Files: I Want to Believe – Vrach Frankenshteyn debuts on Hulu August 14.

When a group of women are mysteriously abducted, it becomes a case right out of The X-Files™️. Years after walking away from the FBI, Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) and Dr Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) are pulled back from the shadows when a federal agent vanishes without a trace.

“In a case you’d never see on TV, their only lead is a disgraced, defrocked priest claiming to have horrific psychic visions of the crime. Forced to confront the ghosts of their past, the partners must navigate a chilling winter landscape and an even darker human monstrosity.

The truth of these crimes is out there somewhere… and it will take Mulder and Scully to find it. The X-Files: I Want to Believe - Vrach Frankenshteyn reimagines creator and director Chris Carter’s original vision in this all-new director’s cut.

Tyler Perry’s Back in Black returns for season 3 on Netflix August 27.

Love is Blind UK is back for season 3 on Netflix August 19.

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The news comes soon after Paramount Skydance CEO David Ellison had an op-ed published in the New York Times pushing forward his case in the court of public opinion.

Ellison opens his op-ed stating that the important voice you haven’t heard from yet in his bid for Warners is his own. Why so silent, David? It’s because he cares for the sanctity of news, you see…

I believe that anyone who oversees a news organization — I am chief executive of Paramount, which owns CBS — shouldn’t put a finger on the scale, especially on matters involving his own company. So when California’s attorney general, 11 other state attorneys general and, a day later, the Writers Guild of America sued to stop the deal, I stayed quiet. I quickly learned such restraint has costs. While I was silent, others were happy to write my story for me. No more.

What is that cost, Mr Ellison? Your lawyers have spoken about how this is a slam dunk and there’s no question that the deal is legally sound and should pass through.

His objective in writing is to try and quell concern over his holding of CNN. At the root of the lawsuit, he is viewing politics as the reason for the opposition to the merger. In particular, he is focused on the acquisition of CNN.

That has to be the reason. After all, he’s talking about doubling output in cinemas and the already evident increase to the volume of content released through Paramount+.

And that’s fine to argue if there was anything about that commitment that is binding in perpetuity. But all it takes is a couple of bad quarters for a change in strategy to be enacted.

Ellison writes:

I understand that promises from an executive in the middle of a merger invite skepticism. So judge us by the year we just had.

What should we focus on? The exodus of 60 Minutes talent fleeing the show because they aren’t happy with the politicised direction that Ellison’s CBS is taking the show? The massive declines in audience for the CBS Evening News once Ellison’s news chief Bari Weiss took over? The streamed UFC fight from the White House lawn, an event that was anything but apolitical? Is it the private dinner you hosted for the President?

The very approval of the merger is questionable, with reports that investigating staff were ready to flag objections to the merger before their bosses just waived it through.

There’s a reason people aren’t giving David Ellison the benefit of the doubt.

Let’s give David Ellison the final word.

Trust can’t be argued back, but it can be earned back — story by story, day by day.

But when does this start, David?

News Desk

More on the Paramount-Warner Bros. Merger

Paramount posted mixed Q2 earnings as Paramount+ added roughly two million subscribers to reach 81.6 million worldwide, even as linear TV kept declining. Read: Deadline

Ari Emanuel has proposed an editorial board to oversee CNN to ease concerns about Ellison family influence and help clear the way for the merger. Read: TheWrap

Casting & Greenlights

Viola Davis is returning to television in Ascent, a Paramount+ corporate thriller from John Logan, playing an elite fixer forced to use her skills to protect her estranged daughter. Read: The Hollywood Reporter

Amazon has picked up the Baywatch reboot for Prime Video across much of Europe, Canada, Latin America and India, though no Australian streaming home has been confirmed yet. Read: The Hollywood Reporter

Amazon has ordered a US version of LOL: Last One Laughing, the “try not to laugh” format that has already run in more than 25 countries. Read: Deadline

CBS has ordered a comedy pilot, Hilda! (In Lights!), about a 70-year-old Nebraska woman with no experience chasing a lifelong dream of Broadway stardom. Read: The Hollywood Reporter

Renewals & Return Dates

Colin from Accounts has set A US date, Thursday, 10 September, for its third and final season on Paramount+. Read: Deadline

The Artful Dodger has been renewed for a third and final season at Disney+ and Hulu, with Thomas Brodie-Sangster returning as Jack Dawkins. Read: Deadline

UKTV’s Bergerac reboot has been recommissioned for a third series after its second run averaged 1.3 million viewers, the network’s second-highest-rating drama this year. Read: C21Media

Streaming & Business

Stranger Things, Bluey and The Pitt were the most-streamed shows of the first half of 2026, according to Nielsen. Read: The Hollywood Reporter

Spotify has crossed 300 million Premium subscribers, roughly three times Apple Music’s size, adding seven million paid subscribers in Q2 despite price rises. Read: Variety

TKO Group says UFC’s Freedom 250 event at the White House lost $30 million despite averaging 8.2 million viewers on Paramount+, its biggest live exclusive to date. Read: Variety

Broadcast Management Group used LiveU’s remote production tools to stream Amazon Prime’s inaugural Obsessed Fest live to TikTok in an eight-hour vertical-format broadcast. Read: TVNewsCheck

Culture & Tech

AI-generated Jimmy Kimmel monologues have been spreading across YouTube while the real host is on his summer break, with one fake clip drawing nearly 800,000 views before removal. Read: LateNighter

Apple is reportedly eyeing fitness as the centrepiece of its future smart glasses and headsets, according to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman. Read: Road to VR

Lego has unveiled an official The X-Files set, more than a decade after Brisbane fan Brent Waller first designed it, complete with eight minifigures including Gillian Anderson‘s Scully. Read: Polygon

Trailer Park

Blood Sacrifice debuts on Netflix August 20. The five-part series is from George Kay (Lupin, Hijack).

Following the brutal murder of two police officers, a tenacious detective reluctantly joins forces with his estranged ex-cop father to catch the killer.

Note: Despite the name, this apparently has nothing to do with Julianna Margulies’ character in ER…

Mobile Suit Gundam Hathaway: The Sorcery of Nymph Circe debuts on Netflix August 31.

Hathaway Noa leads a rebel group in a fight against the corrupt Earth Federation government. But when he meets a mysterious woman, his resolve is tested.

The Girls: A Khloe Kardashian Project debuts on Hulu August 21.

Step inside Khloé Kardashian's inner circle as her closest friends navigate the highs and lows of motherhood, marriage, dating, business, and life in the spotlight.

Honest Renovations returns with hosts Jessica Alba and Lizzy Mathis for season 4 August 14 on The Roku Channel.

Here The Whole Time debuts on Netflix August 19.

Felipe just wanted a quiet summer with his artsy mom and every musical he could binge... when his childhood crush knocked on his door to join the party.

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But that doesn’t stop my social feeds from people declaring that the movies are back and some enthusiastic cineastes suggesting that audiences are tiring of watching movies and premium TV dramas at home alone. I’m told that what makes the cinema great is the experience of seeing it with other people.

Other people.

It is my long-held belief that other people are the worst and it is other people that make cinema attendance a struggle.

Which brings me to this story on what is, quite obviously, a very slow news day.

I’ve never had to leave my home lounge-room due to a bout of rotten flatulence. But the same can’t be said for those attending the Spider-Man: Brave New Day screening in Cartagena, Colombia where the cinema was evacuated.

This, from a hard-hitting NY Post story:

Many viewers ripped the filmgoer for cutting the cheese during a screening.

“There’s no respect anymore, but I don’t think anyone is so rotten as to evacuate an entire auditorium,” said one.

Another wrote, “To ruin a whole cinema like that, only God knows what that person ate.”

Others labeled the anonymous wind breaker the film’s real “villain.”

News Desk

Development & Casting

• Dave Bautista is in talks to play Kratos in Amazon’s God of War series, replacing Ryan Hurst, who exited after tearing a bicep during a stunt. Read: Deadline

• Amazon MGM has ordered DINKS, an improvised multi-cam sitcom from Friends co-creator Marta Kauffman‘s production company Okay Goodnight, starring June Diane Raphael and Paul Scheer, in a first-of-its-kind deal with Lionsgate. Read: thefutoncritic

• A Warhammer 40,000 animated series is in development at Amazon as a Secret Level spinoff, with Henry Cavill executive producing alongside Tim Miller. Read: Variety

Talent

• Michelle Pfeiffer says she never wants to star in another movie after Margo’s Got Money Troubles, developing a taste for ensemble work. Read: The Hollywood Reporter

Sport & Streaming

• Netflix has set its Australian on-air team — led by Elle Duncan, Michael Irvin, Noah Eagle, and Luke Kuechly — for its first-ever regular-season NFL game, the 49ers-Rams clash in Melbourne on Sept. 10. Read: The Futon Critic

News & Media

• Ousted 60 Minutes correspondents Scott Pelley and Sharyn Alfonsi have been named Columbia Journalism School’s inaugural journalists-in-residence for 2026-27. Read: The New York Times

• Have I Got News For You producer Jimmy Mulville says the BBC has grown “nervous” about Trump jokes amid the president’s $10bn lawsuit against the broadcaster. Read: Deadline

Box Office & Exhibition

• IMAX is splitting its North American screens between The Odyssey and Spider-Man: Brand New Day, giving the record-breaking Sony film digital IMAX runs from Aug. 6. Read: The Hollywood Reporter

Streaming & Legacy

• J. Michael Straczynski has launched an official Babylon 5 YouTube channel with Warner Bros. Discovery, rolling out full episodes weekly plus new commentary and extras. Read: Bleeding Cool

Gaming

• Insomniac’s Marvel’s Wolverine has landed an ESRB “Mature” rating, with partial nudity noted for briefly depicting a character’s exposed buttocks. Read: Polygon

Obit

• Natalia Dontcheva, star of the French adaptation of Doc Martin, has died at 56 after a 10-year illness. Read: Deadline

Trailer Park

Star Wars: Visions Presents – The Ninth Jedi debuts August 5 on Disney+.

Beyond light and dark lies a power never seen before.

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This sort of curation is a good thing, delivering audiences easy access to the sort of content that has been on their mind and they’re primed for.

But when it came to the Spider-Guy, I very quickly noticed an absence of some pretty key titles in his screen history. Spider-Man may be raking in the dollars at the box office right now, just as he has with most of his big screen outings, but early in his existence, he was a creature of television.

I’m not talking about his obvious appearances in cartoon series over the years, which have been plentiful. I’m instead focused very much on live action depictions of the character. None of them seemingly available on streaming services anywhere.

The best known of them is the largely forgotten 1977 TV show starring Nicholas Hammond. The Amazing Spider-Man launched with a movie-length pilot in 1977, followed by five episodes in 1978. The show rated well, but attracted an audience of kids and teens. The sought-after 18-49 demo weren’t all that into it.

The show was deemed expensive and not worth the bother with it attracting the wrong audience, so a second season of eight episodes was greenlit and burned off throughout 1978-79 with episodes dropped randomly throughout the year.

I don’t know how much of The Amazing Spider-Man I have ever seen – episodes were released on VHS over the years and I know I saw some of this as a young kid in the 80s. Some episodes, the pilot and the two-parter that launched the first season, were released outside the US as movies for cinema distribution.

It isn’t a show that I have ever seen repeated on television, nor has it ever been released on streaming services. Which is, frankly, weird.

Also weird is that relative unavailability of the other live action show to star Spider-Man that debuted in 1978. Titled Spider-Man, the show ran for 41 episodes and a feature film to kickstart it. These days it is generally known as Japanese Spider-Man or Toei Spider-Man.

Made for Tokyo Channel 12 by Toei Company (the company best known for the Godzilla films), the show is a curiosity discussed in comic nerd circles, but has very little footprint outside of that. And that’s a damn shame as the show has an incredible cool factor about it.

Seriously… this theme song…!

It ran from 1978 to 1979 and hasn’t been made available for streaming, outside of a brief time it was available on the Marvel website.

And then there was the very first live-action Spider-Man. A series of shorts that began during season four of The Electric Company, Spidey Super Stories ran for 29 episodes.

If you don’t know The Electric Company, this was a show that launched in 1971 just two years after Sesame Street, made by Children’s Television Workshop to provide a show for kids who had gotten too old for Sesame Street. Notable cast members included Morgan Freeman, Bill Cosby, and Rita Moreno. Voice cast included Gene Wilder, Zero Mostel, and Joan Rivers. And guests were fairly eclectic: Woody Allen, Barbara Eden, Victor Borges, Diane Keaton, Lily Tomlin, Peter Graves, and many more.

Of these three shows, I have seen far more of the Electric Company than I have the others. For some reason SBS in Australia were still showing this in the mid to late 80s and I firmly remember being entranced by the oddity of this voiceless Spider-Man.

But, like the other live-action Spider-Man shows from the 70s, they only live on as obscure trivia with legit access scarce to non-existent. A shame. These shows deserve to be more readily available.

RIP Big Pussy

I learned an important lesson this morning while preparing this section. The Sopranos has a beloved and integral character named Big Pussy… this is not a character name you can type into Google Images without context as part of the search query.

Actor Vincent Pastore, who played Salvatore “ Big Pussy” Bonpensiero on The Sopranos, died over the weekend, aged 80. Like a lot of the actors on the show, he was not a trained actor and came to the show after a different career. In Pastore’s case, he worked in and around New York’s nightclub scene before finding his way to acting, cast in a number of crime films as mob heavies.

As per the New York Times obit:

Mr. Pastore came late to acting, after spending over 20 years as a nightclub bouncer and limo driver, and eventually becoming a manager and owner of a club in New Rochelle, N.Y.

Among his regulars were the actors Matt and Kevin Dillon, who knew him from his days as a chauffeur. Impressed by his charisma, they persuaded him to take acting classes and audition for small roles in New York-area theater.

He climbed quickly, getting parts in TV shows and independent movies, as well as small roles in “Goodfellas” (1990) and “Carlito’s Way” (1993), both about mob life and set in the city. His first major role was in the film “The Jerky Boys” (1995), as the right-hand man of a mob boss played by Alan Arkin.

More mob-themed roles followed, including in the movies “Night Falls on Manhattan” (1996), “Gotti” (1996) and “Mickey Blue Eyes” (1999), many of which had him acting alongside some of the Italian American actors who would later populate the cast of “The Sopranos.”

“It’s easier for me to play a tough guy than it is to play the good guy,” Mr. Pastore told The New York Daily News in 2000. “I grew up in a tough neighborhood. I didn’t study the classics. I’m a street actor. A lot of my training was on the set.”

Pastore was one of my favourite’s on The Sopranos, a sentiment that many fans of the show will share. It was a shame that he saw his demise so early in the run of the series, but it was an important loss for the show as it told viewers that if this guy can be disposed of in the show, nobody was ever safe.

Too often characters are improbably kept around only because they are fan favourites. There was no greater fan favourite than Big Pussy, owed largely to the presence of Vincent Pastore and the warmth he imbued his role with.

I don’t really know Pastore from much beyond The Sopranos. And I’m very okay with that. There’s something about the show that has me quite happy to never see any of the actors in other roles. It is rare to see many behind the scenes photos or videos from the show and with so many actors in it non-professionals, it keeps the integrity of it pretty tight. Obviously, The Sopranos is not a documentary… but the way that it exists so divorced from Hollywood has always left it feeling like its own thing.

News Desk

Marvel and DC both bury a superhero show in the same week, Netflix courts Dan Brown and reunites The Inbetweeners, and Tom Selleck is still salty about Blue Bloods.

Casting & Greenlights

• Rebecca Hall is now confirmed to be joining Netflix’s Dan Brown series. Hall has been cast as Katherine Solomon in Netflix’s untitled adaptation of The Secret of Secrets, playing opposite real-life husband Morgan Spector as Robert Langdon. Carlton Cuse (Lost, Jack Ryan) showruns, with Brown co-creating and executive producing. Read: Deadline

• The Inbetweeners reunion movie is happening at Netflix. Deals haven’t yet been finalised, but Simon Bird, Joe Thomas, Blake Harrison, and James Buckley, are expected to return. Creators Iain Morris and Damon Beesley are back too. It’s worth noting that if any of the boys in the show were to have fathered a child in their late teens or early 20’s, based on the timeline of the show, the kid would be about the age of the boys in the original series… Read: Variety

• Silo showrunner Graham Yost and American Gun writer Aric Avelino will adapt Colson Whitehead’s Harlem trilogy for Apple TV, Harlem Shuffle, Crook Manifesto, and Cool Machine as an ongoing crime series with Barry Jenkins executive producing. Read: Variety

Cancellations & Departures

• Wonder Man co-creator Andrew Guest says contracts were signed and a writers’ room was about to open ahead of its surprise cancellation announced on Friday. He assures fans that this isn’t in service of a Wonder Man movie. Read: Variety

• DC’s Booster Gold HBO show is also dead. Writer creator David Jenkins confirmed on Threads that his version of the series “won’t be moving forward,” though the project may continue with a new creative team. Read: The Wrap

• Dermot Mulroney is exiting Chicago Fire early in season 15. Read: Deadline

Reunions & Revivals

• Max Greenfield says he’s read New Girl revival scripts and they’re “amazing.” He told Today with Jenna & Sheinelle, “As far as I know, it’s happening.” But… does it need to? Read: The AV Club

• Tom Selleck is still frustrated about the cancellation Blue Bloods. On Ted Danson’s podcast, Selleck said the cast took a 25 percent pay cut trying to keep the show alive while it sat at number six among all broadcast programs in its final year. “Nobody wanted to leave,” he said. Read: THR

In Warnermount news…

• John Oliver has extended his HBO deal for Last Week Tonight through 2027 and into the possible David Ellison regime. Tellingly, it’s a one-year extension rather than his usual three. Read: THR

• For the upcoming trial, Paramount wants a November hearing; the 12-state coalition of AG’s and the WGA want next April. Tick tick… Read: The Wrap

And also…

• A “high-quality bootleg” of Spider-Man: Brand New Day streamed on Twitter/X, reaching 5.9 million accounts before being pulled. Read: The AV Club

• One-time actor Taylor Sheridan is heading back in front of the camera for Lioness season three, expanding on his season-two cameo as a CIA officer. Read: THR

Trailer Park

As teased at the end of the Gabby’s Dollhouse movie, Gabby’s little sister makes her debut in Gabby’s Dollhouse when it returns for season 14 on Sept 14.

Moria debuts August 14 on Netflix.

In this highly stylized fictionalization, Moria Casán transforms her life story into a symbolic spectacle of fame, controversy and ceaseless reinvention.

The Shards debuts this week on FX/Hulu - August 5.

FX's The Shards is a seductive drama series from executive producer Ryan Murphy, based on the acclaimed bestselling novel by Bret Easton Ellis. Set against the vivid backdrop of 1980s Los Angeles, the series follows a group of privileged high school seniors at an elite prep school as they navigate identity, sex, jealousy, obsession and the dangers lurking beneath the surface of American adolescence.

Vadhandhi returns for season 2 on Prime Video August 7.

Mousetrap debuts on Netflix August 28.

A reclusive writer wakes to find his identity stolen - and must ally with a ruthless loan shark to reclaim his life from a man known as "The Rat."

That’s the newsletter for the today.

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And that’s really a damn shame, because Diarra From Detroit is cool as hell.

The show picked up a second season and has now migrated over to Paramount+ where it streams both in the US and internationally.

The show was created and largely written by series star Diarra Kilpatrick, an actor who has a fairly limited filmography for someone who has been working in the business for around 20 years. Her biggest credit to date was an ongoing supporting role in HBO’s Perry Mason show playing Clara Drake – the wife of the detective in the show.

But here she is a creative force who explodes on the screen with so much swagger and charisma.

It’s about a school teacher who returns to live in her mothers home in Detroit after the collapse of her marriage. Her husband left her in a move that she did not see coming. Single and alone, Diarra is struggling to work out exactly who she is as a single woman and how to, in the spirit of the big screen’s Stella, get her groove back.

She gets on the dating apps and heads out with a guy who surprisingly knocks her off her feet. She’s really into him and, it seems, it’s mutual. They sleep together after treating the first date like it’s their third and organise to go out again.

Only when the night comes, Diarra is ready to go out only to be completely ghosted by the guy.

From then, the show becomes a detective story with a lead character who isn’t sure whether she is following a genuine mystery about a guy she doesn’t know (who may or may not have a very big mystery in his past that has shaped the narrative of the city of Detroit itself), or is she just butt-hurt and acting like a scorned “crazy white woman.”

This show is a properly funny and sexy drama with both a really good mystery at its core and a compelling thematic idea about finding an identity for oneself post a relationship breakup. Owed completely to its African American cast, the detective elements, and the swagger of the show, it’s difficult not to draw a comparison between this show and the blackspolitation films of the 70s.

I really love this show and now that there’s a far more accessible way for audiences to actually discover the show, I’m hoping it finally generates the audience it deserves.

Here’s what else is on this week:

Returning TV

Batman: Caped Crusader (s02, Prime Video) Hamish Linklater, Jason Watkins, Krystal Joy Brown, Eric Morgan Stuart, Michelle C. Bonilla, John DiMaggio, and Matthew Needham

The Walking Dead: Dead City (s03, AMC) Lauren Cohan, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Gaius Charles, Željko Ivanek, Logan Kim, Lisa Emery, and Aimee Garcia

The Ark (s03, Syfy) Christie Burke, Reece Ritchie, Richard Fleeshman, Pavle Jerinić, Stacey Read, and Ryan Adams

Colin from Accounts (s03, Binge [Aus]) Patrick Brammall, Harriet Dyer, Genevieve Hegney, Helen Thomson, Darren Gilshenan, and Tai Hara

Diarra from Detroit (s02, Paramount+ [US]) Diarra Kilpatrick, DomiNque Perry, Bryan Terrell Clark, Shannon Wallace, Phylicia Rashad, and Harry Lennix

The Proud Family: Louder and Prouder (s04, final season, Disney+) Kyla Pratt, Tommy Davidson, Paula Jai Parker, Jo Marie Payton, Cedric the Entertainer, and Karen Malina White

New TV

Furious — Hulu [US]

Who’s in it: Emmy Rossum, Lola Petticrew, Scoot McNairy, Quincy Tyler Bernstine, and Jake Lacy

What’s it about? FBI agent Alice Black, sidelined to the agency’s call centre after a once-promising career stalled, is drawn into the hunt for a mysterious, calculating female serial killer. As their lives intertwine, the line between right and wrong starts to blur. Loosely inspired by the 1987 film Black Widow, from The Dropout creator Elizabeth Meriwether.

Final Project — Netflix

Who’s in it: Daniela Martínez, Tristán Maze, and Isabella Tena

What’s it about? Tamara transfers to a new school hoping for a fresh start, only to become the target of relentless cyberbullying and a dangerous online challenge set by a classmate, a bond that pushes her toward a dark transformation. A Mexican teen suspense drama, told in short, fifteen-minute episodes.

Forbidden Woman — Netflix

Who’s in it: Valerie Domínguez, David Palacio, Rodrigo Candamil, and Angélica Blandón

What’s it about? When a politician’s wife is rescued from an attempted murder by a famous singer, an intense, forbidden romance ignites between them, one that quickly becomes entangled with corruption and the pursuit of power. A Colombian telenovela from Caracol Televisión, drawing loosely on Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina.

Wrath — Netflix

Who’s in it: Vinicius Neri, Fábio Lago, Alice Carvalho, MC Cabelinho, Bianca Comparato, and Cláudia Raia

What’s it about? Rescued from the brink of death by an MMA coach, a man with no memory of his past is given a new name and a new purpose in the ring. As he digs into who he really is, he is drawn into a web of crimes and secrets, and into a growing rivalry with a rising opponent. A Brazilian crime drama, with a special appearance from former UFC champion Anderson Silva.

The Vacation Principle — Netflix

Who’s in it: Kanna Hashimoto, Chae Jong-hyeop, Mizuki Yamashita, Aiko Kano, Dori Sakurada, and Ryo Katsuji

What’s it about? Worn down by the hectic pace of city life, Midori loses her job and retreats to her late grandmother’s seaside villa, where lush orange trees, ocean views and a handsome, enigmatic caretaker help her find peace, and an unexpected romance. A Japanese dramedy told in short episodes, new instalments weekly.

[Trailer unavailable]

New Movies

A Private Life — Netflix

Who’s in it: Jodie Foster, Daniel Auteuil, Virginie Efira, Mathieu Amalric, Vincent Lacoste, and Luàna Bajrami

What’s it about? Dr. Lilian Steiner, a Jewish-American psychiatrist working out of Paris, is haunted by the sudden death of one of her patients and becomes convinced the official explanation is wrong. Turning amateur detective, she unravels a web of secrets and old grievances that could lead to the truth, or to her own undoing. Delivered entirely in French, with a lengthy standing ovation at its Cannes premiere.

Snoopy Presents: There’s No Place Like Home, Snoopy — Apple TV

Who’s in it: Gang Dong-won, Um Tae-goo, Park Ji-hyun, and Oh Jung-se

What’s it about? When Snoopy’s beloved doghouse goes missing, he tries to track it down and learns what makes a house feel like home.

Wild Sing — Netflix

Who’s in it: Gang Dong-won, Um Tae-goo, Park Ji-hyun, and Oh Jung-se

What’s it about? Twenty years after a scandal tore apart Triangle, a chart-topping co-ed dance trio, an offer to reunite for a one-off show pulls leader Hyun-woo out of obscurity and back in search of the bandmates he lost, a rapper buried in debt and a former member who chose life as the daughter-in-law of a powerful business dynasty. A Korean comedy tapping into Gen 1 K-pop nostalgia.

That’s the newsletter for this week.

Consider becoming a paid supporter of Always Be Watching.

Connect with Dan on Bluesky. Connect with Dan on Letterboxd. Connect with Dan on Linkedin. Email Dan @ alwaysbewatching.com or just reply to this email.

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