We may be living in a golden age of TV, but panning through all the dross to find that gold can be time-consuming and tedious. For every much-discussed hit like Severance, House of the Dragon, and The Bear, there are dozens of new original shows that barely tip the cultural needle. And with so many new streaming services competing with HBO, Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, and Disney Plus, it’s impossible to keep up with everything new to view. But The Verge’s TV section is ready to help. Our news, reviews, and interviews help you find the next Stranger Things or Star Trek: Strange New Worlds in time to keep up with the cultural conversation. And our essays and analysis invite you to consider the deeper context of what you’re watching.
The public’s negative response to previous instances of major Hollywood firing up the generative AI slop machine might make you think that entertainment execs have cooled on the technology. But a new report from Vulture makes it sound like more and more studios are jumping on the bandwagon and trying very hard to keep it a secret.
[vulture.com]
Ben Stiller tells Variety that there are “two specific ideas” that the Severance team has “talked about internally as possible spinoff ideas.” He says “they are nascent.”
Stiller also says it would be great to “have a Severance video game.” I’m not exactly sure how that would work?
The Wall Street Journal reports that, while Paramount offered to pay Donald Trump $15 million to make him drop his lawsuit against CBS News over the way a 60 Minutes interview with Kamala Harris was edited, the sitting president wants upwards of $25 million and a public apology from the news organization.
The subtext here is obviously “grovel and supplicate if you want that Skydance merger to go through.”
When The Morning Show returns to Apple TV Plus for its fourth season on September 17th, Alex Levy (Jennifer Aniston) and Bradley Jackson (Reese Witherspoon) are going to find themselves navigating “a world rife with deepfakes, conspiracy theories and corporate cover-ups.”
The first trailer for Apple TV Plus’ upcoming crime drama Smoke starring Taron Egerton and Jurnee Smollett as a detective / arson investigator duo forced to team up in order to take down a pair of serial fire starters is — apologies — hot as hell. The show debuts on June 27th.
This “special announcement” teaser for the upcoming second season of Netflix’s One Piece adaptation could just be a reminder that new episodes are on the way, but it (and all the little hoof prints at the end) are probably a sign that we can expect to hear new details about the show at this year’s Tudum event.
As Deadline notes, the cross-platform viewer number that (HBO) Max just released for last night’s finale is down from the season premiere’s 5.3 million, but the company expects that “The audience will grow significantly due to low viewing levels over the Memorial Day holiday weekend.” According to the press release, the show’s global audience now numbers more than 90 million.
If you’ve seen the finale, what do you think about where the show is headed now?
The last few minutes of the season 2 finale are an important indication of where the story is going.
You’re supposed to pick up on some of the visual uncanniness of Mark S.’ sprint through Lumon HQ in the first episode of Severance’s second season, but this behind-the-scenes breakdown video from Industrial Light & Magic highlights just how much of the scene was created with VFX wizardry.
Though Apple TV Plus’ upcoming historical drama Chief of War chronicles the real story of how Native Hawaiian warrior Kaʻiana (Jason Momoa) rebelled against king Kamehameha I, the miniseries’ first trailer kinda feels like an audition tape for another project about a (fictional) man at war.
Carmy and the crew are still going to be struggling to get on their feet when The Bear returns for its fourth season on June 25th. But everyone at the restaurant seems like they’re ready to give it all in the season’s latest trailer.
Star Wars: Skeleton Crew’s Ryan Kiera Armstrong has been cast in Hulu’s new Buffy the Vampire Slayer sequel series. Aside from Sarah Michelle Gellar returning to reprise her role from the original series, details on the new show are still thin, but it sounds we’re going to see Buffy leaning into the mentor life.
The next Game of Thrones spinoff is now coming out in 2026 instead of 2025, Variety reports. HBO content chairman and CEO Casey Bloys apparently said at an event that it would come out in “winter,” though, so seems like it will be an early 2026 debut.
Warner Bros. Discovery did the right thing today — people mostly hated when HBO was cut from “HBO Max.”
What do normal people think the Apple Vision Pro is worth? Well, the highest bid was just $1,270 in this clip from a recent The Price is Right episode, posted by Vision Pro enthusiast Justin Ryan.
Host Drew Carey takes great care as he enunciates: “...actual retail price is three thousand, four hundred and ninety nine dollars.”
The new series Alien: Earth will premiere with two episodes on August 12th, airing on Hulu and FX in the US, or Disney Plus internationally. Thanks to Deadline we also have a first look at the cast kitted out, and know more about the plot, which hinges on the creation of the first “hybrid” androids, “infused with human consciousness.”
We’re still waiting for the show’s first trailer, but its early teasers have been... icky.
Amazon showed off a first image of Nicolas Cage as the live-action Spider Noir for the upcoming Prime Video and MGM Plus TV show. A premiere date hasn’t been shared yet.
