TV critic | he/him | I’m sepinwall here, there, and everywhere.
NJ
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Very excited to reveal the cover for my next book, Serling: A Journey Into The Twilight Zone with TV’s First Visionary. The book will be published by Grand Central on October 13 of this year, and pre-orders are open now. (More details in next post.)
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15 years ago tonight, Tony Soprano and his family met at their favorite ice cream parlor for some onion rings. The meal ended with
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I forget where I first heard it described this way, but this remains the greatest special effect in superhero movie history:
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17 years ago tonight, Tony Soprano and his family met at their favorite ice cream parlor for some onion rings. The meal ended with
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16 years ago tonight, Tony Soprano and his family met at their favorite ice cream parlor for some onion rings. The meal ended with
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When Rolling Stone polled dozens of showrunners, actors, and critics for our 100 best shows ever list, we got a very unusual ballot from BoJack Horseman creator Raphael Bob-Waksberg. I had many, many questions, and he was gracious enough to answer: rollingstone.com/tv-movies/t…
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The night I saw Endgame, the roar when T’Challa walked through the portal was one of the loudest and most visceral reactions I’ve ever heard at a movie theater. People REVERED that character, because Boseman made us revere him.
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RIP, Ray Liotta. One of his last roles was also one of his best, as the unnervingly calm Uncle Sal in The Many Saints of Newark.
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The only emotion this news summons up is continued relief that the previous attempt at this, How I Met Your Dad, never made it to air, allowing Greta Gerwig to go direct movies instead.
Hulu is dropping another one of its series, canceling #HowIMetYourFather after two seasons. The news comes two days after the Disney-run streamer also canceled #TheGreat: thr.cm/sDPI4Xl
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What is the BEST television show (new or returning) you watched in 2022? You can only name one. No lists, no ties, no parentheticals. One show to rule them all. Any genre. Just had to air new episodes this year.
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RIP, Fred Ward, a great character actor whose big shot at leading man status, Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins, unfortunately flopped, but who kept giving great, lived-in performances for the rest of his career.
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Tonight's spectacular and spectacularly stressful election eve #Succession was, like some of the later Sopranos and Breaking Bad episodes, the show reminding its audience what kind of characters they've been watching. My review: rollingstone.com/tv-movies/t…
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#TheWire debuted 20 years ago tonight. I wrote about all the ways the HBO masterpiece has proven impossible to duplicate, no matter how often other shows try to imitate parts of it: rollingstone.com/tv/tv-featu…
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This is interesting, esp when Nee talks about how Netflix's algorithm discourages people from rewatching eps they've already seen, when kids love doing that. Not the first time I've heard that Netflix execs and/or the algorithm HATE the idea of rewatchability. It's very strange.
‘Doc McStuffins’ Creator: Do Streamers Even Understand Kids TV? thr.cm/DtxG3fQ
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JUST BRING IN LEVAR BURTON FOR AN AUDITION WHY IS THIS SO HARD
NEWS: Joe Buck will be a guest host on "Jeopardy!" trying out for the permanent job, The Post has learned.
nypost.com/2021/04/17/joe-bu…
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Inject all content about Quibi(*) directly into my veins: vulture.com/2020/07/is-anyon…
(*) As opposed to content on Quibi.
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Fundamental goodness is a VERY hard thing to make interesting on screen, especially in movies where you’re surrounded by flashier characters like Shuri & Killmonger. But Boseman held the damn screen so effortlessly in those movies.
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RIP, Peter Scolari. A welcome, acerbic presence in everything he appeared in, from Bosom Buddies to Newhart to Girls. He and Tom Hanks were so good together that Bosom Buddies soon abandoned the dumb crossdressing premise; people just wanted to watch those guys be funny together.
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Why not celebrate Independence Day with the greatest 4th of July episode of them all?
ALT Mad Men, "Guy Walks Into an Advertising Agency"
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I’m only an hour into RRR, but I feel confident that if it holds up the rest of the way, it is the greatest movie ever made and second place is besides the point.
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When Jeopardy finally brings in LeVar Burton:
We can finally tell you! Here is the final group of guest hosts to close out Season 37:
• Robin Roberts
• George Stephanopoulos
• David Faber
• Joe Buck
• LeVar Burton!
bit.ly/Guest-Host-Schedule
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How is it "cost-cutting" to remove completed films that you already own and have on your streaming service? This sounds, like so many recent moves like the Batgirl thing, as David Zaslav just wants to take a sledgehammer to everything his predecessor did with HBO Max.
Within the past few weeks, at least six Warner Bros. movies have been removed from HBO Max:
-Moonshot
-Superintelligence
-The Witches
-An American Pickle
-Locked Down
-Charm City Kings
bit.ly/3QgcSzv
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The #Severance finale was one of the tensest, most exciting hours of TV I've seen in years. So I spoke with @benstiller about how they made it that way, and about this whole great season: rollingstone.com/tv/tv-featu…
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The Emmys will unfortunately not be honoring Better Call Saul's Rhea Seehorn — aka the best dramatic actor on television for years running — tonight, due to her egregious lack of nomination, but you can still enjoy this discussion of her craft and career: rollingstone.com/tv/tv-featu…
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A tribute I really wish I didn’t have to write, in praise of the late, staggeringly great Michael Kenneth Williams, who belongs on any attempt to make an HBO Mt Rushmore: rollingstone.com/tv/tv-featu…
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Chandler Bing was my favorite. Matthew Perry was a genius at knowing exactly how to deliver a line to generate the most possible laughs. I hate that he's gone, and tried to capture what made him great: rollingstone.com/tv-movies/t…
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You will want to watch this one live or turn off your internets until you can get to it.
Tonight! @TheRealCherkis wrote this one (her last!), #MichaelMorris directed (HIS last!?!) and it hits me where I live... So many of the questions we had at the beginning of the series are answered in this amazing episode. #BetterCallSaul
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Me when I realize I get to watch a new #BetterCallSaul today versus me when I realize I will never get to watch a new #BetterCallSaul after today. instagram.com/p/ChRy1KNOtz1/…
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RIP, Carl Reiner. An absolute giant of 20th century comedy. Part of Sid Caesar's hall of fame writers room, created The Dick Van Dyke Show, directed The Jerk, and was an all-time straight man with best friend Mel Brooks: piped.video/watch?v=XOTKDgrd…
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#BetterCallSaul co-creator Peter Gould talked with me about why he ended the show where he did, Jimmy's story vs Kim's story, characters he wished he could have brought back, and a lot more: rollingstone.com/tv-movies/t…
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Democracy was a mistake.
It's #Westworld vs #GameOfThrones in the final round of our HBO Original Series Showdown.
Vote for your favorite now: editorial.rottentomatoes.com…
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Ugh. Thinking good thoughts about Bob Odenkirk right now.
Bob Odenkirk Collapses on ‘Better Call Saul’ Set thr.cm/5XC3W0m
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#BetterCallSaul put Howard Hamlin through a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. My review of one we'd be talking about for a while even if it wasn't the mid-season finale: rollingstone.com/tv/tv-recap…
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Goddammit. Time and again, he took what could’ve easily been stock and thankless authority figure roles and invested them with humanity and depth. A great one.
'The Wire' star Lance Reddick has died, TMZ reports. He was 60.
tmz.com/2023/03/17/the-wire-…
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Kim Wexler's only two lines of dialogue in the #BetterCallSaul pilot. She's come a long way. instagram.com/p/CgE4fS6OjuF/…
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Thandie Newton DGAF about the toxic business she works in (and I haven't even screenshotted the insane Tom Cruise anecdote at the end): vulture.com/article/thandie-…
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21 years ago tonight, Richie Aprile’s fiancée made him dinner. The meal did not go as planned. instagram.com/p/CNLrs9OpPMD/
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Behold, courtesy of the streaker formerly known as HBO Max: incontrovertible proof that Martin Scorsese has been making really long tv episodes for a long time!
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#TheMandalorian s2 premiere was the show’s longest episode so far but kept true to the series’ efficient, fun aesthetic. My review: rollingstone.com/tv/tv-recap…
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It's been hard to watch the news of the last few weeks without thinking, "Watchmen predicted all of this." So I spoke with #Watchmen writer @cordjefferson about masked cops, Tulsa, white supremacy, and a lot more: rollingstone.com/tv/tv-featu…
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HBO Max has turned out to be the best streamer, and yet it appears that this merger resulted in it being taken over by an exec who does not like anything that has been done with it so far. Not great, Bob.
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When I see that one of What We Do in the Shadows' nominations was for writing the Jackie Daytona episode:
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Circa the GoT s3 premiere, I found myself in an elevator w/Dame Diana Rigg, wrapped from head-to-toe in wool to stave off a bad cold. "I'm looking for the chemist," she told me. "I believe his name is... Duane?" RIP to an absolute legend, from her first big TV role to her last.
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This week's #BetterCallSaul took an unexpected — and delightful — detour back into the world of Cinnabon Gene as he tried to pull off a vintage Slippin' Jimmy-style caper. My review: rollingstone.com/tv-movies/t…
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Andre Braugher was a giant, as capable of being the most intense dramatic actor TV had ever seen as he was of being among its most sublimely silly comic performers. I wrote about Frank Pembleton, Raymond Holt, and everything in beween: rollingstone.com/tv-movies/t…
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If more than a year has passed between seasons of your show, and your new season doesn't open with clips of what happened before, you should go to jail.
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While we’re on the subject of digitally resurrecting characters, it sure is a shame that there isn’t an established voice actor who sounds like Luke Skywalker and could have given a genuine voice performance here with only a slight digital massage. A real shame he doesn’t exist.
Matthew Wood says Mark Hamill didn’t record any dialogue for #TheMandalorian and #TheBookOfBobaFett
“It's a neural network you feed information into and it learns. So I had archival material from Mark in that era.”
(via: esquire.com/entertainment/tv…)
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New showrunner Issa López and new star Jodie Foster breathe new life into the old True Detective brand, with a fourth season that’s easily the most satisfying since the first. My review: rollingstone.com/tv-movies/t…
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You know what makes TV great? Individual episodes! So the Rolling Stone TV team picked the 100 best episodes of them all. rollingstone.com/tv-movies/t…
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TREAT YO'SELF! The entire #ParksandRecreation cast has virtually reunited for a brand new quarantine episode written and produced by Mike Schur, to raise money for Feeding America. Details: rollingstone.com/tv/tv-news/…
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I interviewed Liotta about the role and the ups and downs of his career: rollingstone.com/movies/movi…
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The #BetterCallSaul series finale brought the entire Heisenberg universe's story to a VERY satisfying close, particularly when it came to the fates of Jimmy and Kim. Hop in a time machine and read my review, okay? rollingstone.com/tv-movies/t…
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#BetterCallSaul just finished its fifth, and easily best, season with a finale that had me reconsidering the entire arc of the series. My review: rollingstone.com/tv/tv-recap… I also spoke w/the creators about Kim, Lalo, and how long it might be til we see s6: rollingstone.com/tv/tv-featu…
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"The show was preparing to wrap production on its second season when Warner Bros. Discovery decided to scrap the show in its latest cost-cutting move." There have been a lot of un-renewals over the last few years (RIP, GLOW), but doing it when most of the next season is done?
‘Minx’ Canceled at HBO Max Despite Season 2 Renewal variety.com/2022/tv/news/min…
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Donald Glover and Phoebe Waller-Bridge are creating and starring in a TV version of Mr and Mrs Smith for Amazon.
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PROTECT KIM WEXLER AT ALL COSTS
'Better Call Saul' stars get COVID vaccine at Hispanic Cultural Center trib.al/rODoh6w
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Some news: yesterday was my last at Rolling Stone. For now, I'm going solo, doing all my TV reviewing, recapping, etc., at my newsletter. I hope you'll consider subscribing. Many more details here: alansepinwall.ghost.io/dont-…
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How @rheaseehorn became #BetterCallSaul's MVP: a story of perseverance, commitment to craft, and that time she mainly went to her first big TV audition so she could finally watch The Sopranos: rollingstone.com/tv/tv-featu…
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HBO's #LovecraftCountry — about a black family in the 50s battling both monsters from myth and flesh-and-blood ones straight out of Jim Crow’s America, is fantastic in every sense. My review: rollingstone.com/tv/tv-revie…
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The White Lotus finale was bad and should feel bad: rollingstone.com/tv-movies/t…
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“No movie featuring either Harry Dean Stanton or M. Emmet Walsh in a supporting role can be altogether bad.” -Roger Ebert
RIP, M. Emmet Walsh
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You mean the thing that kept people talking about the show for months, as opposed to everyone forgetting it existed by the Wednesday after its season was released? Yes. Yes, they are still doing that nonsense.
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Incredibly proud to unveil a project the @RollingStone TV team's been working on for a while now: our ranking of the 100 greatest sitcoms ever. Let the scrutiny commence! rollingstone.com/tv/tv-lists…
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I spoke with Vince Gilligan about why there's been so little of Saul Goodman in #BetterCallSaul, the challenges of reconciling this show with #BreakingBad, and why "It's time to do something new" rather than continue in this fictional universe: rollingstone.com/tv-movies/t…
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Before #BetterCallSaul begins its home stretch, a reminder of what each surviving character was up to when we first met them on #BreakingBad, and questions about how each gets from here to there. Plus, many thoughts on what happens to Kim & Lalo: rollingstone.com/tv-movies/t…
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Since the killing of George Floyd and everything that's followed, I've had to confront my lifelong obsession with cop shows, and the role Andy Sipowicz, Raylan Givens, and friends have played in shaping public attitudes about the police: rollingstone.com/tv/tv-featu…
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My review of a tremendous, pivotal episode of #Succession: rollingstone.com/tv-movies/t… and my conversation with Sarah Snook about Shiv's phone call and everything else that happened at Connor's wedding: rollingstone.com/tv-movies/t…
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Man, I had so much fun watching #ConfessFletch, and would happily watch Hamm, Mottola, and company make a half dozen more Fletch movies, if only Miramax hadn't completely kneecapped the movie with a lack of marketing. Some thoughts over on my Letterboxd: letterboxd.com/alan_sepinwal…
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