Month: September 2021

After blowing up his job at iTV by storming off the set of Good Morning Britain because a coworker pushed back on his criticism of Meghan Markle‘s mental health struggles, Piers Morgan has returned to the dark nether-regions from whence he first came: Rupert Murdoch’s Fox media empire. In a statement to his Twitter account, which Morgan shamelessly labels as “BREAKING,” the British TV personality announced he’s “gone home” to Rupert Murdoch’s media empire after almost three decades.

“Great to be rejoining Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation after 28 years,” Morgan tweeted. “The place I started my media career, with the boss who gave me my first big break. We’re going to have a lot of fun….”

As for the terms of the deal, Morgan will have his own TV show — just not on Fox News. The British anchor will host a primetime show for the Fox Nation streaming service alongside the likes of Tomi Lahren and Candace Owens. Morgan will also be published in News Corp.’s vast portfolio of media outlets. Via Variety:

Under the terms of the deal, Morgan will host a daily TV show that will air on weeknights in the U.K., U.S. and Australia, write a weekly column for Murdoch’s U.K. tabloid The Sun and the U.S. publication The New York Post and also present a series of true crime documentaries.

The TV show will air on Fox Nation in the U.S., talkTV in the U.K. and Sky News Australia.

Like all things Morgan, he’s already being ruthlessly dunked on social media, but nothing can match this reaction from The Daily Show who kept their eyes on the ball(s).

(Via Piers Morgan on Twitter, Variety)

Any time you hear him speak, you get the impression Chris Godwin is thinking. Whether that be about what his next words might be or his next move. That’s true when he’s laughing off accusations lobbed from Dallas that he pushed off on a game-sealing catch on the opening night of the season and when he’s taking me inside his mindset on a new business partnership.

That partnership is with Lids, the hat company that has given over some creative ideas to Godwin for a new project in which Godwin was able to design five new hats that will be sold at Lids stores everywhere. It gives fans, as Godwin says, a chance to bring a little bit of him along with them.

The 2021 NFL champion and top receiver on the 2022 title favorites took some time to talk with Uproxx this week ahead of the release of this new Lids collection about hats, this colorful Bucs squad, and how he’s keeping the Tampa connection to the Toronto Raptors alive even as they leave town.

Let’s start with the main reason we’re here, which is this new Lids partnership. Tell me what went into putting this together, what drew you to it, and what do you hope comes of it as you put together these designs and people see everything come out?

Really, this is something I’m very fortunate to be able to do. When I was younger, I always felt like it was cool to be able to go to Lids, and Lids hats used to be really big. I know my older brothers had some.

But I guess when I really started to take interest was when my brother-in-law actually used to work there at a Lids at a school. He started to kind of make his own designs on his hats and break down for me how he was doing it, with the embroidery machine where you could customize any hat you wanted. I always used to think that was really cool, so when I was approached with my own opportunity to do a design and be able to put those in Lids stores all across the country, I jumped at the opportunity.

I thought it was something that would be really cool for me, but also for people that are fans of me to be able to I guess add a little bit of my creativity, a little bit of things that symbolize me, to their hats, as a way to support me, so to speak.

Did you have a favorite hat when you were a kid, one that you used to wear the most?

Ironically enough, my first team that I ever played for was called the Buccaneers, so then my first NFL team that I liked was the Bucs because of that association. Then when I found out they used to wear creamsicle, they had an all-creamsicle hat, and I always thought that was so dope. It was the coolest thing to me, like man, that’s a swaggy hat.

Then it was full circle, obviously playing for the Bucs now and I’ve got my own creamsicle hat similar to the one I used to like whenever I would see it. Now I can put my own design on it and it’s like my own personal hat.

What’s different coming into this season, after last year where nobody knew what to expect, what’s different about this year where you’re coming into a season where there are expectations as the defending champs?

I don’t necessarily know if the changes have been due to whatever expectations are placed on us. I think more so it comes from the familiarity that we have. Like you said, last year at this point, we had never really played together before, so we were figuring everything out, trying to figure out our timing with our quarterback. What’s crazy to me is how much chemistry we had to build with not much time to figure it out.

You fast forward to this year and now, we were fortunate enough to bring everybody back, so we’re starting at a further point. That doesn’t guarantee anything, that doesn’t mean we’re automatically going to win, that doesn’t mean that the throws we made last year we’re going to make this year, but it gives us a further starting point and a more open chain of communication so that when things do go wrong, we know how to address each other, we know how to talk each other’s language so we can address it as fast as possible. I think to go through the adversity we ended up going through last year to win the title, I think the combination of those two things are going to ultimately end up helping us when we go through adversity this year.

Who’s a Bucs player that people may not know is a funny, a big personality that may not come across? An everyday NFL fan, we know Gronk is a big personality, we know guys like you are out and about doing things, but who’s somebody in that Tampa Bay locker room that we might not expect is a big character?

I think two people. One would be Scotty Miller, the other would be Cam Brate. These guys are familiar to Bucs fans, but I think in terms of a national audience, I don’t think they necessarily have too much recognition, but they are like the biggest jokesters on the team. They like to troll people.

Any time someone posts something on social media, I can bet on going in and looking in the comments and seeing Cam saying some kind of troll. It’s hilarious.

Coming off the game last week which was down to the wire, you make that catch at the end, obviously entertaining and you gave the fans a good show, but what I saw a lot of talk about was that last catch on your part, was it pass interference and this and that, because we love to debate that type of thing as football fans. But you got asked about it postgame and you said you never worry about pass interference. Is that just the mindset you have to have because you can’t be out there worried, or you just think they’re never going to call it? Because, they’re never going to call it.

Mostly the former. You can’t go out there and not play aggressive because you’re worried that you’re going to get called for OPI. Because at the end of the day when you’re in the heat of battle, defensive backs hold, there’s hand-fighting going on back and forth, you’re kind of trading blows throughout the game, so in that final moment, I’m not worried about OPI, I’m just trying to get free.

And I also don’t think that I had pass interference. So there’s the bonus on that one (laughs).

I think this was dating back to last season when the Raptors were down there (in Tampa) with you guys, repping that team. I saw you had the Vince Carter jersey on the other day and we do a lot of basketball coverage here, so I have to ask you. Obviously you want to support the team when they had to come down there last season and deal with everything, but I was surprised to see you were still doing it. Is that a fandom that’s going to stick with you, or did it just look cool because the pink is sick?

So it was multifaceted. I went to a game when the team was down here last year and just wanted to support the team because I thought that was cool that there was a professional basketball team in Tampa.

Then two, Vince Carter is actually a Bucs fan, personally he grew up in Daytona, Florida, so he came out to one of our practices a few years ago and I remembered that when I got the jersey. Then I also love wearing throwback jerseys, so when I got that one last year, I knew that was something I was going to be able to do and I wanted to wear that for the first game of the season to bring it all together.

It kind of comes full circle because with this Lids locker room stuff, they have a whole bunch of throwback jerseys, so I’m able to go and get my jerseys and then I’ve got my throwbacks for the year, and then I got my Vince Carter to begin the year.

Venom: Let There Be Carnage isn’t even out yet (every day without Venom making breakfast is a waking nightmare), but Tom Hardy is already answering questions about the inevitable clash between Venom and Spider-Man. Sony’s Spider-Man Universe, as it’s officially called, is not the same thing as the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but Hardy is certain that Eddie Brock and Tom Holland’s Peter Parker will cross paths someday.

As for the connections between the two universes, the Dunkirk actor explained to Entertainment Tonight, “There’s a Venom-Verse, you know, there’s a Spider-Verse, there’s multiverses, there’s all kinds of canon and lore and mythology to explore both laterally and forward in time. I think with the right people and the right planning, and feedback from the audience, and understanding it’s about making the right choices at the right time… Even with foresight of understanding where things may go already or they wish to go, it’s a combination of all those in the alchemy of what it will be.”

First off, more sentences should begin with “there’s a Venom-Verse…” Also, I have no idea what Hardy is talking about, but it sounds promising. If Venom: Let There Be Carnage does well, it’s hard to imagine Spider-Man not appearing in the third movie — or Hardy being in the MCU. The Marvel movies could use more lobster-based hijinks.

Venom: Let There Be Carnage opens on October 1.

(Via Comic Book Movie)

Nicki Minaj is going to get someone killed — even if only indirectly. In much the same way a straight line can be drawn between Donald Trump’s COVID-19 skepticism and racist invective against Asian people and the real-world harm they caused, Nicki Minaj’s anti-vaccine rhetoric is very likely having a devastating, if not immediately visible impact. As was pointed out by numerous sources in Trinidad & Tobago including the Minister Of Health and one sassy news anchor, Nicki’s platform is far too large and her influence is far too powerful for her to keep propagating the sort of dangerous messages that have already resulted in so many deaths, both in the US and worldwide.

While television hosts like Tucker Carlson and Stephen Colbert made light of Nicki Minaj’s tweets — mainly because the comedic potential in her chain letter-esque, Snopes-worthy narrative was too great to ignore — their fellow host Jake Tapper probably had the better handle on how truly dangerous it is that she keeps going. And yes, she’s still going. Now, she’s trying to defend herself, likely out of a sense of embarrassment at the pile-on of ridicule of her silly, poorly-sourced anecdote, but as she does, she only further entrenches herself — and those who agree with her or are otherwise timid about receiving their shots — in their delusion of anti-scientific fear.

If it seems like I’m being harsh, that’s probably because I lost patience for COVID deniers and anti-vaxxers right around the time my uncle Cecil died of COVID complications last year, before a vaccine could be made available that could have saved his life. It’s because my dad, whose immune system has been compromised by chemotherapy and reduced lung capacity since I was in eighth grade, wasn’t able to safely leave his home in over a year. It’s because my stories are more than just second or thirdhand anecdotes from the Facebook family gossip chain. It’s because my younger brother had to have his graduation via Zoom, and so many of those nearest and dearest to me are suffering after losing loved ones to a virus our country had the capacity to stop in its tracks but didn’t.

So yeah, I understand the reticence of Nicki Minaj and others who say they don’t understand how the vaccine works. I also call “bullshit” on that bad faith line of reasoning. You don’t know how your smartphone works either, or half of your household appliances. Your planes, your trains, and your automobiles are beyond your ability or knowledge to explain too. You don’t know what’s in McDonald’s’ Secret Sauce, and you don’t even know what’s in your record contract. But you still use your phone, microwave your leftover Big Macs, and sign your contract, because there is some benefit in it for you, whether it’s entertainment, or nourishment, or that big, fat advance the label waved in front of you in exchange for 90% of your publishing rights.

There’s a benefit to getting vaccinated, too: Protecting yourself, those you love, the people who help you pay your bills, and strangers you’ll never meet but won’t infect via the long, sinuous game of telephone that defines how epidemics and pandemics like this one spread. You say you’re doing research, but the research is already done. You can find it in any number of trustworthy, source-citing articles from the Associated Press, from the Center For Disease Control — outlets where experts, whose jobs involve checking and double-checking facts and observations backed by decades of scientific discoveries share their knowledge for the sole purpose of keeping people from dying from this preventable disease.

Facebook is not a source. Anonymous anecdotes on Reddit are not “research.” It feels more like what Nicki and those other skeptics are looking for are horror stories that validate their fears, because they are more afraid of the medicine than the disease. And I get it; no one likes getting shots. But you did it when you were a kid in order to enroll in most schools. You do it when you’re planning that overseas trip. You can do it now, to save lives, to help someone other than yourself. You can even buy yourself a lollipop after with the millions of dollars you’ve made from being an entertainer — and can get back to making when there’s no longer a life-threatening pandemic shutting down the venues where you ply your trade.

And if you’re not going to get the shot, despite the millions of people who have gotten it without side effects (many more than the negligible number who have experienced adverse reactions), despite the growing number of cases, despite the virus’ potential to mutate and become even more deadly and drug-resistant the longer it circulates, then at the very least, stop tweeting about it. Because, Nicki, you could get someone killed.

After three days of backlash to her tweets about refusing COVID-19 vaccines until she’s “done more research,” Nicki Minaj claimed to have been locked out of her Twitter account. Twitter’s administrators say they’ve taken no such action against her, but her say-so was enough to prompt her fans to get #FreeNicki trending. Unfortunately, as her COVID tweets hewed pretty closely to the Fox News playbook of “just asking questions,” it didn’t take long for conservative pundits like Jack Posobiec and right-wing Twitter trolls to hijack the trend for their political theater wargames.

Call me crazy, but if the people tweeting Pepe memes are siding with you — the same people who were holding tiki torches in Charleston and putting their feet up on desks at the Capitol building — it might be time to examine your commentary and start issuing some retractions. Nicki has already backpedaled from one of her more outrageous claims: The tweet that could be said to have more or less caused all this chaos to begin with. Trying to provide an example of the sort of thing she fears from vaccines, she relayed the tale of her cousin’s friend in Trinidad, who supposedly canceled his wedding after a vaccine side effect gave him swollen testes and impotence.

You don’t need to work at Snopes.com to see through that one, and Nicki was roundly roasted by users on Twitter, Stephen Colbert, and even Trinidad’s Health Minister for spreading vaccine misinformation. However, right-wingers like Tucker Carlon and Candace Owens were only too happy to jump on the Nicki Minaj bandwagon (remember when they did the same to Kanye West?), placing the rapper firmly on the side of folks who only see her as a prop and not as a person. Lest we forget, these are the same people who either ignored or outright derided Nicki up until now and would likely have continued to do so were it not convenient for them to pretend to defend her.

However, even with all the hot air they’ve blown, Nicki’s Barbz and reactionary defenders do actually kind of have a point: Donald Trump was allowed to spew anti-vaccine conspiracy nonsense for almost a year before Twitter disabled his account. However, like most of their arguments, it also falls apart on the slightest scrutiny — among the differences between them, Nicki is not a public official whose statements need to be preserved for historical purposes and Twitter says it did not remove her access to her account. One thing they do have in common, though: Neither’s First Amendment rights were violated because its protections only extend to the Federal government and do not cover sedition or being a public safety menace.

The tight end position has become increasingly important in recent years as the pass-happy NFL has forced defenses to put more smaller defenders on the field to deal with all of the speed, leaving an opportunity for big-bodied pass catchers to feast against defensive backs.

Still, it takes a special type of tight end to be a dominant force, which is why only a select few are capable of filling up the stat sheet week in and week out. For fantasy players, knowing the matchups and knowing the projections is key if you don’t have a Travis Kelce or Darren Waller type, because for many tight ends, being able to exploit a soft middle of the defense is often the key to a big week.

Here, we’ve rounded up a ranking of the top 20 tight ends for Week 2 in the NFL based on the average of five sites standard league rankings (ESPN, NFL, CBS, FantasyPros, FFToday).

CONSENSUS WEEK 2 PROJECTION TIGHT END RANKINGS

1. Travis Kelce
2. Darren Waller
3. George Kittle
4. TJ Hockenson
5. Mark Andrews
6. Rob Gronkowski
7. Noah Fant
8. Logan Thomas
9. Robert Tonyan
10. Tyler Higbee
11. Dallas Goedert
12. Jared Cook
13. Jonnu Smith
14. Kyle Pitts
15. Austin Hooper
16. Mike Gesicki
17. Cole Kmet
18. Hunter Henry
19. Anthony Firkser
20. Gerald Everett

‘Tis the season for Cartoon Villain Roger Stone to be back in the spotlight. He’s reportedly been under investigation (by the Department of Justice) for possibly masterminding the Jan. 6 insurrection. That update arrived after Trump commuted Stone’s seven-felony sentence, and it’s all so surreal when one considers that we’re talking about a guy with a Nixon tattoo. This week, we heard that Stone was nursing some major MAGA paranoia while cautioning his fellow “patriots” not to attend the “Justice for J6” rally in Washington, D.C., and especially not to do so while carrying a firearm. As he told Russia Today during an interview, Stone firmly believes, “It’s a setup.” Well, Stone’s wild ride continues, regardless of his decision not to attend that rally.

As revealed in a clip posted by Republican lawyer Ron Filipkowski (who recently distanced himself from Florida Gov. DeSantis’ antics), sh*t got real for Roger Stone’s paranoid mind on Wednesday morning. While speaking live on the air with a St. Louis radio station (and propping up the idea of Trump 2024), he paused to answer the door to receive lawsuit papers. This all goes down in a matter-of-fact way.

“Hold on a second, I have a process server at my front door, about to serve me in the latest lawsuit,” Stone proclaimed. “Good morning sir! How are you? Yes, of course, I’ll be happy to accept your… oh yes, a civil court in the District of Columbia!”

Is it true? Here are those apparent lawsuit papers.

Also worth noting, as Salon’s Zachary Petrizzo pointed out in the below tweet: Stone has been claiming that his rising legal bills have led him to put his Florida home on the market and reside within an apartment. However, Roger Stone must have been living at his old address because, hey, that’s where the lawsuit papers were delivered ^^.

One thing is certain: Roger Stone won’t stay quiet, so this should be an interesting weekend for him.

(Via RawStory)

Video games have to get delayed sometimes, that’s just a part of the development process. As much as developers wish they could meet deadlines and schedules perfectly, the truth is that the creative process fluctuates constantly, and video games are incredibly difficult to make. However, 2021 in particular has been brutal when it’s come to delays. The already difficult development process on top of the year that was 2020 has led to many developers being forced to delay their games from the original release dates.

These delays have ranged from just a month or two, to being more than a year. The recent Battlefield 2042 delay happened to fall on to the shorter side — Instead of releasing in October, it will release in November. It’s slightly disappointing, but nothing too drastic.

Unfortunately for EA, this delay happened to be way worse than they could ever be expected because the delay got leaked beforehand. One reporter, Jeff Grubb of Venture Beat, got wind that the delay was coming down the line, so he tweeted out the info he had. He did not say the game, he did not even indicate it would be EA. He just said that a video game was going to be delayed soon.

Of course, Grubb was not the only person to get wind of this leak. Leaks like this usually get out to multiple people well before they’re officially announced. The information on that leak must have made the rounds, though, because suddenly, EA’s stock fell $2 billion in a day, which of course sent everyone back to the source. Jeff Grubb you have tanked an entire company’s stocks with a single tweet!

This was before everyone knew that the game was only being delayed a month, but the damage had been done. EA’s stocks were plummeting because everyone heard that a delay was going to happen — at least, that’s how it looked.

Then when the delay was officially out it turned out to only be for a month which means, if the stock for EA really did plummet because one reporter did their job, then it was a little bit of an overreaction.

After being away on vacation for the last part of the summer, Jimmy Kimmel missed out on Mike Lindell‘s disastrous Cyber Symposium, which ended in humiliation as Lindell’s own cyber security expert debunked the MyPillow’s CEO claims that he has a cache of data that proved the 2020 election was stolen. There was also lots of yelling at reporters and accusations of being attacked by Antifa. Basically, classic Lindell stuff, and Jimmy wanted to hear all about it.

Naturally, Kimmel didn’t talk to the real Lindell, but instead, to Jimmy Kimmel Live‘s resident “MyPillow Mike” impersonator James Adomian who, as always, delivered a pitch-perfect performance that captured just the right amount of nonsensical ranting. In the segment, Kimmel startles “MyPillow Mike” while he’s in the middle of a hammering away on a Red Box vending machine, prompting to late night host to ask what he’s doing.

“What the hey does it look like I’m doing?” MyPillow Mike said. “I’m cracking open this Dominion Voting Machine to extricate the bogus ballots.” After Kimmel points that it’s a Red Box, MyPillow Mike couldn’t agree more. “You’re right it’s a red box. It’s a red communist Chinese box and it’s here to steal the presidency from our Donald J. Trump.”

After some back and forth on how MyPillow Mike got the date wrong on Trump being reinstated because he was looking at his 1999 Kevin Spacey calendar upside down, Kimmel finally got to ask Mike what went wrong with the Cyber Symposium. According to Mike, he couldn’t expose the real evidence because it was too “dangerous” as proven by the attempt on his life.

“Dominion sent an assassin to viciously attack me in the lobby of my hotel. He came right up like Lee Oswald, and he said, ‘Hey Pillow,’” Mike told Kimmel before revealing that he knows the identity of his attackers. “It was the Ninja Turtles.”

Each week our staff of film and TV experts surveys the entertainment landscape to select the ten best new/newish shows available for you to stream at home. We put a lot of thought into our selections, and our debates on what to include and what not to include can sometimes get a little heated and feelings may get hurt, but so be it, this is an important service for you, our readers. With that said, here are our selections for this week.

Get more streaming recommendations with our weekly What To Watch newsletter.

10. (tie) Sex Education (Netflix)

This Gillian Anderson-starring series returns, so that the X-Files and The Crown actress can continue embarrassing the heck out of her TV son, Otis (Asa Butterfield), who is apparently now having casual sex. Jemima Kirke is officially on board, too, as a headteacher named Hope, who desperately wants to restore Moordale Secondary School to its former sterling reputation. Uh, good luck with that? Also, Anderson’s character is pregnant. Oh, Mom. Watch it on Netflix.

10. (tie) The Other Two (HBO Max)

The Other Two returns after a long, long wait following a one-year shutdown on production for… you know why. The result of that time away? Brooke and Cary are still assholes (but assholes who are advancing in their lives and dealing with the chaos of that), Chase is giving the Stranger Things kids a run for their money in the “let’s pretend these growth spurts didn’t happen” department, Streeter has gone blonde, and Molly Shannon has been UNLEASHED as Pat Dubek becomes a star in her own right. The results are somehow equally scathing and heartfelt, allowing the show to climb another wrung in the “you really need to watch this” hierarchy. Watch it on HBO Max.

9. The Premise (FX on Hulu)

B.J. Novak (The Office, Inglourious Basterds) writes all of the episodes on this show, which aims to use dark comedy to tackle tough topics, including sex, social media, Black Lives Matter, police brutality, and immigration. Along the way, there’s apparently the “the worst sex tape ever,” and a lot of this show aims for satire (which is not easy to pull off, especially with such hot-button topics) with mixed results. Watch it on FX on Hulu.

8. Money Heist (Netflix)

Netflix really has the market cornered on wildly popular European heist shows between Lupin and this series, which follows a criminal mastermind named “The Professor” and a group of associates with a collection of very specific skills as they attempt to rob various banks and literal money-printing operation in Spain. It’s a juicy binge-watch with drama and slick thieves and misdirection, all you need in a fun heist series. And hey, if you get into the action deep enough and pay close attention to the English subtitles while the characters are talking, you might end up learning Spanish by accident. That would be cool. Watch it on Netflix.

7. Lucifer (Netflix)

The Devil is back for one last dance-of-a-rodeo in Season 6, and naturally, Lucifer Morningstar is still a total pain in the tush, and you’ll love him for it. Fortunately, he’s no longer attempting to be a detective. Lucifer is now God (don’t ask), and if he doesn’t get with the new program, he’s liable to trigger the apocalypse of all apocalypses. This is one last, fan-requested hurrah for a Netflix-resurrected series, and Neil Gaiman’s creation will live on in fans’ hearts and, most likely, their pants as well. Watch it on Netflix.

6. Y: The Last Man (FX on Hulu)

The expectation game and buzz should be a lot louder for this show which seemingly had a dozen starts and stops on its way to getting adapted from the Brian K. Vaughan/Pia Guerra Vertigo comic from the early aughts. And yet, it seems to be actually coming into existence with a low roar — a shame as the first few episodes do the kind of world-building that promises to pay off down the road. If the Walking Dead never existed, we’d all be losing our minds over the debut of this post-apocalyptic plague series about the literal last man on earth and the women who protect, tolerate, and are chasing after him. Maybe we should take that as a sign, because the potential exists for this to break out in a big way as it expands into aspects of the source material that are more interesting than the origin story. Watch it on FX on Hulu.

5. Reservation Dogs (Hulu)

Taika Waititi’s follow-up to What We Do in the Shadows brings us a comedy series that’s co-written by Native American filmmaker Sterlin Harjo. Yes, the lead quartet in this show rocks suits that look strikingly similar to the characters of Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs, yet they’re four Indigenous teens who want to commit crime and simply can’t pull it off. The show was shot in and near Okmulgee, Oklahoma, and these teens hope to make it all the way to California. The cast and crew come from indigenous communities, from where Harjo and Waititi are aiming their storytelling styles as well. Watch it on Hulu.

4. Only Murders In The Building (Hulu)

Selena Gomez stars alongside the legendary Steve Martin and Martin Short, and the three portray NYC neighbors who aim to unravel an apparent murder inside their apartment building. Yes, they’re all podcasting because everyone does it (duh), and before long, the killer might be after them, too. Martin hasn’t written a feature film since the Pink Panther movies and Shopgirl, and we don’t wanna come out and call this trio a “much cooler Three Amigos” update, but Martin wrote that, too, so why not? Watch it on Hulu

3. Ted Lasso (Apple TV+)

There are moments in the early stages of season two that feel like they’re doubling down on the show’s signature positivity and niceness, but there’s no such thing as sweetness overload here as the show grows our affection for characters that are clearly taking a step forward in their arcs. Especially Ted, even though it seems like there may be some challenges ahead. Watch it on Apple TV+.

2. The Morning Show (Apple TV+)

Critics of season one of The Morning Show won’t have an easy time credibly claiming a lack of action or interest in a second season that picks up the thread from the last while also servicing even more characters and the lingering threat of COVID. This is a heavyweight fight all over again with Aniston and Witherspoon leading the way, but look for more of Billy Crudup lounging in the chaos to spark the show once more. Watch it on Apple TV+.

1. What We Do In The Shadows (FX/Hulu)

Well, well, well. Guillermo turned out to be a vampire killer, which sure as heck came as a surprise to Nandor, Nadja, and Laszlo, and Colin. The four Staten Island roommates must figure out how to handle this conundrum, along with tackling the other challenges of this season. Those include dealing with wellness cults and gym culture, along with gargoyles, werewolves who play kickball, casinos, and more. In other words, this is still one of the funniest shows on TV. Watch it on FX and Hulu.