The week before Money In The Bank, the smallest-ever number of people tuned in to watch Raw live on cable. The night after the pay-per-view, Raw drew more eyes, experiencing both higher viewership and a boost in the ratings.
Last night’s show, which featured Becky Lynch announcing her pregnancy, Asuka becoming Raw Women’s Champion, and the returns of both Edge and The Iiconics, was viewed by 1.92 million people on average over its three-hour run time. That’s a significant increase from last week’s record-low audience of 1.69 million and a step up from the previous week’s 1.82 million. However, it’s still fewer people than were watching Raw’s earlier no-fans shows; more than two million people were still tuning in to watch Raw at the Performance Center back in March.
Despite smaller live audiences, Raw has had consistently high ratings during this period, and those were a little higher this week. The first hour of Raw was the highest-rated show on cable, the second hour was the second-highest, and the third hour was the fourth. These hours drew a 0.59, 0.58, and 0.53 with the 18-49 demographic, respectively.
With the lack of a live crowd removing a key element of the pro wrestling experience and top stars like Kevin Owens, Roman Reigns, and now Becky Lynch out of action, WWE is looking for ways to get more people to tune into their programming. The first order of business: allowing talent crossovers between Raw and Smackdown again, starting with Baron Corbin taking on Drew McIntyre next week on the red brand and Charlotte Flair showing up on Friday’s Smackdown.
Any sort of resumption of the 2019-20 NBA season, which has been on pause for two months due to the COVID-19 pandemic, is weeks, if not months, away. But if some of the biggest names in basketball have their way, whenever it is safe to resume, teams will take the courts somewhere in the country and restart the season.
According to Chris Haynes of Yahoo Sports, a number of the league’s most prominent players held a phone call on Tuesday in which they agreed to a “united front,” one which endorses playing basketball sometime in the future. The call was reportedly arranged by Chris Paul, who serves as the head of the Players Association, and included names like LeBron James and Steph Curry.
Via Yahoo Sports:
Some of the NBA’s biggest superstars formed a united front to resume the 2019-20 season during a private conference call Monday, league sources told Yahoo Sports.
Toward the end of the call discussing the ramifications of the coronavirus pandemic, all parties were in agreement to take the court with proper safety measures once the league is given the green light to commence, sources said.
Beyond the aforementioned names, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Anthony Davis, Kevin Durant, Kawhi Leonard, Damian Lillard, and Russell Westbrook all participated in the call. This news comes on the same day that Shams Charania of The Athletic reported Paul and Westbrook will be part of a working group comprised of NBA and NBPA members that want to discuss paths forward.
It is hardly the first big call involving prominent players that we’ve heard of in recent days, as NBA commissioner Adam Silver held a call with players that touched on how the league could resume and what its path forward would look like, with Silver mentioning that games would be held in fan-less arenas.
Haynes reported some more details from that call, mentioning that some players were not comfortable with Silver’s proclamation that their safety cannot be guaranteed until a vaccine is discovered for COVID-19, something that is not expected to happen until sometime in 2021 at the earliest. As for what players would want in the event the season resumes, opinions appear to be split.
The majority of players who are essentially eliminated from postseason contention would rather the league start back up with the top eight teams in each conference competing in some sort of playoff, sources said.
For some players out of the playoff picture, there’s concern a canceled season could negatively affect the next CBA, sources said.
The caveat that comes with this united front — that they want the league to resume “with proper safety measures once the league is given the green light” — is interesting, because there is no guarantee that this green light will come any time soon. Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease, said last month that “If you can’t guarantee safety, then unfortunately you’re going to have to bite the bullet and say, ‘We may have to go without this sport for this season.’” Testing, Fauci said, is a key variable, and it is unclear if the NBA will be able acquire enough tests to make it feasible for games to resume.
The good news is that the NBA has plenty of runway to make a decision, as there is no need for them to rush into anything in the coming days. With how frequently things are evolving in what we know about the virus, perhaps the hopes of the NBA resuming sometime in the coming months aren’t a pie in the sky idea. As long as it is safe, the plan will have the support of some of the biggest names in the league.
Angelenos — you might want to sit down. If you’ve been looking east at the lax lockdown measures of other states as they begin to slowly open up or planning active recreation beach trips as we inch closer and closer to summer, you might want to slow your roll for a second. And by “for a second,” we mean like three months. If we’re lucky.
Los Angeles Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer has indicated that the county’s stay-at-home order will be extended for the next three months “with all certainty,” according to the Los Angeles Times.
During a Board of Supervisors meeting on Tuesday afternoon, Ferrer indicated that the three-month timeline would only change if there was a “dramatic change to the virus and tools at hand,” reiterating the crucial need for widely available testing and rapid at-home solutions that would allow people to test themselves on a daily basis. Ferrer’s comments came shortly after the nation’s top infectious disease expert — and your mom, aunt, and older cousin’s new crush — Dr. Anthony Fauci warned Congress that pushing to reopen too quickly would reverse progress made through social distancing and trigger another outbreak.
While Ferrer’s comments don’t signify an official order, it’s unlikely that LA County will further lift restrictions considering California’s aggressive science and data-driven approach to mitigating the virus thus far. In Los Angeles, new coronavirus cases have been averaging between 500 and 1,000 new cases per day for the last two weeks, and while new cases and deaths in the county are trending downwards, it still doesn’t meet the criteria of a 14-day decline in cases that Dr. Fauci has signified as a major checkpoint states should watch for when reopening.
Just this week, LA County lifted restrictions on hiking trails, parks, and golf courses, and will be expanding curbside pickup at various nonessential businesses that had remained closed until recently. Ferrer has indicated that a further loosening of the rules will continue, but it will be a slow and gradual process throughout the next three months.
Lil Uzi Vert has turned out to be one of the more personable superstars in hip-hop, always ready to chat with fans, pay their bills, or trade rhymes in gas station parking lots. While many rappers like to keep mostly to themselves outside of shows and fan meet-and-greets, Uzi is always active on social media, revealing tidbits about upcoming music, teasing his collaborators like Playboi Carti, and talking anime — one of his biggest inspirations. However, when he’s out and about, he never seems to be too busy shopping to do those same things in real life.
There isn’t a whole bunch of information about what he was doing on the day depicted in the freestyle video, but the young fan in question seems to be having the time of his life showing off for the star as a small crowd looks on. The best part is the ear-to-ear grin on Uzi’s face as well — it’s plain to see that he’s having just as much fun being able to “perform” during the ongoing lockdown, which has prevented him from headlining at festivals like JMBLYA, or touring behind his recently released album, Eternal Atake.
The new documentary Have a Good Trip arrives on Netflix at an interesting nexus point in history. People are quarantined, creating a captive audience for streaming; the culture wars are ongoing but also sort of jumbled — with “plandemic” conspiracy theorists on both the liberal and conservative ends of the spectrum; and psychedelics (the topic at hand) are seeing a therapeutic resurgence paired with increased legalization. Considering how the factors behind the first psychedelic wave (the Civil Rights era, the Vietnam War, and mass distrust of the establishment) match up with our current situation (the continued fight for intersectional justice, COVID-19, and mass distrust of the establishment) the doc could have been a harbinger of a new era of self-exploration via controlled substances.
That clearly wasn’t the goal here, though. Instead, director Donick Cary (Silicon Valley, New Girl, The Simpsons, etc.) focuses on making us laugh and getting a little weird with famous entertainers who are unafraid to tell cool drug stories. Of which there seems to be no shortage. The list of guest stars includes Sting, Ad-Rock, A$AP Rocky, Nick Kroll, Rosie Perez, Natasha Lyonne, Ben Stiller, and — actually, let’s just do this:
Two of the most notable names on that very notable list are Anthony Bourdain and Carrie Fisher, who died in 2018 and 2016, respectively. Seeing them on screen, then seeing their worst trips brought to life by actors is still a little jarring. And it’s hard not to wonder, in the case of Bourdain’s death from suicide, if this movie has been sitting on ice for a while in order to respect the dead without having to cut out his part. Or even if it was delayed for Fisher’s sake and then again for Bourdain’s and just happened to land at this exact cultural moment.
Regardless, Have a Good Trip feels well-timed as a quarantine watch. It’s based around famous people recounting their psychedelic use paired with re-creations that utilize either actors or animation. Bourdain, for example, is played by Adam DeVine — who portrays the travel host through an acid and quaalude-fueled night in a seedy motel with a hitchhiking exotic dancer. Fellow Workaholics co-creator Blake Anderson is in the scene too and the chaos they serve up together is probably the doc’s funniest segment. (Though watching Natasha Leggero crawl around Central Park as Princess Leia is definitely in the running.)
These storytelling bits are stitched together with scenes of a heavily mutton-chopped Nick Offerman teaching a little psychedelics 101, various comedians offering practical advice on not freaking out while high, a scientist offering a breezy a breakdown of the chemical processes in play, and a leather-jacketed Adam Scott starring in early-90s style anti-drug PSAs. It’s all a little random but never unfunny by any means. Offerman always thrives in narrator/ringmaster roles like this and Scott’s PSA segments are loyal to the genre with the absurdity dialed up just a few notches. The PSAs also contain reenactments of their own, which include Haley Joel Osment in an extended cameo.
Throughout Have a Good Trip, only Sting, Bourdain, Fisher, and A$AP Rocky really explore how they learned to feel more fully themselves for having had their experiences. The potential for profundity within the whole psychedelic experience is an afterthought. And there’s not much context for how these drugs have influenced art, music, culture, or psychology for the past 50-odd years or how they might affect our world in the future. Shaggy, loose, and funny is the MO here. Sillyness abounds.
If that approach sounds like fun to you… well, it probably will be. It was a lot of fun for me. Still on the fence? Fair enough. Just use this picture of Nick Kroll covered in seaweed while recounting a mushroom trip as your litmus test.
Over a decade before Ben Affleck and Henry Cavill duked it out on the big screen, Warner Bros. was hard at work trying to get a somehow even darker Batman vs. Superman movie into theaters.
While sitting down for a lengthy interview with Collider, screenwriter Akiva Goldsman opened up about his short time on the abandoned film, which would’ve featured Jude Law‘s Superman facing off against Colin Farrell‘s Batman, which is an ironic bit of casting given Farrell’s current role as the Penguin in Matt Reeves’ The Batman. According to Goldsman, he was brought in after Se7en screenwriter Andrew Kevin Walker left the project, but while director Wolfgang Peterson was still attached.
We were in prep and it was the darkest thing you’ve ever seen. It started with Alfred’s funeral and Bruce has fallen in love and renounced being Batman, the Joker kills his wife, and then you discover it was all a lie. Just that the love itself was constructed by the Joker to break [Bruce]. It was a time where you would be able to get these sort of stories together in script form but they couldn’t quite land in the world. Somehow, the expectations of the object — whether they be audience or corporate or directorial — it wasn’t landing quite in the way I think we imagined when we put them on the page.”
In Goldman’s defense, Zack Snyder’s later attempt to pit the Dark Knight against the Man of Steel didn’t have the smoothest jump from page to screen either. Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice received mixed reviews for its exceedingly dark take on the iconic heroes, and its box-office disappointment led to a difficult production for Justice League. As we now know from recent interviews, the back-to-back debacle led to Ben Affleck walking away from directing The Batman and ultimately quitting the role altogether.
Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt: Kimmy vs. the Reverend (Netflix stand-up special) — Kimmy Schmidt wraps up with her most spectacularly sunshiney adventure of all. Actually, things might get a little dark, considering that this is a pick-your-own-adventure style episode with viewers in the driver’s seat. Bandersnatch it ain’t, though. There will be Daniel Radcliffe and explosions and a dancing hamburger and Reverend Richard Wayne Gary Wayne causing a heap of trouble before Kimmy’s wedding. Don’t worry, Jacqueline, Titus, and Lillian are all here to help fix and mess things up, too.
The Flash (CW, 8:00 p.m.) — Barry must forget and execute a successful plan to save Iris from Mirrorverse, while Ralph tries to prevent a mistake from Sue.
D.C.’s Legends Of Tomorrow (CW, 9:00 p.m.) — The team bizarrely ends up heading to college and starting a sorority in an effort to secure an ancient artifact. In the meantime, Nate falls under a spell, which spoils the group’s plan for success.
For Life (ABC, 10:00 p.m.) — Aaron’s pushed to a desperate move during his attempt at a retrial despite a powerful new adversary on the scene, whose wrath could blow the whole thing up. And Safiya’s attempting to warn Aaron about his marked-man status.
The Last O.G. (TBS, 10:30 p.m.) — Shay’s career finally sees a big break, while Tray and the family contemplate what this might mean for the rest of them.
Conan (TBS, 11:00 p.m.) — Chris Gethard
The Late Show With Stephen Colbert — Ellie Kemper, Christine Baranski
The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon — Ethan Hawke, Elle Fanning, Kane Brown
The Late Late Show With James Corden — Jeff Goldblum, James Blake
Late Night With Seth Meyers — Paul Giamatti, Nicole Richie
Tekashi 69 may have avoided the full temperature of the hot water his troublemaking landed him in, but now his rabble rousing ways have begun to taint everything he tries to do — even the good stuff. TMZ reports that the rainbow-haired, 23-year-old semi-professional Instagram troll tried to use his hard-won earnings — in the neighborhood of $2 million, thanks to the “Gooba” merchandise flying off of his online store’s digital shelves — to help others, only to get his charitable efforts rebuffed by the nonprofit he attempted to donate to.
According to TMZ’s sources, 69 planned to send $200,000 to No Kid Hungry, a nonprofit working to end child hunger through meal programs, education, and policy promotion. Naturally, No Kid Hungry is also working hard to provide COVID-19 relief, as free school lunches aren’t being served, restaurants are closed down, and food supply chains are being disrupted by the spread of the coronavirus and efforts to combat it.
However, No Kid Hungry decided that Tekashi’s antics would reflect poorly on the organization if they were to accept his funds and subtly admonished him to be a better role model in a statement: “We are grateful for Mr. Hernandez’s generous offer to donate to No Kid Hungry but we have informed his representatives that we have declined this donation,” it reads. “As a child-focused campaign, it is our policy to decline funding from donors whose activities do not align with our mission and values.”
Tekashi, who returned right back to his trolling ways almost immediately upon his early release from prison, could stand to clean up his image, but from everything we’ve seen, it doesn’t seem all that likely — which is a shame, because that money could have helped a lot of people in need. At least now Tekashi can start paying back some of the massive debts he incurred while in prison.
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