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In the end, Amazon’s Utopia had a much longer and somewhat more dramatic journey to the screen than it did on it. The fantasy drama about comic book fans stumbling into a world-altering pandemic was originally an HBO project that finally hit streaming in 2020 on Amazon, but it won’t go past a single season.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Utopia was officially canceled at Amazon after mixed reviews and uncertain streaming totals. The show, which was picked up by HBO in 2014, actually had a six-year journey to screen that saw Gillian Flynn lead the show at Amazon.

Originally developed and picked up straight to series in 2014 at HBO with David Fincher reuniting with his Gone Girl collaborator Flynn, the drama about a group of comic book fans who stumble on a deadly pandemic landed at Amazon four years later. Flynn had an overall deal with HBO and moved it to Amazon along with Utopia, though Fincher was no longer attached.

Amazon, like other streamers, does not release traditional viewership data. The drama was not met with warm reviews when it launched Sept. 25. The series has a 51 percent rating among critics on RottenTomatoes.com and, perhaps in a sign of a failure to cut through, does not have an audience score. In her review, THR TV critic Inkoo Kang called Utopia “Too hackneyed to be timely, too grim to be escapist.”

The project marked the first time Flynn, who wrote the novel Gone Girl and helped Fincher make it a movie, served as a TV showrunner. As THR noted, the show was an admittedly tough watch in a reality that has a much more realistic pandemic actually taking place. And despite the star-studded cast that included Rainn Wilson and John Cusack, all American viewers will apparently get is its initial nine episode first season.

[via THR]

The NFL’s attempt to play football throughout a global pandemic has led to a number of games getting moved around and far more players being unable to go. Perhaps the most surreal example of the latter is slated to occur on Sunday afternoon, as the Denver Broncos do not have any quarterbacks who are able to go.

Denver backup Jeff Driskel recently tested positive for COVID-19. While that has unfortunately not been uncommon this season, it has been revealed that every other signal caller on the Broncos’ roster was exposed to Driskel in a high-risk environment. As such, multiple media reports indicate that none of the other QBs on the roster — Drew Lock, Brett Rypien, Blake Bortles — can play.

According to Adam Schefter of ESPN, Denver has no plans to forfeit the game.

His joke aside, the team does not have enough time to sign someone, have them go through the various protocols, and make a spot start. The answer might be in having running back Royce Freeman line up under center.

There is no word on whether the NFL would step in and potentially postpone the game until there is more clarity on whether any of Lock, Rypien, or Bortles will be able to go.

Fans of Selena Gomez took to Twitter to express their disappointment with Saved By The Bell after they learned the reboot of the show recently aired an episode that seemed to make fun of the singer’s kidney transplant which she received due to complications with lupus.

According to fans and Stereogum, one scene of the episode showed graffiti on the wall of the school’s hallway that read, “Does Selena Gomez even have a kidney?” Another scene saw some of the show’s characters speculating who donated a kidney to the singer. Names like Justin Bieber’s mom and her “best friend” and Demi Lovato were brought as potential donors of the kidney.

The response was strong from fans as they took to the app to slam the show for the scenes. “The show “saved by the bell reboot” has an extremely disgusting scene where they were mocking the superstar selena gomez’s health, by writing this on the wall,” one fan said. They added, “i don’t know what was the point of it, all i know that it needs to be removed asap, thank you.” Another user called the scenes “disrespectful” and said, “who thought writing in about Selenas personal struggle as a joke would be a good idea?”

Back in September, the singer showed off her kidney transplant scar to “feel confident” in her skin. “When I got my kidney transplant, I remember it being very difficult at first showing my scar,” the singer said in an Instagram post. “Now, more than ever, I feel confident in who I am and what I went through…and I’m proud of that.”

You can check out more reactions from fans below.

(via Stereogum)

Much like the rest of the United States, California is experiencing a new surge in COVID-19 cases and local governments are acting to limit the spread ahead of what could be a deadly winter in America. Some of those rules, it seems, may impact where the San Francisco 49ers play home games.

Santa Clara County, where the team practices and plays, reportedly banned contact sports even played outside.

As ESPN’s Adam Schefter noted, that may mean the Niners do need to find a new place to both play home games and practice, at least until the new restrictions end.

The easy answer could be simply playing home games in opposing team’s stadiums, though if those games have spectators there’s a competitive advantage that could be at play. It’s another wrinkle in what’s been a very odd NFL season. And though the moves are a new complication and may be frustrating for some fans, it’s far from the only way the coronavirus pandemic is currently impacting the NFL. Another pair of games were moved this week due to infections on both the Pittsburgh Steelers and Baltimore Ravens. More positive cases were reported on Saturday, putting even the Tuesday rescheduling of that game into some doubt.

There’s also the matter of the Denver Broncos and their quarterbacks, who may have also been exposed to COVID-19 ahead of their Week 12 matchup.

In not orchestrating a bubble and playing in home stadiums and the larger country as a whole, the NFL invited a slew of potential problems in actually pulling off a full season in a pandemic. As the weeks go on, it seems more and more like the league is running out of ways to deal with them all without significantly impacting its schedule and the way seasons play out.

It’s been a tough year for Syracuse football. Dino Babers’ fifth season in The Salt City has seen one win, a bunch of losses, and a program that looks stuck in the mud after failing to build on a 10-win campaign in 2018. They did, however, have a chance to pick up another win on Saturday afternoon against a respectable NC State side.

With 5:20 left in the fourth quarter, the Orange got the ball on their 25 yard-line. Facing a 36-29 deficit, Syracuse marched down the field, converting a trio of third downs and one fourth down to get the ball to the Wolfpack nine with 52 seconds left.

First and second down were a pair of runs — one went for two yards, the other went for none. Syracuse lined back up for third down, and over the next 20 seconds or so of real time, calamity ensued.

For one, shout out to Orange signal caller Rex Culpepper for finding a way to keep the third down play alive, because this is a really sticky situation and he found a way to make something happen before NC State’s defense got home. After that, yikes. To give them the benefit of the doubt to an extent, the offense would have basically needed to get to the line of scrimmage and just run four verts, but there is a reason that someone (I assume on NC State) screamed “oh thank god,” and someone (team unclear) screamed “oh sh*t” once they realized what happened. Time and score are everything, folks.

The best story in college basketball comes by way of the Ohio Bobcats. Jason Preston, a junior guard for the team who stuffed the stat sheet last season, put forth quite the effort in the team’s narrow loss to eighth-ranked Illinois on Friday night. What drew him plenty of praise, though, was when the path he traveled to get to Athens was laid out on the broadcast.

As the story goes, Preston went through unfathomable personal hardship as a teenager, was so lightly-recruited of a high school basketball player that he was going to college as a student, showed out at an AAU tournament, and picked up a pair of scholarship offers after posting his highlight video to Twitter. You really need to hear the whole story to believe it, and even then, the whole thing is unbelievable.

It’s hard not to find this whole story amazing, and in the eyes of one NBA player, Preston’s path is quite admirable. Boston Celtics guard Marcus Smart praised Preston for having the kind of attitude that “will get you all you ever need.”

During the 2019-20 campaign, Preston did everything for the Bobcats, averaging 16.8 points, 7.4 assists, 6.4 rebounds, and 1.4 steals per game. Against Illinois, he went for 31 with eight dimes and six boards as Ohio barely fell, 77-75.

The Detroit Lions are in the market for a new head coach. The team announced on Saturday afternoon that Matt Patricia, who the team hired in the lead-up to the 2018 campaign, had been relieved of his duties after two and a half years on the job. Additionally, Detroit will part ways with general manager Bob Quinn, who has been in his role since 2016.

The news of a shakeup in the Motor City isn’t a particularly big surprise, as Patricia has seemingly been on the hot seat for some time. The former New England Patriots’ defensive coordinator went 13-29-1 in his tenure in Detroit, with his final game coming in a high-profile loss to the Houston Texans on Thanksgiving. Despite Patricia’s reputation for being a defensive coach, Deshaun Watson and the Texans carved the Lions up in a 41-25 win, and the Lions sit 30th in the NFL in scoring defense.

According to Ian Rapoport of NFL Network, the Lions will turn to offensive coordinator Darrell Bevell for the remainder of the campaign.

Bevell was hired as the team’s offensive coordinator at the start of last season and has no prior head coaching experience. Patricia’s ouster comes as the team sits 4-7 on the year, putting Detroit in last place of the NFC North.

You know you have it bad when you wish you were Donald Trump Jr. The outgoing president’s other son has never had the power of his older brother, who’s gone from yet another ignored Trump child to an attempted clone of his potentially screwed father. But every now and then Eric tries to bluff into the news, posting the kind of bold if wrongheaded silliness that tends to get Jr. attention. His latest volley came on Saturday, when he attempted to sow further, baseless distrust in the 2020 election results.

“Does anyone believe that Biden got 15 million more votes than Obama in 2012?” Eric wrote. “This from a candidate who would go days/weeks while hardly campaigning.”

It’s a familiar line among Trump and his minions, who’ve thrown everything they can at the election results, including the kitchen sink. And like their dozens and dozens of failed legal challenges, this one is easily debunked. All one has to do is point out the false equivalency: that Mitt Romney wasn’t the same threat to democracy that his dad continues to be, thanks in part to tweets like Eric’s.

Likewise, many were inspired to come out of the woodwork and give him a piece of their mind. Soon a phrase went viral: “Yes Eric,” with many people explaining to him the many ways he’s wrong. Some took the time to explain it to him, as they would a child.

Some pointed out that not campaigning — and thereby endangering his supporters with exposure to a highly contagious virus, as well as all the people with whom they come in contact — was in fact one motivating factor for Biden voters.

And some were a little more blunt than others.

Anyway, better luck next time, kid. It’s hard to live up to this guy.

History was made in the world of college football on Saturday afternoon. Sarah Fuller, formerly a goalkeeper for Vanderbilt’s women’s soccer team, suited up for the Commodore football program, and following the halftime break, became the first woman to ever play in a Power 5 college football game.

Due to a number of issues with Vanderbilt’s specialists — a combination of an opt out and some COVID-19 quarantines among that position group — the Commodores held tryouts this week to determine who would boot the ball for the program. Fuller attended the tryout, and the SEC Championship-winning goalkeeper earned a spot on the university’s other football team.

Some anemic offense meant Fuller did not get onto the field in the first half, and following the intermission, she took to the field as part of the kickoff team and made history on a designed squib kick that the Tigers recovered at their own 35.

“I think it’s amazing and incredible,” Fuller said on the official Vandy football website in the lead-up to the game. “But I’m also trying to separate that because I know this is a job I need to do and I want to help the team out and I want to do the best that I can. Placing that historical aspect aside just helps me focus in on what I need to do. I don’t want to let them down in anyway.

“It’s an honor they called on me to be able to do this and help them out.”

It’s been almost a month since Busta Rhymes dropped his tenth album, Extinction Level Event 2: The Wrath of God. The Long Island native recently sat down for an interview with NPR in which he discussed the current state of music and how, in his opinion, today’s artists fail to create a “full album experience.”

“That’s what I come from. That’s what I miss,” Busta said. “And I think that’s something that this generation needs to experience in the right way now: the experience and the importance of understanding what it is to treat yourself to an incredible, cohesive body of work.” He was then asked for his opinion on some of today’s artists and the music they’ve released.

“I embrace everything with grace, because when I was trying to get on in the beginning, you know, we took from the influences and the elder statesmen before us,” he replied. “We took from it and tried to make it our own. But of course, in the process of trying to make it your own, you do certain things different, in a way that some of the elder statesmen might not be willing to accept.”

You can revisit our review of Extinction Level Event 2: The Wrath of God herehere.

Extinction Level Event 2: The Wrath of God is out now via EMPIRE/The Conglomerate Entertainment. Get it here.

(via NPR)