TAGGED AS: Awards, cinemax, HBO, Netflix
This week in TV news, Netflix leads the Golden Globe nominations for the first time ever. Plus, Obama names his favorite show of the year, HBO orders more Leftovers, and Gwendoline Christie talks about battling Bart the Bear!
For the first time ever, a streaming service nabbed more Golden Globe nominations than HBO. As announced Thursday morning by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, Netflix is up for eight awards this year, with nods to Narcos (Certified Fresh at 78 percent), Orange Is the New Black (Certified Fresh at 96 percent), Bloodline (Certified Fresh at 80 percent), Grace and Frankie (Rotten at 55 percent), House of Cards (Certified Fresh at 77 percent), and Master of None (Certified Fresh at 100 percent). HBO received seven nominations, down from 15 in 2014. Not far behind HBO is Amazon, which scored five nominations for their original series, Mozart In the Jungle and Transparent. See the full list of Golden Globe announcements here.
After a rocky first season (69 percent), and a Certified Fresh second season (89 percent), HBO has renewed Damon Lindelof and Tom Perrotta’s experimental drama The Leftovers for a third and final season. Based on the novel of the same name by Perrotta, the show’s second season – reworked and relocated from New York to Texas – received overwhelmingly positive critical reception this season (with only two episodes rated below 100 percent). In his renewal announcement, HBO programming head Michael Lombardi stated that The Leftovers has “proven to be one of the most distinctive HBO series and we are extremely proud of its unrivaled originality, which has resulted in such a passionate following by our HBO viewers. We admire and fully support Damon’s artistic vision and respect his decision to bring the show to its conclusion next season.” In the same statement, Lindelof added, “the most exciting thing for us as storytellers would be to bring The Leftovers to a definitive end. And by ‘definitive,’ we mean ‘wildly ambiguous but hopefully mega-emotional,’ as all things related to this show are destined to be.” There is no date set yet for the show’s return.
Spoiler alert: not everything you see in Game of Thrones is real. One thing that was very real? The giant bear who played opposite Gwendoline Christie in the season three episode, “The Bear and the Maiden Fair.” As the actress explained to James Corden this week on The Late Late Show, the bear battling Brienne of Tarth was definitely not CGI. No wonder she looked so scared! To be fair, Christie said that Bart was a “highly trained bear.” In fact, the bear was such a pro that he had his own trailer where he chilled out to country music. “When it was good, it was fed cream in a frying pan with a really long handle,” Christie told Corden. “And when it came out of its trailer, you had to give it a round of applause.” See a clip of the interview here.
The Golden Globes may have passed over The Knick for any nominations this year, but you can’t say the same for the leader of the free world. In an interview with People Magazine, President Obama named Steven Soderbergh’s period hospital drama about a cocaine-addled surgeon (Clive Owen) in New York City as his favorite TV show of 2015. “Obviously we’re flattered that the president loves The Knick,” HBO CEO Richard Plepler told the Los Angeles Times. “We always knew he had great taste.” Indeed, Cinemax’s season two of The Knick is Certified Fresh at 100 percent. Obama also named his favorite flick of the year — The Martian with Matt Damon.
