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Ted Lasso was intended to last three seasons and now writer and actor Brett Goldstein says the third season is being written that way. Bo Burnham is among this year’s Peabody Award winners. Brad Pitt is working on a Formula One racing movie for Apple TV+ that will have an extended theatrical release. Plus, Tales of the Walking Dead first images, trailers for actor Ray Liotta’s last completed role and Netflix’s Geeked Week titles, and more of the biggest news in TV and streaming for the past week.
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(Photo by Eamonn M. McCormack/Getty Images for Critics Choice Association)
Well, Ted Lasso fans, you may want to temper that excitement for the feel-good Emmy-winning comedy’s next season, because Emmy-winning Lasso star and writer Brett Goldstein says season 3 is being written as the show’s final.
Despite becoming a huge, beloved hit during its first season, especially as viewers sought out the charming, upbeat story and characters during the first binge-happy months of the pandemic, rumors have swirled since the first season that Emmy-winning star Jason Sudeikis planned for the series to run for just three seasons.
Even as the former Saturday Night Live writer and cast member’s Lasso salary reportedly more than tripled to $1 million per episode for season 3, stories persisted that Sudeikis was not tempted by the fat paychecks to continue the series, which began as a series of NBC Sports soccer promos, beyond season 3.
(Photo by Colin Hutton/Apple TV+)
And now, Sudeikis’ equally delightful costar, Goldstein, tells The Times newspaper in London that season 3 may really be the end of the line for the soccer comedy that’s really about a lot more than soccer. And, as a member of the series writing staff as well as the cast, Goldstein has insider information.
When asked by the reporter if season 3, scheduled to premiere at the end of 2022, is the end of the series, the man whose four-letter-heavy vocab as soccer superstar Roy Kent manages to be as charming as coach Ted’s pop culture–peppered homespun missives, said, “We are writing it like that. It was planned as three. Spoiler alert — everyone dies.”
That last bit is a joke, but not the part about an all-too-soon series finale.
Goldstein didn’t offer additional comment or details — real or fake — about a potential end of the series, but perhaps a new casting does: another Lasso Emmy nominee, Keeley Jones portrayer Juno Temple, was just announced as a star of season 5 of FX’s Fargo, alongside Jon Hamm and Jennifer Jason Leigh. Perhaps because her schedule will be free of Ted Lasso commitments?
Read Netflix Geeked Week News: Series | Film | Animation | Stranger Things | Video Games
(Photo by Bo Burnham/Netflix)
The Peabody Awards have announced winners for the 82nd annual awards in entertainment, documentaries, news, and children’s and youth programming:
Entertainment
Bo Burnham: Inside (Netflix)
Dopesick (Hulu)
Hacks (HBO/HBO Max)
Reservation Dogs (FX)
Sort Of (CBC/HBO Max)
The Underground Railroad (Amazon Prime Video)
We Are Lady Parts (Peacock and Channel 4)
The Wonder Years (ABC)
Documentaries
Exterminate All the Brutes (HBO/HBO Max)
High on the Hog: How African American Cuisine Transformed America (Netflix)
In the Same Breath (HBO/HBO Max)
Mayor (PBS)
SOUL! (PBS)
My Name is Pauli Murray (Amazon Prime Video)
Philly D.A. (PBS)
A Thousand Cuts (PBS / GBH / FRONTLINE)
News
The Appointment (ABC News)
Day of Rage: How Trump Supporters Took the U.S. Capitol (The New York Times)
Escaping Eritrea (PBS / GBH / FRONTLINE)
January 6th Reporting (PBS NewsHour)
NBC Bay Area: The Moms of Magnolia Street & No Man’s Land: Fighting for Fatherhood in a Broken System (NBC Bay Area)
Politically Charged (ABC15 Arizona)
PRONE (KUSA)
So They Know We Existed: Palestinians Film War in Gaza (The New York Times)
Transnational (VICE News Tonight)
Children’s and Youth
City of Ghosts (Netflix)
Black Bird is a psychological thriller limited series, inspired by true events, about Jimmy Keene (Taron Egerton), the son of a police officer (Ray Liotta) who is sentenced to a decade in prison, where, if he can convince a suspected serial killer (Paul Walter Hauser) to confess to his crimes, he can get his own jail time reduced. Also stars Greg Kinnear. Premieres July 8. (Apple TV+)
More trailers and teasers released this week:
• The Gray Man is CIA operative Court Gentry (Ryan Gosling), aka, Sierra Six, who, plucked from a federal penitentiary and recruited by his handler, Donald Fitzroy (Billy Bob Thornton), was once a highly-skilled, Agency-sanctioned merchant of death. But now the tables have turned and Six is the target, hunted across the globe by Lloyd Hansen (Chris Evans), a former cohort at the CIA, who will stop at nothing to take him out. Also stars Ana de Armas, Alfre Woodard, and Regé-Jean Page. Premieres July 22. (Netflix)
• The School for Good and Evil, directed by Paul Feig and based on the book series by Soman Chainani, about best friends at a school where kids are educated on how to become fairytale heroes or villains, stars Kerry Washington, Charlize Theron, Laurence Fishburne, Michelle Yeoh, Patti LuPone, and Rachel Bloom. Premieres soon. (Netflix)
• Martin: The Reunion features the surviving cast members of Martin – Martin Lawrence, Tisha Campbell, Tichina Arnold, and Carl Anthony Payne – as they recall their memories of the beloved 1992-97 comedy and welcome special surprise guests. Premieres June 16. (BET+)
• A League of Their Own is a series adaptation ( the second one, after a 1993 version) of the classic 1992 movie about the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League. Stars Abbi Jacobson, D’Arcy Carden, Nick Offerman, and Nat Faxon. Premieres Aug. 12. (Prime Video)
• Resident Evil is the series adaptation of the video game and movie franchise, now with gigantic spiders and an uber-worm bursting from underground, in addition, of course, to loads of zombies. The live-action series follows the videogame that debuted in 1996, seven feature films, and a Netflix animated series. Stars Lance Reddick. Premieres July 14. (Netflix)
• Leave No Trace is a Ron Howard and Brian Grazer-produced documentary about an alleged century-long sexual abuse cover-up by the Boy Scouts of America in which more than 80,000 men have alleged sexual abuse. Directed by Emmy winner and Oscar nominee Irene Taylor. Premieres June 16. (Hulu)
• 1899 is the series from Dark showrunner Jantje Friese and director/producer Baran bo Odar about an immigrant ship on its way to New York from Europe when it runs into a ship that has been missing for several months. The trip then takes a terrifying turn … Premieres soon. (Netflix)
• Loot is a comedy starring Maya Rudolph as a billionaire living a dream life – mansion, private jets, yacht – when her husband (Adam Scott) cheats on her. With her life turned upside down, Molly begins to focus on charity work, helping others while trying to help herself, too. Also stars Joel Kim Booster, Nat Faxon, and Ron Funches. Premieres June 24. (Apple TV+)
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(Photo by Michael Kovac/Getty Images for AFI)
TV legend Carol Burnett will star opposite Kristen Wiig in Apple TV+’s comedy Mrs. American Pie. Set in the ’70s, the series revolves around Maxine Simmons (Wiig) who wants to become a member of Palm Beach high society, of which Burnett’s Norma is a long-standing, gossipy member. Based on the novel of the same name by author Juliet McDaniel, the 10-episode series will also star Allison Janney, Laura Dern (also an executive producer), Leslie Bibb, Ricky Martin, and Josh Lucas. Mrs. American Pie will be Burnett’s first series regular role since her classic variety series The Carol Burnett Show, which aired on CBS 1967-1978, and an additional nine episodes in 1991.
The Batman star Colin Farrell, who will reprise his role as The Penguin in HBO Max’s upcoming The Penguin spin-off series, will also star in and executive produce Apple TV+’s genre-bending Sugar, a “moving, character-driven science-fiction drama, created by Mark Protosevich (Thor).
WandaVision Emmy nominee Kathryn Hahn will star in Hulu’s Tiny Beautiful Things, a drama series based on author Cheryl Strayed’s book of the same name, with Little Fires Everywhere showrunner Liz Tigelaar, and executive produced by Reese Witherspoon. Hahn will play a character based on Strayed, whose own life was falling apart when she began writing an anonymous advice column called Dear Sugar, sharing her own experiences and humor and vulnerability with her readers. Strayed, whose Dear Sugar columns were collected in her book, will also EP the half-hour drama, along with Hahn, Tigelaar, and Laura Dern.
Goran Visnjic is joining the cast of Netflix’s Vikings: Valhalla. The ER alum will play Viking Erik the Red, father of Leif Eriksson (Sam Corlett) and Freydis (Frida Gustavsson, for a multi-season arc that begins with the series’ upcoming third season. (Deadline)
Uma Thurman will play the POTUS, whose son finds himself in the middle of an international feud with a member of British royalty that turns into a romance in Red, White, & Royal Blue, an Amazon Prime romantic comedy movie adaptation of the bestselling book by author Casey McQuiston.
Chloë Sevigny has joined Natasha Lyonne and Joseph Gordon-Levitt in Rian Johnson’s Peacock mystery drama Poker Face. The two actresses and longtime friends last collaborated on the second season of Lyonne’s Netflix drama Russian Doll. Few details are known about the Poker Face storyline or characters, but the cast also includes Benjamin Bratt, Adrien Brody, Stephanie Hsu, and David Castañeda. (Deadline)
(Photo by Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images for TIME)
Abbott Elementary creator and star Quinta Brunson will guest star on Starz’ upcoming six-episode revival of Party Down. She will play the agent of Ryan Hansen’s actor character Kyle Bradway. (Variety)
Entertainment Tonight hosts Kevin Frazier and Nischelle Turner will emcee the Daytime Emmys, which will air live on CBS on June 24.
Big Sky and Peacock’s new Queer As Folk reboot star Jesse James Keitel will guest star as a nonbinary character on Star Trek: Strange New Worlds’ June 16 episode on Paramount+. Keitel will play Dr. Aspen, who changed careers and became a humanitarian aid worker after experiences on the Federation border. (Variety)
Sam Waterston will continue his role as DA Jack McCoy on the second season of NBC’s reboot of Dick Wolf’s original Law & Order series. The network has not yet announced a replacement for Anthony Anderson, who helped the series relaunch last season but did not want to return for another season as Det. Kevin Bernard. (Deadline)
Girls alum Allison Williams will star opposite Matt Bomer in the Showtime limited series Fellow Travelers. Williams will play the daughter of a U.S. senator who has known Bomer’s Hawk since they were teenagers in the love story/political thriller in which Hawk has a romance with another man in the dangerous era of Joseph McCarthy and Roy Cohn. (Variety)
Barry Emmy nominee Sarah Goldberg will star in and write the IFC dark comedy series Sisters. The six-episode series, which will co-star and be written by Goldberg’s friend and former classmate at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts, will play women from two different countries who discover they’re half sisters, and embark on a road trip to find their father. (THR)
Paramount Network has added new cast members for the fifth season of its hit drama Yellowstone, including Kai Caster, Lainey Wilson, Lilli Kay, and Dawn Olivieri. Josh Lucas, Jacki Weaver, Kylie Rogers, and Kyle Red Silverstein return, and Mo Brings Plenty and Wendy Moniz have been promoted to series regulars.
(Photo by Chris Pizzello-Pool/Getty Images)
Brad Pitt is teaming up with Apple TV+ and some of the Top Gun: Maverick filmmakers for a Formula One racing movie that will likely have a one- to two-month theatrical release window before streaming on Apple TV+. The untitled project, which will be directed by Maverick director Joseph Kosinski, produced Maverick producer Jerry Bruckheimer, and written by Maverick writer Ehren Kruger, in addition to getting a larger first theatrical window than most hybrid theater/streaming releases, would potentially be Brad Pitt and Formula One racing’s answer to Tom Cruise and military aviation’s answer to box office success. (THR)
Who knew? Oscar nominee Kristen Stewart is such a fan of ghost hunting series that she’s producing one herself. Stewart and the team at Scout Productions (Queer Eye and Legendary) are casting for a new series that, in an Instagram post, Stewart called “the most gayest, most fun-est, most titillating ghost hunting show ever.” The casting website is seeking LGBTQ+ ghost hunters, paranormal specialists, mediums, psychics for the series.
Live performers for CBS’ 75th annual Tony Awards broadcast on June 12: Billy Porter, Bernadette Peters, the original cast of Tony winner Spring Awakening, and the casts of this year’s nominated shows A Strange Loop, Company, Girl from the North Country, MJ, Mr. Saturday Night, Music Man, Paradise Square and SIX.
(Photo by Curtis Bonds Baker/AMC)
AMC has released first photos from the upcoming Tales of the Walking Dead, the six-episode anthology spin-off of The Walking Dead that will feature stars including (clockwise from top left) Olivia Munn, Terry Crews, Samantha Morton, Daniella Pineda, Danny Ramirez, Anthony Edwards, Jessie T. Usher, Jillian Bell, Parker Posey, and more, and premiere on August 14. New and existing characters from TWD universe will unfold stories, each with its own high stakes tone and point of view, showing us the apocalypse through different eyes.
And more awards news: the International Emmy Awards will honor writer/director/producer Ava DuVernay (When They See Us) with the Founder’s Award for her creative and social activist work. She’ll receive the award at the 50th International Emmy Awards ceremony in New York on Nov. 21.
George Clooney’s documentary about the decades-long sexual abuse scandal at Ohio State University has landed at HBO. Oscar winner Clooney will direct the docuseries, which he and producing partner Grant Heslov will produce via their Smokehouse Pictures. Based on a 2020 Sports Illustrated article, the feature-length documentary will tell the story of Richard Strauss, a former sports physician at OSU who’s accused of sexually abusing more than 300 athletes across decades of working at and with the university. The HBO project will be a feature-length documentary. (THR)
More news from the ATX Festival last weekend: the cast of Scrubs and creator Bill Lawrence want to reboot the beloved NBC and ABC series, if not for a full season, possibly for a movie, star Donald Faison suggested. (THR)
THR reports that it’s official: J.J. Abrams’ Demimonde series is dead at HBO. A burgeoning budget did it in at the cable network, and the director/producer/series creator will now shop the drama – with a budget that had ballooned to more than $200 million – to streaming networks.
FX is developing a series about Benihana founder Hiroaki “Rocky” Aoki, the Olympic wrestler, professional speed boat racer, hot air balloonist, and nightclub entrepreneur. The series, tentatively titled American Hiro and based on the book Making It in America: The Life and Times of Rocky Aoki by author Jack McCallum, will also address Aoki’s family relationships, including sons Steve and Devon Aoki, who will be executive producers on American Hiro.
(Photo by NBC)
The Golden Girls Kitchen, a Golden Girls–themed restaurant coming to Beverly Hills in July. Yes, of course there will be cheesecake.
Organizers describe the event dining experience, which will cost you $50 to attend, as:
“This custom, detailed dining experience is inspired by the girls’ favorite iconic Miami hangout, as well as other memorable moments from the beloved franchise.
Expect to be completely immersed in the world of The Golden Girls.
There will be a full kitchen to order some of Sophia’s Famous Lasagna (meat or vegan), plus other menu items like The Dorothy: A Miami Style Sandwich, Blanche’s Georgia Style Cookies, Rose on Rose, and most importantly – CHEESECAKE – all served by one of our lovable Shady Pines waiters!”
