100 Most-Watched TV Series of 2022-23: This Season’s Winners and Losers

EXCLUSIVE: Academy Award nominee Eric Roberts (Babylon) has been set to star opposite Hutch Dano and Christopher Livingston in Down Below, a psychological horror film from director Spyder Dobrofsky that is currently in production.

was canceled after racist tweets, Roseanne Barr found herself trending on Twitter after more stunning statements — this time she appeared to deny that the Holocaust happened. Or did she? "Nobody died in the Holocaust," she's said on a recent episode of This Past Weekend with Theo Von. "That's the truth.

Chris Hemsworth took over Netflix for the week of June 19 to June 25.

Late-night comedy writers are facing “oblivion” if the Writers Guild loses its eight-week-old strike, according to late-night comedy writer and WGA negotiating committee member Greg Iwinski, a former writer for The Late Show with Stephen Colbert and Last Week Tonight with John Oliver.

A group of students and the authors of And Tango Makes Three, a story about two male penguins raising a chick, are suing the Lake County school district in Florida over the book’s removal from libraries.Published in 2005, the award-winning And Tango Makes Three is based on the true story of Roy and Silo, a pair of male penguins at the Central Park Zoo, who helped protect and hatch an egg and raised the penguin chick, Tango, that emerged from it.Authors Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell were inspired to write the book after hearing about how Roy and Silo were “completely devoted to each other,” according to a New York Times article.While the book is geared towards 4- to 8-year-olds and does not contain sexually explicit content, Florida school district authorities banned the book. They removed it from school library shelves, citing Florida’s “Parental Rights in Education” law, also known as the “Don’t Say Law.”Under the law, which is intended to allow parents to have a greater say over the content of their classroom lessons, teachers in public schools are barred from providing classroom “instruction” — which is vaguely defined — on sexual orientation and gender identity.“We removed access to And Tango Makes Three for our kindergarten through third-grade students in alignment with Florida House Bill 1557, which at the time prohibited classroom instruction on sexual orientation or gender identity for those grade levels,” Sherri Owens, a spokesperson for Lake County Schools, told the Times in an email.Parnell and Richardson and the parents of five school-age students subsequently sued to challenge the county’s ban on Tango.In the lawsuit, filed in U.S.

Nicole Kidman and Zoe Saldaña are leading an elite group of operatives in the new Paramount+ drama from creator Taylor Sheridan. inspired by a real-life U.S. military program, centers on CIA missions to place undercover operatives close to high-value targets in order to gain their trust and eliminate them swiftly and quietly.

Paramount+ has unveiled the first trailer for Taylor Sheridan’s Special Ops: Lioness and announced Sunday, July 23 as the premiere date for the espionage thriller.

Michael Schneider Variety Editor at Large When I arrived in Los Angeles and first started covering television, it was summer 1996. I was a young 22-year-old kid suddenly thrust into reporting at events like the Television Critics Association press tour, where nearly everyone else around me was a crusty newspaper journo twice my age. (And lying to network execs by telling them I was 25 — apparently, I thought that made me sound seasoned?) That first TCA was a boot camp in learning how new TV shows are launched, and I still vividly remember that freshman crop of fall 1996 series. In those hopeful months before September premieres, anyone has the chance to break out and go the distance. One of those sitcoms was ABC’s “Life’s Work,” starring a promising, brash, hysterical comic named, you guessed it, Lisa Ann Walter. She had already starred in a short-lived comedy for Fox, a midseason entry that didn’t get much attention. But this was the one that was going to be a hit, inspired heavily by her own routine as the working mother aiming to “have it all.”

Matthew Chernov From Al Pacino’s white suit in “Scarface” and Robert De Niro’s tortoiseshell sunglasses in “Casino” to James Gandolfini’s bowling shirts in “The Sopranos” and Steve Buscemi’s Derby hats in “Boardwalk Empire,” movie and TV gangsters are famous for their bold fashion sense. And the latest nattily dressed mobster to hit the screen is Dwight Manfredi, the Mafia capo played by Sylvester Stallone in the Paramount+ series “Tulsa King.” Created by Taylor Sheridan, the show stars Stallone as an aging mafioso who’s exiled to Tulsa, Okla., by his New York crime family after spending 25 years in prison. Costume designer Suzanne McCabe created Stallone’s wardrobe on the series, and she based many of her designs on the real-life Mafia bosses whose taste in expensive clothing and flashy accessories made them unlikely celebrities throughout the 1980s. “I looked at the Gambino crime family, the Franzese family, and all the usual ones that you always saw in the papers back then,” she says.

Dale Dickey (A Love Song), Margot Bingham (The Walking Dead), Mo Brings Plenty (Yellowstone) and Tosin Morohunfola (Run The World) have been tapped for recurring roles in Taylor Sheridan’s anthology series Lawmen: Bass Reeves (fka Bass Reeves), exec produced by and starring David Oyelowo. Lawmen: Bass Reeves is created for television by Chad Feehan who also serves as showrunner.

Emily Longeretta Thirty years after “Cheers” came to an end, the cast and creatives got back together on Friday night, courtesy of the ATX TV Festival in Austin, Texas. The reunion panel, hosted by Variety‘s Michael Schneider, included co-creators James Burrows, Les Charles and Glen Charles and actors Ted Danson, George Wendt and John Ratzenberger. During the conversation, the iconic creators reflected on the making of the show and the cast opened up about how they joined the series and how it’s affected their lives over the years. “Teddy and Shelly auditioned together and they had chemistry that only makes writing better,” Burrows said of casting Danson and Shelley Long, who portrayed Diane Chambers, Sam’s love interest for five seasons.

Michael Schneider Variety Editor at Large I’ve been doing this long enough to remember the days when film folks saw doing TV as a bit of a step down, or a one-time novelty — and even TV folks felt like they were in the minors, waiting for that call to join the movie big leagues. That hasn’t been the case for a while, and I like to needle my film colleagues with the now-established fact that TV is where it’s at. The rise of streaming just cemented that. It’s still fun, though, to chat with creatives who have spent most of their career in film, and hear about their experiences in working on TV series. Inevitably, they must admit that working in TV was both gratifying — and perhaps the hardest thing they’ve ever done.

Michael Schneider Variety Editor at Large It’s still unbelievable to think that Riley Keough didn’t have any real singing experience before starring in Amazon Prime Video’s “Daisy Jones & the Six.” Actually, most of the cast didn’t — which makes the tremendous sound of the band all the more impressive. “Daisy Jones & the Six” did what few other shows have done (perhaps “The Monkees” being the other most notable): turned a group of actors playing characters in a band… into an actual band. But back to Keough for a second. Yeah, every story about her and “Daisy Jones” says the same thing: What? She hadn’t sang before? But she’s ROCK ROYALTY. (Granddaughter of Elvis Presley, c’mon, you know the drill by now.) Some might argue it’s in the genes, but that’s just a fraction of it. Don’t sell Keough short. It was hard work and talent. And a lot more hard work. Keough and the “Daisy Jones & the Six” cast also had a bit of weird timing on their side too, as COVID-related production delays forced them to keep practicing. And after all that rehearsal time, they got good. Real good.

Michael Schneider Variety Editor at Large Ch-ch-check it out: Hulu’s gotta fight… for the right… to part–ake in some Emmy FYC campaigning. The streamer hopes it has a sure shot at nominations for “Only Murders in the Building,” which is why it has partnered with Yeastie Boys to give out what’cha what’cha want (what’cha want): free food. “Only Murders in the Building”-themed bagel sandwiches will be passed out by Yeastie Boys this weekend and next, prior to the start of Emmy voting on June 15. Of course, it’s only while supplies last, so no sleep till Brooklyn. Here’s why Hulu says it went with bagels for this FYC stunt: “The series takes place in a typical New York apartment building and we wanted to celebrate New Yorkers’ favorite breakfast meal.”

Piper Perabo is weighing in on the end of The actress plays Summer, an environmental activist who gets romantically involved with Kevin Costner's John Dutton, on Paramount Network's blockbuster drama. Perabo sat down with ET's Rachel Smith on Tuesday in New York City to weigh in on the final episodes of the series, which are due to start airing in November (if the ongoing writers' strike doesn't delay its return), and also advocate for safe gun use in media and on Hollywood sets.«I hope [the writers' strike] doesn't have an impact.

Michael Schneider Variety Editor at Large Let’s travel back to the summer of 1989. I’m 15 years old and have just put two large movie posters on my wall: One for Tim Burton’s game-changing take on “Batman,” starring Michael Keaton, and the other for “UHF,” the theatrical comedy debut for the one and only “Weird Al” Yankovic. It’s now 2023. Keaton is back as Batman in next month’s “The Flash.” And Weird Al (always Weird Al, not just Al Yankovic!) is the front-runner for this year’s TV movie Emmy, thanks to the Roku Channel parody biopic “Weird: The Al Yankovic Story.” “1989 is back again! It’s all cyclical,” Yankovic says in his signature cheery, upbeat tone. Tell my 15-year-old self that one day he’ll be recording a podcast with Weird Al, and first he’d say, “what’s a podcast?” But after explaining that it’s essentially a radio show, my 15-year-old self would lose his mind. And ask about 2023’s flying cars. Sorry kid.

Michael Schneider Variety Editor at Large Last year, Jesse Collins won an Emmy. This year, he’s producing the Emmys. Fox and the Television Academy are set to announce on Thursday that Jesse Collins Entertainment has been tapped to serve as producers of this year’s landmark 75th edition of the Primetime Emmy awards. No host has been named as of yet, and there are still a lot of questions to be answered as to how the writers strike may impact this year’s Emmy Awards, or if the calendar might shift. But for now, the main event is still scheduled to air on Monday, Sept 18 at 8 p.m. ET/5 p.m. PT on Fox. Jesse Collins Entertainment takes over from Done+Dusted and Hudlin Entertainment, which had jointly produced the Emmys in 2020, 2021 and 2022, the first two of which were COVID-impacted events. D+D had actually produced the Emmys for five consecutive years, having already been producing the Emmys telecast for two years when it was paired with Hudlin in 2020 to handle the unconventional, no-audience COVID-impacted Emmys. At the time, Hudlin made history as the first Black executive producer of the Primetime Emmys.

Michael Schneider Variety Editor at Large Hasan Minhaj is open to the idea of hosting “The Daily Show” — but it’s not a decision he would make alone. “That’s a family conversation now,” Minhaj tells Variety’s Awards Circuit Podcast. “It’s a very different conversation then when I first got hired at the show, when I was 29. My life is in a very different place. And so that’s a bigger convo.” Minhaj’s recent Netflix stand-up special, “The King’s Jester,” includes a deeply personal look by the comedian at the evolution of his family, from being infertile to eventually raising two children with his life — and how that has changed a lot of things in his life, including his career choices and his on-stage routines.

Joe Otterson TV Reporter Michelle Randolph and Jacob Lofland have joined Billy Bob Thornton in the upcoming Taylor Sheridan series “Land Man” at Paramount+, Variety has learned. In addition, Variety has learned exclusively that Ali Larter will star in the series as well. Per the official logline, the series “is set in the proverbial boomtowns of West Texas and is a modern day tale of fortune seeking in the world of oil rigs. The series is an upstairs/downstairs story of roughnecks and wildcat billionaires fueling a boom so big, it’s reshaping our climate, our economy and our geopolitics.” It is based on the podcast “Boomtown.” Randolph will star as Ainsley Norris, described as “the wild and strong-willed seventeen-year-old daughter of Tommy Norris (Thornton).” Lofland will play Cooper Norris, “Tommy’s son, who is new to the demanding work in the oil and gas fields of west Texas.” Larter will play Angela, Tommy’s ex-wife.

Michael Schneider Variety Editor at Large NBC’s coverage of the XXIV Olympic Winter Games and Fox’s FIFA World Cup telecasts were the big winners Monday night at this year’s 44th annual Sports Emmy Awards, winning three Emmys each. ESPN, meanwhile, was the night’s biggest winner among outlets, pulling 13 Emmys. The National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences awarded this year’s Sports Emmys at a ceremony at Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Frederick P. Rose Hall. Bryant Gumbel will receive the lifetime achievement award for his role in sports journalism. The Sports Emmys took place even as the writers strike has led to the postponement of NATAS’ premiere Daytime Emmys telecast next month. “While we gather together, other parts of our television community stand divided tonight,” Adam Sharp, president & CEO of NATAS said during the ceremony. “You’ll note most of the typically scripted elements of our ceremony have been pared back in acknowledgment of, and respect for, the WGA-represented writers out on strike.”

Michael Schneider Variety Editor at Large That’s true for novelists as much as it is for screenwriters. Often those are one and the same — and because we live in an age where pre-sold IP usually makes it easier to sell a TV project, there have never been more series based on books than there are right now.