Daniel Daddario: Last News

Daniel D'Addario Chief TV CriticIn the early 2000s, “The Brothers Garcia” was a hit on Nickelodeon; that show depicted a loving Latino family in San Antonio, and was anchored by the dynamic between squabbling brothers.In keeping with the current vogue for reviving recognizable IP on a roughly two-decade cycle, six of that show’s principal cast members are back for a sequel series on HBO Max. “The Brothers Garcia” is created (as was its Nick ancestor) by Jeff Valdez, and depicts an extended family enjoying an extended-stay vacation on a Mexican beach.Notionally, “The Garcias” is pitched at a broad audience: Its humor is broad, its plotlines are heartfelt.

Daniel D'Addario Chief TV CriticIn the second episode of “The Kardashians,” Hulu’s new reality show featuring the widely-documented Calabasas, Calif. family, there is a moment of reflection.

Daniel D'Addario Chief TV CriticA great frustration for me as a critic of television, and a viewer of television, has been the ongoing dominance of “The Bachelor” franchise — a series that requires herculean endurance on the part of the viewer to find moments of genuine oddity. Over the course of punishingly long episodes, “The Bachelor” tends toward the most rote sorts of provocation, placing contestants who have been cast for their ability to approximate normalcy into extreme situations.After all, “The Bachelor” runs on happy endings, and so we must be rooting for its leads (the Bachelor or Bachelorette, and the credible options for them to pick at the end) to really find love.

Daniel D'Addario Chief TV Critic“Power is a dangerous, delicate creature,” Kiernan Shipka’s character tells us in voice-over as she zips up her dress. “Intoxicating.

Daniel D'Addario Chief TV CriticOver cigarettes in a Tokyo nightclub, a newbie crime reporter eager to make a mark is speaking to his source. Jake Adelstein (Ansel Elgort), an American who’s become fluent in Japanese to work as a journalist far from home, uses the language to ask his source Jin Miyamoto (Hideaki Itō) whether the city of Tokyo has officially recorded murder cases at all. Miyamoto, a corrupt cop, is briefly caught up in all the flashes of distraction the nightclub has to offer — bright lights, music, liquor on order and young women ambiently available — before explaining the situation to this outsider.

Daniel D'Addario Chief TV Critic“Better Call Saul” is, at the start of its two-part final season, still twin shows — a riveting one and one that, even while well-made, can feel like yesterday’s news. The good news for viewers who are interested in the storyline about Jimmy McGill’s slippage into the amoral Saul Goodman, and his dragging of Kim Wexler with him, is that that half of the series is as strong as ever.

Anna Tingley If you purchase an independently reviewed product or service through a link on our website, Variety may receive an affiliate commission.Marvel has added a new live-action series to its growing lineup this week with the debut of “Moon Knight” on Disney Plus.The highly anticipated show, starring Oscar Isaac as the franchise’s infamous antihero, marks the fifth comic series that the streamer has adapted for the screen, following wildly successful hits such as “WandaVision” and “The Mandalorian.” It’s also the first time that the Moon Knight character, whose story has been explored in dozens of comic issues since 1970, will be featured heavily onscreen.The story starts off by following a British gift shop employee named Steven Grant (Isaac), who is haunted by nightmarish visions seemingly caused by a mysterious force that’s taken over his mind. Soon enough, it turns out those visions are really the real, dissociative states of Mark Specter, another character played by Isaac that shares Grant’s body and identity but is also a human embodiment of the Egyptian god Khonshu.

Daniel D'Addario Chief TV CriticPete Holmes is a fairly cerebral comic, a presence whose jokes consistently feel carefully thought through. His recent HBO sitcom “Crashing,” which ended in 2019, took a subject that is easy to lampoon — a comedian’s quest for recognition and success — and took it seriously, treating it with real sensitivity.There’s something particularly dispiriting, then, about “How We Roll,” a new sitcom starring Holmes that’s lacking any semblance of his voice or his wit.

Daniel D'Addario Chief TV CriticOf all this season’s limited series based on high-profile incidents of chicanery, “The Dropout” stands out. More than Showtime’s Uber show, Apple’s WeWork show, or Netflix’s Anna Delvey show, Hulu’s look at the life and career of Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes feels as though it has a certain point-of-view on its subject.

Daniel D'Addario Chief TV CriticLast year, Marvel made a serious run at using streaming TV to do something qualitatively different than what it does on the big screen. With “WandaVision,” the first of its series to stream on Disney Plus, the studio used familiar characters to animate a story that, in its early going, was substantially more pliable and strange than what they were willing to attempt in a heavily leveraged movie.

Daniel D'Addario Chief TV Critic“Plaza Suite” practically demands to be played straight.Neil Simon’s look at three romantic couples facing down the passage of time is sharp and knowing, but it is, crucially, earnest. Each character gives direct and explicit voice to what’s on their mind; relationship dynamics are explored with an openness of heart that isn’t remotely trying to be cool or distanced.

Zack Sharf Donald Glover has confirmed that Malia Obama is in the writers’ room for his new Amazon series. The “Atlanta” Emmy winner told Vanity Fair that Obama is “an amazingly talented person,” adding, “She’s really focused, and she’s working really hard.”“I feel like she’s just somebody who’s gonna have really good things coming soon,” Glover said.

Daniel D'Addario Chief TV CriticIn a scene in the first season of the Ukrainian sitcom “Servant of the People,” the newly-elected president of Ukraine is attempting to get the attention of his parliament, which has devolved from bickering into a physical brawl. Gently clearing his throat and murmuring for some peace and quiet won’t do, and this head of state is too green to command much respect from those serving alongside him in government.

Daniel D'Addario Chief TV CriticThere’s a beautifully drawn moment in the fourth episode of “Pachinko,” Apple TV Plus’ new cross-generational epic, in which a young woman (Minha Kim) is served white rice as a final meal in Korea before setting out to the unknown. It’s moving on its merits — this character, Sunja, has already been through a great deal, and a meal lovingly prepared by her mother (Inji Jeong) has a certain symbolic weight all its own.

Daniel D'Addario Chief TV CriticMonday night brings the end of what has been one of 2022’s most indulgent pleasures — and one that calls to mind the TV of a decade prior. HBO’s “The Gilded Age” has made a strong argument for the efficacy of series creator Julian Fellowes’ method as a deliverer of narrative delight.Every episode has been an hourlong fantasia in which the mind, unbothered by a plot that seems at best ornamental, is free to roam — a pleasant, happy state of what Gen Z might call “smooth-brained” experience, untroubled and uncomplicated by the firing of synapses or the development of nuance.

Daniel D'Addario Chief TV Critic“I just kept thinking, why isn’t anyone stopping us? Why didn’t anyone stop us?”Amber (Laura Dreyfuss) is addressing her wife (Jamie Neumann), deep into a scheme that has spiraled beyond either one of these two white women’s control. On their way to the madness of this moment, they’ve demonstrated both a powerful and shocking inhumanity and the grim whimsicality of racism – the manner in which new rules can be created by the people in charge breezily, as if for their own amusement.This is, and is not, “Atlanta.” The show, returning to the air for the first time since 2018, has jettisoned its cast for this installment, stepping outside the plot to tell a story of startling power.

Daniel D'Addario Chief TV CriticIt’s not hard to see why a story about a U.S. at war with itself might have seemed especially piquant to producers over the past several years.

Daniel D'Addario Chief TV CriticNetflix has once again found a criminal case whose oddity, extremity, and seeming delusion make for an interesting story. “Bad Vegan: Fame. Fraud.

Daniel D'Addario Chief TV Critic“Minx,” a new comedy on HBO Max, has a plot that’s all about reversing the gaze — looking as pruriently at men as media often looks at women. And the form of the show follows suit.In order to tell the story of Minx, a new magazine launching in this show’s depiction of a swinging 1970s, this series refuses to hold back, diving deep into a curiosity about the male form that’s as gently inquisitive as it is prurient.

Daniel D'Addario Chief TV CriticHulu’s new limited series “The Girl From Plainville,” which premiered at the SXSW festival on March 12, faces, and surmounts, an interesting challenge: Its two lead characters have a relationship based almost entirely on text messages. The sight of someone with their face buried in a phone is hardly novel, nor is it compelling — at least not enough to sustain an eight-episode drama.The question of whether “The Girl From Plainville,” based on the real-life manslaughter trial of Michelle Carter after she encouraged her boyfriend over text to kill himself in 2014, really needed all of those episodes to tell its story is a fair one.

Daniel D'Addario Chief TV CriticIn the new documentary series “The Andy Warhol Diaries,” the late pop artist’s re-created voice sounds eerie and uncanny — human but not. It’s aesthetically jarring, and a fitting tribute.Director Andrew Rossi, with the permission of Warhol’s estate, used an artificial-intelligence program to reproduce his speaking voice, so that “Warhol” can read aloud from the diaries he kept.