Daniel Daddario: Last News

Amber Dowling The Emmy Awards dominated Variety’s Trending TV chart for the week of Sept. 12 – 18, pulling in more than 18 million engagements — less than the Oscars (33 million engagements) and Grammys (57 million engagements), but more than the SAG Awards (4 million), which were all tracked for a shorter length of time. “Succession,” “Ted Lasso” and “The White Lotus” took home the top prizes during the Sept. 12 ceremony on NBC. Historic wins from Sheryl Lee Ralph, Quinta Brunson, Zendaya and Lee Jung-jae, as well as memorable moments from winners Jennifer Coolidge and Lizzo ruled Twitter chatter. Sheryl Lee Ralph blew the roof off the #emmys with this speech! pic.twitter.com/MFJzIqxBWC This year’s Emmys marked the return to a full-scale production for the first time since 2019, but as Variety chief TV critic Daniel D’Addario noted in his review, “much of the production seemed strangely stuck in a hazy past.” Meanwhile, the broadcast, hosted by Kenan Thompson, earned all-time low ratings with an average of 5.92 million viewers. 

Daniel D'Addario Chief TV Critic It’s easy to root for “Abbott Elementary.” In its first season, Quinta Brunson’s series established itself as both a big-hearted and sweet-natured half-hour and as a sign of life for the network comedy. Rooted both in the office-comedy genre that’s as old as the medium (with the office, in this case, being a Philadelphia public school) and in the 21st-century custom of the mockumentary, “Abbott” has been a sharp and strong argument for traditional forms. Brunson’s Emmy win for writing the show’s pilot came both as the welcome celebration of a new talent and as no surprise. And the first two episodes of the show’s second season continue its strong trajectory. The school came into a windfall in the previous season, and the decision of how to disburse it hangs over the proceedings. This is an elegant way to deploy both halves of “Abbott’s” emotional equation: The show’s teachers know that they are underfunded and that even a bonus will go too quickly, and yet they keep on going with a smile, because what’s the alternative? A scene in which the teachers visit a richly resourced charter school before returning home to scruffy deprivation plays fascinatingly, with barely concealed envy ricocheting from face to face.

Daniel D'Addario Chief TV Critic The story of Alexis Haines’ entanglement with a circle of Los Angeles-area home invaders has been told multiple times over: In the reporting of Nancy Jo Sales, who profiled her for Vanity Fair in 2010; on her own reality show, “Pretty Wild,” which aired on E! in 2010; and in Sofia Coppola’s 2013 film “The Bling Ring,” based on Sales’ work. Now, Haines (formerly Alexis Neiers), along with former associate Nick Norgo (formerly Nick Prugo), attempts to set the record straight in the Netflix documentary series “The Real Bling Ring: Hollywood Heist.” The three-episode series sheds little light, and bulks out its running time with idle musings on fame that feel warmed over from the early 2010s. It’s not that Haines’ and Norgo’s stories, told with both respective parties’ permission in this doc, don’t have inherent interest: Both of them became entranced by the concept of celebrity and, as part of the “bling ring” cabal, stole cash and belongings from the homes of famous people, including Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan, and Orlando Bloom. (One of their victims, “The Hills” personality Audrina Patridge, speaks to the camera for “The Real Bling Ring.”)

Daniel D'Addario Chief TV Critic On the first episode of Jennifer Hudson’s new talk show, guest Simon Cowell was very gently criticizing the series “American Idol,” on which he had been a judge and Hudson had been a contestant. Remarking how he found the producers’ assignment for her to sing a Barry Manilow song (which she did the week she was sent home) to be unfair to her and outdated, Cowell generated the first semblance of real heat on the episode. Here was something, perhaps, with the frisson and excitement of real conversation. Hudson let it sit there, allowing a couple moments of silence before remarking “Simon being Simon,” then trailing off. This first episode began with a run-through of Hudson’s career achievements: From the sorrow of her “Idol” elimination during Barry Manilow Week to her casting in “Dreamgirls,” for which she would win an acting Oscar, to her successful recording career. Hudson has won all four major entertainment awards — an EGOT, which speaks to the somewhat mythic place she occupies in the celebrity landscape: The recipient of a second chance whose unabashedly showy voice couldn’t be constrained by a reality-show loss.

Daniel D'Addario Chief TV Critic Back as a full-scale production for the first time since 2019, the Emmys moved, in moments, with a refreshing fleetness. But much of the production seemed strangely stuck in a hazy past. Why, for instance, did host Kenan Thompson only uncork his best material after the first commercial break, after an opening during which he staggered through choreographed routines to TV theme songs? And why were those songs generally for series not honored at this year’s Emmys? We began with “Friends,” moved into “The Brady Bunch” — with a brief shoutout to the cast of that classic sitcom sitting in the audience, not to be mentioned again — and ended on “Game of Thrones,” the big winner at the last pre-COVID Emmys.

Daniel D'Addario Chief TV Critic Deep into its run, “The Handmaid’s Tale” has found itself — or a version of itself, at once leaner and stranger — again. In the past, I’ve written that this show, which boasts a strong ensemble cast supporting probably the most agile performer on television, has been frustratingly unable to emerge from the potency of its set-up. Season after season was spent re-litigating the harms done to Elisabeth Moss’ June, all while reducing her from a recognizable human into a character history. The show made the point that June had been altered by trauma too well. Now, though, June feels liberated; in the wake of Season 4’s conclusion, in which our heroine led a mob killing of her tormentor (Joseph Fiennes), Moss’ performance feels opened up, and so does the series’ creative universe.

Daniel D'Addario Chief TV Critic The prospect of Susan Sarandon leading an “Empire”-style music drama set in the world of country music is an instantly alluring one. Not merely is Sarandon a compelling screen presence (one who FX’s “Feud” proved works well on TV), but the particular contours of her public image as a stalwart leftist activist would seem to rub up intriguingly against her character, a survivor in the culturally conservative world of Nashville. Bad luck for viewers, then, that Sarandon, largely at a remove from the story for plot reasons, is such a minimally used part of Fox’s new drama “Monarch,” and that the elements that supersede her hold such little interest. Dottie Cantrell Roman and Albie Roman, played by Sarandon and Trace Adkins, are the parents to three children, two of them rival vocalists (Anna Friel and Beth Ditto); Dottie and Albie’s son (Joshua Sasse) must try to hold the clan together despite his sisters’ egos and need for validation.

Daniel D'Addario Chief TV Critic The increasing sense of precarity around the world’s infrastructure would seem to help Peacock’s “Last Light” resonate: The limited series depicts a disruption in the world’s supply of petroleum, setting off a major energy crisis and fears of global cataclysm. And yet the series never finds its gear, existing as a ripped-from-future-headlines thriller that’s neither particularly credible nor especially thrilling. Here, Matthew Fox plays the chemist Andy Yeats, who finds himself drawn into the crisis; as the world lurches into a moment of uncertainty, he’s separated from his family, trying both to find his way to them and to do what he can to bring the world back to order. The family struggles seem calculated to wring emotion from viewers, with Andy’s son (Taylor Fay) gradually losing his sight in a way that tests the tender stoicism of mom Elena (Joanne Froggatt). There’s, too, a sort of schematic element to the climate activism of Andy’s daughter (Alyth Ross); little does she know just how much her dad is doing to protect everyone’s future.

Daniel D'Addario Chief TV Critic With its pulsing burble of Blondie music and its chilly aesthetic, the 1980 Paul Schrader film “American Gigolo” is a showpiece of what would soon be the Reagan decade. Some 42 years later, a TV adaptation feels lost in time, and searching for an argument for its existence. Starring Jon Bernthal and with a pilot written and directed by “Ray Donovan’s” David Hollander (whose ties to Paramount Television Studios were severed during production), “American Gigolo” is lead-footed, and prurient rather than hot. And Bernthal seems at sea here, an unusual look for a star whose coiled charisma has elsewhere served him well. His Julian Kaye — whose name is shared with Richard Gere’s character in Schrader’s movie — emerges from a 15-year sentence we’re told happened about a decade and a half ago, but nothing about Julian’s world feels of the present day, or of Earth. Julian, we understand, was wrongfully convicted; Rosie O’Donnell’s Detective Sunday is attempting to crack the case of what really happenned, while a swirling remembered attraction between Julian and Gretchen Mol’s Michelle threatens Julian’s chances at finding a post-prison equilibrium.

Daniel D'Addario Chief TV Critic “The lessons of the fire, as we reach for something higher,” a voice wails as images of flying crows and blood dripping down a rose’s thorny stem flood the screen. “With eyes we’ve all come to know, he’s the devil in Ohio.”  This theme song has a self-conscious ludicrousness that’s ultimately earned by the series it introduces — at least in one sense. Netflix’s “Devil in Ohio” isn’t so great that its missteps end up making sense, but it’s so schlockily unembarrassed by its excesses and its shortcomings alike that it feels difficult to critique.  Here, Emily Deschanel plays Suzanne, a psychiatrist whose particularly challenging new patient Mae (Madeleine Arthur) seems in urgent need of shelter after escaping a cult. Naturally, Suzanne brings her home — and, of course, Suzanne has three daughters (played by Xaria Dotson, Alisha Newton, and Naomi Tan) from whom Mae can be acclimated into high-school life, or on whom Mae can rapidly exert her influence.

Daniel D'Addario Chief TV Critic“The Americans,” Joel Fields and Joe Weisberg’s previous show for FX, built tension according to a methodical pace. Its pleasures lay in a rigorous willingness to delay catharsis; Fields and Weisberg’s team of writers seemed actively to resist giving viewers quick and easy satisfaction, preferring to build scenes, episodes and arcs that stretched out according to their own rhythms.And their follow-up series, “The Patient,” an FX production airing exclusively on Hulu, suggests that success has prompted them to lean so far into this method that they’ve lost balance.

Daniel D'Addario Chief TV CriticMike Tyson is a figure with unusual voltage, a celebrity who fought for his spot in the firmament with a weaponized charisma. The champion boxer is relentless even by the standards of the sport, with the famous incident in which he bit the ear of Evander Holyfield casting a shadow over his achievements. Outside the ring, he’s simultaneously known for a surprising soft-spokenness that makes the listener want to lean in and for a tendency toward violence — including a 1992 conviction for the rape of Desiree Washington — that repels.A serious reckoning with Tyson’s place in our culture, in the currently on-trend format of dramatized retelling via limited series, would deal with both sides of the Tyson image, and the complicated ways they feed each other — the fact that the allure of Tyson is bolstered by our sense of him as threatening.

Daniel D'Addario Chief TV Critic“Game of Thrones” made its reputation by conjuring the politics of an entire world. And for all the grandeur of its spinoff, “House of the Dragon,” its creators’ most surprising decision may be to start small.I mean that in a very particular sense. The visuals, here, are certainly grander than those of “Game of Thrones” in its early going; anyone impressed by Daenerys Targaryen’s trio of dragons will have plenty to feast on here.

Daniel D'Addario Chief TV CriticSpoiler alert: This review contains spoilers for “Saul Gone,” the series finale of “Better Call Saul.”It turns out that there was one person the once and future Jimmy McGill would put ahead of his own self-interest.In the striking and elegant finale to one of TV’s most consistently strong dramas of the past decade, Bob Odenkirk’s Saul Goodman, to borrow a phrase, broke good. Having finally been apprehended, Saul structured a plea bargain that would have him in and out of prison in a plausibility-stretching-but-who’s-counting seven years.

Daniel D'Addario Chief TV CriticSPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers for the Season 4 finale of “Westworld,” entitled “Que Será, Será,” now streaming on HBO Max.Reviewing the first four episodes of “Westworld’s” fourth season, I noted that the show seemed unnecessarily convoluted, purposefully obscuring what was even happening until the season’s fourth episode. With the back half of “Westworld’s” season having now aired — the finale dropped August 14 — that convolution seems to have served a purpose.

Daniel D'Addario Chief TV CriticThe news that Anne Heche has been declared legally dead from the injuries she sustained in an Aug. 5 car crash comes as a particularly baleful end to her story. There’s not merely the obvious element of human tragedy for Heche and her family, as well as, it ought to be said, the woman whose house Heche destroyed with her car. But Heche’s final days playing out in a spectacle of tabloid interest and ambiguity around her state of mind comes as an eerie echo of various moments throughout her life in public. Heche was a star dimmed and diminished by the aura of scandal that she couldn’t shake — and one who, despite that, tried unrelentingly to bring the audience into her world.Heche was, first, a gifted performer; she went from being an Emmy-winning soap star to film stardom in the late 1990s and seemed, with lead roles in “Volcano” and “Six Days, Seven Nights” to be locked and loaded for A-list fame, a blonde counterpart to Julianne Moore with a bit more jitter underlying her calm. (A favorite performance of mine of hers at the time is as a White House aide in “Wag the Dog,” amoral but poised, and sparking with ideas that might salvage a doomed presidency.) And though she would go on to other accomplishments on film, TV, and stage, Heche’s story necessarily must include mention of what halted her ascendant career: In 1997, the year of “Volcano” and “Wag the Dog,” Heche began publicly dating Ellen DeGeneres.

Daniel D'Addario Chief TV CriticIn entertainment, as in sports, it’s all about timing.Which makes “Legacy: The True Story of the LA Lakers” a victim of the TV industry’s current interest in its subject matter. (Perhaps that can be blamed on the ’80s Lakers being the most recognizable, and most accessible, team to build a series around in the wake of the smash success of the 2020 Michael Jordan docuseries “The Last Dance.”) Jeanie Buss, the CEO of the NBA’s Lakers, has executive-produced Hulu’s documentary tribute to the team that was already, this year, at the center of Apple TV+’s doc “They Call Me Magic,” about star Magic Johnson, and HBO’s scripted “Winning Time,” about her late father Jerry Buss’ stewardship of the team.

Anna Tingley If you purchase an independently reviewed product or service through a link on our website, Variety may receive an affiliate commission. The 1993 classic “A League of Their Own” starring Tom Hanks, Geena Davis and Madonna, gets a modern update in a new series that hits Amazon Prime Video this Friday.The series remake features all new characters in a similar storyline that centers around the formation of an all-girls baseball league during World War II. Like in the Penny Marshall-directed film, the series is set in 1943. New character Carson (played by “Broad City’s” Abbi Jacobson) finds herself enthralled by the sport of baseball after her husband is deployed overseas. While Carson’s character seems to be lightly inspired by Davis’s portrayal of Dottie in the original film, her teammate Greta played by D’Arcy Carden has hints of Madonna’s glamorous Mae. The biggest departure from the original film is a larger emphasis on race relations. Chanté Adams stars as a Black woman athlete named Max who is excluded from tryouts because of her race and takes a factory job in the hopes of playing for the men’s team.“Max’s storyline brings a blast of outright painful drama into the world of ‘League,’ and it’s welcome,” writes Variety‘s chief TV critic Daniel D’Addario in his review of the series. “The refusal to allow this series to play with nostalgia without engaging who was left out in a past era brings a not-unpleasant astringency to a series that makes other critiques in quieter, lighter manners.”All eight episodes of “A League of Their Own” arrive on Prime Video on Friday, Aug. 12. In order to stream the series, you’ll have to subscribe to Amazon Prime for $14.99/month or sign up for a 30-day tree trial here.

Daniel D'Addario Chief TV CriticThe aftermath of Hurricane Katrina so precisely crystallized a set of seemingly unfixable problems with this country that it’s surprising TV, in an era of re-examining recent history, is only now getting around to depicting it in fictionalized form. It’s not for lack of trying: Ryan Murphy had previously proposed multiple takes on the story, one with Annette Bening starring as Louisiana Gov.

Daniel D'Addario Chief TV CriticThere’s something that feels a bit overextended about Amazon Prime Video’s new series adaptation of “A League of Their Own,” and it isn’t just the runtimes.With episodes of this eight-part season flirting with the hour mark — meaning that there’s several times as much series as there was of the 1992 film about the all-women Rockford Peaches baseball team — this show seems at times unsure of what to say next, or where to take its story. And attempts to broaden the scope of that story can alternately present an admirable curiosity about what more can be said about the history of women in baseball and a tendency to avoid engaging history on its own terms.Here, as in the Penny Marshall-directed film, we’re in 1943 and following a group of female athletes, this time led by Carson (Abbi Jacobson, who also co-created the series with Will Graham).

Daniel D'Addario Chief TV Critic“No one else acts the way she acts,” says director Christopher Guest of his frequent collaborator Jennifer Coolidge. “I don’t mean acting as an actor.