As of this writing, the third film in director Denis Villeneuve’s “Dune” series has yet to receive an official greenlight. (The project technically remains in development.) Nonetheless, parent company Warner Bros. Discovery and producer Legendary Television have already begun the work of converting the movies’ billion-plus dollars in combined box office into a multimedia franchise; […]

Taylor Sheridan became one of TV’s most powerful creators with an epic saga set on a ranch, but his latest protagonist has little patience for agrarian fantasy. The landowner giving Tommy Norris (Billy Bob Thornton) a lecture isn’t really a rancher, the professional fixer argues: “You’re an oilman who spends the money we give you […]

The 30-year conflict known as the Troubles is frequently cited as a useful, and potentially hopeful, analogy to the entrenched hostilities in Israel-Palestine. That makes the FX limited series “Say Nothing,” a scripted adaptation of journalist Patrick Radden Keefe’s nonfiction account published in 2018, queasily well-timed. More than a year into the latest war in […]

There’s only a single flash-forward in Season 2 of “Bad Sisters,” and it’s the very first scene. Four of the five Garvey sisters — eldest Eva (Sharon Horgan), nurse Ursula (Eva Birthistle), one-eyed Bibi (Sarah Greene) and baby Becka (Eve Hewson) — are in a car, attempting to dispose of a dead body. Becka’s face is swollen […]

The sitcom writer Justin Spitzer had his first script credit on “Scrubs,” the archetypal workplace comedy set in a hospital. Twenty years later, Spitzer returns to the genre with NBC’s “St. Denis Medical,” co-created with Eric Ledgin (“Rutherford Falls”). In between, Spitzer has developed a trademark approach that translates seamlessly to health care. A graduate […]

For his first “Weekend Update” segment following Donald Trump’s victory on Tuesday, co-anchor Michael Che appeared to raid his liquor cabinet. “How did I let y’all convince me that rural Pennsylvania would pick the Jamaican Indian lady?” Che lamented before reaching under his desk for a glass of brown liquid. “Clearly, I’ve been spending too […]