TELEVISION

In SQUID GAME, 47-year-old Gi-hun lives with his mother and sometimes works as a chauffeur. After stealing his mother's debit card, withdrawing her savings, and taking it to a gambling den, he's hunted down by debt collectors who threaten to take his kidney and his eye if he doesn't come up with the money he owes within a month. His 10-year-old daughter is living with a wealthy stepfather, who may be moving far away, and things look pretty bleak. Every product/service is selected by editors. Products/Services you buy through these links may earn "Alliance Media Group and "The IRL News" a commission or revenue.

‘Homicide: Life on the Streets’ laid the groundwork for Peak TV – and it’s finally available to stream for new and old fans of the series. When “Homicide: Life on the Streets” premiered on NBC in 1993, most network television police dramas were formulaic, cleanly shot and had clear delineations between good and evil. “Homicide” was different. It featured cops, but you couldn’t always tell whether they were the good guys or the bad guys; its writers played with traditional episode formats; and its scenes were shot on location with handheld cameras in order to give the show a realistic feel. While TV buffs have long championed the series as a classic, few viewers during the show’s original run seemed to notice or care. “Homicide” suffered from low ratings, interference from the network ...

"Ruthless" An American Drama Series Created, Produced, Written, And Directed By Tyler Perry. The series is produced under Perry's overall deal with Viacom/CBS. It is a spin-off from the BET drama The Oval. The first season of 24-episodes premiered on March 19, 2020, on BET+. Starting on February 23, 2021, the show began airing on BET following new episodes of The Oval. Season 2 premiered on March 11, 2021. Season 3 premiered on March 10, 2022. Season 4 premiered on April 20, 2023. On April 2024 the show was renewed for a fifth season, which premiered on August 8, 2024. Plot In a backdoor pilot during the first three episodes of The Oval, Ruth Truesdale (Melissa L. Williams) kidnaps her daughter Callie to join her and the sex-crazed members of the Rakudushis cult. Ruth is a devoted...

When the disappearance of a young girl grips the city of Baltimore in 1966, the lives of two women converge on a fatal collision course.  Starring Natalie Portman, Moses Ingram, Y'Ian Noel. See The Full Season One! WATCH NOW! Every product/service is selected by editors. Things you buy through these links may earn "Alliance Media Group and "The IRL News" a commission or revenue.  

‘House of the Dragon’ was inspired by the chaos of the Middle Ages, a world without law and order. Students in my medieval history courses often wonder whether historical reality can be gleaned from medieval cinematic fantasy. I tell them that fantasy does not aspire to historical verisimilitude. But it can reflect medieval conflicts, values and norms. The first season of HBO’s “House of the Dragon” exemplified this. Its narrative, as noted by co-creator George R. R. Martin, drew inspiration from England’s Anarchy, a 12th-century civil war sparked by King Henry I’s effort to make his daughter, the Empress Matilda, a ruling queen. King Viserys of Martin’s fictional Westeros does the same with his daughter Rhaenyra. This fantasy evoked the vagaries of hereditary succession and the misog...

Bridgerton: in a show full of sex, many of the characters know little about it – the real ladies of the ton weren’t so ignorant. Even if you’ve not watched the show, you’re likely to know that Bridgerton is filled with steamy scenes of lords and ladies, dukes and duchesses locked in passionate embraces. The third season, set in 1815, is as sexy as ever … for some. One of this season’s major side plots is the Featherington family’s need for a male heir. With both Prudence (Bessie Carter) and Philippa (Harriet Cains) now married, Lady Featherington (Polly Walker) is desperate for one of her daughters to produce an heir and inherit the family estate. And time is of the essence. With questions arising over the authenticity of the inheritance document, the girls need to get to work before...

James Clavell’s ‘Shōgun’ is reimagined for a new generation of TV viewers In 1980, when James Clavell’s blockbuster historical novel Shōgun was turned into a TV miniseries, some 33% of American households with a television tuned in. It quickly became one of the most viewed miniseries to date, second only to Roots. I’m a historian of Japan who specializes in the history of the Tokugawa, or early modern era – a period from 1603 to 1868, during which the bulk of the action in Shōgun takes place. As a first-year graduate student, I sat glued to the television for five nights in September 1980, enthralled that someone cared enough to create a series about the period in Japan’s past that had captured my imagination. I wasn’t alone. In 1982, historian Henry D. Smith estimated that one-fift...

Making the moral of the story stick − a media psychologist explains the research behind ‘Sesame Street,’ ‘Arthur’ and other children’s TV. To adult viewers, educational media content for children, such as “Sesame Street” or “Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood,” may seem rather simplistic. The pacing is slow, key themes are often repeated and the visual aspects tend to be plain. However, many people might be surprised to learn about the sheer amount of research that goes into the design choices many contemporary programs use. For more than a decade, I have studied just that: how to design media to support children’s learning, particularly in moral development. My research, along with the work of many others, shows that children can learn important developmental and social skills through media. ...

From the comedic mind of Tina Fey comes a new twist on the modern classic. MEAN GIRLS New student Cady Heron (Angourie Rice) is welcomed into the top of the social food chain by the elite group of popular girls called “The Plastics,” ruled by the conniving queen bee Regina George (Reneé Rapp) and her minions Gretchen (Bebe Wood) and Karen (Avantika). However, when Cady makes the major misstep of falling for Regina’s ex-boyfriend Aaron Samuels (Christopher Briney), she finds herself prey in Regina’s crosshairs. As Cady sets to take down the group’s apex predator with the help of her outcast friends Janis (Auli’i Cravalho) and Damian (Jaquel Spivey), she must learn how to stay true to herself while navigating the most cutthroat jungle of all: high school.