Harry Styles‘ Together, Together Tour is getting a lot bigger, as the pop star just announced a slate of stadium dates in North America and Europe set for 2027.
The Grammy-winning artist will play 12 dates in six cities in North America next year — Phoenix, Dallas, Los Angeles, Toronto, Atlanta and Chicago. He will also play 13 dates in six European cities — Berlin, Paris, Madrid, Rome, Dublin and London. The stadium tour kicks off in Phoenix on April 2 and ends with three nights at London’s iconic Wembley Stadium in late August.
The new dates will open up Styles’ tour to a much wider swath of fans, as this year’s show dates were put on through residencies in a few markets, including his ongoing 30-show run at Madison Square Garden.
Fans had been speculating more dates in recent days as Styles’ snail mail logo had started popping up on posters around the globe, teasing the date 9.10.26. Styles sent an email to fans last night as well.
The opening acts for the new tour dates have also been revealed. Among the announced openers are Tinashe, CA7RIEL & Paco Amoroso, Kylie Minogue, Lainey Wilson, Q Marsden, The Womack Sisters, Getdown Services, Caroline Polachek, Feist, LCD Soundsystem, Baby Rose and Tears for Fears. The openers will change with each new city.
Tickes for the London, Dublin, Rome, Madrid and Paris dates go on sale on Sept. 14 at 4 p.m. CEST. Tickes for the Berlin and North America dates go on sale on Sept. 16, all at 9 a.m. local times.
HARRY STYLES: TOGETHER, TOGETHER 2027 TOUR DATES:
Fri, Apr 2 — Phoenix, AZ — State Farm Stadium, supported by Tinashe
Sat, Apr 3 — Phoenix, AZ — State Farm Stadium, supported by Tinashe
National Geographic series Africa Earth’s Wild Home has captured the elusive amphibians — and other species — on camera for television for the first time ever. As gross as frogs are, the whole thing looks gorgeous.
The Hollywood Reporter can exclusively unveil the trailer for Africa Earth’s Wild Home (below) as well as its premiere date, Oct. 2 at 8 p.m. ET (on National Geographic Channel; it will be available to stream the next day on Disney+ and Hulu).
Wunmi Mosaku (Sinners, Loki, Lovecraft Country) executive produced and narrated Africa Earth’s Wild Home.
The seven-part event series, presented by Rolex, uses “cutting-edge CGI to unearth the deep history and forces that shaped Africa’s natural worlds,” Nat Geo says. Africa Earth’s Wild Home is the beginning of the cable network’s “ambitious multi-year franchise that will document our planet continent by continent, at a moment when that planet is changing faster than ever.” The series took four years to film across nearly 30 countries.
In addition to the black rain frog, Africa Earth’s Wild Home also captured hyenas in the Congo hunting elephants at night — bet you haven’t seen that before. There’s also footage of a rare wild African black panther as well as chimpanzees using unique tools to fish for algae. The monkeys sound like they’re about a decade from beginning us.
Each episode of Africa Earth’s Wild Home concludes with an “Explorer Spotlight” featuring the scientists, photographers and National Geographic Explorers behind the discoveries — among them are Rolex National Geographic Perpetual Planet Explorers Steve Boyes, Gladys Kalema-Zikusoka, Matt Shirley and Ingi Agnarsson. (Nat Geo and Rolex have collabed on conservation for more than 70 years.) The event series’ finale switches focus from the wildlife to the humans fighting to protect it.
“Africa is home to some of the planet’s most spectacular wildlife and dramatic landscapes, and Africa Earth’s Wild Home captures them through breathtaking, blue-chip landmark natural history storytelling,” said Courteney Monroe, president, National Geographic. “Across seven extraordinary episodes, the series reveals never-before-seen behaviors, explores the forces that shaped the continent and celebrates the remarkable ways life adapts and thrives. It also shines a light on the National Geographic Explorers, scientists and conservationists whose groundbreaking work continues to deepen our understanding of Africa and help safeguard its wild future.”
Africa Earth’s Wild Home is produced by BBC Studios Natural History Unit for National Geographic. For BBC Studios NHU, Simon Blakeney is the executive producer. For National Geographic, Pam Caragol is the executive producer, Janet Han Vissering is senior vice president of Production and Development, and Tom McDonald is executive vice president of National Geographic Content.
Australia has selected James J Robinson’s feature debut First Light as its official submission for the Best International Feature Film category at the 99th Academy Awards, The Hollywood Reporter has learned exclusively.
The first-ever Filipino-Australian co-production, First Light is the first Tagalog-language film ever submitted by Australia for the Oscars.
The drama follows an elderly nun (played by Brilliante Mendoza regular Ruby Ruiz), whose life has been shaped by discipline, service and belief, who, after a young construction worker dies under suspicious circumstances, gets drawn into a world of crime and corruption. Maricel Soriano, Rez Cortez and Kidlat Tahimik co-star.
Explaining their decision, the Australian Oscar selection committee called First Light “a meditative work about an aging woman who questions her faith as her world begins to crumble around her, leaving an indelible mark.” Robinson’s feature, they said, was “an impressive debut that is a shining example of Australian filmmaking.”
First Light was produced by Gabrielle Pearson of Majella Productions and Christelle Lou Dychangco and Jane Pe Aguirre of Clou Media Productions. The film was released in cinemas in the Philippines by Clou Media Productions, and in Australian cinemas by Bonsai Films. Independent Entertainment are handling international sales.
Robinson, a photographer-turned-director, brought his feature debut to the Melbourne Film Festival last year before traveling to Marrakech and the International Film Festival Rotterdam. First Light has been critically-well received, but, lacking a platform at one of the top-tier A-list fests, the film has been largely overlooked in the awards conversation so far.
First Light is Australia’s eighteenth submission in the Best International Feature Film category. Only one Australian film, Bentley Dean and Martin Butler’s Tanna (2015) has ever been nominated for the Best International Feature Oscar. To date, no Australian film has ever won.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will announce the 15 films on the best international feature film shortlist on Dec. 15. The five nominees will be announced Jan. 21, 2027. The 99th Academy Awards ceremony will take place on March 14, 2027.
After eight seasons, the beloved British spinoff of RuPaul’s franchise-spawning competition has been dropped by the BBC, with the broadcaster citing “significant financial pressures.” In April, the BBC announced a plan to cut 1,800 staffers in a bid to save £500 million ($678m).
A representative told The Hollywood Reporter on Thursday: “As the BBC continues to navigate significant financial pressures and deliver the savings required of us, we have had to make some very difficult choices, none of which have been taken lightly.”
The series currently runs on BBC Three and iPlayer. The rep continued that future shows — and its spin-off, RuPaul’s Drag Race UK Vs The World — will instead be broadcast on Wow Presents Plus, a platform owned by Drag Race UK production company World of Wonder.
“The BBC is incredibly proud of all eleven series of this groundbreaking show and we would like to thank RuPaul, World of Wonder and everyone involved, both on and off screen,” the rep added. “We are certain that viewers will enjoy the eighth [season].”
Since 2019, Drag Race UK has catapulted some of the biggest drag queens in Britain to stratospheric stardom, launching the careers of Baga Chipz, Bimini Bon-Boulash, Tayce and The Vivienne. Tia Kofi went on to become a member of the Eurovision presenting team, La Voix featured on EastEnders and StrictlyCome Dancing, and Ginger Johnson won Celebrity MasterChef last year.
The format involves amateur and professional drag queens competing in a series of challenges to win over judges RuPaul, Michelle Visage, Graham Norton and Alan Carr, and celebrity guest judges such as Jade Thirlwall, Lucy Punch, Hannah Waddingham, Andrew Garfield, Anne-Marie, Thandiwe Newton and Cat Burns.
At its peak, per BBC News, the show averaged around 1.5 million viewers per episode. Viewers will be able to continue watching existing seasons of RuPaul’s Drag Race UK and RuPaul’s Drag Race UK Vs on BBC iPlayer.
Kimmel made the announcement during his monologue on Wednesday’s episode of his late night show.Discussing the Texas senate race, Kimmel said that he would interview Democratic candidate Talarico on Thursday “under unusual circumstances,” and then alluded to ABC’s ongoing issues with the Federal Communications Commission.
“You know, for a lot of years, for the whole 20-plus years of our show, in fact, I’ve been interviewing Americans who are running for office with no problem at all, just like Letterman did, Leno did, Arsenio, etc. etc., I’ve interviewed a lot of political candidates. From Hilary Clinton, to Ted Cruz to Donald Trump,” Kimmel said. “I interviewed Donald Trump when he was running for president in 2015, and at that time, when he was the one sitting next to me, he seemed to have no problem with the idea of talk show hosts interviewing candidates. In fact, he was very eager to come back for another interview, which he did just before he became the nominee in 2016. But for some reason, and I can’t seem to figure out what that reason is, something has changed.”
“Now that [Trump is] president, his FCC has threatened me, threatened our show, threatened our network, ABC, our affiliates [and] our local stations based on simple traditional editorial decisions, guest bookings, it would seem, [that] they don’t like,” Kimmel added, referring to ABC’s ongoing battle with the FCC and in particular with the agency’s chair Brendan Carr.
In September 2025, in the aftermath of the assasination of Charlie Kirk, Carr condemned Kimmel for comments he made during one of his monologues about Kirk’s death and the FCC chair intimated that regulatory action or license reviews for ABC affiliates could happen if Kimmel wasn’t made to apologize. After Kimmel was temporarily suspended over the matter, a firestorm engulfed ABC’s owner Disney. Kimmel became a cause celebre in Hollywood and he was eventually reinstated but that didn’t stop the FCC continuing to target ABC, Jimmy Kimmel Live! and the daytime talk show The View over claims they didn’t meet the agency’s equal time requirements. In August this year, ABC said it was suing the FCC over the agency’s efforts to challenge its broadcast licenses and the content of The View, saying that it is a free speech violation by the Trump administration.
On Wednesday, Kimmel confessed that ABC’s ongoing issues with the FCC meant that the Talarico interview would instead air online. “Out of consideration for our local stations, especially our ABC affiliates in Texas who would have to deal with this nonsense, my interview tomorrow with James Terico will not air on television. It will be posted on YouTube instead. It will not be on TV. So if you want to learn about a candidate for the Senate tomorrow, you will have to go to the Jimmy Kimmel Live! YouTube channel where you will see it in its entirety. And thank goodness we have that because in the America we live in right now, that is the best that we can do until November.”
The success of Lan Hongchun’s Dear You has brought him to Venice this year, one stop on a global festival tour where the Chinese filmmaker has been sharing the story behind his movie’s unlikely rise to a $300 million hit back home.
Lan’s small-scale but emotionally effective drama became a sensation on release earlier this year, tapping into themes of family and love that resonated in China — and are now resonating with the Chinese diaspora as the film finds a global release. Lan, who made Dear You for around $2 million, has been using his newfound platform to encourage audiences to take advantage of these favorable conditions and start creating themselves.
“I feel like we’re in an era where creators have so many more channels at their disposal,” says Lan, speaking on the sidelines of Venice. “Whether it’s the equipment they use or the platforms to showcase their work, the options are incredibly diverse. That’s why I believe it’s a time full of opportunities for everyday creators.”
Some of the latest examples of both the equipment — and the channels that are offering just that — have been front and center along the red carpet at Venice this year.
While the lion’s share of attention has obviously fallen, as usual, on the festival’s parade of stars — George Clooney and Maggie Gyllenhaal among them — Chinese smart device developers Honor has positioned two of its latest products behind the velvet ropes, hoping to turn the heads of a new generation of content creators as well as the talent.
Honor is the “official imaging strategic partner of the international promotion program for Chinese-language films” at Venice this year, with the program’s organizers inviting Lan to the festival to help make the push. But Honor is also using the occasion to unveil their Magic9 Pro Max at a film festival for the first time, showing it off alongside the company’s new Robot Phone, which generated buzz both at Cannes back in May as well as in Shanghai in June.
Developed through a creative collaboration between Honor, headquartered in the southern Chinese tech hub of Shenzhen, and the famed Munich-based camera and lens-makers Arri, both devices are designed to “push the boundaries of creation,” Honor says in a statement, while making “cinematic creation more accessible without compromising creative freedom.” Indeed, Honor calls the Robot Phone “a new species of smartphone.”
Both devices are being marketed as portable cinema cameras, and they’ve been hard to miss along the red carpet. Magic9 Pro Max’s moss-green back and Arri logo makes it look like a smaller version of one of the German brand’s famed movie cameras, and the Robot Phone delivers exactly what it promises: a mechanical robotic arm with a gimbal system that stabilizes the movement of a 200MP camera.
“The future is not simply about more pixels. It is about control. It is about empowering creators to capture beautiful images,” was the take from David Bermbach, chief product officer of Arri, in announcing the Magic9 Pro Max would feature at Venice. “Honor brings expertise in mobile imaging, powerful processing, and robotics. Arri contributes more than a century of trusted leadership in image science and professional production workflows. We come from different industries, but we share one ambition: to expand what creators can achieve with the tools they carry every day.”
Lan Hongchun’s Dear You
Damai Entertainment
For tech heads, there’s a lot here to dig into. The Magic9 Pro Max is down for an official launch in late September and Honor says the device will “further showcase Arri imaging capabilities and bring professional-grade cinematic imaging to a new generation of mobile users.” The Robot Phone comes with features that include that 4DoF gimbal, AI Object Tracking and the AI SpinShot. The claim with that robotic arm is that it “can rotate up to 180 degrees and track movements automatically for smooth, cinematic shots.”
For those less tech-savvy, the idea being pushed here is that these devices are light, portable and they produce cinema style content — “a serious tool in professional filmmaking,” according to Bermbach.
The Robot Phone’s appearance this year continues the hype being driven around the use of robotics in China. The country’s state-run media has been touting government investment in the field, with Morgan Stanley research predicting the industry will be worth $108 billion by 2028 — up from $47 billion in 2024. The technology has in the meantime been shifting away from the high-profile development of performative androids and into more everyday use in cameras and desktop computers.
There’s a similar buzz around how the country has embraced AI — an industry currently worth around $175 billion — and has likewise expanded its use into the by-now ubiquitous hand-held devices that help organize and entertain us day by day.
Honor has been introducing its devices to the public by rolling them out across a number of festivals so far in 2026. At Cannes in May, the China Night gathering was shown the Robot Phone’s features — including its robotic gimbal system, and the quality of content it can be used to produce. At the Shanghai Film Fest in June, the phone was used to make video portraits of the festival’s jury members.
“Looking back at a century of imaging, every major leap has come from the evolution of both light capture and intelligent processing,” says James Li, CEO of Honor, when talking up the Arri collaboration in a press release back in August. “Hardware sets the foundation for image quality, while algorithms deliver the leap. But technology is only the foundation, what ultimately defines great imaging is aesthetics. A century of filmmaking has shown us the power of precise control over light and shadow, a deep understanding of color and emotion, and the ability to make every frame tell a story.”
Banijay‘s Pokeepsie Films and Amazon Prime Video continue to build out the “House of Ron,” the audiovisual empire of bestselling Argentine-born Spanish YA romance author Mercedes Ron.
The film adaptations of her popular enemies-to-lovers Culpables romance trilogy (Culpa Mía, Culpa Tuya, Culpa Nuestra) became not only the most-watched Spanish, but also the most-watched international original, for the streamer ever, with a combined 100 million views worldwide as of the summer.
The company also made and previously premiered the English-language versions My Fault: London and Your Fault: London, with the third and final installment, Our Fault: London, just announced for a 2027 premiere exclusively on Prime Video. Plus, the first film adaptation for Ron’s Dímelo trilogy, Tell Me Softly (DímeloBajito), premiered on Prime Video last year. This summer, Ron signed a first-look deal with Amazon MGM Studios.
On Wednesday, Prime premiered the first of two planned films based on another one of her hit novels in more than 240 countries and territories. Drawn Together is a romantic thriller, directed by Óscar Pedraza, that stars Ester Expósito (Elite, The Wailing) and Hugo Diego Garcia (Death and Other Details, The Substance). Expósito portrays Marfil Cortés, the New York City-based scion of a rich Spanish businessman. After being kidnapped, her father hires Sebastián Moore, played by Garcia, as a bodyguard to watch her. A strong mutual attraction develops as they deal with multiple threats back in Spain. Here is a trailer for the film.
Just like the Culpables trilogy, Drawn Together is produced by Pokeepsie, founded by Spanish director Álex de la Iglesia and actress-producer Carolina Bang, who is also de la Iglesia’s wife.
In between promotional activities, Ron and Bang caught up with THR about Drawn Together, the importance of onscreen chemistry, and what else is next for the “House of Ron.”
What elements does Drawn Together have that Mercedes Ron fans will enjoy — and is there anything different that maybe we didn’t see as much in the Fault trilogy or in Tell Me Softly?
MERCEDES RON Yes, I think this story is really different from My Fault. Drawn Together was the second story that I published, and I really wanted to bring something different to the table. I think this story is more mature, more adult. It has a lot of action in it, and the story is more complex.
It was a challenge for me, and I really enjoyed that. I’m really happy that a lot of people who have read all of my books have said, “This is your best book.”
No pressure?
RON So yeah, the pressure is there, but I think it was the best book to take to screen because of all the action components, all the thriller [elements] and the darkness and everything else. And I think the movie turned out really, really, really good.
How actively do you work on the film adaptations?
RON I’m very involved in the whole process, mostly in casting and the script, where I feel I can give more input.
How do you approach casting for your films? Is it all about romantic or sexual chemistry between the lead stars like Ester and Hugo, or what are you looking for?
RON I knew that I wanted Ester in the movie to play Marfil. She was amazing. I talked to Prime Video and asked, “Can we have Ester? Can you talk to her? Maybe she could be interested in doing this movie.” She was doing completely different movies, but she said yes. So that was a huge achievement.
And then we started casting Sebastián and [picked] Hugo. He is an amazing actor; he’s good-looking, and he knows how to fight in real life. So that was something that came with him that was brilliant. And yes, there is the chemistry between the two. When we saw that, we knew straight away that he was Sebastián.
Your stories are often described as attracting younger female audiences. Do you see your novels and films as being for them or for a broader audience?
RON I write for everyone. The audience is mostly female; I think 85 percent or 90 percent. But there are a lot of men who also really enjoy these kinds of movies. The action component, especially in this film, helps.
When I do a book signing and guys come in and say that they love my books, I’m really happy. I think now everything is changing, and maybe there are a lot of guys who really want to read romance and now they feel the confidence to say, “I love romance, and I enjoy it.” So that’s really good.
Tell me a bit about your creative partnership with Álex and Carolina at Pokeepsie! How did you first connect and why do the results look like such anatural collaboration?
RON They were the first ones to be interested in buying the book rights to My Fault, which was amazing. And I found out later that Álex’s daughters were really fans of my books, so I think I owe them everything because they were the first ones to go to their dad and tell him, “You have to make this movie!”
So, I met them six years ago now. Working with them has been amazing, and they understood completely how this whole world works. And I wanted to repeat that with Drawn Together. It’s easier when you know the team and the people, so it’s been it’s been really, really good.
Carolina, do you remember how, and at what age, your daughters first mentioned her works?
CAROLINABANG We have a very big family and spend a lot of time around teenagers, so Mercedes’ books were always lying around the house. I couldn’t tell you exactly how old they were, but I remember Culpables being everywhere and everyone talking about the trilogy. One day, I got curious, read the books and immediately thought, “There’s a movie here.”
After that, I kept reading Mercedes’ books just like any other fan. The next one that really caught my attention was Drawn Together. I could see a movie in that. It had the feel of the great romantic comedies of the ’90s, but with a lot of action. It was a genre I really wanted to explore, and it reminded me of the movies I grew up watching.
What’s different in Drawn Together from Culpables?
BANG For me, Drawn Together grows up alongside the fans of Culpables. Many of those readers are women now, and we’re going on that journey with them. It still has everything they love about Mercedes’ world — the passion, the impossible love, the intensity — but the characters are at a different stage in their lives, and the story is told from a more adult perspective.
Mercedes, do you still find time to write more?
RON A few months ago, the fourth book of the Culpables “trilogy” was out. I was writing the story while I was traveling the world because I’ve been traveling nonstop with all the movies and all the promotion and everything. Right now, I’m not writing anything, but I really want to write another book, maybe for next year. I don’t know. I have a lot of ideas.
Will we maybe see a film based on that fourth book?
RON That book was kind of a gift to my readers. My life changed because of the Culpables series. So I really wanted to give something back, and my fans were asking for this book for so long. It’s been almost 10 years since I published the first one. So, there’s not a movie in the making right now, but who knows, maybe one day.
Let me return to Drawn Together for a moment. Is the second film in that duology already being shot or in the works?
RON Yes, we did them both together. I think that was better. It’s amazing that the second movie is already finished. It’s already wrapped up. So it’s just about seeing when it’s going to be released. I don’t know yet when it’s going to be released, but yes, most of my movies are already filmed.
Carolina, what was the benefit of shooting both Drawn Together films in one go for you?
BANG It made a huge difference. First of all, you have the same crew and cast throughout the entire shoot, which allows you to approach the two movies as one story told in two parts. You’re not making one film and then coming back two years later, when you’re in a completely different place and barely remembering what it felt like to shoot the first one. This way, we were able to maintain the same energy, tone and connection between the characters.
And from a production standpoint, of course, it helps enormously. You can make much better use of the crews, locations and all the resources you need to make both movies
What else is next for the “House of Ron”?
RON Actually, Tell Me With Kisses [the third film in the Tell Me series] was finished, I think, a month ago. And what’s coming next, apart from the films that are already filmed, is 30 Sunsets to Fall in Love [(30 Sunsets Para Enamorarte) from Ron’s Bali duology as the first U.S. adaptation of her work]. That’s going to happen in the U.S. So, I’m really, really excited.
I really want to keep working with Prime Video and bringing them ideas and maybe work on [material] from other authors.
Could your fans maybe even see you write a film or story directly for the screen?
RON Yeah, I would love to. There are so many good stories out there that could make amazing movies, so yeah, that’s one of the things that I would love to do.
How do you explain the popularity of Mercedes’ stories, Carolina?
BANG I think her success speaks for itself. Mercedes connects with her readers in a very direct way because she writes about feelings and concerns that really resonate with a generation.
At the same time, her stories reach across generations. Culpables hasn’t connected only with younger audiences; a lot of adults have responded to it too. That’s something I love about her books, and I think we’ve managed to bring it to the movies. They’re intense, romantic and also a lot of fun. You can watch them with your mother, your sister, your friends, or on your own.
Before I let you get back to your busy schedule, Mercedes, is there anything else you’d like to highlight?
RON Something I want to share is that Drawn Together, the book, came out three weeks ago in the English-speaking world. I’m so happy for that. So if you want to know how the book is, go check it out. And yeah, we have the movie coming out.
So, I’m excited for Drawn Together. And I am loving what I do. So, it doesn’t feel like work.
As far as bingeable YA dramas go, Crew Girl is probably good enough. Following an elite teenage rower, Teagan (Miku Martineau), who joins the varsity boys’ crew team at a new school, Vivian Lin and Morwyn Brebner’s new Netflix series hits all the expected marks — filthy-rich mean kids, intrafamily feuds, an angsty love triangle and many pretty shots of lakes — breezily enough to consume over a weekend for viewers who can’t get enough of this specificandveryprolificgenre.
But as Teagan and her ultra-competitive teammates know, “good enough” is far from the same thing as “elite.” While the show can be endearing in flashes — and while its affection for the sport shines brightly enough that you might find yourself daydreaming about taking up an oar yourself — underdeveloped characters and an under-explored world leave it short of a transporting experience.
Crew Girl
The Bottom Line
Good enough to binge, not elite enough to remember.
Airdate: Thursday, Sept. 10 (Netflix) Cast: Miku Martineau, Jessica Paré, Sam Braun, Kyle Clark, Thomas Cadrot, Jude Wilson, Connor Paton, Niall Matter, Olga Petsa Creators: Vivian Lin, Morwyn Brebner
Unlike some sports shows (even some very good ones), the series does not treat athletics as incidental, but as the very sun around which this entire verdant and sun-dappled universe revolves. The premiere shows us the inside of an Easton Prep classroom for the first and last time, and does the expository work of explaining that since this only recently coed institution has no girls’ rowing program for Teagan to join, her only way of getting on a boat is to serve as coxswain (the non-rowing member who helps steer and coordinate the team) for the boys.
How precisely this furthers Teagan’s lifelong goal of getting recruited to Stanford as a solo female rower is somewhat unclear. But it makes for an ideal excuse to treat us to many drone shots of serene fir-ringed lakes, or action shots of athletes heaving back and forth in satisfying unison — as well as to surround Teagan with eight cute, ripped, frequently shirtless fellows obligated to hang on her every word, though the two she’s primarily concerned with are Josh (Sam Braun), the stereotypical wealthy asshole whose family name hangs over the school’s boathouse, and Cam (Kyle Clark), the stereotypical working-class townie painfully aware of how little he fits in among this blue-blooded milieu.
The love triangle that inevitably forms between Teagan and the two of them is standard-issue stuff on paper and not much more interesting in execution, as the scripts struggle to express why any of these people might be attracted to each other beyond the fact that teen-drama formulas dictate it. Perhaps to compensate, Martineau plays Teagan’s attraction to both potential suitors with an overwrought sultriness that feels out of sync with how long it’ll take the character to actually be getting around to smooching one of them.
Besides, all three involved seem in agreement that whatever their hearts or hormones are pushing them toward is less important than the sport to which they’ve all dedicated so much of their lives, and upon which they’ve pinned all their hopes and dreams. If nothing else, the show’s prioritization of the athletic angle, with the close-knit team dynamics and regular bouts of competition it entails, sets it apart from so many otherwise similar YA series.
It can yield some sweet moments predicated on the idea that, as Teagan puts it, “people who wouldn’t be your people become your people” by virtue of being on the same team. I was touched by a minor storyline in which Baloo (Jude Wilson), the outgoing one, shyly asks his boat bros to help pick out a thirst trap to send to a hot dude online, and amused by another in which Noah (Off Campus’ Riley Davis), the nerdiest of the bunch, struggles to make this group of strapping jocks play along with the Roaring ’20s murder mystery he has so misguidedly organized for their post-race afterparty.
It’s in trying to build out the world outside of crew that Crew Girl stumbles. When I say everything in this series comes back to competitive rowing, I mean everything: the bitter Succession-lite infighting between Josh and his slightly less blue-blooded cousin, Ryder (Connor Paton), Cam’s family’s financial struggles, Baloo’s eventual romance with the internet guy. Even Teagan’s choice between her two would-be suitors seems to be understood by all three of them as being as much about who she considers a better athlete as who she thinks would make a better boyfriend and/or hookup buddy.
Any plot element not directly involved with crew is sidelined or outright ignored (if Teagan so much as cracks open a laptop to do some homework, I don’t remember it). This narrow focus does a disservice to intriguing subplots like that revolving around Teagan’s mother Ella (Jessica Paré), who’s forced to start rock bottom in the hometown she hates after being abandoned by her wealthy but criminal husband. Paré is quite good when she’s onscreen, serving a layer cake of forced optimism, barely concealed disappointment and proud determination, and she conjures a believably loving chemistry with Martineau. But her growing confidence as a single working mom plays out in broad, irregular beats with little room for nuance.
Teagan is granted exactly one non-crew friend — an artsy classmate named Juliet (Olga Petsa), who makes a literally fiery first impression by setting fire to her own car in the premiere as a cry for attention from her emotionally distant parents, and then disappears for such long stretches that it’s a surprise when the show occasionally reminds you they’re besties. Especially since otherwise, Crew Girl positions Teagan as the somewhat tiresome cliché of the cool girl who can hang — in sharp opposition to girly girls like Josh’s sweetheart Britney (Sage Linder), who is portrayed as unreasonably jealous, ruthlessly ambitious and one-dimensionally unpleasant.
It’s a fantasy, I guess, to be the girl who gets to be one of the boys and the subject of all their adoration at the same time. I’m not even sure if it’s the one Crew Girl means to advance, or if it’s simply too thinly written to support characters and relationships more complex than the familiar tropes they’re built on. Either way, Crew Girl goes over about as smoothly as a shell slicing through a silver lake on a breezeless morning. It also leaves behind about as many lasting ripples.
Martin Herlihy has decided to exit Saturday Night Live after five seasons, a person with knowledge of the situation told The Hollywood Reporter.
Herlihy, who primarily served as a writer on the show, is one-third of comedy group Please Don’t Destroy and the son of SNL legend Tim Herlihy. Martin Herlihy follows fellow Please Don’t Destroy nepo-comic John Higgins, the son of Steve Higgins, out the Studio 8H door — albeit one year (and one week) later. Steve Higgins has been an SNL producer since the mid-1990s; he’s also Jimmy Fallon’s Tonight Show announcer. The other member of Please Don’t Destroy, Ben Marshall, was upped to SNL‘s main cast last year. To this point, Marshall is considered the standout of the bunch — it probably doesn’t hurt to be 6’5″ with red hair.
Please Don’t Destroy will continue on as a comedy trio. Though the Saturday Night Live sketches ended with Higgins’ exit, the guys toured a live stage show last year.
Martin Herlihy has been getting a good number of acting roles, beyond just playing exaggerated versions of himself (like in the Please Don’t Destroy shorts). He recently starred opposite Glen Powell in the Running Man remake, had roles in Roommates and The Breadwinner, and acted in dad’s Happy Gilmore 2. Tim Herlihy and Adam Sandler have been working together since their old SNL days.
Please Don’t Destroy effectively took over the SNL Digital Shorts scene following the departure of another trio, The Lonely Island: Andy Samberg, Jorma Taccone and Akiva Schaffer. They carried the torch quite well, and even got a movie out of their newfound exposure: 2023’s Please Don’t Destroy: The Treasure of Foggy Mountain. Please Don’t Destroy first formed in 2017 at NYU.
Some of the standout Please Don’t Destroy sketches that made NBC’s airwaves include “Roast” starring Dakota Johnson, “Mean Cute” with Charli xcx and “Three Sad Virgins,” which featured Taylor Swift.
Herlihy’s exit from the series follows the high-profile departure of Chloe Fineman in July. Season 52 of Saturday Night Live premieres on Sept. 26; the host and musical guest have yet to be announced.
The Professional Women’s Hockey League is expanding its TV presence in the United States.
Scripps Sports and the PWHL on Wednesday announced a media rights deal for the 2026-27 season — the first season-long deal in the brief history of the league, which began play in 2024. The agreement will bring a PWHL Game of the Week to Scripps’ Ion network on Saturday nights. Ion will also continue to broadcast the Walter Cup Finals series and add another playoff series to its slate.
Scripps Sports Network, the company’s FAST channel for sports, will also show two PWHL games per week. The league’s YouTube channel and website will also continue streaming every game.
“A season-long national television presence in the U.S. is something we’ve been working toward and represents a significant step in our continued growth as a league,” said Amy Scheer executive vp business pperations for the PWHL. “Scripps continues to be a committed partner in shining a spotlight on women’s sports, and for the first time, our American fans will have the opportunity to follow the league on national television throughout an entire season, making the PWHL more accessible than ever before.”
The PWHL deal is a further investment for Scripps and Ion into women’s sports. The network also carries WNBA and NWSL games and will air events for the soon-to-launch Women’s Team Golf League. As part of the PWHL deal, Scripps affiliates in Detroit (WMYD) and Las Vegas (KMCC) will become the local broadcast partners for expansion teams in those cities as the league grows to 12 teams.
“Women’s sports is a cornerstone of our mission to create meaningful connections between communities and the sports and teams they love,” said Brian Lawlor, president of Scripps Sports. “This partnership further demonstrates Ion as the premier destination for women’s sports, where athletes can showcase their talents on the biggest stage and fans can discover their next favorite team.”
