Open Thread

Deadline Hollywood reports: Conan O’Brien’s departure from late-night linear television after 28 years is shining a spotlight on the sustainability of the nightly format outside of the broadcast networks. O’Brien, who will end his TBS show in June 2021, is heading to HBO Max for a weekly variety show. It comes after a storied career hosting NBC’s Late Night, between …

Playbill reports: Mean Girls Tony nominee Tina Fey will host One Night Only: The Best of Broadway, which will air December 10 at 8 PM ET on NBC. Celebrating the resilient Broadway community, the two-hour special will benefit Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS. Cast members from several Broadway productions—including Ain’t Too Proud–The Life and Times of The Temptations, Chicago, Jagged Little …

Deadline Hollywood reports: Name That Tune is returning to screens with Jane Krakowski hosting a rebooted series for Fox. Former American Idol judge Randy Jackson is set as band leader for the show, which will premiere on January 6 after The Masked Singer. It comes from Fox Alternative Entertainment, Prestige Entertainment, which owns the rights to the show, and Holey …

Courtesy of our friends at Mighty Real, tonight we have a giveaway of ten physical copies of Kylie Minogue’s new release, DISCO, which is out today. Kylie’s new studio album ‘DISCO’ is out now via BMG. ‘DISCO’ is the fifteenth studio album from the pop icon, and the first new music since her Number One album ‘Golden’, released in 2018. It features lead single ‘Say Something’, …

Variety reports: The Kazakh American Association is requesting the Academy Awards, Golden Globe Awards, Directors Guild of America Awards and the British Academy of Film and Television Arts Awards bar Sacha Baron Cohen’s “Borat Subsequent Moviefilm” from awards consideration for what it deems racist portrayal of Kazakhs. The petition follows a request to cancel the release of the Amazon Prime …

Variety reports: HBO Max has released the first trailer for Meryl Streep and Steven Soderbergh’s highly anticipated film “Let Them All Talk.” The comedy follows a renowned author, Alice Hughes (Streep), who embarks on a journey with old friends in the hopes of healing old wounds. Her nephew also comes along to accompany the ladies, until he finds himself involved …

Playbill reports: The Broadway casts of The Lion King and Aladdin as well as the North American touring company of Frozen will join forces for the upcoming ABC special The Disney Holiday Singalong. The Disney cast members will reunite at Broadway’s New Amsterdam Theatre (home of Disney’s Aladdin), which has remained dark since the coronavirus shutdown, to sing the Frozen …

Variety reports: Patient viewers of Netflix’s royal drama “The Crown” are in for a serious pay-off with season 4, which introduces Princess Diana for the first time and delights in the painful tension between the Queen and then-Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. “Up until [this] point, we had been in deep history. But I do think this is the first of …

People Magazine reports: Dolly Parton is redefining what it means to age. The country music icon, who turns 75 in January, joins Oprah Winfrey for an all-new episode of Apple TV+’s The Oprah Conversation airing Friday — and PEOPLE has an exclusive first look! “As you reach each milestone age, I want to know what impact, if any, does the …

Variety reports: Jeffrey Toobin has been fired by The New Yorker following an investigation into last month’s incident in which he exposed himself on a work Zoom call. On Oct. 19, it was revealed that The New Yorker had suspended Toobin after he exposed himself on a Zoom call with New Yorker staffers and the radio station WNYC. According to …

Variety reports: As news of the passing of beloved “Jeopardy!” game-show host Alex Trebek continues to ripple through the entertainment industry and trivia community alike, many are wondering: After nearly four decades at the helm, who could possibly replace Alex Trebek? For one out of two of the respondents to a 2019 Morning Consult poll, that answer is: no one. …

Playbill reports: In honor of the late Jeopardy! host Alex Trebek, who passed away on November 8 after a battle with pancreatic cancer, Playbill is looking back at some of the Broadway categories showcased on the beloved game show. From Hamilton and Wicked to the Tony Awards, here are nine of the best Broadway categorizes on Jeopardy!

The Hollywood Reporter reports: Norm Crosby, the stand-up comedian who spent more than five decades amusing and bemusing audiences in nightclubs and on television as the “Master of the Malaprop,” has died. He was 93. Crosby died Saturday of heart failure at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles. The likable Boston native also appeared as a regular on …

Variety reports: The latest episode of “Star Trek: Discovery” includes a storyline that viewers have almost certainly never seen before on a major television series: A romance between a non-binary character, a human named Adira, and trans character, a Trill named Gray. What’s more, Adira and Gray are played respectively by the non-binary actor Blu del Barrio and the trans …

Variety reports: Johnny Depp will no longer portray the dark wizard Gellert Grindelwald in the “Fantastic Beasts” film franchise, the actor announced Friday. “I wish to let you know that I have been asked to resign by Warner Bros. from my role as Grindelwald in ‘Fantastic Beasts’ and I have respected and agreed to that request,” he wrote Friday on …

Variety reports: Christmas is now underway on radio across the country, as stations flip to all-holiday formats a bit earlier than usual. In some smaller markets, such as WWIZ in Youngstown, Pa., the move to wall-to-wall seasonal tunes happened as early as late September. But this week, major stations in key cities such as Los Angeles’ KOST also flipped the …

Playbill reports: Paul Harvey, an 80-year-old former music teacher and composer living with dementia, has captured the heart of England after a video of Harvey improvising a sweeping, romantic piece of music at the piano posted by son Nick went viral. Following a radio broadcast of the tune—titled “Four Notes”—on BBC Radio 4, BBC Philharmonic Orchestra’s Daniel Whibley gave it …

Playbill reports: Hamilton Tony winner Leslie Odom Jr. has partnered with bipartisan election advocacy organization RepresentUs to release a new music video performance of Hamilton’s “Wait For It,” encouraging citizens to believe in the efficacy of elections and to wait for their officiated results. The video is released on Election Day 2020 in an election cycle that has been marked …

The New York Times reports: The first polls will close at 6 p.m. Eastern time in parts of Indiana and Kentucky. Then there will be a steady stream of poll closings, every hour and sometimes every 30 minutes, until the last polls in Alaska shut down at 1 a.m. Eastern time. In a normal year, results would start flowing in …

Deadline Hollywood reports: Presidential candidate Kanye West isn’t evidently pinning too many hopes on winning the election after setting an appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live! The rapper will feature on the ABC late-night show on Wednesday November 4. West has qualified for ballot access in 12 states but his run hasn’t been particularly smooth as he lost appeals in five …