This article is part of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/introducing-upstream-a-lifestyle-and-culture-section-of-the-daily-wire" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Upstream,</a> The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you.
***
Laura Ingalls Wilder fans, myself included, have awaited Netflix’s new version of her iconic &#8220;Little House on the Prairie&#8221; story with both trepidation and tempered excitement. When the show airs on July 9, will it be a close adaptation to the novel? Will it incorporate more of the history of the real Ingalls family? Will it resemble the 50-year-old series directed by and starring Michael Landon? 
As a scholar of both Laura Ingalls Wilder and her daughter Rose Wilder Lane, I’ve placed my cautious hopes on fidelity to the books with inclusions of details from real life that Wilder chose to leave out of her novels. Netflix’s teaser for its new version of “Little House on the Prairie,” released Monday, provides enough tantalizing scenes to make both fans of the books and fans of the original series wonder about the show’s direction and overall vision. It’s an intriguing bite, promising some fidelity to the novel but also completely new story lines. Despite my personal preference for faithful book adaptations, I’m willing to give it a chance.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Here is your first official look at Little House on the Prairie.
Meet the Ingalls family as they discover what “home” really means. Little House on the Prairie, based on the beloved books, premieres July 9, only on Netflix. <a href="https://t.co/epUjaJL3RG">pic.twitter.com/epUjaJL3RG</a>
— Netflix (@netflix) <a href="https://twitter.com/netflix/status/2043705772215865730?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 13, 2026</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Appropriately enough, Laura’s voiceover begins with the same phrase that opens &#8220;Little House in the Big Woods,&#8221; the first novel in the autobiographical fiction Little House series, written by Laura Ingalls Wilder in 1932: &#8220;Once upon a time&#8230;&#8221; Beginning the novel and now the new series with these words evokes a fairy tale quality, which the video sequence and the music behind the words support. So far, so good. Laura’s voiceover offers a preview of the new series that is an apt summary of the book:
<blockquote>Once upon a time, Ma and Pa and Mary and Laura left the Big Woods of Wisconsin and moved to the prairie, where a new life was waiting for them. Every day and every night was an adventure. And even though they were all alone, and very small against the sky and the stars, they were happy because they were a family – and they were together.</blockquote>
The video sequence depicts the Ingalls family leaving the Big Woods by wagon, majestic scenes of a prairie with a river cutting through it, and a town teeming with people where the Ingalls girls, wearing straw hats, step out of their covered wagon and into the dusty streets. Laura exchanges glances with another child, perhaps meant to be from the Osage tribe, and Mary shares a longing look with a teenaged boy. Other scenes feature Laura and Pa running through a cornfield, Pa and Ma rolling a log, probably to build their cabin, and Pa joyfully swinging Ma around inside the completed “little house.” The emotional roller coaster continues as Pa looks at a distraught Ma with tears in his eyes and the girls giggle while wearing flower crowns. The final scenes show the Ingalls family around a campfire against the backdrop of an enormous Kansas sky filled with stars while Pa plays his fiddle. All in all, more positives than negatives.
The teaser is a complete package, introducing the characters, the story background, the location, and important themes of adventure, isolation (despite the town scene), family togetherness, and love. The music is fast-paced and vaguely 19th-century in tone, while the scenes form a rapid montage of both iconic and tantalizing images proclaiming that this version of “Little House on the Prairie” is something altogether new, neither a “by the book” rendition nor a reboot of the classic series that premiered in 1974 and lasted for 12 years.
Predictably, fans of both the books and the classic series have raised calls of alarm over the Netflix trailer and details that have leaked out. On the “Little House on the Prairie” Facebook group page, members declare their undying loyalty to the original series, expressing doubt that departing from Michael Landon’s story lines will benefit the new show. 
Some posts declare it scandalous that the Olesons don’t appear to be part of the Netflix series. Never mind that the Oleson family is not introduced in the &#8220;Little House on the Prairie&#8221; novel, only in the following book, &#8220;On the Banks of Plum Creek,&#8221; where they own the town mercantile. A “Little House” show without Harriet, Nels, Nellie, and Willie is beyond imagination for Landon “Little House” loyalists, as is a town that is not Walnut Grove, Minnesota. But the original television series sowed the seeds of its fans&#8217; confusion regarding the location and storyline of the Netflix version of “Little House on the Prairie.” It used the title Wilder employed for her book about the Ingalls’ pioneer days in Kansas, but centered the story on Wilder’s book about the family’s years along Plum Creek in southwest Minnesota, near the town of Walnut Grove.
Laura fans (many of whom happily call themselves “bonnetheads”) are hoping for a rendition of the story that runs much closer to the Little House books or the real lives of the Ingalls family than that offered by Michael Landon. However, the Netflix trailer appears to reveal a different intent. There are some bothersome inconsistencies with the novel. Netflix Mary’s hair is definitely not blonde. The girls should be wearing cloth bonnets, not straw hats. Their ages are all wrong, and where is Baby Carrie?
Both sets of Laura fans have missed the pivotal moment in cultural literacy that the Netflix series represents.  The “Little House” story and characters have become so iconic since their first appearance in 1932 that the details of how the story is told can be changed without altering the characterization, the overarching story, and, most importantly, its themes or lessons. 
The themes of all three “Little House on the Prairie” versions are the same: simple, family-focused pleasures and adventures in a new land of opportunity that will require hard work and perseverance from its new residents. In a speech to the Detroit Book Fair in 1937, Laura Ingalls Wilder explained her motivation for writing the Little House series. “I wanted the children now to understand more about the beginning of things, to know what is behind the things they see — what it is that made America as they know it.”
Based on the just-released teaser, Netflix’s version of “Little House on the Prairie” seems poised to tell Wilder’s story, though the strands it weaves together might not be the same ones used by Michael Landon in the original television series or by Wilder herself. Even for a purist like myself, Netflix’s new way of telling an old story might be just right.
***
Dedra McDonald Birzer is director and editor-in-chief at the South Dakota Historical Society Press and a lecturer in history at Hillsdale College. She serves on the executive boards of the Laura Ingalls Wilder Pageant Society and the Middle West Review. She is currently writing an intellectual biography of Rose Wilder Lane.

Little House on the Prairie

A Beloved Pioneer Story Returns, But Early Clues Suggest A Different Direction

Books

Upstream

This article is part of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/introducing-upstream-a-lifestyle-and-culture-section-of-the-daily-wire" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Upstream,</a> The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you.
***
The buzzy new Apple TV series “Margo’s Got Money Troubles” didn&#8217;t seem poised to be appreciated by conservatives. The show’s premise of a single mom making money on OnlyFans felt icky, leading me to tune in out of morbid curiosity more than expecting any kind of solid entertainment. The near-perfect Rotten Tomatoes score from critics did nothing to alter my preconceived notions; if anything, it made me even more skeptical. We all know how mainstream media critics think.
So imagine my surprise when I found myself not only rooting for Margo (played brilliantly by Oscar and Emmy nominee Elle Fanning), but also agreeing with her on major social issues such as abortion and the transformative power of motherhood. I kept thinking, “Wait, this is Apple TV?”
The series follows a first-year college student who becomes pregnant after having an affair with her married professor. I knew based on the show’s synopsis that she would not choose abortion, but what I could not anticipate was how little she even considered it.
The cheating professor immediately offers to “support” Margo after she informs him about the pregnancy, hurrying to suggest that she go to Planned Parenthood, not “some cheap clinic.” Margo looks on in confusion, then accuses him: “Sounds like you’ve made my decision.” 
The awkward professor quickly backtracks with platitudes about it being her body and her choice while still making it clear what his preference is. 
“Terminating a life, that’s something to think about,” Margo tells the professor. 
In the same episode, Margo gets an ultrasound and hears her baby’s heartbeat as tears run down her face. She gazes in wonder at the printed ultrasound photo.
Margo’s mother, Shyanne (Michelle Pfeiffer), is similarly unhappy about Margo’s decision to have the baby, despite also being a single mother after having a one-night stand. “You kept me,” Margo points out, to which her mom really has no good response.
When Shyanne asks if Margo loves the professor, she says she doesn’t. But she also decides, “For whatever reason, I want this baby. I want it more than I’ve ever wanted anything.”
Predictably, Margo gets pushback from her roommates, with the most vocal among them haughtily complaining that Margo was “supposedly a feminist” and asking “what message is she sending?” by keeping the baby. That same roommate turns out to be a villain later on when she abruptly moves out, leaving Margo with a heavier burden of rent. 
Margo debates internally but decides pretty quickly that she’s going through with the pregnancy despite having zero support from her mother, her friends, or the child’s father. And yet, she is undoubtedly the protagonist of this story and arguably the most sane among them.
Only three episodes out of eight have been released so far, and the series has only begun dabbling in the OnlyFans territory, which is broached after Margo loses her job due to not having reliable childcare. There’s still a chance this show could go off the rails and become a subtle advertisement for online prostitution in the face of financial hardship. 
But even if it does, “Margo’s Got Money Troubles” has done something that few modern shows have attempted in a long time. Instead of glorifying abortion and careerism, it’s showing a young woman who chose motherhood even when her entire support network told her it would ruin her life.
The series depicts the messy, uncomfortable side of single parenthood; Margo’s son Bodhi is colicky and constantly crying, he won’t latch, and she’s forced to drop out of school after he’s born. For some reason, she’s dropping $200-plus on diapers every week. 
But despite all this, the young mother still looks at her son lovingly and calls him “beautiful.” Throughout the first three episodes, she never once questions if she made the right choice when she decided not to end his life in the womb.
It’s refreshing to see this perspective coming out of Hollywood. Maybe the world really is healing after all.

Margos_Got_Money_Troubles_Photo_010201

Series Goes Off Script When A Professor Suggests Abortion

Abortion

Culture

Motherhood

This article is part of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/introducing-upstream-a-lifestyle-and-culture-section-of-the-daily-wire" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Upstream,</a> The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you.
***
In the golden age of early 2000s sitcoms, &#8220;Malcolm in the Middle&#8221; stood out like a middle finger in polite society. It was because of its messy, working-class, irreverent humor that it did so well with audiences.
Hal and Lois, the show’s chaotic married couple, were not enlightened parents dispensing wisdom to their well-behaved children. They were exhausted, flawed people barely clinging on in a house of four feral boys: Malcolm, Reese, Dewey, and Francis.
The show didn’t take itself too seriously. It mocked political correctness, it questioned both politeness and authority. It showed that actions do, in fact, have consequences. And, importantly, it bucked the idea that anyone — child, adult, or otherwise — deserved kid-glove treatment.
Everyone and everything was fair game. In &#8220;Malcolm in the Middle,&#8221; there were no sacred cows.
And yet, watching Hulu’s 2026 &#8220;Malcolm in the Middle&#8221; reboot, you’d <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/malcolm-in-the-middle-reboot-hit-with-backlash-over-woke-changes">never know</a> this was once the case. Unfortunately, like other failed Disney shows that have come before, the new &#8220;Malcolm in the Middle&#8221; is a Trojan horse for contemporary progressive ideology.
In the first episode of the four-episode revival, it managed to shoehorn in both gay and transgender characters. The most notable being Malcolm’s youngest sister, Kelly, a sullen teenager who happens to be “non-binary” and uses “they/them” pronouns.
Kelly’s inclusion was inspired by the show’s creator and his wife’s own family, where they proudly claim to have “three queer kids,” believing this is a feature of a normal American family. They couldn’t be more wrong, of course.
But, the tragedy of this development is twofold. First, Kelly is not a character. She is evidently a vehicle used by the writers to virtue signal and lecture audiences. But, more importantly, in the original series, Lois continually fantasized about having a daughter after having (eventually) five sons.
Turning the long-awaited daughter into a pronoun lesson truly flattens her existence into propaganda. And there is something truly grotesque about taking a main character’s greatest wish and turning it into a malformed 2026 talking point.
One whole episode in the OG show is dedicated to Lois imagining her life with girls instead of her unruly boys. In the end, she realizes she loves her sons, and girls would just be a different flavor of chaos. But, her desire persists. 
And it is this dynamic that makes Lois’s final pregnancy in the 2006 finale of the show so exciting. It is her last chance to have a girl. And as viewers, we are left to ponder how this pregnancy turned out — if Lois was gifted yet another little boy or if she was finally given her dream of a little girl.
Well, we get that answer in the reboot. And it comes in the form of teenage Kelly, who inevitably delivers a sombre speech during the reboot’s final episode, where she describes feeling “wrong” since she was a child. In a bizarre turn of events, the response from her family is more or less one of acceptance. This simply isn’t &#8220;Malcolm in the Middle.&#8221;
The non-binary sibling isn&#8217;t comic relief or a catalyst for family dysfunction like it would have been in the original show. This character is simply a vehicle for representation, complete with Hal awkwardly practicing pronouns and the family acknowledging the revelation with solemn nods.
Lois, the same woman who once quite literally wrestled her sons into submission, apparently accepts &#8220;they/them&#8221; pronouns, rather than dragging her child back to reality? Where&#8217;s the screaming? The grounding? The classic Lois line that cuts through the bull?
The original &#8220;Malcolm in the Middle&#8221; thrived on mockery. It took shots at everything: the education system, corporate drones, life in middle America, even its own characters&#8217; flaws. People retroactively view the show as progressive because it wasn’t &#8220;homophobic,&#8221; but it never treated sexuality or identity as sacred ground either.
It constantly poked fun at both ends of the spectrum, mocking pretension wherever it appeared, like Malcolm’s intellectual superiority and posturing, while simultaneously poking fun at dysfunction, such as Hal’s midlife crises or Lois’s ego.
It would have absolutely taken great delight in poking fun at an absurd social contagion such as “non-binary” identity.
&#8220;Malcolm in the Middle&#8221; wasn’t really a show for learning a tidy lesson because real life in that household was too chaotic and messy for after-school preaching.
And all of this is one of the biggest reasons why Disney’s reboot factory leaves so much to be desired. Frankensteining a franchise is a tenet of modern media. But in reanimating the corpses of beloved 2000s intellectual property always results in the same disappointing, lifeless snoozefest, complete with 2026 moralizing.
These corpses could never compete with the originals because they fundamentally lack the ability to laugh at themselves that marked so much of early 2000s entertainment. Today, instead of telling realistic stories, shows must tick boxes when it comes to diversity, sexuality, and representation.
***
Sydney Watson (<a href="https://x.com/SydneyLWatson">@SydneyLWatson</a>) is a YouTuber and political commentator.

malcolm-in-the-middle-revival copy

Disney Turns Beloved Sitcom Into A Lecture Nobody Asked For

Disney

This article is part of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/introducing-upstream-a-lifestyle-and-culture-section-of-the-daily-wire" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Upstream,</a> The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you.
***
We have four kids, and sometimes when my husband and I are making dinner, the homework is done, and the siblings aren’t playing well together, we need TV time to hold their attention for a bit. The shows we choose are important — not just because we care about the messages our children are seeing and receiving, but because we care about their ability to be able to sit and engage in “longer-form” entertainment.
Research backs this up. “Children who watched the fast-paced television cartoon performed significantly worse on the executive function tasks than children in the other 2 groups when controlling for child attention, age, and television exposure,” a <a href="https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9923845/#:~:text=RESULTS:,impair%20young%20children's%20executive%20function.">study</a> from 2011 found. Even nine minutes of exposure damaged the executive functions (emotion, behavior, and thought processing to achieve goals) of four-year-olds.
Our toddler has a speech delay and has an incredible therapist who works with him during sessions in our home. Speech pathologists have told me since he started his therapy over a year ago that, among kids&#8217; shows, &#8220;Cocomelon&#8221; is the worst, and &#8220;Bluey&#8221; is the best. I agree. The frame rates of the shows matter, and &#8220;Cocomelon&#8221; is literally <a href="https://www.parents.com/news/some-think-cocomelon-is-too-stimulating-for-their-kids-we-asked-an-expert-to-weigh-insome-think-cocomelon-is-too-stimulating-for-their-kids-we-asked-an-expert-to-weigh-in/">created</a> to keep a toddler staring as it hops from frame to frame. There’s no beginning, middle, or end. It’s non-stop music, colors, and people. Compare this to &#8220;Bluey,&#8221; which develops story and characters for young viewers to root for and get to know.
&#8220;Cocomelon&#8221; is all music-based, which many parents might think is innocent enough because we have been told that music for kids is great. But, as the nursery songs are being sung by the main characters, there are often rapid and disjointed scene changes.
&#8220;Bluey,&#8221; on the other hand, has a cohesive flow and plot lines featuring recurring characters such as Bluey’s sister, Bingo; a mom and a dad; and other extended family. The episodes of Bluey also have names that correlate with the plots of the 7- to 9-minute stories. &#8220;Cocomelon&#8221; is nonstop for over an hour per episode.  
One director of a speech center for kids and adults told me, “Cocomelon is too fast-paced and does not allow the child to engage. They’re just blank staring at a screen.” She added that the show requires no patience, contains no storyline, and builds no anticipation. Therefore, there&#8217;s no reward. 
A writer at the Atlantic recently raised the alarm about film students who can no longer sit through a feature film. College <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/01/college-students-movies-attention-span/685812/">students</a> are now being assigned only clips and scenes from major motion pictures that professors deem influential. We can blame the smaller screens; professors often saw students looking at their phones in pivotal scenes of classic films. How is the next generation going to create art if they can’t sit through a two-hour movie with classmates?
The piece also noted that students prefer to stream movies in their dorms instead of attending a screening in a group. But watching television as a group is vital. Watching &#8220;Bluey&#8221; as a family, we get to see everyone’s reactions to it. Our toddler’s reaction to &#8220;Home Alone&#8221; over Christmas brought us all joy. A toddler laughing at certain spots of slapstick comedy during a film, the rest of us know scene by scene, is so cute; it gave us a glimpse into his awareness and personality. Seeing something through children&#8217;s eyes is amazing. I can guarantee you our family would not be sitting down together to watch &#8220;Cocomelon.&#8221;
We are such big &#8220;Bluey&#8221; fans that our 12-year-old created a spreadsheet with each episode to monitor everyone’s favorite and average out the “best” one. From Season 1, &#8220;The Pool&#8221; is a favorite “because it reminds us of going places and mommy has everything and daddy says we don’t need anything until we get home,” she says. In the episode, Dad and Bluey make fun of Mom because she is always over-packing, only to realize they miss the sunscreen and floaties when no one remembers to bring them. 
The &#8220;Camping&#8221; episode is adorable and realistically bittersweet, showing how sometimes we make friends just for a little while, but we can all find something in common, even with a language barrier.
The &#8220;Onesie&#8221; episode alludes to an aunt’s <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/bridgerton-just-told-a-story-many-women-know-too-well">infertility</a> and desire to have a baby. It teaches kids that sometimes we want things we cannot have, and when we have loved ones going through such an experience, we need to be there for them and acknowledge that it might be hard for them to engage when they’re reminded of that pain.
A show with community, consistency, and a mom and a dad is pretty “conservative” these days. But honestly, it’s just real life. Moms needing an occasional break (see the &#8220;Sheepdog&#8221; episode) and the requirements of hosting and serving others (the &#8220;BBQ&#8221; episode) resonate with people of all ages.
For such short episodes, they contain all the elements of a good story: a beginning, middle, and end with good pacing and good morals. Compare that to the quick-moving images and lack of direction that can bookend long &#8220;Cocomelon&#8221; episodes.
I can kind of relate to those film students; sometimes, some movies are “slow.” But the art of storytelling cannot be limited to TikTok videos and YouTube shorts. Attention spans need to last in order to engage in real life — at work, at school, in relationships, in friendships, and with a spouse and your kids.
As many parents saw during the pandemic, the shows your kids watch can even affect their communication and behavior. Some parents swore in early 2021 that their youngsters were talking with British accents because of watching so much &#8220;<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2021/jul/19/peppa-pig-american-kids-british-accents">Peppa Pig</a>.&#8221; Honestly, I’m fine if my kids start talking like &#8220;Bluey.&#8221; Australians say “no” in a humorous way and never sound mad. If they&#8217;re going to imitate anyone, it might as well be a beloved family of cattle dogs.
***
Elisha Krauss is a conservative commentator, writer, and speaker who resides in Los Angeles, California, with her husband and their four children. She is an advocate for women’s rights, school choice, and smaller government.

Gemini_Generated_Image_ubavfvubavfvubav

The Gap Between Two Popular Kid Shows Is Bigger Than It Looks

Children

After losing its bid for Warner Bros Discovery’s rich trove of characters and stories, Netflix is forging ahead with the challenging work of building culture-defining franchises on its own.
Chief Creative Officer Bela Bajaria said Netflix would keep investing in original ideas, and partner with established studios like MGM and Warner Bros, to try and produce movies and series that live on for years, in the vein of “Stranger Things,” “Wednesday” and “Bridgerton.”
“To me, that&#8217;s just continually the goal,” Bajaria said in an interview.
Yet the failed attempt to buy Warner Bros&#8217; storied movie studio and HBO highlighted a vulnerability for the relative Hollywood upstart, whose catalog of original films and series spans around a dozen years, compared with more than a century&#8217;s worth of stories and characters for Warner Bros, Walt Disney and Universal Pictures. Netflix was willing to make its biggest bet ever with $72 billion to shore up its library and augment its intellectual property with Harry Potter and “Game of Thrones,” because creating franchises has proven challenging.
Interviews with 16 current and former Netflix executives, industry leaders and agents illustrate a picture of the streaming giant whose strategy of making something for everyone, and serving many audiences all at once, is different from crafting a Taylor Sheridan-like universe of “Yellowstone” spin-offs that brings a built-in audience.
Even so, Netflix&#8217;s own prolific showrunner, Shonda Rhimes, has successfully adapted Julia Quinn&#8217;s &#8220;Bridgerton&#8221; novels into a series that&#8217;s entering its fifth season, a spinoff and a touring event set in the Regency-era London, dubbed &#8220;The Queen&#8217;s Ball.&#8221;
Franchises can be valuable for entertainment companies, because they are lower-risk investments that can bring in ancillary revenue through merchandise sales and in-person experiences. Recognizable characters and stories also stand out in a fragmented media landscape, grabbing a viewer&#8217;s attention in a time of myriad distractions.
Netflix announced its first major acquisition, the comic book publisher Millarworld, a day before Disney told investors in August 2017 that it would pull its movies from the streaming service to create a rival, later dubbed Disney+.
“Stranger Things” has been an unqualified success, producing a spin-off series, a stage play, and merchandise. Netflix points to other examples, such as the action-adventure film &#8220;Extraction,&#8221; starring Chris Hemsworth, that led to a sequel and a third installment in production, as well as a series starring acclaimed French actor Omar Sy. Its long-running dating show &#8220;Love Is Blind&#8221; has been remade for multiple global audiences, including versions centered in Brazil, France and Japan.
There have been pricey flops along the way to building its own franchises, like the reported $700 million deal to acquire rights to Roald Dahl’s catalog, which includes such beloved children’s stories as “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.” The investment has yet to produce a major hit in five years &#8212; though Netflix will try again this year. It plans a Willy Wonka-inspired reality show called “Golden Ticket&#8221; in which competitors try to survive games and temptations on a set with a chocolate river.
Producing consistent hits that spawn new series helps to attract and retain subscribers and increase engagement, which grew by only 2% in the second half of 2025, according to media consultant Owl &amp; Co. Top-line growth has been slowing, with revenue expected to grow 13% this year, according to data from LSEG, compared to 16% in 2025, and its advertising sales represent only 3% of the total. YouTube’s ascendancy poses a competitive threat. YouTube and Disney, with its vault of iconic characters, have consistently beaten Netflix in share of television viewing since October 2024, according to Nielsen&#8217;s media distributor gauge, which measures broadcast and cable television viewing and streaming.
Complicating matters, Paramount Skydance is acquiring Warner Bros, which could reduce the number of suppliers of original shows.
Armed with a $2.8 billion windfall from the failed Warner Bros deal, Netflix Co-CEOs Ted Sarandos and Greg Peters will continue to go it alone. Its coming releases include time-tested characters and stories, including a live-action “Scooby-Doo” series and a “Narnia” movie based on the C.S. Lewis books and directed by Greta Gerwig.
“The Electric State” offers one example of an expensive failure that illustrates the inherent risks in attempting to launch a sprawling Marvel-like cinematic universe.
Netflix snagged Joe and Anthony Russo, the brothers behind the smashing success of Walt Disney’s Avengers movies and Netflix&#8217;s own &#8220;Extraction,&#8221; to adapt the critically acclaimed science-fiction novel, and cast “Stranger Things” star Millie Bobby Brown alongside Hollywood A-lister Chris Pratt as stars.
Critics savaged the $320 million film when it was released last year. Plans to more fully exploit the film &#8212; including a possible spin-off series and sequels &#8212; never materialized, according to two sources directly involved with the project who requested anonymity to protect their industry relationships.
“A lot of people have big movies that also are IP that don&#8217;t work,” said Netflix&#8217;s Bajaria. &#8220;We&#8217;re in the film and TV business, so a lot of things work, a lot of things don&#8217;t work.&#8221;
Other gambles &#8212; such as Netflix&#8217;s decision to greenlight &#8220;Squid Game,&#8221; a dystopian thriller from creator Hwang Dong-hyuk that others had passed on &#8212; paid off handsomely, creating a global juggernaut.
With the sheer volume of content, Netflix also has its share of surprises, like Sony Pictures Animation&#8217;s Oscar-winning animated film ”KPop Demon Hunters,” which last year became the most watched movie ever on the service.
When lightning strikes, it can rely on its unparalleled global distribution and sophisticated algorithm to stoke enthusiasm for a movie or series that viewers have begun to binge, helping to create cultural phenomena.
Netflix is treating &#8220;KPop Demon Hunters&#8221; as its next major franchise, with licensed toys and other merchandise from Mattel and Hasbro, themed “adult” meals from McDonald’s, a possible concert tour and a planned animated sequel.
But the success caught Netflix off guard, according to two sources. In fact, the company didn’t have licensed toys available to capitalize on the phenomenon during the holiday shopping season. Netflix has said in interviews that it approached toymakers and retailers a year or more ahead of the film&#8217;s release, but they were unwilling to take a risk on an untested property.
At a March 18 presentation in Los Angeles, Netflix showcased its 2026 lineup, which includes a fourth installment of “Bridgerton,”  a second season of “One Piece,” an adaptation of the long-running manga series, a live-action TV series based on the “Assassin’s Creed” video game franchise, and a reboot of “Little House on the Prairie.”
“We&#8217;re off to a strong start and feeling confident about the quality and consistency of our slate this year,” said Jinny Howe, vice president of original series at Netflix.
(Reporting by Dawn Chmielewski and Lisa Richwine in Los Angeles; Editing by Jen Saba and Anna Driver)

Squid Game

Netflix Searches For Franchises After Losing Out On ‘Harry Potter’

Movies

Netflix

U.S.

Warner Bros

This article is part of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/introducing-upstream-a-lifestyle-and-culture-section-of-the-daily-wire" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Upstream,</a> The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you.
***
Few TV shows illustrate the heart of the culture war like &#8220;Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End,&#8221; a Japanese anime whose hit second season just wrapped up. Centered on the adventures of elven-mage Frieren and her traveling companions over several lifetimes, the show has garnered <a href="https://l.gourl.es/l/18c9594ecce16258912d3521c1115401c6618307?u=11850803" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://l.gourl.es/l/18c9594ecce16258912d3521c1115401c6618307?u%3D11850803&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1774968362249000&amp;usg=AOvVaw1NS_ZwtiDpuEwWh-SOV0y5">immense</a> popularity in America since landing on Netflix in March 2025. Frieren’s singular focus is slaying demons, and as she performs this duty from one century to the next, the human friends she makes must learn what Frieren has come to know with time, and it’s very controversial: Demons are irredeemably bad.
I cover the intersection of philosophy and culture on the <a href="https://l.gourl.es/l/48e58da707ed3bdcffec0e50f11118e1dfdd14a7?u=11850803" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://l.gourl.es/l/48e58da707ed3bdcffec0e50f11118e1dfdd14a7?u%3D11850803&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1774968362249000&amp;usg=AOvVaw18Ol9su3wV4Vk74VFyQuwL">GeekyStoics</a> YouTube channel, and our predominantly Christian-Catholic audience wouldn’t stop recommending &#8220;Frieren&#8221; in the comments. So I caved. Upon looking into the show, I found analysis after analysis claiming this show was <a href="https://l.gourl.es/l/6f2b68b0f59944ac934c231232140a1260dc6b9f?u=11850803" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://l.gourl.es/l/6f2b68b0f59944ac934c231232140a1260dc6b9f?u%3D11850803&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1774968362249000&amp;usg=AOvVaw10Wv_7gAz-ywBlJx-0pC0l">racist</a>, <a href="https://l.gourl.es/l/b9fe4767f9ef7b35bc48651d068d7d48b6ab098d?u=11850803" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://l.gourl.es/l/b9fe4767f9ef7b35bc48651d068d7d48b6ab098d?u%3D11850803&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1774968362249000&amp;usg=AOvVaw2TvbUVzA4QfPDNnckH0Ltu">genocidal</a>, and <a href="https://l.gourl.es/l/93d4f40abc29566e1954499cc472e2f1aeddf184?u=11850803" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://l.gourl.es/l/93d4f40abc29566e1954499cc472e2f1aeddf184?u%3D11850803&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1774968362249000&amp;usg=AOvVaw2IJNLAKPu_i01rrdlOKqOu">fascist</a>, which is a signal that fringe weirdos don’t approve and, therefore, it might be worth watching.
Meanwhile, in right-wing pockets of X, &#8220;Frieren&#8221; litters feeds with conservative and MAGA-themed memes depicting the elf and her companions as <a href="https://l.gourl.es/l/dfb663d577c6d4b896bbd7ca34dcb913069e38aa?u=11850803" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://l.gourl.es/l/dfb663d577c6d4b896bbd7ca34dcb913069e38aa?u%3D11850803&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1774968362249000&amp;usg=AOvVaw0MBHHNdg9DVaI9gyShYSdE">ICE</a> <a href="https://l.gourl.es/l/48f7c556dce0950d12d49b81d5f6fc9c3b9e5a02?u=11850803" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://l.gourl.es/l/48f7c556dce0950d12d49b81d5f6fc9c3b9e5a02?u%3D11850803&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1774968362249000&amp;usg=AOvVaw0Bm0D0Ovflv-hsN5nIXUCn">officers</a>, <a href="https://l.gourl.es/l/db51dc656ee287847ea927e509eef10a36de5f52?u=11850803" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://l.gourl.es/l/db51dc656ee287847ea927e509eef10a36de5f52?u%3D11850803&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1774968362249000&amp;usg=AOvVaw2LG94cfZKJnSpPq0NkmM-5">Crusaders</a>, <a href="https://l.gourl.es/l/85f4ab9d2488986e7281494d44cee6ffaac6d041?u=11850803" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://l.gourl.es/l/85f4ab9d2488986e7281494d44cee6ffaac6d041?u%3D11850803&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1774968362249000&amp;usg=AOvVaw1yiTd03TK83TlcsxaXsUwD">stained-glass</a> iconography, and quasi-missionaries <a href="https://l.gourl.es/l/8a6ed46f042307619805a53a80891b0778e97722?u=11850803" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://l.gourl.es/l/8a6ed46f042307619805a53a80891b0778e97722?u%3D11850803&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1774968362249000&amp;usg=AOvVaw1IRZCNcvnAAliztB3ygVjk">wielding</a> <a href="https://l.gourl.es/l/7008ade7f520f810829a304dddb9cdb41709b8de?u=11850803" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://l.gourl.es/l/7008ade7f520f810829a304dddb9cdb41709b8de?u%3D11850803&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1774968362249000&amp;usg=AOvVaw33-G2w2H48cU2MqNzs_kDz">Bibles</a>.
&#8220;Frieren&#8221; is polarizing because the show&#8217;s central claim is that man-eating demons <a href="https://l.gourl.es/l/3130af1e510bb728e88b1c3a29d0a5169913a3ee?u=11850803" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://l.gourl.es/l/3130af1e510bb728e88b1c3a29d0a5169913a3ee?u%3D11850803&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1774968362249000&amp;usg=AOvVaw23gTDqNMOvysvgBso6Bt-m">cannot</a> coexist with other species. It violates the most sacred dogma of progressives raised on moral and cultural relativism, the belief that no one idea or set of values can be proven superior to another.
It’s Frieren’s mentor, Flamme, who <a href="https://l.gourl.es/l/7dd19039c81732d37701654d3376783d36380ace?u=11850803" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://l.gourl.es/l/7dd19039c81732d37701654d3376783d36380ace?u%3D11850803&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1774968362249000&amp;usg=AOvVaw0N_azNBTOAcMB973Xiy5FZ">tells</a> her of demons: “They are nothing more than monsters capable of speech.” It’s a black-and-white view, and depending on the viewer&#8217;s biases, it’ll come across as either a statement demanding evidence or an obvious truth. One of Frieren’s idealistic companions, Himmel, needs evidence.
In a <a href="https://l.gourl.es/l/8c80d9ea524bd42f2aef5d6466bcbd7439a6a831?u=11850803" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://l.gourl.es/l/8c80d9ea524bd42f2aef5d6466bcbd7439a6a831?u%3D11850803&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1774968362249000&amp;usg=AOvVaw09wN6MLrOBfTEiZQSJojby">pivotal moment</a> from the first season, Frieren recalls arriving with Himmel at a town where a demon, presenting as a child, has eaten a young girl. Despite the grief and rage of the victim’s family, Himmel can’t slay the demon once it calls for its “mommy.” When the village chief offers to take the demon under his roof and raise it alongside his children, Himmel accepts this plan, hoping the creature can be reformed.
Frieren knows better but allows events to unfold — and is proven right when, eventually, the demon child brutally kills the man who adopted it and burns the house to the ground.
Frieren intervenes and uses her magic to kill the demon, and just before dying, the demon <a href="https://l.gourl.es/l/9b94f24411ba282c98ae23f1b88da4a251fc6d1e?u=11850803" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://l.gourl.es/l/9b94f24411ba282c98ae23f1b88da4a251fc6d1e?u%3D11850803&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1774968362249000&amp;usg=AOvVaw06ULVeGgiSt51LPoHEG3Td">calls out again</a> for its mother. Frieren points out that demons aren’t raised by parents and asks why it would use such a word. The demon answers: “It stops you from killing us, doesn’t it? It’s a wonderful, almost magical word.”
Language is neither natural nor necessary to demons. They use it only for the purpose of deception, knowing that human empathy can reach almost suicidal proportions. It’s also a reminder to viewers that, in the context of &#8220;Frieren,&#8221; demons might not even be “evil” in the way Westerners understand it.
These demons do not perceive good and evil and then consciously choose evil. They’re not trying to lead you to ruin like C.S. Lewis’s Wormwood and <a href="https://l.gourl.es/l/350672bf29ca72ebc0cf2a5bffd559abbe06477d?u=11850803" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://l.gourl.es/l/350672bf29ca72ebc0cf2a5bffd559abbe06477d?u%3D11850803&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1774968362249000&amp;usg=AOvVaw1dAnsH5gwSbSpsQhAiZjf_">Screwtape</a>; moral order is unknown to them. In that sense, they are less like rebels and more like predators.
A wolf is not evil for killing cattle — or even devouring a human child. It acts according to its nature. The human task is different. Because we are endowed with moral reason, we are responsible for recognizing what wolves do, restraining them, and, when necessary, killing them.
&#8220;Frieren&#8221; provokes backlash by being clear-eyed and confident about a threat to human life (demons), much like &#8220;K-Pop Demon Hunters&#8221; <a href="https://l.gourl.es/l/ac37ab5c442b83f32c9589ad145bd71f8b0dfab1?u=11850803" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://l.gourl.es/l/ac37ab5c442b83f32c9589ad145bd71f8b0dfab1?u%3D11850803&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1774968362249000&amp;usg=AOvVaw186Qats1ix0MPt-dntAx-u">drew</a> consternation from writers <a href="https://l.gourl.es/l/ed6d6352b5b8b0ce3529cb597a261e873ddfc31c?u=11850803" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://l.gourl.es/l/ed6d6352b5b8b0ce3529cb597a261e873ddfc31c?u%3D11850803&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1774968362249000&amp;usg=AOvVaw1PYfZHYsk8FhjlIBKP2a6m">who wondered</a> whether it was “problematic” to celebrate the genocidal killing of demons.
They say these stories embolden “fascists” in the real world who might seek to <a href="https://l.gourl.es/l/4cd67d5aa454778f53585cb6982406cf7d0983f9?u=11850803" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://l.gourl.es/l/4cd67d5aa454778f53585cb6982406cf7d0983f9?u%3D11850803&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1774968362249000&amp;usg=AOvVaw0Aj8fD6v_Ldk30T-d0mFRQ">characterize</a> illegal immigrants, Muslims, and “trans” people as somehow less than human. This is mainstream liberalism’s fatal conceit: the <a href="https://l.gourl.es/l/0f1d9fc760cdcf9469a39c6d69f756213d836401?u=11850803" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://l.gourl.es/l/0f1d9fc760cdcf9469a39c6d69f756213d836401?u%3D11850803&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1774968362249000&amp;usg=AOvVaw12Z5IkUYgnWtPqKyEKYoX0">slogan</a> “diversity is our strength,” hinging on the belief that all cultures yearn for freedom, universal rights, and coexistence.
Any violence that breaks out between groups isn’t seen as evidence of incompatibility between certain cultures, but as evidence of bigotry, intolerance, or some other academic nonsense meant to shame and weaken the majority group&#8217;s confidence in defending its own existence.
So, to the credit of &#8220;Frieren’s&#8221; left-wing haters, the uncomfortable truth is that the show’s clarity does provoke some real-world questions.
For instance, America has incurred at least <a href="https://l.gourl.es/l/7a8057bd56cf37dcc994fc4c72bdae7f6ec65319?u=11850803" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://l.gourl.es/l/7a8057bd56cf37dcc994fc4c72bdae7f6ec65319?u%3D11850803&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1774968362249000&amp;usg=AOvVaw2zAM6BhVt9eFINAXQP7-D6">four</a> Islamist terror attacks since the start of its war with Iran by individuals originally from Turkey, Lebanon, Senegal, and Sierra Leone. Progressives will sloganeer and say “hate has no home here,” but they don’t seem to believe that hateful ideologies can be imported.  They reject any responsibility to screen for views that might be incompatible with American life or <a href="https://l.gourl.es/l/ed2cec3c54d432797b6b88a809254f9380ca7555?u=11850803" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://l.gourl.es/l/ed2cec3c54d432797b6b88a809254f9380ca7555?u%3D11850803&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1774968362249000&amp;usg=AOvVaw0bDH7tnnAfL6Zx3eo7ZB9o">threaten the safety</a> of our people in the event of, say, hostilities with an Islamic terror state such as Iran.
Being confident in your knowledge that there are two biological sexes, male and female, necessitates boundaries between men’s and women’s spaces; “transgender” identity doesn’t trump reality. Borders exist, as does immigration law, which means you should either enforce those laws or simply abolish them.
Clarity and boundaries are what progressives find most threatening, so it’s natural that &#8220;Frieren’s&#8221; simplicity in handling demons rubs some the wrong way and excites conservative anime fans (yes, we do exist). And for conservatives who aren&#8217;t usually into anime, &#8220;Frieren&#8221; might just change their minds.
***
Stephen Kent is the co-creator of <a href="https://l.gourl.es/l/b9630a1ec771c5fb2005a404ba6c46f980a206eb?u=11850803" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://l.gourl.es/l/b9630a1ec771c5fb2005a404ba6c46f980a206eb?u%3D11850803&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1774968362249000&amp;usg=AOvVaw2iSXaUSxNZzTqj6_Ch82-S">GeekyStoics</a> on YouTube, a conservative columnist, and author of <a href="https://l.gourl.es/l/2e443fe88b6cc39651ea434bbff4f270c867d06c?u=11850803" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://l.gourl.es/l/2e443fe88b6cc39651ea434bbff4f270c867d06c?u%3D11850803&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1774968362249000&amp;usg=AOvVaw3glINtZX_mqcIrxck_C01v">How The Force Can Fix The World.</a> Follow him on X <a href="https://x.com/StephenKentX">@StephenKentX</a>.

FRN2_ep01_still_018

Why The Left Hates Hit Anime’s Simple Message About Good And Evil

The unpopular spinoff series “Star Trek: Starfleet Academy” has been canceled after airing just one season, per <a href="https://variety.com/2026/tv/news/star-trek-starfleet-academy-canceled-season-2-1236696816/">Variety</a>.
The show was picked up by Paramount+ in 2023 and was renewed for a second season before the first one premiered, the outlet noted. “Starfleet Academy” earned high praise from critics but was largely trashed by the audience, in part due to its outlandish leftist elements.
This included the first-ever gay Klingon in “Star Trek” history and a drag queen, among other elements that made it off-the-charts woke. 
Unsurprisingly, the series never gained traction and failed to capture the audience it needed to survive. Variety noted that “Starfleet Academy” never cracked Nielsen’s Top 10 streaming rankings during its debut season earlier this year. The second season is already filmed and will be released on an undisclosed date.
“People hated it because it was an attempt to shove more woke nonsense down our throats. It takes a special kind of stupid to ruin Star Trek,” one commenter on X <a href="https://x.com/h2av8tor/status/2036280551137747082">wrote</a> in response to the cancellation news.
“Damn, they managed to check all of the woke boxes, which of course creates a show few people will want to watch. And no, it&#8217;s not because people are racists or don&#8217;t like gay people, it&#8217;s because these types of shows are contrived, preachy, and insult the intelligence of millions of viewers. Why anyone invests in this garbage is beyond me,” a second person agreed.
Even some leftists said it was terrible. 
“I&#8217;m a dirty woke liberal and I didn&#8217;t watch it/am glad it&#8217;s dead for one simple reason: It&#8217;s just not Trek,” another reply <a href="https://x.com/isthisnessicary/status/2036444933658198431">said</a>. “Trek has always been woke: first interracial kiss, the right/left black side racists, Riker and Soren, Measure of a Man. The fact that it&#8217;s ‘luxury gay space communism.’”
Series co-showrunners and executive producers Alex Kurtzman and Noga Landau reacted to the cancellation with an open letter. 
“Whether you’re working on ‘Star Trek’ or part of the marvel that is ‘Star Trek’ fandom — its very heart, soul, and conscience —the joy comes from adventuring across boundaries of time, space, and the humanly possible in service to Roddenberry’s transformative vision of the future,” they wrote in part. 
“That incomparable vision was fueled by an inexhaustible optimism. ‘Star Trek’ places its bet on the best in human nature. It dares to imagine a society of ‘infinite diversity in infinite combinations,’ free of war, hate, poverty, disease, and repression, and dedicated to the spirit of scientific inquiry and respect for all life, whether carbon or silicon-based, green-skinned or blue.”
CBS Studios and Paramount+ also released a joint statement. “We’re incredibly proud of the ambition, passion, and creativity that went into bringing ‘Star Trek: Starfleet Academy’ to life,” it said. 
“The series introduced audiences to a bold new group of characters, welcomed familiar faces, and expanded the ‘Star Trek’ universe in exciting new ways. We’re grateful to Alex Kurtzman, Noga Landau, Gaia Violo, and the entire cast and crew who pushed storytelling boundaries in the spirit of Gene Roddenberry’s vision. We look forward to sharing the upcoming second and final season with everyone, and continuing to celebrate the cast, crew, and all that was accomplished with this series.”

Starfleet Academy

Another Ultra-Woke Spinoff Series Just Got Canceled

Entertainment

Paramount

Star Trek

Television

Wokeness

This article is part of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/introducing-upstream-a-lifestyle-and-culture-section-of-the-daily-wire" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Upstream,</a> The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you.
***
March Madness and baseball Opening Day may be blotting out the sun for sports fans, but for followers of televised competitive cooking, the next couple of months are the NCAA Tournament, the World Series, the BCS Championship, and the Super Bowl rolled into one, wrapped, covered in a mother sauce, and served on a platter to a panel of judges. Though I watch every cooking competition available, and always have, lately I’ve been trying to understand why. It’s not that they’re inspiring me to cook. They’re barely even inspiring me to eat.
The main event, as always, is the new season of &#8220;Top Chef.&#8221; But you also have a &#8220;Top Chef&#8221; knockoff, &#8220;America’s Culinary Cup,&#8221; hosted by former &#8220;Top Chef&#8221; doyenne Padma Lakshmi; &#8220;Next Level Chef,&#8221; Gordon Ramsay’s quarterly competition offering; and Guy Fieri’s &#8220;Tournament of Champions.&#8221; And that doesn’t include more quotidian feeder offerings such as Fieri’s &#8220;Flavortown Food Fight&#8221; and &#8220;Chopped.&#8221; Shows are eliminating chefs so quickly that culinary schools can’t produce enough replacements. 
&#8220;Top Chef,&#8221; now hosted by former winner Kristen Kish, has barely deviated from the formula. You put a group of accomplished but not famous chefs through a series of challenges, knock them out one by one, and let the survivor enter the pantheon. The show emerged around the same time as programs such as &#8220;Project: Runway&#8221; and &#8220;America’s Next Top Model,&#8221; and at this point, it is as much a part of the pop landscape as &#8220;Wheel of Fortune.&#8221; It’s reliable, comforting bourgeois entertainment. Becoming Top Chef means something. But what, exactly?
This is the question I find myself asking when I watch &#8220;Tournament of Champions.&#8221; Unlike the relatively buttoned-up &#8220;Top Chef,&#8221; which drives its contestants around in luxury SUVs and puts them up in nice hotel suites, &#8220;Tournament of Champions&#8221; is a melée that doesn’t hide its Hollywood backlot underpinnings. Fieri presides over a bracket-style competition for 32 chefs (including 16 who need to win in order even to qualify for the main competition). There is a spinning wheel called The Randomizer that determines what the chefs will cook, how they will cook, and for how long. Then a panel of judges, many of them former &#8220;Tournament of Champions&#8221; winners, taste and judge the dishes.
Fieri, in his typical hype-man style, touts &#8220;Tournament of Champions&#8221; as the ultimate culinary competition. And there’s something to be said for the fact that nowhere else can you see Ming Tsai, longtime host of PBS’s &#8220;Simply Ming,&#8221; competing against (and losing to) Aarti Sequeria, host of the Food Network’s &#8220;Aarti Party.&#8221; But if you watch a lot of food competition shows — and I do — you start to see patterns. Some of the people competing in &#8220;Tournament of Champions&#8221; are undoubtedly among the best chefs in America. However, many of them are just simply good chefs who are good on TV and who the Food Network has on retainer to compete and judge. 
Many of them are former &#8220;Top Chef&#8221; contestants, even &#8220;Top Chef&#8221; winners. This is the route available to them. The ones at the top are just building their brand. For others, this is literally, to borrow a term from &#8220;Top Chef,&#8221; their “Last Chance Kitchen.” One frequent &#8220;Tournament of Champions&#8221; challenger lost her restaurant in the Lahaina Fire. Others admit to going through messy divorces. Another one, a number-three-seed, bounced from this year’s tournament early and was shot 11 times last year in a robbery. For some chefs, it’s a chance to go mano a mano, but for others, &#8220;Tournament of Champions&#8221; feels vaguely like a cooking-themed version of the old-timey game show &#8220;Queen For A Day,&#8221; where housewives traded sob stories for audience sympathy and prizes. 
The Gordon Ramsay shows, such as &#8220;Hell’s Kitchen,&#8221; &#8220;MasterChef,&#8221; and the currently-airing &#8220;Next Level Chef,&#8221; exist to promote Ramsay, whose visage presides over the Las Vegas Strip like some knife-wielding God. His contestants are mainly home chefs and TikTok food influencers who are literally leaping onto a rising-and-falling platform for the chance to grab ingredients so they can cook a “next level burger” or whatever. By comparison with the more elite cooking shows, Ramsay offers big cash prizes and actual jobs. But when you see &#8220;MasterChef&#8221; or &#8220;Next Level Chef&#8221; winners try to break into the Guy Fieri universe, they generally get clobbered. It’s a long way to the top if you want to cook and roll.
The Padma Lakshmi-run &#8220;America’s Culinary Cup&#8221; is the latest and strangest entry into the food TV competition wars. Lakshmi stepped away from &#8220;Top Chef&#8221; in 2023 to focus on her production company and because, she said, she was eating too much. Yet on an episode I saw this month, she watched 12 chefs butcher a side of beef and then sampled a dozen beef dishes. 
&#8220;America’s Culinary Cup&#8221; is essentially &#8220;Top Chef&#8221; with slightly different rules, and also a million-dollar first prize. There are some high-end contestants, but the &#8220;Top Chef&#8221; field is equally impressive. Strangely, the &#8220;America’s Culinary Cup&#8221; contestant with the highest Q rating is Buddha Lo, who has a Michelin Star and also won &#8220;Top Chef&#8221; twice, yet here he is again, cooking for our entertainment. The show has high production values, and is OK, but it’s also airing exactly concurrently with &#8220;Top Chef,&#8221; reminding us that it’s not &#8220;Top Chef.&#8221;
One of Lakshmi’s regular judges is Michael Cimarusti, executive chef and co-owner of Los Angeles’s Providence seafood restaurant, where my wife and I once ate an anniversary meal that was so expensive we still feel guilt about it more than a decade later. This, to me, is the main problem with cooking competitions. They’re not relatable to the average person or to the home chef. 
At the dawn of the &#8220;Top Chef&#8221; era, you could find a lot of cooking instruction for normal people on food TV. Rachael Ray, whose whole reason for being was teaching people to cook on a budget, had millions of viewers. Now she hosts a podcast. When my wife Regina and I are looking for cooking tips, we have to find episodes of PBS’s &#8220;America’s Test Kitchen&#8221; on the Roku Channel, and many of them are 15 years old. 
A couple of weeks ago, Regina and I went to a lecture by British-Israeli chef Yotam Ottolenghi. He prepared simple dishes in a packed auditorium while also answering audience questions, and he showed us videos of himself preparing other, equally simple dishes, providing a QR code so we could all download all the recipes. 
Since then, we’ve cooked four Ottolenghi dinners from the downloads and also from the signed cookbook that we bought. We had many of the recipe items in our well-stocked pantry and fridge, but they were pretty basic: herbs and spices, canned beans, olive oil, and lemons. For the rest, we had to go to the store, but we spent maybe $50. Out of that, we got 10 meals, maybe more, and everything was perfectly delicious.
In contrast, I’ve never once cooked a single dish inspired by a cooking competition. I love these types of shows, and I’ll watch pretty much every iteration, but I also recognize that they’re kind of useless, self-absorbed, and snotty, even when Guy Fieri, the least snotty man alive, hosts them. To paraphrase Marie Antoinette: Watch them make cake.
***
Neal Pollack, &#8220;the greatest living American writer,&#8221; is the author of 12 semi-bestselling books of fiction and nonfiction and is a three-time &#8220;Jeopardy!&#8221; champion.

2026 South Beach Wine & Food Festival

Food TV Competitions Are Bigger Than Ever, But What They’re Really Offering Has Changed

Food

In a society that loves to “blur the line” between man and woman, the result can be a strenuous casting process that might almost postpone production.
Take FX’s &#8220;Love Story.&#8221;
In the new show, viewers embark on the romantic yet tragic story of John F. Kennedy Jr. and Carolyn Bessette, America&#8217;s most beloved couple in the 1990s. Ever known for their iconic fashion and good looks, choosing the right actors was indeed going to be a high task at hand.
Executive producers Brad Simpson and Nina Jacobson shared with <a href="https://people.com/how-love-story-cast-newcomer-paul-anthony-kelly-exclusive-11906585#:~:text=NEED%20TO%20KNOW,agreed%20there%20was%20something%20special.">People</a> that selecting Sarah Pidgeon to play Bessette was a swift and easy choice: she “jumped out and stole the role” and immediately “won our hearts.”
But the same could not be said for Kennedy.
“We were three weeks away from shooting and we still [had] not cast him,&#8221; Simpson said. &#8220;We&#8217;d seen every male actor between the age of 25 and 38.”
“We were about to shut down production and pause because we couldn&#8217;t find him,” he added.
The show’s creator, Connor Hines, admitted he even sought out people on the street and at the gym to come read for the role. 
But the problem wasn’t that they didn’t like their interviewees, Simpson said. There was something else missing.
“Part of it was just that sort of &#8217;80s, old school masculinity — a man with hair on his chest, sort of Richard Gere, Tom Selleck — the classic chiseled looks,&#8221; he said.
&#8220;We&#8217;re not making those guys anymore, for some reason, and he really needed to have that.&#8221;
In a GQ <a href="https://www.gq.com/story/how-love-storys-paul-anthony-kelly-became-jfk-jr">article</a>, Simpson elaborated further: &#8220;It’s these men with broad shoulders and they are in shape, but they’re in shape because they’ve been throwing a football around, not because they’ve been working on every muscle in their body for a Marvel movie.&#8221;
&#8220;We live in a world of electrolysis men, and it was a real challenge to find that sort of guy — a guy that women and gay men are attracted to, but also guys want to hang out and have a beer with.&#8221;
Something needs to be said if even Hollywood starts admitting there&#8217;s a masculinity problem.
The producers retraced their steps and considered the self-tapes they had already received, pulling out 13 new guys to come in and read. To their luck, Paul Anthony Kelly was among that group.
&#8220;You&#8217;re crazy if you don&#8217;t cast him,&#8221; Simpson recalled a makeup artist saying as she walked past.
Beyond his similar look to JFK Jr. — tall height, handsome, and yes, even chest hair — Simpson said Kelly had an &#8220;ease and charm&#8221; about him that was immediate. After a chemistry read with Pidgeon, there was no doubt the producers had found their Kennedy.
Now, Kelly is marking his first major debut and <a href="https://www.insidehook.com/style/actor-paul-anthony-kelly-oscars-best-dressed">becoming</a> his own American heartthrob.

FX’s “Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr. & Carolyn Bessette” Red Carpet Premiere

The Difficult Task Of Casting JFK Jr. For ‘Love Story’ In The 21st Century

Hulu

John F. Kennedy Jr.

Masculinity

Actor Nicholas Brendon, best known as Xander Harris on popular 90s teen drama “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” has died at age 54.
Brendon died of natural causes on Friday evening, according to a statement from his family to <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-news/nicholas-brendon-dead-buffy-the-vampire-slayer-1236543090/">The Hollywood Reporter</a>.
“We are heartbroken to share the passing of our brother and son, Nicholas Brendon. He passed in his sleep of natural causes. Most people know Nicky for his work as an actor and for the characters he brought to life over the years,” the family said before noting that Brendon was not only an actor, but a painter and artist.
“While it’s no secret that Nicholas had struggles in the past, he was on medications and treatment to manage his diagnosis and he was optimistic about the future at the time of his passing,” the family added, requesting privacy as they mourn Brendon’s passing.
Prior to his breakout role in “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” Brendon appeared in episodes of “Married… with Children” and “Dave’s World.” After playing Xander Harris in 143 episodes of “Buffy,” he continued acting in TV shows such as “Kitchen Confidential,” “Private Practice,” and in films like “Coherence.” He also served as a TV and film producer.
According to IMDb, Brendon has two upcoming projects that are in post-production.
Brendon&#8217;s &#8220;Buffy&#8221; co-stars responded to his death on social media.
<blockquote class="instagram-media" style="background: #FFF; border: 0; border-radius: 3px; box-shadow: 0 0 1px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.5),0 1px 10px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.15); margin: 1px; max-width: 540px; min-width: 326px; padding: 0; width: calc(100% - 2px);" data-instgrm-captioned="" data-instgrm-permalink="https://www.instagram.com/p/DWJNWMnjllR/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;utm_campaign=loading" data-instgrm-version="14">
<div style="padding: 16px;">
&nbsp;
<div style="display: flex; flex-direction: row; align-items: center;">
<div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; flex-grow: 0; height: 40px; margin-right: 14px; width: 40px;"></div>
<div style="display: flex; flex-direction: column; flex-grow: 1; justify-content: center;">
<div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; margin-bottom: 6px; width: 100px;"></div>
<div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; width: 60px;"></div>
</div>
</div>
<div style="padding: 19% 0;"></div>
<div style="display: block; height: 50px; margin: 0 auto 12px; width: 50px;"></div>
<div style="padding-top: 8px;">
<div style="color: #3897f0; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-weight: 550; line-height: 18px;">View this post on Instagram</div>
</div>
<div style="padding: 12.5% 0;"></div>
<div style="display: flex; flex-direction: row; margin-bottom: 14px; align-items: center;">
<div>
<div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; height: 12.5px; width: 12.5px; transform: translateX(0px) translateY(7px);"></div>
<div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; height: 12.5px; transform: rotate(-45deg) translateX(3px) translateY(1px); width: 12.5px; flex-grow: 0; margin-right: 14px; margin-left: 2px;"></div>
<div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; height: 12.5px; width: 12.5px; transform: translateX(9px) translateY(-18px);"></div>
</div>
<div style="margin-left: 8px;">
<div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; flex-grow: 0; height: 20px; width: 20px;"></div>
<div style="width: 0; height: 0; border-top: 2px solid transparent; border-left: 6px solid #f4f4f4; border-bottom: 2px solid transparent; transform: translateX(16px) translateY(-4px) rotate(30deg);"></div>
</div>
<div style="margin-left: auto;">
<div style="width: 0px; border-top: 8px solid #F4F4F4; border-right: 8px solid transparent; transform: translateY(16px);"></div>
<div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; flex-grow: 0; height: 12px; width: 16px; transform: translateY(-4px);"></div>
<div style="width: 0; height: 0; border-top: 8px solid #F4F4F4; border-left: 8px solid transparent; transform: translateY(-4px) translateX(8px);"></div>
</div>
</div>
<div style="display: flex; flex-direction: column; flex-grow: 1; justify-content: center; margin-bottom: 24px;">
<div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; margin-bottom: 6px; width: 224px;"></div>
<div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; width: 144px;"></div>
</div>
&nbsp;
<p style="color: #c9c8cd; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 17px; margin-bottom: 0; margin-top: 8px; overflow: hidden; padding: 8px 0 7px; text-align: center; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap;"><a style="color: #c9c8cd; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 17px; text-decoration: none;" href="https://www.instagram.com/p/DWJNWMnjllR/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;utm_campaign=loading" target="_blank" rel="noopener">A post shared by Sarah Michelle (@sarahmgellar)</a>
</div>
</blockquote>
<script async src="//www.instagram.com/embed.js"></script>
<blockquote class="instagram-media" style="background: #FFF; border: 0; border-radius: 3px; box-shadow: 0 0 1px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.5),0 1px 10px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.15); margin: 1px; max-width: 540px; min-width: 326px; padding: 0; width: calc(100% - 2px);" data-instgrm-captioned="" data-instgrm-permalink="https://www.instagram.com/p/DWIIzmkEdru/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;utm_campaign=loading" data-instgrm-version="14">
<div style="padding: 16px;">
&nbsp;
<div style="display: flex; flex-direction: row; align-items: center;">
<div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; flex-grow: 0; height: 40px; margin-right: 14px; width: 40px;"></div>
<div style="display: flex; flex-direction: column; flex-grow: 1; justify-content: center;">
<div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; margin-bottom: 6px; width: 100px;"></div>
<div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; width: 60px;"></div>
</div>
</div>
<div style="padding: 19% 0;"></div>
<div style="display: block; height: 50px; margin: 0 auto 12px; width: 50px;"></div>
<div style="padding-top: 8px;">
<div style="color: #3897f0; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-weight: 550; line-height: 18px;">View this post on Instagram</div>
</div>
<div style="padding: 12.5% 0;"></div>
<div style="display: flex; flex-direction: row; margin-bottom: 14px; align-items: center;">
<div>
<div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; height: 12.5px; width: 12.5px; transform: translateX(0px) translateY(7px);"></div>
<div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; height: 12.5px; transform: rotate(-45deg) translateX(3px) translateY(1px); width: 12.5px; flex-grow: 0; margin-right: 14px; margin-left: 2px;"></div>
<div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; height: 12.5px; width: 12.5px; transform: translateX(9px) translateY(-18px);"></div>
</div>
<div style="margin-left: 8px;">
<div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; flex-grow: 0; height: 20px; width: 20px;"></div>
<div style="width: 0; height: 0; border-top: 2px solid transparent; border-left: 6px solid #f4f4f4; border-bottom: 2px solid transparent; transform: translateX(16px) translateY(-4px) rotate(30deg);"></div>
</div>
<div style="margin-left: auto;">
<div style="width: 0px; border-top: 8px solid #F4F4F4; border-right: 8px solid transparent; transform: translateY(16px);"></div>
<div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; flex-grow: 0; height: 12px; width: 16px; transform: translateY(-4px);"></div>
<div style="width: 0; height: 0; border-top: 8px solid #F4F4F4; border-left: 8px solid transparent; transform: translateY(-4px) translateX(8px);"></div>
</div>
</div>
<div style="display: flex; flex-direction: column; flex-grow: 1; justify-content: center; margin-bottom: 24px;">
<div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; margin-bottom: 6px; width: 224px;"></div>
<div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; width: 144px;"></div>
</div>
&nbsp;
<p style="color: #c9c8cd; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 17px; margin-bottom: 0; margin-top: 8px; overflow: hidden; padding: 8px 0 7px; text-align: center; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap;"><a style="color: #c9c8cd; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 17px; text-decoration: none;" href="https://www.instagram.com/p/DWIIzmkEdru/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;utm_campaign=loading" target="_blank" rel="noopener">A post shared by Alyson Hannigan Denisof (@alysonhannigan)</a>
</div>
</blockquote>
<script async src="//www.instagram.com/embed.js"></script>
Emma Caulfield also expressed her grief in an Instagram Story, sharing a clip from the musical episode of &#8220;Buffy&#8221;: &#8220;I love you, Nicky. Let this clip of us giving it our best be a placeholder. Rest Nicky. Rest.&#8221;
Brendon suffered a heart attack in 2022, later revealing that he had been diagnosed with a congenital heart condition that caused tachycardia, or abnormally fast heart rate. The TV star also battled mental illness and substance abuse issues, and had multiple run-ins with the law.
Brendon entered rehab for the second time in 2010 after “being tasered by police and charged with vandalism, resisting arrest and battery against a police officer. He pleaded no contest and was sentenced to probation and community service,” according to <a href="https://people.com/tv/nicholas-brendons-troubled-life-after-buffy/">People</a>.
He was arrested multiple times over the following years — twice for allegedly attacking his girlfriend — and entered several recovery programs. He was <a href="https://www.desertsun.com/story/news/crime_courts/2020/02/28/buffy-actor-nicholas-brendon-palm-springs-court-2017-domestic-violence-charge/4905355002/">sentenced</a> in 2020 to three years&#8217; probation for one of the attacks, and given 20 hours of community service. Brendon had further run-ins with the law in the years that followed.

‘Buffy’ Cast

‘Buffy The Vampire Slayer’ Star Dead At 54

Celebrities

Death

A spokesperson for Taylor Frankie Paul pushed back following the release of a video of her allegedly engaging in domestic abuse with her baby daddy.
“It’s sad to see the latest installment of his never-ending, desperate, attention-seeking, destructive campaign to harm Taylor without any regard for the consequences for their child. Releasing an old video, which conveniently omits context, on their son&#8217;s birthday is a reprehensible attempt to distract from his own behavior. Thankfully, the public has seen this act before and knows who he is and sadly, many will recognize this pattern of manipulation, both in his actions on the show, and from their own experiences,” the spokesperson told People.
Taylor Frankie Paul’s season of &#8220;The Bachelorette&#8221; has been canceled by ABC following the release of a video of her allegedly engaging in domestic abuse with her baby daddy and former boyfriend Dakota Mortensen, per <a href="https://www.tmz.com/2026/03/19/abc-cancels-the-bachelorette-starring-taylor-frankie-paul/">TMZ</a>.
A Disney Entertainment spokesperson told the outlet, “In light of the newly released video just surfaced today, we have made the decision to not move forward with the new season of &#8216;The Bachelorette&#8217; at this time, and our focus is on supporting the family.”
The decision was made shortly after TMZ published a video of Paul getting into a physical altercation with Mortensen, the father of her child, Ever. Paul has the majority custody of Ever. She also has two children, daughters Indy and Ocean, 5, with her ex-husband, Tate Paul.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
🚨 EXCLUSIVE: Taylor Frankie Paul repeatedly attacked Dakota Mortensen during the 2023 incident in which she pled guilty to aggravated assault; video shows that one of her children was struck during the fight.
Trigger Warning. <a href="https://t.co/77CKYpLxvn">https://t.co/77CKYpLxvn</a> <a href="https://t.co/avr49EacY3">pic.twitter.com/avr49EacY3</a>
— TMZ (@TMZ) <a href="https://twitter.com/TMZ/status/2034673546341797906?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 19, 2026</a></blockquote>
“This is called physical abuse,” Mortensen can be heard saying as he films their fight. Paul can be seen throwing chairs at him while her daughter, Indy, now 8, was in the room and crying.
Mortensen says at another point, “Your daughter just got hit in the head by a metal chair.”
Paul, made famous on the series “The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives,” was arrested for alleged domestic violence in 2023 following an argument with Mortensen, per <a href="https://people.com/taylor-frankie-paul-throws-chairs-at-dakota-mortensen-with-child-nearby-in-leaked-video-11930003">People</a>. She pled guilty in abeyance to aggravated assault, meaning that if she complied with the conditions of the plea, that charge would be dismissed. The show was also put on hold after the video surfaced. “The Bachelorette” was slated to premiere on Sunday, March 22.
Besides starring on “Mormon Wives,” she is also one of the creators of #MomTok, a group of Utah moms who create popular dancing TikTok videos.
Paul spoke with People on March 17 as she was still promoting her season of &#8220;The Bachelorette.&#8221;
&#8220;Honestly, just like, my heart hurts to see it, to go through it, especially at this time,&#8221; she told the outlet. &#8220;Just the timing is hard, and it’s a big deal. I feel like every premiere that I’ve experienced, I’ve never enjoyed fully, so this is another one&#8230; it’s extremely hard, and it took everything to get me here today.”
&#8220;It’s a heavy time, and it’s unfortunate,&#8221; Paul continued. &#8220;I’m struggling for sure, but also at the same time I feel like if I don’t show up, then I’m just giving these opportunities away and not enjoying what we’ve worked on and something super exciting that’s coming. I just feel like it was the right thing to do&#8230; show up even though it’s hard.&#8221;
&nbsp;

Taylor Frankie Paul

WATCH: Video Shows Taylor Frankie Paul Brutally Attacking Baby Daddy — ‘Bachelorette’ Axed

Reality TV

The Bachelor

The 98th annual Academy Awards on Sunday was the least-watched broadcast since 2022, attracting just 17.86 million viewers on ABC and Hulu, marking a 9% decline from last year. 
Hollywood’s biggest night was emceed once again this year by former late-night host Conan O’Brien. He mostly avoided hot-button political topics as promised, but did make some subtle political references, including a dig at the TPUSA Halftime Show.
Other presenters were more direct. Jimmy Kimmel, predictably, attacked President Donald Trump during the show, joking that Trump must be “mad” that “Melania” wasn’t nominated in the documentary category despite the film not being eligible this year. He also described “Melania” as being about “[walking] around the White House trying on shoes.&#8221;
Presenter Javier Bardem took a moment to <a href="https://nypost.com/2026/03/16/us-news/javier-bardem-faces-criticism-for-using-oscars-to-attack-israel/">virtue signal</a> from the stage, saying, “No to war and free Palestine,” while wearing buttons with identical messaging on his jacket.
Documentary filmmaker David Borenstein also had some thinly veiled criticisms of the Trump administration, which he expressed during his Best Documentary win for his critique of the Russian regime, “Mr. Nobody Against Putin.” 
During his acceptance speech, Borenstein said the film is about “how you lose your country,” which happens “when we act complicit when a government murders people on the streets of our major cities, when we don’t say anything when oligarchs take over the media and control how we produce it and consume it.” 
The blatantly political “One Battle After Another” was the night’s big winner, taking home six Oscars, including the coveted Best Picture and Best Director for Paul Thomas Anderson.
“Sinners,” a horror film that tackled the Jim Crow-era South, also performed well, winning four golden statuettes, including Best Actor for Michael B. Jordan.
It was <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/oscars-trade-abc-for-youtube-in-2029-because-fewer-people-are-watching-anyway">announced</a> at the end of last year that the Oscars will move from ABC, its broadcast home since 1976, to YouTube beginning in 2029, as part of an effort to reach younger and more global audiences.

Oscars

Politics Took Center Stage At The Oscars And It Didn’t Go Unnoticed

Academy Awards

Hollywood

Menu

TV