News

Exclusive: SeriesFest, the non-profit organization dedicated to advancing and celebrating innovation in episodic storytelling, is partnering with Ed Helms and Mike Falbo’s Pacific Electric Picture Co. on a new, comedy-focused iteration of its Storytellers Initiative, a premier competition designed to discover and elevate emerging storytellers.

In search of bold, unique, and diverse comedy series with compelling characters and strong points of view, the Storytellers Initiative offers participants a two-day virtual creative workshop with industry experts, featuring sessions on pitching and mini writers’ rooms. This year’s workshop will take place the week of March 17, 2025, and will focus on getting to know the creators and further developing the scripts they’ve submitted.

The program will also feature a live read of participants’ scripts with professional actors during SeriesFest: Season Eleven. The winning artist(s) will be offered an exclusive development deal with Pacific Electric.

Those interested in taking part in...

Hulu Originals today announced four food series from Vox Media Studios and David Chang’s Majordomo Media, including one from Neil Patrick Harris and David Burtka.

“We are thrilled to be expanding our relationship with David Chang, Majordomo, and Hulu with these brand new series that will leave Hulu’s audience hungry for more,” said Chad Mumm, Chief Creative Officer, Vox Media Studios in a statement. “With a mix of notable chefs, talent, and partners, these innovative series are a fresh take on culinary competitions.”

The series are:

Drag Me to Dinner. If you want a great party, hire a party planner. If you want an outrageous, unforgettable party, call in someone who makes something fabulous and supremely entertaining out of almost nothing… a Drag Queen! Created and executive produced by and featuring Neil Patrick Harris and David Burtka and their celebrity friends, Drag Me to Dinner is the new...

Vixen By Micheline Pitt Announces New Ghostbusters™ Clothing And Accessories Collection: "Los Angeles, CA – June 21, 2021 – Vixen by Micheline Pitt, the LA-based design house known for vintage-style fashion inspired by 1950s bad girls and ‘80s flair, is thrilled to announce the launch of an all-new officially licensed collection celebrating everyone’s favorite paranormal investigators - Ghostbusters!

Launching today at 4pm Pt/7pm Et at MichelinePitt.com, the Vixen by Micheline Pitt Ghostbusters Collection includes dresses, skirts, shirts, and bags featuring and inspired by the Ghostbusters rogues gallery of spectral baddies including the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man, Slimer, Gozer, Terror Dogs, and more, along with the ever-iconic “No Ghosts” Ghostbusters logo.

“Being a kid of the 80’s, I grew up watching the original Ghostbusters film religiously. Like anyone who watched this movie, I wanted to be a Ghostbuster. I definitely pretended to be Venkman on too many occasions growing up while playing with my vintage proton pack.

Now that Quibi ended up lasting, well, a Quibi, the Emmy Awards’ short form categories seem further destined to become more of a curiosity than a major part of the competition. Roku picked up Quibi’s scraps, but doesn’t appear interested in launching new originals in the short-form space. And elsewhere, outlets including YouTube are bulking up in unscripted, but are less keen on adding more scripted, short form or not, to an already crowded marketplace.

The Television Academy first expanded the short form categories in 2016, buoyed by the promise of original fare from Maker Studios, Fullscreen, AwesomenessTV, YouTube Red, Adult Swim and others. Maker and Fullscreen basically don’t exist anymore, and the excitement of the short form races has perhaps further cooled after the Quibi debacle.

But although the Quibi business model was questionable, its programming wasn’t. The service premiered quite a bit of quality fare in its short life,...

“It’s upsettingly silly,” declares Mark Samual Bonanno about the sketch comedy series “Aunty Donna’s Big Ol’ House of Fun.” Zachery Ruane from the show adds, “If you have had a tough day, if you have had to think a lot, or you are stressed about the world, we are trying to be something that is the opposite of that.” Watch our exclusive video interview above.

The Netflix sketch series is created by the Australian absurdist comedy group “Aunty Donna.” Bonanno, Ruane and Broden Kelly are the members that star in the series. Director Max Miller,composer Tom Armstrong and producer Sam Lingham complete the group. They first garnered attention through viral comedy videos on YouTube. Ruane explains, “We’ve been doing sketch together as an ensemble for nearly 10 years. When we got to this show, we’d done two pilots, a lot of online stuff and created and...

Netflix director of local originals Que Minh Luu says the streamer hopes to “flex and experiment” with its storytelling from Australia in the year ahead.

It comes after Netflix announced, invested in, or brought to screen more than 15 new Australian titles last year, including originals such as the Heartbreak High reboot, Aunty Donna’s Big Ol’ House of Fun, Izzy Bee’s Koala World, Clickbait, The New Legends of Monkey S2, True Spirit, and Urzila Carlson: Overqualified Loser.

Luu, who joined Netflix last July after three and a half years as an executive producer at the ABC, tells If the year ahead is “ripe with creative ambition”.

“What we’re trying to do in Australia is broaden the scope of the kinds stories we currently have, enable our world-class talent and creatives to lean even further into making quality shows that feel culturally ours, and empower younger generations to break through,” she says.

It’s the time of Peak TV! There’s TV everywhere! You can’t shake a stick without hitting another TV show on another streamer! TV! TV! TV!

All that’s true — until it’s not.

The sheer quantity of TV does not always equate to quality TV winning out, and each year, there are a number of worthy shows that don’t reach whatever mystical threshold television executives have ascertained is required to keep a project in production. This is even more true this year, with the business pressures created by the pandemic often — and some cynics would argue, conveniently — cited as the reason for cancellation.

Here, IndieWire lists, in alphabetical order, the year’s shows that were canceled too soon. They’re gone — but not forgotten, thanks to the afterlife they could receive on those same streaming outlets that didn’t want to fund new episodes. As it turns out,...

I can honestly say that I have never imagined anything, in my entire life, as chaotic as Aunty Donna’s Big Ol’ House of Fun – the new sketch-based comedy show available on Netflix. This series is brought to you by the creative team called simply Aunty Donna, who I personally never heard of before, and they play strange characters based on themes levels in a weird cartoon-esque world. From my research, I have discovered that this team are based in Australia… and so there are many Australians specific references that I did not understand. I found a video which pointed out all theses references but I still did not understand any of these due to being from the totally other side of the planet. This show does promote this comedy groups which is fundamentally the main purpose that people create Netflix style shows. I believe that the show is a...

Another week, and another solid collection of content for Netflix, who’ve enjoyed recent success with the likes of The Queen’s Gambit and The Haunting of Bly Manor. The highlights for November 9th to 15th include the addition of topical films such as Fruitvale Station, the most recent season of American Horror Story, and new episodes of The Crown. Aside from all that, there are plenty of other Netflix originals and licensed titles to enjoy as we head deeper into November, too.

In terms of exclusive series, The Crown is undoubtedly the biggest new release for the streamer, and will be available on Sunday, November 15th. The fourth instalment of the period piece promises the arrival of Princess Diana, and what’s sure to be a memorable performance by Gillian Anderson as Margaret Thatcher.

Elsewhere, we have the second season of Dutch crime thriller Undercover, the Christmas-themed romance Dash & Lily,...

November is among the least respected months on the calendar. Falling between objectively the two best holidays, November is usually all about recovering from the spookies of Halloween while getting ready for the good vibes the holiday season. For its new releases of November 2020, Netflix has decided to just go ahead and get Christmas over with.

Netflix has already released a list of all its holiday offerings for November and December, and it’s those holiday offerings that take the most prominence this month. The biggest project of all of these is undoubtedly The Christmas Chronicles 2, which premieres on Nov. 25. In this holiday sequel, Kurt Russell reprises his role as Hot Santa Claus who must save the season once again.

On the non-holiday side of things, Netflix’s Emmy-winning series The Crown returns for season 4 on Nov. 15. And speaking of things that desperately want to win awards, Ron Howard...

November is the last month of the year for sensible viewing, before our TV screens become full-time broadcasters of golden retrievers saving Christmas and Will Ferrell wearing tights. Take the opportunity then, to get some good stuff in before the festivities.

In terms of good stuff, Netflix is offering the second series of the brilliantly wry and surprisingly touching The End of the F***ing World for any UK viewers who didn’t catch it on Channel 4. There’s also the excellent animated feature Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (we loved it. 5 stars.) as well as Boots Riley’s inventive, funny, political satire Sorry to Bother You (we also loved it. 4.5 stars.) On top of that, you can take a nostalgic trip to Capeside with all six seasons of Dawson’s Creek or watch emotionally repressed royals deal with the advent of the 1980s in season four of The Crown.

Here, in alphabetical and date order,...