Big Mouth has earned a season eight renewal from Netflix, making it the longest-running original series (outside of Kids & Family content) on the streaming service. That’s great news for fans of the raunchy adult animated comedy. However, the renewal announcement also confirmed the popular comedy’s eighth season will be its last.
Additionally, Netflix will be wrapping up the Big Mouth spinoff Human Resources after its upcoming second season. The streaming service cushioned that announcement by assuring viewers that Human Resources characters will “flow into” seasons seven and eight of Big Mouth.
Season seven will debut this year, and season eight is targeting a 2024 premiere.
“If you would have told adolescent Nick Kroll and Andrew Goldberg that middle school would take 8 years to finish, they would have been like ‘yeah, that sounds about right. This seems like it will never end,’” said Nick Kroll, star and executive producer.
Netflix reports subscribers have watched more than 1 billion – yes, billion – hours of Big Mouth and Human Resources.
“Big Mouth is a towering achievement in animated comedy that will make Netflix history for its longevity,” said Billy Wee, Netflix Director of Adult Animation. “We are thrilled that we still have two more hilarious seasons to share with fans before this brilliant coming-of-age story reaches its conclusion.”
Big Mouth was created by Nick Kroll, Andrew Goldberg, Mark Levin, and Jennifer Flackett. The series premiered in September 2017 and has earned two Primetime Emmy Awards in the Outstanding Character Voice-Over Performance category, along with an Annie Award in the Outstanding Achievement for Writing in an Animated Television/Media Production category.
The Big Mouth Plot:
Big Mouth is the fan-beloved, critically-acclaimed, and Emmy-winning adult animated comedy about the glorious nightmare that is puberty. Inspired by Kroll and Andrew Goldberg’s childhood, it follows a group of friends and their hormone monsters as they navigate adolescence, human sexuality, and coming of age.
Fox’s culinary competition series Crime Scene Kitchen‘s set to kick off season two on Monday, May 22, 2023 at 8pm ET/PT with 12 new teams of bakers. The six teams of classically trained bakers and six teams of self-taught bakers will be competing for a grand prize of $100,000, with Joel McHale returning to guide the competition as host.
Chef Curtis Stone and cake artist Yolanda Gampp will also return to judge the Crime Scene Kitchen season two bakers.
STEPH HSU & SIN YI CHERRY LAU
Hometown: Baltimore, MD
DONOVAN PETERS & DAYVEON SHAWVER
Hometown: Los Angeles, CA
KATHLEEN REGELMAN & HANNAH REYES
Hometown: Wausau, WI
T LAWRENCE-SIMON & FADI ODEH
Hometowns: Sommerville, MA & Austin, TX
KRISTY GARDNER & TARSHA JOYNER
Hometowns: Richmond, VA & Lynchburg, VA
Details on Crime Scene Kitchen Season 2:
Crime Scene Kitchen is a culinary guessing game in which bakers are tasked with decoding what type of dessert was made, when all that’s left are the crumbs, flour trails, and a few elusive clues. They must then recreate the recipe for celebrity judges, chef Curtis Stone and cake artist Yolanda Gampp, who will determine how closely their sweet treat matches the missing dessert – and how good it tastes!
Can you walk into a kitchen and figure out what’s been baked solely by the ingredients and clues left behind? Each episode begins at the scene of the crime – a kitchen that was just used to make an amazing mouth-watering dessert that has since disappeared. The chef teams of two are challenged to scour the kitchen for clues and ingredients to figure out what was baked. Next, each team must duplicate the recipe based on their guess. Winning the round will require culinary flair, precise execution, and a refined taste surpassing the competition.
To advance to the next round and take one step closer to the $100,000 prize, the competing dessert makers will need to prove they have the technical know-how, imagination, and problem-solving skills needed to decode and re-create incredible desserts and cakes from across the world!
Discovery Channel’s expanding the Naked and Afraid franchise with Naked and Afraid: Last One Standing, a new competition that pits Naked and Afraid all-stars against each other with a $100,000 prize at stake. The new survival series premieres on Sunday, May 7, 2023 and features 12 all-stars who will be attempting to last 45 days in South Africa’s Oribi Gorge.
Season one of Naked and Afraid: Last One Standing competitors include:
Matt Wright
Jeff Zausch
Cheeny Plante
Dan Link
Waz Addy
Amber Hargrove
Steven Lee Hall, Jr.
Sarah Bartell
Gary Golding
Gwen Grimes
Stacey Osorio
Wes Harper
A scene from Discovery Channel’s ‘Naked and Afraid: Last One Standing’
The Discovery Channel offered this description of the new addition to the Naked and Afraid franchise:
“For the first time ever, survivalists will compete head-to-head through a grueling, multiphase challenge and have their primitive skills tested for the chance to win $100,000. The competition is fierce, as survivalists can use any means necessary – even sabotage – to take home the grand prize. At the end of 45 days, only one can be crowned the Last One Standing.
During Phase One of the challenge, survivalists enter in pairs and must make it through 21 days together. In a huge twist, if a competitor chooses to tap, their partner is also automatically eliminated. Together, they must hunt for food, water, fire, shelter, and – in a franchise first – earn the tools needed to survive.
In Phase Two, the remaining survivalists enter a group challenge to compete both with and against their teammates. With the final phase comes an unprecedented, everyone-out-for-themselves fight to the finish with a grueling 3-day journey to extraction. The winner claims the $100,000 cash prize and earns Naked and Afraid‘s first-ever perfect 10 Primitive Survival Rating.”
Naked and Afraid, which premiered in June 2013, puts two strangers in a survival situation without clothes, food, or water. The popular series explores how people react in incredibly stressful, extreme situations in which they have only their training to draw on to survive. A super-sized edition, Naked and Afraid: XL, launched in 2015, and Naked and Afraid: Solo debuted in March 2023.
Donal Logue returns to guest star as Colton Fisk on CBS’s The Equalizer season three episode 16. Directed by Christine Moore from a script by Joe Gazzam and Ashley Charbonnet, episode 16 – “Love Hurts” – will air on Sunday, May 7, 2023 at 8pm ET/PT.
Queen Latifah leads the cast as Robyn McCall. Season three also stars Tory Kittles as Detective Marcus Dante, Adam Goldberg as Harry Keshegian, Liza Lapira as Melody “Mel” Bayani, and Laya DeLeon Hayes as Delilah. Lorraine Toussaint returns as Viola “Vi” Marsette. Brett Dalton, Gabriel Sloyer, Chris Vance, and Stephen Bishop recur.
“Love Hurts” Plot: When Fisk (Logue) tasks McCall with tracking down an ex-MI6 agent (guest star Andrew Stewart-Jones) in Paris with whom she had a past relationship, she must convince him to help her track down a crucial document that his friend was hiding.
Also, Delilah faces discrimination at her new fashion internship.
The Equalizer is a reimagining of the classic series starring Academy Award® nominee and multi-hyphenate Queen Latifah as Robyn McCall, an enigmatic woman with a mysterious background who uses her extensive skills as a former CIA operative to help those with nowhere else to turn. McCall presents to most as an average single mom who is quietly raising her teenage daughter. But to a trusted few, she is The Equalizer – an anonymous guardian angel and defender of the downtrodden, who’s also dogged in her pursuit of personal redemption.
Robyn’s clandestine work and her personal life collide when her smart and observant daughter, Delilah, and her aunt Vi, who lives with Robyn to help her balance life as a working mother, discover her secret career as a vigilante. While Robyn contends with uncertainty at home, she is joined in her pursuit of justice by Melody “Mel” Bayani, an edgy bar owner and sniper from Robyn’s past; and Harry Keshegian, a paranoid and brilliant white-hat hacker.
As Robyn aids the oppressed and exploited, she sometimes works with Marcus Dante, an NYPD detective who once sought to uncover her identity, but now respects the need for Robyn’s type of justice even as he often questions her methods.
The cast of Netflix’s limited series Zero Day is filling out, with Oscar nominee Jesse Plemons (Power of the Dog) and Emmy Award nominee Lizzy Caplan (Masters of Sex) joining the cast. Three-time Oscar nominee Joan Allen (The Contender, The Crucible, Nixon) and five-time Emmy Award nominee Connie Britton (Friday Night Lights, The White Lotus) have also just committed to star in the conspiracy thriller created by Eric Newman, Noah Oppenheim, and Pulitzer Prize winner Michael S. Schmidt.
Netflix previously announced two-time Oscar winner Robert De Niro (Raging Bull, The Godfather Part II) is making his television series starring debut with Zero Day.
The six-episode limited series will be executive produced by Robert De Niro, Eric Newman (for Grand Electric), Noah Oppenheim, Michael S. Schmidt, and Panoramic Media’s Jonathan Glickman. Homeland and Mad Men‘s Lesli Linka Glatter is directing all six episodes and will also be involved as an executive producer. Newman and Oppenheim are writing the limited series.
Netflix released the following descriptions of the series and its key characters:
Zero Day asks the question on everyone’s mind — how do we find truth in a world in crisis, one seemingly being torn apart by forces outside our control? And in an era rife with conspiracy theory and subterfuge, how much of those forces are products of our own doing, perhaps even of our own imagining?
Lizzy Caplan is Alexandra Mullen: A young Congresswoman who has sought to distance herself from her father’s political legacy.
Jesse Plemons is Roger Carlson: Former Mullen “body man” seeking a return to the national stage alongside Mullen.
Joan Allen is Sheila Mullen: Former First Lady and nominee to the federal bench whose professional ambitions take a backseat to her husband’s political career.
Connie Britton is Valerie Whitesell: A savvy, intelligent political operative who was Mullen’s former Chief of Staff.
Robert De Niro leads the cast as George Mullen: A massively popular but complicated former American President who is pulled from retirement to head a commission tasked with investigating a devastating global cyber-attack.
Season 13 of CBS’s Blue Bloods will return after a two-week break with an episode that finds Jamie attempting to piece together clues to discover who’s behind the burning of a storage facility. Season 13 episode 19, “Fire Drill,” will air on Friday, May 5, 2023 at 10pm ET/PT.
The cast is led by Tom Selleck as Frank Reagan, Donnie Wahlberg as Danny Reagan, and Bridget Moynahan as Erin Reagan. Will Estes stars as Jamie Reagan, Len Cariou is Henry Reagan, Sami Gayle is Nicky Reagan-Boyle, Marisa Ramirez plays Det. Maria Baez, and Vanessa Ray is Officer Eddie Janko.
“Fire Drill” Plot: Jamie partners with the FDNY to find the arsonist responsible for a massive fire at an NYPD evidence storage facility. Also, Danny and Baez feel the ripples of the storage facility fire when all the evidence against a cartel leader Danny brought to justice is destroyed; Anthony asks Erin to let him lead on a murder case when his friend is killed; and Eddie asks Frank to put her on modified duty following her divisive arrest of an anti-cop protestor at a rally.
Blue Bloods is a drama about a multi-generational family of cops dedicated to New York City law enforcement. Frank Reagan is the New York Police Commissioner, and heads both the police force and the Reagan brood. He runs his department as diplomatically as he runs his family, even when dealing with the politics that plagued his unapologetically bold father, Henry, during his stint as chief.
A source of pride and concern for Frank is his eldest son, Danny, a seasoned detective, family man and Iraq War vet who on occasion uses dubious tactics to solve cases with his partner and new mother, Detective Maria Baez. Erin, the middle daughter, is a New York assistant D.A. who serves as the legal compass for her siblings and father, while also pursuing a run for district attorney. Jamie is the youngest Reagan, a Harvard Law graduate and the family’s golden boy.
Unable to deny the family tradition, Jamie decided to give up a lucrative future in law and follow in the family footsteps as a cop. He’s found a friend and ally in his wife, Eddie, who keeps him on his toes, and has very different reasons than the Reagans for joining the police force.
A disaster at a mine sets the crews in motion on CBS’s Fire Country season one episode 20. Directed by Joy Lane from a script by Julia Fontana and Barbara Kaye Friend, episode 20 – “At the End of My Rope” – will air on Friday, May 5, 2023 at 9pm ET/PT.
Max Thieriot leads the cast as Bode Donovan. Season one’s regulars include Billy Burke as Vince, Kevin Alejandro as Manny, Diane Farr as Sharon, Stephanie Arcila as Gabriela, Jordan Calloway as Jake, and Jules Latimer as Eve.
“At the End of My Rope” Plot: The station 42 and third rock crews respond to a deadly explosion at an abandoned mine. Meanwhile, Bode faces a difficult decision that could have serious consequences.
Fire Country stars Max Thieriot as Bode Donovan, a young convict seeking redemption and a shortened prison sentence by joining a prison release firefighting program in Northern California, where he and other inmates are partnered with elite firefighters to extinguish massive, unpredictable wildfires across the region. It’s a high-risk, high-reward assignment, and the heat is turned up when Bode is assigned to the program in his rural hometown, where he was once a golden all-American son until his troubles began.
Five years ago, Bode burned down everything in his life, leaving town with a big secret. Now he’s back, with the rap sheet of a criminal and the audacity to believe in a chance for redemption with Cal Fire.
Steve DiSchiavi listens during an interview with retired police officer Ken Afienko on Travel Channel’s ‘The Dead Files’
Travel Channel’s popular paranormal series The Dead Files will return for season 15 on Thursday, June 1, 2023 at 9pm ET/PT. The new season will include a big change in the lineup, as medium Amy Allan will be saying goodbye to the series with the episode set to air on June 29.
Psychic medium Cindy Kaza will be taking over and assisting former NYPD homicide detective Steve DiSchiavi as he investigates paranormal activities.
Per Travel Channel: “This season marks a significant change as it bids a bittersweet farewell to Amy Allan, a dedicated partner to DiSchiavi for over 200 episodes. As a gifted physical medium, Allan has been a fundamental part of the team since the show’s inception in 2011. Helping clients reinstate order to their lives by making peace with the dead, she has helped alleviate fear and chaos for hundreds of families and property owners. After years of doing this intense work, Allan will be stepping down for a personal break.”
Kaza trained at the Arthur Findlay School of Intuitive Sciences. Kaza’s resume includes appearances on Travel Channel’s The Holzer Files, Shock Docs specials, Portals to Hell, The Osbournes: Night of Terror, and Ghosts of Devil’s Perch.
The Dead Files Season 15 Description, Courtesy of Travel Channel:
This season, DiSchiavi and Allan combine their unique skills and perspectives to help solve unexplained paranormal phenomena plaguing property owners across America. Conducting separate investigations, DiSchiavi utilizes his detective skills, researching the facts around each location, interviewing witnesses, experts and historians about the hauntings, and digging into archives to gain a better understanding of each property’s history.
As a physical medium, Allan sees and communicates with the dead. She first assesses each property in a blind walk-through, using her gifts to identify any entities that reside there and why, often assuming their roles and reliving their death. The pair keep their findings hidden from each other, avoiding all contact with one another until the very end – when they come together to reveal their shocking discoveries to the property owners and each other, as they help to restore peace for all involved.
The bloodthirsty demons are back and this time they’re going after a family in a rundown high-rise in the 2023 entry of the campy Evil Dead horror film franchise, Evil Dead Rise.
Beth (Lily Sullivan), a roadie who’s just received some surprising news, heads home to visit her estranged sister, Ellie (Alyssa Sutherland), and Ellie’s children in Los Angeles. Upon arriving she discovers her sister packing up and getting ready to leave their apartment because the building’s been condemned.
Ellie sends her three kids – Danny (Morgan Davies), Bridget (Gabrielle Echols), and young Kassie (Nell Fisher) – out to get pizza, and just as they make it back to the parking garage, the city experiences a massive earthquake. The ground cracks and a large hole opens up in their building.
Teenager Danny goes exploring down in the hole, much to the concern of Bridget and Kassie. He discovers an old, abandoned bank vault and as he rifles through some of the items, he comes across vinyl records and the Necronomicon – the Book of the Dead. Danny puts the items in his backpack, joins his sisters in the garage, and heads back to their apartment.
Danny’s anxious to check out his new possessions, and once he’s in his room, he opens the book. He also plays one of the records, which it turns out was made by a religious man reading from the Necronomicon. This sets free the flesh-possessing demons and one of them takes control of Ellie, turning her into an evil creature bent on killing everyone in the building…including her children.
It falls to Beth, the irresponsible sister, to try to protect Danny, Bridget, and Nell from the demon inside their mother and to try to find a way out of the decrepit building that has become a death trap, thanks to the earthquake.
Directed by Lee Cronin (The Hole in the Ground), Evil Dead Rise is a gruesome and disturbing horror film that’s full of gore but light on actual scares. It’s wall-to-wall blood, but that’s all it is.
Lily Sullivan as Beth is the best part of the film, playing the roadie (don’t call her a groupie!) who’s always let her sister down and made the wrong choices. However, when push comes to shove, she steps up and defends her nephew and nieces from a horrifying demon. Sullivan shows just how terrified and out of her league Beth is as she faces the demon inhabiting her sister’s body.
Another terrific, truly unnerving performance is delivered by Alyssa Sutherland as Ellie. Prior to being possessed, Sutherland’s performance as Ellie captures just how beaten down by life the single mom is and how, despite that, she still adores her children. Once she’s possessed, Sutherland steals every scene. Her movements and facial expressions as the demon are skin-crawlingly effective.
What’s missing in this entry of the Evil Dead franchise is the campy, fun vibe that made the earlier films so enjoyable. That, plus Bruce Campbell’s Ash Williams and his fun, over-the-top reactions to the demons. Evil Dead Rise takes itself too seriously, forgets what made the franchise so much fun, and subs in buckets of blood instead of humor.
GRADE: C
MPAA Rating: R (Strong Bloody Horror Violence|Some Language|Gore)
Filmmaker Guy Ritchie steps out of his comfort zone of flashy action scenes and characters with witty stylish dialogue to take on a down-to-earth, gritty, serious war story about loyalty and courage with Guy Ritchie’s The Covenant.
The film focuses on U.S. Army Sergeant John Kinley (Jake Gyllenhaal) and his unit hunting for Taliban forces in Afghanistan. During a routine checkpoint, the unit’s interpreter is killed when a bomb explodes. Back at the airbase, Kinley handpicks a new Afghan interpreter, Ahmed (Dar Salim), despite his reputation of being hard to get along with.
It’s not long before Kinley and Ahmed are strongly disagreeing on how to go about hunting the Taliban. On one dirt road search, Ahmed tells Kinley to stop and that they shouldn’t be going in this direction, vehemently insisting their intelligence is wrong and they’re headed into a trap. Kinley initially reacts by reminding Ahmed that he’s just the translator. Ahmed quickly clears up that misconception by pointing out, “Actually, I’m here to interpret.”
Ahmed insists it’s a trap, so Kinley reluctantly stops. He orders two of his men check out the situation from a higher point. Using binoculars, they confirm a Taliban force is waiting to ambush them.
Kinley starts to trust Ahmed more after this and after learning that his new interpreter is not just helping his unit for the money but because the Taliban killed his son. He’s helping the U.S. forces for the right to get a visa and go to America.
Kinley and his unit come across a Taliban force stockpiling weapons and come under intense fire from Taliban reinforcements. Kinley and Ahmed are forced to flee on foot after the rest of the unit is wiped out. With their communications cut off, the two men find themselves being hunted behind enemy lines.
Kinley is seriously wounded during a skirmish with some of the Taliban, and it falls on Ahmed to make a stretcher and drag Kinley, who is out of it due to his wounds, through mountain ranges and challenging terrain to get back to the U.S. airbase.
Kinley wakes up in a hospital and, three weeks later, is sent back to his family in California. He finds out from a friend in the army that Ahmed has been forced to go underground with his wife and infant child because the Taliban’s hunting him after saving the American sergeant’s life. Kinley’s PTSD is made worse by the bureaucratic red tape, yet he’s determined to get Ahmed and his family visas and get them out of the country to America.
Realizing he’ll never be able to find Ahmed and get his family out of the country by going through normal channels, Kinley calls in favors. Kinley returns to Afghanistan, set on finding Ahmed and doing what’s right.
Written and directed by Guy Ritchie, The Covenant is a gripping, suspenseful war thriller with two standout performances and some excellent camera work. It’s a serious, realistic look at war and the bonds of trust and loyalty between men who serve together in combat.
Jake Gyllenhaal gives one of his best performances as Sergeant John Kinley, a man who comes to trust his new interpreter and ends up owing him his life. Gyllenhaal captures the command and respect he has over his men and equally wonderfully shows Kinley’s frustration and exhaustion by his failed attempts to rescue Ahmed.
Dar Salim delivers a strong performance as Ahmed, a man who loves his family and goes above and beyond to save Sergeant Kinley from certain death. Salim and Gyllenhaal have solid chemistry in their shared scenes.
The film benefits from terrific camera work that creates an intense and almost docudrama feeling to the action movie. The cinematography and Christopher Benstead’s intense musical score add to the tension.
Guy Ritchie’s The Covenant is a fierce, powerful war thriller that shows the terror, brutality, and heroism of war without glorifying it. The film also puts a spotlight on the interpreters who remain in danger from the Taliban back in Afghanistan and are hunted for assisting America in its fight against terrorism.
GRADE: B
MPAA Rating: R for brief drug content, violence, and language throughout
Release Date: April 21, 2023
Running Time: 123 minutes
Screenwriters: Guy Ritchie, Ivan Atkinson, and Marn Davies
