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BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. (AP) — A roundup of news from the Television Critics Association summer meeting, at which TV networks and streaming services are presenting details on upcoming programs.
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EX IN THE CITY?
In “Sex and the City,” Sarah Jessica Parker’s wardrobe was all about the look and the label. In “Divorce,” her new HBO comedy series, it’s more about emotion.
Parker, back on HBO a decade after starring as single girl Carrie on “Sex and the City,” plays a wife and mother who decides to end her marriage. She stars opposite Thomas Haden Church as her (maybe) soon-to-be-ex-husband.
Clothing is part of “the whole person in a much more subtle way. You see it in everything: in Thomas’ character, in the children’s clothing,” Parker said. “The family is isolated in a period without it being a period piece.”
She was inspired by the look of 1970s film, Parker said, and most of what her character wears is from vintage or thrift shops. Costume designer Arjun Bhasin, who has worked with filmmaker Ang Lee, is in charge of the wardrobe.
“Divorce” debuts Oct. 9.
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GENDER: SCIENCE AND CULTURE
Katie Couric and National Geographic Channel are teaming up on a documentary about the science and culture behind gender.
Couric is the executive producer and host of the two-hour film, described as an in-depth look at factors involved in gender fluidity, including genetics, brain chemistry and modern culture.
The film, with the working title “Gender Revolution,” will premiere globally on National Geographic Channel in January 2017. It will be timed with the release of a gender-themed issue of National Geographic magazine, the channel said.
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‘GAME’ OVER
HBO has confirmed what “Game of Thrones” fans never wanted to hear: The fantasy-thriller phenomenon will be coming to an end after Season 8.
Recently HBO renewed the series — adapted from George R.R. Martin’s novels — for a shortened seventh season consisting of seven episodes. It airs next summer
The eighth season will bring the saga to a close. The number of episodes for that last cycle has not yet been determined, said HBO programming chief Casey Bloys. “We’ll take as many as the (producers) will give us.”
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NIXON ON REAGAN
“Killing Reagan” star Cynthia Nixon isn’t mincing words about how the late Nancy Reagan might react to the freedom granted to the man who shot and wounded President Ronald Reagan.
“Nancy wouldn’t like it,” said Nixon, who plays the first lady in National Geographic Channel’s movie based on the book by Bill O’Reilly and Martin Dugard.
“Nancy’s daughter didn’t like it,” said the film’s director, Rod Lurie, referring to Patti Davis, who has opposed John Hinckley Jr.’s release from the psychiatric hospital where he was confined after the 1981 assassination attempt.
Last Wednesday, a judge finalized Hinckley’s transition, ordering that the 61-year-old can permanently leave the hospital. As early as Aug. 5, he’ll be able to leave with his mother, 90, at her Williamsburg, Virginia home, where he’s been staying for 17 days each month.
Tim Matheson plays Reagan and Kyle S. More is Hinckley in the movie debuting in October.
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NO FAIR
Norman Lear, age 94 and a native New Yorker, thought he knew a little something about the obstacles of housing in the Big Apple. But when he began exploring the subject for “America Divided,” Lear said he was “horrified at how little I knew. Someone making a reasonable living with two children can no longer afford to live in New York City.”
Racial discrimination also remains a problem despite the fair-housing law that makes such a thing illegal. On his episode, Lear goes incognito to expose real-estate agents who give preferential treatment to him, as a white man, over a black man seeking the same apartment.
Those were the insights Lear helps bring to viewers in his chapter of “American Divided,” an eight-story, five-part series that premieres on the Epix channel on Sept. 30.
Lear joins seven fellow stars who explore their own chosen issues of inequality that, in each case, was close to their heart. These A-list correspondents also include Amy Poehler, Zach Galifianakis, Common, Rosario Dawson, Peter Sarsgaard, Jesse Williams and America Ferrera. Other issues they tackle include inequality in education, health care, labor, criminal justice and the political system.