There will be no musical numbers about COVID when Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist returns for Season 2 on Tuesday, Jan. 5 (NBC, 8/7c).
While many of this fall’s dramas and comedies have addressed the global coronavirus outbreak with significant arcs (see: Grey’s Anatomy) or the occasional mention and mask-wearing (This Is Us), Zoey’s showrunner Austin Winsberg has opted not to incorporate the pandemic into the dramedy’s new season.
“I feel like our show is a musical, and I feel like our show has a spirit of hope and positivity and wish fulfillment in it,” Winsberg explains to TVLine. “And just from minute one, when I started thinking about Season 2, it just didn’t appeal to me to have COVID be a part of this world.”
“I felt, also, like I didn’t want to see a bunch of dance numbers with people with masks on,” Winsberg adds with a laugh.
Plus, given the series’ sometimes weighty and emotional storylines — the upcoming episodes will explore the subject of grief following the death of Zoey’s beloved father — “there are enough challenges and enough complications that, perhaps, we could use some of the feelings that have been happening during the quarantine, and some of the ways people have been trying to carry on and deal with loss, to still talk about a lot of the issues that have come up during this last year, without having to remind people that they’re watching a pandemic show,” Winsberg continues. “I just felt like the show has brought us an opportunity to be a form of escapism. I didn’t want to get stuck in the literalness of what we’re all going through right now.”
That said, Zoey’swill tackle another real-world issue in Episode 6, which deals with systemic racism in Silicon Valley and at Zoey’s workplace, Sprq Point, “in a really, hopefully, deep way,” Winsberg previews. “We brought in a guest choreographer to work with [series choreographer] Mandy [Moore] on the episode, and I’m particularly proud of the musical numbers we do in that episode.”
Zoey’s Playlist fans, hit the comments with your hopes for Season 2!
]]>https://briefnews.eu/zoeys-playlist-the-real-life-topic-season-2-will-tackle-and-one-it-wont/feed/0Nearly 3 months later, the biggest topic around the NBA is LeBron James’ move to the Lakers and how it’s changed the league
https://briefnews.eu/nearly-3-months-later-the-biggest-topic-around-the-nba-is-lebron-james-move-to-the-lakers-and-how-its-changed-the-league/
https://briefnews.eu/nearly-3-months-later-the-biggest-topic-around-the-nba-is-lebron-james-move-to-the-lakers-and-how-its-changed-the-league/#respondMon, 24 Sep 2018 23:00:26 +0000http://briefnews.eu/nearly-3-months-later-the-biggest-topic-around-the-nba-is-lebron-james-move-to-the-lakers-and-how-its-changed-the-league/Harry How/Getty
Teams around the NBA are still talking about LeBron James’ move to the Los Angeles Lakers.
Teams in the Eastern Conference have acknowledged that their paths forward are easier with James out of the way, while teams in the West have accepted that the conference just got tougher.
James’ Lakers will also have a tougher time getting into the playoffs because of the crowded Western Conference, but most expect them to do it.
With the NBA season around the corner and teams reporting for media days and training camps this week, it appears one topic is still buzzing around the league — LeBron James’ move to the Los Angeles Lakers.
It’s been nearly three months since James changed conferences, but around the league, there’s still great interest into how that move will play out. In part, that’s because of the odd team that’s been assembled around James — a mix of young players and journeymen supporting cast.See the rest of the story at Business Insider
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https://briefnews.eu/nearly-3-months-later-the-biggest-topic-around-the-nba-is-lebron-james-move-to-the-lakers-and-how-its-changed-the-league/feed/0Abortion on Trial review: Emotive topic charged with belief and ignorance
https://briefnews.eu/abortion-on-trial-review-emotive-topic-charged-with-belief-and-ignorance/
https://briefnews.eu/abortion-on-trial-review-emotive-topic-charged-with-belief-and-ignorance/#respondTue, 17 Oct 2017 11:18:07 +0000http://briefnews.eu/abortion-on-trial-review-emotive-topic-charged-with-belief-and-ignorance/
GETTY / BBC
Abortion On Trial promised us people, spending a weekend at Anne Robinson’s house, talking abortion
The one that stands out though is not the rudest, goriest or even the most boring.
It’s the one that seems to grasp the point of television the least.
It’s a genre rather than an actual show, covering such discussion-panel delights as Question Time, The Brains Trust and that long-dead Channel 4 smugfest, After Dark.
As Harry Enfield’s opinionated character might have said, “People sitting in chairs, discussing things, on TV. No!”
On paper, he and I would have shouted a similar “No!” at Abortion On Trial (BBC2).
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Marking 50 years since the 1967 Abortion Act, this promised us nine people, spending a weekend at Anne Robinson’s house, talking abortion.
Many factors collided to make this, actually, one of the most enlightening hours of factual TV in a long while.
It was partly the subject matter, highly emotive, charged with both belief and ignorance and something about which no thinking adult can fail to have an opinion.
It was also due to the people discussing it, mainly women, all of whom had had abortions in the past, and arrived at very different conclusions on the issue.
They spoke with painful honesty about what is still, sometimes, a taboo subject, and never shied away from confrontation.
BBC
They spoke with painful honesty about a taboo subject
A third, unexpected factor was Anne Robinson, passionate and compassionate in equal measure, “controversial Anne” unnecessary for a controversial subject.
It wasn’t necessarily fair at every stage. The male perspective was left mainly to Lee, an ex-soldier devastated by his partner’s unilateral decision to abort their baby.
He got tied in knots, saying that he was opposed to abortion but that a panel of judges should make the critical decision.
As Anne pointed out, if a woman wanted to keep a baby but the man didn’t, these judges could then force her to have one of those abortions Lee said he was against.
He also stated, to the offence of fellow guest Mo, that women who’d had three abortions ought to be forbidden from having any more and undergo psychological testing.
The best TV for 2017
Sat, July 1, 2017
The Cuckoo’s Calling, Top of the Lake, In The Dark and more. Here’s the best TV coming your way in 2017.
BBC
1 of 26
Top of the Lake BBC Two, late July/early August – Four long years after the first series aired, this eerie cop drama from Australian director Jane Campion returns
If you followed that reasoning then it was better to make women who were, in Lee’s view, mentally unstable, have babies rather than let them have abortions.
It wasn’t reasoning, of course, it was just emotion and as this programme proved many times over, much of what we think we know about abortion is clouded in the same way.
The same goes for how we understand the half-century-old Abortion Act, drawn up for a very different world.
The point of propaganda though has never changed. Hitler’s PR man Goebbels was very good at it.
BBC
Tunes For Tyrants: Music and Power with Suzy Klein
Which is why the story told on Tunes For Tyrants: Music and Power with Suzy Klein (BBC4) last night was so odd.
Jazz was banned by the Nazis, deemed degenerate and un-German.
An exception was made for swing combo Charlie and his Orchestra, whose sounds were beamed at Britain in the intervals between traitor Lord Haw-Haw’s radio rants.
Covering popular jazz hits with new lyrics, Charlie’s version of Let’s Go Slumming became Let’s Go Shelling and Why Did My Heart Go Boom? turned to Why Did My Ship Go Boom?
Naturally, the fascist jazz ditties made not a jot of difference and you have to wonder why the Nazis ever thought they would.
]]>https://briefnews.eu/abortion-on-trial-review-emotive-topic-charged-with-belief-and-ignorance/feed/0Donald Trump's travel ban bid likely to be the hot topic at the Oscars
https://briefnews.eu/donald-trumps-travel-ban-bid-likely-to-be-the-hot-topic-at-the-oscars/
https://briefnews.eu/donald-trumps-travel-ban-bid-likely-to-be-the-hot-topic-at-the-oscars/#respondFri, 24 Feb 2017 08:47:25 +0000http://briefnews.eu/donald-trumps-travel-ban-bid-likely-to-be-the-hot-topic-at-the-oscars/
While the travel ban has been blocked by the courts, a revamped refugee and immigration executive order will be released by the White House next week.
The director and the star of an Oscar-nominated film have both said they will not attend the awards because of President Trump’s immigration policies and it is likely that those who do attend will use their platform to speak out.
Iranian director Asghar Farhadi, whose film The Salesman will compete for the best foreign language film, has announced he will not attend the ceremony regardless of whether he is allowed to enter the country.
The film’s star Taraneh Alidoosti also said she would not attend the Oscars, tweeting: “Trump’s visa ban for Iranians is racist. Whether this will include a cultural event or not, I won’t attend the Academy Awards 2017 in protest.”
It has been an awards season dominated by politics, with Meryl Streep kicking off proceedings by blasting Mr Trump without naming him at the Golden Globes.
Collecting an honorary prize at the ceremony, she said: “There was one performance this year that stunned me.
“It sank its hooks in my heart. Not because it was good. There was nothing good about it. But it was effective, and it did its job. It made its intended audience laugh and show their teeth.
“It was that moment when the person asking to sit in the most respected seat in our country imitated a disabled reporter. Someone he outranked in privilege, power and the capacity to fight back.
“It kind of broke my heart when I saw it. I still can’t get it out of my head because it wasn’t in a movie. It was real life.”
Streep was referring to a rally in South Carolina when the presidential candidate appeared to make fun of a New York Times journalist who has a congenital joint condition.
The actress also referred to Mr Trump’s immigration policies, when she said: “Hollywood is crawling with outsiders and foreigners and if you kick them all out, you’ll have nothing to watch but football and mixed martial arts, which are not the arts.”
At the Screen Actors Guild Awards, which took place just days after the executive order was signed, Veep star Julia Louis-Dreyfus, branded the ban “a blemish” and “un-American” while La La Land star Emma Stone said Trump’s actions were “inexcusable and scary”.
Moonlight star Mahershala Ali tearfully told the crowd his mother “didn’t go back flips” when he converted to Islam 17 years ago but they quickly realised “that stuff is minutiae, it’s not that important”.
He added: “We see what happens when you persecute people, they fold into themselves.”
Before the courts blocked the travel ban, Oscar organisers said it was “extremely troubling” that the makers of the nominated film could be barred from entering the US.
Farhadi’s film A Separation won the Oscar for best foreign language film in 2012.
]]>https://briefnews.eu/donald-trumps-travel-ban-bid-likely-to-be-the-hot-topic-at-the-oscars/feed/0Spanking Children Remains A Hotly-Debated Topic, With France’s New Ban And Wales’ Bill In Parliament
https://briefnews.eu/spanking-children-remains-a-hotly-debated-topic-with-frances-new-ban-and-wales-bill-in-parliament/
https://briefnews.eu/spanking-children-remains-a-hotly-debated-topic-with-frances-new-ban-and-wales-bill-in-parliament/#respondMon, 23 Jan 2017 17:28:44 +0000http://briefnews.eu/spanking-children-remains-a-hotly-debated-topic-with-frances-new-ban-and-wales-bill-in-parliament/
Spanking children has been a controversial topic for a long time, and now France has weighed in on the debate, becoming the 52nd country to ban spanking just three days before Christmas. France’s decision now puts pressure on the United Kingdom, Switzerland, Italy, and the Czech Republic to follow suit and pass similar laws.
The Telegraph reports, however, that the majority of French people are still in favor of meting out corporal punishment to their children.
There will be no criminal retribution for people in France who break this new law, which makes it more of a symbolic change, but the new laws are being welcomed by child protection groups who believe that spanking children is a totally counter-productive practice. According to a recent poll, 85 percent of French parents say they spank their children and 70 percent of adults are against a total ban on spanking. Besides spanking, parents must abstain from all forms of violence, including physical, verbal, and psychological. Interestingly, humiliating remarks also come under the heading of violence.
French Family Minister Laurence Rossignol welcomed the change, calling it an indispensable tool in preventing child mistreatment. However, not everyone is convinced, and MP Jean-Christophe Lagarde believes the law is “a ridiculous attempt to micromanage family life,” proving yet again that the issue of spanking will always be a very controversial one.
“Are we going to be told how to stack our plates, whether children should be made to dry up and whether they can help their parents with the chores?”
The law on spanking will now be included in family documents and read during civil wedding ceremonies.
Doctor Gilles Lazimi instigated the drive for a ban on spanking.
“This law is a very strong symbolic act to make parents understand just how all violence can be harmful for the child. Above all, it removes the notion of a threshold: there is no small or big violence. There is violence, full stop.”
The Universities of Texas and Michigan last year conducted a study on physical punishment of children, with the conclusion being that spanking can lead to lower cognitive ability, mental health problems, and the very real risk of accepting physical abuse as an accepted norm in later life.
“The more children are spanked, the more aggressive and poorly behaved they are.”
Perhaps the most interesting and surprising comment on the subject of spanking children came from Pope Francis last year. Speaking to a crowd in St. Peter’s Square, the pope said he believed parents should be free to punish their children by spanking them, providing it was not done to humiliate them. Not surprisingly, his comments drew criticism from victims of child abuse by Roman Catholic clerics.
The Sunday Express reported that France has come under fire from the United Nations and the Council of Europe in recent years for their position on violence against children.
“French law will now define parental authority and civil code as excluding all cruel, degrading, or humiliating treatment, including any recourse to corporal violence.”
The Independent reported that Wales is now considering banning parents from smacking their children. Welsh leaders will be given new powers allowing them to make alterations to parental law; if they decide to move forward with the ban, it will come into force later this year. Currently, the bill is going through parliament, and if successful, parents will no longer be able to use corporal punishment to discipline their children.
This move follows many years of controversy over spanking children, which has been publicly condemned by U.N. officials, lobby groups, and the Children’s Commissioners for Scotland, England, Northern Ireland, and Wales. Notably, the ban would affect millions of visitors and tourists from England and the rest of the world who holiday or work in Wales. Currently, parents have the right to smack their children, but changing the law will remove their rights for the first time in 150 years.
Of course, there will always be critics of this type of parental control, with some saying that parents who are trying to do their best for their children would feel threatened.
Sally Holland, Wales’ Children’s Commissioner, said there is no place in society for spanking. BBC News reported that Holland believes children have the right not to be hit by their parents.
Doctor Holland spoke on the Jason Mohammad program on BBC radio.
“Most of us of a certain generation, including myself, were smacked as children. What I would say is it just doesn’t have a place in modern civilized society. And I see this really as a human rights issue, because all we are trying to do is give children the same rights against being hit as adults have.”
Dr. Holland firmly believes that spanking is a human rights issue and said that Wales has been debating this issue for years. She also added that she didn’t expect many parents would be criminalized and that the bar would be set high for prosecutions where children had been harmed.
Andrew R.T. Davies is the Welsh Conservative leader, and he responded cautiously about the proposed new law.
“Personally, I’m a big believer in families having the right to bring up their children and conduct their own affairs in a manner they see fit, without being unnecessarily criminalized by the government. However, we must keep in mind the need to protect the most vulnerable members of society from violent or psychological harm.”
The head of NSPCC Wales, Des Mannion, believes Wales should fall in line with other countries who are finally passing laws for the protection of children.
“While we would never want to criminalize loving parents, the NSPCC believes smacking is not an effective way of dealing with bad behavior and the continued existence of this legal loophole flies in the face of the incredible progress made in boosting children’s rights in recent years.”
Spanking worked on my children, when other forms of punishments, didn't. I wont apologize for teaching them consequences. pic.twitter.com/6Vzm6Ra5jR
What are your thoughts? Were you spanked as a child, and do you spank your own children? Do you think the government should intervene in family matters like spanking?