The buzz-free Amazon Freevee show became an unlikely viral hit before scoring in major categories during last week’s Emmy nominations announcement

When the 2023 Emmy nominations were revealed last week, one of the big surprises was the presence of Amazon Freevee’s hybrid reality/scripted comedy Jury Duty, which placed in four categories including best comedy series.

Whether or not the series – a Truman Show-like experiment about a staged civil court trial in which only the foreperson is unaware of the ruse – ends up bringing home any gold, its prevalence among the other contenders – including past the awards mainstays Ted Lasso, Abbott Elementary, The Marvelous Miss Maisel and Only Murders in the Building; critical darlings Barry and The Bear; and Netflix’s cultural juggernaut Wednesday – counts as a victory lap for the underdog hit.

Chris Gloninger wove the reality of global heating into his forecasts in the conservative heartland of Iowa. Not everyone was receptive

It was a brave, if perhaps scientifically obvious, experiment – to convey messages about the unfolding climate crisis via the regular local TV weather forecasts seen by viewers in the conservative heartland of Iowa. It culminated in the meteorologist involved receiving death threats and exiting the state.

Chris Gloninger, who is 38, has been obsessed with the weather since he was a child, when Hurricane Bob crunched into his New York state home town, parlaying this into an itinerant career as a TV meteorologist in cities such as Milwaukee and Boston, where he pioneered at NBC 10 what he thinks was the US’s first regular broadcast segment on climate change, in 2010.

Sag-Aftra action sees actors and writers picketing together outside studios and pauses production and promotion of movies

The first full day of a strike by Sag-Aftra had an immediate effect on Hollywood, as the industry ground to a halt over a contract with producers that would cover such wide-ranging issues as compensation and the future of AI in film and television.

Whereas the writers’ strike, which has seen the guild’s nearly 20,000 members out of work since early May, promptly shuttered late-night variety programs and writers’ rooms and delayed release dates for many film and TV shows, a simultaneous strike by Sag-Aftra’s 160,000 members has the potential to bring Hollywood to a full standstill.

Exactly why are they striking, who are the big names aboard, is it all streaming and AI’s fault and when will we see actors on screen again?

Who is on strike?
The strike was called on Thursday morning by US actors’ union Sag-Aftra (which was formed in 2012 after a merger between the Screen Actors Guild and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists), after the breakdown in negotiations with the AMPTP (Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers), which represents the studio bosses. Sag-Aftra has around 160,000 members: actors in film and TV shows, as well as video game performers, radio presenters, models and YouTube influencers. Technically the union only covers the US, but its Global Rule One demands that members pull out of any production anywhere in the world.

Who is Sag-Aftra’s firebrand leader?
The union’s president and figurehead is Fran Drescher, who you might remember from 90s TV show The Nanny . Having faced down a modicum of criticism for shooting off to Italy for a photoshoot with Kim Kardashian as negotiations were heading for the rocks, Drescher stormed back with an incendiary speech, in which she poured scorn on studio bosses (“They plead poverty, that they’re losing money left and right when giving hundreds of millions of dollars to their CEOs. It is disgusting. Shame on them.”) and invoked the spirit of the French Revolution: “Eventually, the people break down the gates of Versailles, and then it’s over!”

The Nanny star turned Sag-Aftra union president wins praise for her passion as performers join writers in action expected to halt majority of US film and TV production

Fran Drescher has blasted Hollywood studios in a fiery speech after talks between the actors’ union and studios failed to avert a strike, calling them “disgusting” for claiming “they’re losing money left and right when giving hundreds of millions of dollars to their CEOs”.

In a speech that was widely circulated on Thursday – particularly among many who did not know The Nanny star was heading up Sag-Aftra, Hollywood’s biggest union – Drescher said actors were being “marginalised, disrespected and dishonoured” by a business model that has been drastically changed by streaming and artificial intelligence.

The film-maker brings a visually distinctive yet narratively muddled thriller to life with help from an on-form Claire Danes and an off-key Zazie Beetz

The work of film-maker Steven Soderbergh – purveyor of blockbuster heists (Ocean’s Eleven), neon-lit tales of hustling for the American Dream (the Magic Mike series), and daring slice-of-life dramas (The Girlfriend Experience, big and small screen versions) – tends to follow the money. Whether its a small-scale drug operation or a major casino robbery, his multi-player ensembles offer not just a sense of the numbers, but the who and why of a scheme, a sense of purpose along with the pleasures of how.

Full Circle, the director’s new star-studded, mixed-bag Max limited series (RIP HBO Max), is a bit of an overdose. Sprawling yet often sedate, it disjointedly packs too many of these schemes into an overly complicated, sputtering noir mystery set in present-day New York. Written by Ed Solomon, Soderbergh’s partner for the 2017 choose-your-adventure series Mosaic and the comparatively sleeker and more scintillating film No Sudden Move , Full Circle attempts to braid a thicket of secrets, plans, deceptions and exploitations into a grand picture of cascading connections. The result is less artful collage of counterbalanced motivations and complicities than a rubber-band ball of plot and money, money and plot.

The AI satire in the most recent season has been used as an example of why the Screen Actors Guild must strike to protect their careers

With the most recent season of Black Mirror, you sensed that Charlie Brooker was keen to move away from his reputation as a prophet. Time and time again since his series hit the air, it has managed to correctly predict the future in all sorts of horrible ways. But this season felt like it was deliberately skewing away from reality precisely to avoid this happening again. After all, unless a hapless demon destroys Earth – or unless Britney Spears literally turns into a werewolf – then Brooker is probably in much safer territory.

Reader, it has happened already. Less than a month after it debuted, the Black Mirror episode Joan Is Awful has already become the unlikely figurehead of the potential Screen Actor’s Guild strike .

From Obi-Wan Kenobi to What We Do in the Shadows, this year’s set of nominees offer up some strange choices and omissions

The Emmys giveth and the Emmys taketh away. This year’s just-announced nominations have managed to correct a historic wrong while simultaneously creating one of the greatest injustices in living memory. Usually the optimist in me would want to start with the good news, but then again this is a “snubs and surprises” reaction piece, so let’s start with the tragedy.

Sarah Goldberg has not been nominated for an Emmy. This is unthinkable. Exemplary throughout her time on HBO’s Barry, Goldberg managed to push herself to extraordinary new heights during this year’s final season. She played Sally Reed, cowed by the failure of her career in the present day. She played Sally Reed in the future, drunk and neglectful and living under an assumed identity. And then she played Sally Reed even further in the future, stumbling haltingly towards some level of peace. Forget comedy or drama, or lead or supporting for that matter. In terms of sheer heft, of pure undiluted range, no working actor could touch Sarah Goldberg this year. That she’d be snubbed this year is no surprise – aside from one nomination early in Barry’s run, she has been consistently blanked – but the fact that she’ll never again earn a nomination for this incredible role is heartbreaking.

The acclaimed business drama leads the pack with The Last of Us, The White Lotus and Ted Lasso following

The final season of Succession has dominated this year’s Emmy nominations with 27 nods.

The acclaimed HBO series picked up 14 acting nominations including recognition for Brian Cox , Jeremy Strong, Kieran Culkin and Sarah Snook. It marks the first time in Emmys history that three performers from the same show have scored lead actor nominations in the same category.