Brian cox

If there is one thing that the rescheduled Emmy awards from this year will be remembered for, it is comforting predictability. Succession swept the board in the dramatic stakes, as The Bear did a similarly imperial job in the comedy categories. There is, of course, something of an arbitrary nature about the way that both shows have been designated; Succession contained more laugh-out-loud scenes, characters and storylines than most comedies — and The Bear alternates between humor and serious dramatic heft with aplomb. Yet the powers that be decided to designate them thus, and I doubt that Jesse Armstrong or Christopher Storer, the creators of the two shows, will be complaining too vociferously today.

After a year in entertainment dominated by the Barbenheimer phenomenon, it wasn’t hugely surprising to find that Barbie and Oppenheimer were similarly garlanded when it came to today’s Golden Globe nominations. The adventures of Mattel’s finest and most lucrative product-turned-icon are up for nine awards — in large part because it has no fewer than three nominations for Best Song, including my own favorite “I’m Just Ken” — whereas Christopher Nolan’s atomic bomb epic is just trailing behind slightly with eight, including recognition for Best Picture, Best Director and, as expected, actors Cillian Murphy, Robert Downey Jr. and Emily Blunt.

The most eagerly anticipated television series of 2021 has finally returned. There are no dragons, or homicidal drug lords, or anachronistically liberal Georgian aristocrats in sight. Instead, the protagonists are a bunch of squabbling, backstabbing multi-millionaires so obsessed with obtaining advantage over one another that the casual cruelties they inflict on the 'little people' around them pass unnoticed. Welcome to the third season of Succession, the wittiest, most vicious show in recent memory. There are numerous reasons for its success.