The cables that keep information flowing through the Big Apple are undergoing a transformation, from aging copper to strong and fast fiber.
Mercedes (or rather, its parent Daimler) and Bosch aren't far off from making their self-driving taxis a practical reality... in a manner of speaking. Bosch chief Volkmar Denner has informed Automobilwoche that the two companies will put test vehicl...
The 2018 cybersecurity race to the bottom is off to an exciting start. First out of the gate is Strava — now widely known as the "social network for athletes" -- and its reckless data-visualization "heat map" gimmick that revealed details of se...
Stargate: Origins will come to Stargate Command, a new streaming service focused on the franchise, on February 15th. Now MGM has released a full trailer for the show, and it looks pretty spectacular.
In Search Of… is returning to television!
On Tuesday, HISTORY greenlit a new In Search Of series hosted and executive produced by Zachary Quinto (Star Trek). The 10-episode unscripted series, which is inspired by the 1970s franchise of the same name, will explore unexplained phenomena — alien encounters, UFO sightings, time travel, and artificial intelligence — from all around the world.
Each episode will follow Quinto as he investigates these great mysteries and will feature accounts from witnesses and scholars “with a personal connection to the phenomenon” and demonstrations that will hopefully provide context to the episode’s theme. In the press release announcing the pick-up, HISTORY pointed to the Pentagon’s recent confirmation of a secret UFO investigation program as evidence of the show’s timeliness.
Fun fact: The original In Search Of series, which ran from 1977 to 1982, was hosted by Leonard Nimoy, who is most famous for playing Spock on Star Trek. Quinto plays a younger version of Spock in the current Star Trek film franchise and came face-to-face with Nimoy’s version of the character in the 2009 movie. Basically, the Heroes alum seems determined to follow in the late actor’s footsteps.
“I am so excited to be reimagining In Search Of and exploring new questions and phenomena with all of the advancements in science and technology from which we have benefitted in the past forty years since the original series first aired,” said Quinto in a statement. “In the spirit of my late dear friend Leonard Nimoy, we intend to honor and perpetuate his endless curiosity about the world — and universe — in which we live. Our director Eddie Schmidt and our partners at Propagate, Universal Television Alternative Studio and FremantleMedia International have ignited the process with enthusiasm and intelligence, and HISTORY is the perfect home for this unique and compelling series.”
“In the ‘70s and ‘80s, the legendary Leonard Nimoy captivated viewers by transporting them through the world of unsolved mysteries and paranormal phenomena,” said Eli Lehrer, the network’s executive vice president of programming. “To this day, the investigations conducted in this series remain relevant and a source of public obsession. Now with Zachary’s passion and prevalence in the science fiction genre, the groundbreaking series is back for a new audience.”
In addition to Quinto, In Search Of will also be executive produced by Eddie Schmidt; Zachary Behr for HISTORY; and Ben Silverman, Howard Owens and Brett-Patrick Jenkins for Propagate Content.
Land Rover builds cars for those who enjoy the outdoors in comfort and luxury. The car company is lending its name to a smartphone that will be called the Land Rover Explore. It's a ruggedized smartphone built by Bullitt Group, the same company that makes Ruggedized CAT phones like the S60 . The company announced the phone at ISPO - an outdoor and sports trade show in Munich. Bullitt certainly has experience building sturdy hardware, and it is an appropriate choice to make a phone like the Land Rover Explore. The Explore is targeted to a more broad audience of folks who enjoy hiking and...
Elon Musk's new flamethrower has raked in over $3.5 million in a single day.
Musk showcased his new flamethrower on Instagram on Saturday night, when it went on sale for $500. In a post on Twitter last night, he announced they sold 7,000 units. He posted an update early this morning, saying they've now sold 10,000 units.
Elon Musk's flamethrower, via The Boring Company
I love the weird tradition in Star Trek storytelling: alien Greek Gods, evil Picard clones, the seductive alien-goddess cenobite, the murderous salt vampire impersonating ghosts of girlfriends past. And Discovery‘s four-episode adventure in the Mirror Universe has been some weird Star Trek. SPOILER ALERT, because that adventure seems to be over now, and it’s worth taking a close look at just why this new Discovery chapter has been so fun.
I laughed a lot during Sunday’s episode, “What’s Past is Prologue,” but one line sticks out to me as sheer understatement. “It was a good plan,” says the Emperor (Michelle Yeoh), congratulating her reality-crossing ally Michael Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green) on a job well done.
Now, from what I could see, their “plan” had three distinct parts:
STEP ONE: Walk into the lair of the big bad guy, surrounded by a full squadron of other bad guys.
STEP TWO: Punch, high-kick, shoot, and stab everyone.
STEP THREE: Profit.
Oh, and also, a spaceship blew a roof off the place. What fun! This episode was directed by Olatunde Osunsanmi, who has a real flair for visceral science-fiction action. (He previously worked on TNT’s Falling Skies, which costarred Discovery‘s Doug Jones as a different poignantly endearing alien). The hand-to-hand fight scene between the two tough women and the fascist rebel squad was a feast of cheap thrills. Michelle Yeoh kicked a man in the face: That’s just an explanatory statement, but also the best review I’ll give anything this week. Wait, never mind: Michelle Yeoh killed a man with a sword.
In last year’s Chapter One, Discovery was expensive-looking, sincere, ambitious, long-winded. In this Mirror Phase, the show blew itself up. Ash Tyler (Shazad Latif) was a moody wet blanket, so now he’s a Klingon sleeper agent tearing his own chest to bloody pieces. Yeoh’s Georgiou was a compelling commander who died in the season premiere, but now in the alternate universe, she’s a mass-murdering matriarch flying a golden megaship to blow up rebel strongholds. (She nuked the entire site from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure.) They even brought back the great Rekha Sharma, too-briefly playing the evil version of Security Chief Landry.
Meanwhile, L’Rell (Mary Chieffo) was in the brig, the whole master plot of Chapter One spiritually vanquished to a waiting room. “The war, and all your devious designs, mean nothing now,” Saru told L’Rell. Was there a wink to the audience there? Did the Klingon War ever really matter? Isn’t it more fun when everyone wears gold body armor, and every elevator trip is a deathmatch?
I referred to this new Chapter as a “reboot” a few weeks ago, maybe an unfair act of cute-headline semantics. It’s possible that this was the plan all along. The revelation that Captain Lorca was, literally, his own bad self suggests a clever act of deconstruction.
And yet, part of what I loved about this Mirror misadventure was how fully Discovery embraced its own bad self. You say deconstruction; I say destruction. Witty calamity burst free every few minutes. In Sunday’s episode, Lorca perches Evil Stamets right above the burning supernova-ish core of the mycelial network. Lorca starts to describe the poetry of this execution—a scientist killed by his own invention!—but then he stops. “Just kidding. I hate poetry,” he says—and then a henchman blows Evil Stamets to red sparkly bits.
There were a lot of red sparkly bits in this episode. But Discovery is pretty violent in general, snapped necks and exposed ribcages. How can I put this? If you’re going to be the most violent Star Trek show ever, you might as well be a fun violent Star Trek show. And at the risk of praising Discovery in a way that sounds damning: It’s possible that the best version of this show is the one where people kill each other with swords. (Cut to Burnham, in Episode 1, astronaut-fighting with a Klingon.) This instinct is in no way a betrayal of what Star Trek can be. Sunday’s goofy-thrilling hand-to-hand fight scene is just one boulder-toss away from Kirk fighting the Gorn.
Is there some deeper meaning to glean from all this? Reply Hazy; let’s discuss after the finale. “The Captain was a Villain All Along” suggests some real heavy theme twists, and his death could be just a prelude to a deeper understanding of what Lorca meant for his crew.
But to take down Lorca, Burnham has to team up with Emperor Georgiou, who was introduced launching a thermonuclear assault on a group of justice-seeking rebel alien races. Enemy of my enemy, sure, but this episode’s breakneck pacing accelerates the Emperor’s story line in a strange direction. There was something diminishing in the suggestion that the Emperor was so completely defeated so quickly, after one single corridor phaser-duel. Like: She is the Emperor of the Galaxy, commander of an economy that runs on ambitious assassination. Surely she has planned for days like this?
But also: They saved Michelle Yeoh! “I will die on my feet,” the Emperor announced, right before Burnham teleported away from certain doom. Discovery needs more of that spirit, brutal and fantastical. These past few episodes had some problems—Stamets floating in a shiny coma, “Captain Killy” reduced to more heartfelt typing. But at its best, the Mirror Phase saw Discovery reconfigure itself as a swagger-y space opera.
Now, the Discovery has returned to the original universe—where the Klingons have won the war. Back to Chapter One, I guess? There was some talk of time travel, which could imply some chrono-hopping in the next couple episodes. Back in September, Discovery began with Burnham, Georgiou, and Saru on the bridge of a spaceship. They’ll be all together in next week’s episode—different ship, different Georgiou, but still fighting Klingons. There’s a symmetry here, but you worry it’s also a kind of stasis. I’m intrigued to see where this goes, but with the Mirror Universe in the rearview, I already miss where it’s been.
A lot went down in the latest Star Trek: Discovery episode, "What's Past Is Prologue," as the show hurtles towards its first-season finale in a couple of weeks. But surely the biggest "WTF just happened?!" moment came for Jason Isaacs' Captain Lorca in the final minutes of the show. We spoke to Isaacs about the events of the episode, but obviously...
Full spoilers follow for Discovery's first 13 episodes!
If you've seen the episode or don't mind the spoilers, then read on for what Isaacs had to say about "What's Past Is Prologue" and how things led to this point.
For some ATM thieves, swiping card data involves too much patience -- they'd rather just take the money and run. The US Secret Service has warned ATM makers Diebold Nixdorf and NCR that "jackpotting" hacks, where crooks force machine to cough up larg...
Location data in fitness apps is frequently a good thing, since it helps you remember and optimize your routes. However, it's also producing an unexpected security risk: it's revealing details of secret military bases. UCA analyst Nathan Ruser has di...
Roumen.ganeffwtf is this shit
More than 19 billion new apps were installed from Google Play in Q4 2017.
Apps are an essential component of any smartphone, and while this is an area that iOS was previously king of, that's definitely no longer the case. The Google Play Store has grown and matured a lot over the past couple years, and Q4 of 2017 was its best quarter yet.
According to App Annie, the Play Store saw 19 billion new app downloads (not including updates or re-installs) during last year's final quarter. Compared to the Apple App Store, that's a lead of 145%. The App Store still saw more dollars spent at $11.5 billion (two times more than the Play Store), but those 19 billion installs officially make Q4 2017 Google's best quarter to date.
Emerging markets played a big role in this number, with countries like Brazil, India, and Indonesia allowing the Play Store to see a year-over-year growth of 10% for these areas. To help put things into perspective, Google Play downloads in India alone were more than app downloads in the U.S. across Google Play and the App Store combined.
The most popular apps on Google Play during Q4 of 2017 include those in the Finance, Games, and Personalization categories, and as we continue throughout Q1 2018, App Annie predicts that Finance-related apps will continue to see strong performance.
If you helped contribute to Google Play's last quarter, what apps did you download?
Google introduces new controls for muting and blocking online ads
Game of Thrones‘ Stark sisters are teaming up for another special project: Sophie Turner’s wedding.
Talking to Radio Times about her upcoming role in The Early Man, Maisie Williams (who plays Arya Stark on the HBO smash series) let slip that her on-screen sister had already asked her to be a bridesmaid in her upcoming nuptials to pop singer Joe Jonas. Although they’re waiting until the final GoT season is over to start planning the wedding, Williams did admit that Turner is “already letting her little heart wonder and imagine.”
The actresses behind the Stark sisters have been close friends since early days on the show, so it’s no surprise they’re hoping to work together in other capacities after the show wraps next year. “We’re sort of in the same world with X-Men,” says Williams, adding that’d it’d be “a missed opportunity” if they didn’t get to come together on screen for that franchise too. “Purely because we just have so much fun and… it would just be a really great atmosphere with us on set together.”
When it comes to her reaction to the last ever season of Thrones, the young actress is less assured. “It’s either going to be everything everyone ever dreamed of, or it’s going to be disappointing,” she says. “It depends what side of the fence you’re going to sit on. No matter what you do there’s going to be that divide. It depends what people want from the final season. I love it, but you never know.”
Let’s at least hope Turner’s big day is more successful than any wedding to go down on the HBO show.
Game of Thrones returns to HBO in 2019. Watch the full interview above.
Audi isn't going to let rival automakers like BMW and Tesla corner the market on home batteries. The German badge is testing a Smart Energy Network where solar-powered batteries not only help your home minimize use of the electrical grid, but talk t...
Sometimes, inspiration strikes in inconvenient places, and the best you can do to make sure the idea doesn't escape you is to write it down on scraps of paper or a napkin. The latest experimental project out of Microsoft's Garage program, which encou...
Scientists have cloned monkeys using the same process that saw Dolly the Sheep make headlines back in 1996.
CNN reports that while they're not the first cloned monkeys to make history - that honour goes to rhesus monkey Tetra, created in 1999 - they are the first that are the result of the same process that was used to create Dolly.
Nokia delivered some of the best cameraphones through the years dating back to the N95, the 808 PureView and the Lumia 1020 . According to a leak from the Chinese social network Baidu, a concept phone with five lenses positioned in a circle, coupled with a LED flash, might be the next glorious installment in that series. Sources suggest the phone will be named Nokia 10 and could arrive as early as IFA 2018 in Berlin this September. Although we are thin on the details, the design also reveals the upcoming phone will have a fingerprint scanner on the back, right below the revolver...
Half a decade in the making, and after a year of intensive testing, Amazon's cashier-free convenience store is opening to the public. Amazon Go, located at the base of the company's Seattle HQ, is the first of its kind: a convenience store with no ch...
This morning the European Union’s European Commission became the latest regulatory body to fine Qualcomm over anti-competitive actions undertaken by the company. The investigation, which we’ve been expecting the results of for some time now, found Qualcomm guilty of abusing its dominant market position in LTE modems, with Qualcomm paying Apple to exclusively use its modems. As a result the Commission has levied the largest fine to date against Qualcomm, totaling over €997 million ($1.23 billion).
Qualcomm has been under scrutiny by regulators in one form or another for over a decade at this point. The company has previously been fined by China, South Korea, Taiwan, and there is still an ongoing investigation in the United States. While the precise infraction has varied some from fine to fine, in all cases regulators have cited Qualcomm for abusing its position in the cellular modem market in order to freeze out any competition. This has included their position to forcibly bundle unrelated patents and refusing to license out standards essential patents to customers who didn’t buy Qualcomm chips.
The European Commission’s case, by contrast, is perhaps the most interesting of the cases as it’s the most contemporary, dealing with Qualcomm’s actions from 2011 to 2016. The Commission’s case is solely focused on LTE shenanigans – other cases have tended to focus on CDMA or a mix of CDMA and LTE – with the regulatory body finding sufficient evidence of an anti-competitive Apple deal to charge the company under antitrust laws.
The Apple deal, which we first found out about in a US FTC investigation last year, had Qualcomm paying Apple royalty rebates in order to ensure Apple’s exclusive use of Qualcomm’s LTE modems. And while royalty rebates alone are not inherently illegal, the fact that Qualcomm was doing it in order to prevent other competitors from gaining a foothold in the LTE modem market – primarily Intel – is what makes it illegal. And while it’s just one of many handset vendors in the EU, Apple ships a large enough percentage of all handsets that landing an Apple deal can (and did) make or break an LTE modem vendor; so stopping Apple from looking outside Qualcomm would go a long way towards ensuring no other competition for Qualcomm cropped up.
Meanwhile, Apple’s cooperation with investigators has driven a large wedge between the two companies. Apple has been suing Qualcomm for another $1 billion in royalty rebates it says are still owed, and Qualcomm has been suing Apple for what they see as an unfounded global attack against the company. Apple has since begun multi-sourcing modems – starting with Intel’s XMM 7360 for the iPhone 7 in 2016 – so the European Commission’s case is more about punishing Qualcomm for past actions than it is about correcting any present market conditions.
Finally, while the Commission’s findings are not binding in other nations, this ruling sets the stage for what’s likely to be the most interesting of Qualcomm’s ongoing cases: the United States Federal Trade Commission. The US FTC has been investigating Qualcomm since the start of 2017 over the Apple deal and other aspects of Qualcomm’s business, so the fact that the Commission found enough evidence to fine Qualcomm indicates that the FTC could rule similarly on the same evidence. Never mind any other regulatory bodies out there who haven’t already begun investigating Qualcomm over the Apple deal. As a result this is likely not the last time we’ll see Qualcomm fined for their misdeeds with Apple.
Update: Qualcomm has issued a statement saying that they disagree with the Commission's ruling, and that they will be appealing the fine to the General Court of the European Union.
“We are confident this agreement did not violate EU competition rules or adversely affect market competition or European consumers,” said Don Rosenberg, executive vice president and general counsel of Qualcomm. “We have a strong case for judicial review and we will immediately commence that process.”
Update 01/25: Qualcomm has also sent over a note reiterating that Apple broke the exclusivity agreement with the launch of the iPhone 7 in September of 2016. The agreement was set to expire 3 months later
Zoey Johnson (Yara Shahidi) will definitely make it to sophomore year!
Grown-ish, Freeform’s colorful black-ish spin-off, has been renewed for season 2, the network announced Thursday at the inaugural Freeform Summit.
Created by black-ish‘s Kenya Barris, the series follows Dre and Rainbow Johnson’s (Anthony Anderson and Tracee Ellis Ross) eldest daughter as she leaves the nest, heads to college, and navigates this uncertain time in a young person’s life.
“We’re looking at what it’s like to be a college kid in the world that we’re living in today,” Barris previously told EW about the series, which explores everything from drugs on campus to hook-up culture and safe spaces. “I really personally feel there hasn’t been another generation that has as much on its shoulders in terms of the world they’re walking into as the generation right now that we see in college.”
He added, “The title is sort of double-entendre. The title is that you’re supposed to be grown but you’re also not quite grown. There’s something debilitating but also freeing with that place in life — the idea that you can be a flawed person and you know you’re flawed, but at the same time it’s a little bit okay because you’re kind of given a little bit of a pass. That’s an interesting place to sort of tell a story from.”
The series also stars Francia Raisa, Trevor Jackson, Jordan Buhat, Emily Arlook, Deon Cole, and Chris Parnell. YouTube musicians Chloe and Halle Bailey also recur. Anderson, Helen Sugland, E. Brian Dobbins, Laurence Fishburne, and Julie Bean also executive produce.
Grown-ish airs Wednesdays at 8 p.m. on Freeform.
What if you could meet yourself? Would you trust you?
It’s a question Howard Silk (played by the inimitable J.K. Simmons) faces in the new Starz sci-fi espionage drama Counterpart. Howard goes to work every day in the interface department of a spy agency in East Berlin, performing a mundane job he doesn’t really understand. But his stagnant routine is disrupted when one day his security pass doesn’t work, and he finds himself in an interrogation room with… himself.
Only the doppelgänger isn’t exactly him. “I wanted to make a show that depicted two versions of the same self in conversation,” says creator Justin Marks. “I’ve always wondered how choices I’ve made have formed aspects of who I’ve become.”
The thriller is set in an alternative version of present-day Germany, with the Berlin Wall still standing and serving as a crossing point between two parallel worlds that formed 30 years ago when an experiment-gone-wrong split reality.
Though Howard and Prime (as he’s called, to differentiate the two Howards) share a past, their lives have diverged as time has passed. Likewise, their surroundings have evolved—socially, politically, and technologically. “Neither world is better or worse than the other,” explains Marks. “They’re just advanced in different ways because of the nuances and details of each history.”
In both realms—each rife with conspiracy, assassins, and mistrust—turning to the person who knows you inside out isn’t necessarily the safest option. “As the series goes on, we ask, ‘Can these two exist in the same space without somehow destroying each other’s lives?'” says Marks. “The answer is ‘Absolutely not.'”
Counterpart premieres Sunday at 8 p.m. ET on Starz.
The Flash's Kid Flash has joined DC's Legends of Tomorrow as a series regular.
Entertainment Weekly reports Keiynan Lonsdale will reprise his role as Wally West in the show's upcoming Season 3 episode 11, which premieres on February 19. He'll then become an official member of the team in episode 13. The character previously appeared in the season 3 premiere of Legends of Tomorrow, in which he helped the time-traveling superhero team.
Wally West has been largely absent during the current fourth season of The Flash, with the character trying to find his place in the world following Barry Allen's return from the Speed Force. Kid Flash's arrival on the Waverider comes after the departures of Martin Stein (Victor Garber) and Jax (Frazn Drameh), who combined to form Firestorm.
Star Wars: Episode IX director J.J. Abrams is working on a new sci-fi drama series.
According to The Hollywood Reporter the untitled series, written by Abrams, centers around a family who gets into a car crash that leaves the mother, who's a scientist, in a coma. After looking through her mother's experiments, the daughter finds herself in a different land where the world is battling against some sort of monstrous, oppressive force.
Abrams will executive produce alongside Bad Robot's Ben Stephenson. He is currently shopping the series around with multiple networks reportedly interested, including HBO and Apple.
Thank Professor X that Fox renewed this X-Men drama for a second season, since the two-hour finale (airing tonight at 8 p.m.) is “for sure a cliffhanger,” says Emma Dumont, who plays Lorna, a.k.a. Polaris, a magnetism-manipulating mutant. “It’s the most on-the-edge thing.”
As the Mutant Underground tries to thwart the genocidal plans of Dr. Campbell (Garret Dillahunt), who wants to take his Hound program national, Lorna must decide how much she wants to be like her radical father, Magneto (who casts a strong shadow without appearing).
“Magneto is the entire reason for the last two episodes. He is it even though he’s never mentioned by name and we never see him,” says Dumont.
Although Magneto, who has been portrayed by Michael Fassbender and Ian McKellen in the films, was always trying to do what’s best for mutants, the means by which he tried to accomplish this hurt many people, and thus many view him as a villain. Whenever Polaris realizes she has thoughts similar to his, she gets disheartened and it’s finally time for her to confront that.
“The truth is that they’re exactly the same and she has the exact same beliefs as him. So, she basically needs to decide if she’s going to own it. Is she going to step up and try to fight fire and save mutants, or is she going to back down and sort of be passive about it?” says Dumont, adding that the episode really delves into Polaris’ backstory. “We know the Polaris we see now, but we don’t really know Polaris in the past. We really get to see her as a younger woman, like really reluctant to be a leader and doesn’t really want people to look up to her — maybe even more insecure than we’ve seen before.”
The actress is particularly excited for fans to see the finale not only because of the many nods to Magneto, but also because Polaris finally reveals just how powerful she is. Teases Dumont, “Let’s just say she does something very difficult and tricky that she’s never done before.”
The Gifted‘s two-hour season finale airs tonight at 8 p.m. on Fox.
At the Television Critics Association’s winter press tour Monday, Supergirl star Melissa Benoist addressed how the allegations of sexual harassment against, and subsequent firing of, former Supergirl boss Andrew Kreisberg have affected the series.
“That was a major disappointment, and the irony was not lost on me,” Benoist said following her panel for Paramount project Waco. “I have to say that the way our show has recovered as a cast and a crew together, we have an atmosphere on set now that I’m extremely proud of and there are a lot of amazing men that work on our show, and we have a lot of amazing women that are in powerful positions on our show as well — now one of our co-showrunners is a female, , and the executive producer Sarah Schechter. We’re all in the fight for equality and for a safer atmosphere in the working space.”
Kreisberg, who was also an executive producer on The Flash, Arrow, and DC’s Legends of Tomorrow, was fired by Warner Bros. in November after news broke that 15 women and four men alleged sexual harassment and other physical misconduct by Kreisberg that ultimately created a toxic work environment. Kreisberg, who strongly denied the allegations, was initially suspended as Warner Bros. Television Group set out to investigate.
Though Supergirl will be going on a short hiatus due to a production delay — the show will return for four weeks starting Monday, after which Legends of Tomorrow will air nine weeks of original episodes until Supergirl reclaims the timeslot on April 16 — CW boss Mark Pedowitz previously told EW that had nothing to do with the Kreisberg investigation.
Asked how the business does better as a whole, Benoist says, “I think it’s a matter of empathy, and it’s a matter of listening to each other and maybe as standing in each other’s shoes for a day across genders, and across sexualities, across any platforms. I just think it’s a matter of listening to each other. It’s hard to talk about something when you’re still so in the thick of it, when you’re still so engulfed by sorting out the confusion, but I have a lot of hope. I think that people are better than the way things have been.”
When the allegations first came to light, Benoist released a statement on Twitter, calling the situation “heartbreaking,” noting that she would return to work that week “even more committed to being a part of changing the norm by listening when people speak up, and refusing to accept an environment that is anything less than a safe, respectful and collaborative space.” Read her full statement here.
Supergirl returns Monday at 8 p.m. ET on The CW.
Sharon Raydor’s sudden and tragic death on Major Crimes sparked intense debate among ardent fans — and it hasn’t waned since the show concluded earlier this month. Now, Raydor’s portrayer, Mary McDonnell, has spoken out on the matter.
In an essay for Variety, McDonnell acknowledged the backlash against the show as well as the widespread support she received from fans, calling viewers’ reactions to Raydor’s death “sharply illuminating.” Some Major Crimes viewers disliked the way the show’s protagonist was killed off several episodes before ending, not allowing her the chance to be a part of the final story line.
“I have been watching, reading, and listening to the fans’ reactions to Sharon’s death, and it’s taken me a while to find the essence of my experience,” McDonnell wrote. “I have been approached by several journalists, but in truth, I was not ready to speak until now.” (EW had previously reached out to McDonnell’s team for an interview, but did not receive a firm response.)
McDonnell said she had hoped “we would be able to both announce the end of the series and give a gentle warning as to the death that was coming.” Instead, the character’s death was an utter shock to viewers — and one that took on a deeper meaning in the current political context, McDonnell wrote. “Many fans were truly saddened, angry, and overwhelmingly frustrated,” she wrote. “I knew how much Sharon was loved. I knew she was a role model. What I hadn’t totally comprehended was how much importance she held as a symbol. And how her importance had grown since the election last year.”
In his interview with EW, creator James Duff said that he expected controversy when he made the creative decision, which was born largely out of his desire to not trap McDonnell in a dying show. (The show was canceled by TNT before its final season began airing.) “I fully expected a great deal of controversy, and I also fully expected that controversy to lift our ratings, and that’s exactly what happened,” he said. “Even if it weren’t going to lift our ratings, I had an obligation to my friend that transcended ratings, and that transcended how any group of audience is going to feel right now.”
Notably, McDonnell endorsed the social media campaign in which fans replaced their online profile pictures with a shot of the actress’ name as it appeared in the series’ credits, calling it “amazing.” In a move that outraged many viewers, McDonnell’s name was removed from the credits sequence in the episodes after Raydor was killed off. The actress explained in her essay that she was “shocked” to see her name cut from the final episodes, adding, “Neither I nor my representatives knew this was going to happen.”
“I joined and changed my picture online for a few days, frankly because I was as shocked that my name was removed as they were,” she said. “I honestly felt the fans’ response to be galvanizing. My Twitter feed turned almost completely black with my name in the starring position. It was actually energizing. A lively protest. Genius!”
It’s unusual to see a lead actor’s name removed from the credits for episodes in which they do not appear, especially in the case of a series’ final stretch of episodes. In her column criticizing the way Raydor’s death was handled, Variety‘s Maureen Ryan said that a spokesperson for Warner Bros. TV told her that “the removal of an actor’s name from episodes in which that performer did not appear was common practice at both The Closer and Major Crimes over the last 13 years, and conforms to contractual and guild requirements.” (A TNT representative did not immediately respond to EW’s request for comment on McDonnell’s claims or on the general decision to remove her name from the credits.)
Nonetheless, McDonnell said in the essay that she’s “grateful” to Duff for giving her the chance to play the character, and that ongoing discussions around the controversy continue to teach her new things. “I’ve never experienced anything quite like this in my career,” she said. “I will be studying it for a long time to come.”
Read McDonnell’s full essay here.
