Hello, Genius. We Have Heat Dome Diversions!
Keep cool, you little no-neck monsters!
Dear Wags,
Renowned climatologist Cole Porter wrote: According to the Kinsey Report, ev'ry average man you know/Much prefers his lovey-dovey to court/When the temperature is low/But when the thermometer goes 'way up/And the weather is sizzling hot/Mister, pants for romance is not.
When it comes to pants for romance, we do not judge. But like the song says, it’s too darn hot. We are not going to bang out stifling paragraphs in this infernal heat dome; there’s no need to melt you with more incendiary news about the state of civilization. Instead we’ll just serve up refreshing diversions. Stay cool!
Yours Ever,
Match Point
Ferderer: Twelve Final Days (Prime). “I can't stay No. 1 for fifty years, you know,” Roger Federer once said. Actually, the Swiss superstar held that slot for 310 weeks. In his 25-year tennis career, Federer won 20 Gland Slam singles titles, including a record eight Wimbledon victories. Documentarians Asif Kapadia and Joe Sabia had unprecedented access to the ace as he prepared for his last tournament—2022’s Laver Cup—and discussed life and loss with a ferocious competitor. They also sat down with his wife Mirka and rivals such as Rafael Nadal, Andy Murray, and Novak Djokovic. It’s a slick examination of how a singular athlete can let go with grace.—Chris Wilton
Double Take
Orphan Black Echoes (AMC). You may miss Tatiana Maslany, but this spinoff of Orphan Black is a whole new clone thriller. Krysten Ritter stars as a woman who figures out that she was hatched in a lab along with a passel of doppelgängers. Meanwhile, Keeley Hawes is a scientist who questions the morality of all that replication. Naturally (or otherwise), there are sinister types willing to do anything to keep their secret experiments going. — June Colborn
Yes Chef!
The Bear Season 3 (FX/Hulu). Opening a restaurant is grueling; keeping one going is even harder. The latest installment of FX’s critical darling finds Carmy (Jeremy Allen White) trying to avoid a sophomore slump after transforming his dead brother’s sandwich shop into a culinary destination. Ayo Edebiri, Ebon Moss-Bach Bachrach, and the rest of the kitchen crew are back in the pressure cooker, trying come up with a better recipe for living. Tangy!— Robby Ross
Head Case
My Lady Jane (Prime). In real life, Lady Jane Grey (Emily Bader) had a short run: The teenager was plopped on the throne by Protestants trying to stop the rightful heir, Catholic Mary Tudor, from coming to power. The girl’s reign lasted nine days and ended with her being sent to the block. This fictionalized saga is more jolly. In it, King Henry VIII’s son Edward IV doesn’t die, which avoids a grisly succession crisis. That frees Jane up to have misadventures, romantic and otherwise, with a good head still on her shoulders. —Thomas Wintour
Conventional wisdom is lousy. Luckily, there’s Good on Paper, an Atlantic podcast that reexamines ideas we embrace and often come to regret. Was remote work a good notion? Were our assumptions about anti-maskers or BLM protestors off the mark? Host Jerusalem Demsas guides us through such tangles without making anybody feel bad about jumping to conclusions. — Alicia Clark
