3 Best Releases Starring Ed Helms

Before the Chicago improv theater, iO, closed from the pandemic in the summer of 2020, they used to play a game called “The Dream” during shows. An audience volunteer (usually tipsy) would walk on stage and an interviewer would ask them about their day in detail. The cast of the show, listening intently from downstage, would then recreate their day, beat by beat, with heightened physicality and bits. Most nights it was barely watchable, but if anyone saw it and thought, “This should be a TV show,” then Peacock's got the show for them. Continue Reading →

Ron’s Gone Wrong has some lofty goals: it’s a bold attempt to talk about how social media addiction, consumerism, and technology at large has taken over kids’ lives in a way that’s not just unhealthy, but that’s actively leaving them lonelier. And if anything can be applauded about writer and director Sarah Smith’s film, it’s in the way it wants to tackle all of this head on. Only in this world, swap the iPhones and tablets for “B-bots”—cute little AIs proudly labeled “your best friend out of the box!” They follow you everywhere, learn everything about you, and use that info to help you make new friends via other kids’ B-bots. It’s the tech solution to friendship! ...And a handy little metaphor for the way tech once designed to bring us together has mutated into something else entirely. Continue Reading →

Michael Schur’s no stranger to centering television sitcoms around complex topics. There’s the inner workings of local government in Parks and Recreation, the chaos and philosophy of the afterlife in The Good Place, and now America’s problematic past in the Peacock original Rutherford Falls. Co-created by Schur, Ed Helms, and Sierra Teller Ornelas, Rutherford Falls is the funny wake-up call we need. Continue Reading →