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Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is generally credited for orchestrating President Joe Biden’s exit from the 2024 presidential race. But there was someone equally if not more responsible for that titanic political development: James Carville.

The veteran Democratic strategist’s definitive role convincing the party establishment that Biden needed to step aside is explored in the new documentary Carville: Winning Is Everything, Stupid, directed by Matt Tyrnauer. The award-winning filmmaker and his subject – scratch that, his protagonist – join the latest episode of Deadline’s Doc Talk podcast.

Carville, the “Ragin’ Cajun” who oversaw Bill Clinton’s successful White House bid in 1992, explains why he concluded Biden would lose to Donald Trump in 2024 and the intense blowback he faced after he publicly called for the incumbent president to move aside. He also gets into why he thinks “wokeness” is a losing political brand – another outspoken...

Theater, film and television writer-director Robert Allan Ackerman died Jan. 10. He was 77.

Nominated twice for Golden Globes and five times for Emmys, Ackerman also received numerous theater directing awards.

Ackerman started out directing at the New York Shakespeare Festival/Public Theatre. In the 1980s his theater productions included Martin Sherman’s Tony nominated “Bent,” starring Richard Gere and David Dukes; John Byrne’s “Slab Boys,” starring Sean Penn, Kevin Bacon and Val Kilmer and William Mastrosimone’s “Extremities” starring Susan Sarandon. He went on to direct Peter Allen in “Legs Diamond” and Al Pacino in Oscar Wilde’s “Salome.”

When reached for comment, Al Pacino said, “I love Bob. I loved being around him, his aurora, his steady peace. To work with him was joyous. He understood the language of theater art and communicated it with such ease. His gift was intangible and there’s no way of understanding how he created.

Robert Allan Ackerman, the director whose television work scored five Emmy nominations and who directed acclaimed Broadway productions including Bent and Extremities, died Jan. 10 of kidney failure at Cedars-Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles. He was 77.

His death was announced by family through a spokesman.

“I love Bob. I loved being around him, his aurora, his steady peace,” said actor Al Pacino, who starred in Ackerman’s 1992 Broadway staging of Oscar Wilde’s Salome. “To work with him was joyous. He understood the language of theater art and communicated it with such ease. His gift was intangible and there’s no way of understanding how he created. When an artist has that special gift it is unexplainable, it just happens. When he stopped directing, he started writing again and his writing also had that same magic. He will be missed.”

In 2016, Pacino would re-team with Ackerman in a Pasadena Playhouse production of God Looked Away,...

In February HBO released “Allen v. Farrow,” a four-part docuseries that examined the events that led up to Dylan Farrow’s sexual abuse allegations against her father, Woody Allen. That same month Skyhorse Publishing threatened a copyright infringement lawsuit against the premium cabler and the docuseries’ directors, Kirby Dick and Amy Ziering, over the series’ use of unauthorized audio excerpts from Allen’s 2020 memoir, “Apropos of Nothing.”

In the four months since Skyhorse publicly contemplated a lawsuit, one has yet to appear, ostensibly due to a legal doctrine called Fair Use. While it’s not a fixed exception with clearly defined borders, the Fair Use doctrine has successfully transformed the documentary landscape in the past two decades.

“Film is a visual medium and if key material, say a film clip, is exorbitantly priced and takes up an outsized fraction of your budget and [therefore can’t be used], the film suffers,” says director Matt Tyrnauer.

A docuseries titled “The Rise and Fall of Victoria’s Secret” has been ordered at Hulu, TheWrap has learned.

The show comes from “Valentino” and “The Reagans” director and former Vanity Fair journalist Matt Tyrnauer. It consists of three hourlong episodes about the fashion brand, which has been plagued by public criticism and internal complaints in recent years.

Per its official description, “‘The Rise and Fall of Victoria’s Secret’ takes us behind the scenes through first-hand accounts and deep investigative research to reveal the inner workings of one of the country’s largest brands and cultural institutions.”

L Brands, which owns the lingerie company, scrapped the annual Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show in 2019.

“We think it’s important to evolve the messaging of Victoria’s Secret,” Stuart Burgdoerfer, L Brands chief financial officer, said in an interview with New York Magazine in November 2019. “We will be communicating to customers but...

The Rise and Fall of Victoria’s Secret, a new docuseries from Peter Berg and Matt Tyrnauer, has landed at Hulu.

First revealed by Deadline back in March 2020, The Rise and Fall of Victoria’s Secret will shed light on the inner workings of a once-powerful sector of the world of fashion, adding context to both the positive and negative aspects of a rapidly transforming industry. Tentatively set to for a 2020 launch, the Tyrnauer-directed docuseries is currently in production.

The series will chronicle the lingerie franchise’s start as a small mail order brand to its ascension as a a global juggernaut embroiled in controversies including the relationship between owner Les Wexner and Jeffrey Epstein.

The Rise and Fall of Victoria’s Secret joins Hulu’s growing slate of documentaries including Fyre Fraud, Minding The Gap, Ask Dr. Ruth, I Am Greta and Hillary.

The director recently executive produced and helmed The Reagans,...

Hulu has ordered the three-part docuseries “The Rise and Fall of Victoria’s Secret.”

From director and former Vanity Fair journalist Matt Tyrnauer, “The Rise and Fall of Victoria’s Secret” takes viewers behind the scenes through first-hand accounts and investigative research to reveal the inner workings of one of the country’s largest brands and cultural institutions.

Tyrnauer, whose past credits include “Studio 54,” “Where’s My Roy Cohn,” and “The Reagans,” will direct all three episodes. Tyrnauer will also executive produce along with Corey Reeser under their Altimeter Films banner. Peter Berg, Matt Goldberg, and Brandon Carroll of Film 45 will also executive produce along with Elizabeth Rogers.

Endeavor Content is handling worldwide sales on the docuseries, which is currently slated to be released on Hulu in early 2022. Production is currently underway.

Victoria’s Secret was originally founded in the 1970s and expanded into a retail powerhouse going into the 1990s.

At this point, we’re almost legally obligated to start off TV roundups with some variation on this idea that there’s a lot of TV out there, but it really is impossible to keep up with everything. And calling attention to it doesn’t make it any less true!

So, given that TV time is reaching astronomical heights in 2020, how does one find something to watch, let alone focus on just the best of the best? That’s where we come in.

Keeping track of the dizzying amount of television we’ve reviewed so far in 2020 is a task in and of itself, so we’ve tried to make it as easy as possible. Below, we’ve gathered each of our 2020 TV reviews, each with a season number and the network/service where the new episodes first aired for U.S. audiences. Hopefully, this will help you decide what...

This weekly feature is in addition to TVLine’s daily What to Watch listings and monthly guide to What’s on Streaming.

With more than 530 scripted shows now airing across broadcast, cable and streaming, it’s easy to forget that a favorite comedy is returning, or that the new “prestige drama” you anticipated is about to debut. So consider this our reminder to set your DVR, order a Season Pass, pop a fresh Memorex into the Vcr… however it is you roll.

More from TVLineWhat's New on Netflix in DecemberFreeform's 25 Days of Christmas Schedule110+ TV Shows That Ended in 2020:...

Showtime is spreading the holiday cheer!

The premium cablerhas released over 60 hours of original content for free online sampling, on streaming platforms and on demand to celebrate the holiday season.

Among these free episodes will be the premiere of the final season of Shameless, as well as the premiere of the limited series Your Honor, starring Oscar(R) nominee and Emmy, Golden Globe(R), Screen Actors Guild(R), and Tony(R) Award winner Bryan Cranston (Breaking Bad).

Full seasons of hit series such as The L World: Generation Q, City on A Hill, The Affair and Love Fraud are already available, while the premieres of Shameless and Your Honor will be available starting on Sunday, December 6.

As if that wasn't enough, new subscribers who sign up for Showtime before January 11 will receive the gift of a 30-day free trial and lock in a lifetime price of $8.99 per month.

The final...

It’s beginning to look a lot like free Showtime content for Christmas. The premium cabler is gifting the premiere episodes of the final season of Shameless and the new Bryan Cranston limited series Your Honor as part of 60-plus hours of originals available today online, on streaming platforms and on-demand into mid-January.

Also available gratis for the holidays starting today are the full first seasons of City on a Hill, The L Word: Generation Q, Work in Progress, Ray Donovan and The Affair; all episodes of Murder in the Bayou; feature documentaries The Kingmaker and Gringo: The Dangerous Life of John McAfee; select episodes of Desus & Mero; and the premieres of Love Fraud, Outcry, The Reagans and Moonbase 8.

The freebies are available at YouTube, Sho.com and multiple Showtime partner platforms.

Showtime also is offering a 30-day free trial for new subscribers who sign up before January 11, and...

When James Brolin was first approached by producers Neil Meron and Craig Zadan to play Ronald Reagan in their 2003 miniseries “The Reagans,” he said he wasn’t interested.

“Neil and Craig are old friends and I immediately said to them, ‘I guess everybody else turned it down,” Brolin recalls. “But they said, ‘No, we think you’re the guy.’ I wouldn’t even read it. I thought me playing Reagan was absurd.”

Zadan, who passed away in 2018, and Meron eventually convinced Brolin to read the first 20 pages of the script. “It just tickled me,” Brolin says. “I went, ‘Wow, this isn’t just saying some lines. There’s something more to this.’”

There certainly was. What Brolin nor anyone involved with the project could have predicted at the time was the political storm that “The Reagans” would create. The CBS series was still filming Reagan loyalists and GOP pundits attacked...

“The Reagans” is an unavoidable mirror. Matt Tyrnauer’s four-part series profiles a couple that held sway over a state and then a party and then the world, but the timeline very purposefully stops with their White House exit in 1989.

Even still, it’s nearly impossible to see the stances, coalitions, and maneuvers that helped Ronald Reagan ascend to the presidency as a precursor to what the United States has experienced over the last four years. The central question becomes: Does “The Reagans” feel so familiar because it’s being pitched to an audience living through 2020? Or are the echoes so unavoidable that any examination of the 1980s and what led to them can’t help but remind us of the headlines of the more recent past?

In practice, it’s a bit of both. Start looking for parallels to the now-outgoing administration and you’ll see them everywhere: disgruntled former employees writing tell-all memoirs,...

This weekly feature is in addition to TVLine’s daily What to Watch listings and monthly guide to What’s on Streaming.

With more than 530 scripted shows now airing across broadcast, cable and streaming, it’s easy to forget that a favorite comedy is returning, or that the new “prestige drama” you anticipated is about to debut. So consider this our reminder to set your DVR, order a Season Pass, pop a fresh Memorex into the Vcr… however it is you roll.

More from TVLineWhat's New on Netflix in November — Plus: Disney+, HBO Max and Others2021 Renewal Scorecard: What's Coming Back?...

By the time Showtime’s The Reagans debuts, it will be fewer than two weeks out from a presidential election unlike any other, and more than three decades since the documentary’s subjects vacated the Oval Office. Surprisingly, then, director Matt Tyrnauer spends little to no time arguing for the relevance of his four-part series, a well-trod overview of the lives of Ronald and Nancy Reagan, from Hollywood to Sacramento to the White House.

“If you are not a good actor, you cannot be a good president,” journalist Lesley Stahl recalls Reagan himself saying in one of the doc’s many interviews. It’s ...

By the time Showtime’s The Reagans debuts, it will be fewer than two weeks out from a presidential election unlike any other, and more than three decades since the documentary’s subjects vacated the Oval Office. Surprisingly, then, director Matt Tyrnauer spends little to no time arguing for the relevance of his four-part series, a well-trod overview of the lives of Ronald and Nancy Reagan, from Hollywood to Sacramento to the White House.

“If you are not a good actor, you cannot be a good president,” journalist Lesley Stahl recalls Reagan himself saying in one of the doc’s many interviews. It’s ...

Documentary director Matt Tyrnauer, who in 2019 profiled Donald Trump’s late legal fixer in the documentary Where’s My Roy Cohn?, has turned to The Reagans, a four-part series debuting Nov. 15 on Showtime.

Tyrnauer examines how the machinery and milieu of Hollywood helped the couple reinvent themselves and Ronald’s presidency and how it in turn continues to define the conservative moment today.

Tyrnauer — whose other subjects have included fashion designer Valentino Garavani, urbanism activist Jane Jacobs and “male madame” to the stars Scotty Bowers — sees the titular couple as crafty charlatans, backed by wealthy right-wing ideologues and engaged ...

Documentary director Matt Tyrnauer, who in 2019 profiled Donald Trump’s late legal fixer in the documentary Where’s My Roy Cohn?, has turned to The Reagans, a four-part series debuting Nov. 15 on Showtime.

Tyrnauer examines how the machinery and milieu of Hollywood helped the couple reinvent themselves and Ronald’s presidency and how it in turn continues to define the conservative moment today.

Tyrnauer — whose other subjects have included fashion designer Valentino Garavani, urbanism activist Jane Jacobs and “male madame” to the stars Scotty Bowers — sees the titular couple as crafty charlatans, backed by wealthy right-wing ideologues and engaged ...

Donald Trump was not the first American president who owed his education to Hollywood, but he was the first who tried to turn it into a cult. As things turned out, even the stars of show business turned against their self-anointed protégé.

“Trump became obsessed that celebrity could become a cult,” said one corporate CEO who declined to be quoted.

A new Showtime series titled The Reagans forcefully reminds us that it was Ronald Reagan who set the stage for Trump, demonstrating how Hollywood fame could translate into votes. Still, it was not until after his death that the Reagan name assumed a cult-like status.

Early on, some in Hollywood saw Trump’s rise to power as a curious joy-ride. Where Reagan had been a movie star, Trump was a fringe attention-seeker who achieved TV stardom by preaching a doctrine of success. It soon became clear that Trump enjoyed firing...

AFI Fest is the surviving Hollywood film festival, a destination for late-breaking, Oscar-seeking movies such as Ava DuVernay’s “Selma,” Steven Spielberg’s “Lincoln,” and Clint Eastwood’s “American Sniper.” Last year, organizers decided to move the date from November to October. If there was ever a year to launch a film festival later than usual, 2020 was it — but AFI Fest held to its planned mid-October launch.

“I did not know what to expect,” said AFI Fest director Michael Lumpkin in a phone interview. “We made a pre-pandemic decision to do October, and then in March when everything shifted we did revisit that decision.”

After analyzing the pros and cons, he concluded that it’s easier to piggyback on the same publicity tour that brings talent to the Venice, Toronto, New York and London film festivals. “We decided keep it there,” he said.

Lumpkin and his programmers also had their hands full.