emmy season

Emmy season, we hardly knew ya!

Our last issue of the 2025 cycle is now out in the world, which means it’s time for this editor to switch from binge-watching TV at home to seeing movies in one of L.A.’s many frigid screening rooms. (Not a bad way to get through the dog days of summer, honestly.)

But before I return you to the newsletter’s regularly scheduled programming, here’s a look at some highlights from our Aug. 19 issue. Catch you in November when we open the first Envelope of Oscar season!

Digital cover story: Michelle Williams

(JSquared Photography / For the Times)

As heavy as its subject matter may be, “Dying for Sex” is the only series this season that actually left me doubled over in laughter.

My reaction stemmed from a moment early on in FX’s limited series where Molly, the kinky cancer patient at the core of the story, stumbles into a ransomware trap online. As played with slapstick brilliance by Michelle Williams, she leaps out of her laptop camera’s sight line as though it had metamorphosed into a dangerous animal — a scenario that only gets funnier when she’s joined on the floor by her friend and caretaker, Nikki (Jenny Slate).

As Williams, Emmy-nominated for lead actress in a limited series or TV movie, tells contributor Lorena O’Neil in this week’s digital cover story, those who suggest she’s only interested in serious fare are mistaken. “Dying” in particular required a sense of humor, Williams reveals: “My best friend recently lost another of her best friends to cancer, and she would tell me about the conversations they would have cheek to cheek lying in a hospital bed and how in those moments they found the thing to point at and laugh about, so [the series] felt very true to me.”

TV’s watercooler woman

Carrie Coon in “The White Lotus.”

(HBO)

Anytime I’ve seen complaints on social media about this summer’s “TV tumbleweeds,” I have thought to myself: “They must not be watching ‘The Gilded Age.’”

HBO’s delicious portrait of conniving old- and new-money New Yorkers in the late 19th century has ripened over three seasons into a reliably entertaining (if politically suspect) melodrama, thanks in no small part to Carrie Coon’s unabashedly ambitious society wife, Bertha Russell. Her cunning machinations, which this season included foisting a British duke on her reluctant daughter, have helped turn the series into a hit. Which also makes Coon responsible for not one but two watercooler successes in 2025 alone.

In her recent interview with contributor Gregory Ellwood, the (too modest) actor credits “White Lotus” co-stars Michelle Monaghan and Leslie Bibb for her character’s final-episode monologue becoming a viral sensation this spring. (It also likely clinched her Emmy nomination for supporting actress in a drama.) But having followed Coon since Season 1, Episode 6, of “The Leftovers,” I’m comfortable saying she probably played some part in earning those big moments. You don’t capture buzz on two shows in a row by pure chance.

Words to live by

Genevieve O’Reilly as Mon Mothma in “Andor.”

(Lucasfilm Ltd.)

The stirring speech Mon Mothma (Genevieve O’Reilly) delivers to the Galactic Senate in “Andor” isn’t just the culmination of the series’ long-gestating political plotline, the moment at which the senator throws in her lot once and for all with the Rebellion — at grave risk to her life.

It is also, thanks to the careful work of Emmy-nominated writer Dan Gilroy, a memorable piece of oration in its own right, drawing on real-life examples such as Abraham Lincoln, Winston Churchill and Mahatma Gandhi to give a major turning point in the “Star Wars” universe genuine historical weight.

Gilroy joined me via Zoom recently to annotate the speech, from its unassuming opening line to its pointed use of the word “genocide.”

Read more from our Aug. 19 issue

There has never been a shortage of TV series that take place in Los Angeles, the longtime hub of the American television industry and its players. But the 2025 Emmy season features such a wealth of shows set and shot in and around L.A. that we couldn’t resist spotlighting how several of them use the iconic locale we call home.

‘Shrinking’

Jason Segel, left, Jessica Williams, Christa Miller and Ted McGinley in “Shrinking.”

(Apple)

The Apple TV+ comedy, which follows an interconnected group of co-workers, friends and neighbors, is set mainly in Pasadena and Altadena. Location manager David Flannery, a fifth-generation Pasadena native, notes, “So often [these cities] play for everywhere else in the world. But we want to show exactly where we are — which is just a little more specific than general L.A. — and that the characters are grounded in very real places.” These sites have included the Rose Bowl, Pasadena City Hall, Pasadena’s Central Park (featuring the landmark Castle Green building) and the South Pasadena train station. The Laird and Bishop family homes, with their adjoining backyards, may look like a set but are actually neighboring Altadena houses, both of which survived the Eaton fire.

‘Only Murders in the Building’

Martin Short, left, Selena Gomez and Steve Martin in “Only Murders in the Building.”

(Eric McCandless / Disney)

Although Hulu’s Emmy-winning comic mystery is the ultimate New York tale, its Season 4 opener sent its crime-solving lead trio to Tinseltown to pursue a movie adaptation of their popular podcast. Co-creator and showrunner John Hoffman, calling in during the show’s Season 5 shoot, says, “Last season had to start in L.A. It really kicks off a season that is specific to cinema, to moving images.” Filming took place on the classic Paramount Studios lot, at the historic Il Borghese condo building in Hancock Park and at an “ultra-glamorous, deeply L.A.” Hollywood Hills home, which served as studio exec Bev Melon’s party house.

‘Nobody Wants This’

Kristen Bell and Adam Brody in “Nobody Wants This.”

(Adam Rose / Netflix)

Creator-showrunner Erin Foster can’t imagine her Netflix rom-com about a progressive rabbi and a gentile sex podcaster set anywhere but her native Los Angeles. “You have to write what you know, and that’s what I know,” she says by phone from her West Hollywood home. “In L.A., people are following their dreams, so it says a lot about who someone is. I think the same applies to locations in a TV show: They all signal where [the characters] are in their life and who they are.” Some of these illustrative locales have included Westwood’s Sinai Temple, the Wilshire Boulevard Temple in Koreatown, the Los Feliz 3 Theatre, Calamigos Ranch in Malibu and WeHo’s Pleasure Chest sex shop.

‘The Studio’

Seth Rogen and Catherine O’Hara in “The Studio.”

(Apple)

Seth Rogen and company’s raucous creation about a beleaguered movie studio chief is rooted in firsthand experience. “Seth knows this town very, very well,” says supervising location manager Stacey Brashear. “He and [co-creator] Evan Goldberg wrote in 90% of the locations, including the [John] Lautner-designed, Midcentury Modern houses that studio executives like to collect.” Among these eye-popping sites are the Silvertop house above the Silver Lake Reservoir and the Harvey House in the Hollywood Hills. Adds Brashear, “I feel like our locations are actual characters in the show.” Among the Apple TV+ series’ many other L.A. locations: the Warner Bros. studio lot, the Smoke House Restaurant in Burbank, Lake Hollywood Park and the Sunset Strip’s Chateau Marmont.

‘Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story’

Chloë Sevigny and Javier Bardem in “Monsters: The Lyle Aand Erik Menendez Story.”

(Netflix)

This Netflix limited series revisits the 1989 murder of wealthy Beverly Hills couple José and Kitty Menendez by sons Erik and Lyle, a crime notoriously connected to Los Angeles. “It was such a period of decadence and grandeur, and Beverly Hills was kind of the poster child for that,” says production designer Matthew Flood Ferguson. “I wanted to recapture the [town’s] glamour and celebrity culture.” He also notes, of L.A.’s diverse architecture, “You can get quite a few different looks all in the same place.” These “looks” included a grand Hancock Park-area home standing in for the Mendendez mansion, Koreatown’s Wilshire Colonnade office complex, a 1970s-built Encino bank building, Beverly Hills’ Will Rogers Memorial Park and the former Sunset Strip site of Spago, restored to look as it did in its heyday.

‘Hacks’

Megan Stalter left, and Hannah Einbinder at the Americana at Brand in “Hacks.”

(Kenny Laubbacher / Max)

Unlike past seasons, in which L.A. often subbed for Las Vegas, Season 4 of “Hacks” is mostly shot and set in Los Angeles. Says Lucia Aniello, co-creator with Paul W. Downs and Jen Stasky, “Much of [the season] is getting back to the roots of L.A. comedy. It really is a love letter to Los Angeles — and to the comedy world.” Adds Downs, “The show is a lot about people outside of the industry looking in. By being in L.A., we got to really explore what that means.” Some key locations: CBS Television City, the Lenny Kravitz-designed Stanley House, the Americana at Brand and Echo Park’s Elysian Theater; the Altadena estate doubling for Deborah Vance’s Bel-Air mansion was lost in the Eaton fire.

‘Running Point’

Kate Hudson and Max Greenfield in “Running Point.”

(Katrina Marcinowski / Netflix)

Loosely based on the life of Lakers President Jeanie Buss, this Netflix comedy is “filled with a lot of L.A. DNA,” says co-creator and showrunner David Stassen. He adds that, like Buss, the show’s star, Kate Hudson, “is also part of a dynastic L.A. family. Plus, she knows Jeanie, she loves the Lakers and she grew up going to games.” Though much of the season was filmed downtown at Los Angeles Center Studios, location work included the Pacific Coast Highway south of Venice (where Cam, played by Justin Theroux, crashes his Porsche), downtown L.A.’s elegant Hotel Per La and homes in Sherman Oaks and Woodland Hills. The L.A. skyline gets quite the workout here as well.

‘Forever’

Lovie Simone in “Forever.”

(Elizabeth Morris / Netflix)

Netflix’s reimagining of Judy Blume’s 1975 novel unfolds in 2018 Los Angeles, where it evocatively explores first love between teens Justin and Keisha. Showrunner and L.A. native Mara Brock Akil considers her adaptation “a love letter to Los Angeles and to the idyllic life we’re all trying to live in this city, where dreams are not isolated to one particular neighborhood.” Key parts of the story take place around Keisha’s home in the View Park-Windsor Hills area, with the show’s many other L.A. locations including Ladera Park, St. Mary’s Academy in Inglewood, the Grove and the Original Farmers Market, Griffith Park and the Santa Monica Pier. Adds Akil, “A lot of people [in L.A.] are moving around on public transportation, which I wanted to shine a light on too.”