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Arts & Life
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‘PUPPY BOWL XXII’ on WARNER BROS. DISCOVERY PLATFORM
The Super Bowl features a clash between the New England Patriots and Seattle Seahawks, and one wishes there could be another halftime show as great as when Prince performed in 2007.
An alternative to the gridiron contest, at least as pre-game entertainment, would be “Puppy Bowl XXII” simulcast on Sunday, February 8, 2026, across the platform of the Warner Bros. Discovery universe that includes Animal Planet, HBO Max, Discovery, and more.
This year’s three-hour sports spectacular includes a record-breaking 150 rescue dogs from 72 shelters across the United States, Puerto Rico and the British Virgin Islands and will feature heartwarming adoption stories and show-stopping matchups.
Referee Dan Schachner returns for his fifteenth year to oversee the action, ensuring fair play as these furry athletes compete for championship glory and their forever homes.
The show starts with Schachner rounding up players at the Marriott Bonvoy Puppy Bowl Hotel as they get ready for the big game. The starting lineup then sprints through a tunnel to take the field.
Reigning champions Team Fluff will send players including Benito (Siberian Husky-Chihuahua from Puerto Rico) and Showgirl (Chow Chow-Rottweiler) to defend their title.
Meanwhile, Lobster Roll (Bulldog-Border Collie), Brulee (Boston Terrier-French Bulldog), and Miso (American Cattle Dog-Beagle) will compete to bring the coveted Walmart “Lombarky” trophy to Team Ruff.
As the game unfolds, one standout pup will earn the prestigious Bissell MVP (Most Valuable Puppy) title while another will claim the Subaru of America, Inc. Underdog Award.
Fifteen special needs dogs, including Wynonna, a determined pup with only three legs, and Eleanor, who is both deaf and vision-impaired, will also compete to prove that nothing can hold them back.
For the first time ever, Puppy Bowl will spotlight senior dogs in a special exhibition game, as Team Oldies and Team Goldies go head-to-head in the all-new Pro-Dog Halftime Showdown.
“Puppy Bowl XXII” has a lot going for family fun, and sportscasters Steve Levy and Taylor Rooks provide play-by-play commentary emulating pro football.
‘HIS & HERS’ on NETFLIX
The opening scene of “His & Hers” is that of a bloodied woman spread on the hood of a red sports car in a rainy wooded area at night. Her arm twitches slightly, an indication she’s barely alive but about to expire.
A sudden shift takes us to Anna Andrews (Tessa Thompson) in a hooded jacket, acting somewhat suspiciously before entering an unkempt apartment strewn with empty liquor bottles and piles of unopened mail.
The next morning Anna’s voiceover intones “There are at least two sides to every story. Yours and mine. Ours and theirs. His and hers. Which means someone is always lying.”
This somewhat facile observation about the human condition is the driving force behind the contrived six-episode unraveling of a murder mystery that takes place in the small Georgia town of Dahlonega (a weird name but an actual place).
On leave from her position as a news anchor in Atlanta due to the death of her child, Anna learns the next day that this murder took place in her hometown where her aging mother Alice (Crystal Fox) still lives.
Annoyed that a vacuous blonde, Lexy Jones (Rebecca Rittenhouse), has taken over the anchor desk, Anna returns to the station to insist that she needs to return to Dahlonega to report on the crime scene.
Strangely, she stipulates that cameraman Richard Jones (Pablo Schreiber), Lexy’s husband, must accompany her on the assignment. Does she have an ulterior motive you may wonder?
At the small town an hour away from Atlanta, Jack Harper (Jon Bernthal) and Priya Patel (Sunita Mani) are the Sheriff’s detectives who arrive at the crime scene, needing to fend off a slew of reporters, including ambitious Anna hoping to score a big scoop.
Anna wants to know if Jack is familiar with the dead woman, who happens to be Rachel Hopkins (Jamie Tisdale), stabbed so brutally that all signs point to a crime of passion rather than being victimized randomly.
Suspiciously, Jack acts like someone hiding a secret, going so far as to evade the coroner’s request for a DNA sample that is expected of every first responder dealing with the crime scene.
Anna is also hiding something, which has to do with promiscuous Rachel, Jack’s alcoholic sister Zoe (Marin Ireland), and Helen Wang (Poppy Liu), the headmaster of the elite school they all attended.
The prime suspect is Rachel’s cuckold husband, Clyde Duffie (Chris Bauer). The spouse is always suspected in these situations, but that seems like a red herring.
In any event, Anna and Jack, though married but living separately, are the “two sides” to a his and hers story, but there never is enough suspicion that either one is the true suspect.
“His & Hers” has enough plot twists and turns, some of that involving a “mean girls” club at the school the adult women attended long ago, to entertain, at least until the final episode that takes a wildly improbable leap.
Tim Riley writes film and television reviews for Lake County News.
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‘ELIE WIESEL: SOUL ON FIRE’ ON PBS
Fittingly timed with International Holocaust Remembrance Day, PBS, through its “American Masters” documentary platform, releases the film “Elie Wiesel: Soul on Fire,” recounting the life of an author, educator, activist, and humanitarian committed to fighting antisemitism and injustice.
Famously saying, “For the opposite of love, I have learned, is not hate, but indifference,” Wiesel’s sentiment in this statement underscored his commitment to recollecting his own experience as a survivor of the Holocaust.
With a devotion to justice that ran deep, Wiesel was one of the key figures who spearheaded the creation of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, which is dedicated to ensuring that “Never Again” is more than a slogan that the horrors of the Holocaust should never occur once more.
It’s illuminating that the museum’s website contains a statement condemning the misuse of the Holocaust in public discourse, recognizing how comparing contemporary situations to Nazism is not only offensive to its victims, but also inaccurate and misrepresenting Holocaust history and the present.
“Elie Wiesel: Soul on Fire” begins with his early life in Romania and his family members' tragic murders in the Nazi concentration camp of Auschwitz, followed by Wiesel’s liberation from Buchenwald by American soldiers and his migration to France.
Born in 1928, Wiesel was raised in a Jewish family with three sisters. In 1944, shortly following German occupation, his life irrevocably changed after he and his family were deported to Auschwitz.
His mother and younger sister Tzipora were killed almost immediately, while Wiesel and his father were eventually forced to march to the concentration camp at Buchenwald. After the death of his father, Wiesel was liberated on April 11, 1945.
Wiesel was subsequently transported to France with other orphaned survivors known as the Buchenwald Boys. His sister Hilda discovered him through a photo in a French newspaper, and he eventually reunited with his sisters Beatrice and Hilda.
As a young man, Wiesel began his journalism career in Paris, where he used his writing talents to report on political and foreign affairs. During this time, he also led a children’s choir and studied at the Sorbonne.
His writing of the memoir “Night,” along with “Jews of Silence” and “Four Hasidic Masters,” would be the foundation for his career as a speaker, writer and university professor, beginning in the 1960s and 1970s.
Although he frequently wrote about global events as a journalist, he was initially hesitant to recount his own experiences as a Holocaust survivor, which is easy to understand when one must relive unimaginable horrors.
It wasn’t until he began writing the book “Night,” first in Yiddish as “And the World Remained Silent,” then in a shortened version in French titled “La Nuit” and finally in the English translation, that he was able to speak candidly about the horrors endured during the Holocaust.
In 1985, accepting a Congressional Medal of Honor from President Ronald Reagan, Wiesel expressed his gratitude as to how the American liberators “gave us back our lives, and what I felt for them then nourishes me to the end of my days.”
In his career, Wiesel penned 57 books and was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986. As a professor at Boston University for over 30 years, he influenced thousands of students, and his memoir “Night” is still read in schools around the world.
Wiesel died in 2016 at the age of 87 in New York City and is remembered as one of the most prominent Jewish writers, activists and educators of the last 60 years. Every Holocaust Remembrance Day should include a memory of his life.
The Holocaust Museum features on its website oral testimonies of survivors, and what it was like to live through the horror, the actions they had to take to survive, and the choices they had to make.
For example, the story of Martin Weiss who at the age of 15 was deported with his family from Hungary and loaded onto cramped boxcars for a grueling journey to Auschwitz, a place they had never heard of before.
In his own words, Weiss recalled as they disembarked from the train, that “if you ever saw bedlam, or if you could imagine hell, that must have been it.” And this was happening as “everybody was trying to hold on to their children.”
It seemed almost incongruous to Weiss that once at the camp, the prisoners were surrounded by German police dogs, and this made no sense because “it was enclosed in a yard with electrified fences, and nobody could run any place.”
Men were soon separated from women, and then everyone had to go through a line, and an officer would direct you to go left or right. “If you went to left, you went to your death. If you went to right, you went to work. This was our initiation or our first experience with Auschwitz.”
“Elie Wiesel: Soul on Fire” adds authenticity to the documentary with interviews of the subject himself and family members.
Tim Riley writes film and television reviews for Lake County News.
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NOVA SPECIAL 'CAN DOGS TALK?' AND 'QUEENS OF COMBAT' ON PBS
Dog owners may wish to tune into the one-hour documentary “Can Dogs Talk?” as part of the award-winning PBS science series NOVA, which premieres on Feb. 4.
The film explores the viral phenomenon of “button dogs,” who appear to use recorded sound buttons to communicate, and follows scientists as they try to answer the question of whether “talking dogs” are communicating their thoughts and desires with us.
To find out, a team of scientists led by Dr. Federico Rossano from University of California San Diego and Dr. Amalia Bastos from Johns Hopkins University are conducting the largest animal communication study in history, analyzing millions of “button” presses from thousands of dogs they’ve recruited.
The film captures some astonishing moments that challenge our assumptions about animal intelligence, from dogs that seemingly engage in conversations to those who learn new words with incredible speed, showing just how far their linguistic abilities might stretch.
Scientific understanding of canines’ linguistic capabilities is still in its early stages, but the massive amount of data from this study could help expand researchers’ understanding of animal cognition and the nature of the mutual understanding between our species.
“Can Dogs Talk?” ponders whether our domestication of dogs and their evolution as our closest companions have uniquely positioned them to learn our language. Perhaps the close bond between humans and dogs could become even closer.
According to executive producer Kirstie McLure, “For centuries, we’ve wondered what our dogs are really thinking. With unprecedented access to the world’s largest animal communication study, this film explores whether science is finally giving us a way to cross the communication barrier.”
Every pet owner wishes they could talk to their dog. I know that’s how I feel. Our large dog expresses a lot just with her eyes, along with the occasional poke with her paw.
It would be nice to have a conversation with a dog based upon a mutual understanding across the species divide. “Can Dogs Talk?” may provide insights into cognition and language.
The PBS popular series “Secret of the Dead” begins the new year exploring evidence for two ancient mysteries. “Queens of Combat” explores whether female gladiators fought in Ancient Roman arenas.
What if women were hidden among the ranks of Ancient Rome’s fearsome gladiators? A group of experts searches for evidence to prove women once fought in the arena just like men.
Combining history, archeology, and forensic investigation, they journey across Europe in a quest for answers. If a female gladiator’s existence can be proven definitively, what can we learn about their lives?
Going back to the times of tyrannical Roman emperors like Nero and Tiberius 2,000 years ago proves to be a difficult task for this mission. The experts agreed that it is harder to trace the lives of people from two millennia ago.
What they establish is that Ancient Rome’s gladiators were glorified warriors, men of terrifying armor, bulging muscles, and the Roman ideal of masculinity. People came to the amphitheaters to see bloodthirsty gladiatorial fights.
“Queens of Combat” recognizes men dominated as fighters, but the program asks what if women were hidden in their ranks, postulating that scholars believe there may also be proof of female gladiators hidden in ancient texts.
Women were not frail and meek, and they were not locked away from combat. However, gladiators primarily came from the ranks of the enslaved and convicts. Occasionally, members of the upper class chose to fight in the arena for glory.
Roman historians were exclusively men, and any surviving contemporary texts were written by men who fixated on masculinity and reporting male exploits, and women were rarely included in the story.
London’s Westminster Abbey hides an obscure text about women in the gladiatorial arena. Kathleen Coleman, expert on Ancient Roman poetry, discovered a poem of the first century with “a couplet of two lines which appear to be about women performing in spectacle.”
Professor Edith Hall visited an Italian museum to view a decree from the Roman Senate in a hidden proclamation about laws that did not allow men and women to offer themselves out by contract to become a gladiator. Women were warned not to fight in the arena like men.
There’s a lot more to this special that raises even more questions than answers about women in gladiatorial combat. “Queens of Combat” premiers on January 28, 2006.
“The Quest for Camelot,” which was not available for review, premieres on Wednesday, Feb. 4. The premise for this special is whether the stories about King Arthur can be proven true.
Was the legendary court of Camelot a real place? Professor Mark Horton journeyed across Britain to prove real events and places inspired the chivalric myths.
The professor scours medieval texts and archaeological sites for new understanding of Arthurian legends and what Britain was like after the Romans left in the fifth century. Here at home, we think of Camelot as the romanticized image of John F. Kennedy’s presidency.
Tim Riley writes film and television reviews for Lake County News.
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FOX WINTER 2026 SCHEDULE
On the FOX television network, January marks the launch of a new series, beginning with “Best Medicine,” based on the British medical comedy-drama series “Doc Martin” that ran for ten seasons.
In the British series, a successful surgeon leaves his London practice to become a primary care physician in a sleepy fishing village, where he spent time during his youth.
The good doctor is not the right fit for the townsfolk due to his abrasive attitude and lack of bedside manner that alienates most people. Moreover, his luxury car and flashy wardrobe also rub the locals the wrong way.
The new FOX series features Josh Charles as Dr. Martin Best, a brilliant surgeon who abruptly leaves his illustrious career in Boston to become a general practitioner in a quaint East Coast fishing village where he spent summers as a child.
Martin’s blunt and borderline rude bedside manner rubs the quirky, needy locals the wrong way, and he quickly alienates the town, even though he’s the only medical help they’ve got.
Although Martin can expertly address any medical ailment or mystery in this idiosyncratic town, he’s just desperate to be left alone. Instead, he keeps getting dragged into the middle of their personal chaos.
What the locals don’t know is that Martin’s terse demeanor masks a debilitating new phobia and childhood drama that prevents him from experiencing true intimacy with anyone.
But tenacity is the creed of everyone in the small village, and the people who live there may be exactly what the doctor ordered. “Best Medicine” also stars Abigail Spencer and Annie Potts.
The 2003 Belgian action thriller film “De Zaak Alzheimer,” based on the novel of the same title, followed an assassin who agreed to one last contract hit despite a recent diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease.
The assignment required the killer to kill two people, with the second victim a twelve-year-old girl who had been pimped by her father. The assassin’s creed did not involve killing children, thereby crossing his employer who puts out a contract on his hitman.
The FOX series “Memory of a Killer” stars Patrick Dempsey as Angelo Doyle, a hitman leading a dangerous double life while hiding an even deadlier personal secret. Angelo’s daughter Maria (Odeya Rush) only knows her father as a photocopier salesman.
Starring opposite Dempsey in the role of Dutch, Michael Imperioli is Angelo’s oldest friend and an accomplished Italian chef whose restaurant in the Bronx is a front for his criminal enterprise, which includes hiring Angelo as a hitman.
With a family history of dementia, Angelo has been able to juggle keeping his professional and personal lives separate. But now beginning to lose his memory, Angelo poses a potential threat to the criminal enterprise.
Exceptionally resourceful and talented, Angelo is about to be tested like never before, and now every minute counts. This is made more difficult when he discovers his wife’s recent death may not have been an accident.
When someone comes after his pregnant daughter, it’s clear the walls between his lives have been breached. Angelo must stop whoever’s coming for his family by looking into his past hits for clues, and the list is very long.
Angelo must hunt down his mortal enemy while continuing to carry out hits without giving away his diagnosis and still make it home in time to cook dinner for his daughter.
Richard Harmon’s Joe is a budding hitman working for Angelo and Dutch. Stuck with more routine work of gathering intel, Joe also faces a precarious position as the witness to Angelo’s mental decline.
The perils for Dempsey’s hitman in decline results in high-stakes drama for “Memory of a Killer.” As the wall between Angelo’s two worlds crumbles, the series should live up to being an interesting thriller.
Joe Rogan, who has his own very popular podcast, was the original host for NBC’s “Fear Factor,” a game show that challenged contestants to face their most primal fears by competing in various bold stunts.
FOX is reviving “Fear Factor” in a new format to be hosted by Johnny Knoxville, best known as a fearless stunt performer who was the co-creator and star of the MTV reality stunt show “Jackass” that resulted in several subsequent movies.
The iconic reality competition show is coming back bigger, bolder and more daring as “Fear Factor: House of Fear.” Dropped into an unforgiving, remote location, a group of strangers will live together under one roof, and face mind-blowing stunts.
Being isolated in a harsh environment challenges the contestants to play a devious social game where trust is scarce and strategy turns fear into a strategic tool. Only one person will conquer all their fears and walk away with the massive grant prize.
As host, Knoxville will not subject himself to the severe injuries and health issues endured during his reckless stunts in the “Jackass” franchise. No more concussions, herniated discs, torn tendons, and broken bones and fractures.
Tim Riley writes film and television reviews for Lake County News.