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Is “South Park” going through an existential crisis? Two episodes aren’t typically enough to elicit concern over a decades-old series already renewed through 2022, but when these two episodes are the sole output in 15 months, one has to wonder. Both hourlong specials — last October’s much-ballyhooed “Pandemic Special” and Wednesday night’s “Vaccination Special” — tell self-reflective stories set in our especially trying times, and both put not only this country on blast for its abhorrent pandemic response, but they also take a hard look at the show itself....

“I am so tired of white folks telling us what we need to do,” Lee said on the radio program. “How could this guy, how could this punk-ass say what Black folks need to do? You know, it’s like there wasn’t 400 years of slavery, systematic racism, go on, list, list list list […] this guy to say to Black people, that we don’t wanna succeed? Hey, let him come to Brooklyn talking that....

Q, omnipotent superbeing and galaxy-brained wit, has popped up at Picard’s chateau in La Barre, France. And it’s a surprisingly subdued appearance: you’d think this veritable trickster god would find his love of Napoleonic couture to be perfectly at home in the French countryside. He’s also aged, presumably adjusting his own appearance with a snap of his fingers so as not to make Picard feel bad about his own advancing years....

That’s “Star Trek: Strange New Worlds” co-showrunner Akiva Goldsman’s ethos for his work on the franchise. “My first Star Trek convention was 1976,” he said. “I can mount a good defense of ‘Star Trek: Enterprise,’ and sing the theme song.” If fans have been particularly taken with “Strange New Worlds,” a show set seven years before the start of “The Original Series” and starring a superlative Anson Mount as the Enterprise’s final pre-Kirk captain, Christopher Pike, it’s because the creative team seems especially to care about “knowing ‘Star Trek....

The overarching plot involves a woman named Karen Miller (Lily Rabe), who was arrested alongside her boyfriend, Kit (Xavier Samuel) for the murder of nine women. Miller was presumed to be an accessory to the crimes — thus, allegedly, explaining her jail time — but has claimed she doesn’t remember anything that happened. Mary Barlow (Amy Brenneman), who believes her daughter ran afoul of the pair, believes otherwise — but has never been able to get a confession out of Karen....

As always, there were also plenty of exciting breakthrough performances this year, as we’ve already documented in a stacked list of rising stars of screens both large and small, but the women who qualify for this list of the best film performances by actresses have fully arrived in every sense of the term. Ahead, the 13 best performances by actresses in 2020. Eric Kohn, Anne Thompson, David Ehrlich, Zack Sharf, Ryan Lattanzio, Tambay Obenson, Jude Dry, Bill Desowitz, and Chris Lindahl contributed to this article....

My calendar states the election was held just under a month ago, and yet certain manipulative powermongers insist it’s still playing out. I could also swear J. Lo ’s unjust renunciation by the Film Academy took place months before her dazzling Super Bowl Halftime show with Shakira, and yet the record books tell me her “Hustlers” snub in January and February’s concert were just 20 days apart. (Clearly, if the latter had come first, Ms....