Howie Mandel has admitted that he has mixed feelings about apologizing to Kelly Ripa after their awkward interview on Live with Kelly and Mark.

“If somebody is offended [or] if somebody feels that I did wrong, then I apologize,” Mandel said on the Tuesday, March 31, episode of the “Hot Mics with Billy Bush” podcast. “I don’t believe in apologizing but, as I said in my post, which I kinda regret making the post, I don’t think you should apologize for a joke.”

The drama started on March 23 while Mandel was being interviewed by Ripa, 55, and her husband, Mark Consuelos, on Live. Ripa pointed out that Mandel recently celebrated his 70th birthday, before joking that his age “doesn’t make any sense.”

When Consuelos interjected that Mandel looked “great,” the comedian shot back, “I [do] look great. That doesn’t mean anything to me.”

The America’s Got Talent judge complained that he doesn’t like people commenting on his age because it always comes as “a caveat.”

“B​​ecause you tell someone you’re 70 and they go, ‘You look great,” he added.

Ripa tried to clarify that she wasn’t trying to say Mandel looked “great for 70,” before he interrupted again to declare, “It’s like saying you’re smart for a stupid person. ‘Oh, you look smart! You seem smart!’ I don’t look good.”

Mandel added later in the conversation, “Well, actually, before we go out, there’s, like, a mirror back there. … Honestly, now, I’ll be serious for a minute: I’m gorgeous. I am. I am.”

“You’re a thing of beauty,” Ripa quipped.

The awkward interview clip quickly went viral, leading to Mandel making a public apology for the awkward moment a few days later.

“I have been debating for 48 hours whether I should make this post or not, and I don’t know if I’m doing the right thing,” he said via Instagram on Saturday, March 28. “Philosophically, I don’t believe that somebody who’s a comedian needs to apologize for a joke. It is a joke, it is meant as a joke, and it’s not meant to offend.”

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Mandel pointed out, “You can not like it and, in all my years in the business, I haven’t ever publicly apologized for [a joke].”

Related: How Howie Mandel Got His Skechers Gig By ‘Lying’

Howie Mandel’s campaign with Skechers was a match made in heaven — but he took an untraditional route to get there. “I went to a Skechers store and I went to buy what I love and what I wear and what I find easy to do,” Mandel, 68, explained during an exclusive interview with Us […]

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Longtime Live With Kelly and Mark executive producer Michael Gelman poked fun at the controversy by replying to Mandel’s Instagram post, writing, “During these divided times, one thing we can all agree upon is that you do look great … for your age.”

The comic has made nearly 50 appearances on Live With Kelly and Mark and its previous iterations, dating back to 1995. He often guest hosted Live with Ripa following the departure of her original cohost, the late Regis Philbin, in November 2011. (Michael Strahan and Ryan Seacrest later landed the cohosting job alongside Ripa before Consuelos joined full time in 2023.)

The era of the once mighty slasher film has fallen on hard times. Grief-fueled horror films are all the rage, with only a few bastions of the subgenre remaining. How quickly viewers forget the seeds of the genre that celebrated blood and guts. The only slasher franchise that truly remains is Scream, the iconic series of films from the late horror director Wes Craven.

Premiering in 1996, the first Scream film was a fresh take on a trend that seemed to have lost its luster. The film starred Neve Campbell as Sidney Prescott, a new final girl for the modern era. In the town of Woodsboro, a killer in a Ghostface mask terrorizes high school students in an entertaining and meta take on the genre. Scream deconstructed these horror tropes and laid out the rules for surviving a horror film. The franchise was so successful that it outlived Craven. Now, after the seventh entry of the Scream series, it has found life again on Tubi.

‘Scream’ Fans Can Revisit Ghostface on Streaming

Scream has endured for so long because it was unlike any other horror franchise at the time. In the ‘90s, slashers like Freddy Krueger and Jason Voorhees had lost their charm. It was time for a new take on the subject, and there was no one better to address this than Wes Craven. With the help of screenwriter Kevin Williamson, who wrote zippy lines and witticisms, Scream became a smash success.

The first Scream film threw out the hallmarks of the past. Instead of one killer, there were two, and their motives were incidental. While Billy Loomis (Skeet Ulrich) blamed his murder spree on his mother leaving after Maureen Prescott’s affair with his father, it was really an excuse. Co-killer Stu Macher (Matthew Lillard) cited peer pressure as his reason for the crimes. This was a tongue-in-cheek way to acknowledge that killers didn’t need a motive to be truly heinous.

Scream set up a theme that reoccurred in the following two films of the trilogy, offering red herrings and horror cameos to drive the point home that this was not the typical franchise. The meta take on the genre continued to take on a life of its own. Just like Ghostface, Scream continues to return and only rarely disappoints.

Scream 4 was a surprise, premiering a decade after the previous film. Craven proved he had not lost his touch as the film was ahead of its time. Featuring a new cast of teenagers, the fourth film in the franchise notes the dangers of influencer culture in an extremely underrated entry. Now, 30 years after the first film, Scream remains a nostalgic pleasure for fans. Michael Myers can be a one-note killer, but Scream continues to prove it is the best of the best because it always reinvents itself.

There are, of course, no comparisons to the originals, but there is always room to deconstruct the horror genre in a new meta take. Viewers can relive the brutal kills and classic one-liners by catching the franchise on its new home, Tubi.

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Release Date

December 20, 1996

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112 minutes

Writers

Kevin Williamson

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Producers

Bob Weinstein, Cary Woods, Cathy Konrad, Harvey Weinstein

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Rebel Wilson is not afraid to keep it real with herself about her weight-loss journey.

The “Bridesmaids” actress has always been open about her weight and the steps she has taken to pursue a healthier lifestyle. Now, she’s sharing even more candid reflections as she navigates her body transformation.

While continuing to focus on her wellness, Wilson is also dealing with an ongoing legal battle tied to her film “The Deb.”

Rebel Wilson Gets Candid  About Never Getting A Bikini Body

The “Senior Year” actress did not sugarcoat where she’s at recently with her fitness, admitting she may never look a certain way. 

Taking to Instagram Stories, Wilson shared a photo of herself in a sports bra and shorts, confidently showing her midsection while embracing her reality in the caption.

“I don’t think I’ll ever have a bikini body – that’s just not me,” Wilson wrote. “But my body has carried me through this life, and I am so grateful for it!”

The soon-to-be mom of two followed up her candid admission with a glimpse into her wellness routine. “I’m trying to get in my daily steps, do a Pilates class once or twice a week, some strength training when I can – eat as healthy as I can,” she explained.  

Wilson also chimed in on her use of medication to support slimming down, writing, “But let’s face it, I love sweets – so I need those GLPs [sic] from time to time to give a little help.”

The ‘Pitch Perfect’ Star Turned To GLP-1 For Weight Loss 

Wilson’s latest update comes about six months after she revealed she was considering GLP-1 medications as part of her weight management plan.

As The Blast reported at that time, she had partnered with Noom as its Chief Wellness Ambassador, describing the medication as a complementary tool alongside proper nutrition and exercise.

Wilson had revealed back then that she was struggling to stay in shape due to her busy schedule, from motherhood to her career. However, getting on board with the Noom program helped her still keep her fitness in check. 

How Rebel Wilson’s ‘Year of Health’ Reshaped Her Career 

Throughout her transformation, Wilson has been an open book. In 2020, embarked on a strict routine, famously dubbed her “year of health,” shedding nearly 80 pounds in the process.

According to the Australian actress, the change was not just physical; it also shifted how she was perceived in the industry, opening doors to a wider range of roles.

“That weirdly made me more versatile as an actress, even though I had the same skills,” the 46-year-old explained per The Blast. 

She added, “I think people see you differently [after weight loss] and can imagine you more easily in different roles. So I think that probably had the biggest effect.”

Wilson’s ‘The Deb’ Film Lawsuit Took a New Messy Turn

Putting her fitness journey aside, the “Jojo Rabbit” actress is currently in the middle of a legal showdown involving her directorial debut.

The dispute began in 2024 after Wilson accused members of the production team of embezzlement and other misconduct. In response, the producers hit back with a lawsuit, alleging her claims were false.

The case has now taken a new twist. Weeks ago, an audio surfaced as part of the evidence, reportedly suggesting that Wilson may have been involved in orchestrating a smear campaign against producer Amanda Ghost.

According to The Blast, the recording features crisis management professional Jed Wallace discussing ways to spread false claims against Ghost, including that she was getting hookers for Sir Len Blavatnik. 

Wallace also mentioned Wilson’s attorney, Bryan Freedman, in his plans against Ghost.

Rebel Wilson Spoke Out Amid Legal Battle

Following the release of the recording, Wilson spoke out, making it clear she is fully prepared to say her truth. As The Blast reported, the comedian revealed that she was waiting until she testified. However, the increasing allegations against her made her speak up. 

She disclosed that there were “powerful people” who wanted her silenced after reporting what she saw as “dodgy behavior” from the producers on set.

Wilson called out Blavatnik to take action before noting she won’t be quiet. She added that when “push comes to shove,” she would take the stand and “tell it as it is.”

Action shows get praised for the wrong things all the time. People talk about body counts, cool shots, big fights, shock deaths, and who looked the toughest walking away from an explosion. None of that means much on its own. Great action television is about sustained pressure.

It is about whether the violence changes the story, whether the fights expose character, whether escalation feels earned, and whether the show can keep making danger feel immediate instead of routine. That is where the nearly perfect ones separate themselves. The ten shows here all get that. They do not all work the same way, but every one of them knows how to make action feel like a story instead of decoration.

10

‘Warrior’ (2019–2023)

Image via Max

Warrior hits so hard and it never treats action as a side attraction. The fights are the language of the world. Territory, respect, class tension, family resentment, political opportunism, racial violence, personal shame, all of it keeps finding its way into physical confrontation. That is why the show stays alive even when nobody is punching anybody. You always feel like somebody is about to test somebody else’s claim to space.

Ah Sahm (Andrew Koji) gives the show an aura, but the real strength is that Warrior never traps itself inside one kind of cool. Ah Sahm can fight like a demon, yes, but the show also has to deal with Mai Ling (Dianne Doan)’s ambition, Young Jun (Jason Tobin)’s instability, Ah Toy (Olivia Cheng)’s cold-blooded precision, and the way the city itself keeps pressurizing every faction inside it. The result is a series where the action scenes matter because the grudges underneath them are always active. When the show really gets rolling, it feels less like a string of fights and more like a city-wide chain reaction.

9

‘Reacher’ (2022– )

Image via Prime Video

What Reacher understands better than a lot of prestige-minded action series is the pleasure of directness. This is a show built around a giant human problem walking into corrupt systems and deciding he is not going to tolerate any of it. That sounds simple because it is simple, and the show is smarter for not apologizing about that. Reacher’s whole appeal is that he reads a room fast, clocks the lie inside it, and turns physical force into moral clarity.

But the reason it works beyond the basic premise is that Alan Ritchson does not play Jack Reacher like a robot. Reacher is blunt, observant, dryly funny, and weirdly patient right up until the moment patience is no longer useful. He’s stoic and unapologetic. That’s a weird combo these days. That makes the bursts of violence land better. And the show knows how to build around him: small-town conspiracies, military baggage, bad men who mistake size for invulnerability, allies who are useful without becoming dead weight. A lot of action shows waste time trying to convince you they are deeper than they are. Reacher does not. It just keeps delivering satisfying escalation with enough intelligence in the mechanics to keep you fully locked in.

8

‘Banshee’ (2013–2016)

Image via Cinemax

Banshee is what happens when a show looks at the idea of too much and decides that is exactly the right amount. The violence is savage, the sex is reckless, the grudges are old, the criminal energy is everywhere, and every major character seems about one bad decision away from detonating the whole town. That could have turned into nonsense. Instead, the show commits so hard that its madness becomes structured.

The genius of Banshee is that Lucas Hood (Antony Starr) being an impostor is not just a hook. It poisons every interaction he has. He is constantly improvising authority he does not really own while dealing with Carrie Hopewell (Ivana Miličević)’s history, Rabbit (Ben Cross)’s shadow, Kai Proctor (Ulrich Thomsen)’s local dominance, and a town full of people who all seem to have private reasons for snapping. The fights are famous for good reason. They do not feel neat. They feel exhausting, painful, ugly, and personal. That is what gives the show its bite.

7

’24’ (2001–2010)

Image via FOX

There are action shows with better individual fight scenes than 24. There are action shows with prettier filmmaking. There are action shows less absurd from season to season. But if we are talking about pure compulsion, pure “I need the next episode now,” 24 still belongs near the top because it understands velocity on a level most television never touches. Every hour ends with a fresh emergency, a betrayal, a clock problem, a political complication, or a new layer of catastrophe.

Jack Bauer (Kiefer Sutherland) is the engine, obviously, and Sutherland plays him with exactly the right approach. Jack is not cool in a relaxed way. He is desperate, half-broken, relentless, and always one second away from doing something extreme because the alternative looks even worse. That is what makes the show work. It does not present action as controlled mastery. It presents it as triage under impossible pressure. Even when the plotting strains credibility, the show’s sense of pace keeps dragging you forward.

6

‘Daredevil’ (2015–2018)

Image via Netflix

What separates Daredevil from most superhero action shows is that it actually understands what a beating costs. Matt Murdock (Charlie Cox) gets battered, staggered, slammed into walls, thrown down hallways, and pushed into the kind of exhaustion that changes how a scene feels. That physical vulnerability gives the action real dramatic value. And then there is the mood.

Hell’s Kitchen feels claustrophobic, wounded, and morally cornered. Fisk (Vincent D’Onofrio) reshapes the entire show’s sense of threat because his presence makes every criminal and civic layer feel connected. Charlie Cox brings the right tension to Matt: intelligence, restraint, guilt, anger, and a self-destructive need to carry too much himself. The famous hallway fights embody what the show is about. Matt wins, but never cleanly. Every victory leaves damage behind. That is why the action means something.

5

‘The Punisher’ (2017–2019)

Image via Netflix

A lot of adaptations get seduced by the iconography of the character and stop there. This one is strongest when it remembers that Frank (Jon Bernthal) is not just efficient. He is torn open and functioning anyway. The Punisher follows a man whose grief has hardened into method without ever fully losing the raw wound underneath it.

When the show is in full form, it is ruthless.The action is tied to Frank’s psychology and the damage done to everyone around him. His scenes with Micro (Ebon Moss-Bachrach) help because they create contrast without softening him into something he is not. Billy Russo (Ben Barnes) matters because their history turns conflict into betrayal instead of generic opposition. And when Frank goes to work, it is ugly, efficient, punishing force carried out by a man who has stopped pretending he belongs to ordinary life. That clarity is what keeps the series from feeling like empty punishment porn.

4

‘Strike Back’ (2010–2020)

Image via Cinemax

Strike Back might be one of the purest action-delivery systems television has ever produced, and that is meant as praise. The show knows exactly what it is built to do: throw damaged, hyper-capable operators into one hot zone after another, keep the missions nasty and unstable, and make every operation feel like it can spiral in six different directions before anybody gets out. There is no bloat in the appeal. It is precision, momentum, and constant tactical pressure.

What makes it better than lesser military action shows is that it does not go soft in the connective tissue. The banter matters. The exhaustion matters. The improvisation matters. Scott (Sullivan Stapleton) and Stonebridge (Philip Winchester), in particular, work because their chemistry gives the show something to lean on between firefights. One is chaos with a pulse, the other is discipline holding itself together, and that friction keeps scenes from going flat. Then the set pieces hit, and the show delivers with frightening consistency. Raids, ambushes, extractions, reversals, close-quarters scrambles, Strike Back understands that action television can be artfully simple if the execution is sharp enough. Here, it usually is.

3

‘Spartacus’ (2010–2013)

Image via Starz

Very few shows understand escalation the way Spartacus does. It starts hot and then keeps finding ways to become hotter without losing narrative shape. That is the trick. Plenty of series can go loud. Very few can go loud while still making every new betrayal, revolt, alliance, humiliation, and revenge beat feel like it belongs exactly where it lands. Spartacus is operating at full emotional volume almost all the time, and somehow that becomes a strength rather than a weakness.

The show’s action is nearly perfect because it is fused to suffering, pride, spectacle, and payback. Spartacus (Andy Whitfield) is fighting and clawing his way through systems that stripped him of home, wife, name, and control. Batiatus (John Hannah) is one of the great chaos engines in TV because he can make a room dangerous without drawing a blade. Crixus (Manu Bennett), Gannicus (Dustin Clare), Lucretia (Lucy Lawless), Ashur (Nick E. Tarabay), Oenomaus (Peter Mensah), these are not decorative figures orbiting the hero. They all sharpen the stakes in different ways. And when the series goes into battle mode, you feel the accumulated insult behind every strike. That emotional backlog is why the action in Spartacus lands so hard.

2

‘Gangs of London’ (2020– )

Image via AMC

Gangs of London feels like a show made by people who took it personally when television action got lazy. The fight scenes are not just good. They are viciously imagined, spatially clear, physically punishing, and committed to consequences in a way that makes a lot of expensive action TV look fake and timid. The series understands that the audience should not just admire violence. They should wince at it, dread it, and still be unable to look away from it.

But the reason it rises this high is that the show is not only a collection of astonishing beatdowns and shootouts. It is a power struggle full of unstable loyalties, family fractures, strategic misreads, and men convincing themselves they are in control right before somebody tears that illusion apart. Elliot Carter (Ṣọpẹ́ Dìrísù) works because he is never allowed to settle into simple hero mode. Sean Wallace (Joe Cole) is compelling because grief, entitlement, rage, and insecurity are all fighting inside him at once. And when the show decides to explode, it really explodes. Safe houses become slaughterhouses. Negotiations collapse into carnage. Whole alliances get rewritten in minutes. It is some of the most ferocious action television ever made.

1

‘Shōgun’ (2024– )

Image via FX Networks

Putting Shōgun at number one on an action list is exactly the kind of choice people only question if they think action begins when swords come out. That is far too small a definition. Shōgun is nearly perfect action television because it understands that action starts much earlier than impact. It starts with positioning. It starts with reading a room correctly. It starts with knowing who is cornered, who is bluffing, who is buying time, who is sacrificing a piece to save the board, and who is quietly steering everybody else toward a confrontation they will not survive.

That is why the show is so overwhelming. When violence happens, it matters because the tension feeding into it has been built with terrifying patience. Toranaga (Hiroyuki Sanada) does not dominate the series by constantly raising his voice or swinging his authority around. He dominates it by turning thought into motion and motion into inevitability. Mariko (Anna Sawai) gives the story its deepest force because her restraint, duty, faith, intelligence, and pain make every scene around her denser. Blackthorne (Cosmo Jarvis) is useful not as an action avatar for the audience, but as a destabilizing presence inside a system already trembling with calculation and mistrust. And when Shōgun does unleash kinetic force, it lands with unusual weight because the show has already done the harder work.

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Shogun

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Release Date

2024 – 2026-00-00

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Directors

Fred Toye, Jonathan van Tulleken, Charlotte Brändström, Takeshi Fukunaga, Hiromi Kamata

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Writers

Rachel Kondo

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For millions of Star Wars fans, Obi-Wan Kenobi represents wisdom, calm, and the moral center of the original trilogy. He is the mentor archetype perfected. Part samurai master, part space wizard, part philosophical guide leading Luke Skywalker toward his destiny. Without him, Star Wars simply would not feel the same. Ironically, the man who made the character iconic never fully understood the obsession.

Sir Alec Guinness had a famously complicated relationship with the role that made him recognizable to generations of moviegoers. While Star Wars made him extraordinarily wealthy and introduced him to the largest audience of his career, it also became the role he spent decades trying to separate himself from. But the real story is not just that Guinness disliked Star Wars, it is why his presence in the film was so important in the first place. Because without Guinness, Star Wars might not have worked the way it did.

Guinness Helped Make Star Wars Feel Legitimate

Image via Lucasfilm

When Star Wars released in 1977, it was far from guaranteed to become the cultural phenomenon it is today. Science fiction was not widely considered prestige filmmaking, and the genre often struggled to be taken seriously aside from a few exceptions. George Lucas understood this, which is part of why casting Guinness mattered so much. Guinness was an Academy Award winner for The Bridge on the River Kwai, known for serious dramatic work and classical stage performances. His presence alone signaled that Star Wars was trying to be more than just spectacle. More importantly, he treated the role with complete sincerity.

Rather than leaning into the pulpy nature of the material, Guinness approached Obi-Wan like a classical mentor figure. He delivered exposition about the Force and the Jedi with the quiet confidence of someone discussing philosophy rather than fantasy. His performance gives the impression that this galaxy has a real history instead of just invented lore. That choice helped audiences accept the film’s mythology. It is easy to imagine a version of Star Wars where Obi-Wan feels campy or overly theatrical. In the wrong hands, the character could have felt like a stock fantasy wizard. Guinness instead gave him restraint, sadness, and a sense of lived experience. He made Obi-Wan feel like someone who had already lived through a lost golden age. That emotional grounding helped make the entire story feel more real.

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The 20 Most Powerful Jedi in Star Wars, Ranked

“May the Force be with you.”

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Guinness’ Performance Grounded the Film’s Biggest Ideas

One of Guinness’ greatest contributions to Star Wars is how he handles the film’s most difficult material. Much of A New Hope depends on the audience accepting abstract ideas like the Force, the fall of the Jedi, and the moral battle between light and dark. Guinness makes those ideas believable simply through how seriously he takes them. The calm conviction in his delivery gives the idea emotional credibility. It turns what could have been technobabble into something closer to mythology.

His famous sacrifice on the Death Star works for the same reason. Guinness plays the moment with quiet acceptance rather than dramatic spectacle. Obi-Wan does not die like an action hero, he dies like someone fulfilling a purpose he has already accepted. That performance choice reinforces the idea that Star Wars is operating on mythic storytelling rules rather than simple adventure logic. Without that tone, the moment risks feeling confusing or anticlimactic. Instead, it becomes one of the most important turning points in the trilogy. It also helped establish one of the franchise’s most important storytelling ideas. In Star Wars, victory does not always come from power. Sometimes it comes from belief and sacrifice. Guinness communicates that theme through performance more than dialogue. That may be his most important contribution to the film.

Guinness Never Loved What Obi-Wan Became

Image via Lucasfilm

Despite how essential his performance was, Guinness never fully embraced the role. Unlike many actors who later grow tired of their most famous characters, Guinness had doubts from the beginning. He reportedly struggled with some of the dialogue and was unsure how the film would be received. While he respected Lucas’ ambition, he did not share the same excitement for the genre. His decision to join the film was partly practical. His contract included a percentage of the film’s backend profits, estimated at around 2.25 percent, which ultimately earned him millions as Star Wars became a global success.

Financially, it was one of the smartest decisions he ever made. Artistically, it was more complicated. Guinness spent decades building a reputation as a transformative actor known for his range. After Star Wars, he increasingly found himself defined by a single role. In his memoir A Positively Final Appearance, he recalled throwing away Obi-Wan fan mail without reading it. One frequently repeated story describes him agreeing to sign an autograph for a young fan only if the boy promised to stop watching Star Wars. These stories may sound harsh, but they reflect a real fear: Guinness worried that his most popular role would overshadow the rest of his career. In some ways, he was right. But there is also a deep irony here. The qualities Guinness valued most as an actor are exactly what made Obi-Wan so beloved. His restraint, discipline, and seriousness helped elevate the film beyond simple genre entertainment. His commitment to treating the story seriously is what helped make it timeless.

Whether he liked it or not, he became part of cinematic mythology through Obi-Wan, and in the end, that may be the clearest measure of his impact. Guinness did not just play Obi-Wan Kenobi: he helped convince audiences that Star Wars was worth believing in, even if he never fully understood why they believed in it so much.

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Created by

George Lucas

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First TV Show

Star Wars The Clone Wars

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Latest TV Show

The Acolyte

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