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HBO has used Halloween eve to fill in some of the spookiest gaps in the Harry Potter cast, naming the actors who will voice the Sorting Hat and play the ghosts and portrait that haunt Hogwarts. The announcement came on Oct. 30, less than two months before the series debuts on HBO and HBO Max on Dec. 25.

David Threlfall, the BAFTA-winning actor best known as Frank Gallagher in the original UK version of “Shameless,” will voice the Sorting Hat. Leo Bill takes on Nearly Headless Nick, the Gryffindor house ghost. Andrew Brooke is the Bloody Baron of Slytherin, Daniel Fearn plays the Hufflepuff ghost the Fat Friar, and Laura Smyth, seen in “Baby Reindeer,” plays the Fat Lady, the portrait guarding Gryffindor’s entrance.

A Note on the Sorting Hat Casting

One outlet’s report muddied the waters. IGN’s article credits “Shameless” US star William H. Macy with the Sorting Hat voice. Polygon, Variety and Deadline all name Threlfall instead, and Deadline notes that Threlfall led the British series that inspired the American version starring Macy. The weight of reporting points to Threlfall, and the Macy credit looks like a mix-up between the two versions of the show.

Big Shoes, Familiar Names

Each new actor steps into a role with film history. John Cleese played Nearly Headless Nick in the movies, and Leslie Phillips voiced the Sorting Hat. Elizabeth Spriggs was the Fat Lady. Terence Bayler and Simon Fisher-Becker, who played the Bloody Baron and the Fat Friar in the first film, have both died.

The group joins Peter Serafinowicz, cast earlier this year as Peeves the Poltergeist. Peeves appears in the books but was cut from the films, so he is one of the clearest chances for the series to show off material the movies left behind.

What the Harry Potter Cast Looks Like Now

The Harry Potter cast is large. Dominic McLaughlin, Arabella Stanton and Alastair Stout lead as Harry, Hermione and Ron. John Lithgow is Dumbledore, Janet McTeer is McGonagall, Paapa Essiedu is Snape and Nick Frost is Hagrid. The supporting list includes Paul Whitehouse, Johnny Flynn, Bertie Carvel, Katherine Parkinson, Warwick Davis and Anton Lesser. Recent additions include Jasper Talbot and Hannah Chinn as James and Lily Potter, and Harry Gilby as Charlie Weasley.

Season 2, adapting “Chamber of Secrets,” is already filming. Variety lists Kit Harington as Gilderoy Lockhart, Lenny Rush as Dobby, Billy Barratt as Tom Riddle, Rafe Spall as Arthur Weasley, Molly Hewitt-Richards as Moaning Myrtle and Jasper Ambrose as Colin Creevey.

Eight Hours Instead of Two and a Half

Producer David Heyman recently spoke about the challenge of adapting each book as a TV season rather than a film. On the official Harry Potter podcast, he said the team is telling over eight hours a story the first film covered in two and a half, and that episodes need act breaks and often end on a question rather than an answer. “Finding that structure is just different,” he said. “But boy, is it exciting.”

Francesca Gardiner writes and executive produces the first season, and Mark Mylod executive produces and directs multiple episodes. J.K. Rowling is among the executive producers. With a trailer released last month and the casting nearly complete, the remaining question is whether this version can win over viewers who know the films well.

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The Ian McKellen tribute to Patrick Stewart, who died Wednesday at 86, is short, plainspoken and affectionate, much like the friendship it describes. Posted to Instagram, it casts the late actor first and foremost as a Yorkshireman, and only after that as a Hollywood figure.

Stewart’s longtime spokesperson, Kelly Bush Novak, said he died at his Los Angeles home with his wife, singer Sunny Ozell, by his side. She described “a brief and poignant journey with Alzheimer’s disease and Lewy body dementia.” Bush Novak wrote that he had been surrounded by family and friends, live music, prayer, tears and laughter.

A Yorkshireman First

McKellen opened by describing Stewart as “defined by being born and bred in Yorkshire,” a county he “loved to the end.” The accent, McKellen suggested, was only part of it. The rest was a “stern honesty” in saying what he thought and felt. “Yorkshiremen have no truck with half-truths or avoidance of big issues,” McKellen wrote. “He wore his heart on his sleeve, which made him a man to rely on, to admire and in my case, love.”

That sense of origin carried through the rest of the message. Although “America was his adopted home,” McKellen said, Stewart “never forsook his origins.” He named the actor’s proudest achievement as his appointment as Chancellor of Huddersfield University in Yorkshire. That is a striking choice for a man with an OBE (2001), a knighthood (2010) and a career that stretched from Stratford-upon-Avon to Broadway.

The Star Trek Gamble

The most revealing passage in the Ian McKellen tribute is a street-corner memory. The two had met as ambitious young actors at the Royal Shakespeare Company roughly half a century ago, though they weren’t in the same productions. A few years later, McKellen ran into Stewart in central London, where he learned of an offer to take over a leading part in Star Trek.

McKellen admitted he voiced doubts, asking whether Stewart really wanted to risk getting “lost in Hollywood for years and years” at the expense of his stage career. “Well, he took the risk,” McKellen wrote, “and thank goodness for us all that he did.” He credited that choice with giving audiences both devoted Trekkies and a run of film successes, X-Men among them. It also let Stewart use his fame to return to Shakespeare, Ibsen, Arthur Miller, Peter Shaffer, Pinter and Beckett.

Professor X, Magneto and a Famously Open Affection

Variety notes that the two men had crossed paths before but became close on the 2000 film X-Men, where they played Professor X and Magneto, allies and rivals. Stewart recalled in a 2020 Wired interview that they had adjoining trailers and passed the downtime over tea, and perhaps “something a little stronger” in the afternoon. “We found we had so much in common,” he said.

The bond lasted. McKellen officiated at Stewart’s 2013 wedding to Ozell, and the pair often showed their affection publicly, including kisses at red-carpet events. They also shared stages, notably in Waiting for Godot and No Man’s Land. In 2023, McKellen said that going around with Stewart was “like going around with the pope,” adding: “Not that people genuflect, but he’s touched so many lives.”

One Last Appearance

McKellen ended his message with a forward-looking line: “His farewell performance in Avengers: Doomsday is yet to be seen.” Both actors are set to reprise their X-Men roles in the Marvel film, due in theaters on December 18. That leaves the Ian McKellen tribute with an unusual final note, since one more Stewart performance is still waiting for audiences.

Other tributes have followed from figures including Kevin Feige, William Shatner, Hugh Jackman, Seth MacFarlane, Rebecca Romijn and Famke Janssen. McKellen’s stands out for its tone. It is less a list of credits than a portrait of a friend who spoke bluntly, took a career gamble and never lost sight of home.

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File photo: Patrick Stewart 1999.jpg by Kingkongphoto & www.celebrity-photos.com from Laurel Maryland, USA, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Donald Glover is taking on one of gaming’s most recognizable battle royales: a live-action PUBG Netflix series that he will write, direct, produce and star in. The project was reported on October 29, 2026 by Deadline and IGN, and it marks a major step in Krafton’s long-stated push to turn its franchise into original entertainment.

Who is behind the PUBG Netflix series

Glover, an Emmy winner for acting and directing on Atlanta, is writing the adaptation with his brother Stephen Glover, who is also an executive producer. The pair worked together on Atlanta, where both wrote and executive produced. Other executive producers are Michael Schaefer for Neon, Fam Udeorji for Gilga, and Taeseok Jang and Sujin Lee for LV3H, Krafton’s entertainment arm. LV3H is also helping develop and produce the show.

Deadline reports that the deal came together after lengthy negotiations. Glover is free to work with Netflix because his Amazon MGM Studios agreement, signed in 2021 when he left FX, has since been renewed as a first-look deal rather than an exclusive one. He remains an executive producer on Amazon’s Mr. and Mrs. Smith.

A game with more story than you might expect

PUBG, originally titled PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, debuted in 2017 and has set seven Guinness World Records. It began as a pure multiplayer experience, which raises the obvious question of what a scripted series would actually be about. IGN points to the lore on the game’s official site. In it, a billionaire named Sergei Kalimnik survives a deadly Soviet attack on the fictional island of Erangel in 1965. He later buys the island and stages forced battles among 100 conscripted people. The backstory also links to a centuries-old tradition called “Magna Venari: The Great Hunt.”

IGN’s writer likens the premise to Squid Game, with shadowy elites watching from a distance. That comparison is the outlet’s own reading, and neither report says how closely Glover’s version will follow the game’s canon.

Netflix’s growing game slate

The PUBG Netflix series joins a crowded pipeline of game adaptations at the streamer. Deadline lists a live-action Assassin’s Creed series, a live-action Gears of War film, animated adaptations of Minecraft, Magic: The Gathering and Clash of Clans, and an Overcooked competition series. Netflix had also previously been developing an animated PUBG series from Castlevania executive producer Adi Shankar, announced in 2021. Krafton first announced plans for a PUBG movie and TV series back in 2020.

Neon’s involvement is notable too. The studio has won two Best Picture Oscars, for Parasite and Anora, and its presence suggests an auteur-minded approach rather than a standard franchise play. Deadline’s note that Schaefer joined Neon following Department M’s stake acquisition gives some context for the studio’s expanding ambitions.

IGN also notes that Glover is not the only celebrity attached to a game adaptation right now. Michael B. Jordan and Christopher McQuarrie are reportedly shopping a Battlefield film to studios, with Sony said to be a frontrunner.

What we still don’t know

The reports leave major questions open. There is no release date, episode count, additional cast or production timeline, and Deadline describes the series as “in works” at Netflix. For now, the headline is the creative lineup: a single filmmaker handling writing, directing and starring duties on a PUBG Netflix series, backed by the game’s owner and one of the most celebrated independent studios in film.

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File photo: Donald Glover TIFF 2015.jpg by Bill Ingalls, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

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The first trailer for Death Stranding Isolations arrived on October 30, giving fans their earliest look at Hideo Kojima’s animated spin-off, which is due on Disney+ sometime in 2027. No exact release date has been given. The series was announced in November 2025, and the footage suggests it will explore the fallout of the games’ story rather than retell it.

What the Death Stranding Isolations trailer shows

The teaser centres on one of the two leads, a blonde-haired girl who is tormented by visions of Beached Things, the souls of the dead stranded among the living. Polygon notes that the anime’s subtitle is “My mom became a crater.” That is a nod to voidouts, the huge explosions triggered when a BT consumes a human.

NME reports that Kojima Productions has also published a fuller synopsis. The story begins in North America just after Sam, the games’ protagonist, reconnects the continent through the Chiral Network. The synopsis suggests that reconnection is not simply a happy ending. As the country is “reborn from the ashes,” the renewed links between people bring “new and unforeseen consequences.”

New characters walking a different path

Sam and his Bridges comrades are not the focus. The synopsis lists a wise old man who connects people by a method “that defies all reckoning,” a female soldier caught in a cycle of war, and a boy furious at the absurdity of his life. The fourth is the girl who severed all ties with the outside world, and who is thrown into an unfamiliar world by chance encounters. In a franchise built on the idea of connection, a protagonist who deliberately cut herself off looks like a deliberate thematic counterpoint.

The team behind the anime

According to Polygon, animation comes from E&H Production, a young studio founded by MAPPA veteran Sunghoo Park, whose credits include Ninja Kamui. Takayuki Sano directs. He has worked on Attack on Titan: The Last Attack and Jujutsu Kaisen 0, and this is his directorial debut. Tow Ubukata, known for Psycho-Pass 2 and 3, wrote the screenplay. Kojima is executive producing.

A growing Death Stranding universe

The anime is one of several projects expanding the franchise beyond games. A24 is developing a live-action film with Michael Sarnoski, who made A Quiet Place: Day One, writing and directing. Polygon describes it as a prequel to the games. Kojima has said he will oversee the film but will keep his input light. “I have to trust these people,” he said, adding that he trusts A24 and Sarnoski.

A separate animated feature, tentatively titled Death Stranding Mosquito, is also in development. Aaron Guzikowski is attached to write and Hiroshi Miyamoto to direct, and its first trailer appeared in September. Polygon also says there are no plans for a third game beyond a concept draft, so these screen projects may be where the story moves next.

For now, the trailer and synopsis are the main evidence of what Death Stranding Isolations will be. It looks like a separate story with a new cast, set in the same world, and it will stream exclusively on Disney+ in 2027.

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Patrick Stewart tributes have poured in from the worlds of theatre, film, television and video games since the announcement that the actor died at 86. His family said he died on Wednesday, 28 October, at his Los Angeles home after “a brief and poignant journey with Alzheimer’s disease and Lewy body dementia.” The news was made public the following day.

The most widely shared words came from Sir Ian McKellen, Stewart’s friend of five decades and his X-Men co-star. He called Stewart “the most respected and beloved actor of his generation on either side of the Atlantic.”

Ian McKellen: a Yorkshireman first

McKellen’s tribute was personal rather than ceremonial. He wrote that, “before everything else,” Stewart was defined by being born and bred in Yorkshire, and that the county’s character showed in his voice and in “the stern honesty with which he told you what he thought and felt.” He added that Stewart “wore his heart on his sleeve, which made him a man to rely on, to admire and, in my case, love.”

McKellen recalled that the two were ambitious young actors at the Royal Shakespeare Company. He also described meeting Stewart in a London street, where Stewart told him about the offer to lead Star Trek. McKellen admitted he cautioned him about the risk of getting “lost in Hollywood for years and years.” Stewart took the part anyway. “Thank goodness for us all that he did,” McKellen wrote. He said the proudest achievement of Stewart’s career was becoming chancellor of Huddersfield University. McKellen also officiated at Stewart’s 2013 wedding.

From the bridge of the Enterprise to the X-Mansion

Stewart was already an established stage actor when he was cast, at 47, as Captain Jean-Luc Picard in Star Trek: The Next Generation. He played the role for seven seasons, in four feature films, and again in Star Trek: Picard, which began in 2020. William Shatner, who also commanded the Enterprise, said Stewart brought “intelligence, grace and a deep sense of humanity to everything he did.” He added: “Captain Picard stood for the best of us and so did the man who played him.” George Takei said Stewart inspired “a whole next generation of star-gazers.”

Hugh Jackman, who starred with Stewart as Professor X’s mutant ally Wolverine, said, “We lost one of the greats of stage and screen today,” and called him a “tremendous friend and man.” James McAvoy, who played the younger Professor X, said he was “lucky” to have worked with Stewart several times. Marvel Studios called him “a singular talent, a generous collaborator and a true gentleman.” McKellen noted that Stewart’s final film appearance will be as Professor X in the upcoming Avengers: Doomsday.

Remembered on stage and in games

Colleagues from the theatre stressed that Stewart’s screen fame never displaced his classical roots. The Royal Shakespeare Company, which he joined in 1966, called him a “colossus of both stage and screen.” Ben Kingsley recalled watching Stewart rehearse Grumio in The Taming of the Shrew on his own first day at the RSC, noting the “joyful, passionate commitment to his beloved craft.” Harriet Walter, who knew him for more than 40 years, likened his loss to a “huge giant tree” falling in the forest and said she had “never heard a bad word against him.”

The gaming community has also paid tribute. Stewart voiced Emperor Uriel Septim VII in The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, and his opening narration became one of that game’s defining moments. Publisher Bethesda called him “an emperor, a captain, and an inspiration to us all.” He also narrated the Castlevania: Lords of Shadow games. Star Trek Online players lined up spaceships in his honour. Ricky Gervais, meanwhile, shared a lighter memory of Stewart’s good humour on set.

Family and remembrance

Stewart was born in Mirfield, West Yorkshire, in 1940, and was knighted in 2010. He credited a former English teacher with encouraging him to perform. He is survived by his wife, Sunny Ozell, and two adult children, Daniel and Sophie. His family said he died “in the loving care of his wife” and spoke of “the peaceful ease and reflection on his face, an enduring reminder of his invincible grace.” Instead of flowers, they asked for donations to the Johns Hopkins Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center Fund and the Alzheimer’s Foundation of America’s caregiver resources.

The Patrick Stewart tributes share a theme: he took a risk on science fiction without giving up Shakespeare, and carried both with warmth. As McKellen put it, he was “a man to rely on, to admire and … love.”

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File photo: Patrick Stewart 1999.jpg by Kingkongphoto & www.celebrity-photos.com from Laurel Maryland, USA, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Walter Koenig, the actor who gave the Starship Enterprise its eager young Russian navigator, Pavel Chekov, has died at 90. His representatives said he died of old age at his home in North Hollywood, surrounded by his daughter and niece. Reports differ slightly on the day. The BBC and CNET put it on Sunday night, while the Independent says Monday.

Tributes poured in quickly. Co-star George Takei, who played Hikaru Sulu and had known Koenig for roughly six decades, wrote that “Walter was more than Chekov. He was a writer, a teacher, a thoughtful man, and a loyal friend.” He closed with a line that fans have been sharing widely: “Keep navigating a steady course.”

How Walter Koenig became Chekov

Born in Chicago in 1936 and raised in Manhattan, Koenig was the son of Jewish immigrants whose family came from Lithuania. He studied psychology before training at New York’s Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre, where his classmates included James Caan, Christopher Lloyd and Dabney Coleman. His screen career began in 1962 with an uncredited part as a sentry in Combat!.

He joined Star Trek for its second season in 1967 and appeared in 36 of the 50 episodes aired before the show ended in 1969. According to the sources, the character was partly meant to draw younger viewers, with a mop-top haircut in the style of the Monkees and the Beatles. The studio also reportedly pitched Chekov as an answer to a Soviet newspaper’s complaint that the show had no Russian crew member, a claim Koenig later denied. CNET notes that he was 30 when cast, only five years younger than William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy.

A career beyond the bridge

The series was cancelled, but Chekov kept coming back. Koenig appeared in all six original-cast films between 1979 and 1991, and the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror nominated him for The Wrath of Khan and The Voyage Home. The latter gave fans one of Chekov’s best-loved lines, his accented hunt for “nuclear wessels”. He also made a brief appearance in Generations in 1994. Later, he voiced Anton Chekov, a descendant of his original character, in Star Trek: Picard in 2023.

Fans of other franchises knew him as well. In Babylon 5 he played Alfred Bester, a ruthless Psi Corps telepath, about as far from the cheerful Chekov as an actor could get. Koenig also wrote for television, with credits including Land of the Lost, Family, The Incredible Hulk and an episode of the original series’ animated spin-off. He wrote books, including Chekov’s Enterprise, and in 2010 he wrote, produced and starred in the sci-fi film InAlienable. He received a Hollywood Walk of Fame star in 2012. This year he won a Platinum Award for best actor at the Independent Shorts Awards for the short film Mr Fleischmann.

Family, friendship and fans

Koenig was married to the actor Judy Levitt from 1965 until her death in 2022. She appeared with him in three Star Trek films and in Babylon 5. Their son Andrew, known for playing Richard “Boner” Stabone on Growing Pains, died in 2010 aged 41. Koenig is survived by his daughter, the actor and screenwriter Danielle Koenig.

The warmth in the tributes is notable. Koenig was best man at Takei’s 2008 wedding to Brad Altman. Zachery McGinnis, whose agency represented him at conventions, said Koenig “understood what Star Trek meant to people and embraced the community that grew around it.” Broadcaster Jesse Thorn, a friend of the family, said the cast members’ love for one another was “very sincere” and called their friendship “a gift.”

For a character created partly as a marketing move, Chekov proved unusually durable, and much of that came from the actor playing him. The show imagined former Cold War rivals working side by side, and Walter Koenig made that idea feel affectionate rather than preachy. Fans will probably remember him less for any single line than for the humour and sincerity he brought to the role, and for the decades he spent meeting the people who loved it.

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File photo: Alan Light with Walter Koenig (1117487871).jpg by Alan Light, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

The Duchess of Sussex is heading back to Australian television, with Network 10 confirming she will front the 2027 season of Junior MasterChef Australia alongside Poh Ling Yeow. The announcement, made on 27 October, gives Meghan her first confirmed on-screen project since her Netflix partnership wound down, and it arrives at a delicate moment in her personal life.

What Network 10 has confirmed

According to the broadcaster, Meghan will take part as a “special guest” co-host, while Yeow, a current judge on the adult MasterChef Australia, will keep that role in 2027 as well. Contestants on the children’s spin-off are aged between nine and 13. Production will take place at Melbourne Showgrounds, though no date has been set. Deadline reports the format is returning to Ten after six years off air, and that Banijay’s Endemol Shine Australia is producing it, with Banijay Rights handling international distribution.

“I love cooking with my own kids, so seeing what these young stars create in the kitchen is going to be a lot of fun,” Meghan said in a statement, adding that returning to work with the MasterChef team was “an easy yes.” Yeow said a reunion would be “a real treat” and promised “plenty of delicious surprises and a little mischief, too.”

Why the network wanted her back

The casting follows a guest appearance on the flagship show, filmed during the Sussexes’ four-day Australian visit in April and broadcast in July. Network 10 said the episode drew its largest Sunday audience since 2023. For a broadcaster relaunching a dormant children’s brand, a proven ratings draw is an obvious asset.

The BBC notes that Meghan was not paid for her earlier appearance. Network 10 did not say whether she will be paid for the junior series. The Guardian adds that it is unclear whether filming will mean a temporary move to Australia for the family, who relocated to the UK in August after six years in California.

A career in transition

The deal fits a pattern of Meghan rebuilding her media profile around food and family. Her Netflix series With Love, Meghan ran for two seasons and a Christmas special. The BBC reports it did not perform well with audiences, though the Guardian notes Netflix said it was viewed 5.3 million times globally in the first half of 2025. The show is widely reported not to be returning, and her As Ever lifestyle brand, which includes a food range, ended its partnership with Netflix in March.

There is also a commercial thread. The BBC says her trademark was registered last year in more than a dozen product categories in Australia, including cookware and table linen. A prominent family-friendly cooking show in that market would sit comfortably alongside those interests, although none of the sources suggest a link between the two.

Timing amid serious allegations

The announcement lands in the same week as allegations involving her father, Thomas Markle Sr. The Guardian reports that her half-brother, Thomas Markle Jr, made a report to authorities in the Philippines alleging he found child sexual abuse images at their father’s former home there. A human trafficking and child sexual exploitation taskforce in Cebu is investigating. Markle Sr denies the claims, calling them “sick” and “a bunch of lies.”

Meghan said through a spokesperson that she was “deeply distressed” and that her thoughts were with any children who may have been harmed. Accounts differ on the detail of her contact with her father. The Guardian says the Met made her aware of allegations in 2019, Deadline says she has had no contact with him since 2018, and the BBC understands she cut off contact last year. None of the reports indicates the television announcement is connected to the allegations.

What the sources do show is a high-visibility children’s programme being built around a figure under intense public attention. Whether Junior MasterChef Australia benefits from that attention, or has to navigate it, will become clearer once a production schedule is confirmed.

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File photo: Meghan, Duchess of Sussex.jpg by Office of the Governor-General, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

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Susan Saint James, the Emmy-winning actress who anchored two of television’s most recognizable pairings, has died at 80. Her family said she died Monday of pancreatic cancer. Tributes since have focused on a rare Hollywood story: a performer who reached the top of network TV more than once, then chose to leave it.

From Contract Player to Prime-Time Emmy Winner

Born Susan Jane Miller in Los Angeles on Aug. 14, 1946, Saint James grew up partly in Rockford, Illinois, after her father took a job leading a model-kit manufacturer. She spent about three years modeling in France before returning to California at 20 to try acting. The move paid off fast. As a Universal contract player, she landed a part in a 1966 TV movie and then a regular role on NBC’s The Name of the Game.

On that stylish 90-minute series she played Peggy Maxwell, an editorial assistant who kept getting kidnapped. She won an Emmy in 1969 for the first season, then earned nominations in 1970 and 1971. Few actors collect a statuette so early in a TV career.

The Rock Hudson Years and a Contract Fight

Within months of that series ending, Saint James was back in another rotating NBC format. McMillan & Wife paired her with Rock Hudson as a San Francisco police commissioner and his crime-solving spouse, Sally. It aired alongside Columbo and McCloud as part of the NBC Mystery Movie lineup. The role brought her Emmy nominations in 1972, 1973 and 1975. She left after five seasons in 1976 amid a contract dispute, while Hudson stayed for a sixth.

She also worked in film, running from the law with Peter Fonda in Outlaw Blues, playing Dracula’s target in Love at First Bite, and appearing in How to Beat the High Cost of Living and Carbon Copy.

Kate & Allie and the Decision to Step Back

In 1984, Saint James reunited with her High Cost of Living co-star Jane Curtin for the CBS sitcom Kate & Allie. They played divorced childhood friends raising three kids together in a Greenwich Village brownstone. The show ran six seasons, ending in 1989, and drew three Emmy nominations for outstanding comedy series. Saint James personally earned nominations in 1984 and 1985. By the Hollywood Reporter’s count, that makes her an eight-time nominee.

After the show ended, she largely stopped acting. She told People magazine in 2002 that she was tired of being “one of those people juggling knives and melons and then [saying], ‘Toss me in a razor blade.’” Her departure came while she was still in demand, which is why some obituaries describe her as quitting at her peak.

Family, Loss and Service

Saint James married television executive Dick Ebersol, the former Saturday Night Live executive producer and NBC Sports head, in November 1981. He is her third husband and survives her. In 2004, the couple lost their youngest child, 14-year-old Teddy, in a plane crash. Reports describe them as continuing on together after that tragedy.

Away from the screen, Saint James pursued entrepreneurial ventures and devoted considerable time to charity. She served as a board member and longtime volunteer for the Special Olympics.

Her family’s statement emphasized that side of her life. It described her as “generous with her time and energy, which she valued more than money, and instinctively drawn to whoever needed lifting up.” It added: “She taught her children to pause, be kind and look out for other people.”

For viewers, Saint James will be remembered as the warm, quick-witted presence of 1970s mystery nights and 1980s sitcom Thursdays. By choosing family and service over another series, she left the screen on her own terms.

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It is now one of the most recognisable songs of the 1960s, but Time of the Season began as a modest, rushed and occasionally tense piece of work. In a Guardian “How we made” interview, Zombies keyboardist Rod Argent and singer Colin Blunstone recall a recording shaped by a tiny budget, a ticking studio clock and a band on the verge of splitting.

A £1,000 album and a self-produced gamble

By 1967 the Zombies had only one UK hit, She’s Not There, which Argent wrote at 18. They had signed to CBS and been handed £1,000 to make their second album, Odessey and Oracle. Argent says that was not a lot of money even then. The band recorded in a handful of sessions spread over six months and, for the first time, produced themselves.

The money ran out quickly, but Argent argues the pressure helped. The tight timeframe gave the record a spontaneity and freshness he still tries to preserve in his work, he says, partly because it is “just much more fun”.

The last song written, and a hunch it was a hit

Time of the Season was the final song Argent wrote for the album. He was sharing a flat with bassist Chris White, and the two swapped ideas by wandering between each other’s rooms. Argent recalls telling White he thought he had just written a hit.

He ties the lyrics to the mood of 1967, when television brought pictures of war into living rooms and some viewers decided they wanted no part of it. The “Who’s your daddy?” line, he says, nods back to Gershwin’s Summertime, an early song the band performed together. “Is he rich like me?” was meant to carry a double meaning, with “rich” suggesting an understanding of how to live.

Abbey Road, the Beatles and a heated session

The band recorded at EMI Recording Studios, later renamed Abbey Road. The Beatles had been in just before them making Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, and the Zombies shared some of the same engineers, notably Geoff Emerick. Argent credits him with a distinctive way of combining the bass and tom-tom sounds. Argent suggested the clap before the beat and the exhaled vocal sound that follows it.

Blunstone remembers a less serene experience. He was still learning the song as he sang it, watching a red recording light and a clock while studio staff enforced strict finishing times. At one point a piano was wheeled away mid-take. With Argent in the control room demanding precise phrasing, tempers frayed. Blunstone says he told Argent to come in and sing it himself, and the reply was blunt. He finds it funny now that he swore at his bandmate between takes of such angelic lines.

Blunstone also admits he did not rate Time of the Season as the album’s best shot at success. He thought Care of Cell 44 sounded like a hit single, but it flopped. The album emerged in a misspelled sleeve after the band had already split.

Death rumours and a delayed hit

The version of events available here cuts off before the full story of how the song found its audience. The article’s introduction and captions hint at it. A DJ in Boise, Idaho, reportedly would not stop playing the track, and a later passage mentions that Al Kooper became a CBS staff producer after leaving Blood, Sweat & Tears. The standfirst also recounts that, a year after the split, two bands toured the US as the Zombies, with one claiming a new singer because a member had supposedly been killed in a car crash. The headline adds that a death was reported in Rolling Stone.

Even so, the interviews offer a clear picture of a classic made quickly and cheaply, with plenty of friction. Argent says of the song, in a caption, that he has never worked out how it can be both of its time and timeless.

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Walter Koenig, the actor who brought the earnest young Russian navigator Pavel Chekov to life on the original Star Trek, has died at the age of 90. His representatives said he died of old age at home in North Hollywood on Sunday night, surrounded by his daughter and niece.

Koenig had marked his 90th birthday only last month, on September 14. His death came as one of Star Trek’s best-known friendships was being celebrated in public once again.

George Takei leads the tributes to Walter Koenig

George Takei, who played Hikaru Sulu, was among the first to respond. In an Instagram post, he said the two met on the bridge of the Enterprise in the 1960s and stayed friends for almost six decades. Koenig was best man at Takei’s 2008 wedding to Brad Takei. His birthday also fell on the couple’s wedding anniversary, a coincidence Takei said he would always treasure.

“Walter was more than Chekov,” Takei wrote. “He was a writer, a teacher, a thoughtful man, and a loyal friend.” He signed off with a nod to the show: “Keep navigating a steady course.”

Adam Nimoy, son of Leonard Nimoy, called Koenig “such a nice guy” and recalled enjoying his company on the convention circuit. Michael Okuda, a scenic artist and technical consultant on several Trek productions, remembered an interview Koenig gave to the Roddenberry Archive.

A career that outgrew one navigator

Born in Chicago and raised in Manhattan, Koenig was the son of Soviet Jewish immigrants. He trained at New York’s Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre, where his classmates included James Caan, Christopher Lloyd and Dabney Coleman. He joined Star Trek in its second season in 1967, and the show ended in 1969. Chekov was reportedly introduced to appeal to younger viewers, with a mop-top haircut and a habit of claiming everything was invented in Russia.

The studio also promoted the character as a response to criticism in the Soviet newspaper Pravda about the lack of a Russian on the crew. Koenig later denied that claim. Either way, a Russian officer on an Enterprise bridge fit the show’s Cold War-era vision of nations working together.

He was candid about the limits of the role on television. By his own account, Chekov’s job was to set out the bones of the plot and let McCoy, Spock and Kirk fill it in. The films gave him more to do. He appeared in all six original-cast movies between 1979 and 1991, and the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror nominated him for The Wrath of Khan and The Voyage Home. He also appeared briefly in Generations in 1994 and voiced President Anton Chekov in Star Trek: Picard in 2023.

Outside Trek, Koenig played the ruthless telepath Alfred Bester on Babylon 5 and wrote an episode of the animated Star Trek spin-off. He was also a published author, with credits including Columbo and Futurama. Earlier this year he won the Platinum Award for best actor at the 2026 Independent Shorts Awards for the short film Mr. Fleischmann. His representatives called it a fitting recognition of a lifetime devoted to his craft.

Koenig’s wife, Judy Levitt, who appeared with him in three Trek films and in Babylon 5, died in 2022. They had married in 1965. Their son Andrew, who played “Boner” on Growing Pains, died in 2010 at 41. Koenig is survived by his daughter Danielle, an actress and screenwriter.

Another soap veteran gone

The entertainment world also lost Alan Dysert, best known as the scheming con man Sean Cudahy on All My Children. He appeared in 79 episodes between 1980 and 1990. His wife, Michele, announced on Facebook that he died on October 23 at 75. She did not give a cause. In a 2023 memoir, however, Dysert wrote that he had been diagnosed with a rare, aggressive and incurable cancer.

Dysert later worked as a producer and as an acting teacher. His wife said he had asked loved ones to celebrate his life rather than mourn it.

For Star Trek fans, the loss of Walter Koenig closes another chapter of the original crew’s story. Judging by the tributes, what colleagues remember most is his warmth and the decades of friendship behind the character.

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