The 96th Academy Awards are upon us, and whether you're rooting for your favorite film or simply want to see what movie stars are wearing, there's a local watch party waiting for you.

Forget scrambling to find someone's cable login to watch the Oscars — here's a roundup of five local watch parties, from budget-friendly to truly glamorous.

1. Oscars at the Balboa, Mar. 10, 2024, 3:00 p.m - 7:00 p.m., $15

Catch the pre-show red carpet madness and all the award ceremony action at the Balboa Theatre. Hosted by local actor and tour guide Reed Kirk-Rahlmann, the party promises trivia and prizes throughout the night. Seating is first-come, first-served, so get there early.

2. The Annual Knockout Oscars Watch Party Happy Hour, Mar. 10, 2024, 3:00 - 9:00 p.m., FREE

For the movie buff on a budget, head to Bernal Heights' The Knockout for their free Oscars Watch Party Happy Hour. Enjoy the ceremony on the big screen, with pizza, trivia, and drink specials throughout the evening.

3. Oscars Party at Manny's!, Mar. 10, 2024, 4:00 p.m. - 8:00 p.m., $10

Craving a low-key vibe with a touch of Hollywood glitz? Mission District community event space Manny's has you covered. Their Oscars Viewing Party offers a fun atmosphere with speciality Oscars-themed cocktails, games, and prizes.

4. Oscar Night at The Academy, Mar. 10, 2024, 3:30 - 8:00 p.m, $25

The Academy SF, the LGBTQ+ social club and event space in Duboce Triangle is hosting its annual Oscar Night viewing party. Mingle with fellow movie enthusiasts, enjoy the ceremony on the big screen, and even participate in their "Academy Award" presentation for social club members. (Members get free admission, but space is limited so register ASAP!)

5. Cinelounge Tiburon Oscars Party 2024, Mar. 10, 2024, 3:00 p.m. - on, $75 - $125

Channel your inner A-lister at CineLounge Tiburon's Oscars Viewing Party. This fancy movie theater in Marin is pulling out all the stops. Get the full awards show experience, complete with an open bar, gourmet hors d'oeuvres, and a red carpet (with a photographer!) to capture your own Hollywood moment. Tickets include the ceremony, food, drinks, and a chance to win prizes for guessing the winners.

Feature image of Hollywood, CA, red carpet at the 91st Annual Academy Awards, vis Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images.

San Francisco Animal Care and Control (SFACC) recently announced that they have joined A&E’s original series Live Rescue, a show documenting unscripted emergency calls (that also include those about animals) — so you can now tune in to see local rescues of wayward raccoons and coyotes.

If this year’s proven anything... it’s that we should always expect the unexpected. And given San Francisco’s massive uptick in coyote sightings (not to mention the gang of fearless raccoons that approached passerby in Golden Gate Park), SFACC partnering with A&E on its Live Rescue series shouldn't come as a surprise.

Moreover, the collaboration will now document the SF animal rescues conducted by the dedicated staff at SFACC.  

“San Francisco Animal Care & Control is thrilled to be involved with A&E’s Live Rescue,” says Virginia Donohue, SFACC’s executive director, in a release. “It’s a wonderful opportunity to showcase the compassionate and exciting work of our dedicated staff."

Recent shows following SFAAC's work have included the rescue of a baby raccoon and the saving of a kitten trapped under the hood of a car. (SFAAC appears to actively tweet out when they’ll be featured in an upcoming episodes, should scrolling through A&E’s website prove too cumbersome.)

In tandem with following the work of EMTs, paramedics, and firefighters from across the country, the series also covers agencies that respond to animal rescues for both domestic pets and wildlife; Live Rescue is also hosted by Matt Iseman of NBC's America Ninja Warrior.

For more information on A&E’s Live Rescue, as well as airing times and how you can watch online, visit aetv.com/shows/live-rescue.

Related: Coyotes Carry On Roaming San Francisco's Empty Beaches and Streets Amid Shelter-In-Place

Marauding Gang of Raccoons Spotted In Golden Gate Park, Also a Coyote

Image: Screenshot courtesy of Twitter via @SFACC

Let’s first address the off-putting elephant in the room: “Woke” is a terrible name for any television or internet show — especially right now. Nevertheless, here we are, reviewing Hulu’s confusingly-received Woke, which depicts a fictionalized (and modernized) version of the life and career of beloved local cartoonist Keith Knight through the various stunts he pulled in the 90s and ‘00s.

The show tries to center on timely topics and narratives through all those dated anecdotes… but as we’ve discovered, it isn’t usually successful. Over the course of its first season, Woke — starring New Girl’s Lamorne Morris as Keef, an illustrator based on Knight (who also co-created the series), Blake Anderson of Workaholics as his roommate Gunther, SNL’s Sasheer Zamata as local alt-weekly reporter Ayana, and more — clumsily stumbles far more than it confidently strides.

TL;DR: Woke is a mildly fun, surface-level watch that lacks the nuance it needs to fill an opening in all of our already hectic binging schedules.

Here’s a rundown of three things Woke sort of gets right… and three things it absolutely does not.

Right: The lingering traumas of police brutality

Of the shortlist of concrete goals Woke’s first season manages to accomplish, one is its portrayal of the PTSD, crippling anxiety, and another manner of mental health woes that accompany trauma. After being accosted by an all-white police group — in a very public manner while flyering — Keef’s uneasy subconscious starts to express itself outwardly in everyday inanimate objects — trash cans, 40-ounce malt liquor bottles, and, most notably, a marker. His struggles also highlight the larger narrative of the mental health plights many actually face when becoming “woke,” themselves. Amid a long list of missteps, this is one of the few through-lines the streaming series manages to unquestionably land.

Wrong: It’s a tepid approach to the current BLM movement

Aside from a lack of face coverings, it’s odiously clear that Woke was a pre-pandemic, pre-George Floyd dive into the murky waters of racial inequalities we’ve seen in 2020. The “controversial topics” the series addresses couldn’t feel less nuanced or timely; they all seem to lack the certain urgency and rage millions of Americans now feel as Black men and women continue to die en masse. Though the plunges into Black America appear suitable, yes — they seem to exist in a greater, more removed narrative than the one we’re currently all confronted with on a daily basis. However, should the series be renewed for a second season, it would be interesting to see how the show chooses to look more inwardly at the murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor at the hands of police officers, as well as the recent shooting of Jacob Blake.

Right: Nailing the Bay Area’s progressive, at times holier-than-thou hipster culture

It’s almost hard not to cringe at Gunther’s overtly West Coast liberal hipness — and you can’t help but feel that’s exactly how Knight wants you to endure watching him go about his life. The entire eight episodes ebb and flow on a sort of newfound hipster convergence for the controversial cartoonist, too. And in that meeting, no quote “lefty” topic is off-limits to tackle: police brutality, white liberal racism, cancel culture, queerness and gender conformity, Black creative integrity (and appropriation), and, of course, mental health.

Wrong: Oversimplifies Bay Area homelessness and the financial struggles many locals face

Watching Woke, you’re enveloped in the Bay Area and SF’s historically bohemian qualities and creative twangs around every plot turn. But what’s sorely lacking is an honest, not-so-pretty portrayal of the many financial struggles hundreds of thousands face across the Bay Area, all of which have been exacerbated by the pandemic. (Again, the show was written and shot a while ago.) A passive watch through the series leaves you understanding that "it’s expensive" to live in the region, but otherwise viewers are merely presented with digestible, sliding-screen-door glimpses into the homelessness problem, rather than ever tackling it in its complexity. But I guess it's a comedy, so...

Right: The radicalness of Keith Knight himself

Even just two episodes in, you (as a viewer) are immediately reminded about the prankster, pot-stirring genius that is the IRL Keith Knight. The show thoroughly highlights his sharp wit and antics — like, for example, posting flyers around SF for a bogus service that would allow customers to rent Black people. The show also relays the well-documented and wide-ranging reactions his flyers received, allowing for some space to have uncomfortable conversations with those you may be watching with. Moreover, when Woke manages to pepper in those kinds of moments, it provides some much-needed seasoning for an otherwise bland viewing experience.

Wrong: It’s white palatability

Woke’s most egregious disappointment isn’t in its blind-eyeing of certain topics or its bouts of hollow humor, but rather in how the scripts are clearly manifested under the idea of white palatability. Every detail — the cadences, the cinematography, the depictions of Black America — of the show come across as diluted... as if Hulu’s executive board (which doesn’t include a single Black individual) was afraid the intended final product would be “too Black” for a broader audience to get behind. Alas, we’re left with flashes of authenticity that merely get overshadowed by an umbrella of lukewarm convictions.

And that, reader, is the opposite of being "woke."

Related: Bay Area-Based 'Dilbert' Cartoonist Scott Adams Sparks Outrage For Using Gilroy Shooting To Promote His App

'Harry Potter and the Cursed Child' Is a Wild Ride and Dazzling Piece of Theater

Image: Screenshot via YouTube

The mid-season premiere of NBC's "musical dramedy" about a woman whose brain malfunctions and she starts hallucinating that everyone breaks into musical numbers was on Tuesday night. It's the latest prime-time show to be set and partly shot in San Francisco.

Given the dominance of streaming these days, NBC is making the likely wise choice to let the first episode of this high-concept show sit out on the internet for a bit before the second episode airs — Episode Two won't be on until February 16. But the whole first episode is on YouTube and you can see it below, complete with location shooting that was done last spring (per Hoodline) in North Beach and around along the Embarcadero near Cupid's Arrow.

The first big musical number begins around the 9:40 mark, and we get a collection of random people along Columbus Avenue breaking into "Help!" by the Beatles. As the character of Zoey, played by Jane Levy (Don't Breathe, Evil Dead, Castle Rock), explains to her neighbor Mo (Alex Newell of Glee fame), "It's almost as if they were singing what they were thinking out loud, collectively, as a people."

Fun fact: Lead actress Jane Levy grew up in the Bay Area, in San Anselmo, and attended Sir Francis Drake High School.

To the credit of creator Austin Winsberg, the high concept works in part because it upends the standard criticism of the musical genre by giving a fantastical explanation for why characters are busting out into song, thereby letting that convention be the central joke/theme of the show. Can it last beyond that initial novelty? We'll see. The show co-stars a bunch of people with Broadway cred including Peter Gallagher as Zoey's stroke victim/catatonic dad, Mary Steenburgen as her mom, Sylar Astin (Spring Awakening), and Lauren Graham (Gilmore Girls, and Broadway's Guys and Dolls in 2009).

If this show takes off we can probably expect some more location shooting to come in SF, but for now we're likely to see a lot of interiors at the tech firm Zoey works at, where Lauren Graham is her boss — weirdly it's called SPRQ Point, which is too similar to SF restaurant SPQR, but that is probably coincidental.

And it's been a minute since we had a TV show set in SF — though sometimes things get set here and they film them entirely elsewhere, like Fuller House. There was Netflix's Tales of the City reboot, of course. Silicon Valley occasionally showed the SF skyline but did basically no shooting here. Same with Big Little Lies. NBC's About a Boy lasted two seasons between 2014 and 2015. And both Sense 8 and Looking spent some time on location in the city back between 2013 and 2015.

Zoey's Extraordinary Playlist returns on Tuesday, February 16, at 9 p.m. on NBC.

The latest season of South Park has been taking shots at the way technology has taken over our lives in absurd ways — see the season opener and all of its jokes about the Amazon Echo and other robot home devices, and the second episode in which dozens of children are killed by drivers distracted by Trump's tweets popping up on their phones. And this week's episode took aim at Facebook and the scourge of fake news, and depicts Mark Zuckerberg as a bumbling, relentlessly annoying nerd with a dubbed video game voice, stealing from peoples' refrigerators and engaging in fake kung fu fights with people, repeating "You think you can block me? I will not be blocked."

As with most South Park episodes, there are a couple of running jokes that play out, and the other main one is Netflix's indiscriminate green-lighting of new series, which Cartman and the gang intend to exploit to launch their own superhero franchise, titled Coon and Friends. As the boys begin plotting out the phases of the franchise movie rollout, beginning with a Netflix series because they will "literally buy anything you pitch them," they discover that someone calling themselves Professor Chaos (Butters) is spreading fake news about them to their Facebook followers including saying "that we burn the American flag and pee in each others' mouths and stuff."

The boys then confront Butters, after Zuckerberg has arrived in town at the invitation of the townspeople, and Zuckerberg comes to Butters' defense, saying that anyone can be personally defended by Zuckerberg by paying him $17.23. In the end, the police chief makes everyone admit that they invited Zuckerberg into their lives and now they're powerless to get rid of him (as one townsperson says, "But he's such a penis."), and the boys end up being able to turn the power of Facebook against Zuck himself.

CNet notes that this episode comes just as Zuck was making a penis of himself in real life, showing off an Occulus VR headset and high-fiving a colleague using the backdrop of storm-ravaged Puerto Rico.

See the full episode below.

Previously: 'South Park' Opens 21st Season By Screwing With Everyone's Alexa

Television's equivalent of Xanax, BBC's The Great British Bake Off, got an American version last year called The Great American Baking Show, but it didn't get off to the most auspicious start, ratings-wise. Now, as Deadline reports, ABC is bringing it back in December and rebooting it with new hosts, former 49er Anthony Adams, and the Bay Area's own favorite basketball wife, Ayesha Curry.

A great cook in her own right, the 28-year-old Curry is having a busy year, having done a barbecue pop-up at The Mina Test Kitchen that has already become a chain of restaurants, with SF's first location of International Smoke opening sometime soon in the RN74 space — though RN74 has not yet closed. And just yesterday we learned that Curry had been named the new face of Cover Girl.

This will actually be the third season of The Great American Baking Show, and no specific air date has been released, as ABC 7 tells us. We only have the goofy promotional photo above to go on, so yes, it will be all about Christmas.

And yes, it's already late September.

We've got some bad news for you, Fuller House fans. The show's creator, Jeff Franklin, told US Weekly that he's stopped bringing up a possible cameo to the Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen, who each took turns playing the precocious Michelle Tanner on the original television show. "I’ve stopped asking, really I kind of gave up," said Franklin. "But when somebody rings a doorbell, the girls yell, 'It’s always open!' on the show so that’s kind of how we feel about the Olsen twins. The door is open."

Despite the seemingly hopeful nature behind his additional comment there, he also said, "But I think we’ve gotten enough no's." That is, until he "opened the door" again, when he finished, saying, "We’re kind of done asking. But who knows? You never know in life. Who thought this whole thing would happen?"

Time and again, Franklin has expressed his near-disbelief that he's gotten the chance to make Fuller House, the Netflix-exclusive series revival. When he spoke about the show's 30th anniversary, he told CBS:

"It’s pretty crazy. It’s pretty special really, I’m having a lot of fun with these people that I love so much. And to get to work with them again is ridiculous and it’s a whole new thing because they were all little kids when we worked together the first time.

And now they are amazing women. It’s pretty cool. I feel like I raised them, even though I know I didn’t, I know that I did. I wrote enough dad lectures for them. I’m going to hang onto that."

To be fair, Franklin's attempts at getting the Olsen twins back onto the show (even for a cameo) can come off as a bit needling, as E! Online described it in their article regarding Fuller House's Thanksgiving episode. On the show, D.J. Tanner (Cameron Bure) led a toast, where she said, "We're so fortunate that we're all here together and we're healthy. We miss Michelle, we hope that she'll be with us next year." That would have been fine if, you know, that was where it ended. But then they had Uncle Jesse (John Stamos) break the fourth wall by looking at the camera to say, "Come, it'll be fun."

While it seems to be obvious to everyone else that the Olsens have moved on, it's that undying optimism that really defined the original Full House, which many folks still hold dearly in their hearts. Paste Magazine's Robin Raven easily qualifies as one of those fans, as they visited San Francisco in a bit of a whirlwind tour of all the Full House locations in the city. Raven shares a pretty fun look into some of the most tourist-ridden spots of the city, spots that you or I may look upon with a bit of a jaded, weathered eye. I mean come on, think about the first time you made the connection that the Tanners lived in San Fran-hecking-cisco. That's a nice feeling, isn't it?

Anyway, this upcoming season of Fuller House has its work cut out for it, Olsen twins or not. Its somewhat cringe-y second season didn't exactly do too well, as Variety pointed out. Somehow, the show defied the odds, and here we are, staring down the barrel of a third season, which lands on your friendly local streaming service tomorrow, Friday, September 22nd.

Have mercy.

Related: It Turns Out The 'Full House' House In SF Was Bought By Show Creator Jeff Franklin

Walking home when suddenly crowd of people around Morgan Freeman pic.twitter.com/lW1OsENgZc

— Jamacanbacn~Eric (@Jamacanbacn) August 29, 2017

Academy Award winner Morgan Freeman has been in San Francisco filming out on the city's streets for his upcoming National Geographic series The Story of Us With Morgan Freeman. Hoodline reports that Freeman has been spotted around downtown, near City Hall, and in the Upper Haight and Castro.

As the Chronicle notes, Freeman and his film crew had permits to shoot in four different neighborhoods.

Variety reported on the series back in April, saying it would debut this fall. It's being produced by Freeman's production company, Revelations Entertainment, and it's an expansion of an earlier series he did called "The Story of God With Morgan Freeman." Per Variety, the series will "take viewers on a global journey to meet with people from all cultures whose lives are shaped in surprising ways by different fundamental forces, this time exploring themes that unite us all. Each of the six hour-long episodes will explore a single fundamental force or topic, including love, belief, power, war and peace, rebellion and freedom."

Could the SF episode be about love?!?!

The pics above and below were snapped on Monday and Tuesdsay.

Just saw Morgan Freeman doing a shoot for Nat Geo in San Francisco

A post shared by Northbound (@northb0und) on Aug 29, 2017 at 11:05am PDT

Kylie Jenner has her own TV show now, it premiered over the weekend, and I'll cut to the chase and just say it's the most cynical, vapid, depressing piece of reality television garbage to launch from the loins of Kris Jenner since she put her entire family on display on E! ten years ago and declared the Kardashians a "brand." It's called Life of Kylie, and for all the fan-kids out there who will never know this, that is a play on the phrase "the life of Riley," and idiom of unclear origin that means "living the easy life" and was also the name of a 1940s TV show. And yes, it appears that Kylie Jenner has had a pretty blessed and easy life, but the producers here want drama and conflict, so we're going to have to be convinced that she's at least a little bit tortured and unhappy.

We knew via social media back in April that Jenner had dropped in on a Sacramento area high school prom back in April, caused a frenzy, and then quickly fled back to Los Angeles, and it was rumored to have been some kind of stunt for her upcoming reality show. Now we see that show in all it's edited glory, with the trip to prom forming the two-part pilot — Kylie is 19, you see, and was home-schooled, and she's a big important model and makeup mogul, so she never got to go to prom in real life. The producers, masquerading as her best friend Jordyn Woods, find a deserving teen boy named Albert Ochoa on social media who's possibly being "bullied" at his school for not having a date to prom — though the bullying isn't too evident, and he appears to be a very attractive and confident young man. Kylie screams "I love his story!" and with the help of Ochoa's mother, the surprise blind date is arranged, and Jenner and Woods fly to Sacramento, entourage and all — we're introduced to Kylie's hairstylist, personal assistant, and makeup artists in the first few minutes, basically because these are her other three "friends."

At 19, Kylie appears to have had the plastic surgery and lip-collagen injections befitting a much older woman, but that may be par for the course for a certain class of teenager in SoCal, so maybe I shouldn't judge. It pains me, though, that such a plastic version of beauty overlaid on an already beautiful young woman is now some kind of standard. Jordyn, at least, serves a more "natural" foil to Kylie for the purposes of the show — she's also a model, but she's a plus-sized model, and doesn't appear to have done anything to her face.

The first episode of Life of Kylie opens with her explaining that even though she's only 19, she's already experiences the wild ups and downs and stresses and tragedies of a much older person, so she believes she'll be able to focus on the "more important" things in life as she enters her 20s.

First, one would think, love would be high on the list, but that's not really what gets talked about on this show. Sure, she thinks Albert is cute, but maybe you won't be shocked to learn that there is absolutely nothing romantic about her trip to prom in Sacramento. They walk in, teens screech, cellphones are raised, Kylie and entourage are overwhelmed, they ask where they can find a cordoned off corner to hide, and they're ushered to an elevator and up to a balcony where they then wave down to the screaming crowd like royals.

Albert gets his photo taken with this two dates — Jordyn on one side, Kylie on the other — they maybe had time for a dance though there isn't much footage of that, and then in perhaps the only genuine moment of pathos in the two-part episode, Kylie and krew surprise her gay hairstylist Tokyo by flying his boyfriend in so he can have his first "prom" too.

Before you know it, the whole gang is hurrying the hell out of Sacramento and leaving Albert sadly waving, by himself, in some service hallway in the hotel where this prom was taking place.

And the entire experience brings up something that I feel increasingly uncomfortable with among my own friends on social media: the idea of lived experience as reduced to a couple of Instagram photo ops. "Photos or it didn't happen" is the cliché joke, but Kylie Jenner is coming of age in a generation of (largely depressed) teens who don't draw any lines between their social media existence and their actual, offline existence. Maybe Kylie thinks, having grown up with the Kardashians, that there is no such thing as offline existence, or that there shouldn't be. She acknowledges something painful during this first episode revealing that she had to unfollow all her former school friends on social media when she got famous and started having to live the Kardashian life — all because she felt too left out of the fun they were having while she was getting homeschooled and going on gigs. Maybe by the end of this series we'll see her castigating her mother for not letting her have a childhood, but for now what we get is a portrait of a pretty, fairly uneducated, reluctant public figure who nonetheless feels an hourly obligation to "keep up with my Snaps and my Instagram" lest her fans think she doesn't love them.

For his part, Ochoa told E! News that Kylie's "a really sweet and genuine person,” adding, "When you see her on shows and stuff you really don't get to see that like face to face. And I really thought she was sweet and genuine."

I'm not saying she's a monster, and she did a nice thing for this kid, but in the end he was just a prop for another Insta.

And why is she famous again?

Previously: Kylie Jenner Showed Up At A Sacramento High School Prom To Be One Lucky Kid's Date

Truly one of the comic delights of the four seasons of Silicon Valley thus far, T.J. Miller's arrogant stoner character Erlich Bachman will be getting written off the show come Season Five — and the renewal of the series was just announced by HBO Thursday, along with Miller's departure. As Vulture reports, rumors of Miller leaving the show had been swirling for weeks, though the reasons for the decision aren't clear.

HBO's official statement:

The producers of Silicon Valley and T.J. Miller have mutually agreed that T.J. will not return for season five. In Erlich Bachman, T.J. has brought to life an unforgettable character, and while his presence on the show will be missed, we appreciate his contribution and look forward to future collaborations.

The show has two Emmys under its belt and has been a critical hit in its first three seasons, and it's now halfway through Season Four, in which the show's ensemble has had to divide into sometimes cross purposes as fictional startup Pied Piper pivots once again.

The Hollywood Reporter surmises that the reason for Miller's departure may simply have to do with his own rising fame, and hectic film schedule. Miller will reprise his role in the Deadpool sequel, due out next year, and he's also set to appear in Steven Spielberg's Ready Player One adaptation, the Western film Walden, the Kristen Stewart thriller Underwater, and as a voice in How to Train Your Dragon 3.

Related: TJ Miller Mansplains Mainsplaining In Full 'Silicon Valley' Season 4 Trailer
'Not Hotdog' App From HBO's 'Silicon Valley' Now Available For Download

The internet is laughing loudly at 30-year-old Lucas Yancey. The Cal grad and Woodside resident is one of the contestant bachelors on the latest edition of The Bachelorette, and if the above video is any indication, he was cast on the show in order to inspire "what a douche" comments on social media and to irritate the rest of the cast until he makes it to the final three.

The Bachelorette this time is Rachel Lindsay, the first African-American bachelorette in the franchise's history — and that's out of 33 combined seasons of The Bachelor/The Bachelorette on ABC. Rachel is an attorney from Texas, and as they've done with previous seasons, they plucked her out of the last round of The Bachelor in which she vied for the love of four-time failed marriage prospect Nick Viall.

Uproxx pegs Lucas, with his megaphone entrance, Jim Carrey-esque forced zanyness, and "Whaboom" catchphrase, as a bit of hate-watch casting, and they're likely spot-on. Did I mention that in addition to introducing himself with a catchphrase, "Whaboom" is also a t-shirt line that he's pimping — he steps out of the limo in his first episode wearing one of his own t-shirts bearing the word/brand. He also lists Whaboom as his occupation in his bio. He also needed to say it and act insane during the rose ceremony.

Vulture, which dug up the easily findable video below — some kind of spec commercial Yancey made for Doritos — suggests that casting Yancey, with his obvious thirst for showbiz fame, is "an extremely cynical casting move" even for this show, which long ago gave up on the ruse that anyone's really on it to find love.

I know. Big news, right? Attention-hungry, wannabe famous actor goes on reality show to get attention/fame.

But this time, he's from the Bay Area. So, we're all to blame.

Those who engage in illegal file-sharing on pirating sites can already watch the first 10 episodes of Orange Is the New Black Season 5, thanks to a hacker using the handle "thedarkoverlord." Netflix was planning to wait until June 9 to release the new season, one of its biggest hits, but they may decide to move that date up now that pirated copies are out there in the wild as of 6 a.m. Saturday. Variety reports that the hacker released the episodes, perhaps to set an example, after one of several ransom demands had not been met.

"Thedarkoverlord" issued a ransom note saying that by breaching a single company — reportedly a small post-production vendor called Larson Studios that works with several major studios — they had stolen unreleased shows from ABC, Fox, National Geographic, and IFC, along with OITNB. The breach happened in late 2016, according to TorrentFreak, and the hacker — or group of hackers — says they first approached Larson asking for a "small fee" on "the Eve of their Christmas." They claim that Larson responded to the threat and returned a signed contract but failed to pay the ransom as requested on New Year's Eve.

The Associated Press reports that they contacted the hacker in February, at which point they said "no one really (cares) about unreleased movies and TV show episodes," suggesting that they'd given up on these ransom demands.

But that all seems to have changed this week — perhaps sparked by the announcement of the Season 5 release date of OITNB — and the AP reinforces the idea that Orange Is the New Black is important to the Los Gatos-based Netflix's bottom line and growth. If this breach impacts the company's growth projections, it could impact their stock price as well.

Initially, to prove what they had was authentic, the hacker(s) released only the first episode of the new season, titled "Riot FOMO." They only obtained the first 10 of the new season's 13 episodes because the final three had yet to be completed when the breach took place.

And thedarkoverlord has also been advertising their demands via Twitter.

The ransom demands, which the hacker's notes have called "modest," are reportedly in the tens of thousands of dollars (in bitcoin). And after releasing all ten of Netflix's episodes today, they wrote, "It didn’t have to be this way, Netflix. You’re going to lose a lot more money in all of this than what our modest offer was. We’re quite ashamed to breathe the same air as you. We figured a pragmatic business such as yourselves would see and understand the benefits of cooperating with a reasonable and merciful entity like ourselves. And to the others: there’s still time to save yourselves. Our offer(s) are still on the table — for now."

As the AP notes, Netflix was expecting OITNB to help them add 3.2 million new subscribers between April and June.

The company has yet to officially respond regarding the hack, but they told the AP that the FBI was involved.

Previously: Netflix Subscribers Depart In Droves As $2 Price Increase Finally Kicks In For Longtime Users

After December's brief tease with that Christmas special, Netflix finally gives us a glimpse of the second season of the Wachowskis' Sense 8, the globe-spanning supernatural thriller in which San Francisco plays a featured role whose first season aired in 2015. The trailer offers only the briefest helicopter shot of the Golden Gate Bridge, but we know from reports last summer that director Lana Wachowski (Lilly mostly sat this one out) shot scenes in several locations around SF including the Westerfeld House on Alamo Square, the Castro Theatre, and Glen Park's Billy Goat Hill Park — where they incurred a $1,000 fine from Rec & Parks because someone on set "accidentally got naked."

Via the Instagram post below, it looks like they also shot a street party scene, with drag queens, in downtown SF.

The journey continues May 5. #Sense8

A post shared by Sense8 (@sense8) on Feb 23, 2017 at 7:00am PST

It seems via the trailer that Rembrandt’s The Night Watch plays a significant metaphorical role in the new season, "An iconic work of individuals setting aside their differences for a common good."

And, perhaps echoing our current political moment, we hear the character Nomi declare, "Your life is either defined by the system, or by the way you defy the system."

Season Two of Sense 8 will drop on May 5.

Previously: Watch The Trailer For The 'Sense8' Christmas Special, Airing This Week

Entering the fray of hopeful cable-killing streaming services today is YouTube with the launch of YouTube TV. Lots of people, especially younger people, already consume a ton of their TV programming via YouTube — especially in clip form from Saturday Night Live or The Tonight Show — directly alongside YouTube's own user-created programming, but they're used to doing it for free. Alphabet is now hoping to use the YouTube brand to capture some major market share at $35 a month when comes to cord-cutters and so-called "cord-nevers," offering up some of the basics of network TV, live sports, and some cable channels, though how many you're going to get depends on where you are. YouTube TV is still very much in its early beta stage, as Wired reports, so you're probably going to have access to about 30 channels, give or take, including ABC, CBS, FOX, NBC, and ESPN, but not including CNN, HBO, or HGTV.

At launch, YouTube TV is only available in Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, Philadelphia, and the San Francisco Bay Area, and the number of local affiliates you get varies by region, meaning that catching your local sports team on the service is not a guarantee.

As Consumerist notes, the only premium cable channel currently available as an add-on is Showtime, though that may change later, and Sundance is reportedly coming on board soon.

The biggest appeal seems to be the ability to watch things on your phone, whenever and wherever, and to quickly and easily be able to stream things from phone to TV whenever you please, without spending hundreds of dollars on a real cable package.

As the Associated Press explains, there is a cloud-based DVR, but unlike services like Hulu or Netflix, this is not a service where you can simply watch shows or movies from an online library — you can channel surf in real time on your phone, and record shows, but the search function still needs quite a bit of work, which is unfortunate for a service owned by Google. (Per the AP: "A search for 'nerd comed'" brings up 'The Big Bang Theory,' but 'comedy about nerds' does not. And a search for 'Modern Family episode on basketball' doesn't bring up the episode titled 'Basketball.'")

On the plus side, NFL games will be streaming live on YouTube TV to your phone.

For those who mostly only keep their Xfinity accounts to watch Game of Thrones and Flip or Flop, this is never going to cut it because of the above-mentioned channel exclusions. But as a cheap alternative that still gives you access to live events like the Super Bowl, it may be just enough to chase competitors like Dish’s Sling TV and Sony PlayStation Vue out of the game.

The next entry: Apple's long-anticipated TV subscription platform, which has only been in the works for about eight years now.

Below, The Verge's review of YouTube TV.

The just-released, Bay Area-based Netflix show 13 Reasons Why, produced by actress Selena Gomez, has been cause for concern for the San Mateo-Foster City School District, which sent out a letter to parents on Friday, the day the show was released. As we discussed earlier, the show centers on a girl's suicide, and cassette tapes she leaves behind detailing the reasons why she took her life. It's based on the bestselling 2007 young adult mystery novel of the same name, and was shot in Vallejo last year.

As NBC Bay Area reports, the school district's letter warned parents that over spring break, while teens may be consuming more TV, they should be aware of the content of the show and should perhaps talk to their kids about how it details a tragedy, rather than glorifies suicide. Also, it included talking points about encouraging teens to seek help from loved ones if they experience suicidal thoughts.

The show is available for viewing now, and tells the story Hannah (Katherine Langford), a high school girl, and her friend Clay (Dylan Minnette), who receives the box of tapes after her death, along with multiple other friends. Screen Rant, for what it's worth, says it's better than the book.

Previously: Watch The Trailer For 'Thirteen Reasons Why,' A Bay Area-Shot Netflix Show Produced by Selena Gomez

If you are in crisis, text "BAY" to 741741 for free, 24/7, confidential crisis support from Crisis Text Line. And if you or someone you know is having suicidal thoughts, you or they should call the San Francisco Suicide Prevention crisis line at (415) 781-0500.

If someone you know exhibits warning signs of suicide: do not leave the person alone; remove any firearms, alcohol, drugs or sharp objects that could be used in a suicide attempt; and call the U.S. National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 800-273-TALK (8255) or take the person to an emergency room or seek help from a medical or mental health professional.