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If it felt like “Saturday Night Live” took to the airwaves in 1975 with a renegade spirit, 50 years later it’s become not only a late-night tradition, but traditional. Hitting the half-century mark is a milestone. But a show doesn’t stick around that long because it’s willing to experiment or step on toes, but because it is fully embraced by the establishment.

That’s the (likely unintended) subtext throughout the various behind-the-scenes documentaries produced by NBC ahead of the show’s 50th anniversary special airing Sunday. These are in-house projects that stay on-message — warm and laudatory — but they are not without their fascinating moments. All can be streamed on Peacock.

An additional programming note: The first episode of “Saturday Night Live,” which originally aired on Oct. 11, 1975, with host George Carlin and musical guests Billy Preston and Janis Ian, will air on NBC in “SNL’s” usual late-night timeslot this weekend, in place of a new episode.

“Ladies & Gentlemen… 50 Years of SNL Music”

Co-directed by Oz Rodriguez and Ahmir Thompson (aka Questlove), the two-hour documentary includes a remarkable 7-minute montage of “SNL’s” musical performances that opens the film. But it also puts a long-overdue focus on the show’s musical history, which tends to get sidelined, and it’s a good reminder of the sheer variety of music that has been featured over the years.

• The opening montage blends clips in a way that segues brilliantly from one to the next, as if the songs were sonic cousins that should have been considered in tandem all along. It’s the kind of creative musical gambit we rarely see on TV, put together by people who clearly love all genres of music and see how they’re interrelated.
• The show’s opening theme song is instantly recognizable — and in no way hummable. And yet it works. Here’s how Jack White describes it: There is no consistent melody, “it’s just a wailing saxophone of someone being taken out of the building playing saxophone, by the police, and the microphone’s still connected.”
• As someone points out, the similarities between music and comedy are many: Timing, cadence and misdirection. Not mentioned: The prolific use of drugs, especially in the ’70s. But this is a cleaned-up version of “SNL’s” past, so …
• In the show’s first two decades, it was more likely to expose lesser-known bands to a wider audience. Devo in 1978. Talking Heads in 1979. The B-52s in 1980. Funky Four Plus One in 1981 (the first hip hop group to perform on the show, thanks to host Debbie Harry using her clout to get them on). An appearance on national TV used to have a big effect. I wonder if that’s still true, but with fewer places for singers and musicians to perform on live TV, the show still holds relevance in that regard.
• As “SNL” increasingly became mainstream, the documentary is a reminder that the musical acts retained an unpredictable and rebellious edge for a bit longer.

“SNL50: Beyond Saturday Night Live”

The four-part docuseries is hit-and-miss, but maybe that’s fitting since the unevenness mirrors the show itself. This should feel more momentous, especially in the streaming era when a long run might be seven seasons. (According to a recent report in Vulture, “SNL” remains “consistently profitable despite being incredibly expensive to produce” at $4 million an episode.)

Episode 1: “Five Minutes”: The show’s audition process is infamous by this point. Each person steps on an empty stage and performs for a small group of stone-faced decision-makers. The awkward silence is true in some cases, but other times you can hear off-camera guffaws.

• Cast members (mostly from the past 20 years) reminisce about the experience as they watch footage of their auditions. Some are cringe, but a handful are surprisingly good, including Will Ferrell, who was fully-formed from the start. There are the people who didn’t make the cut but went on to significant careers anyway: Jim Carrey, Jennifer Coolidge, Mindy Kaling, Kevin Hart, Stephen Colbert. The Dick Ebersol years — when executive producer Lorne Michaels left the show from 1981 to 1985 — might as well not exist, and there are only brief snippets of the original Not Ready for Primetime Players, including Dan Aykroyd and Jane Curtin. It’s such a weirdly recent assemblage who are featured. The ’70s, ’80s and most of the ’90s are elided, even though the whole point is that the show has been around for 50 years
• Of the show’s casting and talent staff interviewed, you notice the dearth of Black people and other people of color and it makes you wonder in what ways — subconscious or otherwise — that’s affected the show’s lineup over the years.
• Ego Nwodim, who joined the cast in 2018, offers some insight into that, albeit indirectly: “I felt like I could do the job in a way that would make it easier for the next Black woman. And I say this not to say that every day I’d go in thinking, ‘This is for Black women!’ — I wasn’t. But I wanted the audience to have a point of reference of a Black woman they felt had the skill set to do the job and their brains could go, ‘Oh yeah, she belongs.’ And then the next Black woman who comes after me, my hope is her time is 5% easier because of the work I did there.” She says she benefits from the Black women who came before her. There were just five. In 50 years.
• In case you were wondering if nepotism is part of the “SNL” fabric, of course it is! We learn that George Wendt called “SNL” about considering his nephew Jason Sudeikis.

Episode 2: “More Cowbell”: The weakest of the episodes, it functions as an anatomy of a sketch. Specifically the “More Cowbell” sketch (technically called “Recording Session”) from 2000 starring Christopher Walken and envisioned by Will Ferrell as an absurdist version of Blue Öyster Cult recording the band’s 1976 hit “(Don’t Fear) The Reaper.” The sketch is fine. Funny even! I’m not sure it’s interesting enough to warrant a one-hour, semi-tongue-in-cheek episode about the making of it. Surely there were other sketches with better backstories.

Episode 3: “Written By: A Week Inside the ‘SNL’ Writers Room”: This would be compelling if James Franco hadn’t already made a documentary called “Saturday Night” documenting the same process. It’s embarrassing how alike the two projects are. For a more comprehensive, warts-and-all look at the show, you can check out the nonfiction book “Live from New York: An Uncensored Story of Saturday Night Live as Told by Its Stars, Writers, and Guests.”

There’s also a new biography about 80-year-old Michaels by Susan Morrison called “Lorne: The Man Who Invented ‘Saturday Night Live’” that broaches topics these documentaries studiously avoid, including staff pushback Michaels received when he booked Donald Trump to host during his campaign for president in 2015: Despite Michaels’ insistence that the show was non-partisan, the writers felt he was putting his thumb on the scale and “‘helping’ Trump — a sentiment that was only bolstered amongst staff who recalled to Morrison that Michaels had wanted to ‘tone down a harsh Trump sketch’ and allow him to show ‘some charm.’”

• The writers are droll about their second-tier status. “I believe our names roll by extremely fast over shots of the castmates hugging and meeting the famous people,” says head writer Streeter Seidell. A lot of famous people were writers on the show —  but only became famous once they left the show and found opportunities on camera, including Will Arnett, Larry David, John Mulaney, Sarah Silverman.

• The writers produce their own sketches, meaning they write the scripts but are also responsible for helping to shape the performances and working with the rest of the crew on the sets and costumes. Louie Zakarian, head of the makeup department, has been building prosthetics on the show for nearly 30 years. “We did a ‘Game of Thrones’ sketch and we had one night to build a dragon,” he says. I would have loved an episode focusing on how these art departments actually function on such a short timeframe, creating everything from scratch each week.
• “You are fully in charge of three to four minutes of live network television,” says Mulaney about the autonomy writers are given. “NBC had nothing to say about it. Nothing. And when they did, we’d tell them no. We’re like 25 and we’d go, ‘We’re doing it.’” It’s a weird framing considering the show isn’t in the business of controversy or boundary pushing.
• Writer Celeste Yim’s path to the show: “I went to NYU for playwriting and was like, ‘Great, this is it, I’m going to be a playwright and write about things that really matter.’ And then basically immediately got the most corporate comedy job in the world.” This is the first time someone actually names it instead of buying into the lore — “SNL” may be desperate to style itself as bold, but at the end of the day, it’s just corporate.
• More than anything, you feel a deep sympathy for the writers. They seem beaten down and miserable, in it for the rare adrenaline rush of a sketch getting big laughs, but also mostly because it’s the kind of resume item that can lead to other jobs down the line. There’s nothing easy about comedy and the pressure to write funny material on a short deadline is daunting. I think it’s OK that a lot of it doesn’t work. But you wonder if the environment fostered by Michaels is the only way to do it. (As the aforementioned Vulture piece points out: “His age has added an undercurrent of queasiness to the 50th anniversary victory lap as Michaels’s empire rolls on without a firm succession plan. For better or worse, the machinery of American comedy has built up around him, and no one knows how the laugh factory will function if Michaels retires — or what it means if he chooses to cling to the show into his twilight years.”)

Here’s Tina Fey: “The rewrite tables were tough. They were grouchy. People would take the rundown of the show and just go through it, sketch by sketch, and make fun of it. Make fun of the title. Goof on it, goof on it, goof on it. You would leave the room fully knowing that that writers room was taking a (dump) on it while you were gone, and it just was kind of the way it was.”

“I don’t know if it’s the same anymore,” she says (the documentary doesn’t bother providing an answer). “Maybe it should get that way again a little bit,” Fey adds, and it would have been enlightening to hear why she thinks that kind of backbiting is beneficial to creativity. The idea that people can only do their best work under those circumstances probably deserves to be challenged.

Episode 4: “Season 11: The Weird Year”: Finally, Ebersol’s existence is (barely!) acknowledged, if only because Season 11 marked Michaels’ return to “SNL” as executive producer, taking over for Ebersol. Michaels’ eye for talent has always been one of his strengths, but  you could say the same of Ebersol, who assembled casts that included Eddie Murphy, Billy Crystal and Martin Short. Well, regardless, Michaels cleared house when he came back, hiring a number of performers — including Randy Quaid, Anthony Michael Hall and Robert Downey Jr. — who had little or no previous sketch comedy experience.

• The episode is the only one that even vaguely criticizes Michaels, but you really have to read between the lines because he’s portrayed as a godlike figure. (Even at this point, he was already living a certain lifestyle; people remember being called out for meetings by the pool at his house in the Hamptons.)
• That Michaels failed to create an environment in which a talent like Damon Wayans could thrive is such a big mark against him (Michaels fired him that season).
• There’s a lot of emphasis on the show faltering during Season 11 (tensions between the writers and the cast are alluded to) but the documentary and its participants don’t analyze more deeply the why of it all. At any rate, the season ended with a sketch that literally envisioned the cast set on fire.
• I had forgotten that Michaels brought Francis Ford Coppola on to direct an episode that season, with Coppola on camera for some of it. It’s such a departure for the show and just the kind of experiment you wish the show had embraced in the years since.
• Jon Lovitz has the best observation about the show, then and now: “We’re live but we’re not taking advantage of it.”

Nina Metz is a Tribune critic.

By JOHN CARUCCI, BROOKE LEFFERTS, GINA ABDY and RYAN PEARSON

NEW YORK (AP) — Legions of comedic talent have paraded through NBC’s Studio 8H, whether as cast members, writers or hosts of “Saturday Night Live.”

As the sketch show marks its 50th anniversary with a bevy of celebrations, its cast members and alumni look back on their favorite sketches and the enduring legacy of “Saturday Night Live.”

Fred Armisen, cast member 2002-2013, one-time host

FAVORITE SKETCH: “The Wizard of Oz”

“There’s a ‘Wizard of Oz’ one that we did that actually John Mulaney wrote, where there’s like this new footage of ‘Wizard of Oz,’ of a character that got cut out of a movie, and it’s a weather vane,” said Armisen, who played Weathervane alongside Anne Hathaway’s Dorothy. “Something about it, I just I really love that sketch.”

Chloe Fineman, cast member 2019-present

FAVORITE SKETCH: “Everything is amazing,” the current cast member said, but she seemed to hope the anniversary special would see a reprise of “The Californians.”

“All of it are sort of ‘pinch me’ moments and I feel like it’ll be even bigger than the 40th,” she said of the upcoming special.

Will Forte, cast member 2002-2010, one-time host

FAVORITE SKETCHES: “More Cowbell,” with Christopher Walken fixated on adding that signature sound to Blue Öyster Cult’s “Don’t Fear the Reaper.” Forte named a few, but “Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer” was another favorite. Then, of course, there’s Adam Sandler’s classic “The Chanukah Song.”

“I hadn’t seen ‘The Chanukah Song’ in a long time. … It just happened to be on the other day,” said Forte, who was freshly reminded: “It’s so good.”

Seth Meyers, cast member 2001-2014, former head writer, one-time host

FAVORITE SKETCH: “More Cowbell,” perhaps a universal favorite.

“I think ‘Cowbell’ would work if English was your like 10th language. … I think that’s a safe pick,” he said. “It’s Will Ferrell at the height of his powers. … It’s an all-time host Christopher Walken doing a thing that only Christopher Walken could do.” (Of the last 12 months, Meyers is also partial to Nate Bargatze’s “Washington’s Dream” sketches.)

WHY “SNL” ENDURES: To Meyers, who now hosts “Late Night” in Studio 8G, “Saturday Night Live” is like sports. It’s live. No one knows what’s going to happen.

“It’s so beautifully uneven. I’ve always said the worst show has something great and the best show has something terrible,” Meyers said. “And there’s no there’s no host that can guarantee consistency. … If you laid all the Alec Baldwin-hosted episodes out there, there’s a huge gap between the best one and the worst one. And there’s no real reason to explain that, other than just everybody sort of had a bad week.”

Bobby Moynihan, cast member 2008-2017

FAVORITE SKETCHES: “Haunted Elevator,” with Tom Hanks as the spooky-yet-goofy David S. Pumpkins; “Calculator Christmas Gift,” where Fred Armisen and John Malkovich have their odd holiday wish list fulfilled; “Tennis Talk with Time-Traveling Scott Joplin,” which is somehow exactly what it sounds like.

“David Pumpkins always comes to mind as just, like, the weirdest thing we ever got on. And I love the idea of future generations trying to figure it out, as well,” said Moynihan, who added that he was drawn to “amazing, weird sketches.”

John Mulaney, writer 2008-2013, six-time host

FAVORITE SKETCHES: “Toilet Death Ejector,” an infomercial flogging an “elegant” solution to avert the indignity of dying on the commode, and “Monkey Trial,” featuring, yes, a monkey but not one on trial — one presiding over it.

“Those are two quality Simon Rich premises executed,” said Mulaney, who wrote the former with frequent collaborators Rich and Marika Sawyer and the latter with Rich. Both sketches date to Mulaney’s hosting stints.

Laraine Newman, cast member 1975-1980

FAVORITE SKETCH: “Plato’s Cave” from the Not Ready for Prime Time Players era, where Steve Martin plays a beatnik, and “The Swan,” a parody of a 2000s reality show.

“I remember seeing there was a horrible reality show called ‘The Swan’ where they did this massive plastic surgery on people. And I think they did a parody of that with Amy Poehler and a bunch of other people. And it was the first time I’d seen her and I was like, ‘My God, this girl is so good,’” Newman said. “But as far as our show, I think that this one sketch called ‘Plato’s Cave’ or the beatnik sketch, is, I think, a really good representation of our show. And it’s the whole cast.”

WHY “SNL” ENDURES: There’s a long list of people responsible, she says, but atop that list? Show creator Lorne Michaels.

“The fact that the show has remained relevant is because of the approach that Lorne has, which is that he always has new people, whether they be writers or performers with new perspectives and original ideas and characters,” Newman said. “And that’s, I think, what moves the show along in terms of tone and relevance.”

Jason Sudeikis, writer 2003-2005, cast member 2005-2013, one-time host

FAVORITE SKETCH: “What’s Up With That?” a recurring series with Kenan Thompson as a game show host.

“Part of the reason I put it in there is because I feel very proud of the group, the generation I came up on and through the show … both on camera and behind the scenes,” Sudeikis said, noting the “real wild” cameos like Robert De Niro and Robin Williams.

Kenan Thompson, cast member 2003-present

WHY “SNL” ENDURES: It has good people, and they know where the line is.

“We work with brilliant people. I think we all have a pretty solid sensibility, where we kind of know where the offense is and we work really hard trying not to tread in places that are uncomfortable or whatever without warrant,” the longtime cast member said. “But at the same time, I can’t please everybody and we’re still trying to like, like lighten the mood, if you will. So, you know, we’re doing that as long as we’re not like overly stepping — like if you step on a toe, you say, ‘I’m sorry. Excuse me.’ Then that should be OK. … We should be able to just move on and continue to explore or continue conversations that may or may not be uncomfortable. That’s kind of our job.”

Bowen Yang, writer 2018-2019, cast member 2019-present

WHY “SNL” ENDURES: At its heart, it’s a variety show.

“I think with a show like ‘SNL,’ we have the latitude to be a little variety show and give you different sensibilities and different parts of that, different perspectives. I love it,” the current cast member said. “It’s a very pluralistic place for comedy because it’s one of the last places where you can sort of have a grab bag of different kinds of stuff.”

Pearson contributed reporting from Los Angeles. For more coverage of the 50th anniversary of “Saturday Night Live,” visit https://apnews.com/hub/saturday-night-live.

Network television would be unrecognizable without a lineup of hospital dramas. It’s a hardy genre for a reason. In the CBS series “Watson,” Morris Chestnut plays Dr. John Watson — that’s right, Sherlock Holmes’ old pal — but he is no longer the loyal sidekick of Arthur Conan Doyle’s stories, but at the forefront of his own medical procedural. On paper, these ingredients seem promising: A riff on the Sherlock template and a likable star in Chestnut. And yet neither is enough to make the show work.

Set in present-day Pittsburgh — why Pittsburgh? — Sherlock is presumed dead (somewhere at the bottom of the Reichenbach Falls) and he’s left Watson a considerable inheritance. The money is for a clinic, allowing Watson to return to his original profession and assemble a small group of young physicians who help him solve medical mysteries. If only his colleagues were given the kind of qualities that suggest they’re people rather than dialogue-delivery machines. One character’s primary trait seems to be that she has a Texas accent. “Everyone who comes into this clinic is a puzzle,” Watson tells them. “They don’t need doctors — doctors are everywhere — our patients need detectives.”

Setting aside that “House” already did a fairly entertaining version of this, it’s a silly pronouncement: Many people have health conditions that aren’t easily diagnosable. This isn’t rare or unusual. In fact, it’s the basis of every medical show ever. But just in case you weren’t following along, when Watson details a patient’s ailments, he’s compelled to spell it out once again: “It sounds like a mystery and mysteries are what we do.”

Is it off-putting that one of the doctors complains about her boyfriend not proposing while they’re supposed to be diagnosing a little girl’s problems? I mean, yeah, because we have no investment in these people, so framing the moment as a funny bit of character banter fails to land. Everything is a posture. Nobody feels like a person, nor is there mention of cost or insurance until Episode 5. Considering this is one of the most consistently terrible experiences for anyone with health issues in America, it’s a conspicuous omission. Is Watson’s clinic footing the bill for every test, treatment and hospital stay? How much money did Sherlock leave him, anyway? Who knows.

Apparently no case-of-the-week show can exist in the 2020s without a serialized storyline ladled in to create a high-stakes threat to the protagonist, which is why there are also shadowy forces who want Watson dead. But if you can’t make the idea of medical detectives interesting enough to carry the series, this isn’t going to fill the gaps. Watson’s inner circle also includes an ex-wife who runs the hospital (if only the tension between them felt like it matters), plus a rough and tumble sort from England called Shinwell, whose presence amounts to little more than a few lines here and there: “Everything OK, guv?”

Shinwell was a minor character in one of Doyle’s short stories as a former criminal and Sherlock informant, and it’s fine that show creator Craig Sweeny decided to include him and expand on his relevance (“Elementary” did it, too) — but then Sweeny would have to actually do that, instead of whatever we get here. The show expects the viewer’s knowledge of the Sherlock stories to do a lot of work, instead of foregrounding and establishing these characters through good writing.

That extends to Watson himself, who is portrayed as a master of deductive reasoning, a swaggering know-it-all who has a genius-like understanding of human nature and the world itself. In other words, he’s written as just another version of Sherlock, instead of his own man. Chestnut has considerable screen charisma, but he can’t overcome the weak scripts. “The game’s afoot. We have a new case. Who wants to amaze us with their insights?” he says to his team, and it’s strangely perfunctory and underwhelming.

As Sherlock would say: “Mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself.”

“Watson” — 1.5 stars (out of 4)

Where to watch: 8 p.m. Sundays on CBS (streaming on Paramount+)

Nina Metz is a Tribune critic.

Will Ferrell and Reese Witherspoon are ready to play, and “You’re Cordially Invited” has its moments, which is enough, probably, for home viewers in a five-or-six-laughs-will-do frame of mind. The comedy, written and directed by Nicholas Stoller, premieres Jan. 30 directly to Prime Video.

This one’s all over the place tonally, on purpose: Ferrell wrestles a fake alligator over here, while over there, Witherspoon bravely engages with her siblings and their intimidating mother to hammer out an honest reconciliation after too long. Male strippers in this corner, lonely-widower pathos in that one. A little of everything, just like life, if life were just like a movie like “You’re Cordially Invited.”

Set-up: A wedding venue has been double-booked! This comes as harsh news for Jim (Ferrell), who has poured his widower’s grief into Olympian-level doting on newly engaged daughter Jenni (Geraldine Viswanathan). The venue holds personal meaning for the father of the bride, who has spent too many happy hours attending to his child’s needs to have things messed up now.

The venue snafu is equally bad news, on the other narrative track, for Margot (Witherspoon), a Los Angeles-based reality show producer diving into wedding-planner mode for her sister (Meredith Hagner). Upon arriving at the island inn managed by smiley, panicky Jack McBrayer, Jim and Margot escalate things quickly after an initial agreement to share the tiny venue between their very different wedding parties.

Adults, young and older, acting like sociopathic, zero-impulse-control children: It’s a comedy mainstay, I suppose, and director Stoller himself has been there plenty, notably with the two “Neighbors” films. He’s actually one of the more reliable contemporary filmmakers in the sphere of freewheeling star-driven vehicles, some very good and nicely modulated (“Get Him to the Greek,” “Forgetting Sarah Marshall,” “The Five-Year Engagement,” “Bros”), some peculiarly brutal in the slapstick guise (“Neighbors” and its sequel).

This one’s in between. The pacing’s a little odd, its jumpy editing rhythms somehow making a lot of the scenes drag instead of trot. After an hour of being stuck at the inn, with everybody acting like maniacs, you start to notice things like the dim, bland lighting of the cinematography (never good for comedy).  As written, Jim is indistinct; when he starts acting out of character, the effect feels uncertain because we don’t have a sharp sense of what’s in character for this guy.

Stoller’s idea is that Margot and Jim loathe each other on one level, as they actively try to ruin the other’s hopes for a dream wedding by increasingly destructive means. They’re both also victims of contrived misunderstandings, and meantime they’re meant to be falling for each other against their will. Witherspoon’s timing is whip-crack good, and Ferrell’s is, too, on a different wavelength, even when the material’s settling for surprisingly witless profanity punchlines that don’t quiiiiite qualify as actual jokes.

The ringer — every middling ensemble comedy can use one — is comedian Leanne Morgan, as Margot’s sad-sack sister, reignited by the mere sight of Ferrell’s Jim (a “Redwood,” she calls him, salaciously) across a crowded floor. Her introductory mini-monologue consists of a laundry list of petty personal setbacks and woes, and it’s the kind of no-big-deal riff at which screenwriter Stoller excels. Morgan doesn’t grab the moment; rather, she deadpans her way through it, and it’s twice as effective as a result.

The auxiliary ringer? Celia Weston, as Margot’s passive-aggressive Southern Belle mother, makes hay with the more serious moments near the end. She’s a wonderful actor, on stage and on screen. If “You’re Cordially Invited” strains to bring its amped-up, often wearying feud to a satisfying conclusion, the stars give it their best shot, while the ringers do their thing with blithe assurance.

“You’re Cordially Invited” — 2.5 stars (out of four)

MPA rating: R (for language throughout and some sexual references)

Running time: 1:49

How to watch: Premieres on Prime Video Jan. 30

Michael Philips is a Tribune critic.

By The Associated Press

Patrick Mahomes, Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift will be among the familiar faces at the Super Bowl when the Kansas City Chiefs go for an unprecedented three-peat against the Philadelphia Eagles on Feb. 9 in New Orleans.

Mahomes and the Chiefs are back in the NFL title game after beating the Buffalo Bills 32-29 in a thrilling AFC championship game on Sunday. They’ll face Philadelphia and star running back Saquon Barkley, who ran for three touchdowns as the Eagles beat the Washington Commanders 55-23 in the NFC title game.

This year’s Super Bowl is a rematch of two years ago, when the Chiefs edged the Eagles 38-35 in Glendale, Arizona. Last year, Kansas City beat the San Francisco 49ers 25-22 in overtime in Las Vegas.

No team has ever won three straight Super Bowls.

Here are a few more things to know as the Super Bowl approaches:

What channel is the Super Bowl on?

The game will be aired on Fox. Kevin Burkhardt will be the play-by-play announcer with former New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady as the analyst. This is Brady’s first Super Bowl as an announcer. He won seven titles as a player. Erin Andrews and Tom Rinaldi are also part of the broadcast team.

What time is the Super Bowl?

It will start at roughly 6:30 p.m. EST on Feb. 9.

Who is the Super Bowl favorite?

The Chiefs are favored by 1 1/2 points, according to BetMGM Sportsbook.

What are the streaming options for the Super Bowl?

Some of the options include Fubo, NFL+ and Tubi.

When is the NFL Honors awards show?

Josh Allen, Barkley, Joe Burrow, Jared Goff and Lamar Jackson are finalists for The Associated Press NFL Most Valuable Player award.

The winner will be announced at the NFL Honors on Feb. 6 at 9 p.m. EST, a show that will air on Fox and NFL Network. Snoop Dogg is the host. A nationwide panel of 50 media members who regularly cover the league completed voting before the playoffs began.

Who is performing at the Super Bowl halftime show?

Kendrick Lamar will be the headliner for the halftime show.

The rap megastar, who has won 17 Grammys, said he’s looking forward to bringing hip-hop to the NFL’s championship game, where he performed as a guest artist with Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Mary J. Blige, 50 Cent and Eminem in 2022.

Lamar will be joined on stage by Grammy winner SZA — his former Top Dawg Entertainment labelmate. The singer appeared on Lamar’s recent album “GNX” and was featured on a couple of songs including “Gloria” and “Luther,” which also features sampled vocals from Luther Vandross and Cheryl Lynn.

The duo’s previous hits include the Oscar-nominated “All the Stars” and “Doves in the Wind.” Jay-Z’s Roc Nation company and Emmy-winning producer Jesse Collins will serve as co-executive producers of the halftime show.

Who is singing the national anthem at the Super Bowl?

The Super Bowl pregame will have some Louisiana flavor: Jon Batiste will hit the stage to sing the national anthem, while Trombone Shorty and Lauren Daigle are slated to perform “America the Beautiful.”

Ledisi will perform “ Lift Every Voice and Sing ” as part of the pregame performances.

The national anthem and “America the Beautiful” will be performed by actor Stephanie Nogueras in American sign language. Otis Jones IV will sign “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” and the halftime show will be signed by Matt Maxey.

The pregame performers are all Louisiana natives.

Which teams do celebrities like?

Swift will be rooting for her beau Kelce and the Chiefs, but she’s far from the only star with a rooting interest.

The Chiefs’ famous fans include Paul Rudd, Rob Riggle, Heidi Gardner, Jason Sudeikis, Henry Cavill, Henry Winkler and David Koechner. Musicians Melissa Etheridge and Tech N9ne have each created songs for their team.

Meanwhile, the Eagles boast a starry roster of superfans such as Bradley Cooper, Will Smith, Kevin Hart, Miles Teller, Pink, Questlove and Meek Mill.

AP Sports Writer David Brandt and AP Entertainment Writer Jonathan Landrum Jr. contributed to this report.

Emmy-winning actor Jharrel Jerome and motivational speaker/retired wrestler Anthony Robles went to the mat for one another while working on “Unstoppable,” the inspirational sports-themed drama, now streaming on Amazon Prime and poised to take its spot among history’s great stirring sports movies. It’s based on Robles’ extraordinary against-all-odds life and career as a three-time All American college wrestler at Arizona State University.

Born with one leg, the determined Robles proved to be a beast on the mat and is one of the nicest guys off it. Jerome certainly felt that way after getting to know Robles on the set.

“Anthony was my body double,” Jerome revealed during an interview last fall in San Francisco before an appearance at October’s Mill Valley Film Festival. “He wasn’t just on the side (saying) ‘hey, tell my story.’ He was hands-on. He taught me how to wrestle. He taught me how to move like him…. Usually, you know, actors are used to this. At least one other guy looks like you on the set. The guy who looked like me (in this case) was the guy I’m actually portraying. It was just special.”

In turn, Robles considered it special to observe Jerome flinging himself fully into the part, not only for the wrestling scenes but the emotional ones.

“He dialed it in and he nailed it,” Robles said during a Zoom interview. “He went for hours learning how to adjust and move around on the crutches the way I do. His dedication to pushing himself to go upstairs, to go up rocks, to maneuver without his hands. All these little details about me, which I spent my whole life learning, and being able to learn them in such a short amount of time. I was just in awe of that.”

Robles detailed his awe-inspiring journey in the memoir, “Unstoppable: From Underdog to Undefeated: How I Became a Champion,” and the bestseller serves as the basis for director William Goldenberg’s rousing debut feature.

“Unstoppable” costars Jennifer Lopez as Robles’ supportive mom Judy and Don Cheadle as his Arizona State Sun Devil wrestling coach Shawn Charles who, at least initially, possessed some doubts about the athlete’s abilities but was happy to be proven wrong.

Since Robles’ mom Judy is such an integral force in his life, she, along with Robles, frequented the set and consulted with both Jerome and Lopez, who excels at playing a loving mother stuck in a toxic relationship with a brutish man (Bobby Cannavale), Robles’ abusive step-father.

To fashion an authentic portrait of Robles, Jerome — who received a BAFTA Rising Star nomination this year — met and hung out with the relatively new dad and athlete who defied odds and skeptics and went on to win a 2011 NCAA National Wrestling Championship — a climatic moment in “Unstoppable” that’ll get you all teary-eyed.

Jerome said he felt a responsibility to embody Robles in every way — athletically, emotionally and physically. Preparation required a barrage of chest presses, deadlifts and weigh-ins to make the 27-year-old star of Boots Riley’s quirky Oakland-set series “I’m a Virgo” Robles-ready.

Having never wrestled before, the actor and singer and basketball lover says the role proved to be his most physically demanding yet. The part called for emulating someone who wrestled in the lean-mean 125-pound weight division.

To get in shape, he trained five days a week for five to six months straight. He would meet with his trainer Jason Walsh at the gym from 9 to 11 a.m. and then hit the mat with Robles and assistant Sun Devil wrestling coach Brian Stith from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., learning the techniques of a new sport.

He also practiced how to move like Robles on crutches and focused on movement and balance in general, tapping the expertise of movement coach Allison Diftler, who is also director Goldenberg’s wife. She showed Jerome how to hop on one leg and how to walk and run on crutches so he could approximate Robles’ daily routine. (One of the film’s most inspiring scenes finds Robles, with hands bleeding, racing up a mountain trail on crutches to prove he had the “right stuff” to his coach, teammates and even himself). Jerome also worked on putting his New York accent on hiatus so he could capture Robles’ Southwest dialect.

The hard work and strict regimen paid off with Jerome packing on muscle mass and, in the process, amassing huge respect for wrestlers and athletes, especially Robles.

“This man has gone through 10-times-harder things,” he said. “And there’s not a production (company) called Amazon paying him money to do it.”

He realized he never would approximate Robles’ physical dominance. “I think it would have taken four more years and for me to take steroids to meet this man exactly where he was.”

He did experience the after-effects from all those vigorous workouts. He also got obsessed with his goals.

“I was sore every day and could barely get out of bed,” Jerome recalls. “I’m in the gym, throwing up at the end of my sessions. I’m getting on the scale and I needed to lose 3 percent body fat, but I gained 1 (percent) instead. So now it’s a mental body dysmorphia problem. I’d look in the mirror and people around me were like, ‘Oh, Jharrel, you’re so in shape. You’re getting there.’ And I’m like, ‘no I’m not even close. I’ve got more work to do.’ It was a mental, a physical and an exhausting process.”

That was all prep work, the main event came right after.

“The last day of training was then followed by the first day of shooting.”

But Jerome’s performance goes beyond the physical and into the emotional, as well as reflecting how major an influence Robles’ mom is the wrestler.

“He wasn’t the one alone doing it,” Jerome said. “His mother was there. So I wanted to show his heart beyond the mat.”

Robles agrees it was of the utmost importance to make his unstoppable mom a major part of the film.

“It was so important to me that her story was also shared in this film, about what she had to wrestle and go through and the pain she dealt with but overcame, ultimately.”

Jerome relates he’s drawn to projects that demand a lot from him and also have something to say.

His first major role put him on the map, playing the 16-year-old Kevin in Barry Jenkins’ Oscar winner “Moonlight.” The performance paved his way for future roles, including an explosive turn in the powerhouse 2019 Netflix miniseries “When They See Us,” from director Ava DuVernay. Jerome received an Emmy for his portrayal of real-life activist Korey Wise, one of  five teens of color known as the Central Park Five, all suspects falsely accused of sexually assaulting a white female jogger in Central Park in 1989. He was 21 when he received the honor.

Other roles included voicing Miles Morales in the animated hit “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” (he reprises that role for the upcoming “Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse”) and the 13-foot-tall Oakland resident Cootie in Oakland filmmaker Riley’s stand-alone comedic series “I’m a Virgo.”

Both Jerome and Robles hope that by watching “Unstoppable,” others will be inspired.

“I don’t think it’s crazy to say the world is at a very fragile place right now,” Jerome said. “It almost feels like this kind of black cloud is over the world, not even over a group of people anymore. It’s kind of over us all. And so I think this is one of those films that you can just take two hours away from the black cloud and remember that you’re not alone in that intense struggle.”

“We all are on a wrestling mat in some shape or form,” he added. “You know, we all have an opponent that we have to face, whether it’s yourself or a job or a vice or something you’re trying to get rid of. And so it’s one of those movies that by the end, hopefully there’s a tear you wipe off your eye and you kind of pick your head up, and dust your shoulders off and go, ‘OK, if Anthony could do it, I sure can do it too.’”

That was a primary goal for Robles, who recalls watching the film with an audience for the first time and experiencing a mix of emotions since it is such a personal story. He noticed how key scenes moved the audience.

“It reminded me why we chose to share our story in the first place,” he said. “Because we wanted to inspire people out there who are wrestling through similar challenges in their life. We’re dealing with obstacles. We’re dealing with pain”, he said.

“We wanted them to know that they too could be unstoppable.”

Taking the idea of work-life balance to extremes, the sardonic and surrealist thriller “Severance” on Apple TV+ envisions a dystopian corporate world in which employees of a company called Lumon Industries have a chip implanted in their brains that severs their memory in two. At work, their “innie” version has no knowledge of their life or even personal history outside the office; they are simply “at work” all the time. Their “outie” is just as clueless about anything that transpires under the fluorescent lights of their cubicles. They might as well be two different people.

What a premise! If half of your life is intolerable, simply free yourself from it.

It’s a trap, of course. Part of you is permanently stuck in an experience you hate. It’s especially pernicious because alarming things are happening in that basement at Lumon and each person’s outie is ignorant of the malevolence and misery their innies are living non-stop. Season 1 ended three years ago on a cliffhanger, with the innies staging a rebellion and discovering disturbing truths about their outies. Season 2 picks up in the aftermath.

The innies are still at Lumon. After some damage control, the company attempts to restore the status quo for Mark (Adam Scott), Helly (Britt Lower), Dylan (Zach Cherry) and Irving (John Turturro). These workers may have a smidge more information about their circumstances now, but most of it remains as fuzzy as the green carpet of their office space.

Mark initially sought out severance as a reprieve from the grief over his dead wife, but is she not dead at all but imprisoned somewhere at Lumon? Can the lovely and skeptical Helly, whose outie is Helena, the cold-blooded daughter of the company’s owner, be trusted once her backstory is relayed to the group? Will she and Mark act on their mutual attraction? What’s going on with their unnervingly serene manager Milchick (Tramell Tillman) and his new assistant Miss Wong (Sarah Bock), who is not an adult but a child in knee socks?

Their respective outies, who remain siloed off and unaware of one another, are flailing too, just as discombobulated by the slivers of information that have come to light about their innies.

At the core of it all is the biggest question: What is Lumon’s endgame?

“Severance” frames this last one to suggest a larger conspiracy. But I have doubts the show will be able to give a satisfying answer in the end. I could be wrong! But the exploitation of workers is so cynically and depressingly straightforward that it doesn’t need a complicated explanation. Regardless, both the innies and outies are seeking answers and, bit by bit, they hatch plans to uncover the truth.

A three-year pause between seasons is not how you build anticipation, but my frustration with the show lies in the format itself. Though “Severance” has a concept that’s equal parts creepy and compelling, boosted by terrific performances and distinctive production design, the core idea is a movie idea. There just isn’t enough story for a nine-episode series (bumped to 10 episodes for Season 2), which happens to be an issue with numerous other streaming shows as well, and increasingly some films (including “Wicked” and the decision to extend it into two parts).

So how do you stretch a movie-length premise into a series? Creator Dan Erickson slows the pacing way down and employs stall tactics that masquerade as world-building. “Severance” doubles down on this in Season 2, repeating the same beats and themes over and over again, such as the difficulty of imagining a different life for yourself. Or why people do things that go against their self-interest and are susceptible to the lure of a cult. How our perceptions of identity can be malleable depending on the surroundings or circumstances. Having a terrible job where empty, pandering nonsense is handed down by corporate headquarters. The pointless theater of workplace evaluations and workplace retreats. All interesting ideas! None of which are necessarily deepened over the show’s running time.

I’m sure plenty of viewers will say: I liked Season 1, so repeat away! Fair enough. But that’s not a story extending out because it has places to go. Atmosphere — of which “Severance” has plenty — will only take you so far. A show can not hinge on vibes alone, though “Severance” is giving it a try.

“Severance” Season 2 — 2.5 stars (out of 4)

Where to watch: Apple TV+

Nina Metz is a Tribune critic.