Hollywood Q&A

Q: Is “Yellowstone” coming back for another season? It has to; it left so much unresolved at the end of last season.

A: “So much unresolved” is a bit of an understatement — the Season 3 finale was packed full of twists, shocks and cliffhangers. And perhaps the writers were comfortable doing that because they already knew they were getting another season, but if they know when, they aren’t telling. We can venture a guess, though. It’s been confirmed that filming is under way (in what are now known as “bubble” conditions — lots of testing, distancing and so on), and the guess is that the show will come back in the summer. If you’re a betting sort of person, put your money on June as each of the show’s three seasons to date have debuted in June. Of course, all sorts of businessas-usual institutions have been interrupted by the pandemic, but if it’s filming now, it should be ready in plenty of time to keep to the old schedule.

It’s not like they had to spend a lot of time coming up with ideas — it’s all laid out. I won’t go into too much detail, but I will say that actual (fictional) lives are hanging in the balance at the moment — some central characters have some serious situations to get themselves out of.

Q: I’m trying to remember the name of a series from the 1990s. The show would consist of several short narratives of unbelievable stories, and you had to guess if they were true or not. It was hosted by one of the guys from “Star Trek.” What was it called?

A: Believe it or not, despite the basic concept, it wasn’t “Ripley’s Believe It or Not.”

The show you’re thinking of was called “Beyond Belief: Fact or Fiction,” hosted by Jonathan Frakes (though James Brolin hosted the first six episodes). Frakes is best known, as you say, as Cmdr. William Riker on “Star Trek: The Next Generation.”

It was reminiscent of the more famous “Ripley’s Believe It or Not” shows — both traded on telling hard-to-believe tales to amaze their viewers. But “Beyond Belief” leaned into the “or not” angle, including some false tales and challenging the viewer to spot the difference.

Some of the “Ripley’s Believe It or Not” shows (there have been many, and they’re just part of the sprawling Ripley media empire) included small features that did the same thing, but it was only ever a sideline. Despite the name, Ripley only ever wanted you to “believe it.”

“Beyond Belief,” which ran for four seasons on Fox from 1997 to 2002, mixed in some things that shouldn’t be believed, thus turning it into a game. Viewers were told the truth at the end.

Q: I’m rewatching “Game of Thrones” and something’s been bothering me. How can the climate be so different from place to place when they get everywhere on horseback?

A: It’s amazing the things we notice when we rewatch things. Fantasy shows like “Game of Thrones” are especially fun for that but also a bit frustrating. Unlike realist dramas, they create their whole worlds from scratch; yet unlike sci-fi, the worlds are supposed to feel familiar.

The world of “Game of Thrones” is clearly supposed to feel a lot like Britain. This is partly due to Hollywood’s tendency to declare that anyone carrying a sword should have a British accent. But that’s an illusion. Based on a few clues dropped in the show, we learn that the fictional land of Westeros is actually quite a bit bigger.

In the Season 1 finale, we hear a man telling a group of people leaving the city of King’s Landing that “it’s a thousand leagues from here to the wall.” A thousand leagues is about 5,000 kilometers — more than the distance from, for example, New York City to the equator. Plenty of space for some significant changes in climate.

As for how they cover these distances on horseback, we have the miracle of TV storytelling to thank — viewers get to skip over the boring parts.

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