Betty Gilpin Calls 'Widow's Bay' Anti-Algorithm TV

Get the Culture newsletter
Daily culture — film, music, books, the trends and ideas worth your attention. Free.
- Betty Gilpin, a 4-time Emmy nominee with a current Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series nod for playing Sarah Warren in Apple TV's "Widow's Bay," called the show "the ultimate f*ck you to safe, algorithm-friendly, ChatGPT, copy/paste television" — and noted it still found "mainstream success."
- "Widow's Bay" earned 19 Emmy nominations across its first season, per the show's tally cited in the interview.
- Apple TV renewed "Widow's Bay" for Season 2 ahead of the Season 1 finale, which is now available to stream, and signed creator Katie Dippold to an overall deal in the same window.
- Matthew Rhys stars as a New England mayor trying to boost tourism to his tiny island as strange events unleash a centuries-old curse.
- Gilpin, framing herself as a detached booster, said she's relieved for her exhausted collaborators, who "made the most brilliant thing I've ever seen."
Why it matters: Apple TV greenlit Season 2 and signed creator Katie Dippold to an overall deal while "Widow's Bay" was still airing its first season and collecting 19 Emmy noms — a rare streamer vote for an original, non-IP series in a Hollywood market dominated by franchise reboots, and a tangible counterpoint to Gilpin's gripe about "copy/paste" TV.




