Today's Entertainment

• FOR THE WEEK OF AugusT 14 - 20, 2023 • YOuR WEEKLY guIDE TO TV ENTERTAINMENT Elvis Presley, as seen in "Reinventing Elvis: The '68 Comeback" Showing no signs of slowing down, Ronald Acuña Jr. has certainly kept his name in the running for the 2023 National League's Most Valuable Player race all season long. His quest for an all-time MLB season continues when the red-hot Atlanta Braves roll out the welcome mat for the New York Yankees, with the first of their three-game series airing Monday, Aug. 14, on YES Network. Born in La Guaira, Venezuela, Acuña Jr. came to the Braves as a highly regarded prospect — not only within the Braves organization but through- out the league. Expectations were high ahead of the young outfielder's pro debut in 2015 as a 17-year-old, and after rising through four minor-league levels before making his MLB debut in 2018, the top prospect quickly showed fans (and opponents) that he had the makings of a generational superstar. In his first official MLB season, Acuña Jr. finished with a batting average of .293 with 127 hits. If that wasn't impressive enough, Acuña Jr. added 64 RBIs and 26 home runs on his way to earning the 2018 NL Rookie of the Year award. Now at the age of 25, the Venezuelan is already a three-time all-star, and he was the first player in MLB history to have posted 20 home runs, 40 stolen bases and 50 RBIs heading into the All-Star break. Since then, Acuña Jr. has maintained an elite batting average hovering around the .330 mark and reigns as the National League's stolen-base leader, proving that no matter what he does at the plate, he is consistently a threat. Braves star Acuña Jr. shines bright this season By Roberto Jozef playerprofile By Adam Thomlison Q: What has Armando Iannucci been doing since "Veep" ended? A: Actually quite a lot. He had a whole HBO sitcom, "Avenue 5," come and go since 2019, when his beloved, award-win- ning political comedy "Veep" ended. If you didn't know that, it's likely because "Avenue 5," a sci-fi comedy about a space cruise ship that gets stuck far from Earth, never really found an audience. Its first-season ratings, in early 2020, were poor, and then the pandemic happened, which meant the second season didn't air for another two and a half years. By then, any momentum it had was lost, as reflected in the even lower Season 2 numbers. Sadly, it seems like maybe that experience has soured Iannucci on TV for a while. He's currently focused on the stage, namely a live-theatre adaptation of the classic film "Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb" (1964). Even worse for TV fans: It's being staged across an ocean in Iannucci's native Britain. "Dr. Strangelove" offered a cutting satire of government war-making when it was released in the midst of the Cold War, but Iannucci told the BBC that its message is just as relevant today. Armando Iannucci ON HBO celebrityUpdate OF VEEP

• Cover