*By Conor White*
"Mad Men" creator Matthew Weiner's new anthology series for Amazon, "The Romanoffs," is about far more than Russia's last royal family, according to one of its stars.
"As I said to Matthew when I was doing this, I have to bone up on the Romanoffs," actor Aaron Eckhart said in an interview on Cheddar.
"And he said, 'Well, not really, because it really has nothing to do with the Romanoffs.'"
The family consisted of Tsar Nicholas II, his wife, and five children. After Russia's February Revolution of 1917, Nicholas II abdicated the throne and was later executed with the rest of his house. Within the last 30 years, all the bodies have been discovered and identified through DNA testing. Despite that evidence, whispers remain that one of his children, most likely Anastasia, escaped the killings. (The tsar's youngest daughter inspired the popular animated film, "Anastasia," which was recently turned into a musical.)
The Amazon ($AMZN) series features a different cast in each of its eight episodes, which are all linked by some sort of connection to the famous family ー be it real or fabricated.
Eckhart said it's the relationships between the show's characters ー whether directly linked to the royals or not ー that makes the show special.
"The magical part of the show is that it has thematics, and it has through lines with the Romanoffs," the Golden Globe nominee said. "But it's all these different scenarios with different people all over the world."
The series is creator Weiner's return to television after his seven-season run with "Mad Men" ー the highly-acclaimed show garnered two Golden Globes for "Best Drama Series" and eight Primetime Emmy awards.
It was Eckhart's first time working with Weiner, and he said the experience was "educational, interesting," and "fascinating,"
"It's very surprising and striking and bold. It takes a real genius to figure this all out," Eckhart added.
In the age of binge-watching, Amazon has made the choice to release one episode per week after releasing the first two episodes simultaneously on Oct. 12.
Eckhart is a fan of the move and called it "more traditional." But he admitted he has binged his way through at least one classic series.
"I did binge-watch 'Friends'," he said.
"'Friends' is a very good show."
For full interview [click here](https://cheddar.com/videos/meet-the-romanoffs).
After a tumultuous season and a disappointing 5-9 record, the New York Knicks Gaming team was at the bottom the 2K league barrel. But the squad was able to pull off not one, but two miracle runs to qualify for the NBA 2K League playoffs. Now the question becomes: can the team trounce their competitors a second time? According to Jeff Eisenband, host and analyst at the NBA 2K League, it's unlikely.
These are the headlines you Need 2 Know for Monday, Jan. 14, 2019.
From Wall Street to Silicon Valley, these are the top stories that moved markets and had investors, business leaders, and entrepreneurs talking this week on Cheddar.
Cheddar's Hope King looks back at her first trip to the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.
Self-driving innovators need to earn the trust of drivers ー and that starts with transparency, said Jack Weast, chief systems architect for Autonomous Driving Solutions at Intel. "We feel the industry has a responsibility to be more open and transparent about how the technology works, especially when it comes to decision- making, which is really at the heart of what it means to drive safely," Weast told Cheddar's Tamara Warren from the floor of the CES convention in Las Vegas.
The future is all-electric ー at least for General Motors, the carmaker's Chairwoman and CEO Mary Barra said on Cheddar Friday. "At General Motors, we believe in an all-electric future," Barra told Betty Liu, executive vice chairman for the New York Stock Exchange, through a special partnership between Cheddar and NYSE. "We believe that's the path forward, and that's why we are dedicating resources to build on the Chevrolet Volt first and second generations, now the Chevrolet Bolt EV."
The housing market is slowing down ー and that's not necessarily a bad thing. So says Tendayi Kapfidze, chief economist for LendingTree, who told Cheddar Friday what to expect from the housing market this year.
These are the headlines you Need 2 Know for Friday, Jan. 11, 2019.
Bitcoin's rebound over the $4,000 mark was short-lived, tumbling on Thursday below the $4,000 price level for the first time since Jan. 6. "I think it is a good chance we are going to retest 3,000 as a low and there is a good chance it will probably break through that ー if it hits that low," said Civic CEO Vinny Lingham in an interview with Cheddar. "The market is definitely trying to find a bottom, and I don't think we've found one yet."
Adoption of new technology won't necessarily cause jobs to disappear ー even if that technology is a humanoid robot, said Steve Carlin, the chief strategy officer of SoftBank Robotics America. "I think the incorrect assumption is simply because you're employing technology, that therefore a job has to go away," Carlin told Cheddar's Hope King on Thursday.
