Another Peloton Heart Attack on TV? ‘Billions’ Says It’s a Coincidence.

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This article includes mild spoilers for the Season 6 premiere of “Billions.”

Mr. Big wasn’t the only one.

In an early scene of the Season 6 premiere of the Showtime white-collar crime drama “Billions,” a main character on the show, Mike Wagner (played by David Costabile), has a heart attack while riding a Peloton, the high-end stationary bike.

Television viewers may well experience déjà vu after seeing the character dismount his Peloton and react to a wave of chest pain amid luxury furnishings. In the premiere episode last month of HBO Max’s “Sex and the City” revival, “And Just Like That …,” Carrie’s husband, known as Mr. Big (Chris Noth), dies of a heart attack after finishing his 1,000th Peloton ride.

One difference in the bizarrely similar plot points is that Costabile’s character, an executive at the hedge fund at the center of the show, survives. And when he returns to the office after his heart attack, the show took a chance to address the plot parallel head on.

Why is Damian Lewis not in Billions season 6?

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Don’t miss the bestand biggest new releases for 2022

Billions will be returning to Showtime in the US with the sixth season on January 23. For fans in the UK, they will be able to watch the following day via Sky Atlantic. Back in October 2021, star of the show Damian Lewis announced he was stepping down as Bobby Axelrod.

Judi Dench refuses to answer probe over her appearance

Why is Damian Lewis not in Billions season 6?

Back in 2021, it was announced the sixth season of Billions will not include actor Damian Lewis.

He played the main character of “Axe” for the first five seasons, leaving fans wondering why he chose to step back from the series.

His original contract for the show was for five seasons and he simply decided not to renew it.

The 50-year-old actor said he wanted to stay closer to his family in the UK.

He was married to renowned actress Helen McCrory, who tragically died in 2021 from breast cancer.

READ MORE: Damian Lewis quits TV series after wife Helen McCrory’s death

What’s on TV This Week: Michelle Obama and ‘Billions’

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Between network, cable and streaming, the modern television landscape is a vast one. Here are some of the shows, specials and movies coming to TV this week, Jan. 17-23. Details and times are subject to change.

Monday

BET HER PRESENTS … BECOMING: MICHELLE OBAMA IN CONVERSATION 7 p.m. on BET. Michelle Obama joins the stage to discuss some themes from her acclaimed 2018 memoir, “Becoming,” with students from about 20 colleges. Obama will speak on topical issues such as diversity and inclusion on college campuses and students’ mental wellness. The program will be moderated by Yara Shahidi.

Tuesday

STORAGE WARS 9:30 p.m. on A&E. To bid, buy or sell? That is the question. The unbridled auction battles of “Storage Wars” return in the show’s 300th episode. The married auctioneer hosts, Dan and Laura Dotson, lead buyers through unpredictable storage units in hopes of hitting the jackpot rather than uncovering abandoned junk.

PHILADELPHIA (1993) 8 p.m. on Showtime. If you’re looking for a quality classic, look no further. Andrew Beckett (Tom Hanks), a gay man with AIDS, is fired from his Philadelphia law firm because of his illness. He struggles to find a lawyer who will represent him in court. Joe Miller (Denzel Washington) is the only attorney willing to take on his case; the two team up to fight his wrongful dismissal. “Philadelphia” was one of the first Hollywood movies to take the AIDS epidemic seriously. The film “mostly succeeds in being forceful, impassioned and moving, sometimes even rising to the full range of emotion that its subject warrants,” Janet Maslin wrote in her review for The New York Times.

NFL Divisional Playoffs, ‘Billions’ Is Back, Daryl’s ‘Walking Dead’ History

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The road to the Super Bowl advances with the NFL Divisional Playoffs on Saturday and Sunday. Billions returns to Showtime without one of its original stars. AMC brings its streaming series The Walking Dead: Origins to the linear channel, with actors telling their characters’ story arcs as a build-up to the series’ final episodes.

NFL Playoffs

Now that the playoffs to the playoffs are behind us, the NFL gets down to business with high-stakes gridiron action Saturday and Sunday, all leading to next month’s Super Bowl. First, the Cincinnati Bengals take on the Tennessee Titans (Saturday, 4:30/ET, CBS, streaming on Paramount+) followed by the San Francisco 49ers vs. the Green Bay Packers (8:15/ET, Fox). On Sunday, the Rams go up against the Buccaneers in the afternoon playoff (3 pm/ET, NBC; streaming on Peacock), followed by the Bills vs. the Chiefs on CBS (6:30/ET). This means no 60 Minutes this Sunday, and CBS will follow Sunday’s playoff game with the first of a two-part episode of CSI: Hawaii (approx. 10/9c) that concludes Monday.

Jeff Neumann/SHOWTIME

Billions

Season Premiere 9/8c

SUNDAY: The power balance has shifted with Axe (Damian Lewis) gone and Mike Prince (Corey Stoll) now ruling Axe Capital in the sixth season of the big-money drama. As Chuck Rhoades (Paul Giamatti) zeroes in on his new target, look for new alliances to form as another war commences.

AMC

The Walking Dead: Origins

Series Premiere

SUNDAY: As the epic zombie thriller nears its inevitable end—Part 2 of the extended final season begins Feb. 20—see how it all began when AMC airs a four-part origin anthology (previously exclusive to AMC+) narrated by the actors who brought these iconic characters to life. First up is the heroic story of Daryl Dixon, as told by Norman Reedus. (Negan, Maggie and Carol get their moment in successive weeks.)

Getty

Reframed: Marilyn Monroe

Series Finale 9/8c

SUNDAY: The final two chapters of the biographical docuseries find the iconic movie star/sex symbol at the peak of her popularity and visibility: battling with her studio, marrying playwright Arthur Miller as she pursues more serious roles, triumphing in her greatest comic performance (Some Like It Hot), and reveling in celebrity by singing “Happy Birthday” to President John F. Kennedy. Her untimely death in 1962 only burnished her mystique, and we’re still talking about her 60 years later.

Inside Weekend TV:

Satellites show ‘mega-iceberg’ released 152 billion tons of fresh water into ocean as it scraped past South Georgia

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Image 1: The A68A iceberg with some smaller parts of ice that have broken off around it (21 November 2020). Credit: MODIS image from NASA Worldview Snapshots.

152 billion tons of fresh water—equivalent to 20 times the volume of Loch Ness or 61 million Olympic-sized swimming pools, entered the seas around the sub-Antarctic island of South Georgia when the megaberg A68A melted over three months in 2020/2021, according to a new study.

In July 2017, the A68A iceberg snapped off the Larsen-C Ice Shelf on the Antarctic Peninsula and began its epic 3.5-year, 4,000-km journey across the Southern Ocean. At 5719 square kilometers in extent—one-quarter the size of Wales—it was the biggest iceberg on Earth when it formed and the sixth largest on record. Around Christmas 2020, the berg received widespread attention as it drifted worryingly close to South Georgia, raising concerns it could harm the island’s fragile ecosystem.

Researchers from the Centre for Polar Observation and Modelling (CPOM) and British Antarctic Survey (BAS) used satellite measurements to chart the A68A iceberg’s area and thickness change throughout its life cycle. The authors show that the berg had melted enough as it drifted to avoid damaging the sea floor around South Georgia by running aground. However, a side effect of the melting was the release of a colossal 152 billion tons of fresh water in close proximity to the island—a disturbance that could have a profound impact on the island’s marine habitat.

For the first two years of its life, A68A stayed close to Antarctica in the cold waters of the Weddell Sea and experienced little in the way of melting. However, once it began its northward journey across Drake Passage, it traveled through increasingly warm waters and began to melt. Altogether, the iceberg thinned by 67 meters from its initial 235-meter thickness, with the rate of melting rising sharply as the berg drifted in the Scotia Sea around South Georgia.

Animation 2: Thinning and breakage of the A68A iceberg over time. Melt rates increase sharply once the iceberg is drifting in open ocean north of the Antarctic peninsula. Iceberg thickness was derived from satellite altimetry data from Cryosat-2 and ICESat-2. Iceberg shape and size were sourced from Sentinel-1, Sentinel-3 and MODIS satellite data. Credit: Credit: Anne Braakmann-Folgmann CPOM.

Laura Gerrish, GIS and mapping specialist at BAS and co-author of the study said, “A68 was an absolutely fascinating iceberg to track all the way from its creation to its end. Frequent measurements allowed us to follow every move and break-up of the berg as it moved slowly northward through iceberg alley and into the Scotia Sea, where it then gained speed and approached the island of South Georgia very closely.”

If an iceberg’s keel is too deep, it can get stuck on the sea floor. This can be disruptive in several ways: The scour marks can destroy fauna, and the berg itself can block ocean currents and predator foraging routes. All of these potential outcomes were feared when A68A approached South Georgia. However, this new study reveals that it collided only briefly with the sea floor and broke apart shortly afterward, making it less of a risk in terms of blockage. By the time it reached the shallow waters around South Georgia, the iceberg’s keel had reduced to 141 meters below the ocean surface, shallow enough to avoid the seabed which is around 150 meters deep.

Nevertheless, the ecosystem and wildlife around South Georgia will certainly have felt the impact of the colossal iceberg’s visit. When icebergs detach from ice shelves, they drift with the ocean currents and wind while releasing cold fresh meltwater and nutrients as they melt. This process influences the local ocean circulation and fosters biological production around the iceberg. At its peak, the iceberg was melting at a rate of 7 meters per month, and in total, it released a staggering 152 billion tons of fresh water and nutrients.

Animation 4: Journey of the A68A iceberg from the Larsen C Ice Shelf at the Antarctic Peninsula, across the Weddell Sea, through the deep ocean of Scotia Sea and approaching South Georgia at the end of its lifetime. The warming ocean conditions led to the thinning and shrinking of the berg. Elevation and ocean depth are based on IBCSO and GEBCO data (Arndt et al., 2013; GEBCO Compilation Group, 2019) and ocean temperature is derived from the World Ocean Atlas (WOA, Boyer et al., 2018). Iceberg positions and length are taken from the Antarctic Iceberg Tracking Database (Budge and Long, 2018) and iceberg thickness is calculated from satellite altimetry data. Credit: Anne Braakmann-Folgmann CPOM

Anne Braakmann-Folgmann, a researcher at CPOM and Ph.D. candidate at the University of Leeds’ School of Earth and Environment, is lead author of the study. She said, “This is a huge amount of melt water, and the next thing we want to learn is whether it had a positive or negative impact on the ecosystem around South Georgia. Because A68A took a common route across the Drake Passage, we hope to learn more about icebergs taking a similar trajectory, and how they influence the polar oceans.”

The journey of A68A has been charted using observations from five satellites. The iceberg’s area change was recorded using a combination of Sentinel-1, Sentinel-3 and MODIS imagery. Meanwhile, the iceberg’s thickness change was measured using CryoSat-2 and ICESat-2 altimetry. By combining these measurements, the iceberg’s area, thickness, and volume change were determined.

Image 2: A68A iceberg approaching the island of South Georgia (14 December 2020). The left hand part of the image are clouds. Credit: MODIS image from NASA Worldview Snapshots.

Tommaso Parrinello, CryoSat Mission Manager at the European Space Agency, said, “Our ability to study every move of the iceberg in such detail is thanks to advances in satellite techniques and the use of a variety of measurements. Imaging satellites record the location and shape of the iceberg and data from altimetry missions add a third dimension as they measure the height of surfaces underneath the satellites and can therefore observe how an iceberg melts.”

More information: A. Braakmann-Folgmann et al, Observing the disintegration of the A68A iceberg from space, Remote Sensing of Environment (2022). A. Braakmann-Folgmann et al, Observing the disintegration of the A68A iceberg from space,(2022). DOI: 10.1016/j.rse.2021.112855