Feb 6, 2026 3:51pm PT The Winter Olympics Opening Ceremony Was a Playful Celebration of Italian Culture: TV Review By Alison Herman Plus Icon Alison Herman TV Critic aherman2006 Latest Kaley Cuoco Thriller ‘Vanished’ Is a Lesser Retread of ‘The Flight Attendant’: TV Review 5 days ago Catherine O’Hara’s Late-Career Renaissance on ‘Schitt’s Creek’ and Beyond Showed the Beloved Comedian’s Enduring Range 1 week ago ‘Wonder Man’ Is Marvel’s Refreshingly Low-Stakes Spin on ‘The Studio’: TV Review 1 week ago See All The winter Olympic games are often seen as more of an appendix to their larger summertime counterparts than a tentpole in themselves. But in 2026, the parallels between Milan — which co-hosts the 25th winter Olympics with Cortina d’Ampezzo, a ski town near the Austrian border — and 2024 host city Paris are impossible to ignore. They also paid dividends in an opening ceremony that, much like the Seine-set one a year and a half ago, drew on the traditions of a European cultural capital to deliver a playful, detail-dense tone setter for the weeks to come.
