Pop Culture Happy Hour - Primetime and What's Making Us Happy

Episode Date: September 25, 2026

The new docudrama Primetime is a weird and highly fictionalized account of the meteoric rise of To Catch a Predator. Robert Pattinson plays host Chris Hansen, who is struggling to get bigger ratings. Hansen and his team work with local law enforcement to drag the accused sexual abusers of minors before the camera and arrest them. But does director Lance Oppenheim’s highly stylized approach work, or leave viewers feeling empty? If you’re looking for more dramas loosely inspired by real people, check out:‘Tony’ is a biopic that cooksIn 'Marty Supreme,' Timothée Chalamet is good at being supremely annoying‘Blue Moon’ will bewitch, bother and bewilder youConnect with Pop Culture Happy Hour:Letterboxd / FacebookOur weekly newsletterSupport public media with NPR+ and enjoy perks for over 25 podcasts like this one. This show’s perks include bonus episodes and sponsor-free listening. Learn more at plus.npr.org.See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

The first choice it makes is to yee us straight into the slime. And y'all said, see me, Gene. The first word in my notes is scuzzy. This is a scuzzy movie. Yeah, yeah. The new docudrama Primetime is a weird and highly fictionalized account of the rise of the NBC series to Catch Predator, which became a cultural phenomenon back in the mid-aughts.

It stars Robert Pattinson as the show's square-jawed host, Chris Henson, who's feeling pressure to get bigger ratings, as he and his team work with local law enforcement to drag the potential sexual abusers of minors before the camera and arrest them. I'm Glenn Weldon, and joining me today on NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour is my fellow host Aisha Harris. Hey, Aisha.

Hi, Aisha. Hi, Aisha. Gene Demby. Hey, Gene, welcome in. How's it going on us? Great to have you. All right, so in the film primetime, we enter the world of To Catch a Predator

just as it's becoming a huge hit for NBC. We enter it through the eyes of Dan. a wannabe actor played by Skyler Gassando. He's hired to act as a decoy, pretending to be a 13-year-old boy who lures men to suburban homes, where the two-catcher-preditor team ambushes them and cops arrest them. Dan has qualms about the job until he meets with the charismatic host Chris Hansen, played by Robert Pattinson. Hansen convinces the impressionable Dan to stay, even as the host is distracted by a troubled home life amid the show's meteoric rise. The show is so successful, in fact, that another network is looking to post.

Hansen's very stressed out producer Andy, she's played by the great Merit Weaver. Primetime is the first scripted feature directed by documentarian Lance Oppenheim. It was made without the cooperation of Chris Hansen. He's spoken out against it and continues to stand by his work on to Catch a Predator. Also, he hasn't seen it. He says the non-disclosure agreement he was asked to sign by the film studio A24 was restrictive. Primetime is in theaters. Now, Gene kick us off. What did you make of this, weirder than I thought it would be, movie. Weirder than I thought it would be is exactly how I felt about it, too. It's really claustrophobic, right?

Like, the way it opens is literally, you hear Chris Hansen repeating, muttering to himself, I will address you and you will address me. And, you know, the conceit there is that Chris Hansen is creepily watching the creepy people. Who is the voyeur? Who is the creepy person? Like, oh, who is the gross person? There's so many, like, tight shots. And the people and the stuff we're talking about is so gross that just like even the sound of him narrating the text conversations is like it's really knowing that these people who are thought to be predators and children.

It's like the movie like really leads into like the seaminess of this enterprise. And so you're watching and you just feel like kind of like a visceral disgust. And I don't think I actually ever got over that feeling because the whole time was like, ooh, I don't want to look at this, right? For better for worse. I'm curious of what you guys thought about it. All right, Aisha, see me. That's one word. Give me another. Give me a few more. See me is a great word. I would also say kind of like fun house, mirror, nightmare, fever dream is like where other things that came up for me. These are all good words. I was really into what this movie was doing for the first like 30, 40 minutes or so. I think that it's making very deliberate choices.

One of the things that stood out to me was the score by A. Baleusian. which to my mind kind of called to my Bernard Herman scores for taxi driver and psycho. And so I was like really into that sort of like menacing, hazy, like very unsettling feel that this was going for. And I think Robert Pattinson is just really, really good in this role. I'm Chris Hansen with Dateline NBC. And we're doing a story on adults who try to meet teens online. Please don't put this on TV, please. I've seen him in three movies.

these this year where he's playing some form of like dirtbag and each one feels very, very different. And this one felt very different from what I saw in the Odyssey and what I saw in the drama. So I was, I was feeling it. But overall, this feels very undercooked to me. Like, the vibe kind of works when it's like circling that Tim Robinson wagon, that kind of thing. That was not a name. I thought you would have been invoked. I mean, it's, but you can kind of see it, right?

Like you can kind of see that. But then it's not really in service of anything insightful or particularly impactful, emotionally speaking. Maybe we'll get into this. But like I couldn't help but think about the great documentary that came out last year, Predators by David Asset, which is focusing on this exact topic, but is able to get into so many more things and is really kind of like questioning this idea of vigilante justice and like, you know, whether the benefits of,

that really outweighed the cost for everyone involved. And I think this movie gestures towards that, but does not actually try to explore that in the way that Predators, the documentary does. So I quote unquote enjoyed it or like I wasn't bored, but I don't think this is deep as I, or like thoughtful as I wanted it to be for all of the like theatrics that are involved with it. Oh, that's a good point. I had a rolling reaction to this. In the moment I thought, This is a ride. And Robert Pattinson is always fun to watch. He's always going to make the big bold choice.

The more I sat with it after seeing it, the more it kind of curdled on me. And I don't question that what it's doing is exactly what it sets out to do. It wants to tackle something this lurid and dark and emotional and complicated in a way that's really lurid and dark and emotional. But without any complications at all, it is really stripping away any nuance. And look, you go into it and you know. That the first choice it makes is to eat us straight into the slime. And y'all said, see me, Gene? The first word in my notes is scuzzy.

This is a scuzzy movie. Scuzzy, yeah, yeah. Like, for example, hiring Jeff Zucker, the former head of NBC, to play himself and have him just be there going, well, I don't like your show, but America sure seems too. That is scuzzy. I was what, I was like, is that someone who looks just like Jeff Zucker or is that's wild. So the approach here is to go fully subjective. because objectivity is a myth, whatever. And so it's all character-based, it's all emotional-based, highly stylized, which apparently is a Lance Oppenheim thing.

Have you all seen any Lance Oppenheim documentaries before this? I have not. No, I have not. He produced a doc that I saw last year that I loved, the Python hunt. So it's kind of similar territory, yeah. But you instantly know seconds into this movie that this is not going to be one of those docketramas that ends with like a series of title cards and kairons where you kind of get an impassive. Here's what happened to everyone involved. No, it's going to end on a character.

It's going to end on an emotional beat in a way that won't answer your questions about anything that happened to any of these actual people. It's not interested in doing that. And it's doing everything it can with all this stylistic bells and whistles and hand waving to convince us that we shouldn't be interested in that stuff either. I mean, Gisando plays Dan, decoyed Dan. And that's an inserted character. And he plays him. And look, I love Scholar Gisando. If you want to see a great comedic performance, watch him on Santa Clarita Diet.

Here, he just plays this guy. is such a mouth-breathing cretons so stupid that you're like, is he playing this so that he comes off as an intellectual child? And maybe that's the point. They're drawing some parallels here. And look, Pattinson's always fun.

Always makes the big choices. And he's definitely found a way into this character, right? He definitely has a point of view. Because at one point, Hansen says to Dan, nothing I do is acting, Dan. And Hansen in that moment is saying, I only care about journalistic integrity, capital J, capital I. Yeah.

But what Pattinson the actor is saying in that moment is that Hanson is a shell. Hansen is an empty vessel who only cares about how he's perceived. He's only always acting. And this guy reads a room with such a lizard-like intensity that you kind of kept expecting to see those little, you know, dictating membranes every time you blinks. And I'll shut off after this. But last thing, Merit Weaver. Love Merit Weaver.

Yes. Couldn't figure out what she was doing in this film for a while. She was chewing a lot of gum. She was chewing a lot of gum. She's chewing a lot of gum. But she also pitches her voice way high up and she gives every sentence this kind of sing-song cadence. And I couldn't figure out what she was doing until we get a scene where she has to deal with somebody that she actually respects for the first time. Somebody she sees on her level, which is this person from another network who's trying to poach her.

There she drops the voice. And that's when it clicks. You're like, oh, she treats the people at Predator like toddlers. Like she's a kindergarten teacher and she's trying to get them to lay down for nap time. All of these are very big choices and they're very entertaining. And I enjoy them in the moment. But I hate to say this. But given the subject, I felt this was too slick, too glib, too empty.

I mean, Slees has its pleasures, but it's not a meal. And this kind of left me feeling kind of hollowed out. To the point you guys are making about that didn't have anything to say about, Yeah. These crimes, it's a predation. Because inherent to this, like, journalistic exercise that Hansen is it a journalistic exercise? But, like, that he was undertaken was like, are questions of entrapment of like whether you are, like, damning people without evidence, the trap people get caught on. It's like, how do you talk about that without sound like you're defending people who are sexual predators?

Right, right. But this movie, this is maybe not the reaction I'm supposed to have, but every time one of these guys got nab, there was this moment where it felt like, I don't know, they felt like they were being victimized. And that was not the thing I wanted to feel. Like, you know what I mean? And I don't think that's, like, it's wrong. I think we should be thinking about sort of, like, what the implications of this project are. But the movie did not seem to know,

and I'm fine with, like, that's stuff being a little bit opaque, did not seem to know whether it wanted to sort of show these guys as complete creeps, or, like, sort of, like, guyless nitwits, right? Like, who sort of got, like, swooped up in the, like, ensnared in this sort of dragnet, right?

Right. And I don't want to sound like I'm defending these men at all. But it felt like it was walking up to this line of being like some of these people may, they may have more going on than sort of the top line, right? Anyway. Exactly. Yeah. I mean, I saw this movie kind of trying to do a few things at once and not really doing any of them successfully.

Like, I think part of the issue is that it feels so insular and we're so focused on like a handful of characters that we don't zoom out to see the bigger picture of like, why are we not indicting the audience that was encouraging this? Like, the ratings. Like, what does that mean? Like, we get one scene where Hansen is on a plane. and a guy next to him is like fan-girling over him. And he's like, if I were you, I would have beat them or something violent. And like, that's a hint at like this vigilante justice and all of like what that means. But like- It's kind of bloodless, yeah.

It doesn't really, it doesn't go much further than that. But then you also have this other factor where it's trying to sort of hint at what the TV landscape was like at that time. So it's trying to hint at, you know, scripted television is kind of on its out. it's no longer as fashionable and now we have all of this like this cesspool of just like reality TV and shows like this and also like a show like what would you do

which is like the happy it's like the quote unquote happy version of this where it's like people getting caught doing nice things for other people as opposed to trying to molest them but like again I hate to say this as someone who is constantly railing about movies being too long

but like it ended so abruptly that I was like oh wait So everything just felt very not well done. And I think that that is something that I just wish that it had been a little bit more fulfilling in terms of what it was trying to say and focus on one or two of those things as opposed to trying to attack all of them. It just felt, I don't know, icky. It also, I don't know about your audience, but my audience, including myself, yes, it's seedy, but like there are also moments that are clearly funny or like meant to be funny. And I'm not sure what to do. Like, I don't believe that everything needs to be taken seriously.

Like, we can make jokes about horrific things. It's very hard to do, but you can do that. But I also, like, the tonal balance of that was a little jarring. And I think that was the point, but also is it working? Was your audience also very kind of laughing at funny things that happened? Yeah. And I was, too. There are very funny things that happened in this film.

You know, the fact that Skylar just not just character is. dumb, you know, it's not just because of his taste in musicals, but I'm going to say it's in the mix. Oh, come on. Rent is a good musical. I will stand by that. He prefers the movie to the play. That's an abomination, yes. They were 40. Aisha, anyway. It's a little besides the point. But you both have nailed something. You both have crystallized something for me. And I've already written the review for this. I'm going to have to go back and revise it because you just made me realize something that there is a thinness here. This is a very simple. lowest common denominator approach to characterization where every character in this film has only one thing they want, and that pursuit of it blinds them to how sick and sad the world they live in is. And the project of this film, to your point, Jane, the project of this film seems to me to be to say, yeah, these predators were bad people. But in the act of chasing them, didn't these to catch a predator people become just as bad, to which the only answer is, um, hell no.

What are you talking about? I mean, there are real questions about guilt and complicity and entrapment. That's Jean, that's what the documentary Predators really tangles with. This film, as Aisha said, just sort of like waves towards it. And, you know, it's kind of left us to wrangle with the fact the question of, would any of these sad men have stayed in their pathetic basements? Would all of this have remained like a sick sad fantasy? If they hadn't been, you know, encouraged and drawn out enticed, would any of them have entered those?

weirdly overlit suburban houses. You know, that question, it's in the movie, but I agree with you. It's not the subject of the movie. And I don't like to say it should have been, but I kind of feel that instead it's asking, see what chasing fame will reduce you to, which is just such a much less interesting and challenging question to make a movie about. And I do think that all this directoral stuff, you know, there's a moment where Hansen is telling a story to Dan. And that story is so transporting that it literally transports him to the village.

Like all that stuff is there just so we don't look past this kind of slick surface of this film at what's uglier underneath it because I don't think it's interested in that. Yeah, I mean, it's funny that you mentioned that sort of not wrestling with the audience response. Like I feel like Bochim Woodbond, who, by the way, it's like become like just one of my, like favorite actors to watch you so weird. I love him. Love him so much. Bokim Wabon is playing this like cartoon of a Texas sheriff. He's got the whole accent. And he's like going to prove that this town don't have no

predators in it. He almost says like I can't. That accent is not right. I'm sorry. It's close. It's close. It's kind of what he's doing. He rails against the Democrats. He rails against the Democrats and the child molesters. And like he's holding that like which is like funny. but it's also less effective than, like, if you... This is a show that was on for a long time

was really popular, and they were like, you know? Like, it feels like showing that there was, like, just a lot of, like, bloodlust or just, like, lurid sort of curiosity in this. That was, like, widely dispersed that, you know, Chris Hanson exists as a meme today, right? You know, like, you should have a seat, right? Like, it's a, you know, that...

There's, like, a way that this particular seedy enterprise that was to catch a predator was a staple of popular culture. And it was, like, I don't know, it feels like this movie feels so insular that none of the sort of wider implications of any of it just show up in it at all, which is really fascinating. It was a really interesting choice. Yeah. I think the other issue I came up against with primetime is that I found at one point, like, once we get into the main crux of the story and the climax that the show, the series was

known for, and which ultimately led to its cancellation after the incident at hand that had happened, which was a suicide of an assistant DA who was, um, allegedly talking to one of the decoys involved in the operation. But like before that, there's moments where I wasn't sure where it was going. There's like a disabled predator. And it's very confused. Like it gets muddy as to like what exactly they're doing. And I think if you're able to watch the Predators documentary, you'll have a little bit more sense.

It goes more deeply into how the show got linked up with the police, local law enforcement, how entrenched that all was. And it kind of fills in some gaps that I think the movie and it's like very thinly, drawn script and just its attempt to be kind of like dreamlike and not always clear, like deliberately clear about things. Like it gets a little messy and I didn't know where it was going. So that's all to say. Predators, the documentary is a good supplement, I think, before watching this movie to kind of understand a little bit more what's going on and what is not included in primetime.

The documentary will make you really, really angry. This just makes you wish you could have a shower. Like 100 showers. Yeah. See? That's a great place to end on. I love that. I love that.

We are wrestling with this film in a way the film doesn't seem to want to wrestle with itself. But that's prime time. It's in theaters now. Up next, what is making us happy this week? Notice time for our favorite segment of this week and every week. What is making us happy this week? Gene Demby, kick us off. What's making you happy this week, sir?

Yes. I got permission to shout this one out because you guys covered this already. My wife and I started watching Colin. from accounts just last week. And it is so funny and ridiculous. So if you don't know the premise of the show, said in Australia, these two youngish,

one younger than other, people end up in his relationship. It's like a rom-com, but it happens backwards. The young woman flashes, the guy who's driving the car, he slams his car into a little dog, and they end up both raising

and caring for this dog sort of through this confluence of events, they end up living together. It's a rom-com, but they're already in a house together and they're doing all the rom comes up sort of backwards, right? Like, it is hilarious.

The ensemble cast is so good. There are all these characters who just have, like, one scene, and they, like, knock it out the park. And I was like, oh, we don't do that on TV anymore, right? Just like one scene, sort of, like, great character actor moment, and then, like, offstage. It's a really, really, really, really funny show. Legitimately excellent joke writing.

But, like, some real heart and stakes, considering the premise. I just really, really, really dig it. I was not surprised I found out that the couple was married in real life because I was wondering when watching it was like, Oh, these people seem to fully convey the ethos and the vibe of this show. I was like, I wonder how they cast them. I was like, oh, they cast themselves.

Okay, that makes so much more sense. So yeah, Colin from Accounts, that's what's making me happy. Thank you very much. Gene Demby, that is Colin from Accounts, streaming on Paramount Plus. Aisha Harris, what is making you happy this week? Well, we rail about the algorithm, and by we, I mean, I do all the time. But sometimes the algorithm serves me up exactly what I need. It knows me better than I know myself.

And the algorithm recently served me up comedian at Kevin T. Porter on Instagram. There you go. He has, do you know him, Glenn? Yes, I do. Oh, okay, okay. He has a recurring bit that is probably best described as a girl talk mashup filtered through the random chaotic mind of Eric Andre or like early Robin Williams. So basically the premise is that Porter has something along the lines of like, I'm the DJ at your co-workers. party and I'm really bad at it, followed by a very unhinged, discordant medley of songs, jingles,

deeply specific cultural references. One of them is Madonna's Holiday with O'Reilly's auto parts, and George W. Bush saying, now watch this drive. Hamilton, Hugh Jackman's opening number at the 2009 Oscars. Can I just play a little bit of this, please? The reader. The reader. I need to get my stories straight. I haven't seen the reader. Oh, Raleigh, That is so on the way to get these beggars out of me. Hey, baby, I hear the blues that call in, toss out of sands and scrambling. Big a load up, man.

And that is so enhanced. Oh, my God. Meanwhile, he's just, like, jamming in his living room with sunglasses on, lip-sinking, like, with all the nerdy enthusiasm of Weird Al. It is very fun. There's a moment in that one where he goes from the Riba theme right into Destiny these child survivor, it is the greatest thing ever. He has other ones, like Broadway-themed ones, of course.

I cackle every time. I've watched them, like, so many times. And I think they will bring you joy. They're so bad that they, sometimes they are good. Like, there are moments when the mashup just, like, soars. That is comedian at Kevin T. Porter on Instagram. I think also his mashups are on SoundCloud, too. Oh, so much joy.

I'm so glad you discovered Kevin T. Porter, he is. is a very funny guy. He's also a very nice guy. Happened to know Kevin slightly. And he's had me on his podcast, Good Christian Fun, where he and guests kind of discuss bits of Christian media in a way that kind of goes right down the middle, slightly making fun of it, slightly appreciating for what it is. He's a very funny and one of the nicest guys on the Internet. So that's Kevin T. Porter. Great pick. I will send you a starter kit. Okay. Yay. That's amazing. All right. Thank you very much. much Aisha Harris, great pick. What is making me happy is also served up to me by the algorithm. So maybe we should all just get over. I know. Yeah. We should just roll over and play dead. The Instagram account, Scotty is fat. Scotty with two T's and two E's is a fat, gay, British guy who travels and runs and does yoga. And his content is him traveling and running while complaining about how much he hates traveling and running. And actually he likes yoga.

The thing about it is he's so good at it and he's kind of trading on the our collective unkind assumption that he doesn't look like he'd be good at these things. But this guy runs four miles. He hikes up and down mountains. He's got great yoga form. And he does. He travels even as he's bitching and moaning about the other tourists who are often Americans. Fair. If this is a thing for you, he does curse a lot, but he does it with such style and flair.

I just find him really inspiring because this is the goal, right? do the healthy thing, but be funny about it. Have a sense if you're about it. So you're not like a fitness influencer guy who is so hugely annoying and judgmental and sanctimonious. And you're not for doing your chest lies all wrong. He gets it. He is a joy to follow. That is Scotty is fat on Instagram.

And that is what's making me happy this week. That brings us to the end of our show, Gene Demby. Aisha Harris, thank you so much for being here. Appreciate you, guys. Thank you for having us. Thank you, Glenn. This episode was produced by Liz Metzger-Lennon, Sherburn, Caden Mills, and Mike Katzv,

and edited by our sure-runner, Jessica Reedy, and a low-com-in provides our theme music. Thank you for listening to Pop Culture Happy Hour from NPR. I'm Glenn Weldon, and we'll see you all next time.