The Prestige TV Podcast - ‘Fleishman Is in Trouble' Review

Episode Date: November 21, 2022

Sean takes a break from the world of film to join Joanna for a breakdown of the streaming television miniseries created by Taffy Brodesser-Akner. Joanna and Sean debate whether the show should have been a movie instead, key missing components, Jesse Eisenberg’s portrayal of the lead character, and more. Plus, they have a broader conversation about the current landscape of streaming and where ‘Fleishman’ ranks among the top shows of 2022. Hosts: Joanna Robinson, Sean Fennessey Producer: Troy Farkas Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey there, it's Ariel Hawani. One third of the fastest growing show in combat sports. I'm Chuck Mindenholm. And I'm Pt Caryl, and together we are three puck. Join us on the Spotify Live app after every UFC pay-per-view and become a part of the best community in mixed martial arts. Or if you can't make it, check out the Ringer MMA show podcast exclusively on Spotify. See you then. Love you.

Hello, welcome back into the Prestige TV podcast feed. If you were looking for an episode about White Lotus, You are not in the right place. We'll be back next week. Sean just got to panic that we're saying. We'll be back next week, Bill Simpson and I will back next week with a two-fur of White Lotus for you. But today I am joined by the great Sean Fantasy. I've lured him over from Cinema Land to talk to me about television-ish.

We're here to talk about Fleischman is in trouble. The new FX on Hulu show. And also this sort of increasingly blurry lines between TV and film and what kind of stories we feel like we enjoy most on TV and what might better be served as a film. Sean Fentasy, how are you? I'm doing well. I'm happy to be here. I'm happy to undermine the entire enterprise of television and draw people back to movies by saying that these things that are TV shows should be movies or maybe not, maybe not. And I'm excited to talk about Fleischman too, which I think is an interesting show. So happy to be here with you.

Always, always a thrill for me. And yeah, I got to hop up. over the big pick so I like this week so I like to yeah an unofficial home and home this week for us I love it is that a sports reference I love it okay so so Flash Miss and Trouble

is an eight episode series based on Taffy it brought us their actor's splashy debut novel Taffy is like something of a you know for those of us who have worked especially Sean and I both worked in magazine journalism Taffy is sort of this looming figure

an expert of the celebrity profile, would you agree, Sean? Agree, for sure. Full disclosure, once edited a piece by Taffy. I know Taffy a little bit socially, so I guess there's a caveat there to consider. But yeah, she's just an enormously successful celebrity profile writer, among other kinds of profiles, but that's where she really made her name. You know, she's still on staff at the New York Times Magazine at this point? I'm not entirely sure, given the provenance of this show.

And she's now a successful author and also a successful showrunner. which I guess is a significant part of this conversation too. But yeah, she's very well known for a lot of the stories that she's written about, very famous people over the years. So, yeah, all these episodes, except one, were written by Taffy. The show's created by her. And then the roster of directors on this series is pretty interesting. We've got Valerie Ferris and Jonathan Dayton,

who most people know from their film Little Miss Sunshine. We've got Sherry Springer-Berman and Robert Pulcini, who did American Splendor, among other things. And Alice Wu, who did Saving Face, and the half of it, half of it, half of a film I actually really, really liked that came out recently. But these are all, I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, you would know better than I. These all feel like sort of Sundance royalty notable. They're, you know, of the Park City indie film Uvra, right, Sean?

Yeah, but I think like the elevated version of that, you know, like the Oscar nominated version of Sundance films. This isn't, these aren't piddling O-Torrs making movies for $85,000. These are people who are, you know, really, really talented. filmmakers who are operating and with stories that are slightly on the margins, but that are getting a lot of attention. And it's an interesting way to frame this conversation too, because you could make the case that the show is somewhat similar. It feels like a relic of a different time in storytelling in terms of what it's doing relative to what is on the rest of TV at the moment. But both pairings, and it's interesting that they're pairings that are directing this show

are very, very accomplished people. Yeah. And I just, as I continue, to think about who is directing television. You know, like, Berman and Pulcini have been seeping into television in the last few years. They directed one of the best episodes, Succession, Succession Season 2,

Safe Room, among other episodes. You know, so these aren't film directors who are necessarily brand new to television, but I do still think of them first and foremost as film directors. And as we continue to talk about the blur between TV and film, it's interesting. We'll get into

a little later the conversation around and or, but it's interesting to think about, like, what an episode looks like by someone who has come up hardcore in the television world versus someone who's come up in the film world. Premise-wise, so we're going to talk loosely about episodes one and two, which aired together as a sort of two-hour premiere. We're not going to get into hardcore details because this isn't really necessarily a recap. It's just sort of a bigger umbrella conversation. But, you know, so honestly, I think you could listen to this without having seen the episodes,

but obviously I would encourage you to go watch them. But loosely, the premise of the novel and the show are, we were following Toby Fleischman, played by Jesse Eisenberg, and some of his friends, through the tumult of his divorce from Rachel, played by Claire Daines. He's navigating being newly single, a dad, and his ex-wife's mysterious and infuriating disappearance. I'm going to do that again. And his ex-wife's mysterious and infuriating disappearance.

It's a little like, where'd you go, Bernadette, through the lens of Is Manhattan Fair? Like what would you say in terms of divorce guy genre? It felt a little bit closer to the tone of husbands and wives, if we're making a Woody Allen comparison, a little bit of a later period and slightly more acidic and a little bit absurd too at the same time. So maybe a little bit of like Stardust memories in there as well

because Fleischman is entering the single life for the first time in a long time and the way that he's entering it is through the world of dating apps. And so the film has this kind of kaleidoscopic or the, look at me calling it a film, the TV series has this kind of kaleidoscopic approach to dating apps and the kind of way a newly single man's head might be spinning after being married for a long time with a family. But I definitely think Woody Allen is a touch point for this series. There's no question about it.

And I think the first thing, you know, watching these episodes, the reason I beseech Sean to join me here is like watching these episodes, I was very struck by this feels like a movie to me or I wonder if this might have might have better served as a movie to me. And a reason I think is this Lizzie Kaplan narration. Lizzy Kaplan plays Libby, one of Toby's friends from high school essentially. And a keen observation of the book is that the narration of Libby allows Taffy to use some of her skills as a celebrity profiler to sort of take a one step removed from our, you know, Fleischman is the subject, but Libby is the storyteller. And that's allowing Taffy to sort of do what she does best, which is, which is brilliant. But a Lizzie Kaplan

voiceover, I don't know, it felt very filming to me. What do you, what do you think, Sean? Yeah, it's certainly a device that, um, I think slightly confuses the show through that first episode because we don't totally understand who we're listening to. And then by the time, Lizzie Kaplan's character gets introduced formally into the show is when I really started to click with the show. I think the show actually feels a little bit like Woody Allen cosplay or like maybe Noel Bombach cosplay through the first 45 minutes. And as soon as we see that there is a slightly different dynamic at play, which is that it's ultimately about this triangle of friends and a kind of series of remembrances of a broken relationship that the show makes a lot more sense.

but you're right that that narration I mean it very much feels like maybe even a movie that Jesse Eisenberg might have starred in you know that Woody Allen made like that that's such a common refrain of the man walking around New York City

you know and a voice inside of his head kind of talking through the stages of his life is such a familiar construct that I think also whether or not like the structure and stakes of the story is worthy of this conversation too like a domestic dromedy with not necessarily a clear emotional arc through the first two episodes is an unusual

setup in our prestige TV times. I couldn't think of a lot of shows that are quite like this show. Now, that's not necessarily a bad thing, but it doesn't feel like it's in conversation with too many things that are out there right now. And I think that subject matter is another reason why it feels like a story that would be so at home in Park City if we're at Sundance or something. You know, you and I have attended our fair share of film festivals and it's just this this kind of in some ways neurotic in very deeply intellectual you know journey you know journey of the soul of a character feels like independent cinema especially like early odds independent cinema to me and that's not a negative that's a compliment I I love those films and those films are often the films that we talk about

when we complain about the mid-level movie being swallowed up by blockbuster culture you and I love Love a blockbuster. Love a Top Gun Maverick. Absolutely. Love a Marvel movie if it's done well, something like that. But what are we losing is the ongoing conversation around that when studios are less and less inclined to make, would be less inclined to make an adaptation of a Fleischman is in trouble, you know? Yeah. The storytelling thing that this reminded me of most recently was private life.

I don't know if you saw that film, the Netflix movie, the Tamara Jenkins movie, starring. Paul Giamatti and Catherine Hahn, which is also, you know, a city set story about, you know, successful quasi upwardly mobile people. And in the case of that story about two people trying to conceive and the future of their relationship, this is, you know, Fleischman is about a couple that already has a family. But the tonality of the show, the stakes of the show, the milieu that it's building, you know, it's very peppy, it's very well made, it's very energetic. But to your point, as we're getting trained more and more to either expect Thor, Love and Thunder or Nothing at the movies, this feels increasingly like neither fish nor foul.

Like, it doesn't really feel like a TV show to me. It doesn't really feel like a movie either because it has been given the opportunity to breathe a little bit the way that a lot of novel adaptations are not. You know, I've watched a couple of novel adaptations of famous books in the last few months. Not even on purpose necessarily, but for the first time I watched the adaptation of Slaughterhouse 5, which came out in the late 60s. And I mean, it's just plain doesn't work. No. You know, and it's like it really is not unwatchable, but just kind of drab. It's like the exact opposite feeling you get from that book, which is so thrilling, especially when you're a teenager and you get

that book in your hands. And in part, it's because of compression, you know, and the fact that you lose that sense of breathability that I'm talking about. Fleishman doesn't really have that problem as a TV series, which is kind of nice. You know, like I've watched ahead a little bit and watching ahead, as you start to live in the world, you start to enjoy spending time

with some of the characters and some of the characters' psyches, which is a big part of the telling of the story. But it also does feel a little bit flabby at the same time. And so there's this, I feel like we're missing an in-between storytelling structure,

you know, like six to eight episodes is too many for shows like this. Like a four episode. Yeah. Like, why don't we have the four-episode miniseries? That feels like a lost art to me and something that maybe you saw a lot more on ABC in the 1990s, but that we don't see now because there are a couple of conventions. And there are a lot of reasons for that. You probably know more about this than I do. But one of them is people just get paid more money when there's more episodes. And there's more time spent streaming when there's more episodes. And so elongation is this issue across all of streaming right now. So I wouldn't want Fleischman to be a three hour movie, but I also don't want it to be an eight hour series. And so what is that is it four hours and 12 minutes? That seems like. going to be the right length for this thing. That's kind of the conclusion I came to. You came to like the identical conclusion I did, which is, you know, my first instinct around

this. We're going to talk about some particulars. And I'm glad you brought a novel adaptation because as I was putting together the notes for, you know, our discussion, a lot of adaptations came up as I was considering it. And a reason why is not just because we are talking about an adaptation of a novel with this show. But when we're talking about a novel adaptation, especially if we've read the book, we know the story, the amount of story, the amount of story that they have to tell. So then we can sit here in our backseat driving Monday morning quarterbacking kind of way and say, we think you could have told this amount of story in four hours, you know, versus if someone's creating an, you know, an original story, whomst am I to say,

you know, how much of your story should have made it in there. But with an adaptation, it's a little bit clear. And I admire, I so admire the two-hour adaptation or the two-and-half-hour adaptation that really gets the spirit of a book or, you know, my argument has always been the ideal thing to adapt to a movie is like a novella and Fleischman is, you know, is meteor than a novella. So that is where we are. This was, you know, there was a huge bidding war around the, you know, this book was a big deal, again, because of Taffey's own celebrity, I think, in the world that, you know, that we run in. And so there was a huge bidding war and it was a successful book. But lands on it. It was a bestseller, right? I could not find. I.

I was going to call it a bestseller, but I could not find that it was necessarily a bestseller. But either way, it was very popular. Very notable, well-reviewed, the whole nine-hours. Yes. But it landed on FX on Hulu, which is, again, its own little, like, nebulous in between way to watch things. I'm a huge admirer of, if one can be a simp for a TV exec, I'm a simp for John Landgraf, so I'm a huge FX fan. But is there anything else you want to say overall about the? these first two episodes before we, you know, dig even further into that larger conversation we

want to have. I mean, they're significantly different from each other, which is not common for these kind of focused character studies. You know, like, we really, there's a lot of time shifting going on. There's a lot of memory experience. It is filmic and in some ways cinematic, so I don't want to, I hope I'm not underselling the fact that it's taking some chances with the form and that's justifying itself frequently. I'm also just a very big Jesse Eisenberg fan and I know that he is an acquired taste for some, but for me, he is a kind of lost art of a leading man. There's like, he's just very, you know, he reminds me a lot of the leading men who starred in a lot of the, the era of movies that I love the most, you know, the sort of the late

60s through this 1970s. And not just because he's like a nebishy intellectual Jewish guy, but in part because he has a kind of fructive energy when he's on screen. There's a kind of like angst and, and like this undertone of. of rage that never totally seeps out. But I've also, you know, I've met Jesse a couple of times and he's also just like a very sweet person. So nice.

Yeah. And so knowing that about him and knowing that collision of these characters that he's so good at, I mean, there's a reason he was cast as Lex Luthor. Like, he has this unusual dynamism as a performer to me. And this character's funny because, you know, this guy is like not that far away from where I'm at my life. You know, he's like in his 40s and he's got a family and he's got a career and he's trying to balance it all.

And so it's familiar. and I like him a lot. I think Claire Danes is cast kind of magnificently as a pretty stereotypical, like shrewish wife figure who, you know, we see a little bit more and more of her story as the show goes on. She gets a pretty tough beat the first couple of episodes in terms of how she's portrayed. Yeah.

But I think in general the show is very well cast. Right. Right. Is we're in Fleischman's Ed and he's in a space where he is only thinking about the worst moments with Rachel. Yes. And I want, do you think that that will turn people off as a, dig into the show at first?

Well, that's when I was thinking about, would this be a better movie than a TV show or not, um, the, there's an advantage to the longer form of the space in that we're kind of fooled into thinking we're watching one kind of story. Um, and then we're going to get pulled into another story. If you've read the book, you know, we learn more and more about their relationship. We get to understand Rachel better. Livy becomes a much more important, like even more important character as the, as the show goes on. And so like when I picked up the book and started reading it, I was like, why is this the story Taffy wanted to tell?

And then I, you know, and then I kept reading and I was like, oh, she's doing something very interesting and clever with all of this. And that's, that's brilliant. But if you're just picking, if you don't know the book and you're just picking up episode one and two, you're like, again, Woody Allen being at Touchstone, you're like, do I want to watch, you know, Woody Allenish story about this character? in which these women are side notes or, you know, shrews, etc. And if you're watching it as a movie, you don't have the opportunity to decide, oh, I don't want to continue. You get the full breath of experience while you're sitting there. On the other hand, that fooling you into thinking you're watching one story or fooling you

into thinking a character is one way and then you go on a similar journey as the characters as you see other sides of them, that's something you need a little bit more space to do, which is, I guess, where I landed with the four episode miniseries. I know. It does feel like, I mean, it's such a good point you're making. And I do worry that it will seem like such a familiar story type to people that they'll be like, I know what this is. And then, you know, as we know, like as we get on later in the story, it's not quite rashamanic, but it's like kind of like that. You know, there's like there are revelations about how this kind of, this guy's more of a narcissist and a little slightly more diluted than we originally feel like.

He's kind of sympathetic in the first two episodes. Maybe deeply sympathetic. I'm trying to not, I'm trying to see past my own personal experience here. But you can tell there's like, there's something subtle under the surface that is like, this is not to be trusted. There's something in the tone that indicates. But I'm not sure that it's direct enough to communicate to the audience. Like, this isn't exactly what you think it is.

This isn't exactly Woody Allen style dromedy. Right. So I wonder like what level of. retention to use an industry term the show will have. Yeah. And it's, Eisenberg is perfect casting for that reason because, you know, like you mentioned Lex Luthor, I think, you know, an unoriginal thought. His Mark Zuckerberg is one of the best performances we've ever seen on cinema. And his ability to put that sort of sneering anger in a package of a, of a character type we're more familiar being sympathetic to is as really interesting. And

And we're not on a Lex Luthor, Mark Zuckerberg trajectory with this guy in this story. But those notes are there. And that's important. But and we're in these first two episodes, especially, you know, the second episode is called a panic will. Like we're in a panic state because as he's trying to juggle his two kids, his job, and this abrupt and mysterious disappearance and his robust dating life. You know, he's in a in a panic state and in like a froth the whole time. So we're in a froth with him. The way it's shot puts us in that anxiety space with him.

So you don't really have time to question what you're watching or the story you're being told. You know what I mean? Yeah, definitely. And it's, I mean, this is like a genuine struggle for me as someone who wants to be up to date on everything in the popular culture, but only has a limited amount of time. and a show like this, if I were not having this conversation or did not receive a text message from Bill Simmons, it was like,

Fleischman in trouble, it seems like your kind of thing. Check that out. I don't know if I would commit to eight hours of a series like this. And it's like, I know Taffy and I like, I like all the people involved.

It's really just like, how many miniseries can one man watch in a year while also watching 600 films? There's just not that many. And so like, Like, it'll be interesting to talk about kind of what other shows we're watching and what we think would have been better served by these different story types too, because I can love something on paper and still struggle to fire it up because I feel like I've got too many other things to watch at the same time. Not even not even mentioning sports, like trying to watch sports and TV shows and movies. And he listens all the podcasts.

Yeah, it's good. Well, yeah, it's crazy. Anyway. But, I mean, and I'm trying to divorce that side of me. side of me that tries to watch everything, film and television, and especially television, and the side of me that, the part of me that, that thinks so many of these shows should be a little bit shorter, tighten up a little bit, especially like your Netflix binge, which always feels like soggy in the middle, you know, like, is that truly a sort of storytelling idea, or

is that a time management question that I have, you know, my life would be easier if all of these We're just a few hours shorter. I don't know. I don't know how you do it, honestly, because you're completing so many series over time and also recording tremendously long podcasts while doing it. So it's this unusual moment, right? Where all of these corporations that have been funding

all these streaming services, which desperately need all of this content to get more subscribers, to get more people engaged with their streaming service, to get more viewing hours, to hit all of the key metrics. that these companies have set because Wall Street told them that that was what equaled success. That entire concept really has kind of melted away in the last four to five months,

you know, and so we're in this interesting boom time slash depression time. Like it is a simultaneous, it's like a collision of two differing concepts. And so the street has basically abandoned these streamers. Bob Chaefeck, as we're recording this, was literally just booted last night out of his position as Disney CEO by his predecessor, Bob Iger. Byger's back, maybe.

Yes. And Bob Iger, who is the, you know, the executive who got Disney Plus in motion. Disney Plus is, you know, a sister company, I suppose, to Hulu. You know, they're part of a bundle now under the Disney umbrella. And so there's just a ton of stuff to look at every day and say, should I watch this? Should I watch this? And that will continue to be true for about 18 months, I think, just given the kind of modes of production where a lot of stuff has been greenlit.

About two years ago, if you talked to anybody who was a writer in the business, they were like, this is the best time ever because everybody's buying everything. Everything's up for grabs and nothing is in production because of COVID. So it was just a, yeah, I'm sure you know this from talking to people in the industry. And so a lot of that stuff is being made. A lot of that stuff that got bought or it has already been made and is on the shelf and is coming out next year. But the massive slowdown that is happening is also this interesting crux point where

so many fewer shows are going to go into production next year than when it's a production this year. And so on the one hand, it's like, oh, there's too much stuff. Who has time for Fleischman is in trouble? On the other hand, it might be a little bit of a, I don't want to say a wasteland, but it's going to be a quieter outpouring of shows. Chris and Andy had a pretty chilling talk about this on the watch recently. And, you know, Andy's insight on that was pretty fascinating to me. But I think that, you know, speaking of our Lord and Savior of Television, John Landgraf,

like Landgraf for years at the TCA's famously was talking about this concept of peak TV. He sort of coined this phrase. And he's like, the bubble's going to burst. But he's been saying that for a long time. And eventually it had to be like, well, you know, like, yeah, it's my fifth year talking about when the bubble's going to burst. But he's constantly talking about there's more and more and more content, what that means for someone who has to green light a story. And what that means for the consumer sitting down.

And it changes the kind of story that you want to put out there. I have to believe that eventually the bubble's going to burst. And I don't want to go back to like the bare bones monoculture of there's only five or seven shows on. And, you know, I used to watch them all. And so I had a handle on everything. And now it's physically impossible to watch everything. But I think there's a saner middle ground. But let me steer us back to Fleischman and say to go back to this idea of Taffy having written this story,

been in the midst of a bidding war, gotten, you know, the green light on this particular production with her as the showrunner. And that is a really interesting thing. She gave a very self-effacing interview about this to the Atlantic about this idea that she's a first-time novelist magazine and, you know, New York Times writer not experienced, no hands-on experience of television show running a show. She had some great producing partners in Sarah Timberman and Susanna Grant, who both worked on the great miniseries Unbelievable, as well as some justified, which I'll just mention justified any chance I can get. But it's part of this little mini trend I'm seeing where authors like Neil Gaiman, who spent years sort of despairing

over the ways in which his work has been adapted, American Gods being sort of a prime example of a push and pull between author and someone adapting it, has now turned into a showrunner on things like Good Omens and Sandman, Jenny Hahn. did her own adaptation of the summer I turned pretty on Amazon. Again, after seeing to all the, you know, to all the boys I love before her other stuff, be adapted successfully at Netflix. But, you know, this is, this can be great, obviously, and especially if you're the author and you don't have to watch someone else like mingle your work.

Like, this is, this is ideal. This is what you want. But then often I think what happens is, you know, you are going to be very, so less inclined to murder your darlings than an adapter would. So like what do you think of this is, is this a good thing? Is this something to keep our eye on? What do you think, Sean? Well, at the risk of being too cynical, the only other thing you didn't mention is it's just another paycheck too. I mean, it's just more, it's a way to kind of further and deepen your bank account and your career and good on them. Like, that's fantastic. I think if people can get the

opportunity to have creative control and a number of different ways to tell their story, I fully support it. I think it's not without precedent. You know, in the world of film, this has been happening for a long time. I thought of a few people just off the top of my head among the Michael Crichton, who I don't know if many people realize, was a film director in addition to a hugely successful novelist, but he directed a number of movies in the 70s and 80s, some of which are pretty good, honestly. I just watched coma the other day, which was a damn good thriller. William Peter Blatty, the author of The Exorcist, watched William Friedkin, adapt his film and then went on to make a couple of films of his own, including The Exorcist 3 and a really really. good movie called The Ninth Configuration. And Clive Barker, the author and director of Hellraiser, which is one of the best horror

movies of all time. So it's not totally out of the ordinary. TV show running is different from film direction. You're like managing a small company, essentially. So based on what you know, do you think it's easier to make the transition to directing a film as an author or to running a TV show? Are you looking for support in your weight management? journey, Zepbound, Terseptitide, may be able to help. Zepbound is a prescription medicine used with a

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stomach pain or a serious allergic reaction. Severe side effects may include inflamed pancreas or gallbladder problems. Tell your doctor if you experience vision changes before scheduled procedures with anesthesia if you're nursing, pregnant, plan to be, or taking birth control pills. Taking Zep bound with a sulfonel urea or insulin may cause low blood sugar. Side effects include nausea, diarrhea, and vomiting, which can cause dehydration and worsen kidney problems. Talk to your doctor. Call 1-800-545-9779. or visit zepbounds.lily.com. Based on what you know, do you think it's easier to make the transition to directing a film as an author or to running a TV show?

I think a TV showrunner just has exponentially greater numbers of tasks on their desk than a film director. It's not easy to be a film director by any stretch. But just by dint of how long it takes to make that many more hours of a thing, that many more decisions about production design, or location or costuming or whatever. And, you know, not that you're necessarily making every single call, but some showrunners do, you know. And I think it's when you, like, is the author always the best person, you know, Gaman for years, Neil Geman for years has felt like nearly unadaptable to me. And I, and I don't think good omens and Sandman have been, I think, a little bit more successful than some other versions. But I don't think they're like still, I don't think anyone has particularly cracked it, especially when it comes to Gaman and television.

But sometimes the author is not like the most famous example of the author maybe not being the best judge as far as I'm concerned is like Stephen King's feelings about the shining. The shining which is a masterpiece and I think perfectly captures the spirit of his novel and Stephen King famously like hates that adaptation of his book. Also if you've seen maximum overdrive the film he directed, you know, maybe his opinion is not necessarily to be trusted on filmmaking. But yeah. So sometimes the author, and I can completely understand this. I'm very sympathetic to this. Like you want to retain everything. But watching Fleischman and you use the word like flabby, I would say soggy, like there's some

scenes where I'm like, if I'm looking at this with an editor's pen, like this is not advancing my understanding of the story here. And we could just tighten this and roll it along a bit faster, you know? You know what's interesting about this? If this was an ongoing TV series, I think you could make the case that those characters character building sequences or those aspects that feel like they're not pushing the story forward, as you put it, would actually deepen the TV watching experience. I like when an ongoing show does things that are not only propulsive. But most shows that are ongoing are either procedural or they are sort of like solving a big mystery.

And so you don't get the chance to do that. Fleischman is unusual in that it is literally a character study. but it has an endpoint. And so it's sort of at cross purposes where anything that feels like it's deepening the character, you're sort of like, all right, let's get on with it. Like we're trying to get to the end of this show. Whereas if this was a show that had like 65 episodes,

I'd be like, let's luxuriate in the world building of Fleischman's life. And so I think as viewers, we've just been trained to have these different and confusing and sometimes conflicting expectations. And so I don't even know what's the right way to watch a TV show anymore, you know? That's sort of my takeaway from this, is what should I be hoping to get is something that is not propulsive, but deepening my appreciation for the character or only propulsive and getting me to the end?

I think if I think of the ideal example, I have to come back to a show that you and I covered on this very feed, which is Station 11, which I think does take time to luxuriate in character and memory, you know, chiefly, while on a clear. journey to a destination, you know, but that never felt, that always felt electric and surprising and, you know, exciting to me and not, what am I doing here? What am I doing here in the scene? I do want to say that the trio, which is Toby, Libby and Seth, played by Jesse Ismar, Lizzie Kaplan, Adam Brody, I love a hang with them. Anytime those three are on screen together, I'm having a great time. Adam, like, this is the best thing. I love. I love Adam Brody, and this is the best thing I've seen Adam Brody do in a long time, so I just want to shout that out. Like, I really, I love him, you know, he's not playing Seth Cohen, but he's playing a Seth, and he's like, you know, it's very different from Seth Cohen, and it's really good.

So I love those three together. I think they have great chemistry. And so when it turns into like that kind of hang, like I am enjoying myself. And to your point, a conversation that I've had over and over and over with our colleague Alan Seppenwall, who has been covering TV much longer than I have, when talking about the 22 episodes. season, which is what we used to, what we were used to, you know, not that long ago. You know, he and I are big fans of the TV series Lost and the example he always brings up as this episode of Lost where, you know, a couple characters get a VW van running. And it's actually one of the best episodes of the entire series.

And it's exclusively a hang episode with these characters. and he argues when we talk about TV demonstrably changing from the norm being 22 episodes to being 10 to 8 to 6, something like that, that we lose those episodes because there's no time for a story like that where the gang fixes a VW bus, you know? And I think and I think that's interesting. It's just like not everyone can, when I watched, speaking of Lost, when I watch so many of these. shows, especially like a Netflix binge, the model I see it over and over again, and I thought of this while I was watching the new Ryan Johnson film Glass Sunday. You don't need to have seen that. I'm not going to spoil it. But while I was watching it, this Knives Out sequel, I could definitely see the Netflix TV binge version of it where we get the Kate up Hudson episode, the Catherine Hahn episode, the Dave Boutis episode, the Lost model where we're in with a character. We get flashbacks to that character. So many people are aping it. all the time. And to me, it ends up feeling like,

you know, padding. And I, like a glass onion, especially like a, a mystery. Like, I admire,

you know, the Knives Out franchise is not, like, those aren't like perfect films, but they're like perfect little confections. They're fun. They're fun. And the fact that Ryan is telling a two or two and a half hour story

is admirable to me in a, in a world where people, want to just stretch. Do you know? I mean, you know where I stand on this. I just, just give me more movies, especially more movies that are not bound by other stories, you know, I, there's, we're just, we're in a time where serialization, prequelization is as rampant as it as it ever has been, particularly in film. And so it's there, I don't know if, I don't know if it's irony necessarily, but the idea that Fleischman is in trouble as a TV show and Black Panther Wakanda Forever is a movie is deeply confusing to me because Black Panther Wakanda Forever has all of these goals to get to move

the yardstick forward on the story that it's trying to tell you know all of these appearances and the larger universe yeah julia louisrifice's character who you're sort of like what movie is this person supposed to be in it's so confusing yeah and that is taking away from the central story that it's telling but it's because it's you know it's it's necessary sort of of functionally, structurally, maybe even financially, to get all these other characters and all these other stories kind of primed for future installments. Whereas Fleischman is, as you've been saying, feels like, it feels like a movie from 1981, but at eight hours long. And so it's just a very odd time. And I wonder if a generation from now, we will only think of

movies as Wakanda Forever's and we will only think of TV shows as Fleischman's. I'm not totally sure. I mean, I did want to talk about like a few shows that are out this year that in some ways, like, worked better as TV shows and in other ways I would have liked to have seen the movie a version of. I don't know. I feel like I'm not as up on this year in TV as you are. But the show that I kept thinking about as I was watching this show was another, was this just a Hulu show or an FX on was the dropout on just Hulu? Just Hulu. Yeah. It's confusing. The dropout was one of my favorite shows of the year, like pretty by a pretty wide margin. I think the, singular reason for that was just that I think it has like one of the great performances of the year from in Seifred.

And it's a story that I mostly knew all the details to and we haven't really talked to. We've talked about novel adaptation and we've talked about these sort of like ongoing procedural shows or these ongoing mystery shows. We haven't talked about nonfiction and adapt to nonfiction, which is also a tried and true format for, you know, whether it's a lifetime movie or, you know, a Netflix true crime story or what have you. But even though, like, but even though, like, knew exactly where that show was going, I felt comfortable going along for the ride for, I think it was also eight episodes of that show, maybe seven episodes of that show. And that being said, if it were 20 years ago, that definitively would have been a movie. I mean, it might have even been a journalism style movie like she said, which we just saw seen through the eyes of the Wall Street Journal reporter who appears in the film. So I found myself forgiving it for being a part of our modern times. Well, it's interesting because the dropout came in this bizarre trend boom of we crashed and super pumped and the dropout are all dropping at once. So we have these like Silicon

Valley founder stories. And I think the dropout is by far in a way the most successful version of it and watching something like super pumped. The Gess of Gordon-Levett, Uber project that was over on Showtime or We Crash, which is Anne Hathaway and Jared Leto over on Apple doing the Wii work story. Those two, I was like, again, I was thinking again and again and again of the social network. I was like, I would love a movie as good as a social network starring Anne Hathaway and Jared Letto about WeWork. Like those performances were great. Like there's a good story in there. There was just too much story for me to really, for me to really retain it. And the same with super pumped. Like, you know, there's a fun, exciting story about this absolute douchebag.

But do I want to come back and hang out with him every week? No, but the dropout, I'm yeah, maybe just because of Amanda, but or maybe just because of the way it's structured. So I think the answer is there isn't a rule necessarily where like a founder show should be a movie. It's just like, do you have the story there is your character or your central performance compelling enough that I want to come back week to week and spend time with them? Or is it we crashed, you know? Yeah. You know what's really notable about that too? obviously,

Coplman and Levine, you know, are friends of the ringer and had success with a show on Showtime. But previous to that, they were movie writers. You know,

they wrote, they've written many, many, many, movie scripts. And the same goes for, um, for Requa and Ficarra

who wrote, We crashed. You know, those guys, they really, um, knew, they know how to write movies.

And the dropout is Liz Maryweather. And her providence is TV. Yeah. And I think that there's a reason that that show and the structure of that show worked better as the TV show. It felt like someone who really knew how to make a TV show. Now, the dropout was a kind of pivot away from the kinds of shows that Mary Reather had written before. But pacing and performance and all those things that are so important

to a TV show, like a characterization on TV is just different from movie acting. They're two different forms. They're two different sounds and there's there are two different expressions. So I'm not surprised that that show worked better. You're right that it kind of, I don't, it didn't necessarily get lost because I think a lot of people walked away feeling like the dropout was the super version of that story. But it was earlier in this year. And it was a notable version of something that just clearly would have been at worst, TV movie and at best, like a high grade prestige Oscar film in a different time.

Well, I mean, let's talk about this sort of people who are familiar making television versus people who are familiar making films. And again, that when we think about Fleischman, we think about Taffy novelist and a bunch of film directors. And then, yeah, you have other producers who have worked in television. but like let's go back to your Disney example. You mentioned what caught it forever. I think the Disney Plus narrative is really important for this because I think a lot of the Marvel and Lucasfilm shows that we're seeing, a lot of us would agree this should have just been a movie, right?

If it exists at all, it should have just been a movie. And a lot of them, especially a book of Bobfet and Obi-Wan, were supposed to be movies before they became content for Disney Plus. Marvel is in this interesting position where they're using Disney Plus a lot to test as test cases for various characters. And so something like Moon Knight, the Oscar Isaac joint is something that I think probably would have been a more successful television show. They're experimenting with this idea of the special presentation, which is how they did Whirl Fight Night, Michael Jekino's sort of directorial, long-form directorial debut, floating that character play. by Gail Garcia-Barnal. So Disney Plus is in flux, but what we're in the midst of right now is we're recording

this is the tail end of Andor, which a lot of us love, I think is an incredible example of what Disney Plus could do TV programming-wise. But even inside that show, I think there's a difference between when you have someone who came up so strongly in TV, the way that Toby Haynes, who directed, if you're watching and or there was a prison mini arc that's three episodes. Incredible astonishing stuff. Six, seven, and eight, or sorry, no. Eight, nine, and ten of this 12 episode season.

And Toby, who's worked on Doctor Who and Black Mirror and Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, like all this TV stuff, he's a TV guy and he has talked about how all of those episodes end with such a strong, what is known in the industry. is an act out, meaning here we go, this is the end of an episode. And as we talk about this blur between TV and film, when showrunners say, oh, we're just making a six-hour movie, we're making an eight-hour movie, you've got, you're watching it in a binge, you've got these like tour directors directing the whole season. So how does that not feel like a film in some way? Someone like Toby is thinking of it in a TV mind and there's something so thrilling of an episode

of Andor ending with, you know, Andy Circus saying never more than 12 and then we're just like jazzed up and excited to tune in next week. So that's a lot that I just rambled through. But like in terms of the larger Disney Plus case and and or specifically, like what are some of your thoughts on? I mean, and or just feels to me like an old fashioned miniseries. You know, it doesn't feel like a TV show because of the way that the those act that sort of don't exist in. a handful of the episodes. I mean, it's been noted many times that many episodes just kind of end on a line of dialogue that indicates that something is coming, but that it's not the kind of cliffhanger

or the portentous intensity that we're used to at the end of TV. And so, you know, Gilroy himself has indicated, like, watch these three at a time, you know, like, that's so unusual to hear a showrunner say something like that. But they're structured that way. You know, they're structured in slightly more, they're more like plays than they are like a TV show or even a film. And it's it's highly unusual. It's in stark contrast, I think, to the entire Marvel and in some cases, Star Wars TV Enterprise. I mean, I would say that five, sixths of the Marvel TV shows have just been for me personally,

just deeply unsuccessful. And I think it's fascinating that last month or a month or two ago, it was announced that Armor Wars, which was being developed as a TV show, which is the sort of war machine spin off of the Iron Man franchise, is now back to being a movie. You know, Nate Moore was on the town podcast. the Marvel producer extraordinaire, talking about why they made that transition. And I think you can read between the lines of that,

that interview as well. You know, Nate said that there were certain things that they wanted to do creatively in terms of how that show would look with armor that they couldn't accomplish on a TV show. So what does that tell you? The TV shows have smaller budgets and they're not as important creatively as films.

And also, frankly, the film's business is still really, really strong for Marvel. And I wonder if deprioritizing the show is something that will happen as Disney Plus has a reset, as Iger comes in, there is a lot of tea leaf reading to be done there. And it's well known now that a lot of the Marvel films have not looked as good as they should. A lot of the TV shows look even worse. There's a huge crunch. And if they're making it a priority to make those things look better, in a way that Andor doesn't have to worry about because Andor is so grounded. And I think that's one of the reasons why it's

not getting dinged every week the way that a lot of these other Disney Plus shows get dinged is when you're making a spectacle, it has to look like a spectacle. But when you're making a, you know, boots on the ground story as and or is, and you have great storytellers, it's much more achievable. TV is not, until Game of Thrones came along, it was not really the home of spectacle. And so there is this complicated thing with what we expect from our TV shows. I felt this as I watched House of the Dragon, not to go too far on a tangent, but I was like, this just shouldn't be a dragon show. Like it's too interested in getting a dragon scene in nine of its ten episodes. And I don't, that's not what I watched the show for. And I, I think it was a slight miscalculation in terms of

what people are watching the show for personally. And I hope that they don't spend too much time trying to tell those spectacle stories because what we care about is the characters. Andor, it cares about its characters and it cares about its world. That's one of the reasons why it's working so well. Yes. And I think it's interesting to just, again, even inside of Andor, to watch those first three episodes of the show, and you could watch, and they encouraged you to watch it as a movie. It was a three-hour premiere.

Watch all these three episodes. This is your movie. Then we're getting it in. But I still think that three-episode arc in the Narcina, the prison storyline, like those just feel like episodes distinct, discreet episodes of television to me. And so, you know, within one project to see that range.

And the Iger tea leaf reading, like, the Iger tea leaf reading is so fascinating to me, because it's Eiger who said, we're going to do Disney Plus. We need all this content, right? Cheapick takes over. What we see, we're seeing the brands, the brands suffer in a certain way. Marvel's still making a ton of money, obviously. But it's diluting the brand to put out so much content, not all of which is up to snuff.

Right. So yes, in my ideal world, I've always been saying, I've always been saying for the last couple of years since Disney Plus started, do less Marvel and do it better. Let's, you know, you and I have covered the Marvel movies. This is not a Marvel movie podcast. We can move on. All right. Sorry, so my ring reverse instinct is getting the better. It's all related, though. I mean, it may not seem like it's related to Fleischman is in trouble, but it is related because what is television is the constant question that we are asking ourselves and movies spent 10 years figuring out how to be TV. And so now TV is figuring out how to be a movie. And so these things matter to each other. What's your white lotus take in terms of like season one versus season two? Does this feel like something that is definitely a TV show? Does this feel like something that could be a movie? What do you think?

It's my favorite show right now by far. But the reason it is is because I'm experiencing it the way that you might experience like an old Peter Sellers Pink Panther movie. You know, where it's like it's kind of frivolous. it's definitely made by really smart people. There's a kind of silliness to the stakes. And it's exotic. We're going somewhere new.

We're entering a new locale. And it's simultaneously celebrating and undermining that locale and the people that are occupying the space. So I dig it. I almost don't, to me, it's like having coffee with a good friend. It's not like watching a TV show. You know, I just, I don't love every character on this season and I didn't love every character on the first season. But the characters I do love, I really love. I really just like being around the quartet of Aubrey Plaza and her husband and Theo James and his wife.

And like they, that part of the show is just candy to me. But like I only have that relationship with a handful of shows on TV. I think it could be to my point about Pink Panther, it could be a movie. But I like the hang. Yeah. You know? And who lives and dies is not why I'm watching the show. And I think the show knows that about itself too.

It's sort of like the death is an entry point to get to lure viewers in, but it's not really a mystery. You know, it's something lower stakes in that. Something I bring up sometimes is at TCA several years ago, Roberto Aguirsacasa, who is a showrunner on Riverdale and Sabrina and like, you know, head of Archie comics and stuff like that was shopping an Archie show, an Archie comic show. And nobody wanted it. And then someone said to him, why don't you put a dead body in it? And then all of a sudden he like winds up pitching this like David Lynchian twist on Archie Com, he was just trying to pitch a wholesome straightforward Archie Comic.

And then he winds up with whatever Riverdale is. But it, but it was this idea that was running through TV pitches at the time and is still pervasive of you need a mystery, you need a dead body, you need a theory show, you need to get the Reddit detectives pouring over your show. And so that's very much what the dead bodies and White Lotus feel like to me. Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, I'm just going to run through a few shows that came out this year that I think could

have been better served as films. Okay. The show series makes about, you know, the porn magazine industry. I liked the show fine. I think it could have been a really solid movie. Dark Winds, which I think Chris and Andy really liked even better than I did, but this is an AMC adaptation of Tony Hillerman story. And it's a show that I, with an incredible cast, Sonne McLarnan could do no wrong by my book.

But it's one that just sort of dropped off a cliff for me, like four episodes in. And I'm like, what if this had been a film? And not only that, but like a beginning of many films about this detective duo. I would love that. The Essex Serpent, speaking of Claire Daines. This was a Tom Hiddleston, Claire Daines, join over on Apple TV Plus, another adaptation, and just lost in the muddy quagmire of the world that it was trying to give us. The English, a very recent, just this last week, Emily Blunt project over on Amazon, would have been a fantastic film. and it just feels a little loose as it exists.

Pam and Tommy under the banner of heaven, another adaptation. Shining Girls is a little loose moss, a project that got really lost on Apple TV Plus, which I think is a shame because, again, it's a great, an actress we love, a great performance. Angeline, speaking of that sort of biopic, you know, real true story question that you had, a great Emmy Rossum performance that, again, feels like it didn't. get the attention it deserved. I already mentioned We Crash Gaslit. Julia Roberts and Sean Penn in this incredible

Watergate story, a cast of thousands. There was so much to love in that. And again, it felt lost on stars in general and lost because it just kind of petered out over the weeks. And then the after part, the after party I feel a little

mixed on. That was a fun hang on Apple TV Plus, but it could have been like a really tight movie. Like, I know you didn't watch all of that because that's not your job, you're watching movies, but like, did any of those stick out to you? I watched some of those shows. I mean, Gaslit in particular, I was like, this is operating at a really, really high level, and no one cares because no one watches stars.

Like, in addition to the star power, which is very deep on that show, it's really well made. Is it Matt Ross? I think it's Matt Ross. It was great. Yeah, it was really, really good. I mean, obviously, a lot of people know that story. There may not be as many revelations there, but that's, that was to me a signature. We got way too much stuff thing.

Like there's just people not even being aware of that. Actually, you mentioned the English. It's screener season for those of us who receive a movie and TV screening screeners for voting purposes. And I received a screener of the English on Friday. And I was like, I don't know what this is. I've never heard of this. And it stars Emily Blunt, who is one of my favorite movie stars. So, I mean, that's partially on me, but it's also partially on the deluge that is happening right now.

I haven't even fired it up. So I can't even weigh in on your ask. I mean, I like Dark Winds too. I really struggled with Pam and Tommy. Pam and Tommy, to me, was a movie. Like, it clearly should have been a two-hour and nine-minute movie and was so, so, so-stretched. Another show that featured, I thought, pretty terrific performances, and its tone would have made a lot more sense in a movie.

I think that the sort of, like, tongue-in-cheek, absurd, but also quite serious story, is really hard to pull off. It's sort of slightly satirical, slightly sincere. mode and it's Craig Gillespie who has done this before you know who did it in I Tonya like yeah that it can be done in a movie format but in a TV show it really loses me because at a certain point the audience starts to think like why am I here like why am I supposed to care about this like it doesn't have the same propulsion that you need for a TV show so um I don't know I mean I just wish most of this stuff of those movies but that's

really my problem okay so let's talk about let's talk about if you if you Sean fantasy in all your spare time were to write your Your debut novel. Oh, my God. Weaponizing your skills. I do you know I don't have 10 novels in the drawer. Okay, well, get one published and then it's optioning time. I have zero novels in the drawer.

You mentioned, you raised a specter, she said. This is sort of this crushing example of, you know, a well-cast, brilliant movie that opened to dismal box office. Very bad. Very bad. And there's, you know, there's been a lot. lot of like spooky chatter over the years and specifically around this movie of does anyone care about the Oscar movie anymore. This is the conversation you and I had a lot last year. You and Amanda are constantly having. Quentin Tarantino famed film drafter of Big Pick fame.

Like famously a movie guy. The new Beverly exists because Tarantino is such a movie guy is coming in television. So Sean, if you pull out one of those novels, it's definitely in the drawer right now. Where are you going to get the most eyeballs? Are you going to want to make a TV show because it feels like a better chance to get people to actually watch it or are you going to want to make a movie? Well, fortunately for me, my debut novel is called Armor Wars. It's about a roadie war machine and the way that he carries on the legacy of Tony Stark.

So I'm really excited to bring that to the big screen next year. Yeah, but you need the full movie budget for those suits. I mean, look, the thing, the truth is that there's always been, the lines have not been as stark historically. Quentin Tarantino has directed episodes of CSI and ER. Quintranteal, you know that episode of ER, by the way. It's an amazing episode. And he loves TV, and he knows more about TV and TV movies than people will ever think he is. There's a reason that the Leonardo DiCaprio series, the Rick Dalton series, is so note perfect in once upon a time in Hollywood, Bounty Law, because he knows the mechanics of TV.

as well as movies. I think for him, we can speculate. Is it because he doesn't want to make that 10th movie? Is it because he's got a great idea for a TV show? He told me the idea. It's a very exciting idea. I can't wait to watch it. Uh, you know, we'll see what format it takes. We'll see how long it is. Who knows? I'm not really sure what that what to make of that. As far

as what I would do, I mean, I really like movies. I, I just think that there's a much more satisfying emotional impact that a two to three hours sit down can give you. And, I'd like to see more of it. The she said story is slightly different. I think there are a variety of reasons why that film didn't succeed at the box office.

I mean, one of them is opening one week after Black Panther Wakanda forever. I think there was a thought that there could be some counter programming there. You know, I was driving to the office last week when I drove past the poster to the film right before I was going to record our big picture episode with Brian Curtis and Amanda. And, you know, the poster is just the silhouette of a woman's face. And the title and, you know, saying like, will you go on the record was the, is the tagline? To a common audience, I'm not sure what that's supposed to communicate. I don't know what the lore is there necessarily. I think it's a very hard film to market.

And so I don't blame them for having some struggles with it. But the implication that it is like all the president's men, I think really holds it back in a lot of ways. It's a different kind of a story. And also the way the journalism is done in 2022 is significantly different than how it was done in 1972. And so it's frankly less cinematic. It's a lot of being on your phone and on your computer. And that's not very interesting.

And it's very hard to make that exciting. And there's just not strong word of mouth about the movie because the movie is, it's a bummer movie. I mean, there's not a rousing conclusion to the film. But then like what's, I mean, is,

was spotlight long enough ago that, you know, a film that features long sequences of people just pouring over ledgers, movie stars, pouring over ledgers with a ruler to try to like crack a case. Are we that far removed from that being excited cinema, you know? I think there's a couple of factors. One of the reasons why Spotlight is not one of my favorites that I, like, when we did

a top 10 with Brian, I think it's a very, very good movie. I'm not, I'm not trying to criticize it. But it's not in my personal pantheon. It's because it's a little histrionic. And it feels a little inaccurate to what it's like to be in a newsroom, even in a high-stakes story. She said is actually very accurate, tonally speaking to what it's like to work on a story,

which is to say, it takes a long time, it's kind of dull at times. You know, it's very procedural. And so spotlight, but that serves a movie when you have big scenes of people

yelling at each other in newsrooms. And it, so it's satisfying in that way. It also was released in a time when a movie like that had a much greater chance to succeed. And also, frankly, it has much bigger stars in it.

You know, that's a movie with Michael Keaton and Rachel McAdams and Mark Ruffalo, This is nothing against Carrie Mulligan and Zoe Kazan, but they have never been box office stars ever in their careers. And so the movie is not even being sold on the strength of its movie stars. I don't, I think the other thing is that you could make the case that it was not positioned well as an awards film.

And that there is a way to do that and it wasn't really done that way, which is to say it could have been sneak peeked in four theaters over time and they could have generated buzz in a slightly different way. I'm not an expert at that. I don't necessarily know how to do that perfectly. But rolling a movie like that out wide to a mass audience one week after the biggest movie of the year is pretty risky. And it didn't work. The bottom line is this.

Sean and I both love movies. And a thing that I really love about movies in a movie theater more than anything is that it forces you in an ideal world to put your phone away and not second screen your experience with this story. And really just like let yourself. you know, be taken by the story. And it's a communal experience as well. Be in a dark room, you know, let yourself be taken away. I was, when thinking about Fleischman and this question, I was thinking about the way in which certain movies of this sort of level, like a recent example is to gather together, the Ed Helms film that was a hit at Sundance that I absolutely loved and I think about all the time.

And that's, that's a story that could have been a TV show if you wanted to, but they told it beautifully in the span of a film. And I think about it all the time because it was just pure concentrated story in a way that I loved. And in a way that I know that some of the edges of these longer shows are just going to blur and vanish for me, super pumped, we crashed. Like, I have vague memories now of, of having consumed and watched those shows. but if it's just two hours of a strong story that's a different thing.

Sean and I love movies. We also love television and I really love the communal aspect of watching something especially week to week. I love something like that. I would not trade and or the experience of watching and or week to week with everyone for Tony Gilroy to have made another great Star Wars film. You know what I mean? So like these two mediums are very important to us, maybe film a little bit more to Sean. and I think you just need to be careful and thoughtful about what story you tell in which medium because they're not the same and I think that's that's that's my my bottom line a TV's not a film and a

film is not a TV and I feel like a lot of people forget that so you know I just want to say that the show that I'm most looking forward to next is called George and Tammy it's a adaptation of the George Jones and Tammy Manette story and it stars Jessica Chastena and Michael Shannon's coming Showtime six episodes. And it is the kind of thing. It's directed by John Hillcote and produced by Abe Sylvia, who just did The Eyes of Tammy Fay, John Hillcote, director of Lawless

among other movies. This is just the movie. It's just a movie in a TV package. It's all people who are in movies. Michael Shannon and Jessica Chastain, they're movie stars. It's a movie director. It's like people have just moved over to that format. And so I think we have to accept

that. I have accepted it, but I'm also mad, but I'm also accepting it. I appreciate you guiding me through it on this show on a regular basis. I feel like your insight makes me feel a little more sane when I watch some of these shows. Okay. Thank you.

Last thing before we go. Fleischman endorsing that as a watcher now. Yeah, I like it. I like it. I definitely will finish it. And I think it's very well made. It is, it's just an odd duck. Yeah.

You know, it really is, I still can't think of a single thing that really feels quite like it. And frankly, maybe that's a compliment to it. I have watched all the episodes now. I agree. I think it's worth the ride. There's some incredible performances in there. Absolutely great weaponization of the thing that Claire Daines does best, honestly, in this.

She's dynamite. I definitely recommend you go through this whole journey. I don't usually recommend a binge, but maybe like a way a little bit and binge some of it. Because, again, I don't know that these first two episodes are representative of the whole journey you're going to go on. And I watched four in a row and I liked it that way. Yeah. Yeah. That's a good way to do it, I think.

Hang out on this feed for more content coming up as it just never stops. More White Lotus from Bill Simmons is your truly. I believe there's going to be some Yellowstone coverage, some sex life of college girls. Like, you know, we're doing it here in the Press TV podcast feed. Sean, thank you so much for joining me. Thanks so much to Twilight Farkis for producing this episode, and we'll see you soon. Bye.