The Watch - ‘Baby Reindeer,’ ‘Sugar,’ and This Maybe Era of “Mid TV”

Episode Date: April 29, 2024

Andy is joined by Joanna Robinson to discuss a New York Times article published last week declaring that we’re in the midst of an era of “mid TV” with shows like ‘Mr. and Mrs. Smith’ and ‘Hijack’ (11:42). Then, they talk about the new Netflix hit ‘Baby Reindeer’ in relation to that article (39:36), before discussing episodes 2-5 of ‘Sugar’ and why it should have worked when unfortunately it doesn't (50:44). Read the New York Times piece here. Host: Andy Greenwald Guest: Joanna Robinson Producer: Kaya McMullen Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What is going on with Kate Middleton? Which cult is popping off right now? What the hell is a trad wife? And why are we so obsessed with them? I'm Jody Walker. And I'm Chelsea Stark Jones. And we're obsessed. Obsessed with all the pop culture happenings,

filling our group chats and for you pages. And we want to talk about them with you. Our new show, We're Obsessed, is for all the things we're loving, buying, watching, listening to, and spiraling over right now. Follow the ringer-dish feed on Spotify to listen to We're Obsessed every Friday. Did you know about one and three people with plaques psoriasis may also develop psoriotic arthritis, which causes joint pain, stiffness, and swelling?

Does this sound like you? Listen to what it sounds like to be a million miles away. Trimphaya, gusalcumab, taken by injection, is a prescription medicine for adults with moderate to severe plaques who may benefit from taking injections or pills or phototherapy and for adults with active psoriotic arthritis. Serious allergic reactions and increased risk of infections and liver problems may occur. Before treatment, your doctor should check you for infections in tuberculosis. Tell your doctor if you have an infection, flu-like symptoms, or if you need a vaccine. Imagine being a million miles away. Explore what's possible. Ask your doctor about Trimphaya.

Tap this ad to learn more about Trimphia. including important safety information. This episode is brought to you by Brooks. Running connects us to a rush of energy that flows through our world. The cheers of friends that unlock a new gear within us, the intersection of interest that inspires a run crew, the support that gets you over the finish line.

Connection is why we move forward and what inspires us to keep going. Let's run there. Learn more at brooksrunning.com. I need supports to have to clear the run. Stand up. And walk now. Hello and welcome to The Watch.

My name is Andy Greenwald. As you know, by now, I have no official designation at the watch, which means this is a free for all today, people. Chris is abroad, but thank goodness, Kai and McMullen is back in the studio with me. Hello, I'm back. My body content is about 80% tacos, tequila and lime juice, but I am here. That's a winning, if spicy combination. Thrill to have you.

Thank you. So we have some admin to discuss the top of the show. Great. The great Joanna Robinson is joining us shortly, and we are going to be talking all things television, of course. We're going to be talking about sugar because Chris isn't here to stop me. We're going to be talking about the baby reindeer phenomenon. Okay, yes. Netflix. And we are going to be talking about maybe as an umbrella to all of it, another fascinating heat rock from the New York Times, which declared this the era of mid TV. Ouch. We have thoughts. Okay. Yeah. We have thoughts. Great. This is Jim Panozoic, who is already very fired up about sticking landings. And now he's coming for the... That's the thing you know a thing or two about. I purport to, or at least I did for 10 episodes that we recorded quite some time ago and hopefully we'll record again soon. But first, some admin. So as we alluded to last week, Chris is gone. Chris is basically the advanced scout team. Yes. To Scandinavia. I will be joining him. I know that he is having a wonderful. wonderful time. He visited the Monk Museum. Ooh. I know that he... Do you know this about Chris?

That Chris is... Chris talks a lot about how good he is in Europe. Yeah, no, that's kind of like his brand that he's like really good in Europe. You and I agree, we also have seen some moments of weakness, like when he tried to zoom into our succession finale, whilst walking the streets of Paris on his phone. Unfortunately, that ran into a few technical issues. But I have to say, I am generally in awe of him because already I've gotten a few picks from the North And he does not look like Alexander Scarsguard, but it's an incredible look. So he's wearing the parka. Oh, wow. He generally has a pint near him. But he's not a lad. He's like looking for tapas bars and going to

museums. That sounds like an ideal vacation lifestyle to me. I'm not going to be able to match that for any number of reasons. One of which being, and I'm just going to lay down the marker here, the reason, if you hadn't heard us say this, the reason we're going to Norway is that we are, thrilled, we were invited to be speakers at the Nordic Media Days Conference. The famous Nordic Media Days conference. We've been assured, this is Scandinavia's largest media conference because the watch wouldn't travel for like the second largest. What's going to be interesting about our time on stage on Thursday is that Chris is just, he's already gone native. He's going to be adjusted.

Yes. Your boy will be crashing in the night before he has to be on stage in front of 2,000 people, which I think in, in best case scenario will add a spicy dynamic. Yeah. You know, Andy, something I've learned about you over the years is that there have been many a time where you've come into the student and you're like, oh, my God, no sleep. Yes. I'm recovering from a cold. The kids are all sick.

The kids are sick. The kids are sick a lot. Constantly. One of them has a cold right now. Which I'm like, what are you doing? It's spring. Quarantine them. For real, though.

And sometimes that's when you do your best work. Thank you. I need this. I believe in you. This is above and beyond because you're just coming back from vacation. You have a busy day to day. And so the fact that you have to give me affirmations, that's not your job, but I appreciate it. I think we're going to have a good time. I hope we see some people there. You know, one of our podcast heroes, Tony Gilroy is going to be there? Oh, exciting. Yeah. Love it. I mean, is Chris having dinner with Tony the night before when I'm still on the plane? Maybe. Are you feeling a little fomo? Is that the problem? What is, no, have you heard of foo? No. Fear of freaking out. That's what I carry at low levels throughout. I think it's going to be great.

But because of this travel, here's what's happening. Right. We're talking to Joe today. Yep. On Thursday, we are running a podcast that you, you know, I'm telling you about it because you were away. I know. I need this as much as all the listeners do. So thank you.

Chris and I had an amazing, dare I say, kind of inspirational conversation with one of our screenwriting heroes Scott Frank on Thursday. If you didn't hear me say it last week, I'll say it again. Please listen to this, even if you did not watch Monsieur Spade on AMC. We talk about much more than that, and I think it's incredible insight into his career and what's going on in Hollywood right now. So that's running Thursday. Monday, there's no show. Nothing. Unless you just want to take this mic and just monologue about below deck or other shows we've been ignoring. I'm very much okay to not do that. There will be no episode of the watch podcast on Monday. will return with a fresh episode from whatever time zone our brains and bodies are existing in

the following Friday. Great. This is great, too, because by the way, this is news to Kayakia. I know. Yeah. I'm like, wait, Friday. We don't publish on Fridays, but yeah, sure, Friday. You go away for a few days.

Things get crazy. Okay, so while you were away, did you, is there anything you caught up on or indulged in that we should be covering on this show? No. Because I went off on Top Chef last week. need to spoil it and you maybe are behind. Actually, I caught up on Top Chef yesterday when I returned from my travels, Top Chef, in about five other hours of reality TV shows.

That's kind of where you were at. Yes, exactly. That was about the level my brain could handle. And then the only television I consumed while I was on vacation was about maybe 45 minutes of the Ashton Coucher Natalie Portman movie, No Strings Attached. Did you lose a bet? What was the scenario? No, it just happened to be on cable in my hotel room.

Oh, you turned to, okay. I thought you sought it out. No, no, no. I just put it, you know, I love one thing that I really love to do when I go on vacation and happen to be staying in a hotel that has a TV is indulge in some cable television. Just turn it on. Yeah, just turn it on, see what's going, and just drop in for a bit. It's a designation we've never really officially created, but makes sense that there is some

In all of the content, we used to call them movies and TV shows, of the last 80 years, 100 years almost, I think all of it can be divided into a binary of active content or passive content. Yeah, yeah. I don't think anyone, even people related to the crew or people who worked on the movie, have ever actively sought out no strings attached, starring Asson Coucher. You know Greta Gerwig's in that movie? See, now I'm interested. Okay. Greta Gerwig is a paragon of active content. watch friend Jake Johnson.

Listen to me. What a jerk. Here's the thing. You know how Netflix will take, like, if zone of interest ever went to Netflix, they would take the one frame of someone in a garden laughing, and that would be the image. And I'd be like, I'm interested in this zone. Like, that's how they're so good at that.

So what would be the next level of that would be putting no strings attached on Netflix, or hell, on criterion. Sure. With a picture of Jake Johnson and Greta Gerwig. There you go. I would, I would fave that so fast. Also, excuse me, I did also watch two plain movies. Thank you.

Anyone but you? That was the Sydney-Sweeney Glenn Powell Romcom that did, like, really well. It did big business. Because they tricked everyone. They did. They tricked everyone because that movie is bad. And then I watched maybe 15 minutes of the new mean girls. Before I was like, you know what I wish I was watching instead?

Mean girls? The old Mean Girls. My older daughter is absolutely adamant that I watch that on this trip I'm about to go on. That I download it. She wants me in, but she warned me about two things. Yes. She warned me that there's some inappropriate content. I don't know if she meant for her or for me.

And then she said there's also kissing in it. Maybe that is the inappropriate content. I'm nervous about watching it on a plane with other people. How do you feel about movie musicals? I'm generally pro. Okay. Well, I'm pro movies, despite my reputation, and I'm pro musicals. I think they sometimes don't always, they don't always work.

Yeah. Do you feel like you would have liked the Mean Girls musical in theory if you had been sitting in a Broadway theater? Yes. Yes, I do. I'm just not, I'm not a big movie musical person, and so I think that's what turned me off of it. Because I felt like every time it started to get going, they would break into song. Did you see the clip that was viral on social or whatever of like someone turned their kid? You shouldn't do this children, but someone turned on their phone camera in a movie theater and recorded the sound that the audience made when the audience realized it was a musical because I guess successfully it was not marketed. People thought it was just a reboot or remake of Mean Girls.

Right. And so there's a moment where it's just like comedy and then suddenly there's an internal monologue turns into an internal song and like deep. incomfortable laughter washed over the theater like a wave. That's, yeah, that was about my reaction as well. Oh, so, okay. See, because I was ready to, as a hashtag old guy, I was like, this is the problem with the younger generation. They don't appreciate the tradition of movie musicals, but you are not ignorant of that. You knew what you were getting into. Yeah, I knew full and well. It was a musical going in, but then I, I guess I underestimated my

tolerance for said. Okay. I appreciate that. Well, I guess I'll open myself up to this, like if there's any airplane movies that people think I should watch, I have some long-ass flights, especially the one home. I also, as I've been saying to you before we were recording, I am adopting the Chris Ryan household time-shifting app, and I've figured out that the goal of this app is to make you feel awful all the time so that when you are jet-lagged, you don't notice it. Yeah, you're like, all right, well, this is how I've been feeling already. Because this app is like, are you on the plane? You should be asleep already. It's like, do not eat.

Do not raise your windscreen. But then it says, like, five hours into the flight, bathe yourself in light. Okay. I'm like, other people are on the plane. Yeah, I was going to say, I'm not sure how your fellow passengers would feel like that. They're not going to be happy about it because they're just living their lives. Do I sound worked up? You're going to be okay.

I think I'm going to be okay. Thank you. Kyle, you produce more than the podcast. You produce a calm sensation in the people around you. So, okay, we are going to get into. to my conversation with Joanna. We're going to bring her in, and we're going to talk about all those fun things

we just into that. So let's find Joanna. Let's do it. The playoffs are here, and you can predict the action all the way to the finals with Fandual Predicts. Follow all the playoff dishes,

swishes, wishes, and misses. Predict the spread, the total points, and even the game winner. Sign up for Fandual Predicts and predict it from the couch. Offered by Fandual Prediction

Markets LLC, a registered futures commission merchant. 18 plus. Trading derivatives involve significant risk and may not be suitable for all investors. Manage your activity with our consumer protection tools. This episode is brought to you by Amazon Prime. Ever have a plan come together out of nowhere and realize you're missing something? Like a last minute beach day, a spontaneous hike or an outdoor movie night you didn't plan for. That's when Prime's same day delivery as you're back. Getting you exactly what you need fast and reliably so you can actually join the moment.

instead of watching from the sidelines. Same day delivery, it's on Prime. Visit Amazon.com slash Prime to find millions of items delivered fast, available in select areas. Terms apply. This episode is brought to you by the Active Cash Credit Card from Wells Fargo.

That's a mouthful, but that's because it packs a lot in. Earn unlimited 2% cash rewards on purchases with it, big or small. So whether it's buying tickets at the game or grabbing a coffee, it earns unlimited 2% cash rewards on purchases. Say it with me,

the active cash credit card from Wells Fargo, be a two-percenter. Learn more at Wells Fargo.com forward slash active cash terms apply. Okay, coming back, we are joined by the best friend, the best colleague, the best co-podcaster this podcaster this podcast has, outside of, of course, Chris, who is frankly in Europe and thus dead to me. Joanna Robinson, welcome back to the watch. Suck it Chris Ryan. Seriously. For decades of friendship or nothing on me actually being here. What have you done for me lately is how I've done.

live my life. And he just sent me a picture of a meal he's enjoying in Oslo. So forget it. Forget it forever. The great work of television goes on, whether he's here or not. How are you? Delighted and thrilled, as always as you. We got to see each other in person last week. Was that when that happened? Yes, there was a big IRL-ringer podcast thing happening that I only was tangentially. I went to get a coffee and ran into a lot of smiling faces that I'd never seen in person. Yeah. It was a time. We had a time. Do you feel like now we're four years on from the beginning of the pandemic, like by year five, will we like normalize? Why don't we all get together in real life? Like 2025 Ringer Podcast Summit. Slow down, Andy. Listen. We're all just slowly integrating back into society. Fair. Me passing you in the courtyard with coffee in hand was was a lot. It wasn't just coffee in hand. It was Rob. Mahoney in pocket, too. I was like, this guy. Yeah. Also, everyone was taller than me. The Presti's squad was in full force. I feel like, yeah, I was mostly like, and I know other people have talked about the sneaky tall guy, but like Rob Mahoney, I feel like people who talk about basketball,

generally it's like the gym teacher corollary. You know what I mean? I'm like he can't, like, he definitely couldn't play above the rim, but this guy could. Rob Mahoney is so tall that I have to carry my neck to look up at him and that rarely happens to me because I also am tall. I was starstruck. So here's the thing. We're going to talk about a couple shows specifically, hopefully not too spoilery, although a little bit.

We were going to talk at some point in this conversation. We're going to get to baby reindeer, which is an unexpected Netflix phenomenon. I don't think either of us have watched too deeply in the show, but we want to talk about it. Also, what's the opposite of a passion project now? Sugar on Apple TV. Your hate watch? Are you hate watching? Is that the word? I mean, I learned from someone who, for the sake of this podcast, I'll refer to as my therapist,

that hatred and love are really like two sides of the same thing because you're worked up about it regardless. Yeah. So I am impassioned, but I think it comes from the fact that I loved the pilot so much, and now I'm angry. So we are going to touch on those shows with some specificity. But I wanted to begin in this podcast most popular, when we're not talking about Kids TV, We are the ombudsman of elite coastal media. And I wanted to talk about something that ran in The Grey Lady this weekend, an article in the New York Times called The Comfortable Problem of Mid-TV.

And this is, the Times is very good TV critic. Jim Pony Wozik wrote this piece. And I will quote from it. And then we can get into it. So he's basically describing a bunch of contemporary shows. And he says, what we have now is a profusion of well-cast, sleekly produced competence. We have tasteful remakes of familiar titles.

We have the evidence of healthy budgets spent on impressive locations. We have good enough new shows that resemble great old ones. We have entered the golden age of mid-TV. And as part of his argument, he basically begins by saying, Atlanta and Penn 15 were groundbreaking and compelling and rich, and the stars of those shows this year made Mr. and Mrs. Smith, which in his mind is fine. I happen to disagree. I thought that show was exceptional and is on my top five for the year for sure. But that's his construction. That's his framing. What was your reaction when you read this piece?

It's one of those thing pieces that sort of really taps a vein and beautifully articulate something that I think we've all been talking around for a while. and, you know, Jim has always been good at this particular kind of take, but... Particularly when he's talking about sticking the landing. But I think that like the, just the phrase mid-TV in relation to peak TV as a way to describe sort of what is going on in television right now, I just was furiously nodding my head along. I don't call the New York Times the Grey Lady of a Monday, but I do enjoy. think piece. And I think that I don't know how much this story matters to the average TV viewer. I think it will hit harder with people who cover television than anyone else. And he acknowledges that in the piece.

But I do think it is of interest to your listenership, which are people who not only enjoy good television, but enjoy thinking about the business of television. No, I mean, I came at this from two minds. I think that big picture, like, let's reset our brains to our previous jobs when we wrote four places full time instead of talking about things. This is a very, very, as he always does, this is a very, very smart framing. This is a getting your arms around something. This is very, it's excellent at articulating something that I think, I think a lot of people have been trying to express, whether it's, you know, Chris and I have been spending weeks like just, you know, turning ourselves into knots trying to figure out what's going on with TV and why we're not happy even though we're enjoying a lot of shows.

But I also think that, broadly speaking, like the people who listen to this podcast or your podcast or just pay attention are wondering. Like, where's the breakthrough? We're liking things in patches. Everything feels like B or B Plus. That all makes sense to me. It did make me think of something that I wrote in November of 2013, which is 10 and a half years ago called, it was a column called TV Eats itself, welcome to the end of the golden era. And I started with the Tony Soprano quote, it's good to be in something from the ground floor. I came too late for that and I know, but lately I'm getting the feeling I came in at the end, the best is over. And the entire piece was like the Walking Dead shifted the paradigm forever. It's the Jaws moment in 70 cinema.

And now when you can make like big ticket genre and the ceiling is so high because at that time ratings mattered in a different way and, you know, it was getting 8 million viewers on basic cable. I was like, this is where we're going. We're never getting another sopranos. Now, this was way before, like, the Atlanta and Penn 15s even. So I do think there's a, there's a cyclical nature to this kind of commentary on the industry. Yeah, but, but, you know, in the span, in the space since 2013, the peak of TV is just peaked so much more. There's just so much more of.

Well, the quantity peaked. I'm not sure if the quality did, but I'm saying. Yes. That's what I mean. Is, I mean, peak TV in the land-graft sense of, like, just sheer quantity. Right. And I think that, you know, reading the article, I had this sense that sort of like old quote about pornography, you know it when you see it. I was like, I know a mid TV show when I podcast about it because oftentimes I'm asked a podcast about a show that everyone's watching. And if everyone's watching a show on like a streamer, you know, not like necessarily with love and respect like Chicago Fire or something like that. But if someone's like watching, let's say hijack a show. A show. that Jim cites a couple times in this article. It was a hugely popular or buzzy show.

People were talking about it. It's got a bona fide movie star in it. And I podcasted about it on prestige. And I found I just didn't have anything to say about it because it's fine. But what am I meant to say about a show that is just fine? If it's bad, we can talk about how bad it is. And if it's great and interesting and there's a lot of meat on the bone, we can talk about that. But this is just sort of like, it's a fun, fine time at the Apple TV Plus.

And I think the main link I found with a lot of the shows that Jim was citing in the article is I was like, all of these shows should have been movies. Hijack should have been an Idris album movie. Mr. and Mrs. Smith was a great movie, you know, like the sugar, which we'll talk about, you know, love it or hate it or love part of it and hate the rest of it, I can see a really good movie. there somewhere and I Mark Protasevic who wrote it is a movie right there's no doubt of my mind this started as a feature pitch exactly and so what you get then as a result I think I there's a lot of other factors involved we can talk about binge watching we can talk about COVID we can talk a lot a lot of things but I think the main culprit here is two little story scraped over too much toast and so then you just get this thinning of the impact of the story and and so yeah you have these incredible

You have Colin Farrell, you have these incredible actors. You've got great directors. You've got incredible production design, but you don't have enough story. Right. Or you don't understand the difference between the medium of film storytelling and TV storytelling. And so what you get done is this just sort of amorphous blob that you can't really necessarily point to one exact thing that is wrong with it. I think that's very smart. And I feel like there's two different ways you could consider this.

One is, should this be a movie, should this be a TV? And we kind of got our, well, peanut butter and jelly mixed together is a good thing. So chalk and cheese or whatever. Like the things that aren't supposed to go together, we got them all mixed up. The other framing that I think is important to consider is what are the intentions of the project?

And by that I mean, like, art, things that I would characterize and use high-minded words, elicits emotional response. Of course, by that metric, sugar is like, should be hung in a museum because I am really passionate about it. So maybe that's the wrong way to describe it. But what I mean is that the challenge to get your arms around like a smooth, well-designed object like hijack was what were the aims?

You know, there's nothing in there that makes me feel emotionally about someone or surprises me about a human being reacting in a certain way, nor is it try particularly hard to reinvent anything, let alone a wheel, right? It just sort of goes along a track that feels fine and enjoyable, both because it's familiar and because it's well done executed, like professionally executed. One of the things that I was thinking of that I was bumping up against in the piece is that and we as critics and we as podcasters especially hate to talk about the fact that TV historically has always been mid. The majority of stuff on television has not only been fine,

it has aspired to be maybe slightly better than fine. And we, existed in kind of a bifurcated reality where we've had so much to enjoy in the supper club speakeasy off the back of the sizzler. Well, meanwhile, the majority of people who are just hungry are going to the steam table and like, great, more wings. Getting the cheese toast. And cheese toast is great. Cheese toast is important. But like, yeah, it can't all be, I don't know, whatever they serve the speakeasy, you know, forbidden martinis. But like, it's, What's interesting to me about what his point in this article is, is not that, like, TV has never been mid, but that there is a blurring of the line now between the aspirational prestige TV, the art, as you put it. And, you know, yeah, I watched, there's endless sitcoms I watched in the 90s that just were there to grace under fire.

Like, who cares? It's just there to, like, keep, you know, keep the living room warm or whatever. But I think that when you start to blur the line between how seriously should I take this, I can't understand a world and maybe this is just the world we live in where I'm background watching an Idraselba show. Yeah, that's the issue. And I think that there are market factors that play too in terms of like the stigma was off of TV once great shows were being made and people dropped down from the high purchase movies into them. Right. The floor was raised in terms of salary too. had the prestige issue going away, and then the salaries went up, and so actors want to do this

stuff. You also have entities, streamers, like Apple, who do good work, and they do mostly midwork. They rarely do bad work. And I don't, and I think that that's kind of what their corporate goal is. And so part of my reaction to this, this reminds me to a degree, and I'm definitely dating myself here, is like in the post-Nirvana, like indie boom, when all of a sudden it wasn't just that like random indie bands like Arches of Loaf got signed to major labels. It's that everything started sounding the same because the major labels were like, we can play in this sandbox now. And it all sort of became similar. There's a sense I get, and maybe I'm projecting in Jim's piece, but there have been times when Chris and I are sitting here and we quote unquote have to

cover something because it's like the big show on Apple or it's a big show on HBO. And I'm like, we're pretending that this is as good as previous HBO shows. And I don't think we're water carrying because everybody listening knows I can't. I'm incapable of like pretending if I don't like something. But it's like a simulacrum, right? It's like it has the shape of it. It's made with the same ingredients. But you got a little mid in my prestige.

Well, I mean, we had two, I think two interesting examples of this just this year with True Detective in Fargo, which are two sort of franchise TV shows. And I really, really liked this season of Fargo much better than the previous season of Fargo. But when you compare this season of Fargo to Fargo season one, that's Apples and Origes to me. And same with True Detective, which started out very strong

and then just sort of unraveled a bit for me. And again, there are previous worst seasons of True Detective as far as I'm concerned. But when you start franchising television, the way that all of Hollywood is not a TV problem. All of Hollywood is being IP and franchised because the people who make our entertainment in this scarce attention economy are so scared of losing our attention that familiarity is the only thing that they know how to do to catch our attention. And so you get not only, you know, the

IP of, you know, whatever the latest Marvel or Star Wars show is, which you know, which you and Chris have certainly talked about at length, but also, you know, what are the Shonda Rhymes TV franchises? What are the Ryan Murphy TV franchises? Like, we're, you know, we're coming up with these like connected universes of TV shows as a way to, again, just like hook people into familiarity. But the familiarity, which should be a shortcut to emotionality for us, that nostalgia that, like, I understand what this is supposed to be, I don't know, just winds up feeling like a, a bland reenactment of something that used to make us feel something much stronger. And I think what upsets me the most about this,

and there's still an embarrassment of riches of, like, incredible TV shows, obviously. It's been a great year, yeah, no question. But what hurts my feelings and perhaps yours is someone who has spent so much time covering television is like, well, we're getting more and more is just forgettable television, disposable television. Bingeable, yes, baby reindeer is trending on Netflix, but I have no confidence that that's a show we're going to be talking about a month from now because all these things feel, especially in the binge model, feel so flash in the pan, that they're not sort of sinking their claws into people the way that, you know, truly great television can.

Well, I want to come back to Vavy Ranger. Just two other points on the larger discussion. One is, I do appreciate that in the New York Times piece, Jim singles out the idol because Because in the era of algorithmic familiarity, we are as unlikely to see greatness, surprising greatness, as we are to see catastrophic disaster. And the experience that I had watching The Idol and also watching Madam Webb, which I hope you've seen by now. I still haven't. I'm sorry to disappoint you. It took my breath away.

I'll text you as soon as I see it, I promise. Text me from the theater. You will be alone in the theater, so it won't be rude. we rarely get things like that to almost set a floor to realize it. And there's actually weirdly more life. I mean, I'm saying this now. I don't have to watch The Idol anymore. So I'm like Facebook marked safe from season one of the Idol.

But that was outrageous experience that we are unused to. There used to be bigger highs and lows, I think, to what we saw. And that has been smoothed out to a degree. To, I mean, to go back to the extremely relatable plight of the TV podcaster, I will just say that like, you know, in every man's struggle, I will just say that like if someone asked me to do an hour on the idol, that's the easiest thing to fill that I can possibly think of. I have endless things to say about that. But again, asked me to do an hour on hijack and Mr. Mrs. Smith, which I did do. And I'm just, you know, I don't have a lot of profound things to say about it. But, you know, Shogun, you and Chris and Rob and I like had a ton to say every week about that show. And we would for 10 more weeks. Yeah, absolutely. The other thing that I feel like is missing from the piece, and again, I want to be clear,

I'm not suggesting that this is a misconception that Jim has. I think it's just the nature of, you know, you stake out something. You're going to be caping up for that particular point of view for the duration of the piece. I think he understands this deeply. Novelty, breaking the mold is rarely the key to deep success in television. If it's just breaking the mold for breaking the mold, sake. I think that what, and I think this is tough to articulate, and I definitely don't want,

if you are a screenwriter or you're, you know, you should earmuffs this part. But I think that there are things that simply work in television that the great, great artists of the form integrate into their bold, surprising, and unsettling visions. And for example, like Mad Men, you know, absolutely, inarguably, like Mount Rushmore television show. Mad Men is a workplace comedy. Mad Men was about characters in a situation, and they made us laugh a lot, and we grew over time with them. There's aspects of Mad Men that made me feel the same way Cheers felt.

Similarly, like, for me, the more formal explorations and adventures that Atlanta took us on, and Atlanta cited in Jim's piece, were backstopped by the fact that we had four of the most distinct, well-rounded characters of TV in the last 20 years to go through them, you know, and for me, and call me basic, but like when the show abandoned them to do film school stuff, I found it to be diminishing rewards. There were moments of great highs, and I'm doing the thing now where I'm setting up a strawman argument that I don't fully, fully endorse. But do you get what I'm saying that I think that, like, what we still respond to, critics and fans is kind of

evergreen with TV. Well, I think this goes back to that TV is not the same as filmmaking theory or reality because when we talk about Matt Weiner for Mad Men or Vince Gilligan for Breaking Bad or

Damon Lindeloff or etc. These are all, you know, some of the many like voltage showrunners that Jim was talking about in the piece they, you know, did their time in the trenches. in the salt minds of making television. Gilligan on X-Files or demon on Nash Bridges or whatever it is.

You have to know how to make the thing. I mean, X-Files is an incredible show. But you have to know how to make the basic version of the thing before you can make the artistic version of the thing. And so many of these shows now are getting greenlit off, you know, an elevator pitch, an attached star, something like that. But does not have the team. in place that knows how to make television and knows what it takes to make the beats of television.

So, you know, Donald Glover worked on, you know, 30 rocking community before he did Atlanta. And you see this more and more as showrunners are talking about, like, the deeper level of this problem is it's not just that people have no experience in TV are getting, you know, shows greenlit. but it's that writers in the writers room aren't being allowed on set to learn the craft of making a TV show. That's a bigger issue in the industry and part of the whole, you know, WGA arbitration. But it's a skill. Making television is a skill and you have to learn it. It's a trade. Yeah, it's a trade.

You know what Picasso knew how to do? Paint a still life. Like, he could do that and then got to be Picasso. And then other than that, no, no. It's apparently a great person. Great example. Oh, yeah, yeah. Everybody loved him.

As is every other creative that we mentioned so far in this podcast. No Hollywood Reporter article about his behavior, I promise. Yes, I totally agree with this. And I think it's important to bring up the, you can't have an article like this. You can't consider, you can have the article. But then you can't have the conversation without taking into effect the larger industry trends. To me, you know, one of the major reasons why we struck last year was that disillusion. of the traditional pipeline of like people at lower levels learn how to do the job so that when

it's their turn, they're ready to do the job instead of this place we ended up in the last few years where a story editor was getting a really high profile job having never even been on set and then inevitably would get knife in the back or fired and demoted. And that's setting people up to fail is an essential problem. Absolutely. I would also say though that again larger trends, everyone's terrified. It's a very strange moment. I can say this both from obviously reporting, but from my own experience is that even the most adventurous places that we look to for the best television right now and have for years, in their general meetings, in their conversations with writers, they are asking for procedurals. They are asking for hospital shows. They're asking for

cop shows. Of course, they're asking for the elevated us version of that. But that's what they want, because they do, like Jack Doneghee, want to turn the world back into 1997 through science or magic. I've heard, you know, stories from various showrunners talking about some of the people that we know who have made, who have greenlit and given great notes on some of the greatest shows that have ever existed are now operating in a much more fearful place. You know, and you have first-day experience, I think, probably with that. It's absolutely true. I think it's also something that we can say, conviction, and this might be a good way to bring in baby reindeer, both pros and cons, but also in terms of its breakout ability, I feel very confident saying the next big thing that has us all reeling and reacting to and has the industry scrambling to catch up to

is not going to come from Untitled Hospital show for whomever. Like, that's not going to do it. That is going to be, its ceiling is very low and its floor might be high, which is why a network is pursuing it. But the next thing that's going to rattle us is not coming in that way. And I feel like it's interesting. And we can get into the specifics of it and what we feel about it creatively. But like Baby Rindeer is clearly a hit show.

Now part of it is the Netflix effect. Hit shows conversation grabbing shows really only come from Netflix now. But this is no one's idea of a breakout series. this is adapted from Richard Gads one-man show, and it is a very, like, nervy, half-hour drama comedy drama about his supposedly real-life experience being stalked by a slightly older woman when he was an up-and-coming comedian. And it's number one on Netflix.

Yeah, and also another, like later in the season, again, we won't get into too many specifics, but there is another sort of like turn of the screw in terms of like another dark and horrible thing that has happened to him in real life. Yeah, so it is, you know, I wanted to talk to you about it

because it is one of those shows that comes out of nowhere that Netflix didn't prime the pump for, like didn't send out screeners for, didn't make a big deal about. Apple TV Plus has been, that's been every one of their breakout shows is the one that nobody was prepared for.

Yes. And so that's fascinating to me. Is the PR apparatus no longer seems able to identify the thing that is going to hit a nerve with people. But then in retrospect, now that it is sort of number one trending on Netflix, if you believe Netflix's own data, then now the PR machine is, trying to package this as, you know, the second coming of I May Destroy You or something like that. And, and again, I was just thinking about Jim's piece, not, you know, I know we're sort of transitioning on from that, but I was just sort of like familiarity. They're giving us something that feels in its own way familiar. It is very personal to this person, but it is a very familiar thing. And it starts with, every episode

starts with based on a true story. And my understanding, is that part of the reason why this show has been in the conversation or gotten so much buzz is the Reddit detectives, your enemies, my friends, the Reddit detectives, have been quite busy trying to figure out who these real people were who were involved in this story to the point where the creator had to get on Instagram and say, like, hey, please stop doing this because you're falsely identifying people in my life that were not actually the real people. And such as Reddit, like the Daily Mail claims to have done. talk to the woman, right, that it's based on... Right, so it's just then it's its own hook. We'll talk about sugar and the potential, you know, what has you so riled up about sugar and the hook there. But this, like, based on a true story,

interactive theorizing television and in a creepier space because this is a true thing that happened to someone is another thing you see again and again with TV. I love theories, as you know. you and I disagree on this. I love when Reddit gets all riled up on something. I don't like when I feel like a story is being packaged especially to hook that response. Do you know?

I think what's interesting here is like there's the media is becoming the message. So I think there's two things to separate out. One is, and I've watched one episode. So I'm not really equipped to speak to whether it's good or bad or it's whatever. My sense from one episode is that this is probably not like my, vibe generally this sort of show that said it is beautifully executed and like waronica tofielska who's a director I'm not familiar with directs the shit out of like the first few episodes like it's beautifully done and it the familiarity for me was not I want to say

fleabag not because of the nature of the discomfort or the main character kind of narrating something from their life to me what I felt was like that hardworn polish of the the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Oh, yeah. Where, like, this is a, this was a project that was workshopped for a long time. And so the kind of things that we used to get from smart network notes, streamer notes, executive notes, which people get all the time. There are many, many smart executives still.

I don't want to, like, cast too wide a net about that. But some of those things have been worked out in advance so that when you watch this pilot and you're thinking, well, how is this going to be, quote, unquote, likable? How is this going to be, quote, unquote, plausible. How are they going to sustain this? How are we going to understand our main characters very subjective and potentially maddening actions? It's all very smoothly done. So there's a moment near the end of the pilot where the character is debating whether to accept something. I don't need to spoil. I feel like people, this doesn't matter, but I'll keep it vague. And everything we've

seen up to that moment is screaming, do not do this. That's intentional. That's the drama. And then the filmmaking and Veronica Tafilko, like, does the focus switch to something in the background that tells us why this character is doing. And I just feel like that's so thoughtfully done and artistically done and aesthetically, like the words on the screen. I'm like, oh, this is a well-done television show. And my question then back to you is, again, I don't know how it ends. I don't know the true stories. But if this was on Monday nights on HBO, like, like somebody somewhere. If this was buried on prime video, like a lot of good international shows tend to be,

would we be having the same conversation about it? Or would we be like, oh, that's an interesting gem, Diamond in the Rough? That's a great question. I think again and again and again, like, old man shaking his fist of the clouds, like rail against the binge model. This is a show that I think is. made for the binge-shop, even though you've only watched one episode. I think the idea that these are like, it's like seven half-hour episodes. Yeah, I love that. That you can just like watch all at once.

And you don't have to stop and ask yourself, am I in the mood to watch this very dark, increasingly dark and upsetting show? You're just sort of being pulled along by the current of it. And so I think this is, this is a perfect kind of binge drop show, and I think if it were being parceled out on Monday nights on HBO, I don't know that it would have the same impact. And there's also, it's a, it's a, the, the Netflix, these are the top shows on our streamer platform currently. Sort of orboris, like if you see something as number one, then you're going to click on it because other people are watching it. That's a fascinating. Whoever came up with that, I would love to talk to them. Because, again, the numbers are so opaque these days on the streamers. We don't know who is watching for how long and at what rate. But, you know, Netflix can just point to that number one in front of baby reindeer and say, hey, this is the show that everyone's watching. So you better watch it or else you're out of the loop.

You're not in the conversation. And it will be self-fulfilling because Richard Gad will get a bigger deal to do another thing from it because of the optics. Because it's not tethered to any concrete thing, which is not a bad thing. He seems really talented. I feel like the baby reindeer, I don't know if it's a phenomenon yet, but I do feel like that is a, that cuts through the defenses of the mid-TV thing to a not insignificant degree. I mean, I just think that, I don't know, I agree with you that it feels familiar,

but I do think a lot of that is how we're receiving it and how it fits into the binge model, so it's just being absorbed. I think it's a, to me, it passes. the test that Jim lays out in the first paragraph of his piece. And I think that the more I'm talking to you about it, the more I think that what you said about these being podcaster problems or TV critic problems starts to surge in my mind. Because, like, I love slow horses. I think it's excellent and expertly done.

That's my mid-TV maybe. Or hijacked. Like, I really liked it. I like mid-TV. I feel like it's the things mixing up in each time. other that is causing us some stress. I feel like audiences, when given the opportunity to surprise us or to confound an easy narrative, are willing to do it. It's just that these are kind of, these are only going to be thought experiments at a time when everything is behind paywalls

and siloed into different services that not everyone has access to. Yeah, I hear what you're saying. I think so horses, I would not put it in the hijack bucket. No, it's better. It's, You should stop me on that for sure. Yeah, I think it's definitely better and made by people who understand TV pacing better. But it is a... Yeah, you understand comedy, too. Yeah. Yeah.

But yeah, it is essentially like, you know, the kind of show that you and... The kind of British spy show that you and Chris and I, like, really love. And it just happens to have Oscar winner Gary Oldman in it in the lead, in like an unforgettable role in the lead. But the rest of the cast is like sort of a classic. you know, BBC ITV kind of cast. So, yeah, it's fascinating to me. The baby reindeer phenomenon, I'll be curious. I'm just curious is the lasting power of this.

Netflix has latched on to it as something that they really want to push for Emmys. Oh, for sure. And so they are going to be trying to keep the conversation going around it for as long as they can. But I will be curious if this is the kind of show that sticks around in people's minds long after the first flush of its. success on Netflix. And I guess I would point, the other thing I would push back on is you said, like Netflix is the only place where you can have sort of a breakthrough show that people are talking about. And I, you know, FX and HBO still have their their hooks in us. You know, so it's, it's an interesting thing. Can we talk, is it time to talk about sugar,

though? It is. I just want to say, like, I do think, I, I just want to say, like, and I'm not just saying this because you're the guest. I think you've made all the best points. And one of your best points also was to really drill down on the movie thing because to me and this to me genuinely and honestly I think the midterm kind of just needs to go out the window because

like slow horses and Mr. and Mrs. Smith to me are best case scenarios for what we can do at this moment of television with the budgets with the reach with the willingness of stars to be in it like Mr. and Mrs. Smith on Amazon Prime video

was 100% a TV show because it took a movie idea and made the show about the yada yadas. Like it was about the emotional stuff. It was about the relationship. The action was it was inverted from the movie in a way that felt very smart to me. Slow Horses is like, it's a classic TV show, but Gary Oldman and Kristen Scott Thomas are in it, and they film all the time on the streets of London, and that's not, that's not cheap to do. You know, I think it's a question of like, when I want to see, like, with very few exceptions, when I want to see like bravora autorist, you know, explosions of creativity, that's generally better served in a 90-minute movie or a two-hour movie than it is across

five hours, ten hours, or certainly 30 to 60 hours of TV. It's just, they're just different. The other phenomenon, and this is sort of the last thing I have to say about this, is that Mr. and Mrs. Smith smacks to me of something that we're seeing with more frequency. and there's just like no shame in the game as far as I'm concerned. But as the streamers throw more and more money at these creatives in order to try to desperately win the streaming war, which will it ever end, we don't know.

But like is the show that feels like a thinly veiled excuse for these people to go on great vacations? You know, the white lotus effect. Yeah, sure. I don't, I don't, I'm not mad at that. I mean, Mike White has cracked the code. Oh, yeah. Exactly.

No shame in the game. I'm like, do it. Take Apple's money, Amazon's money, whoever's money, and go film somewhere incredible. And that's Mr. and Mrs. Smith. It felt to me like they were in the writer. They're like, should we, let's go skiing. Let's do a skiing episode, you know? Part of me just feels like if you take the long view, if you're in it, if you're in any field,

whether you're making the art, you're talking about the art, you're influenced by the art. You want the art of your moment. to be significant. You want it to matter. I mean, that's whether you're a teenager who's in love with the band and you tell everyone, this is the greatest band of all time, but you've only heard six bands, or you're like, this is the golden age of television. Nothing is ever going to be better than this. 10 years from now, 20 years from now, 30 years from now, if we think of the White Lotus, the way we think of the love boat, that's not a loss. Do you know what I mean?

Yeah. I think the White Lotus is amazing. I can't wait for the next season, the writing, the direction, the casting. But like... Totally. I love it. But this idea that this moment has to be artistically significant and greater than everything that came before, that's a podcast. And one that I'm happy to continue to do. But ultimately, I mean, like, everybody's doing their best and everybody should get to go to Italy on someone else's time. I think that's the most important thing that people forget sometimes in the trenches of criticism or whatever is that everyone is trying to make. the very best show.

This is such an elite pivot to sugar, but go on. They care a lot. No, I mean, they care a lot. I think, you know, when you read interviews that Mark Protasovich has given about making sugar, he's just like, man, I love classic cinema. And I wish more people would watch classic cinema. So I decided to make this show. And I'm just like, I can see it.

I know he's been working on this forever. And he was like in his heart of hearts, he's like, this is it. This is going to be it. And you loved the pilot. The pilot was it for you. But do you want to talk about where you are now? Okay. So we're going to talk about the Apple TV series, Sugar, with Colin Farrell. We're going to talk about it through the fifth episode, which aired on this past Friday. I have watched through this Friday's episode, the sixth episode. And I believe there are eight total. You have watched all of it or you are close? Just through six. Okay. So we will spoil the show up through five. We may make winky or snarky passing references to things to come, but I promise we are not spoiling it because I was insistent that I did not want to be spoiled. And you, Joe, everyone who knew were very respectful of me. So I appreciate that, even though I was right when I guessed. So I am just floored by the show and so annoyed by it. And one of the reasons why I am a annoyed by it is because I hate to see opportunities to do my favorite things squandered. My favorite thing is Colin Farrell in nice suits being a private detective in Los Angeles. That is my number one thing on my mood board of life.

Correct. I thought the first episode was beautiful. I thought it had high style. I thought Fernando Morellas who directed it did a beautiful job. And it had a lot of promise. it also had something that on, I'm repeating myself on the podcast here, on a second viewing, I started to grate a little bit, which was the winky, winky, there's something bigger going on here, bigger than the mystery of what happened to Olivia, the missing girl.

I think when we talked about it, we were like, that balancing act is going to be an issue. And it's not unique to sugar. There have been shows before that have had twists or what's, you know, whether it's lost or, Mr. Robot. Yeah, Mr. Robot. Like, how is this going to be managed so that audiences remain leaning in, but not annoyed? Greater, greater creators than the talented people here have fallen in this battle. So kudos for trying.

My issue is, why did we try so hard? Because you have Colin Farrell as a private detective in Los Angeles. And by episode three, the show is so. devoted to winky, winky-winky that the other stuff is utterly and profoundly irrelevant. And the show's reason for being falls apart. And there's still five more episodes. And it's been circling the drain ever since in my critical estimation. I'd like to know your thoughts on this.

Yeah. Do you remember, Shirley, you do, the HBO series Dream On? Oh, that's my number one ref for this. Isn't it? Yes. Like, it's, it's noir Dream On for folks. who are, you know, younger than our age itself, like Dream On is this HBO comedy about a latchkey kid, a kid who was raised by television. And so as he's like going through his day,

flashes of the TV that he grew up watching comes into, you know, the plot of the episode. And I love that we're dream oning noir films into this. And, you know, having read interviews with the various creators, this was not even, you know, the showrunner's idea. This was Miranda Morales and Fernando Stutz's editor. This is their idea. And that aspect, astoundingly never gets too cute for me. It is, I think, so quickly, elegantly, perfectly calibrated.

Some of the references they find, I'm just sort of like, how long did this take you to pour through the catalogs? They love cinema, Joe. They love it. They do. They love cinema. There's an interview on Letterboxed about it if you want to read. read it. But

the other part, the Mr. Robot-esque, what is actually going on here part, the part that, as I alluded to before, I think, is intentionally put where it is in the episode count in order to bait the Reddit detective theorizing. Yes. That bothers me. In a very cynical way. Because I think that if you want to be a show about something, I know that's a That's an annoying way to frame it.

But you have to put your cards on the table. So the audience understands what we're even supposed to be paying attention to. And this is a rich vein, right? Like there's noir. There's contemporary L.A. There's what we value in this broken land of dreams. I'm not saying these are like new ideas. But in a weird way, like, okay, we haven't had a very good modern noir in a while,

at least to my mind. there's really I keep coming back to the movie that they so awkwardly jackhammer into into a later episode that it drives me crazy which is when Colin Farrell's like I'm thinking of a movie LA Confidential and I'm like yeah you are because you're filming in the same place like I will say the other way too awkward insertion I you're right I spoke too soon to say it was like perfectly calibrated is is the thing sequence that happens when he's in the doctor's office. Oh my God. That is also because he doesn't even say, he's like, there's this movie with these guys in the Antarctic and he doesn't say the name of the movie, but we're getting

clips from it. It's also very clear. I didn't know that until you told me that, that like, Fran de Morales came up with this because the first two episodes, which he directed are Autori. They are of a piece. They are of a vibe. So even if you, it's consistent within itself. And you can watch it and be like, I don't like this or I'm bumping on this choice, but it's one inconsistent choice. For me, the show fell apart not only because episode three was just so cute, winky, winky about things I don't care about. If this is an important investigation, why is he going to a party with mystery people who are, you know, space alien werewolf vampires or also who cares? It was that the very, very, very, very, very, very veteran television

director and actor, Adam Arkin took over. Yeah. And all of a sudden, it felt like a TV show. Now, there's nothing wrong with feeling like a TV show, but if you are overly dependent, if you are over-indexed on cinematic, autoreist style to get by and suddenly you pull that rug out from under you, all the seams are showing, you know, and that totally threw me. So then when the film stuff has come in since,

even with Morelis back, and my read, based on nothing, it's like Morelis is back for, like, episodes five and six, and it felt like maybe he was still in post on the sympathizer, and he was like, guys, I've read these scripts and I'm going to make my days, but my time of like, you know, doing curly cues and the margins are over. I don't know, it just, it collapsed. I just, I feel like if we weren't hiding the ball on the, you know, twist, if that's what you want to call it, if we weren't trying so hard, sweatily hiding the ball on it or cute, cutely winky, as you say.

and we were up front with what the actual premise of this show is. And if the show were a movie, if we were watching Brick or Memento with Colin Farrell, except there's the twist, and it's a noir, L.A. Noir about the CD Underbelly of the film industry or generations of, you know, entertainment, dynasties, etc. And Amy Ryan's here and Anna Guns here and James Cromwell is here. all these incredible actors are here, I think I'm having a fun, fine time at the movies.

Totally. You know, the pacing's off, and then the decision to calibrate the reveal where they have is a disaster. It's a disaster. And it's, you know, do one thing well. If you are a mystery, give us a compelling mystery,

or make a show that seems even casually interested in the structure of a mystery. Like, if you try, tracked, and I'm not doing this, I promise. But if you were to do a Carrie Matheson crazy board about the investigation, the investigation is someone's missing, he goes there, then he goes there, then he goes back there, and then there's some dogs. There's no investigation. He's just stonewalled, really, and then he goes to where he is supposed to go, and events ensue from that. I don't have any compelling feeling about Olivia. I don't understand why he cares so much.

there's the Davy subplot, which I think was meant to give some emotional weight, but was incredibly ham-handed, and that's not even getting to the fact that Nate Cordy is nine years younger than Anna Gunn who plays his mother. These are the things that I think in a more expert show or one that is made by people

who are used to making weekly television that you can avoid, including making a show that is supposedly like a love letter to classic Los Angeles that contains the line, yes, an art gallery in the silver, River Lake District. Yeah.

No one has ever said that. That is not said by the Werewolf Robot Space Alien Vampire. That's said by a plausible human being. I think that he does say something early on

a very fox moulder, it reminds me of my missing sister line. So that is ostensibly sort of the pre-application here. Because they're hiding that. And I think that, if anything, and I'm not, I don't want to get too hamfisted in trying to, like, put this into a larger conversation. But a lot of the, not just the existence of the show, but a lot of the seeming decisions of the show seem instantly outdated.

And what I mean by that is just the, like, feature writer being like, ah, I'm going to get into TV. And I'm going to get into TV with my passion project that I can't get made as a movie anymore. And I'm going to walk it into Apple with a star. and we're going to spread it out over multiple episodes. I think we've moved away from that. Just, you know, there's a long tale of development. So we will get more shows like this, and they will all be on Apple. But I mean, like, in terms of things that are being sold this year,

I even know anecdotally, like a bunch of people walking in, directors walking movie stars into pitches and then walking out without deals is happening more. So that feels kind of outdated in and of itself. But, like, again, the kind of trying to game the system, game Reddit, and you end up with a hash because it's not working. as a star vehicle. It's not working as a noir mystery show, and it's not working as a twist because anything, nothing is going to be worth, no juice is going to be worth this squeeze. It feels not just cynical, but sort of almost like they're trying to crack an algorithm.

And this, I mean, what's happening in Apple in terms of their fascinating, in the one hand, push to try to be the home of prestige sci-fi? And on the other hand, And if you ask me to list all the good sci-fi shows they've made, I can give you 1.5, which is one season of severance. Is it ever coming back? Who's to say? They just wrapped last week. There you go. And some but not all of For All Mankind is sort of how I feel about, you know, but not foundation, not, you know, silo was, I would put it maybe in the Jim Poniwasik mid category, mid-plus. But I think that they want to be the home of elevated sci-fi, but I'm not sure that they understand what makes sci-fi good in the first place.

And that is just fascinating to me. And it just feels like a place where they have all the money in the world. But no one watching the store at all in terms of giving the notes that are needed to make sure. Like, whoever came up with the idea to push this reveal where they're pushing it and to, you know, there's that, I love to cite it, the, you know, the Hitchcock conversation about suspense versus surprise. And in storytelling, especially TV storytelling, you should always go with suspense, which is the audience knows what's happening and the tension is from when are other people going to know what's going to happen. The shock and surprise chase that has been a disease of TV ever since I would say the Red Wedding and Game of Thrones, but probably before that, is like, it's so frustrating to me because you're just chasing, you're chasing the high of having people videotape their friends watching the show and screaming about it and stuff like that. And I'm just like, that's not almost always that is not good storytelling, almost always. Storytelling always, but particularly for TV, is character, character, character.

And if you think about this, we are on the edge of a reveal for this show, which I don't think it's spoiling to say that there is a surprise and the answers are coming on Sugar, if you are still watching or even still listening to this podcast. From the place of ignorance of the reveal, either for you Joe as an exercise or for our listeners who have not learned the truth, think about who does this reveal, which I think again, this is not a spoiler to say, what is the true identity of John Trump? who does that affect? And it doesn't affect a single character on the show.

There is no one on the show who is invested in the, you know, unspoiled humanity, just a regular guy of this guy. It affects the audience and how we perceive him. I mean, please push back on this if I'm wrong. But all the people around him, what's this going to do? They're going to be like, they're going to be like, what? Well, actually, they won't because they were scripted to have a much deeper, a more profound response, I'm sure. But do you know what I mean? Yeah, and then you only have,

you know, a handful of episodes to process what that means. But I, the one exception I would make is maybe Amy Ryan's character, Melanie. Like, you know, she's, she, at the end of episode five, you get the, like, I have a secret, tell me, tell me, tell me. And, like, they're not doing it tremendous. Like, they are really benefiting from the fact that Amy Ryan is incredible at what she does and has been sort of elevating television left and right, no matter, you know, if you're putting me right in your show. But so I'm not saying they've done a great job of sketching out who Melanie is as a person. I would say they have not.

But that performance for me is compelling. And so that is the exception I would say. But when you hide the ball this aggressively, then to your point about character, character, then does the audience feel like they don't even know who they've been watching? Yeah, then it undoes what we thought because I think you have to, that goes back to that point I was making about like prepare us for the feelings you want us to have. Yeah. Put us on solid ground and you can be suspenseful and you can give surprises,

but you have to be true to the project that you're watching and the characters you're invested in so we don't feel abused or taken advantage of. And I no longer am watching this show because I am compelled. by a, you know, sweet, sensitive, cinema-loving private detective, I'm watching it to be like, well, okay, well, what do you got? What do you got? You know, that doesn't feel good. To the algorithm-esque explanation, there have already been, and I hate this,

but there have already been articles popping up from people who have watched all the screeners who are just sort of like really heavy-handedly sort of hinting at like, this could be hinting out a big reveal that's coming in sugar. So that's obviously something that they want. That was big thing with the reviews, yeah. Yeah, and then they want the bump of the, you know, two-thirds of the way through the season or whatever, sort of, oh, my gosh, there's a big twist in this show. You've got to watch it. It's wild and crazy.

That's what they want. People to hear that there's a Colin Farrell show that they're not watching that has a wild and crazy twist in it. And you've got to watch it. You've got to see it for yourself. And I just think that I would much rather. watch the version of the show that has that twist as the premise, because I actually think the premise is interesting. I do too. And if it started with this, I'd be like, okay, show me, prove it. Like, I'm willing to go. I mean, look at the pieces you have here. Look at the director.

Look at the star. Look at the setting. Look at the budget. Look at the platform, which will promote it. You have the tool, so do the work. Show me why I care about this thing from the beginning. that takes a that takes more confidence I guess in some ways in the uh from the upstairs the sea suites right to be like okay um I would be the other reason why I'm fixated on this and I want to reiterate it's because I genuinely love so much of what this could have been and briefly was um in the spirit of my love for this but also and my frustration but also the larger conversation I wish that we were given like we could have like a couple tokens to just turn opaque things translucent for us briefly. And in this case,

the development history of this show, I want everything. Warts and all, I want to know. And not because I want to be like, well, that person was foolish, but I'm deeply curious that the thought processes that led us here. Because again, and I said this a few weeks ago, like, going off of the I watch TV and then I watch watching TV, T leaves, there's some red flags, the massively changing run times of the episodes, swinging from like an hour or two. to 37 minutes to 32 minutes. The fact that Mark Protosevic is the creator of the show, the supposedly the showrunner of the show,

and his name is not on any of the scripts for the last few episodes. Instead, it's Sam Catlin, who is a showrunner under an overall deal at Apple, who ran Severance Season 2. Again, it is not my job to sit here and be like, there's a problem or people aren't getting along. Like, it's, I could get an anonymous email saying, like, actually Mark and Sam are old friends.

And great. And if the product was good also, I wouldn't care. But there is a lot, there are a lot of signs here that make me think that there was an ongoing conversation about what to show and when, about who was steering the ship and how to steer it safely back into port. And I wish people could learn from that, honestly. I mean, this might be the, is this my last shirk or take, perhaps? But, like, we talked about this a lot when we talked about Marvel shows, which they were

trying to operate as films. And so they would have the writer, they didn't have a showrunner. They had the writer's room. And then they had the season director who would take over and you would hand the scripts off. And sometimes those people work together and sometimes they did not at all. And so for Mark Prasovic to say this very important component of inserting film clips has nothing to do with me, sounds to me like someone who has handed. over their show to other hands, you know? I can't imagine, you know, any of the other, like Vince Gilligan or Matt Weiner or the other, you know, showmers that we talked about, saying sort of like, this had nothing

to do with me, this big, this key aspect of my own show, you know? And to be clear, like, all good work, especially in TV, comes from deep collaboration. Collaborative, yeah, absolutely. But someone's aesthetic point of view and vision has to be guiding. Someone has to be at the wheel. Some of the best ideas and shows that we love that we probably mention this podcast have come from outside of the one elevated mind that we give all the credit to. And the best showrunners give that credit. But it's a different thing to be like, yeah, I got it to this part.

And then I relay race handed off the baton to someone else who just went wild on it. And then look back to me being like, wait, where's the course? Or we had a lot of conversations about this. We went back and forth about this. This is what we came up with. and this was this person's idea, but this is the conversation we had about it, versus, oh, they did that.

I didn't do that. And I'm like, well, it's your show, isn't it? But maybe it's not. And that's just increasingly this sort of erosion of the showrunner role, which, as you say, it's a collaborative medium. But I don't know. People don't know how to make television television again, I guess, period. But also part of the hardest, some of the,

some of the hardest work is the simplest and needs to be done early, which is put your fence down and understand what it is that you're doing. And it's not just creative missteps or disagreements that lead to problems. It's just the way that the industry has tipped so that, well, this is a great TV show about a interesting detective in Los Angeles. But Colin Farrell is attached. Colin Farrell is not doing more than eight episodes of this. His contract is paying him a great deal of money to do eight episodes. So you're telling one story. So you're already veering into that, what is this? Is it a movie? Is it a whatever territory? Right? And then you have the expectations of Apple to deliver on X, Y, or Z. I don't know if that's algorithmically or

budgetarily. Like, we are going to cast this really, really high or try to. We're going to use these resources to make it look like this. And already things are a little bit out of whack, right? There is no, like, as Bill used to say, like, the Tsar of Common Sense being like, what you have here is a movie. Or what you have here is a movie. Or what you have here is the bones of a really compelling three-season show. But it couldn't be those things. So then you're already behind the eight ball trying to make it something that it doesn't naturally want to be. Sugar. What a time to be alive. I mean, you're like, this is my last sugar take. We've talked about five episodes. I'm going to go away and come back and be like, get Joe on the phone.

And also, we're going to do it in front of Chris. It's going to be weird Yabashige energy. Chris is going to have to sit there and watch us talk about. this show? While he flips through the photos of his Oslo trip, you know. No, no, no second screens in the podcast studio. Joe, thank you so much for a great conversation and for filling in on the fly. I really appreciate it. It's always fun to talk to you. Where are people listening to you this week when they're not listening to you here? On House of R, we are covering throuples in honor of Challenger's, which I'm just delighted that that is something we decided to do this week. That sounds like a real Mallory content move.

It was my idea, but Mallory is very on board for it. And then over on trial by content we're doing, we're wrapping up our three weeks of baseball movies. So we'll see once and for all. What is Andy Greenwald? What is the greatest baseball movie of all time? Wow, I am on the spot here. I'm going to probably forget my favorite one. So like what are the, like Moneyball is a contender, eight men out?

A man out didn't make the bracket. Field of Dreams made the bracket. Field of Dreams. Bill Durham, Sandlot, a league of their own. Major League? Major League. I love Major League. Not Major League 2, though, probably.

I don't know. How do you set this up? Do you have a dog in that fight? Or are you just patching it in? I would love for Bull Durham to go all the way. Yeah. I think. Speaking of throuples of cinema.

For real. Yeah. Okay. Well, I'll list. Listen, because I don't have a, unlike literally everything else that comes up on this podcast, I do not have a strong opinion about this. It all sounds good to me. Great. Joe, thank you so much. So just to recap for everyone else, we will be back on Thursday with a conversation that Chris and I had with Scott Frank. I really hope everyone checks it out, regardless of your familiarity with Scott Frank's recent projects like Queens Gambit and Mr. Spade. No show next Monday. And we'll be back the following Friday. if you see us in the streets of Europe, say hi.

Thank you, Joe. Thank you, Kai McMullen, for producing and for being my rock, you know, even when she's in a slightly depleted state. But she's been hydrating through the podcast. So I think that we're all going to make it. Talk to you soon.