The Watch - DC’s New Joker Origin Story, 'Logan Lucky,' and Showtime CEO David Nevins on 'Twin Peaks' (Ep. 179)

Episode Date: August 24, 2017

The Ringer’s Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald announce the latest installment of the Double Down Book Club before discussing their feelings about the recent news of a Martin Scorsese–produced Joker origin movie as well as Chris’s feeling about 'Logan Lucky' (1:00). Later, Andy chats with Showtime CEO and president David Nevins about his role in resurrecting 'Twin Peaks' (25;00). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today's episode of The Watch is brought to you by Jam Session on Channel 33, part of the Ringer podcast network from my office roommate Juliet Littman and my office homie Amanda Dobbins. Yes. Tune in as they examine the gossip industry discussing celebrity news, pop culture scandals, and the business of being very famous. Incredible Jam Session episode this week, breaking down the Taylor Swift snake release. Can I just say like how lucky the people are to be able to have this? podcast in their lives. I consider myself fortunate whenever I get to have a conversation with one of those two. Yeah. Now you get two and you can just you can hit pause. You can speed up Amanda's voice if you want to. I would never do it. Or slow it down. How dare you? It's a however you want to do it.

Subscribe and listen to Jam Session on Channel 33 available on Apple Podcasts. SoundCloud, Stitcher, Spotify, or wherever you get those podcasts. I need sports to have to clear the room. Stand up and walk now. Now. Hello and welcome to The Watch. My name is Chris Ryan. I am an editor. at the ringer.com. And joining me in the studio, we are working on his origin story.

It's Andy Greenwald! Oh, it would begin in darkness and it would end in darkness. Chris, we're talking to each other today on Thursday. Last night, we were live. Talk the Thrones Live at Largo. Yeah. With our binge mode pals, Jason and Mal. Yep.

With special guest, Chase Serrano. Big hit. With special guest Jason Manzukas. Yep. Always number one in our hearts, if not on the call sheet. Because that was you this time. And you earned it. Thanks.

And in some ways, MVP, Yvonne Orgy from Insecure, terrific. I really enjoyed sitting next to her. She was hilarious. I liked it when she pawed you like a bear cub. Yes. And then Manzuka's called me a eunuch. He did. I feel like we're being cruel because people are asking, this is not going to be available as a podcast.

It is going to be dribbled out in video form. Yeah. People will see some of it. And we would love to come to a town near you, hopefully in the near future. We could use hotel tonight to stay in those towns. Sure. I believe. Felix gray glasses to be able to see our reservations on our phones. I mean, everything is coming together.

I just want to thank everyone who did come out, was able to come out to Largo last night. It was a lot of fun. I'll say to everyone here what we said to them, thanks for being a part of this throne's journey all year. I also just want to say to you, Chris, you did a terrific job last night. Thanks, man. And I, especially because... You were dynamite, too. You're kind of like, you're coming the John Gruden of Thrones.

Because I say obvious things during actions. Because you have enthusiasm for the form. Oh, yeah. Well, look, it was a lot of fun. I just wanted to say, people don't realize this, the role you play as MC slash punching bag. It's bad. It's interesting. I like to think I have a sense of humor about myself.

That certainly gets tested. I mean, you did some accent work that was brushed back. Yeah. Like, I got a little high and inside. Chris did a Scottish accent. I was trying to do John Snow, which is why it was stupid. And I just did, like, I couldn't quite think of how to do a northern English accent. Yeah.

You went full Scottish and Manzuka's accused you of doing a fat bastard accent from Austin Powers. But you were terrific. I'm serious because, you know, the other people know all the stuff about the stuff. We don't. Yeah. And so we sort of have to roll with it. We are going to talk a little bit about Thrones today. Yeah, we should say that the last talk of the Thrones is on Sunday after the extended finale.

I think it's 80 minutes. Something like that. Pretty long finale. People have been asking, though, where's our Twin Peaks talk? And I want to let people know that there will be a considerable amount of Twin Peaks talk on this podcast. Yeah, second half of the pod. Second half of the pod, I will be speaking to David Nevins, the president of Showtime. You're hammering the table.

You're like emphatically at the pulpit. I just need people. I'm cruce-chev with this. And I'm going to talk to David Nevins about the whole. gestation of Twin Peaks the return, how he made this happen, how he greenlit it, how he feels about the result. We're excited about that conversation. Also, Chris, like, if people are wondering why we don't do more live shows, it's because

you and I, in our aging White Walker bodies, we feel, I feel rough today. I feel like the Pilsner or Kell was, was, something was in that last night. I only had two, and I'm feeling a little bit foamy today. Someone puts some milk of the poppy in my Guinness. I sometimes like with Pilsner's, I don't know. Sometimes with Pilsners. Beer talk. I think I might just become like a straight, I don't know.

I sometimes look like flowery Pilsners. I'd just get a little weird. Yeah? Yeah. You know? Well, you're wearing it well today, and we're going to power through this with some great cultural talk. Yeah. Well, we have a couple of things we want to hit.

We'll do a little bit of chat about Thrones in a minute. But I wanted to talk a little bit. Well, first of all, I do want to say one thing. Tomorrow, so today's Thursday, I think either tonight or tomorrow, HBO Go will be releasing the pilot, the first episode of The Deuce. Oh, yeah. Okay. So that's great.

We have an incredible, I mean, I think we're obviously like just such huge super fans, but we did a really, really cool conversation with George Palacanos a couple weeks back that we'll be releasing. I think next week. Yeah, because if this is true, and you and I have the inside track with HBO Go, we were once their marquee brand. Yeah. People will be able to watch the pilot. We didn't spoil it in our conversation. No, not at all.

Not all. But I think people will be ready to hear more about it. It's a unique kind of pilot. It's almost more like a movie. Yeah, directed by Michelle McLaren. It's directed by Michelle McLaren. And the pilot is, it kind of almost reminds me of the way some shows used to introduce series in this sort of mega format. And it's a rather long pilot.

I think it's like almost 90 minutes, right? Yeah. It's also great. And it is phenomenal. If you feel like there's some voice in the back of your head or some it, you can't scratch, that is basically that. that wire itch. You know, I think that this show has some of the best parts of the last 20 years of Simon's work, of Richard Price's work, of Pelicanus's work, Michelle McLaren's work.

And I know I'm really excited to see episodes written by Megan Abbott. Yeah. You know, it's just like, it's such a cool, cool thing. It is an all-star operation. But it's really worth noting, it looks phenomenal. Yeah. Not just because of Michelle McLaren, but because of, you know, the way that they using CGI and careful production design, like recreated 70.

New York City. Early 70s New York, yeah. It's also, and this is a really nice thing, and we spoke to George about this, but it's like a nice mashup of David Simon's seriousness of purpose and journalistic integrity that he brings to the television shows he does. And as Pelacanos told us, it's a little bit of fun, too. It's a little bit of pulp. It's a little bit of flash, and it's a nice combination. We are all in on this show. Should we announce our Double Down Book Club then? Exactly that, yeah. Okay, so we have George coming on the show. We talked a little bit about this with him. But we wanted to

announce the new double-down book club title, which is sort of coinciding with the release of the Deuce. It's not a New York novel. It's not a 70s novel. It's not a 70s novel. Although he has one of those called King Suckerman. King Suckerman, which I think had a lot of influence on this show. But for me and Andy, this is one of our favorite Pelicanos titles. It was definitely the one that

kind of unlocked him for me. And it's a novel called The Sweet Forever. And it is basically a crime novel set in D.C. during March Madness. During the the final NCAA tournament of Len bias and it tells just like

a really classic crime story about a bag of money and two guys trying to make the right choices while also battling some demons and it's just an incredible read there is like a lot of 80s music mixed into it which is one of my favorite parts about it but basically it starts out

with a car crash and you know everything goes wrong from there we were really excited for you guys to check it out we will try to be very attentive when it comes to letting you guys know when we're going to discuss the book in full, but we'll do at some point during the due season. Yeah, we're excited to do that.

Hopefully we might even be able to get George to weigh in on it again or some special guests. But people ask us a lot now that we're doing this book club, well, they ask us when are we going to have a new entry? This is it. Yeah. But how we got into, why we got into, where we got into crime fiction, for both of us, at least on our, on the journey we went on together. This book was kind of the touchstone for a lot of it.

Both of us read this early in our reading of Pelicanos, and then we went on to read everything he wrote. And for me, I hadn't read La Hain when I read this. I hadn't read Richard Price. I went from there. This is a great entry point. It's a riveting book. If it's the only one you read, fine, but it might just cause a problem.

We often talk about the reason why we get so into these books. They're sort of the reason why we do this book club in general is that the sort of crime umbrella that these fall under. The crimes are just an excuse to have like a snapshot of a certain kind of world. And I don't know. There are very few books in this genre. better at Sweet Forever than sort of painting a picture of the way people listen to music, the way they talk at bars, the way they get high, the way they come down. It is incredible the way.

And it's just like, yes, there is a crime sort of, or a thriller aspect to it. But it's really just about a spring in D.C. And it's pretty incredible. Yeah, and I think it'll be really interesting, too, for listeners out there who are younger than us, the names and locations and the specifics of this book might be things that you know in passing. Punk rock or New Wave and basketball players. There's punk rock and New Wave and Len Byas and D.C.'s particular role as quote unquote chocolate city. Sure.

And its role in music and sports and the very specific culture of the city that Pelicanos grew up in that he told us in our interview is mostly gone now. And he says it's not all for the bad that it's gone now, but it was a very different place then. And this is how I like to get my history. Yeah. So this is New Double Dime Book Club title is Sweet Forever by George Pelacanos. We can tweet out a link to where to find that. Want to talk about Thrones really quickly.

I just wanted to get your reaction about the sort of bigger movie news that came out this week, which is that Warner Brothers in D.C., this is from Deadline, are in the early stages of another Batman universe spinoff, this one telling the origin story of the signature villain, the Joker. here is the behind the scenes crew working on this. The hangovers Todd Phillips will co-write the script with 8 Mile Scribes Scott Silver. Phillips will direct the movie and Martin Scorsese will produce it. Terrific. That's a murderer's row.

The implication here, what they're saying is that the intention is to make a gritty and grounded hard-boiled crime film set in the early 80s Gotham City and it isn't meant to feel like a DC movie as much as one of Scorsese's films from that era like taxi driver, raging polar to king of I love to talk with Sam Dotsky about this idea of director bullshit where like when they're leading up to what essentially like it's like a planet of the apes movie or whatever and like what were you sort of thinking about when you were making this movie like David Lean. It's like okay dog. But it's true. Here's a thing. To work in this industry certainly on that level, you have to lie to yourself a lot.

Now you also go to sleep on a bed literally made of money. So I'm not asking you to break out the violins. But you have to find a way to jimmy together a connection between the garbage pile that is hiding that money. Yeah. And the art that inspired you in the first place. And we got this with like Kong Skull Island, right, where Jordan Vod Roberts was like, I wanted to make apocalypse now. Sure. Good.

And Matt Reeves has been referencing Hitchcock for the Batman movie he's making. So sure. And, you know, and I'm not trying to. I'm a big fan of Sam Donsky's tweets on this subject, so I'm not trying to get on his back about it. But I mean, sometimes it works. Now, it's interesting, though, does it? Well, not in these big budget things. I think what it does is, I've been thinking about this a lot with like how within a small circle of people who sort of regularly read about the production and marketing of movies.

Right. Which I can't. It's big enough so that that is in itself an industry. There are choices that people make when they decide to start pushing out narratives about a film. Now, I mean, you can read between the lines on this deadline thing, and it's like, it kind of sounds like Todd Phillips wanted to make a king of comedy-style awkward 80s New York movie, which I actually don't think would be that bad. No. And that they, whether or not this was a reunion of that, or maybe he went and said, hey, I want to make the Joker movie, but I want to make it as king of comedy or something. Well, because what Warner Brothers is claiming, and I really have a lot of skepticism about this, is that they are going to take a page from Fox's management of their X-Men properties, basically, and say, we're going to just not be.

so concerned about continuity. We're going to let some things be funny, something's be weird. And there were some questions this week about the Batman movie about that maybe being outside of this flagmire of Justice League. Right, so they can cast someone else and make their own thing. Because correctly, audiences don't really care that much. Yeah. They'll see a Batman movie if it's a good Batman movie. So, okay, sure.

But, you know, your point about director bullshit, think about an example where it did work is Stranger Things, which we're going to be talking about a lot this fall. if you had asked the Duffer brothers what they were inspired by, you know, they would name the Spielberg movies and Goonies and Carpenter and they did that. They channeled that. Now they channeled it into what, which is an original creation. It's obviously kind of a Frankenstein of all those elements. The problems start to become, and this is your favorite hobby horse, but I'm going to jump on it and ride, man. Go for it. When people are like Captain America Winter Soldier is the parallax view. Yeah, right. It's not. Right. It's cool that they mentioned that. I like the. And I like Winter Soldier, but it's not. For me, the weirder thing about it, which of course isn't weird, but it still is like caused people to do a little double or triple take here is the Scorsese part.

And look, here's the thing. Martin Scorsese, one of the greatest filmmakers of all time, a genius, should and will be able to make movies for the rest of his life. Yes. It may be a very long one. But I believe he makes his movies usually through Warner Brothers.

And this is part of it, business now. If he wants to be in business, I mean, he can go to Amazon or Netflix and they'll bankroll anything. And Netflix is bank, bankrolling the Irishman to the tune of $150 million. That's right. Yeah. That's right. But if he wants to be in business with Warner Brothers, now I know I'm going to get some of the specifics wrong here.

But, you know, this dude made silence, right? Yeah. I don't know who, I know that he had to work very hard on the funding for that by patching it together across countries. But the thing about Scorsese is, at this point in his career, and this is, again, this is a great thing. For every wolf of Wall Street or departed that he makes, he makes Kundun. or silence or more of a personal passion project. This is one for them, one for me, I think, on some level. I mean, first of all, he's going to have nothing to do with this.

He will maybe get paid for it or you can throw his name on it. He's not going to have anything to do with it. I think the charitable reading of this, and it's probably pretty close to it, is that Martin Scorsese, he's a guy who has, like, a lot of interest in terms of film restoration and film preservation and getting behind more obscure filmmakers, like he did the Ben, he produced the band, or executive produced the Ben Wheatley movie from earlier this year.

So if there is like a movement of funds and also it's just like, I'm sure this is a nice paycheck and maybe he's actually genuinely interested in seeing if he can make a subversive 80s thriller with, or 80s movie with Todd Phillips about the Joker. They're not going to cashier Adelito. I just want really quickly, I wanted to ask you, it's not only just director bullshit

whether like, I'm going to make this movie, it's influenced by Godar and it's actually just Transformers last night. It's also, it was very interesting. I saw it Logan Lucky earlier this week. I'm jealous. Really, really liked it. I really liked it. Let me tell you something.

Movies are good. Yeah. Stephen Soderberg makes good movies. Yeah, he does. I like heist movies. Yes, me too. I love everything you're saying. I'm excited.

And if you're ever like, this is getting a little dull or, you know, maybe this isn't like setting my hair on fire. Yeah. Guess what it ends. It's over in two hours. Terrific. Yeah. So one of the interesting things about this, though, is that the thing that most people seem

to know about Logan Lucky is that it is Stephen Soderberg's attempt to disrupt film distribution. I love disruption. And that it was all this idea that he was going to use this company fingerprint, I think it's called. Zach B has, Zach Barron has like a great, not only a feature on

Steven Soderberg in GQ, but he also has this very long, the transcripts of his interviews of them posted on guk.com, and you should really read him because... Zach won't a great piece, but this Q&A's are great. Yeah, and he writes goes very in depth about how they're going to sell the they're going to sell the negative to pay for this, and non-traditional

distribution pays for that and everything is profit. So it made like $8 million or something. It was essentially a bomb, I guess the box office, especially considering the Channing Tatum and Kylo Renner in it and James Bond.

And, you know, the narrative became entirely about like, well, was this a successor of failure? And sort of was pretty sarcastic about his film career right now. He's like, I'm not going to make serious movies. I'm going to make serious TV. Yeah. The films are just,

just going to basically be like experiments and fun. Yeah, he shot a horror movie for 10 days with Claire Foy, right? On an, like, reportedly on an iPhone. I bet it's probably a little more complicated than that. It's probably a Samsung Galaxy. Would it have helped if you knew more, if like the Logan Lucky trailer and what you knew about Logan Lucky was more than the distribution model that it was following? Well, I think, for you, I guess, I'm saying in general, like, I would love to hear from

people about this. People don't, no one in Hollywood knows how to get their story across. anymore. They know how to get things made. They know how to get things funded and they know to put them on your screen. And they know, you know, going, if you look at the very high end of Game of Thrones, you look at the very, not low end, but a, you know, more cost effective end like FX's Louis comedy's Louie or better things. They know how to do things on a more limited budget. What they don't know how to do is get you to understand what it is, what they're trying to do. You know, there used to be a lot of angst about the Hollywood only green letting movies.

that you could understand in the trailer. And then it became the poster. Now it's the tweet or the image. And even that isn't enough. I mean, so your question to me is, I don't know what more they could do. The Logan Lucky trailer was incredible. The poster, I understood the vibe, you know.

What more can they do to get you in the theater? And I don't really know. It's hard to tell what will spark interest. When you asked me that question, I'm thinking also about the stuff that came out this week about how MTV is like going all in on TRL and pumping up the VMAs again and they're going to have like Snapchat and like hologram engagement. And I'm like, just, you're just saying nonsense words. Like I don't understand what that

will do for you, but they're trying. Yeah. I think, I think, I think a lot of that is, is the difficulty. They're making all this stuff and they're funding all this stuff, but they really don't know what's going to hit or what's not going to hit. And unless it's a company that's really just trying to boost its bottom, not its bottom, well, first of all, it's bottom line with shareholders, but also its library, then I don't know. I don't know. Because these companies are still, broadcast networks are still on some level dependent on the overnight ratings. Movie studios are still dependent on opening, I mean, less and less, but on the box office. Yeah. Meanwhile, as we talk about often, Netflix and Amazon are like, cool. Whatever. Yeah. I'll give Stephen Soderberg

and Martin Scorsese and Ellen DeGeneres or Shonda Rimes. I'm just throwing names out who make a lot of money. I'll just give them $300 million. My shareholders are happy, and we have that now. Yeah. So it's just, it's a very mixed playing field. All of that, I said, because I thought you were going to ask me, would I have liked, would I have been more psyched about Logan Lucky if I knew it was low-key, a Harley Quinn origin story? But this is the world we've made. Yeah. You know? I know. So they're going to make a Joker origin story, but they're also going to make a Joker Harley Quinn romance movie. And they'll make justice. I mean, they're just going to, oh, let's end on this note, they're also probably not going to make a lot of this.

Yeah, I know. A lot of this. Before we go, I want to get to your interview with David Nevins really quickly. Did you ever think we were going to be in day four of Are We Sure of Thrones as good conversation? Oh, yeah, we didn't even talk about Thrones. I mean, we have it coming up Sunday. Last episode of Talk the Thrones after the last episode of Game of Thrones for the season, we'll be on as soon as the East Coast airing is over.

Yep. Just the four of us this week. It's really weird. I mean, at our event last night, we on the stage talked about that. this and people in the audience seem to share our concerns here. I would say it was like 85% people in the crowd. And I mean, no one is like, what's up with this? Let's all remember this. Let's measure our tone here. No one is out on the show. No, not at all. But I think we were all really thrown thrown by last week because it was off key in a way the show hadn't been before.

I mean, there were things that didn't work, certainly like dorn, like sexual politics, like the time there was a bear fight. You know, it just, they've had misfires creatively or in any number of directions. But this was the first one where I was like, Wait, where are we going? I think the stress comes from the lack of permutations available. So people are stressed out about them screwing it up because they can only really do one or three things. And if they're like, you can't really miss on two of them, you know? And I think that people are feeling for the first time.

This always felt like the safest investment on television. No, with the history of television, because they were on a track. So you could go on this journey and it would be worth the, quote unquote, worth the investment. I don't like that phrasing, but that's really how people watch TV now. We have six plus years now sunk into the. these characters and these relationships. And if one of them were to die on a nonsense mission to rescue a zombie, it would feel cheap and horrifying.

And similarly, if the end result of this ridiculous mission to convince Searcy is going to result in the deaths of, I don't know, Jamie or Brienne or, I don't know, other characters that we care about on some level, it's going to be, unless they do some masterful scene work, it's going to be hard not to have that little acrid taste in the mouth, right? Yeah, I agree with you. We'll have to see what happens on Sunday night. Here is Andy's interview with Showtime President David Nevins coming shortly after a quick word from our sponsors. Today's episode of The Watch is brought to you by Hotel Tonight, if you're like me, Andy, and you're not so great of planning ahead.

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Glasses.com slash watch today to try a pair of Felix Gray computer glasses and discover a smarter way to work. That's Felixgrayglasses.com slash watch. Felixgrayglasses.com slash watch. I am extremely excited to be joined now on the line from his office out here somewhere in Los Angeles. The CEO and president of Showtime Network, David Nevins, welcome back to the podcast. Happy to be here. And to answer your implied question, shadow of UCLA. Greater downtown Westwood. I didn't realize downtown Westwood

merited that sort of distinction. Is there... Yes. There's major downtown Westwood, minor downtown Westwood, and so on? Yeah, well, you know, here I am.

Well, it's one way to stay young. David, I'm so happy you could join us because you are one of the chief, people chiefly responsible for making me happier than just about anything, making me happier than just about anyone else in the world, because you brought Twin Peaks back. And I don't know if we've discussed this in previous conversations, but Twin Peaks was my first favorite show of all time. It is probably remains my favorite show of all time.

There are pictures of me dressed as Special Agent Dale Cooper holding a coffee mug, even though I was 12 or 13 and couldn't really drink coffee. I never thought this day... The question is, will you put together a caution for Dougie? Well, of course. I think, you know, as one ages, I think maybe the original Dougie is probably more appropriate, but not the ripped Cooper Duggy. So the first comment isn't just a, the first, it's not even a question. It's just, I just wanted to say thank you for doing this. You've brought me, this show has brought me so much joy in it to return. You are very welcome and it is satisfy. I have to bring it all the way back to the beginning and ask you how this actually

happened because up until the minute the music started playing on my TV a few months ago, I really didn't believe this. I just didn't let my heart get carried away. I just couldn't see how this could be. It seems so unlikely, and I know there were some bumps along the way. So if you don't mind, take us back a few years. Was this something that you sought out from your perch at Showtime?

Or was David and Mark actively shopping this around because they had the notion and they had the inclination to do it? Well, as with all that they were thinking and there might be conscious, I did know Mark, and I think it was a feel out meeting it.

So in that first meeting, there was no discussion of resurrecting the little man from another place as a talking electric tree. You weren't there yet. Nope. We were not at that point yet. That was never discussed. It's not like it was... Were there subsequent meetings before any script stage in which they pitched you on the general tenor of the return, what it, you know, the characters that they wanted to bring back, their arcs? or did or was it still murky until you actually saw pages?

Yeah, I don't remember any talked about the idea of a remake or this and then. So when you saw those first two hours, I imagine you had some of the questions that the audience did, ended up having as well, such as the lack of, not the lack of, but the expansion of the palette. The first series obviously was called Twin Peaks and it was pretty much set in Twin Peaks. The movie expanded it out a little bit. and obviously the movie came to hold a lot of significance for the series that followed. But the two hours that dropped earlier this summer, I mean, we're in Las Vegas, we're in New York City. There's a glass box.

For me, it was head spinning and delirious in all the best possible ways, but I'm wondering what that was like in your office. Yeah. I saw it was Dakota. I know by now if you're up to speed. And I believe in, I don't know if this was actually. accurately reported in the press at the time, but the initial order was for something short. It was imagined as something like eight to nine episodes. And what I understand is this was the script they wrote for eight to nine episodes.

It just couldn't be contained. Is that accurate? Yes, it is. It is. And that was where it was on that happened while I was actually, these are the pages. We're not going to, you know, work. Yeah, I think. Once I realized that, like.

He can't be, he can't be withheld by conventions in any, any category or medium. That's right. For people who don't know that there was a brief period during the long gestation of this project after it had been announced that it appeared to be on the brink of falling apart that David Lynch was perhaps leaving the project, which, you know, I think as any fan would agree, would have imperiled the whole thing. I actually... Well, let me come see you. I have no interest in doing Twin Peaks without him. I don't think we have any interest in seeing it. It's impossible to imagine.

Actually, I did say at the beginning that I didn't believe any of this, but the one thing that I actually did have weird optimism then because that that that... would work out because I think at that point, though you hadn't obviously shot anything yet, you had sent TV critics a cherry pie that December to celebrate it. And I said, well, I don't know how many cherry pies they sent, but they're not good. That's not recoupable. So they definitely are going to make this show. Well, so much of my job through the make the, um, was how difficult was that? Because you're seeing, you're seeing images. You're aware of the story. And I, I, and I, I, and, I mean, whether you, and I don't mean you, I mean the collective audience of you, whether you love it, whether you're baffled by it, you want to talk about this.

You know, this is, much like the original, part of the wonder and uniqueness of the show is saying, what did I just see? How did that make me feel? How do I process this? You're totally right. The show definitely rewards that. And then when you're talking, you know, in conversation, you discover things that you didn't. think you realized. And me, every time, he would never really talk back to me.

You know, I would say, hey, what about? It does sound like, and this is, again, this is maybe not traditional in the way TV was when you were coming up in the business, but is more and more common. Now, it does seem like you guys empowered Twin Peaks Incorporated to go off and produce this television show for you guys. And do it their way. And then you were committed to letting them do that. And that's the beauty of the show we have.

However, there are certain things, and please be clear, I've said this at the beginning, I am in love with this show. So this is not me advocating for this, but I am curious, obviously if this was in a more traditional framework, it wouldn't have gotten made. But if you're going to continue the hypothetical, in the traditional framework, the fact that the star of the show, the star character, has yet to make an appearance other than, you know, being trapped in the first hour or so, that would be a network note. Now, obviously, Kyle is giving the performance of the year in multiple roles, and it is astonishing to watch. But, you know, ahead of this weekend's episode where I think a lot of fans are anticipating something happening in regards to this, we haven't seen Special Agent Dale Cooper back. And it's been a long time. It's been a lot of hours. You're right.

Did you ever, is that someone like this? Can I give you an analogy? Because I know you were a Friday Night Lights fan. Yeah, I sure was, yeah. I'll make a connection back to Friday Night Lights. and the work on the pilot said whatever I give up in doing

and you know it's have was that one of the things does make sense it does and I appreciate the analogy to one of my favorite shows other favorite shows did is no but seriously

where the hell is Dale Cooper was that one of the questions you said to David that he just smiled at perhaps you know perhaps along the way no I'm not being coy I'm not trying to be I don't remember but I remember the feeling

yeah Yeah. I mean, I know the feeling. I mean, there's something that is, this is hard to, you know, capture in a tweet or in a press release, but there is something that I find truly exhilarating about giving up to this show. Right. Giving up, you know. And that is, and that is the point. He wants you to experience it.

Yeah. And it's, it's funny, you know, there was a lot of talk about how the original Twin Peaks was nothing like what was on television at the time. And in a way, it sort of presaged the, the smarter TV era of the last, of this century, let's say. But what's really refreshing and wonderful about this is that once again Twin Peaks is completely ahead of its time and out of step with its times. Because in this era

that we're in now, you know, you're talking, David, you're talking to someone who spends the last seven weeks micromanaging every detail and every reaction to Game of Thrones. You don't need to gameplay predicting what's going to happen. You know, almost as if it was

as if it was sports. And now we have the show again that just that absolutely defies us from doing that. And it's it's incredibly it's moving. It's exciting. I think you would be you would be wise to

and I love that you're saying that and I'm glad that you did because one thing that I've been trying to tell people is that during the run of Twin Peaks the people who have been most unanimous and full-throated in their adoration of the show are incredibly successful showrunners. Right.

You know, spoken to Sam Esseries. mail about it. I've talking to Damon Lindelof about it. They are considered the vanguard of what they do now, and they're saying, well, we bow to this. And I don't know exactly what the, I'm paying very close to Damon Lindeloff. I'm paying, and I don't know what the lessons. Well, I'm curious about that specifically, because obviously the metrics of what makes a success have changed radically in television. In some ways, the build-up to the premiere of Twin Peaks was a throwback to the way things used to be, and that, you know, you get the entertainment weekly cover and the fans get interviewed again

and, you know, people put cherry pie in the menu. But then we've settled into this. And obviously, you know, Game of Thrones came back and this has been, you know, we're 15 weeks or whatever we are into it. The, that kind of mainstream heat has dissipated. And I know the ratings, the overnight ratings are not, you know, like Game of Thrones.

Let's put it that way. But I'm curious for you as an executive who greenlit this, what are you looking for and what are you looking at? And what does it say specifically about your job? because, you know, I've joked, hopefully good-naturedly, that, you know, I love the split-screen ads on my browser for Twin Peaks and Ray Donovan, because those are both successful TV shows that I don't know how much DNA they share in some ways. You know, I don't see it.

But I love that they're both on your network. Right. And I think it's... Very rarely, I don't know, you've not seen a ton of... Well, no, it's... They do run against each other, and one runs at 8 o'clock, and one runs at 9 o'clock. I think you're correct in what you say than you would imagine.

I don't want to prejudge, but what I mean is... But metaphorically, they are... They're different. Twin Peaks is so other. So what is... Go ahead. Ask the question. But the question here is, how much of putting on Twin Peaks,

I mean, let's set aside the most important thing, which is that you funded this incredible work of art that will last and has made so many people very happy. But setting that aside, in terms of your business pointing forward in a very exciting but also tumultuous time for the industry. How much of making the show is hanging out a shingle saying, we at Showtime are open for radical business,

that we are supportive of creators like David Lynch, and we want to be thought of as the place that will give you this creative freedom? Sure. My goal. That's not what I live in with the app. It's just an interesting not watching Showtime. And with the ones we're not, there's a twin-pea-night. That might be going to probably get.

I also wouldn't want to do the job of your internal divisions for you, but I also would think that some of the projects you have coming up that I'm personally very interested in. You have Lena Waith's show The Shy, I think it's called, and you have Frankie Shaw's Smilf. I mean, these are shows that are empowering unique storytellers. And, you know, I imagine that these shows are going to reflect their unique perspectives. And that is a very thin strand of DNA, but an important one. You know, we're not saying that these shows are Twin Peaks. But when you talk about Lena Waite and the shy, and the John's in the case of... I wondered, because one of the things about this, I think people who have only a casual relationship with his work, just when they think of the shorthand, what is David Lynch, they think, oh, weird, extremity, scary sometimes. But what to me has always been is incredibly stalwart

and true emotionally and deeply emotional. And this show, not just because these are my old friends in this world that I meant so much to me and still does, but it's a very unique situation where you have Catherine Colson, Miguel Ferrer, Warren Frost, Frank Silva, Donnie Davis,

and David Bowie, all contributing in ways, you know, physical or otherwise to this. And the show honors all of them in a very beautiful way. It is an emotional experience. I mean, I think that is what makes the...

Yes. And I think so much of the emotional power comes from. And that doesn't... That probably doesn't come from a 40-year-old artist. No. The 25 years are worn on the faces of people,

and the show is very unflinching, but very respectful of that in a way that is, well, also being hilarious. I don't know that that really has, I think that's much deeper than that. I agree. Also, I think that now I qualify as a fan man, but I think you're correct. You mentioned the Bowie scene. Before I let you go, is there any other, just specifically as a fan yourself and obviously involved in it, any other character or moments that you just

thrilled to that meant a lot to you that you were so excited to see whether it is someone that made a brief appearance or a storyline that was tied up. There are a lot of things that stick out. Oh, so great. Yeah, no, don't.

Yeah, I won't, okay. But that's the beauty of the show. I just don't want to know. I'm so excited. I'm thrilling to it. Yeah, and then Just episode 8 in general. I mean, you put that on your air.

It will be... The shape of that, which was... To be able to broadcast something that just cuts through everything else and speaks to people on a profound emotional level. And everyone, I think, understood what that episode was, the origins of evil on a deep level, but it never said that. We just understand it.

And it was something past... We think of television often as just a machine for plot, and we're so far past that. I would think that that that would be a thrill just to be able to know that you, you know, you had, you put that on TV on a Sunday night in 2017 and that's, that's out there now. Well, I'm just happy to have this chance to talk to you, David, and also hear that you are as moved and entertained by this as all these diehards like myself are. This is the, to my mind, this is the show of the year. And, you know, maybe it, maybe it ends up being like the Velvet Underground albums where they weren't on. the top of the charts, but everyone who listened to it formed a band. Let's, let's hope,

because I think what you've done is, it's not just a triumph artistically, but I think it's, I think it's a triumph, hopefully, for the medium in a moment when it's getting, you know, unprecedented attention, but I think is still struggling to find the next phase creatively. Past the difficult manner. I was largely a bystander, but as they say, if you can't be an athlete, be it. Yeah. Well, whether you push the butt. or you put the people in the position to succeed or you came back from vacation on time. You did something right and you've earned yourself an entire cherry pie when this whole thing is done.

Thank you, David. Thanks for taking the time. Thanks, Danny. Okay, that was it. That was my conversation with Showtime President and CEO David Nevins about the creation of Twin Peaks, the return. There's a couple weeks of it left. I promise I will get Chris to catch up and we will get back into it before this is done. It is the most meaningful television of the year to me. I think it's a total joy and a total trip. And of course this is, that's how it happened, right? Of course, David Lynch just said, hey, this is what we're doing, buddy, and I'm going to go do it. And David Nevins, who was in a, well-respected, a veteran programmer and producer, just had to say, yep, and that's kind of the

attitude I have with Twin Peaks of Return. You have to sit down on your couch. You have to put away your second screen, and you just have to say, okay, yep, and it will reward you. Thank you for listening to this episode of The Watch. Please remember to check us out this Sunday night live on Twitter. Hashtag Talk the Thrones. We will be going live. Me, Chris, Jason, Mallory, as soon as the East Coast airing of Game of Thrones season finale ends. You can watch it live. After East Coast and West Coast airings streaming on Periscope, you can also just follow us on Twitter, tweet out the links to watch it any time. It's been a great season and it'll be, well, it's been a great season of Talk the Thrones for us. I think it's been an interesting season of Game of Thrones

and hopefully we'll end in a good place. then we'll be back next week with a podcast called The Watch and the Ringer Podcast Network. Great job, Varenskis. I'm saying it alone. There's no one else here. Bye.