The Watch - Disney+ Jockeys for First Place in the Streaming Wars | The Watch

Episode Date: April 19, 2019

This week Disney announced all of the movies and TV shows that will be available on Disney+ (1:06); the streaming service is creating a relationship with subscribers before even launching (8:25). Plus: ‘Game of Thrones’ (20:52), ‘Bless This Mess’ (27:16), ‘Killing Eve’ (31:32), and ‘The OA’ (35:34). Host: Chris Ryan Guest: Alison Herman Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Visit NavyFederal.org slash watch for more information. Call 188-8442-6328 or download the Navy Federal Credit Union app today. Message and data rates may apply. Visit navyfederal.org for more information. sports to have to clear the room. Stand up and walk 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 today, this podcast's original angel, Alison Herman. Hello, Chris. How do you doing, Allison? I'm good. I feel like I've been maybe I had this conversation with you in another dimension and I just can't remember.

Who knows? We will be talking about, I think let's put it at the first like two or three episodes of the LA because I haven't finished it. We'll be talking a little bit. about the OA later in the episode. We'll talk a little bit about this new ABC sitcom called Bless This Mess, starring Lake Bell from Liz Maryweather, who did The New Girl. And we'll hit killing Eve and maybe some throne stuff, just wanted to kind of take a spin through the channels with Allison. But first, I wanted to have a conversation. I guess this is like loosely, like when

Kai and I talk about this, it's basically streaming wars. It's like we're just kind of talking about the ups and downs of the various streaming platforms and how they position themselves, both in the marketplace, but in our lives. And I was having these conversations. over the last couple of like 10 days ever since Disney got announced. Disney Plus got announced. Not only because it was a notable price point, what they were put there,

they were initially going to probably market it at $7. Although I would imagine you're going to be able to bundle it with Hulu and ESPN Plus, and that will probably take it up, if not too, past, what Netflix currently is, which hovers around $15. Yeah, I would imagine the bundle

would definitely be more. Yeah. But I was having this conversation with Fantasy the other day, and it kind of got me thinking about this weird thing with these emerging behemists because you could take a look at like Amazon to some extent, but certainly

Netflix, certainly Disney Plus, probably Apple, and you can kind of like start to put them in the place of where the networks were when I was a kid. You know what I mean? Where CBS, NBC and ABC were when I was a kid. I didn't really ever have like an emotional attachment to networks, although they did work to make you feel that way, right?

Like they did, NBC was a certain kind of network. CBS was a certain kind of network. But I was thinking about Disney, specifically, because quite in the opposite of the where Netflix was when it launched, and it was essentially like a DVD service that then started dipping its toe into original content and had some stuff that you could catch up on from other networks. It took a while for them to find any shows that they were making

that really caught on or became part of the consciousness. Disney's not going to have that problem in a weird way because Disney has 80 years of stuff that people already have this emotional attachment to, Snow White, Star Wars, Marvel movies, Pixar movies, what have you. Yeah, it's basically like, it's holding your imagination hostage almost, or specifically in the conversations I've heard mostly, it's like your kid's imagination.

Yeah. It's like, I need, like, my kid is going to want to see cars or Moana or the next Marvel movie or whatever. And so like it's not even a matter of will I subscribe to this? It's like, will I subscribe to this or will I subscribe to the mega Hulu bundle? Yes, right. And that was kind of where I was getting to where it was like, they've created a relationship before the service has even been launched.

They've created a kind of curiosity on people like, my part where I'm like, I just definitely would probably pay seven bucks a month just to see what the Mandalorian is like outside of whether or not, like you can see that. And then there's also like you're saying, there's going to be families who want to have the Disney Children's Library available. They're going to be people who I think it's very savvy that they waited to the extent that they did wait. I mean, I know they had to buy MLL.

be advanced tech and create all the back end stuff that they wanted to create for it. But even the Marvel movies are now like 10 years in with a proven track record that they make stuff that some people do return to over and over again. Yeah, or even just the idea of being like just to start, we're going to have 22 of the highest grossing movies that have ever existed is quite the opening cell. Yeah, and I was sort of curious about all of this in relationship to Netflix because Disney's being sort of set up as a Netflix killer. I don't necessarily think it will be that.

I do think that Netflix has, there's going to be multiple streaming services available for people's dollars, although Netflix's proposition is such that they have to constantly be growing and adding subscribers to their base to make up for the amount of money that they're spending on content and whatever else they spend it on. But Netflix, it seems like the emotional dependency, if you want to call it that, that you have one would have with Netflix, is almost more about the experience of watching Netflix

than it is anyone's show on Netflix. Absolutely. I mean, I remember we talked a little bit about this when we were talking specifically about their Oscar campaign for Roma. And I remember looking at that and thinking it was really interesting compared to their TV strategy because their Oscar campaign was like, we believe in atoors and like specifically this movie.

And TV, it's just like, we're Netflix, we have everything. Yeah. Like, they didn't really necessarily have any of the most nominated shows. It's just like they literally have so many shows that hit so many different niches that like they just owned the board. And I do think in the mind, especially of people my age, it's not even an emotional attachment. It's just a utility. It's just like, well, Netflix is just like a recurring monthly charge that I have because I know it'll have something that is of interest to me. Right.

And I know it offers the social aspect where like it's of interest to me and people I know will also be experiencing it and I can talk to them about it. Right. And so you and I have talked before about whether you want to call it ease of use or it's been sort of, we've just gotten used to it, the fact that you feel like people will give Netflix shows way more of a shot,

or at least, like, oh, it was on the front page of Netflix, so I started watching it, regardless of its critical reception, regardless of its pedigree, regardless of whether it's any good or not. I mean, we're about to talk about the OA. Like, can you imagine, like, even HBO, but like NBC, any, like, sci-fi,

just anything that is not like we, have hundreds of millions of people just idly browsing our service being like, hello, watch the show with the telepathic octopus. Yes. It's absolutely the case. And I think that that is a weirdly, to me, that's weirdly part of the value of Netflix, is that somehow, even though we all talk about it's just like this algorithm that governs like what gets chosen to keep, they keep on or what they cancel or what gets promoted,

I do feel like strangely, it's not out of benevolence, but like strange stuff. on Netflix in a way that I wonder whether that will ever happen on Hulu or happen on Amazon or happen on Apple or happen on Disney because they have so many innings to fill. They have so many hours to fill. Now, this could all wind up changing if Netflix decides to become a lot more circumspect about how much money they're spending on original programming. I do wonder, I mean, Kaya said something to me the other day, our producer Kaya. She was like, I think you made mention of like going home and you were like, yeah, I just throw on the office and then, like, if I'm cleaning my house, like the office will just be on in the background,

which is exactly what I used to do when I would go home and just turn ESPN on. I would have it on basically to hear another voice in the house while I, like, made dinner or something like that. That's not going to be the experience that we have with Disney, but I wonder whether or not that experience is still as valuable as any other. No, I think it's valuable. And actually, like, another service that I think Disney will maybe work in compliment with now that they own so much of it is Hulu. I was listening to KCRW's The Business, which is a really great podcast to, if you want to understand this stuff.

But they were sort of talking about the way Disney is positioning it is that Disney Plus is going to be a little more of a family play, like we mentioned. It's got a lot of stuff that appeals to kids and appeals to parents watching with their kids, whereas Hulu is a little bit more of an adult thing. But I think something that Hulu has very quietly been

both competing with Netflix in and maybe even doing better in because they've up until this point been like we're the one that's owned by the broadcast. They have amazing archives of shows like 30 Rock. Like Golden Girls. Golden Girls is like basically my wife's version of the way people watch the office. Like when she's just like, I just need a nightlight on, she watches Golden Girls.

Yeah, Seinfeld. It's just the show that feels or it's the service that feels the most like it's replacing traditional TV in that sense. And I do think it's very, very valuable for something like Disney to have that. And part of that is because I just know that it gives me a lot of bank for my buck. and so it's definitely like quiet. I think it's less flashy than something like Netflix, which just, especially from here on out as they're losing archives own so much. It's kind of interesting to have the one that's like,

okay, this is where I get like my passport to the past of network TV. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, that's actually something that I wonder whether or not will like, there is a little bit more of a historical archive like you're saying in Hulu where it's like with Netflix, it's kind of a little bit more flattened out and it's been replaced largely with their own original. content. The thing that strangely, I wonder whether the two most popular shows on Netflix are the Office and Friends. You know, I mean, I know that Narcos and I know the Stranger Things,

and I know they have a lot of like very successful shows, at least by their own metrics. But I wonder what would happen once, presumably Warner streaming, whatever that comes out, would take Friends back. And if, if, uh, if the Office ever reverts to an NBC Universal Comcast, uh, I mean, they literally just announced, I don't know if you saw this, the marquee offering of NBC Universal's to be titled streaming service which is launching in

2020 is an adaptation of Brave New World starting Alden Aaron Rake which is just the most it totally feels like variety mad libs to me and it's also just like I don't even know

if that's the selling point of that streaming service I'm not like oh I can't wait to see what original content the mighty NBC Universal is going to bankroll for me in the same way that I am with like Apple where I'm just like okay

like Apple can literally just like set a creative benjamin management's on fire and it's just like a business expense. Yeah. Like I can't wait to see like what that results in. NBCU I think is going to be tougher and I would not be surprised if their leading cell alongside newer stuff was like, oh, and by the way, we also have the office for you to put

on while you're cleaning your house. Yeah. I mean, that's going to be the curious thing. I've been trying. I mean, I read a great article on Stratory by Ben Thompson about the introduction of Disney Plus and the possible bundling of that with Hulu and the possible bundling of that with ESPN Plus and how that sort of creates like a pretty close approximation

to what it's like to have cable television because you would have your sports, you would have regular, quote unquote, regular television, and then you would have these Disney products. And he kind of went into detail about how you have to understand Disney as this incredible wheel of, you know, constant. It's almost like one of those water wheels

that it's like almost generating energy by doing that. And that stuff is all integrated from Disneyland to the merchandise to the merchandise to the music and the music that's used in different parts of it and that it's like constantly buzzing revenue because it's like keeping you inside of it. But then on the other hand, something like Netflix is a little bit more of a passive thing.

And Netflix is kind of just offering a ton of stuff that isn't necessarily like a brand, right? Yeah, I mean, can you imagine a Netflix theme park? It's the stranger things, right? So there would be like Key West World for Bloodline, right? Yeah, so it would be like there could be like a themed B&B for Bloodline. go see the Hollywood sign from BoJack. You go to the women's correctional facility for Orange.

Take a tour of the Oval Office with Claire. The House of Cards. Yeah. Yeah. And then I think that like the thing is is that they do do like Stranger Things activations at like Universal Studios and stuff like that for Halloween. I mean, that would actually be pretty funny. But I don't think anyone ever charts it back to Netflix,

the way people chart it back to Disney, even with sub-brands as powerful as Marvel, Star Wars, and Pixar. Well, I think because Netflix's whole thing is like we're not even a brand. We're just like a totality within which some brands can exist. And like that works in their favor in a lot of ways. But it also doesn't, it means that people aren't going to be like, holy shit, there's a Netflix pluse. Right, exactly.

Let me give it all my money. So they, they fell a little short, if I'm reading the sort of the statistics right here, I think globally fell a little short of new customers than they thought they would. recently it was like they added five million and Wall Street forecasted like 6.09 and the company blamed that slow down on priceier offerings because they're raising prices in different

parts of the world and it is truly like a global service that's the thing I think we send to like look at it through this lens of like well what shows are you putting on here in America and they do really think about like who is watching this in Brazil and how can we better service them but that being said like I think once we get to November in December. And the reason why I'm so fascinated by this is I think that these companies are going to have to keep articulating what it is they do for us and what purpose they serve in our lives. Apple, I thought, kind of botched their rollout, or at least we're not that impressive with it. But I do understand what they're trying to do, which is that they're trying to get into Apple, Apple is integrated into every single part of your life. Your phone, the way you listen on AirPods, the way you pay for stuff, the games you play, the television you watch, all of it is running through Apple machinery. It is, Does that make sense?

Totally. And then you've got Disney, which I think is like almost this weird, like, what if you only needed one brand? What if you did? There didn't need to be this like multiplicity of like corporate voices in your life and you could find everything you needed in this one under one umbrella. Is that scary to you? Kind of.

I mean, it's weird. Like I was listening to that podcast and someone just offhandedly mentioned the idea of FX and the fact that Disney technically owns it now. And I was like, oh yeah, like FX shows just aren't really available on streaming because Landgraf has been so reticent of Netflix. Like, is this just going to be... Well, they have their own... They have their own app.

Yeah, they have an app. But that's sort of like, if you already have FX, it's not... It's not the same, like, oh, I'll pay an extra $7 a month and I can stream, like, all of the Americans. And it's just like the idea that, you know, what is arguably right now, the premier prestige television network, which does not make their offerings, like, super accessible to the non-cable having public. The idea that, like, the fate of that entire archive is just, like, absent-minded aside. Yeah. Or even just, like, you know, in my... weird niche TV critic existence. Disney just changed its TV press site to just be Walt Disney

television. So it's just a giant and you pull it up and it's just a panel of like freeform, FXX, Fox, just every brand. And it's just, it's like stunning to look at. It's like 12 different logos. That's five years ago we're pretty separate or it felt pretty separate. And like so far, they're just kind of like links to preexisting websites. But it's just like, oh, right. Like it's, it's done. Yeah. This is happening. So the other thing that I really want to keep an eye on over the coming months is whether or not this phenomenon that I've been trying to articulate to myself keeps happening, which is essentially that the amount of new stuff required by these new platforms to fill up libraries to have a significant amount of an offering for people to pay extra money or make the choice that this is going to be the televised entertainment platform that they use is going to be such that basically. we're always trapped in this hamster wheel of the new. Because one thing that I've noticed recently is that when, like, Andy and I used to do this

podcast back at Grantland even, and there was, like, that was sort of like quote unquote peak TV era, but one thing that you would always see is like if you just kept evangelizing for certain things, there was a good chance of people would check out the Americans eventually. You know what I mean? Maybe not on like a massive, massive, massive amount. But people would have the time to say like, okay, well, there's only like three things on now. I'll go back eight months and would catch up with. with Breaking Bad on Netflix or whatever.

But if you're constantly pumping five to ten new shows every week, I wonder if anyone's ever going to get to go see Patriot or go see Berlin Station or go see any of the shows that are like two years old or like three years old. And this brings me all the way around to HBO because I get really interested at the idea of like, are people going to go back and watch six feet under the way that they watch the office? I don't think so.

Although it's funny. I have noticed this is definitely like a very isolated anecdotal Twitter thing, but the Sopranos has like started to become that in this weird way where like I see people doing it as like a comfort watch where it's like, okay, now that I know all the stuff that happens and I know all the weighty psychological things it's trying to say about, you know, how can people change and blah, blah, blah, I can just like go laugh at the scene with polywallets in it and just revisit it because it's become this like weird shared classical touchstone that's also like kind of dated in a funny way now. But do you find that more and more people like just in your conversations are less likely to say, oh, I'll go catch up on the expanse now so that I can like,

the experience that actually was pretty normal for Game of Thrones, which is around the first or second season, you saw a lot of people like, I binged it, I'm ready for season three. That seems like it's going to be increasingly rare as we go forward because of the amount of new stuff that's getting promoted. And if it's all getting promoted on these services, like, I don't know what happens to libraries. Oh, 100%. And it's also just like, I find that I have to catch people. at very specific times.

It's like just as they're getting to the end of whatever they're watching, that's when I can slide in and be like, check this out. But I have a very limited window in which to like work my recommendation magic because people are always occupied with something. Yeah, yeah, to say nothing of everything else that's happening in the world.

So I, it's very interesting to think about where this stuff is all going. I was just fascinating and I was thinking about that thing that Kai said where she was like, I turn on the office or I turn on Vanderpump and like have it on in the background. And that is like a major way that people, that's a major way that lots of people take in television, as is I've decided to binge four seasons of Saul before five or whatever. So it'll be curious to see how all that stuff

and our behaviors change as these services finally start to pop up. I mean, I think that, I would imagine Apple would get to market before Disney, but the, I think they're both set to be in the fall, right? Like, the Mandalorian is November, and then Apple has said like sometime in autumn. And also, we'll let you know. We'll let you know. We'll let you know. And also it's like not clear at all, like how many they're launching with or I don't know. It's so weird that they had this whole launch event, but they didn't actually like announce anything. Were you surprised at all to hear that it sounds like at least the Mandalorian, but I would imagine most of Disney's original programming is going to be week to week and not in a binge. Oh, I didn't catch that, but it's honestly kind of exciting.

Yeah. I would love to have a full week to process Werner Hertz. Working is magic. Yeah, me too, me too. Okay, so let's take a quick break to hear from our sponsors. and when we come back, Alice and I are going to kind of run through a bunch of shows that we've both been watching and give our thoughts. Okay, we'll be right back. Today's episode of The Watch is brought to you by Philo.

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Philo is available on Roku, iOS, Fire TV, Android TV, and Apple TV. Start your free trial. Visit phil.tv.tv.com.com. that's p-h-i-l-o-t-v-v-tv-v-l-o-ttv. And if you go now, you'll get 15% on the first month. Allison, we're back. And I guess one of the reasons why I'm feeling so, like, off-edge and reflective about all this stuff is because everything that we were sort of saying about Game of Thrones being the last monoculture show,

I almost was like, oh, are we making too big of a deal about that? No, we're not. You could say what you will about, like, whether the ringer is, like, overdoing it. But I can tell you firsthand, like, we don't. find that to be the case. Like, people are actually legitimately, like, it's throne season for the next six weeks. Yeah. We have yet to find the limit of people's demand for talking about this show. Yeah. And I, even conversationalally, even with a group, with the caveat that, yes, we are an obsessed group of people when it comes to this show. Conversationally, it's coming up all the time. Oh, it was remarkable. I mean, I came into the office on Monday,

and it was like a true water cooler moment. Like, obviously, yes, our awesome. office is like uniquely focused on the show. But even with people who weren't professionally covering it, I had like five separate conversations. Yeah. About the premiere and how we feel the season is going and like how we're feeling now that it's back. And just, I don't have that experience about any other show. Anything. Yeah. And I think that it was something around 17 million live, I think. And then we don't know. It was the biggest episode in HBO's history. Yeah. I mean, it's it's like the number is not match numbers, but it's pretty huge. It's, it's, it's, It's honestly eye-watering.

What did you think of the actual episode? Because I think I read your piece. The first piece you wrote was like, it's getting back to basics. It went back to like what made Game of Thrones really good in the first place in a lot of ways. And also in sort of, you know, the funny kind of like true bloody aspects of, you know, what we kind of know HBO is capable of of. But what did you actually think of it as a game of,

like as an episode of television? I enjoyed it. I mean, I think one of the things that had and did well that last season was so lacking in, was the kind of human scale character-to-character moments that actually drew on the dynamics between these people that we've seen develop over literal years, which is what television does best. Like, that's what I can get out of this medium that I can't get out of a two-hour movie. And I thought it was extremely telling and very effective that they opened with Maisie Williams

and just watching her face react to seeing these three men who have been incredibly significant in her character's life. And it's literally wordless, and it carries so much. emotional impact just to watch her process like the hound riding past her as part of technically her allied party. Watching this brother who she loves and misses but also like doesn't really understand who she's become.

Watching Sonsa and Tyrion just talk to each other. I mean if anything, I don't think a lot of this stuff got room to breathe. I would have loved like a longer conversation where those the last few kids are mentioned. I think there was a lot of like we got to check a lot of boxes. Yeah and it's like oh right. Like these characters like

used to be married and underwent something like really horrible and she basically like left him to be sentenced to death at a trial and like they're basically like oh that's all that's the past now yeah um but we had more of that than i thought we got in season seven which was just so transparently like we need to get everyone in the right position yeah and it's like okay well now that they're there we can actually have some of the stuff i've been missing that's that there were some of the plot holes that people have not been appreciating about the latter part of the show like what people have been saying about stuff like like John

just casually writing a dragon and Danny not apparently thinking that's remarkable. And I guess when we have those conversations it always makes me think about how like that kind of stuff can seem like nitpicking and a lot of other shows. But like that's really integral

to why we love this story. Yeah. I mean so much of it is based on this idea that every piece matters and that every, that it's not just Chekhov's gone, it's Chekhov's everything. It's like every single gesture,

every single reaction. Honestly, at this point, Every single utterance is going to get analyzed. And I'm sure the people who make the show know that. So they have to be aware of that. Well, it's going to get analyzed, but also it matters. The fact that Game of Thrones has defined itself by, like, not doing TV logic. Like characters until recently don't have plot armor.

The way I thought Zach Cram articulated it so well in that essay that we read on the site, like consequences are driven or arise organically from actions. And right now, I think now that we're, we're so close to the end game, we can kind of see what's going to happen based on what needs to happen. So, like, what Andy was talking about on Monday. It was like, oh, well, we need Sam not to like Danny, so that he'll tell John. So Danny needs to tell Sam that she killed his family. Right. The one thing I am encouraged by is, like, we're getting to the point where we're so close to the end game that, like, I genuinely don't know what's going to happen. Me neither, actually.

Partially because I've spent so much time watching this show and thinking about these characters and watching these actors, that it's kind of hard for me to conceive of it without the dozen that are left. You know what I mean? And so it's like actually like, it'll be interesting to see if something about this show is a conclusion that doesn't, isn't tied to a death.

Do you know what I mean? Because so much of the action has been pushed forward by characters ending their runs. But like what could happen on this show that actually doesn't necessarily involve people getting their throat slit that would be satisfying? I don't know.

Yeah, like I kind of want them to stick to the idea I wrote about this a little bit last season where it's like we're getting to the end where they're actually going to have to like show their cards a little bit and be like what do we actually believe and like will we actually be able to reconcile our absolute belief in realpolitik in that idealism gets you killed

with the idea that like maybe an idealistic state can flourish given that it provided that it has someone forceful enough like Danny to impose it like I think sort of the like dream ending is like Danny breaks the wheel, unites the kingdoms, has the iron throne, but also she can't have kids,

so like she needs to come up with a more just and humane model of succession. And I don't know if there's really... Not any succession HBO way. Well, that's more like regular game of friends. But, you know, I think it will be really interesting to see if the show even makes an attempt to be like, this is what we believe

about governance and power, or it's just going to be, I don't know, maybe the white walkers are just going to stroll into the throne room and that's just going to be it. It's just going to be, it's curtains for everyone. Let's keep changing the channels and talk about, let's talk about Bless This Mess next. I know that seems like an abrupt left turn, but this kind of ties into the larger conversation Allison and I are having in the sense that this is a new ABC show, American Broadcasting Corporation on like Channel 6 for a lot of people. Put up this show, it's Dax Shepherd and Lake Bell.

They star as two, I think New Yorkers. Yes. New Yorkers who really like off. off the cuff, like basically, like, moved to Nebraska to become farmers. Yeah, not just a New York, like a therapist and a magazine writer. A music critic. It was like a music journalist, yeah, right. The big, big moment from music journalist because Gina Rodriguez plays one in someone great, too.

Yes, as we all know, music journalists all look exactly like Daxe like Daxe like. And Gina Rodriguez, that's right. But they moved to Nebraska to become farmers there. They find, like, an amazingly, like, quirky cast of characters played by the likes of Ed Begley and David Keckner, you know. Leibbigham. Yeah, London Parham. Yeah.

So it's just a fish out of water tale. It's written by Lake Bell and Liz Merriweather. And Liz Merriweather obviously brought us the new girl. And what I thought about when I was watching, bless this mess, which I will say up top, I found delightful, was it could have been on anything. You could have told me it was on Netflix. You could have told me it was on Hulu. You could have told me it was on FX. You could have told me it was on literally anything with a screen.

And I would have been like, that makes sense. There's nothing really about it that feels network. to me. It has that, it actually has something that I have been noticing in a lot of network shows where it tries not to look networking. Like there's nothing in it, I'm sure this will probably change if it goes on and they have to like save money

on sets. Yeah. But it doesn't look like obviously sound staging. Didn't look at Nebraska either. Yeah. I don't even know I don't know if the scenes that they said were in New York were shot in New York. There's a lot of fudging going on. They certainly did not like that. I was like, yeah. I was like, what is this? Atlanta? Like, yeah.

Yeah, but it's got that thing where it's like, it's not trying to do anything revolutionary or fancy with its plotting, which I do think is a little bit of a network tell. Sure. It's little, yeah, it's like, we're just going to make jokes about, like, Ashwaganda and turmeric in front of these, like, dumbfounded farmers. Right. There's hipster jokes.

There's agribusiness jokes. There's, like, it's, it has the same kind of, like, ratatat-tat, like, constant patter that new girl does, but it felt a little bit more restrained, I guess, and maybe, like, in service of, like, admittedly modest story. but I enjoyed it. I mean, I'm always on the market for like a good comfort network watch for a while. Brooklyn 9-9 still occupies that place for me,

but Brooklyn 9-9 is also going into season 7. It's not going to be on forever. Sure. Superstore, same, heading into like the later part of its run. And it's always interesting to see like networks. Both of those shows, actually, I think candidates to be later period, like office friends type, just have Brooklyn 9-9 on in the background.

Oh, that would be my dream. I hope that happens for that show. I mean, but I think people do that on Hulu. Oh, yeah. I've totally talked to people who were like, yeah, in the absence of anything else, I just like basically pick a random Brooklyn 9-9 to have on. Totally.

And it's always good to see networks still trying to do that at the same time that NBC is also doing like the good place. Yeah, absolutely. Or like the good place is very obviously, as has been discussed in the show, a concession towards the realities of like most people watch this on streaming. We need to do something like a little more ambitious to compete in this marketplace right now.

And this is just like, no, these are just like funny people you like in a very classical source of comedy. Yeah. We're just going to let it spin out from there. What do you think about a show like this? Do you think it just like kind of quietly like plays out the string over the course of the spring? Or do you think it has any chance of catching on? I mean, I honestly think if it catches on, it's going to be because a streaming service picks it up.

That's just like how stuff works now, like de facto. But I mean, I could also see it, yeah, like just quietly making its way past the syndication mark. And I think it all depends on I've only seen the pilot and like pilots for comedies in particular are. notoriously hard to judge because what you want out of a sitcom isn't the premise. It's like the status quo that sets itself up within that premise. So like I like David Kekner and Lenin Parham, but like, do they have the comic chemistry to form reliable side characters? I don't know yet. Yeah, right. I believe they could. But I think that's something that's like worth checking it on a little further down its run. Really quickly, I just wanted to hit Eve really fast. And now you and Kate are

doing the recapables for it anyways. We are. We are. here, all of your takes there. Second episode was really quite involving. Do you feel like they are like in second gear? Like kind of trying to like kind of pace it so that they don't

basically like they came out of the fever pitch at the end of first the first season. Are they trying to figure out a way to slowly bring these two characters together again? Yeah, they definitely seem like they're searching for a status quo and they found that very quickly with Eve. I think like they basically had

to undo a lot of what happened in the finale. It's like both Eve and Villanelle got fired, and Eve by the end of the first episode, is back with MI6 and Villanelle by the end of the second episode. As a handler. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, it's interesting to be like,

okay, well, we actually need to like tell a sustainable story. But I have thought it's interesting that I do think you can tell Phoebe Waller Bridge is no longer at the reins. There's like a little bit of that just like little surprise magic. I don't really know what's going to come out of this person's mouth thing that made it work so well. the first season, but it's also made me appreciate this is what I wrote my review about.

There's just like a lot of constituent parts of a show that are not the showrunner. And like, Jody Comer is still doing just absolutely indescribable things with her face and I still love watching this cast and the soundtrack is still irreverent and the location budget is still more than I could ever dream up. Absolutely. And it's fun to watch all of that work

even as we don't have like a full picture of what the season is going to be yet. Although I will say it's interesting that I just broke into my screeners for Fleabag season two, which is obviously Phoebe Waller Bridge-centric. I feel like we're going to have to give you like a full clear-out episode for that when it finally comes to Amazon. Oh, it's coming. I will like bust through the wall of the studio like the Kool-Aid man when it finally drops. But suffice it to say I obviously really loved it and I highly recommend it when it comes out.

But it was interesting to do that back-to-back with Killing Eve and be like, okay, like, Killing Eve is a show that's trying to like figure out its like long life. and Fleabegg has the luxury of just being like, she's said in the press, like, it's over, I don't want to do anymore. Yeah. This is just like my thing that is about me or like not about her, but it's very centered on her voice and her performance. And I don't know.

Like I still am really enjoying this Eve season. We don't have the luxury of last year. They kind of knew what they had on their hand. So they gave like seven out of eight critics like right up front. And so like I could go in being like, yeah, I know this amazing scene in episode five is coming. You know, you know take me to the. The Hole is coming. Yes, I know Take Me the Hole is coming.

So, like, even if you don't, aren't, like, immediately grabbed by the pilot, I can, like, tell you what to expect. I've only seen through this Sunday's episode, which I quite enjoyed and highly recommend and still recommend the show. But it's, like, a fascinating exercise. And, like, showrunners are given so much credit for whether shows succeed or fail now. Yeah. And they've basically announced this model where, like, they're actually going to turn over showrunners every single season as, like, a built-in part of the plan instead of being, like, oh, actually, Phoebe Wallerridge is too busy. We're going to hand this over to someone else.

But they also are doing that clearly with an eye towards making this like a long-term sustainable thing. And it's like maybe not necessarily a fake anthology series or anything, but it'll have possibly a different feel. I mean, that would be like presumably that could happen. Yes, there will be eras. And so just watching like in Fleabag, just an absolute example of TV Autourism versus Killing Eve, which is kind of trying to like figure out how it's going to work, you know, in this not valid. vacuum, but like once part of its sales pitch has shifted a little bit. Yeah.

I mean, I'm still like, I will watch, you know, Villanelle in weird pajamas, neck and kids next all day. So your description of Phoebe Wallerbridge and especially her vision of Fleabag as being like, this is my fucking thing. I'm just making it. And it's not about like commoditizing it necessarily or franchising it or making it sustainable. Like, this is the statement I want to make and I'm out.

I feel like you could say something similar about the OA. Now, Allison and I probably have very different opinions about this show. Although I am not, there are some shows where I'm like, this is good and if you don't like it, you don't get it. There are some shows where I'm like, I like it, I don't know if it's good, and it's fine if you hate it. And then there's the OA.

The OA would be a little bit more of the latter than it would be the former for me. So this is this show, obviously. It's the second season, somewhat, I wouldn't say, delayed like by any inside information. It was just like the first season I think was 16. Yeah, it was like December, right? Yeah, and then so the most recent season came out like three weeks ago.

I don't want, I think it's really difficult to talk about this show without either A, giving something away or B, like getting lost in plot description for 20 minutes. So I will say Britt Lump Marling, as she usually does in shows that she has a creative hand in or movies, plays a messianic figure who may or may not be an angel who is doing a lot of- She's an angel. Yes. She can't, like that's the thing is it ended. on this note of ambiguity in season one. That was like, oh, like, did she maybe make this all up? And, like, to my mind, having found a lot of season one kind of a slog, that was sort of

the most interesting part of the show for me where it was like, oh, like, what does it say that people would choose to believe in something like this? Right. Like, those were the themes that I was attracted to where it wasn't necessarily about her. It was about, like, how people felt about her. The problem is this show is not designed to address those questions. This show is designed to be about Britt and Marling and her amazing adventures. Yeah.

So basically, it starts in season two. like, no, actually, like, this is very real. She has literally jumped to a different dimension. She obviously has powers. As have other people who may or may not be, like, celestial beings. I mean, it is apparently, like, a thing you can do in the world of the show is jump your consciousness into another body. But it's like the rules of it are, like, way too, like, complicated to explain on a podcast.

But suffice to say. So here's the thing is, like, there is something about this show that is so committed to the bit that I almost find. myself, like, enjoying it. I do feel like so much TV sometimes feels like, oh, it's kind of, like, too cool for itself, or it's not cool enough for itself, or so there's something going on with a lot of TV where it feels like the commitment level is like a little low, but, like, there's something almost admirable about, like, the dedication and passion that they have for this, like, absolutely wackadoodle plot. I certainly respect it. Yeah. And I should also

offer the upfront caveat. Something that I understand about my relationship to this show is I am a deeply cynical person. I find earnestness a very hard sell, and this show is nothing, if not, incredibly earnest. So you do not want to join my fan club of interdimensional time-traveling angels then that I have? I'm willing to join the fan

club of Kareem, the new protagonist, because one thing I will give this show is it shifts gears for, so instead of being largely set in a Michigan suburb with occasional flashbacks to like a weird basement prison in North Dakota, now a lot of this current season is set in this alternate universe, San Francisco.

and a lot of the burden of being the protagonist is shifted from OA slash Prairie slash whatever you want to call Barley's character to this guy, Kareem, who's like a private eye. And he works in my mind because he's skeptical. And it's really good to have a skeptic asking questions driving a paranormal mystery.

Yes. Like I think he makes a lot better of an audience surrogate than this person. But I also find in a lot of the discourse about the OA, there's a lot of willingness to give the show credit for being weird. And I love weird. My three favorite shows of 2017 were The Young Pope, Twin Peaks, and the leftovers.

Like, give me wackadoos shit all day every day. I just think, like, the specific presentation of this wackadoo shit is often not as well executed. Or a lot of it just comes off as, like, weird or surprising because, like, the writing is, frankly, like, really clunky and, like, doesn't address certain things. Or there's just a lot of willingness of being, like, oh, this is, like, a holy shit show. and it does have a lot of holy shit moments, but I don't know if those are well integrated into the story, not even for reasons of like, no, this show is never going to be for me on certain levels,

but there are certain parts of it that very much are for me and just don't really, to my mind, work just because of the way they're executed. Yeah, I think I feel a little bit more warmly towards it, if only because, for one thing, I find it to be such unlike anything else. Now, I think maybe that speaks to like my wife, watching habits in general or something like that.

But for some reason, I get swept up in this show in a way that is much more forgiving of its faults than I am of shows that are much more buttoned down that has faults. Do you know what I mean? I will be very curious to hear how you receive the final twist event of this season. I'm sure it's been hype for you. I won't spoil it or anything. But it does end with another kind of like shift in the status quo on par with what happens at the end of season one.

But yeah, I do think it's really interesting in that. like we treat certain things like creator-driven or super weird and unusual like kind of assets instead of just descriptors. And I think the OA is a really interesting case of like I can understand what makes certain other people like it. But I just happen to think or like I can understand that it is remarkable that, you know, they were able to accomplish this and really cue to their own vision within the context of Netflix. but like I don't think that's necessarily a good end of its own. It's like that could allow a lot of cool things to happen, but in this specific example, I don't think it works. It did seem though anecdotally, as somebody who sees you in the office, though,

that I have seen you when you were like, I am finishing something out of professional obligation or I am watching something because I feel like I need to know about it. And then you were like almost elated by how nuts this show. There's a little bit of like love to hate it. I think going on with this show. I will also just say, like, weirdly, it was an interesting contrast with Killing Eve this week,

which is just so much of the show is hinged on, like, how charismatic you find Britt Marling. And, like, I frankly find it interesting because it's a testament to how charismatic Brit Marling finds herself. Yes. And I don't happen to agree with that self-evaluation. But it was really interesting. There's, like, I won't spoil the specifics of it,

but in this week's episode of Killing Eve, like a character is talking about Villanelle. In episode three or... In episode three, so no spoilers or anything, but just a character is talking about Villanelle and is talking about how enrapturing she is and how if she let her, she'll come in and take over your life. And that works within the context of the show because Jody Comer actually is like that magnetic. Like someone says that about Villanelle and you're like, yeah, I've seen Villanelle.

Like that totally squares with my image of her. Whereas in the OA, you have like this whole troop of high school students and one adult that's like totally devoted to her. She goes into San Francisco and, like, immediately acquires new friends and allies. We're willing to help her. And that just isn't really borne out in, like, my attraction to her as a viewer, which clearly, like, I am not, you know, the be all end all verdict on this. There are people who truly love this show. And I do think it's very interesting that this is very polarizing. There are people who absolutely love it and there are people who absolutely hate it.

And there are not a lot of people, as you mentioned, who are just like, eh, people are talking about it all. I'll just keep it out. Yeah, yeah. All right. Well, we'll definitely have you back on for Fleabag. I'll definitely have you back on when I finish the OA so that you can be like, Oh my God. I told you. Allison, thank you so much for joining us today. Thanks for having me.

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