The Watch - ‘East of Eden’ Series Premiere, ‘Slow Horses’ S6E3, and Cindy Holland Leaves Paramount. Plus, Best TV of the Century Honorable Mentions.

Episode Date: October 2, 2026

Chris and Andy talk about the news that streaming executive Cindy Holland is leaving Paramount ahead of the company’s merger with Warner Bros. Discovery and what that means for HBO head Casey Bloys (2:11). Then they discuss a pair of new shows in HBO’s ‘War’ (23:54) and Netflix’s ‘East of Eden’ adaptation (30:08). Later, they recap ‘Slow Horses’ Season 6, Episode 3 (39:55). Finally, they highlight a handful of shows that didn’t make The New York Times’ “100 Best TV Shows of the 21st Century” list (49:53). Subscribe to the Ringer TV YouTube channel here for full episodes of The Watch and so much more! Follow us on IG and TikTok! Hosts: Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald Producers: Kaya McMullen and Kai Grady Studio Production: Jacob Cornett Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I need 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 on the other line. He's about to be very happy or very mad because of the Atlanta Braves.

It's Andy Greenwald. Why are you hanging out to dry like that? Why? Your emotional life is also in the balance here. It's not just me. I just keep having podcast during this Phillies Brave series. so all I get is highlights are low lights, you know? I must say there was something quite peaceful.

Obviously, we should talk about what we're going to talk about today, but there was something quite peaceful about the rhythm of my last few autums in which work or travel has denied me the opportunity to have my intestines ripped out through my face. You know what I mean? And so the fact that actually tonight we're recording on Thursday is lining up so I can watch the game worries me. It's going to be a fun text message thread from you.

Andy, today on the pop, we're going to talk a little bit about the reshuffle over at the I guess newly formed Warner Mount Parab Brothers where we've got some TV executive news that does pertain to

a lot of what we want to talk about on this pod also wanted to hit two new shows that are premiering this week War on HBO and East of Eden on Netflix we both have some

book reports some show and tell for that and then we were going to talk about the third episode of Slow Horses as well as some shows that we wanted

to shine a light on that did not make the New York Times top 100 list, which we've been talking about over the last couple of episodes, which has been really quite interesting to see all the conversation about it. Andy and I went on Wesley Morris's podcast, Cannonball, and you could check us out on that show talking about the list, and we've discussed it. I talked about it with Joe a little bit. Great to see you, man. You're working in New York, so thank you for making time to talk about the thing that brings us together. and that's people moving up and down the corporate ladder.

It really gets me up in the morning and down at night, I guess. Here is the headline from Deadline, or rather the sort of lead paragraph from Deadline.com. Cindy Holland is leaving Paramount Skydance, where she was chair of direct-to-consumer, having previously served as an advisor to Skydance CEO, David Ellison, today, I think which was two days ago, is her last day. the move, which has been rumored for the past week, leaves Casey Blois, chairman and CEO of HBO and HBO Max content

as the presumed streaming head of the combined Paramount WBD. Holland hinted at this in her email to staff, indicating that Ellison had shared with her, his plan for the leadership of the combined HBO Max and Paramount Streamer, and it involved him, quote, optimizing for HBO stability, aka going with Casey Bloy's, something Holland supported, she said in her email to the staff. Obviously, Cindy Holland only at Paramount for about a year, a little bit more than a year.

We talked about her as a figure in this industry a couple of times over the year, especially when she got hired. She was instrumental in building out Netflix's original TV programming, had her hands on stranger things, on House of Cards, et cetera, and was brought over to Paramount. I think to diversify their programming or to de-leverage them from a world where Taylor Sheridan had five, six, seven shows on the air because Taylor Sheridan is leaving and going to Universal, whether or not that was tied to Cindy Holland's leadership, I don't know. But now we have this major change

and we have a much clearer picture of what the future of the kind of TV we talk about is going to look like here. What was your first reaction when you saw this? My first reaction was it, feels good when you can make people's dreams come true. And I have it on good authority that Casey's number one dream in this massive promotion was leading the A Block on the Watch's Thursday podcast. So the Make-A-Wish Foundation strikes again.

And I'm sure this is going to stay as the best thing that happened to him this week. That makes me glad. I love the idea that we're like Walter Cronkite and people are like, what's Walter going to talk about in the opening segment? It's like, yeah, oh my God. Do you think David Ellison is like, if we lost the watch, we've lost the war? Sure, that's the war he's worried about. That's the biggest war facing him.

So there's a bunch of different ways into this. And one of the first ways is it's definitely not any reason to celebrate when someone loses their job, particularly because I think that Cindy Holland's hiring by Ellison was interesting. Interesting because for as much as we want to, or maybe we tend to look at these massive mergers through very reductive binary lenses, there is more nuance here. And I'm not just saying this because we would like to work for Paramount someday. That is not part of it. It is literally that for every Barry Weiss that David Ellison has hired, he hires a Cindy Holland.

And Cindy Holland came to Paramount and almost immediately, quote unquote, un-Ellisoned it in the sense of if we think that everything that this guy and his father have done has been sort of red-pilled, like decoupling from Taylor Sheridan, who really is more of a libertarian? I listen to you in Van and I have some new insight into the validity of private jet. travel. Yeah. Mixed. My point is, when this news broke, like in the room that I'm working in, someone said, oh, no, Paramount just started caring about women. Like, genuinely, she was beginning to program Paramount, and we haven't seen really her

fingerprints on the schedule yet. It'll be a couple months or years until we do, if we do it all now. But that they definitely were changing the culture in terms of the types of shows that they were green lighting and what they were interested in representing in the marketplace. So that is unfortunate and interesting. The second point is when this whole deal started even a year ago when it was seeming that Netflix was going to buy HBO. Like one thing that I think you and I can attest, and I don't think this is reporting, I think that Matt Bellany, who actually does reporting would say the same thing, is that, God, the amazing thing about Casey is he keeps his powder dry. Like he does not seem that bothered.

And I think that is just genetically who he is. but I also think that we now have months, years, decades of evidence that somehow HBO has succeeded by just letting the excellence do the talking and that it manages to keep on rolling despite all kinds of outrageous mergers, whether it was Time Warner, whether it was AOL, discovery, and now this one. And so it makes a lot of sense that Ellison would want to maintain stability at HBO. It's interesting that he also has signaled that he's going to keep the head of CNN to maintain stability there, at least for now. Your guy, Mark Thompson.

That's my guy, you know, fair and balanced. You got a poster of him right next to Aaron Nola. My hopes. I have so much hope pinned on these two gentlemen tonight and in the near future. No, it's just that if you have someone who has not only proven over the past decade that he can lead HBO's particular brand in the marketplace and navigate everything that's going on, but also, and I think this is crucial, Casey in the last few years has proved that he is also able to program genre IP content

by welcoming the DC shows and Harry Potter into the HBO universe, and then also what he did with HBO Max, which fell under his umbrella and he immediately programmed the pit. So it is exactly the kind of almost doing your homework before you realize that you've enrolled in graduate school performance that would make him the obvious heir parent to lead all programming, not just to maintain his role at HBO. There's so many different sort of paths we can follow from this,

but the one that's so interesting is what you just suggested, which is that in some ways, Boyes has been training for this for years, or proving the theorem of this for years, when the HBO Max experiment started, and it was going to be like, HBO's over here, but over here is going to be like an elevated TBS, TNT kind of show.

And, you know, they've had hits and misses. I think over time, in my experience, audiences have been telling us and telling networks or companies, I don't want to think too hard about where to find the things I want to find. I just want them presented to me and I will accept a Kaylee Cuoco

kind of family drama or spy show next to somebody somewhere or I may destroy you. And that as long as the shows are good, people are happy to have that variety of stuff to choose from. I think that what that leads me to is what's going to happen to these networks, but really these verticals and really these apps and really these streaming services. So today in the Hollywood Reporter, they got Casey to talk a little bit about what's happening,

and he was gracious and was just like, I'm going to let David talk about what his vision for the management of this service is going to be. But what he did suggest is that essentially that he would view this as more of a bundle than like a merger, you know, that there is not going to be. HBO mount where Game of Thrones is sitting next to Lioness. Now, there may be some version. I'm so sorry for your loss. I mean, that's just my living room, dog. You know what I mean?

There it is. But there's that there's not going to be necessarily. Now, will that mean on HBO, you can opt in. into also having all of Paramount content or on Paramount, you can do the same for HBO. I'm sure that there will be something like that. The TVification of all TV again is hilarious to me. I mean, Ted Sarandos just did an upfront

or a talk about the inevitability of channels hitting Netflix. You know, we're going back to the way things were in a lot of ways. So I'm fascinated to see the actual user experience play out here and how that relates back to Casey's new responsibilities, but you're so right. I mean, this guy has been getting ready to program beyond cocktail parties in New York and Los Angeles for a very long time. Yeah, and it's also just a smart, I mean, hopefully we'll get the chance to talk to him about this on the record, but, you know,

I'm sorry, I'm a broken record. I've just been suffused with this HBO stuff because I'm reading that Tinderbox book. And like, it's just so interesting to think about the subtle evolution of what it means to not be TV, to be HBO. Because if you go back to Michael Fu's, you, you know, who was like the first head of programming from the 80s into the 90s, he, his whole, I mean, he was a complicated guy, but like his programming strategy boiled down to if they're doing it were not.

Like that is entirely it. If something came across his desk that felt like it could live on any other channel, it was an instant no. And he only said yes to the things that wouldn't. That isn't necessarily a successful strategy in an era when so many companies are primed to sell prestige content and also need to get the same type of eyeballs or like advertiser desired types of eyeballs as HBO. HBO lost its, you know, the uniqueness of its fiefdom a lot of years ago. So what Casey has sort of evolved the brand and to mean is so it is TV, but what's our HBO version of it?

And in a way that conversation started with Game of Thrones, which they, you know, which isn't really thought of this way anymore. But when it premiered, it was a big swing for them, not just because of the expense, but because it was on the same channel at the same time as Sopranos. And so I think if we go back and read a lot of the early coverage of it or reviews, there's probably a lot of like handholding in the sense of don't worry. There's a lot of complicated men talking in rooms here. Like it's not that discordant with boardwalk empire, you know, and then the dragons came later. So it was kind of a gateway drug towards what does it mean for HBO to do these types of shows? And now we are living in a world and doing a podcast where we cover lanterns and the pit.

And there are superhero shows and medical shows on every service, but what makes these distinctly, quote unquote, HBO. And I say that knowing that the pit is max. But it's just a very, very smart, I think, self-directed evolution that has not necessarily intentionally, but has clearly led to this moment. And we'll see how it plays out across, now that he has even more channels potentially to play with.

But what do you make of the over? overall strategy of post-Success, post-Robontah fumbling the bag, David Ellison making peace with the town, making peace with the industry, and basically preaching stability, not just stability, but abundance, right? Saying we're going to release, we're staying in Hollywood, we're going to make more movies here, we're going to make 30 theatrical releases a year, CNN's not going away or changing, HBO is not changing, like really trying to preach stability. Is this likely to happen in your opinion,

or is this just good optics for transitioning away from, fuck you guys, I'm going to Nashville? I have seen enough public negotiations take place in the world of entertainment and sports over the last 15 years of kind of professionally observing this stuff that I can recognize saber-rattling when I see it. And I think I was seeing that on both the Paramount side and the state's attorney general side.

There was a resignation, I think, among people that once Netflix didn't get this, that this was about, this was going to happen. And yes, I agree with Fennessee, who talks all the time on the big picture of,

like, I don't think this needed to take place at all. Yep. But once it does, and once the ball is rolling downhill, like, kicking it off the mountain is not an option. You know, kicking that ball off the hill

is not an option. So, like, you've got to finish it, and you've got to, you've got to land it. I, I am very open, to the idea that there is certainly not going to be like a kind of political ideology behind the programming.

I don't think that TV works that way. I don't think entertainment works that way. I haven't really sensed yet like a few. Like now we can all pitch paramount in peace. Like, but it's only been two days. But I don't know if I detect a palpable relief as much as, you know, I don't think, frankly, I guess I don't really think that Cindy Holland would have been a bad choice. Like,

I'm very, very, like, excited to see what Casey Boyes does with all the different trances of Paramount and Warner brothers and how he defines those. And maybe if there's going to be some contraction in there, I don't know. But I don't think really that,

like, I've been able to sense a sense of, like, now we can get back to regular scheduled programming. The thing I was fascinated by, sorry, if you wanted to respond to that. No,

no, I think it's just a good observation. I think that one thing that I've hopefully consistently said and continues to be the case is that fewer buyers sucks. It doesn't matter if they will continue to operate these planks, I think, as distinct operations for a while. But I don't know how fuzzy that distinction gets when there's one person in charge of all of it. I mean, it's certainly possible. But I would imagine that coming from that experience that you were alluding to when Kevin Riley and Sarah Aubrey were running HBO max as a distinct buyer in the marketplace from HBO, and they bought Station 11, for example, or hacks, for example,

both of which could have easily lived on HBO, I would imagine that case he is loath to enter into a situation like that again where he is actively having his Francesco Orsian drama bidding against her equivalent at Paramount for things. So I think that's just generally there's fewer buyers, which is going to have downstream negative effects of the industry. And I don't think that has changed. I don't think that has changed at all,

which I still think is massive. possibly a bummer. But in terms of like the immediate, uh, reaction or the immediate like fallout for the consumer, this has to have been relatively, for people who are paying attention, this is a relatively stable outcome. Yeah. Because your HBO isn't going anywhere and you're paramount. I mean, honestly, what is paramount right now? It is the place you watch your Taylor Sheridan shows. Taylor's leaving. His shows may continue. But what are the other like, I guess Star Trek, but that's sort of in flux as well? Yeah, I was just looking at the Paramount. IP and I have to say that

the idea of, I think the HBO has shown a pretty consistent ability to develop and make things when they're ready to be made and they will be pretty merciless and pretty stringent about

like saying like, okay, Blood Moon or whatever that Game of Thrones show with Naomi Watts was or you know, going all the way back to Noah Bomback making the corrections it'll be like if it's right and it's ready then it's good but it's not going to be hey we need to make a minority report series

or we need to make you know a gritty Beverly Hills cop reimagining you know I think it's going to be because somebody came in with a good idea and they thought they could make a good show out of it now I suppose that would be the most interesting thing is if if the rubber hits the road in terms of demand and in terms of Paramount saying,

like we actually need X amount of minutes put up on this streaming service a year to satisfy shareholder demand and show growth or whatever it is. And does that outpace the usual development process that the HBO sensibility is or aesthetic is? I think the question, the other question that is relevant here is what is actually keeping the Paramount brand afloat? Because for the purposes of this podcast, we talk about the shows that come across our transom as interesting

or as appalling as the case may be with certain Taylor Sheridan shows. I would imagine that there is a not insignificant number of their subscribers that subscribe because of sports, that subscribe because of Nickelodeon kids content, that subscribe because of Star Trek or subscribe because they want to watch the CBS comedies or stream them or whatever the case may be. So really, the conversation might be less about what Casey does to Paramount Plus as an elite brand,

which, you know, is going to take years to figure out. And before we figure that out, we're going to see what Cindy had in mind unless he comes in and really rips things up. So really it's more about comparing the discovery content in terms of how deep the library is, how deep that bench is. You know, and if they decide to merge some of that stuff, I'm not really sure. But like, I don't, I'm not saying this to pick sides. Like, I think I generally, I remain quite bearish on this merger and annoyed by it.

But I will say that I don't fully understand what Paramount's identity. is and maybe that's what the Cindy hire was, I don't know why I'm calling her Cindy, I don't know her, but the Cindy Holland hire was meant to address that, but those types of shifts take years, and she didn't get that. What happens to the 40 show she greenlit

and to the overall deals that she signed? Obviously, I think the incoming administration is pretty savvy, and they're not going to be like, the Duffer brothers, we got to work with these guys, but she did a good job going around and building out this talent stable, and I think put a lot of stuff in motion. Is there an inevitable, like, we'll see where we're at that happens when there's an administration

change or what? I think it depends on the overall needs of the parent company. You know, this merger has been done with an enormous amount of debt, and so there's definitely going to be some clock watching in terms of return on investment. The only example I would point to in recent years is what has happened with Amazon and Prime Video where Jen Salky left the company, Peter Friedlander, who we spoke to when he was at Netflix. We have spoken to him, you know, off the record or about things the business when he was at Netflix. He took over. And one thing that I can say is that he has been very deliberative.

And so the examples of what he is doing aren't necessarily there yet in terms of what's being programmed or what's coming on to the service. The way you see someone's hand is, executive shufflings, you know, org chart redos. And then you just hear things like, for example, I don't even think we talked about it, but like there's the Robocop series that is coming from, that is in production now, starring Dan Stevens and coming from Peter Acoe,

who worked on Lodge 49. It seems pretty cool. My understanding is that that was something that was in purgatory. And then when it reached his desk and he considered it, Peter was like, yes. So it's a slower, more deliberative process. And things that were known as to be. You're telling me robots are going to get involved in law enforcement?

I'm interested. Couldn't be me or couldn't be us. But like, yeses become noes, noes become yeses. But Amazon is a very slow, slow, slow process even before he got there because Amazon can afford to be. And I'm really curious what the internal metrics are in terms of how quickly this show needs to get on with itself. Because this is not Bezos money.

This is Oracle wishes. I don't even know what you call it. Yeah, I mean, and they're also committed to putting out 30 theatrical films a year. So, yeah, where this money is going and coming and how the verticals of saying, you know, like, is mission impossible? Is that something where, for instance, do you want to do a Mission Impossible franchise reboot and try and find the next Ethan Hunt? Do you want to do an MI, you know, an MI show that's about like the spy world, you know, I'm very fascinated to see the first dozen stories we get about like X show is giving these ideas away. I know.

If I'm the only person who's thought of that, then shame on the city. Shame on you, Karen Bass. I want to just keep on Rish as much. There will be Ethan Hunt shows for all. John Voigt origin story. Oh, I guess that's actually the original Mission Impossible series. I guess we've done that. Do you want to comment on reports that some of these things like Casey's elevation,

like the renegotiation with the current head of CNN, are these soaps to the vibe shift? Oh, you think the blue tsunami scared David Ellison into keeping Mark Thompson? Do you think Mark Thompson has his job today because David Ellison doesn't want to face Senator James Telerico and explain his actions? The people with a lot of money in the world probably need. to be sensitive to the fact that the world is not always going to be the same. I don't know. Did you watch Pete Pegseth's speech? Seems like it's going to be fine.

Yeah. And I personally hope that he goes to prison. So, you know, like, I just don't think we're always going to. I'm not being cocky. And I'm not like saying like, oh, I think that like in two years the Trump fever's over and everything's going to go back to Friday night lights and parks and wreck. I do think that like we're not going to live in this moment forever. And one of the things that I think has been a hallmark of the last six years is like Hollywood sort of falling over itself to try and catch up with where they think a culture war is going. And I would say that one of the things I admire about Casey Boy's administration, HBO is he has not done that either way. Fair. Let's talk a little bit about some new shows.

Let's get off the business and talk about the art of TV. How about that? Two big ones this week, one in HBO show, one a Netflix show. Andy and I each watched separately. Like I didn't watch War and Andy hasn't checked out East of Eden yet, although we'll both do that going forward. But why don't you go first and tell me a little bit about war?

I'm excited for you to check out War, and I'm curious what the response is going to be because, so War is an HBO show, but it is very much a co-production with Sky. It is also, you know, airing on Thursday nights. So I think the premiere episode is coming on tonight. So it's definitely carved out a little bit

into that sort of liminal space between an HBO Max show and an HBO original, where it fits. It's created by George Kay, who did Lupin for Netflix and also hijack, I believe. And we don't really have a term for it, but we should for this very particular genre of super slick UK content, which is like there's almost like a house style for British shows made at a certain price point and maybe made for an international audience. and this is very much that in that like, you know, the London eye has never looked shinier, incredibly crisp several rows suits and like beautiful shots of Canary Wharf

and people dining in the city and like a very, very flash aspirational vision of the city that you and I love very much. And if you like that, plus like some just ultimate that guy and that gal British actors, you're going to like the show. But I got to say, it is the kind of premise that just knocks down doors and gets yeses in every room you would ever bring it into.

It's kind of surprising that it hasn't really been done before. So the premise of the show, and we should note that the show has been greenlit for two seasons. And I didn't even realize this as we were starting. The second season cast is already announced and it's likely already filming. But basically, the show, it's called war. Every season will be about two warring law firms in London tackling or tussling over a very, very big case. The first season is a divorce case that pits a, like, absolutely, like, bespoke, incredibly powerful firm called Cathcartes in the show against a scrappy husband and wife firm. And the case is a massive divorce between HBO stalwart Dominic West, who plays a billionaire with a bit of a wandering eye, and Sienna Miller as his actress wife.

and the focus, though, is very much on the firms and how they're building the case and intrigue. And it just does this incredibly slick introduction of characters and of class and of who's on what team in a way that is absolutely like kind of preposterous but also quite enjoyable because there's an actor like Pip Torrens who is an hall of fame elite that guy. He's an incredibly tall, bald person

that you've seen in many, many shows. I'm trying to think of some of his bigger ones. Like he was on preacher. He's on the crime. crown. He's been in Star Wars. You recognize him. Okay. And he is the guy wearing the like the bespoke suit arching an eyebrow when Dominic West denies being unfaithful to his wife. And that alone buys it so much time. But it's just so instantly comfortable with itself and knows what it is that it's a lot of fun, especially since it's treating legal maneuverings like it is, you know, global geopolitics.

Sure. And I was interested to note that they've already, they've already got the second season going. and it's about a different type of case. But they've already cast Marissa Tomey and Kelly MacDonald and David Harewood. Like, they're just doing the thing where you fill out the call sheet. Like in this show, Patrick Fabian from Better Call Saul is on it. Looking awesome. Full Silver Fox. It's a very comfortable show.

And I was impressed by, no. Good. Not that Patrick Fabian couldn't do an amazing British accent. I wouldn't put anything past it. No, no, no. But it's like, here's how I'll make it put in terms you to understand. He's the UR. Bernard of the show in that they have an international player pathway exemption so they can keep him on the squad. Do you say that in English?

You get it. I get it. We have a listener base that doesn't know about Eagles development projects. I make this show for you and for Shil Kapadia. And I don't answer to anybody else. Anyway, it's just a very light, bright entertainment and maybe the way to fold it into our larger conversation is, this show would have thrived on Apple. It would have thrived on Netflix.

I would be shocked if they didn't bid on it. And it's probably a, it's a relatively cost effective and potentially splashy feather in HBO's cap. That's really good. I mean, I'm going to check it out. So Sky made it and HBO picked it up for our shores or was it a pro, copro?

I think it's a straight copro. They both ordered two seasons of it together. I'm trying to detect any semblance of like, reservations about it in your voice. Are you like, it's good because it's like a soapy fun melodrama?

Is it like transcending of that? It depends what mood you're in. It is so slick that you can barely hold on to it. And there's a chance you just slide right off the building like when Peter Parker loses his powers in the Spider-Man movies that you love. But I guess my question with these things always is is like, can it lean more into the premise and actually have the kind of delirious fund that the pilot suggests that it wants to have?

Or are we going to spend more time with the young class-conscious barrister who's getting pressured by his posh girlfriend to get a better job? Thus, he's going to be a double agent between the two legal firms. These are the sorts of things that get shows greenlit because you're sort of covering all of your bases and telling all of the types of stories. but there's something that is so deliciously preposterous about the show that I kind of wish it would lean that way. So my sense is that it's not like I'm going to fall out of love with the show. I'm just going to kind of get bored three episodes in. It happens.

That's my worry. That's a big concern with modern television. I'll tell you a little bit about East of Eden. Obviously that it's based on the John Steinbeck novel and has been, I'm almost surprised about the sheer amount of pieces I've seen written about it, written about the adaptation, profiles of Zoe Kazan, who is the co-creator, or creator and writer.

She's the credited writer on all of the episodes, co-writes one of them. She works with Jeb Stewart, who is a really seasoned screenwriter, and together those two are going to be adapting The Lonesome Dove next for Netflix, as we talked about a couple episodes ago. I think Easter Vieden is phenomenal.

I've gotten deeper into the series now. It comes out tonight, today. I think the show that I would compare it to, which might be a little niche, is several years ago, Kenneth O'Nagan did an adaptation of Howard's End. Oh, yes, it was great. And that's what I kept thinking about

while I was watching this East of Eden, both in its deep, deep passion for the material that it was adapting. But also, it's like intellectual and emotional engagement with the possibilities of that story. And there is, a burgeoning kind of like Kathy wasn't like that kind of conversation

when it comes to Florence Pugh's character in East of Eden and what liberties people should or shouldn't take with masterpieces of literature when they're adapting them. And this is extending all the way to lanterns when it comes to that's not my Hal Jordan kind of stuff. But watching East of Eden, I was immediately just sucked in by the level of competence and talent, obviously on screen and behind the camera.

First of all, the writing is gorgeous. The stuff that feels like embellishments or additions, they only deepen and enriching the experience for me. The performances uniformly are fantastic. I'll specifically highlight Christopher Abbott and Mike Faced from earlier episodes of the show playing two brothers who have a complicated relationship with their father, played by Tracy Lutz,

which I identify with as somebody who, was a complicated relationship with Tracy Letts. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And obviously, Florence Pugh, for people who are familiar with the East of Eden story, Florence Pugh's character, Kathy, comes into their lives and creates volcanic change. It was shot, for the most part, by Stuart Dryberg, who worked on early Jane Campion material, like the piano, and also shot Lone Star for John Sales.

And it is gorgeous. I think they did the Badlands Days of Heaven. We shoot from 5 a.m. to 6 a.m. and 5 p.m. to 6 p.m. And it's like every shot is magic hour. Every shot is like this purple pink rose sky and like, you know, gnats flying over cornfields. And it's just like, how did you guys do this? But it's just such a caring, loving, beautiful piece of work.

And I think it's thought provoking. If you are the kind of person who's like, very, very guarded about books that you love being interpreted in different ways. Maybe it's not for you. You know, I would encourage you to check it out. And also, I just think everybody needs to get over themselves and stop acting like, and I will hold this, I will hold that attitude when some dove comes out and when they make and or two back in business, you know, like, or whatever the hell happens to like my beloved

stuff or whatever we see. but I'm just trying to say, like, this is just such a beautiful piece of work and it's pitched at a tone that I think I needed, like a real calming, even though there's a lot of violence and even though there's a lot of like emotional devastation, it's just pitched at a tone that I feel like,

I'm like, ah, this is almost like the nourishment you get from reading a good book. I love that, first of all. You should just, am I needed on this podcast? that was just like, good God. I need my guy. That was like the end. That was like the end of Lincoln.

You just pulled that out of nowhere. You were so thoughtful. This is your stump speech. You were great. But you remember that Howard's end? Did you remember like, you know, Nico Muley's score at Hetty McDonald's direction at Haley-Atwell's performance?

And Ronigan obviously having like this amazing relationship to the Forster novel, but like creating something that was just so gorgeous. out of it. Yeah, I think it's really exciting, and I can't wait to watch it. I'm sorry I've fallen behind here. Like, it just came out. There's something to, you're just a guy.

But there's, yeah, but I've, I had the preview content. I can't lie to you. But, you know, I just kept watching tires. So look, what am I supposed to do here? I, I think there's such an interesting conversation to be had and to continue to have about the spirit of adaptation. And, you know, one thing that excites me is what you're saying, that if you have someone who is passionate about material, the passion needs to be the North Star of the adaptation,

not necessarily the original text. Because first of all, if someone's passionate about a book, they have a relationship to the text. They are not doing it in order to desecrate it or upset it. But the things that interest them in the book might not be the things that interest you, who has read the book, and that's okay. What you want, I think, from a successful adaptation is someone else to show you their passion for this. And it may not track directly with the passion that you felt when you read it in high school or another point in your life. But it should be familiar enough to draw your interest.

And then the test is, does it hold your interest? And the other thing that I would say, just from my perspective here, because, you know, I'm doing work with Netflix. That's why I'm in New York, is that the executives who are working on it are very, very, very excited about it. not just because, and obviously because they've signed Zoe to do Lonesome Dove, et cetera, et cetera. But it's so interesting the way this is in the light of the conversation we were having about changes at Paramount or changes at HBO over time. HBO is the only consistency in terms of what they're looking for. Every other one of these companies has tried on identities like hats as years have passed. And so to hear Netflix executives excited about what they were able to accomplish in partnership with Zoe in the show are absolutely none of the things that,

Bella Bajaria talked about in that famous slash infamous New Yorker article from a few years ago that coined the term gourmet cheeseburgers. Now, Bella is still there. It doesn't mean that that part of the business has fallen off. But like when that article came out and we were talking about, is it cake? I don't think you and I thought that we would return to a moment in Netflix where we would be debating like the sumptuousness of a literary adaptation or the reticence or subtlety of it. You know, there were other places for that. So I think it's cool, but it is also a sign that nothing ever really stays the same for long in this business. But hopefully, as these things shift,

there's always a home for this type of thing. Yeah, you know, one of the things that I responded to in watching the first few episodes is the naturalism, and in some cases the modernity of Abbott-faced and Pew's performances. But I think that they're very reverent to the material. They may feel, and maybe they feel, it feels modern, because I'm familiar with those people as modern people.

You know what I mean? Like sometimes I can't tell, but there is a lived in natural kind of humanity to the three characters that I think is very difficult to do in period pieces, very difficult to do in adaptations of things that people have like this like fixed idea

of like this is how Charles Trask talked in my head, you know, and this is what he looked like and face brings like a different quality and Abbott brings like a different quality and Puse certainly brings like a different quality, but they are magnetic performers. The three of them are really, really something. Do you think that the show correctly captures the dynamic

and it's a subtle dynamic between Black Widow and Professor X in their limited interactions? I mean, thank you. It's weird that Zoe Kazan would choose East of Eden to introduce Battleworld. I thought some of the choices she made regarding the legacy virus and cable traversing the timeline to try and save mutants was a little bit surprising,

but I don't want to spoil too much of East of Eden for you. That said, I think you and I are firmly in favor of Tracy Letts being revealed to be the beyonder. Like, I just think that, like, that's very natural for. I was wondering how long you think we could have done this for?

Like, hours. Like, Kai would have had to go home. This is, this is, I'm coming alive now. It's like the end of my day, but this is the most exciting. This is the most excited I've been. What if in episode six of East of Eden battle world started?

I mean, what if, I mean, what if Doom shows up? And he's just like, I'm so sorry. All of this has been a mistake. And I feel like the Traspoys would be like, we knew it. Yeah. Like, this has felt wrong from the start. And some thought it was because of the sins of our mother. But really, really, it's because this is a carbon.

of a world that only was created when Steve Rogers went to dance with Haley Atwell, who was playing her character from Howard's End, the stars. People don't understand. Everything is basically just a marble spinoff. There's layers to this. Do you want to talk about slow horses next, or would you like to save that for the end? Yeah, let's just, because the thing about slow horses, Chris, here's the thing about slow horses six seasons in. It remains hard to talk about, I find week to week for any number of reasons.

One of the reasons why it was hard to talk about, for me, the last two years, was because I felt that it had perfected itself and thus didn't change. And consistency is such a good thing and a rare thing in television. But Slow Horses had actually reached this kind of point that I think some sitcoms reach where we would get on and be like, that was fun. We were starting to talk about Slow Horses like it was, like when we check in on Abbott Elementary and we were like, still a lovely, wonderful, enjoyable experience. I don't have any notes.

you know, like this is great. That has changed. And I don't know. I should think more about this before I speak about precedent. But Chris, this show fucking rips again. This season, three episodes in, is one of my favorite things of the year. It is an absolute joy. I cannot tell you the amount of willpower it's taking to not watch ahead right now.

This episode was at once so deeply slow horses in the sense that like you tune in to see the relationships between characters that have been built over time and to see maybe a cock-eyed different way into some familiar spy scenarios. Yes, yes, yes. But it has a different engine under the hood. It has a different sense of stakes and a different sense of gathering storms. And also, crucially, it has a sense of surprise, this type of surprise that I think maybe you only earn if you've lulled people into a kind of complacency.

And I'll leave you with this thought that just like, because I believe, this show to just be like a working successful thing that is going to be brought back every year so you can't rattle the cages too much, although I knew that there is a body count, the fact that all of this plot of this season, and this is obviously a spoiler, comes from the fact that Diana fucked up. It kind of shocked me. I didn't know the show had that in its bag, that it would be unsentimental about a character of whom we've come to accept a certain level of competence or a certain relationship with Jackson and the rest of the team. But this episode was a dazzler. I was watching an interview with Tony Gilroy the other day. I can't remember who he was

talking to. It was an uncle Tony. It was another podcast. It was not ours. And he was talking about how the best writing comes when you ask yourself what a character would really do, not what you want them to do. Not because you've decided on an end point where you need this character to get to this place. So they say yes or no. And he's. He was talking a little bit about, like, you can see that that happens in stories when there's wild fluctuations in the intelligence of characters. Like, they're dumb one scene and then they're genius the next scene. But I was, this was in the back of my head when I was watching episode three.

And I think I leapt out at me during the confrontation between Flight and Diana, which flight could be a character. And I understand this is adapted from Mick Herron's novels. and there's depths to all these characters and if you've read all of them, you see things coming from miles away. But flight could be a piece of furniture on this show. She could be a cool lady who runs the dogs

and kind of shows up in scenes to say, damn it, Jackson, what are you doing? You know, to have her all of a sudden snap into, hey, fuck you and fuck your job to Diana, and all of a sudden, the axis of the show tilts a little bit because not only does flight turn into a three-dimensional character in a second that you don't have to like read into her, she is literally that on the screen.

Diana is now ten times weaker than when the episode started because she is losing allies and she's losing material kind of the weight and muscle of this job with every passing moment as she's compromised by whoever she's compromised by and now is losing internal support. I thought that was great writing. that's an example of like you can do so much within a show within the margins of a scene and within the margins of a like we understand that flight is maybe the sixth or seventh listed character on this show

but it's she can still be important to where things are going I was wondering if that made any sense I mean do you do you see what I'm saying it makes sense I think it's well I think Chris I'm going to affirm you I think you did great I know we're on different coast it's hard to read body language maybe I look bored I was just checking like you know the starting line ups and stuff. But no, I think you're exactly right. And I'll take it a step further in terms of what we want from writing. It can be a dangerous trap when you are writing. And as we said, there's new showrunner took over this season, although there are a lot of experience hands still

in the writer's room. It can be extra challenging when you are doing reunions in the sense that I don't know how many Slow Horses fanatics were waiting for Sid to come back or expecting Sid to come back. The chemistry and the banter that Olivia Cook and Jack Loudon developed had three hours to develop, I think, before she gets shot in season one. I mean, it's incredibly quick. That said, it's the type of thing that looks really cool in an outline or even on a whiteboard when you're like Sid and River reacquaint themselves while being chased by a Russian hit squad.

it's another thing when the scene in practice feels like every single thing I wanted from those characters it hit every note that felt pitch perfect to me in the sense of like it had just the right amount of banter it had just the right amount of flirtation had the right amount of wait who were you again and also the right amount of like gravitas in the sense that she was shot in the head

she was shot in the head right here and it played it out over these increasingly frantic and sometimes funny set pieces that never felt clowns which whereas other pairings or other moments of the show, especially when it was dealing with, you know, as you said,

different book plots. But like, I don't know. For me, like the nadir of the show, even though it was a funny scene, was last season when River and Co. Accidentally killed a right-wing politician.

Yeah. Very funny, very unexpected. Good, Co-River Bants. I mean, those characters are fun when plays together, which happened again this week.

But like, in service of what exactly? What is going on now? You put it back into this kind of mechanism and we're off to the races. It's so funny because you bring up the last season because I've stopped worrying too much about what that super story of slow horses is or what this is all in service of in terms of like what are the chess pieces and like who, what are we trying to get to? And it's more of a vibe thing.

But this season does feel more legible to me. I think maybe the mechanism of the cat and mouse stuff, which is a huge part of slow horses, is definitely on display in a way that it feels a little bit more dangerous and it feels like their stakes are a little bit higher. And I just got to say, I mean, just to echo what you mentioned about Olivia Cook coming back, there's probably a world in which she's, uh, she plays Jean Grey and they can be like, we just won't bring Sid back. We can figure out something else.

Maybe we can bring in a different character that's essentially like doing what Sid's doing. First of all, that's like incredible TV making to be like this character who we've seated a relationship with five four years ago is now the co-star of this season. And the lottery ticket, that is the two of them together, also like to have the discipline to not put River with anyone else really over the years, even with the like brief Louisa stuff, like to just kind of be like, we're just going to have this guy be like a solo loser for four years even though everybody in the world is like

when is Jack Loudon going to kiss someone and then have him be reunited with this woman who he only got the briefest of moments with and only like the briefest of snapshots of a relationship with is like so good man that's what TV's supposed to do not everyone my my daughter

won't watch the screeners of the new Pride and Prejudice because she's like hashtag not my Darcy oh she thinks she thinks he's goofy looking she's out your daughter is when she's not Marauding Lanterns message boards being like, this is not how the Manhunter operates, you know? Yeah, she's a big Kiloag fan.

She wants the rest of the Lantern Corps. But just your point about, oh my God, you just said Louisa. Yeah. The Let's Get Louisa, who seems to be having a very important meeting at 8 p.m. But, you know, again, maybe they're working European hours. It's no problem. It's also always dark there, so who can say. That's also true.

It could have been lunchtime. it was just so great. She hasn't been gone that long, but the visual telling of the story of how eager she is to get away from these embarrassing people, the glow up that she's had, and then still have space for her to react

to Rivers Grandfather's funeral and the news of that. It's pretty elite. Like you said, we've talked about the shows in the language of the way we talk about other types of shows, but what we are highlighting now

is back to the language of prestige dramas and what we like about them. Obviously, like, I'm very excited to hear your enthusiasm. Not only that, but like, I think it's pretty rare that I see you go on a little bit of a dip with the show and then come back so strong. And it's really like, it's probably, you just, we just don't have enough opportunities to get this deep into a run and have favorite seasons. Like, it's a very refreshing experience. Before I let you go, let's just run through some of these shows that we wanted to highlight that we're not.

not on the top 100 list. Now, we've really belabored this list. We haven't, though. We haven't talked about it on the watch very much. You talked about it with Joe. Perhaps maybe I'll just say that I'm surprised and pleasantly surprised with the impact it seems to have made because I think it's led to a lot of interesting conversations.

You know, obviously, just to reiterate, this was sent out, a ballot was sent out to like 500 people about including critics, showrunners, actors, all sorts of, of folks, they were allowed to give 10 shows. They must have debuted after the year 2000 or 2000 and on, which is why shows like Sopranos aren't on the list. And if you voted for a show, it wasn't about ranking. It was like one, if you voted for a show, that show had a vote.

And then the show with the most votes was Breaking Bad. And people still, we should, people don't seem to understand this on a level that is concerning that like, the New York Times did not compile this list. The New York Times has a lot to fucking answer for this year. They didn't drop anything because they thought it would be cool or move something up because it would be provocative. It is how people vote. It is 100% the tabulation of the votes.

And yes, and our votes were included in that. As is the case with the site and sound poll. I think you can feel generational change every so often with these polls happening. And I can't remember. I think I may have said this to Joe last week. I don't think that this list is going to look the same way in five years. I don't think

something is going to change about this whether it's the critical reappraisal of something or people saying you know what actually I don't like that or this wasn't as good as you guys said it was whatever it is I have a feeling things are changing in that regard there's also just I think

a changing critical consensus about what TV does and what TV does well regardless 100 shows are ranked or listed on this ballot on this project and Andy and I just wanted to shout out a couple that didn't make the list. It's a different project than the other shows we would have put on our list.

You know, like I think like they're my neck, for the most part, there are a couple on this list that I'm about to share with you that would have been, they were in contention for my top 10, but a lot of the other near misses or finalists are on the list. Yeah. I'll also make a confession. Yeah, please. that both in my my list I submitted but also in the list I made today,

I would say that it's obviously like a little bit weighted towards the time period that we've been making some version of this podcast. Right. Because I found it a little bit difficult to like remember. I don't think I had a Best of TV 2005. You know, I don't remember as well what was happening back then and going in. You don't remember a lot of what was happening in the early 2000s? Do you want to as soon as they traded Iverson, I was like.

brother. So what did you list off a couple of shows that you love that didn't make the list? On your top 10. Yes. There is, there's a show or two that didn't make the list, right? Like Mind Hunter is on your list. It is, and it did not make the list. And that did not make the list.

So I won't share that. I started compiling shows for this project, the U.S. for me. And I came up with 17 shows. I came up with 13. I think are deserving of it. Yeah. Probably some of them are the same. Should I just run?

it backwards. It's kind of no particular order except for the top few. Sure. So I'm just going to name some. Glow on Netflix, Alison Brie, Betty Gilpin, absolutely incredible ensemble comedy that I think got dinged because Netflix rescinded its renewal of the final season

and I think that it slipped away from people's consciousness in front of their brains because it didn't finish its story, which is a weird reason to ding something, but everybody had a reason to leave something off, and I think that's as good as any. The deuce, the left, loved David Simon, George Pelicano's collaboration about Times Square in New York and the porn industry.

Happy endings is not on the list, right? It was on Wesley's list and we talked about it. It's not on the list. But the great, one of the great, just joke per minute sitcoms of this century. Representing my children, although they wouldn't be happy about this now, but at the time, the Nickelodeon show Avatar, The Last Airbender, not the live action version, the cartoon, is the type of cartoon storytelling that would have blown my mind as a kid because it is so expansive and so original. That's cool.

Good shout. Broad Church, which I feel like we owe a lot of our contemporary... Well, we owe a lot of our contemporary... We still talk about it, like you and I talk about it, but talk about it in writers' rooms, the kind of the grief relay that that show began with of like one crime permeating a town.

Like, that is a blueprint for a lot of TV that did make the list and a lot of TV that gets made all the time. I mean, I put We Own the City on there because it gave us so many great podcasting moments thanks to your Wayne Jenkins imitation. But again, it's another example of like, what is the bar for entry for one season wonders?

Like Chernobyl and I May Destroy You made the list, but We Own the City didn't. Because I got to be me, I threw Terriers on there. You did. Which is famously, infamously, one of my favorite one season wonders ever. It should have been more FX. Now it's 15, 16 years old.

Do you want me to burn my top 10? Do we overlap on a couple yet? No, I haven't overlapped on any. I'll do a couple of mine until I get up until the upper reaches here. Sure. One is I think I had a lot more on this list. It was mini-series or limited series. I don't know what jumped out at me about that,

but I, of those included Park Chanwick's adaptation of Little Drummer Girl that came out several years ago. Oh, hell yeah. Alexander Scars Garden, Florence Pugh. I had the Northwater, Andrew Hayes, brilliant seafaring miniseries with Colin Farrell and Jack O'Connell that came out a couple of years ago. I mentioned Howard's End earlier. That was on my list. And Barry Jenkins's Underground Railroad, which I think that is an incredibly difficult show to watch, but is an astonishing monument to that insurgency of directors into television.

and doing cinematic things with TV and was really like an incredible piece of work. And then as kind of more traditional entries, I have damages, which I... Good for you. So this is the Roseburn, Glenn Close legal thriller that was on FX in the 2000s, and I think if it came out today

would be one of the most talked about, watched, like, exciting shows. because it was ahead of its time with like, we're going to kill a major character in the second episode and we're going to burn plot to the point where you, there doesn't seem to be any way to get out of this corner and then we do somehow. It's a real precursor to Ozark and shows like that.

And I also have Narcos on my list, which is, I think, going to be looked back on as a secretly essential Netflix show and a huge, huge uniter when it comes to different groups of people watching a kind of TV and is a real groundbreakinger when it comes to the Wikipedia

true story brought to TV screen style of TV making. Also, if we had been asked the question when we were covering Narcos when it was on, who is the most obvious superstardom breakout candidate here? We would have said Boyd-Holbrook. And instead, Pedro Pascal and Wagner Mora were both in the cast of that show. Pretty crazy.

So great picks, especially like Little Drummer Girl in Northwater, are exactly the kinds of things I was looking for when I spent the 10 minutes before recording, wildly Googling Andy Greenwald Top Ten List, please, because I have no memory of anything. But, okay, a couple of other shows that I felt like deserved recognition here, and certainly are influential, our buddy Sam S-Mail show, Mr. Robot. I think Mr. Robot got dinged for the very stark, I'm not going to say dip in quality, but season one is so exceptional.

And seasons 2, 3, 4, 5 are fascinating and rewarding and have incredible moments in them, but they are very, very different show, as Sam took creative, full creative control. So I understand it. I don't think it's fair, because again, you get into the, like, what are you judging here?

We have single season shows on there. So it's tough when you were downgrading, candidates because of not sticking the landing. I put the OC on there. It's recency bias in the sense that my older daughter is watching it. And so I'm watching it with her. And I will be clear that I have only watched with her the first season again. And I know that that's another show that had a dip and rebounded. And, you know, its first season, though, had 27 episodes in it. Yeah. Which is insane. It is more episodes in one season than I would say a good percentage of the shows that made the list. and it was so engaging and so fun and so influential

for a whole host of shows that came after. The comedy series, Detroiters, didn't make the list. Great Tim Robinson. I may destroy you did make the list, but Detroiters is so, so funny and so reliable and worth streaming. Here's one I want to pause to hear your thoughts on. Dark. Yeah, I mean, one of the best first seasons of TV of the century, I think,

and then, you know, you did need a physics degree to understand the third season, but still. But it was a perfectly folding puzzle cube. Like, it is the most German version of anything I've ever seen that it is meticulously engineered, so deeply unsentimental. Because of that, maybe the most successful and also horrifying time travel show of all time.

But still living on Netflix, still worth watching, absolute mindbender, Mind Hunter, but you've spoken about it at Langement. incredible show, misunderstood, canceled too soon. Did you have on your initial list or on this exercise, did you put industry down? I didn't.

This is the number one draft pick of my shows that weren't on it. And it would have been like my 11th or 12th. I feel stupid not having done it and not having to put it on it because I think one of the problems of making a 10 best list of this entry is that you wind up having to pay

the bill that you wrote yourself on the podcast where I'm like, industry is the show of the decade, but somehow doesn't make this list. And it wasn't out of any, I honestly am such a huge believer in the later seasons of industry. And as it's evolved into what it's become, which is kind of like a global financial crime thriller, it's still like my my most anticipated show of next year is still industry. I don't really know why it didn't make it onto this list. I think it didn't make the list for two reasons. One, because it is absolutely a grower, not a shower, which is a plot line they would probably do

in the upcoming final season of industry. That was Eric's problem in general, yeah. The way that the show has grown in popularity and also in the discourse, like exponentially season over season, means that if they were doing this New York Times list next year, I think it probably would have cracked the bottom 10th of it. But there's also the opposite of recency bias.

Like Widows Bay hadn't hit yet when this, I think when we got the, the poll, which was earlier in the spring. But I also don't think Widows Bay would have made the list because people are like, well, let's wait and see. Let's not be rash about this. Let's let like history judge. But industry certainly deserves a place in terms of consideration.

But I do wonder if some of these people are just holding out for that final season. But speaking of the season thing, I wondered what your thoughts were on Fargo, which was sort of a surprise omission from the list. Well, I think that this had a true detective problem, which was. True Detective Season 1 makes the list. I did not know that that was eligible or that we could start to identify single seasons of anthology shows to celebrate.

And had I known, I think True Detective Season 1 would have been in my ballot. But Fargo, I was quite shocked. Because even if you want to look at the totality of Fargo's accomplishment, it's hard to say it's not one of the 100 best. Beyond that, and influential and important, I'll just say it.

Like I didn't really like seasons three, four, or five of, there have been five, right, of Fargo. I think that I liked five. I can't remember. I didn't love the Chris. There was a Chris Rock season. There's the Ewan McGregor season. And five is John Hamm. The second season is a perfect season of television.

And like, it almost doesn't matter what the rest were. And season one is amazing, too. Great Billy Bob Thornt. Thornton Performance. Martin Freeman. and also the audacity of doing it and doing it well. Like it seems challenging to me to make that case if you're using that, if you're using any kind of logic.

Final three for me, the great Lost Sundance series Rectify, which was seen by almost no one, but the people who did see it changed them deeply. It is an incredibly profound and moving and slow meditation on guilt and family and has incredible performances from Abigail Spencer and J. Smith Cameron from Succession. It's a really, really moving show,

but not one that many people encountered. You know I'm always going to stand for Top of the Lake. This is the second chain champion reference on this pod, which is why we stay undefeated. Elizabeth Moss in one of her many great television performances, but one of my favorites, Top of the Lake, you know, I was trying to overmath it,

which is why I ended up with kind of a chalky list, but I was like, there's room for one, a tourish, one and done statement, and it had to be Twin Peaks the return for me, but Top of the Lake was in contention. And then my final,

number one, don't understand why it wasn't on the list because unless every single person was like me and forgot that it was, that it was eligible. It's fucking Bluey, man. That, of everything here, of these 17 shows I just named for you,

if I could have the ballot back, I would put Bluey on my list. I'm not just saying it for the bit. No, I know. I mean, I saw a lot of chatter about like, why not, justice for blue. Of the ones that you didn't mention, you mentioned industry, that would have been my first in. Ripley, Steve Zalien's Netflix series from a couple of years ago,

000, that one goes out to Hitmaker, to Tim Simons, my brother in 00. Dude, how do we not get the Nick in here? Great call. Great call. The Nick is another example of something that kind of like was taken for granted, during this weird glut of like, look at all the cool things that are happening on TV,

but also maybe felt slightly unfinished, even though it finished. Very much is finished. I think it's almost just like, Steven Soderberg's too good at interviews. So he was like, what if Barry Jenkins makes this in another year, but it's set in the 70s?

With Andre Holland. Like, fuck. Maybe it's a victim of the fact that like everybody, like everybody carries some flame for it in their heart. Like there's still more to say there. But like, we, we used to eat good in this country, man. Steven Soderberg single-handedly shooting and editing

a absolutely bat-shit bravura examination of turn-of-the-century medicine starring Clive Owen and Andre Holland. Like, elite, elite show. Speaking of eating good, top chef consideration for you? I make my own arbitrary rules, and I decided that only fiction. But if I had done that route,

I would have done what you did smartly, and it made the list, which has put Bordain. like Top Chef certainly one of my favorite shows of the last 20 years, but I just apples and oranges it when it comes to competition shows. And this may seem like a reach, but I just have to shout out these two comedies. Motherland, which is a Sharon Horgan show from a couple years ago with Anna Maxwell Martin,

which I thought was just like a wonderful sitcom about being a parent in London and Southside. The cop comedy. Oh, fucking Southside. on HBO, which you can still watch, and I highly recommend, but it was among my favorite sitcoms of our time potting together.

And thus concludes our time. There's so many good shows out there. I know. This job should be easy. And yet. I'll be talking to you briefly on Monday to discuss lanterns, the finale,

which goes up Sunday night, and probably has some guests coming up soon as well, but Greenwald, always great to see you. It's going to be 100 degrees here in Los Angeles tomorrow on October 3, third. So you enjoy the crisp autumn air. I don't know which I prefer. I'll tell you which one I

prefer. Yeah, I think we know. See you later, brother.