The Watch - Ep. 118: ‘The Crown,’ ‘Riverdale,’ ‘A Series of Unfortunate Events’ and Letters From Taboo Island

Episode Date: February 2, 2017

The Ringer’s Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald debate their picks for Who Won the Week (1:45) before reading another Letter From Taboo Island (12:05) and discussing ‘The Crown’ (16:15). Then Ringer TV critic Alison Herman stops by to catch the guys up on shows they aren’t watching, including ‘Riverdale’ (25:18), ‘Crazy Ex-Girlfriend’ (37:14), and the reboot of ‘Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events’ (43:30). 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 rigger.com and joining me in the studio. Good day, mate. It's Andy Greenwald. I just want to say when the history books are written,

they will know that this podcast was against Australia first. Yeah, never because there's not going to be any history books written. That's true. Know your enemies, though, man. And what have they ever done for us? Andy, welcome to the Wall. Watch re-up episode. It's Thursday. It's a beautiful day in Los Angeles. A couple of housekeeping things before we get going. Make sure you share the podcast listener. It's a social and viral

kind of thing. Share the listener or the podcast? No, share the podcast, comma, listener. It would be great if you guys tell a friend, share the podcast. Follow the watch at the watch pod on Twitter. We post the watch list there twice a week so that you guys can know what we're going to be talking about. Today we are talking about the crown. Riverdale. Yes. And of course, Taboo. Letter from Tabu Island is coming.

We have a special guest coming too. We have a special guest, Alison Herman. The TV critic from The Ringer is going to come. She's going to do a segment from time to time on the watch now called What Do We Miss, which is about the shows that Andy and I are not paying enough attention to. And if you want to join our book club, you really can't. There's no membership. But you can read along with us.

We are currently reading Zoo Station by David Downing. You can look for that on your favorite booksellers, Chilvin. and we will be following up with that in late February, early March. We'll talk about that book. It's the first book in his John Russell series. It's about sort of an espionage tale set in 1939 Berlin. It has a great backdrop of creeping fascism that I think our readers will really enjoy. Huh.

Okay. Well, first let's do Who Won the Week. Okay, man. I have a good one this week. Yeah. There's a little bit of a tug-of-war going, right? It's not obvious who won the week. But this week, there's two interesting movie stories that can.

came out that are like two sides of how to be a movie star in 2017. Okay. Okay. So I wrote this thing about Colin Farrell the other day because Colin Farrell has signed up now to do Inner City, which is the new Dan Gilroy movie, Dan Gilroy of Nightcrawler. Brother of. Brother of Tony Gilroy. It's a Denzel Washington legal thriller where Denzel plays a, quote, awkward legal

researcher who is wooed to join. I'm sorry, Denzel plays an awkward legal researcher. Yeah, he plays the drinking violence. This man is like 60 years old. I know. It's the funniest thing about this. He is a titan of the industry and the most charismatic screen actor in 30 years. Did you see the Pellegrine Briefman?

Come on. Were they just going to put some point-exter glasses on him? Yeah, I know. Seriously, I'm sure he'll have an awkward haircut. Colin Farrell plays a slick, big firm lawyer who wooes Denzel to come to his firm where Denzel uncovers something. So Colin Farrell's got three movies coming out this year. He's going to be in this inner city movie.

He's going to be in the beguiled, which sounds silly, but is a Sophia Coppola movie, which probably means it is silly. But it's prestigious, you know, it's a good choice. And he's also going to be in the killing of a sacred deer from your boy who directed the lobster. Yorgis. And so that's three really, like, top-notch choices. And this is what happens, I wrote about this the other day. This is what happens when you don't have to worry about.

having the whole world in your hands. And you're just like, I'm famous enough to make my choices, but the choices I can make are always interesting because I don't have to have like a Johnny Depp GDP of a small island nation going. You don't need to shoot anyone's ashes out of any cannons unless you want to,

which is fine. Look, when the books are written, post script, they won't be. The body of work that I'm most interested in compiling is our, just the bibliography of us writing about Colin Farrell. Yeah. Who is one of our favorite actors, who has a permanent place on the wall. Yeah.

Who is always interesting, even when the movies around him are not. Yes. And he does seem to be in a good place. And I spoke to him last year, and he was exactly what we wanted him to be in person. Devastatingly handsome, very clever. But also seem to have a very healthy perspective about where he is in his life and in his work, basically. And I think that you're seeing that reflected in the choices he's making. And I'm thrilled.

Basically, since in Bruch, she has been. one of our most consistently, like, rewarding actors. So since In Bruges made, like, a couple of Badakins, you know, Total Recall, Reboot aside. I actually liked Fright Night. Did you see that? No. It was really entertaining. Really?

Yeah. Were you a fan of the original Fright Night? No. I, you know how I feel about horror movies? That's sort of where I, that's where I tapped out? That's where it was too scarier because it was the last horror movie. And I was like, I'm good. That was like the last time there was a sleepover and I had no choice over the VHS tape that was being watched.

Yeah, right. That's a reference that'll just share. that with your friends, listeners. Yeah. The other side of this coin, though, is Ben Affleck, right? Who seems to be a prisoner. To be clear. A 40-year-old white man

won the week. Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's America in 2017. But Bet-Aflict seems to be a prisoner in a jail of his own making. You know, uh... That sounds like a Yorgas movie title. And that jail is Arkham Asylum, I guess. I don't know. But he's kind of stuck in this place where live by night, a book we both liked quite a bit. You loved it. Dennis Lehman novel. He adapted it.

It was supposed to be kind of this awards bait, prestigious, amazing gangster drama, was pretty largely critically ignored or just kind of like brushed aside and bombed at the box office office. And I saw something like last week where it said that it may have lost Warner Brothers upwards of $75 million, which to Warner Brothers is actually a pretty good day at the office. But when it comes to like Ben Affleck movies. Wow, shots at Burbank. Okay. But, you know, I think that he's now in a situation where he, you know, now he has gone from being like the guy to the town and Argo and he's, you know, the new Batman and it's going up and up and up. And then Batman versus Superman happens. And now he's got live by night.

And now he's recently this week just announced that he will not be directing the Batman. Right. Right. He will be starring in it. Yes. I think that that's a good move for him. I think that when you're losing, sometimes it's good to just like take yourself out of the game. little bit. And I don't know that he can

remove himself from the DC Comics movie universe, but he is slowly backing out of the helicopter. I think this is very fascinating to watch as well. I think you know, I think listeners know that I have long been an adherent of the prestige theory of

Ben Affleck, much like the film of the prestige, there are two versions of Ben Affleck, and each one takes over for roughly six to eight year periods. So Goodwill Hunting was the good Affleck, and then we get the Gilles. Yeah. Benifer stuff, bad Affleck, then all of a sudden good Affleck again with the town in Argo,

and then as soon as he put on that cowl, bad Affleck. That said, it is sort of interesting the idea of someone who just keeps finding different cages to lock themselves in, because the thing that everyone praised about Affleck as he sort of stepped back from being this not really compelling paycheck-cashing movie star, didn't he have a movie called Paycheck?

I mean, that's kind of incredible. into being an autore filmmaker was people saying, okay, well, he had been placed in a box that he didn't fit in. He didn't want to be a action hero leading man. He is actually more of an interesting artist, and so he's making these movies.

But then he put himself in a box of being this prestige filmmaker guy in an era where the prestige films that you make for a Warner Brothers basically have the same bottom line in numbers that have to be run against it as a superhero movie. So he didn't make Live By Night

as a small piece like he did Gone Baby Gone. He starred in it, which was absurd because the character is 20 years old in the book. He, you know, because he started and directed it, the budget ballooned. He did everything on location. He cast bigger stars. And then it loses tons of money. That's not a movie that's going to make back $100 million unless it's the Godfather Part 2, and apparently it was not. He doesn't need to be in these cages, man. No. Free him. I know. Free yourself, Ben Affleck. So I don't think that the Affleck not directing Batman is a bad idea for Batman to the extent that that matters to me. I actually think that what Batman as a franchise could probably use and what all those DC movies could use is something like Winter Soldier that's a little bit more compact.

I mean, I think even Winter Soldier was like two plus hours and like so long and had stuff crashing into the Pentagon. But like it still like had like a basically like a little bit more of a straightforward premise, I think. Well, the thought that I, the vibe that I got from it, or at least this is what the, when the Affleck brand still meant prestige six months ago or whatever, I thought that. But him writing and directing a stand-alone Batman movie, they were going to try to do something with DC that they weren't doing in Marvel, that this movie did not have to be just more connective tissue

for the next big one. He was going to do a sort of a side artier thing, whatever. My guess is, A, he doesn't want to do that. B, no one wants him to do that because they want the movie to be connective tissue. Sure. They want it to be just another chapter and the continuing adventures of whatever version of Batman this is.

Also, I think that there's an issue with they're going to try, I think that with Justice League, they're probably going to try and pivot towards a more like winky tongue-and-chew. pop art kind of thing. Not fully, but I think that they will try and make it lighter. The trailer for that movie is very much like Oceans 11 meets superheroes.

I talked to, I did an event where I spoke to Jeff Johns, who was the comic book writer, very good guy, but also now the sort of the Kevin Feige almost of DC, he's the head of DC Entertainment, so he is really running the ship over there for the most part. And he very politely, very politically,

acknowledged that maybe there had been some miscues in terms of tone, and he said to watch Wonder Woman. Like that's the pivot. He said it wasn't a big pivot, but he basically had this analogy where he was just like, if you're 30 degrees off of something, it doesn't sound like a lot. But if you're 30 degrees off of like the moon landing, you are in fucking outer space for the rest of your life. Yeah. If you've got Scoot McNary in a wheelchair and Holly Hunter being like really seriously talking to Superman at a Senate hearing.

Yeah. Then maybe you're in outer space and you need to read it back in. So, you know, of course, I should say that he wrote. Wonder Woman, so he obviously thinks it's going to be pretty good. But that's going to be an interesting tweak. But what's next for Affle? I mean, so I think that what you're saying, we've gotten off track here. Colin Farrell potentially won the week for making very consistently good choices.

Well, what I'm saying is he stopped caring. He made it. You do Alexander because you want to be the biggest movie star in the world. You think you're going to be some combination of, you know, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Peter O'Toole by doing Alexander. Sidebar, a. friend and writer who I admire a lot says that the extended international trailer for Alexander is the best American film made in the last 20 years. What? Just the trailer.

Some guy you met in intelligency. One of my co-writers on Legion. Okay. That should inform your opinion about the show. Oh. And he does that. He's pretty much in movie jail and he slowly works his way back through starting with in Bruges into being like not only a leading man, but a very interesting character

actor at the same time. I don't think Affleck has ever given himself that break. Right? Like he's never just been like, you know what? Like maybe I can't hold the wheel so tight. And I can go do interesting stuff here and there and rebuild it organically. It's been, you know, and I think maybe, yeah, you'd say that the town was that. But the town was still this incredible act of like Orson Wellsey. No, it's gone baby gone was the pivot because he wasn't in it.

That's true. He gave the part to his brother. He stepped back. Casey Affleck's always getting gifts. I know. I mean, talk about privilege. Yeah, seriously. But it worked out.

Okay. So we're saying basically the. Colin Farrell won the week, but Ben Affleck might have sort of secondarily won the week by losing the week. I think it's interesting. Yeah. Ferrell stepped into things. Affleck stepped out of things. Okay. Let's take a trip to Taboo Island.

Dear Andy. I only have a brief moment to write you this week because only one thing worth noting happened on Taboo Island this week. And that was the arrival of the 5'4 Dynamo, the Mugsy Bogs of British character actors. Stop. Tom Hollander. What? Tom Hardy needs gunpowder for some reason. I'm not

totes sure why. Sidebar. That sentence is true IRL. Yeah, I know. I just nodded. I completely believe you. Tom Hardy still needs gunpowder. He's just like, do you have gunpowder? You mean James Keziah Delaney needs gunpowder in the fictional world? It's a time of war.

Two wars actually are going on, I think. And he needs, but he still needs gunpower, but when it's a time of war, the crown controls the production and sale of gunpowder. Does he just need just like a little bitch to get him to the night? He needs like a lot. Just a taste? He needs like a lot.

He's a brick. So he goes and sees this chemist, man, and it's Tom Hollander. Just mixing up the medicine. Who is doing like parlor tricks for housewives. He's like, check out like if you put this in a beaker and heat it up, it blows up. And people are like, I want to sleep with you. First of all, that shit always works. He looks like Johnny Depp and Alice in Wonderland, but people are like, you're a rock star.

I need to be a part of this. Tom Hardy's character interrupts Tom Hollander, mid-coitus. And I shit you not. Tom Hollander gives a speech about how when semen isn't released, it becomes poison inside of a man. Yo, word, is that true? I don't know. I don't know. Wow.

I really don't. So does Tom Hardy, like, you know, grant him his release? He goes. He says, you can feel free to release. He says release. Yeah, just the two of them are standing there. Yeah. But anyway, the point is that Tom Hollander is like, I can make gunpowder out of pigeon shit and human urine.

Yeah. Yeah. Cool. So. Yeah. Also, there's some psychic incest. So this show is basically like Mythbusters, but with cats. Yeah, right, right. That's cool.

And also Tom Hollander is a laughing gas dealer. He goes to like eyes wide shut parties. Yeah. And gets laughing gas in 1814 must have been like way different than Whippets in 1995. because people are getting pretty out, it's like ketamine or something. People are pretty unhinged from social moors. Listen, I just want to say,

I'm not Mr. Helium Tank, but I did go see the Rolling Stones Voodoo Lounge Tour at Veterans Stadium in like 1993 or 4. And my boy, Mike, my high school pal, definitely took a pull off a big, big balloon. And just went ass over tea kettle into a puddle. At the vet? At the vet.

What do you mean? Like, in the concourse or in the park? No, no, no, no, the parking lot. The vet was steep, man. You don't want to, like, tumble in the upper neck. But like, next thing you know, you're landing on Charlie Watts, Tom. It feels like I'm telling you my own letter from Taboo Island. It's good.

A dark world of Veteran Stadium. This is what Taboo Island is about. It's about sharing. Like, what kind of a world did our parents leave us in where I'm like, I'm going to go to a concert of one of your rock and roll acts, mom and dad, but there are going to be men in the parking lot. It wasn't bridges to Babylon? With balloons. No, that was during college.

With big balloons being like, take a pull of this. young lad. Like, by the way, semen is poisoning your body. High school was a time. How's Mike now? You know, funny story. Untraceable.

No joke. The one person from high school that is like, he has an ungoogable name. Really? But he was also just like, he's vanished. Okay.

All right. He may well be the last nitrous dealer. Yeah. So I have no other, just a couple post notes. It's just, yeah, Hollander, psychic incest, and Tom Hardy cuts a dude in half. Oh, well, bury the lead.

So you love life on that island right now. Taboo is incredible. It's incredible television. Let's talk about more incredible television. Let's talk more about Whippets. The Crown. We didn't watch this when it first came out. No.

Why don't you take the conch here? Yeah, the crown, very popular. Does what... Let's not, we don't want to be condescending about it. No. Not for me. Not for me. I mean, I watched the first episode, and here's the thing.

It is expertly made. Boy, do they spend a lot of money on. Peter Morgan. Boy does it look good. Boy is like the details, the performances, the actors they got. Every frame of it is considered. It's lovely. It's...

What's Phillips name? It's put together. Philip Mountbatten. Yeah. Left. tenant. That's still his name. Yeah. Is he still around? Yeah. What? Yes. Was he like a thousand years old now? Elizabeth is still the queen. Did you know that? Oh, that's her? Oh, that's her. Oh my God. Really? I can't tell him you being serious or not.

I'm not being completely serious. That's the queen, dog. Oh, man. Do you? Did you think? Really? Are you? So she can watch the crown and be like, that's me? First of all, are you reverse Frederick Douglassing? No. Queen Elizabeth? Completely serious. I like the idea that she's like firing up her Apple TV in Buckingham Palace. Yo, that's still the queen. Elizabeth's like, get me the rogue cool. She's seriously like, she had some issues with the five movements in the O.A.

She thought it was a little silly. But at the same time, yeah, dog, I thought you were like half English. I mean, yeah. That's your monarch. Respect her. Do you know that those kids are, that's Prince Charles? I got that part. I figured that part out.

I was like, because they kept like hammering home. He's like, don't walk up there, Charles. Did you know that kingdom is England? Yeah. No, I got it. I got it. I feel like this is like that time when Bill Simmons was like, when does Game of Thrones take place? I thought we were never going to speak of that.

God bless him. But I think that's what he did say that, right? On this podcast. Yeah. And that was like the time when there were dragons. He's like 17th century? Yeah. So we're talking circa taboo then.

So this is, yeah, it's taboo era. Taboo adjace. So now do you like the show more? Then I know it's real. I mean, I knew it was real. I know it's real. You just thought it was the driest fiction ever put to? No, no, no, no, no.

Because I know that Winston Churchill was a dude. Yeah. Was a real dude? He got a Lithgow's playing him. That's right. Look, we're beating around the bush or learning things as we go. It's tough to separate two things. Like, we've talked to people, like when we had Sam S-Mil and he talked about watching the crown, like, this show is for some people who love this.

And so I do not want to speak down about it or put it down because, like, our colleague Amanda Dobbins, like, loves the show because she loves these types of stories. She loves period pieces. She loves stories about royalty. This is what this is. No, you know what I was going to say is that this is actually one of my favorite parts about, like, the amount of television that we have and the amount of money that's being pumped into it is that if you're into something like if you're into like the culture surrounding the royals throughout the 20th century or whatever. It's amazing that now you can watch a television show that is literally like wish fulfillment in terms of wanting to visualize all this stuff that you might be really interested in that you've read about before.

I mean, we feel that way about, I'm not even, I don't even think that they have since the BBC version of Tinker Taylor truly like captured La Cary. Right. But the fact that they keep making them and that we keep getting like a Most Wanted Man and our kind of trader and night manager and, you know, all, more to come is just like, it's so incredible. I don't expect anyone. Yeah.

You know what I mean? It's really cool to see that happen. I guess that comment should hang over my next comment, which is that on some level, it bums me out, that they spent $100 million on the crown because I just, for me, for me, I'll use eye statements as I was taught in my college. We literally spent like 10 minutes being like, what's the state of Batman? I just don't know what. Well, I don't think they should spend more money on Batman either, frankly.

Like, why do we need to tell these stories, like of all the stories to be told about the 20th century, or about England in 1947? or anything about this, I don't care about the richest people in the room, the most famous people in the world. I just don't. It's not that interesting to me. And like, I'm just saying,

I'm real sorry that Lane Price had a little, little speck of crimson in his handkerchief. You know what I mean? Like, first of all, Peter Morgan, like, you know, I'm going to let you finish, but come on, man, come on, man. Like, half of the Oh, Hello show that Nick Croll and Mullaney does on Broadway is literally about them wanting to do a play where they could cough into a handkerchief and show the blood.

They were literally like, that's what theater is. So it's lavish and it's remarkable, but I'm just like... It's not for you. It's like that. Really? Yeah. That? Yeah.

Why are we doing that? What's your... Lithgow fucking cleared the lane out. But you know, like, it's like, if they spend, or not even, it's not even about the budget, but like, I think the young pope is another example of that where it's just like such deep immersion into a world. Yes. And you can choose to walk into it.

You can choose to stay out of it. But the young pope, the world that we're being. Merson isn't necessarily the history of the Vatican. It's Palosurantino's amusement box. Like, it's his brain. Sure. And that's a more curious, creative place to spend time, I think. You know, I just, this is, yeah, this is, this is my 99% argument.

So if we've learned anything in this conversation is that I'm a little bit more, you know, I'm a little bit more liberal with my, like, what I think people should be allowed to watch, and you're a little bit more of an autocrat. I don't think they should be able to watch it. No, it's wonderful that it's out there. I feel, I'm glad that I checked it out because... I'm glad I learned so much during this segment. You had no...

Who did you think was Queen of England right now? I hadn't really given it that much. I thought they were all named Elizabeth, so I just wasn't sure which one. You thought every Queen of England was named Elizabeth, like Pope? I'm making myself sound like an idiot. But I just thought that there was like 40 Elizabeths. This is Elizabeth the second. Right.

There's only been, too. I didn't know that. I didn't know that. I also sometimes they thought that their names changed, like when they became queen, like the popes, like where it was like, they were named like Susie and then they became Catherine. Like King Pius XIII. Yeah, right. Like the way your name was originally Terrence.

So then you were like, I'm going to be Chris. When I become the podcast priest. Yeah. Yeah. It's it's a lavish, well-made spectacle that I would prefer not to spectacle anymore. Okay. We're going to take a quick break from our sponsors. And then when we come back, Ringer television critic Alison Herman's going to join us and talk to us about a couple of shows that we haven't kept up with.

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on buks.com. Their flowers will sell out for Valentine's Day, so don't wait. That's B-O-U-Q-S.com and use code watch for 20% off. Okay, we are joined now by the ringers Allison Herman. What's up, Allison? Hey, how's it going? It's going well. We're here to talk a little bit about a few shows that Annie and I have either neglected

to watch or talk about that we should check out or a show. that we haven't talked about yet, but we are all very excited about. Yes. So let's start with that one. That's Riverdale. I can't believe that. Just said, she's given to my mouth. C-dubs.

Tell me a little bit about what Riverdale is just for listeners who don't know. Well, I don't think I could describe it any better than the CW president did at the TCA's, which is that it is Twin Peaks meets the OC. It is every bit as bonkers as that sounds. It totally works, though. I'm really excited about it. It's probably next to the young people. the show I'm most excited about.

You are in a safe space. You are in a welcome room. You really are playing to your base. But I think the other thing that no one mentioned is that this is a weird hot Archie show. Yeah. So it's a gritty take on the Archie legend. The King Archie legend. And very self-aware about being that.

The first thing that we hear about Archie is Archie got hot. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I mean, can I just put cards on the table here? Sure. I'm an Archie head. I know. This would have worked better if I hadn't just particularly.

like not known who Queen Elizabeth was, but yes, you're an Archie head. I spent much of my childhood just reading Archie Digest. What's the appeal? It was very soothing. Okay. Well, two things. Alison, are you an Archie fan? Did you read Archie Comics?

I read like a handful in the grocery aisle when I was growing up, but I kind of got more into it after the reboot, which I'm sure we will talk about. I can't wait to talk about it. My grandfather gave me an Archie comic when I was a little kid, and I was like, this is just, it's like medium funny, and it's always the same. And so it was like very, you know, I don't want to make it sound like I was, you know, my childhood wasn't Jack Lemon and Glengarry, Glenn Ross. I didn't constantly need to like reach for the coffee pot slash back issue of pep. But the comics are like really funny and medium funny and always the same.

And then it was also interesting to see the way they changed era to era because there would be an era where Archie was suddenly very politically conscious or an era where the stories were a lot more like serialized and dramatic. Then they would revert and they would revert and then he would have computers. and then you would have video games, it would always kind of be the same. And then, about two or three years ago, a new publisher took over the line that was sort of stagnating, and it was like, let's push things forward. Let's try to make this interesting again

and find something that is appealing and not just constantly, let's not just sell sameness as our brand anymore. Yeah. And Riverdale is kind of part of that reboot. So the creator of the show is this guy, Roberto Agircicasa, who I talked to a little bit before. Has he done other TV stuff before?

is he does. Yeah, so he's worked in TV. He's done looking, glee, big love. So he's definitely, you know, experienced that band, but he was also the chief creative officer of Archie Comics. So in conjunction with them planning this reboot, they also were like, okay, let's try to get some on-screen adaptations going. So I think they developed a movie, which is how he worked with Sarah Schechter, who's Greg Berlante's producing partner on that. And so when it came time to write a pilot and try to figure out how to do this, that was when they connected with Greg Berlanti. And Burlanti is like oversees all the DC stuff

on CW right now. He has more shows on TV than just about anyone else. That's, yeah. He's got a remarkable factory. What do you think it is? So this show has this very difficult to hit mix of playfulness and darkness, which is like, you know, you can always like you're always on the line there. And I think it's, I think you sort of mentioned this, but it's self-awareness is probably what makes it successful in both?

I also wouldn't even call it dark. It's like dark in quotation marks. It's very much using this as like an aesthetic that it's playing with as opposed to actually believing that Archie is should organically be as sexy as this Archie is. Yeah, I think that the thing that the new sort of new Archie across all mediums has done, and what's his name, Roberto Aguerre Sicasa? Sacasa, yeah. Has proven, really remarkable way, is that these characters and this,

setting are timeless and kind of mutable, almost like, dare I say, at Shakespearean plays, in that you can put them in any context and they work because the relationships are so basic and established. So he has this ongoing series that I really recommend to anyone called Afterlife with Archie, which is Archie is a zombie horror storyline, and it's actually kind of amazing. And then they've also done things like the veteran comic writer Mark Wade rebooted Archie itself, and it's super entertaining and great, and there are some collected volumes. I think the key to this was basically being like, this doesn't have to be all of the archie.

This is just, we're going to do it this way and see how it works. And the line you were talking about, Chris, I feel like if that's not the only line it walks, it also walks very gingerly along a line of winking and being in that you can't make one of these shows that's making fun of these shows. You actually have to have some genuine emotion. You have to buy into these people as emotional human beings on some level. Yeah. And it fits in totally organically with the CW and that at a certain level, it totally works as a teen drama. could just watch it and make Team Betty and Team Veronica T-shirts and be like Archie should end up

with X or Y and you can totally enjoy it on that level or you can kind of be like, oh, it's sort of reconsidering the love triangle. These women are actually believably friends. Yeah, right. Of course. Because isn't it also worth noting that like Dawson's Creek or these shows that we point to as the original team soap opera? CW. Team soap operas. That was Archie Betty and Veronica too. Sure. I mean, they all come down to these sort of love triangles. So is N-O and O. Yes. And Luke Perry's on this show. And match and Amic from Twin Peaks is on the show as well. But I think, I think, Alison, what you said was my favorite thing about the Riverdale pilot. I've only seen the pilot.

But they did the work to make Betty and Veronica friends. Because that dynamic has always been difficult. We're talking about Archie. But they have to be friends and rivals and frenemies and opposites. But thanks to Lily Reinhardt and Camilla Mendez, especially who I think is just amazing in the show. That sort of is the backbone of it. Totally. And they also introduce a third archie relationship, which was one of my favorite twists, which is that Miss Grundy is now a sex pot teacher.

Yeah, that is like one heat check for me is like when I was just like the Miss Grundy character. Their name is still Geraldine Grundy. Yeah, and she's the music teacher in the comics too. She's every teacher. Okay. Like they have their, don't make me say Professor Flutes Newt on a podcast. I just did. But the teachers are, they teach what they need to teach, basically.

And the show is totally not straight-faced about making a character named Geraldine Rundee, a sexy librarian cartoon. Right. It's, yeah. The one thing that I thought was interesting about it is that, first of all, they found in this KJ. Appa, who's the lead, they found a guy who can have his hair colored that color and still look like the iconic character, but then also like just the hot guy in the world. they sort of steered into the fact that Archie is essentially a blank slate

and I don't know if that's a performance if this guy can act or not because he is by a hundred miles the least interesting thing in the show but maybe that's intentional. That's a common criticism I've seen of the show that Archie isn't quite enough

of a character to carry it and I don't even know if he's ever been enough of a character to truly carry the comics. I just saw it as them really leading into that and you're here to see Betty and Veronica and the teacher

and Josie the Pussy Cats who are also present in this. I think the one potential pitfall is that, though, that, like, the, one of the keys of the character that makes it work is that he's just, he means well, he's like the, like, the All-American good old boy, but he's always fucking up. Like, he's always burning down Veronica's house or whatever. This guy is just, he's just burning on the inside. Right. He's brooding. What do you think of how they, I mean, I've only seen the pilot, too, the second episode airs tonight, I think, right?

Yeah. What do you think of how they handle, like, the murder mystery stuff, I think, actually was really effective because if it's, if there's not, even if that is, even if that is. basically a, and I love the like the Jughead narration of him writing his novel. Crime novels. Yeah, relax. But then the murder mystery element of it actually is, is quite like gripping. Like I was like, this is pretty intriguing. Like there's only so many permutations of who could have done this, but I thought it was a pretty effective framing device.

It's totally engaging. It also has the sort of most overtly lynchian stuff of like the twins and the white gloves with a very heavily implied insect. And I also really enjoyed that the Dead Girl Show is kind of this pretty established trope by now of the kickoff of all these things starting with Twin Peaks is a teen girl who's vulnerable but also is hiding all kinds of secrets. She dies and that rips the Band-Aid off. And it was such a subtle but very simple twist to have it be like the high school quarterback. Yeah. So, Alison, put this in context for us. Like where does this fit into the CW shows and also just in terms of I think TV is best.

better when there is a good teen soap opera on it. I say this as someone who will definitely watch the first six episodes of this and then forget to keep watching it as it goes into its fourth, fifth and sixth season, and, you know, Dilton is hooking up with moose or whatever. Where does this fit into that grand tradition of it? I think the CW is actually at a really interesting place right now. So there are two shows that are Golden Globe nominated and really acclaimed, which are Jane the Virgin and Crazy Ex-Girlfriend.

Crazy Ex-Girlfriend is one of my favorite shows on television. It's finale staring. So those are kind of the getting critical attention, helping rebrand the network, not getting great ratings, but they're going to be on for a while. And then there's the comic book shows, which are these sort of popular. I really like them because they're low stakes, they're reliably entertaining. They're kind of what you want good weeknight television to be. And one of the things I like about Riverdale is that it's kind of a bridge between the two. It's a comic book show produced by Greg Berlanti, but it's also meta and clever in these ways that we're

be kind of associated with the new CW. And obviously the network started as an outgrowth of the WB and inherited all these teen dramas. And now it's kind of going back to that while also synthesizing its current identities. I'm a really big fan of this show for a lot of reasons. The funny thing about some of the, I mean, what little of Arrow and, what's the other one? Flash. Flash. No Supergirl.

And Supergirl that I've seen. And then obviously with Riverdale is, I can't shake the feeling like this is, the like it's it's the Buffy and Firefly or Serenity was the show version of Firefire Fire Fire Fire. It's like Buffy and Firefly finally like leveling out and actually finding its audience. You know what you mean? Like rather than those shows coming back in any way like the tone of those shows, the like very like snappy dialogue, the like kind of raised emotional

stakes in every episode and then a real like self-awareness that it's like taking part in some sort of genre is like very obvious and it's almost funny. I almost wonder if it's bittersweet for people who are really big fans of Buffy and Firefly to like watch these shows be relatively successful and at least breed like multiple iterations of each other now. You know what I mean? Yeah. And the pop culture dialogue is also a great part of her radio.

There's a season five Betty Draper, Truman Capote, like just in the pilot. And it's got that kind of these teens don't really talk like teens, but they're also not really supposed to. They talk more like, oh, no, they didn't. Yeah. Also, they're 15? They're like just sophomore. In heavier quotes, yeah.

The biggest thing going forward for us is that I think Chris is team Betty and I'm team Veronica. I said this to Allison yesterday and she was like, you know what? You don't have to choose. Wow. That's beautiful. That's great. You have balanced the triangle of this podcast. It is Betty and Veronica for the time of squad goals.

There you go. That's why I like it. That's really well said. All right. All right. Let's talk a little bit about, why don't we talk about Crazy Ex-Girlfriend? Because you mentioned that. And then there's other shows, another show you wanted to mention that.

It's just stuff that's been out there, but we haven't really gotten a chance to talk about. So Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, I remember watching a couple episodes when it first came on and just the limit of my interest in musicals kind of was my block for it. But they're still, they're still, like. They're still singing. They're still singing. So how's it going? It's going really well. So it's transition to the second season, just got renewed for the third.

I think it's one of the best shows on television, I think, in terms of really understanding the character's. motivations and why I think the musical part works is if you described the themes of this show and the themes project on paper, you're like, that's way too abstract to center a show around. It's a show about the myth of romance and the stories we tell about our relationships with other people and how they don't match up to our societally enforced ideals, just all these incredibly like psychology one-on-one things. But because you have the musicals to put this into song and to kind of break reality and be like, here's just a pure look into these characters, mental states. It totally works and furthers the themes of the show as opposed to feeling

like a distraction from them, which I think musicals can be when they're not well executed. And the show is really continuing to hold that at a really impressive level of consistency. So this season was the first where they decided instead of doing a conventional 22 episode network style order, they were going to make 13, which when you're trying to do two to three like songs. Fulish length songs per episode is really helpful. For sure.

But yeah, I saw, I actually went to a screening of the finale on Tuesday and the co-creator, Lean Burchme McKenna, who is the screenwriter behind Devil Wars Prada and a bunch of other stuff,

did a Q&A afterwards. And I'm always just so impressed by the way they're able to be like, oh yeah, this character has daddy issues. And so that's a fat, and they're a total side character and that's never actually come up in the show. But they're so smart about how these people's psychoses

kind of affect their entire. relationship, and it's a show about very low stakes. It's about a woman trying to be happy and trying to know herself, and it's able to imbue that with some real heart in animation. Very heartened by what you said about them doing a shortened season, which I hadn't realized, because my roadblock for some of these shows, just to use Jane the Virgin as an example, when Jane of the Virgin debuted, I was late on it, I came back to it in time to have watched the first six or eight, wrote about it for Grandland, and it was blown away by it.

I thought it was so impressive. It was so fun. It was so entertaining and bright in all senses. And then they just keep making more of them. Yeah. You know? And that is how TV has always been made. That's how many people still love to watch TV.

Yeah. I couldn't keep up. And then it just piles up. And then you're not watching Jane the Virgin anymore. I mean, Gene the Virgin also just has so much plot that you can probably just drop in at any moment. But I think one of the things that kind of works as a knock against it is one of the most insanely impressive things about Jane the Virgin is this show should have jumped the the shark on like the fourth episode and it's in the middle of its third season and it is still maintaining this total plot churn and spoiler alert not a virgin anymore right oh uh they also

change your name show they have a great visual gag where uh when they have the title card and they scratch it out every week or do something clever to it see but yeah exactly like the monny python foot should come down on virgin right i think we're like two episodes away from that the name but consistency isn't necessarily something that's valued as much in TV anymore. And I think that's one of the most like acclaim-worthy things about it is that it's still holding this premise and doing all these characters justice and making it realistic but also fun and zany. And it's just hard to call that out and be like, oh, yeah,

this like mid-third season dromedy is still really good. Keep checking it out. So I wanted to, my question about Jane the Virgin and, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend is sort of related to the Buffy. Well, Buffy was on for a long time and has like tons of fans. You just want to talk about Buffy. No, but I want to know whether or not these are the shows that will go on for six seasons, or are they the first start of something and then someone will do the like more mainstream,

like the more mainstream version of it afterwards? Like, are these the punk rock and then somebody's going to do new wave? Or is this, or do you think that these shows could actually find an audience and keep going for four or five seasons? I mean, I am shocked that Crazyest Girlfriend got. renewed for the third season. And the CW president was just like, we're doing this because it's a good show

for us to have in the air. It has nothing to do with the money. And that's an example of something where a Golden Globe saved a show. Yeah, basically. Yeah. I mean, she gave a speech of the critics awards that was like, you guys are literally

the reason the show still exists. And it is literally the lowest rated scripted show on the five major networks, which they also put it in the Friday night slot. I think partially to like mitigate the damage and be like, this will just continue to get acclaim and its Netflix audience. And also, they have a sort of,

deal with Netflix where I think the whole second season is going up like a week after the finale. They've been really at the forefront of that of changing the distribution model. They put their stuff up in bulk early and you can get it faster than almost any other network. Which is super smart. And I've heard Rachel Bloom and Aleem Bruch McKenna say, like we noticed a bump when it hit Netflix. Like there's a second life to the show. So I think the economics of TV actually might have changed just enough that I've heard they have sort of a four season plan for Crazy Ex-Girlfriend and it seems sort of likely that that might happen. I think Jane the Virgin actually has a little more of like a popular audience.

But it's really heartening that I think we might actually have gotten to a moment that these shows will survive. But we're also in a, yeah, we're in a moment where punk rock can stay punk rock and the numbers you can sell at a punk rock level. Yeah, as long as it's like at it, I mean, I think that that was sort of the concern with the good place, right, was that it was a little expensive to be punk rock. Right, but it's been renewed. It's been renewed because they also look to their numbers. And if you're looking, if they're being realistic, which they appear to be with their numbers, it was 60% better rated across like the live plus three plus seven than anything else they had on Thursday nights before that.

But also, it wouldn't surprise me, like Alison was saying about Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, is that when they had the meeting with Mike Schur to pitch out season two, they probably said, so is it three, is it four, what is it? Like how many seasons is going to be? Because then they know what they're going to invest in and they wink, wink, and, you know,

if next season goes well, my guess is we'll go through the same thing again. Oh, will there be a third season? It's decided probably. You mentioned Netflix, so let's talk a little bit about a show that in the mailbag a bunch of people were like, you guys got to talk about, let me snick it. And Andy and I were just like, are those words? It's time for me to millennial explain, you guys.

Yes, but you're our special millennial correspondent. Millennial Falcon. So I was in the target demo that you guys identified. I actually was not super into the books. I read the first couple when I was a kid. I think I was too young to get the sort of dark comic tone that they were going for, and I just thought it was too depressing and scary. I'm not joking.

Can you just give me, like, tell me what this is about? About three orphans. Girl, boy, baby. Their parents die tragically in a fire, and then they go to this evil guardian named Count Olaf. And the whole series is like Count Olaf scheming to get their fortune.

And they're in these incredibly, like, macabre and elaborate scenarios, and they pass between a bunch of guardians. It's kind of this, it's not really set in a time period. It's not on Taboo Island. Yeah, it definitely uses sort of like Victorian tropes. But especially the TV show, they will passively mention some modern technology.

And it was written, the series was written by Daniel Handler, who I think as a side gig, like, played mandolin for the magnetic fields. Like, he's like down with Stephen Merritt. Seriously? Yeah. The mandolin is more of a projection, but something like that. Mandolin plays a major role in Magnetic Field songs. Yeah, so I think maybe he wasn't quite up for that. But he did collaborate with Stephen Merritt a lot and he was part of that world.

So there's a lot of, like, I knew about it because it did have, like, indie cred. He was a novelist, downtown novelist in the music scene and then made this play. And then all of a sudden became like a multimillionaire from it because it took off. It was definitely coming from a more idiosyncratic sensibility. Gotcha. Okay. So what is, so how do you feel about the show itself? I really like the show.

I think it's really clever. I also definitely marginal note. But for Netflix, the episodes are around 45 minutes. Ooh, now I'm listening. Yes. Ears perk up. That's nice. I love a short episode.

I think it is one of those, it's one of the series that it hints at this aesthetic and it feels so fully realized. And also it's actually, so there was a movie adaptation about 10 years ago where Jim Carrey played the Count Olaf character. And I think Handler was attached to write the script and Barry Sondonfeld was attached to direct. And then that fell apart and went to some other people. But now Handler's directly involved in the show. And Barry Sondonfeld is, I think, the showrunner. Right. So it's got kind of this cred of being associated the creator.

and also these people really care about it. And they've been attached to this. Barry Sonnenville has been attached to this for like a decade. He's like, what a weird career. Because he started out as the Cohen Brothers director of photography. He did like Miller's Crossing and Blood Simple. And then Adams family. He does men in black, the first one, I think?

He does men and black. And he does Adam's family too, right? Did he do Wild West? Yeah. And he was an EPON Pushing Daisies. So he's more than he was a tech columnist for like Esquire, where he talks about his wife named Sweetie. Yeah.

Really? I mean, I think when you do those said that, it was just like, and then he was like, no, it's just. It was weird. It was like a dude who's like made so much money making these movies probably and then like can't make more movies because he costs too much to make them. Like you need to get removed from unfortunate events. So like it was either Esquire or GQ.

He'd just be like, I'm going to buy the Pono player and a Roku. And also a $10,000 laptop. And I'm sure that he was just buying them anyway. Oh, you know, he's been busy. He did. Well, wow. That was, he did get shorty, but he also did Wild Wild West. And Men in Black, too.

And this movie about a cat called Nine Lives, which I didn't see. Well, Wild Wild West. Oh, my God, he did the Kevin Spacey cat movie. He directed that? Or he's just involved. Isn't that what Nine Lives is? Is that what that is? Is that Kevin Spacey?

Yes, it is. Jennifer Garner. I mean, by the way. What Jennifer Garner lives? If you do Adams Family, get Shorty and Men in Black, you're good. You're allowed to make Nine Lives? You're fine. You can make a cat movie with Kevin Spacey.

Well, and now he's made this, which I think it's not up to that level of Adams family level quite, but it's really. Is it nine lives level? It's several tiers above. But Neil Patrick Harris is sort of the central performance he plays Count Olaf. I think Neil Patrick Harris will play more villains between this and Gone Girl and Dr. Horrible. He was pretty much a villain on How I met your mother, too, in a way. He was the foil. He was a villain when he hosted the Oscars.

Exactly. So he really works. The kids really work. It's got this really macabre aesthetic that I really enjoy. And it's kind of this self-mocking. Like the whole theme song is, look away, look away. this is so dark, which is part of the books, but I think when it's transposed into a new medium,

kind of became this, like, inadvertent commentary on, like, how unrelentingly dark certain prestige dramas are. It's clever. It has a huge roster of guest actors, Asif Manvi, Alfre Woodard. Okay. Yeah. So sell me on the experience.

What am I, put me, what's my headspace? I want to sit down, what I'm, and I'm going to fire it up? What am I looking for when I'm ready to watch this show? Like, what's the night that I fire this up? Is it a night where I want to come? comedy? Is it a night where I want to try something new? Is it a night when I want to hear mandolin and see Assef Manvi? Yeah.

All of the above. I think it's principally a comedy. Okay. It kind of uses sort of similar to Riverdale, how he uses this as like an aesthetic. It's not actually dark. It's kind of using darkness as like a vehicle to make fun of darkness and be funny. Is count all off hot now? No. He's buried under many prosthetics. But the six pack is implied.

Yeah. He's been pouring concrete for Dylan. all summer long. Okay, awesome. So we will have Allison on again shortly, but pretty regularly to talk about shows that we've missed. Is there something coming out in the next couple of weeks that you're particularly excited for

that you want to let our listeners know about? Well, in the pushing Daisy's vein, actually, Netflix's next show is Santa Clarita Diet, aka Drew Barrymore Zombie Show. Yeah. I really enjoy it. It's definitely, you know, if you are into X, Y, and Z show,

you will be into this. It's probably, I don't think it's going to be like the show everyone talks about. but it's fun. Timothy Aliphant should do a John Ham style all in on comedy. This is convinced me. I really enjoy it.

Okay. We'll be back Monday. I know that we will talk a little bit of probably about whatever pop cultural ephemera happens around the Super Bowl, but I hope we talk about 24 Legacy. Yeah, that's the Super Bowl.

That's the show after the Super Bowl, right? So we'll talk about that for sure. It's got the homicide life on the street slot. You excited? Yeah. And we'll talk about some other stuff. You can check out the watch list. Thank you to Allison Herman for joining us.

Thank you for having me. and we'll talk to Monday. Good job, Bransky!