The Watch - Ep. 23: 'The Watch'

Episode Date: February 23, 2016

Chris and Andy catch up on all things TV, starting with Sunday-night dramas 'Vinyl' and 'Billions' (5:00), then Judd Apatow's 'Love' (20:00), the season premieres of 'Girls' (31:00) and 'Togetherness'... (37:00), and the weird drop-off on 'London Spy' (45:00). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Starting point is 00:00:22 Seekkeek is giving $20 back off your first purchase with the promo code BSPN. To get $20 back off your first Seekkekeek purchase, just download the Seeky app today and enter promo code BSPN. I need support staff to clear the run. Stand up and walk now. Hello, and welcome to The Watch on the Channel 33 podcast feed. My name is Chris Ryan. I am an editor at The Ringer and joining me on the other line.
Starting point is 00:00:51 He just got mugged by God, but he took his wallet instead. It's Andy Greenwald. Whoa, I like a little tweak there. Yeah, you know. Updating my social prof. This is good. I like, you know, I think people appreciate to watch, hopefully, the podcast, but it's really kind of an evolving CV.
Starting point is 00:01:11 Yeah, it's like, it's really just like a document of our life. Yeah, definitely. Andy, this is the watch. We are on the channel 33 podcast feed. You can find us by searching for channel 33 on iTunes, SoundCloud and Stitcher where you should subscribe. We have plenty of good podcasts. We are also affiliated and only come to you through the best.
Starting point is 00:01:30 benevolence of the ringer.com, which is a forthcoming website that I am working on with a bunch of people. It's coming from the Bill Simmons Empire, and you can go to the ringer.com now and sign up for our newsletter, which should be hitting your inbox in a little less than a month, probably a couple weeks, and it will have all sorts of good stuff for you. Follow us at Ringer on Twitter, at Ringer on Facebook, at Ringer on Instagram. Andy, do you have anybody you'd like to follow on Instagram? I just want to say, we got to just get on the same page about this because if you keep dropping billion dollar ideas like audio
Starting point is 00:02:07 LinkedIn just casually I wish I just knew a venture capitalist who might fund that idea when is our ship going to come in is what I'm saying because the only thing better that maybe it sent me a record to listen to once 15 years ago would be just hearing them asked to connect with me
Starting point is 00:02:27 I know right so much better make a much more vibrant vibrant 360 experience we got a lot to talk about I just wanted to see like we've been recording pretty regularly these days. It feels good. Radio Blackout. How was your weekend? How are you doing, man? Oh, it's Dynamite. Thanks for asking. I spent most of Sunday watching television to prepare for this podcast. Saturday, I went to Plyer Provisions in Mar Vista, had a lovely fried clab claw, like a crab claw pop with an old bay mayo, and then a
Starting point is 00:02:59 habanero sauce. You can get a little mix and match with your dips. That was phenomenal. and, you know, it's another glorious weekend here in Los Angeles. How about you? This weekend, and maybe, you know, I know we are running low in our back Kanye, so we don't need to do it too much, but I just wanted to, like, I feel like part of this podcast is helpful, which is that there is no way to try and play any part without inadvertently turning into Alpert Malina at the end of Boogie Night.
Starting point is 00:03:40 Like, there's just, there is no way to put on any track. on that album. Do you all of a sudden discover that you're wearing slippers in a tank top when you fit play? Yeah. And there was a small Chinese voice getting off. I'm just saying there's something about that. In my own excitement about it where I was like, I just wanted to share publicly when Bam Bam comes in on the arrhythmia of my life. But there's just no way where it's not like my awesome mixtape 16. There's no good way that this ends. So what I'm saying is people you have seen it. It sounds like you had a little bit. It sounds like you had a little. little habanero sauce this weekend, maybe with a little old bay mayo as well.
Starting point is 00:04:32 Andy, we are here to talk about a huge night, huge night for Sunday night television. I feel like I started watching at 6 Pacific and wrapped it up around like 1130 Pacific. I mean, I take my time with these things. I made a veggie burger and a corn and a really nice roasted broccoli that we caramelized with some sugar. What is you talking about at the same time, though? Like, already this night is blowing my mind. No, I'm just kidding.
Starting point is 00:05:04 It was a good night for TV. I want to get to all of it. Let's start with the quote-unquote dramas. Billions and vinyl, which, vinyl, episode two, but it would probably feel like episode five for people who got through the pilot. It was two hours long. And Billions, which I think is on episode six or seven at this point. The Last episode on Sunday was called The Deal.
Starting point is 00:05:25 And I call them dramas, dramas. But I think the reason why I got so into these shows this week is because I realized they're both comedies. A little bit. I liked parts of the Billions pilot, and I certainly just always appreciate the chance to watch something that Martin Scorsese is directed. But Alan Coulter and Terrence Winton Pointer were on the con for this second episode. And pretty much immediately, you can just feel it.
Starting point is 00:05:53 It's like, this feels like a television show. And that's a relief after, you know, a two hour and change movie that we just watched last Sunday night. It was really kind of like you just felt the scenes moving faster. you felt conversations ending quicker. You felt the transition or interstitial moments of like Jerry Lee Lewis actually kind of made sense inserted where they were. And then when Bobby Conavale walks into the Century Records office high on cocaine with rubble covering him from the Mercer Arts building collapse. And Gene Jeanne is playing. And then he proceeds to perform karate on all of the dudes in his office.
Starting point is 00:06:32 I was like, this is very funny. Conavale is completely like in the zone right now and I like if you take this show as not a comedy because obviously it's dealing with lots of serious stuff like murder and and betrayal but the funny moments coming out of it
Starting point is 00:06:48 and you can't have Ray Romano in a show and not find it amusing I don't think especially if you're gonna give him that that hairstyle and that broken nose and that wife I don't know I just really thought it was funny the scene when he woke up in the middle of the night and contemplated suicide being a nine
Starting point is 00:07:03 valium pills while weeping in the front seat of his parked car. That's hilarious. I thought that was hilarious. Yeah, great stuff. I think that's a really good call. Here's why I like your take on this, because comedy. Yeah, Mad Men being number one of that. Two, I think it's an enormously generous way to look at these shows, even if you are not finding yourself particularly moved by the drama of them.
Starting point is 00:07:35 And I think that that's one issue that links to these shows in general, which is finding an emotional way in to these shows is a little bit hard, you know, and that is a top-down design. I'm not going to say it's a problem, but it might be a design flaw, right? Because when you make a show about the 1% of the non-working- But so they turned billions into insult porn where like every scene is basically like, how, how, like, ornate and hilarious can I, like, put another person down. And I'm just, I'm loving it. As soon as they let David Costable off the leash and just let him patrol the yard, it's just, I'm loving wags, man.
Starting point is 00:08:21 Do you know that the Casabille is another one of the, like, trying to be incognitoed mustachio dads of Park Slope? Is he? Like, that dude, semi, like, all these, like, cabled Mr. Lyme bodega just to take it 4 p.m. That's what they're about. It's, you know, I know you were talking about the terms of Los Angeles, but I feel like New York speaks for itself and anecdotes like that. Absolutely.
Starting point is 00:08:51 But what I'm saying is, you're being very generous. I watched the second episode of Vine. I think that, I think a lot of the parts that, you know, like, no matter what they, no matter what angle they seem to be coming at the material, or Bobby Cannavalli with the veins in his neck bulging screams about how this is rock and roll and it's pure. And it matters, you know. And it's almost as if he could tell as louder. But everybody's laughing at him when he says that. Like nobody, nobody is like, this guy is inspiring me. Everybody's like, this guy's a lunatic.
Starting point is 00:09:41 And they might do what he's telling him to do. Sure. Basically, I mean, not. You're reacting more to the Lester Grime stuff or the more of the nasty bits stuff? No, I just mean the way that it's talking about what music is and what music isn't and who gets to decide. You know, it's sort of a funny, it's a funny argument to take when we have this punk band, nasty bits, and then our stimp with Max, but I don't, you know, I don't, I can't tell you. But right now we're watching the A&R guys be like, you guys are sloppy and passionate.
Starting point is 00:11:45 Well, here's why. Maybe it will. You should never judge it off of it. Yeah, well, and this is exactly with the larger conversation. I wanted to get to and it ties into billions too because I think that we both were we hedged our bets on billions when it first came out and I think that
Starting point is 00:11:57 you know we were a little bit critical of its sense of self-importance that it seemed to have but I think in episode six what I find is that they've really figured out who these people are and what the central conflict of the show is which is always like a really nice thing for a show to have is like a central conflict you remember that like this is the kind of thing
Starting point is 00:12:17 that really drove shows like Homeland and drive shows that when you can get a case, when you can get a, will they or won't they, will this happen or won't this happen, and this is actually keeping me, you know, glued to my television, it really, it really can determine the fate of a show in a way that character and dialogue, which is things that I think, Copleman and Levine know how to do really well, as we've seen from their other movies. Like, they just, they figured out the pace of the show, they figured out the tone of the show. And I also just think, like, there's just, now that you've watched,
Starting point is 00:12:49 five or six episodes, it's just like really funny to see certain things happen. Like last night, a couple of things I really enjoyed was Bobby Axelrod's kid reading a Mike Lupica book, which was just like so perfect. And then there was the way the axe dresses is so like casually at work, but like it's like $1,000 like super advanced tech fleece, but it'll be like a shawl collar t-shirt as he's giving like this huge speech from the top of his of his desk and also I'm just really into that fact that like malon acriman's job on the show seems to be to go to other people's homes to nominally give them a gift but also to be like I will fucking end you and it's like whenever malon
Starting point is 00:13:35 acriman shows up at your house that's basically like the cop show version of a guy being like I really hope I grow up to see my kids graduate high school it's like you're not you're not gonna do that so don't tell malon acriman what your hopes and dreams are because she's here to snuff you out. Like Marlon Brando reaching for a big ball of oranges. Exactly. Who plays the Malin-Ackerman role at the ringer? Have you figured that out yet?
Starting point is 00:13:57 I think it might be me. I think it's definitely you. I'm glad you brought a Malin-Ackerman because I think that's very funny. But you think about, there are a couple things that are just trend lines that are, you know, and as is often the case with these sort of heavy macho drama. You know, there's been... I think Maggie Siv's character is pretty... pretty interesting in the show, just for what it's worth.
Starting point is 00:14:28 I agree with you on that. I wanted to talk more specifically about vinyl. Like, there's a lot of room to grow and change and develop other characters. But when you look at the starting place, and starting places determine so much, because if you change your mind about what you want to do with the characters, you have to do so much paddling and digging just to get, you know, like Olivia Wilde's character, it's interesting. I got such a kick out of that scene.
Starting point is 00:14:54 Like, I know that that's just, it's basically like reading the alienist or some historical fiction novel where somebody takes a piss next to Franklin Roosevelt. but it was so cool to be like, oh, Velvet Underground are playing. Like, I just really enjoyed my... I'm glad I'm watching a Sunday Night television show where the Velvet Underground are playing Venus and Furs or whatever. Yeah, and it's just like, I don't... Okay.
Starting point is 00:16:23 Like, it's not a genre thing, but... It's a good point. I mean, I think that we've talked a couple of times already about the idea of these shows being a few years too late, maybe, in terms of what the appetite for culture... The appetite for television is right now, and I think as we talk about the comedies that we've got on plate this week.
Starting point is 00:16:45 We'll get into this a little bit more. But I still have like a huge soft spot for shows that are about men yelling at each other. So I have to like like acknowledge my own biases. I know. Seriously. Seriously. One other pet peeve, maybe this is what's bothering me overall about vinyl so far. Can a Jewish actor get a Jewish part on this show?
Starting point is 00:17:11 Let Cascella live, man. Let Casale just like. Look, I want to eat, okay, I've been riding with that dude since Dugie was typing into his live journal, okay? That guy is at an improbably of all the respect to. What a comeback season for him too, though, right? Yeah, but he's doing great, man. But like him, Ray Romano, I'm just saying, there are some people who have been Bar Mitzvitts who are who are definitely auditioning for these parts. And like, I just feel like they should get a look.
Starting point is 00:17:42 That's all I'm saying. You know, it's like, it's like De Niro playing a Jewish guy in Casino. I'm like, okay, well, you're De Niro. I just want to advocate for me and 50% of you here. And I feel like I'm out on an island yelling about it. You want to advocate for Jewish people in the entertainment industry? I feel like we're underrepresented, especially in, yeah, especially behind the scenes in the music industry. Just traditionally.
Starting point is 00:18:10 Okay. Let's talk about, okay, here's what I want to say. Part of the lesson I think of this week for billions, and I think one of the reasons why I'm so, I have a lot of faith that vinyl is going to just keep getting better and better every week is that I think I was forced to acknowledge or forced to confront like after the first few weeks of billions and after the first episode of final just how hard it is to like get a show going and how hard it is to find the rhythm of that show and I know that we're coming out of a little bit of a dead period but generally I mean what we've got right now which is about four or five to seven shows on right now that people might be interested in there's a lot of competition for eyes. There's not a lot, not a lot of time in the day. And if you are bad in your first week, if you're not great in your first week, your first two weeks, people are just out. Like, people just don't have the time. And I just, I mean, that's anecdotal, but I do feel like I hear more and more just people being like, oh, I watched one episode and I just wasn't into it.
Starting point is 00:19:10 And what was interesting about this was that I think that that is something that with these shows, they wouldn't, I wonder whether or not these shows should start. putting up more than one episode at a time. If they have them available, right? Whole shows, yeah. Like, I wonder if they should have put up the first three vinals. Like, what is the, I know that having a Sunday night is a great thing for HBO. They want to, they want to control a Monday narrative like that and have shows that people
Starting point is 00:19:39 are talking about. And I think obviously with something like Thrones, that's fine. But I was watching Love. So that's this new show that's on Netflix. It's Leslie Arfin, Paul Russ, and Judd Apatow made the, show it's basically about like people looking for love in Los Angeles and I didn't really care for it and then I watched six of them and it was just because it was there and it was like at the end of the night at the they've somehow engineered something very perfect inside of Netflix where I'm
Starting point is 00:20:09 like I will try again and I've done that with multiple X-flix shows yeah I know and I know that billions is long and I know that vinyl is long and they're very like they have like like lot of densely packed information, and it's a lot easier to do this with half-hour shows than it is with our shows. But I almost wonder whether or not to get momentum these shows should start considering putting up at least two episodes, if not three. What's interesting is, in terms of why they don't, why HBO doesn't... Yeah, that makes sense.
Starting point is 00:21:23 ...rel relationship much more. And we're not the only people to say that. Alan Steppenwald has finished the season. I feel like I'm arguing against myself. Like they try to cram too much stuff into it. Right. Room for that. Yeah, I think they meet the last 30 seconds of the pilot, right?
Starting point is 00:22:53 Pop culture references. Kind of. Yeah, right. Right. Sort of have many problems, but not really. You know, like... You know, there's an in airedy guy with a sex scene that goes awry. Actually, shouts to them.
Starting point is 00:23:34 I will say this. I'm not even mad. I'm impressed. You know, I mean, I could not believe how much... How much she was able to contrap... She looked like she took two as well, right? Revival meeting, but, you know, respect. Because jokes about people taking sleeping pills and then waking up covered in, like,
Starting point is 00:24:07 amortes. Just like... fallen Dorito powder. Yeah, you've like... Repainted Guernico with old base, old bay mayo and Navajero sauce. I was impressed with that. But, but I just,
Starting point is 00:24:38 you know, the second episode, really enjoyable to watch. It's just a couple pieces, medium tone. Yeah, and we've got... Transparence, obviously, about a lot of other stuff, but that's its setting. Yeah. You've got, you're the worst set there.
Starting point is 00:25:29 Togetherness. Togetherness, which is, I think, Eagle Rock, but whatever. And then... And casual. And casual, and now love, which is set like just in Echo Park. So we're talking about like a six block radius that four shows are like largely based in. In the entertainment industry or adjacent, privilege levels are similar and yet they're all, they all see miserable.
Starting point is 00:25:59 I was thinking about when I was watching together and it's end of the show for a moment to see still something that is really enjoyable. It's why the idea of the rom-comble always exists. Because if you can see people with how they're beginning to get along with each other and like each other. and here's what I mean because if I was if I was living in Silver League say right now and I was at intelligentsia working on my third draft of a vampire detective a show I'm trying to get trying to get to pilot or whatever and you know people had just been like you know I love this I love this vampire show but maybe he should be a cop what if he were cop what if
Starting point is 00:27:05 they were cops and people were giving me notes on it I was trying and I was trying and let's say I thought I had like some talent and then I turned this on I would just be like what the fuck am I doing because like there's this show is literally I like this show and it's not about anything it's just like a it's just
Starting point is 00:27:22 it's crazy that this show got made because there was literally no conflict to this show it's just like people that are living in Los Angeles and honestly I live in Los Angeles I find this show really entertaining but it's not it's so crazy
Starting point is 00:27:37 that these shows keep getting made there's like five of them right now. This is intelligence. They're working on your draft. And by the way, let me just say, I think everything often. Oh, why did you think of that?
Starting point is 00:27:53 I just fixed it for you. Vampire doctor who's torn between his professional and personal longing. Count docula. I just fixed it for you. I was working on that, and I couldn't get any traction. Have to get rid of it as fast as they possibly can't. Like, you cannot, there's a
Starting point is 00:28:19 a world where you can't go immediately. It does really feel like the Hudsucker proxy where, like, pitches come through that, like, tubing from the basement and they pick up and they're like look of a love to East Los Angeles sure, sure, let's go! Get you in the door like Appetal it's going to get
Starting point is 00:28:54 made. It's hard to make the idea. Yeah, yeah, right. You know, so show. So are you talking about the idea... Are you talking about the idea basically of doing like, are we ever going to get to the point where there are playlists, quote unquote, for television? Do it. But what I'm saying is, there are...
Starting point is 00:29:38 But if you had enough shows that were like that were like Black Mirror, if you had enough anthology shows where it was like, oh, I can get a tense sci-fi thriller, a rom-com anthology, a, you know, whatever. Let's just say out of like nowhere, like a vampire who's also a cop. But every week it's a different case. I'm going to say doctor. Okay.
Starting point is 00:30:02 But I, the point stand. No, the point is that basically, like, I wonder whether or not, like, there will be some enterprising person will be like, what if we did less serialization so that people can mix and match their shows a little bit better. So you're not like, oh, if I fall five episodes behind on the Americans, I might as well say forget it. Right. I think that's very possible. But I also think it's just a comment on where we are where, you know, we're watching as much TV as ever, if not more.
Starting point is 00:30:28 But in terms of the number of shows that I could actually batrobe and be like, you have to watch all of them. Like, this is the one and make a case for it. I could stand behind. It's still about half a dozen. You know, maybe across all of TV that I could say to you, like, this is a standard. essential. Elton to the end, even the bonus. You know what I mean?
Starting point is 00:30:51 For everyone else, it's your mileage may vary. If there are enough things about, I gave it a shot. Because I love Michaela Watkins. I think she's terrific. And I love her in this show. I love for her just about anything. I just, that, the math didn't work out. What do you think about, so one show that I think that actually,
Starting point is 00:31:15 I know it's going to be finishing up next season. But one show that I think that, you know, for as much as it's got long, long, long tail plot, you could do girls that way. Like, you could do girls where you just have all of those people get together for random events in their lives over the course of a season. And it's like a wedding, a birthday, a funeral, or whatever, you know. And because part of the joy, I actually really, really enjoyed last night's girls a lot. Part of it was that I was like, I cannot believe Kylo Ren is up in this shit.
Starting point is 00:31:46 Like, it is just crazy to me that Adam Driver is probably one of like the 10 most famous people in the world right now. And he's just like in 45 seconds of girls. I am a sap. I really, really, really like the Adam Jessa thing. I know that it's just like late period. Everybody's hooked up by now. But they actually have super good chemistry.
Starting point is 00:32:08 It's not just that. I'm glad you brought that up. And I watch... They're the two best actors on that show, aren't they? That might be something. Yes. That's why it's great. And I've watched three episodes of the new season.
Starting point is 00:32:29 But one of the reasons I was out on it was not because they were doing anything particularly. We were saying about the start or an indie film project. And they weren't giving much thought to the issues that can plague long-running series,
Starting point is 00:32:56 which is why are these people still spending time together? What show is this character in versus what show this character? Absolutely. And some of those problems were still very much
Starting point is 00:33:03 evident in the premiere where it's just like the DESE stuff. Like, that is a very, the show bugs me too the way off entire, like I know this is super my news and then just basically
Starting point is 00:33:32 it gets up. Was it funny to see Alison Williams dressed up like the Babaduke. Yeah. And have her be like, I want to utter my heritage as a white Christian woman. I did enjoy that very much. A lot of the things I'm talking about are, you know, a re-played TV shows. Yes.
Starting point is 00:34:04 They're looking at it. They're looking at the defense to complement each other and make sense. Are Adam and Jessus. They speak the same language where I mean. I defy original shippers to watch that scene and be like, oh, wait, no, I really want Adam and Hannah to be together. Come on, man. Absolutely.
Starting point is 00:34:51 That's young Kylo on the track. I feel like he's career arc. He's like, I go to girls. You know what I mean? Like he spends his whole life now just being primed. Right. No problem. It works.
Starting point is 00:35:17 So you enjoyed that. That's good. I'm glad you liked it. I liked it. I liked the second and third episodes even more. Uh-huh. And like, like, correct. What is it?
Starting point is 00:35:44 Season six now, season five? I think it's six. My point, but the point is that if not, if you're not going to take those chances now, if you're not going to do your loss and transatlense, episode if you're not going to let Adam and Jesse get together it's like when are you going to do it this is the wrapping it up it's gonna you know I I love it when shows there's one season after this yeah when shows take late season chances it's great it's like
Starting point is 00:36:11 it's it's why you you work so hard to get to that place about I personally have a whole plot line in season six of vampire doctor where our vampire becomes a doctor's without borders doctor it's terrific you know and it's morally already because he is a blood-sucking vampire that technically transylvanians don't respect borders That's right. Andy, let's just take a quick break to talk about another one of our presenting sponsors, Uber. We all have those times when we need a little extra money. Well, I've got a really easy way you can do it.
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Starting point is 00:37:19 Sign up to drive with Uber today. Go to drive with uber.com. That's drive with uber.com. Drive with Uber UB-B-E-R.com. Hey guys, today's episode is also brought to you by Vice Land, which is this new TV channel from Vice, and it's premiering Tuesday, February 29th. I just want to tell you quickly to check out this show
Starting point is 00:37:36 that I really like on this network called Fuck That's Delicious. It's hosted by Action Bronson, and it basically features this dude who's like one of my favorite rappers going all over the place, eating great food. He's joined by his collaborators, Mayhem Lauren and Big Body Best. And, you know, there's one episode that you can see online right now from before where he just goes to Hawaii
Starting point is 00:37:56 and tries to find the perfect bowl of pokey, which might be on the low, like my favorite piece of film content. from the last 20 years. Seriously, I love this show. Vicerland debuts February 29th. You can catch Fuck That's Delicious on March 3rd at 10 p.m. Again, Vicerland premieres February 29th.
Starting point is 00:38:13 Check your local listings. What did you think of the show that followed up, girls, Andy, Togetherness, which started its second season. It's the J.M. Mark Duplas Dramedy. Back at me. I don't think I have an interviewing process. I think it's just Alfred Molina as my interview process. Young Chinese boys firecrackers.
Starting point is 00:38:39 But, you know, that gets a... Do you think that this entire season is going to be built around whether or not she tells Brett that she cheated on him? Like, is that going to basically be the thrust of the show? My feeling is that the way that they've handled the... I like it. I thought it was interesting that this episode seemed to be the most, like, professionally directed Duplos thing I've seen so far. Like, it had, like, elements of... like almost 90s not thriller but like the cross-cutting in the the sacramental flashback that
Starting point is 00:41:12 Melanie Linsky's character was happening and some of the just the way that they handle some things it almost speaks to like a almost professionalization of what is usually a very kind of like naturalistic and and straightforward filming style I thought so that I thought that was cool a Pete is just like such a heat check performer right now she's so good um and I really enjoy her her storyline I'll be I like that they went to New Orleans. I like that they switched it up a little bit. Yeah. It definitely needed some change.
Starting point is 00:41:42 I was absolutely scandalized by the idea that you would check into a hotel in New Orleans and be like, let's eat French fries from the hotel. Yeah, I'm pretty on this episode. No, but that's just disgusting. If I was married to Mark Duplas and he brought me into a hotel room and was like, sorry I was going to get something more New Orleans, but they didn't have anything. P.S., here's some fries that I pre-ordered from us, so God knows how long they've been sitting on that bed. I'd be like, you better get me a muffilletta before I smack the glasses
Starting point is 00:42:13 off your face. No, I think you've really hit on something here. That's really true. First of all, room service French fries, never good. You better get that Couchon reservation going right now. Seriously, get the herb saint, that. You know what I mean? Like, you get yourself a po-boy, you get some oysters. That was, that was problematic. But then you catch a glimpse of Peter Gallagher's sweet mustache, you know. Yeah. feeling it. A lot of a gorgeous indie rock ending episodes last night.
Starting point is 00:42:44 Oh, except for billions where he listened to Master of Puppets. In light of that, I appreciate billions more. You know, it's funny. It's just like the TV is like the bespoke curated experience. Basically the Spotify,
Starting point is 00:43:01 discover weekly playlings with like incite jokes. Like this is the TV. It's just like, we are well-service. Yes. You know what I mean? Like you and I in our interest, we are being very well serviced by the glut of television right now
Starting point is 00:43:22 and I don't think that's the case for people who literally aren't us and I feel thanks Jay and Mark that's where I charge my Honda fit as well okay well let's wrap things up by just a show that we touched on a couple of weeks ago and that we both had mixed feelings in a way that you usually don't have mixed feelings I think usually when you say you have mixed feelings about show means you liked a couple episodes you didn't like a couple episodes
Starting point is 00:43:57 london spy which just ended its five episode run on bbc america last week so you can probably watch all of those on itunes or or whatever you're streaming service of choices and you know what usually when we talk about these limited british based series is that that do three to six to eight episodes we think about them as being very compact and very uh economical with their stories and very like this is the thing that i want to do i'm going to take a couple episodes to do it and then it's going to be done and it's going to be a complete sentence. And London Spy is the most elliptical five episode series I think we will ever see. I have never seen a weirder show get so weird in five episodes where I was literally like,
Starting point is 00:44:41 what am I watching? Like this is so strange. And I would get emails from people that would be like, and different people about different episodes basically be like all in, love this show on episode three. and then like five minutes later I'd get an email that would be like, this show sucks. And then you'd get an episode for episode, and they would switch.
Starting point is 00:44:59 And it wasn't like it turned into like a wildly different show, but I've never seen something that was so dedicated to the idea of sticking with the perspective of a character who actually doesn't never, you know, the whole idea is like thrown into a world that he doesn't understand and then the course of the show learns to understand it. And while that does happen for Ben Wishaw's character, I still feel in the dark about it.
Starting point is 00:45:22 And it was not necessarily satisfying, but it was very compelling. Yeah, he doesn't learn. But he was connecting things about his own life, I felt like it was more about looking for love in a lonely city than it was about spies. And I think that in and of itself is interesting and still makes the show worthwhile. I mean, I think you're being, again, you're being generous. In the drop off between the first three, we were definitely on the front lines yelling to people. So we definitely kudos to him
Starting point is 00:46:14 and you could extrapolate a bunch of things from the show. It's to deal with a moment when shows become TV shows, when good ideas become TV shows, right? And they're deeply unsettling and discomforting
Starting point is 00:46:38 in ways we've never seen before on TV, and they're dealing with to the given primism. And there's the trick. And that's the cable shows to read the interviews to what he was able to tell
Starting point is 00:47:14 that he was able to tell that him. Yeah. And I think the finesse, you're dealing with people and then you have episode for identifies lying. It's like surprising. And then the time
Starting point is 00:47:57 drop off. We're not used to that sort of hours long. Yeah, exactly. And there's a world in there with with Scotty's like roommates and, or Danny's roommates and whatever and, you know, Scotty's life that his sort of like well-to-do life of post-espionage
Starting point is 00:48:27 London and there's all those places they could have explored. I think the five episode thing is an odd thing. It reminded me a lot of bands in the 90s that we used to like a lot who would get right up to the edge of making a pop song and then be like, nah, no, you don't get that. You don't get the hook. Or my guitar is out of tune or it's a weird, you know, we've dropped D or whatever.
Starting point is 00:48:48 It's like it's, it was an interesting experiment in pop television making in a sense. And for that, I'm really appreciative of it. I think that watching a few episodes of Last Panthers, which we're going to talk about when it gets closer to air in April and knowing night manager is coming, I mean, we're going to have plenty of international espionage to keep our, our car. coffers fill, so it's okay to have this weird experiment. And I would say to people, do you only have three hours a week to watch television, that maybe you shouldn't watch London Spy?
Starting point is 00:49:17 There's probably other stuff to watch. Do you have, are you deeply interested in weird television? Check out London Spy. I think I would be interested to know what you thought. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, and episode two is Shady Lane. Episode two is like an amazing, perfect episode of television. Here's the on TV, too.
Starting point is 00:49:51 Then I would definitely rather see people like in a world where we have, you know, increasing numbers of superhero. I'm seeing someone who, in general, I don't want that, but in contrast to what everything else, which is so the whole idea of them and the mythology of them, right? Like, where's, like, where's David Milch's superhero show? You know what I mean? Like, just had said that he didn't have any interest in a spy show. He had an interest in these characters getting spoiled or something.
Starting point is 00:50:51 of the show. He's just like, I'm, this, the show's over. It's weird. He actually set it up so that there could kind of be, but they're really, like a riding off to be the sunset. Right. Yeah. Yeah. And BBC asked him to make another one. I think that they showed interest and he was just like, I'm a good. This is where, you know, we always come back to like trying to evolving industry here, but if Netflix just has a wide open pool and it's hope that we can have some more things like that. Yeah, me too. And I don't know if they're in the business of funding them yet in the same way the BBC seems to be. Right. Well, I mean, I, I, I, I, I, I.
Starting point is 00:51:37 not to puff my own collar here, but I really, I just think vampire doctors are interesting. Andy, we're going to wrap it up here. Thanks to you for another week. We'll probably be back later this week with a re-up. Talk to me and yell at me the way you like men doing. I'm happy to be that set foil. Okay, we'll talk to you Thursday or Friday, and otherwise, have a great week. Great job, Ricky.
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