The Watch - Ep. 31: 'The Watch'

Episode Date: March 30, 2016

Chris and Andy discuss this week's episode of 'Girls' (8:00), examine the 'Batman v. Superman' debacle (33:00), and pay tribute to Garry Shandling (42:00). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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It's pretty fast. I need sports to have to clear the room. 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 for the ringer.com, and joining me in the studio, he's got a whole new accent. It's Andy Greenwald. Feels good to be in the room.

Oh, you got a beard, you put on a few pounds. It's true. But you're back. I talk a little different. I feel a little different. Shoot different things into my body. Got diabetes. Andy is here.

My name is Chris Ryan. This is the watch. You can subscribe to us on the channel 33 podcast feed. That's iTunes SoundCloud. and Stitcher. You can also sign up for The Ringer newsletter at the ringer.com three times a week, at least coming at your inbox. And, you know, just while we're here, Andy, I know that you love golf.

So much. I love golf, and my love for golf has only been deepened by the Shackhouse podcast with our boys, Jeff Shackleford and Joe House. They have their own feed because it's a podcast unlike any other in the words of Jim Nance. Please subscribe to that. It's actually a great podcast. those two guys, I could listen to them and read a phone book. It is delightful.

Can I throw one other thing out here too? Playing politics pod is happening on Channel 33. Fives and Fife? Favs and Fife. Is that okay, Joe? Can we shout on another podcast that we love? Can we also say that we love Jam Session? Oh, well, first of all.

Can we say that we love the pivot? I am not shy about my love. I just wanted to call out playing politics because our man Fife was on our show. You're taking a little credit for that. No, I'm just saying, like, he's a delightful interview. view and you know these guys have so many mind grapes about the world of politics they see they see the entire chessboard they they know some stuff and they just drop and it's a no spin zone it kind is has anyone used that before we should joe can we use that as a tagline that's fresh yeah i just

this is that's my new favorite podcast that's not about golf now that we got that business out of the way let's get back to the business talking about pop culture yeah man that's what we do um andy and i we're kind of like fishing around for stuff to talk about this week. And we do, we do have a sort of a concept that we want to discuss a little bit and a bit. We want to talk a little about togetherness. And togetherness is coming to an end. It will be, uh, mutual decision or cancel, depends on how you want to read between the lines there or whatever. But, um, then girls came on last night. And we talked a little bit about this on the Bill Simmons podcast that that's also up today. But we kind of wanted to give a little special attention to it because it was a very

good episode of television. Yeah, I wanted to say, like, I want to go big picture for a second. Yeah, please. Which is that there's, as we all know, there's a lot of TV right now. And I'm not complaining about that, but I do want to say that I have noticed I've been feeling a little uninspired. And I can't tell if it's just because of the sheer volume of shows to sort through, or if it's because I've been down in those view and trenches so long. And I know you've been down there in the Foxhole with me that one of the things that I've really started paying attention to and championing is a kind of consistency that I think is very hard to do in TV.

So I've really been, you know, we've been on the show when we talk, praising things like, whether it's better call Saul or parts of OJ, which has just been spectacular, but in general, praising it for doing very TV things. You know what I mean? Like keeping a balanced and consistent tone, bringing characters in at the right time and moving them around.

Pacing a season out correctly. Pacing a season, planning for the future. The kind of, you know, it's like big, fundamentals basically. Yeah. And then you have an episode like last night's episode of Girls, which was called Panic in Central Park, and it was an extraordinary episode of TV. And it was one of those episodes of TV that raises the medium.

You know, you could make the case that it is, you know, not TV, essentially because it was a short film, you know, set in the world of girls with, you know, it in many ways was an outlier in the way that that other highly heralded episode of Girls, one man's trash was a few years ago. that's the Patrick Wilson naked ping pong one. But it felt really good to get excited about TV again for that specific reason. Like, oh, it changed the game a little bit. You know, and I felt that way about, you know, transparent season one. I felt that way about the, you know, I know I just said it was consistent, but the Marshall

Clark episode of OJ. And this was just, this was an amazing thing. It worked from the bones of what the show had given us before, right? But it told a story that was dazzling. It was emotionally gripping. It was beautifully directed. It was really well performed. And it was exciting because it was funny and disconcerting and just alive.

It was awesome. Counterpoint. Yeah. Don't even know if it worked all the way. Didn't care was on the edge of my seat the entire time. Interesting. You know, you can make lots of arguments. So for anybody who just needs the broad strokes of what happened.

And can I also just say you don't need to have kept up on the show. I would actually encourage people who don't watch the show to watch this episode and I'd be curious what their points of view on it are. Yeah. You know, and just it was a captain. episode, it was focused solely on the Marnie character, starts out with her having a fight with her newly new husband, Desi. Then she goes out for a walk in New York City and bumps into her ex-boyfriend Charlie, played by Christopher Rabbit, who was on the first few seasons of the show and was kind of like

a much maligned character. And left because I think he was like, I just don't want to play this too much. He left under very bad terms. I think he angered the people he was working with and he basically he kind of ethered the show a little bit on his way out the door, basically saying that he's not interested in doing those sorts of things. And he made a noisy exit. Right. To the degree that it was a surprise that he was welcomed back, let alone willing to come back. And he shows up basically looking like Shia LaBuff after like a 4 a.m. slice at Joe's pizza.

Like, yeah, exactly. Like it was a catered movie theater that he had locked himself here for three days. And I thought that even if I didn't really, I thought it was a very good experiment. and that's what I loved about it. So even if I didn't find it like entirely convincing dramatically, what I did really enjoy was the fact that it took a chance. And I think I'm responding directly to what you're talking about with, there's so much television and there is about a variety of different like ideas and storylines.

But I feel like television is increasingly feeling the same across all the platforms, whether it's a streaming show or a network show. And that they all, it's increasingly like, here's the A plot for the episode, here's the B and C plot for the episode, this is how we're pacing out this 10 episode or 12 episode season or 22 episode season, and that there's really not a lot of surprise, but it is increasingly becoming demanding to keep up with all of the stuff and to say nothing of the fact that a lot of these shows on different platforms are going for 53 minutes or an hour and four minutes, and they feel it. They feel like a good two-thirds of a movie sometimes every

time you sit down to watch. And if you're asking people to watch two or three shows on a Sunday night. That's a huge chunk of time and a huge amount of brain space to dedicate to like keeping up with what's happening on billions and vinyl and togetherness and girls and walking dead and then all this other stuff. And this completely like it jolted me. I don't know necessarily that it was like my favorite episode of girls. I've been really enjoying the season of girls. But the fact that she would take all that equity that she had built up over the season, all that goodwill and just like roll the dice with it, I thought was awesome. I wish more shows would do stuff like this. I agree. And this is something that we talked about on Bill's show a little bit

earlier. But, you know, the show, the thing that is worthwhile about girls, even when it was struggling, and I think even the people who made it would probably admit at this point that the last season, maybe two seasons, were a little bit hit or miss. The show has never been safe. It has never, ever followed a well-tread path. And, you know, I think there are arguments to be made for and against that. I think the show struggled with being a TV show, which you just kind of have to do. At a certain point, everything bends towards TV because you have to keep making episodes. You have to serialize it to a certain degree. You have to, I mean, TV, the fundamental, the fundamental backbone of television is consistency and comfort, whether you're talking about

NCIS or transparent. Like, you have to provide something that brings people back. Yeah, you come up with like a show Bible, you follow that Bible chapter and verse, you do the things that you know you're good at. And Girls has struggled with the TV part of it, having these sort of incredible spikes. And I think one of the reasons we've been praising the show up to this point was precisely because it seemed to have figured that stuff out to a degree that it hadn't in the past. It was steering the camera away from things that weren't really productive or interesting

and mining the show's now, you know, four and a half year history for wonderful plot lines like Jessa and Adam. And so this episode, though, was spectacularly Swedish, was apart from everything else, but it built on a history, an emotional vibe that had been building over

seasons and I think that was a really remarkable trick. There was a point where when Charlie goes to drop coke off at the plaza and it was a great moment and my wife was like just is this not Charlie? Like because I think the guy calls him Brian and there's like a moment where like my wife is like is this going to be like a thing where Marty realizes this isn't actually Charlie or something like that because I can't remember if they I mean obviously he knew a lot about her so it's pretty but it for a second felt like one of those weird dream episodes. And there was a lot of that kind of quality to it.

Like even the lady in the tramp stuff in the Italian restaurant. And it's kind of cool because she's like, you didn't used to talk like this. And he's like, well, maybe you're remembering me wrong. And it's like the unreliable narrator thing comes in. The other thing to say about it is that all storytelling depends on contrivance. Sure. All storytelling. The best shows or movies hide it.

They hide the trick. You know, everything is improbable and everything has to happen in 30 minutes, right? the thing that this episode took great advantage of is the essential improbability of life in New York City where, and I say this is someone who still lives there and I know you know this is someone who lived there for many years. One of the great allures of the city always is that at any moment the tumblers in the lock can align

and all of a sudden every door is open to you. And you can cross barriers of class, of race, of society, of culture almost without intending to. And this episode was so deeply New York in that way, took advantage of that feeling in a way that was really thrilling. I mean, everything from the way she did a double take to see Charlie sitting there. And thinks about she's just going to keep walking.

She has her own soundtrack. She has her own day going. And then she suddenly is swept up into someone else's day in life to the exact thing you're talking about, where you can buy a dress but still be wearing your sneakers and walk into a plaza, the plaza, where these parties are going. It's a classic Greenwald move.

I always walk into the plaza. And, you know, my luck with Soviet call girls is, you know, it's been up and down. I've seen the Americans, so yeah. Exactly. Speaking of which, shouts to Julia Garner, who played the woman in the end of the shower, who's amazing on the Americans and will be the best person on TV whenever she chooses, if she chooses a regular role. She was just slayed that one scene.

But just the slipperiness of a night allows you to believe fully, not just that. just because you believe in, you know, the essential artifice of storytelling, but you believe fully that someone's entire life could be just, just re-centered of one strange series of events. It was very, very New York in that way. And it was very, very suitable for this character that has been kind of a lightning rod in terms of people like me. Well, no show is, you talk about the dip over the last two seasons. No show has suffered more from the conflation than I think has happened, like a lot of pop culture criticism, the conflation of like fictional characters

being real people. And people would be like, this person is the worst, or Lena Dunham sucks because Hannah said this. And whether or not there's some like mild institutional sexism involved in like viewing that show.

Mild, yeah. Viewing those shows through that lens. I think that that's something that it's like kind of afflicting the way a lot of people view television where it's like, you know, that's not Clive Owen. And that's not what Stephen Soderberg

thinks that Mediard and should be like, you know, and I think that that's something that really was, uh, God bless him. What if he was the anti-Jenny McCarthy? He's like, not only should you vaccinate everyone, you should inject everyone with cocaine and hair on speedballs. Make sure you do your old own appendectomy, but sterilize it with Singani. Like, yeah, totally. Yeah. The key to madness is to take out your teeth. Um, anyway, the point being is that I think that Marnie was obviously like a very much of like you're saying, a lightning rod of character. And probably I have some inherent, like, I have some bias against that episode

just because I don't like watching that character too much. But, I mean, I thought it was just really, really, really inventive and fresh. And if you're going to watch that much television, it's really necessary to get a shot of something different every once in a while. Yeah, I think that, I think impatience is the other big problem with how we watch TV and how we criticize it and write about it. And I'm certainly been a victim of that too. I mean, no show is perfect.

No show can sustain the scrutiny of week-to-week reviews that I've certainly participated in, and we do on the show. One of the particular things that has bedeviled girls is that it's a show about youth, right? And youth is nothing else, if not, inconsistent. And I think when Girls has been at its best, it's celebrated that spirit,

which has often led to, just as the characters have found themselves in near catastrophic emotional situations, The show has led itself into some catastrophic situations by sort of taking on the spirit of its characters. But, you know, I think that one thing that is important to do is just kind of, okay, you know, I'll say it's important, but probably impossible. But sort of like a critical reset, because I'm going to detour for a second because I know people are loving our, you know, 40 minutes on girls.

But I kind of want to take this segment, I want to lay another segment on top of it for a second. Do it. It's a little bit of my airplane movies. And I got a point here because, you know, I'm coming out here a bunch, so I'm watching some movies now. Yesterday I fired up the big short. And what was my review of it that I told you over text? I liked it.

No, I said it was okay. But as I was watching it, and this may have been the very generous pores of the Sonoma Chardonnay, which was a little heavy, a little oaky, but got me through the flight, was that you kind of got to think about what movie you're making

what movie they're intending to make when you're watching it. Because one of the problems I had with the big short is I kept, you know, being on the bus watching the more interesting stories go by, like the people who were affected by this crisis, like that dude Vinnie in Steve Carrell's office, which is one of the great characters.

Right. And I kind of wanted his movie, but the goal of this movie was to take enormous ideas, you know, global concepts, and communicate them in two and a half hours. It was not to personalize it so much or humanize the lived experience of the financial crisis. Sure.

And so that's the same sort of thing. I think when we look at girls where people are watching it, like approaching it sometimes not realizing what the intent is. And I think the Lena Dunham's intent and HBO has been very generous and subsidizing it is to just sort of chase her aesthetic muse, right? Yeah. And play with this idea of youth and inconsistency and improbability and emotional ruin

and just sort of see what happens week to week. It's not the same type of goals as, I mean, I don't know how extreme to make the analogy, but like, you know, 30 Rock's goal is to make you laugh a lot. every 30 minutes, right? Yeah. I guess I'm asking you for a more personalized criticism, and I'm not going to provide it. I don't know who is,

but it was something I was thinking about. This is something we mentioned a little bit on Bill's Pod, but that one thing that might have centered girls a little bit, aside from the fact that I think girls is still very consistently funny and just like an enjoyable watching experience. Last night was funny, too, the end scene with Desi was laugh out loud funny. Yeah, but they know when this is over. They're going to finish this season.

They got one more season, and that's a wrap. And this leads to the next conversation topic we're going to have, which is togetherness. Yeah. Which is a show that is now three episodes left or two episodes left, and I think its entire season. Entire run, because last week it was announced that HBO would no longer be making girls or togetherness, rather. Right. And it got us talking a little bit offline about the idea of cancellations. Because it's such a rare thing now, more or less.

If a show gets to anything beyond a first season, the train is running enough so that they're like enough, you know what? This is like, especially on streaming and on premium cable, that they're like, this is going. This is why like Showtime shows run for seven years. Like this is a known product that people enjoy and we can consistently sell against and we want to keep it going. Starting a new show or like starting a new business is incredibly expensive and incredibly risky. And if you think about it just in terms of the TV business, what you're investing in isn't the 10 episodes that you're going to be seeing in season three

or whatever of these shows. What the networks are investing in is the consistency and capability of the people making the show. They're investing in these people being like, you know what, you've delivered on budget, you've delivered on time, people seem to like it okay, but more importantly, you can keep it moving. Yeah.

That has enormous value. And so, yeah, the idea, what was shocking, okay, we're shocking, whatever. I want to be clear that the idea that a show that is predominantly about two 40-year-old men making a puppet show inspired by the spice worms of Dune was canceled?

This is not a shock, okay? It's a niche show, yeah. It is a good show, but I was not shocked. No, it's a niche show. It is very good, though. I think he has, like, very good performances. And we should, we will talk about that, but I wanted to say that what struck me

was the idea of something being canceled felt almost outdated for the reasons you're saying that things just kind of run, you know. Like if Friday Night Lights had started now, and we're coming up on like 10 years since Friday Night Lights debuted. People have to remember, like, 10 years ago, it was like a week to week process as to whether or not there would be another Friday Night Lights.

And now it's kind of looked at as one of these beloved, one of the most beloved shows of like the last 20 years. But it was pretty much that and the wire. I remember just sort of being like, I wonder if that's the last episode of the Wire. It was a constant fear. And there was always this thought that like, what can we do, even though we couldn't really do anything to support this, get the word out. And, you know, I talked about this a little bit in my podcast with the showrunners of the Americans

because those dudes, that show has bridged the gap of eras and TV because season one, not very high-rated, season two, there was a, it appeared to be from the outside anyway, a legitimate question as to whether it would get renewed. When I sat down with them two weeks ago, they basically said, well, we're in conversations as to whether it's going to end in five or six. They're completely confident. They're going to be able to tell their story. Yeah. And it actually seemed like the network wants more. You know, that's an amazing thing because what they're investing in is are metrics that are not the traditional ones.

I think another show that kind of went through that process was how I met your mother. Where for a while there in like around season five or six or maybe even before then it was like it's kind of off for CBS's brand. Are they going to keep doing? Are they going to keep doing? And then all of a sudden it turned into just like this kind of hit show for them that they were up to the point that they were basically going to do a sort of spinoff of it once it was over. The other thing that sometimes happens is that survivors, you know, the world that they leave behind is very different to the world they came in on, where Parks and Rec was almost canceled countless times.

And then when it finally went off the air and this glorious finale, you know, on its own terms, NBC would kill for those ratings, the ratings that it was killing itself over for seven years, just because the margins have changed so much. And then, you know, the competition has gone up. But, yeah, but it was a surprise, I guess what, when I, when I. heard that togetherness was ending and it was announced my assumption was that everyone was blowing it out of proportion because things don't really get canceled that this clearly was some sort of like agreed upon end date we've reached a fine place you know blah blah blah blah um mark two plus's public

comment since the show's cancellation suggested maybe that wasn't the case that they had every intention to do more so that would be very interesting to find out about what actually went on but you know i guess i would say two things one it feels odd to think think of anything going away full stop at all anymore because everything is always being rebooted. There's always another soft landing. Like, you know, Mindy Project falls off a fox and goes on to Hulu. Gilmore Girls is coming back.

Gilmore Girls is coming back. Right. So it's very odd to think that something might actually go away. And for the most part, the things that actually go away are the ones that are caught up in the aspects of business that don't work in 2016. Like Hannibal. If Hannibal was on Netflix, it's hard to imagine. it having gone away.

Exactly. But the properties that it involves, whether it's like international production companies, the rights to the Thomas Harris novels, what rights they have to which characters. Yeah. If you look at bubble shows on whatever network, be they network, broadcast network or cable,

and you want to know whether their odds are high or low of them continuing, look who owns it. That's really all you have to do. If, you know, the reason why Halt and Catch Fire a show that I think we both really like now and had a terrific second second. season, despite minisual ratings, the reason it's coming back for season three is partly because AMC believed in it creatively and wanted to be, wanted to have a critically adored show, but they own it.

And once you own a show, I'm not saying they're reaping enormous profits off it, but they're not losing them and any potential profits in streaming things that haven't been invented yet. I was reading an interview with Sam Catlin, who's running preacher, the Seth Rogen, Evan Goldberg adaption of that beloved graphic novel Garth Ennis. The Garth Enix Vertigo comic. Yeah, yeah. And he was saying that in his initial conversations with Seth and Evan, that it was like really fascinating because they didn't know anything about like making television. And that he was like, here's the thing, guys.

Like, what are you going to do with the sets? You know what I mean? Like whether or not it's Deadwood or Alton Catch Fire or Friday Night Lights, like you can only build so many sets. And you can only, you know, you can move around a lot. But you can do different things with different sets. But once you build a set, you can't just destroy it. then move on. And build another one.

Yeah, exactly. The time isn't there. That's the same thing I think, like what you're saying. I'm sure that it's the same thing for these shows. It's like once they've built all this stuff and paid all these people, that's an investment. Yeah. And you want to get an ROI.

It's interesting. In the conversations I've had with people in the industry about Preacher, the, which have been very, people are generally positive buzz. I haven't seen any of it yet. I think some people saw the pilot. It was like one of the southwest. Yeah, south-west. But what was interesting, and this is very telling, the concern wasn't that Seth and Evan

like they're my friends, but like, so that Seth and Evan could deliver a cool pilot based on this world. The real question was whether they could direct the second episode.

Because you do a pilot, you know, you have 14 days, 20, whatever, to shoot it. Second episode, that's TV production. You have seven days. And can you adjust?

And apparently they could. But that was sort of an interesting insight into the thinking behind it, which wasn't really about whether, you know, the makeup they did for Arse Face was accurate. It was really more about just getting it done.

Okay, so that brings us to the togetherness thing. And let's talk about the show itself in a second. But before that, I just was thinking about the business model. Someone tweeted this at me when it was canceled saying, doesn't this go against what you had been saying about how these networks mostly need to build catalog? Right.

And which was the idea that, you know, what's value for a company like Netflix and now us, you know, transitioning to more and more over-the-top subscription company like HBO is you just have to have perpetual stuff in the hopper that gets people coming back and keeps them there and paying the monthly fee. I think that togetherness fell into this uncomfortable valley, basically, where if togetherness was on Netflix, it absolutely would have a third season. If it was on Hulu instead of casual, it would absolutely have a third season. But it's not noisy.

You know what I mean? It's not, I think HBO is, in many ways, is serving two masters because it's transitioning to that Netflix world, but also it's still HBO, man, it's not TV. and it might just not be noisy enough to guarantee its spot because one of the other things always about HBO is it has the biggest development pipeline and only programs on one night a week.

So if you're not holding your spot on the corner, if you're not going from season one to two like Silicon Valley did, you actually, it's open season. Do you think it's that the show itself and its concept wasn't noisy enough or do you think it was something about what they did with it once they had the concept?

It's a good question. Because I think the show itself, Because I think that there's a lot of, we joke about this, but midlife Anui in Los Angeles is well documented right now. It's pretty well-tread terrain, yeah. Yeah, flaked, love, you're the worst, togetherness, casual, like, there's transparent. I mean, these, it's, it's really like, well-trodden ground right now. Someone called them tromedes. Trotties. I agree. I also got this vibe, which is that the show had a,

some spectacular highs. You know, Amanda Pete's performance, I think Steve Ziss's has been great. I think there's some moments that are just so keenly felt and emotionally raw that it's really revelatory and awesome. But I also started to think that maybe those things, mining that particular mind, that's what the Duplas brothers do. Yeah. And this is the story, but their ability to find those, quote-unquote, real moments, I don't think that goes away. That's their skill set. So they could apply them to other shows and other characters and other worlds, you know.

So I don't feel like I'm mourning the show that much, even though I really, really enjoyed it. I think they still have a deal with HBO. They're making movies for Netflix. They produce, they produce. So this one was a good one, you know. I think that this season has struggled slightly. We only talked about the premiere,

which had this spectacular scene with Amanda Pete and Steve Zissis. But, you know, there are still moments that are just amazing. And then there are moments where one of the major plot lines is they're doing puppets based on Dune. You know what I mean? Like, or Amanda Pete's struggling to change a diaper. She struggles a lot with the diapers. And that's hard to make the charter school stuff.

Like, obviously, specificity is what makes all good storytelling. But it's sort of hard to make the case that this is as universal or as compelling as other things. Like, I think they had a hard, they didn't have a harder time this year, but by removing, the thing that fueled the first season was this weird surprise flirtation between Pete and Ziss as his character. This season moved that. apart, right?

Yeah. I assume they're going to come back together in some way before the season's over. It's right there in the name of the show. But with that gone, it did fall back on some of the more predictable stuff that I, you know, boy, changing diapers are hard. Kids yell sometimes, you know. Yeah. I like Katie Asselton as a, you know, as a fancy bee. There's something to be said about what you're talking about here, though, man, because it's like,

how much do you go to television to see a reflection of your own life and how much do you go to television to have a little bit of escapism? Right. I was kind of thinking about this with Saul a little bit. Because I was like, this is, when it's like 40 minutes about like, you know. Deep dock review? Deep dock review and like edits on somebody's, I'm like, I know all about editing. Like, you know what I mean? That's your life.

I don't need highlighted, like, house style, like what comes after a period, like two spaces after a period or not. For me, it's escapism to see people in a beautiful craftsman house, you know. Well, and I love Saul. Like, I love, I think. Where are the Eagle Rock? I think they're in Eagle Rock, yeah, I'm not sure. But, you know, like, it's just a, sometimes I'm sort of surprised, but I think that, like, I watch a lot of these shows and I'm really into it,

but then that's maybe one of the reasons why, like, I'm blind to vinyl's faults. Because it's... It's just pure escapism. Yeah. Yeah, I think that's right. I just... I don't know. I feel like I'm arguing against myself in some ways here, because I really like the show.

I will really miss seeing Amanda Pete, you know, pop off, like, 4th of July. firecrackers every week. She's so amazing on this show. But there's a lot of TV, man. And as you said, this is well-trod terrain, and it's hard to get exercised about it. I wish there was more, but there's so much of everything. Well, so it's basically the democratization of all this stuff,

if that's what you want to call it, where there's so many different outlets and there's so many different opportunities. I don't know that we have reaped the benefits of it yet. I don't know if you could really say that this has produced another golden. age. No, but there are these golden moments.

And I think that goes all the way back to what I was saying at the beginning of the show about, you know, find maybe being a little bit uninspired by the consistency because there's a scene in the episode a couple weeks ago on togetherness where they go back to Detroit and there's this nighttime bike ride. Yeah. And that seemed like something that might well be happening in, in, you know, resurgent Detroit. And I mean that seriously. Like, that's a, you know, there are a lot of time style pieces about how like, you know,

People are really getting creative there. Very patronizing pieces. But the bike ride, like, that was a beautiful sequence. Yeah. And it was sort of, it was wonderful filmmaking. And it was exciting. And it was exciting in the same way the spaghetti eating montage to Casey Veggies was on girls last night. Yeah.

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That's simply safe 33.com. We're back. Gotham's finest. It's the dawn of justice. Andy, you know, some people I've did tweeted us and they were like, we're going to hear your takes. And I'm, uh, did not see Batman versus Superman. You want to ask me if I saw it?

I know you didn't see it. Yeah, it wasn't on a plane. Not yet on planes. Um, so here's what I want to offer the people as opposed to like, review. I mean, like, here's it. haven't seen a movie get this torn to pieces in a while yet still make a lot of money so I feel like what I think of it is not really going to impact anybody's decision on whether they should see it and you're going to think what you think I wanted to say this I'm kind of over like spoilers now like

I just if I'm if I'm especially for a movie like this where I'm not really dying to see it I'm happy to read about it sure and so I've been actually reading a lot about Batman versus Superman and yeah stuff in there read a lot of Zach Snyder interviews interesting guy. He thinks so. He fucking hates Superman. So much. And that's a really interesting thing for a director of a Superman movie to feel.

And it kind of reminded me a little bit of when JJ Abrams came off to Star Trek into darkness, which was kind of a mess, right? And then got Star Wars and was off Star Trek and was just kind of like, I was always been a Star Wars head. And Star Trek was never really my bag, which had actually always been the knock. when he got the gig in the first places. Some true Trekkies were like, this guy doesn't really seem like he gets it.

And this is seemingly playing itself out over again in this Superman-Bat-Man thing with Zach Snyder because he is so hard up for samurai Batman. He's hype on that. Yeah, he's so into it. He loves a warrior queen. He wants an old fascist Batman. He's super into fascism, is what you're saying.

But he's like, yeah, Superman, like whatever. He piggyback to get this movie. to use Superman to get there. And that is a huge, I'm not a true soup head, but that's a bummer. Yeah, and it's, it, the hostility he seems to have, not only for Superman, but for people who've seen the movie, other people who are major figures in Superman's, like, narrative. Right. It's really surprising.

Like the Jimmy Olson character? Yeah. I heard about that. Yeah. I mean, we've talked about this before. Like, if, if our show. show is about like watching business bottom lines like corporate corporate output for the year, you could justify Warner Brothers decision to be like, well, Marvels are kind of funny,

so we're just going to be serious. Totally get that. I get why they want to differentiate. And I totally understand that Nolan was for the most part grounded in reality, or at least like real world physics. So you want to do a little bit more of a comic take on it? Like in comic book, not comic. The idea that the people, that the DC heroes, unlike Marvel heroes, who are fallible, that DC heroes are God.

So you need to do something on that scale. Yeah. The problem, I think, is that, you know, the reason everyone, the reason there was so many successful Batman adaptations is because he is kind of an old fascist. Like, that's often the version of the character that translates. And so that is easily translatable by male directors, frankly, you know, and who want to make Blockbuster movies. The thing about Superman is that Superman is like, is light, is joy and happiness.

you know, like the most, it's an immigrant story. And I don't think you're ever going to really do better than what Richard Donner did, frankly. You could do better than special effects. But that was, that was a, it was a light romantic comedy. Do you think it's just a world that wouldn't accept like a corn fed, just truly good hero like that? I think that it would be worth trying because that has never been done. It hasn't been done in, you know, in many, many years.

And, you know, all of these companies are just totally feeling screwed now because of, because of Deadpool, right? Which we didn't see, and I have no interest in seeing. And frankly, I think the idea of being like, well, we can still do all the same shit. Did you like it? Yeah, it was enjoyable. But the same shit we were always doing,

but now we're going to make fun of it, is being popular. Deadpool just didn't feel like I didn't have to like it. I literally feel like I have to pay my taxes because I'm going to see Batman. Like that's in my mind, that's about this stuff. So if you made a story, and I said this before, I'll say it again, the best Superman story I ever read was Grant Morrison's all-star Superman.

It's 12 issues. It's collected. You can read it. it's this beautiful pop art retelling of basically all Superman's stories, and they're light and they're bright, and I feel like people might want to see that. And instead, this crushing heaviness and darkness, it's kind of getting old.

And it's why I haven't watched Daredevil Season 2 either. I mean, I'll spread the negativity around here between the companies. It's a bummer. I mean, I'm also torn because in general, these movies are, and frankly should be children. movies. Now, some children's movies are good for adults, too. They're entertaining. These are people playing with toys. And I feel like that in and of itself, I wish people were more willing to let go a little bit. But people love these toys. And it would be nice to see what could happen

with someone who truly love them, not just as a means to an end or as a means to blow stuff up, right? Like, I just, I cannot think of a movie that seems more unappealing than Batman v. Superman. I mean, I'm being completely honest. It seems just abhorrent and just, just, you know, just punishing. And no podcasting network or any media entity, I think, could pay me enough to see this movie. No matter if, even if I was on a plane with a nice, more shably-like, crisp California Chardonnay. I'm being very serious here. You'd have to be completely blotto on a plane to see this.

It just seems like work, right? It just seems like work. And frankly, it seemed like work the people in it, too. That video of Ben Affleck just sort of. Yeah, sadly, we wrote about that today in the newsletter. It's heartbreaking. I don't know what they were thinking, but frankly, it's cynical. That's the thing.

Like we all want to believe that there's room for not just in a Superman story, but in the business in general, that there's a world where it can be hopeful and not just this crushing assembly line of commerce. And the truth is, whatever concerns people may have had aesthetically about Zach Snyder were washed away in the tide of greenbacks that just washed over Warner Brothers this weekend. I will be fascinated to see if. they cut bait with him, though. He's doing Justice League, isn't he? Part one.

Well, part one of nine. But here's the other thing. Let's remember this. We were saying this about TV that companies invest in managers who can get stuff done. Zach Snyder's delivered. That's all that matters. So they're not going to cut bait with him because A.O. Scott wrote a withering review of him in the Times. Nor should they, because criticism exists separate and apart from that.

Great review, by the way. But, you know, they're also not going to start over again. There's a, he did some interview where he was talking about Jesse Eisenberg's, like, audition. And they initially brought him in to play Jimmy Olson. And he was like, I just think that that's like what people would expect is for you to play Jimmy Olson. And he was like, yeah, I guess so. Because like, because I'm a nerd. And he's like, yeah, you're a nerd.

And then like they kept talking. And then he's like, and then I turned to my wife, who's like his producing partner. And I was like, wouldn't he make a great Lex? And they made him into Lex Luther. He's like, originally, Cranston was going to play it. Or, like, that's who was up for it. And he was like, wouldn't have that have been a different movie, man? Apparently a better one.

People are not super into Mark Zuckerberg, you know, evil supervillain. Yeah. It's just the other thing, and we can move on from it since we haven't even seen the movie. Is there a villain called Darkside? Yeah, that's where this is all headed to. Because the way it's spelled is like Dark Said? Yeah, first of all, say that again. Yeah, because I just keep a mad.

You said that like WC in the mad circle. Dark Side. Where's Said? Dark side. First of all. Someone needs to do that mashup would be terrific. But there was a really good piece. I think it was in Vulture.

I'll tweet it if I was wrong about that. But basically saying the real sin of this movie being essentially a delivery vehicle for the next nine movies is it's a compressed timeline. Because you can watch the Marvel universe, which we are, you know, we generally like more. And there is room for a side story. There's room for Winter Soldier. There's room for Ant Man or whatever. There's room for Guardians of the Galaxy. They've had time to build the goodwill.

Yeah. It was also, that's, it wasn't, it wasn't like, it didn't also start at a two and a half hour fart. Iron Man. Iron Man. Iron Man one didn't end with Josh Brolin and purple makeup going one day in the next two decades. Do you bleed? Dark side?

Dark side! They have to start doing that now. Yeah. And, you know, like there's this, the fact we're living in a world where like Vanity Fair is like as a blog post where it's like, were you wondering who the flying demon crickets were? Well, let us explain it to you. You know what, pass.

I'm good. I'm good without flying... Bring togetherness back. Bring it back, man. We're the crooked people in that. Let's wrap up. I know that you wanted to... Last week sucked.

Yeah. So last week, we lost Fife Dog and Gary Shandling at the end of the week. And Bill spoke really eloquently, I thought, in his decovenny pot on Friday. If you haven't heard it, you should really check it out about his relationship to Gary Shandling's work and just how important Larry Sanders was to him. But I know that you were like, I really wanted to talk about this a little bit. It's just that, you know, I don't think I can do as good a job as builded about that. And many people who knew him and who loved his work even more than I did have said amazing things. But I was just really moved by the latter part of his career because we, you know, we watched Larry Sanders. I remember when he was like the host of the Grammys. Like he was of the hot comic. Was he going to get a late night show? And then he kind of faded a little bit from mainstream view. And part of that is just, you know, I think it's awesome. He was like, I did one of the best sitcoms of all time. I'm good. Yeah. But a lot of the stories that were written about him in the last 15 years were really more about his role as a mentor, right? That, like, people would go play basketball at his house and or hang out with him.

Yeah, he would do like Judd Apatow, Ryan Adams shows at Largo. And it seemed like he was like a, like a sense aide and all of these guys. He was just doing all this work on himself with therapy and, like, boxing. And there were these great profile and GQ about that. And culminating in one of the best episodes of Jerry Seinfeld's comedians and cars getting coffee, which is a show I really, really like. And I was just thinking about that, not just the role that he played in the lives of people that we like and admire, and that being a huge loss. But the way comedians sort of serve this role in our society that I don't know if we appreciate enough is they're like, they're the aging Ronin, basically, of the world.

Like actors are celebrities, and that means freezing yourself in a certain way and freezing yourself off in the media. But comedians, their subject matters themselves, and they don't need anyone else to do their thing. Yeah. So the way that they age becomes very, very moving. Well, this is actually a really good point in what you're making. And we mentioned Brian Raftery on last week's podcast, but Brian wrote a really interesting piece and wired about the new economy for comedians and how you have to have like a podcast and do a live show and do all this different stuff.

Whereas before, I think it was a very streamlined and obvious, like, you do comedy, you get a special, off that special, you get a show that's like loosely based on your comedy in your life. Yeah. And you do that for 10 years and you're golden. And now it's this totally new thing. Barry Shandling is sort of a, was a sort of last marker of that older time, like Seinfeld and like, you know, Tim Allen or a couple other people, you know. I mean, but Chris Rock is part of this too, where there's this fraternity. And unfortunately, it's mostly a fraternity, although there's certainly some element of story there.

It seems like Shandling is incredibly supportive of female colleagues and comedians that he was a fan of. But, you know, they're just, they're funny people. And their humor, that humor doesn't go away, but their perspective does. So, like, to watch these people on, like, the Seinfeld show. just sort of be alive in their present and still be in touch with it in a way that we bemoan musicians for losing touch with that or actors or writers, directors, but it was interesting to watch that. And I also watched the Nora Ephron documentary on HBO this weekend.

Everything is copy that her son made. And it reminded me of Shandling in that way, too, that she was this just ringleader and sensei figure for so many people in ways that we don't appreciate. But we were given a little bit of window into that. Just the way that being a creative person is not, just what you put out there. Yeah, like the benevolence you can show other people.

And being creative is a full-time job on yourself, too. You want to be able to be in touch with it and make good art. But so if you look at Gary Shandling's IMDB, you're like, okay, well, Iron Man 2 or whatever the last 10 years. I mean, like town and country is like this huge flop, you know. But his work is not measured that way. I feel like that's what the sort of emotional outpouring we saw reflected. But Nora Ephron, too, it's like there's a part of the documentary where they're like,

well, then she made mixed nuts. And then she rebounded with Julia and Julia. and there are moments in like the Julia Child stuff in that movie that are really good and really entertaining and moving. But it's not about just that, even though we become increasingly focused on just the output. It's about the totality of the creative life. I think we look at IMDB pages like they're the back of baseball cards or like a page on basketball reference where it's like, so what is if you do this?

And I love doing that. I love looking at runs people had and dips people had and when they fell off and when they came back and all this stuff. But when you do something like Larry Sanders, you get to eat out on that. Yeah, and then you... But then you pay it forward. Yeah, sure, exactly.

And you have a hand in other people's work. But I think we're quick to forget. You know what I mean? I was thinking about this with Cadems, actually, Jason Cadams, because the path is coming next week, and I think we'll talk about that next Monday or something. But that guy made Friday Lights. He's good.

He's fine. Yeah. He's fine. He's worthy of our attention, and often the mistakes and misfires are as interesting and worthy of our time as the successes. Let's wrap it up there. Thanks for listening to The Watch. channel 33 you can subscribe on iTunes soundcloud and Stitcher make sure you sign up for the ringer

newsletter I will talk to you next week great job bridsky dark side dark side this podcast was sponsored by sling tv has never been better but with all the contracts and equipment freeze and installation fees it feels like you need to take out a mortgage just to watch your favorite shows and there's a better cheaper way to get the shows you love sling tv for just 20 bucks a month you get 20 live channels including AMC ESPN adult swim tn tm tbS and true tv for that final four watch. Start your seven-day free trial at sling.com slash 33 for the best of live television on your tablet phone, Roku, laptop, fire TV, or Xbox. Some restrictions may apply. Thanks again to HBO now for sponsoring today's episode. HBO now is the new way to stream all of HBO. There's no

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