The Watch - Joanna Robinson on How Much of the ‘Game of Thrones’ Universe We Want. Plus, ‘Great Expectations’ Series Creator Steven Knight.

Episode Date: March 30, 2023

Chris is joined by Joanna Robinson to talk about the news that ‘House of the Dragon’ Season 2 will be shorter than the first (1:00) and some other things she’s watching, like ‘Ted Lasso’ and ‘Beef’ (14:31). Then she and Chris talk about why this newest adaptation of ‘Great Expectations’ works (23:48), before Chris is joined by creator Steven Knight to talk more about the making of the series (35:47). Host: Chris Ryan Guests: Joanna Robinson and Steven Knight Producer: Kaya McMullen Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Learn more at brooksrunning.com. I need supports to have to clear the run. Stand up and walk now. Hello, and welcome to the watch. My name is Chris Ryan. And I am an editor at the ringer.com. And joining me on the other line, my mysterious benefactor. It's Joanna Robinson.

Hello, I'm just sitting here in the molding remains of my wedding dress, as I often do surrounded by layers of dust on things. And we're not even talking about succession. You know, like that sounds like we could be. But we're actually, we're going to talk about a bunch of different stuff today. We're going to talk a little bit about the new adaptation of Charles Dickens' Dickens's great expectations, which is on FX on Hulu. And it's from Stephen Knight, who obviously is the person behind Peaky Blinders,

is behind my beloved SAS Rogue Heroes, is working on Star Wars, is remaking Vertigo, is very busy. He was nice enough to come by and spend half an hour with me, as did his cat on Zoom and chat a little bit about this. Honestly, Joe, I really like this great expectations. I had low expectations for it and it's great. Yeah. So we'll talk about that. But you and I professionally are linked through the House of the Dragon. Yes.

Like both the show and also as our like sigil-wise, right? Like that's what we bend the knee for. Yeah, absolutely. That's our soul bond, Chris. And I wanted to ask you a little bit about this news that came out. I guess it was yesterday on deadline Nellie and Driva had the sort of scoop that the upcoming season. This is a quote, the upcoming season, second season of HBO's House of the Dragon will consist of eight episodes, two fewer than season one of the Critics' Choice Award-winning

Game of Thrones prequel. I mean, there's also a Golden Globe in there, but that's all right. It is part of a long-term plan for the show, which includes HBO mulling, a green light for the third season. So for a little bit of context, HBO, wink, wink, waits until after seasons are done to decide that they're going to bring back, oh, we'll bring succession back if you guys really want us to kind of thing. Yeah. But typically what they do is they don't announce their renewals until after seasons have aired. Sometimes we'll get like a after the first episode kind of thing like, oh, we're bringing this back. House of the Dragon, biggest no brainer ever to bring back. But Joanne, what do you think of this shortening? There's, I guess, a couple

different ways to look at it. There's financial reasons, but there's also story reasons. Do you have do you have one that's like a sort of crowd favorite for what you think is behind this? Yeah, I mean, my first reaction when you texted me about this was like a concern, jocular concern about the fact that when they've shortened throne seasons at the end run of Game of Thrones, that made the story feel truncated and like we weren't getting the full meat we needed to understand certain turns of the story. Yes. I don't think that's really the case of the House of the Dragon because as you and Mal and I have discussed at length, this is adapted from a much sort of slimmer prompt than Game of Thrones. was. It's a sort of more bare bones kind of story. And a lot of the things that we were talking about when we talked about the first season, you know, there were all those time jumps that either did or didn't work for people, but was Ryan Condal's solution and Miguel Sapachnik's solution

for getting through a chunk of the history. Going through the rest of the show, they don't have to worry about those time jumps. Like, no major spoilers, but like we're rolling out in sort of a more reasonable time frame. So I'm less worried about a shorter season in that case. And I think what they're trying to do is spread, if I, if I, like, look at my House of the Dragon Tea Leaves, spread certain battles out so budgetarily, like you're not swallowing too many dragon-sized chunks of change for a given season. You know what I mean? And then, and then character-wise, I think they're trying to keep certain, you know, this is not supposed to say that people die in a George R. Martin story, right? Yeah.

there's a world in which you're like, do we really need to lose Sean Bean in the first season of Game of Thrones? Yes, you do for story. That matters, right? But there are other characters who are like, well, you know, can we move things around a little bit so we at least can put them on the promo material for, you know, season four or season three.

And as far as I know, I think George R. Martin has said that they're planning for four seasons. That sounds about right to me. And what I like about this is like, we're going to talk later about a show that I watched recently that felt too long. a lot of things feel too long to me nowadays, padded out. I like a sleek season. I like a sleek series. I like a series that knows when it's finishing.

You know, you and Andy and all of us have been talking about that in terms of succession. Like, a show that confidently knows his endpoint, which Game of Thrones never quite did, and knows when it's ending. Like, I'm kind of amped about this. I'll miss two extra weeks of talking to you about what dragons look like.

I know. I wonder if our per episode rate will go up because we have fewer episodes to talk about. You know, like just like the actors on that show, we should ask Bill for like a bump, you know? Exactly. Yeah, exactly. Our episodes might threaten to get longer.

I don't know. I don't know if that's possible. Yeah, that's true. For you, I don't know. I don't know if we can handle that. Yeah, the ending thing is really interesting because I think that the last of us is sort of the thing that made me think about this the most,

where you kind of, I think that they've gone back and forth as to whether or not the second game is going to get broken up into two seasons or not. Casey alluded to it being three seasons. I don't think that they've confirmed it necessarily, but you would have to imagine with the success of the show that it will be. That it gives it like the show like a kind of momentum, you know,

like that the narrative is going into the station eventually and that it does have some downsides, right? Because then if you have all these shows with expiration dates, I suppose you can plan your schedule, but you don't get as many successions or berries or better call sauls. and even if those shows aren't blockbusters, I mean shows that eat innings on a yearly or 18-month-wise basis for the network that's putting them up.

Yeah, and I think what's interesting, you know, you and I are huge fans of British television. This shortened episode season is something we took from the Brits, but often, sometimes what we don't take from them is the short season run. Usually it's like three, four seasons max. And then you have this like jewel box thing that you can rewatch and it's sort of perfect end.

to end and leaves you wanting more, which I think is what Jesse Armstrong with his like British TV sensibilities is doing with Succession. That's what I want from something like House of the Dragon. I want to feel like I felt this was operating at its peak the whole time. And when I go back and look at it, you know, versus what happened with Thrones, which your mileage may vary, but certainly plenty of people don't feel like they want to revisit that. And I want all these things that we love to be things that are revisitable and enduring and stuff like that. So, but yeah, I mean, the turnover rate, especially, you know, you and Andy have talked about this, but especially right now with so many blockbuster shows for certain networks of streamers ending, it leaves me very curious what even next year looks like, you know?

Yeah. And I mean, there's been studies done about whether or not people are watching new shows in relationship to library shows, whether or not the relationship people have with television is similar to the one that they had 10, 15, years ago where, you know, you could kind of invest, whether it was Grey's Anatomy or Mad Men or whatever, like your shows had kind of a long runway to tell story. And there was a very different experience of watching television and feeling like this was an ongoing story versus going to the movies and knowing that you had this kind of like, I'm going to be in it for two hours and there's going to be an ending even if there's two or three sequels or whatever. You get what I'm saying.

And I think that that's sort of starting to change, maybe even starting to flip, where the movies are now chapters of part of a franchise and television are these sort of event moments of Mayor of Easttown, six episodes, we're going to find out who the killer is, and you get to see Kate Winslet really have set out her stall and be the best actress in the world. But, you know, like the virtue, well, it's, you know, it's funny you talk about the flip-flop because, of course, we get these, like, long-running franchises. Like, Marvel feels like we've been watching this TV show for over a decade, which we have those characters come back.

previously the virtue of television, of course, is like getting to sit and marinate with those characters for a really long time, getting to feel the comfort of returning that story. And then in the era of 10 seasons of 22 episodes or something like that, getting the example I always like to talk about is the TV show Lost. There's an episode of Lost where the gang just fixes a VW bus. And it's one of the best episodes of Lost. And you don't get to do those episodes if you're. you only have eight episodes or 10 episodes to tell your story, you cannot press pause and have the gang fix a bus. And so you miss something like that kind of storytelling when you shrink it all up. But the benefit then is everything feels sort of you don't get the episode where Jack gets his tattoos in Thailand and nobody cares. Right. That's a trade off. Do you feel as somebody who obviously has such a deep connection to Thrones as a series of books and as a fictional world, like watching some of the issues that Marvel has run into recently

and to some extent Star Wars has run into recently and that being somewhat rooted in Disney wanting more stuff to put out that ultimately like the I don't want to call it parsimony's but like the let's starve the block a little bit here with Thrones and not put up three shows in one year

or you know have there be too much and work more on quality control or even just like scarcity as some something that makes people more excited for these things to come on. I mean, in a weird way, it's kind of, it's kind of nice that we aren't doing Thrones 12 months a year the way we do Marvel. I completely agree. Like the, you know, even before Marvel hit its current issue, this is the drama. I was banging around Star Wars where I would say like make Star Wars rare again

because I remember, you know, like we had so many years that there was no Star Wars at all in the fandom. Then the prequels and whatever happened around that. But then like I remember when Force Awakens came out, then the Last Jedi. There was this like destination, you know, it was a Christmas time and it just felt like this big exciting thing to do once a year. That quickly became

twice a year and then it became all the television shows. And I love the, you know, I love you and I love and or like there's a lot that we love about this era of excess but there's, you lose that anticipation, that excitement. And so, yeah, I was concerned, you know, our beloved pal Mallory, Rubin

will often say like more, more give me more. And like I understand that idea and she's often right when she says that. But there is something to be said for when we heard about all those potential spinoffs for Thrones. I just want it slow and steady. Like I want it, but I want it parceled out, as you say. And I want it just give me one max a year. That's what I think we should have. And let me get excited the other months waiting for it and and let it and take your time with it and let it be absolutely top tier.

I think that's a smarter business model on the end. I think Marvel is really reckoning with that right now. Yeah, I think that they also, when you allow somebody to breathe a little bit, I always go back to Obi-Wan Canobe, where that was one of the most charismatic creations of the entire Star Wars universe, I think one of the most beloved characters,

both the Alec Guinness and Ewan McGregor renditions of it, I think that the anticipation around Obi-Wan was this like, I can't believe. of like, we're just going to get this. I can't believe they're just going to make an Obi-Wan show. Like, that's so great. And the first trailer, I was like, yep, this is going to be dope. And I really disliked that show. I mean, not, not like I wasn't offended by it at all. I just really felt like it was Mandalorian Redux, but like poorly written and not very well rendered for a variety of reasons. And it really is deflating. If you have like an investment in those things, and I was

thinking about this in relation to the rumored John Snow show where it's like if they were rushing like a John Snow post Thrones show up for November this year, I don't know. I think it's way nicer to be anticipating like Duncan Egg or John Snow

in two years than it is to be like House of Dragon might come back. I probably will come back in 24 if we're being honest. But like I'm glad they're not rushing up another throne show that they can be like every Q3 of every year. We know we're going to get this bump in subscribers because we're putting up a throne show.

And I think, you know, this is the most basic take of all. I just want the things I love to be great. Yeah, right. And if it takes you a while to make them great, I will wait for it. You know what I mean? And so, like, with, you know, Marvel recently bumped the Marvel's many, many months down the line. I was just like, great. Sounds like it wasn't done.

Take your time to finish it. You know what I mean? Like, that's how I feel about any delay that I hear. there's always that, you know, there's the initial reaction of like, oh, no, what's wrong? But then there's the, okay, take your time, fix it, and I'll be excited to see it when he comes through. I cannot believe the squandered potential of the Obi-Wan show. There are highs of that show. There are things that I really liked about that show.

But we waited so, like, when William McGregor get a property worthy of his performance as Obi-Wan-Kidobie? Because I think he was good in the show, and the show wasn't great around him. And that's just why. There was also the rumors about the original scripts of that show was like Detective Canobi. It was supposed to be like a Jedi noir. Yeah. And then it wound up being like, no, we got to have a kid in danger because that's the only thing that could possibly like elicit drama. What else are you watching right now outside of like the succession and the stuff you're doing with Mal on Ring orverse?

Right. Like Yellow Jackets, Mando, et cetera. Well, I'm watching Ted Lassow. And that's like a really interesting question. You know, Ted Lassel is also finishing its season. And it's really interesting to me, I don't know if this is just like inside the bubble of either the ringer or wherever. But does it feel like the air went out of the tires? It's quiet out there for Ted.

What happened? That's, I mean, what I think happened is a cycle we've seen before, which is the like the sophomore slump that is a little like unfairly harsh because people got too ecstatic about the first season, right? So people just go lose their minds over the first season and then the second season, which is still good. Cannot hold up anyway. And so we're in our final season. I'm enjoying it. And I'm just surprised by how quiet it is for Ted Loss. I wonder about a couple of things.

One, there's just no, you'll never get back to the, you know, almost the shock of the first season. Yeah. Of that slow. Like, you know, I just, this show is probably like a complete joke, but I'm going to check it out to. That was pretty good. That was pretty good. Get to the Darts episode. you're like, is this show amazing?

And like that feeling that people had when they, and then also the word of mouth kind of contagion that took on, that Ted Lassau took on. You know, the second season was, I had some stuff I really liked. And now I noticed, you know, I read this interview with Bill Lawrence on Vulture that Catherine Van Aaron dunked about his involvement with the show, but also all together Apple stuff. He's obviously working on shrinking and he's got a Vince Vaughn show coming out on Apple soon.

And he was talking about how like when they, first season, they were basically doing it, like, where they were working within the confines of a sitcom structure, but blowing up what could happen inside of a sitcom, you know, doing that. Yeah. And then as the show kind of, I mean, essentially, it became more of Jason's show in a lot of ways. Like, he's running it. Bill's barely involved in the third season. Yeah.

And for better and worse, I mean, like, obviously it's a very personal story for Sidacus. The episodes have become longer. Right. They've become really, I would almost say melodramatic with the amount of plot and the amount of like, I mean, there's like D, E and F stories going on in the most recent episode of Ted Lassow. And I wonder whether or not it just maybe feels a little bit more like TV to people. And so they like, people like it. But there's, so far there hasn't been a drop the drop everything and like start tweeting about Ted Lassow moment. I think also that question of access comes back in because Apple. asked them to add two episodes last season. There was the Christmas episode and like the coach beard after hours episode. Right. And like I've talked to a few people where they were like at least the after hours episode like really lost them last season. And I was like, well, that was because Apple like sort of

last minute asked them to add to episodes that didn't impact the plot at all. And so this is what they came up with. And so yeah. But again, there's, I think there's a lot of pleasure, even if Ted Lassow isn't as surprising as it was in its first season, et cetera, et cetera. I think there is a pleasure. to me and watching storylines end or, you know, jet on towards an ending point. And I will say,

I just want to shout out one particular actor, which is like Phil Dunn's story plays Jamie Tart. The Jamie Tart character development has been, I think, the most interesting thing

at the end of the day about this series. And that's like, it's like the opposite of Cousin Greg. As Cousin Greg declines in my estimation, Jamie Tart's on the up and up.

So, yeah. Do you think that the show is kind of maybe not buckling, but can't get out from under what we've all decided it's about and what that... So they've sort of chosen, like, here's this show, it could have been a fish out of water comedy

about this guy who is an unlikely success story slash inspiration in a different culture, essentially. And now it's kind of become this affirmative story about like mental health awareness and a lot of other like issues where it's like, really admirable, but I noted when they went to the White House, like the cast went to the

White House to do, like, basically an event about mental health, like, awareness. I was like, it's interesting that they've just decided that this is what this show is about. Not that I'm like, Ted Lassen needs to be more about European football. Although sometimes I am like, Ted Lasson needs to be more about European football. Chris Ryan comes out against therapy. Yeah, right, exactly. Yeah, I think that's fair. And I think also, but here's what I was to say about the the pleasure of a final season. Remember watching seasons of Friday Night Lights and, you know, the team is headed towards the championships and you couldn't tell whether or not winning was the right move

for the story or learning the lesson that winning isn't everything and losing was the right lesson for the team. And like to the point where even one season they don't even like show the end of the championship game, they just show you a ring to let you know what happened. Yeah, isn't that the, was that the first season when devil, like when they do the parade to Devils Town? Devil Town. Which Double Town comes back a couple times.

No, I think it's like, I think the ring one is just like the second one. Like they throw the ball at the end of the game and then like someone catches it in like a scrimmage later and they don't even show you at the end of the game. But I just think that like that's a fun buzz like question for me as I watch this final season of Ted Lassow and like, you know, Andy's Fawn Refraign is like a show will tell you what it is like how to watch it. But I like to watch a show and say like and try to wonder what kind of show is this. Is this a show where Richmond needs to win at the end of the final season of Ted Lassow? Or is this a show where Richmond needs to lose so they can all learn an important lesson? Right. And I don't have the answer to that.

And that is what keeps Ted Lassow interesting to me, among other things. What else is interesting to you right now? Have you watched Beef at all that's not out yet, this Netflix series? Are you not a fan? I am a huge fan. Okay, great. I am a huge fan as well. I'm sure you'll talk about it more so we don't have to spend too much time on it.

but I just, I want to like amp up your listeners to watch this. It's, I don't know if you would agree with me that it's maybe like a couple ups as longer than it needed to be, but it's a Stephen Yin and Ali Wong and it's a road rage slash everything sort of falls apart and devolves comedy of class, drama of class if you prefer. Maria Bello's giving you a fantastic, terrible white, rich lady performance. She is. And I mean, I love Stephen Young and I love Ali Wong. Ali Wong has never got to do something quite on this level.

And I just love how much she hit it out of the park. I love the two of them together. And I just found it fascinating. I really loved it. We're going to be talking more about this show in the coming weeks. But this is a fantastic example of sort of what we've been talking about here, where there is a version of beef that's a 90-minute feature that probably would have needed to get made in the 90s to get made. But it still would have been like two people whose lives collide almost literally into one another.

in a road rage incident. But the fact that it gets this multi-episode arc, you get to see some Stephen Yun stuff and some Allie Wong stuff that you would just not get to see if this was a 100-minute feature. Yeah. And it's pretty incredible. Like, you're ready about Alley, like Stephen Yun is just unreal in the show. Like I think it's like maybe it's best performance.

And so I'm really excited for people to see that. Yeah, there's a bunch of stuff coming because we have the Emmy Club. Yeah. It's TV Armageddon right now. Yeah. Yeah. And I feel like every time I'm like, okay, I got my hands around it. There's another thing.

By the way, it's coming May 1st. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. What else you're like watching or looking forward to? I think that what is to come for Barry is probably one of my most anticipated things. That could possibly ever happen. Because like, billionaire's been so, I hate this word, audacious. But he has, you know what I mean? And in terms of, like, you know, your S&L alums taking on a show, Sudakis versus Hader,

like, I think maybe what Sudecas has done to push Ted last in a certain direction is him almost like trying to run up to catch up to what Hater has done with Barry. Yeah. And, um, and Hater is just doing it so confidently. And so, again, when you talk about shows that destroy your, your idea of what a comedy is or what to expect in a 30-minute package on an HBO Sunday. That's what Barry has been. I know that Sean's going to be covering out of the prestige feed.

I'm really, really excited for that. But yeah, I mean, it's hard to top because you just don't know. You never know where Barry's going to go. There's also like there's a version of me that's completely happy with the three-season gross point blank version of Barry. That's just like an actor who's also a hitman. Anybody ever find out? And, like, they've taken the show in so many incredible and expected directions.

And just based on the trailers for this final season and the prison stuff, I'm like, I don't know if, like, people are ready for how dark this is going to be at it. Exactly. Should we talk a little bit about great expectations? Yes. So you mentioned you had no expectations for this. First, I guess, like, let's start with just some background information. So Stephen Knight, obviously, this very prolific, very accomplished screenwriter and showrunner

out of England, who, also has done some directing and screenwriting in Hollywood, obviously, and some, often gets called in, I don't know, he's like, he's basically the closer, right? Like, it seems like, yeah, Stephen Knight is writing the Star Wars movie that Damon Lindeloff had been attached to, or had been working on. He is attached to do a remake of Vertigo for Team Downey. And in the meantime, has this, like, collection now of shows, I actually said to Stephen in the interview, It almost feels like you were writing a sort of creative alternate, not alternate, but a creative history of England starting in 1800 and going up to the present day with these series because

it's the two Dickens adaptations and taboo for the 19th century and rogue heroes and peekie blinders for the first half of the 20th century. Then he's got maybe one of my most anticipated shows of the year is coming out later this year. It's called This Town. Yeah. And it's about a family and a group of young people in Birmingham, England in the early 80s as SCA and two-tone explodes and there's all this racial tension in the UK. And I can't wait for that. Michelle Dockery is in that. So he's like kind of fashioning this history. And he's got a very distinctive feel, especially his television work, has this muscular, I would say pretty profane rendering of Charles Dickens compared to the text.

It's like highbrow guy, Richie. Yeah. Sort of how it feels. Yeah. And in this version, Feen Whitehead plays Pip and Olivia Coleman does a opium smoking, Miss Havisham. And my standout actually, or the person that I was most unprepared for how much I would get into it is Ashley Winters who plays Jaggers, the lawyer who is kind of guiding Pip through the hellish landscape of London to become a gentleman. So where's your head out with this? So, I mean, I think the reason I said no or maybe even low expectations is just because great expectations has been done so many times.

Like Ms. Havisham is one of the all-time great literary characters and one of those like Lady Macbeth, like a character that any actress like wants to get her teeth into. And I've seen Anne Bancroft player. I've seen Julian Anderson player. I've seen Helena Bottom Carter player. Like, you know, like I was like maybe I've seen great expectations and maybe I don't need to see another good expectations. But I should have known because, you know, all the things that you've listed that Stephen Knight has done, I have loved. Right? We love rogue heroes.

We love peeky blinders, like all this or stuff. And so I think I should have known that this is going to be great. And it was. And I think in terms of this question, you know, I took, I love a musty, dusty adaptation. I love a long BBC. Every word is out of the book adaptation. Like, I'm a fan of those. But I am interested in, out of the book, adaptation.

adaptations that feel like they're trying to grab an audience who might be resistant to something like Dickens, that when the person who's writing it feels like they understand the source material, you have to understand and love the source material, and then I think you can play with it. And I think what a lot of adaptations get wrong on that front, like I'm thinking last year, a film version of Persuasion came out with Dakota Johnson on Netflix that was gasping to be modern. But really missed the mark because in order to be modern, it felt like it had to change all, like, all the characters and introduce, like, borderline and ecratic stuff. Whereas, like, what Stephen Knight is adding, what's additive to this great expectation is, like, sex or drug use or discussion of the slave trade or, you know, X, Y, Z. And I'm like, well, that's all stuff that was, A, definitely happening when Dickens was writing. Yeah.

Sex didn't not, you know, you, when you read Dickens, there's always like the repercussions of sex. There's always like, you know, bastard children and infidelity and stuff like that, but you don't have the actual. He's just like, well, what if we actually had the sex? Register that sex is happening in order for these other things to happen. And he just gets, he gets the core of what great expectations is about. And in fact, I would say some of the things that he adds enhances some of those core themes.

So, like, I'm not fussy in particular about something being dead accurate. as long as there is that core understanding. And that's like Stephen Knight and everything that he's approached shows how much he understands something and that he can play with it. You know, rogue heroes, something that you and I like really, really loved. I've seen so many World War II, you know, action adventure, films and et cetera. And this is just like, yeah, but what if real actual people did that? What would that look like? And that's what's so enjoyable about it, you know?

He's got two kind of major. not tricks, but I would say two major interests. One is just jizzing up tired genres. So gangster movie, peekie blinders, World War II stuff, rogue heroes, and costume period dramas, Christmas Carol, great expectations. So he understands that if you throw a really well-placed what the fuck into a show, like you get my attention. The thing that I find fascinating about him is that his,

is this the most popular working television writer? I mean, maybe with the, I can think of one or two exceptions, who's just like primarily telling stories about class on TV, on this scale, where almost every one of these shows, ultimately, is about the class system, primarily in the UK, but I think you could extrapolate it and make them universal ideas about what we kind of strip away from ourselves when we participate in capitalist societies

and what working people have to do to just make a living. And even in Rogue Heroes, where the kind of perspective is a little bit reversed, and it's about this rich fop who decides he's going to be a war hero and puts together a band of brothers in the process. Like, his kind of need to satisfy his father's ideas about heroism and duty

and what you have to accomplish with your life is what drives, like, a lot of that stuff. And it's also why a lot of his colleagues are pretty fucking hostile to him is because they're like, you're just this rich asshole who likes to go peacock hunting. And now we're stuck in the desert in North Africa doing these missions. So I find that part of like the idea that we get storytellers who still have like really important big thematic ideas that they return to over and over again in their work. And, you know, I think I think that they're, that's often what makes someone's

filmography or, you know, their IMDB page really pop is when I can say, hey, there's like a, you're telling me one big story with these shows. Yeah, there's a thesis that you're working with here. And I think, I mean, like my, not to like return to the same barrel twice in one episode, but like, because I spent all of the pandemic studying lost, because I am a fan of like Damon Lindelof's writing this, like, when you watch a Damon Lindelof show, you know you're going to get this interrogation of, like, faith and spirituality and God and what does it mean to be, like, religious and understand God. and how does that relate to like bad fathers in your real life?

And how does that relate to like love stories, et cetera, and your ability to connect with people? And so you know that you're going to get a different, you know, stick a gum in the pack, but it all is going to like add up to one thing. And the way that this great expectation is like one of the most obvious stories about class that he could possibly take on, right? Like this is the story about class moving through classes.

And this is like such a personal story for, Dickens who like worked in a boot blacking factory before he became like, you know, one of the most popular writer in the world at this time. And so I think that all of that, all of that is there on the page is obvious. But what Knight has done with this adaptation is make it so much clear the chains and shackles and the literal chains and shackle imagery that goes throughout the story because you've got not only like prison breaks, but also like Joe, the blacksmith, who is literally like forging chains after chains for the prison ship, how it hurts everyone and not just a pip, but also like how it hurts Estella, how it hurts like, you know, the girl back home

or how it hurts all these people and keeps them in with this idea of keeping them down. Yeah. And there's also this interesting thing he does. I'll be so interested to see that upcoming story of. Yeah, because there's gone, Birmingham, but like. Two is, oh, sorry, two of great expectations of air, right? Are out. Yeah.

Oh, yeah, okay. Two are out. Yeah. Because the way in which they've cast this where there are non-white actors playing certain roles, but it's one of those moments where it's not like, it's not race blind. Like there are reasons why, you know, Estella is not white or Jaggers is not white. And like how that just further embellishes the story that he's telling of these various strata of oppression. and I, you know, and then there's Olivia Coleman on top of that.

Yes. But even like the flourishes where like I think initially if you see, if I say, oh, this is Ms. Havisham, but she's an opium addict. And you might be like, well, I mean, that's not really like, either A, that sounds like a kind of a affectation. Right. Or that's not what I think Ms. Havisham was based on the text. But when you think about what Ms. Havisham largely is doing to Pipp.

it does sound like someone who is kind of maybe essentially descending into a bit of madness and is fucking with another person to sort of get vengeance against her past. And you can imagine that person wanting to disappear into these kinds of like drug-addled reveries while they control all these chess pieces out in the world. She's, I mean, she's so clearly numbed herself to so many things. Like that idea of numbing. It's a perfect addition. And then there's like an in-world explanation

as to why she would have like access to it and stuff like that. And again, it doesn't feel like it's there just to be edgy. It feels like it completely works for the character. And then just makes it feel like a little bit fresher than a more state or straightforward adaptation. I don't need something to be modernized or zhuzh necessarily to love it, but I think it's interesting to do it. Yeah.

Yeah. Well, we're going to get into my interview with Stephen Knight. Jonah, thanks so much for joining me. Thanks for having me. You can catch Joanna on House of R on the Rearverse feed talking with Mallory, largely about the Mandalorian these last few weeks. But she's also on the prestige TV podcast with Bill and Sean on Sunday nights talking about succession. It's a great, it goes great with the watch. There's a lot of succession content. And yeah, so, Joie, do you know what you guys are going to be doing once Mando ends? I don't know the answer to that. We're doing. doing a long range rewatch of Doctor Who slowly through the season because Mallory's never seen it and there's a big anniversary coming up. So I'm showing Mallory, Dr. Who for the first time. That first episode dropped this week. So that's a fun project. That's really cool. Yeah. Would you guys ever do Battlestar? Probably. I mean, Mallory loves Battlestar. So probably at some point. Well, you know, when we run out of new stuff. When Star Wars closes for business. Okay, Joanna. Thank you so much for joining me. Let's get to my interview. with Stephen Knight. This episode is brought to you by Amazon Prime. Ever have a plan come together out of nowhere and realize you're missing something?

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Get savings with yellow sale signs storewide and everyday low prices on 365 brand items. Enjoy the fresh flavors of spring. Save at Whole Foods Market. It is honestly a total thrill to have Stephen Knight on the watch today. He is the man behind one of the most acclaimed and beloved shows of the last decade in Piki Blinders. One of my favorite shows of the last few years, SAS Rogue Heroes, and one of my most anticipated shows that I almost can't control myself over, which is this town, He's got a new adaptation of Charles Dickens's great expectations,

and you can watch the first couple of episodes on FX on Hulu. Stephen, thank you so much for joining the show. Absolute pleasure. I want to ask you, the first question, is a little bit of a cheat because I want to bring up something you mentioned to the New York Times I thought was fascinating. You were talking about adapting Dickens, and you said the best way of describing it is to say if you read the book during the day

and had a dream about it at night, and this is the dream. Yeah. And that's just such an amazing way to think about adaptation because obviously there are going to be Dickens Purists out there. I remember like, why didn't you do page 35 the way I always vision doing page 35? But can you tell our audience a little bit about this idea of dreaming and adaptation? I mean, it's partly to do with how I write everything, which is that I tend to, I used to pretend, because I thought it was the right thing to do. I used to pretend that I did an outline and that it did a plan and all of that.

But I actually don't. And what I tend to do with any project that I'm doing is to just start doing it with a notion in my mind of where it's going. With an adaptation, it's different because obviously you'll give, and with Dickens, you're given this treasure trove of characters and plot twists and the destination and all of that. So you get all of that. But for me, the idea of sort of following a map wouldn't work.

It's not that I don't think it's a good idea. It just wouldn't work for me to be able to do that. So what I tend to do is I knew the book anyway. I've known it for a long time. I read it again. And then just to then think, and when I sit at a keyboard, the closest thing I can,

why I can describe it is like dreaming, where you just go and you just let it happen. So you know that there's Jaggers, you know there's Pip, you know there's Ms. Habershan, you know where they are and where they orbit each other and what that's all about. But yeah, I mean, the best way to describe it is that you have a dream about something that you know and then see how it goes.

Do you feel like you almost have to have a certain kind of relationship with a text to use this methodology? Right? Like if you were just almost doing, oh, hey, Stephen Knight, there's this bestseller. We'd love for you to adapt it as a feature, you know, XYZ. And you see, great, here's my take on it. But this is almost this, it's everybody's book. And everybody's got piped in their head, right? Well, it's much more effective because the book, something like this is in the collective subconscious

anyway. So, you know, Ms. Habersham exists in the imagination, even amongst people who've never read the book. Because the characters, Dickens characters are always like this. They always escape the book anyway and start to exist in their own sort of universe. So having that as the starting point obviously makes it a lot easier. So I'm not having to keep go back to the text to find out who this person is. I was curious whether or not somebody like Dickens who not only is writing in a time before cinema, but is also writing under such different conditions, you know, serialization and, you know, what he can and can't say or maybe what he wouldn't, wouldn't say in a book.

Is it more difficult to adapt something like that? it's so dense and because there's almost like a pre-visual storytelling aspect to the way he's writing from people's perspectives inside their minds? Or is it actually more of a thrill because you're stripping away everything? And you can say, what are the essential things that I want to show on a screen? That's really, I mean, a really interesting question because it goes to the heart of this whole thing. Because I think Dickens was visual, even though he knew that what he was writing would never be visualised. He was visual in the sense of how he describes things of how he, this is why I think he would be writing for the screen as well as novels now.

But he does paint that picture, but he doesn't just paint the picture with a description of the room. He does it with the way that people talk and the dialogue gives you fast access to who that character is without him ever having to say this person is like this. It's like the way they speak, gives you everything you need to know about the character. So then you have to look at the density of it. Dickens is very dense and realize that, you know, you can only pick the apples. You can't have the whole tree. You can't have the bits, you know. And so therefore, you have to not be selective. You have to tell the same story in a different way. I think you have to because she can't just go stepping stones.

And then I think the way that Dickens write, in my opinion, I'm probably wrong, but in my opinion, I think he set off writing things without knowing where he was going particularly accurately. Because the twists and the turns that come from the way he writes, which is so brilliant, I think he stumbled across them as he went. I don't think he did a map. either. Right. Right. And I think that that really helps me. Because these things come from nowhere

sometimes, which is great. Did you ever have a very rigid writing habits where you had index cards and scene numbers or, you know, long outlines or anything like that? It was always just sort of a free write for you? Yeah. As I said, I used to pretend that I did it because I thought that's what writers do, you know when I first starting out, but I never did because it doesn't, it doesn't work. I mean, everybody's different. So everybody writes in a different way. Everybody comes to, and, you know, stuff that's been written according to a plan and in that other way is some of the best stuff that's ever been written.

It's brilliant. It works beautifully as well for other people. But for me, I can't write it unless I'm inventing it in that moment. If I'm writing it down, then it's. it just feels a bit logical. Can we talk a little bit about the dialogue

and great expectations, but it's kind of a broader question about your approach to dialogue, which I honestly love so much, especially in rogue heroes and Piki Blinders, but it's the essence of Dickens

but in the sort of vernacular of Stephen Knight, is that the fair way to put it? Yeah, I mean, dialogue is the thing that I love to write the most. And that's where, for me,

everything comes from the dialogue. and sometimes if it's not an adaptation, a line of dialogue can change the plot. And I think it should. I think it should have all, you know, the most recent thing should have authority over what's written before.

Yeah. And I mean, Dickens' dialogue obviously is incomparable. But I try where possible to have the dialogue be the story. And make it as, try and do it in such a way that you think, okay, this character has just said that, it's just said this line. The other character, what would they say?

Not what should they say in order to move the plot along? What would they actually say in response? Were their actual response to this? Yeah. And then if you can stay true to that, then sometimes the plot changes. In an upcoming episode of the show,

it's just the next one, so I don't feel like I'm spoiling great expectations for people, but there's just these amazing scenes between Pip and Jaggers that feel exactly like that, where it just feels like on their ride into London, the exchanges that they're having are Dickens, but are also like two guys riding horses into London, you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I mean, hopefully that's the case. And to try and, as I say, let the characters in the dialogue cause the plot to move along. You know, so many different people have done their adaptations of great expectations from David Lean to Quaron. And I know that you said when you were working on Spencer that you kind of, this is honestly the best thing that's ever happened. We're not on camera.

So the cat, we're getting a lot of cat right now. So it's just a podcast, but people should know, you know, what you go through for your art. You, Quaron, David Lean. And then, you know, I know that you said that when you were doing Spencer, you were trying to avoid watching the crown. You didn't want basically the other takes on these characters or other takes and stories to be in there.

So did you kind of go into a great expectations blackout at a certain point to work on this? Yeah, I mean, I didn't look at any. The only thing I did was read the book. I didn't look at any. I mean, I've seen them, obviously, in the part, but I haven't seen the more recent ones. The ones I've seen are so old.

You know, the David Lean one is the one that, obviously. The thing with David Lean is, you think it's your imagination. The images that he created, you think he moved them up yourself. That's so fundamentally part of imagination. And that's what's so important about him. I feel that way about Lords of Arabia in a lot of ways.

Sometimes when I close my eyes and if I think about that movie, it's pretty foundational to what I think movies can do. And when you see the scenes again, you can't believe how they're burned into your mind. mind because you're like, oh, and then I remember the dust goes like this, and then he's going to come across the screen like that. Yeah. I wanted to ask a little bit about the kind of personal connection to great expectations, because I know that you've talked a little bit about sharing a sort of early profession with Pip and what there was about this book that's obviously Dickens,

but that starts to fit into what you want to say about the world. And what is it that makes great expectations, almost a Stephen Knight story as much as a Charles Dickens story. I mean, it's not a Stephen Knight story, but I think it's very interested in that I think great expectations is about class, which is very unfashioned at the moment. And it's about division of society according to class and where you're born. It's very relevant in the UK and still sort of relevant in the US. But I mean, my connection with it is that my dad was a blacksmith and farrier and I've got lots of brothers and sisters. and all the brothers, he used to get up at school

and he said, do you want to go to school or do you want to come shoe him with me? So we'd go shoe him instead of going to school. I'd be sort of working with horses, taking the shoes off doing the forge and the shoes and everything. And it's a brutally hard job. It's quite picturesque, but it's really, really hard

and a bit dangerous. And I wasn't very good. One of my brothers went on to do it for a living, but I never did. And there's Pip who, I mean, according, in the book, you don't get an indication. He's probably good at it, but he chooses not to do it. But I just felt that thing of when he, you know, he says,

I want to be a gentleman. I think people don't really appreciate how odd it was at that time for someone who is a black boy to say, I want to be a gentleman. It's like saying, I want to be a horse or a crocodile. You know, it's just, it's absurd to the audience that was reading at the time. Yeah. But then my question and experience is that coming from where I'm from, can you get away from that even now? Is it possible to, and what of the difficulties?

You know, I just, in my life and experience was that it took 20 years to recover, to not recover, but to reach a point that you would have been at if you had been born in a different place. It takes a long time. I have a working theory about your television work, which is that you are secretly writing a history of England through your serieses. Yes, that's a good thing. But no, Christmas Carol, great expectations and taboo span much of the 19th century. Peaky blinders and rogue heroes take up the first 50 years of the 20th. And now this town in the 1980s, right? I mean, you've just got a couple of decades to go.

but I think that the way that class shapes reality is a through line, whether you're adapting Dickens or doing World War II or doing SCA and Birmingham. I mean, it's a really interesting idea. Yeah, absolutely. No, it's true. You always need someone else to spot the pattern, I think. I'm handed you the Stephen Knightverse right here, you know? Exactly.

I mean, the decade I really want to do is the 60s as well, Mike. because people don't do the 60. And it's such an interesting day. It's probably, I mean, because it feels so well-worn, right? You know, because it's like the upheaval of the 60. Yeah. Yeah. I wanted to ask a little bit about kind of the process of where you're at in your career

working on these series that have your fingerprints all over them but are directed by different people or on different networks and everything. And how you kind of centralize the creativity. because, you know, Great Expectations has this incredible feel and look, and the directors did such a wonderful job coming up with this distinct vision of England at the time that feels very spectral but also very real.

What's your relationship to the filmmakers when you get to a point where you're, you know, okay, I'm going to go hire somebody to have this thing that's been in my head for months and try and put it on screen for six hours and my name is going to be created by up there? Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, it's different for TV and film.

And I don't know why it's different, but it is. With TV, you know, obviously, it's the writer's medium as everyone knows. So what you've written is probably what's going to get made. I mean, it's increasingly true in film as well now, but I tend to write a lot of direction. Okay. And try to be very specific about how it should look. Like down to like two shot medium, this kind of thing? Not shots, but, you know, this is what the room should look like.

And this is sort of this is the emotion you should take from it. But having said that, you then have to get the very best directors. And there are some brilliant ones about it. And we have some great ones for great expectations, too, who then take it and then make it real and make it unbelievable. And it's different. I remember when I first started when I did dirty pretty things

I was horrified it was a brilliant film because I didn't understand it was different to how it looked in my head and I didn't realize it was going to be different to how it looked in my head but it's got to be

and it worked beautifully but I just that's not what it was and you get used to that and then you try and get it to be as close as possible but yeah I mean I've been fortunate enough to work with some fantastic directors

who have taken the vision and then moved it on another land. Yeah, I was reading some stuff that Brady was saying about rules that he had for even just, you know, whether or not someone is entering a room or not in a scene. And I just thought that gave the material this really lively feel, even though obviously great expectations is this incredibly dense text. Why do you, you just direct your feature work? Do you, have you done TV direction very much? I mean, I'm not, I wouldn't call myself a Derry.

I'm a writer, definitely. And if no one else will do it, I'll tell you. So you couldn't get anyone else to do, to do Locke? I mean, Locke was inspired by what we were just talking about, which was how can you make what appears on the screen as close as possible to what you wrote? Yeah. So remove the variables as much as possible. the things that can go wrong.

And so that was one person in one location in the car driving and you just film it. And the dialogue is word for word. So that was sort of an experiment in how you can do that. But things like Serenity and Hummingbird, really things that no one else would donate. And so I do, television, I mean, doing, for example, if you, if you signed on to do a six part, six one hours TV thing, that's a year and a half of your life, really. And I've got so much other,

I've got so much to write, I can't really do that. But I think I'm thinking about it, just doing something that's controllable and achievable. Yeah. I often note that when a show will first be announced, there will be like, and so-and-so is going to direct all six or all eight-ups. episodes and then closer to the release of the show, it's like, this person directed the first three

episodes and then thought better of it. Yeah. I wanted to ask a little bit about kind of where your career is at right now because it seems as though, you know, you've had this incredibly prolific period over the last couple of years. And you've mentioned before that you had a bunch of material kind of that came out of the pandemic and just kind of grinding out stuff. And, and, yeah, I was curious whether the pandemic time changed your writing habits or the way you wrote at all, or if there's anything kind of like post that era of a creative explosion, really, that you've sort of been able to sustain now that everything is getting made. Less trouble is the absolute consequence is, you know,

I used to be back and forth to L.A. all the time. Yeah. I was on a British Airways plane and the stewardess said, I've just checked your card and you've got more air miles

than me. And I just thought it was ridiculous. But then the pandemic hits and I didn't go at all and now, you know, because of Zoom I can do,

I can do it. And that really does make a difference because it's not just the time because I used to write on the plane that's one thing, but it's just the disruption of the time and the jet lag and all of that.

And it really does knock you you know, you know, it stops you doing stuff. So I think it's more consistent now. I've got more and, I mean,

it didn't really change the way I write, but it gave me more time to do it because when nothing it made, I just wrote to me. And now you're sort of starting to centralise a lot of the production, right? Are you building studios in Birmingham? Yeah.

I'm going to, I'm doing everything. Well, all television I'm doing through the studio in Birmingham. And I'll start doing film as well through the, because it's my hometown. It's never been known for its film and television production. I want it to become that, and I want to explore the other people who are like me

who are coming through who have got stories to tell and give people, not give them, I'm going to rent a venue to do stuff, you know. It's not like I'm trying to be good. It's just something I want to do. Yeah. my last question has to do with sort of the way in which in the last couple of years, and I just wanted to get your take on it, there's been this obvious wheel turn towards developing and or reimagining previous intellectual property, expanding currently existing stories to have spinoffs, film executions. I know that Peekey Blinders is you're looking at doing stuff like that. Do you find that that comes with its ups and downs, that this sort of move towards hey, we just made Batman five years ago, but let's make Batman again? Or is there anything else we can squeeze out of this?

I really wanted to get your perspective on that because you're once a benefactor, you benefit from it, but you also go against the tide because shows like Peky Blinders and rogue heroes are original stories, you know? Yeah. I completely believe that it's a shame that specifically Hollywood, you know, is keen to keep milk in the same cows. But I understand this business and they want to make money.

But I do think that the idea that some of it works, I will do it again and again and again takes away space from the new thing that's going to work. So I do try to balance it so that I am doing the original stuff of new story.

Well, I guess it's, I mean, it comes down to how you view something, right? Because, you know, you're working on on Star Wars and it was reported that you're working on Vertigo. And those stories are, is that that much different than working on great expectations? You know, like it's, they're all stories. And they all have a sort of hold on the popular imagination. Yeah, I mean, I think Vertigo in particular and what's Star Wars as well.

You know, these are things that are part of the culture. They're part of our civilization, you know. And there's no reason why. you can't engage with things like that. You know, I used to have arguments with my kids, you know, and they'd talk about Star Wars and Marvel and DC and all that. And they'd say, well, do you read Greek myths? What's the difference?

Yeah. You know, it's people with superpowers. And these are stories that have been viewed, and that pretty much about human beings being human beings actually. Yeah. And so, you know, it's like, you know, the American mythology is just being born before our rights. Okay, before I let you go, just tell me a little bit about this town,

because it just sounds about the coolest thing I've ever heard. It's set in Birmingham and Coventry. It's four people who, I didn't want to make it about four people get together and form a band, even though they do. It's four people who are born in a big, housing states, and they're in very difficult situations. and they get into a position where they either get famous or die. And it's about the music scene of Scar and two-tone.

I mean, it was what I experienced in the early 80s of going to pubs after football matches and hearing this music. And basically an effortless thing happened where black and white people got together, not because they thought they had to prove a point, but because they liked the same music and they used to get together and be together and dance the same music.

And I just think it's such an odd, remarkable thing that no one made it happen. It just happened in places where conflict was much more likely than an absence of conflict. I can't wait for this. I can't wait for this and I can't wait for Rogue Heroes Season 2, which is it's such a good time with that show.

Stephen Knight, thank you so much for joining me today on The Watch. I love your work and everybody should check out great expectations. Take care. My cat is saying goodbye as well. Thank you to Stephen Knight's cat as well.