The Watch - Joanna Robinson On Netflix’s Increasing UK Presence, Sharon Horgan’s ‘Youth,’ and ‘Slow Horses’ Season 6, Episode 2.

Episode Date: September 25, 2026

Chris is joined by Joanna Robinson to talk about the series announcements that came out of Netflix’s first ever UK Upfront presentation (2:09), ‘The Beast in Me’ returning for a second season despite being marketed as a limited series (13:58), and increasing price hikes across streaming services (21:23). Then they discuss the HBO series premiere of ‘Youth,’ starring Sharon Horgan (30:43) and ‘Slow Horses’ Season 6, Episode 2 (43:35). Later, they react to The New York Times’ “100 Best TV Shows of the 21st Century” list and reveal their own ballots (54:35). Subscribe to the Ringer TV YouTube channel here for full episodes of The Watch and so much more! Follow us on IG and TikTok! Host: Chris Ryan Guest: Joanna Robinson Producers: Kaya McMullen and Kai Grady Studio Production: Jason Arreola Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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sports to have to clear the room. Stand up and walk now. Hello and welcome to the watch. My name is Chris Ryan. I am an editor at the rigger.com joining me in the studio. Her season one

demise was greatly exaggerated. It's Joanna Robinson. It's Series one, Chris. You're right. Well, this is a very anglo-philic pod today. Joe, thank you for joining me. Andy is out today. We have some news at the top.

going to talk about Sharon Horgan's new show. I don't know why I seem to pronounce that with like two R's and an I in Horgan but I'm like... Just to get, make sure people know she's Irish. Yeah, exactly. Sharon Hogan's new show youth, the first two episodes of which are up on HBO.

We're going to talk a little bit about slow horses. We're going to talk a little bit about the unfolding New York Times best of the century list for TV, which we contributed to. And it's like, as we're recording, I think they've revealed up to 20, I believe.

All I know is Andor's 32, which too low for Andor. Well, I'm sure we have some common ground. We have some diversions. I wanted to talk to you about the act of list making in general, but some news at the top. First of all, how are you doing? Oh, great. Here's my question about today. Is this our soft launch for Ringer UK?

Where you and I move to the UK and just talk about British television. You know, over the years, every time I start to work up the courage to really interrogate it, They get a new prime minister. And I'm like, let's see how this one works out. Okay. You know, so like I'm pretty fired up about burn them, burnmentum. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm feeling the burn.

Yeah. And yet, you know, by the time I start packing my bags, I'm going to go in November. So hopefully. We're both going in November. Yeah. Yasi's going in November. Yeah. Didn't Yassi just get back from that?

Like, this is the thing. Okay. Okay. Richard Osman. Asman, we're coming for your job. That's right. That's what I have to say. Which one of his jobs.

Writing cozy mysteries or hosting a pod with Renoires, you know? Speaking of England, speaking of British TV, which we generally really like and has had such a profound impact on the way that American TV, I think, is made and received. Especially right now. It's part of like the internationalization, the globalization of television. They did an upfront, you know, sort of a showing their wares for Netflix UK, which was of special interest to me because I am of the opinion. that a lot of their shows from this sort of region and this department of Netflix have been kind of keeping some of their prestige efforts afloat.

Adolescence and baby reindeer. Yeah, yeah. And even stuff like Black Doves, which certainly will entertain your John Wick fans, I think has a lot of weight to it. And Joe Barton is a great writer, and I really can't wait for this to come back. So I can run down sort of the big announcements.

Netflix UK Witch Hunt Which is a dark drama And these are loglines I'm taking from deadline A dark drama about a modern day witch hunt Starring Sarah Lancashire Written by Abby Morgan and You Say What Could not be more for me

This is I'm really glad you're reading Because these are These are just for me Are they not? Did they not say here are three shows for you Dorana Robinson? A witch show is Sarah Lancashire An icon

Yeah. We are going to talk about the New York Times list, but I don't know if you did this. Something I did is when I was again, the sort of like various luminaries who had made their list, I was playing a game where I would like look at the list and try to guess like kind of who the person was. Yes. And, you know, I was like, oh, this is, and you know, you can tell who's from the UK if they have Happy Valley on their list. Happy Valley was on, was the most, I would say, represented UK show from what I saw. Yes. If you were involved in one side or the other of Brexit.

Yeah. You love Happy Valley. So Sarah Lancashire and ICON for a number of shows. And then Abby Morgan. I mean, honestly, if the hour had been allowed to end on its own terms, it would have been on my list, on my top 10 list. I love that. I'm going to check you soon because I think you're going to start saying things like that.

And then you're all of a sudden going to have 63 shows in your top 10 list. Had there just been one came out? I mean, but that's true. Yeah, what can you say? There's so much great television. And I didn't love her last endeavor, the coverbatch show. Yeah, I wasn't a huge fan. But it's a witch show.

Yeah. Chris, like an actual witch show. And Sarah Lancashire currently kind of a relief picture on Black Doves comes on for like, I don't know, like a dozen scenes a year or something like that. The Margottenale of the American sort of role. Yeah. And she's great on that. But it's cool to have her back in a leading role and paired with Abby Morgan, witch hunt sounds really cool. The other one that leapt off this page to me was Black Mirror, which is not Black Mirror, but Black Mirror, but it is from Charlie Brooker.

What's the name of the fictional town? Is it like Bleakshire? It's like, so this is a very serious quote unquote, a very serious crime thriller that takes a satirical look at serious crime thrillers. So I think it's supposed to be functioning on two levels. it is essentially like a I don't know if it's how lightly it's lampooning shows like Broadchurch and shows these Nordic Juars that I love and you love but Patty Concedon is starring with Rory Keneer and Georgina Campbell and this is coming in early 27 and it was interesting even the way that they described this in the deadline.com article where it was going to be

airing after black dubs as if it was almost a like they were thinking through the programming of them. Black Doves into Black Mirror? Yeah, but like in a sense, like the way the HBO kind of programs, like will lead you for eight weeks through lanterns and then after lanterns, you know, war will come on. There's always something on HBO Sunday night. Exactly. And I wonder, there are a lot of different divisions of Netflix and a lot of different divisions of Netflix programming. And the fact that they're just like, if you were to watch one episode of Black Doves a week, people won't do that. They will watch it in a weekend or over the course of a week. But if you wanted to watch one

episode of Black Doves a Week, it would take you right up to when we're releasing Black Mirror. But to your point, that's so hard to do in the binge culture. Because they don't know when people are watching their shows. And we don't know how to cover their shows because we don't know when people are watching this. This is like me telling myself that like I will look at Instagram for 10 minutes a day. Yeah. You know, and just respond to some DMs.

And no, it's terrible. It's awful. I have so many half-started sweet potato dishes and cats that I'm stalking and stuff like that. I'm all up on this lesbian bar drama in the Western Massachusetts. It's just terrible. Can I say the lesbian bar drama has been the joy of my life this week? It's rocked our

household. How are the milk takes for you? Well, on Instagram or? The milk. The milk adjacent takes? Oh, yes. I mean, like, this is rocked our house. Yeah. Deeper than any story. I can't even think of until the last time we've been as captivated.

Phoebe did text me about it this morning. It was very special. We haven't even started discussing my dating history in Western Massachusetts, which is not Legion, but is... But do you think it touches clowns school? You know, I don't know. Okay.

We can't be sure. I may have to go and do some on the ground reporting and just feel like, yeah. Yeah. Okay. Masked up, obviously. No other way. So people don't know. Boston Globe published an article about a lesbian community in Western Massachusetts

that was, you know, very centered around a bar. that had been there where they were very COVID conscious to this day. And you know what? It turns out that the comment section just blew itself up. And this bar has kind of fallen apart. The community has fallen apart over a lot of stuff. It's really got to read it to believe it. Like Twitter hasn't been this good in so long.

And also did you see the Boston Globe said this was their most trafficked article in one? Yes, which has led to the my gateway to it was everybody making spotlight memes. about the COVID-conscious lesbian bar in Western Massachusetts and Mark Ruffalo being like, they knew Ruffian. That's my favorite of the tweets. That's the best one. God damn. It's just the internet.

So that's, how did we get on to Western Massachusetts lesbians? I don't know. I'm sorry. Oh, when I tell myself. But I did set a clock for myself as to when we would talk about it. When I'm like, oh, I'm just going to watch one. If I like the show, it's just there's nothing better. I have to hold myself.

back usually when I have screeners and stuff to like blow to not blow through them. Yeah, absolutely. You know, and I did, I just did that with youth where I was like, no, watch it with the people. Don't have like a, nope, see? I ruined myself. You are, you are a gay, like a real enabler when it comes to this. It's true. Yeah.

You're the queen of, hey, if you checked out East of East of Eden, I've watched it. I've watched all of it. The problem with youth or even something like furious, if they put a will, they won't they in there, It's really hard for me to stop. You know, and if part of the will they won't they is Rupert friend with a Scottish accent, then I have a really difficult time stopping. The other show that Netflix UK announced was hot or cold. And this is, this is, again, like if you were going to say Sarah Lancashire and Abby Morgan making a witch drama,

the opposite side of that coin, but still beloved by Joe, would be a new comedy, entertainment format, and challenge-based game show led by British comedians Bob Mortimer. and Richard Iowadi. I mean, Richard Aywati and Bob Mortimer are two of my favorites of all times. This is like drafting off of Taskmaster. Richard Iowait on the current season of Taskmaster, absolutely crushing it. And what's the name of the show where they can't laugh? Oh, last one laughing UK.

Yeah, of course. They're both. Bob won the first series. Spoilers for that. The most absurd show I've ever seen. The fact that they're like tasks and challenges involved is very taskmaster. and they said like an all-star cast of comedians, but they haven't announced who,

so I can't wait to see who the contestants are. Yeah. This is so for me. This is great. This is just wonderful. It's interesting to me. It's kind of like what these guys do. And it's like, so Taskmaster,

I think you can watch on Amazon Prime in some capacity. And YouTube. It's all on YouTube. And Last One Laughing, and you can watch on Prime. I would say that for people who aren't familiar with what we're talking about, this is a comedian

a comic version of British Bake Off. It's so cozy to watch it. These shows are like so warm even though they're sometimes spiky and sometimes like irreverent and absurd that I just feel like it levels out my heart rate at the end of the day.

We've talked about this before how just UK panel shows which include Taskmaster or what I lie to you or there's just like a number of versions is just my most comfort YouTube rewatch situation. It's why spoiler, Taskmaster landed on my top 10 of New York Times TV list, which is insane.

But like, I had to have Tass Restaurant. I have an unscripted one on mine as well. Yeah. But yours is more prestigious than mine, I think. But I think that it's so interesting to me to have these up fronts, which have to be, first of all, thank you so much to Netflix and the UK in general for making these three shows just for me. I had not said Black Mirror out loud to myself. It's very hard.

Well, the fact that it is Black Mirror, but Black Mirror is really. I hope it's black mare. Black mare. Black mare. But adolescents and baby reindeer being such an explosive, a positive thing for them has to be the reason why we're getting such a, like a splashy announcement for something like this, do you think? I wonder whether or not, you know,

because Andy has talked about Netflix's efforts to kind of begin doing literary adaptations and maybe getting back a little bit into the more prestigious television space after a couple of years of blockbusters or pretty repeatable, you know, sitcoms and melodramas and stuff like that. Yeah. And that they might try to like make an effort to be more, you know. Like it feels like they were trying to do Heartland sort of stuff. Yeah.

I think so. Yeah. They're like, we want back in the Emmys race. And I think they know when they look at the numbers that like something like untamed. Yeah. With Eric Banna, just like does blockbuster numbers for them. Or something like, I mean, Virgin River was on for like five or six or something. six years or whatever it was.

Like, they know what people are watching. But I think after this Emmys, after, you know, we'll see what happens with the Oscars. Like, it's been a minute since they've polished any trophies, you know. I mean, I know Matthew Reese won for a show we're about to talk about. But I wonder if the Apple success is, you know, part of that. I think that could be it. In terms of like Apple getting forever hilarious that Apple got the best picture Oscar before Netflix when Netflix threw so much money at the wall for years to try to make that happen.

Yes. And then, yeah, and then this recent Apple success. And I think as these streamers and these networks continue to try to find their identity, so interesting to watch Amazon's identity, Prime Video's identity coalesce around this sort of Y-A romance thing that they're doing. The Apple identity emerge as wildly original sci-fi horror programming and also dad shows. And like sensitive dromedies kind of, like 30-minute star-driven dromedies kind of. Yeah.

And then for Netflix, which has never had an identity, Netflix has always proposed were everything, you know, I think it's interesting for them to try to put their stamp on one thing or another. Yeah. Well, the one big award, if I'm correct, I believe I'm correct, that Netflix pulled from the broadcast Emmys last week, last week. And it was Matthew Reese's trophy for best actor in a limited series anthology or made for TV movie. Correct. And then today, mere days after the Emmys, after we all said, what a historic victory for an amazing guy. Wow. Nobody deserves it more.

Three Emmys at the Reese household. It was announced that the Beast in Me, which was conceived, this is from the Hollywood Reporter, the Beast in Me, which was conceived, executed, and won Emmys as a limited series. Now, though, Netflix has ordered a second season of the show with Claire Dane's set to reprise her role and showrunner Howard Gordon returning.

Let me just say this. I'm wearing an A's hat, but I'm all at the Philadelphia out. Boo! Bullshit! This is bullshit. This is horrible. Not the first time someone has done this, right?

Big Little Lies did this for sure. I feel like maybe a couple other limited series have done this, but, you know, with love and respect to Matthew Reese, who we adore, give that Emmy back. Also gives his wife a chance to catch up which he deserves that chance. But I mean, like, I can't. I can believe they did this, but it is, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's,

after FX. Now, Shogun, I believe they announced before the Emmys and during the like nomination, like, what are you running for? I believe FX was like Shogun isn't going to be, is going to be a returning series. Yeah. Yeah. I'm trying to remember who another, I believe HBO did that as well for White Lotus. No, it would be an anthology series, so it would be fine. Yeah. Somebody else did this. Big little lies, I think.

Big little lies. announced that like hey please don't consider us limited anymore oh no no I think the little lies one in limited and then I'm sorry I did this and then announced season two so I think this is worse shit yeah I also

they knew as somebody who's been watching watching Claire Danes for nigh on 35 years or whatever whatever my so-called life came out that is 35 years I would not say that Aggie from Beast and me is my like preferred character for her to do a continuing role in. This is just simply not a story that we need more of at all.

And I'm not even sure it was a story that we needed as many episodes that we got in the first place. So I'm curious to see whether or not they change the tone of the show. If Howard Gordon and Howard Gordon's made a lot of really great television shows, but he has shown a propensity in the past for Homeland to put Claire Daines's fictional characters in the worst possible situations over and over and over again. And so, you know, there are certain parts of the first season that I hope don't make the transition. Oh, like, which monster is moving in next door? Yeah.

I hope this isn't involving her neighborhood in East Hampton. I hope she no longer has writer's block. And I hope she's figured out whatever is going on in her personal life. Yeah. What about the plumbing in her house? That would help too. This is real only murders in the building. I feel like maybe only murders did something like this because that was sort of supposed to be a one and done kind of thing.

I feel like it was. But that's a premise where it's like one murder in the building, fine. And then we kept going. I have stopped watching only murders in the building but they went to London, didn't they? Yeah, and they went to L.A. Like, they were branching out.

But there were a couple murders in that building. And so, yeah, if Aggie's neighborhood winds up being sort of like murder, she wrote Cabot Cove where there's just too many preposterous psychopaths in her neighborhood, that would be interesting. I hope that they mix it up. Maybe she could be on the road. Maybe she could...

Road trip with Aggie? Aggie goes to L.A. There's all sorts of things. I do want to ask you... Sounds like a really bad time. So this award that Matthew Reese has stolen from the Television Academy. Who would we give it to?

That's exactly what I was going to act. The other nominees were Riz Ahmed for Bait. Yeah. Jason Bateman for Black Rabbit. Yeah. Charlie Hunnam for Monster. Oscar Isaac for Beef. I'm giving it to...

to Oscar Isaac. Well, let me... I like to be... Off the top of your head, can you think of anyone who should have gotten the nom slot? Not should have.

I know that, like, you know, there was a big, uh, to do over Paul Anthony Kelly not getting nominated for, for playing JFK Jr. But I wouldn't have nominated him.

So, uh, no, I, you know, did Melton run in supporting for beef? I believe you did. It was a, it was a funky category this year.

When in previous years, it's been sort of, there was that era of television when this was, all the rage Oh, of course. Yeah. You know. Yeah.

So, no, I can't think of anyone who was sort of robbed in the nomination. Yeah. I mean, there's a couple of shows that I think were in, you know, they were limited until they weren't,

you know, like I wonder how much they envisioned, say, the lowdown as like an ongoing series when they first pitched it or first conceived of it because Ethan Hogs busy and it's like how often can you make this?

Yeah. You know, and he had been nominated for the John Brown show for a little, Little Bird, Good Lord Bird, a couple years ago. But yeah, I probably, they'd probably give it to the JFK guy. They obviously loved him, right?

I guess, I guess Oscar Isaac. I mean, I think Beef Season 2 was sort of oddly maligned. I really liked it, and I thought he was great. Yeah. Okay, we've gotten to the bottom of that. Matthew Reese, you've cheated us. Your days are number. Yeah, I'm boycotting Windows Bay.

I'm not. You're still quite pretty. beloved, but this is bullshit. It is funny. It'll be like a testament to his approval reading that people are like, eh. I mean, how could he have known? Of anyone. Did you hear the story?

I mean, like, every single Matthew Reese, Carrie Russell, Emmy's story was, could not have been more charming. But did you hear the answer that he gave when they asked where he keeps his Emmys? No. He says he keeps the first one and now, I guess, two and three in the basement. Okay. And he says they'll come out of the basement when Carrie has an Emmy. that's a that's just like really classy I know that's really classy could not be more charming but I say only two in the basement Reese and give the other one back that's right um I wanted to ask you a bit a showbiz question yeah please

obviously with the paramount Warner brothers merger more or less going through I saw that a judge asked for a stay today to like scrutinize something but yeah by all accounts by everything you're hearing around town like this is happening people are preparing for it in various ways. I think everybody is sort of taking a look at the landscape. WGA settled. WGA settled. But like there is a judge who's like,

huh, let me look at this. I don't really know what he can do. Obviously, like the whole world is like in front of judges right now. But it seems like this is happening. And it seems like there's going to be consolidation. And it seems like we're going to be entering, I think, an arms race, a new arms race in some ways. I mean, I know that there's a lot of debt attached to the Paramount deal.

there's the rumor or the reporting that Elon Musk is going to be a part of like funding for Paramount. Like you can tell by our flatness of our reaction there that that's not something that we're super psyched about. But I was looking at this story that's unrelated to Paramount Warner Brothers, which is that Disney Plus is upping its subscription fee to $21.99 per month for no ads. Now, I will say that like you can still bundle Disney and Hulu and I think it's the same price. Like it always depends on like what you're where you got in and what you're doing with it and whether you got the whole Disney plus ESPN Hulu package. Like I think there are still. Cable packages are back. Values there.

But 2199 is so far from I think it was like five bucks when they debuted it or something like that. Yeah. And there's two really important points to make here. One I thought of and one you thought of. What is what is the what is the season? ceiling, the price ceiling for these streaming services. Right. They can keep saying, now it's 4K and now it's in Dolby or whatever,

which entirely matters on what you've already paid for the crap in your apartment or house. They can say it's, you know, they can start metering it. Like, I don't know, like, where that the, the problem with is that all these companies are structured as publicly traded technology companies now. And so, like, there's going to have to be constant iteration and constant, shareholder growth for them to kind of maintain control over this. Is there a number in your mind that if you were just

like a regular Joe, Joanna? Yeah. And not I need this for my job. Would just be like, why? I think it's already there. Yeah. Don't you think it's already there? Like past 20 bucks is already there per I mean, I know streaming service. Dozens of people in my like normal life who are like, I just, I don't have Paramount Plus. Yeah. Well, no, they all make, not they all, but like a lot of people pick and choose, you know, and that sort of destroys our ability to have

conversations about shows when people are like, oh, I don't have that streaming platform. Or they turn it on and turn it off, right? Is there a new season of Survivor? Then I turn it on. If it's not on, I turn it off. Your metering idea was really funny because I just got, I just got a flash of a horrible feeling. You know how in the, when you get sort of, if one has central AC in Los Angeles and the heat is heating and you, and you turn on your AC and then you get your bill and you're like, wow, I was really indulged myself in the ASE. Imagine if you're like, go through like a depressive

phase and you just need to like binge a bunch of television and your bill reflects it and you're like, wow. I'm talking about it. What happens when the melatonin hits and you don't turn the laptop off or something? Oh, no. And you're just like 64 episodes of Virgin River. And you pay the price. So that's like a speculation.

I mean, I am kind of surprised that, you know, they've come down pretty hard on sharing accounts on password sharing. I wonder when contracts come into play. Interesting. Like year long.

Lock your Netflix fee in now for two years and avoid any further price hikes. Wow. Like that kind of thing. Netflix is just an example. I'm not saying that's going to happen, but like, look at what Disney does to their perks. Are you saying that that's like... No, of course it is. I'm not putting anything past these guys.

No, of course not. The thing that you brought up that I thought was fascinating is you know, as we just spent 20 minutes lamenting kind of like what Netflix is offering us. Yeah. As you spent, we spent like four years getting a bunch of Marvel and Star Wars shows of varying degrees of quality. How dare you. All that stuff seems to be like the Disney thing specifically. What are they offering you aside from the library right now? Yeah, exactly.

It's funny. So, you know, I have a Disney Plus subscription. I don't really use it that often. Because I watch a lot of stuff on Hulu, so that's not where I watch it. I get an alert. I do password share. Come find me. Come find me anyone at Disney.

But a password share with my sister who has kids. I get alert every time they log in and I just text her. I'm like, what are you guys watching? It's just like, they're constantly on my Disney Plus. Love that for them. watching old Disney stuff because they have kids. So, like, if you have kids and you want access to that library, that makes all the sense in the world.

But if you don't need that, then what is Disney Plus providing for you that you can't get on Hulu? And I mean, I think that we talked about this about the shrinking of the MCU and the Star Wars properties. This is like, this is Bob Eager's big idea, right? We'll just sort of like, we'll win the streaming wars handily if we take our big franchises. But what it did is it made these big franchises. franchises feel small.

Yes. You know, it just wore everyone out. It just, it just did damage across the board. It was just like one of the worst moves that has ever happened, I think, in Hollywood. I also think, you know, our buddy Zach Barron just did an interview with Mahershal Ali on Zach's GQ show. And, you know, he talked very candidly about his experience, trying to make Blade and Kevin Feige.

And I, one thing that leapt out in me was this idea that Marvel's specific approach. to making to doing their storytelling and to doing like their kind of creative control over how these stories get told is pretty wonky on a movie to movie basis but sometimes has its great successes yeah it's catastrophic for tv it doesn't work at all i'm not even sure i understand how it's happened how it's working right now i understood how it was working before and not well but i understood the the system and now the system has changed slightly i think because they're in sort of panic mode in on the movie side. So there's less of... They were already stretched too thin trying to handle all of these shows and it just sort of made everything worse. Yes.

But I think once they sort of returned their focus to, okay, if we can't make Avengers Doomsday happen, if we can't land it with that, if this Sony Spider-Man Copro doesn't make a bazillion dollars and it did, good job. But then what are we even doing here? This doesn't matter if we have Wonder Man season two. Exactly.

So Wonder Man season two is canceled. They just announced that Daredevil is going to end with season three, which I think is a mercy kill as far as I'm concerned. And they've got about two shows that I know of that are maybe in development. Sure. And then there's like some fallony stuff for Star Wars, Asoka. Kind of. A...

Is there anything else? Not really. No. I mean, like after Mandalorian the movie, do you go back to TV? Who knows? I know. What's Pedro's price tag at this point? I don't know.

But, like, it's a, it was a calamity in sort of the live action. Let's get adult fans into this space. So if we're going to lean back into, like, sort of, this is for kids, you know, for kids. Yeah. Like, I personally, for me personally, fan of, like, the witch show that's coming in, I'm really excited for Vision Quest. Sure. Like, Vision Quest is something I'm genuinely, like, really looking forward to.

But in general, the state of Disney franchise television, I think. think is pretty bleak. And so the audacity of them to bump their, their price at this point is, is wild to me. Yeah. And then you read, you know, you read accounts of like people who are going to the parks and they're just like everything is like from the second you start thinking about going to your experience getting there, staying there, visiting the parks, your experience in the parks and getting out, like everything is about them maximizing what they can squeeze out of you. It's like the master of the house song from Le Miserables. Yeah. Where you like

charge you to sit on a bench and charge, yeah. And in some ways like the entire like, this is a good analogy for like what streaming was supposed to be versus where we've arrived. Which is streaming was supposed to be like, oh my God, now I can watch everything. It's at my fingertips. You know, I don't have to live in reruns

or DVRs. Like I can watch all of 30 Rock or all of lost or whatever and that's great. And that wasn't good enough. So now there's this kind of fracturing of all these different properties. They're moving between streaming services and the services themselves

are like, it's been six months. We better like knock this up $2. And I understand why they're doing that. But it reminds me of like in my mind, flying used to just be flying. Like you would get on a plane and go. And then somewhere along the line, probably tied

with deregulation, they were like, what if we made everything about flying so uncomfortable that the person who was doing it was willing to pay anything they had to to get out of that. Yeah. To get out of like the experience of whether, you know, you're flying Southwest or whatever. You're like the, the maddening experience of like day-to-day travel. And that's kind of like what's happening with streaming where it's like, oh, like, do you want to have like no ads?

Well, I didn't have ads before. You know, why do you're connecting economy comfort plus to Disney Plus is the same. It's the same thing. Yeah. I hear you. Extra leg room means no ads. Exactly. Exactly. And then I guess if I wanted a good Star Wars show, it's like flying first class.

And or? Well, that made my list. I think we share that. And here, the Mona Lisa gazed into Mona's eyes in perfect health with no undiagnosed problems and her optic nerve in excellent condition. Anyone here got eyes like Mona? Mine are brownish. Not enough people know about their eye health. That's why OCT scans are included in every standard eye exam at Specsavers locations. Should have gone to Specsavers.

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And Google us. From the underworld of Guy Ritchie. Do you want to step up the ladder? I want combat dead. starring Tom Hardy, Pierce Brosnan, and Helen Mirren. Do I have to do everything myself? You want to want! I'll give you a more!

Mobland, new season is now streaming on Paramount Plus. All right, let's talk a little bit about youth, which is Sharon Horgan's new show on HBO. It's written and created by Horgan, and I would say it's part of a kind of continuum of semi-autobiographical shows that she has written or created. or co-created over the last, I believe, 17 years. That's when pulling comes out.

Is it 17 years ago, pulling? Oh, 6. Oh, 6? Yeah. Well, it's then 20 years. Yeah. 20 years of TV from her. Yeah.

Starting with pulling, which she wrote with Dennis Kelly and is about, like, young singles living in London, notably 2015's catastrophe with Rob Delaney, which was probably most people's introduction to her and her comedy. She wrote but did not appear or star in. Maybe she appeared in it. 2016's divorce, which was her first show with HBO. That was a Sarah Jessica Parker vehicle. Yeah.

2017's Motherland, which has a funny history where it was a, I think, an American pilot. American TV pilot, I believe she was like writing it. It didn't work. She took it back to the UK. Yeah. made it with a bunch of her kind of collaborators and that ran for like kind of an officey kind of three seasons and two specials

and now there's a spinoff called Amanda Land. I would say Lazy Punch, my favorite. Motherland is my favorite. You love Motherland. Well, I'll get to why. Horgan has also created like in the recent years like a couple of more genre experimented experimentation efforts, shining veil with Courtney Cox

and very successfully bad sisters on Apple especially the first season which was fantastic also 2000 which I really love that one that might be my favorite it's sister stuff

yeah I was you know I wasn't sure whether that was like yeah I guess that is sister stuff so that should go in the autobiographical category Youth Stars Morgan as Alex a 50 something divorced book agent her on again off again

boyfriend Pat is played by Rupert Friend. Aaron Murphy the son of Atlanta Brave Slugger Dale Murphy. Really? No. It's killing Murphy's kid. Damn. Wait, that's killing Murphy's kid? Of course it is. Wow, you just unlock something.

Yeah. Plays her university age son Rory. Charlene White plays Alex's boss, Sam. Owen McDonald plays her ex Lorkin. There is a, in the first episode, no big deal. A minor damaged men from Homeland

reunion. Not on screen at the same time, but we get Damien Lewis in a cameo and Rupert friend. We got Peter and Martin in this show. Damien Lewis has himself delightful. Really good. Some extras energy there. In this show, Alex has

various catastrophes, L.O. brewing at any given time. She has professional stress, romantic yearning, an annoying absentee ex-husband, a crisis of confidence about her health and appearance, and perhaps most of all, an antisocial teenage son who seems to have been kicked out of university during his first week of school. This is all kind of like in the first couple of episodes.

Played by killing Murphy's kid. Yeah. Wow. You really got me on that one. Let's start with what's your relationship to her work? Is this somebody who you have season tickets to? Do you follow her? Yes, I do.

I love her. I think, yeah, I think catastrophe was my introduction. And then I went back and watched Pulling and Bad Sisters. and I think what she's done, if you look at that 20-year span of work, even starting with polling, because every show she makes is sort of about a woman doing a thing that you would expect

but later than you would expect. That's a good way for it. So, you know, in polling, you're like a group of young women sort of singles, blah, blah, and she's like, she's 30. Yeah. You know, like she's 30 in that show. And then, like, catastrophes about this woman

who becomes a new mother, you know, a bit later than some people choose to do, is something like that. It's just sort of like, I don't know if it's her taking some time out of her own life to reflect. Bad sisters is about a woman who kills a guy later in life. Later than you would think. Start him young. That's what I say, you know.

And so I think that, and this certainly, like, you know, this is like a, I think a log line they're using is like a coming of age, you know, at 50 or something like that. So just sort of walk, the way she teeters the line between. unlikably self-centered and sort of the only sane person in the room and the way she's telling stories about women, I think is really, really fascinating. She's fantastic, and I think one of the things I like most about her

is how prolific she is. I always have a soft spot for people who are doers and get a lot of stuff, whether it's produced, but just like made, and you can kind of see, rather than anyone, you know, huge artistic statement, it's like a bunch of like singles to left, doubles to right, that they're like, you know, I'm working on this and I'm working on that.

And when you look at the totality of her work, what I just rattled off is a career, man. Like that's incredible that she's been working for 20 years on this project essentially of kind of documenting her, the changes in her life and in her body and in the world around her for this long. There's very few TV writers I can think of who have done a similar thing. I can't think of anyone who's done quite this.

And, you know, they're not, it's not an interconnected universe at all. That being said, I went back and watched the first couple episodes of pulling. And it's so interesting to watch her in that very first episode of pulling. She's sort of like looking at her face in the mirror and just sort of like wondering if it's saggier than it's been in the past. Or in youth when she winds up like late night drunk at a kebab shop, like that just, feels like such, you know, so there's just sort of like these, it's not the same character, but it is the same character and it is the same world. And like almost nothing's changed between 30 and 50, but so much has changed between 30 and 50.

So I just, I love just sort of existing in her world. Yeah, I like there's a moment on, in one of the first two episodes of youth where she's on a bus going somewhere and she sees a much older woman who's quite beautiful. But she's looking at this much older woman and absent-minded. like touching her own chin to be like is my chin sagging like this person and it's just like these little subtle things I think youth is is quite entertaining I'll just say this for the for the show in general we should just always have a show like this on this is like so low concept it's just about a person with a job and a family and a love life and there are like a B and C and D plots that are of varying levels of interest but I was so pleasantly like reminded of how much I like low

concept TV sometimes. Can I ask you, have you, are you current with adults, the FX show? Where is your affection level for adults? Very high. Very high. Okay. So I recently watched season two, which is sort of, I would say, similarly sort of low concept, group of friends living together, a bit like meta-zanier.

I think for episode to episode, it reminds me a lot of how I met your mother, where they try to do like these formal experiments within the construct of the episode, but maybe not. Like there's nothing crazy about like a bunch of people living together and trying to make it work in their 20s. But what they do within the episodes, it reminded me a lot of how I met your mother and some other shows, happy endings that have done like. It gave me real happy endings. What if we do like this completely like left field take on this version of this episode? Oh, like the trip episode, but we're going to do the 30 minutes before the drugs hit and stuff like that. Yeah, yeah.

But it was interesting to me and this is probably just a reflection of my age. like how much more I enjoyed hanging out in this world versus that world. And but similarly, I just, I do think that when smart people are writing just what it means to merely exist in a very low stakes way. And also there's the added benefit of this, of this show, the professional world that she's chosen, which is, you know, book, book agent is really, really fun. And just there's a romanticie book that's like a lot. large plot line. I mean, I already told you

that I watched ahead. It's called Goblin Seed and it's about like what if the fairy smut, but it's a goblin and it's just like... It's like having come a bit from the book world and having loved the Sudden Foster Show younger, which just spends all this time in just the ridiculous world of publishing.

It's really fun to be back there. What is the... I can't remember the name of the actress who plays. It's Harriet Walter is her daughter and then her mother is like this 90-year-old woman who's writing a book called Wagon Burner which is like got a lot of indigenous. It's a Western

with a lot of like indigenous sexual violence and they're trying to talk her out of that and it was like who is this person supposed to be mirroring in real life but I couldn't think of who it is. I feel like it's like if is it Gina All who wrote Clan of the Cave Bear

sort of that meets Danielle Steele but like decades into her career so she's just like whatever flu decades ago is not flying as well now and also she seems to have lost the plot a bit so she's just like not taking notes. Yes, she's not taking notes.

Anyway, all the publishing stuff is really fun. This is my, like, I don't even think this is like a note or a criticism. It's just an observation. So like I said, like of all of her shows, I think I responded to Motherland the most. And part of the reason for that is Anna Maxwell Martin is who everybody saw in Star City

if they got a chance to see Star City and is in line. If they listen to this show. If they respect your opinion. She's also in line of duty, I believe. She plays the Horton character in that show. And sometimes I feel like Sharon Hogan,

the actor, has an inside track on where things are going with the show because she's also the writer. And sometimes like the basically the gear shifts don't work as well for me when she's performing her own writing

as when the few experiences I've had watching her writing for others. Yeah, that's interesting. You think she's ahead of her own character. Kind of. Okay, that's interesting. Yeah. I thought about it that way.

I think there is, however, to her this sort of like hot girl energy arrogance that like a thinking woman's hot girl arrogance that comes with like particularly who Sharon Horgan is that I just think works really well for the characters

that she's writing. Yeah. I mean, there's, there's some, like, pretty abrupt tone shifts in youth.

And I think that might be, if you're, like, I want, like, straight up, like, I want to be,

like, put to bed by this show. And I want it to be, like, really nice and fun London drinking, going out and meeting Rupert friend.

Yeah. It's a little bit. With a Scottish accent, we just, like, really need to underline that. It's a little bit more, it's a little deeper than that.

Yeah. And, you know, like, you know, she's got aging parents. She's got a troubled son. There's things going on that are... Had you heard this? I mean, probably the term sandwich generation. No. I hadn't heard that, but I guess it's the term for when you're still caring for your

children but also caring for your parents. Oh, wow. So, like, the fact that her son is supposed to go to uni and she's supposed to sort of like, this is my new life. I'm going to get back out in the dating world. And then he immediately moves back in with her. So she's still caring for her son but also has to care for her parents who can. can't, yeah, so like the sandwich generation, which again, like, to your point, I hadn't heard of that.

It's just sort of like these slight little avenues of experience that maybe haven't been fully explored that she's exploring. Or there's later in the season, not a huge spoiler, but later in the season, like, something to do with hormone replacement therapy that is just sort of done in a sexy sexual way that just sort of like, again, these are just stories that not, most people aren't telling. No. You know? And so I just love her for that. Yeah, and it's told with a nice degree of, like, style. Yeah. Like, you can see some of the HBO money in the show.

Like, it's running around London. There's an Ibiza episode, you know, like, we're doing it. So we recommend. Yeah. I wanted to ask you about Slow Horses. I'll try to hit this with Andy a little bit on Monday, or maybe next Thursday once the third episode airs. But I wanted to ask you about the Slow Horses Super Story.

Tell me. Well, do you watch this show at all when you're on, season six episode two, which is the one that aired on Tuesday night, and you guys did prestige about it already. And are you thinking about it in terms of like what was happening in season one and what was happening in season three? And do you think of like a continuity of the British Secret Services as depicted in this show? Or are you just like minute to minute or season to season, I'm kind of enjoying like a limited story? It's a like really complicated question for this show, I think. Because I think this is the first season where you are,

meant to be thinking of it as sort of a larger story with the return of Olivia Cook's character from season one, spoilers. She's in trailers and stuff, yeah. SIDS back from season one, like Hugo Weaving's character is back from a previous series. The fact that Diana Taviner is now First Desk, you know, there is some, like,

and what that pays off for her whole career journey and stuff like that. There is just a lot of extra connective tissue this season. or Struin-Loy, you know, whose death... Peter Judd showing up. Cold opens the series back from Series 1. And so I think for the first time, you know, you read McCarran's books, so you know, like, both his books and this sort of iterative, we can write 100 of these stories

depend on characters not changing and evolving. Yeah. And the people who may, you know, Will Smith, when he was still like making the show, like, something that he would talk about is just sort of like Jackson Lamb is a character I don't want to have change. And that was sometimes challenging for me as someone who, the way I like to talk about story and television, just sort of like, what's this guy's arc? I'm hopefully looking for, is he being a bit nicer to his Joe's this season? Like, has he softened a bit? And it's just sort of like, no, he's Jackson Lamb. It's the, it's the reason people watch procedural television. They watch bones just because, like,

you know, it'll be solved in an hour and that sort of thing. And so like, you watch, you watch for the comfort for the things that don't change. River Carway will always fuck up. This will always be the case. And then this is the first season and maybe it's no coincidence that it's under new leadership. But this is the first season where that feels like slightly different. Yeah. I mean, so they are six is airing seven, I think is shot.

And eight is shooting or is going to be shot. And, you know, we're running up against a little bit of like the, a shorter runway of McCarran books soon. But McCarran is also, I think, still producing. Singh Slauhaus books. And we've said multiple times, as Gary Oldman has said, like he wants to do this for as long as they have material for him to do it. But I do think that the show needed a season like this.

Not in like a desperate way. I would have watched it anyway. But I think you can tell that the way that Adam Randall is directing this season feels different. Like it doesn't. Tell me how it feels different. I think it's grittier. And I think it's made, he's depicting.

a much less attractive London. Like even though Sloughhouse and a lot of like the places that these guys hang out are pretty dingy. Yeah. I find that like the sky is whited out. It's been raining most of this season. And I know it rains a lot in London, but that's not cheap. And that's not like you have to like basically create your own weather when you're doing that.

Yeah. And I think the violence is kind of hardcore in this season so far. The strangulation in episode too. Yeah. I think it's like pretty like this is what it. feels like we're trying to like introduce stakes. It's not James Bond. It's not, you know, and it's also not Jason Bourne,

but it feels pretty like bare-knuckled, I guess, is a good way of describing it. And I think it fits the material really well. That's interesting because, you know, you and I had talked a bit off-pod about the way in which they were willing to kill characters in previous seasons. Shout out Min Harper now and always.

But like, in a way that felt brutal and upsetting and is a hallmark of the books as well. But I like your point. I need to think about that, about whether or not the act of violence itself, rather than just like a clean bullet to the head, it's just sort of like sweatier and more up close. And then what that means for our, it's not just like one of our guys could go down in the line of fire.

It's like they're all being hunted. Yeah. And I think also, I suppose if you were going to throw like a blanket description of how slow horses usually works, the first three episodes nobody really knows what's going on and then the second three episodes they try to fix it but this season feels much more almost like almost like a slasher horror movie

you know where they're really in the dark about why this is happening to them and they are almost being like erased both physically and digitally legacy wise and they're so there's even Jackson is is a bit confused about what's going on.

Yeah. Yeah. He's a bit rattled, which, again, that does feel like a different place for us to find his character. Because him being sort of nonchalant over noodles is his, is his, like, MO, and that's what we got in the first episode.

But in this episode, when he's like, there's a bit of a frantic energy to him. Yeah. And I think even, like, Diana catches him off guard at the funeral, you know, like he, there are punches that he doesn't anticipate. Yeah. You know, Diana, who is unflappable,

seemingly, like, gets flapped. She got so flapped. Yeah. on camera. Yeah. Kristen Scott Thomas does not get nearly as many

plots as Gary Oldman does but has also been doing it's Kristen Scott Thomas and she's just like on this show and sometimes Remember when she showed up on Fleabag? Yeah. But sometimes she's like fifth

on the call sheet on this show and sometimes she's second. And this is a I was very excited by like let's turn the heat up on Diana Taviner because, like, how does Kristen Scott Thomas play that? It's really cool.

Diana First Desk is really interesting for to see someone get what they always wanted. Yes. And we talked about this a little bit on prestige, but something that McHarran has said about this plot line in the book when Diana finally gets First Desk because he's like, I think about the government like I think about a corporation. And even when you become CEO, there's like the shareholders that you have to answer to. There's always someone else you have to answer to.

And so and just that feeling of like to get what you've always wanted. wanted and then to find out it's a mess. This place is basically broken. You've got to go out and raise funds to do things. And then, yeah, I mean, I guess my overall question to you, it had more to do with when you read, say, LeCarray, there are lots of different Smiley stories that are sort of John LeCherry's most used spy and his fiction. And there is Smiley's arch nemesis, Carla, that.

they are playing the great game across Europe against one another. And it's very obvious. Like they don't say Cuban Missile Crisis necessarily or explicitly, but like real world events come into play in his work. Heron, I think, is more interested in something a little bit more granular and perhaps more cynical where he's just like, well, what do you do when there really aren't any, when it's like there's as many private companies have security systems than as as nation states

and you know arms of media and technology and you know uh ideologically based foundations are pushing their own agendas and have guys working on their behalf doing security and stuff and you know i mean not for nothing but this is also a subplot of lioness this season but it is it is pretty interesting to watch this stuff play out because i wonder if it's reflective of like our times or whether it's an it's an easier way to write about this stuff because you can manipulate the real world you know you have to it's not is ukraine happening right now like in the world of slow horses it's unclear what i really like about this is true like so i'm not as versed in this in the spy genre as you are but i guess my best comp is something like

the agatha christi novels where you know poro is always pro r o and i don't need i don't i know that he enjoys hot chocolate and like that's kind of about it, you know, and I don't need to go home with him and I don't need his, thank you so much, Kenneth Brown, a backstory and will I watch, will I watch young part? But like, he doesn't change and I don't know much about him personally actually. And, and sort of that's, that's comforting and that's endlessly iteratable and stuff like that. And so for something like slow horses, a universe where everything is fictional to your point in terms of like these global tensions and the rot is coming as much from inside the house as it is outside the house and that changes entirely the moral landscape

of what we're watching right like who are the good guys here i think that's endlessly watchable yeah i agree i think something you and and the address that i that i think is most exciting to me about this season maybe is this sort of 24 to 48 hour clock on it one crazy night one crazy night. Yeah. That's great. And this is why it would be cool to binge this. But God bless Apple for trying to like maintain some semblance of sanity in this world.

But it is like if you have something that has like a clock on it, you almost do want to like blow through it. I would love to see the numbers because I do think that Apple has had a successful run in terms of like at least, you know, with Plyubis and Widows Bay and some severance of creating the building conversation. week-to-week kind of phenomenon shows. Sure. Like, absolutely. I'm really curious as something like, so horses,

I would love to see the numbers of how and when people watch that show because my sense of that is it's still a binge show for a lot of people. People probably wait to six weeks and then just watch it. And also I think it's like a library show.

I think people like to go back and watch. It has grown over the seasons. But I think, yeah, that people, because it's a delightful show, but it doesn't require a profound amount of discussion. Yeah. So I don't think. people feel the urgency to be part of a conversation about what happened this week on

slow horses. It's not like lanterns where you're like, oh, I think I know who did what this is now. It's like slow horses, it's like there will be surprises, of course, but like you're just kind of like, it's a little bit more of an atmosphere and a tone and a vibe than it is like, oh, are we going to finally find out who's behind this? Wait, wait, who did it on lanterns? That quarterback kid. Yeah. Noah.

Yeah. For sure. Yeah. Let's talk a little bit about this New York Times list. So the Times is currently unveiling the 100. How do they describe it? What's the actual best TV shows of the 21st century? I am being pedantic about that because I think that that's a distinction.

Yeah. Versus favorite. Versus favorite. Yeah. Versus favorite. And I contributed a ballot to this. You contributed a ballot to this. Yeah.

It's been really interesting to watch this rollout. We talked to Wesley on Cannonball over at the New York Times, Wesley Morris, and that episode, I think, will go up when the final ballot is the top of the ballot is released. Friday? I think so. Yeah. I'm happy to talk about my ballot. Like, it's not a state secret or anything, but I wanted to talk a little bit about the distinction between best and favorite. I think if you look at my list and you look at your list, I think you were much more successful at best,

and I was a little bit more, definitely much more in the favorite camp. I hate what's happening. Okay, tell me about your list. Because I feel like I just showed up to a party and found out I was the only one who thought it was a costume party. Oh, okay. You babadooked yourself?

Yeah. Okay. Yeah, because I feel like I was like... You thought we were doing best. Do you want to read your list? Yeah, sure. Okay. Your list that you hate.

It's not that I hate it. It's just it is what it is. You know, I mean, like, there's no version... It's a good list. It's a good list, but there's no version of the list that's... There's no perfect list. And I see, like, Mina Kimes put up about her ballot. And it's such a beautiful expression of her passion and love for television.

I felt like I was... You're such a special person. Why am I such like a half, like, goober who is like... You're not a half goober. This is a best list. That's what you put together. In no particular order. In fact, I think this is...

Well, your first one is a very you answer. And or. Okay. Breaking Bad. Yeah. Lost. Yeah. Mind Hunter, the Bureau, Anthony Bordray and Noah Reservations, Deadwood, Mad Men, Succession, The Wire.

So when you look at my list, which is not have Breaking Bad, Mad Men, The Wire, or Succession on it, it looks insane compared to yours, because yours just looks like, here's a record of what we all agree, we're the best shows. And I have no doubt when we get to the top 10 when they unveil that, that those will be in the top 10. You were asking me a little off pod, like sort of my process of making my list, which, you know, Rob and I, I talked a little bit about our list. We tried to guess each other's lists on our show. That was a fun segment. With medium success. But my list in definitely no particular order is justified Game of Thrones taskmaster, flea bag lost, normal people and or midnight mass, Better Call Saul and Station 11. Midnight Mass. What a curveball. I love Midnight Pass. I'm a flanna fan. But what I did is I just started writing down shows. And I got to about

30. And it's like carving David out of block of Marvel, you just start chipping away like, what can I lose? What can I bear to lose? What can I bear to lose? Which was very painful. Yeah. Because like there are at least 50 phenomenal shows. It's more like the night and Monty Python getting hacked to pieces. Yeah, exactly. But I think what I wound up starting to do is like sort of what shows do I feel like shaped me? So yeah. So it became more about like autobiographically me. The top 100 shows that shaped you. shaped me and changed me. Then I did what was most quote unquote important.

And then also I have this demented mindset where I'm like, plenty of people will have madmen and breaking bad on their list. So I don't need to. I should have done that. This is like voting, you know, voting green because you're like, I live in a dem state or whatever and like I know it's not going to matter. Yeah. So I want to just kind of show my support.

This is my critics choice ballot every single year. I'm just like what I care about is not going to matter much. Andy mentioned this when we talked to Wesley but it was like there is an argument to be made that the wire and madmen and breaking bad it would have been fun if we had just been like we all know these are probably going to be very high up on the list

and for people who don't know this is very strictly 21st century so shows that premiered before 2000 like Sopranos and Buffy are not up for for voting What would you what would it be on your list if like. Buffy? No.

So Pranos? No, what would be on your list if you could pick one from not this strict time period? That's a good question. Like specifically 90s? Yeah, sure. I don't know. I haven't thought about that. I mean, there's shows that I've watched them like X-Files.

I don't know. Maybe X-Files is a good answer. I don't know that it would have replaced any of these. Yeah. I mean, Seinfeld, yeah. Yeah. I think I'm trying to think homicide probably. I think homicide would be the answer.

Yeah. But you put, so what you did is a, combination of like what matters to you personally. So I think something like the Bureau, a show that you have advocated for, Mind Hunter, which is not on a ton of people's list. Mine Hunter was like probably the most flop sweaty. I think that might have been 10th. And that was like, if you guys had seen what would the, like the fight for 10 was like,

it was like 50 shows. And then it was 20 and like you're sort of chipping away. But I was doing that with like one. slot. I went back and forth about whether to have an unscripted show or a scripted show because I'm like if I have one unscripted show, then does, does like, there's 15 unscripted shows. Like, do you get into starting to like open up the gates there? I'm surprised. Andor has been announced. I think Andor is like in the middle of the pack. 32. Yeah. I guess that makes sense. I know a lot of people who are like, I don't like Star Wars or I just don't have the time to watch.

I think there's also the fear of, like, recency bias with Andor or something like that. But I feel like Andor should be hired for that reason. Yeah. Because it is one of many IP shows we've gotten in the last 20 years, but did something so different and so special with it. You know, I mean, so. To me, it was like, the biggest, one of the biggest, like, missed cut was industry, which I think in some ways is the show of the decade. But I didn't put it on my shows of the century list. VEP girls

Like there's Finanette Lights Justified like there's I know He's bound There's so many shows Cutting finite lights You don't have any comedies

On your list How do you feel about that? Bad Yeah Yeah Yeah I don't I don't really have any

Like here's my list Fight Me position No no no no No I'm like this is I fucked up Like What would Do you want to try to like

Put together What your list would be If you could just be yourself No but I am being myself Like we Like this is the thing is just I'm not that interesting or there's just like maybe I am a little bit too much inside of the hive mind.

The wire is I think the best show ever made. I think Deadwood is the best written show I've ever seen. I think we're having similar agitation though because I feel so stupid. Honestly, when you sent me, you texted me my list with apropos of nothing this morning. You texted it to me not saying, hey, should we talk about this? You just said like, hey, so your list is this right? And I was like bracing for you to be like, what a stupid fucking list? honestly because I looked at it and I was like what I wrote back to you is it feels insane when

I see it written out like that but I can only be myself but like no madmen no breaking bad no the wire are you kidding me like I think that you promote you yours is more of a personal expression of TV passion and mine is half of that and half of critical hive mind like well let's all be honest like how can we not now I will say wire and breaking bad and succession, I have deeply personal relationships with. Mad Men, I adore. I was never, like, in that 99th percentile of, like, decoding Mad Men to read the secrets of the, like, all of Western culture.

I'm like, what is all the blue mean? Yeah, exactly. Like, I also have not rewatched Mad Men, but I do, I do think it's, like, an absolute masterpiece. Loss was for me a pick, like, what you're saying, which is you weren't with me on the streets when Loss was out. You don't know. You don't know how much Egyptian mythology I learned on the fly while watching laws. Completely unnecessary deep Old Testament biblical name studies, then that character would just disappear and never be mentioned again.

And I was like a week of my life to find out what Ruth meant. It's true. You know? Yeah. But the stranglehold that had, it was Lost or Thrones and I went with Lost. And I put both because, well, part of that too is Thrones was actually really close to being cut from my list. Not because I don't think it was a great show. It's just sort of like, but I just could not in good conscience given how much, I mean, yeah, part of that is like what has covering this television done for us?

And there are certain shows that we've gone deeper on than others. And Thrones is one we have in common. But like, you know, yeah, for you industry, for me, you know, doing a rewatch podcast of Lost. And I sent so much time thinking about Lost. Similarly, Justified was the first show I ever officially recapped. So it forever has this like, I was recapping, yeah, justified at Pajibah.com. And then I got like started recapping Sons of Anarchy at Vulture and the Good Wife. I almost put the Good Wife because like I was recapping.

The Good Wife in the long list. For Vulture. So like, you know, that time you spent marinating in a show and overthinking a show, it broke my heart to leave Westworld off. But Westworld just became such a mess at the end of it. If you were a character on Westwood, they could just fix the heart and put it right back. you know. You would have been all good. My mindful. But I spent so much of my life invested in Westworld season one and trying to figure out Westworld. And I was just like, it has to have been worth something, right? True Detective Season 1 is probably the one I regret the most. I saw, I believe, I believe it is as season one has been listed so far. Oh, so they're partitioning it out as seasons. True Detective? Yeah, see, it's number 35, season one.

That's a cheat New York Times. I did not know that we were doing that. That's some real Matthew Reese limited series bullshit. No one told us we could just portion it out as a season. So I was like, look, I defend season two. I like season three. I love season three. And I think season four.

Because it's an anthology show, then I could put Fargo, I would put Fargo season one, probably high up there. You know what I mean? Yeah, there are particular seasons of shows that I would happily put one way or another. Sure. But like, I thought we were. If we could subtract. Season 2 from Friday Night Lights, that would be great.

It would be great. I'm sure Jesse Plumman's would agree. So, yeah, that's... I think your list is great. I think your list is great. I don't think you should feel bad about your list. Everybody's lists are great. I just...

I think I wish... I wish I had been a little bit more interesting. You are always interesting. I think I would love to see the, like, Chris Ryan's most Chris Ryan list. If it involves the Bureau and... industry and a few other of your absolute like darling. I would love to see that list as well. Okay. Maybe I'll come up with like the second 10. Yeah. But I'll tease that for another episode.

Stretch that content, baby. Make it work. Thank you so much for doing this with me today. Prestige TV House of R is where you can find Joe. And we will be back on Monday with lanterns and some other stuff. Greenwald remotely. And thanks to Kai and Kaya and talk to you guys soon. Have a great weekend.