The Watch - Mailbag 2.0 (Ep. 139)

Episode Date: April 6, 2017

The Ringer’s Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald answer your questions on topics including pleas to review shows like 'The Expanse' and 'The Missing' (1:00), insider questions about the industry and the state of television (27:00), and Chris’s love of magic (37:25). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Stand up and walk now. Hello and welcome to The Watch. My name is Chris Ryan. I'm editor at the Ringer.com and joining me in the studio. He's got a surprise album dropping at midnight. It's Andy Greenwald. It's the Re-up. Let's do this. Let's go, Kendrick.

Thursday. Andy, we were probably talking about Kendrick Lamar's new album on Monday, I would hope. Is that really coming tonight? We're supposed to be coming out tonight, but today... Do you know that from your industry sources? I don't know about that. I know it from checking the internet. You'll have to show me how to do that.

Yeah, you just got to plug the phone right into the back of the computer. We are doing a mailbag pod today. We just got done... I guess we could tease it, right? We just got done recording a very exciting pod with a guest. Yeah, we won't say the guess. We'll just say that one of the major shows coming back this month. We will have an exclusive-ish podcast with the creator of that show after the second episode airs.

Is that vague enough? That's vague enough. I think people can guess. I mean, it's not like this person has departed or anything. Right. Right. It's not like he's lost. No.

No, he's here. Andy, today is a mailbag episode. So we're going to burn through some questions from our listeners. Thank you to everybody who's sending questions to the At the Watchpod Twitter account. Zach Mack was nice enough to compile these into different categories. Do you make a spreadsheet? Yeah. Well, Zach wanted to, you know, the main questions that people were asking.

These are repeat questions. They want to talk about the expanse and the missing, neither of which we've seen. I watched the me. Missing Season 1, by the way. It's very good. And I've watched a few episodes the expand. Where's my Czechicario hive? They out there? You remember that dude? You don't remember that dude? He's the Russian actor, but like, oh, that guy. Yeah, he's, he's the best thing in the missing. Yeah, he's going to be in the Russia Gate movie, I bet. Oh, he'd have a big role to play. Um, and then people want to talk about S-Town, but mostly people also want to ask about what's the next book in the

Double Down Book Club after we had so much love for Zeus Station. People really like that. That It was awesome. We were debating this. I think that we will, I think we're landing on a book, Jeffrey van der Mears. Jeff Vandermears. Jeff Van der Mears.

Jeff Van der Leyener's annihilation. Yeah. Now, annihilation is a kind of, a little bit of a sci-fi, I guess, you could say, book, and we can put up a link to it. It is being made into a film.

It's already, I think it's been shot, and it's going to be released this year with Natalie Portman. Tessa Thompson. Tessa Thompson. It's directed by Alex Garland, who made X Machina. So we're very excited for the movie. The movie looks gorgeous.

And I would say actually, you know, it is, it's not, it shouldn't be, it would be like a very good book if you like Lost. If you like, like, sci-fi that is in the real world, but is a little bit tweaked. I think you would really like this. Yeah, it's a book that is inspired by Vandamere's, I think he lives in Florida. And it's basically like, it's very, very into the idea of the natural world run amok. So there are a lot of details of various fungi and moss and lichen and trees. it's a very creepy book. It sneaks up on you.

It's the first book in the Southern Reach trilogy. We are not requiring you to read books two or books three because I think Chris and I both had mixed feelings about them. Yeah, but annihilation itself is pretty great. It reminds me, you know, every once in a while, you come across like a page turner like this. Like the ruins was like this for me where you're just like, gosh, just an incredible yard.

Or the passage. Yeah, the passage was like this. So, yeah. I think it also be really fun for us just as a community. It's a podcast family. to have read this book, talked about it, and then just be super hype for the movie. Yeah. Because I do think...

It's a 360-degree deal. I also don't think that this is dinging the book in any way to say that I think the movie has the potential to be even better. Just because of the type of story it is and that Alex Garland, who is himself a novelist, is making it. I'm pretty psyched. So I think that'll be a fun book to discuss. Let's get into these questions. You've got mail. Okay.

First question comes from Malcolm. And I think this is an interesting one because Malcolm asks, I'm... Well, he's not asking. He's actually saying, He's telling. I'm over comic books as IP. What's next? Rap skits, fake shows, movies within other shows and movies,

radio or podcasts. First of all, I remain patiently waiting for Method Man's torture skit on the first Wu-Tang album to become at least a 10-part miniseries. I know. Preferably on a pay cable channel that you can really go blue. It's like a Blumhouse kind of thing. I think that could be incredible. Um, yeah, look, I mean, it's interesting.

I'll say this before we even get into the other possibilities. I, too, am exhausted by, by comic book IP. Can I ask you something? But, yeah, oh, yeah. You got to follow up mid thought. I didn't even finish my thought. Have you identified why that is? Well, this is, that's exactly what I was getting at.

I think it's because they've calcified into the same story. I think that adaptations of anything can be anything, but we've now come to understand comic book adaptations as portentious origin stories, you know, as building to an inevitable world-rattling climax between a good guy and a bad guy and a very certain type of no-al, almost Christopher Nolan-y type of experience, you know? And I think that on TV, they've taken in different forms, and obviously I'm a partisan of Legion, but even if you look at like the Marvel Netflix shows have their own fatal flaw, which is that all of them, and I, okay, I'm not counting Iron Fist because everyone says it's terrible, but the three

other shows all had enormously promising aspects to them. Daredevil, I'm talking about Daredevil, Jessica Jones, and Luke Cage. I loved aspects of all three of them. I was unable to finish most of them because, again, they're just stuck in this rigid format. This is not 13 episodes of television. So I think if one of these projects that's been announced, and I actually am kind of hopeful about Kevin Beagle, who made this had come enlisted, is a really funny show, really talented writer, is making a show for freeform, which is what ABC family used to be, called The New Warriors,

and the main character is the Marvel character Squirrel Girl. Wasn't Squirrel Girl going to be like a whole thing? Squirrel Girl is a thing now in the comic books. Was it Anne Hathaway going to play Squirrel Girl? No, Anna Kendrick was like raising her hand, like the emoji to say, like, let me play Squirrel Girl. I'm just saying like, okay,

that is going to be something different, and so there's possibility there. But to the larger question, what's next? First answer is, IRL, man. The biggest unexploited IP is recent history, right?

That's the OJ Simpson stuff. Oliver Stone would disagree with you. He's been mining those fields for quite some time, those killing fields. But yeah, I mean, like, we have feud, we have American crime story. I mean, grabbing things from the headlines and the spirit of law and order

and turning them into prestige miniseries has been the thing. But what else is out there? Well, I think it'll be interesting to see what happens when... He wants to talk about a podcast. I know. I'm doing the podcast. podcast, Zach?

Who is that? Zach? That was Zach back, our producer? That's producer, you can't see him? Save this part. That was the CEO of Panoply Media. Go on. I thought that was like some guy running in.

Do your job. I think it would be interesting to see what will happen if any of the prestige podcast that are out there, like the narrative podcasts. Like whether it's S-Town, whether it's, what was the one that Catherine, Kiener and Isaac were doing, Homecoming? That Sam Esmail is adapting. Is he actually adapting that? Yeah, it was a bidding war, and it went to Sam and his company.

Oh, congratulations to him. You know, the other one that I think is flying under the radar is just a pretty rich piece of IP is the Andy Greenwald podcast. Yeah, that's really... The music is great. I think the music is great by the Scottish band Churches. I think the conversation that Andy had with, like, Sam Rockwell, Colin Farrell, like, these were like bangers. They could really become 8, 10, 15 episode miniseries. Yeah, good luck with that.

Sure, I'm developing it. Okay. But, but to your point, like... So I don't... You know what, honestly, I don't... I don't think there's going to be a good movie about, like, the Russia scandal. You know what I mean? I don't think there's going to be a good movie about the 2016 election.

The thing that would be interesting to watch, to make a good adaptation of something that jumps mediums, you have to understand and respect the abilities of each medium as a distinct entity. And, like, that's why the Watchman movie was such a failure, because it slavishly tried to recreate what the comic book did, and that doesn't work on the screen, right? And so it'll be interesting to see, as these podcasts are developed into TV shows or movies, if there's an understanding of why they worked as podcasts, right? Like what made it more compelling for it to be audio only? What do you gain by adding visuals?

And I don't know, I'd like to think that people like Sam and the other people who are involved in this stuff will be paying attention to that. But I think that's a tricky thing to see as we enter into that world. The bottom line to Malcolm's question is, all IP is fair game. Yeah, comics or Westerns. Just get used to them. They're going to be around for a while. They may, like, fluctuate in and out.

in terms of their popularity, but they are a reality. Noah asks, with Atlanta Fargo Americans, People versus OJ, has FX stolen the prestige television belt from HBO? And if not, what would it take? First of all, Noah, Holly, you can just text me that question. You don't need to, like, you don't need to tweet it. So the question is, why is FX dope? I think it's, it's, has FX kind of taken the, the belt from HBO is specifically what he's asking.

But I would actually, I can take this one actually. I would say that show for show, night for night, and maybe even month for month, I think FX has maybe a stronger lineup than what HBO has. But what HBO has that FX has never quite been able to find is me and Andy. No, it's been the show that stops the clock. It's the show that everybody wants to say, we're watching this Sunday night

it is you know this is what everybody's talking about on Monday morning everybody's waiting on the edge of their seat for it to come back the next week the next season and FX has never found its Game of Thrones or it's Walking Dead I think even with OJ which had a ton of momentum

that was still something we knew what was going to end you know what I mean and I don't think that FX has developed with with acquittal what's he got away with it I know but like they haven't figured out a a central show.

And in a lot of ways, FX and HBO's fortunes right now, this is just my read on it, reflect how television has changed. Because HBO actually has several tent pole shows, Big Little Eyes, Game of Thrones, and then, you know, but like when it was on,

True Detective was actually quite a big, big deal. And they have like five of those shows, three to five of those shows a year, right? And they put on like, what, 12 shows a year? Not very many. Not that many. FX has,

a bunch of doubles and triples. Yes. And I think that they are starting to fill up the scoreboard with doubles and triples. And as those shows keep going on and growing and getting better and they add and add and accumulatively, that library is going to almost seem as impressive as HBO's. I completely agree with that read.

I think you've done a very good job with that. Thank you so much. And I'm saying is there is no question that FX would like to have a Walking Dead or a Game of Thrones. Didn't they go for Walking Dead? They passed on Walking Dead. But I think it is actually a very smart strategy to go the other way, to go for doubles and triples, to have the critical darlings, to have the risk takers, to attract the talent and give them the freedom to do things like Atlanta. It's funny that it's come full circle, but HBO's greatest strength, even as it went through a rocky year or two, it goes all the way back to its original ad slogan, which is that it's not TV, it's HBO.

HBO has the biggest bullhorn and the biggest footprint, and one of the smartest things, the decision that they've made. made was never to expand. They experimented a little bit with Monday nights. I think they put bored to death on Monday nights and then immediately gave up on that plan was they never expanded beyond Sundays. They said this is the one night of the week that's going to drive conversation and this is where we are. And more than the shows, I think, that other networks wish they had that megaphone. And sometimes the shows that are given that megaphone don't deserve it, like vinyl and are dealt with. But, you know, I think big little lies in many ways is a page from the FX playbook. to take a piece of not necessarily celebrated IP,

give it to talented people, bring in a lot of talent, bring in more talented people, and have it be a limited series and just let it run. You know, and then, but HBO'd it up with the biggest names. Yeah.

And it, as we said on Monday, when we talked to Alice, and it cut through the clutter. Yeah. So I think that's interesting to know. But those two networks, plus Netflix, they're the biggest dogs at the moment.

Kyle wants to know if you were separately making a Mount Rushmore of TV comedies and dramas, separate Mount Rushmore's. We have four Mount Rushmore's, I guess. Wow. That's a lot of Mount Rushmore's. What shows would you choose? Land is cheap.

So four shows, I guess, per... Damn. Now, I'm going to add a little bit of a layer here Kyle's talking about. I'm not prepared for this. The presidents on Mount Rushmore aren't just like popular or cool. I mean, all presidents are popular.

I love cool presidents. That's a new show I'm pitching. Formative. I think that they had a lot to do with, making the country what it is for better and for worse. So what would you say putting you on the spot? See, that's tough. Drama-wise, because I know you're, you know, comedy-wise, like, it's kind of harder

because comedy you can just say like Seinfeld Friends Cosby, you know, you could just kind of like the comedies are there. I think it would be interesting to talk about comedy recently, but we could maybe table that. But for dramas, I'm always curious because everybody's got their personal favorites. Yes. But what do you think are the formative ones? Well, I think particularly in regards to drama, it's a very tricky.

question because I think people will push back on one or two but I think that for the air of television that we are most involved in that we discuss it's a pretty easy Mount Rushmore right it's Sopranos the Wire Breaking Bad and Mad Men

but what you're talking about is formative and so we have to that all that being Mount Rushmore it depends on a kind of like cultural revolution idea of like 2000, 1999 being year zero of television. You have to think about the shows that made those shows,

and you could make a case for NYPD Blue, or Hill Street Blues, or Twin Peaks, you know, which people are going to be talking about again, or certainly, or ER. So, or some blending of them, you know, I think that those four shows are probably the best serialized dramas that television has ever made. Or you could say Twin Peaks and X-Files

could go on there too, because arguably those shows, shows have had a bigger impact on what's getting made now in terms of like the best of what we're doing you know like when you watch a leftovers and when you watch uh you know genre storytelling serialized storytelling fan engagement with storytelling um on the comedy side i wonder like is it easier or harder to do it like what would cheers cheers um you know and then i i could make an argument that something like 30 Rock which is just joke for joke

maybe the funniest show in the history of television but shouldn't MASH be on there? Should friends be on there? I'm gonna say no. That's just personal. I would personally, I mean like

for me personally I would make an argument in terms of its inventiveness for how I met your mother. Interesting. But also that's a different conversation too. That may be formative for what we see going forward. And then you get into Chappelle

and then you get into living color and then you get into... As a veteran of making nonsense lists when I was a TV critic, I would just arbitrarily say sketch shows I'm not going to consider, animated shows I'm not going to consider, which is ridiculous, too, because the Simpsons should probably be on it. 30 years. I mean, I think The Simpsons was the number one, was the number one show in TV history in Matt Sites and Altenwall's book. This sounds like it's almost like an episode unto itself.

It's interesting. I feel like I'm going to look to our producer, Zach. Is he still nodding or is he want us to do a Mount Rushmore podcast? No, he's like, how come you guys haven't talked about all the gimlet properties yet? He just wants me to make sound effects like they do on Radio Lab. We'll table this. We'll come back to it some other time. You know, and a lot of these questions, I don't know the names here, but there was one question from one person that was a little disturbed to get from. And it's like, you know, you don't mind if your adversaries or enemies or your nemesies, like listen to the show. But to see Shea Serrano's name on this list was a little disappointing. Ugh.

Gosh. And it really, the question sort of matches the character of the person asking. Yeah. Why will you all never talk about sons of anarchy? I'm tired of the anti-Jack's teller bias you all have. He should be celebrated. You know, I met Shay for the first time at the Ringer holiday party, and we had a very pleasant conversation.

That was a complete bullshit. Based on what I thought was a facade of mutual respect. Yeah. And the way I was able to do that was that I did not mention my antipathy for basic cable biker-guer. gang dramas. Because I knew that that would have, I mean, it was a very polite event.

Sure. It's a holiday season. The holiday season, people were gathered by the Simmons family pool. Sure. I didn't want anyone splashing down. So can we take the high road here? I mean,

I know it's hard with the guy like Shay. I would just say this to Shea that it is about to be Charlie Huttom sees him out in this bitch. That's true. Charlie Hottom is so good in Law City of Zee. Did you see it? Yeah. And he looks very convincing as King Arthur

and continues to just, his stock just keeps going up by missing out. on the 50 Shades of Grey Train. Really strong point on that. So I think it's like, everything's coming up, Hunnam. In many ways, do you think the most influential person

of the century so far is Judd Apatow's casting director? Yes. Because she cast Fereeks and Undeclared. Yeah. And I remember thinking, like, as the freaks and geeks cast were Ascendant,

being like, too bad, the same magic didn't strike with undeclared. Even though I like that show a lot. But your boy, Hunnam, he just needed to percolate. If you've got a little bit of money burning a hole in your khakis,

put a little money on Hunnam to be next bond. Whoa. Just out, just put it out there. You just keep these little truth bombs. Look, in all seriousness, I couldn't F with Sons of Anarchy. I just didn't do it. And it's actually perfect for me because that was one of the shows that was like well into its run when I became a TV critic.

And I could just say, sorry, peak TV can't catch up. Yeah. And then now I'm no longer critic right when the spin-off is starting. So I basically live in the uncanny valley. The Smith spin-off, right? Between, yeah, between Kurt Sutter projects. Andrew wants to know if Ridley Scott claims he has five more alien sequels possible Do you think an alien franchise would be better served as a television show?

Here's the thing, Andrew. You are absolutely right. I am a big alien fan. So, like, I love that franchise. I find Mara in every one of the movies. You say you find Mara? Like Kate and Rooney? Neither one of them has been in the alien franchise.

But it's coming. If Kate Mara was in one, I would see that movie. They're running out of actresses to be in these films anyway. So I'm sure that they are coming. To have their sternums cracked? I was lucky enough to see a little bit of Covenant when we went down to South by Southwest. So I saw like 20 minutes of it. Who are you?

You're full of all these thoughts and observations. You see movies? Here's the thing. As you can tell from the trailer, Covenant is about a group of people who don't have any idea that there is something like an alien out there who arrive at a planet to do ostensibly one thing and then obviously get consumed by literally and figuratively. That thing is bone, right? Right. Isn't it like Temptation Island the movie with an alien? Isn't it about couples who go to a planet?

Yeah, it's like they're going to colonize. Right. It's dope. Great idea. I realize while watching it, well, it's incredible to look at, and I can't wait for the film, and I think it does delve deeper into some of the Prometheus mythology. They get set up in the previous film. The things that are cool to me about the alien franchise are actually not the thrills and the scares.

Those are nice. Like, I love the fact that they're there. I find alien very scary. The action scenes and aliens are amazing. There's some stuff in Alien 3. that is all this stuff is true but to me it was always like I was always curious about like Waylon Utani corporation and what and and Prometheus really hints at this like where these things come from and who made them and what they're you want the Paul riser spin off I do I want to know

what Burke is up to that's all how did Burke wind up on in a vest on that ship yeah so your favorite character in avatar was rabisi pudding like you just like the business bro so I just really would love to see I mean in the same way I think that we often will say like, oh, there could be a TV show and you could just play around with it. I think that there is a lot more going on in the alien franchise than just going down a dark hall and getting your head ripped off. Yeah, I mean, there is the Deep Space Nine version of this universe where you're like, okay, we're going to talk about like...

Newsflash, Ridley Scott is like 80. I don't know how he's going to make five more alien movies. No, he is Guy Pearce in Prometheus, right? That's going to be his move. He's got Michael Fastbender shooting hoops in his studio trying to just figure stuff out for him. No, there's the Deep Space 9 version of it where it's like you set up a show about the mining colony at the edge of the universe that runs into something. I think that I hear you and I agree with you, but I also think that that runs the risk of stripping out the compelling thing about the thing. Right.

You know, the mining colony, the Charles, to quote the great Charles Dutton, the prison colony of rapists of women, a speech that runs in my head because they ran that ad. You guys don't know what it was like having to watch ads. And the ad for Alien 3, Charles Dutton is like, I mean, just women. Anyway, the story of how they all got there is kind of interesting, but they were made more interesting by the fact that a chest-cracking alien was about to go mess things up. So I'm anti.

Not everything has to be a TV show. I want to get through a couple more of these. Do you think we will ever see a pay-per-view model emerge for some traditional content, like awards shows, sporting events, or television shows? What was the last one in the West? Or traditional television shows. Like pay-per-view.

I mean, we are reaching, kind of reaching that point as the bundle gets broken up when we get more into a la carte over-the-top viewing. I mean, CBS is really trying to do this. There is a good wife spin-off starring... I subscribe to CBS All-access because I get to... Wow.

It's a very pleasant survivor experience to watch, and I get good fight. But, like, that is a pretty big bet. They are spending network money on a TV show. Yes, who has money. CBS. Yes. Oh, I know.

And they're going to have a Star Trek show, and a majority of Americans and a majority of CBS viewers, who, by the way, are Americans, don't know this thing exists. But they are playing the long game that people will pay to see the one or two things they want to see.

And it's also like the library and it's like a viewing experience that is like relatively pleasant to like go through just like you can just watch these episodes. To the other question, right now we are in a place where award shows and sporting events are the killer app

that keep people from cut their cords. But should we enter a more uncertain future where everyone is cutting cores and buying. Bezos coming, though. Well, where people start buying a la carte packages and bundles, then you will start seeing the ability to not have basic TV, but be able to pay $2,99, to watch the Super Bowl. I still think what's going to happen is that there's going to be this increasingly, like, moving away from paying the one fee of cable provider and getting 300 channels and a DVR.

You're going to keep going further and further away to where you're subscribing to, like, five to 10, 15 different packages to get this. And then there will be a unification where, like, then someone is going to figure out a way to be like, pay one fee and get Netflix and get Amazon and get this. Who's going to bundle the anti-bunners? I don't know. Also, we are still enjoying, reaping the benefits of the probably Jack Donagie. We are still reaping the benefits of this ridiculous hypothetical arms race where every tiny network that once survives solely by cable carriage fees is trying to build a library to become one of the last packages standing. So that's why AMC Networks is putting shows on IFC, like Brockmire, which is apparently good,

or Sundance channel, which is another one channel in their portfolio. They've happened Leonard coming back in top of the lake. If we reach a point where it's like, now people are really only going to pay for three of these, five of these, and guess what, AMC, you have the Walking Dead, but you might not be one of them, is AMC going to be like, okay, well, we are now going to partner with FX, and we're going to become the true titan of this. We are not anywhere near that, but that might be an interesting thing to hyper, to hyper, pathosize about. We'll be back to answer more of your questions. Let's just take a quick break from our sponsors. This episode is sponsored in part by Delta Airlines and their Delta Studio. You know,

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You've got mail. Okay, Andy, we're back. We're going to answer a couple more questions here. Jen wants to know, I have to ask your thoughts about the possibility of a writer's strike, which I think you should handle. Because I'm freaked out. Yeah, so can you give me like a 30-second primer on what's going on? Yes. Why aren't you guys just psyched that it's peak TV?

Every few years, obviously there's a renegotiation between the various guild, the directors guild, the writers guild, the producers guild, screen actors guild, with the conglomerate representing the studios who have signed on to the agreement. And those set things like studio, in terms of the Writers Guild, things like the studio's compensation towards the writer's pension plans

and the health plans and also what you get paid, basically there's a floor for what you can get paid as a story editor on a network sitcom or as a supervising producer on a premium cable drama. That's all negotiated and worked out and also other things like residuals. rights and blah, blah, blah. At the moment, the current deal with the writers expires May 1st,

and the writer's beef, and I will include myself in this, because that's a member of the guild now, is basically that record profits right now coming from TV. This is TV and movie writers, $51 billion worth of profits going to the studios, and the argument is that the writers are not getting their fair share of that, particularly to shore up the health plan, but also because other things have affected writers' salaries. Like, yes, it's peak TV. But apparently, the average salary of a working TV writer, for example,

has gone down. Right. Because now there are shorter seasons, which everyone says is great creatively. But that means you are locked into 10 episodes worth of pay, and you're paid by the episode. And you could be in production

on those 10 episodes for longer than 10 weeks. Sure. You could be in production of them for half of the year. Then you may need to get another job or another job. And some people might say,

how great you can work on two or three shows a year. maybe and you could make more money, but some of these shows lock you in. You can't work on another show. You are contractually obligated to work on those 10 episodes of that one. So the opportunity to make more money seems to be limited, so they want to debate that. Anyway, all of this is to say, it is a crazy, crazy time for content, and some people worry that it's a bubble. And writers want to make sure they're getting their fair share of it because certainly at the moment people are profiting off of it.

Personally, I'm super freaked out because now I'm a member of the Guild, and I feel like I just got here. this is fun. And, you know, I think there's real concern on all people's parts that were there to be another major work stoppage and shows would go off the air or not come back for a while, that it would really only hurt the writers and also the directors and also the traditional television networks, because this is my opinion now, the one entity, the entities that are really going to probably okay with a strike are the Netflix's of the world, the Amazon's the world.

Because they're like, we got the library. Look what we have, exactly. You can catch up with billions now. I can finally catch up with billions. But that's really true. Like, well, it would be noticeable that CBS doesn't have new shows on in the fall when they usually do. Netflix can just be like, well, look what we got. We have all the old shows, plus all the shows we put on when you weren't paying attention.

So I think in terms of maintaining the status quo of content and keeping people working, I very much hope there's not a work stoppage. But I'm freaked out. That's a very good answer. Last sort of larger question, and then we'll get into some quick response things. In light of the endings that we have recently gone through or about to have happen, which is rectified. girls and soon the leftovers, what are some of your favorite series endings? Mine's a really easy answer.

You say it. Friday Lights. I was going to say it. Yeah, most satisfying series ending I can think of. It's really hard to think of one better than that. I mean, I think now that we live in an era where comedies have to end, too, and a lot is expected of them, I think 30 Rock was pretty perfect. I think Parks and Recreation was pretty perfect.

But, and I would say that one of the brilliant things that Breaking Bad did was basically end twice, one for each kind of fan. They're the people who liked the way Granite State, I think it was called, ended the second and last episode, and that was the episode where Wald is in hiding, New Hampshire for the whole episode, and that's sort of the dark,

dark ending. And then Emily Nussbaum for the New Yorker had a great theory where she wanted the show to end of the second to last episode and consider the final episode with a lot of its fan servicing to be a dream, like Walt's dying dream. But I love the way it did both. It's such an interesting question in today's day and age.

Friday Night Lights purely satisfying on an emotional level and on a plot level, and it was just a thrill. There's a whole other category to be discussed, and maybe we'll talk about this at a future time too, of shows that ended in ways that I didn't love, but you respect because that's what the creator was doing. You know, that feeling of like, oh, that's what the show was. And I felt that way about the Madman ending, for example.

I was kind of out on it. The more I thought about it, the more I kind of twisted myself into knots to appreciate it. But it's not what I wanted, but then I kind of like that we're in an era where shows that feel like they belong to all of us, their final moments are like,

no, this was just some dude in Burbank's show. He ended it the way he wanted it to do. I'm going to burn through some quick ones here. Favorite Showtime series that ruin itself by staying on the air past its expiration date? Homeland? Yes. Follow up answer, all of them?

Like, is there a, Showtime show that ended in an appropriate fashion? No, I think that Billions has become the very best version of Billions it is right now. I don't know what season 9 of Billions is going to be about. Although it doesn't, Billions is not like Homeland in that. It doesn't have a ticking bomb inside of it, literally in figured. That's the second time I've done that today. But it's like Homeland actually because of the stakes has become season 7 of 24.

And I know some people are fans of this season, but it can't. actually sustain what it's doing because every the main character and the plot are both like in the red yeah billions is very cool and controlled it's like a nice merino v-neck sweater it's like you know it's not it is not tearing your skin off and it it is it has the ability to shift up and shift down i have not uh dive back into billion season two like scrooge mcduck into a vault full of money like everyone's suggesting that i should but i have to say this even from a distance it strikes me is the perfect Showtime show. And I've said this, you know, I, Showtime makes some very good choices. They make some very questionable choices. But there is a certain type of show that works best

considering the way they operate. Shameless is another one. Shameless is essentially a network show with cable show problems and cable show content. It can run forever because it's a family show. Billion seems to be the perfect show for Showtime because as you're saying, it has a sense of fun, it has a sense of play, it's set in a very specific world. It could run forever. and it wouldn't feel wrong, right? And that in and of itself puts it a little bit out of step with what we've come to think of as prestige dramas that have, for the most part, like Homeland,

asked a big question and then taken four to six seasons to answer that question. Yeah, I think that, like, we're... Showtime is interesting because they treat, quote-unquote, prestige dramas as if they are long-running network television shows, LA law, NYPD Blue, like, ER, whatever you want. But they have the stakes and the setup,

of something that really should only go on for 20 episodes, perhaps. Or the frenzied pace. Yeah, exactly. So, okay, let's burn through a couple more of these. Andy, can I get a letter from Americans Island? Letter from Americans Island. Wow. We have to talk about it.

I got to say, Chris, so this has been a very interesting season. So far this isn't, I think it has been a slightly weaker season. I've not said this publicly before, but we're only part of the way through it. one of the most daring things about season four of the Americans last year was that it wrapped up two of the didn't wrap up but it definitely put on ice two major B plots that have sort of sustained the show that was wild and surprising and really gratifying to see them do it in such a surprising unexpected way but it left a gap you know it left they didn't start to fill those holes with new subplots they didn't bring in new characters and again that's part of the DNA

of the Americans that I respect. They're just slowly boring into the heart of the show, which is this family, and specifically these two characters. And it makes sense as they turn the corner. There are only a few episodes left in this season and a shorter season next year before they wrap up. They didn't start to add stuff.

But I felt the loss. It felt a little bit lesser without Martha, without Nina on the show this year. But Americans is always playing the long game. And, you know, it's funny. It's almost like the show is now, being paced better for the streaming era because there have been some things the season

like the digging, they dug a hole in the season premiere. Like literally? There was digging a hole for like 15 minutes. I was like, wow, just settle in. There was an episode that ended with like them in bed looking at each other and being like, are you sure?

I was like, wow, this is like the anti-peak TV show. There's literally nothing happening here that's making me want to tune in next week, you know, even though I'm a huge fan. But it sinks in. And so it's rhythmically, it's almost like it's rhythmically, out of step even more so than it always was.

But I remain, I ride, man. I'm on the island. I love that show. Couple one-word answers here. Is Kendrick Mara or Lamara elite? I can't imagine why we were asking this question. Is Kendrick Lamar elite? Yes. Yes.

Do you hear that part in Humble where he talks about TED Talk? Louis C.K. or Dave Chappelle? When? Just, what's your first, what's the response, though? Like, yeah, I know there's a lot of caveats to it. There's so many questions within that. I'm going to go Chappelle. Yeah, like who do I ride for forever?

Chappelle. Like, but who's, I was going to say, who stand-up do I want to watch more right now? C.K. Secretly, kind of, I was going to say C-K, but secretly Shepal, because you don't know what he's going to do. Is the Sopranos still the goat?

Yeah, probably. I mean, you could argue other shows, but yeah, sure, it is. I would say no. What is? Madman. Interesting. I kind of want to agree with you. I go all over the place with these shows.

I can get very, very hype on the idea that The Wire was the greatest show of all time, and I have often espoused that. But I think a lot about Mad Men. I miss Mad Men a lot. We're going to end on this question from John, who wants to know if I could spend a little bit more time on the podcast talking about my belief in magic. I think that's exceptional.

I think that's a good use of mic time. I went to the Magic Castle again last week. What? Yeah. First of all, why are you living this secret light for me? I moved out here to be closer to you. It was a really good night there. Wait, back up.

Do you like, is it like you drop and buy the comedy seller? No, it's actually quite complicated to go. Like, there used to be a thing where you could, like, if you went and you paid to get your picture taken there, then you would get a pass for the next time you went. And it was kind of like, because it's a club. It's not like you don't just buy tickets. Does Neil Patrick Harris take your picture? No, but he does have a cocktail named after him there. Yeah, he does.

And so we went last week and it was wonderful. And they had like a really good lineup of guys. there was a dude doing kind of like close magic at a bar for a while and you know like he was doing a lot of like card tricks that were pretty good but he got warmed up and like sort of really doing some wild shit yeah but there was definitely like two guys at the end where I was just like magic is real there was one guy who was just like straight up like what card are you thinking like what card like think of a card and then he would guess it and you're just like do you have my Facebook account and then there was another where a dude straight up produced three baby chicks out from under cups that had been like empty and then after that produced like two doves out of straight fucking nowhere. Yo, they did bird magic? Yeah. So like

I am sure I heard the birds like while I was there. I was like oh there's birds somewhere in here. Like bird man call? Like what? To me it's magic isn't like the birds were there. I don't think that he brought them from a different dimension. It is like the magic is the sleight of hand. That's amazing that someone can do that. Are you a magic head now? No not a magic head but I'm just like I appreciate the art form. We do have to wrap up a little bit of a short show today. Stand up comedy or magic?

What are you going to on a Friday night? Magic. Really? Yeah. Magic. I feel like we have to just... Stand-up comedy. What would you do?

Stand-up comedy. I don't know. It's its own kind of magic. They make laughs appear out of thin air. We'll be back on Monday. We'll probably talk about Kendrick. We'll let you know about some other stuff. Thanks for listening.

Thanks for sending in your questions. Until the next time. Alika Zam Beranski! Thanks again to Sonos for sponsoring our episode. For sound you can feel from a speaker, you'll hardly notice, you need Playbase from Sonos. Its low-profile design practically disappears beneath your TV while filling your entire room with epic audio. Playbase adds pulse-pounding sound to whatever's playing from movies and sports to TV and gaming and music. And you don't even have to read the manual.

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