The Watch - Netflix Flexes Its Muscles With ‘Bandersnatch’ | The Watch (Ep. 318)

Episode Date: January 4, 2019

The new ‘Black Mirror’ episode ‘Bandersnatch’ shows us the potential of choose-your-own-adventure TV (10:40), but it’s also really just peak ‘Black Mirror’ (22:17). ‘The Good Place’ continues to show that it won’t be hemmed in by network television (34:34). Hosts: Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Happy New Year and welcome to the Ringer Podcast Network. I'm Liz Kelly. The NFL playoffs are officially here, and that means tons of coverage up on the site. Robert Mays is writing about Philip Rivers' legacy. Danny Kelly discusses Russell Wilson and the Seahawks offense, and Danny Hyfitz gives us his wildcard weekend viewing guide. On the pop culture side, we have a live Golden Globes wins pool featuring Sean Fennacy, Amanda Dobbins, Chris Ryan, Micah Peters, and Kate Hallowell. You can check that out on YouTube. Stand up and walk now. Hello and welcome to The Watch. My name is Chris Ryan. I'm Net at The Ringer.com and joining me in the studio, his Choose Your Own Adventure has brought him back to me. It's hitting real world! In my defense, I made...

Bandage! I made a lot of other choices, but I kept getting bounced back here. Bander Snash is the new Mandalorian dog. Look, no, because people want to talk about Bandersnatch. I don't think people require the level. of Mandalorian news that we've been providing. I don't know. I'd love to see numbers on that. I'd love to see like live data of people saying like it's like almost like a focus

group on CNN when we've got different like the 35 Republican presidents in 2016. Kai, can you get us numbers on that? Is Frank Ludd's available? Yeah, like a live. I'll do my best. Thanks, Kaya. Kaya's back. It's 2019. Happy New Year. Hey, new year. Same old pod. Are you disappointed?

No. It's not like I expected somebody new to be here. Not this week. No. No, I don't want you to go in anywhere. I'm right here. I'm going to keep you right in my pocket where I can keep my eye on you. How is your break, buddy? What do you want to do? You want to go personal or you want to do cultural? You know the way I think about things? There's no difference. Personally, I would say that I was in Philadelphia for a very long time.

Perhaps too much time. And I went back to do, I mean, not that I'm like, Mr. Fix It, but I was like, Mom, give me a list of things you want me to do around the house that I could do. That's very nice in the absence of anyone else being there. And, you know, what can I kind of fix light bulbs, you know, replace a toilet seat? Just want to jump in there. Light bulbs aren't fixed. You mean, like, could you take one out and put you on it?

Yeah, replace it. It's not like I was like, I've been watching these Thomas Edison YouTube. Did TSA get inside the light bulb? Did TSA give you a hard time with your soldering iron that you brought? What am I just like a suitcase full of light bulbs? You can't get these on the East Coast. You know, the taxes, they're different. and I got to Philadelphia

and I was like okay where's the like what do you want me to knock out and she was just she was just like I'm not really in the mood to do that oh okay so that gave me about nine and a half days of free time

she wasn't in the same time in Philly where we live the neighborhood is changed enough in the 20 plus years since I've lived there that it's like really popular I think mostly two car families so if you are not

parked by like 3.30? You're not parking in that neighborhood. There's like no parking space. It was never very parkable as someone who used to drop by on occasion. Yeah, and I would never obviously I'm not saying that I ever had two beers-ish

and then drove. Never. There was a couple of places around the neighborhood that you could just like leave the car. I also want to note that if I remember this correctly, two and a half yinglings does not count as alcohol in Philadelphia. No. It does. In fact, if you are under the limit, a cop, a decent cop will give you a can of black and tan.

And just be like, live a better life. So those spaces are gone. Like all those like weird secret spots and like you can put it at the corner and nobody will bother you here. Like it's, that's all gone. It's all like neighborhood parking with stickers and electric only and the 45 bus stops. And it's just, it's just impossible. So you basically in the house. Yeah.

So I just, I think I'm like 40% bagel right now. I just ate tons of bagels and watched World War. two movies and basketball with my mom. You know, and again, who am I to say this is someone with a suitcase full of light bulbs? But there are ride sharing apps that you could use to potentially. We did do that to go to some of Philadelphia's

lovely restaurants like Zahav and High Street on Market. But then I went up to New York and I just went, I said, I got into a taxi cab and said, take me to the Great White Way. Great. Let's talk let's, baby. We're back. I saw two plays. I saw,

Network, starring the great Brian Cranston. Oh, I thought that was the theatrical adaptation of NBA Desktop starring at Network. What if it starred someone else? Fair, yeah, like he didn't get the part. Like, he was in regionals. What if it was like Stephen Weber from Wings?

Or Finn Whitrock or something. I saw Network with Tadiana Misalani and Tony Goldman, obviously Brian Cranston. Obviously, Brian Cranston. Well, because he's like the name of the, you know, Like, basically, it's the name of the... No one listening to this pays attention to theater. Didn't you see that Broadway had a record-setting holiday season?

Didn't I see? What, in the trades? In the New York Times. No, I didn't, but you're right. The other day I left the house, and a newspaper, a broadside newspaper, was spinning in the air at me and froze. And it said... It came, it hit your windshield and you saw the headline?

It's like, X-Try, X-Try. The Great White Way in the Black. The footlights will never go dim. Uh-huh. Keep going. I saw network, and that was pretty cool. So network obviously based on the Patty Chia. I can see the two-page spread in the odd section now.

It was pretty cool. Do you want me to tell you sincerely about it, or should I just keep doing Newsie's voice? God, I'm torn. On stage. They have camera people on stage following the actors around so that they basically shoot it live and show it up on a screen. So Ivo Hovei, or whatever that guy's name is.

He really crushed it, the director. And then I saw a lifespan of a fact, which was Bobby Connavalli, Cherry Jones, and Daniel Radcliffe. Okay. And it's about... Cherry Jones plays this editor-in-chief of a magazine. Bobby Connovelli plays this long-form writer.

Daniel Radcliffe plays this fact-checker. And they get, like, a piece in that Bobby Connoffali's character is written. Uh-oh. That plays Fast and Loose with the Truth. Uh-oh. But what is the truth? Wow. Find out at the Roundabout Theater.

Or it's Studio 54, actually. Did that remind you of the old days when we were ink-stained wretches? Well, we really wrote reviews. So you would just get a note back that was just like there's 12, not 13-13. tracks. It's not like I was just like, that's not a 12 string. And they're like, oh, but it certainly chimed. So that was my New York experience. Well, you look great. You look rested.

I did one really extra thing. I went to a restaurant called King in the West Village. Kai, or is this, we're killing it right now, right? Just restaurant. I really want to go to this restaurant. I went to King. I've heard great things about King. A phenomenally huge portion of steak, if you order the steak. And then, but.

Did it come with a little side of steak? limited time in New York City, you kind of like, you jumble it all up because you want to get it all in. Uh-oh. I'm not going to agree with what you're going to say next. I had pizza for dessert. Oh, I love that. You did a bang-bang? I had dinner, and then I went and got a slice.

Where did you get your slice? Johns. Johns or Joe's? Sorry, Joe's on Bleakroom. Kayette, run it back. We cannot put this out into the world with this pizza slander. Well, no. Johns is the restaurant one where you have to line up.

John's is the slice. I went to Joe's. I went to the best slice place in the world. Yes. You did great. I'll tell you something. Have you ever had a hanger steak and then eaten a slice of pizza? Metaphorically?

No. No. How did that treat you? Fine. I actually thought I did well with it. That's great. Yeah, I also drank a fair amount of rye that night. I think you did great.

I hope everyone had a holiday as festive as you. What about you? My time away from the microphones combined the vivid and... an exhilarating scenery of escape at Danamora with the internal immune system drama of a late 19th century poet. Okay.

I feel... Lord Byron in upstate New York. It's like sort of prison meets pleuracy in that, you know, one thing I've noticed in my advanced Datington years is that the people

who are blessed, to be child-free, have restorative vacations. Or, I mean, like, not if they eat hangar steak and pizza back-to-back. Well, nourishing vacations. Everyone else gets through it. And I would say a family of four, two small ones, in a unglomerous Airbnb in Northern California, where everyone is sick for a period of six days,

is a bourgeois version of hell. Yeah. And that's all I have to share with you. I'm not trying to embarrass anybody in your family, but would you feel like this was also back-to-back years too, right? Yeah, we're two for two. Yeah. Yeah, it sucks.

December's to remember. And so when I say that I can relate to Keats, it's not because I am a light with the spirit of romance or I am, you know, quick with a quill. It's because you have a fever dream dying. It's because something inside of my chest is slowly killing me. And it's just, it's one of those things also, you know, look, it's 2019.

everybody. And we can do amazing things. We can make an entire choose-your-own-adventure film on Netflix that we're going to talk about momentarily, I swear. But somehow there is still an option where you go to a medical doctor and you say, would you like me to point on the chart

the color of the things that came out of my upper body last night? And he says, well, it'll get better eventually. I'm like, that's an option? I feel like we got really far as a nation using that rationale, though. like we'll just see yeah they just walk it off whatever happened to walk it off um okay doctor house

you're cut off i just you know i thought when i moved to hollywood i would move to the place where like starlets would be like i'm feeling a little congested cecil dear and they'd be like no problem and you know weird shots and dr mcquacky would show up and be like here's a syringe and then you just like dig some trenches in the backyard yeah you know and then also star in a that hasn't happened though no so so we have a wait-and-see approach and i just want to at the use this moment to say, Kai, you need to hose this place down. Like this studio needs to be bleached. I told you to call.

We're going to need a burn unit in here. I told you it was going to fly on the phone. It's all got to go. You mentioned Black Mirror, Bander Snatch. I don't know if you mentioned it by name, but you mentioned the Chooseer and Adventure aspect of it. And we're going to talk about that because, man, this is always like, I just feel like I get my color back a little bit, you know, when this happens.

Because it's like there's a part of like pretty much Thanksgiving. to New Year's where I feel like you wind up because you do so much top 10 stuff and so much retrospective stuff that you're living very much in the last few months in the last year. So it always gives me a little bit of a charge when those first things start coming out

in 2019 and there's already so much stuff to get excited about. True Detective comes out on the 13th. We just found out today the Killing Eve is coming back for its second season in April. Black Earth Rising looks really cool. On Netflix, that's the new show from Hugo Blick, the writer behind Honorable Woman.

So there's lots of really interesting shows coming up. And the year kind of got started off with a bang with this Christmas special, I guess, of Black Mirror called Bander Snatch. Yeah, so this was, I don't know, was this a surprise drop to a degree? There had been a couple of Twitter Easter eggs about it. There had been a couple of rumors that there was, that they were shooting something at least. And people didn't know if that was for season five. And then it showed up on Netflix's schedule. briefly and got taken down.

And then it went back up and it was like on, there's going to be a choose-your-own-adventure, movie essentially, right around Christmas. I think we got to divide the conversation into two different categories because, you know, like all Black Mirror episodes, like all exciting event television happenings, there is a lot of chatter has gathered around this project already. And sort of before I watched it,

I was struck by the, you know, I was trying to ignore. the debate about the content itself, and I was sort of unable to escape the larger debate. And I think the debate about the future of television, the validity of interactive storytelling as a medium, et cetera, et cetera. That's a conversation that I'm excited to have with you because I have strong opinions about it. But putting all that aside, just talking about Bandersnatch as entertainment, and I got to say,

I was pretty impressed by it. And I was pretty drawn in by it. And ultimately, what I think was terrific about it is that it is Black Mirror, to the 100th degree. It is absolutely an episode of Black Mirror. And that is a thing now. That is a recognizable visual language, storytelling language,

point of view, aesthetic. Atmosphere, yeah. Atmosphere. And they've even, I think, in the last year and a half, or the last batch of eight episodes, six, six episodes, especially started to nod more heavily

to a shared universe of these episodes. Absolutely. Even if it's just with like a poster on the wall or something. Which is an interesting angle for it to take. but also one that is ultimately not that surprising because Charlie Brooker we've talked about obviously, we always talk about and we talk about Black Mirror. It springs from his

brain. It is his sensibility. He comes from Easter egg culture. For as much as he is a cultural provocateur and satir and occasionally dystopian seer, he used to be a video game journalist and

loves this shit and loves this kind of world building and interconnected stuff and winks and nudges and Easter eggs and gamesmanship. I think that Bander Snatch is an exceptionally well-made exercise. And I mean that genuinely as praise. I really enjoyed it. It really sucked me in in a way that I didn't expect.

And I think the reason for that is because it made the meta-conversation about itself, the text. Yeah. It is exactly about the validity of interactivity. It is expressly about, quote, giving people what they were. want. And before we get into the specifics of performance or plot, what I really truly appreciated was the way that it explicitly went at people who treat fiction like video games. And I don't mean that video games like with a deep story building, story whatever that video games have become. I mean like the people who play Grand Theft Auto and it's just like, let's go, walk around and

shoot all the pedestrians because you can. Yeah, people who do that, Andy. Look, this is the second part of the conversation. I'm terrible. at those games because I like to stay in the car and follow traffic signs. I am fucking terrible at video games. You like to ask police officers for directions? Yes. I don't ever want to

stray from the path, which is a whole separate conversation, one that I'll have with my psychologist, but also one that is relevant to why I think interactive TV is hopefully not the future and kind of bullshit. But this Black Mirror gives you the chance to treat these people like

pawns. But ultimately, ultimately, it rejects that, calls you out for what you're doing, and is a pretty sad, broken little story. And then it really ends. And I really admired that. That it gestured to the noise and the temptation, but wouldn't let you look away from the actual human heartbreak that was at its core. Yeah, I mean, what's funny about talking about Bander Snatch is that I don't know that any

one of the three of us in this room necessarily had the same experience watching it because we all probably made different decisions while we were going through it. Now, there are a couple that wind up being dead ends that you have to go back on. I don't know if that happened to you. Multiple times. You know, I watched it with my wife,

and we sort of argued a little bit about what to pick in different points. So there's that whole thing of like the psychology of any kind of multiplicity of viewership doing a tug-of-war for the control of the narrative. And then I think that it very smartly sets the story within the parameters of something where that would be an issue anyway, where it's about gameplay and it's about architecture

and it's about narrative and it's about parallel timelines anyway. So you're not necessarily getting all the people from lost off the island. You know what I mean? Like you're not going to make sure that Tony Soprano walks out of the diner alive. It's not like you're making these sort of fundamental choices that deviate from the arc of the story, you're actually experimenting, you're playing in the sandbox that they've created,

which I liked. I thought that made it feel a little less nihilistic, which it's not necessarily an uplifting story by any means, but it felt like a little bit more like, ah, this makes a lot of sense within the story it's telling. Yeah, it chose its story very well for, and matched it very well to, I mean, it's about what it is, which I admire.

Fundamentally, there was some, choices that were always going to be made, Thompson Twins into the gap. The first tape I ever bought. Yeah. Obviously, I'm choosing that, man. Okay. So I don't know what happens if you make the wrong choice there. Did you buy the Tangerine Dream record? Yes. Yeah. Of course, because, come on.

I mean, it starts to get a little bit more complicated when it's like kill your dad, hit him with an ashtray, pour tea over the computer, like those kinds of decisions. Well, the thing that I really liked, as it sort of wedges you into a tighter and tighter box near

the end, as I imagine it did for a bunch of people. And for me, the biggest fork in the road, we're going to talk about this. I assume people listening have watched it or played through at least one version of it. It clearly wants you to, and we'll boot you back, I think, until you end up in a scenario where you sneak into the dad's study. Yeah. And the first time in there, you're confronted with a code and what code you're going to put in. And I chose PACs. Sure. Because you're playing into this paranoia. And this idea that the thief of the demon of the thief of destiny demon guy, yeah. And you do that and you find out it's all a lie and all an illusion and it's all, you know,

it feeds into the paranoiac thriller that a video game might be. And remember there's the moment earlier in the film when Stefan takes, demands more time because he needs to put in a paranoia thriller element into his video game. Right. For whatever reason, I ended up booting back again to that moment. And the second time through, you choose toy. and it's just back to the deep central sadness of what this project actually is.

And I don't know how you ended your last version of it, but I ended the version where he chooses to go die with his mother. Yeah. And it doesn't give you another choice after that. Right. And that moment is beautifully earned and surprising. And honestly, I found that moment after I had chosen the Netflix thing,

where Netflix becomes a character. Did you do the white bear symbol? first. Yes. And then it sends you back and you have to pick Netflix. And then you choose Netflix and you get to see the fight scene and all this nonsense. And it's so over the top. Yeah.

And hilarious. And again, owning the fact that, because I think Charlie Brooker relates to this, both in his, I just think this is the spirit that he has here to before brought to television, but also comes from video games, which is chaos agent,

right? Sure. Let's, if you see, if there's an open world game, run to the edge of the world and try to get over the wall. There's also a degree of self-sats, tire too, where he's talking about, you know, we talked earlier about the black mirror is now

established motif, essentially. This, on one hand, is a very personal episode, I think, because of when it's set and what this person is interested in. But on the other hand, I thought it was very tongue-in-cheek maybe about the limitations of what can happen within a Black Mirror episode. One of the reasons why San Juan Oparro is so beloved is because it is one of the only episodes in which characters find happiness at the end. And even in that sense, even in that sense, even in that sense.

case, they're both dead. Yes. And similarly, you know, you can say that it's a deeply unsentimental show. That's one of its hallmarks. But this one, San Juan Napero, are deeply suffused with 80s nostalgia in a way that is honestly at its start no different than what Stranger Things is. Yeah, I thought that the W.H. Smith scene where he goes in and buys the records was obviously something that Charlie Brooker had been like, it's every single detail of this is like in my memory. Yeah, I totally agree with that, and I was struck by the same thing. Yeah, so they're bringing it all the way back. Like, I think this is an incredibly successful exercise,

and I really was affected by it much more than I expected to be. Because initially, when I was reading about it, and I was reading how excited people were about it, and oh, this is really the possibility of Netflix, what it can be, what it would truly mean to do original storytelling, to take advantage of the newness of this technology. to break some sort of wall in storytelling, whatever. I was disturbed by that, honestly,

because it's just a deeply held belief of mine, and it was one that was only reinforced by my experiences last year, that to make art or to try to make artists essentially just making choices. You have to decide. And you have to decide in big ways in terms of what you show, but you also have to decide in small ways so that the intention is never muddled, even if the story exists in a gray area or in nuance, right?

And so this idea that something would be improved by shrug emoji at key moments and giving people the option to do whatever they wanted. That does nothing for me. I mean, the whole, as I was saying, like, I am a terrible failure at open world video games. I don't like deviating from the norm. And what I appreciate about challenging art is that it forces me to deviate and see things and have people make bad choices and catastrophic decision making. But that's what I'm saying is that I think that for the most part, most of the choices are still within. this sort of like the boundaries of what a Black Mirror episode

would be. It's not like it turns into a rom-com if you pick five or six different choices. Totally, but it's also why I think that it's dangerous it won't stop, you know, the culture machine from doing this, but I think it's dangerous to look at this as a harbinger of things to come as opposed to

a Black Mirror episode that had this technology. And it's funny that you mentioned something about Tony Soprano because I was thinking about the same thing in reference to this bander-snatch moment because Alan Seppenwall and Matt Seitz had this new book, which is a terrific book. I read it, I blurbed it. It's called The Sopranos Sessions.

And it's, you know, they've been doing these terrific lookbacks on the great series of our last decade, and this is no exception. There's essays by each of them on every episode of the series. It's out in a week, I think. But the big, the juiciest part of it is this big interview with Sopranos creator David Chase, where they kind of trick, not trick,

they trap him almost. He accidentally refers to the infamous last scene of the show as the death scene. And he says like, we were going to do it this way. And he's like, fuck you guys. It was like going to be like he's going to go meet Johnny Sack or something like that. But it winds up. And it just gave me an opportunity to say something that I said at the time. And I'll say again, I just think it's so fundamental to watching any of this or engaging with any of this.

Tony Soprano didn't die. The screen went black. that was the choice. Now, what the intent of that was can be debated. It can even be sussed out of David Chase. It can be answered, for sure, yeah. But that's not what we're talking about. Right. It's hugely important that the choice was made to convey this information to us in this way

and what comes after it and our reactions to it are part of our experience. And I will always love that episode for that. And I will always respect the hell out of David Chase for that too, because I think It's truly breathtaking. There is no one right answer. We saw the show. And what we take from it is what we take from it. But there is no what happens next.

And that's the power of decisive filmmaking, storytelling. I thought you mentioned something earlier about that I did want to touch on it. I think your point about the Sopranos is really good. But this idea that this is somehow we've now taken a step that we've taken a step that we can't step back from with Netflix and the technology of storytelling. I had to break it to people, but this has been happening already. You know, Netflix already knows a ton about us. Yeah. Netflix is already making television that hits certain quadrants that people want. They're going to continue to do that at the, at the click that they're doing it, because eventually they may very

well send some of these networks out of business by doing so. So I don't necessarily feel like now is the point where the Pandora's box is opened. And I also think that people do like the passive experience of watching something. I don't think that they always want to be the player. And I think that for it to be truly revolutionary, you would need almost that infinite amount of variables that they talk about in the video game. You know, that they talk about in Bandersnatch itself is like, I just want to keep adding paths.

To make it truly mind-bending, you would be able to dictate almost every. single thing that Stefan does. It's also so funny because, you know, people who pay attention, closer attention to video games have known this for a while, but this idea, this illusion of ultimate freedom and ultimate choice is the sort of the white whale of video gaming. And it rarely results in anything good. Because do you remember, I may have even used this analogy on a podcast before, but a bunch of years ago, like 99, 2000, I was the video game critic, Spin magazine.

And there was this game called Shenmu that came out for the Dreamcast, I believe, and everyone was going crazy about it because it's brilliant. I think the guy who did Sonic created, or maybe not the Sonic guy, but another one of these Sega legends had spent a decade and millions of dollars to create this completely immersive game where you're this young man and you are trying to get revenge, but you also were wandering a city. And there were arcades where you could play other Sega games. And someone would be like, yes, you can meet with whoever,

but at 5 p.m. and you'd have to kill time. And so then there was this beautiful, incredibly, optimistic video game where you mostly played video games and wasted time. Yeah. And it was boring. And they never made chapters two through 12. Yeah. Because infinite choice is not, you don't actually want your life.

You want to be entertained and taken away. The idea about sometimes wanting to be passive is well taken too because I sat down and was ready to fire this up and watch it on my television set. And I was informed that I couldn't because you can't watch it on Apple TV, which is how I watch Netflix. So I took out my iPad and was told I couldn't. You had to watch on your laptop. I had to watch it on my phone.

Oh. And at first I was like, this is stupid because I don't want to watch television on my phone. But actually, this was pretty well suited to it. Yeah. Because it made it. So the thumbs are right there. It was a very video gamey, intimate, weird private experience. Well, I don't know if I watched it on my laptop.

And when you, usually on the, like the Power Book or whatever, if you move the cursor down, If you move the mouse down a little bit, you will see the control bar and you'll see how much time is left in Netflix shows. And as somebody who watches a fair amount of television, I am sometimes known to check on the running time. You don't see it in Bander Snatch. They don't show you the running time. You can pause, but you can't go forward.

Because you don't know how much time is left to make of the choice. And you also don't know what narrative you're going forward to. So it was pretty fascinating. The, I wanted to circle back to one other thing you said that was really valuable, which is we already are doing this stuff. in terms of interactivity, or at least if we're not doing it, they're doing it.

It's not just that they know what people are watching. Netflix knows when you stop something. Netflix knows the moments when you were like, Ozark's not for me. Or nah, Marie Kondo, I'm good being messy,

or whatever. They know that. And they are using that information. They know whether you're sparking joy. Yeah, they know, but like from everything that I've heard, they don't really give notes at all to people who make shows

for them. But A, that might not be true. And B, we're coming to a moment where if they do get more involved, they will say, we think you should do less of this character doing this because we know that there was a drop-off rate every time that character did something. And when we did a test screening of Breyer Patch last year, there was a bar, like a presidential debate. Like, I saw when the 76 Randos watching it on their laptop, I saw when the 12 people who didn't make it to the end, I saw the moment they dropped off. It's an awful way to engage with this stuff, but if you're on the other side of it

and you're making these decisions, why wouldn't you want the data? You know, it's... Well, because there's also... I mean, Alison Herman wrote a piece for the ringer when Banner Snatch came out that was about a lot of, but like some of the innovations

that came along with this episode, but also some of the things that Netflix has been doing for a while, like some Mindhunter episodes are 30 minutes, some are 60 minutes. Sometimes they do comedy specials that are 15 minutes long. Hassan Minaj's show is like a YouTube video.

It's not like a talk show, you know? And so they've been messing around with this stuff. There's a lot of traditional television stuff that I think we're good with. Like, we can stop doing that. We can stop doing a C plot that is just there to fill time. You know what I mean? And so I hope that some of these seemingly robotic AI kind of, you know, suggestions do lead to some innovative storytelling.

I don't necessarily think that choose your own adventure is the way forward. And in a lot of ways, what was funny about, this show, and Allison mentions this as well, is it did actually feel a lot like a choose-your-own-adventure book in that there was a bunch of choices, but there was only so many choices. Yes, and if you, I mean, I read a lot of choose-your-own-adventure books from the elementary school library, and my main memory of them was that two-thirds of the choices, you'd turned to the page and you'd already know when you got there, you'd made a bad choice.

You have to go back and do this. It would say three sentences, and the sentences would be like, unfortunately you run out of oxygen and you die lonely on the surface of the moon. Right. And that's an ending, but you know there's more story. That happens if you pick to have Stefan jump off the root of the deck. Oh, what happens? It just...

It goes to the review of the game from that kid on TV, and he's like, oh, it's a tragedy, but the game sucks and you have to go back and pick... That's what happens if you choose to do the work on the game in the office. Okay. And one of the first decisions. Yeah, and he's like, you chose the wrong path, right? He literally says he chose the wrong path. Yeah, Colin tells you that.

shows the review that it was mediocre groupthink. Right, because they didn't work hard enough on it over. And it bounces you back. Yeah, I mean, it's, I don't know, I admired it. The other thing about it was that gave me some hope was the sense of humor and play that I was concerned was leaching away from Black Mirror to some degree as it became an institution. When things become bigger or they become iconic, they generally become iconic for, for a few bold strokes

as opposed to the whole panoply of colors and features and styles. And as you said, like a Black Mirror episode, taking certain boxes of dystopia and sort of darkness, almost darkness for darkness's sake, ultimately a cruel joke at the end,

that was becoming a little bit claustrophobic. And also, I think it's become more and more influential. I mean, not only just do you hear everybody who ever worked on the show or anybody who's watching TV now refers to it in such glowing terms, but everything from the anthology format to the kind of post-tech dystopia

that they've sort of put forward, it shows up in a lot of places. And I think that the most optimistic I ever am about Netflix is when we're talking about the things like we're talking about that Allison talked about. Like the fact that Black Mirror seems to have found a corporate partner that is allowing it to be whatever it's going to be,

that allows it to shape-shift and become whatever it needs to be at any time, not only ensures that Charlie Berker's going to, keep making things as long as because he can keep pushing himself and isn't stuck to one format. But it also means we're going to be getting more exciting, interesting work. And yeah, Mind Hunter shifting, you know, episodes being as long as they need to be in an hour, when what otherwise would be an hour-long format is much, much better to me and makes me, gives a secondary reason, honestly, to understand why, for example, Netflix just jettisoned

the Marvel universe. Yeah. Really, that was some corporate bullshit. It was a Disney thing, yeah. Because Disney's pulling all their content for Disney Plus, and Netflix was like, well, fuck this then, basically. But those shows always were deeply frustrating, even when they were good,

because it was as if Netflix had sold real estate. They had sold them like tracks of land, and they were like, you're going to deliver 13-hour tracks of land to fill this. Whereas a more nimble current version of Netflix might be doing more of what Disney Plus is apparently doing, which is saying, oh, we could get Sebastian, Stan, and Anthony Mackey to do a miniseries. Okay, well, what could that be?

Right. It'll be six hours. Right. And we'll take two years to plan it, and we'll make it, and we'll give it to you, and then it'll be what it'll be. All right. Well, let's take a quick break to hear from our sponsor when we get back. Andy and I are going to check in our show.

We haven't talked about in a while. The good place. Today's episode of The Watch is brought to you by Microsoft Surface. Let's talk about something super exciting, like the newest member of the Microsoft Surface family, the Surface Pro 6. Now faster and more powerful than ever before. so you can get even more done,

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and the good place is almost back. It ended its sort of fall run with Janet's, the last episode that aired on December 6th, And it's coming back next week, January 10th, for two more episodes. The Book of Dugs and Chee Dicey's The Time Knife. Those are the episode titles. It's called Chee Dice's the Time Knife? Yeah.

Is it a Black Mirror movie? I don't know. Maybe we'll get to choose Cheesdy's adventure. That's dope. How many more episodes are there in the season? It says two. It says 12 episodes season. And it's coming back for another one.

But these are the last, so it's ending its season in January with two episodes. That's what Wikipedia.com says. Wow. org. Dotorg. Okay. Maybe dot com says something different. Yeah, I want to hear you

what you think of this season of The Good Place first. Well, I wanted to check in with it because we've sort of, we have been, let me put it this way, I think the good place, which we often champion

as like the only good thing worth seeing still on broadcast network television is a victim of being the only good thing to watch on broadcast network television because I am now realizing I too would rather have

at my disposal when I would like to watch it. Yeah, just have a bunch of it on Hulu and watch it that way. And in fact, that's what I did. I didn't keep up with it through the fall and then in the throes of deep acute respiratory infection, I just, I burned through the last four or five. What a great use of that show, honestly, because it has such a consistency of tone and performance

and it's always impressive. The downside of it, to me this year was it felt softer. And I think we talked about this a little bit before when we didn't really get too far into it. I don't know where you netted out with it, but I was not loving the Earth stuff and the Australia stuff. And a bunch of the episodes, to me,

felt almost too sweet. The things that we love in Mike Scher shows, the things that are lionized and championed and gushed over on Vulture and every culture blog there is, it felt like the memes had won almost, which is a real discredit and disservice to all the really talented writers and Mike himself too who are working on it.

But in dismissing it for those reasons, I think I made the mistake of forgetting the core DNA of the show, which is actually DNA that is better, again, better served probably on a streamer, which is it's just going to blink and it's going to change again. In a post-Janet's, I know what you'd want to call it, conversation or review with, I think it was a Hollywood reporter,

Mike was saying how the standard operating procedure for the show, and it's intentional because people, things used to take much longer, is that it's going to change dramatically every four episodes. But when you're sort of caught in the week to week, you're like, are we going to be in Australia forever? It's like going to cat skills with the measles, you know? A little bit. kind of forget about it.

And then it jumps again. And then it doubles down and double dares. And you end up with an episode like Janet's, which was pretty astounding and satisfying. It's very hard to be both. And for people who don't know or maybe have fallen off, this was an episode that essentially gave Darcy Cardin, who plays Janet, an opportunity to play every character on the show at the same time

and do the heavy lifting of a major emotional storyline between Eleanor. and Chidi herself. I mean, it is a dazzling showcase for one of TV's most underappreciated performers, but it was also a reminder that this show is deeply special and its heart deeply surprising. Yeah, I think that if anything, I would say that I probably was taking the good place for granted. Yeah. You know, this is an incredible episode. I was a little bit more, I don't know, non-plus by the season.

I think that even you were, but, like, I don't want to blame a... a show for the way in which it gets recycled in culture. You know, that's not necessarily fair to the art itself, just because it gets used as memes a lot. But I did feel like it felt like I'd been inside the pinball machine a little too long. And you kind of forget how hallucinatory or hallucinogenic this show is, hallucinatory, I guess. It's like Maya Rudolph as a time judge eating a burrito and, you know,

like all these portals to different dimensions and all this like internal logic that the show has, and when you're watching it, it's on NBC, and you're just kind of like, dun, dun, and you kind of take it for granted that, like, you're watching something truly out there, but you're just like, this is just like a sitcom, and it's a will-day or won't do with Cheedy and Eleanor, and every, like, five steps they take forward, they're going to three steps back by losing their memory or going back to Earth or going to wherever they're going and having to start at the beginning of learning philosophy. But I still get basically, like, sitcom vibes off the show.

Like, that is essentially, like, what I enjoy about it. but it's interesting to know that he is seeing that that it's four episodes and then a drastic change and a four episodes and a drastic change and I wonder how drastic the changes can possibly get with that. The thing that it's far too easy to take for granted is this is a show that is fundamentally in motion. There aren't episodes that tread water.

There is no, you know, band or snatch button that they could press to elongate the show for an extra two seasons should the ratings demand it. They haven't said how many seasons it's going to run. It's been renewed for a fourth season. They could say that's it. Maybe he has five seasons in mind. I can't imagine it goes past that.

It's breathless. And that's incredibly rare. Yeah. I adored parks and recreation and praised it constantly, and one of the things I praised it for was its refusal to ever stay put. It was always shaking it up, changing things. but in retrospect that show is like who's the boss compared to this.

Do you think that they've done that? Two of Mike's previous shows on Parks and Rec and then his work on the office, they both saw the protagonist they start out at one place and they kind of gradually brought them a little bit more likable. So I think Michael famously is incredibly abrasive

in the first season of the office and then they made him a little bit more of a lovable loser. And Leslie Knope was, much more, like, just kind of, like, not abrasive, but, like, was a little bit more difficult in the first season of Parks, and then they changed her character.

Well, the difference between the first six episode, the six episode first season of Parks and what came after was that everyone was sort of side-eyeing her and thought she was annoying or ridiculous. Yeah, that's right. And then everybody was like, you're a saint. And then after that, after that, they were all like, what a weirdo,

but boy, we appreciate her. And it was a subtle tweak that saved the show and changed the show. Sure. I was wondering if you felt like that was happening with Eleanor, or that it happened to Eleanor. Well, you know, I think that, and I think Mike would probably agree with this,

and hopefully we'll ask him next time he comes on the pod, but like he likes to like people. He likes, his favorite show of all time is cheers. Everyone on that show has their quirks, but everyone is lovable and everyone loves each other. That is his default setting in his storytelling. And honestly, it's something that people seek out and crave on television. It's in our deepest DNA and understanding TV.

And I love it too. But to the question you're asking, I mean, yeah, those edges were sanded super quickly. The fact that these four misfits who were sent to hell together specifically to annoy each other are now calling themselves hashtag Soul Squad. Yeah. That was a lot. Yeah. It was a lot. But, you know, again, those four episodes or whatever it was of them doing that, which culminate in Michael McKean, as Doug Forset drinking his own urine.

That's right. Which is great. Yeah. Now they're being chased by demons through different dimensions again, which, terrific. You know, there wasn't too much time spent doing any of that. And maybe in retrospect, we'll look at those where Tani has to sort of give her sister a hug as the necessary smaltzier parts to get to where we're going next. Who knows?

But it's interesting. There are two shows that we talk about and then forget about and come back to, and I think, fundamentally take for granted. and we've had reckonings with both of them. One is the good place. One is Better Call Saul. Both are craftsmanship trades. Saul, I came back to the church. I was just like, take me back.

Yes, but both shows are on the highest level in terms of performance and production and writing and expertise. And it's really more of a testament to our like kind of short attention span, I think. But I also think that both of those are shows that maybe are the, they're kind of the gateway for us to go from the way we usually are. Because both of us, I believe, I know I have. I don't know if you have been as adamant about this. But I've been like, no, like week to week is better.

I don't like binge model. Yeah, because it helps the conversation, yeah. But these are two shows that I absolutely have realized I appreciate more when I can choose my serving size. Yeah, absolutely. And that's kind of interesting, just from my own personal experience. I wonder if other people feel the same way, or if there are other examples of shows that you just,

I'll throw it out there. I wonder if people will talk about this on our Facebook group, for example. Like, people are wondering why we haven't talked about the Deuce Season 2. I copped to it last month. I just haven't finished it yet. Are other people like that with The Deuce or with, I don't know, preacher? Yeah, what's the show that you mean to be up on but aren't? Is there a show that you will stand for?

You will say, I am a fan of the show. Oh, what do you think of the new season? I'm not watching it until I can watch it the way I want to watch it. Yeah. Okay. That's a good one. So Monday is going to be the day after the Globes. So we're going to talk about the Globes.

And we're going to talk about movies that we've caught up with recently, like mostly, like the, awards movies. Well, we're going to talk about Vice. Yeah. I want to talk to you about if Beale Street could talk. Okay. Because I watch that. If you haven't checked it out, I think it's expanding to more theaters this week.

It is a gorgeous movie. I really encourage people to go out and see it. What was I watching while you were watching that? Well, so. Oh, I was watching the Eagles game? No, no, no. Was it the Eagles game? No, no.

Our beloved Sixers were here. Oh, yeah. And I was going to go with you to the game. Yeah, right. But I am unable to breathe at altitude. So I did not go. and instead I watched a gorgeous meditation on blackness in the American 70s. Yeah, it was a big mood.

It was a big mood differential on the first of the year, but I think it's a really worthwhile movie. A big influence on the film apparently on Barry Jenkins. I hope people check that out so you can join the conversation on that. I saw Mary Poppins returns, and you know, you know, I got a carpet bag full of takes. If I do less talk lets, you get to do Datington. That's the trade. That's the trade.

Yeah. I'm not watching Mary Poppins. Now you're setting the terms. Yeah. You don't have to watch Mary Poppins, although Emily Blund is a god. I heard her on Terry Gross. She was good. Wow.

Who's the dad? I'm sorry. I told you I spent a lot of time in Philadelphia. The last thing that we're going to talk about just setting up Monday is I would like to see the best reviewed film of 2018, Spider-Man, into the Spider-verse. And we were off-off mic a moment ago. And young Chris, the slump problem. God over here, said that he too would like to see it, which air horn sound, do you know it's a cartoon?

Yeah, of course. And you're going to see it. Yeah, I guess support Jay Johnson. Okay, obviously we got to support first ballot friend of pod. It's not just like people being like this is cool in like a, the trash robot is alone on the planet kind of way. It's like people are like, this is the best superhero movie I've ever seen. Were you talking about Wally? Yeah. Did you call it the trash robot is alone on the planet? That's more syllables than Wally.

you're never getting those syllables back. Just say the name of the movie. When I die, I'll think about everything I could have said instead of saying Wally. When you're in one of those floating entertainment, fat person tubes, like all the humans in Wally? I'm surprised I didn't call it Waleigh, honestly. Like the rapper?

We used to be into Seinfeld and then hung out with Rick Ross. And then we're going to do... So you are going to see it? Yes. I'm very interested in what you think about that. So Monday, we're going to talk movies. We're going to talk Golden Globes, TV winners, and everything like that.

You should also make sure you check your subscribe to the big picture podcast feed because they've got all your movie award season needs covered. Sean and Amanda are doing amazing stuff over there. True Detective is coming on January 13th, I believe, is the first episode. That's Sunday. That's January 13th, the first two episodes will air. And Jason Concepcion and I are doing a True Detective after show called The Flat Circle

that you can watch on YouTube and will also be available as a podcast after the show is over. So that should be pretty cool. Can I haunt that after show like The Lion? God haunts Bandersnatch. I want you to come in every episode of that True Detective show and just be like, didn't watch it. There should be a big red button on the desk.

Are you going to watch two hours of TrueD next Sunday? You press the red button. I will emerge from the side of the stage and just give a thumbs down and a sound. Just to be on brand. So Jason and I got your True Detective stuff covered. It's a two-hour premiere?

It's the first two episodes. It's like they're not doing it the whole season that way, but they're doing two hours the first night. Is there a moment where I can choose Tangerine Dream to play. I think Nick Pizzolato's got you covered there. Okay, good. And yeah, we've got a lot of stuff to get to. So hopefully we have some guests coming up. And it's great to be back. Great to be back in 2019. I hope Bandy lives to keep doing more episodes. Guys, this is your go-to podcast this year. If you have questions about herbal remedies, light bulbs, switchery, or as always, the great project known

as American Theater. Happy New Year, guys. Great job, Branskees.