The Watch - Opening Up the Mailbag (Ep. 188)

Episode Date: September 25, 2017

The Ringer’s Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald open up the mailbag and respond to listener questions that run the pop culture gamut, from the new 'Star Wars' and 'Blade Runner' films to the best TV restaurants to the state of streaming television and which podcasts they listen to. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today's episode of the watch is brought to you by Hotel Tonight. Let me tell you about this amazing little hotel booking app. It's called Hotel Tonight. It is an app that helps you find amazing hotel deals at the last minute. It's perfect for a spontaneous getaway or indulging in a little staycation. All it takes is 10 seconds, just three taps and a swipe. You can afford that, guys. What are you waiting for?

Get in on these killer last minute deals and download the Hotel Tonight app now. I ain't supports to have to clear the room. Stand up and walk. Now. Hello and welcome to The Watch. My name is Chris Ryan. I am an editor at the ringer.com and I am currently in Portugal. That's not even a metaphor.

That's not even a metaphor. I'm on vacation but before I went away, me and Andy Greenwald recorded a mail bag. From all of our great listeners sending in all these great questions, Greenwald, what's up, man? How is it going without me? Things got weird. I gotta tell you, some of the guests I had on were really aggressive. really aggressive. Yeah, I thought it was strange that you had Sean Spicer and... I think everybody deserves a second chance.

Had Roland Emric on the same show. I thought they vibed. We have a bunch of questions from our... That's fun. From our listeners. Gosh, these are great. Andy, I'm going to start this... So what you're saying, though, is you're just basically, you're explaining that you're on a nice vacation. I didn't even finish my thought. Eating white anchovies somewhere on a beach.

Somewhere I am, yes, I am trying out for sporting Lisbon. What I want to say is there may be a lack of topicality in some of these, right? Yes, right. Like, if there's, like, something pressing going on in the world, and it's not covered in this mailback, because we got these questions, circa, September 10th. But that's what...

You started asking for them around... But that's what Roland and Spicer are for, as my new co-host. Roland and the Spice in the mornings! That would be the weirdest morning's show. Rolling in the Spice. Greenwald, let's just do... Let's just get right into it. Let's do it.

And let's get confrontational and emotional about it. At Crocken wants to know, besides Andy's chance take, what is the worst take each of y'all have ever had on the show in hindsight? It's a great question. Let me first begin with my 19th mea culpa here. Chris, we've been doing the show now for five and a half years. Yeah. It's a lot of takes. You could build a city with the take bricks that we have shaped from river clay and stacked.

on top of one another. In that time, nothing was worse than my chance take. And now... What was that based on acid rap? And you were like, I'm not even into that? I was very dismissive of like alt rap. You know, just in general, I wasn't trying to...

Can I be honest? I was like, I was out on something called acid rap. He had like, chance of the rapper in his name. And I was like, this is too... A hat on a hat, like, too cute. I don't get this. A hat on a hat. I didn't engage with it.

Okay. and I was out. And then the take actually happened when what was the side project that he put out? Oh, the Donny trumpet jam. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And I believe I said, like, I'm not checking for Joey Trombone out here. Yeah, right.

Did you actually say that on the air? I heard you said at a bar and I think everybody was scandalized by it. I think I was rehearsing what I would say in front of the mic because you know, no fear. You know me. Yeah. It's kind of like you're going to the comedy seller working on your hour, put together some material. I was, but it was not ready for. prime time. It was a hideous take

in an ignorant one. But happy ending. I listened to Joey. It's a chance. Yeah. And I love him. I love his music. I have to ask you this. What's my worst take? Oh, there's so many.

Your opinion about the FX drama, The Americans? Oh, yeah, that's right. I was going to say, like any great quarterback, you've got to forget your mistakes. Is that how you feel so you've literally forgotten them? You feel like you've done nothing wrong in all this time? I suppose for you, it's valid to say that the Americans is my worst take. I mean, I think also we, that's a bad take.

But in general, I think that we have strong opinions, but we don't just throw them about willy-nilly. So I think a lot of the opinions we have in things have stood the test of time. The biggest shift we ever had, I think, was on the leftovers, where our, dare I say it, antipathy for that show was strong enough to inspire Damon Lindelof to create. create an cold open for a season. Designed to upset us.

Design to upset us. Didn't work. No, it did. I thought that cold open was not bad. It made me crazy. And then I kept watching and I was like, okay, this show is actually secretly great and only got better. So, but, you know, we have said to his face that I have not changed my opinion. I would say that what I'm guilty of, if Greenwald is guilty of takes without backing, I am guilty of no takes whatsoever.

I think sometimes I'm a little too wishy-washy, and I should just say what I feel. So, like, going forward, maybe that's a New Year's resolution. Aren't there a couple things that you've come in, like, blazing 500 degrees hot for and then forgotten about in two weeks? Yeah, also, there are sometimes where I'll be like, I'm going to go on the show and be like, Carly Ridge Epson sucks. And then I think I just, like, don't sell it hard enough. I don't think we ever did it.

I said it. No. I think I said it, because somebody, I did say that. We're getting carry away. But just you guys know, the takes that don't make it on the show. Chris decided he was going to just come on and, like, do the, contra-flamethrower from the NES on pop shantos, Carly Ray Jepson, whom I am quite fond of. But your whole point was predicated on comparing her to...

Sky Ferreira. No, alt-folk troubadour Ron Sexsmith was a name you mentioned. Oh, yeah, that was like a whole thing. Yeah, so we didn't do that thing. So you guys are lucky, basically. The bad takes generally don't make it on the air, but I will apologize to chance and because of chance for the rest of my days. This is a great question.

And it comes from Greg of the dead, Greg Sylvester. Can we get a check on the status of Jonathan Parenthood? Hangboard in the MCU and will he ever play street hoops again? I think that's doubtful. I think it's doubtful that he, because something really bad happens to him, the end of Doctor Strange and like the credit sequence, right? Well, Mordo, played by Tsuitelle Ajo4. Isn't it wild that we watch these movies?

I know. Well, isn't it wild that I knew that character before? It was socially okay to do that. Shows up to take back the magic from his lower trunk, his body piece. Look, I have a high hopes for his continued presence in these movies, not as high, obviously, as Benjamin Bratt's team, his agents. My concern stems from this. Every year at Comic-Con, Marvel rents out the big hall,

and then they often show concept art for their upcoming project. So, like, Infinity War, so it's like an illustration. You see Star Lord and the Incredible Hulk and wasp, but, like, all these characters who have yet to appear on screen together drawn together. So we're like, okay, I can sort of imagine this world. now, in none of those drawings was there room for a surprisingly

spry, 50-year-old... Running a high-low screen. Like just streetball, legend of the rucker. He's not in them. The thing is that of the many amazing things about that Dr. Strange basketball sequence, including, yo, Pangborn! Is that they are playing basketball underneath

the BQE, aren't they? Yeah, you don't do that there. There's like scrap metal yards there. in an old McDonald's. Andy, this is a question from Corey 2613. So, Corey, thanks for writing in. Who do you think is more to blame for the oversaturation of sequels and reboots? Hollywood or audiences.

Wow. Wow. The enemy within. You never blame the victims. Well, I think that we have, you know, Corey, I think that we're really getting into an interesting territory with this because as Sean Fentasy has detailed in many of his sort of industry essays that he's been writing over the course of this year. There is a little bit of IP fatigue, a little bit of franchise. When you get deep into the Pirates and the Transformers series, when you get to movie number five,

while the producers of said movies would say actually did quite well globally, we're happy with the money that we've made globally, they are definitely losing the mind share of, I think, the domestic audience. And this has been a year that I think a very charitable reading of this year would be that movies like Get Out and Baby Driver were very successful. and that there is still a place to make original genre filmmaking and then to have those be box office successes. I think that there's blame to go around.

I think you have to vote with your wallet, but people like going to the movies, so it's tough. I mean, it's been a pretty barren stretch in the theater recently. You can read it two ways. Studios are just, you know, high volume entities or cogs, I should say, in larger shareholder traded companies. And what business people do to run smart businesses to keep shareholder interest is to try to produce a consistent product

or consistent return. And art is hard to manage consistently. And so they have the increasing trend towards trying to plan for things. And that is why we get studios giving us release dates for tent poles that haven't been named yet. That's why the DC Comics slate stretches into 2022, why Marvel does as well. Disney.

I mean, these are benchmarks not for us as fans, although they are sold to us that way, but benchmarks for shareholders and investors, which is a perfectly valid part of those businesses, but less interesting to us, I think, as fans. You could also look at that and say that the attempt to control the return comes from the increasing datification of everything. We talked about it a couple weeks ago

with Spotify and the music business change, changing in that way. We've talked, you know, I don't, but at the ringer and other sports sites, you know, people talk about the way data is used in sports now. They've tried to do that with movies too, you know, in terms of, well, if we do this in the third act, we're going to have people tell their friends it was good. I mean, they really do think about it that way. So that is also added to a diluting of the product.

But I think the future probably lies in understanding the middle ground, which is to say that one of the best reviewed movies of the year and also one of the best in terms of return was Logan. And Logan, you could say if you squint, is a sequel. Yeah. But what it actually is is filmmakers and a star being like,

we want to do something different. Not, I wouldn't even say original because it's a Western, basically. No, it's like capturing the, not only capturing a certain essence of that character that has been written and filmed and in the public consciousness for what, 40 years now, but sticking with it, sticking with the vision and sticking to its

guns throughout the entire movie where it's not, oh, yeah, you know, it's kind of a cool 45 minutes, but then it gets back to like, you know, we always go back to the idea of Captain America Winter Soldier being compared to like Paralyx View and three days of the Condor when it's like, there's like two or three scenes that are kind of cool like that and then the rest of it is basically Captain America. Let's also try, I think it's also important to maintain some perspective when when discussing the glut of IP or pre-existing franchises or, you know, pre-existing material, because something like it and its success and the lessons you can take from that

are very different than what you could take from the announcement that Hollywood had assigned a screenwriter to the live-action movie of Robotech. That, to me, seems like the definition of something cynical and soulless and pointless. I don't even... I think it's the same guy, right? Who did... Shetty. Yeah.

who's attached to that? Yeah. I mean, he's going to make it two first, but he's going to make Robotech? Yeah. See, I think that's interesting. Were you making that up, or did you not know it was machete? I didn't know it was the same guy. Yeah, yeah.

I was going to say that, you know, one thing Hollywood has always done is take books and turn them into movies. I mean, that's just what people do. I don't actually have a problem with like the IP stuff as much. But I'm saying there are examples of it that are, you can tell their cynical up and down, up and when we talked about it the first time, I brought up the Dark Tower and I feel that way. They just needed to make a Dark Tower movie. Yes.

And it seems there were either too many cooks or not enough oversight. It's probably a rights thing. It didn't matter what they made if they didn't make it in time. And so they made something that pleased no one. Whereas if you do it well or you do it specifically, it can turn out well. So maybe Robotech is going to be great. Right. And I actually have less of a problem with, you know, it's not less of a problem.

But I find, you know, you can't blame audiences when Hollywood will be like, oh, you know, like neighbors and bridesmaids did well. Let's make 19 movies that are exactly like that. And even if it's neighbors too, and I wouldn't be surprised if there was another bridesmaids eventually. I think that the lack of imagination is not limited to movies that have a two or three at the end of their title. It could be just like there's a lot of copycat stuff.

And there always has been and there always will be. And I also think to just go all the way back to the original question, I would never blame audiences because people have people, you know, you can only choose what's on the menu. And I think anytime people go to the movies is still a good thing, considering the other options that you have. People want to have a shared experience. They want to go see something fun or exciting or they've never seen before. And people are voting with their wall. It's relatively well, I think, at the moment. Even if it's not something I like, like, I cheer the success of it. And I'm only saying that because it's the most relevant recent example when we're

recording this. Because apparently it's a horror movie done pretty well, and people like to go see that. That's good for everybody. That's not the end. That's not the death of things just because it's a pre-existing material. We're talking about choice. Here's another question from Bryce Sawin. Are we going to end up with 500 separate streaming services and bundle them with our internet just like cable TV now? Bryce, I increasingly feel like that that is going to be the case, that there's going to be a certain point where there's just going to be too many over-the-top services that people feel like I'm paying $8 a month for this and $12 a month for that and $100 for my Amazon Prime and this for my HBO now and this for this. And eventually you're going to get up around the $200 that a lot of people

wind up paying, at least in the cities that I've lived in, for premium cable packages. I would say that in terms of bundling them together, I don't know if there's going to be a corporate bundling of those things, but I think that you're actually seeing that with things like Apple TV. Apple TV, when you look at all the apps that you have, is essentially a TV guide that you hit the guide button on your cable. And you're not getting. I think that they're trying to do things with Apple TV where you can just type in Grey's Anatomy and it'll show you

how you could watch that. Siri will do that on the new Apple TV. But whether or not all this stuff lives under one corporate umbrella, if anything, I think that if you read Ben Smith's piece in BuzzFeed this week about the kind of changing perception in Washington

towards big technology companies through Silicon Valley. And it kind of starts to talk about these companies being viewed almost like the oil industry in terms of their dominance and the control they have over people's lives and all the issues that come wrapped up in it, like privacy and security. I wonder whether or not, you know, if we're doing the watch in 10 years, we'll be talking about the breakup of those companies and what that meant to the entertainment industry.

It's also because this is the time to start to chip at them because they're becoming more insidious and intertwined. And, you know, I think people know that AT&T is buying Time Warner, which means what they're really buying is HBO. And I believe there was some confirmation. this week we're recording a couple weeks ago for you guys, but that the plan is to make HBO now available to AT&T subscribers so that I don't have to have cable,

I will get it through my cell phone package or whatever. And that's great. I actually am an AT&T user, so I get it. That's cool. But I am very curious where this is going to go because people want choice and al-a-carat is great for a lot of people, but for people like us and people who I would imagine are engaged enough in pop culture to listen to this podcast, we want more than three or four or five or six things.

We want to be able to sample. We want to be able to have the most crucial services. And the full a la carte thing I don't think is going to fly. I don't know who's going to bundle it. I think Hulu's skinny bundle is very interesting. I think there are other companies starting to do interesting things with that as well. Yeah. But the jockeying of the last few years to make every distinct entity a competitor with,

Netflix and Amazon, people are seeing now, if they didn't see already financially, that's just not possible. They cannot hang. You know, Brice, you didn't ask this, but I think the other thing that will be a huge, huge change to the cable television business is if you start to see sports leagues go to streaming. If you start to see if the NFL or the NBA or even international soccer league still directly to Facebook or Amazon or YouTube, and people truly can't, because I think that that is, anecdotally, one of the last remaining reasons to have a cable subscription is to watch live sports in time,

rather than that slight delay that's on streaming. So we'll see what happens with that. Let's go to another one. It's So Quiet. It wants to know which Blade Runner cut I should watch ahead of the sequel. You know, there's a lot of debate about this. I think that I would suggest you just watch Blade Runner. I did want to mention this.

It is September 14th. I'm officially worried about Blade Runner 2049. So only because of this, I think it's always strange as we get this close. So when is this coming out? Like I think the 27th of October. No, it's coming out in early in some point in October. Yeah. By now, there should be some Blade Runner of 24 to 9 is incredible.

With every other Denisville movie, like there has been some advanced buzz about like what an amazing movie. By this time people would have been talking about a rival of being brilliant. there's something also a little funky about how much they're playing up like the wacky relationship between Ryan Gosling and Harrison Ford on set. Yeah, it just feels very, remember that Tom Cruise movie Night and Day where it was like, Tom Cruise is so relatable. Tom and Cammy are always making jokes. Yeah, and it was like, but nobody was talking about the movie itself. I feel like there's something a little bit off with all of this. I think that's very likely.

I have no inside information. I just think that there should be buzz about this movie, by now. My only counter is you'd think there would be buzz about Star Wars Episode 8. Sure, yes. And there isn't. And in this case, my read on that is that it's probably because it's good. Yeah. Because the only buzz coming from Lucasfilm, this summer has been about firing directors and productions in trouble.

And, you know, who is managing this ship and how is it doing? Yeah. and not a peep about Ryan Johnson's episode 8, which to me suggests that it's just sailing through. Right. And we had thought that so strong was the lack of word on episode 8 that Ryan Johnson would be a candidate to direct episode 9. I'm sure he was. Yeah, but JJ Abrams is going to do that instead. Yeah, which that news broke right when we were between shows.

It's interesting to me, we'll see the movie. I mean, this is one where I'm like, we'll see. I think, as I've said before, I think JJ Abrams is a fantastic steward. You want to be in business with him. You want him in the room giving notes. You want him pulling together the impossible because he's done that. Literally, I mean, not just because of Mission Impossible, but he successfully rebooted and reimagined Star Trek and Star Wars. We got into it a little bit talking about Colin Trevereaux.

I did think about that after we talked about this, after he left the. episode nine, you know, Richard Marcant and Irvin Kirchner are definitely very, very competent directors, but we don't really talk a lot about what their role was in Star Wars. I don't really know if in 20 years anybody's going to be like, well, it's really important that JJ came back to finish the tale that he started. I think that these movies will be regarded for what they are, which is these sort of mass entertainments and also the acts of a lot of people, not just the director. Here's the two questions I'm pretty interested in the answer to, but I'm unable to answer right now.

One is obviously how episode 8 will be received and what it will be, because there is a chance that this is the first autore film of the big budget franchise era. Ryan Johnson wrote and directed it. There is no talk about people doing rewrites on scripts. There's no talk about other people coming in to save it, taking it away from him in editing. He seems to have just done this movie. I know. In the middle of the biggest most billion dollar machinery possible, that's incredible. So that will be interesting to watch, especially if it's just full stop good.

The second thing I really have to ask, and there's no way to answer this now because the story isn't over. J.J. Abrams has not ever made, he's never made a great film. No, I think he's made some beloved movies. I don't know if he made a great film. Has he made beloved films? Or has he been involved in the making of movies? many. I think that the Mission Impossible that he did has a lot of

a lot of fans. I think the first half of Super 8 is great. Yes. Especially great Spielberg homage. But what I'm saying is, and this could be an example of a successful person knowing his lane. He's incredibly good sense of story. He wrote scripts for very big movies that did well in very different styles regarding Henry. He wrote,

Armageddon, he wrote, rewrote many. other things that we know and love. People want to be in business with him. He makes exciting projects happen. He didn't make Lost, but Lost would have been impossible without him being there as part of it and directing the pilot, which Loki might be his best filmmaking, honestly.

Clearly he wants to be a filmmaker, too, and is a filmmaker. It's not like he has anything to prove at this point. But I do wonder if that bugs him, or is he just like, I do everything. I am an old-style Hollywood guy. I'm a producer. I'm an empire builder. I'm a writer. I give notes. I empower people. I direct when the timing is right, but I'm interested in empowering people and story and stewardship.

Or is there that little part of him that's just like, I don't get credit for being a great filmmaker. And I've never, for all that I've done, I haven't written and directed a standalone film that is a masterpiece or considered as such. We'll see if he does that with episode nine. Yeah, right. So, sorry, all of that to connect is to say, is this a chance for him to do that? We'll see, yeah. Default Face wants to know. do you guys listen to any podcasts with the same level of interest that you watch TV?

And I actually would say, strangely enough, and this could be a product of working here where we have a lot of really great shows on our network. And so I listen to a lot of those. You mean the Ringer Podcast Network? The Ringer Podcast Network. But I actually have turned podcasts. My podcast listening habits are much closer to my radio listening habits when I had any. So I listen to a lot of sports podcasts that are very timely.

I don't listen to a lot of narrative sports podcasts, but I listen to pods about the NFL and the NBA and soccer. A lot of soccer, a lot of NBA, rights to Ricky Sanchez, football ramble on the continent, the ringer NFL show, like all these podcasts that are about very specifically like what just happened in sports that day. It's about as close to sports talk radio as I can handle. I have had obviously like my dalliance is with.

like the deeper end of the podcast feel. But do you have anything that you were like, man, I'm as into homecoming or welcome to Nightveil as I am? No. And it's interesting. I have to say, I didn't, despite having done a podcast for five and a half years, I didn't get podcasts fully until I had my first commute in Los Angeles. Because I was working at home, my apartment in Brooklyn, and I didn't commute.

I didn't get it. Now I get it. And now I also get, especially after a long commute, the need to like stop. thinking about the music that I'm playing and just have someone talk to me. Yeah. My listening habit for podcast is generally interviews. I really, I really listen to Marin. Yeah.

I will listen to Fresh Air. Sometimes listen to You Made it Weird. I like hearing people talk about stuff a lot. I've done, you know, I did S-Town and found it really interesting. But I haven't, and I think because it's a break from all the other narrative stuff that I'm doing, I just haven't engaged with it on that level. Yeah, and this has always been the way I did things. Like, I remember being, like, in the mid-2000s before, I think, like, the

apparatus for podcasts really like popularized. I used to download Bill from ESPN RadioZone.com or whatever and then put it on like whatever my MP3 player was. I remember that. And have it for the subway ride or I download, you know, like Scott Van Pelt and Ryan Russohn's podcast and take it. I think I did want to say since we were talking about podcasts, I was going to do this anyway. I checked out Bill's friend Jim Miller's podcast Origins.

Yeah. And the first season or first set of episodes is about. the origin of Kirby Enthusiasm. And this was pure pleasure for me. And I think for a lot of TV fans, because it's just interviews with Larry David and Jeff Garland and Susie Esmond and J.B. Smooth and the people behind the scenes like Larry Charles

and Bob Whitey and Chris Albrecht and Cheryl Hines, who is not behind the scenes. But it's just funny people telling pleasant stories about creating something that's beloved. Yeah. And that is a very cool hang. It is essentially reading a great oral history, but having it dictated to you

when you're in the car or running around Echo Bark Lake. Speaking of Curb Your Enthusiasm, Chris Brumet wants to know, are you guys worried about the new curb season after seeing that new trailer? Chris, the opposite. Yeah. I am not worried. I don't understand. I don't even understand the concepts.

Yeah, you're not going to stick the landing? I don't understand the concept of being worried about Larry David just doing stuff. Yeah. Like, this is, it is not, you shouldn't think of, I mean, obviously 17 years in, and then how long a break between years, seven years? You don't think of it like a normal TV show. And even putting aside that he probably wouldn't come back unless he had something to do or something to say,

this is just, it's almost like what I was saying about that podcast. You just want to hang with your pals and get up to some stuff with some Palestinian chicken. You know what I mean? It's not going to be funny. I'm sorry, it might not reach the heights of past episodes, but think about these people, and remember, they're improvving. It's wonderful that there's more.

Yeah, I think it looks hilarious. We're going to take a quick break to hear from our sponsors We'll be right back to finish up our mailbag podcast. Today's episode of The Watch is brought to you by Curb Your Enthusiasm Season 9. Guys, girls, watch listeners, pets who happen to be in the room, children. The Emmy and Golden Globe winning comedy series, Curb Your Enthusiasm, is returning for a 10 episode 9th season this Sunday, October 1st, at 10 p.m. Eastern on HBO. I'm so excited. You know this.

Curb Your Enthusiasm stars Seinfeld co-creator Larry David as an over-the-top version of himself. in an unsparing but tongue-in-cheek and pretty, pretty good depiction of his life. The new season brings back cast favorites Cheryl Hines as Cheryl. Jeff Garland as Jeff. By the way, Jeff Garland got an interview coming up on the watch. Susie Esmond as Susie. J.B. Smooth as, you see where I'm going here, Leon. As well as series veterans like Richard Lewis, Bob Einstein, Ted Danson, and Mary Steenberg.

Catch the return of Curb Your Enthusiasm on Sunday, October 1st at 10 p.m. Eastern on HBO. Today's episode of the watch is brought to you by Ad Block Plus. Guys, I know I'm preaching to the choir here. An annoying internet ads suck, especially when you're on your smartphone or your tablet. Luckily, Ad Block Browser lets you take back control of your mobile internet experience. Ad Block Browser for iOS is an internet browser for mobile devices from the team behind AdBlock Plus, which, by the way, I don't need to tell you, it's the world's most popular ad blocker for desktop browsers. blocking annoying ads improves your internet browsing experience on smartphones and tablets

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complete privacy. It doesn't store cookies. It doesn't save any browser or search history. So browse the web privately, securely, and free from annoying ads with AdBlock Browser for iOS. It's easy to use. It's customizable and it's free. What more do you need to know? Get AdBlock Browser here. Adblockbrowser.org slash bad ads suck. You've got mail. We're back on our mailbag podcast, me and Andy. Greenwald, which fictional television restaurant would you want to eat at? That comes courtesy of our homie, Vance Williams.

This is a great question. I wish I could take a week to think about this. I could say that any of the restaurants on my low-key favorite show, Samurai Gourmet, but I could have a beer in the afternoon. Maybe it's a mackerel with rice. You can't choose a food restaurant. I know, so I'm saying I could do that. You know what one of the first things that came into my mind was?

I think it was called Phil's from Murphy Brown. Remember like the political hangout? What a deep get. Remember that? Where they all like get together and like all the politicos were there and they probably eat their club sandwiches. Sure, yeah. That also maybe because it reminds me of Max Place

from the series of books by my beloved Ross Thomas, just like a place in D.C. Sure. Like a steak and a steak sandwich. Really stiff martini. Yeah. At two in the afternoon, which I could use right now. I was thinking about that.

I was also thinking, about upstairs from Cheers because we never saw it. Remember that there was a restaurant up there? Sometimes people would go up there or come from there, but we never saw it. I know. I mean, what a mystery meal. What could it possibly be? Probably a mediocre steakhouse.

What do you think he served at Cheers? Yeah, probably bar and grill food, right? Yeah, it was because Cheers was the downstairs bar from that. Yeah. Do you remember that there was a show about a restaurant made by the people who made St. Elsewhere called Tattinger's? No. It lasted like six episodes.

People are like, you're checking for that new St. Elsewhere joint? Like for real in the 80s They were like, these guys would make the best shows They're going to make a show about a restaurant And it was like, good idea First of all, imagine making a show about a restaurant in the 80s where you had to do 22 episodes Where is the drama exactly?

What is the story driver? Like did they get an order of bad fish? How long can you stretch that plot? No, my real answer is the double R diner from Twin Peaks. Of course. You got to know how the pie is. You got to have the coffee. I guess, you know, it would be pretty easy to say

that I would eat at Kim Dickens's restaurant on Trameh, just because I'm sure it was probably pretty good. I thought you were going to say Kim Dickens' restaurant on Fear of the Walking Dead. No. Did she have one? No, but I imagine she has to eat while running from zombies.

Other than that, wherever the place in Mad Men was where Roger got completely shit hammered in the middle of the day and then went back and vomited during his speech. It was all oysters. It was the Grand Central Oyster Bar?

It may have been. It was definitely a real place. They always referenced, like the Forum of the Twelve Caesars. They always referenced restaurants from the era. that existed? Yeah.

Would you... Who would be the person who made you run up the stairs because they challenged your manhood? Like who in the ring or staff would be the one... Oh, fantasy. Yeah, he definitely would.

Yeah. Should a TV viewer know when a series will end? This comes from Andrew M. Sponsler. Does it ruin the show knowing how many episodes are left? That's... Andrew, that's a fascinating question. Because that is a new phenomenon

where you're like, well, they've got to wrap it up by now. I mean, I think that it definitely impacted our watching of Thrones this season because we were literally saying to one another, like, they've got X number hours and they're spending it doing this or doing that.

Or, quite frankly, I wish I missed the kind of stuff that they would do when they weren't racing for the finish line. So many limited series now changes the way you kind of watch something like Big Little Lies. What do you think, Andy? Do you miss the days of

we'll see if we renew it? I have to say there's got to be a middle ground. I think the creators should have a sense of their own story. And whether they've made it public or not, and I think this is generally the case. They always say, like, oh, I knew exactly how it was going to end. But what I'm saying is I don't want that to be true. The thing that makes TV, TV, and worthwhile is the chance, the possibility, the randomness. You know, you bring in someone to be a guest star and it clicks. And the next thing you know, Urkel is the star of your show. Magic. Right. Magic. Bad example. But the beauty of being able to pivot in the middle of

of a story and chase story and celebrate a random chemistry between two characters that maybe never would have crossed paths if, you know, if you had had your original plan in place. That's one of the things that makes TV so wonderful. The example most often used for that is that Jesse Pinkwin was supposed to die in season one. Or as we learned, as I was reminded from our friend Jonathan Abrams' upcoming book, All the Pieces Matter, Omar was written not necessarily open-ended, but they could have written him out first season. Michael K. Williams was assuming that he wasn't going to survive the first season, but boy,

was that magic and you had to chase it. So I don't like shows that don't allow for that. Hermetically sealed things that are just like dumping a story in a certain, you know, in a pre-decided amount of time. I love that the fact that you can find things in the moment. But that said, it's very helpful as we learn from Lost and from other shows so that the creators know how long their story is going to be, roughly. You know, if this hits, I could do this in five seasons.

or they could be like I could do it in three seasons. Right. But when things start to stretch, that's the problem. I think that that's like an interesting question for shows. I mean, obviously for Walking Dead, the source material is still ongoing as well. So I think that they have a much longer runway to, and obviously just have no interest in stopping. Something like This Is Us, which is really high concept. But an enormous sensation is the kind of thing that I could see having a few too many seasons.

It's already guaranteed. Yeah. There's no way that that's not going to happen. And I think that to answer the question more specifically, should the viewers know, that does change things? Because, you know, when you're on a car ride and you don't know where you're going and you've never been there before? It seems like much longer than it does. And on the way back, you're like, I know now. It's 20 minutes or two hours or whatever.

Part of the joy of TV is when you start something, a journey, you don't know, you don't even know who the driver is. And then all of a sudden you're like, I trust this person. Yeah. Oh, here we go. This is so open-ended. And the flip side of that is when you're told, like with Thrones, well, there's only eight more left, then everything feels different. Right. Because possibilities start to shut down and you're on a track heading towards the finale, and that's a very different engagement of the show.

Let's do two more. King of Naps wants to know, if you got polio, it's tough. It's a great lead. What show that you've missed over the years would you most likely binge first? I'll go first. House. Because if I had polio, I would want to know what's the... The question wasn't if you have lupus.

Because then the answer would be watching House. You don't really have lupus. I got to say, shout out to Selena Gomez, who had a kidney transplant from her friend over the summer to recover from lupus. But as soon as I saw the Instagram about that, I was like, damn. Selina Gomez had a kidney transplant? Yeah, man. Selina Bad Lier Gomez?

Yeah. She was like, this is why I haven't been really promoting my new music because I had to get the, I had lupus. Poor woman. And I was like, House could have fixed that up. Also, Bad Lier, a good song. Yeah. Andy, do you have a show that you would go back and binge watch if you were recovering? I want to make Shea Serrano happy and say Sons of Anarchy, but I don't think I could survive the experience.

I imagine if I'm recovering for something major, like maybe I'm on some opiates, like maybe I'm, you know, I'm drugged a little bit. So I kind of feel like the vibe would be to watch shows that aren't in the canon anymore, but like informed the canon. Like really go back and just mess with the complete Rockford files, not just a couple. So not something that's like from the last few years. You'd want to go all the way back. Like, I watched NYPD Blue, but not like, I don't know. I just feel like maybe they're digging in the crates a little bit. There's some gems to be uncovered.

From the last few years? I'd go night of. It's my favorite thing. You've already seen it. I thought the question was something. I'm saying, if I had polio and I missed out on some stuff, would I start binging? I think the question is, what would you? Oh, personally, that I haven't watched?

I guess the Americans. Wow, that would be a dark time for you. That would like not lift your. Seems like the Americans would be a show that had somebody who has polio on it. Yeah, I'm saying, like, you would feel very much at home, but you would not be transported to a magical world of mystery. You know what, if I'm being honest, like the shows that I wish that I had time for that I've heard good things about, there are a lot of shows that are on stars. Like Outlander, people are like, that's really good. And I'm like, we're three deep.

I don't know if I can do it. Survivor's remorse, people say, is really good. And I have not done that. I'm sorry, America. I've not done it. Okay. Last question, Andy. We have a lot here.

We'll try to get to these again at another mail. one, but let's just wrap it up here with this last one. Kevin L. wants to know, how often do you wish that Mad Men was still on the air? Constantly. I can't believe that's really a question. Can I- Can I add a wrinkle to Kevin's question? Yeah. How often do you wish that the cultural conversation around television was closer to the one it was around Mad Men and around the shows that were on at that time?

The way we talked about television when you sort of started, when you were TV critic for Grantland, and we started this podcast. Like, look, no regrets, man. Like a great quarterback. I only look at the place ahead of me, not the ones behind me. But it's a different time, you know? We're different people, I guess. But do you miss the Sunday night and then the next day, like the next three, four days?

All we're talking about is what we saw in something. One of the things that made me wanted to do this and to write about TV during that era was the engagement with the monoculture. The idea that we could all do this together. You know, I've said this before on the show. I'll say it for the rest of my career. Like, writing about the last six episodes of Breaking Bad is about as good as it could get professionally. Because time stopped at the dead of summer

and it felt like everyone in America was watching these shows. And I didn't get screeners and I was just watching them with everyone and then viving off and then we were talking about it. It was a rush. It was really fun professionally and artistically to engage with this stuff. Yeah. I do miss that. And it's been interesting to watch even our show,

our podcast evolved because we used to have seasons where there would be one show in that season that we would... We were just talking about every episode. Every episode, every Monday we would be talking about it. Now, because there's so many shows, because we don't watch the same shows, because we don't think our audience watches all the same shows. There are very few shows we do. Spent all our time on Rap Caviar.

I'm just constantly just checking for the latest bangers. Yeah, Game of Thrones is the last show that we really give that attention to. So I miss that. But on a specific to this question answer, I... I really miss Mad Men more than I thought. The show was, for two reasons. One, the level of production and the writing, the writing especially, was not like anything else before because it was beautiful and layered and deep and poetic and haunting and really affecting on an emotional level constantly.

Do you remember the way the show unfolded where, much like, in a weird way, I'm going to say this, like Game of Thrones, we didn't know what the season was going to be, quote unquote, about. You would tune in one week and you would get like, you know, an experimental, French film from the 60s, and then the next week it would be an office comedy. It was profoundly different episode to episode because the show respected the episodes. But that sense of sitting down, what is this going to be? What's going to happen to these people was really bracing and enriching just purely from a creative level.

The other aspect of it that I miss was the old-fashioned nature of that show. Not that it was set in the 50s, but that, you know, I sort of alluded to it. At its bones, it's kind of a workplace comedy. It was a TV show. It was a TV show. What are our friends up to this year? It was a TV show in the sense that there was a lot of like Don walks into interior, says something, Drew Roger exits interior, Roger looks out the window.

Like it was, it felt much more close. In retrospect, it almost feels closer to something like L.A. Law. Yes. Then it does, I don't know. Black Mirror. Ozark. Yeah. And I love that.

It's not just Don walks in and talks to Roger. It's that Don and Roger have been talking for six years. And we know all their conversations. We know the history of it. We know the spot on the carpet in the office where he chucked up the oysters, you know? Like, and it was Roger fucking Sterling. What a care? I missed that character.

I missed that performance. I missed the lulls. There was a ham interview in the Times that's online now, or it will be, have been online for a while. Once you hear this end, it was like, he's talking about how he's still friends with the people from the show. And he's like, you know, Lizzie and Slatty. Lizzie and Slats. Slatty. Yeah.

I definitely miss that show a lot. And though we will continue to get great television shows, and we're going to get more Matt Weiner on TV soon with the Romanoffs, the description of that show, which is a little bit mysterious, but it does sound more like an anthology like Black Mirror, where he's writing short stories. Interconnected short stories. And I just want a TV show, man.

I think that's something. That's why I think we were really responding to the deuce. We talked about this, like, when we were introducing Palacanos with that interview, where it's just like this kind of feels like just like the pros. they got it. They got this. They're telling us a cool story with like 15 characters.

Well-drawn characters that were interested in and take me back to that world. And it will be interesting to see at a time when drama is generally in flux and people are like paying attention to the ongoing drama. People are paying attention to limited series

and anthology series and the creative flexibility of the half hour is the move for the drama to go take a step back. Yeah. Give people something. I mean, this is us is probably example 1A of that, although that's not,

that's a broadcast network doing what broadcast network. work should do. Yes. The question is, is there space in this crowded landscape for AMC to be like, I got this great script and it's just about some people. And there's a hook. It's a period or whatever.

Right. Like, who is this guy ultimately? But it's not a comic book adaptation about a chain smoking preacher hunting for God. By the way, all respect to that show. That's awesome. But can you find the script and then can you make people watch the other thing? Yeah. Because you know what?

At the end of the day, Chris, I'm going to put a button on it. We love television. We love to watch our stories. Guys, thanks so much for writing in. We will do, we try to maybe do another episode of this where we can get to some of the other questions that we didn't get to today and we'll solicit some other ones. Andy?

I'll be back for a show on Thursday with some people who aren't Chris because Chris is still on vacation, but then Chris will be back. Obrugato. Great cues, Branskies. Today's episode of The Watch was brought to you by Curb Your Enthusiasm Season 9. The Emmy and Golden Globe winning comedy series, Curb Your Enthusiasm is back for a 10 episode 9th season beginning this Sunday, October 1st at 10 p.m. Eastern on HBO.

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