The Watch - Our Most Anticipated TV Shows of 2021

Episode Date: January 5, 2021

Chris and Andy talk about some of the shows and movies they watched over the holidays, including ‘The Wilds’ and ‘Wonder Woman 1984’ (1:08). Then they get into some of their most anticipated T...V shows for 2021, including the ‘Halo’ TV adaptation (26:04) and ‘The Underground Railroad’ (43:09). Hosts: Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript
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Starting point is 00:00:00 I need sports to have to clear the run. 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 join me on the other line. Now that he knows Ted Lassow season two is going to be Jason Sudakis' blood on the tracks. He's all in. It's Andy Greenwald.
Starting point is 00:00:22 I mean, I know we got a, we got a, first of all, happy new year. Happy New Year, man. Can I do it? Chris, by the way, just got multiple takes for that intro. Can I get multiple takes from. my reaction? Sure. Yeah. I mean, I'd love to just engage with you about like just the most important news of the day, which is Olivia Wilde, apparently is now dating Harry Styles. Do it for the portmanteau. Wild Stiles is the only good couple name that I've ever heard.
Starting point is 00:00:49 I'm glad that this is the focus. This is this podcast will focus on the important things in 2021, including upcoming TV shows, right? We're going to talk about what we did on the break. I'm walking you into this. Do we still have to do this thing where we take a break before we talk? You did it. I'm walking you into it. We'll be right back after this. Did you know about one and three people with plaques psoriasis may also develop psoriotic arthritis, which causes joint pain, stiffness, and swelling? Does this sound like you? Listen to what it sounds like to be a million miles away. Trimfaya, gusalcumab taken by injection is a prescription medicine for adults with moderate to severe plaques psoriasis, who may benefit from taking injecting
Starting point is 00:01:34 or pills or phototherapy, and for adults with active psoriotic arthritis. Serious allergic reactions and increased risk of infections and liver problems may occur. Before treatment, your doctor should check you for infections and tuberculosis. Tell your doctor if you have an infection, flu-like symptoms, or if you need a vaccine. Imagine being a million miles away. Explore what's possible. Ask your doctor about Trimphia. Tap this ad to learn more about Trimphia, including important safety information.
Starting point is 00:02:04 This episode is brought to you by Brooks. Running connects us to a rush of energy that flows through our world. The cheers of friends that unlock a new gear within us, the intersection of interest that inspires a run crew, the support that gets you over the finish line. Connection is why we move forward and what inspires us to keep going. Let's run there. Learn more at brooksrunning.com.
Starting point is 00:02:32 What's up, man? I see you're still supporting you're in the pocket of Big T. You look great. I think your hair looks longer. I haven't seen you in a minute. But it's really lovely to start another year with you. 2021. Here we go.
Starting point is 00:02:44 Thanks, Chris. You know, having a year to you. It's great to see you. I only do three things now, just so you know and our listeners know, okay? I go running. I grow increasingly white hair out of my head. And I watch movies. So get ready for that.
Starting point is 00:03:00 That's going to happen. I know. Andy's pivoting to cinema. Today on the pod, we're going to do what we did on our winter vacation, basically. So we'll talk a little bit about. about Wonder Woman 84, any of the sort of entertainment news that we may have missed in the gap of recording.
Starting point is 00:03:14 I encourage people to go back and listen to those last couple of episodes that we did because there were a lot of phone with Jason Mansuchas and Sam S-Mail and then our year-aid mailbag. And then the rest of the show today will be the shows of 2021 that we are looking forward to.
Starting point is 00:03:26 I put together a little bit of a list here for me and Andy to go through. And I think, well, let's get started with what we did over the break, man. So I know that you're itching to tell me about to just full pivot you made to cinema. I mean,
Starting point is 00:03:40 look, you know that there are few things that I hate more in life than proving Sean Fantasy right. But look, when you're right, you're right. It turns out movies are good.
Starting point is 00:03:51 Movies are a great way to spend your time. I really enjoy them. And I could do this the joking way, which I probably will keep falling back on. But in all seriousness,
Starting point is 00:04:01 the highlight of the break, which, you know, doesn't really involve travel or seeing family anymore in this current circumstance, was taking like 10 days off of television and just spending every night at the old Cinemplex, aka the living room, couch. Driving to Flagstaff, Arizona. Yes. And yes, any state where the economy is open and just supporting the local vendors.
Starting point is 00:04:34 No, but it was really, really, this might be other people's every day. I mean, I know this is Sean's every day, and I know you watch a lot more movies than I do, but I was really struck by how much pleasure I took and almost like edification I got from just taking a trip sometimes to a different time period or a different place in the world in a contained creative statement every night that let me, you know, made me think, made me feel things. and it wasn't that strange mix that really fuels the podcast and fuels our life because it's kind of mimicked in Twitter and social media and everything of the anxiety of there having to be more.
Starting point is 00:05:15 You have to catch up. You have to keep going. You have to push forward. You have to resolve the story. The cliffhanger can kind of infect your life, especially this year. And there was something about the closed statement that I really enjoyed. And so, and also part of the fun for me was also texting my boy, about what the cinema club had had kind of messed around with the night before. And, you know, I think that I surprised you. Sure. Because I think the idea of me as someone who doesn't watch movies and only goes on planes, well, no one does that anymore. But, you know, the idea that the most emotional turmoil I can handle in a day is a episode of Bluey is maybe, maybe that became a bit that started to like leach into my
Starting point is 00:06:03 real life. Sure. And in fact, I can watch some big boy entertainments and that you were a little nervous about me handling. Uh, well, no, I think that I just, it was, I honestly think it's sort of sweet. I have to be completely sincere. I don't think I've ever seen someone take to a streaming service with the just dewy-eyed tender adoration that you feel for the criterion channel. It is, God, I love it. It is amazing. And I, I'm, I fully support. it. I think it's really interesting to hear your thoughts on some of the stuff that you may have missed over the years or some of the stuff that maybe you just skipped over growing up and stuff like that. And it is really like a remarkable, remarkable resource for people who haven't done
Starting point is 00:06:46 it. I mean, I really suggest taking the plunge. It's just astonishing what they have on there. Yeah, and I would say full service-wise for people out there for the Dattingtons and Mommingtons. There's great kid content. There's a great movie that my family, whole family enjoyed called The Railway Children from 1970. There's a movie called Plover's and Polypops. On Criterion. Yeah, they have Saturday matinee. They have kids content or all ages family content, which is great. They have, it's, you know, it's possible to do things like, oh, I love Mike Lee movies, but I never saw Life is Sweet. So we just watched it. And I was like, how did I miss that? How great that's there for me? Or Terrence Malick's Badlands, which I had never seen, did not realize that it invented West Anderson. Fascinating. Great to see. But also they just, you know, they do interesting things like, oh, okay, here's some melancholy holiday movies for December. for no reason whatsoever. Yeah, they had a 70s horror thing going for a while there. That was really good.
Starting point is 00:07:37 I mean, they still have the collection up. It's really, some of their, some of their collections are really good. And make for very fun projects, especially at a time when it seems like we are not just home, but we might be home for a little bit longer than we expected. So, like, I've never dealt with the cinema of the French director, Bertrand Tavernier. Watch the movie last night, Chris, called A Weeks Vacation, kind of a masterpiece. So loved all that, and I really recommended it a lot. And I think that it brought me.
Starting point is 00:08:04 I mean, you guys will be the judge of it. But it kind of mellowed me out and calmed me, I think, for the year and culture ahead, which we're going to be getting into it. Oh, so you're saying that this has been like almost a palate cleanser for you. Yes. I mean, I'm not saying I'm moving off of it. But I'm saying that there was something about the rhythms of pressure-free rhythms of like, this could be an interesting experience tonight.
Starting point is 00:08:25 And it will be a closed circuit experience tonight. Yeah. You know, I think that we have often talked and we pissed off Sammas. mail by talking about it, and we made it into the gray lady herself this weekend for talking about it, the New York Times, for talking about passive viewing. And obviously, that got kind of twisted, because really, we were talking about playoff baseball, and Sam thought we were talking about shows we would rather not have our eyes on while they're streaming. Yeah, I like being in the other room while this is on. But regardless of that, I think that we have culturally slipped into a sense of,
Starting point is 00:08:55 like, well, what are we watching now? Like, what's this week's watch? And, you know, whether it was something that we're like really engaged in or something that like my wife and I were sort of and are still passive watching. This is the different definition of it. Like Borgon, like it's in our pocket. We enjoy it. We'll throw it on. There was something that it's actually not passive in the way that I've been looking for it because I do feel that pressure to like keep going, whether it's to keep going with an extra episode before bedtime or like it seems like something good is going to happen. Once we push through it and we get there in the next few. days. The thing about the movies that I was enjoying, and I know this sounds like super basic,
Starting point is 00:09:35 but it did have an effect over a period of days of like, that chapter is closed, and now we'll open up a new one tomorrow. We can go in a different direction, whether it's in terms of country of origin or genre or whatever. That's really cool. I mean, I think that there's been a little bit, it's interesting that this happened at this time. Obviously, you had in some ways a little bit of time off, but, and as, as we all probably sort of did. And obviously also, nothing to do with that time off, so to speak. But I think there's been a little bit of a gap. So Bridgeton came out. I think that was sort of like, that dropped right sort of as we were doing our year end episodes. And other than that, like I, so I watched a few episodes of Bridgetton, which I think is fun, but not really, like, I don't
Starting point is 00:10:24 really have anything to say about it. It's just kind of like, it's just zany. And I don't even know if I like dislike it, I just don't, it's just like on and I'll like kind of look up every once in a while while my wife is watching it. But that's the only new thing I've watched other than, Shonda rhymes Jane Austen. Is that kind of the vibe? Basically. Yeah. And then the other thing that I was watching was this thing on the show on Amazon called The Wilds, which is a really interesting experiment in what it would have been, like what could have been for like, network television had network television continued to pursue dramas. This is about a group of teenage high school girls who are stranded on an island that they think is near Hawaii and find out
Starting point is 00:11:08 that they are, I guess it's best to leave like not too much revealed. But they just find out that nothing is what it seems on this island after this plane crash. Yeah. How could you spoil that for me? So it essentially is like lost meets my so-called life, I guess. By the way, the real passive viewing experience would be a show about a plane crash on an island where literally everything is exactly like we just did crash into a plane we just crashed our plane um but those are the two shows i watch and then for the most part you know like i found that myself like as soon as the sort of the podcasting cycle ended that was sort of right when wonder woman dropped and i felt as soon as i heard like the early reports on wonder woman as soon as i listened to the big picture as soon as a couple
Starting point is 00:11:52 people had texted and said like what they thought about it. I was like, I'm just in no hurry to do this. Now, I think I think listeners of the pod will know, I don't really like, think I am like the world's foremost expert on DC at all. Like I'm, I kind of like acknowledge its existence and fine to talk about it, but could not really say with any certainty what's going on at any given time in any of those movies. And also, I just think that they're generally pretty bad. I'm not knocking anybody who likes them, but I don't care about Suicide Squad. I'm kind of like done, I think, with
Starting point is 00:12:28 any Joker movies for a while. I'm excited for the Matt Reeves Batman, because of Matt Reeves, not because of Batman, and wanting to see another Batman movie. And then as far as Wonder Woman goes, like, I thought the first one was fun. Watching
Starting point is 00:12:44 the second one, though, was pretty it was pretty nonsensical, I thought. Yeah, I wanted talk about this. And I was the one that urged you to engage because, listen, people know if anybody in this podcast likes to tap out, it's me. But I wanted to tap in for a variety of reasons. First and foremost being, I did enjoy the first one quite a bit. It surprised me how much I enjoyed it. Two, really love the marketing. Great posters. For Wonder Woman 84.
Starting point is 00:13:16 Terrific. Yeah. Great color palette. Nice design. Good stuff. And three, you know, again, shout out to Sean and Amanda in the big picture. I was interested to see what it would feel like to see a blockbuster in the wrong way in what might be the only way going forward. So I fired it up with some trepidation, but also some level of excitement. And I should also say a lot of caveats ready to flow. Like I definitely, from the beginning, tried to question my own reaction. wondering if it would play different if I was in the arc light or if I had already had too much popcorn during the trailers, you know, or if this was a night out or a day out.
Starting point is 00:14:04 What happens when you have too much popcorn? Is that like feeding a gremlin after midnight or something? No, that was a shout out to you because often back in the days when we would do things socially, if we ever went to a movie, you'd be like, I got to say no on the popcorn because your boy's got a sensitive tum-tum. No, it's not even that. It's just that I feel like I just like spoil dinner. if I have like a whole bucket of popcorn. Yes. Of course. But I was saying more the thing of like, are you a popcorn rationer during the trailers? Oh, yeah. No, I think that like when you get snacks,
Starting point is 00:14:33 it's not like a two-hour... I think you should try and crush your snacks like as soon as you sit down. I like to have... Like, if the popcorn bucket is a well-poured beer, I like to have the head still. You know what I mean? Like I don't like too much lip from the bag showing.
Starting point is 00:14:52 when the movie starts. I like to focus. Yeah. I'm really fun to go out with, by the way. So all of that was in my head. And my jaw is still on the floor because I can't believe what a misfire this movie was on nearly every level. And it makes me question so many things, frankly. So this was like, so many things. It didn't upset me. I just, I'm totally stunned by it. And on so many levels. One, if you want to, you know, we often try to take like the macro
Starting point is 00:15:30 corporate view of it. And I think going into this, we were like, you know, as much as one can feel sympathy for corporations. I was like, what a bad look for Warner Brothers, who has one thing that is unambiguously working for them in their DCU stuff, which is this Wonder Woman,
Starting point is 00:15:46 this nascent Wonder Woman franchise. And then it gets kicked out of theaters and it gets delayed. Obviously, this isn't one that they are trying to hide or that they are running from. I no longer think that is true. Like, you think that this is almost weirdly a dump? Well, maybe they could have hit it in the summertime. And they definitely did a good job showing it to five people who all of whom should be in the witness protection program who were like, five stars, no notes.
Starting point is 00:16:14 What a thrill ride. Like, I don't know. I assume they just rented IMAX theaters for these people and then like also gave them, you know, a CBD sprite. Because it's just, I don't understand. There's a special new flavored sprinkle on their popcorn. But just on a, you know, and again,
Starting point is 00:16:32 I don't want to be the guy. I would love, I would welcome different feedback here. I don't want to superman explain how this ought to have been done. But this fundamental idea that Wonder Woman, as a hero to build a movie around, needs to be, A, the most boring thing in the movie. B, a combination of stick in the movie. and none who, despite her enormous powers and kinky skill set and, you know, various toys that
Starting point is 00:17:02 she plays with, spent 70 plus years pining over her first boyfriend while working in the basement of a museum. And when they're like, do you go to parties? She's like, I would never go to a party. Dude, go to a party. You're fucking Wonder Woman. You know what I mean? Like, you have a lasso of truth.
Starting point is 00:17:20 It's okay. You can move on now. And then when you get the opportunity to have any wish in the world, because we're getting to this, Chris, and I'm sorry, this is a spoiler, but I don't think people who have not seen the movie and hear this will believe me. I think that it will still go see the movie. That's the thing is that when you start to try to explain the plot of this movie, it's just like, yeah, but what's it like what's what really happens? The movie is about a magic stone that grants wishes and she wishes for her boyfriend back. Yep. But he comes back in some other dude's face and body. No reason, by the way. up with that. All other wishes. I've never been this confused in a major... I mean, these studio movies are so shaped and raked over and refined to avoid any possible confusion that this made it in is fascinating.
Starting point is 00:18:04 Because that guy looks like Timothy Oliphon stunt double. You know what you mean? And then he's like, this is what I look like now. And she's like, but I only see you. And so then we only see him too. But other people see someone else. Like it's fucking freaky Friday or whatever. But all of this is if you make the wish, the wishstone seems to get what you want, right?
Starting point is 00:18:26 Like when the dude is like, I wish for a giant wall to divide my country into refugees and true believers, the stone at this point in the form of Pedro Pascal is like, bet and builds a fucking wall in the middle of a country. But when Wonder Woman is like, I want my boyfriend back there like, got some caveats. Right. Got some, got some asteris. You know what I mean? It's so insane. And then they get in an airplane and they're like, let's fly to Cairo in a jet for 15 hours. I just, how did this happen, Chris?
Starting point is 00:18:59 We've spent a lot of the last part of 2020 talking about analyzing and in some ways caping up for the precision and the planning and the learning from mistakes that have happened over in Pluseville with Marvel and Star Wars. and we did that emergency pod reacting to all the Star Wars shows. We talked about all the Marvel shows that are coming. We talked about how the Mandalorian positioned itself at the center of the Star Wars storytelling universe, and now all these things will blossom out of that. And hopefully actually take what Favreau and Faloni did so well with the Mandalorian and be like, this is how people can understand it if you tell the story like this. It doesn't have to be this busy.
Starting point is 00:19:47 Everybody's running in and out of things. and a million MacGuffins piled on each other and constant resets and reimaginings and retelling of origin stories. You can actually push out and push up with your storytelling. It doesn't always have to be rowing in place. So that was the thing that I was thinking about most when I was watching Wonder Woman 84
Starting point is 00:20:07 was how hysterical. And it literally is like watching a movie made by blind chickens. Like I don't even know like what, And the sort of like, hey, D.C. is just going to throw everything at the wall. And there might be two or three Batman's and two or three jokers. And we're making everything so that we can make an HBO max spin off of it. But then there will be some unification down the road.
Starting point is 00:20:33 And the guy who runs D.C. now, who did the interview with Brooke Barnes and the Times being like, I am here to tell you that there is Earth 1 and Earth 2 and that the DC universe will comprise two different realities. But no movies have like actually come out to explain that yet. It's like a dude dropped a memo for us. I'm just like, do, like, honestly, like, you guys are probably just going to make a billion dollars per movie anyway, so feel free. But, like, for some reason, like, the entire, everything from, like, the way the movies look to the way the people perform in them to what they are about misses the target for me with DC. So I am just like a passive bystander on this one. Look, I think that though we may be khaki-clad middle-aged basics now roughly the same age as Kaiya's parents, there was a time.
Starting point is 00:21:18 when we were, you know, we liked punk rock music. We liked the DIY aesthetic. We used to buy guided by voices seven inches and be like, this is better because it's wild and pure. You were making a sound so much like Matt from a teacher right now. Like the dudes, we made it sound. Like, we're just playing guitar in the living room, be like, we used to tour the Pacific Northwest.
Starting point is 00:21:43 We used to crash airplanes on islands and figure stuff out, man. All of which is to say that I think on some gut level, we appreciate a company taking the different approach from Disney's methodical first order like regimentation of how they're managing their properties, right? Like there is something appealing about chaos. But Warner Brothers remains committed to the Rudy Giuliani legal team strategy of, flooding the zone with would-be crackens and just letting the chips fall where they may. Yeah. That was the feeling of this movie that can't even seem to make a coherent argument for why they're making a Wonder Woman movie at all or who Wonder Woman is.
Starting point is 00:22:32 Like, she should have something that makes her distinctive, but she has a golden lasso. She just runs around like Spider-Man. I don't, like, visually it was incoherent. I don't understand what the point is. She's hiding who she is, but sneaking into malls to, rescue kids. Chris, what are we doing? It's just crazy to me.
Starting point is 00:22:53 I don't know. I mean, I think your point being about like, it was unfortunate that this happened to this movie that it got put in this position of streaming. But that then maybe that this was kind of like a blessing in disguise and that this movie is essentially like, it gets to be both under the spotlight and quietly moved off the stage so that they can just come back and make the third one and do whatever they need to do. and whether that's I mean,
Starting point is 00:23:16 they were real quick to be like, we're making another one with Patty Jenkins, which was interesting because I actually thought... I have actually found the entire,
Starting point is 00:23:22 the Patty Jenkins of it all to be pretty interesting. She went on Marin today, and she was basically like, it's been very difficult to make these movies over the years, you know, and that she,
Starting point is 00:23:31 and she, when the second one came out, she was like, I do not know if I'm coming back for the third one, although I do have a story for it. Then there was an announcement shortly after Christmas weekend.
Starting point is 00:23:40 Do you have a story for the second one? Could we add it in post? And then there was a story after this was, you know, Wonder Woman 84 was released that she, that they were like, they're going to complete the intended theatrical trilogy. Gal and Patty are back. And so I have found the entire kind of behind the scene stuff around Wonder Woman, certainly more interesting than what's happening on screen. Look, every time one of these movies comes around, we do rehearse some of the same dance steps about our own prejudices or ignorance about DC in general. And I'll just reiterate
Starting point is 00:24:14 to say, like, yes, I was always a Marvel guy, so I always was looking at these movies with some degree of skepticism or just without that built-in fandom. But something that I think has always been very true about DC versus Marvel is just being played out, which is because the DC characters, the iconic characters are older, and they come from an older storytelling model, they are essentially gods. It is top-down storytelling. And because they are omnipotent gods, they are often the least interesting character in their own narratives. I mean, even Batman, who gets a pass because he's, you know, mortal, literally, even though he always wins, and gets a pass because he's dark, sociopathic, and cool,
Starting point is 00:24:58 Joker, his villains are more interesting than he is most of the time. And I think that's the case with these stories, too, and they haven't really figured out a way to fix that. And in fact, no one has for DC characters, I think, since Richard Donner and Christopher Reeve who made Superman goofy, you know, in an appealing way. So where do you put Nolan in? Where do you put the Nolan movies in this then? I don't.
Starting point is 00:25:21 I mean, I think Batman has carved out its own lane. It exists on its own. It kind of does. I think with Wonder Woman, it's just like, well, we are championing something here, but we're not quite sure what it is. And I don't, I think that the allure of the most powerful person on the screen being a woman has faded in this movie when she, She's also just deathly boring.
Starting point is 00:25:45 Like, I don't know why people want to hang out with her because she's not that interesting, which is really a problem. And I don't even mean that as a criticism of the performance. I just mean that the thing designed around her. And so now we are entering into this world where, yeah, as you alluded to that time story, which I think is interesting, which is basically saying, like Disney with Marvel and with Star Wars, we're flooding the zone with this stuff. Sure.
Starting point is 00:26:08 There's just going to be a ton of it. And so, okay, some of it. it might be good, some of it might be interesting. But it is interesting, it remains notable to me that 10 years deep into, I think, almost 10 years after we, we started the podcast nine years ago this month. Right. Pretty early on, I think we started making jokes about Warner Brothers' cinematic release schedule that was leaked or announced proudly during a Comic-Con a while ago, which is basically like Untitled DC Project, Untitled DC Project, Untitled DC Project for the next decade. I think we've been talking, we've mentioned the Flash movie in some capacity for almost the entirety of our podcast.
Starting point is 00:26:50 Listen, you could have a spirited debate whether we need any of this. And you could have a spirited debate whether like the second Ant Man movie or the second Thor movie was important or had something to say. But I just think it's notable that this many years into trying to compete and make the cinematic universe that opening document is still the most compelling thing that Warner Brothers has offered as to why they're doing it, which is to fill their release schedule. Speaking of release schedules, Andy and I are going to take a quick break, and when we come back, we'll talk about the shows that we're looking forward to in 2021. This episode is brought to you by Amazon Prime.
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Starting point is 00:29:30 One of the funny things about going through this list of 2021 TV shows that we're going to talk about here is, I can't tell when anything is coming out. there is essentially Wanda Vision comes out January 15th. Sure we'll have a lot of fun with that. But then after that is just a lot of TBD 2021. Now, we had kind of, I think, been a little bit alarmed when lockdown first started happening and a couple of things started moving off of August and moving off of September releases. And it shows like Succession and Stranger Things, which we'll talk about in a second, delayed and moving into next year, or now this year.
Starting point is 00:30:10 But for the most part, we had a very nice uninterrupted run of there always being something on at least something that you and I will like, and it times two to three things. And now I think we are at the first time, and this will change on the 15th, I guess, with Wanda Vision, but this is the first time in a while where I'm like, oh, there's not really a lot for us to be talking about or watching that's on. Now, we have this whole long list, but I wanted to start with asking your take about the pipeline and the state of it. I think it is more in flux than at any point since March, you know, and it reflects everyone's
Starting point is 00:30:45 own total confusion and terror and panic about the state of the pandemic. I think that many shows, obviously many shows were able to return to production. Many shows seem to have threaded the needle and sort of got through it, especially if they were finishing out a season by getting back to work in August, September, October, before things started to get very bad again. But I think a lot of shows used the extra time to plan to be their best selves in the new year. Right. Specifically this month, January 2021, assuming that someone in America would have figured this out by now.
Starting point is 00:31:23 That is obviously not the case. And because the global epicenter of the outbreak is now Los Angeles, which is also the global epicenter of the entertainment business, nobody knows what's going on. There was a request. The fact that we're still saying request from... The county, right? From the county and from the governor being like, maybe don't go back to production,
Starting point is 00:31:52 even though you guys are... We've acknowledged that you are an essential business. That actually got more traction than I expected. Disney, among other companies, announced that they would delay resumption of production on a number of things for two weeks. not sure what difference that's going to make, because that should tee up really nicely
Starting point is 00:32:09 with the Christmas travel hit. But so everything is already delayed again. And then also just anecdotally, talking to friends and colleagues and people at studios who have been working on things that have managed to go into production, everything has been delayed.
Starting point is 00:32:31 And not just delayed, I'm sorry, everything has been shut down. We have heard about, some of the shutdowns. Like you'll see on Deadliner Variety, this movie, this TV show gets shut down for two weeks because of a small outbreak, hopefully a small one, or a positive test. Many of the projects that have been publicly identified as shutting down temporarily have resumed production and then shut down again. And the second one hasn't been publicized. Right. So, you know, it's gnarly. It's super gnarly. Everyone making stuff is miserable.
Starting point is 00:33:05 they feel very fortunate to be doing it. But all of this is to say, we wish that we would be starting this year off on a brighter note being like, well, Succession, show that you and I just can't wait to have back in our lives, is scheduled to be back in production this month.
Starting point is 00:33:22 I'm not even sure maybe they started in a soft way last month because they've been prepping for a while. Can we confidently say that it's going to be back on our screens late summer, fall? I don't know if we can confidently say it. I know.
Starting point is 00:33:35 So many of the shows that I put on this list for us here were in production and got shut down due to the pandemic, have resumed production, and now have a TBD release date. So that is a blanket statement to say that we don't know when any of this stuff is coming. And also, I've been thinking about this a lot
Starting point is 00:33:55 because obviously I've been doing the NBA show on Fridays now for us, the answer. So I've been watching a ton of basketball this year, like more than probably last season. And you can just tell it there's like just weird shit going on. You know what I mean? Like we watch basketball. I watch Premier League soccer.
Starting point is 00:34:12 We watch flight attendant stuff like that. And we're like evaluating it as if it's happening against something that was also happening in 1998 and 2007 or something like that. This is not the same thing. We're not making things or doing things under the same circumstances. And I don't know necessarily how much use there is and constantly pointing that out. You know what I mean? Like at the end of the day, you just kind of kind of be like,
Starting point is 00:34:35 did flight attendant make sense or did I find it entertaining regardless of the circumstances under which it was made? And the same thing goes for, are the hawks good or not, depending regardless of whether or not there's anybody in the stadium? But to not acknowledge the fact that there is just these extraordinary contextual circumstances around what we're watching on a daily basis on our screen, I think would be an error. And I'm very, very curious to see what, how does that impact Hawkeye? How does that impact the book of Boba Fett or Succession Cesar season three or any of these shows that we're talking about. Now, some of the stuff I think is pretty much done,
Starting point is 00:35:09 but, you know, I'm very curious about that. I think it goes relatively unremarked upon, you know, and it's not like you and I spend a lot of time on the flight as any way, but had we done so, I wonder how much of it would have been like, this really seemed like something they may be inserted because they didn't have coverage of a plot point that they wanted to do, or there was definitely elements of that show that seemed like that. And I really like the flight is ended.
Starting point is 00:35:33 I felt like that show existed because someone got the wishstone from Wonder Woman 84 and misused it. I didn't quite get it at all. But yeah, I think the first thing I just want to say is that like, and this is probably true for every business. It's true for the NBA. It's definitely true for the valiant, you know, selfless crushing work that small restaurants are doing just to stay open with no guidance and no help. people are doing incredible work. And speaking specifically to TV and film production, people's entire careers have changed, you know,
Starting point is 00:36:09 or roles have changed. Being a line producer was always really, really hard. You're basically in charge of everything that happens every day and the budget for it. Now you are also an amateur epidemiologist. Yeah, the COVID safety coordinator, yeah. I mean, it's just unspeakably challenging. And we can debate whether doing that is essential or not.
Starting point is 00:36:30 we can debate whether it would be, we would be better off if someone just paid them to just not do it for a month. But since they are doing it under these impossible circumstances, I think it's kind of amazing. So I don't want to make it seem like, you know, we're going to ding the results or that it's somehow not worthy of our attention or celebration. Like people are working so hard to keep themselves in their crews, especially employed and getting paychecks during this incredibly difficult time. but I have no idea what the result will be. And I think the thing you said first is probably the smartest thing, which is it's just not the same. Like Succession Season 3, hopefully is great and hopefully is very special. I don't know.
Starting point is 00:37:12 I just keep harping on that because I'm excited about it. And also because it seems uniquely suited to vibe on this moment, whether it, no matter how directly it deals with the pandemic. But it feels almost unfair to compare it to season two. And it also, I should say, feels almost unfair to compare it to something like the Star Wars shows you're mentioning, which are uniquely well suited to be produced. They can keep the actual on-the-day production crew at a bare minimum because the majority of the work is done later in post, in which you can do in small rooms or you could probably do remotely. They don't go on location, you know, and just the headache of location, especially for a show, I'll say it again, succession. like, you know, which leapfrogs across Europe on a good season or normal season. I can't, I can't imagine.
Starting point is 00:38:01 We don't know what we're getting. Yeah. But we should go through the list because not only do we not know what we're getting in terms of things that we are expecting and looking forward to, we should note that going into last year, so much of what ended up on our top tens, I don't know if they were on our radar. Yeah, not at all. I mean, I think that I had been excited about normal people. I had been, you know, I had never heard. I don't think I'd really heard of Michaela Cole before last year. You know, we hadn't heard of Mickey Down and Conrad Kay.
Starting point is 00:38:28 We hadn't heard of so many people who made stuff last year that was so exciting. So let's just talk briefly about the returning champs for us. And these are shows that we typically have either discussed a lot or obviously are very passionate about. Shows that we're expecting to come back in 2021 or Ozark Stranger Things. Stranger Things were, that was in production, I think, when they shut down. and at least the word out of kind of the Stranger Things gossip community to the extent that there is one is that
Starting point is 00:38:56 this might actually be not good for Stranger Things but like it was beneficial for the writing of the season which I think the last two seasons it was suggested that they were still writing the show as they were shooting it and that this is the first time since season one that they have written the entire season as they were making it so they have like a kind of better idea I think especially season three felt a little jarring in that way.
Starting point is 00:39:23 You know what I mean? It felt like they were kind of writing it as they were doing it. Anecdotally, I heard much the same thing. I mean, the production was just kind of chaotic because they had a ton of expectations, a ton of cash, a lot of cast. And then also Netflix doesn't usually do this, but that is one of the tent poles that it builds its year around
Starting point is 00:39:43 and they want to hit certain holiday benchmarks and they want to have it there for you. and that's tough for anyone. Yeah, it's like July 4th weekend or, you know, but they build it around the holidays when they know people are going to be home. So Ozark Stranger Things for Netflix, Succession and Barry. And Ozark is in production.
Starting point is 00:39:58 Ozark is in production in Atlanta right now. And this is the final season of Ozark. So expect it to be even more bloody and crazy than before at chill. Yeah. Succession and Barry come back on HBO. And Ted Lasso, I just thought I would mention just because absolutely iconic Ted Lasso Newsday. and also because obviously I think as the year end stuff happened, I would say that it clearly has one of the biggest fan bases of any current television show.
Starting point is 00:40:26 Well, let's go one by one. I just want to jump on Barry, which is just to say Barry. Barry is a very, very popular show that people love talking about and gets so excited about when it's on and just vanished in the pandemic, right? I think I read that they had done a table read for the season premiere in February or March, and then it just, that was it. Supposed to get going again, I believe, this month, and we'll see. I miss that show, very eager to have it back.
Starting point is 00:41:02 Ted Lassow thing, was it odd also that they, were they getting in front of this Olivia Wilde, Harry Stiles News, when they announced that they are not only bringing the show back for a third season, but they are ending it? Was that weird? I think it's, I don't want to spoil anything for anyone, and I know that this is not Star Wars. First of all, like, if they get to season three of Ted Lasso and people still want more Ted Lasso, I bet they could figure out a way to keep that show going in some way, whether it's Ted Lasso comes back to the States and takes over the Kansas.
Starting point is 00:41:32 At the end of season one, is he diagnosed with cancer and he has two years to live? So at the end of season one, his club is relegated out of the Premier League. There is a very obvious trajectory for this story. if you have followed the Premier League over the last like six or seven years of kind of do you believe in miracles type stories that I think you could easily see Ted Lassow follow. And it would be really cool if they did it. It would be really smart. So Ted Lassow comes back and they have renewed that for season three. I just thought that was an interesting thing for Apple to do to get in front of the news about its unquestioned most pop unquestionably its most popular show. and announce early that it's going to stop. That just felt very late period Netflix, and I guess that's just sort of current period tech company streaming entertainment. Yeah, yeah.
Starting point is 00:42:26 And behind the scenes, there's always reasons for this. Like, maybe Jason Siddakis doesn't want to spend his year in the country that made one direction popular. I get it. But it also was just surprising to me because, as you said, it's a comedy. Like, it could keep going. They could take a year or two off. they could, as you said, they could move him to this country. Why do you announce that it's ending,
Starting point is 00:42:48 even if Sudecas and Bill Lawrence plan to be done that? That surprised me. Yeah, that is interesting. So then there's the Marvel shows, Wanda Vision, Falcon and Winter Soldier, Hawkeye, Loki, and Miss Marvel. We're expecting this year. Star Wars, so far, I think we know Book of Boba Fett. We're assuming Mandalorian season three comes out in December.
Starting point is 00:43:06 And then there's two massive Amazon tent pole shows. There's Wheel of Time with Rosman Pike. and obviously Lord of the Rings. The details on Lord of the Rings are relatively scarce, except that it takes place in the second age, which I don't know anything about. Tell me what that is, challenge. And then,
Starting point is 00:43:25 Wheel of Time, I have not read. Have you read those books? No. Okay. So those are coming. And those will be pretty big deals, I would imagine. And then we get into the watch shit here. And I know that this is a odd thing to start with.
Starting point is 00:43:38 And I think it's actually pretty, you know, it's a crapshoot as to whether we see this this year. But I'm going to throw out a show that I am unreasonably excited about. Okay. Halo. Wow. Tell me why you're excited about it. Because Pablo Schreiber and Bocheme Woodbine are good.
Starting point is 00:43:58 They're really, really good actors. And I used to play Halo a lot. Listen. And I'm just a guy going to the supermarket and I see the Kraft Mac and cheese. And I say those are two flavors that go together. The Mac and the cheese. The Mac has no flavor. That's right.
Starting point is 00:44:18 The cheese comes through, you know what I mean? You're just saying you're a guy who likes cheese. Yeah, okay. But then that's like, I'm just saying that I think it's possibly because of Fargo, possibly because of Den of Thieves, possibly because I remember smoking Camelites and playing Halo. I mean, those are some of the best times of our lives. I'm just not excited for this. I guess I'm excited for a couple of reasons.
Starting point is 00:44:44 I think Publish Riber is an action start. Well, what's interesting about it to me, probably all Charlie Murphy is in it too. I know. Do you want to mention that? This is one of those projects that has been around for so long, and then you're kind of shocked that it actually happened. Like, this started, I think, was going to be the launch show for the Xbox channel
Starting point is 00:45:07 because Microsoft was going to get into the content game. And then weren't there stories? Didn't we talk about this in the podcast of people dressed as the master chief walking into network boardrooms as part of the pitch with like a giant gun? That's just sort of a weird approach. Simple times.
Starting point is 00:45:24 And then it falls to Showtime who, you know, immediately gives it a seven-season order. Well, we have both praised and dinged Showtime for how they've managed their assets, but pretty cany about it. about a lot of things, including being like, okay, we have to have, we have to have some skin in each of the games that are active. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:45:44 Right? They are not a service or network or whatever we're calling them now that can afford to be just one thing. So they very smartly, I think under David Nevins and his leadership team, like, just they walk, help me with this because I, you know, I'm not a gambler, but like walked around the casino and put some money down on almost every table. Because to say, like, they knew they needed a. a Game of Thrones type show, and they chose this one, which is the weirdest one possible.
Starting point is 00:46:11 And we should add, the other thing that keeps it kind of interesting, at least as far as I'm concerned, is that it was developed by the first guest I ever had on my interview podcast back in like 2012, Kyle Killen. Yeah, yeah. Who made Lone Star. So his involvement is very intriguing as well. I don't know if he's still involved in the show or not, but you're exactly right. They're walking around and they're placing these little bets.
Starting point is 00:46:33 And so one bet is on Halo for the tent pole franchise thing. And then another one is on Ripley. which is essentially the Patricia Highsmith extended universe, I guess. I mean, the thing that really attracts me to this is, obviously, it was made into a very wonderful movie by Anthony Mahalo years ago, but with Matt Damon and Philip Seymour Hoffman and Jude Law. But this adaptation comes to us from Steve Zalian, who is obviously one of the great screenwriters of the last 30 or 40 years and worked on The Night of with Richard Price. And also stars Andrew Scott, who I think.
Starting point is 00:47:07 is a remarkable actor and I'm really excited to see him in the Ripley. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, there's the other thing that Showtime is done is like with Good Lord Bird, which is show we liked but kind of moved off of, but Sam
Starting point is 00:47:21 happily celebrated in our year-end show. They're just taking flyers on some interesting shit. And I wonder if the success of Queen's Gambit made them feel good about this bet. Not that they're comparable in tone, but
Starting point is 00:47:39 Steve Zalian, a celebrated screenwriter and director like Scott Frank, a veteran adapting something that presumably means a lot to him, and thus having both a sturdy roadmap and the credentials and the experience managing the tone of something, it's pretty interesting.
Starting point is 00:48:00 So the next thing up we have to talk about is obviously what's, I am assuming, is going to be a pretty monumental event on TV if you want to call it TV. Now, this kind of gets back to what we were talking about with Sam in our year-end television pod, but I'm talking about Underground Railroad, which is going to be on Amazon. It's Barry Jenkins's adaptation of the Colson Whitehead novel. And if you've seen any of the teasers, which I think are probably widely distributed, but I see them, they seem to be on Vimeo more than anything else,
Starting point is 00:48:31 it looks like it's going to be like a really important event like cinematically, socially, in every way you can kind of possibly imagine. Barry Jenkins is one of our best filmmakers and he is making an epic story on Amazon and I can't wait to see it. I don't know whether we're going to walk out of that and be like that was a TV show
Starting point is 00:48:52 or that was a miniseries or that was a movie, but it looks absolutely jaw-dropping. It's so beautiful the way you just said we might walk out of something. I would love to walk into something. That's right. I'm looking forward to doing that this year. But yeah, I just, I co-sign.
Starting point is 00:49:08 I can't wait. Barry Jenkins isn't just one of our most talented filmmakers and one of our most important filmmakers. He just is an incredible bellwether of taste also, I think, and not to bring this whole thing full circle, but like Criterion Channel, you know, has people's like adventures and movie going and you can, like the Safdi brothers,
Starting point is 00:49:27 list some of their favorite movies, Megan Abbott, friend of the pod, whose Derry me is on Netflix now. People should check it out is on there. But Barry Jenkins is on there too. And his influences are so beautiful and wide and varied. And, you know, he's just, it's rare. I don't know why I feel terrible.
Starting point is 00:49:45 I feel like I'm stepping on Sean's toes. You know, it's like watches. Well, yeah, like watches Kislauski once. You know what I mean? And then starts opining here. But like, I think it's pretty special when someone who is such a filmmaker's filmmaker, also is riding the electric current of the moment.
Starting point is 00:50:03 Yeah. And isn't just, you know, in the academy celebrating things. And so the fact that he feels like his vision or his art is so elastic that he can bring it to television because that's the space he needs to make to adapt this book, this very large book. Cool. This might be my number one most anticipated of the year. We've got two shows from David E. Kelly this year, which we just enjoyed the undoing,
Starting point is 00:50:26 I think quite a bit at the end of last year. and we've got, the big ticket one is nine perfect strangers, which is going to be on Hulu, and is reunites Kelly with Nicole Kidman. It's directed by Jonathan Levine, and it's based on a Leanne Moriarty novel about an Australian spa retreat with a secret. And that obviously has like all the sort of marquee names. Is Nick doing her accent? Is she just going on that trail? I don't know. I haven't seen anything about this.
Starting point is 00:50:53 I didn't read the book, but that's all the big little lies kind of pedigree is there with that one. Do you think like that the Yelp reviews of spas in Australia, are they like male and female, like nudity, whatever, smoking or non-smoking, secret or not secret? You know what I mean? Like, is that just like when you're booking your facial or ties rub? I love the idea that you could just put all these filters on a search for a spa, like male nudity smoking. I want a smoking. I want a naked men smoking, but I also want a secret that is not related to the male nudity or the smoking. The other show that DVD Kelly has is anatomy of a scam.
Starting point is 00:51:27 which stars Sienna Miller, Michelle Dockrey and Rupert Friend of Homeland Fame. And that's directed by S.J. Clarkson, who did collateral with Carrie Mulligan a few years ago. And it follows the ugly media scandal of a political love triangle involving a sexual assault accusation. So not necessarily the most sunny material. But after seeing 21 bridges a couple of months ago, much delayed after it came out, I'm pretty into Sienna Miller. Like, I'm really excited to see a Sienna Miller show. So I'm looking forward to anatomy of a scandal. A couple other things that we're looking forward to. HBO has this little known performer named Kate Winslet coming back to the mini-series
Starting point is 00:52:08 format with the mayor of Easttown, which is about a small town Pennsylvania detective. To be clear, not the mayor. This is like a rural juror situation. M-A-R-E. Yeah. Like Mayor Winningham. Right. And it's about a small town detective who's working a case while her life is falling apart. Give me all the fucking Kate Winslet playing prime suspect, Helen Mirren, you got. Give it to me. I'm buying, we're open 24-7. I will trade in crypto, whatever you got. I want this show. It's directed by Gavin O'Connor, who did Warrior and the way back and prime glory. I'm very excited for this. She's one of my favorite performers. And if she wants to play a fucked up cop investigating a crime in small-town
Starting point is 00:52:52 Pennsylvania, just sell, sell it to me. Is she investigating missing ballots? Is that what she's going to find? That's the fetterman of East Town. I want to talk a little bit about some of the, what else we got here? Well, okay, so I wanted to ask you a little bit about Station 11. Station 11 is from Patrick Somerville,
Starting point is 00:53:14 and it's an adaptation of the Emily St. John Mandel book that was beloved. I didn't get a chance to read it. Yeah, because we lived it. We talked about this with Manzoukas yesterday. This is exactly what I would ask. I have it. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:53:25 But I didn't read it. Directed by Hero Marai. I don't know if he directed all the episodes, but I believe he worked on it. He was directing the first few. Okay. And stars McKenzie Davis. And it's obviously a pandemic movie. It's about a sort of, you know, a world killing disease and the aftermath of that.
Starting point is 00:53:42 We've chatted about this a little bit. But this is such a unique experience that we're all going through in that we've, we've lived through other tumultuous times in our world's history, in our 40-something years. And almost any case, I've been like, I can't wait to see the culture that comes out of this. I can't wait to read the fiction that comes out of this moment to see the movies, see the TV shows. And I still just feel nothing when it comes to like wanting to see COVID reflected on screen. That's not explicitly, obviously, what Station 11 is about, but Station 11 is going to have that hanging around its neck, whatever it does drop.
Starting point is 00:54:24 What do you think about that idea? I honestly have no idea. Patrick is a good friend, and this has obviously been extremely stressful for everyone. But this particular circumstance, as well, has been really challenging for him. They were shut down by their pandemic show was shut down by the pandemic. And they have not gone back into production. They had filmed, I think, an episode and a half or something in Chicago. when they, when they closed down shop in March.
Starting point is 00:54:55 They are scheduled to go back this month. I have been in touch with him a little bit over the last few months, but haven't asked, because I don't know the material, and I also kind of don't want to know, you know, just because I'm looking forward to seeing what he does with the material. I don't know how this affected the literal piece, you know, whether there was an opportunity to rewrite or a need to reconceive or reimagine, because a lot of the terms, I'm sure, and a lot of the visuals will either be specifically relevant to people's lives or suggestive in ways that could be good or could be bad.
Starting point is 00:55:34 I honestly, it's almost like crushing to think about that because just from a creative point of view, it's hard to have anything shut down in the middle, but to have something that is, it's almost like you intercepted it into the world and come back to it. I'm not sure. But regardless of what our year has been, this would have been a project we would have been highlighting anyway just because we love Patrick. It's exciting.
Starting point is 00:55:56 Great cast, great director. And a big swing for the service, you know, who, this is from HBO Max's, like, this was picked up and put to series, like, during HBO Max's first flush with, like, we're just making it rain. Sure. Like, we are going to go, we're going to grab these big projects. that other people want to and we're going to make and we're going to get noticed for it.
Starting point is 00:56:21 And so these are all supposed to hit, obviously, uh, in 2020 to sort of put them over the top and get them on people's radar. All of that has changed. Circumstances about every aspect of this project. So it's a question mark, but one worth paying attention to. I want to talk to you a little bit about a show that is very important to me already. And, um, it's been a while since we visited Taboo Island. And I don't know if we, I, I, I, I, I, I,
Starting point is 00:56:48 feel like Columbus Bird does boats. I don't know if we're ever going back. I don't know if Tom Hardy's ever going to find the new world. But in the meantime, I feel like I may have found my fix. And that is Andrew Hayes, the Northwater, which should be coming sometime this year on its BBC. So I'm not sure who would pick it up over here. It stars Colin Farrell, Jack O'Connell, and Stephen Graham. And from what I can divine, it is about a murderer on a whaling. vessel in the 19th century. And all the pictures of Colin Farrell in this in this show make it look like he has been living
Starting point is 00:57:28 in the woods for 10 years. I'm ready for Colin to be back in my life. And I love Andrew Hay's movies. And I'm really looking forward to this. Is this the same Andrew Hay who made looking? And what was his movie, Weekend? Yeah. that's very exciting.
Starting point is 00:57:48 You're just dropping gems on me. I don't know anything about this. I'm very interested in Colin Farrell's. He also made Lean on Pete in 45 years. And Lean on Pete will fuck you up. Based on the Willie Vlaughton novel. Yeah. A novel recommended wholeheartedly on this podcast by Friend of the Pod George Pelicanos
Starting point is 00:58:07 just to bring it full circle. Oh, wow. Let me say, always all in on Colin Farrell, but particularly laser focused on his 2021 shift towards nautical material. He's hunting whales in this movie. He's the penguin in a Batman movie. I think, you know, I recently,
Starting point is 00:58:27 people know, the avatar of the last airbender got a lot of burn in my house recently. And that's a world in which powers are divided between the four elements. Earth, air, fire, and water. Oh, I thought whales was one of the elements. well, I put whales in the water element, unless they're beach.
Starting point is 00:58:48 Kind of a mac and cheese situation with those guys. It's like you really can't have one without the other. What I'm saying is this is Collins' water period, right? And then we can look forward to him taking classic earth and fire rolls. I mean, you can help me out with what those might be. The backdraft reboot, perhaps. I almost remade backdraft in my house the other night because I tried to. cheese? No, I tried to
Starting point is 00:59:17 make a bourbon-based pan sauce. Okay, oh no. And I didn't really get a lot of the off-heat terminology in the recipe. And did the fire climb the wall a little bit? It might have.
Starting point is 00:59:33 I got questions. How did you extinguish the fire? I took it outside and I hosed it. I host the pansy. That is so much more dramatic than I thought. I was like, I thought you were going to say like, I kept my head on a swivel. I took the lid of the pan and I dropped it down on top of it, thus quenching the fire.
Starting point is 00:59:49 Didn't think of that. What happens when you do that? You choke out the air. The oxygen, right. The oxygen. Right. How much bourbon-based blood did you have after this event to calm down? Oh, I mean, I fully just ate sides and drank all night after that happened. What was, you know, you're not a independent contractor. There's another member of your household.
Starting point is 01:00:14 would you like to do a TikTok of her reaction to this entire affair? Not really. I would say that in most of the decision crossroad moments that we had in that experience, whereas we've arrived at a go left or go right moment, her instincts were right, and I heard her say the words and then did the other thing.
Starting point is 01:00:41 Oh, yeah. And it just a lot of it was like, I was like intuitively, the bourbon will need to be cooked at some point, right? So I'll turn the flame, the flames going to cook the bourbon. And I was like, yeah, can I ask you, like, what, how much time needs to pass from that event before it's funny for you to suggest after you finish a meal? I don't think I'll be cooking with bourbon ever again. Well, I was going to ask, like, at the end of a meal, will you say, would madame like the bananas foster prepared table side this evening? You know what I mean? Like, no, I can do that now.
Starting point is 01:01:12 She's got a good sense of you know about it. Chris is saying that, but he's backing, the body language is suggesting that he might be going up in smoke. Should he try this again? I love this. Like, we can keep going down whatever list of TV you have, but I want to know about the real shit. You know what I mean? Like, I want to know what goes on when the mics are off. I wanted to ask you about a couple of adaptations before we get going. Because I have, I can kind of go through a lot of this, you know, Tokyo Vice, the Michael Man, Tokyo Crime Show, Destin Daniel Creton's director. that. Pachinko, the adaptation of Minjin Lee's award-winning novel. Gosh, what else? Oh, Severance, the new
Starting point is 01:01:51 Ben Stiller show with Adam Scott, Patricia Arquette, Will Ferrell, John Totoro, and Christopher Walker. And it sounds kind of Michelle Gondri-ish, but interesting. Not that Michelle Gondry's stuff, isn't interesting. But a couple of the adaptations here are a long-awaited
Starting point is 01:02:07 sort of high-brow graphic novel stuff. Like Why the Last Man, which is been following a, I wouldn't say tortured, but very arduous road to screens. Yeah, Brian K. Vaughn. Another Brian K. Vaughn series is coming to screen
Starting point is 01:02:24 Paper Girls, which Haught and Catch Fires, Christopher Cantwell and Christopher Rogers are helming. And... Very in on that. Also, I'm kind of interested in this William Gibson adaptation from Lisa Joy and Jonah Nolan,
Starting point is 01:02:38 which is starring Chloe Grace Mrett's. It's called The Peripheral. And it's basically like a bunch of different timelines. I've not read this book, but it sounds kind of along the line of Station 11 very prescient to the moment that we're finding ourselves in. That's not exactly, obviously, a graphic novel one, but I was curious about some of the genre adaptations that are coming and and that whole industrial complex that we've got. It's interesting. It's hard to separate the projects themselves, of which we know little specifically from their development history or the moment
Starting point is 01:03:08 that they're being actually going to be released into. Paper girls, I don't know where they are with the development of it, but that's based on the comic book series by Brian K. Vaughn and Cliff Chang. It's fantastic. It's really, it's a version of stranger things that I would prefer to see. Honestly, it's about four young women who have a paper route, obviously, and then end up traveling through time and dimensions, and it's got a lot of heart, and it's got a lot of surprises, but it also is kind of laser-focused on those four characters in a way that is really appealing. you could see how it would lend itself to a show. And Rogers and Cantwell are, I think,
Starting point is 01:03:45 are getting a lot of deserved, if overdue praise for Halton Catch Fire as it's caught fire on Netflix, finally. And so they were very judicious about what project they chose next to tackle, although Chris Cantwell's been doing a lot of, he's writing Iron Man now for Marvel. So that's really exciting.
Starting point is 01:04:04 Why the Last Man, maybe like Halo, kind of feels like it should have happened already. Sure. And maybe missed its moment. Like it was kind of a no-brainer because it was a finite but extremely spread out story. I think it ran like 70, 80 issues and people probably at this point know, but it's about a mysterious event occurs and all the men in the world die. I believe it's because they tried to make liquor-based pan sauces simultaneously.
Starting point is 01:04:29 And the only survivors are the women who knew better. One brave mixologist named York survives the event and then tries to figure out what the hell happened. and FX has been just doggedly working this for so long. They had an entire pilot, scrapped it, hired a new showrunner, did it again, then changed stars, because Barry Keo was the star,
Starting point is 01:04:57 who you might remember from Dunkirk, no longer. So they had to reshoot that. I mean, good things come from messy development all the time, but both the development makes me a little nervous and then also, doesn't it kind of feel like a, It just kind of feels like a 2015, 2015, 2016, 2017 project. That's a fascinating point.
Starting point is 01:05:16 You know, TV's ability to kind of move quickly, if it's going to feel like it's at all connected. I mean, we talked to all about this a lot with, like, industry, and I may destroy you towards the end of the year about, like, television that feels like TV now, like life feels now. It doesn't necessarily have to be about the pandemic or about Trump, but kind of reflects experience. now, it's interesting to see these projects that have been in development for such a long time
Starting point is 01:05:45 and whether or not, like, those things will still speak to us. It's also interesting to me from a budgetary standpoint and maybe some of our old pals at FX who I know listen, like Nick Grad or Eric Shrier might want to either chime in anonymously in the email or just joins us to talk about it at some point. There does seem to be an appetite for expensive spectacle that is extremely limited, right? Like something like Station 11 can't be cheap. I can't imagine they're. planning a season two, they're going for it in one. And that's how people consume TV now, and that's understood. Why the last man, by nature, has to be expensive for three to six seasons,
Starting point is 01:06:21 right, in order to tell the full story. That's just a different outlay on your investment. And I'm sure that, you know, no one is as smart as FX in terms of being aware of what they're doing and how they present it. So I'm sure they've crunched all the numbers and it makes sense of them to continue to pursue this. But we are in this world where like, doing Lord of the Rings for half a billion dollars or whatever over many years. Okay, I can see it. I don't want to see it. I don't want to watch it, but I could see it.
Starting point is 01:06:48 Sure. This sort of feels like a tweener from a slightly different era that was really only like 18 months ago. Why do we wrap it up there? I'll put up on a list of all the shows that we talked about when we tweet out the episode. But, you know, there's Gilded Age Julian Fellow show starring Christine Branski with Kerry Coon. Sorry who? Who?
Starting point is 01:07:06 Christine Bransky with Carrie Coon. Can't wait. You know, Daisy Jones in the 6, which is Michael Weber and Scott Neustadtar's adaptation of a beloved book with, it's Riley Keough and Sam Claffin. And it kind of sounds like Fleetwood Mac. It's basically a 70s rock and rock. Yeah. Brand New Cherry Flavor with Rosa Salazar and Catherine Keener about an aspiring film director in the sun-drenched but see-me world of 1990, Los Angeles. That comes from Nick Antosca as the producer and the pilot directed by my beloved Briar Patch director, Arcaha Stevenson.
Starting point is 01:07:38 Oh, awesome. Yeah. So, yeah. And then obviously, you know, just waiting on House of the Dragon. Like, that's also looming too. So we'll probably see stuff from that show this year, but we won't get the show. Did we even talk about that? No. I mean, I think that's 22 show. So we have lots of stuff to talk about. Andy and I will be back on Thursday. We'll chat about the Facebook groups, the watch Facebook groups, best of 2020, but we're in 2021 now. So we have a lot to talk about. I can't wait to see you on Thursday, man. We only look forward. That's right. Except we look back to Halo.
Starting point is 01:08:12 That's all. Can we talk? Also, I just want to, I'm going to develop a working theory about why when the problem of the past was that the chicken was too wet that you felt the need to add a pan sauce to the protein. Well, this is a pork chop. No, I get it. But I just feel like, you know, liquidity seems to be, shout out to industry. That seems to be the issue. You know what I mean?
Starting point is 01:08:32 That's right. Well, we need some bit to talk about Thursday. We could do it then. I can't wait. Can't wait. Happy New York Brans.

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