The Watch - The Best TV Shows of 2020

Episode Date: December 17, 2020

Chris and Andy are joined by Sam Esmail to talk about the state of tv in 2020 (1:00) and some of their favorite shows of the year, including 'The Mandalorian,' 'Love Life,' 'ZeroZeroZero,' 'I May Destroy You,' and 'Better Call Saul' (20:47). Hosts: Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald Guest: Sam Esmail Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I need sports to have to clear the room. Stand up and walk now. Hello and welcome to The Watch. My name is Chris Ryan. I'm an editor at the ringer.com. And today on the show, Sam Esmail makes his triumphant return to the watch with me and Andy Greenwald and Kyle McMullen on this episode. As we talk about our favorite TV shows of the year, it's one of my favorite episodes to do every year, Sam has been so gracious. With his time coming to tell us about how we are wrong.

about TV every year. So let's get right into it. Sam Esmail on the best shows of the year. Did you know about one in 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.

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Explore what's possible. Ask your doctor about Trimphaya. Tap this ad to learn more about Trimfaya, including important safety information. 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. It's a tradition unlike any other. It's the return of Sam S-Mail, one of the big picture's best guests to his home on the Ringer podcast network. This is so sweet. The Watch podcast.

It's our annual Best of Television podcast that we do with Sam. We've done it three, four years now. How many years in a row have we done this? I don't remember. Four, yeah. That feels right. Sam, it's Andy, it's Kaya, it's Chris. We're going to do it a little bit differently this year because I think in the previous years,

what's happened is we've done this very expansive, like, kind of state of television conversation in the beginning, and that goes on for a while. And then we do a very long, like, well, my number 10 was this. And that's actually my number seven. That's actually my number three. And we go back and forth. I think that there's a lot of overlap in all of our lists this year. So what we're going to do is we're going to have this conversation about the state of

television. We have a bunch of topics we want to hit. And within those topics, we're going to talk about a lot of the shows that are on all of our lists. And then at the very end of the pod, we'll just list off our shows. But we are obviously going to be posting on our Twitter accounts and on the Facebook account and everywhere else, our list. So you can just refer to them throughout the show. You can know where we're coming from. So anyway, hello to Andy and Kai. I see you all the time. But Sam,

welcome. Welcome back to where you belong. Thank you, guys. Thank you. That was such a warm welcome. How are you guys doing? We're really happy to see you, Sam, because much like HBO Max, you have been pulled from the big screen to where we feel you work best, the tiny Zoom windows with us. I think that's the right way to begin a conversation about the year. television. That is such a beautiful metaphor. By the way, let me just start off by saying, and I think I texted you this a couple of times throughout the year.

Great fucking year for TV. Great fucking year. I've complained about the state of TV for the past couple seasons, past couple of years. But I thought this year is tough. It was tough to get top. I have a bunch of honorable mentions. I don't know if we'll have time to get to that. But it was really tough to squeeze it in.

And honestly, there's still shows coming out. I keep reading about Nicholas one. Reminding Reffin's Maniac Cop series. I don't know if I'm excited to see that. I don't know if that's coming out in 2020. But for his shit of a year it has been, I think TV really, I mean, it transcended in a lot of ways.

And we're going to talk about it because there's some shows on my list that some people are going to call movies and, you know, some people are going to call sandwiches and we're going to have that conversation. But also, given what is going on with movies, going on the streamers, it's like the lines have never been blurred. And I personally, I know there's going to be a lot of,

there's a lot of critics out there about what's going on to HBO, Max, including your friends, Sean and Amanda. Haters and losers. I think it's fantastic. I think it's great. I think it's silly when I keep reading on social that I don't want to see Dune on my couch. Great. Go fucking see it in the theater if you think it's safe enough to go see it in the theater.

No one's telling you not to see it in the theater. This is just another option for people. see, and the whole kind of you know, sort of hysteria over the death of movie theaters. To me, this is like, I welcome

movie theaters need to earn my money better than this dumb theatrical window exclusivity thing that is honestly just has never been a compelling argument to get people to force them into the theories, especially with all the options they have now at home. So anyway, I can go on a rant about this. I know we're

talking about TV, but my point is, the lines have never been more blurred between the two. I had this conversation about bad education. I don't know if you guys have seen that. The Hugh Jackman movie, no. Fucking great movie, but it's a TV movie at the Emmys. Is it not going to be at the Oscars, even though the Oscars are taking in films that premiere on streamers?

This is the interesting question that I think we're going to tackle from now on. And I personally find that great. I find it great that we can finally be to our first. platform agnostic when we talk about great storytelling like this. Well, I'm interested in hearing you take that tax hand because I think that a lot of people may have interpreted your career and your opinions as being slightly different, which is to say you brought a lot of cinema to the small screen in how you approached, how you broke, certainly how you shot Mr. Robot and Homecoming.

And I think one takeaway from that, and apparently incorrect. one was that forget TV, you're going to bring movies to TV. But what you're suggesting is that it's all going through the same tubes and on the same box, they should all just be elevated, right? Like, the quality is the quality, and you're not, you're increasingly, you're not distinguishing between the two. Absolutely not. I'm going to talk about this in one of my picks, but to say that TV is a writer's medium now, to be honest with you, I've always found that argument a little bogus. It's never been a writer. is a filmmaking medium. And that doesn't mean that's a director's medium. It's a writer is a

filmmaker. A director is a filmmaker. Costume designer is a filmmaker. Performers are a filmmaker. You've got to use all the tools at your disposal. This is a visual medium and you're trying to use every inch of that frame to tell your story. And so back in the day, maybe it was just documenting dialogue that was written on the page and that's it. No dollies, no movement, no stylistic shots or anything like that. But those days are gone. And now we're actually using, you know, to even call it TV is a little odd, right? You know, is Netflix TV?

I mean, just because it outputs on the TV, I don't know anymore. But for me, it's just, I feel like we don't need to have that debate between TV and movies anymore. That's what's exciting to me. It doesn't matter. It's we're watching great storytelling. And whether it's an epic. And we're going to debate this too, right? Because whether it's an episodic storytelling format like a TV series or like a Marvel fucking cinematic universe or or whether it's a self-contained movie with chapters like a Tarantino film or if it's like small acts where it's an anthology of films and some of them are two hours on some of them in that.

I mean, you know, for me, like again, the line being blurred are honestly the best thing for the industry because I think we're going to the definitions are going to lose value. And I've always hated the labels anyway. So ultimately, I think we're just going in a great direction. I hope that this is your announcement that you're going to Kevin Feigy and you're pitching the MCFU, the Marvel seminar fucking universe. And it's just like all the other Marvel stuff except people say fucking all the time. Well, look, I mean, let's, you know, if you want to have that conversation. It's fucking Thanos! So, Sam, going back to the first thing you said, which was heartening to hear, because I think we all agree, this was unquestionably an awful year on Earth, but TV was really good.

And I think Chris and I were both- They were killing it on the moon, though. It was great. They had from Earth to the Moon. Season three renewal. I think Chris and I were curious if your own experience. living through this year played a part in your affection for the TV that you saw? Do you think that you were watching TV differently? Were you consuming more of it in different ways or appreciating it more? Or purely on a quality basis, it was just higher in your eyes this year? I think the latter. I mean, I look, I watch, I try and watch something at least once a day.

And that didn't change, even when I was in the middle of shooting Mr. Robot or homecoming, or if I'm just writing, or during the pandemic. It was at least trying to, I at least trying to and get one episode in of something a day, if not two, or a movie or something. So for me, it wasn't about my viewing habits. Honestly, I just, the amount of, and we're going to talk, again, when we get into the list we'll talk about, but the amount of unique points of views

and the experimentation that was going on and all the things that I just talked about in terms of redefining what storytelling can be to the point where people legitimately don't know what to call it, a movie, a TV movie, a series. So for me, it's just, I don't know what it is. I don't know what happened,

but something about all of the past years of my frustrations with TV sort of bubbled up to the surface. And you know, this honestly segues nicely, and if we want to talk about this, into, I believe I angrily texted you, Andy, about the fact that you got you and Christopher were sort of encouraging television shows to be more like, expensive screen savers that you can fold laundry in front of.

That's exactly what we were saying. It's a direct quote. No, it's good. And weirdly, a couple weeks. Newsmax S-mail has logged into the chat. And by the way, flying toasters was just greenlit straight to series on Paramount Plus. So, listen, I've heard this argument before. I mean, and you guys were making the argument and then a couple of couple.

You guys, I've recently pitched, I pitched Casey Blois on a half-hour sitcom that's just the sound of a Mac book going on. And it's just that over and over again. It's honestly, that to me was a disheartening part about the last couple of years. There is this weird tendency for certain shows to just occupy my time. It is not going to transport me to anywhere. It's not going to transform my way of looking at the world. It's not trying to do anything other than be this mild sedative entertainment value on my TV,

while I do other things. And there's a New Yorker article about it, you know, say what you will about the article, because I think it's been a, I mean, it's not a new phenomenon here. I think TV was sort of came out of, was born out of this need to preoccupy people so that it can sell laundry detergent in between acts.

So for me, I was concerned that somehow the pendulum was sort of swinging back that way because I started to feel that, the rise of this sort of kind of this sort of laid back low drama, low conflict storytelling. But again, I think 2020 exceeded my expectations and pendulum sort of swung back. But what you guys tell me? Because that's the argument I heard.

I mean, I angrily threw my AirPods down on the ground, stomped them, had to buy a new pair if I could call you. But you tell me, what was your position? I mean, I heard laundry folding. That's when I stopped listening. Yeah, I can't remember what show we were talking about. I think actually it was when we were talking about watching baseball. I think that was the thing.

But to be fair, we were saying was... That hurts, Andy. That hurts. Because I think we were talking about watching the playoffs and kind of missing the rhythms of commercials and old-fashioned TV watching where you could get up, go to the, during the commercial break, not during... exposition scenes and maybe get some more bugles or whatever you're snacking on that night and then return and it felt less stakesy because I think the elevation of TV storytelling to a cinematic level

of both skill and intensity is unquestionably a good thing but TV's in our homes and we have different days leading into our time in our homes and we don't always want to be as completely magnetically stressily riveted. Not always. There's there are many different options for us on our TV boxes. Kaya, that's right. We're talking about baseball. Yeah. No,

I think you guys were talking about baseball and just like long periods of time when you have the TV on here. Just kind of like wandering in and out of. Wait, wait, wait. No, I know what you were talking about? You know what you were doing? You were dissing on Fargo.

Now I'm remembering. You were dissing on Fargo. That's right. There was a lot of like... We were saying we liked watching commercials on baseball more than at times. And, you know, Andy, you already know this, but I'm a huge fan of this season. It's on my list.

We'll get to it in a second. And for me to look at a show as technically precise as that show in terms of, well, the laundry list is long on that show. Because everything is so dialed in and so beautiful to look at and the rhythm and the music and the dialogue is so crackling. And it wasn't, you know, and you do have to fucking pay attention. You're going to get a loss. And by the way, I am guilty of that. I don't think if you miss a scene of Mr. I don't, you're not going to come back next week and understand Mr. Robot.

Like, it's not going to happen. I think that's a good thing. I don't think that's a bad thing. And I hope, I pray to God that your wishes for TV never come true. Because I hated TV when it was like, it doesn't matter. You watch this episode or the next? Who gives a shit? Like, it all doesn't make sense.

I think my point is, if we can be. up 43 minutes of your time every week. That's all. Who cares? I think my point is that that type of TV has never gone away, isn't going away, and we generally don't ever discuss it, nor do we ever even experience it because we don't turn on the TV. In fact, we often are like, that was fine. We don't need to even interrogate it.

Like, I think that was for a show that probably, you know, a lot of our listeners adored like Ted Lassow. Ted Lasson was a show that I feel like Andy. you pretty much were like, nah, I don't want, because for exactly that reason, because you were like, this feels like laundry folding to TV. It didn't say that specifically, but it's funny you mention that because the night I tried to head lasso, all the laundry in my house got done. And so my wife wants me to watch it more. And I said, no, no, no, I have to stay focused. This is part of my job. I think charitably, and this might be kind of a hard thing to get my arms around, I kind of think,

Sam, the things that you've been saying so far in this podcast are all part of the same. point, which was this year it did feel kind of surprisingly like TV rebalanced itself. We've spent the last few years saying, you know, the highs were really high, but it was mostly kind of a mushy middle. There were shows that were a lot of shows were B minus shows, which are, which would have been A's 20 years ago, but we got spoiled by the shows of the previous decade. And looking over my list and everybody's list, it does seem like there's a lot of high quality stuff in a lot of different lanes. Like half of my list are. event series, limited series, and the other half aren't. And of the half that aren't, there's a

silly comedy. And there's also a prestige drama, not just in the style of the previous decades, but literally the successor to it in Better Call Saul. So it does feel weirdly like it kind of figured itself out in a year when everything else completely fell apart. Yeah. And I think, Sam, to your point about I to, I think, watch something every day in some capacity at the end of every day. I actually, like, it was probably the highlight of my day during quarantine, which we are still in, which is basically getting through my workday, eating dinner, and then finally being able to, like, go somewhere else in a screen. And a lot of the shows that I picked, I think, in some ways, overcompensated for my lack of experience this year. Like, sensory-wise,

like, we didn't have any experiences that I didn't this year worth noting. You know, I mostly was, was home. I saw a few friends and didn't really go anywhere. So a lot of the shows that I watched or I loved basically were very transporting, not necessarily in a like watching the expanse and it go to another planet way, but in a, you know, watching industry and watching people go out at night and be close to one another and do drugs and go to work and have consequences to all that stuff, to me was like very invigorating in a way that I don't even know if it would have been in 2019 and hopefully won't be in 2021, which isn't to take away from the quality of the show, which is immense, and we've talked about a lot.

But I think I was looking for something at the end of the day, whether it was light and airy or heavy and dark, that kind of like made up for the lack of stuff that I actually did this year. Well, I'll add another thing to this. I don't know, I didn't count it on your list, but I only have two returning shows on my list. One of them is an anthology. So the whole new storyline anyway.

I do love just to even keep going further down this road of how TV is sort of transforming itself. I do love this trend of shorter seasons. Not shorter. I mean, I do love shorter season. But I also love the trend of less seasons per series. We're going to wrap it up. We have a story.

It's intentional. We have a beginning, middle, and end. And, you know, maybe three seasons, four seasons, and we're out. I feel like that trend is again pewing closer to a more intentional, precise form of storytelling. That we're not here to just preoccupy 22 hours a year of your time, that we're here to tell a very intentional story. And we don't know. And maybe showrunners are going to be encouraged to start planning things out

ahead of time before they shoot seasons of their show or even start. start to write or break their first season. But for me, I think that that's incredibly, I don't know what that is yet. I don't know what that is. And again, when we go through our list, the forms of all these shows like Fargo and Small Axe all vary now. And the format's going to get played around a lot.

But I love this contraction of let's not do fluff seasons. Let's not do like, you know, seven or eight weeks. That whole old antiquated way of thinking of going as far as long as you can for as far as you can. It's kind of like outdated now. I kind of like the encouragement of keeping it tighter. I think it's worth noting that, and I agree with everything you're saying,

and I look at my list, there are only three shows that were returning out of the 10. It's worth noting that the list would have looked a lot different had there not been a pandemic because we were robbed of 2020 premieres for the returns of a lot of shows. Probably the debuts of shows

we're not even aware of yet too. But, you know, there's no succession, all of our favorite show, I know. like Barry probably would have come back. Like a lot of shows that have been on Atlanta may have been ready this year. We're not sure about that. But a lot of favorite shows that were stuck on the shelf. But I do think to your point, Sam, that like it is definitely no longer one size fits all.

That's only a good thing creatively. And I think ultimately for the viewer, since we're already talking about the aesthetic changes of television and cinema and television, why don't we start with this? So, Sam, when you send in your list, one of the first things that jumped down, out, and probably this isn't surprising because of your own CV, was that a number of shows were, like your shows Mr. Robot and Homecoming, were all directed by one person. So those shows on your list are your number nine show, Queen's Gambit, your number four show, which is small acts, a collection of, he calls them films, Steve McQueen, and your number two show devs. And we sort of, on email, kind of said, Fargo,

I know was directed by Noah and some of his collaborators, but you could kind of squeeze that in, too, if you want to talk about it, because there's no question that that show isn't completely aesthetically controlled by the taste of one person. So you've worked on TV this way. Now you're seeing more and more people do it this way.

What does it bring? Why did it elevate these shows? Well, I hinted to this a little bit earlier when I said that this is not a writer's medium. This is a filmmaker's meeting. And again, I want to be very careful here because I think Fincher always talks about this, and I 1,000% agree.

I am not into this autotaur theory. One person does not make a film, and one person certainly does not make a television series. But if you take a look at, like, Queens Gambit, let's just talk about Queens Gammon. I think we're all fans. Was it on everyone's list? Yeah, I believe so, right?

I think that's the only one that was on all four, list. It's Kaya's number six. It's Andy's number two. And it is my number five. Actually, industry is the only other show that's on everybody's list, I think. No, I think I may destroy you. Again, that was though. Oh, right. That was correctly everyone's number one except Chris. But we'll get to that in a second.

But so you take a show like Queens Gambit. of life how it feels and to be a girl among all those men I don't mind it chess isn't always competitive chess can also be beautiful you're an orphan bet I'm fine being alone I feel safe in an entire world of just 64 squares how creativity and psychosis often go hand in hand or for that matter genius and madness everything was synchronized to a cohesive vision on that show. I mean, you guys have talked about us. I don't want to like rehash,

but everything from the costume design, from Beth's outfits looking like chess pieces to the production design, the lighting. I can go on. And obviously Scott Frank being the writer and director of it all, but for me, this is what was beautiful about, you know, proof positive that if you, if you take the medium for what it what it can bring to the screen,

if you use all of those levers and it doesn't sacrifice the writing, it enhances the writing and enhances the storytelling, you're going to get something really cohesive and outstanding like the Queen's Gambit. And then, of course, the one thing I'm going to say about that show is Anya Taylor Joy. I mean, she is on. I mean, there's another standout performance. I want to highlight at some point when we talk about that. show, but this performance to me, I mean, it just, it, it was to play withdrawn, to play

using a lot of facial expressions, not a lot of dialogue, you know, that's a very tricky thing. A lot of people cannot access characters like that. Trust me, I know we played around with it a lot, and Mr. Robot, even an oncoming. That's a hard thing for an actor to pull up. Not only did she pull it off, it was inviting. It was warm. I, wanted to be with her, I wanted to hang with her. And I did not want to fold laundry or do the dishes. I could not take my eyes off of her. So that show to me just brilliantly sort of exemplifies what I'm talking about how TV.

And by the way, it needed to be episodic. I know that the book went through some incarnations. And I think, again, you guys have talked about this. It would have been a disservice to the book if they turned it into a two-hour feature film. So it is just the prime example of what great episodic storytelling, TV storytelling, however you want to call it, works when all of the sort of departments and everyone comes together for a cohesive vision. I couldn't agree more of that. And I mean, what's so brilliant about that show is that what Scott Frank gets the lion's share of the credit, but I think more than anything else, what he did was he conducted it like a symphony, all the departments. It was all in concert in a beautiful way.

And we spoke to him about that when he was on the show. Wanted to just as a quick counter before we move on to other subject, bring up devs. What is devs? This is the only principle you need to understand. Nothing ever happens without a reason. Everything was determined by something prior. You knew I was going to come here. The sense that you were participating in life was only ever an illusion.

Life is just something. something we watch on Ford. Which is a show that we covered pretty exhaustively on the podcast. It would have made a long list, I think, probably for at least me and Chris, had we done a longer list. But I'm wondering, for me, ultimately, where I felt it faltered was the script and the story. It was totally transporting as a directorial exercise by Alex Garland. Do you, you may just reject that premise outright, but I was wondering if it's high placement on your list had something to do with the level of execution,

purely of the visuals, and if that is ever enough for you. No, it was a storytelling. I got to be honest with you, I can't, again, I'm probably going to get crucified and people are going to throw out great examples like arrival and I'm sure other sci-fi films that I'm not thinking of right now. But this is one of the best pieces of sci-fi storytelling I have seen in a long time because it was not reliant on set pieces. It was reliant on fucking conversations about determinism.

I mean, this, and it was dramatic. To be fair, so is this podcast. Go on. That scene when Allison Pill is talking about how this is happening right now, and you know every choice that you've seen every choice that's about to happen, yet you're still going to make those choices. The one on the dam? Yes.

Yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah. That was a great scene. I mean, the Chinese century scene in the bathtub with that, and I can't, that guy was. great, the guy who played the security guard. I can't remember his name. There are so many great moments in that show,

but it's pure sci-fi. I mean, it does not pull punches in terms of the intellect. It does not water anything down. It does not try and hit you with any gotcha twists or anything. It really honestly wanted to explore this idea of free will and predestination in the most interesting and intellectual way, but never soccer it never was boring to me it always sucked me in I mean it was one of those shows I mean we're going to talk about this to a certain extent but one of the reasons why I got excited

about TV this year is nothing really piled up on a lot of these shows when it fucking came on my lulu thing I fucking I couldn't wait I was waiting for the minutes to count down did did were there shows like that though where you were like uh I'm not so sure if I want I mean you have to name them if you don't want to but like did you were there some shows that maybe you started. With their homework shows. Yeah, and then became homework? Well, if it became homework, I usually, I usually, that was when I checked out.

I don't, yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't try and force myself to get through something unless I think there's a couple elements in there where I'm like hoping and praying that they pull it out. But usually, and there was one show that I really had high promise for, and I really don't want to name names. But, man, it started off strong and then, yeah, and then I usually bail after a while. And I'm like, Sam, we agreed. We wouldn't talk about Briar Patch on this podcast.

to the other three. We are not allowed to talk about BriarCow. I know, I know. The other, one thing that you three, Kaya, Chris, and Sam all have in common is there are a beloved genre of rom-coms on everybody's list. Hell yeah, brother. I know Sam is chomping in the bit because people might not realize this.

Sam loves rom-coms. This is true. Joe Roberts, come on. Classic rom-com homecoming. You, you doubt. Definitely were like, time to use those chops again. By the way, I am envious. I wish I could do an amazing rom-com.

Homecoming happens in my best friend's wedding extended universe. Little known facts. It does. It does, yeah. That's true, because of Dermit, right. Yeah. That was not a nice thing, Andy. So I'm just looking at Kyas List and she's got,

search party's not a rom-com, but it is a half-hour. Love Life at seven. Normal people, there's some com, a lot of rom. There's very little com. I won't. I'm just sort of, I'm kind of squinting my way wondering if we should also just talk about half hours. But since we're talking about rom-coms, Kaya,

you have high fidelity and love life on your list. Why do you need a boyfriend right now? This isn't Jane Austen times. I'm sorry. I'm just having a small life panic. I just want you being the kind of woman who knows what she wants and she's not afraid to go after it.

You should be loved for the little dirp-to-durp that you are. Talk about why. And then I know the boys also want to chime in on these particular shows. Yeah, I mean, I just found both of those shows like so, so enjoyable to watch high fidelity a little bit more than Love Life. But, I mean, it's just kind of like you take a really charming lead and you surround them with really charming people. And it just makes like a really enjoyable television. And I mean, I think like Love Life in particular, like, I don't know if Sam will like this, but it was just so easy to watch.

And it was just so like glossy and everybody looks so nice. like the interior. Kyle, Love Life is on my list, Kaya. No, I know. And that's why I'm interested

to hear like why you liked it. I didn't say a show needs to be hard to watch. I just said you should watch the show when you're watching the show. That's all. By the way, people were not going to put the video up. There's just unfolded clothes everywhere in Sam's screen right now. He just puts on the same black,

new black sweatshirt every day. He's got 365 of them. But wait, Kai, I have a question for it because I know you said it's easy to watch. I also found the show easy to watch and a pleasure to watch. Did you find it easy to watch because you could do other things while you were watching it? Or did you just want to hang with the show? I think for Love Life, yeah. I mean, the story wasn't like super hard to follow if you missed like a few minutes.

And not like I was getting up and leaving the room. But I think I mentioned last year that I, you know, tend to look at my phone while I watch TV. So I'm not to have it. I'm really trying to break this year. And yeah, and so it's like, if you miss a moment, like you're not going to be completely lost,

but then also, I mean, I just like, I don't know, I felt like I could just watch like a hundred more of that. Like if they made it like a hundred more episodes, like I would watch every one of them. And then I know they're doing season two with William Harper Jackson,

who I, and I think that's going to be like really good. And yeah, it's just like a good show. Like I wouldn't call it great, but it was just like, extremely charming and just like really, really fun to watch. To me, both Love Life, which would have been on my long list and high fidelity, which made

my list, they're like pop standards. And it, you know, the bones of the thing work already. It's really just about who's singing the song. And you put Zoe Kravitz in a situation where she has to choose between two guys and has a group of funny friends and an interesting job. And it's just kind of like, I'm pretty into it. And like the way they kind of like, rooted it in, you know, like a very contemporary New York City vibe, I thought really, really just worked for the show. And I honestly, a lot of things were going against that show. And it's a shame it got canceled, but rebooting a Nick Hornby novel and a John Cusack movie 20 years after the fact that was largely rooted in like a male introspective experience and making it this part for Zoe

Cravitz to play, everything about it worked. And it's really one of the true bummers. of the year that that show is not going to be able to come back. Yeah, absolutely. That I'm picking up on from you guys that I appreciate is for years we've talked about just having so much choice on television. You can watch anything at any time. But this year, at least, our lists are kind of reflective of the new reality that you can get pretty high-quality servings of almost any cuisine you want, that we were well-serviced

by TV in a way, right? Because everybody likes rom-coms and they've been struggling at the movies in the last few years, and then also this year you couldn't go to the movies, but here you got stuff that actually scratched that same itch in a satisfying way, but in a way that made sense for television. The flip side to that in terms of things that we usually get at the movies is big budget franchise management, and that's why we've got to talk about Mando. Show me the one of safety deemed such destruction.

You must reunite it with its own kind. Where? This you must determine. The songs of Eon's past, tell of battles between Mandelow the Great and an order of sorcerers called Jedi. You expect me to search the galaxy and deliver this creature to a race of enemy sorcerers. This is the way. This is the way. Which we're already talking about anyway, constantly week to week and just really enjoying it.

And I think that we are certainly not alone in that. But Sam, you are the same age as Chris and I are. and you have, you know, a complicated relationship, I think, to both nostalgia and big budget franchise management on the big screen. The show is on your list. What does it do right? You know, I think what, you know, Favreau, it was really smart. So weirdly, I'm going to kind of contradict myself here. He kind of went old school with the sort of form of storytelling here because I think starting. Star Wars is such this big monstrosity now. It's so weighty with all the themes and the characters and the worlds that he just said,

I'm going to focus this on this one lane and it's a, what do you call it like a travel, a travel, it's basically a travel log. I mean, I remember watching Incredible Hulk, Bill Bixby back in the day. It reminds me a lot of that. There's a mission per episode. And so it's perfect for, so basically, number one, He did not treat it like eight-hour movie or nine-hour movie or however many episodes of it is. He treated it like a television show.

He gave sort of the respect to the episodic storytelling format that he put it on. And, you know, I remember expecting, I don't know what you guys were expecting. I remember when I first started seeing the pictures, I was like, okay, this is it. This is like the hard, R-rated Star Wars that we've been like dreaming about since we were looking. And it's not that. In fact, it's pretty family-friendly. I mean, very sort of almost obnoxiously so, family-friendly with that cute baby Yoda. But it fucking works, again, because he kept it simple,

made it about the characters and made it about this very simple relationship that could have easily been sentimental, not sentimental at all. And then, and I'm going to say this again as a knock on. feature films. I really don't want to knock feature films. By the way, guys, just for the record for the audience, I love going to the movies. Free pandemic, I went to the movies every weekend. I plan on doing that when it's safe again. But this show... Don't try and walk it back. You try to close multiplexes, man. That's what you're doing here. Just trying to... You're not welcome in Chicago, in multiplexes.

Taking a wrecking ball to the new Beverly. the best VFX I've seen in a long I'm including it's a game changer right and you know I'm such a dork that I you know twisted John's arm and he he invited me down to they shoot that whole thing in a warehouse and then they have beach somewhere with these LED screens and they don't go anywhere they go to a warehouse and to for it to fucking look as good as it does and then I compare it to some of the movies that have, I assume, bigger budgets and for the VFX to just, like, sort of outweigh them in such a radical way. I think it's, this show's, like, phenomenal, working on every level. I've been thinking about Mandalorian for the last couple weeks

just because of the quality of the last two episodes, especially. Now, when this episode comes out, there will have been another one since the Boba Fett episode. But I've been thinking a lot about the Assocato episode and the tragedy. And I was thinking, you know, basically every Mandalorian episode has the same mechanics.

It's like he has an initial quest. He shows up where he needs to be. The person who he's going to meet, it's like, I'll give you what you want, but you have to do this for me. And he's like, oh, twist my arm. And he does a side mission for that other character. And then at the end of the episode typically finds out

he has yet another step to go in his quest to help Baby Yoda or find more Mandalorians or whatever he's doing. And that's not altogether different than New Hope and Empire. Like the actual plot mechanics are still very, very much rooted in Star Wars storytelling. The difference between Mandalorian and the sequels that we just kind of got through over the last six years or seven years is that Mandalorian understands that what we really want out of Star Wars is to sit in the cockpit and hand baby Yoda the little silver ball. Or we want the Mandalorian character and Asoka to hang out for a little while and get to know each other and walk around in circles around each other in a cool setting. We don't constantly need to be jumping in hyperspace from planet to planet every five seconds. With a bunch of expository dialogue shoved in there.

And I'm like, yeah, I think that sometimes we mistake what it is we actually want out of these things. You know, we confuse it. Like, I don't actually expect Star Wars to answer any epistemological or existential questions I have about heroism in the universe or anything. I actually just love the vibes. And that's what this show really is, is a return to Big Moss Isley mood. You know, like just hanging out in weird places with weird creatures while people give,

like, Howard Hawksie dialogue back and forth to one another. Yeah, it's great. It's also with the music, I love that score. And it's like a kind of a throwback to Westerns, I think. Yeah, Spaghetti Western. Spaghetti Westerns. I just, I feel like, You know, he does not, what is it?

He does not find the mythology precious. It's not about the myth. Fuck the mythology. Like, fucking tell me a good story. And I'll feel that. I'll feel that underneath. Do you know what I mean? And I feel like that's where some of these shows sometimes,

when they take that too seriously, and when they have to feel like they got to dole out pieces of the mythology to you, every, I mean, he did none of that. And by the way, I mean, I guess we're talking spoilt players here. You can you spoil it the whole thing. I didn't know that they were ever going to cross paths with the Jedi. But when I saw that episode and that title came up, the Jedi, that's how you reward me with the mythology.

Yeah. Tell me a good story. Don't even let me think about that. Let me care about these characters in the world. Let me marvel again at all these new terrains and worlds. Like I remember feeling when I first saw the original Star Wars. Let me just marvel at these little nooks and crannies. and let my imagination run wild.

And then you slip in the Jedi on top of all of that. I mean, that's great. That, to me, I mean, he knows what he's doing. I mean, that shows, like, really working on all cylinders because I don't think anybody expected that to come. And I think in general, I think what Star Wars is based on is starting off with that. And the fact that they didn't need to, and that was just like the cherry on top. Yeah.

I mean, you know the show's working then. It's best case scenario because I think that when, certainly when the Disney Plus was announced and like it was obviously going to be flooded with content from the big brands. And as we're recording on Thursday the 10th, apparently not really that retired, Bob Eiger is saying there's going to be 10 new Star Wars shows, 10 new Marvel shows, yada, yada, yada, yada. The most cynical takeaway from that is, well, yeah, they're just going to print money. Like you just make more of the thing and then you can make more returns from it. But what's interesting potentially is that it might allow some kind of cross-medium dialogue to do what you were speaking to, Sam, at the beginning, which is put things in the right shape boxes. You know, what story fits best where. And I am the farthest thing today's podcast has from Sean Fennessee.

But a perfect 90 minutes of story in a movie is probably the perfect delivery vehicle for story. but it has to be a 90-minute story or a 120-minute story. And when you end up with things that are just in the wrong-shaped box, everyone's frustrated. And that's probably the gentlest criticism I'll give on this podcast about Rise of Skywalker, but that wasn't a two-hour-and-15-minute movie. I mean, I'm not saying it was a TV show either, but it certainly wasn't that. And so hopefully as things become one in terms of what screen they're on, hopefully we can start thinking of it as a dialogue and not just a monologue in terms of between

TV and movies that maybe they can learn a little bit from each other as filmmakers feel more free to be like, well, this story is going to fit better here. Whereas a movie, I'm still going to make a movie, but if I have something that is better suited to this medium, right? Because as you said, Sam, like, Queen's Gambit, they tried to make a movie for 40 years. And thank goodness they didn't. This episode is brought to you by Amazon Prime. Ever have a plan come together out of nowhere and realize you're missing something?

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But I also would love to hear your thoughts on what McQueen did there. These are new types of human beings. They are not demoralized or defeat people. They are leaders, but are rooted deep among those they lead. Victims, but protagonists of all the stories. Don't you think it's time things are different? As individuals. We have an impossible battle.

As a collective, we stand a chance. Well, okay, so on the one hand, and I think Steve McQueen, he came out and said, these are films, this is not a TV show. But here's the thing. I'm judging small acts.

So I'm not judging Mangrove, which is fucking fantastic, or Lovers Rock. I'm judging the entire experience. And by the way, I mean, I mean, for not a TV show to be releasing an episode every week, it feels a little odd. But for me, small acts, as, again, whatever you want to, that's the banner that these films are collected under is no different than Black Mirror, Twilight Zone, either standalone episodes, standalone stories, but they're all connected by a theme.

And in this case, a time and place in London. And for me, I just, I feel like as a whole, for each, you know, if you want to judge each film on its own, they're fantastic. But I think he's doing himself a disservice because as a series, it's fucking, it's fucking groundbreaking. I mean, this is what I'm talking about right here. This, what he's doing is changing the landscape of whatever you want to call episodic storytelling. For whatever reason, TV has become a pejorative. That word, if you say it to a serious filmmaker, they want to throw up. I mean, don't ever say it around Christopher Nolan.

I mean, don't ever say streaming around Christopher Nolan. He's going to, like, flip out, right? Don't even be named Max and go near Christopher Nolan. Right. But if you want to talk about a collection of feature films, you know, surrounding a theme that's connected, okay, whatever you want to fucking call that, I call that episode, story film, but if you want to change that moniker to something else, my point is, is that

he's redefining the possibilities here. Because you know, unlike the rhythms of Twilight Zone or, and again, I used to watch all those shows, you know, Tales from the Crypt and Outer Bank, Outer Limits and Alfred Hitchcock. Sam, if you're watching Outer Banks,

you've come to the right podcast. Because Kai and I are ready to talk about it. That's that show. I have not seen that show, but I've heard a lot of people talk about. That's not a show. That is peak laundry folding show. Yeah, I literally did fold laundry to that show. Okay, I'll keep that in mind next time I'm folding laundry.

But he's taking that formula of, you know, now I'm not going to do that around genre. I'm going to do that around theme. And it just, for me, it's so special. And to do it on the level that he's doing it. You know, to do it, to release them collectively like that, I think it's pretty extreme. extraordinary. And I get excited because again, I think you talk about, have you guys seen it? It's not on any of your list. Yeah, I've seen Mangrove and Lovers Rock. I can't wait to watch it. Are you disagreeing with it? You haven't seen it. I just did. Chris, are you disagreeing with you?

No, I mean, I just did the big picture of the best of the year. And Adam and Sean both had small acts movies on their list. And I would have considered it movies, just the same way that Soderberg's putting out a movie tonight on HBO Max. I would call that a movie. I would consider the small acts, even though it's a collection to be movies. But I definitely love where you're coming from here, and I hope more directors get an opportunity to do the kind of thing that McQueen is doing. Are you, so you would have put it,

you're just not considering it in the TV. Yeah, I mean, I think, in the TV list. He's definitely one of like the five best directors alive. And that's insane. By the way, just real quick aside, Widows, fucking great film. one of the best heist films I've ever seen.

I like widows. And no one talks about it. No one fucking talks about it. It's crazy. I think it's going to have like five years from now, like people are obsessed with widows kind of thing. Because that's a movie that will stand the test of time because it's just the sheer amount of quality that went into it.

I saw it at the Toronto Film Festival months before it came out. And I thought, oh my God, this is going to, your head's going to explet because you're a big heist movie fan. And I just thought, oh, this is going to. this is good dude. I'm also obligated to support whatever Colin Farrell does, you know. Especially when he does it like that. Yeah.

Oh my God. Chris, I want to, a word that just came up before when we were talking about Mandalorian was vibes. Vibes are really key, I think, to today's television landscape because you can switch between services, but you can also just flip between vibes very intensely and kind of wonderfully. And that, no, I don't know if any show was vibier in some ways than that. 0-00, which is on both the barless.

This token transfers $31 million as soon as the product leave Mexican waters. Mexico not trained for to be the rest will be transferred

when the shipment arrives of Joy Ataro. Katai 5,000 kini, me keep a risk than usual. Bigger the risk

greater the profit. It's not necessarily a posy vibe, but it is a very big and very heavy mood. And it was one of our, both of our favorites. I can't remember what show me and our buddy Sam Donski were talking about on text when I think I had expressed kind of some skepticism about some show that he liked. And he was like, loll, sorry it's not about robbing cartels, which I think is sometimes, you know, fairly or unfairly, like, considered like the very thing in the world that I look for.

Yeah, 0-00 for me was really cool on a number of levels. First of all, I thought it was one of the few shows that wound up on my list that recovered from some missteps in the beginning. So I thought that the first episode or two of 0-0-0 were like, okay, and I would definitely have just kept watching it, but that the season progressed to like near like operatic levels towards the end. And the final two episodes, I think, are two of my favorite. episodes of the year. And in the same way that Sam's been talking about, filmmakers taking advantage

of this opportunity to tell stories episodically, I thought that this show, one of the best shows that really took in the global stage that television can encompass now. Now, obviously, there's a lot of market forces driving that. Netflix wants shows that appeal to an international audience. I'm sorry, Amazon wants the same. I think it helps if you're pitching a show probably to say, oh, and we could have, like, this part of the show would appeal to a South American audience or a China audience or a European audience or whatever. Zero, zero, zero was simply a story that needed to be told with this, like, wide of a canvas. And I thought, despite the fact that I think a lot of different people, like obviously Marito Katz and Stefana Salima both

worked on it, and there was several directors who worked on the show, it felt like a singularity of vision, no matter who you want to ascribe that vision to. The music from Maguire, the cinematography, the grittiness of the direction, the distance it held its characters at so that you never felt as morally complicit, I think, in their behavior as you do sometimes when you watch shows that romanticize crime a little bit more. But it's at the same time, you felt like, you know, it was very viscerally exciting to watch it. I just thought it was a tremendous achievement on a number of levels in that way. I couldn't agree more. I mean, I loved watching it, but I really also like it for the reasons you were just describing Chris that it really

really is a great placeholder and catch-all for one of the things that's most exciting about TV right now, which is just how fully global it is. And there are, you can, and now people are realizing, the streamers are realizing, certainly as pandemic-related delays start to pile up on their end, I feel like HBO Max just said one of their new categories is just going to be like international crime. Yeah. So, of course, I'm going to bookmark that. But like, whether it's me watching, whether it's me watching Call My Agent on Netflix, the French show, or I really loved watching Dark Season 3. I'm so proud of you. wrenching that in.

I had to. But also like dark, a show that Sam first turned me onto a few years ago, season three, loved watching. It didn't make my top 10 this year, but would have made like a, made a long list. It's exciting to see familiar stories, whether it's Chris's beloved cartel robbing or my beloved agent calling, told through the lens of different cultures and different perspectives. And to your point, Chris, zero zero, zero, Italian director, Stefano Salima, Mauricio Katz,

brilliant Mexican writer, most incredible score from the most incredible score from the the Scottish band Maguire. The best episodes are filmed in Africa and, or set in Africa. And the most incredible thing of all, all of it filmed in a warehouse in Manhattan Beach. I mean, and they made it look like that. Even the boat scenes, it's amazing. Yeah, and I would also just say that I don't know necessarily that a character like Manwell who becomes not quite the star of the show, but one of the two lead characters or three

lead characters at the end, by the end of the show is on a, prestige drama five years ago. I just don't know if they make a show about that guy and spend as much time interrogating that character. Also, star making performance. TV can still do that for Harold Torres. Yeah, absolutely.

Sam, did you see that at all? I, wait, I don't think I did. I think I, I remember you texting me about it. Yeah. I added it to my list to watch, but I never got a chance to check it out. Chris and I... I'm excited by it, though.

No, no, I was just saying, go ahead. It's like you're listening to the podcast, but you're here. I was going to pivot because Chris and I have spent the last few weeks raving about industry and talking to the creators of industry. We love industry. But it was so cool when it appears on Sam's list and on Kaya's list. And we should say- She has been indoctrinated into it.

Yeah, but she, but Kaya is very comfortable disliking things that we make her. But your guys is enthusiasm for that show. Over the past, like it literally wasn't going to make my list like three weeks ago. But then just like listening to you guys talk about it week after week, I was like, I have to put it on. It's like wild, wild country though. We're like, you will believe in industry. Why are you here? I think this is the closest thing to meritocracy there is.

Wake up! People knew what they're joining. I only want to be judged on the strength of my abilities. Can I say, My Hala, I gotta give a shout out to her. She's incredible. She's incredible performance. She actually Emmy directed her in her Modern Love episode.

And I don't think, I don't think. Sam is no David Benioff. So he's referring to his talented, wonderful wife, Emmy Rossum, who directed an episode of the anthology series Modern Love starring My Hala. My Hala. I mean, Emmy's just amazing in casting, right? because she was the one that encouraged me to think about Rami when we were looking for Elliot's for Mr. Robo.

But my Hala, I mean, just out of nowhere. That was a tough break for me because I know that I was down to the final two. I know, I know, Chris. You don't need to bring that up right now. But no, my Hala, honestly, her, and I think you guys, again, you guys have talked about the story, but that relationship that she has with Eric,

I can't remember the actor's name. It's Ken Long, yeah. So good. So special. So unique. I mean, you know, I don't want to get into the, I'm not going to try and pull a race card here, but I do feel like part of the reason why I'm excited by this season of television is the points of views that we're getting the experience. That is the gold mine of storytelling.

That is the untapped gold. I keep saying this to people because I feel like in the industry right now, diversity is like high on everyone's priority list. but it's often viewed through the wrong lens. It's like, okay, let's take this script we've already written and just make the main character black or make the main character gay. That's not the point. The point is that you've got to look through that world,

through that perspective, through that background. And a lot of shows in our list, I mean, small acts, I may destroy you. Hopefully we'll talk about that in a second. But this show industry, and it's never so pointed. I mean, that's the thing. It's not about, the show that has suddenly become about race. But it definitely through that lens, you get to experience, you know, again, in the sake of, in the example of industry, it's pretty much a workplace drama, right?

That's, you know, the setting and the way and the sort of the setup for the show is not incredibly unique. We've seen that before. Young person joins a world, a workplace, and then we sort of hang with that person and their colleagues and their co-workers. But because it's done through that, that's a lot of shows. That's the fucking office. But because it's done through this unique new lens that we've typically not seen

in not just TV films, a lot of forms of storytelling, it becomes immediately exciting and just sort of leaps off the screen. I'm so happy that they renewed it for a second season because I honestly was worried. It didn't seem like it was getting a lot of ratings. I mean, I know that they dumped like five the rest of the episodes like right after things. They put up three and then they put up,

they did three in a week release. And then they put up the last five on HBO Max. So this is, we started it. We were not going to binge the whole thing. Couldn't stop. Watch the whole thing in a row. Kyle, what was it that kind of turned it for you?

Because I know you said that you were like it wouldn't make my list if I had, just off the bat, but our enthusiasm convinced you. But what was it really beyond us just talking about it all the time? I mean, I think I really picked up speed in like the last three episodes, which I think were Nutcracker. And then there was one in between Nutcracker and the finale, right? Pre-crisis activity, I think, is the second last one.

Yeah. Yeah. So like before, like the first few episodes, like it did kind of feel to me just kind of like a lot of drugs, a lot of sex. let's just throw a lot of like gratuitous stuff at the screen and like use that to like make it pop and like make it like this is not just like a workplace drama. But by the end when you're just really like why are these people doing these things like the way they're doing them? And I've seen some criticism of the show being like the motivations of these characters were not clear.

And it's like I don't think that the motivations of the characters were clear to themselves. And I think that's like what it made it interesting. interesting, like, especially in like, spoiler in the final episode when Harper... I'm sure Harper does something. Yeah, I'm rationing it, so I love it so much. Now that it's been renewed, I will finish the season. But I was worried that it was all I had left. Dude, I was actually, the other day, the score for this show is amazing.

It's by... I wanted to shout that out. Nathan McKay. Yeah, and I was listening to the score, actually, while I was taking... a walk. And this was after we had, after I'd finished the season, I think maybe it was like Sunday night. And I was bumped because I was walking around and I was like, I wonder if I, it was almost like melancholy because I was thinking about the show not coming back. And now it's like almost ecstatic because I know it is coming back. It's, it takes on this whole new quality to know

that we're going to get to spend more time of these characters. Let's make the jump that Sam was suggesting and talk about, I may destroy you. I just match your phone. I don't know. So why did you get that? I just wanted to know how did last night end? Got this thing in my head of like this guy. Because now you're calling it something that I never know what you're doing? Great as long as I'm around people.

I did to, you know, just gather the pieces, any of the pieces. Which was number one for me, number one for Sam, I believe. It was correctly number one for everyone, but Chris. Wait, it is objectively the number one show of the year and it's not even close. We'll let Chris defend himself in a minute, but first let's not steal Michaela's spotlight and basically say that, you know, to your point, Sam, about the great, I mean, still truly, even after these last two years, the great market inefficiency and storytelling is still a full diversity of perspective. and to Chris's point about, especially this year, wanting to travel outside of our homes, however we possibly can,

I just think no show was a more titanic achievement on both of those fronts, because this was a show set in our world, at least pre-pandemic world, obviously a different country in a different city, but it was a complete whole-body trip to one woman's experience with her family, with her friends, with her life,

with her work, with her art, with her body. And it was, I mean, it's a staggering achievement. It was a whole window into another existence that was done with such style, such skill, such wit and grace and emotion. I mean, that was, we talked about it week to week, but it could have been, it's hard to do any of the individual things that that show did well. And it did all of them well, from introducing new actors and stars right before our eyes. to taking us to parts of London, a city that Chris likes to say he's been to a lot, but that we may have not seen before, to, you know, dealing with some of the most searing subject matter imaginable and doing so with just like bountiful humanity and humor.

You know, it's a staggering, it's just a staggering achievement that I kind of still can't believe existed because week after week we were like, how much longer can she keep this up and she kept it up? I mean, the layers that she was working, you're talking about sexual assault. You're talking about the dealing of the trauma from that. And you're talking about consent in all of these different, nuanced, subtle ways. And I know these are weighty, heavy topics that shows are so scared to deal with and face. And when they do, it's done with such delicacy because it's so fragile. And she doesn't do any of that. She handles it.

She just goes right into it, dives right in deep into it. And then it's not homework. It's entertaining. It's funny. It's relatable. The performances are outstanding. The filmmaking is like on a, you know, it's like you said, the staggering achievement. I am being entertained while we're talking about something as personal and as traumatic as sexual assault.

how the fuck do you do that how the fuck does that person do that and she and by the way the other thing about that show she does it and it feels effortless I enjoy it like you know Kyya you were talking about how you

it's an easy watch that show is an easy watch it could not it should not have been any I mean for me there's some moments no I know what you mean but it was an easy one

that's one of those shows Emmy and I clicked on I mean could not waiting on the HBO app to see when that... Oh yeah, I should say what I mean is even though I knew it would be challenging at times, I was eager to do it.

You know, it was not, it was never homework and that's, to me, that's even more impressive. Just in the same way, like you would, I know this is a strange comparison, but in the same way that you would be excited to get a new episode of Lost or a new episode of Game of Thrones, like I legitimately had no idea where that show is going.

Oh my God. And the thing that I, you know, their London setting probably unites them a little bit industry and I made a story, but those two shows are very exciting for me because they feel like what it feels like to be alive right now. You know, like it's pretty rare for culture to catch up with the times. You know, usually you're like lagging behind a little bit by the time the ship turns and you know, I mean, you get lots of shows that very poorly integrate iPhone usage in or it's like text bubbles and stuff like that. But these two shows definitely had an energy and an immediacy

and a fluency with what I think people feel like when they are out in a city and doing things and the dangers and the thrills that come along with that. I mean, Kai, I don't know if you have stuff you wanted to add about destroy you because I know it's your favorite show. Yeah, I mean, I would just say like, I think it was just so incredibly powerful and impressive the way that Michaela Cole was able to take like an incredibly personal story. Like this literally, was mine from her life, like she was sexually assaulted while taking a break from writing, and just create something that was, like, so expansive in what it covered and so applicable, like you said, to like the human experience and, like, how it feels to be alive

right now and, like, touch on consent, touch on love, touch on friendship, touch on the black experience, touch on reaction to social media. I mean, I think by far my favorite episode was the one where she exposes like her help fellow writer for like taking the condom off during sex and it's like that's just never something you've seen on TV before and it was such an powerful experience for her in the moment

but then after that you see her like going to social media to like affirm what she just did and it's just like the whole show just felt like so intentional so precise just like yeah just extremely extremely well done I want to add I just want to piggyback on that for a second because you brought up social media

and you know, Chris, you brought up the tech of it all. That was also done so well as to not even date itself, even though it's literally talking about Twitter and Instagram and we're having the text bubbles. It just felt so lived in.

It felt baked into the characters' lives. Yeah, exactly. It was not just a superficial way to get characters communicating. It was part of their idea. identity, part of how they talked, you know, how they interacted with one another. Their storylines were sort of shaped by what happens on social media in a way, and not in like a celebrity kind of way, in a way that I think people, you know, just walking about would be

affected by it. Anyway, again. Yeah, I think the funniest scene in that series was when she's in the grocery store checking out and her car gets declined and the checkout person like, take the selfie of her. It's like, ha-ha, this, like, famous Twitter person, like, her card just got to find. What else should we talk about here? What else we have to go over? Well, I thought that we could begin to turn the corner, but we just talked about our number one show. We need to give a little space for Chris to defend his number one, but also for me to support him because I love the show, too. And I would originally suggest that we talk about Better Call Saul along with Ozark, which is on Chris's list and Kaya's list, under the rubric of like, let's not overthink this, because, you know,

Because for as much as we've spent this podcast talking about the new, bold, new directions of storytelling on television, et cetera, et cetera, those are different examples, but taken from a similar playbook and one that still works when it's done right. I can't go back to being Jimmy McGill. That name is burned. This is a fresh start. This is how I move forward. And I like it. We all make our choices. And those choices, they put us on a road.

Sometimes those choices seem small. but they put you on the road. You think about getting off, but eventually you're back on it. So I would actually also bring the crown into this too. Yeah, right. Because I think that Crown Ozark and Saul in different ways did a kind of classic

2010 style of television in an elevated level. Ozarks obviously a very pulpy, at times unimpausible shows. I thought that the third season was like an incredible revival for it. I thought it dipped a little bit in the second season and that the third season was absolutely nail-biting and just white-knuckled it through.

And often in later seasons of dramas, when they try to bring in a new character, you wind up kind of just distracting it from the real reason people are watching the show in the first place. And Ozark kind of broke that rule by introducing the character that plays Laura Linney's brother, and it's Tom Pelfrey, who plays Joseph Mancwich in, uh, Mank. And he is unbelievable on the show, like just a complete live wire, one of my favorite performances of the year. So I really,

I, I wanted to shot that out and include Ozark in my list. Also, I fucking love Ozark. And then Saul, I don't know. I mean, like, you guys have me second-guessing myself a little bit because of the unanimity of your choices here. Good. But I think that Saul is on another level from basically all TV. Like, I think that the story Saul's telling is in some ways more impressive than the one that Breaking Bad told. And the way in which it is working towards a point in time that we already know is coming,

but still is managing to keep the suspense there. And the level of writing, I think, is kind of unparalleled. the intricacy of the writing, the depth of the characterizations, and the performances across the board, specifically the ones I think we've shouted out over and over again, which is the trio of Odin Kirk,

Ray C. Horn, and this year, Tony Dalton, who played Lalo, I just, I don't know, I mean, I was getting real Sopranos fumes and Mad Men fumes and Breaking Bad Fumes when I was watching the show. I was like, this is what,

this is about as good as you can make an hour-long drama on TV. Do you think it's better? Are you one of those on them? Better than Breaking Bad? Is it going to exceed Breaking Bad? I'm pretty, like, open about the fact that I find, like, the numerical, like, slotting of this stuff to be pretty silly.

Like, I think that you can have, like, a group or show. Like, to me, it would be more interesting, almost to look at our top tens and say, like, the tiers, like, which two or three shows are just clearly a cut above. And if we were doing that, I would probably put Destroy You and Saul in a category of their own. No, no, I meant you referenced Breaking Bad. I was asking, do you think it will surpass Breaking Bad in your eye in terms of being the better show? I'll say that there are characters on Saul that I am more invested in than almost any character that was on bad with a few exceptions. I agree with that.

I also think that I just don't echoing Chris's disdain of the of, of, of, of, of, comparing things. Like, to me, it's just like you can like a band and you can like their early work and you can appreciate their later work. I just feel like what's part of the incredible thing about Saul is watching the way Vince Gilligan and Peter Gould and their regular group of collaborators on all sides of the camera have just refined their skills and the directions they've refined them in. And they're very different shows and they hit different pleasure centers.

And obviously they've built their audiences and their fandom quite differently. But I really enjoy, I mean, you can't separate them because I don't think I would be watching Better Call Sol if we hadn't loved Breaking Bad. But you also, it wouldn't exist if we had that breaking Bad. And so I just think it's a pretty unique achievement. And just the level of technical skill, it's obviously under different economic settings and less limited than Queen's Gambit. But those are the two shows that I would hold up and be like every department is just in sync, you know, in a way that from a production standpoint, having gone through it once, like I really admire that. Also, it's nice to go back to New Mexico every...

That's right. Sweet old ABC-2. Sam only made one trip, so we didn't really give the full. This is true. Should we do, we've done great, I think, we've done great job with our timing, with our conversation. Should we do a lightning round around the horn? Because there are a couple things on each of our list that we might want to champion or even some honorable mentions we want to say. I definitely want to talk about my second favorite performance of the year. Do it. Which is Ethan Hawk and the Good Lord. Yeah, please. Just missed our...

list. Andy had fucked up because I think we fell behind on the group of third and then we got kind of... You fucked up. Yeah, you fucked up. It's a fucking great show. Again, tackling a subject like

slavery and but having incredible, like being on an entertaining level that it had no right to be on. It's not an austere period piece. It is going for it. And at the center,

of it is this incredible, ferocious performance by Ethan Hawk. I mean, I'd be hard for us to name a better performance. It's so good. It's so riveting. It is the definition of can't look away. I mean, talking about things, you know, talking about us being distracted. And by the way, Kaya, just for the record, I have, yeah, I've been known to go on Twitter even when I'm watching a show. You don't have like a phone jail, you put your phone in? No, no, no, no. But but you know what? It's almost a dare sometimes to the show because there are some shows that I can't do it.

And that is one of those shows. And honestly, it's because of Ethan. I mean, Ethan in that fucking show just never makes me want to look away. And it was a fake going I have an onion in Queens Gambit. See it for the performance alone. But I got to tell you, that's another show on every level. I think they're in sync. They know exactly what they're doing.

It's such an incredibly unique, interesting tone and a daring tone for the subject matter. I encourage everyone. I think it's kind of like an unseen gem. I've heard a little bit when it first came out and then kind of dissipated. I hope the God, it comes back around and people start to see it

because it's really special. It's really worth people's time. It's a really strong show anchored by, as you said, is just an out-of-this-world performance. going through the remnants of my list, I mean, I love what we do in the shadows. I came to it late. I just think I love how silly it is. I love how funny it is.

My children who are not allowed to watch it because it's mostly about cursing and extracting vampire semen. I heard us talking about it and they love it and they run around the house saying, bat, human form. Like, it's just a great thing to have in my life and I'm grateful for it. And even though we don't talk about it, it's nice to have a show like that that can just offer so much pleasure and entertainment. And I do want to shout out two things that may have slipped beneath people's radars, although I tried to bring them onto the radars earlier in the year.

Betty on HBO is just a love letter to New York and to young women skateboarding. And it is so fun and so loose and such a great high quality hang. And in the early days of the pandemic, it just, as Chris was saying earlier, it just transported me as a young woman skateboarder myself. No, just as someone who misses New York and misses, youth, and it was such an easy, wonderful hang, and it got renewed, and I'm excited about that. And quick shout out to Unorthodox on Netflix, which was a fascinating and beautifully told miniseries about a woman who basically escapes from a very oppressive life in the religious,

Hasidic, Jewish, Satmar community of Brooklyn and to Germany. Incredible performance by Shira Haas. Great job by Anna Vinger and her whole team who also made the Deutsche Land series. So I just burned out my list. What else do you guys got that you want to shout up in our many moments? I got Penn 15, which was so close, and I kind of like oscillate back and forth. It wasn't on either of your list, right? No one's listening.

Great show. Great show. hilarious. I also, Dave was actually on my list. I don't know. Dave was so fucking funny. Dave's on my long list. Oh, but it's not on your top 10?

No. Did not make, Kai, didn't make your top time? I've never seen it. I think it's so good. I don't really I don't really LOL a lot when I watch comedies I just I'm just that person

You know Does LOL? Wait Does LOL stand for layout laundry? Yeah, exactly But I'm usually I'm usually the guy that yeah smiles when a good joke goes by But this show

This show it will fucking make you laugh I think it's I think it's so good It's also like weirdly a comedy I got to put my phone down. I mean, usually with comedies, you can kind of, you know, again, you're not necessarily trying to follow the details. But Dave, it's also, it's got great visual wit that's not just about the dialogue. The way they compose the shots and play off certain things, it's really, really good and very creative. I mean, some of those sequences that they, the surreal sequences that they do are great. And then I, I want to bring, I mean,

flight attendant, Emmy and I are watching right now, is just a fucking blast. And I gotta, I gotta, like, give credit to Kaylee Quoco. I've never seen an episode of the Big Bang Theory. But man, is she fucking tremendous.

She's a really, really good comic actress. I mean, just fucking so fun to watch. Kai, are you watching that? Yeah, I'm really, really enjoying it. I've also never seen an episode of Big Bang Theory. Probably never will. and she's just like a total force. I jammed a couple out on one of my transatlantic flights to London.

Yeah, I've watched. Really? I thought you just took some ketamine and vibes. I just listened to the industry soundtrack and let the chem trails take me. Wait, the other thing I wanted to say, because, Kai, you had cheer on your list. And I know we don't usually un-scripted. Right. Well, I blame Chris because I asked Chris specifically,

I could put something unscripted on the list. And he said, yes. Of course, okay. Of course it was Chris's fault. Kaya gets producer's preference in this case. But wait a minute. Let's talk about just real quickly, lightning around on dokey series,

the last dance, which is another one of those shows that I could not wait for the next episode. There's a great crime docu-series on Showtime. I don't think any, I've not heard anyone talk about called Outcry. Andy, you probably shouldn't watch it. because you have kids.

It is a great, great, great docu-series. You're going to get sucked. It's like one of those where you're going to get sucked in. The bow, which I know, I know it had some, maybe. That was so long. If you want to talk about, like, they literally had, like, MacBook screensavers with, like, voiceovers. Sam, did you watch Wilder to Severer?

I did not. Should I write this down? Yeah, it's on Hulu. It's based on an Errol Morris book, and it is, it's pretty great. the last shoutout, but I'm curious because I know you guys liked it, and I think I had a weird feeling about this show, too. The outsider.

How close was it to your top? It's like 12 or 13. Yeah, it's pretty high up there. I had no reason for leaving it off. It wasn't any deficiency in its part. We loved watching it. We loved talking about it. We loved the performances.

It kind of felt that way about The Great, too. I really enjoyed that show. Really like the performances. It just didn't, neither of them cracked the 10. over the what I had. Yeah. That's a good year, guys. It's been a fucking good year.

We spent weeks talking about the boys to show Chris and I really enjoyed. Yeah. Just barely missed my list too. Like you were right, Sam. When we first suggested doing it this year, I actually thought it would be not so hard because I knew what I loved and loved more than anything else. But we could have easily done 15 or 20, I think, this year. Honestly.

The only thing that I feel like we should chat about one more time before we let Sam go. I don't know if you got a chance to see it, but the three of us loved it. It was normal people, and that was on all three of our lists. Well, it was, to me, I loved the performances more than the story. And it was one of those shows where it kind of piled up and, like, I think I saw two or three. And honestly, the one thing that got me off the train a little bit was they used a needle drop. Yaz's, what the fuck is it called? Only you? Only you. which was used perfectly in the office, the British office, Christmas special.

You know, weirdly it was used perfectly in the Americans, too, a show I know everyone here loved. Again, the British office was prior to any of that, and I think it should retire with the British, the British office Christmas special. But yeah, it was one of those where I didn't feel compelled to go back to. And I know lots of people, lots of people love that show. I did love the performances, though.

I thought the two of them are great. Yeah, I thought it was amazing. It was just, like, specifically made for me. Like, I really love the book, and I was, like, really highly anticipating it. And it lived up to it. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, it's just, like, I don't know. I, like, I think I'm more mad at the plot than, like, any, the show didn't do anything wrong.

I'm just mad at the plot. It's just that you just, like, these crazy kids need to work it out. Yeah, I just want, like, a little bit more communication between those two, but it's fine. What's fun, and maybe this is a goodest play. as any to end is just returning to the one of the points we started with, which was just, not only was it a great year, but it was a really pleasurable year for TV. And whether it was pandemic related or not, like I think Chris and I often judge, maybe this isn't fair. And this is very specific to our experience on the podcast, but we often judge TV on just how much fun we can

have when it's on, talking about it, you know, getting feedback, seeing the memes, et cetera, and looking even over my list, and there are other examples on your guys's list as well. But like, between Mandalorian industry better call Saul, normal people, Queens Gambit, and then even going further into things like the boys, like these were fun shows to watch. They were really fun shows to cover. And TV is, it's not the only thing TV does well,

but building community like that is one of the things that it does best, and this was a great year for that. And the one thing I want to just add on to that is I didn't get the glut of prestigious shows that are trying to be serious. and win awards. It feels like, especially when they tackle serious subject matters, feels like they just shrugged all that off and said, we're here to entertain, we're here to tell us to,

engage people. And that doesn't mean we're going to shortchange the seriousness of what we're exploring, but they didn't sacrifice the entertainment for that. I felt a sense that people were a little looser, a little riskier, a little more, there's a lot more experimentation. It's not just experimentation. I wonder if it's also expertise. And what I mean by that is, like, one of the unsung heroes of TV this year is Ido O'Brien, who is now the world's most famous intimacy coordinator, and she worked on normal people. Is she on industry, too? I keep seeing her name in British shows. And one of the reasons why that matters is not just for the comfort

level of the actors and the filmmakers, but, like, TV shows are doing sex again. And that's an important part of life and storytelling. And they're building it now. into the storytelling. Similarly, like, you could say, oh, we don't want to touch issues of race or class or sexual assault. But Michaela Cole is saying all of those things are natural to who I am into my natural storytelling voice. And so I'm going to do them. And so they don't feel made for prestigious entertainment or made for the same shelf you put your Emmy on. They just feel made for the times and made from the heart. And I feel like that is something to just lift up out of this year and sort of champion. And hopefully we'll see a lot more of it going forward.

Yes. More sex. More sex. That's what I said. Should we just list off our top tens just so we have them for audio posterity really quick? Sure. Let's go for it. You go first.

10 to 1. 10, love life. 9. Queens Gambit. 8. The Good Lord Bird. 7. Dave.

6. Industry. 5. Mando. 4. I was pointing to you, Chris. Mando! Fando.

Mendo, have you seen small acts? There's a tremendous debate to be. about whether it's cinema or television? Who can say? By the way, it's subduous, subduous evocation of London. What a pro, uncorking that after 90 minutes.

I just recently discovered there is a Reddit thread called Chris Ryanheads or something. Do you know about this? Oh, I've seen this. What the fuck is going? We got to get out of Twitter. How did you find this?

Someone tweeted at me. Oh, God. Fucking Reddit. Do you, I mean, Chris, do you go on this? and post messages and speak to your heads. I can neither confirm nor deny that I've seen that right after that I appreciate the support from all of our listeners. Wow.

2020. What is special special? Has I been around before 2020? I have no idea, man. It's really a project I've been working on with my friends of Dominion to get the word out about some of my political beliefs. Anyway, you were saying, Mandelorian number six.

Four, small X, as you shouted. Three, Fargo, two, Debs. And then one, I may destroy you. Dev's pretty high. Andy, what's your top ten? Ten, unorthodox. Nine, what we do in the shadows. Eight, Mando.

Seven, industry. Six, zero, zero, zero, five. Betty. Four, Betty, call Saul. Three, normal people. Two, the Queen's Gambit. One, I may destroy you. Kaya, you're up.

Ten, Ozark. Nine, search party. eight industry, seven, love life, six, the Queen's Gambit, five, cheer, four, Betty, three normal people, two, high fidelity, one, I may destroy you. I'll wrap us up. I have 10, Ozark, nine, high fidelity, eight, the crown, seven, the Mandalorian, six, Queens Gambit, five normal people, four zero, zero, three industry, two, I may destroy you, one better call saw. So we have a lot of overlap. A great TV year, a great TV pod. Sam S-Mail, thank you so much for joining us. Thanks, guys. And stay safe and thank you so much, man.