The Watch - The Most Anticipated TV Shows of 2020 | The Watch

Episode Date: December 26, 2019

Chris previews the TV landscape for 2020, including what might fill the void left by 'Game of Thrones' (1:00), his 10 most anticipated shows of 2020 (5:15), and what to look out for in the next stage of the streaming wars (34:00). Host: Chris Ryan Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Stand up! and walk now. Hello and welcome to The Watch. My name is Chris Ryan. I am an editor at the ringer.com. And in the words of our poet laureate of solitude, Billy Idol, I am dancing with myself today. Yes, it is just a solo pod as we near the end of the year here. And whatever we lack in banter on this episode, we're going to make up for it with service

journalism. I'm sorry, no Greenwald today. Our technical limitations are such that we don't even have. Kaya chiming in. I'm recording this from the back of my parents' house in Philadelphia. It's right after the Eagles have defeated the Cowboys, so I'm feeling good. I may or may not have had a frosty cold beverage. And what we're doing today on the episode is we're going to come through and we're going to talk about some of our most anticipated. I don't know why I'm speaking in the we. It's me. My most anticipated shows of 2020. Now, there's a bunch of stuff coming on. As you

obviously know, peak TV has turned into title wave TV. There's almost too much TV to even wrap your mind around, much less watch. So this isn't going to be a very subjective list. Obviously, if you've been listening to this podcast for a long time, you know sort of where my tastes lie, where Greenwald's taste lie. They tend to be genre stuff. They tend to be stuff that pushes formal conventions of television a lot. I'm leaving off shows that are returning, partially because this is going to be a really strange year in television where we have a couple of shows, obviously, some fan favorites like Succession and Stranger Things are both expected back this year. But no Thrones. So there's going to be an absence of that blockbuster must see

everybody gather around to watch this one central monoculture show. In the absence of Thrones, I think a lot of people expect something like Lord of the Rings to take over. But if I had to guess, we would know by now if it was coming next year. And, you know, Will Polter just recently left the Amazon production of Lord of the Rings for scheduling reasons. And I just get the feeling like this is going to take the rest of the year for them to wrap this up and get it in a state to show. So it'll be interesting to see if I'm wrong, I'd be surprised. I think we would have got an announcement by now. So we won't get Lord of the Rings from Amazon.

And I don't think we're going to be getting the Targaryen show from HBO. Obviously, HBO canceled the long night or what George Martin was referring to as the long night. They decided not to go through with that after filming a pilot with Naomi Watts. That was set thousands of years, the age of here. and then they announced almost concurrently that they were going to be moving forward with the Targaryen's prequel show. But that feels very far off in the future. I would expect 2021 for that as well.

So the bigger story this year will probably be the launch of HBO Max, the further buildup of the catalogs of places like Apple Plus, Disney Plus, the launch of the peacock, all the shows that will probably be coming from there. And Netflix retrenching and not even. retrenching. I mean, Netflix is probably like sneezing into piles of burning money right now as they hear this, but Netflix continuing to offer what they offer. They had a really strong end of the year with movies, but I actually have to say that it's kind of hard to figure out what's coming with for them, TV-wise, because there's so much, there's so much stuff globally. There's a lot of stuff

returning. You're going to be getting a lot of Shonda and Ryan Murphy shows next year, but I'm not exactly sure what stuff pops out of the new programming that Netflix has. So while I'm really excited for Narcos Mexico to be coming back, I believe in February with Scoot McNary, they've just released some photos for that. The Netflix offerings are a little bit more under wraps than you'd think. As are whatever the next wave of Apple TV offerings after, you know, servant wraps up, I'm not actually sure what's coming next after that. I'm sure that there's shots and whispers about shows that are going to be available soon. But nothing's really jumped out at me. Obviously, Little America is, it looks cool.

but, you know, we're still sort of waiting to see what Apple Plus is. As far as Disney Plus goes, you know, you could get excited about Falcon and the Winter Soldier. Wanda Vision looks very strange. And maybe, maybe we'll get the Obi-Wan show next year. Directed by Deborah Chow, who's directed some of the best episodes of the Mandalorian. Deepest apologies for not doing any Mandalorian recaps recently. I suppose if you listen to this entire podcast, maybe in like the 38th minute, I'll sprinkle in some Mando voice. but so we're not really sure what we're getting from Disney Plus and if we do we kind of know what

we're getting in the terms of it's going to be Star Wars stuff it's going to be MCU stuff that I bet watch listeners will mostly be interested in with the exception of the very vocal Dattington Minority out there but I'll like Greenwald address you guys so what are we talking about here we're talking about my like 10 or 11 most anticipated shows of 2020 a couple of these things have release dates a couple of them don't but everything here is just very exciting. I always get very excited when it comes into January because TV unlike movies doesn't really take that kind of January, February off, although you often get a really good couple of genre movies out of Hollywood in January and February. But TV usually comes out of the

gates pretty fast. They don't really slow down for the Oscars. There feels like there's a little bit more of like a lull in the release dates for movies. TV, we're going to get some good stuff pretty fast into January. And we can start right away with The Outsider, which is a little bit of a little bit. is going to be a show on HBO. You may have seen some commercials for that recently when you're watching Watchmen or something like that. And it's based on a Stephen King novel and it is written almost entirely by one of my favorite authors, Richard Price. So some of you may know Richard Price as an acclaimed novelist. He wrote Clockers. He wrote Freedom Land, Samaritan and one of my favorite books of all time, Lush Life. But he is also an acclaimed screenwriter. He wrote The Color of

Money, which you've probably heard me talking up on Big Picture when we were talking about Scorsese movies a few weeks ago. He wrote Sea of Love, and he worked a lot on that murderer's row of Wire Season 3 writers, where it was Richard Price, Dennis Lehane, George Pelicanos, David Simon, obviously, and Ed Burns. Now, Richard Price is bringing Dennis Lehane along for the ride on The Outsider. He adapted the Stephen King book, which is a murder mystery that also has tingees of supernatural evil to it. So it's a Stephen King adaptation. adaptation. The most exciting thing going on here is that it stars Jason Bateman and Ben Mendelson. So two lords of shitheel family dramas on Netflix coming over to HBO. Jason Bateman

obviously has been starring and one of the main creative engines behind Ozark over the first two seasons. And Ben Mendelsohn, the big homie from Bloodline, but obviously from Rogue One from hundreds of different things. and one of the best character actors out there right now. And I'm really excited for this. It looks really atmospheric. It looks really unnerving. And it's directed by, I think Bateman took the first two episodes. Adam Bernstein, a TV veteran, handled a couple.

And one of the most exciting things, if you look at the list of directors for the episodes, Corinne Kasama, who directed The Invitation, directed one of the episodes of The Outsider. So I don't want to get too far into the plot of it. Let's just say it's sliding right in there in that night of, true detective kind of vibe where it's really exciting to get a crime show, a supernatural crime show this early in the year and the pedigree is really high. I just can't wait to see what

Richard Price does. Obviously Richard Price worked on the night off with Steve Zalien. So I can't wait to see what he does with this limited series. And Lahane obviously weighed in with a script on the season two. So that's number one, is the outsider on HBO. And I believe that premieres in early January on HBO. The next one up is kind of hard because I don't really know where this is going to air. It's a couple of these are British shows because your boy loves the transatlantic cultural exchange with the cousins. But this one is just too, it's too taboo island not to talk about. And it's called the Northwater. And I'm just going to quote, I believe this is the Wikipedia description of this show. Set in the late 1850s and adapted from Ian McGuire.

novel, the four-part series will depict the harrowing exploits of a whaling vessel called Volunteer and Its Passengers, namely the ship's doctor, Patrick Sumner, played by Jack O'Connell, and the unhinged harpooner, Henry Drax, played by Colin Farrell. Filmed on a ship, the series also stars Line of Duty and an Irishman star of Stephen Graham. You had me at Unhinged Harpooner, played by Colin Farrell. Said in the 1850s, you can't. I'm there for the beards alone. But the curveball here is that this one's directed by Andrew Hay, who you guys may know from looking,

from Lean on Pete from 45 years, a really excellent filmmaker. And this one just sounds like one of those, you know, heart of darkness, journeys into madness. If you've got an unhinged harpooner, you know what kind of vibe it's going to be.

You know what you're feeling when you watch this show. This feels like taboo. This feels like the terror season one. Jack O'Connell is really great, but I can't wait to see Colin Farrell just harpooned some stuff, man. And even if it's not an actual whale, metaphorically harpoon me. Harpoon the viewer, Colin Farrell. So the Northwater, I believe that will probably make it over on one of the usual outlets that transports British TV to our brains.

That's like usually Netflix, Amazon or the AMC Sundance Network. So we'll get this, trust me. and I can't wait to see this Northwater. So that should be coming out sometime. I would imagine that's in the first half of the year just because I feel like they finished that a little while ago. The next one that I wanted to talk about is another British show.

And this one, you know, Andy and I, we've been talking a lot about, obviously, these anthology series or limited series that are helmed by one director. And we're always talking about the push-pull of that who is the author of a television show, if you've got a kind of notable director handling most of, if not all of the episodes, is the director who we traditionally think of as the author of a movie in very rudimentary terms

and critical terms. And when we're talking about movies, is that the same case for TV, which has traditionally been a writer's medium. So it's interesting to have a show like Small Acts coming along. Small Acts is an anthology series about West Indian communities in London throughout the last five decades. and it serves Letitia Wright and John Boyega. And it's coming via ITV.

So I would imagine that's going to come through Amazon at some point. And it is directed by Steve McQueen. Steve McQueen, obviously, director of 12 years of slave, widows, hunger, shame. An amazing filmmaker, really such an incredibly haunting and a filmmaker who is able to bore into any given moment, whether it's historical drama, crime drama, a kind of sociopolitical drama like hunger was. And he goes past the sort of genre conventions to really find the characters deep inside of those stories.

And sometimes to the detriment maybe of like the electricity of the plot of those movies, I quite liked Widows, but I think that was part of the issue some people had with Widows in terms of getting into it and understanding like sort of the energy that it had. But he is able to really see his characters. And I can't wait for him to tell a story that's obviously really meaningful to him. It has a lot to do with his upbringing and his background and his life. And this show Small Acts

starts, I believe, in 1968 with this infamous Enoch Powell speech about Rivers of Blood in England. It was a speech that if you've, I've been reading these Jonathan Coe novels that are sort of set in the late 60s, early 70s, and then they push on into the 90s and the early 80s and the early but they're all about a group of friends who grew up in England. And the first novel is called Rodgers Club. The second one is called Close Circle. The last one's called Middle England. They're all kind of set in and around Birmingham and London during that time period.

And that was when I kind of first heard about the Enoch Powell's speech, the Rivers of Blood Speech, and his role in both British conservatism. And he then later became like a unionist in Ireland or at least supported unionism in Ireland. Pretty controversial figure. and it's basically this point where somebody in the mainstream political sphere articulates this really harsh anti-immigration line that whipped up a lot of anger and fear in England at the time and it obviously didn't necessarily determine but it colored in a lot of what happened afterwards in terms of England's relationship to first and second generation English people

people moving to the country from other countries specifically from the West Indies. So it's an anthology series. It goes through time. I think it centers around a restaurant, I think in Ladbrook Grove area of London. And you know, you just, if Steve McQueen's directing a limited series on television, you should make an appointment viewing. So so far we've got the outsider, the Northwater, and small acts. So the first one, obviously, in HBO, those other two are going to be on British British TV, maybe not first sometimes. I think they've been getting better and better with releasing Brit TV shows that they know are going to pop off. They get day and date like it's in America too.

But we might have a little bit of delay on some of those. But I would imagine, given Netflix and Amazon and AMC's previously existing relationships, with some of the broadcasters in England that we will get those shows over here this year. Next one I want to talk to you about is a show on stars. So we don't really talk about stars very often because they seem to be making stop-start efforts in becoming an original programmer. I feel like every couple of months you'll hear about a show that's popped up on stars. But honestly, I think for a lot of people with the amount of attention that they're paying to the sort of big four or five streamers, Amazon, Netflix, Disney, Apple, HBO, and knowing that HBO Max is coming and Comcast is coming, there's a couple of channels that are kind of falling into a second, third tier. And if you get it on your cable package, if you still have cable, so be it.

But it's sort of hard to keep up with the shows that are maybe on epics or on stars. Even though I hear a lot of really good things about shows like Berlin Station or even you have like there's stuff that's like on the direct TV service like the three days of the Condor remake that I thought was really cool, the stuff that I saw. But because those aren't part of like the main conversation around some of the major streaming networks and the sort of older premium cable networks, we're not hearing as much about them. But I wanted to shout out Hightown because the people involved really demand it. So Hightown is directed by a very acclaimed director of photography cinematographer named

Rachel Morrison, who worked on D. Reese's Mudbound and Black Panther. And the show stars Monica Raymond and James Badge Dale. And it is a murder mystery set in Provincetown Massachusetts and it essentially has got sort of one strain that's going to be a murder mystery and another that I think is going to be looking at the opioid crisis because it's about based on what I've read about the story, it takes a lot of that crisis in and people grappling with addiction and try to figure out how to stem the tide of all these pills and heroin, the influx of this stuff into communities that were not used to dealing with these kinds of drugs on this kind of severity level. And so Hightown,

has the potential to be like one of those really interesting social drama as well also being a really compelling piece of crime fiction. It's really interesting the combination of people who are involved with this. You know, you've got Rachel Morrison behind the camera. You've also got Jerry Bruchheimer executive producing. You got Monica Raymond as leading the ensemble. And it's really interesting also to see James Badge Dale, who's an actor whose work I've really, really come to appreciate over the years. Obviously, he was in Rubicon years ago, but since then has just been in so much good stuff from, you know, standoff at Sparrow Creek is a movie from last year that I talked about a lot. Mickey and the Bear is another appearance he made. He's just been in so much good, good stuff.

If you're looking for him, I would really recommend just kind of like going through his IMDB. He doesn't really show up in bad movies, although I suppose some people didn't like 13 hours, the Benghazi story. So High Town, that's on Stars. And I bet that's coming out in the first few months of the year, but we don't have an exact release date. We also don't have a an exact release date for Run. Run is coming on HBO, and this one checks all of the boxes for watch listeners. It's executive produced and co-stars Phoebe Waller Bridge. It stars Merritt Weaver and Dominal Gleeson, so two people that the watch are very fond of, and it's about a woman trying to shake off the cobwebs of her life by running away with an old flame. So I understand,

at least from the shots that have been released on HBO site, that Merit Weaver is obviously the woman trying to shake the cobwebs, and Dominal Gleason is the old flame. So that is a couple that I have all the time in the world for. Now, Merit Weaver has been one of the best actors working over the last couple of years. I loved her in Godless. She was phenomenal and unbelievable on Netflix in 2019, and I'm so excited to see her in a role like this.

HBO describes this as a comedic thriller, which would sort of put it more in the Killing Eve department, I think, and that makes sense. Vicki Jones, who I think wrote this series under Phoebe Wallerbridge's production. She wrote for Killing Eve, so I think that there might have some shared DNA there.

Phoebe Waller Bridge is also appearing in this show. And this is just like, I'm just so excited about the people involved in it that even if it does sound like a midlife crisis version of end of the fucking world, I'm absolutely here for it. I can't wait for it. So we're going to take a quick break to hear from our sponsors.

And when we come back, I'll keep telling you about more shows, new shows, that I'm anticipating in 2020. Today's episode of The Watch is brought to you by American Express. I am one of the lucky few with a commute in L.A. that only takes about 15 minutes, but I still make the most of my drive by listening to my favorite podcasts.

I'll get a head start on shows like House of Carbs, binge mode, or the big picture. and then I'll finish up the episode when I get to the office. It's a great way to ease myself into the day. No matter what your commute looks like in the morning, you can ease your mind a little bit knowing that with Green from Amex, you're getting three times points on travel, including transit, like taxis, rides, rides,

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the Jaymisons, and Eddie Murphy's SNL return with Cousin Sal and J.A. Adonde, the Bill Simmons podcast. Hey, Google, pause podcast. A little help, hands free. Just say, hey, Google to get started. Okay, we are back. We're talking about shows, shows that we're anticipating in 2020, new shows, because obviously a bunch of stuff coming back, there would be like tons of stuff we don't know about from, but based on my research, and I never see you're wrong here.

All I do is pick winners. These are the shows that I'm really looking forward to in 2020. Unfortunately, we don't have a ton of hard release dates for this stuff. But when we do have a hard release date for, and one that I've actually seen a little bit of, is high fidelity. So I want to talk about a bunch of shows that are going to be on this...

It's going to be really hard to tell what this is because it's this new melange of Hulu and FX and shows that maybe were earmarked for FX are now streaming on Hulu and shows that are on Hulu but feel like they could be FX shows. And I'm sure that there will be some distinction when you go to the Hulu app

between like FX on Hulu is the streaming. service, and I'm sure some of these shows will be on terrestrial or linear television. But it'll be interesting to see how they're received outside of the traditional delivery system of FX. It puts out 10, 12 shows a year, maybe, more like nine. And each one of them sort of has that seal of approval, that quality that you expect from FX, the place that gives you better things, that gives you Atlanta. So you expect a certain level of quality. I don't actually think that the quality is going to drop off at all.

But let's start talking first about high fidelity, which was not an FX show. It was always going to be, I think, it might have originally been a Disney show, maybe. There was some sort of weird trajectory for this show's development, but it wound up that it's a Hulu show. It's coming out February 14th, and it stars Zoe Kravitz.

And if the name is familiar with you, for you, yes, it is a remake, essentially, of the 90s, John Cue. Cusack movie based on the, I think, 80s, Nick Hornby novel. So the original Nick Hornby novel was about a guy who is in a state of suspended animation because he's obsessed with Arsenal Football Club, and it influences almost every humor and interaction he has in the world. And it sort of put a ceiling on his life and his ability to feel because all of his

feelings are poured into his support for this football club. And then they made a really good movie about this in the 90s where John Cusack played the character and they Americanize the story, but rather than it being a soccer club, they made it record store guy. So it's a guy who pretty much experiences life and expresses himself through his love of music. He runs a record store. He has like two or three friends working there, and he is sort of going through a breakup and cataloging his romantic past by talking a lot about records that are really significant to him. So they updated this story with Zoe Kravitz playing the John Cusack protagonist role.

And there are some points in this show where the jokes are like word for word from high fidelity in the movie. And ordinarily, I think that, you know, people might kind of be like, IP mining, can't we come up with something new? I got to tell you something, ma'am. I love it.

I really love Zoe Kravitz as a record store guy. And she brings a totally different energy to the role. I don't want to go too far into it because I want people to experience it for themselves. But it's just a really, really good character study, even though they've taken some of the things that were hallmarks of the rob character from High Fidelity of the movie and transfer them over to Zoe Kravitz.

It's gone from Chicago to Brooklyn. But, you know, the idea of kind of talking about heartbreak through pop culture and through art is still there. Some of the same arguments about, you know, what's an authentic experience through pop culture and what's selling out and what's fake and what are you going to do with all this information and knowledge that you have about a thing. And is that essentially worthless after a certain while if you don't figure out a way to commodify it? All those things are still true.

I mean, even though record stores are probably a little bit of a dying industry, it's still like a really effective and touching show. And it's very funny. A lot of the supporting performances are really great. And Zoe Kravitz is a star. You know, it's like one of those you know it when you see it things. And this is a side of her that I don't think we've gotten to see too much of and in Big Little Lies. If that's your main window into Zoe Kravitz, I think you're going to find yourself really, really delightfully surprised by her performance in high fidelity.

So that comes out on Hulu in February. And there's a couple other things coming out on Hulu slash FX. We've got Mrs. America, which is about 1970s feminism and the backlash against the Equal Rights Amendment. and it stars Cape Blanchet. So, you know, this is kind of, the hits keep on coming in terms of people coming from big screen stardom and applying their trade on the small screen because this is where the parts are.

And this is where the writing is and this is where the interesting stories are. And this is where you can do these things. And sure, you might have to play a Thunder Viking god in Thor, but if that buys you the breathing room, as it must have done for Kate Blanchett to do something like, Mrs. America, then that's the way it is now. So she stars as Phyllis Schlafly. Uzo Aduba plays Shirley Chisholm.

Rose Byrne plays Gloria Steinem. And it seems like one of those really sort of great historical pieces that we've been getting over the last five, six, seven years from Fossie Verdon to Danny Boyle's trust. It feels like there's a lot of that potential for Mrs. America. So I'm really interested to see what they do. with this story on Mrs. America. I'm not sure when that's coming out,

but they've already started putting out press photos for that. So I would assume it would probably be in the first six months of the year. So we've got Mrs. America and High Fidelity. And another two shows that are coming out on Hulu or FX on Hulu, you've got normal people, which is kind of Bridges of Madison County Fast for the adaptation. It's the Sally Rooney novel that was, you know, other person on a subway or in a yoga class probably had this tucked under their arm. I know pretty much everybody in my life read one of the two Sally Rooney books, either normal

people or conversations with friends. I actually haven't, but I'm very excited to see the show and hope to read the novel before them, but I was just really excited by this is a nimble act of storytelling by Hulu here to pick up the rights of this show and to do it. It's about two Irish teenagers coming of age, so I'm told. and it looks really good. I'm really excited that we'll get to see something like this. Not only like, it wasn't even like maybe five, six, seven,

maybe it was more like 10 years ago, but it was pretty hard. It was still pretty hard to get these even best-selling phenomenon books on screen anywhere. You know, when you were talking about, I think Noah Bombach did a corrections pilot that never made it to air. And, you know, now you would say,

well, that's a no-brainer. that's a green light go ahead and make the series. I almost wish that he would. But you see something like the goldfinch go to the theaters and you're like, that doesn't, you shouldn't do the goldfinch on as a movie. You should do it as a limited series. I wonder whether or not normal people.

Obviously, there's probably like a degree of a ceiling on how popular this is going to be. It's on Hulu. It's Sally Rudy's popular, but I don't know if this show is going to pop out and become like a phenomenon. But I wonder whether or not it signals a time when we're going to start seeing maybe more

of these zeitgeisty novels, like a Fleischman in trouble kind of thing, start to get adapted a little bit faster and show up on these networks, especially as they have a bigger and bigger need for content. The last Hulu FX show I wanted to mention was devs. I don't really have a ton to tell you about this. Two words, basically, Alex Garland, director of annihilation, director of ex Machina looks very much in that vein. He's probably the most interesting sci-fi storyteller on either side.

screen. And I can't wait to see this. Nick Offerman is starring in it. And I think it's about, I think he plays like kind of an enigmatic reclusive software tycoon. But you wouldn't be able to explain it based on what you were, you know, there's the few clips that they've been showing on TV recently. So Alex Garland is the sticker and you pay whatever price it is. So I can't wait to see that. So those are those four shows that I'm really excited coming from the Hulu family of channels, whether it's Hulu or FX, Mrs. America, high fidelity, which comes in February, normal people, and devs. So, so far we have the outsider, which is on HBO, Northwater, and Small Axe, two British shows that have yet to be determined what channel they'll be on in the

States, but I would imagine Small Axe, the Steve McQueen show is going to come on Amazon at some point. Hightown, which is going to be on Stars, and is directed by Rachel Morrison. That's the Provincetown opioid crime drama with James Badge Dale and Monica Raymond. Run the Phoebe Waller Bridge produced comedy thriller with Merritt Weaver and Domlo Gleason. And then this quartet of shows from Hulu and Hulu FX on Hulu, which is Mrs. America, high fidelity, normal people, and devs. Very excited for all of those. Moving on, we're almost done here, guys.

I know you must be so excited to just listen to my voice for this long. I wanted to briefly shout out the stand, which is on. CBS All Access, which is just trucking along with the good fight, with its stable of Star Trek shows. Andy's very excited about Picard. I'm just not a next-gen dude, so I don't really know a lot about that, but I'm excited to go on that journey with him. I just thought I'd mentioned the stand. It's the second Stephen King adaptation on this list, which is funny because I wouldn't necessarily call myself the world's biggest Stephen King fan. But I'm kind of curious to see what CBS All Access does with this.

CBS obviously has a lot of resources at their disposal. And I think everybody is kind of curious about what's going to happen to CBS All Access, whether or not CBS, CBS, which remains such a huge ratings powerhouse on network television, what their plan is with CBS All Access. And Good Fight is this sort of, if you watch Good Fight and then I told you any of the NCIS shows were on its sister network, you wouldn't. believe it. But it's kind of an interesting play for them to have this kind of prestige, weird, profane genre-e streaming network attached to its mothership network that's much more traditional sitcoms and procedural affair. So the stand stars Alexander Scarsguard, James Marsden, Whoopi Goldberg, Amber Hurd, and Greg Kinnear, and it's obviously an adaptation of one of King's most beloved novels. And it was a really, really beloved miniseries back in the day. Post-apocalyptic,

about warring factions, basically like fighting for the soul of society. And just really interested to see it. CBS All Access doing big budget miniseries makes a lot of sense to me. And I'd be very excited if they were able to give the stand a kind of more contemporary spin. The last show that I'll tell you about here today is something, another one that I can't find an American release for, but I figure because, again, of the talent involved that will We'll be seeing it on our shores soon enough is a show called The Third Day. That's kind of a mysterious show.

It's told in two halves. It's about an island off the coast of England. And the first half of the season, apparently, is going to star Jude Law. And then the second half stars Naomi Harris. And it's about the arrivals of these two characters and how it sets off a battle for the island's fate. I think I used to fate twice in the last two minutes, so forgive me. There's a kind of... I'm loosely grouping these guys together,

but not necessarily because they're all friends or because they all make stuff together. But Dennis Kelly, who wrote on the eighth season of MI5 or Spooks, if you're in England, and he's collaborated with Sharon Horgan. He wrote this series, and he kind of fits into this group of British writers

who flit between stage and television of movies like Jack Thorne and Jez Butterworth. And I'm just really interested. This sounds, obviously, it has elements of, lost, maybe elements of Wicker Man a little bit. I don't know. I'm trying to get the vibe from it, but I saw a picture of Jude Law. He looked nuts. So I'm very excited for this show. You know, it'll be a really interesting year because I haven't really even mentioned that many HBO Max shows.

And if you remember a couple of months back, Andy and I were talking about the rollout of HBO Max, and it was dozens and dozens and dozens of original shows for that service. And you have to assume that the peacock is going to have something similar. Those two are very interesting because you're wondering what's the relationship going to be in terms of a holistic brand identity with parent networks. Now, there has been some really interesting conversations coming out recently. Bob Greenblack gave an interview in the Hollywood Reporter, I believe, where he kind of talked about the distinctions that they were making between HBO and HBO Max and this idea that

that HBO is adult prestige programming and HBO Max is everything else. Now, that can be YA, that can be unscripted, that can be maybe more procedural, fair reality shows, what have you, sitcoms. I'll be really curious to see how that works out for them. I'll be really curious to see how it works out for Peacock and how they're deciding to identify their shows because I still think people are going to think of NBC as the mothership for that service. So are the comedies, for instance, on Peacock going to have that... There's a vibe. NBC comedies, you know? Like, I think over the years,

we've just associated a certain kind of look and a feel to shows, whether it's AP Bio or Superstore or Parks or Good Place. I think that there is like a certain feel that those shows have. How much network identity is going to be passed down into any of these streaming services necessarily? And then what do we get in terms of the, how much will those library catalog offerings from those, from those new streaming services.

So at some point, we'll have friends on HBO Max and we'll have the office on Peacock, which will be a reason why a lot of people honestly sign up for those shows. I kind of wonder, though, when are we going to get the next version of friends and the next version of the office? Whether that is people going back

and getting really into Seinfeld, people going back and getting really into, God only knows, mad about you, whatever it is. Or will we see a show that's kind of more recent or maybe early 2000s or 2005, six, seven, something like that, something that's a little bit farther along the line, because that would make sense, right, in terms of the way that fashion kind of cycles around, that we would have a new show that was

somehow really relevant to people who wanted to stream eight, nine seasons of a sitcom, whether that's like a how I met your mother or whatever, but something that has that identity that's a little bit further along the timeline than like friends in the office. Because I have to imagine at some point, those shows will have slightly diminishing returns. I mean, I know that some people watch friends in the office like nightlights.

They just have them on because they find it comforting. My wife does that. I totally do that with shows. But at a certain point, do you burn it out in some way, shape, or form? I think it's probably more than likely that we will see literally, reboots of friends in the office in the next 18 months, certainly we'll get a special of the original friends cast coming back together.

I mean, that is so obvious that that's going to happen. I don't even need to see the news report that it will. I would imagine even that that would be quite a way to launch HBO Max is to have friends on that, doing that in some capacity. The office, I bet we would get a rebooted version of the office for 2020. just some new idea coming from Greg Daniels or whoever. And Bob Greenblatt, even in that Hollywood Reporter article, mentioned that Greg Daniels said he had an idea for that.

So nothing ever really dies as we learn from Watchmen and from Star Wars and from everything else. It's worth keeping an eye on because I think that for as much as people were like, oh, everybody's going to get rid of Netflix when Disney comes along and that didn't really happen. You do wonder whether or not some of those major disappearances of catalog viewing, of things like friends in the office from Netflix is going to have an impact somewhere down the line. You never know. We're going to be keeping an eye on all of that stuff.

So today is Thursday. It's the day after Christmas. So I'd like to wish you all happy holidays and a really safe and healthy New Year. And I think Andy and I are going to do one more show before New Year's. We'll do our great wall of culture depending on schedules. Thanks for bearing with me, as you can tell.

I think my voice is giving out. This is why people don't do solo podcast. for 40 minutes. Thanks for listening. I'll post a list of all these shows so that you guys can keep an eye out for them. Sorry for nominating so much British stuff, but that's just where my taste lie. What are you going to do? Talk to you guys soon.