The Watch - ‘The Outsider’ Season Finale, ‘Devs’ Season Premiere, and an Interview with the President of AMC, Sarah Barnett | The Watch

Episode Date: March 9, 2020

‘The Outsider’ ended the way most Stephen King stories do—with a lot of buildup to nothing. But we still enjoyed ourselves along the way (1:00). FX on Hulu is here with the premier of ‘Devs,�� a science-fiction show that packs in mystery, emotion, and beautiful set design (29:38). Plus, a conversation about the current television landscape with the president of AMC, Sarah Barnett (46:36). Hosts: Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey guys, thanks for listening to today's episode of The Watch on today's show. Andy and I talked about the season finale of The Outsider on HBO and the first two episodes of devs on FX on Hulu. And the second half of the episode is my interview with Sarah Barnett, who is the president of AMC networks and overseas AMC Sundance, TV, BBC America, IFC. And we had a great conversation about streammoors as well as AMC slate with shows like Better Call Saul. and dispatches from elsewhere and a bunch of other stuff that they have coming up soon. So it was a great conversation with Sarah. If you are interested in what it's like to run a network in this chaotic TV time, you should definitely check it out.

Let's get into our show. I need supports to have to clear the room. Stand up and walk now. Hello, and welcome to The Watch. My name is Chris Ryan. I am editor at the ringer.com. And joining me in the studio, it takes an outsider to catch an outsider. It's Andy Green Walls.

Speaking of outsider, are we six feet apart? Oh yeah, that's right. How's your Saudi oil holdings doing? Apparently not great. I was semi-serious that we should do today's podcast in the style of Jim Kramer's mad money. Just go for it. As you mentioned right before we started recording, we are ad-free today, so we are unaffected. That's right.

They can't tell us what to do anymore. We're no longer bought and sold by big economy. Here we are on a Monday. I would say that Outsider and Deves are probably not on the front page of the news this morning, but Andy wouldn't know because he's not looking at the news. Trying not to. It's the same space in here. But we are going to be talking about the finale, the season finale of Outsider,

and the first two episodes of Devs. Did you watch the second one? You know, I did. Oh, great. It's a great time to be a TV watcher in America. You got those late night for me texts from the couch the other night. Yeah. Deves! That's your text. Yeah, it was like at 928.

Which would you like to talk about first? Should we put a bow on Caves or Us? Yeah. Okay, so let's talk about the end of the outsider. Last week, I don't know if it actually made into the pod, but I mistook the first victim of Jack Hoskins's sniper run as Andy. And I was really sad, you know, because Andy and Holly had a great love story. I really thought those kids were going to make it work. It turned out I needn't worry. I mean, I took that pain from you.

Yes. I was your worry eater because you were like, oh, well, does that mean Andy's going to survive? And I was like, my friend, check his knuckles. The tattooed words live forever there, promise you. I felt like this episode of Outsider of finale was a pretty odd season finale in that it was essentially just a code out of the penultimate episode. In some ways, like, I put it another way. I felt like nine and ten were essentially one long episode. I think that's fair.

And that there's nothing wrong with that. I found this show to still be moody and terrifying and exciting and interesting to the very end. I think that this is just how Stephen King's stories end. And the monster at the end of the dream is just, it is El Cucco and he will kind of talk to you when you finally meet him.

The thing that is... In a lovely Southern accent. The thing that's haunting you by way of Dublin thinks of Petic Kahnine. I know. The thing about stories like this, you know, as a long time, aficionado of horror fiction and horror films.

I mean, that's how I'm known. Yeah. The scare guy. Yeah. Mr. Shudder.com over here. Fangoria Greenwald. The thing that's haunting you and the being haunted and the mystery and the question is always going to be more evocative and entertaining than the reveal.

That's just part of it, right? I mean, again, long-time scarehead here that we're called. It's the moment before the jump scare that's addictive, that's delicious. that's exciting, that keeps you coming back for the adrenaline, and then it's revealed to be Freddy Kruger, I assume, or a monster or something else. Again, don't really dabble at this stuff, so I'm out on a play.

Out on news, out on horror. But in on giving you my takes. So I have to say, and maybe, I mean, we're joking about being out of the news, but obviously this is kind of a stressy time in the world. And maybe because of that, I can't tell, I was totally fine with this finale, is what I wanted to say. And I wonder if that was partly because I was slightly removed from it. Maybe if I had been more invested, I would have found more nits to pick with it.

But I honestly felt like this show has told us what it was going to be over the last few weeks. There wasn't a world where the truly psychologically unsettling feeling of those first few episodes was going to be. was going to suddenly come crashing back when it was quite clearly headed for a shootout with the devil. That's where we were going. I think I was a little surprised by open Sesame being the mad, like, you know, by her being like damn you to hell, and that just kind of stops Jack in his tracks.

You know, not that I wanted them to come up with some sort of, you know, action set piece to stop him. Right. But the rules of engagement were just unclear in this thing, which is like totally. fine. I completely agree with you. I really, really liked the show a lot. I've loved the beginning. And I thought the idea of taking a kind of Hitchcockian paranoid criminal justice story and turning it into a supernatural horror story with a Holmes and Watson who are equally credulous and incredulous

about what's happening. And mixing in with that like stories about grief and just this kind of almost frankly viral you know viral viral contagion of being a of becoming a murderer but I just felt like the end was like

well it just felt a little bit like so you guys went into a cave chatted a bit and then Claude showed up and walked out and walked out well I mean look

I think you have to look at it structurally and I think there are a couple things at play here one is we've spent a lot of time talking about should this have been six episodes, should it have been eight episodes. There were many weeks when we thought it was. Yes.

Before figuring it out. I think it's six, you're like, this is almost over, right? I thought so. Yeah. But then we wouldn't have gotten to cave. Similar, well, we're going to finish with that. Similarly, we talked about how much nicer this was and more enjoyable that it wasn't a movie, because it would have been just a race to the finish line.

And we got so much more character and, frankly, more characters. So if you appreciate that, I think there's a give and take here because I'm grateful for the extra time we got with Glory and with Ralph's wife, whose name I am unfortunately forgetting. Perhaps because she got very little screen time in the last two or three weeks. But so we got time with them and they got time to build Mer Winningham and Julian Nicholson, who were brilliant actors, got time to create characters and, you know, establish a rapport with each other and with the rest of the world. It was pretty clear once they drove off to Tennessee that those stories were not going to get, they were going to get short drift, but those stories were essentially done.

So it's a tradeoff. Did you want none of them at all? Or did you enjoy the time spent with them but feel cheated because of the lack of payoff? Sure. Similarly, I think that Richard Price, because of his long experience with this, looked at the shape of this

and kind of, this is what TV is, right? Did the best he could. Gave space the things that interested in him. You think about that scene between Mendelson and Winningham at the end where they're just sitting, look at their son's grave. But not their son. They were sitting at Frankie Peterson's grave.

No, I think they were sitting at their kids' grave, but in the same cemetery of Frankie Peterson's tombstone. It's like the kids' table. For cemeteries. For cemeteries. I get it. I, okay. Yes.

And that is just a way above average rendition of that scene that we have seen in other horror or crime films. So let's think about it, just purely in terms of breaking the season, the decisions that were made here. And one of the decisions was to put the adrenaline and action set piece that felt like a finale at the very, very top of the actual last episode. Sure. By the time it was over, then the title card appeared. That whole sequence was really well directed by Andrew Bernstein.

It was really hard to watch. And then in terms of the adrenaline and the various feelings that it engendered in the audience, those feelings were done basically for the hour. One of the reasons why was I think that Price and the other people involved in the show wanted to try and restore some of the emotional gravity back to the show in the end. To do so, that meant finishing the quote unquote story relatively quickly and trying to earn back those moments that I appreciated at the end, like with Mendelsohn and Mer Winningham.

I actually even preferred the scene of her burning the chair. Sure. So that was a beautiful visual and told you a lot in a way that was more in keeping with the sort of light and shadows of the first two episodes. So it was a intentional decision to do that and one that I appreciated and think was probably the best solution. The idea at the end there, when they're wrapping it up and they're essentially choosing to conceal what happened. Yeah. Is that were they to try to go forward with El Cucco doubling viral contagion of murderous impulses, et cetera, that they wouldn't be able to clear Terry's name because it would be so unbelievable and so fantastical?

Well, I think they just wanted to bury it all forever. And they wanted to come up with a story to clear Terry and Claude. Sure. Sure. Both of them who were in evidence or had already. already been accused and arrested, et cetera, et cetera. So that was their goal. I think that came first.

Lower on their priority chain was paying due respect to the fallen hero among them, attorney Howie, who got done dirty by the universe, by Jack. Just a guy who wanted to smoke weed and eat chicken, man. And frankly, by the show. And rescue a guy he'd known for 20 hours. Andy, what are you doing? I couldn't believe that. I was like, Howie, come on.

First of all, I feel like I was sort of like, why is Howie the chauffeur? This is clearly like a high-powered lawyer. I feel like, I mean, I respect the sacrifice. And I respect the heroism. But I also feel as, you know, I don't want to stereotype anyone, but as the Howie of most groups, I feel like I know my place. You know what I mean? Like, I buy you fly. I'm there to offer, yeah, I'm there to offer counsel.

Yeah. Sometimes I'm a good hang, occasionally. I think you're a good hang. I have my moments. I don't think, in a firefight, would you expect me to cape up? You're a lot of things. Thanks. I keep you guessing.

You're not what I would call a foxhole guy. I don't even think that's an insult. And that's okay. I don't even know if I'm a foxhole guy. Haven't had to find out. But one thing about you, Chris. I feel like you would be ready to find out. You know what I mean?

Like, I feel like in a foxhole, if we were seeking cover behind some... I probably have some real Andy impulses. I think that I would be like... Andy on the show. Yeah, not Greenwald. I think I could... I think I would be like, I can get to that car. One million percent, you would.

Yes. This is your behavior socially at times. This is your behavior in casinos? Sporting events? I'll wait in that line. Yeah. You will learn... Driving down the turnpike.

There's no traffic. Yeah. That is a classic. Yeah. You are willing, here's what I'm, this is a foxhole guy to me as someone who is willing to learn something new, potentially fatal about himself, in the moment. Mm-hmm. Not over years and years of, you know, self-introspection and therapy. Which is what you think how he does.

Well, how he lives his life out loud. You know what I mean? You can tell by his automobile. Yeah. You can tell by his saucy demeanor with people in authority. So I guess that he and I aren't as similar as I would have thought. One way in which we are similar, and I realize I think I've only said this on social media and not on our podcast, is that I do either owe Bill Camp an apology or it's a compliment. Turns out brilliant Australian character actor Bill Camp from Massachusetts.

But I do think in today's day and age, calling an actor Australian is one of the better compliments you can give. Sure. Yeah. Absolutely. Because I don't know if anyone else here listened to Ben Mendelson on fresh air. recently. I did not. I missed it. But on the outsider, Ben Mendelsohn as Ralph is just a brilliant case study in like, in charisma, in weight, you know, in normalcy, and he's just this bedrock. And on fresh air, he does sound like a pitchman for Outback Steakhouse. Are you serious? He is. Is he talking about blooming onions? Basically. Yeah. He is not Australian at all. was goading you into it, but that's foxhole behavior right there. You're like, at this moment, I'm talking to a microphone.

Ben Mendelsohn's Australian accent was the SUV 10 feet away. Yeah, and you could get there. You thought you could get there. You're like 100,000 people are going to hear this one way or another, but I can make it there. And, you know, live and learn. But anyway. What did you think of the fact? What did you think of the soft edges of the ending?

in terms of like, Holly, who is just seeing her beloved Andy, both shot to death and lit on fire, is like, you live and learn. She's just kind of like rolling with the punches. Yeah, I think there are a couple things here. I mean, this is...

Holly, who I don't think, all due respect, is a high-volume dater. You don't think? I just don't think she's speed dating. You don't think she swipes right a lot? Maybe. Maybe I'm wrong. You know, maybe that could be season two of the outsiders, Holly's dating life.

but I got the impression was limited in her social interaction. So she finds this guy who gets her on like a subatomic level and is just number one boy and he is assassinated. Yeah. By a steaming drunk, drooling demon. Well, person inhabited by a demon. Sure. Which to your other point.

Also, one thing I won't do is take a snake bite for you. Really? Yeah. Def not. Well, here's the thing, though. I do think that... I'm scared of snakes, and I did not improve my viewpoint of them last day. A snake situation like that, which is ongoing.

Where he sees it, he continues his business, he sees it again. Well, it was a metaphor. I got it, you know. Well, I wasn't trying to reach that point. I was just like, I don't think you would extend the interaction with the snake, is what I'm saying. Like, it would be, that would be it. You see the snake? Yeah.

You would go. So it's different than a foxhole situation. You wouldn't draw it out. About the comment you made before about Holly, yelling at, Jack, I think a lot of the conversation about this episode for me is coming from a structural place where it's like I see, I'm trying to see, and I think I do see a lot of the moving pieces behind the scenes, and you end up in these moments where it's either going to work or it's not, but you need it to try it. And so, for example, Holly talking Jack down, so to speak,

or talking him into suicide by snake, which is only a preface to actual suicide. The groundwork for that was laid in the Holly Jack episode, episode six. right, where she seemed to, she interested him because she could see him and she seemed to have empathy for him. So in that moment, so you do those scenes to build to a moment where she faces him down through the scope of his rifle. Yeah, and Holly and Semeanor are the two people who seem to like view Jack as a full person, which is probably what gives him pause about ruining their lives. And it didn't matter what she said, I think, in the sketching out of the episode. What mattered was she confronts him. She looked at him. And, and, you know, and, you know,

and caused him to break free from El Cucco for a moment. I like that, Reed. I think we can... But I agree that it didn't quite work because the line felt so... Well, it wasn't even damn you to hell as much as at the end. It felt like they were more like the real journey were the El Cucos we met along the way, you know, rather than... That's how I feel about this podcast.

Rather than, like, well, that was fucking traumatizing. I agree with that. And I think that's also the problem of structure where I think, And we've been talking fast and loose with what is King and what isn't King. We haven't read the book. No. So we don't actually know. But in my limited experience reading King books, the gnarly parts that you get to, like the shootout, kind of carry the day.

And there isn't, and often, at least in the books that I read, an attempt to sort of walk it back and say, but emotionally, what was this about? Sure. But I would say in King Books, I would say, and in King adaptations, it's the buildup to that that's great. Then they get there. and he almost has a hard time conceiving of what would be a good showdown between Ultimate Evil and this land of good. Well, that's why the first thousand pages

of the stand are the best. Yeah, and then, so let's talk briefly. But to your point, I think, again, that was the structure of the show where it built along that track as one thing that we really loved to another thing that we really enjoyed. And then at the end,

you were just going to end up with this kind of hash of, well, now we want to walk it back and be the other thing, but we've overcommitted and we don't have a lot of time left to resolve. Holly's behavior and resolve Holly's trauma or even, and I was joking, but truthfully, pay attention to what happened to Howie or Alec.

Because we have to get, we can't, we don't have 20 more minutes for, what's Eul Fasquez's character's name? My God, I'm liking on it. But anyway, for their survivors, let's just say, to deal with what's in front of them, other than the sort of shot of them, overhead shot of them reacting to the carnage, because what we need to do is get back and resolve the Terry Mayle. in case and we need to resolve Ralph's family situation in his marriage, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So. So blablo.

Zoblo, of course. Classic Zoblo. So there's two other things probably to discuss. I mean, the big one is the, as you put it, the soft endings. Right. And so coming out of that, I think the soft, and I hope people saw that there was a post-credit scene. You saw that right? Yeah. Okay, good. It's the one where Alec is shot. Do you want to describe the post-credit scenes in case our listeners didn't hear it? Didn't see it? Sure.

Well, after the credits, we joined Holly in a bathroom, I guess, on her journey. I guess she had stopped at Andy's funeral wherever that was being held. She loves to drive. She does love to drive. She's a driver. And she has a scary vision of Jack haunting her, which causes her to check her own for boils. And then she goes online.

And I was really pleased to see another current TV show have the same dependence on old media as mine. The thriving local newspaper with a headline clearing Terry Maitland's name. And while she's looking at this, she barely, I don't think even notices that she has a pretty pronounced scratch on her arm. Right. Okay, so I have... The other thing that I think people were bumping on, and it's probably related to that scratch

that people saw at the end, was the moment in the cave when Holly says, Who's Terry? Yes. And I totally bumped on that. I did too. Didn't get that as well. Without naming names,

I was in contact with someone who was involved with the show, asked the question directly, and was told that the Who's Terry is not meant to suggest that... Holly's had some of... sort of memory loss. Mental break or that she is

Kuko-ish, or Kukko-A-Jase. It's the beginning of the cover-up that they're going to be doing. Yes. That's what I thought it was kind of like, this conversation never happened. Exactly. That's exactly what it is intended to do.

I would argue that it was wildly confusing and it made things harder. I think any time you're in proximity to El Kuko, you should watch what you say. A, social distancing is a must. That's really true. I would just personally just be like one giant oven mitt, you know. And two, I think that...

I would like to ask Dr. Tony Fauci if the N95 masks are efficient in the proximity of an ancient, unexplainable evil. Yes. And two, I would just be as clear as possible in your communication. Yes. Second note on that scene had no idea why Ralph saw... The two kids. Dead bodies.

Didn't know who the kids were. I had to check, and I have confirmation, but what did you think? I, well, at first I thought it was the two kids who originally went down into the cave. So did I. It was not. But they were dressed way more Supreme Drop 2018. Well, they had some time. Yeah, that's true.

So you think as two ghosts in a cave in Tennessee, they could go get some nice streetwear? I think the world is connected as we're learning at our peril. That's true. So just on flight club? Yeah. Getting there. Yeah. Okay.

That was Ralph's dead son. And Frankie Peterson, right? Frankie Peterson's brother. He shot, the one who shot Terry Maitland in episode two. Yes. Okay. Was my response to that? Had no idea what was going on and why he was seeing ghosts.

So here was my read on that. Yeah. Was that like Ralph was fully like a medium now? Well, and now that he believes this thing, he now knows he can see dead. And I kind of. thought that was a bummer. Sure. Because he's already said he believes, and I feel like that's enough.

And I thought that what... Yeah, he doesn't have to be Whoopi Goldberg. Exactly. And at the end, when he's talking with his wife, and he's like, I saw our son, but it wasn't really him. And she's like, but it doesn't matter if it was really him. What did he say? We were brought back to that world of the figurative, which is what where the show was mostly when we were loving it the most. The literal I sort of bumped again. So that happened, but I guess, so that's what the... Ghosts were warning him that Kouko was still alive somewhere in there.

So, interesting, by the way, also, that Ralph had to wait for the face to become, like, female and then an old lady to smash it? Why didn't he just smash it? Was he just like, where's this thing end? Where's this going to go? Was he hoping it would turn into, like, other celebrities? Was he looking for impressions? Right.

Okay. So then we get to the final scratch thing. Ed McMahon. I can't smash him. I love Star Search. I think it was a fake out, and I think it was a bummer, because I think the conversation, not just from us, but even a little bit from HBO,

and the sense people have about what the show is, has made it pretty clear that this was not a series finale. Should HBO renew it, and I hope they do, there's more story to tell here, probably with Holly's character. I feel like there is a better way to tease that there's more story to tell then tease that you have the same story to tell again. Well, they, they teased that part before the cut scene.

Yes. Where they were just like, if anything, if something like this comes up again, call me, calm. Basically. And Holly leaving and just kind of having this understanding and now obviously knowing what to look for. But does it have to be, I mean, this is the name of the show is the outsider, but also that the line, outsiders, game recognizes game, basically,

suggested that there's a show here with Holly Gibney, as like spiritual investigator. It doesn't always have to be... It's X-Files, man. For the supernatural. I love that. It doesn't always have to be El Cucco and Doubling. It could be some other phenomenon.

Exactly. So I was kind of... That ending was actually so old-fashioned TV in a great way, the actual ending. I was on board, and then you have to have that second thing. That's what made this show good is the fact that it had so much old-fashioned TV in it. And I kind of want to get into Dev soon, and it ties together in that... Outsider told us very early on...

I don't remember where the guy in the hooded sweatshirtirt first shows up if it's one or two. I think in one he shows up. And then obviously in two. Outside of the courthouse. Outside of the courthouse. So the major twist of this show essentially happens in the first two episodes.

And then it becomes a detective show, a supernatural detective show. But you know, we talked about this in those middle batch of Holly episodes, we were way ahead of the characters in terms of our understanding of this world. Now, they would increasingly give these things names and sort of pathetic.

apologize its behaviors. But we got the idea that there is some sort of evil spirit capable of cloning people to commit crimes and then seeping, like basically like eating all the grief that comes out of those crimes. And that's what makes it strong. And ultimately. So in the way that they feed on collective grief, they are similar to Philadelphia's sports talk radio anchors. That's right.

But ultimately, there was not a lot of like, what's the outsider about? like what's the main thing what's going on here when are we going to find out that this is in fact this right it was pretty straightforward it was pretty straightforward it was like this actually

it is the person's worst nightmare is like what if you're accused of a crime you didn't commit yeah and then it's actually in fact the devil did that and then they go and pursue this evil and bury it in a cave that's like pretty as straightforward as you can get

with this kind of thing and I think it's interesting to get started with a show like devs which is honestly, like, I'm magic. That show is absolutely magical in terms of the way it looks

and the way it sounds and the way it's written. But is essentially the engine of that show is what is devs? What is going on here? And I will be fascinated to see how Garland plays with that because I don't find him to be

a slick storyteller. Like he usually tells you what's going on and he investigates what that means. In annihilation, I mean, that's not his story. but he confronts what an... The movie is pretty much his story, I would say.

Yes, but he confronts what annihilation is about relatively early on. He confronts what ex machina is about. I mean, like, there's not a lot of sleight of hand going on. So, I don't know. I mean, like, I think a lot of TV is powered by that. A lot of TV is powered by Mystery Box and by keeping you on the hook until the very end. I feel like you're not really on the hook with Outsider. I feel like you were like, I'm watching the show because I really like the performances

and the writing and I want to see where it ends up, but I'm not confused about what's going to happen. No, I'm entertained, and I'm entertained and grateful. I'm entertained by the story, and I'm grateful for the high-class production and cast and everything that went into it. And that is not a bad formula. I hope they make more of these, because I really enjoyed them. My only question coming out of the finale, I wanted to ask you before we move on to devs, why didn't El Cucco in his Elliot Alderson hoodie incarnation?

Mr. Cucco. If children are so delicious, why did he just go visit Terry's kids a couple times and chat with him? I don't know. Is it like if you're on a diet and you walk by the candy store? Because it feeds on their fear and feeds on their grief? I don't know.

Or was he already full? Because he'd just been like just, you know, really, really dining out. Yeah. Right before that. Yeah. I guess I had some questions about that. But to your point in terms of a transition, I think it's interesting. Outsider and Devs are both highly ambitious, beautifully done, totally humorless, hour-long shows, one of which is more meat and potatoes.

And so I enjoyed it. And one is more... Gastronomy. Yeah. Seriously. It's that, who's the guy who did all the foams, Wiley Dufrain? It could be Wiley Dufrain. Yeah.

Yeah, exactly. Highest gastronomy. Every time I talk about food now, I'm worried Dave Chang's going to tweet, fuck you at me. I think you should be afraid of that all the time. Because for what it's worth, and I didn't prep you for this, so we don't need to talk about it. But yeah, outsider, yeah, devs.

But the first episode of Ugly Delicious was the best thing I've seen on TV maybe this year. Oh, yeah? Yes. And I'm not just saying that because we're, all in the same network, and I got, and I'm just desperate to get back on that podcast because I want to join a winning team. We could talk about that out Thursday if you want. I highly recommend everybody watch it.

Okay, devs. So, I love devs. First two came out. Alex Garland written and directed, starring Sonoye Mizuno, Rick Offerman, Allison Pill. Some really great performances from guys that are usually just, like, you're really happy to see him background players like Stephen McKinley Henderson and Zach Ragnier and it takes place. What about Mr. High Fidelity himself, Carl Glousman? Oh, that's right, yeah.

And then it takes place in a, I'd say, slightly altered near future. Doesn't seem that future. I mean, it seems pretty much like now. Yeah. It seems like there have maybe been some advances in computing. One or two. Yeah. And then the first two episodes kind of.

go along these two separate tracks. There is the Kubrickian mystery, mystical, quasi-religious thing that's happening inside that compound, inside that,

that kind of bunker that they've built for devs. And then there is the mystery of what happened to... Sergei? Sergey, yeah. I mean, want me to tell you what happened to Sergey?

Sure. I watched it. Yeah. Nothing good. Did you see the cutscene, though? It wasn't great. Yeah. I think the first thing to say about the show,

and again, a great first showcase for FX on Hulu, because this feels like a magical special jewel box of a show, it is not for everyone. And I think that for people like John Landgraf and Nick Grad and Eric Trier, who have really good taste and have a good track record, the ability to invest in things like this and have a correct platform for it must feel amazing, honestly.

Also grateful that it meant we got two episodes at once because I am not someone who is impatient about TV anymore, and I was very happy to be able to watch two episodes. Yeah, absolutely. Two, the first thing I want to say about it is I think the show is fucking beautiful, like, staggeringly beautiful.

And not beautiful in an unfamiliar way, because Alex Garland has a style, and it's kind of transporting in a haunting, haunting way. Yes. He's a filmmaker whose aesthetic matches his interests so seamlessly. And what I mean by that is so much of his work, especially recently, is about artificial intelligence or technology. Some things you care a lot about. Passionate.

Passionate. And I've said that a lot on this show. So luckily, there are no old tweets or podcasts to dig up to. drag me. But what I mean is there's this almost seamlessness to the user interface of his shows. It looks beautiful, almost to the point of abstraction or uncanny valley

ness. That's why I think I'm like is this in the near future? Yes, but you know, in the same way that that feeling of well everything is so smooth but there's something disturbing in that smoothness of the features of the, whether it's the way the people look or whether it's the way the buildings or the nature

looks. I mean that is his subject, that is his project as well. You know, it's about things that are too beautiful to be believed or are hiding dark secret. So I love the synergy between the way it looks and- I want to mention really early on. It sounds amazing too. Oh, my God. And that Jeff Barrow, who's obviously like probably best known for his work in Portishead, I don't know what the replacement level score is for this show, but I'll just say I'm watching something right now that it's not germane about what it is, but I am watching it, it's like, it's pretty good.

It's like, I would say it's like a very good show. Okay. Really hamstrung by a very average score. It makes a huge difference. You know, and it very, like, kind of like, you think it's like a pretty good thing. You think it's a pretty good show. And then kind of like cop music comes on.

It can take you right out of it. And it does. It does. It kind of makes me feel like I, all of a sudden, like, I snap back to, like, I am watching TV. And, yeah, I mean, it's, it's, um, It's worth mentioning that the Barrow thing is a huge deal. And I just think that, just to focus on one, a specific image, the giant statue of who we find out is Amaya that gave the name of Nick Arfman's company, is such a haunting, unsettling, powerful image.

And I just think often with TV and the way we talk about it and the way we consume it, we blow past stuff like that. What's it about? When's the next episode available? How's it doing? All these conversations. that is a image of stunning clarity, totally unique. And I think about it. I find it unsettling.

Every time it appears, it's so odd. The way that Garland and his director of photography and his production designer staged it, it feels physically uncomfortable the size of it, you know, and the surreality of it. But you think about how it teases out our awareness. and I don't know, I wouldn't want to say sublimation to, but like think about how much you even know something like the Twitter bird. You know what I mean? And imagine that times X10 or X100.

What if they just like put a giant bird up? You know, I mean, that wouldn't be that crazy. No, I mean, Apple built that spaceship headquarters and we're all like, oh, visionary. Yeah. They could do what they want. And we're all going to be like how fascinating because clearly they're ahead of us. And that's the same thing. So I just want to take a moment, like a show that is showing you something like that, a series that is showing you something like that is laying down a marker about the type of thing that it wants to be.

And I think it demands respect, if not fandom. I mean, this show might go off the rails, but it is worthy of our attention in a way that I just found so exciting, frankly. And then you take the step further. And it's just all these decisions that he makes about how to portray something that is, if not the future, futuristic. And, you know, it's communicated in ways that are so much more tactile and relevant and believable than a bunch of elders in cloaks not using contractions, a la like Matrix Revolutions. Sure. It's Nick Offerman, famous for playing a woodwork, you know, for being a man who builds canoes out of trees. Sure.

As a tech visionary with his hair like that and his clothes like that, shoveling microgreens into his mouth. and then and driving a Subaru outback. These are the little decisions that make you believe and make you understand and make you feel something. And this weekend I was listening to something I was on in PR and there was an interview with William Gibson. It was a famous writer and sort of sear basically

because he invented the word cyberspace in 1979. Yeah. And they were asking him about like how do you predict the future? And he's like the way not to do. it is to sit and think about the future. The way to do it is to look at the present. Right. And try to look clearly and cleanly at what actually is going on at people's behavior now,

because that's telling you, even if it's hidden or even if it's sublimated, that's telling you about how people want to behave. And this was in relationship to him going to seeing a video arcade in 1979 in Vancouver and seeing the way people playing, I guess at that point, like Gallagher or asteroids, were physically moving their bodies in concert with the avatar, you know, that picks, the three-pixel avatar. And that told him, people want to be in the game. Yeah.

And Devs feels like that to me. Even when I don't quite even know what it's about yet. That it feels like that kind of, it's telling us something about our behavior now in a way that makes it feel even more disturbing. So there's that conversation between Kenton and Forest, at Forest's house. Right.

Forrest is Nick Offerman's character. Kenton is the security guy. Yeah. And I think so far in terms of if you want to know about what is happening at devs, to me at least, the key conversation happens there where Kenton essentially, I'm paraphrasing, says something like, you know, why don't you get a new car or something like that? You have more money than God, yeah. Yeah, do something about, you know, do something where you care about the environment. Get an electric car at least. Yeah.

And Forrest says, but I don't care about the environment. And to me, those guys both have the sort of haunted look of people who know what's coming in some regard. And, you know, there's been a lot of online speculation about what's going on inside that cube and what Deves is and what is the world of devs. They're tuning in Etch-Sketch images of Christ on the Cross. Yeah. Do you have any theories or do you care? Yeah, well, it seems to be about picking up the residual energy waves of. the past, which exist within us, and then also being able to predict the future because of it.

Yes. And all of this is tied to, or at least suggested by Forrest, Nick Offerman's character and Allison Pills' characters, like, just very aggressive determinism. Like, as he says to Sergei, you didn't do anything. You don't have free will. You were already on a path. So I forgive you. And then he has him killed.

What I love about this is in my, as people know, no longer a news junkie. so unsubscribe to everything. However, except for the Chris Ryan headline machine when he walks in the door. But, you know, back in my multiple tabs open days, days I'd like to call every day prior to Sunday. Yes.

You know, I knew that this is the sort of tech utopian, Randian outlook that is truly terrifying in the world. Yeah, where they kind of like shrug off more because they're like, it's written in the stars that just happened. Yeah, exactly. Same thing. They look like stars in the show, though. There is no, exactly, there is no morality to inherent in a piece of code or into an idea.

To mathematics. To mathematics. Morality is what we put on it. And so that scene when Pilan Off from Inn are sort of weeping, or he is anyway, in this beautiful gold Faraday cage, whatever things they are, he's, expressing, you know, I wish I could mute this chain of code running in me that makes me feel emotions here. Yeah.

You know, but I can't. So, I mean, this is about our world. I mean, this is where we are right now. Yes. There are a number of high-profile websites that I think muted morality quite a long time ago. Not the ringer. Yeah, thanks. Being a fan of the ringer. No, I know. So, I don't know. I find it interesting. I think that a common criticism. I mean, like we said at the beginning,

the show is not for everybody. But it's not a laugh a minute. It's not a laugh at all. Yeah. But it hasn't been a laugh in the 80 minutes that we've seen. So far. Yeah. Well, the salad eating was pretty good.

Yeah. But beyond that, you know, that fact that this is reflecting something that shakes me to my core and exists in the world, it doesn't feel, I guess what I'm trying to express is, yes, I started off this conversation by praising the objective aesthetic beauty of the show, but it does not feel like an exercise and just showing off things that are beautiful.

No, and I think it actually... It feels deeply connected. It feels like those two shows that I talked about, that central mystery about what happened to Sergei, or rather Lily's pursuit, because we kind of know.

We know. And the mystery of what is happening in devs, I think, is the perfect kind of... Not metaphor, but it's the perfect kind of allegory for, like, the two kinds of TV that often get made now. These highly cinematic kinds of television and highly writerly kinds of television. And obviously the best TV comes when

those two things perfectly merge. And we see things where it's like, oh yeah, obviously this filmmaker really just got to work some stuff out over the course of a couple of hours. But it's really, you have to have the good writing and you have to have good writing that's not just like, I don't want to unfairly compare devs to Westworld, but it's not just, you know, this kind of like, we're just going to keep moving the can down the road so you guys don't know totally what's going on. That's essentially what Westworld is to me, whereas this is like, no, we can see it,

and now we have to grapple with it. And similarly, even if there are things here that I am generally allergic to, the way the episodes begin with, like, characters staring portentiously off into the middle distance while those droning tones play and whatever, look, it doesn't really matter if that's something that I generally like or not.

This is a aesthetic, and narrative choice that Garland has made, and he's directed the whole thing. So it was the choice that was made, and that was in the work that was presented. Yeah, I don't even know if we're even doing justice to how overwhelming this is on a filmmaking level. I'm so into it for that reason.

The only wild card for me, and I'm curious to see how it develops, is Lily, who is nominally the main character here, but is, as you just correctly pointed out, slightly hamstrung from a narrative perspective because we are way ahead of her. so it's tricky to so far it isn't

this is concerned trolling on a story level No but she starts out the show where we are like I'm watching a show about this like seemingly sinister You know going into it that Amaya is not like a super cool place to work Right even though they're like probably like It's a super cool place to work

I bet they've got Fuzball table Yeah right and so we're waiting for Lily to arrive at that And then we're waiting for her to do something about it Right. I think I'm interested in seeing how the character develops, now the performance develops, because charitably, like, this is an actor who, like, I have loved in very physical roles, right? Garland has used her a bunch in X Machinao where she's dancing and Annihilation where she's kind of dancing at the end. Yeah. She is a dancer. She's a trained ballerina.

And her, I don't even say an affect, it's just her performance style is technical. Does that make sense? Yeah, sure. It's not like, which is a choice also for Garland and how he wants to tell the story. I think, and I'll be interested to see how that is utilized and how it develops. Because I think an easier version of this story, like if it's the net or something, is you cast, which it takes fully not. But that was a great movie. You cast like a full outsider audience surrogate who also is overflowing with humanity and emotion to be like, oh, I'm all in on her horrible situation.

But, you know, the show takes great pain. The fact that they don't have a character who's like, I was just dating a guy who was working at devs and now he's dead. And I don't know anything about computers. Like, I like that she has some fluency with what's happening. Yes, and, you know, this was also important groundwork laid by Garland is that she has behaved in, quote unquote, cold ways as well,

as we all have in our lives. But, you know, in her relationship with... Right. She leaves Jamie, yeah. Jamie. She was just like, nope. Yeah. Literally time for an upgrade.

Right. And which is probably how he felt when he grew that beard. Okay. So we'll keep talking about devs on Mondays. They air on Thursday nights. The second half of today's pod, as I mentioned in the beginning, is going to be an interview with the head of AMC, Sarah Barnett, who came by for a chat.

It was really interesting talking about Saul and dispatches from elsewhere, but essentially also talking about navigating the streaming wars as the head of a network. So it was a really fascinating conversation. So you can listen to that next, and we'll be back on Thursday. We have Briar Patch Thursdays. You can also watch Briar Patch tonight. Yeah, can I just say episode 105 airs tonight, 11 p.m. in our sweet, sweet, sweet spot after wrestling,

the spot I'm so grateful for. This is a fun one written by the fantastic Haley Harris, who I realized we already taped our Briar Patch Thursday segment, and I neglected to mention her then. Haley worked on the leftovers for three seasons with Damon and brought such a passion for procedurals to this room, which I love. And this is kind of our procedural episode. It's more of a detective-driven show

where we really learn more about Packing Town, and about what Felicity May or may not have been doing, and Allegra is on the case, maybe to her own detriment. And beloved character actor Peter Stormair is there in a floor track suit. This is a fun one. I'm excited to share with people. And watch it at 11 tonight if you can or stream it. And we will be back on Thursday to talk about it.

Yeah. Okay, so here's my interview with Sarah Barnett. I'm going to listen to this one, Branski. This is a good one. I am so happy to be joined by Sarah Barnett, who is the president of AMC Entertainment Networks group and AMC studio, and she oversees AMC, BBC, America, IFC and Sundance TV as well as the company's production arm AMC studios.

And before taking over AMC networks, Sarah was the general manager of BBC America. And prior to that, she was the head of Sundance TV, where she brought such watch favorites as Carlos and rectify, and honorable woman and top of the leg to our screens. And I'm so excited to have her on the watch. Sarah, thanks for coming on. So excited to be here. That's a really big remit.

That's a really big network. That's a lot of stuff to be in charge of. and it's a really tempestuous time in the television industry. But my first question is pretty pedestrian. I think our listeners would be really curious what like an average day or an average week in your work week looks like because as TV changes, I imagine the sort of day-to-hour stuff you do

and your job changes a lot. Yeah. You know, I think I'm not a very sort of, I'm not someone who runs at routine with open arms. So part of what I love about this job and part of what I've always loved about my jobs is, I never really know what any day is going to be. I mean, the one consistent thing is meetings. Sure.

Yeah. I have days and weeks and years, full of meetings. But the meetings range from really everything, from small to big, from strategic to tactical. I go between New York and L.A. quite a lot. So the corporate center for AMC Networks is in New York. I'm based there with the marketing, PR, strategy, digital sales teams. but then the programming, production, BA, piece of my job is all in LA. So I'm here every couple of weeks.

So a fair amount of travel, you know, I think that the fascinating, turbulent shifts that we're all part of, more than ever, are a sort of synergistic thread to decision-making. So it's becoming increasingly difficult to separate out the sort of strategy business underpinnings of the roles from the day-to-day. decisions around specific things. So building a great team who can really have that sort of blend in their mind is really necessary. But equally figuring out how to not make everything an examination of macro micro and how to create some guardrails around. Okay, this is the bit we can impact today or tomorrow or this month and give teams something of a clear. direction, albeit one that we all have to understand is fluid and open to change.

I mean, for me, that kind of going from the big to the small and back again is something that is always really, really interesting. It's actually what you guys do on this podcast. Well, we talk so much about, I think that in the years since we started it, started doing this podcast about in 2012, I think. We, back then it was more of a conversation show about last night's episode of Homeland and last night's episode of Downton and last night's episode of breaking bad. And it's since evolved into a conversation about how we watch TV, because that's the thing that everybody has in common rather than any of these sort of central water cooler shows. It's, well, we all are grappling with how many streaming services should I subscribe to,

you know, what is on my DVR, how many hours of the week do I have to watch TV? And I imagine you are faced with a lot of those same questions. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the how, the how people are watching TV, the how our audiences are shifting in their behaviors. the how we continue to be a curation platform at AMC networks or a bunch of platforms at a time when scripted shows have gone from you know whatever 200 in 2012 to 500 and something and with the launch of peacock and HBO Max you know we'll jump we certainly haven't hit hit the top so how we do what we do within that context is is increasingly part of the conversation but I think those are the really invigorating interesting conversations and I think that in a certain

sense in our world generally, we're kind of concluding, I think, if we're concluding anything, that conventional wisdom really isn't the way forward. I mean, you look at politics. You know, there's no way to say that the ways in which, there's no way to really believe that there's a predictability around how things are going to play out or around, you know, mainstream media kind of reporting and the kinds of ways that sort of media, you know, the kind of media. reflected and shaped a conversation, it's changing so quickly. Yeah. So I think within entertainment, it's the same thing.

You know, we really don't know where we're going. We really don't know where we're going in terms of where the business side is headed, how the different ways that we're, the different delivery mechanisms of television to consumers will impact the consumption of content. Sure. And so I think we're all sort of feeling our way through. And there's something that is really about. I think having the stomach for that and enjoying that and staying.

And I feel like I'm sort of saying the same thing. But I guess it's the thing that I profoundly believe is the only way through and is the exciting way through, which is to keep kind of embracing the big while interrogating the small and understanding the dynamic between those things and shifting. And that's kind of fascinating, particularly when you have a really cool team and a really rich, deep, interesting set of brands and a company that has, for sure, some of the limitations of size, the size of AMC networks, but equally some of the nimbleness and some of the opportunity of not having to serve huge audiences, but being able to really know who our audiences are, what they like about us, how they move between our different platforms.

And therefore, how we can connect with them and continue to give them. shows that they like in a form that they can digest. We often talk about ourselves as viewers and I think our imagined listener as a TV viewer, and I think that that person is probably in a very high percentile in terms of how much television they're watching and how much they know about television at any given point. But I read it in an interview with The LA Times. You talked a little bit about some of the studies that you had conducted about AMC viewers. And without getting into too many state secrets,

I was very curious about some of the findings that you had there, Because I think that one thing that happens, I lived in New York for a while, now I live in L.A. And I know a lot of people who think a lot about television or make television now is that the blinders kind of come down a little bit in terms of like, why does somebody watch what they watch and when do they watch it? And I was curious if you could tell me a little bit about some of the research that that you've done about behaviors, TV watching behaviors. Yeah, we do a number of different studies. Some of the most interesting ones are actually with cultural anthropologists about some of the deep need states that are met through watching. television, which is really interesting. And I've spoken about that a little bit in the past in relation to natural history programming, which is having something of a moment in the last

for sure. Yeah. And I think it's particularly resonant for particular cultural reasons at the moment. But I think that the study you're probably talking about is the segmentation study, which is a sort of huge, almost year-long study that delves into the most useful segments that watch whatever network you're researching. So, We did it very recently with AMC that I think probably the most interesting way I can talk about the use of a segmentation study was the one that I did at BBC America when I first went there. And when myself and my head of programming Nana Rodriguez arrived at BBC America, we looked at everything that had ever aired on the network and everything that worked. And really what stood out head and shoulders above anything else was sci-fi. It was Doctor Who and it was Alphen Black.

And there were many, many character-led two, three-year-old. part of six-parters, amazing British BBC or Channel 4 or whatever character kind of pieces that had got great press at times had won awards, but hadn't really penetrated in terms of big audience other than board church. That one sort of did really well. So we thought, okay, sci-fi is the thing that BBC America viewers loved. And then we did this big segmentation study and we actually asked people not just what, you know, do you like sci-fi or do you like crime or whatever, but we sort of asked why do you love these shows. And we realized, for instance, that the reasons people loved Dauphin Black was not because it was sci-fi, although that didn't hurt, it was because it was

really fresh. It was a story about many different rich themes with women at the heart of it. It was a smart play on representation of women. It had deep themes about control of your body, but it also had big swings in the storytelling and a kind of really sort of particular pace to it. And I think that if we hadn't done that study, we probably wouldn't have realized that Killing Eve was a show that could have worked on PBC America because we would have thought, well, that's not sci-fi.

Right. So, you know, that isn't a great way to spend our money. So I think in understanding the key reasons why certain things have been popular is really important so that you don't misdiagnose and you don't sort of become a programming group out there in the community saying, you know, our network needs are, you know, X, Y, Z or Z. So we did that recently with AMC and it's early to quite know how we're going to be translating that. But I think it's really exciting, and I think it's sort of got a way, maybe broken open, a little bit of an idea that things need to be genre or not genre.

And actually, we're sort of agnostic about that. And really what we're starting to think about is so long as there's a sort of distinctive voice and a dynamic concept in what we do. And we sort of break that down into lots of different attributes. But, you know, that we can, we believe that that's what our audience really likes. And that allows us to be pretty, then open to sort of having that in the back of our heads and then being sort of alert to that great, fantastic idea that may come along.

Right. So I think, you know, the worst thing to do is to have a checklist mentality, I think, about a creative business. Of course, yeah. It just doesn't work. You spoke at TCA's this year and you talked a little bit about the fact that you're able to develop voices because you don't have huge pipes to fill. And obviously that's what we're seeing now are these library plays where people are developing

tons and tons of shows to get them on their services to say, hey, look at all the hours we have for you to just spend, never leave, stay at home, watch this all day. But I was wondering if you could describe, for lack of a better term, the pipes that you have to fill. Because I think for first, you know, often we're talking about a Netflix or we're talking about an Amazon or a Hulu, but you have, you still have this linear cable business that you're servicing

and you still have like, and then it goes all the way down to these smaller streaming services that are under your umbrella like shutter. Can you talk a little bit about what those pipes are for us? Yeah, so I don't oversee the smallest streaming services. But we are increasingly at our company looking at the different audiences we have across AMC, BBC America, IFC Sundance, AMC premiere. So the platforms that I oversee. And then ACORN, Shudder, Sundance Now, and UMC. And I think what's interesting about the sort of ecosystem of that within AMC networks is the brands are different, the brands are rich.

The brands are not brands that are based on scale. That isn't necessarily baked into the value proposition of those brands. It's really much more curatorship. But we do understand and increasingly understand through some quite genius internal business intelligence people who build proprietary tools, how and where our audience is similar and how and where it's different across all of our different platforms.

So that allows us to invest in content and really put it in front of different audiences in ways that aren't blind. We're not sort of dumping it on different platforms. We're really understanding how to promote from one platform to another and where the different pieces of our, where the different segments of our audience are. So we're not cannibalizing. We're not duplicating.

We are wrapping our arms around our entire ecosystem. Right. And using data to be pretty surgical and pretty forensic about our content investment. Yeah. And how we connect our great shows to the biggest possible audience within our company. in a way that is kind of the opposite of having to go big and broad to get everybody. It's actually sort of quite specific content for specific audiences that we understand within our ecosystem. So to me, you know, there are pros and cons to being one of the few independent programmers left in the entertainment, television landscape today.

The big pros are, you know, I don't have. have the biggest budget in town. Equally, I don't have to drive the biggest global audience with the choices I make. We can make choices that are very writer-based, that are very specific to our audience, and be smart in understanding how to move them around within our current reality. And as the world inevitably continues to evolve and new kinds of bundles develop that AMC networks can play in and grow in, we believe there will be the business underpinnings to allow us to continue to create content, premium scripted content, even as the revenues from the linear

business model inevitably get impacted by the headwinds there. But we can continue to play in a promiscuous number of outlets, of spaces. Does that make sense? It does. So, So our strategy won't be building a big walled garden and staying within that. Our strategy will be to take our brands that are rich and meaningful and move them around into lots of different spaces, lots of existing and new different kinds of business models that drive enough new revenue to hopefully continue to make the kinds of shows that we're made for. And I actually believe quite passionately that the context of how you watch things is so critical. and to have the pressure of producing shows that continue to sit in the sort of top tier, it sounds so snobby, but you know, a really premium space and have a real,

a truly curatorial brand and have to be part of a huge streaming conglomerate and the kinds of imperatives that go along with that in terms of audience and scale and indeed in terms of data informing the decisions you make. Yeah. You know, I really believe that there's something very cool about staying independent, albeit a requirement to dance very, very, very nimbly and deftly. Yes. And I think that they shoot horses, don't they? Indeed, totally.

And I think it's a really smart piece that Sonia Soraya wrote in Vanity Fair not so long ago about, and it was so good because it sort of put into words something I've been sort of fumbling in my head to try to fully articulate. which is sort of about how I think that when people watch content in big vessels, where volume is so overwhelming, your mode of consumption, the ways in which you're watching for different reasons, you're watching becomes much more shallow and much less immersive, much more as a distraction from boredom. If you find something that distracts you from being bored, that's the win when you're surfing through a big vessel.

And I think that's a very, very, very different, back to the cultural anthropology piece of what content really delivers to us in a deep human way. I think that's a very different experience than watching on a weekly rollout with anticipation on a platform that doesn't have a ton of stuff, just has really good stuff. So that's the thing that I'm really intrigued and the team is really intrigued by. And that's the team that we, that's the mission. Yeah. I think that drives us and propels us, you know, and then finding the right stuff and, you know, continuing to be competitive and stay competitive is a whole rich conversation. Sure. I mean, Andy and I have been talking a bunch in the last couple of episodes about Saul.

And one of the things that's been so amazing about that has been both, it starts out, I think everybody has to wrap their mind around it being this continuation or a prequel to this story that everybody has a lot of thought. about and everybody has a very personal attachment to. And it's a much different show. And then over the years, it evolves a lot to where it is now. And it's so interesting how nothing with where Saul is now could have happened differently. Like, you can see the amount of people who have caught up on it through binge watching it on streaming services.

You can see the amount of people of it who are coming to it and saying, oh, now I recognize the enormity of the accomplishment here. And now, the key word I think you said just then, was anticipation because I think people were really, really excited about this show coming back, having a sense of how many more episodes there are left. And you don't really get that experience that much anymore when most television viewing experiences are more like driving down a highway very fast and there's just a lot of billboards. And some billboards stand out more than others. But Saul feels more like I have pulled off onto a side road and stopped at a diner somewhere

and I'm going to stay a while. And that must be very special for you to be a part of that when that kind of works on all these different levels, right? Yeah, I take zero credit for Betelsoil, and I continue to be completely gobsmacked that I have any proximity to a show like that and creators like Vince and Peter, who are masters of the T's like nobody else, master of the long game. So the sort of form of the show plays so beautifully into a weekly release

and an anticipation between seasons that might be more than a year, occasionally. And I think that... Not that we're counting. It's worth it. I think that show is sublime and has long since escaped the shadow of being compared to Breaking Bad, as genius as that iconic show was. And I think now stands just shoulder to shoulder with it.

I mean, it's an extraordinary feat. And I think it's so interesting as well, those shows that kind of straddle the former era of television. You know, it felt like when the Americans ended, that it was sort of the end of a show that started in a different era of how we watched. And I think Saul similarly, so having defined now the ending, which is next year for But of course, Saul, I think it's sort of such a – and the fact that that show has a particular connection to, obviously, Breaking Bad, so the final season will be leading up to Breaking Bad. I mean, I'm not giving anything where.

I have no insight into what the final season will be. I have no insight into – I honestly don't even want to know. No. I honestly, like, it's actually been – You trust those guys so much, right? And I kind of almost want to squeeze out every bit of it before it goes. But one of the cool... Can I just say before we move on for the...

Oh, yeah, sure. Just because she freaking deserves it. Ray's see her. Oh, yeah. I mean, she's just the most incredible performer. I can't take my eyes off her. She's that ponytail. Everything about her.

She's... Everything. Every single thing. I mean, Ray is one of the most hardworking, sort of, I don't know, sort of genius discoveries in the past several years of television, I think. she's really amazing and although she gets talked about she needs to be talked about more. That third episode was absolutely like just put that in

like acting schools but you said Discovery and I know that one of the things that you do is you're looking for the next Vince Gilligan and the next Peter Gold and we're kind of in this era right now where you look at something like say like outsider which is a show that we've been talking about a lot where it's like Richard Price

and Ben Mendelsohn and Jason Bateman and Jason Bateman's directing it's based on a Stephen King novel Julia Nicholson who's amazing. Julia Nicholson who's incredible and it's got this and Cynthia Revo, and obviously, that's a certain kind of level of established talent, right? Now, you're looking for, maybe you're looking for Richard Price 25 years ago. You know, Richard Price before you write Sea of Love, who's written a couple of crime novels, or whatever.

How do you do that in such a competitive marketplace? Because one thing I've noticed, obviously, is that someone will go from making a relatively small indie film that plays at Sundance or plays at South By, and they're making a DC Comics movie the next year. So obviously the development track is much shorter now. So where do you slide in to find somebody who might be the next Phoebe Wallerbridge or might be the next Vince Goeagan? It's a really, really good question.

I mean, the stones are overturned in case. But it's still, you know, there's still actually there's still opportunity. There really is. I mean, I think we talk about this a lot. We were talking yesterday. The amount of first-time creators that AMC has put forward on their shows is, I would suggest second to none in terms of curator brands in television and premium scripted. And we continue to do that.

So even someone like Jason Siegel, who clearly isn't an unknown voice, an unknown creator to give him a platform for his passion project to play out, was the kind of thing we want to do alongside someone like Vince Gilligan who had been working in writer's rooms who have very, very many years perfecting. whatever that incredible craft talent he has. But he hadn't run a show before. Matt Weiner hadn't run a show before. Ray McKinnon hadn't run a show before. So for us and many of the things that we're doing moving forward, similarly, you know, a show called Soulmates that just wrapped recently, shooting in overseas and British writers.

One of the guys is a writer from Black Mirror, Will Bridges, and the other guy, Brett Goldstein, who's a sort of actor-comedian. It's a really original concept. That's their first show. they're running. Equally, Kevin Keneff himself, created by Valerie Armstrong. You know, she was in the writer's room on Lodge 49. That's the first show she've done, you know, on and on and on. I mean, it's sort of what we do. And I think that, you know, it is an interesting moment in TV. There's so much amazing content. I mean, there's so much amazing, amazing work out there.

And we're seeing a lot of big packaged shiny stuff. And we're seeing a lot of, I think, privileging of direct a vision over writer vision. And I think we're seeing a lot of shows that come out of a feature feel because of that that aren't necessarily shaped for television. So I think there's a lot of really good space for us to occupy as we continue to find those writers who have sort of been bubbling away there and help shape their original visions. No, I mean, that's absolutely right. There's one thing I've noticed recently is the, it's not necessarily a qualitative drop-off,

but after the second episode where the producing director has left the series, or, you know, just a stepped away and when somebody else comes in, it's not necessarily even a distinction between whether or not one person is a better filmmaker than other, but it's so filmmaker-reliant that all of a sudden the show feels different in episode three than the first two episodes. So that idea that TV has always traditionally been a writer's media, and it ultimately starts with that. When you're seeing scripts come in, is that coming Sundance or BBC America or AMC, somebody from underneath is bringing that to you and saying, hey, here's something we're excited about?

Or is it the reverse where you're directing scripts to those places and saying, I think this is right for this brand? It's very much coming from the team. Okay. Yeah. So the team really understands what the needs are for the different networks, the different brands, and is sort of developing accordingly. And sometimes we'll have conversations about, or maybe this would sit better there than, you know, but we sort of pretty much know or have a very good shared sense of what's right for a particular platform and what's right for another platform. And equally, how many pieces we're developing for one platform versus another.

Obviously AMC is the biggest. Sure. Sure. When you are, we had a conversation about two weeks ago on this pod that was about, we basically listed. we basically listed everything that was on right now that we were interested in, including dispatches from elsewhere and better call Saul and 10 other things. And then we listed everything that was coming out before March 15th. And I think we got to 8, 16 shows, 15 shows, which for somebody who's a veteran in this industry,

when you hear that and when you think about that, like, how do you even, do you even go home and watch TV at night? You know, I mean, after the day of meetings that you have and reading all the scripts that you have and developing things. Do you then go home and fire up? Oh, I have to catch up with three episodes of this or two episodes of that? I don't... I mean, you have to cut yourself some slack.

Yeah? You know, a couple of years ago. Read a book every once in a lot. Or just watch stuff that is real lean back at times. You know, three or four years ago, probably, I stopped trying to map everything because I couldn't. And it started to feel, you know, it's the obvious thing, it started to feel kind of like a chore, like a duty. So, you know, I struggle like everybody else with discovery. There's sort of so much to watch and yet you're not entirely sure how to find that thing that is exactly right at a particular moment for what you feel like.

So, you know, I think that, you know, we're talking just now about the future writers coming in and the sort of shape of television. And I think that there's a lot that's been so cool with the more formlessness that streamers allow TV. But I also think there's a lot that's been lost. So I find myself often craving shows that are well-shaped. And I think that it is because of the directorial influence. Of course, I'm not minimizing the impact of a great director, but the deprivaging, I guess, of the writer in some ways. and the reliance on stars, on big movie stars, I think, to carry us through things. And look, there's an, there's a, you know, irrefutable pleasure and joy in that, you know.

Right. But I think that I crave those shows that are just really well made and that have lots of different layers to them and that are smart and yet also within the form have a lot of sort of pleasure. A lot of just kind of real sort of joy and verve to them. You know, I think one of the things, I think we try and do at AMC, it's certainly an intention, is to have some heart in our shows as well, you know, and I think, and they're obviously layered, complex stories. They always strive for that. But at the same time, I think darkness is often mistaken for sophistication sometimes in the stories. Yeah, we can have both.

You can, of course have both. Yeah, and Saul's a very funny show, and dispatches is a very heartfelt show. Saul is a great example of having both, I think. Because something like Killing Eve, I think, strives for both as well, you know, and has both to be smart and yet also to be deceptibly a good time had while watching. I want to, before I let you go, I want to ask you, my last thing was sort of just more about how fun it is maybe to play with format. Because one of the shows that I'm really excited about, you mentioned Kevin Keneff himself, which is this sort of play on, and I'm sort of still hopelessly addicted to sitcoms. Like, I find them very comforting to watch, but can tell me a little bit about this show? Because I think it's one that our listeners will be really excited about in the future.

It's ingenious. So it's from Valerie Armstrong, who was a writer in Lodge 49, and it's, it was, I mean, she said publicly it was motivated by a certain sitcom, which swapped out the character of the wife with absolutely no reference to it whatsoever. And she just was, you know, we've all seen it over the years. But it was, it was a moment where she just felt enough. And she was outraged and it prompted her in the best way that Rage does to do something about it and be creative and write a piece that is informed by. the howl of the rage of the sitcom wife. So Kevin Ken F himself starts out like a regular sitcom, multi-cam sitcom, and we're going to be very observant of the form of sitcom. So it's interesting from production point of view this show. And Kevin is sitting in his chair, and his wife is kind of rolling her eyes and seems to be indulgent.

It's the usual dynamic of the centering of this, you know, this sort of buffoon-like. Beliegered guy, yeah, right. You're supposed to find lovable. and the wife who's kind of smarter and sassier, but sort of, you know, is in the periphery somewhere. She leaves the room, you pick up, it's a single cam, drama, she really hates her husband and wants to kill him.

And then it goes back and forth, so the sitcom piece is informed by what happens in the dramatic piece. And the dramatic piece is, you know, it's grounded, it's moving. It's also kind of somewhat picaresque, but has its own kind of, you know, know, premium drama qualities. But the two pieces sort of inform each other. And I love it. I love it because it's such a big swing. I love it because it's ingenious. I love it because it's a show whose theme so informs its form. Yeah. Just beautifully. It's about the rage of the sitcom wife

once she escapes the confines of the sitcom. And it's a perfect metaphor for this conversation where it's like you're sort of grappling with and raging against and also embracing the conventions of TV. Yeah. Yes. And centering the woman two days after Elizabeth Warren was the last female in the presidential race. Yes, yes. Well, we can wrap it up there, Sarah. Thank you so much for joining me on The Watch. And we're so excited to check out obviously the rest of Saul and dispatches and everything else you have coming up. That's a pleasure. Thanks.