Joanna Robinson On Netflix’s Increasing UK Presence, Sharon Horgan’s ‘Youth,’ and ‘Slow Horses’ Season 6, Episode 2.

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Call 1-800-526-7736 to learn more or visit www.tramphyaradio.com For adults with Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis symptoms, every choice matters. Call 1-800-526-7736 to learn more or visit www.tramphya.com for more information. Tramphya is a prescription medicine used to treat adults with moderately to severely active Crohn's disease. Call 1-800-526-7736 to learn more or visit www.tramphyaradio.com. 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 an editor at TheRigger.com. Joining me in the studio, her season one demise was greatly exaggerated. It's Joanna Robinson. It's series one, Chris. Series one. You're right. Well, this is a very Anglophilic pod today, Jo. Thank you for joining me. Andy is out today. We have some news at the top. We're going to talk about Sharon Horgan's new show. I don't know why I seem to pronounce that with like two R's and an I in Horgan, but I'm like- Just to make sure people know she's Irish. Yeah, exactly. Sharon Horgan's new show Youth, the first two episodes of which are up on HBO. We're going to talk a little bit about Slow Horses. We're going to talk a little bit about the unfolding New York Times best of the century list for TV, which we contributed to. And it's like, as we're recording, I think they've revealed up to 20, I believe. I like that. And all I know is Andor's 32, which too low for Andor. Well, I'm sure we have some common ground. We have some diversions. I wanted to talk to you about the act of list making in general, but some news at the top. First of all, how are you doing? I'm great. Here's my question about today. Is this our soft launch for UK, where you and I move to the UK and just talk about British television? You know, over the years, every time I start to work up the courage to really interrogate it, they get a new prime minister and I'm like, let's see how this one works out. You know, so like I'm pretty fired up about Burnham, Burnmentum. I'm feeling the burn. And yet, you know, by the time I start packing my bags, I'm going to go in November. So hopefully we're both going in November. Okay. Yossi's going in November. Didn't Yossi just get back from that? Okay, we're UK. Richard Osman, we're coming for your job. That's what I have to say. Which one of his jobs? Writing cozy mysteries? Yeah, cozy mysteries. Hosting a pod with Marina Hires, you know? Speaking of England, speaking of British TV, which we generally really like and has had such a profound impact on the way that American TV, I think, is made and received and is part of the internationalization, the globalization of TV. They did an upfront, you know, sort of showing their wares for Netflix UK, which was of special interest to me because I am of the opinion that a lot of their shows from this sort of region and this department of Netflix have been kind of keeping some of their prestige efforts afloat. Adolescents and Baby Reindeer. Yeah. And even stuff like Black Doves, which certainly will entertain your John Wick fans. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Sure. I think has a lot of weight to it. And Joe Barton is a great writer. And I really can't wait for this to come back so I can run down sort of the big announcements. Netflix UK. Witch Hunt, which is a dark drama. And these are log lines I'm taking from Deadline. A dark drama about a modern day witch hunt starring Sarah Glancashire, written by Abby Morgan. And you say what? Could not be more for me. This is I'm really glad. These are just for me. Are they not? Did they not say here are three shows for you, Joanna Robinson? A witch show, Sarah Glancashire, an icon. Yeah. We are going to talk about the New York Times list, but I don't know if you did this. Something I did is I when I was looking at the sort of like various luminaries who had made their lists, I was playing a game where I would like look at the list and try to guess like kind of who the person was. Yes. Oh, that's fun. And you know, I was like, oh, this is and you know, you can tell who's from the UK if they have Happy Valley on their list. Happy Valley was on was the most, I would say, represented UK show from what I saw. Yes. If you were involved in one side or the other of Brexit. Yeah. You love Happy Valley. So Sarah Glancashire, an icon for a number of shows. And then Abby Morgan. I mean, honestly, if the hour had been allowed to end on its own terms, it would have been on my on my list, on my top 10 list. I love that. I'm going to check you soon because I think you're going to start saying things like that. And I'm going to have 63 shows in your top 10 list. Had there just been one. I mean, but that's true. Yeah. What can you say? There's so much great television. I didn't love her last endeavor. Yeah, I wasn't a huge fan, but I but it's a witch show. Yeah, Chris, like an actual witch show. And Sarah Lancashire currently kind of a relief pitcher on Black Doves comes on for like, I don't know, like a dozen scenes a year or something like that. Or the Margo Martindale of the American. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And she's great on that. But it's cool to have her back in a leading role and paired with Abby Morgan, which sounds really cool. The other one that leapt off this page to me was Black Mirror, which is not Black Mirror, but Black Mirror. But it is from Charlie Brooker. What's the name of the fictional town? Is it like Bleakshire? It's like it's so this is a very serious, quote unquote, a very serious crime thriller that takes us to a satirical look at serious crime thrillers. So I think it's supposed to be functioning on two levels. It is essentially like a I don't know if it's how lightly it's lampooning shows like Broadchurch and shows these Nordic wars that I love and you love. But Patty Considine is starring with Rory Kinnear and Georgina Campbell. And this is coming in early twenty seven. And it was interesting even the way that they described this in the Deadline.com article where it was going to end up after Black Doves, as if it was almost a like they were thinking through the programming of them. Black Doves into Black Mirror. Yeah, but like in a sense, like the way the HBO kind of programs like will lead you for eight weeks through Lanterns. And then after Lanterns, you know, war will come on. There's always something on HBO Sunday night. Exactly. And I wonder. There are a lot of different divisions of Netflix and a lot of different divisions of Netflix programming and the fact that they're just like if you were to watch one episode of Black Doves a week, people won't do that. They will watch it in a weekend or over the course of a week. But if you wanted to watch one episode of Black Doves a week, it would take you right up to when we're releasing Black Mirror. But to your point, that's so hard to do in the binge culture because they don't know when people are watching their shows and we don't know how to cover their shows. We don't know what people are watching. This is like me telling myself that like I will look at Instagram for 10 minutes a day, you know, and just respond to some DMs. And no, it's awful. I have so many half started sweet potato dishes. And cats that I'm stalking and stuff like that. You know, I'm all up on this this lesbian bar drama in the Western Massachusetts. It's just terrible. Can I say the lesbian bar drama has been the joy of my life? Rocked our household. How are the milk takes for you? Well, on Instagram or the milk? Oh, the milk. The milk adjacent. Oh, yes. I mean, like this is this is rocked our house. Yeah. Deeper than any story. I can't even think of the last time we've been as captivated. Phoebe did text me about it this morning. It was very special. We haven't even started discussing my dating history in Western Massachusetts, which is not legion, but is. But do you think it touches clowns? OK, we can't be sure. I may have to go and do some on the ground reporting and just on the ground. Yeah. OK. Masked up, obviously. But no other way. So people don't know. Boston Globe published an article about a lesbian community in Western Massachusetts that was, you know, very centered around a bar that had been there where they were very COVID conscious to this day. And you know what? The. it turns out that the comment section just blew itself up and this this bar has kind of fallen apart the community has fallen apart over over a lot of stuff it's really got to read it to believe like twitter hasn't been this good in so long and also did you see the boston globe said this was their most trafficked article in one yes which has led to the my gateway to it was everybody making spotlight memes about the covid conscious lesbian bar in western massachusetts and mark ruffalo being like they knew that's my favorite of the tweets that's the best one um goddamn it's just the internet uh so that's uh how did we get on to western massachusetts lesbians i don't know instagram oh when i tell myself i did set a clock for myself as to when we would talk yeah when i um when i'm like oh i'm just gonna watch one if i like the show it's just there's nothing better i i'm i have to hold myself back usually when i have screeners of stuff to like blow to not blow through them which i'm not good at you know and uh i i did i just did that with youth where i was like no watch it with the people don't have like a nope see i i ruined myself you are you are a gay like a real enabler when it comes to this it's true yeah you're the queen of hey if you checked out east of eden i've watched it i've watched all of it um the problem with youth or even something like furious if they put a will they won't they in there it's really hard for me to stop you know and if part of the will they won't they is ripper friend with a scottish accent then i have a really difficult time stopping uh the other show that netflix uk announced uh was hot or cold and this is this is again like if you were going to say sarah lancashire and abby morgan making a witch drama the the opposite side of that coin but still beloved by joe would be a new comedy entertainment format and challenge based game show led by british comedians bob mortimer and richard iot i mean richard and bob mortimer are two of my favorites of all time yes this is a like drafting off of taskmaster richard iot on the current season of taskmaster absolutely and what's the name of the show where they can't laugh uh oh last one laughing yeah of course they're both uh bob bob won the first yeah spoilers spoilers for that the most absurd show i've ever seen the fact that they're like tasks and challenges involved um is very uh taskmaster and they said like a an all-star cast of comedians but they haven't announced who so i can't wait to see who the contestants are yeah this is so for me this is i mean this is just wonderful it's interesting to me it's kind of like what these guys do and it's like so taskmaster i think you can watch on amazon prime in some capacity and youtube and uh last one laughing you can watch on prime prime yeah i would say that for people who aren't familiar with what we're talking about this is uh a comedian a comic version of british bake-off it's so yeah cozy like to watch it like these these shows are like so warm even though they're sometimes spiky and sometimes like irreverent and absurd that i just feel like like it levels out my heart rate at the end of the day we've talked about this before how just uk panel shows which you know include taskmaster or what i lie to you or there's just like a number of versions is just my most comfort youtube rewatch uh situation that's why spoiler taskmaster landed on my top 10 of uh new york times tv list which is insane but like i had to have taskmaster i haven't unscripted one of mine as well yeah but yours is more prestigious than mine i think but but i think that it's so interesting to me to have these up fronts which have to be first of all thank you so much to netflix and and the uk in general for making these three shows just for me um i had not said black mare out loud to myself so the fact that it's well the fact that it is black mare but black mare i hope it's black mare black mare yeah um but adolescence and baby reindeer being such an explosive uh positive thing for them has to be the reason why we're getting such a like a splashy announcement for something like this do you think i i wonder whether or not you know because andy has talked about netflix's efforts to kind of um begin doing literary adaptations and maybe getting back a little bit into the more prestigious television space after a couple of years of blockbusters or um pretty repeatable you know sitcoms and and melodramas and stuff like that and that they might try to like make an effort to be more you know like it feels like they were trying to do heartland sort of stuff yeah i think so yeah they're like we want back in the emmys race and i think they know when they look at the numbers that like something like untamed yeah with eric banna just like does blockbuster numbers for them or something like i mean virgin river was on for like five or six years or whatever it was like they know what people are watching but i think after this emmys after you know we'll see what happens with the oscars like it's been a minute since they've polished any trophies you know i mean i know matthew reese won for a show we're about to talk about but i wonder if if the apple success is you know part of that i think that could be like apple getting forever hilarious that apple got the best picture oscar before netflix when netflix threw so much money at the wall for years to try to make that happen yes and then yeah and then this recent apple uh success and i think as these streamers and these networks continue to try to find their so interesting to watch amazon's identity prime videos uh identity coalesce around this sort of uh ya romance uh thing that they're doing the the apple identity emerge as original wildly original sci-fi horror programming and also dad shows and like sensitive dramedies yeah yeah 30 minute star-driven dramedies kind of yeah and then for netflix which has never had an identity netflix has always proposed where everything yeah you know um i think it's interesting for them to try to put their stamp on one thing or another yeah well the one big award if i'm correct i believe i believe i'm correct that netflix pulled from the broadcast emmys uh last week last week and was matthew reese's trophy for best actor in a limited series anthology or made for tv movie correct uh and then today mere days after the emmys after we all said what a historic victory for an amazing guy wow nobody deserves three emmys at the at the reese household it was announced that the beast in me which was conceived this is from the hollywood reporter the beast in me which was conceived executed and won emmys as a limited series now though netflix has ordered a second season of the show with claire danes set to reprise her role and short showrunner howard gordon returning let me just say this i'm wearing an ace hat but i'm all at the philadelphia and out bullshit this is this is this is bullshit this is horrible yes uh not the first time someone has done this right big little eyes did this for for sure i feel like a couple maybe a couple other limited series have done this but you know with love and respect to matthew reese uh who we adore give that emmy back uh also gives his wife a chance to catch up which she deserves uh that chance but i mean like i can't i can believe they did this but it is it's it's it's flagrant after fx now shogun i believe they announced before the emmys and during the like nomination like what are you running for i believe fx was like shogun isn't going to be is going to be a returning series yes um trying to remember who another i believe hbo did that as well for white lotus no it would be an anthology series so it would be fine yeah somebody else did this big little lies i think big little lies announced that like hey do you don't please don't consider us limited anymore oh no no i think the little lies won in limited and then and i'm sorry i did this and then announced season two so i'm so i think this is horseshit yeah uh i also they knew as somebody who's been watching watching claire danes for nigh on 35 years or whatever whenever my so-called life came out that is 35 years i would not say that uh aggie from beast in me is my like preferred character for her to do a continuing role in like this is just simply not a story that we need more of at all and i'm not even sure it was a story that we needed as many episodes of that we got in the first place so uh i'm curious to see whether or not they changed the tone of the show if howard gordon and and howard gordon's made a lot of really great television shows but like he has shown a propensity in the past like for homeland to put claire danes's fictional characters in the worst possible situations over and over and over again so you know there are certain parts of the first season that i hope don't make the transition oh like which monster is moving in next door yeah i hope this isn't involving her neighbor hood in east hampton i hope she no longer has writer's block and i hope she's figured out whatever is going on in her personal life yeah what about the plumbing in her house that would help this is real only murders in the building i feel like maybe only murders did something like this because that was sort of supposed to be a one and done kind of thing i feel like it was um but that's that's a premise where it's like one murder in the building yeah fine and then we kept going and obviously i stopped watching only murders in the building but like they went to london didn't they like yeah and they went to london and they went to london and they went to l.a like they're branching out but but there were a couple murders in that building and um and so yeah if if uh aggie's neighborhood winds up being a sort of like murder she wrote cabot cove where there's just too many preposterous psychopaths in her neighborhood that would be interesting i hope that they they mix it up maybe she could be on the road maybe she could road trip with aggie aggie goes to l.a like there's all sorts of things i do want to ask you a really bad time so this award that uh matthew reese has stolen from the television academy um who would we give it to that's exactly the other nominees were riz ahmed for bait yeah jason bateman for black rabbit yeah charlie honum for monster oscar isaac for beef i'm giving it to oscar isaac well let me i like the off the top of your head can you think of anyone who should have gotten the nom slot not should have i know that like you know there was a big uh to do over paul anthony kelly not getting nominated for for playing jfk jr but i wouldn't have nominated him so uh no i you know did melton run in supporting for beef i believe you did it was a it was a funky category this year when in previous years it's been sort of there was that era of television when this was all the rage of course yeah you know yeah so uh no i can't think of anyone who was sort of robbed of the nomination yeah i mean there's a couple of shows that i think were in you know they were limited until they weren't you know like i wouldn't have nominated for the nomination but i think there's a couple of shows that i think wonder how much they envision say the lowdown as like an ongoing series when they first pitched it or first conceived of it because ethan hogg's busy and it's like how often can you make this yeah um you know and he had been nominated for the john brown show from good little bird good lord bird yeah um a couple years ago but uh yeah i probably they're they probably give it to the jfk guy they obviously loved him right um i guess i guess oscar isaac i mean i think beef season two was sort of oddly maligned um i really liked it and i thought he was great yeah yeah okay we've gotten to the bottom of that uh matthew reese you're you've cheated us uh your days are numbered yeah i'm i'm i'm boycotting widow's bay uh i'm not you're still quite beloved uh but this is bullshit uh it is funny it's he it's it'll be like a testament to his approval reading that people are like i mean how could he have known of anyone did you hear the story i mean like every single matthew reese carrie russell emmy's story was could not have been more charming but did you hear the answer that he gave when they asked where he kept he keeps his emmys no he says he he keeps the first one and now i guess two and three in the basement okay and he says they'll come out of the basement when carrie has an emmy that's uh that's just like really classy i know that's really classy could not be more charming but i say only two in the basement reese and give the other one that's right um i wanted to ask you a bit a showbiz question yeah please um obviously with the paramount warner brothers merger more or less going through i saw that a judge asked for a stay today to like scrutinize something but yeah by all accounts by everything you're hearing around town like this is happening people are preparing for it in various ways i think everybody is sort of taking a look at the landscape wga settled wga settled but like there is a judge who's like huh let me look at this i don't really know what he can do obviously like the whole world is like in front of judges right now but it seems like this is happening and it seems like there's going to be consolidation and it seems like we're going to be entering i think an arms race a new arms race in some ways i mean i know that there's a lot of debt attached to the paramount deal there's the rumor or the reporting that elon musk is going to be a part of like funding for paramount uh like you can tell by our our the flatness of our reaction there that that's not something that we're super psyched about but i was looking at this story that's unrelated to paramount warner brothers which is that disney plus is upping its subscription fee to 2199 per month with for no ads now i will say that like you can still bundle disney and hulu and i think it's the same price like it always depends on like what you're where you got in and yeah and what you're doing with it and whether you're got the whole disney plus espn hulu package like i think there are still cable packages are back values there but 2199 is so far from i think it was like five bucks when they debuted it or something like that yeah and there's two really important points to make here one i thought of and one you thought of what is what is the what is the ceiling the price ceiling for these streaming services right they can keep saying now it's 4k and now it's now now it's in dolby or whatever and not right which entirely matters on what you've already paid for the crap in your apartment or whatever house they can say it's you know they can start metering it like i don't i don't know like where that the the problem with is that all these companies are structured as publicly traded technology companies now and so like there's gonna have to be constant iteration and constant shareholder growth for them to kind of maintain control over this is there a number in your mind that if you were just like a regular joe joanna yeah and not i need this for my job would just be like why i i think it's already there yeah don't you think it's already there like past 20 bucks is already there per i mean i know streaming service dozens of people in my like normal life who are like i just i don't pay around plus you know yeah exactly well no they all make not they all but like a lot of people pick and choose you know and that sort of destroys our ability to have conversations about shows when people are like oh i don't have that streaming platform or they turn it on and turn it off right is there a new season of survivor then i turn it on if it's not on i turn it off your metering idea was really funny because i just got uh i got just got a flash of a horrible feeling you know how in the when you get sort of if one has central ac in los angeles and the heat uh is heating and you and you turn on your ac and then you get your bill and you're like wow it's really indulged myself in the ac yeah imagine if you're like go through like a depressive phase and you just need to like binge a bunch of television and your and your bill reflects it and you're like wow better what happens when the melatonin hits and you don't turn oh no off or something you're just like 64 episodes of virgin river so that's like a speculation i mean i am kind of surprised that you know they've they've come down pretty hard on sharing accounts on password sharing oh i wonder when contracts come into play interesting like year-long lock your netflix fee in now for two years and avoid any further price hikes wow like that kind of thing netflix is just an example i'm not saying that's gonna happen but like damn i'm look at what disney does to their parks are you saying that that's like no that's i'm not putting anything past these guys the thing that you brought up that i thought was fascinating is you know as we just spent 20 minutes lamenting kind of like what netflix is offering us yeah as you spent we spent like four years getting a bunch of marvel and star wars shows of varying degrees of quality how dare you all that stuff seems to be like the disney thing specifically what are they offering you aside from library right now yeah exactly um it's funny so you know i have a disney plus subscription i don't really use it that often um because i i watch a lot of stuff on hulu so that's not where i watch it i get an alert i do password share come come find me uh come find me anyone at disney but uh i password share with my sister who has kids i get alert every time they log in and i just text her i'm like what are you guys watching it's just like an old they're just like yeah they're constantly on my disney plus love that for them watching old disney stuff because they have kids so like if you have kids and you want access to that library that makes all the sense in the world but if you don't need that then what is disney plus providing for you that you can't get on on hulu and i mean i i think that we talked about this before but i think that it's it's about this about the the shrinking of the mcu and the star wars properties this is like this is bob eiger's big idea right we'll just sort of like we'll win the streaming wars handily if we take our big franchises but what it did is it made these big franchises feel small yes you know uh it just wore everyone out it just it just did damage across the board it was just like one of the worst moves that has ever happened i think in hollywood i also think you know our buddy zach baron just did an interview with maher shalali on on zach's gq show um and i think it's just you know he talked very candidly about his experience make trying to make blade and kevin feige and i one thing that leapt out at me was this idea that marvel's specific approach to making to doing their storytelling and to doing like their kind of creative control over how these stories get told it's pretty wonky on a movie to movie basis but sometimes has its great successes yeah it's catastrophic for tv it doesn't work at all i'm not even sure i understand how it's happened how it's working right now i understood how it was working before and not well but i understood the the system and now the system has changed slightly i think because they're in sort of panic mode in on the movie side so there's less of there they were already stretched too thin trying to handle all of these shows and it just sort of made everything worse yes um but i think once um once they sort of returned their focus to okay if we if we can't make avengers doomsday happen if we can't land it with that if this sony spider-man copro doesn't make a bajillion dollars and it did good job but like then what are we even doing here it doesn't matter if we have wonder man right exactly so wonder man season two uh is canceled uh they just announced that that daredevil is going to end with season three which i think is a is a mercy kill uh as far as i'm concerned and um they've got about two shows that i know of that are maybe in development sure and then there's like some feloni stuff for star wars asoka kind of a is there anything else not really no i mean like after Mandalorian the movie do you go back to TV who knows I know what's Pedro's price tag at this point I don't know but like it's uh it it was a calamity in sort of the live action let's get uh adult fans into uh this space so if we're gonna lean back into like sort of this is for kids you know for kids yeah I like I personally for me personally fan of like the witch show that's coming on Netflix I'm really excited for Vision Quest sure like Vision Quest is something I'm genuinely like really looking forward to but in general the state of Disney uh franchise television I think is pretty bleak and so the audacity of them to bump their their price at this point is is wild to me yeah and then you read you know you read accounts of like people who are going to the parks and they're just like everything is like from the second you start thinking about going to your experience getting there staying there visiting the parks your experience in the parks and getting out like everything is about them maximizing what they can squeeze out of you it's like it's like the master of the house song from Les Miserables yeah where you're like charge you to sit on a bench those parks used to be like and and in some ways like the entire like this is a good analogy for like what streaming was supposed to be versus where we've arrived which is streaming was supposed to be like oh my god now I can watch everything it's at my fingertips uh you know I don't have to live in reruns or DVRs like I can watch all of it and I can watch everything I can watch everything I can watch everything I can watch all of 30 Rock or all of Lost or whatever and that's great and that wasn't good enough so now there's this kind of fractured uh fracturing of all these different properties they're moving between streaming services and the services themselves are like it's been six months we better like knock this up two dollars and I understand why they're doing that but it reminds me of like in my mind flying used to just be flying like you would get on a plane and go and somewhere along the line probably tied with deregulation they were like what if we made everything about flying so uncomfortable that the person who was doing it was willing to pay anything they had to to get out of that yeah to get out of like the experience of whether you know you're flying southwest or whatever you like the the maddening experience of like day-to-day travel and that's kind of like what's happening with streaming where it's like oh like do you want to have like no ads well we I didn't have ads before you know why you're connecting comfort economy comfort plus to Disney Plus it's the same it's the same thing yeah I hear you extra leg room means no ads exactly exactly uh and then I guess if I wanted a good Star Wars show it's like flying first class um and or well that made my list as I I think we share that this episode is brought to you by the active cash credit card from Wells Fargo that's a mouthful but that's because it packs a lot in earn unlimited two percent cash rewards on purchases with it big or small so whether it's buying tickets to the game or grabbing a coffee it earns unlimited two percent cash rewards on purchases say it with me the active cash credit card from Wells Fargo be a two percenter learn more at wellsfargo.com forward slash active cash terms apply fan duel is now available everywhere in the US so you can get in on the sports action no matter where you are including these places make this your most rewarding season ever with fan age and location restrictions apply product availability varies by market see 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guide and to learn more about we go v why wait all right let's talk a little bit about youth which is sharon horgan's new show on hbo uh it's written and created by horgan uh and i would say it's part of a kind of continuum of semi-autobiographical shows that she has written and or created uh or co-created over the last i believe 17 years uh that's when pulling comes out 17 years ago pulling oh it's oh six oh six yeah well it's then 20 years yeah 20 years of tv from her yeah starting with pulling which she wrote with dennis kelly and is about like young singles living in in london uh notably 2015's catastrophe with rob delaney um which was probably most people's introduction to her and her comedy uh she wrote but did not appear or star in and maybe she appeared in it uh 2016's divorce which was her first show with hbo um that was a sarah jessica parker vehicle yeah 2017's motherland which has a funny history where it was a i think an american pilot american tv pilot i believe she was like writing it it didn't work she took it back to the uk yeah made it with a bunch of of her kind of collaborators and uh that ran for like kind of an officey kind of three seasons and two specials and now there's a spinoff called amanda land yeah uh i would say punch my fave motherland is my favorite mother you love motherland well i'll get to why yeah uh horgan has also created like in the recent years like a couple of um more genre experimented experimentation efforts shining veil uh with courtney cox and very successfully bad sisters on apple especially the first season which was fantastic um also 2000 that's right i really love that one that might be my favorite oh it's sister stuff yeah i was you know i wasn't sure whether that was like yeah i guess that is sister stuff so that should go in the category um youth stars horgan as alex a 50 something divorced book agent her on again off again uh boyfriend pat is played by rupert friend uh aaron murphy uh the son of atlanta brave slugger dale murphy really no okay killing murphy's kid uh wait that's killing murphy's kid yeah of course it is wow you just unlocked something yeah uh plays her university-aged son rory uh charlene white plays alex's boss sam owen mcdonald plays her ex lorkin uh there is a in the first episode no big deal a minor damaged men from homeland reunion yes not on screen at the same time but we get damian lewis in a cameo and rupert friend yeah we got peter and martin in this show damian lewis has himself delightful really good uh some like extras energy there in this show youth alex has various catastrophes lol uh brewing at any given time she has professional stress romantic yearning an annoying absentee ex-husband a crisis of confidence about her health and appearance and perhaps most of all an anti-social teenage son who seems to have been kicked out of university during his first week of school this is all kind of like in the first couple of episodes played by killing murphy's kid yeah wow you really got me on that one um let's start with what's your like relationship to her work is this somebody who you have season tickets to do you follow her yes i do um i love her i i think yeah i think catastrophe was my introduction and then i went back and watched pulling um and bad sisters and um i i think what she's done if you look at that 20 year span of of work even starting with pulling because um every show she makes is sort of about a woman doing a thing that you would expect but later than you would expect that's a good way uh so you know in pulling you're like a group of young women sort of singles blah blah and she's like she's 30 yeah you know like she's 30 in that show and then like catastrophe is about this woman who becomes a new mother you know a bit later than than some people choose to is like that it's just sort of like i don't know if it's her taking some time out of her own life bad sisters is about a woman who kills a guy later in life later than you would think yeah start them young that's what i say you know and so i think that um and this certainly like you know this is like a i think a log line they're using is like a coming of age uh you know at 50 or something like that so just sort of uh walk the the way she teeters the line between unlikably self-centered and sort of the only sane person in the room and uh and the way she's telling stories about women i think is is really really fascinating she's fantastic and i think one of the things i like most about her is how prolific she is i always have like a soft spot for people who are um doers and like get like a lot of stuff whether it's produced but just like made and you can kind of see rather than any one you know huge artistic statement it's like a bunch of like singles to left doubles to right that they're like you know i'm working on this and i'm working on that and and when you look at the totality of her work what i just rattled off is a career man like that's incredible that that she's been working for 20 years on this project essentially of kind of documenting her the changes in her life and in her body and in the world around her for this long there's very few tv writers i can think of who have done a similar thing like that and i think it's really important that she's been working on this project and i think it's really important that she's been working on this project and i think it's really important that she's been working on this project and i think it's really important that she's been working on this project and i think it's really important i can't think of anyone who's who's done quite this and you know they're not uh it's not an interconnected universe um at all that being said i went back and watched the first couple episodes of pulling and it's so interesting to watch her in that very first episode of pulling she's sort of like looking at her face in the mirror and just sort of like wondering if it's saggier than it's than it's been in the past or in youth when they wind up when she winds up like late night drunk at a kebab shop like that just feels like such pull you know so there's just sort of like these it's not the same character but it is the same character and it is the same world and like almost nothing's changed between 30 and 50 but so much has changed between 30 and 50 um so i just i i love just sort of existing in her world yeah i like there's a a moment on uh in one of the first two episodes of youth where she's on a bus going somewhere and she sees a much older woman who's quite beautiful but she's looking at this much older woman and absent-mindedly like touching her yeah own chin to be like is my chin sagging like this person and it's just like these little subtle things i think youth is is quite entertaining i'll just say this for the for the show in general we should just always have a show like this on this is like so low concept it's just about a person with a job and a family and a love life and there are like a b and c and d plots that are of varying levels of interest but i was so pleasantly like reminded of how much i like low concept tv sometimes can i ask you have you are you current with adults the effects show where where is your affection level for very high very high okay so i i recently watched season two which is sort of i would say similarly sort of low concept yeah group of friends living together a bit like metazanier but like for episode to episode it reminds me a lot of how i met your mother where they try to do like these formal experiments within the constructs of the episode but maybe not like there's nothing crazy about like a bunch of people living together and trying to make it work in their 20s but what they do within the episodes it reminded me a lot of of of how i met your mother and some other shows happy endings that have done like it gave me real happy what if we do like this completely like left field take on this version of this episode oh like the trip episode but we're going to do the 30 minutes before the the drugs hit and stuff like that yeah yeah um but it was interesting to me and this is probably just a reflection of my age like how much more i enjoyed hanging out in this world versus that world and um but but similarly i just i do think that uh when smart people are writing just what it means to merely exist uh in a very low stakes way and also there's the added benefit of this uh of this show the the professional world that she's chosen which is you know book book agent um is really really fun and and just there's a romanticy book that's like a large plot line i mean i already told you that i watched ahead like yeah it's called goblin seed and it's about like what if the fairy smut but it's a goblin and it's just like so it's like uh having come a bit from the book world and having loved the sudden foster show younger which just spends all this time and in just the ridiculous world of publishing yeah it's really fun to be back there what is the i can't remember the name of the actress who plays it's harriet walter is her daughter and then her mother is like this 90 year old woman who's got a lot of indigenous yes it's a western with a lot of like indigenous sexual violence and they're trying to talk her out of that and it was like i was like who is this person supposed to be mirroring in real life but i couldn't think of who it is i feel like it's like if um is it gina all who wrote clan of the cave bear oh yeah sort of that meets danielle steel but like decades into her career so she's just like whatever uh flew decades ago is not for her flying as well now and also she seems to have lost the plot a bit so she's just like not taking notes yes she's not taking this anyway that all the publishing stuff is really fun uh this is my like i don't even think this is like a note or uh a criticism it's just an observation so i like i said like of all of her shows i think i responded to motherland the most and part of the reason for that is anna maxwell martin is um who everybody saw in star city if if if they got a chance to see star city and is in line if they listen to this show if they respect your opinion she's also in line of duty i believe um she plays the horgan character in that show and sometimes i feel like sharon horgan the actor has an inside track on where things are going with the show because she's also the writer and sometimes like the basically like the gear shifts uh don't work as well for me when she's performing her own writing as when i the few experiences i've had watching her writing for others yeah that's interesting you think she's ahead of her own character kind of okay that's interesting yeah i hadn't thought about it that way um i think there is however to her this sort of like hot girl energy arrogance that like a thinking woman's hot girl arrogance that comes with like particularly who sharon horgan is that i just think works really well for the characters that she's writing yeah i mean there's there's some like pretty abrupt tone shifts in youth and i think that might be if you're like i want like straight up like i want to be like put to like put to bed by this show and i want it to be like really nice and fun london drinking going out and meeting rupert friend yeah it's a little bit with a scottish accent we just like really need to underline that it's a little bit more it's a little deeper than that yeah um and you know like you know she's got aging parents she's got a troubled son she there's things going on that have you heard this i mean probably uh the term sandwich generation no i hadn't heard that but i guess it's the term for when you're still caring for your children but also caring for your parents oh wow so like the fact that her son is supposed to go to uni and she's supposed to sort of like this is my new life i'm gonna get back out in the dating and then he immediately moves back in with her so she's still caring for her son but also has to care for her i haven't heard of that yeah so like the sandwich generation which again like to your point i hadn't heard of that it's little avenues of experience that maybe haven't been fully explored that she's exploring or there's later in the season not a huge spoiler but later in the season like something to do with hormone replacement therapy that is just sort of done in a in a sexy sexual way that just sort of like again these are just stories that not most most people aren't telling no you know and so i just love her for that yeah and and it's told with a a nice degree of like style like you you can see some of the hbo money in the show like it's running around london there's an abitha episode you know like we're we're doing it so we recommend yeah i wanted to ask you about slow horses i'll try to hit this with andy a little bit on monday or maybe next thursday once the third episode airs but i wanted to ask you about the slow horses super story tell me well do you watch this show at all when you're on season six episode two which is the one that aired on tuesday night and you were thinking about it in terms of like what was happening in season one and what was happening in season three and do you think of like a continuity of the british secret services and as depicted in the show are you just like minute to minute or season to season i'm kind of enjoying like a limited story it's a like really complicated question for this show i think because um i think this is the first season where you are meant to be thinking of it as sort of a larger story with the return of olivia cook's character from season one so spoilers she's in trailers and stuff yeah sid's back from season one like hugo weaving's character is back from a previous series um the fact that uh diana taverner is now first desk you know there is some like and and what that pays off for her whole career journey and stuff like that there is just a lot of extra connective tissue this this season or strewn loy you know who who's death peter judge cold cold opens this the series uh back from series one and so i think for the first time you know you know you you read mccarren's books so you know like both his books and this and this sort of um iterative we can write a hundred of these stories depend on characters not changing and evolving yeah uh and and the people who may you know will smith when he was still like making the show like something he would talk about it's just sort of like jackson lamb is a character i don't want to have change and that was sometimes challenging for me as someone who i don't want to have change and i don't want to have change the way i like to talk about story and television just sort of like what's this guy's arc i'm hopefully looking Or is he being a bit nicer to his Joes this season? Like, has he softened a bit? And it's just sort of like, no, he's Jackson Lamb. It's the reason people watch procedural television. They watch Bones just because, like, you know, it'll be solved in an hour and that sort of thing. And so, like, you watch it for the comfort, for the things that don't change. River Cartway will always fuck up. Like, this will always be the case. And then this is the first season, and maybe it's no coincidence that it's under new leadership. But this is the first season where that feels, like, slightly different. Yeah, I mean, so they are, 6 is airing, 7 I think is shot, 8 is shooting or is going to be shot. And, you know, we're running up against a little bit of, like, a shorter runway of McCarran books soon. But McCarran is also, I think, still producing Slough House books. And we've said multiple times, as Gary Oldman has said, like, he wants to do this for as long as they have material for him to do it. But. I do think that the show needed a season like this. Not in, like, a desperate way. I would have watched it anyway. But I think you can tell that the way that Adam Randall is directing this season feels different. Like, it doesn't. Tell me how it feels different. I think it's grittier. And I think it's made. He's depicting, like, a much less attractive London. Like, even though Slough House and a lot of, like, the places that these guys hang out are pretty dingy. Yeah. I find that, like. The sky is whited out. It's been raining most of this season. And I know it rains a lot in London. But that's not cheap. And that's not. Like, you have to, like, basically create your own weather when you're doing that. Yeah. And I think the violence is kind of hardcore in this season so far. The strangulation in episode two. Yeah. I think it's, like, pretty, like. This is what it feels like. We're trying to, like, introduce stakes. It's not James Bond. It's not, you know. And it's also not Jason Bourne. But it is. It feels pretty, like, bare knuckle. I guess is a good way of describing it. And I think it fits the material really well. That's interesting because, you know, you and I had talked a bit off pod about the way in which they were willing to kill characters in previous seasons. Shout out Min Harper now and always. But, like, in a way that felt brutal and upsetting and is a hallmark of the books as well. But I like your point. I need to think about that. About whether or not the act of violence itself, rather than just, like, a clean bullet to the head, is just sort of, like, sweatier and more up close. And. And then what that means for our. It's not just, like, one of our guys could go down in the line of fire. It's, like, they're all being hunted. Yeah. And I think also, I suppose if you were going to throw, like, a blanket description of how Slow Horses usually works. The first three episodes, nobody really knows what's going on. And then the second three episodes, they try to fix it. But this season feels much more almost like almost like a. Like a slasher horror movie, you know, where they're really in the dark about why this is happening to them. And they are almost being, like, erased both physically and digitally. Oh, yeah. You know, legacy wise. And they're they're so there's even Jackson is is a bit confused about what's going on. Yeah. Yeah. He's a bit rattled, which, again, like that does feel like a different place for us to find his character, because him being sort of nonchalant over noodles is his. Yeah. Yeah. Is his like M.O. And that's what we got in the first episode. But in this episode, when he's like, there's a bit of a frantic energy, too. Yeah. And I think even like Diana catches him off guard at the funeral, you know, like he there there are punches that he doesn't anticipate. Yeah. You know, Diana, who is unflappable, seemingly like gets flapped. She got so flapped. Yeah. On camera. Yeah. Yeah. Kristen Scott Thomas does not get nearly as many plaudits as Gary Oldman does, but has also been doing. It's Kristen Scott Thomas. And she's just like on this show. And sometimes. Remember when she showed up on Fleabag? Yeah. But sometimes she's like fifth on the call sheet on the show. And sometimes she's second. And this is a I was very excited by like, let's turn the heat up on Diana Taverner, because like, how does Kristen Scott Thomas play that? It's really Diana. First desk is really interesting for to see someone get what they always wanted. Yes. And we talked about this a little bit on prestige, but something. That McCarran has said about this plot line in the book when Diana finally gets first desk is he's like, I think about the government like I think about a corporation. And even when you become CEO, there's like the shareholders that you have to answer to. There's always someone else you have to answer to. And so and just that feeling of like to get what you've what you've always wanted and then to find out it's your best. This is this place is basically broken. You've got to go out and raise funds to do things. And then. Yeah. I mean, I guess my my overall question to you. It had more to do with when you read, say, Le Carre. There are lots of different Smiley stories. These sort of John Le Carre's most used spy in his fiction. And there is Smiley's arch nemesis, Carla, that they are playing the great game across Europe against one another. And it's very obvious, like they don't say Cuban Missile Crisis necessarily or explicitly, but like. Yeah. I mean, I think that's a very good point. I think that's a very good point. little bit more definitely much more in the favorite camp i i hate i hate what's happening okay tell me about your list because i feel like i just showed up to a party and found out i was the only one who thought it was a costume party oh okay you babadooked yourself yeah okay yeah because i i feel like i was like you thought we were doing best do you want to read your list yeah sure okay your list that you ate it's not that i hate it it's just it is what it is you know i mean like there's no version list it's a good list but there's no version of the list that's there's no perfect list and i see like mina kimes put up about her ballot and it's such a beautiful expression of her passion and love for television i i felt like i was such a special person why am i such like a half like goober who is like you're not a half goober this is a best list that's what you in fact i i think this is uh well your first one is a very you answer and or okay uh breaking bad yeah lost yeah mindhunter yeah the bureau anthony bourdain no reservations deadwood madman succession the wire so when you look at my list which does not have breaking bad madman the wire or succession on it it looks insane compared to yours because yours just looks like here's a record of what we all agree what were the best shows yeah and i have no doubt when we get to the top 10 when they unveil that that those will be in the top 10 yes you were asking me a little off pod like sort of my process of making my list which uh you know rob and i talked about this a lot but i think it's a little bit about our list we tried to guess each other's lists on our show uh that was a fun segment with medium success um but my list in in definitely no particular order is justified game of thrones taskmaster fleabag lost normal people and or midnight mass better call saul and station 11 midnight mass what a curveball i love i'm a flanna fan um but uh what i did is i just started writing down shows yeah and i got to about 30 and it's like carving david out of block of marvel you just start chipping away like what can i lose what can i bear to lose what can i bear to lose which was very painful yeah because like there are at least 50 phenomenal shows it's more like the nirvana monty python getting hacked to pieces exactly exactly but i i think what i wound up starting to do is like sort of what what shows do i feel like shaped me uh-huh so yeah so it became more about like autobiographically me the top 100 shows that shaped you yeah shaped me and changed me yeah then i did uh what was most quote-unquote important and then also i have this demented mindset where i'm like plenty of people will have mad men and and breaking bad on their list so i don't i don't need i should have done that this is like voting uh you know voting green because you're like i i live in a dem state or whatever and like i know it's not gonna matter yeah so i want to just kind of show my support this is my critics choice ballot every single uh year i'm just like what i care about is not gonna matter much uh andy mentioned this when we talked to wesley but it was like there is an argument to be made that the wire and mad men and breaking bad it would have been fun if we had just been like we all know these are probably going to be very high up on the list um and for people who don't know this is very strictly 21st century so shows that premiered before 2000 like sopranos and buffy right not allowed uh are not up for for for voting what would you what would be on your list if like buffy no sopranos no what would be on your list if you could pick one from not this strict time period it's a good question like so specifically 90s yeah sure i don't know i hadn't thought about that i mean there's shows that i've watched them like x files i don't know maybe that's a good answer i don't know that it would have replaced any of these yeah i mean seinfeld yeah like yeah i i think i'm trying to think of homicide probably i think homicide would be the answer yeah but you put so what you did is a combination of two shows that you did that was a combination of like what matters to you personally so i think something like the bureau a show that you have advocated for uh mind hunter yes which is not on a ton of people's list mind hunter was like probably the most flop sweaty it was i think that might have been 10th and that was like if you guys like one for me come on guys what would the like the the fight for 10 was like it was like 50 shows and then it was 20 and like you're you're sort of chipping away yeah but i i went back and forth about whether to have an unscripted show or a scripted show because i'm like if i have one unscripted show then does does like you know like there's 15 unscripted shows like do you get into starting to like open up the gates there i'm surprised and or has been announced i think and or is like in the middle of the pack 32 yeah i guess that makes sense i think i know a lot of people who are like i don't like star wars or i just don't have the time to watch there's also the fear of like recency bias with and or something like that um but i feel like and or should be hired for that reason yeah because it is in is it is one of many ip shows we've gotten in the last 20 years but did something so different and so special with it you know i mean so to me it was like the the biggest one of the biggest like missed cut was industry which i think in some ways is the show of the decade but i didn't put it on my shows of the century list friday night lights justified like there's i know he's bound there's so many shows you don't have any comedies on your list how do you feel about that bad yeah yeah all right dude i don't this is gonna be like here's my list fight me position no no no no i'm like this is i fucked up like what would do you want to try to like put together what your list would be if you could just be yourself no but i am being myself like we like this is the thing is just i'm not that interesting or there's just like maybe i'm not that interesting i'm not that interesting i'm not that interesting maybe i am a little bit too much inside of the hive mind but the wire is i think the best show ever made i think deadwood is i don't disagree the best written show i've ever seen like i think we're having similar agitation though because i feel so stupid honestly when you sent me you texted me my list with apropos of nothing this morning you texted it to me not saying hey should we talk about this you just said like hey so your list is this right and i was like bracing for you to be like what a stupid fucking list honestly because i looked at it and i was like what i wrote back to you is it feels insane when i see it written out like that but i can only be myself but like no mad men no breaking bad no the wire are you kidding me like i think that you promote you yours is more of a personal expression of tv passion and mine is half of that and half of critical hive mind like well let's all be honest like how can we not now i will say wire and breaking bad and succession i have deeply personal relationships with mad men i adore i i was never like in that 99th percentile of like decoding mad men to read the secrets of the like all of western culture i'm like what does all the blue mean yeah exactly like i i also have not re-watched mad men but i do i do think it's like an absolute masterpiece lost was for me a pick like what you're saying which is you weren't with me on the streets when lost was out oh man you guys don't know you don't know how much egyptian mythology i love on the fly while watching completely unnecessary deep old testament biblical name studies yeah that then that character would just disappear and never be mentioned again and i was like a week of my life to find out what ruth meant it's true you know yeah um but the the stranglehold that that had it was lost or thrones and i went with lost and i put both because well part of that too is thrones was actually really close to being cut from my list um not because i don't think it was a great show it's just sort of like but i just could not in good conscience given how much i mean yeah part of that is like what has covering this television done for us and there are certain shows that we've gone deeper on than others and thrones is is one we have in common but like um you know yeah for you industry for me um you know doing a re-watch podcast of lost and i spent so much time thinking about lost similarly justified was the first show i ever officially recapped and so it forever has yeah so it like forever has this like i was recapping uh yeah justified at pajiba.com and then i got like started recapping sons of anarchy at vulture and the good wife i almost put the good wife because like i was recapping too that was in the good way the long list for vulture so like you know that time you spent marinating in a show and overthinking a show it broke my heart to leave westworld off but westworld just became such a mess at the end of it if you were a character on westwood they could just fix the heart and put it right back in you know you would have been all good my mind fall yeah but i spent so much of my life invested in westworld season one and trying to figure out westworld and i was just like it has to have been worth something right true detective season one is probably the one i regret the most i saw i believe i believe it is as season one has been listed so far oh so they're portioning it out as seasons true detective yeah see it's number 35 season one that's a that's a cheat new york times i did not know that we were doing that's some real matthew reese limited series bullshit no one told us we could just portion it out as a so i was like look i defend season two i like season three i love season three and i think season four because it's an anthology show then i could put far i would put fargo season one probably high up there you know what i mean yeah there are particular seasons of shows that i would happily put one way or another but like i thought we were if we could subtract season two from friday night lights that would be great you know like that would be great i think that would be great um i'm sure jesse plummins would agree so yeah that's i think your list is great I think your list is great. I don't think you should feel bad about your list. Everybody's lists are great. I just, I think I wish, I wish I had been a little bit more interesting. You are always interesting. I think I would love to see the, like, Chris Ryan's most Chris Ryan list. If it involves the Bureau and industry and a few other of your, like, absolute, like, darlings, I would love to see that list as well. Okay. Maybe I'll come up with, like, the second 10. Yeah. But I'll tease that for another episode. Stretch that content, baby. Make it work. Thank you so much for doing this with me today. Thanks for having me. Prestige TV, House of R, is where you can find Joe. And we will be back on Monday with Lanterns and some other stuff. Greenwall remotely. And thanks to Kai and Kaya. And talk to you guys soon. Have a great weekend. This episode is brought to you by Whole Foods Market. Now, this is a player in the food space that has championed winning food standards and quality since 1980. That means no added growth hormones or antibiotics in their meat and no synthetic nitrates or nitrites in their deli meats, hot dogs, or sausages. Plus, all their seafood is responsibly farmed or wild-caught. They've even banned some ingredients store-wide to make sure there's nothing to mess with the flavors you want. Shop Whole Foods Market in-store or online. This is U.S. Bank's Cozy Cashroom. With your chief financial playmaker, Fernando Mendoza. You are worthy of financial security. Budgeting is not restriction. It's freedom. You are smart. You are capable. You are giving your money a purpose. You are learning the language of saving, of growing. Now streaming. Member FDIC. Copyright 2026 U.S. Bank.