Summer Mailbag: Bad TV Theme Songs, Historical Events As Miniseries, and Book Recs

Hello and welcome to the watch. My name is Chris Ryan. I am an editor at TheRanger.com. And joining me in the studio as always, it's Andy Greenwald. Oh, well, we don't have a show that we're talking about today or any one given show. We don't have news that we're doing today. He's a mailbag episode evergreen. I will be in parts unknown when we're this is airing. So we thought we would do a little summer mailbag. That's fun because the next show will also be about parts unknown. That's exactly right, brother. Good at this. And it's great to see you today. We have a lovely mailbag from our listeners who contacted us through Instagram where they can hit us up at the watch pod underscore. And also through email where they can write us at the watch at Spotify.com. Before we get into the mailbag, which was very good, do you think we should do any, like, just future casting or future proofing of this podcast because we're recording this the week before it will post? So for example, we could both react with surprise and delight at the revelation that Sadie Sink is playing just a Sandra Day O'Connor in Spider-Man brand new day. Like I. That was bold. Do MCU is in fact the Supremes and that it's shot it was shocking that they are actually read somehow Thurgood Marshall has returned that the whole project is actually reboot a stable 90s political culture. Oh, sure. Yeah. Who will stop supervillain strong thermon this time? That would be really an interesting pivot. I do feel a little bit bad. So this is going up Monday, the previous Monday show, I feel like I was a little hostile towards Comic-Con. You were. Yeah. I feel like I mean, I just, I wasn't trying to like y'all can anyone's yum or harsh anybody's buzz. Who's got to you? I just feel like I want, you know, like, I just, I know that people, like, I know that there are some still, like, really sincere fans of the MCU and I sometimes need to stress the fact that you and I are not coming at this from like, jocks in the cafeteria's perspective. Speak for yourself. Okay. But more from like a, we want better from it perspective. Now, I hear that. I do want to reflect for the record that I was on the JV tennis team. Yes. So that's fine. I don't think I was negative enough about it. Okay. So I think that we sure choosing a different track here. We can jump into the questions whenever you want, but yeah, like basically, uh, insert Spider-Man brand new day take here, uh, insert lionist season three take there. Do you want to just guess? I don't think it, it comes out. I believe August second or something like that. What is your pre take? Well, it's time the enemy is within what? It's almost if they've taken everything away from her and it's sort of like lionist heel myself. Oh, no. There's a problem in the pride. What did you see that the trailers are like, uh, no, I'm a sloppy there to and her husband in therapy together, which I thought might appeal to you. I'm interested. Okay. Hold on. How much of the show is that? A risky fan that you are. Do you think they bring like like giant rifles into therapy? Can I tell you something? Yeah. Lioness was just couples counseling. I would be out. Okay. I don't think that's worth it. Share it in strength. Do you think it was about like lion V lioness and it's just about two wild animals, but they're people and they're trying to figure it out on the serengeti of an upper west side of part of it. I think the idea is that Joe, uh, who is sort of the head of the lioness program in the lioness. Zoe Saldani. Zoe Saldani, is that her, uh, trespasses abroad have washed up on domestic shores, you know what I mean? Hmm. Yeah. The word home. What would be the limit for you of a partner of a wife's international war crimes? If it was like understood on your wedding day, that Phoebe, like, God was understood between her, Joe and her husband, though, played a day of Annabelle, but it's like, as far as I know, and it does sound like the war is now within. So I, I, I get that. Yeah. But from what I understand and what I've seen of the show, she's not exactly, didn't you watch like the whole second season with me? I maybe, did I tell you that I did? Are do you only dabble with lioness that you watched along with me? We would have had so much more content if I did. Oh, okay. Because you were like, this is actually like a grotesque. I made it through like the fourth episode and I was enjoying Dave Annabelle like healing a child's like scarred visit, you know, but then I think he's a heart surgeon or something. Well, that's why he did a bad job. I'm not worried about it. But my point is that at least I didn't see her ventilate dudes on American soil, do you know what I mean? So, so do you, I'm just, just hypothetically, like, would you be okay with that? She does do that. Now she does do that. She has done that. Yes. I believe so. I see. Yeah. Within the continental 48 you giving the most know a bomb back toned line reads of famous rap lyrics. It's going really good. I think it's a good victory. Have you noticed that? You know, a lot of these questions are very Andy, Andy Heavy, Andy Coded. You're a divisive bubble of a trigger and like Sandra, Sandra Dale Connor. So let's start with one we got from Instagram from Sharon Joy's 76. So we've had Daddington Andy watch and react to euphoria. Yes. And Landman for good friend, I am for, hey, you want to make some recommendations outside of animated stuff from the what 90s, 80s ones have from, it doesn't matter. What current Daddington shows or Andy only faves would Andy get CEO to watch and react to on the pod aside from spirited away, which wasn't the wreck. And also is a bit like I recognize the glory and brilliance of Miyazaki and animation. And tempo. Yep. Which is not animation. But you liked it. That's a good question. Thank you. I, I should note that the glory days of Daddington Island are sadly in the past. It's subprime because the, the children, Chris, they age and they age quickly. And so my younger daughter's animated input is, is really just Simpson's now. Yeah. Which is really fun. But my. The late period substance, right? Well, I've said this. Like she is, it's kind of, I feel like there's a little bit of me in this. If I may, because she is dedicated to the project of diving for pearls in seasons 31 through 37. Right. And then being like, this one with John Malaney is kind of funny. And then we watch it. And I'm like, that was kind of funny. But there are actually some very good ones in there. But then last night we watched, she, we watched two that she recommended. And then I was like, what about also we watched this one from the 90s in which Homer adopts a monkey to be his personal helper. And then the monkey becomes an alcoholic. And she was like, these are much better. I did feel good about that. But, but anyway, my point is, my 13 year old though is now currently, as we speak, alone at home just crushing Bridgerton. Yeah. So, which I think you've watched, so you could talk to her about that. I've not watched Bridgerton. I think I watched like a couple of episodes of the first season. And Outer Banks. Do you watch Outer Banks? I watched the first season of Outer Banks. Did you? Yes. With my wife. Wow. She's, well, you guys should talk. New season coming. Anyway, but I do have a real answer, which is, I, I still think. The blue is one of the great masterpieces of our time. I'm just not going to watch it. I have to be completely honest. I, I think this is a mistake. These episodes are seven and a half minutes long. It's not that the amount of time the episodes take. Oh, it's, I mean, like I, this is a big loss for you. I, I know it is, but so is not having children, you know, so there has to be some advantages. You know what I mean? But this is a disadvantage. No, it's, it's like a time-saving hack, you know? I'm also realizing, I'm realizing that I've gone about this the wrong way. I foolishly, every few months come into this studio and I attack you with a battering ram of like animated content and you resist. And then every so often, it will be a reference to some animated project like that movie Flow. And you'll be like, yeah, watch that. Yeah. And I'll be like, well, why did you watch that? And you will say, my wife wanted to watch the thing about the cat. Yeah. Is there a cat in blue? It's dogs. That's the conceit. Yeah. I don't realize I'm talking to the wrong member of the household. Sure. I mean, if Bluey's about Timothy, I'm sure she's going to want to watch it. But like, can I for the record state that Phoebe texted me about Timothy on Sunday morning? I've never said that word out loud and I've no opinion about it. But Phoebe still wrote to me about it. I'm opinion, could you have about Timothy? Anti. Really? Are you deferming? I don't even know what it is. What is it? It's a deformed raccoon. It's a raccoon with a spinal problem. Deformed? We don't use that language anymore. We don't use the D word. Is that cancelled? No. You don't know about raccoons. You don't know the form. You can't say something's deformed. I just think Timothy is made in the image of the god that created him and it's beautiful. Okay. Metalist. Let's keep rolling. All right. So Bluey is my assignment. Oh. And it's like 43 seasons, but each episode's five minutes, right? It's three seasons. Each episode is seven minutes. But I was like, but the other thing is like three seasons, seven minutes, how many episodes are there? Like 20 per season. You don't have to watch it all. It's not serialized. I'd actually not plan. I'll try and bang that out. I'll give you two. I'll give you two. Watch bus for the comedy and watch sleepy time for the holy fuck. Do you know what I'm going to do? Yeah. I'm going to fucking watch it. Yeah, dude. All right. I'll watch two episodes of Bluey. This is the angriest I've ever seen you. I love it. But the question was also like Andy only faves and I was like, if not Bluey, I would love for you to join me on the Saul Bello project. I've done adventures of Augie March when I was closer to Augie March's age. Yeah. a lot of this is going over my head and I don't know that I finished it it was like call it. - Now they're more like, Ravelstein's age. - I feel like we can really appreciate the novel. - I wish I knew you were reading that you liked, but you're like chipping away, right? We have a lot of book talk. - Yeah, it's humble to get to reading right now. It's awesome, it's really heavy. - Also, Kaya, like if you've got like three or four wrecks, like dial 'em up 'cause I'll get to the question soon. - I really enjoyed this question from Kaz Derms, and I did check to see that it was K-A-Z-D apostrophe, so that's Kaz Derms. - Okay. - Are we flying too close to the sun by connecting the mayor of Easttown and task universes? This is my heat too, and every headline I see puts a pit in my stomach. There's no glory with no risk. That's what I say. - Have you always said that or just today? - I just, it's like, let's take the seat belt off every once in a while, and let's figure it out. I have confidence that because those two shows are so tonally linked, even if they're not narratively linked as of yet, and obviously they're geographically linked, they're culturally linked within the sort of area it's shot. - I do think that there will be places for that to happen. This is in reference to Julian Nicholson, her return to the Ingles Biverse as the same character that she played in "Mary," I can't remember her name, but very dramatic park for her. And I personally, with the help of Nick from "Bad Brother," I think we see some, somewhere where this could happen. How could this, how she could be brought in? - You guys cracked the code. You were talking-- It's just thinking about shared experiences between characters on both shows, but I understand what Kaz is saying. It's like we desperately want things, and then when we get them, it's very nerve-wracking. This moment before it happens is the worst. - I understand the concern. - Or perhaps the worst will be when "D" Aged Al Pacino appears. - That's exactly right. I don't think, I appreciate the comparison. I don't think it's similar for two reasons. One, 30 years separate, one and two. One is deeply entrenched in the cultural of the cultural imagination. Mostly thanks to you and your friends. - I think you would have gotten there eventually. - I think you helped. I think you played a part in "The Legend." You're like Travis Scott in "The Odyssey." You're like two men, a diner. - Oh, thank you. A job. - Yeah, dude. So there's the 30-year gap, which makes it challenging because it's gonna be different actors, or it's gonna be weird Irishman D.A.G. stuff. - But the other thing is that Michael Mann, I know that he is the credited screenwriter and that he's the credited co-author of the novel, but he is primarily a director who thinks in terms of vibes and what he wants to shoot. Whereas the "Johniverse," if you will, the Red Anglesby is creating, is entirely his doing. And it's in the moment, and it's all a product of what he wants to tell and how he wants to tell stories. And so I don't really think there's that much tonal divide between "Maravie's Town" and the-- - Sure. - There is a sense. There's a somberness, a seriousness, a appreciation of natural beauty, religious reflections, surprising humor. I mean, it's not the same show, but it's the same engine behind it. So I think it'll be fine. - I completely agree. Let's go to Oliver's question. And we have a couple of agency adjacent questions, which is good because we talked about the agency on last Monday's show. As I'm watching the season of the agency, I'm curious about how you guys feel about real geopolitical situations integrated into fictionalized series and how writers room select and approach them. Do you think after the show is shot in the US and Vade's Iran? They're thinking, oh shit, the world we crafted just got broken by reality. Or is it a boon as more people than ever are interested in the topic? Curious Andy has any first-hand experience navigating this or what it's doing for your own experience of the show. So, correct me if I'm wrong, but the agency is a recent period piece, right? - Yes, they have intentionally said it, I believe, in 2023. - Yes, so this season. I don't think the Iran war exists in this season. And obviously, a character from the show spends some time in Tehran undercover. - And a lot of the conversations in Tehran, much like they were in the in Libero, are about jockeying for advantage when Iran opens up, when sanctions are lifted, when the world can take advantage of their oil, basically. So, in there talking about like, oh, in 2030 in the blah, blah, blah. The reality has invaded the show. - Do you think to its detriment? - No, because I think they made that decision. - What happens on the agency is of little concern to like the actual like, what's happening? - You think he pickseth is like when Linus ends, his favorite show, and then this comes on. No, he doesn't like Linus, 'cause. It's women. - When someone told him the main character was named Joe, and he was psyched, he was like, oh, no. I don't think that it's relevant in this case, but that was a smart, if not overly conservative decision, that they made. - Yeah, I would imagine that it is incredibly difficult to write contemporary, like ripped from the headlines series that are set in the current moment. It would almost be easier to write something in this, in this vein that's like recent nostalgia, being 2023, or maybe speculatively in three years in the future. I think you can see a lack of comfort with, how do we tell the story of the current global landscape? - I think two things. One of the advantages La Biaura had was because it was about the French secrets, foreign service. There was built-in, I mean, this no disrespect to RME, if you will. I'm gonna keep, because I've noticed people are like, oh, and he just wants to speak French. I actually don't speak French. I'm just completely being an asshole, bluffing. Years of Spanish dog. - There's built-in element of like Rosencrantz and Guildenstein to it, in the sense that they are-- - Nobody likes us, nobody believes in us. - And we're adjacent to the action. We are caught in between the really, really world-moving powers. The challenge, and ultimately why I think the agency was smart to retreat slightly was because anything the US does becomes news in a major way. That said, I did have a really interesting conversation a week or so ago with a pretty prominent producer of prestige television who has a real problem with the contemporary spy shows that are suddenly becoming more prevalent because all of them, in different ways, have run from the present moment. Either they are period pieces to varying degrees, imagined histories, I guess, like Star City, or Slow Horses, which the whole log line is, we don't matter so much. - Yes. - And even Slow Horses is mostly dealing with cases of the past. It's a lot of cold cases, things coming back. - Cold cases, older spies who have wound up dead, why would they have, what secrets did they have? - That said, I did feel like it was, its weakest storyline was the most recent one in which there was the mayoral election that was being tried to be engineered by the right wing to look like, I think, as long as terrorism, right? - Yeah, I think it struggled with that. But I, so I think it's an easy criticism, it's not an easy criticism to make. I think it's an interesting criticism to consider, but the flip side of it is what show, we just haven't figured out how to do anything with the current moment, whether it is compelling international spy fiction or spy drama or satire, honestly. - I think in a lot of ways, Trump is beyond narrativeizing. - Yes, so I can understand that. Matthew asks, the success of the agency, we're making Libero, Star City giving the Russian take on for all mankind. Let me just stop you there, Matthew. I would not necessarily call those successes. We talked about them, but as we desperately await either one or both to be renewed by Apple or Paramount respectively, I think maybe this, this is actually a separate conversation as to whether or not, you know, those things made things a little too complicated. But the success of the agency we're making Libero, Star City giving the Russian take on for all mankind and the upcoming, the Koreans being a foreign spin on the Americans made me wonder whether other TV shows could get a twin quote unquote. Personally, I think Friday night lights twin with another sport would be incredible. Being Canadian, I'd vote for Hockey. Andy feel free to pitch a twin, twin peaks. - It would never. - I like the idea of this twinning and I like the idea that you could take a series and just say what was happening on the other side of this wall or on the other side of this conflict or on the other side of town. Did you have anything that left out at you? - Well, I thought it was just important to distinguish 'cause he mentions like Koreans in the Americans, like there are many international adaptations of shows, some successful, some not. Like there are formats that have traveled the world and that would be an example of that. So I couldn't come up with too many international shows that I would want a American translation of because the TV market is globalized anyway. So like call my agents, which was pretty good French show did get an English version, like a UK version, but it was kind of redundant because people had watched the French version 'cause people are no longer allergic to subtitles. The idea of a twin though of like telling the other side of the story was pretty interesting. And so I, in terms of international versions, though I was like, I'm sure there have been iterations of this, but could we do cheers, but in a pub? (laughing) Like why haven't we done that? Haven't we been trying to do that with our Instagram reels? - That's what I'm saying. - Listen, I'm piecing it together myself. The other one though that occurred to me was, the shows that are, I would say they're not in dialogue with each other, one person is talking to the other one and one person isn't, is Mike sure did Parks and Rec because he was obsessed with David Simon's The Wire. - Yes. - So I kind of wish that we could just swap them. Just give Mike sure a-- - At least our city to build not just in the Parks and Rec Pawnee way, but like a major coastal city. He'd probably want to do Boston. - Right. - And then build it not like-- like Brooklyn 9.9, like he did with one police station, but like actually do something as ambitious with the sensibility. - Right, like Dickensian. - And then I, David Simon would probably never do it, but what if we put him into a smaller department, not in-- - Oh, like a small town sheriff? - Maybe, or like land management or something. Like what, take him out of his comfort zone. - Land management, you say. - Land management is the formal name, please. Land management with my father, call me Landman. - For some reason, my mind goes to Andor with this. - Oh yeah, cool. - There are two stories from Andor, one would be like Andor from critics POV. - Oh, darn it. - I just like Ben Mendelsson, so I wouldn't mind seeing about a story about a guy who's trying to build something ambitious, you know? - You know, that's actually what Miyazaki's the win rises is about. - And then the other one would be something called like partisan, which is about Sagraera. - Now, those aren't necessarily like twin shows, but I, and I know maybe some of the Sagraera stuff shows up in the animated shows, but I just think, you know, Behemoths doesn't work out. Maybe Tony could come back to the year. - What is the Andor, I mean, this was a conversation in every major studio of the last three years. What is the Andor of other IP? Like what is the way in? I don't know if we can do this from just cold. - Do you mean the adult version? - In-depth version of, you know, like the, you know, the writers of Rohan or whatever, the horsewomen, like what if it was that? - They did that. - No, but what if they did that, but it was like luck? Do you know what I mean? It was like HBO's radio. - Did you notice writing about like the horsemaiden? - It's really about like the horsemaiden, the horsemaiden. - Did you have one for twin Twin Peaks? Is there like a other side of Twin Peaks? - No, 'cause I just think it's funny that he hit that question because I was, I promise you I don't do this, but I did yesterday revisit a column that I wrote in 2014 when Twin Peaks, the return was announced. And it was like a breathless all, just honestly, I don't remember if we're being this happy about anything, but it was like a mailbag styled about Twin Peaks, why it's happening, why it matters, why everything. - Like a FAQ or something like that? - I kind of was doing a mailbag and I had two Twin Peaks questions in the news broke and then I just made up the rest of the questions. No one's ever done that before. We actually have it, but these are real. But anyway, the thing that I was trying to articulate then and is only true or now post the return is, Twin Peaks is not special agent Dale Cooper eating pie, it is David Lynch and Mark Frost of course. So you can't do it, there's no other version of it. - From Michael, hi guys. - Hi. - One of my favorite slow burn bits on the pod is when Andy finally engages with a piece of culture way after the world has moved on. Some of my favorite examples, Andy watches the last dance and gets into the conversation within it, it's pretty good. Two plus years. - It was good. - After everyone stopped talking about it. The makeup watch of Chernobyl and most recently when Andy was a brave boy and watched weapons, my question is, what is something people are talking about now or is recently happened that Andy will dip his toe in long after the cultural moment has ended. - LeBron James joining the Sixers. - I have to tell you something. - Yeah. - I didn't say this last week. - Okay. - You have about two weeks to get excited about this and it's pretty soon I'm not gonna let you enjoy it when it's happening. - Listen, I thought a lot about-- - You're gonna be taking off some group chats. - First of all, the only sports group chat I'm on has three members, so that is vicious. Second, we recorded the episode yesterday that you started with LeBron News after the week you go now for your listening. And I did some soul searching after I got home. I really thought about it. And I think the truth is I was afraid to believe because then when I was thinking about it more and I was seeing pictures like the Sixers official announcement, I really think that I thought it was some like AI false flag. Like I don't think I really, really believed it. - I wonder whether or not just to tie it back into Michael's question here, LeBron is weapons. Like LeBron is the last dance. Like LeBron coming, it's just too mainstream for you. - It's not. I'm pretty fucking excited. (laughing) I'm pretty excited. I think that what I was trying to articulate was the psychological journey of the last 10 years of being a Philadelphia basketball fan. It's so psychotic. - Well, they're the ones that you can quit. You see, I feel like those are the guys that you've, the Sixers are the team that I feel like you've been like, I won't be sampling this this year. You know, like it's true. - Yeah, but the fact that the two track thing, one is like, it's incredibly exciting from a basketball perspective. What our hero Mike Gancy has done just a few weeks, honestly. - Yes. - The second thing is, it does matter to me in the way it matters to all the people who are screaming on Broad Street on Instagram that like people don't choose to do this. - Not ordinarily, no. - You know, and so I think that I have, despite not living there for, I haven't lived in Philadelphia for 30 years, but like I think there's some sort of like, second little brother, second class kind of mindset. - I think I did a little bit like, what Philadelphia are you referring to? - She couldn't, surely it couldn't be the same one. So I am. - You are excited. - I'm pretty excited. - Okay, 'cause I, I feel like you probably, it's just one of those things where like, you're so granular now with your Philly fandom, where you're like, oh, like Jalen Carter's contract extension. - You see? - That news just broke. - Yeah. - I almost texted it to you while you were talking. 'Cause that's how excited I am about that. - In any case, what is something that's happening in this moment, in the last few moments that you feel like you'll check out in 2028? - You know the answer. - Election night. (laughing) - What else could I possibly be doing? It back rooms, right? It has to be back room. - I think back room's an obsession. - I think obsession, I think was the skip bailous meme. We're good. I think we're good, respectfully. - I don't like stuff like that. That's not for me. - What do you think it's like? - Well, I read the Wikipedia. - It's seven minutes long, there's a dog. Actually, there's a cat. (laughing) - Careful. But back rooms, I'm very interested in. - I actually think you would have way more to say and way more to think about with obsession. - Because I'm a hashtag ally? - I just think it gets into some really interesting dynamics about human relationships. - Okay, keep going. - Back rooms is like, do you think you know what back rooms is about? - I don't know what it's about. I understand aesthetically, I believe what it is. - I will say, I think you could handle back rooms. - As do I, that's why I feel-- - A obsession I think you would be a little queasy at places and you would also be like, this is mad uncomfortable. - To be clear, I've read everything that happens. - Oh, okay. - I did the, I usually reserve this for Ari Aster films, both his horror movies and his comedies. I just read the Wikipedia. - Yeah, but we'll get Andy on the 2026 Indie Horror Blockbuster Train. - Is there something else that I miss though, majorly? - There isn't, there hasn't been. I think we've been pretty consistent. I don't think I've done, like there hasn't been like, oh, I've done big picture three times about this. Like, Andy, and you're just like, I won't be seeing that. - I've been doing the work. - I think Resident Evil, which is coming in September will be an interesting test because I saw Zach Kragger said it is grotesque and incredibly bloody. - Yeah, I can't see that in the theater, I don't think. - Okay. - But I am interested in seeing. - Okay, I'll report back. - I'm sure you will. You'll be on the big picture three times to discuss it. I can listen. - I just thought this was a great observation from a listener from Luke. - Okay. - We have some of the most terrible theme songs ever in prestige television right now. - Preach. - Luke, you're so fucking right, brother. Strange game from Slow Horses. That song sucks. I don't want to hear it anymore. This is a problem with the Slow Horses being on for seven seasons. Is you still have this really, really made Mick Jagger song? - Yeah. - The Joneses from your friends and neighbors, which-- - Unbearable. - I also don't like. And number one here, love is blindness on the agency, which is just a hard skip for me. - Instant skip. - What makes me mad about all of these strange game and love is blindness is it's Mick Jagger and Jack White. - Yeah. - You couldn't find one other thing for these guys to do. And I think what shows need to get back to first of all. So he goes on about, they've been bad. They're on for so long. They are also all performed by a love regarding musicians, doing their absolute worst work. (laughing) Every Slow Horses episode ends on a horrible note when Mick Jagger says, it's a strange game. - Yeah. - How is this happening? What could we do about it? We need to get back to getting a theme song that has variations from season to season. Like the wire went down on the hole. I believe true detective has rift on some of its central like themes, if I remember correctly, but has always changed its music. - The leftovers did that too. - The leftovers. I don't know what is happening. I don't know who the guy is, who wears like a quarter zip, who's like, Jack White, the kids love him, you know? And like puts them on the agency. - I do, who? I mean, it's, people have bad taste. And sometimes people can be good at making TV and have bad taste in music. And I think that we have to get back to an era when there was someone, like for years, you know, she still works and does great work. But like Alex Pizzavis was a woman who worked very closely with Josh Schwartz, who does have good taste on the OC and all of this shows. And she made being a music supervisor kind of cool. And it's okay if you are deep in the weeds of production or post-production that you aren't keeping up with, you know, rap caviar in your spare time. Like it's okay to have someone around you who you trust, who you share a Venn diagram of some taste with to be like, check this out, or maybe this. It's fine. - It's fine. Honestly, with respect to all these people, I generally would blame the showrunners here, because the buck stops at them. - Because the buck stops at them. The job, there are many core aspects of an impossible job, but one of them is you hold a loft to the chalice of taste of this whole thing. Yes to that, no to that, and no one can understand your exact opinions about it. And it's not just that if the agency's bad music decisions and needle drops stopped with the opening credits, I would say okay then, this is clearly like a high-level, produce story. - Danielisson is just like, I've got Jack White on the floor. - Or Clooney was like entertaining him and like, Como was like, he really likes, he really likes Octong Baby, and I'd be like, who among us? - Yeah. - The problem is this season, which we raved about recently last week, ends with the fucking Johnny Cash cover of Hurt. - Yeah. - Come on dogs. - I mean, that's a incredible song. - Yeah, but it's lame AF to end a season of television. - Where it spies Hurt. - Just like Gigi's Hurt right now. It's, or like when, I know you love Poppy on the agency, the daughter, when she was crying over a breakup, and there was like a long scene if I was listening to Phoebe-- - I like kids. I like kids. I don't want to make it sound like I'm not like-- - Don't talk to me, talk to them. They don't believe you. - I don't want them to be like, I'm an ogre of some kind. - The allegations are out there. - Yeah. - But, you know, the scene when Poppy was crying and retreated to her room with her phone, so she could just crush seasons of Bluey. You were like, this is stupid. - Yeah. - No, she was listening to Phoebe Bridger's in that moment. I'm like, come on. - What should she be listening to? - I just think, be more interesting, do better. Do better, guys. - One of the things they don't like-- - But we got away from theme songs entirely and now we are over corrected in the other direction. - One of the things I don't like about, specifically Love Is Blindness and Strange Game, is that they make no choice with those songs. - Yes. - I was thinking about what the agency could have done to spurs things up a little bit, and I don't think that in the advertising, or even in the way that we've talked about it, we didn't communicate what a slick thriller it was as compared to the Bureau. And, you know, I moaned a bit about like, "Oh, there doesn't deviate enough from the Bureau's plot. Like, why not take more chances?" And I understand, like, you have this Jenga tower, where you know where this thing is going over the course of five or six seasons if you get to tell it. And so you can't really start to be like, what if Martian had sex with this lady instead? You know, like, you start to unravel the great work that they made and that they performed in the Bureau. But you could have told the story like in a little bit more of like a cool dug lime and techno thriller way. And just drop a little fucking moby at the beginning, you know what I mean? - Oh, that's you want God moving over the face of the waters? - No, just like some like, you know, 97, like major club techno. Like, heaven, you know, in London. - I love it. - Don't, yeah, you got me. - So that was just an idea. I don't really know what to do for strain for slow horses. - Also, you're avoiding something that I think might be a little bit uncomfortable for you, which is that the theme song of your friends and neighbors, which is part of an atrocious opening sequence. I have to say, he's written and performed by your guy Hamilton Lighthouse. - I didn't, I didn't, you notice I didn't comment on that. - I noticed that. I noticed that. I have a statement to make. - Direct to camera, please. - Sam Donsky holds this opinion, so it's not solely my discovery. I don't know if he holds it still. I think that the Walkman are the best band of the 2010s. - Wow. - Is that the 2010s? - Not really. - I think the Walkman are better than the Strokes. - You couldn't even keep a straight face saying it. - Lisbon and heaven are as good as it gets for like late period like rock bands from the era. - Okay, it's not better than the Strokes. - The Strokes have two really good records. And I am gonna do a Stroke's Bandsplane in the future. - So, yes. - There are, the Strokes have more good songs on their bad records than the Walkman did. - Nope. - In entirety. - No. - 100%. - Bring me on. Yossi, come on. - Well, you should do it. - No, I am not. - No, you should do the Bandsplane instead of me. - I don't care about them that much. - And yet my opinion is absolutely accurate. - Maybe we should do a great cultural exchange where I make you a Walkman mixtape. And then I'll watch two episodes of it. - I was there in the 2000s. There are many bands that I'm like, they're fine. Or I didn't like, I don't like them as much. - They're goaded. - I have never liked the Walkman. - Jason says, "Given Widow's Bay, how would his Bay broke out?" Do you think it confirms it's still possible for a well-made show to game popularity through old school word of mouth? Or is this an exception to the algorithmic rule? - Yes and no. I think that there is a narrative about Widow's Bay that is true, which is it is so undeniably good and surprising and addictive that it without question built an audience over time and gave people that really rare these days feeling of participation in the growth and success of something that they care about that reminded us of the way things used to work in terms of word of mouth and success. That's true. I think the other narrative that is harder to parse is that you can't really have a conversation about a show like Widow's Bay being a success without really diving into the fact that the word success doesn't mean any one thing anymore, particularly in the case of television because everything that pops up for us if we subscribe the way things used to but it's not a level playing field in the way that Caroline and the City proved itself to be a good audience hole after Seinfeld or whatever versus Veronica's closet. It is not a neutral playing field where something can grow over time in comparison to everything else 'cause it's all being beamed to the same households. Widow's Bay maybe only exists. I don't know if this is true, but maybe only exists because the willingness to take a chance, the price point of all the creatives involved, the agreeing to shoot it on location and Massachusetts, it's possible that only Apple was going to let all of this things happen anyway and then the level of what success means for Apple is completely different from what it means for NBC or Netflix or HBO Max because as we've discussed Apple doesn't even have 1% of the national television audience. - Sure. - So there's the romantic version of it, which is true and then there's a slightly unromantic version of it, which is also true. - I wonder whether the best indicator of Widow's Bay's word of mouth would be its Emmy nomination hall because I think that what happens sometimes is that a show will get some momentum. But the real word of mouth hysteria takes place when it goes from like, "Hey, this show's really good." This show's great to, have you seen it? It's the best thing I've ever seen. And that kind of happened with adolescence, that kind of happened with baby reindeer, that happened with the first season of stranger things that happened in a different kind of language. I would say that happened with Ted Lasso, the first season, where like as people got through the kind of turns of that season, it was like, oh, this thing that I didn't think was gonna be that good or I had very low expectations for is actually quite charming. Oh my God, now it's like a 360 degree lifestyle choice for some people to be into Ted Lasso. So Widow's Bay, I'm not necessarily comparing show-to-show to Ted Lasso, what I'm saying is like, I've noted that once it got to like 80% approval reading, the jump from 1899 seemed like it caught on wildfire, you know? I agree with you. I will say though that you're so good at saying, I agree with you when you're like, I don't really know what you're talking about, but I'm gonna pivot from there. I do agree, but I love it. No, but I think that what we're talking about in terms of odd, now it has truly been accepted is still within our bubble because we're talking about like in this town, everybody likes it, and the Emmy's reflect that. And that's also what happened with adolescence. And that's also-- At the nitty of fundraiser, people couldn't stop talking about-- Do you like mixing horror with comedy? Just like mixing socialism with boots on the ground, practical, municipal problem solving. But it's the same thing that happened with the pit. Now, it's not just anecdotal with those shows are massive. Yes. But I am curious what like maybe some of our like real America reporters will email and say like has Widow Bay taken off Widow's Bay taken off in that way. I'm only trying to decouple it from our own nostalgia for that experience because when to use another example, like when Seinfeld premiered and it had bad ratings and then over two or three seasons suddenly it became a juggernaut that went nine seasons and anchored NBC's lineup. That is a more tangible evidence base like it was this. And now it's that. And Seinfeld wasn't just popular at Nithya fundraisers. And it's still hard to explain to people back into 2000s. At 8.58 on a Wednesday night, all you would see in a bar is like abandoned Miller Highlife bottles because everybody ran home to watch lost. Yes. I mean, the political commentator and noted big picture fan Matt Glacias recently wrote a whole thing about how the single guy, which was another one of NBC's like, hey, it's kind of like friends, was considered a failure. But it was pulling 15 million viewers a week, no show other than the Super Bowl polls numbers like that now. And so it shows you that you could aggregate audience and say that 15 million people have watched this over the course of three, five, eight days. But in terms of broadcast television, I mean, if that was the failure, what were the numbers of the successes? They were in the 20 millions, 30 millions, just guaranteed sitting at home, leaving their beers unattended. Adam writes, what a historical event should be a television series or mini series? Who would you pick to run it and star in it? Personally, I'd love to see Sam Levenson's take on the teapot dome scandal with Sidney Sweeney starring as disgrace secretary of the interior Albert Bacon Fall. I don't believe Adam. I don't think Adam's being serious. But this is if we're just living in a blue sky and I can I can I can ask for anything I always wanted to see David Milch tackle the fall of Saigon Jesus Christ some light watching Wow, yeah, that'd be incredible. Yeah, you have any other you have any like particular who do you want who do you want to be the POV characters who do you want to throw in there? I believe that to Dave, you know, you figured out. I mean CIA involvement in the fall of Saigon and And you know the various factions that were in town at the time. Okay, really interesting to see it dramatized You did so much stuff to do there. I've read several books about the subject. Yes Are you volunteering to be a consultant? I would like to get Craig Mason far away from video games and mushrooms and Send him back to Lithuania to do a mini series on the failed Soviet coup of 1991 Jesse Plements is Boris Yeltsin. No, you would do British guys, right again when she Chernobyl it again Yeah, but you film in Lithuania. Yeah, but Jesse Plements is like you would you have him do in English accent? Okay Who's mostly a joke about how he kind of looks like Boris Yeltsin, but we could we could Pretty good these days it looks incredible, but he is willing to transform himself. Yes, yeah There will be no Jesse Plements lander on this show, but the question is I mean first of all I have I find that period of time fascinating and That's definitely like I don't know if you have the same experience but that happened in the summer of 91 And I remember I was on like a family vacation and we were like glued to CNN But I didn't understand what was happening So it was one of my first memories of like oh history is happening here, but I don't really understand I got to be completely honest I have no recollection of this you're probably doing travel baseball, but I was either doing that or I was listening to Nevermind a lot, you know wasn't out yet Was not yet there really tape You're walking around with a copy of bleach being like these guys are gonna be big Like this fall. Yeah, this fall blood sugar sex magic is gonna come out, but don't get excited because a week later Nevermind come out except September October fresh from your high school. Yeah, come on. It was fun Okay, do you want to do do you want to do a mini series about that coming out? That'd be pretty sick I'm just curious who would play in my failed Soviet coup who plays the George Bush We tried to coup who they tried to coup Gorbachev or they tried to So this was this was still the Soviet Union. Yeah, it hadn't fallen apart yet and Gorbachev was loosening restrictions on the union and Countries were starting to be like maybe they'll be an independent Kazakhstan. Yeah, and so some hardliners tried to overthrow the government and Yeltsin who is president of Russia was like absolutely not we will We are the we are the government. He like this very very effective. Yes, and it hastened to the demise of the Soviet Union And it all happened like over a couple days with like lawmakers being locked in the Duma And very exciting Bernard Shaw was like giving us breathless reports on it But I think it would be interesting to to to talk about like what how that was playing you could have CIA involvement being surprised or what with a Nudging who plays secretary of state ultimate insider James Baker who by the way Still with us 96 years young James Maybe Jeff Daniels for James Baker Jeff Daniels. Yeah, but he's played a lot of those guys. I mean he's always him So think about it Ryan asks what piece of culture or entertainment where you most convinced was destined to become a cultural hit that didn't happen Not because it was tailored to your taste But because you thought it had everything you need to break through and then it just didn't Did the culture miss it or did you overestimated it's broader appeal? I've An answer for this that I've think I've told on either other male bags or anecdotally on like big pick and stuff Back when it came out which I think was 18 or 19 or something like that Sean fantasy and I went and saw the premiere of the movie Longshot Which was Seth Rogen and Charlize thrown in a kind of political romcom and my friend Liz Hannah, right? And directed by Jonathan Levin and like it was in the Paramount in Austin Theatre you would have thought goonies had just come out people were hysterically laughing. Yeah, Charlize throwing and and Seth Rogen came out and Charlize was like in tears because she was like We really did it America like we made a beautiful Fun Romantic comedy that everybody loves and like at this will make a billion dollars Boys to men came out and performed afterwards the current three person lineup or the full quartet The third it was a mid like a adjusted lineup. That's the sign and Sean and I left and we were like this is gonna be pretty woman This is going to be like as big as it gets wow and I think it made like 40 million bucks. Wow And is beloved and is very very very funny, but did not your radar was off my radar was off I got I got Austin, which sometimes happens in South by Southwest or all film festivals couple on stars in you have a couple tacos Yeah, and then you're like this is fucking great man. My worry is that David Milch is listening being like I don't think I can trust this guy to be my advisor on my psychon projects By the way, I just I just want to amend one thing September 24th 1991 Saw the release of Nirvana's Nevermind and Red Hat Chili Peppers blood sugar sex magic Because I really remember records used to come out on Tuesdays And like people came in with the tapes the next day and it was like immediately like it was faction. Oh you guys were like trading tapes Like Dix picks. That's like Canal Street During the debt piff era. Yeah What a day anyway, do you have any answer for this? I mean, the jury's still out, but I feel that way a little bit about another Seth Rogen project about the invite Which I think is just a fucking incredible movie and I think it's doing well. What do you think the ceiling should have been for that movie? I don't know I saw people who actually know things about like I was reading on some film site That it was a gamble to counter program with it as opposed to take advantage of potentially it was saw like if this was an August release I don't understand why it wasn't released in august it seems like the the play was Let's give people an a zag option from Supergirl and the Odyssey and Spider-Man and like have something bubbling in the background and we're gonna commit to a longer rollout for it But I don't know if that happens anymore. I sadly think it will have a very nice life on VOD POD and then streaming I don't know I mean like Fennacies talked about this, but like August is now the new dumpuary Right where they're just like this kind of tumbleweeds blowing across town as they people try to avoid the last days of Spider-Man and Odyssey going forward um I don't know what the right month for invite was I suppose there is a chance that they could have just been like This is a straight-up awards movie and it's coming out in november But I think it's a very cloudy market. Yeah, I think Maybe maybe like Did the Martian come out in September like there's like a there is like spots in September I think it could have worked where there was some it's a summer movie. It's kind of fun But it's also you'll make you think I don't know but the Martian is more crowd-pleasing more sci-fi You know, so that straddles the line between like we want to get nominated here But also we're going to pick up some of the summer vibes I think that was also the strange thing that happened with that which they did I am word style roll out where it opened in New York and LA and then it kind of expanded over the course of a couple of weeks And I don't think that was beneficial because I think You do all your press everybody's getting served your cute like you know Take a lie detector test videos But then they look to see where the invite is playing and it's not open So, yeah, I think that we didn't talk about it for that reason. We both thought I mean the big day I've recorded that that podcast was like a two weeks old So, yeah, I have one other answer to this which was let me set the scene for you again since we're kind of 90s focus This is probably August 1999 Your humble narrator has been working at Spin Magazine for about two months three months and I hear like raucous Laughter and celebration which is not common that office in the 90s coming from like they like the kitchen break room area and I go in and the assistants have The other assistants. I was an assistant They've stolen from the features editor desk the VHS tapes of the upcoming fall pilots Oh, and they have put in the tape of an NBC show called Freaks and Geeks And are like this is the greatest television show you've ever seen and it spreads through the office like wildfire and everyone was like oh my god TV the much maligned medium has finally come up with something great Put down your copy of blood sugar sex magic. You said hmm And pick up my cup. Something to say about this medium Pick up my copy of blood meridian. Yeah, I was like nope Now I I credit angel a kelly and William van meter for having the foresight to understand of what a cult classic would be But there was this sense That and I think people still share this that this should have been and it was culturally but that show only lasted what nine episodes Yeah, that I'm trying to think if I don't have any recollection of that. I was really really really not watching television at that era I know because that's when the sopranos was on right exactly and I apologize and and I I have seen Almost all of I would imagine the sopranos in random not chronological order. Do you know what it's about? Yeah, okay Yeah, I'm just checking American minute ban asks and this is that we've we've now come to the double down. Hell yeah Jason part of this this conversation been asking April to April in April of 2025 I brought Jordan Harper's everybody knows on a family vacation in LA based on your glowing praise for the book I loved reading the book in the city it was set. It gave the experience of richness. My family is returning to L.A. for vacation this winter. So my question is, what L.A. book should I pack with you? Could be crime, but I'm also interested in any book that captures L.A. as a place. Now, funnily enough, Ben asks this question right as Jordan Harper has released another book called. It's called a violent masterpiece and about 60% through it. And would you say vibe wise is similar? Yeah, it's darkest fuck. I think that he is an incredible storyteller of a very specific story, one that you and I are very, very open to. Yeah. This book is like everybody knows he writes about not just contemporary L.A. but like literally right now where there are characters and conspiracies that have very clear analogs to scandals that are in our life from like Army Hammer to like the guy who produced all those kids shows for Nickelodeon. Dan Schneider? Yes. And linking them through POV characters who are like everybody knows is about the dark arts of publicity. Yeah. This is about like a defense attorney who advertises on buses and a woman whose job it is to create the spoke borderline illegal experiences for incredibly rich people. What kind of experiences? Well, like literally anything that you would want. So it's like you could set up, you could rent like the magic castle and you could go in and everyone inside is wearing a Jordan Carter mask but smoking a cigarette indoors and you could be like. Jalen Carter? What did I say? Jordan Harper masks. And it's like, oh, have you written another book? Apologies. Okay. Anyway, it's really cool and it's really dark. I really love the idea of reading Jordan Harper books on a family vacation. I usually do movies set in the place that I'm visiting. But I do love to try and enrich and deepen my experience of a city. Like I try to read London stuff when I'm in London, etc. As far as an LA book, this one features 99.9% less crime than Jordan Harper novels. But something Andy and I both adore is Larry McMurtry's Houston books. Yes. Or the Danny Deck books. But one of them or several of them are in and around the movie industry and my favorite is somebody's darling, which is about a character named Jill trying to make a movie. Yes. And characters who like in the 70s, right? Yeah. I think that there's two. I have a bunch of answers. I can fire off. There are the sort of like born and bred Angelino books where people are like, you don't really understand what it's like here. And here's what it is to live here. And I love books like that. And I would put in that category, Freddie Sinellis, who we talked about recently, less than zero is still an essential read. Eve Babitz, I would recommend Slow Days Fast Company. And then there's the sort of like, I've the classic like I've come here and it's all rotten, which I think, you know, all Chandler, high window lady in the lake, big sleep, Jon Didian, play it as it is. Don Carpenter, Hollywood trilogy. That's where I'm getting. Because the other one I would say just the other classic of like, oh my god, it's actually hell is Nathaniel West stay of the Locust, which is a pretty quick and good read. But my favorite, I think maybe we share this. Our favorite version of it is the, well, gosh darn it, I just love the movies and McMurtry is like that too. Like if I can hate the cynicism of it, but he just couldn't stop loving it and being hopeful and romantic. So any book that touches L.A., all my friends are going to be strangers, somebody's darling, or my beloved Don Carpenter, who wrote, all of his books are worth reading, some of them are in print. But I do believe there is an in print edition of his three Hollywood books. I think it's called the Hollywood trilogy. They are not overtly connected, but characters come and go. And this is a guy who dreamed of working in movies, he has one credit. It's the rip torn vehicle payback in 1972. His dreams got trash compacted a thousand times over and yet you read these books and there's the one turnaround is the most is the last of the three. And it's just about a screenwriter whose dreams are dying and an executive whose business is being taken away. And god, they love cocaine so much. But they're just still like, when the lights go down in that cinema, romance. I love those books. Those books kind of have a steely damn liner notes feel. I respect that. There was, I would say 10 to 20 emails asking us for book recommendations. That's cool. We're going to bring in Kaya on Mike for this because Kaya's probably the most voracious reader. I maybe know outside of view. No, she's much more voracious than I am. I'll list some things that I am currently reading or are in the two read pile as I venture out of vacation. So I'm almost done London falling by Patrick Radenkeef. This is a book version of a very impactful and wonderful New Yorker article he wrote a little like a year or two ago. It's about a death in London, but is really an expose and an investigation into the way London threw open its doors to the Russian oligarch class. And the way London essentially depends on dark money to function since it doesn't really make anything anymore. And I think that that is the element that really comes across in the book version, whereas in the magazine article, you're like, it is strange that there are so many empty luxury apartments in London. But like, what happened to this kid? You're just trying to get to the bottom of the case. This is much more about why people were drawn to London historically. And in recent history, what conditions happened in their countries often because of English imperialism that created like their journey to London and how they've used London and London's law enforcement's rather like opaque and permissive relationship to the wealthy to their advantage. And it is fucking awesome. Radenkeef doesn't miss obviously. He did say nothing, an empire of pain. I also, for my trip to the lake, I have troubles by JG Farrell, which is a kind of seems like comic surreal tale about a guy who comes back from a conflict and is staying at a hotel. And like his fiance looks different than she did before he went away. And also like it's an Irish novel. It's about it's about like things happening outside of the hotel. But it seems really right right at my alley. I got it on the New York review of books Memorial Day Sale. This book Slow Fade by Rural Forlitzer. He's sort of a claims screenwriter who's been in and around speaking of our kind of Don Carpenter characters. Yeah. And he worked a lot with Alex Cox. But this book is kind of a fictionalized book about his relationship with Sam Backingpaw. Oh, good. So I'll expect some fireworks there. And then me and a couple of buddies, but specifically one are rereading Tree of Smoke by Dennis Johnson. Is this is what you did after you kicked me off the sports jet? And they wonder why there's an epidemic of loneliness among men. Yeah. Because we're all reading tree smoke and crying. What do you got? I forgot to fully prepare for this question. So I have very little for somebody who like you read so much. Yeah. You're constantly texting me from Romans to tell me like, should I get this? I've got this. This is amazing. And then when I ask you, I don't remember things anymore. No, that's not true. I think you're just like books are for me. No, God, no, I'm not gatekeeping. I mean, I read, I'm reading Humboldt's gift by Saul Bello and a violent masterpiece by Jordan Arboret in tandem because Humboldt's gift. In this case, I can because reading late period Bello, it's like three pages takes a lot of time. It's very, very dense. It's hilarious and brilliant. And if I read it in bed, which I like to do, it is instant, instant ambient. Yeah. It's so taxing. Whereas violent masterpiece, and this is no disrespect to Jordan Arboret is very engaging. Yeah. And an easier nighttime read. But I also just read, like I was doing a lot of, I don't know if I meant, did I mention that I read this book, "Effingers" earlier in the year? It was really good. And so, but afterwards, I did a bunch of like housekeeping because I finally read "Play World" by Adam Ross, which you would recommend it. Yeah. Thank you. Because I like to do things that you recommend. And like the most recent Murakami, which I hadn't read, which was really struggle. But I had to finish it with "Kahegah." Just last night, I finished this book called "The Sisters" by Jonas Hassan Camiri. He's a sweet half Swedish half Tunisian writer and it's set in Stockholm. And it's about 700 pages long. And it follows these three door stops. This is like the first time in a while. I've really like gotten into a novel that long. And it was actually quite rewarding to finish. So, if you're looking for like a nice slow burn summer read, that was great. I also have "Mad Woman" by Chelsea Beaker, which is a bit more of like a thriller-esque book, but like a nice quick summer read. And then my favorite thing that I've read so far this year is "Heart the Lover" by Lily King. Thank you. I've talked about before on this podcast. My wife Phoebe just read that. I forgot to mention my favorite book of the year. I did mention it briefly, but it was "Lives of the Saints" by Nancy Lemmon, which is from the 80s. And I've just put out by NYU. I just caught that on the Memorial Day Sale. It is absolutely intoxicating. It's about a woman who's home from college, back to her native New Orleans in the summer, and everyone is drinking and sort of fading through life. And it's just, it's one of those writers where you're like, oh, there you are. I've been wondering someone who can create this way of being. And it's completely idiosyncratic. And then I also got her, they also published her new book, or most recent book. It's called "Oister Diaries." And it's wild to be like, oh, now the same woman is writing essentially, like many great writers, the same book, but now in her 50s and 60s. Oh. And it's also really, really captivating. I know people are often like, could you please write down those books? Maybe we can just like throw up like a a doc with the book recommendations in a in a in like a notes page and post it on Instagram so people can grab it. I do wonder if there's some way to this is just me wondering idly, but like there are writers that all three of us love and have done deep dives into the if there's a way to be like, Oh, here's our recommended LA books. Here's our recommended Elmore Leonard, like the ones you should start like a like a like a basically a database of our recommendations kind of thing. Yeah, or even like a a starter guide. We do. We still do have the the double town book club was it snitch butler's tumbler. Yeah. With last updated in 2012. I think the name still rings out though. 13. It does in these streets. Zachary asks, if you executive produce a TV show or movie that goes straight to streaming, how do you make your money back or make your money? Just the first sale or like hope it gets to syndication, yours down the road. What's syndication, dude? Exactly. Like how does Reese Witherspoon make money off of lucky, just curious? I included this because A, I don't really know the answer, but B, I've had conversations with people in and around the industry over the last couple of months and one thing that has come up a few times is producer bloat for sure. And getting, you know, one of the issues with like getting all these superstars to do stars to make your shows with you on Apple or wherever is they all get EP credits and their production shingle gets there. So they're producing partner gets an EP credit not saying these people don't work hard on these shows. But there's a misconception that like, oh, this actor is an EP meaning well, it means tooth it means many things, but it can mean even more, but directly it means they get the script circulated, they get access to the things that usually the only producers get. When I say circulated, I mean, they see drafts, they don't just see the one that they're going to learn the lines from. But that also means that they get a second fee every episode for their second credit. Sometimes I watch movies from the 90s. For no reason. And because perhaps I will podcast them about a pod that goes and watches films that we love. It's called second timers. Yeah, no, but like I was watching a movie recently that was an action film and it shot a location in Los Angeles. And you're just like, so it was we're talking 750 750 million dollars to make this. And you're like, no, it was 70 million or whatever it is. And that is huge action movie. I don't totally understand outside of inflation how things have gotten out of control. Do you think that some of it is these above the line costs of yeah, once we get through everybody gets a piece and everybody gets a taste like each episode is pretty expensive with all this. There are so many ways to answer this question. And I'd like to do my best to hit a few of them. And if I'm not making sense or I'm being unclear, tell me. But specifically to your point, there's no question that it is a level of advanced watching to try to understand where the money is spent. Because and I'm not necessarily that good at it. I we loved the show The Rise and Fall of Reggie Dinkins, which is the NBC sitcom with Tracy Morgan and Daniel Radcliffe. And one of my maybe even said on the podcast was it's so great to see the 30 rock team still able to do it and get these just God to your jokes off even though the reduced budgets of network shows means that they shoot the entire thing in two days and it disused New Jersey. McMansion and someone and shoot it handheld, but literally it's in a white box. And you watch 30 Rock, which I've been doing a little bit more of recently. And you see that they're not just in 30 Rock, I mean, they shot in Queens, but they're on the streets of New York, blah, blah, blah. And there are a lot of like more of the sort of Simpsons that cutaways to other places. And someone pointed out to me that yes, certainly margins have fallen, but also look how many EPs there are. And not just EPs like Tracy Morgan is an EP, but also you have to service the long time deal that Tina Fey and Robert Karlock has. And like that's sometimes where the money goes and you don't always see it on screen. The other thing is that like obviously the industry has changed radically. And there was a time when you could take a risk by putting up money being a financier or a producer on something with the understanding that there would be a long tail. Sure. There are many people who've got very rich on like VHS, the VHS boom or the or whatever because they knew that. And then you know, the most famous example of the non-writing producer success story would be Castle Rock, the late Rob Reiner and his his pals. In the 90s made everything from Rob Reiner's movies to Seinfeld. Sure. And they were able to do it because the TV business was built so that a networks had to buy outside of themselves. They could not, NBC couldn't buy from NBC studios or Universal Studios. So there were all these independent studios that sprung up to sell to everyone and they did. But also if you struck it oil that well pumped for a long time. And Castle Rock and its inheritors are still making money off of Seinfeld because every few years the rights come up again. That door closed, both those doors closed in the last few years. Like the laws changed in the 90s so that studios and networks could self deal. So the middle producers had to go away. And then two streamers meant that it was a closed ecosystem. So you weren't going to sell it again. So the ceiling fell for the potential success of a lot of these big shows. So in talking to people about this, you realize that like the non-writing producer role, especially now as even the margins have even shrunk for like the shingles having overall deals themselves. Meaning like right now like Seth McFarlane's company Fuzzy Door had a I imagine rich overall deal with Universal. Meaning Universal just pays them. And when they make stuff, it goes to Universal. They don't make stuff, they get paid anyway. Well, sometimes like in GJ Abrams with Warner Brothers, he gets a lucrative, I think record breaking deal with Warner Brothers, but is still making things for Paramount and is still making things for other networks. And then his actual Warner Brothers output was quite limited. And then in post strike, a lot of those deals were downshifted to first look deals, meaning they're getting paid a little bit of money, but not nearly as much guaranteed. And then they bring their stuff that to market to the people who are paying them that little bit first. Yeah. The other thing that's hard for producers like, and I do worry about our dear Reese Witherspoon, how she can make it. I mean, she among all of us is maybe the most voracious reader. That is true. Producers fees don't kick in until you're in production. So there's a lot of work and labor put into it before you even get to the finish line. So anyway, one way that they make money now is that because the episode orders have shrunk so intensely, that the amount of money that producers are getting paid per episode has grown considerably. Sure. So that you're getting paid for six or eight episodes more than people used to get paid for 22 episodes, potentially, if you are a producer. The other way you do it is they, because these guys are all, they're still going to get paid. Like I'm not, you know, people, the Reese Witherspoons of the world, whether they sell to hedge fund capital or they approach the business differently, they're still going to find ways to get paid. It's often in what's known as points. People talk about like, oh, how many points do I get on the show points on the back end or whatever? I used to think that meant purely like residuals. And all the streamers do have internal opaque metrics being like, well, you were in our top 10. So you're getting a bonus or a payout. Apparently a lot of those points are held by the producers and non-writing producers and they get them based on renewals. So they will find a way to get more money on top of the old money if the show gets renewed. Right. Which is an interesting way to look at Apple's dedication to keeping things and, you know, we're doing season four of this now, season five of this. They're committed to doing it. And like a rich company like Apple, if they want to buy something, they will, from a studio and outside studio, it's not just that they're reimbursing the studio for how much it costs to make the show. They're paying them on top of it for the right to buy. So when they buy, they buy Ted Lasso from Warner Brothers. Yeah. That's interesting. But it's also why Netflix doesn't renew things very often. Very for very long. Yes. Because it cuts down on those ballooning costs. You know, and I also don't know whether or not, maybe you would know. But like, for instance, like there's this TNT show with the late Eric Dane starting in it called The Last Ship, which was on. Remember that? For several years and was often like, you'd see advertise Charles Parnell in that. Yeah. It was or is the number one show in Netflix. That's so crazy. And this also happened with suits where I don't we didn't really talk to Patrick Adams when he came on about this. But whether or not there is some windfall when there is like a streaming pop for your show. Yeah. If it wasn't built into your original deal or whatever, you know what I mean? So I don't know whether the producers of The Last Ship got some huge check because it became the most stream show in Netflix. We don't know if they participate in the success. I don't know the answer to that. I imagine if they had any points or whatever on the show itself when the show is sold to a streamer, they should participate in that. Unless there's funny math where they're like, well, actually you still owe us from the whatever you didn't do. Sure. And so we're making good on your contract. But the success thing, I think, is a whole other conversation. And I would imagine because people are always trying to find those little loopholes that there that there's deal language now being written, being like in the event of a surprise resurrection, you know, on the Paramount Warner Brothers, Disney, Maytag, washing machine service, like you will get to participate in that. Two last questions. They're both a little bit longer. One is an Andy question. Jamie writes, I worked in film production for several years before switching gears and going to law school. Congratulations. I also have a degree in film studies where the curriculum tended to focus on our tour. theory, and obviously a more intellectual critical study of the art form. When I graduated from college and went to work in production, most of that critical theory thinking, and especially O Tour theory, changed on day one when I saw how the sausage was made, by dozens to hundreds of people and that the final product was mostly dependent on availability, budget lighting schedules and logistics, understanding that yes, the directors are people who set the tones, yada yada, before Andy started working in film production, I noted that he understandably approached TV criticism from a more critical studies vantage point. As soon as Andy got back from his first TV show gig, the discussions totally changed, and I vividly remember him talking about how many people make so many decisions that go into a final product and being excited that we were unlocking a more lived and experience in different perspective than it previously been shared on the board. Andy, did you recognize this change in your approach to considering film and TV, and if so can you identify how you evaluate projects now versus before your entry into the business? Wow. I read. Thank you, Jamie. Well, I would say that when I was a critic, officially in Brannland, like one of the things that I did try to do that felt not certainly not unique, but that I thought was important to do was to try to consider an awareness of the business in addition to the business of art, not saying that I had unique insight into it, but actually not doing so much of what he says as like, you know, the new critical, the text is everything, but understanding that the work still had to get squeezed through the machinery around it, and that would affect how we saw it, what we got to see if it, whether it got to continue or not. But without question, once I got to go on the other side of it, the, I never believed that people intentionally tried to make something bad, but I don't think I understood the ways in which even the most well-intentioned things can come out wrong, and then what can be done about that? And I certainly didn't understand the, like, the spread of core that is necessary at every step along the way, and why things go bad, even from well-intentioned things, is really often comes down to probably very relatable mistakes in almost any field, which is really mistakes of communication or lack of communication. So there definitely wasn't evolution, and it's also why I kind of stopped saying I was a critic, even though I still come on here and say things like Deadpool and Wolverine wasn't an obscenity, so apologies for that. Yeah, in terms of how it's changed, I mean, I don't believe that you need to have done the thing to be a critic. I don't believe that, and I think the criticism is incredibly important and valuable, but I do think that there is a long tradition of things like, "Oh God, a Lillian Ross' book picture." I talked about recently, NYRB has that as well, and it was basically came from a series of New Yorker articles she wrote about John Houston trying to make a movie, and what's so interesting about that is that she learned so much about what ended up being a disaster by actually being there, and of course we don't get that kind of access anymore. It didn't make her less of a critic, and it didn't make her more of an apologist, but she kind of under, you could start to, instead of just guessing about some of the emotional intentions of things, you can actually see how pure idea, pure genius, pure emotion, her vision has to get distorted by it becoming a collective project in ways that can be good and elevating it in ways that can be kind of ruinous and destructive. I try to check my language about this stuff more than anything. There are certain shows where it becomes very easy to fall back into, like, Tony Gilroy did this, or Christopher Storer did that, and it's like, you're referring to something about production design and, like, what Luke Holden on and/or, or you're referring to something about cinematography, or you're referring to an acting choice that might have been essentially ad-libbed or improvised, but you're attributing it to, like, something that came out of final draft, you know? And that's, I think that's difficult. In some ways, I'm speaking in a code, and I'm saying that. I'm saying, like, the artisans and artists who decided to make this show presented me with this, and as shorthand, I may be sometimes ascribed choices made to one person when it, in fact, was a collective decision, or perhaps it was a note from the studio, or maybe it was bad light that day, so they had to go inside, and that's why it kind of feels a little bit more drab. Like, I understand, like, ultimately, I think you can just do the best you can, and I think in the long tail of history, like, we'll think about things more in terms of their authors rather than their collective production. But this goes back to the conversation we had a moment ago about theme songs, because it is absolutely a collective process to make anything in this town, and I think the very best creators are very, very forthright about knowing what they don't know, and knowing what they get from everyone else's expertise, and bringing them into the fold. But the buck does stop somewhere in terms of decision making, and so, like, I always say, I'm not always, but, like, among the many first-timer mistakes that I made running a show, the biggest one was not understanding my episodic budget when it came to having a big action piece episode. And so, I was encouraged to write as big as I could, and then we got there, and it's like, oh, you have the same budget as suits, even though you've written something that requires like multiple armmen storming a compound outdoors at night over four days. So, what happens then is a process, and a collaborative process, of reducing, of reducing, and reducing. And I think what ended up on the screen, you could watch and be like, oh, that was a really unimaginative set deck that day, or boy, they really didn't get that shot, or they didn't light that very well or whatever, but all of that stemmed from my mistake in putting people in a position where they were trying to make up for something rather than trying to create something. So, it is a bit of a delicate balancing act, and like, when we had Hero, Mariah, and Katie Dippold on, you know, it was noticeable, and really refreshing, that they talked about that relationship where they were talking about, like Rosemary's home in the finale, how it was a labor of love for everyone working in props to build that and set deck in our direction and production design. And what goes unsaid when they're saying it is someone, in that case, Hero and Katie, setting the tone so that they understood what mues to chase to get it done. Yeah. It's a really delicate thing, but like, but that's, beginning to not understand it, but appreciate that kind of dance is probably the best thing that I got out of the whole experience and continue to get. Our final question comes from a listener named Trace, who wrote this a few weeks ago, so he is writing in the aftermath of us talking about Dark Wizard. Last week after hearing you guys rave about the Dark Wizard, I put it on as a weekend watch. I was a big 100-foot wave fan, another watch recommendation that really landed for me. I was expecting a cool bit of extreme sports documentary filmmaking with an interesting weirdo at the center, a bit more like the latter's relationship to Garrett. What I wasn't expecting was a show that would resonate with me quite as intensely as Dark Wizard did. I found it one of the more emotionally charged pieces of filmmaking I have ever seen about the experience of loving a difficult person. I've both loved and lost difficult people throughout my life and been that difficult person for others. And while I've never free solowed anything beyond a flight of stairs, it was that rare moment where a work of filmmaking reflects experiences and unlocked emotions in a way. They think on some level anyone who loves this stuff enough to listen to your podcast or the big picture regularly is always seeking. Oftentimes, they'll watch engages with television through the lens of personal taste and critical capital. But I don't think we often hear you guys talk about television that hits you in the specific way. And perhaps that's understandable as talking about your personal lives on a popular podcast that's moderately popular, isn't something that you owe anyone. Still, if you're comfortable answering the question, I'd love to hear about a TV show from any period of time in your life that resonated with you in this way on an emotional level rather than a critical one. Thanks, guys. I do have a recent example of this. Great. This is like, I'm not trying to bring the mood down, but the last episode of Euphoria, I didn't do for a variety of reasons, a memorial service for my mother. And so I don't know why, but the saying grace seen at the end of Euphoria blew me up. And I think sometimes that's what jumps out is where you're like, it's not necessarily a one to one. I lost my mom. This show is about somebody who loses their mom and it articulates all this stuff. It can be something where it's like, maybe there's something missing in your life. You see it on screen. And it kind of like, you realize it was missing. Maybe there are words said that you wish you would said, but it was really strange. The Coleman Domingo scene at the end of Euphoria like hit me like a lightning bolt. I love that. Yeah, it's very strange. I mean, obviously Coleman Domingo's character does some other things in the finale that it is. Which also struck you. I don't personally know, but as a credit to that series, I thought that was just a really beautiful way to end it. And I thought it was, it just filled up something in me that was not, you know, maybe, maybe I hadn't unpacked. I don't think I have anything quite like that. I think that for me, it is always, at least always, but in the last 13 years, it is parenting related. So to bring it full circle, like, like, Bluey does do that for me because there's deep identification with what's going on there. But also just like, it's an extra level of emotion because of how and when I watch those episodes, who I watch them with. But more recently, it's been really amazing to watch things like specifically, my older daughter's interest in older movies. I find movies generally to be more emotionally impactful. It's always hard to get anyone to watch anything that you really like and you have to be careful about it. I find who you talk about, people who matter a lot to you, who you've known for a long time. As a parent, sharing your taste with your kids must be a very like electrified fence. - But it's a delicate balancing act. You don't want to be over, you don't want to push, but also you kind of want to bring in. And so a couple of months ago, when my older daughter wanted, or agreed to watch the 91-92 movie, Eat Drink Man Woman, which is a classic. But genuinely, I love that movie. - I thought you were gonna say like sneakers or something. - I did get them to watch sneakers, they were mixed up. - Okay. - But for whatever, she really likes movies with romance and there are some romance in it. And that movie is about a father who cooks meals for his children, which is pretty much 80% of what I think that I do. Don't really bring that into this podcast, but that's generally how I spend most of my time. And so there is that heightened, like when you put the cultural filter over it, you feel things more deeply than you're even aware that you're feeling. And is it because she's watching it with me? Is it because I wish I could cook elegant dim sum like that man can? Or is it just that it allows you to sort of time travel and be the younger person who loved the movie for reasons that were deeply unexplored at the time and then connect that person with who you are now with who that other person is becoming. - Yeah. - But I appreciate the question because that gets to the heart of something that is very, very difficult to articulate or communicate in a podcast because it's very personal. - I think you're also obscuring the fact that you also get quite moved when they ask the original lioness why she wanted to be a marine. - What does she say? - That she was protected by one once and he's like, then you know exactly what it means to be a marine. - Is that what it's gonna be like when someone asks my daughter why she wants to drive her kids 20 minutes to school every day and she's like, because someone did that for me. - Thanks to Kaya, thanks to Kaya, thanks to Sarah for producing, we will be back. So this is airing Monday. We have a special airing on Thursday which is our tribute to Anthony Bourdain, which I, you know, we've done several of them over the course of this podcast, but with the release of Matt Johnson's Tony, sorry, Dominic Sessa, I think believe it's August 7th, I believe. We decided we would take a trip through memory lane and down memory lane and check out some of his television work, try to build a hall of fame of episodes and also talk about some of the books that have been written about him since his passing and his legacy. So, very excited to do for people to hear that and we'll be back to regularly schedule programming on August 10th. - This was, can we do more mailbags? We don't do them enough. - I felt like this was a really good one. - Really good, thank you listeners. - And thank you. - I hope you enjoyed Bluey and your flight. - All 15 minutes of it. (laughing) (upbeat music)