How the Warner Bros. Sale Changes Television. Plus, ‘DTF St. Louis’ and ‘Rooster’ Strike Out.

So, that's the day you feel. Tamara is. This feeling can be done now. Tamara is a man. A school for all his life moments.

You find them on Tamara's.com and in a different way. With the code Spotify 10

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Perfect for you. And now for me. Tamara is. Gross plutonium. Hello and welcome to The Watch.

My name is Chris Ryan. I am an editor at theranger.com and joining me in the studio. After a long hiatus, it's Andy Greenwell. First of all, it's pulled back to the crew. Thanks for coming back on the watch.

You always great to have you.

Whenever my schedule allows it, I'll be here. You know this better than anything. Yeah, podcasting. It's a muscle. You know what I mean?

“And you have to keep it in like you do with weightlifting.”

You have to keep it in elite shape on a schedule. So, I'm a little worried today. I'm coming in. You're more like a Jason Tatum. Like what's gonna happen?

Is he still got it. But I came back fast. So, I was worried about my legacy.

Yeah, second, when people don't know, is the you just gave me a brushback pitch for the agents, right?

No, no, no, no, no, no. You don't have to, I just... So, clinked fresh music. In Dina, Aldi, not Filiale. And by Degates, Mitfris, Amosik, Fiery, Yedengish, Mac, Aldi.

Good to see you, Aldi. There's notice that you are wearing clothing from a boutique that I happen to love here in Los Angeles, called Brother Brother. Yes. And I want it to be a big tent. The name is Brother Brother.

Only child, only child. It's true, it's tough. It's tough. But what I was trying to explain to you is no one is questioning that you Columbus. I didn't Columbus it.

They were blowing up without me. This is really bad podcasts. No, we're going to talk about news about this.

I first thought I think they do.

And what I was saying is that what I have realized over time, due to your popularity, there's a whole month named after you, which is my first podcast. Occasional women's month. Since there's no coincidence that international women stay false during CR month. I think everybody noticed that. You are an ally.

This is my first podcast of CR Month. I was on the shelf for the first one. Yeah, well, so you were busy last week. Yeah. And all I'm saying is I just introduce myself as the person who can help facilitate access to you.

I'm Alex Guerrero.

“You can reach us at [email protected] if you want to weigh in on this interpersonal battle.”

You can follow us at the WatchPod under score on Instagram DM us. Give us hot news about the Paramount Warner Brothers Netflix triangle if you want or just make comments about the way we look. Also, you can watch us on YouTube, ring your dash TV, you can watch us on Spotify where I bet you're listening to us. Look at you, just getting things back in order. And I have a big show for you today.

Oh, yeah. That's why you're. Oh, man. No, I want to talk to you because I somehow we kind of missed the final Paramount Warner Brothers stuff. Then because we did industry last week when up on Sunday as the Warner Brothers stuff kind of came out over the course of the weekend.

Luckily the facts on the ground did not stop me from blowing my top about it in advance, which created a lovely. That was so true. And then I also want to talk to you about the lantern strailer. Oh, yeah, I want to talk about it. I want to talk to you about DTF San Luis, which is air two episodes so far.

Rooster, which debuted on HBO last night, and a little bit about a little show, a cooking competition show. Oh, yeah, it's top chef that they counted out, don't count it out, baby. Uh, top chef is back. It's on peacock airing the first episode, so we won't get too deep into it. But we'll just sing its praises a little bit. You're saying that because you don't want our official commentary to surface until the show airs on Bravo.

I got it because I don't think a lot of people know that top chef is currently available on peacock. Because Kaya, who is a, I would say, moderate to passionate top chef fan was like, I had no idea.

the board, which is, you want to talk directly to camera?

No, I'm just saying like, we're losing it, we're losing the ability to like let people know stuff is on.

“Did you know, case that Scarpetta is coming out like this week?”

No, there's a Nicole Kidman, Amazon show about a medical examiner that has been much value-hood, and it is coming out Wednesday, I think. Well, this was the case with Reggie Dinkins, where we were very, because they put one up, and then we're like, you guys think about that for three months, and then brought it back. I did think about it for three months.

It worked. I also think Kaya, you know, Miami saying, so Kaya was on a lovely vacation, so she doesn't need to know the top chef is available on peacock. Who is waiting for her when she got back at 530 this morning before driving to work to produce the watch?

You've already come and gone. What do you mean?

I thought you were going, like, I, you see how tan she is?

No, man. I'm not back. No, it's really dark in the studio. I'm fresh off the beach. Damn, dog.

I know. That's animal style. We're going to go. See, again, I don't recommend it. Do our colleagues here, you just swan in, you know?

Let's talk about the only story that really is happening in Hollywood right now. Okay. Well, other than the Oscars and everything else, but there's a bunch of really good writing

and especially podcasting that we've done over here at the ringer from the town and the

big picture about the Warner Brothers Discovery slash Skydance Paramount acquisition or Skydance's acquisition of Warner Brothers Discovery. I kind of want to take this to, like, the next questions and shape them a little bit more the kind of stuff that we tend to talk about. So there are many, many back room and financial angles to this story.

You've got the impact that the Warner wrong will have on the sovereign wealth behind the steel and an app and tracking that. Bellany talked to Jerry Cardinal who is the head of Redbird Capital or member of Redbird Capital and not sure which and he swires up and down that that's not, that's not going to be a factor.

You also have the contrary versus surrounding Jeff Shell and his involvement with a Las Vegas gambler, which is different from his previous involvement. Yeah. And that is also ruling over this. And then there are noises coming from various states attorney, is it a turnies general?

Thank you for that. That's pretty general. It's a turnies general. A turnies general. But who are talking about interrogating the sale a little bit more deeply than the Justice

Department has. But I want to talk about what it's going to mean for TV, which we obviously can't say with any certainty. But there are some things that we should probably like just talk out because I think it would be of interest to our listeners.

So the number one thing is, and one that I was kind of curious to hear your perspective

“as somebody who in his majority of his life is like writing and working on and trying to”

sell ideas for TV shows is, what is the one less buyer thing mean here? And how is it different that if Warner Brothers and Paramount become one, how would that be different necessarily than if Warner Brothers and Netflix became one? Now I know that there was a lot of talk from the Ted Seranto side about how HBO is going to maintain its independence and we were buying them for them to be them and, you know,

like how much they respect that team. David also does, to I guess his credit said similar things, but not as explicit. Yeah. About HBO's kind of special status. Yeah.

We don't, the answer to all of this is of course, we don't know. Anyone can say anything when it's all speculative about what it might mean and how these things might play out. I think the biggest red flag to me in the deal, in Paramount winning the deal over Netflix, is that you don't even have to squint too much to understand why Netflix was making

the deal, because in purchasing Warner Brothers Discovery, Netflix was getting access to a lot of things that it doesn't necessarily have a movie studio with a very, very entrenched, well at least prior to the Brides' release, very entrenched, success rate at movie theater releases and actually getting people out to the theater's theatrical. You have the HBO tile, which is, you know, an institutionalist like Ted Sarandoz's mind,

still elite and worthy of preserving and not necessarily duplicative of what they do. Although it is worth noting that they, in the past year, Bella, who's had a content for Netflix, hired Norris Skinner from HBO. Oh, well. And her purview is a lot of HBO-ish type of content, you know, what we used to call prestige

stuff. And I think the biggest one, of course, being the enormous IP Netflix has for years

“been very desirous of having live events, that's why they're pumping out as much stranger”

things content as they can, including the live show, like having DC, having Harry Potter would be very valuable to them and their attempt to diversify what they offer.

I'm not saying it would be good for people, but I'm saying you could see it, and because it was not one-to-one duplicative, there was a hope that it wouldn't cost a lot of jobs. You cannot say that about paramount taking your order. That's part of their pitch is that this will cost a lot of jobs. This will cost a lot of jobs, and we can, yes, reduce overhead.

They have two studio lots. They have two streaming services. They have two theatrical release movie studios. They have a lot of people doing similar jobs at two different parts of Los Angeles. That's potentially catastrophic and ruinous for real life in the town.

So to finally end up answering your question, this was a seller's market during the boom

times of John Landgreff's trademark prestige TV when there was just too much TV. If you took a project to market at a certain level, you could feel confident you would get not just one nibble of interest, but another one, which would create, obviously, competition, and maybe get you a better deal and grease the skids towards actually getting something made.

That has really fallen off a cliff in the last few years. And it's not just because of some companies like going at a business or streamers closing. It's just the reality of the financial commitment to make a lot of these shows these days. AMC is not competing for the same shows that Apple is anymore. Whereas a few years ago, maybe everyone was in competition for the same stuff.

So the idea of a buyer going off the board was a fear no matter what happened, but with

all of the talk, and again, all of the potential roadmap to HBO remaining separate from Netflix,

you could still imagine that they might compete with each other, and I don't know if in the most robust way, but in a way. I mean, remember, we're not too far away from a time when HBO Max was competing with HBO.

“Sure, in a real, honestly, not that thoughtful way in that's how you ended up with things”

like Station 11, which was like DNA and HBO show being a Max show. Sure. They've sorted that out in recent years. David Ellison has said he wants to keep the HBO brain trust separate, but he's also said, inevitably, we merge the streaming services.

So what does that mean? And one less buyer means less competition, which means less opportunity for writers, which means fewer shows, and on and on and on. He's been going around since way before the actual acquisition, talking about the stack, and how he's going to revolutionize Paramount's digital back end, and I would not say,

I wish we had a lighting cue for UX corner. We have a lighting cue now for watch after dark, but I would not say that I'm a huge fan of either Paramount plus or HBO's like, is your experience? I don't think anybody is really on Netflix's level algorithmically, in terms of helping you discover stuff, putting things in front of your eyeballs, remembering you just watch

something you might want to keep watching. You might want to keep watching it.

“I think Paramount, at least in my experience is the worst of it, where you're just like,”

I do watch Survivor, why do I have to search for it every time, even though I've saved it to like my stuff, peacock is like that as well. The peacock is like that as well, but I would say that I would expect a tear-down of both and a new thing, the funny thing about that is that whenever that kind of stuff happens, I feel like by the time it goes live, we've moved into another era of what this stuff

is supposed to look in feel like. I often remember when we were working at websites more actively, one of the big meetings

that we would always get stuck in is should we build our own video player, and the answer

was probably just YouTube, but it would always be like, both, we built our own player. What could be, and it was like, you guys took two years to do this, spent a ton of money, and now people still use YouTube. I don't know what that means, I'm not making a one-to-one person, but when you're talking about like, let's build this like state-of-the-art, streaming experience for people, I do

wonder like what happens in like three years, if like our parameters have changed for that.

“I think there's also a fundamental misunderstanding of what users want out of their experience”

these days. I think we could all agree, we can reach across the aisle and say, it sure would be nice to have to click fewer things to see the things I want to see. Yes. So the idea, and this is the idea that Netflix is actively working towards from a position

of like from a great lead in doing so, Netflix wants to be the app you open and stay in for your reality TV for your sports, for your cheese dramas, for your reruns, for your podcast, for everything that you do, and that seems like a very smart strategy to be comprehensive. We have not just recent evidence, but recent evidence involving one of the companies involved in this transaction that becoming an everything app is a lot harder than it looks, or

than it looks in a initial transaction spreadsheet.

That's, users weren't using it that way.

Like they, the thought behind it was, look how much we can give you, and you, I e us, looked at it and said, no, thank you. They were still seeking out the HBO shows they wanted to watch, and the people who watched

“the other stuff, watched the other stuff, but there wasn't a lot, and I think this has”

been confirmed on the record by people involved in it, which led to the HBO Max rebranded. Yeah. That there wasn't a lot of peanut butter and jelly mix and up in the mouths of the consumer. The other thing is just like how, my next question is like, what kind of TV shows are going to get made? And I think we'll probably feel this closer to 28, 29.

Sure. And we'll feel the like unified aesthetic of the new paramount start to come to the four assuming this happens. I mean, this happens and like, I don't know what happens to like the fourth season of House of the Dragon.

Like where that really exists, like at what point do they close down HBO as a streaming

service and ask everybody to be on Paramount plus how long are we going to have to go through the annoying like ESPN who loo Disney plus bundle. I think I'd pay all three of them independently. I think I might pay like multiple, multiple accounts of like I, and I have no idea how do you know how I know that I do?

“I took my kids to Disney and I was greeted by name.”

Thank you. You personally funded this way of one of the three account guys. Yeah. And tomorrow land because like every 15 months, ESPN will be like, you don't, you don't have a membership here.

Yeah, my God. I guess you got to give you that. I call them.

And they were like, yes, of course, I see this is not duplicative.

It's triplicative. Whatever. And then I was like, great. So we can bring it online and there was a, oh, well, Sir, your Hulu account actually runs until November.

Yeah. I was like, great. Call you then. But then my ESPN account will be running to June. I need how he rose me to do a cap management of my streaming service package.

So the like the reason I'm asking about like what will TV feel like and what kind of shows are going to get made is that even your HBO Max comparison is a really good one. That was bringing in some of the aesthetic house style of maybe like a TBS and TNT style show that you might, you might get on linear cable and finding a place under the HBO umbrella to put, put those things, but still have a little bit of the sensibility of the brain trust

of HBO consulting on flight attendant or what have you. Right. That was near that. Sure. Right.

Yeah. I don't see how that happens realistically with the current version of Paramount plus whatever you consider the remnants of Showtime, CBS and whatever like, you know, why marshals and tracker stuff that they're still putting up in HBO, you know, and I see the vision long term where they're like, this is great.

We have all this IP and it's all going to be like vertically integrated and we can start. We can take one of these studio lots and build Paramount Mountain and have dragons flying around. But these are very different experiences for me, like when I'm when I'm looking for stuff to watch Lyonus is not the same thing as DTF St. Louis. I'd like to think that we're a pretty good podcast.

The ringer fantasy football shows a good podcast is I don't think anyone would argue it would be a better podcast if all five of us were seated at the table at the same time. Talking at the same time. Talking at the same time. Yes.

Yeah. That is the fallacy of consolidation and that's the looming problem here.

“I think one of the under-reported things about the relative success of HBO Max.”

Now, again, let's say that Warner Brothers discovery continues to hemorrhage money and is in massive debt. That is not necessarily HBO's fault. That is the fault of, oh, Captain Mike Captain David Zazlov, who purchased the entire thing on debt and then tried to do that.

And now this has been purchased with quite a minute now going to enrich himself enormously. Well, everyone at least behind will lose their job. So that's awesome capitalism's working great. I'm sure the fantasy football guys say that. But an under-reported thing of our pal Casey Boys, friend of the watch, who we don't

need to blow any smoke in his direction whatsoever. But the consolidation that he used the word again of the HBO and HBO Max brand has worked so absolutely dynamically and beyond the expectations of a lot of people because they allowed it to fall under the same office. The HBO HBO Max thing was challenging for a while was they had two separate programming

teams. And then when Casey and his group took over HBO Max, they were able to say, this is an HBO show, this is an HBO Max show, and not in a dismissive way, saying like we're just going

So the idea isn't that things that don't necessarily sync up don't work under the same

“tile, it's that you need to have a unified vision, a broader unified vision of what you're”

putting up. And if you just put HBO next to everything that you just said, yeah, I don't understand what it means. Now, I guess the counter argument is you couldn't explain the cable bundle either. But I just think we're so far past that in terms of a reference point.

The other thing to add to this is I'm not entirely sure, I'm certain the viewers don't understand, but I'm not entirely sure that, quote, unquote, the town understands what a paramount show is. I don't think they're either because I think they're making assumptions based on, oh, it's kind of like red state curious, but if it was red state curious, which it has been,

but even if it has been largely through Sheridan stuff, yes, that was not Ellison.

Yes, and one of the first things Ellison did was let Taylor Sheridan walk and bring in

Cindy Holland, who is the architect of some of the most thoughtful programming. I guess that's chronologically, but yes, he brought Cindy Holland and Cindy Holland was like, we're good. But these were two big power moves in the TV space. So Cindy Holland's paramount does not exist yet in terms of what the viewers are engaging

with. That's a, there are a lot of similar shifts because other than HBO and FX, and I guess peacock is had a pretty consistent leadership team as well, but like no one, you could say the same thing about Amazon, which is like, oh, well, they're also going after that kind of Tom Clancy Terminal List, real estate, but behind the scenes, Peter Freelander came

over from Netflix and is now putting his mark on their programming, and it's not likely to be the same thing. So we can't assume we know what it's going to be, but the thing lurking behind that statement is Cindy Holland made her name in Netflix, making the kind of thoughtful, Emmy-provoking HBO competing stuff that put Netflix on the map, are she in case he hunting after the same

projects from their separate corners, and they're now going to be doing it from the

same structure, right, and who benefits from that?

It just kind of doesn't make sense. Now we can leap to assumptions, or we could choose not to. We don't actually know how it's going to shake out, and from the people that I know involved and from the good reporting that you were mentioning before, like no one actually knows how it's going to go yet, but it is concerning.

From a fan of quality stuff perspective.

“The IPJix all puzzles, the last thing I wanted to talk about, because I think it actually”

segues into talking about lanterns, pretty easily. Paramount now controls the following Warner Brothers pet properties, assuming this deal goes through DC Harry Potter Game of Thrones, "Lore of the Rings" movies, of which they are currently about to start shooting one in May, apparently, and much, much more Mortal Kombat, you know, some of the greats.

"We've been Mortal Kombat, guy." "Yeah, it's space." "Memage." "Who's your guy?" "I mean, that's my maranimitation."

"Who are your guys?" "Sub-Zero." "You were Sub-Zero, guy." "I like Sub-Zero." "I like Sub-Zero."

"I like Sub-Zero." I just didn't know you were so devoted to you." "Sub-Zero is my grand planer." "No matter what was revealed underneath."

“"I don't know what to do, it's sad to see you had."”

"It's like friendship." "I ride with him." "No, you were like he can win." "Yeah." "That was your attitude."

"Yeah, I was a big Mortal Kombat, guy." "Although, you know, fairs fair, I got a, I got a, be candid with you." "I don't think being an only child shapes you for competition with other human beings and video games." "I'm supposed to my computer.

This is the conversation I've been waiting to have." "Because, look, what it's just you and the four walls in the roof, you can just hit reset when you're not like in the way things are the way the wind is blowing." "Oh, you're just like, "Oh, I'm losing in this tech mobile game or this bad game. You're just going to kick the plug out."

"You know what else? What? You can think you're really good." "You can think you're fucking last starfighter." "You said you're goded."

"You can think your one guy comes over."

"I was basically, with my Sega Genesis, I was playing Ender's game."

"Do you know what I mean? I was the one who was going to end the collected conflict and maybe already had." "And then one dude comes over." "Yes." "And fucking."

"Ends my game." "Yeah." "There was 84 ninjas stars at your head." "And you're like, "God damn it, this controller is broken." "There was, this is also, this is actually dating us more than saying Sega Genesis.

But at the sense like I grew up in fucking Riverdale at the judge's head." "They didn't Veronica, but there was a pharmacy in the neighborhood that suddenly has a soda shop." "So-to-counts." "So-to-found."

"Yeah." "They had a double dragon." "Can you play DD by yourself?" "I would ride my bike there during off-hours or weekends and be like, "Dude, dude, dude, dude, dude, dude, dude, dude, dude, dude, dude, dude, dude, dude, dude, dude, dude, dude, dude, dude, dude." "Oh, sir, shall we play cooperative mode?

Which didn't exist." "Yeah."

"Yeah, I remember."

"There was not a mortality mode.

“Maybe there would be in Mortal Kombat, and yet somehow this guy would find a button combination to finish me."”

"Yeah, you've right to break your, like, your pelvis." "Yeah. No, we're trying to rescue the same lady." "Uh, so anyway, yeah, Mortal Kombat also goes to pair about, um, you know, this is, this is a really interesting wrinkle to this because there is the, just for laughs, idea of, of

West-Rosecario, like I have brought up multiple times." "West-Rosecario." "Yeah, good." "No, but just, like, having, having, you know, overlapping. And if you don't think that they've, like, talked about that, about, like, could we get

a hobbit in game of the game of thrones or something like that?" "Is that the Dorn border crossing?" "Yeah." "Just, just, like, talking through it."

"You're in the wind, Dorn, you're in the wind, Dorn."

"Um, but when this lantern's trailer dropped, I was, I was like, this is how long it takes, man. Like, when you have talented people working kind of in conjunction, and I know lanterns kind of predates James Gunn, and there's been some rumored James Gunn input or, like, kind of, conversations." "Yeah, the charitable version is, how do we bring this into the larger, full of what things

that I'm trying to, to weave?" "To Maya, at last I checked he has been relatively quiet about all of them." "Yes, I was, I was wondering that myself." He may have tweeted about it, I didn't see, but I, I, usually this stuff comes up in feeds if he's, if he's like, I'm so excited to be part of the Sky Dance family, I haven't

seen it.

“But lanterns is one of those things where you're like, you know what, man?”

You guys just did it, right? I, I, I've, I've not seen it, we obviously have a lot of affection for Damon and the people who made this show, and I'm a huge fan of Kyle Chandler and Aaron Pierre, so I'm excited to watch it. It just looks cool to me.

I know there's some lanterns heads out there where like, not my lantern, but I worry, I guess, that we're going to have to start from zero with this stuff in, in a year and a half, and they're going to be like, yeah, we have some different ideas about what we want Superman to represent, you know? "Did you see a lot of cars now, lay with the blue lantern flag in the back?"

"Yeah, yeah." "You got it." "Or the upside down lantern?" "Yeah." Well, I think two things are true.

Like, you're, you're guy. The guy's name is Jerry Cardnelly. That's incredible. Yeah. He owns like pieces of a lot of European football teams too.

Well, also. My birds got their hands on a lot of pots. Because the cardinals, the red, the red bird, you know. Oh, yeah. See, that's interesting.

I didn't really think about it that way. That's cool. That's why I'm on the pot. No, if you had done this last week, that would have crickets on that point. Okay.

Really being in the name of it. One step back. HBO has been making exceptional content and Warner Brothers films has been making, has been

“on a historic key and heater up until this weekend.”

From a position of deficit, literal deficit. Like, David says, "Love is like, I've created this new company.

We are $30 billion in debt.

What can we do?" So despite those circumstances, they are still producing at a high level and making shows that I would imagine in movies that have been profitable. David Ellison is coming in and now the new company will be settled with what $80 billion is in debt before it starts.

So that's basically asking them to do three times as much profit generating for one-third of what they've been spending, I don't actually know how the number shake out. But the point is, the fastest path, there is no path to profitability. I mean, it's just nonsense to me. The way that anyone would take this as a credible, like, we see a path here.

But the fastest path towards shareholder engagements, or at least shareholder fantasy story spinning, is we're going to do what the previous owners of this content have not done, which is absolutely supercharged IP. Yes. But I wonder whether more of their gains will come from doing the Disney flywheel thing

of creating, whether it's a park or consolidating whatever, you know, parks that they have already started talking about, and making it into an actual destination, and figuring out merchandising and selling all sorts of digital subscriptions for different things, because I just don't really know what the margins are on a show like that of 7 Kingdoms. Is this you asking me directly, whether I will also be a consulting producer on Harry Potter

Land and Abu Dhabi? I cannot confirm or deny that, but thank you. Yeah. That is a real thing. They're building this.

Are they really? Abu Dhabi? I'd be prior to the events the last 10 days. That was their plan. Okay.

Yeah. They will say that they have a path towards maximizing all of this. There will also be a strong counterpoint to be made.

You mentioned House of the Dragon. House of the Dragon will complete its work season run for it. Is that any issue? Yeah. The Harry Potter series is that Hogwarts Express has left the station.

Do you know what I mean? And that is a big deal for all these stakeholders involved. The sellers, the buyers, everybody, it's happening.

“I think one of the reasons why James Gunn probably hasn't said anything is because he needs”

to do and his team needs to continue to prove that they are the right stewards for this. That said, when you look at the deficits on the balance sheets, I think it would be a pretty quick decision that HBO's careful long-term stewardship of Game of Thrones, which has been successful. I mean, one week on two weeks on from Night of the Seven Kingdoms, I'm actually still

processing how successful that show was and how excited I am to see more of it. That two shows every year and a half is not enough. And they may hit the supercharged button and again, and then that would take. But if I was running for five years, I would just point them in the direction of Marvel television and Star Wars television and be like, be careful what you wish for.

There's only so you can only make this stuff so fast, given the effects and given the sort of scale of it. And then they would point to the screen again where the $80 billion deficit is looming and say, well, we've got to spend something to make something. I mean, I.

But then they top gun flight academy, I mean, there's all sorts of stuff. They can kind of mess around with. I think there's options.

“And I think that you're right, like, just from a what have we learned?”

I just feel like a lot of the the roadmap of recent capitalism doesn't have a lot of what we've all learned something here. That's right. You know what I mean? I think that's a very beautiful.

Guys.

We're never going to do 2018.

Exactly. Exactly. Let's not get too in front of our skis here. Instead, it's like, what if there were no mountains? So there's no question that all of the dials on all of these properties is going to get

cranked up. I don't know what that means. And if it's as good a segue as any to say, that like, we the and or loving podcasters look at the lanterns trailer couldn't be us. And we're like, this is exciting to us.

Close your eyes.

“I think of two guys who love and or I'm betraying men in glasses.”

Um, the, I, I, we don't, again, we don't know. And the more, what I mean, when I say we don't know what I mean is successfully executing lanterns, which from the people involved.

And it's incredible murderers are of talent.

There's the brilliant comic book writer Tom King, this Chris Mundi, who had worked on. Those are. It's a great TV producer, our friend Damon Lindeloff, who everyone knows his CV. My friend Justin Britt Gibson is a writer on the show as well. And like the, the, the pitch was basically true detective with power rings.

Yeah. Um, and it seems like they have executed this in making an HBO quality show. Did you shoot this in Oklahoma? I don't know where they shot. It looks like, but it looks vaguely like where they shot watchman.

Let's ask him. Uh, but it does not look or feel at least in the trailers. And in what they intended to make like super girl. Which is a movie I've high hopes for, but they were able to say like, this is going to work for this part of the company.

And you are serving fewer cooks in that template. Like again, the HBO Max Warner Brothers Discovery tent is probably too big. It's been proven. There was just too big of a thing. Sure.

But it is so much smaller than what the Paramount Sky Dance Warner Brothers Discovery thing will be that you could say James gun can look at his dock and say, well, I'm going to make this well for these people. I'm going to make this well for these guys. And the different margins for what is successful for Warner Brothers films in HBO, I'm going

to make everybody happy and we're going to probably maximize our chance to return on our investment. Sure.

If suddenly it's $80 billion of debt and we have to please as many people as possible

all the time, or it's confusing who you're pleasing. I guess what I'm trying to articulate is if Lantern's works in a narrow lane that connects to the larger DC universe, but only has to satisfy the HBO audience and the six million to 10 million people who might turn in tune in for it. That is a hard, I would imagine that's a harder sell in the even larger ecosystem.

I just think on a practical level, there's, there's very few scenarios in which I can imagine they're being a pool of money to be shared across multiple brands, verticals, what have you that have their own leadership structures and their own development processes. And if I'm running the remnants of the shared in universe, or if I'm running, I don't even know, like if I'm running whatever Cindy Holland's kind of version of this is her, her

old HBO stuff and the IP stuff that they were working on, but it's all coming from the same bank. Yeah.

“It starts, you can see where that starts to really get complicated because people are just”

like, why am I competing against him when we both are on the same, you know, at Paramount.com emails server. Let's look at this in the ways we were just saying that venture capitalists don't, which is like, let's look at where we're at now. And it's been incredibly hard for these companies to integrate themselves and keep up with

the shifting demands on them. So if you look at Marvel, which, you know, recent box office success aside, like no one will question Kevin Feige's bona fides and like the track record of this company within a company. But the CEO dynamic change at Disney had a ruinous effect on the Marvel brand because the

first thing Chapek did was say, we got to pump up these numbers for the streaming service.

We are serving that now. We are no longer serving the, I mean, I don't want to be so grandiose. It's a thing that Marvel Studio started to purely serve the consumer, but like, in terms of storytelling. But as soon as they, their mandate shifted and their modes of production shifted and

their output shifted, quality suffered. And it took us this long since the five or six years since Jason Colar tried to blow up Warner Brothers the first time and say we're going to put everything, you know, straight online operation popcorn or the fact that was called it. Like only now, in the midst of all these mergers and turnover has, it seemed like Warner

and DC have figured out their relationship to each other that we are going to make, they are going to make X number of movies a year, they're going to make X numbers of TV shows a year. And those TV shows are going to fall into these categories. And they're going to play nice with HBO's expectations and demands on quality and they're

going to play nice with Max. And that took a long time to get there.

And I'm not saying it's like a winning, always successful strategy, but it does, you do

get the feeling that it's calm down and everybody knows what they're doing. And every time one of these mergers happens, you blow up the expectations and you blow up the chains of command and you blow up the whole system and then it takes years to settle down again. And at that point, someone else is buying you.

Yeah. It's not a recipe for good shit. Let's talk a little bit about contemporary HBO stuff because there's two new shows on. Did you want to say anything else about Landridge? I kind of, I mean, they are playing into the core strengths of their two leads.

So Kyle Chandler, a slightly maybe more cynical and tongue-in-cheek version. No, the same coach Taylor, like this is Coach Taylor post NIL. Yeah. This is Coach Taylor. Like when he's been like working at Oklahoma State for a while, you know, you've seen

some things. And Aaron Pierre, who was in had an extraordinary coming out party as an action star in Rebel Ridge.

“And I think he's got some of that same quality in this show.”

So I'll be really curious to see how those two work together and then Cali McDonald is undefeated for 31 years now. So it's a great trailer. Yeah.

And Chandler looks amazing, like there's just something we used to talk about how

one of the few safe spots for creators of big genre movies would be like, yeah, he's got to talk about the fate of Romulus vis-a-vis clinging on. But if we get a royal Shakespeare actor to do it, maybe he'll sell it and they tended to sell it. Sure.

There's something about Coach Taylor being like, I'm a lantern. I'm like, sure you are, buddy, literally I trust you. Yeah. Whatever you need, mold my children to be lantern to be in this show. Yeah.

And for what it's worth from the nerd corner, like Green Lantern is a mythology that allows multiple, it's not like the spiderverse, like they are a core of many people who have rings. Do you want to talk spiderverse? What do you have to do to get a ring?

Still no. What do you have to be? What do I have to be?

“I mean, like, what do you have to have like college degree, like what's the sort of”

requirements to do? No, no, no. Remember when Obama was like trade schools are good too, there was a policy like that for lanterns. We see you because you don't want to be a lantern with tons of lantern debt.

No, that's true. You want to be able to start your career. That's true. That's just the way the world. The way the world of your community lantern college, this episode is brought to you

by Volkswagen. It can be hard to do your own thing when everyone else is following everyone else, but that's what some of the best films are about. An outcast, striving to make their own way in the world. And this is your sign to be that outcast from us, from VW, from the other outcasts out

there, take a chance, make the most of every day and don't be afraid to view off course every now and then because if you don't do it now, then when, learn more at VW.com. Let's talk a little bit about these two shows on HBO right now. Okay.

How are you doing with these allergies? We're saying it now.

“You can hear it in the voice man at my voice or just the allergies.”

Your voice has a nice, Chandler S. Growl today. I'm actually throwing it, it's just like a little bit in the pocket. You know what I mean? DC to have St. Louis, which is air two episodes and it's a cliffhangery mystery in one hand and also a acidic black comedy on the other hand.

So look, if you haven't watched this, I'll set it up a little bit by saying it's created and entirely written and directed by Steve Conrad, who I would describe as one of the few existing cult creators in television. Yes. He has made a show called Patriot, which is beloved a show called perpetual grace LTD,

which I actually quite liked and may be preferred a Patriot. And what do they call that? Puppet show. He made like a cop. Puppet show.

“Ultra city smiths and has done some feature work, but is here with me started doing”

feature work. Like he's been around. He wrote the weatherman, right?

He wrote wrestling Ernest Hemingway, was his first movie.

And the Walter Mittyy thing that he has still made. So he's been around, but like, his shows are not big, but when I talk to people as recently as Man's Lucas on Thursday and you hear this from a lot of folks, people are obsessed with this guy. And are like, he's one of the true unique voices in television.

You have bang this drum for a while, how they're really, it's not possible due to the budgets involved to have like an indie television scene. And any time, any duplast brother makes something self-funded, we are basically like dumpster diving for drag city records, just to try to celebrate it. Like examples of it are like, it's like Cooper Rafe made a show that he wound up getting

on movie. Yep. With Lily Reinhardt, yeah, the duplast brothers have experimented with, we're going to make six episodes of something and then take it to Netflix or take it to whoever. But there's, we are no longer in the show of Saloera, like we're not getting a lot of different

kinds of like radical takes on TV and he's certainly not from the outdoor perspective. And I was going to say Steven Conrad in that sense is like the Jandek of television, but actually he's more like the Nick Cave of television that he's been around for so long and suddenly arenas are booking him? Yes.

Yes. Although, but Nick Cave is filling those arenas, and I'm not sure about that. I don't almost made night at 7 Kingdoms. He was the original showrunner on that. He is now done DCF St. Louis, which is based loosely on a New Yorker article, but it's like,

“I think since pitch become a completely different animal.”

It is, so I want to be careful when we talk about this because as you said, we are in a moment in television, if not all media where truly idiosyncratic creators are not being platforms, like, and certainly not to the degree that HBO has given him with this. Because you can also see the development process and you can assume something about it, which is that someone had the rights to this story and wanted to develop it, likely he

was offered the chance to develop it, or there was some sort of bakeoff or whatever, and he got the opportunity to do it, and then he Steve Conraded it, and he did his own thing to a such a degree that it is no longer even credited as being based on this article. That is a level of flex that you don't often see very much anymore.

>> So when I watched the first episode of it, to reset it up a little bit, just like,

>> Right, so DCF St. Louis is like an Ashley Madison-esque website for the St. Louis area, speaking of red birds. >> That's right. >> And the setup is relatively straightforward that first, even Conraded Show, which is the Jason Bayman plays a weather local celebrity, weatherman, who befriends his ASL signer, played

by David Harberg, who is married to Linda Cardolini, who works for Purina. She does. >> And Moonlight, as a little league, umpire, and they, there's some discussion about extra marital opportunities, and then within the pilot, not a spoiler, we flash forward some amount of time and David Harberg is no longer among the living, and there's an investigation.

>> Believe that's also in the commercials, that's not really spoiling anything. And I would say that this show does the contemporary malady of like we're going to do two weeks ago, but now at the end it's going to be a flash forward, but that's present tense. So there's a little bit of like, not necessarily like, we're jumping around the timeline a little bit here.

>> I want to say true to our timeline and just say something positive first, which is when

I watched the first episode, I was truly unsure of how I felt about it, which is not a bad thing. >> I often find these sort of pointless, but like I will say that when you were texting me, yes. >> Incessently about this show a couple of weeks ago, compared to like frequently, do you

text about jail and Carter? Incessently. >> That is true. >> I was really intrigued because for a number of reasons, one, because I was curious about

>> Did you see any Patriot or Professor? >> Patriot is the number one show that I'm told that I would love. And I watched two or three episodes of it, and I enjoyed them, and I didn't go back. And this is probably on me. This is something that Manzuka has correctly vilified me for.

So I'm not going to make sweeping generalizations about anything. >> Jason's hard, because Jason is just like who I want to be. >> Yeah. >> Like when he's just like dark winds is awesome, I was like, I know, and I'm a bad guy for just not sitting down and watching three seasons of dark winds.

>> And he's who I want to be, because he sat across this table from you and said the word "freer in journeys end." >> He's done that multiple times. >> I know, and I'm like, I can say that at home with my daughters, but I can't say that in front of you.

I mean, I'm going to think I'm cool, so I can keep going to the clothing stores you frequent. >> It's a tough balancing act for you, yeah, but I was writing you for a number of reasons. One, because there was a not unheard of embargo on reviews, so I was watching it a little bit in advance and it was really curious in a way that felt almost desperate for a main line of understanding of how it was being received because it is so not so, but it was, you know,

it's an odd show. Also, I really wanted to talk to somebody about it, which now I can't. >> It should be a big deal. HBO is writing a high coming off of night of the seven kingdoms and industry being very successful in their own ways.

The pit is rolling, like, this should be a prime platform for a show starring Jason Bateman who may be one of the signature sort of adult television. I don't mean that in these innocent Max after Darkway, but he has kind of carved out this role where it's like, people go to these shows to watch Bateman because they think he has a good taste, whether it's black rabbit or Ozark or what have you, harbours coming off

of stranger things, which is one of the biggest shows in the world, Linda Catalini is a very well-loved and respected performer and right.

“So I think that there's a lot of pedigree going into this, and you were just saying,”

>> I was not unhappy being kind of discomforted by the first hour.

I was like, "Oh, where are we going with this? Because this is funny, and this is a good performance, and it's a little bit arch and this is a little bit surprising, but there were also aspects to it that were rubbing me the wrong way. And that's okay.

That's, you know, art, art should, what does it afflict the unaflication? >> Art should freeze a guy and then shatter him, like, sub-zero, and mortal come back. >> That's our formative art. I don't remember any other quotes that's other than finishing. >> Fatality.

>> I think that's the quote from this, that's right on the screen a lot, maybe I can put that. >> Fatality. >> On the screen. >> Whenever Andy kills a show, he's kind of fatality.

>> Well, get the button ready, because I watch two episodes of this show. And there are things that I will continue to bring up and be positive about during our conversation of the only two episodes of this show that I planned to watch.

“I think David Harbour is really good in it.”

I think Linda Cardley needs to serve some more opportunities. Richard Jenkins, one of my favorite actors.

But I, after watching two episodes, it's hard to remember a series that I have ultimately

disliked as much as this one, and that it rubbed me as much the wrong way as this one has. >> And we can go through the reason. >> Yeah, I have two reactions to this show. Pretty much the same as you.

I'm not actively looking to watch a third episode. I might just to see how right or wrong I am about it for myself. >> Right. >> There's two problems. One is I think I might be dyslexic for this right or like, I get the words and I see the

performances and I see why people like it and it is not hitting for me. There are moments where it hits, there are lines that I actually sincerely allow that. But I don't know that I, I think it's okay sometimes within criticism and within just talking about popular culture or art in general, just feeling it's not my tempo.

“And I think that we get a little bit into like there is a objective truth to whether like”

sinners or one battle after another or a better, which one is a better film. >> Yes. >> It's like, yeah, I think that they do different things. And I really respect this guy because he has such a unique cadence, worldview, the sense of humor is drawing from a kind of absurdist, drool, Cohen brothers, sensibility that I like

a lot in other stuff. But for some reason here, it's missing.

I was watching the second episode, which is, is this one called Jombejuice, the second

one, you don't need me at Jombejuice or something like that? >> There's a lot, there's a lot of Jombe in it, shout out to another child. >> This is shot in Atlanta and set in suburban Missouri. >> St. Louis area, second episode is called Snagit. >> Well, I guess I was wrong, it's set in the Jombejuice, largely.

It's shot in Atlanta standing in for suburban, St. Louis. The sky is almost white, slate gray, everything is beige, it's shot, in a kind of shallow focus where it's just kind of these people wandering through their lives in this very, almost

But what it makes me feel is a deep sense of nausea about living in America. >> It's like watching people walk around this cemetery of cities or suburbia wherever they're going, and there's nothing there, and it doesn't seem like there are any other people, and they're going to Jombejuices and sitting there and looking at their phones. And I actually think it just might be a world I don't want to spend any fucking time in.

Now, I like you thought there were elements of the first episode that I kind of dug and

you know, when it jumped up for me, when I kind of started to feel it, it's when Richard Jenkins and Joyce Sunday showed up because I don't know why, but I feel like their way of being antennas for Conrad's stuff and broadcasting it to me made more sense than Bateman Carolean in Harvard.

“>> I think that one of the things that might be worth exploring is the disconnect between”

the script. The Steven Conrad, the writer and Steven Conrad, the director, and he is the author of this entire series. There is a level of hyperstylization here that sends me to Mars. I'm completely kicked out of it, and it is maybe this is also subjective, but I like Richard

Jenkins and anything.

Richard Jenkins is in his 80s and is an active detective in the show.

>> Okay. >> Well, I guess they have a different attitude towards retirement ages in this world, but as does America. >> Sure. >> You know, we'll elect anybody, so that's fine.

The St. Louis Municipal Police Station looks like where they store crossbones in the Captain America movies. It is a cement brick tower with screens everywhere, and all interviews are done on cement boxes very far away from each other in the lobby, and no one ever calls a lawyer. So it's layers of unreality that are being imposed on us that run in conjunction with

“the show that I think my sense is that people behind the show want you to feel a little”

bit of toxic nausea about the dead endness of their lives.

For me, it's veers too far into outright scorn and mockery. I think there's an element where we're celebrating ordinary work and folks who might need to go get her smoothie in the middle of the day, and then there's the way the camera lingers on these sort of debased hungry, lonely people, suckling at the teeth of their 67 big gulp ounces of pure sherbert that feels a little judgy, maybe I'm the one judging.

But I don't think so. There is a little bit of contempt and mockery at work here, and it's a fine line, like the character of Floyd, the David Harbra's character, and his performance, it's broad. When you introduce him, ASL signing next to Bateman in a very dangerous tornado, I laughed. When he is dancing in a hip-hop intermediate children's dance class so that he can, when

he is signing the side of the stage of a hip-hop and R&B festival so that he can bring some rhythmic feelings to the signing, I laugh because it's a great physical performance. And then when he's on stage doing it, a linda cartelini is weeping because she's so moved at how sensitive he is and how much he wants to be great. I'm out.

Yes, so it is a specific cocktail to mix the hyper stylized with the mocking tone. It can be done, and it can be done within this.

“But then when you add the third rail, which I think you were alluding to earlier, which”

is what I think is just a loser of a design at this point, which is a show that begins with characters at the start of their journey, then fast forwards to the end of the journey and then says, "Guess how we're going to connect the two, that is anti-story to me at this point." And I don't know if that's a tale of gratitude and that they had this weird show on their

hands, and they were like, "We need to have a murder mystery." I think you wanted to. We don't know. I think you might be right there's a bit of like, how can we light lotus this to this show and make it a little bit more, and there are elements quite obviously of, it's

a noir set up. It's the lovable of his possibly emergent femme fatale partner and the guy who gets in the middle and the normie. And the guy who breaks that up and you know, everybody's got a secret, the secrets kind of like are slowly parceled out.

I think there is a real unique individuality to the show that I don't want to tamper down. I mean, by with my criticism, but I think this is kind of like when I'm at a stop light and I look over and I see three, four least signs on storefronts and then a smash burger

There are certain elements of like being in the muck that I like, you know, like to live and die in LA and stuff. I don't really know if I like the muck as a like, isn't life just absolutely fucking pointless.

“But also exactly like, what are we learning from that?”

I know people are sad and lonely and circling the drain. Yeah, dude. I mean, hello, if I can beat when I beat moral combat on my own, no one was there. You're not wrong. I think that the hesitation that anyone is hearing in our voice is that I would rather

a hundred DTF San Luis Flowers bloom, they're not always going to hit.

I mean, it's a similar thing that we said about the sympathizer, which ultimately did not work as a television show, but man, that was cool if they tried it and invested a lot of interesting capital and creativity into it. We're living in a world of like the characters of DTF San Luis, we're living in a world of shrinking margins and expectations, and so the fact that this exists is rare.

And the fact that it doesn't work shouldn't be a obituary for Stephen Conreds, Altourish Career, or this type of show working on HBO, there are a couple decisions here that I think probably sunk the whole thing. But there's also like, I understand and watching it. It doesn't seem like like an aberration, like I understand why everyone involved here

got involved. And for Bateman, for example, who's very, very smart about the creative management and of his own career, that when last time we saw him, was with his beautiful shaggy main being the bad boy.

He was basically doing the Tom Pell-Free role of Ozark, but on Black Rabbit, because

also he lily pads studios, projects, networks, because he's the rare actor who's like has the foresight. And he's building his career real in a way that other people don't either have the foresight or the ability to do, he's, I'm going to play a normal guy came up in the news where it's his production company is making a show for Netflix with Jacob Terny, who made

he's a rivalry, about a teenage Alexander the Great and his being a student of Aristotle. Yes. That's fucking crazy.

“That's how you get towering build it all up.”

And honestly, you know what, you know, it'll be the lead thing and he's going to live a long and healthy life. But like his number one career credit globally will be the voice of the Sardonic Fox and the Zootopia movies. I don't think that'll be the lead of his orbit.

First of all, he's going to live long enough that the generation of young people who are

like absolutely in love with the Sardonic Fox, and I'm speaking from household experience, they will be the ones writing this up at you, and they will be like, "Nick the Fox in the life." I promise you that. And it's like the most successful movie in the history of China.

So you don't need to be. Take a long drink of water, forget to think about watching that. Anyway, so I see why he did it. He's building something here. He gets to play a normal guy in a different way that he has been.

David Harbour is a freak of an actor and it's been really interesting to watch his career develop because you and I remember like the first 10 years of it where he was just like he was the not leading man, but he was kind of like the straight news anchor guy who had a secret. They're like, "Walk on the two stones."

Yeah. He was a great. There's a dark shadow too, if it was playing off of the fact that he looked like the most normal guy ever. And now there's a mania to the way that he rips into some of these parts that's really

compelling on screen.

“And sympathetic, like I think he's making someone who's a real person and not a cartoon.”

Man, the unreality of it and the relentless unreality of it, just just broken it. Yeah. And I also, you know, I think coming off of the, if we're talking about it from an HBO perspective, coming off of the adrenaline shot of industry and the economy of a night of the seven kingdoms, I was not ready for a kind of dull 57-minute show and I definitely felt it.

And that's, that's a me problem more than anything else, but it's interesting when your habits go in different directions because of what's being programmed to you. And I found myself really being like, I don't know, they're fucking seen and they're like, what is happening? We don't need to tell these guys how to do their job, they're the best at what they do.

But, and it's not easy to find things that fit this template. But I would say that just from a value sensibility, but also ultimately a quality sensibility, it would be who of them so much more to have three to four baby industries in the hopper. Maybe they do more than three or four splashy one and done's.

about frequently without talking about the relative uniqueness of its development process.

“That show exists because they were exploring low cost, high pros, especially in the”

thick of the pandemic, and no one who signed that deal, including Mickey and Conrad, at the start of it, would have thought that they would be heading into their fifth and final season as a flagship anchor show of HBO Sunday night, sure, lineup, sure. The ceiling of this of a DTF St. Louis, I guess, is you capture the zeitgeist and the imagination and the conversation for a few weeks like a white lotus, and you get a lot of love for

on any time. But I don't know if that juice is worth the squeeze. I will be, if I stick with the show, it's going to be to see what extent what we're watching in these early episodes is changed with any kind of suggestion that they're unreliable narrators in this.

Now, the POV of it, I mean, I feel like in the course of the second episode, like, you

know, like there's mystery developments that suggest we'll get different looks at different characters over the course of the next five weeks if you wanted to keep watching through

“episode seven. But, totally, I think I have a high hurdle to clear to do it. For me, the”

last straw was to your point, like, yes, the possibility of a structure like this is unreliability seeing truth play out in opposition to a cover story or a narrative. This episode showed us in flashback, the more aggressive behavior of Linda Cartlinge's character in in snaring Jason Bateman's character. The episode ends with Richard Jenkins being like, he seduced her and then the other cops saying, no, he didn't. She seduced him because I went to John

Badgees. Yeah. We saw that. Yeah. That wasn't an episode ending revelation. It was just not interesting to me on a dramatic level for that reason. This actually works as a footnote to the conversation we just had. Bill Lawrence does not need our thumbs up because Bill Lawrence has multiple incredibly popular series on television right now. He is obviously one of the minds behind Ted Lasso. He does shrinking also for Apple TV. He does bad monkey

for Apple TV. He is now got the show rooster on HBO. Scrubs reboot. He's got the scrubs, which he's, I guess, because he's at Warner Brothers. He's not involved in day to day, but that was his show. He's, he is a, he's minted. Like, he doesn't need nobody, nobody cares

really what we think. And we have obviously never really commented on shrinking. I, I would

“say, shrinking is just not my, not for me. It's a little too saccharine for me. I think”

that I enjoy Utopian found family, like everybody basically gets a long stuff in a 20 to minute sitcom. I don't really love it as a drama. And I find, I find his shows to be also existing in a realm that I am not familiar with. I guess his way. Yeah, sure. Or, you know, like, I think even his Ted Lasso went on. I was just like, this is just kind of silly. Um, Rooster is a campus comedy, campus, uh, dromity, I guess, set in a New England liberal arts

college. Uh, Steve Correll is a famous, I guess, like, would you say he's like a mystery author or like a kind of, sort of, sort of a humor. He's kind of inspired by Carl Highison, okay, who wrote Bad Monkey in the sense that he's like a nice regular guy who writes sort of crime novels. Yeah. Yeah. And he's got a daughter who is in a relationship. She's a teacher at that college and she's in a relationship with another professor. That relationship

has just come to an end. Correll shows up kind of to help her out, but also to do a reading at the school where he meets a huge, as Bill Lawrence is one. Like, usually you just get like an immediate kind of 10 person bench, immediately circulating through the show. It's

a lot of banter. It's a lot of quips. Uh, it's ultimately got a very warm heart for the

most part. And, um, I was, I was curious about like, there are elements of the show that I'm curious about. And I could see myself like sticking around for a couple of weeks, but the the central kind of like, I don't really see people. I see like a bunch of like really like kind of fun one liners to one another. And the one liners Trump any stakes of any scene kind of. So even if the daughter character has a burn down someone's house or the president

or the dean of the college, uh, like to walk around naked and stuff like that, like it all

really love this, but I wasn't sure. Yeah, I have no malice in my heart when I say I hated this show. But, but it's okay. Everybody, it's okay. They're actual problems in the world. Yes. This is not one of no, you know, that I don't know if you ever watch this.

“This is, I think it's available streaming on HBO Max, but there's the show chopped for the”

get the mystery basket of ingredients. Yeah, I never liked chopped. Okay. Well, bear with

me first. Okay. No, I'm, I'm just imagine thinking about this the other day of the top chef, and I never liked chopped. Oh, we haven't even talked about top chef yet. I'll just say, uh, if you'd gave me a basket with all the ingredients of the show, including many of the actors, I would be delighted. And I was in, in line for a really nice plate of food. And then I just hated the dish. Right. Um, I, I found it just completely

glowing and uninterested in committing to any genuine moment of hardship or emotion or frankly, comedy. Um, I've seen other reviews of it. And I just, I mean, I don't want to piggyback, but I agree with them where they're like, it kind of is a campus comedy, but

not really. It kind of is a father and a father and daughter girl dad coming of age kind

of thing, but it kind of runs away from that too. It, it seems like maybe Steve Correll was pitched an opportunity to shade his familiar sitcom presence a little bit with some dramatic notes, which he is good at playing, but at least in the early going kind of leans away from those as well. Um, his post office career so fascinating. Do you feel like

“it's been, because I think broadly speaking, he is beloved and also talented enough to”

diversify like he's taken on many different types of roles. I can't help but feel like he probably doesn't ever want to do six to seven years of Michael Scott again. You know, I mean, not Michael Scott literally, but like, I think that he is tried a bunch of different things that almost seem engineered not to last forever, but like space force was something I did not care for. Then he's done a couple of dramatic turns and things like the morning

show. I guess you could call his performance in Mountainhead comedic, but not entirely. He was also good in the four seasons. The four seasons. Yeah. And what was the show with Dom McLeeson? Oh, the patient. The patient. That was interesting. Um, just a really interesting, wide ranging kind of wandering bit of post office stuff. I will still say that the funniest he has ever been is standing in the background of the scene in 40 year old version where Kevin Hart and

Romney Malco get into a fight at smart tech. I hear that, but I would say one to the left. Is your boy? Were you just got fucked up with him? When's the last time you watched his

“between two firms? Oh, I don't, I can't not, not a long time. Should we watch Chris watch that?”

No, but that's that is maybe maybe we peaked us a society then. Yeah. Um, I, the other thing, I, I, I, I need shout out shout out. Uh, I think, I think, I think it was in the Hollywood

reporter. This might have been a Daniel Feinberg thing where he was basically like Danielle

Deadwiler who we love in station 11 is on the show as someone who is desperate to sleep with Steve Corel. Yes. And then, and then is hurt when he rejects her. I believe his point in their view is that like she is not a seasoning. She is the dish. And it's good to see that she has been cast as the lead in Ryan Cougl. There's a reboot of the ex files. Sorry. She's very good. Awesome. And when she's on the screen, it's like, oh, that's it. I'd like to watch this show.

Yeah. She's, um, one of my favorite actors probably. I don't want to be cynical about it, but maybe the way to bring things full circle is that, and maybe this speaks to the, the future, maybe will be wrong about the viability of HBO and it's unique in established programming culture under the Paramount umbrella because they have been survivors because, um, you could look at the show quite cynically and say that Lawrence has been under a very rich overall deal at Warner

Brothers for a very long time and has had this career resurgence selling Warner Brothers shows to other streamers. And they're, it would have been malpractice if someone within the company didn't say, why can't we buy one of these shows and do a shrinking for us? Sure. And you get Steve Carell involved and you get all and suddenly it's an HBO show. There is nothing about this show that has the DNA of what an, what an HBO comedy has been under this regime and Amy Gravid

and Casey and anything. That doesn't mean it shouldn't exist. HP, I would say the same thing about the Penguin or Dune prophecy or whatever it's called. And those are doing fine. It is good business to make to bring this stuff in house. Prophecy back. Yes. Prophecy wasn't done. No. We still don't know. We just can't be sure. Is it really Paul? I think we're pretty sure. Well, I don't know. Apparently it's going to be Michael B. Jordan,

not Paul at the Oscars next week. Anyway, I don't think the reason to review or to

air and it's fine. And if you like those other shows, which we are allergic to, there's probably something to be charmed by here. Briefly, let's just hit top chef. I don't want to do it briefly, but I know we're at a time. Well, it's not even out of time as much as my worry that people were

not aware that top chef is the first episode is currently sitting there on P. Kai for you to watch.

Can't wait. A lot of ink spilled about survivor these last couple of weeks to survivor or five degrees back. And it's pretty fucking good. I got it. Okay. It's definitely relit my survivor can. Easy. Is it good? You're survivor. I just thought Kai was a level of game play. It's right torches right there for you said Campbell. Oh, yeah, I guess I did want to run that back. No, let's just let's live with it. Yeah. Has it been good. Is it a level of gameplay? Just like

everybody knows exactly how to play survivor. Is it an all star season? It is. But it's from across all 50 seasons. So there's people there from the first. There's the the woman who won last season as on a couple episodes of that have gone on. It's got a lot of press. Obviously, I did not.

“Like, I think I was a little bit mixed on mixed is a kind of thing to say. I was not super into”

where top chef was going. I personally felt like I felt a budget crunch on that show where it was like a lot of shooting stuff on sound stages. I felt like there was a lot of inane cross promotional quickfire challenges. You know, we've laughed when it was the minions. It just feels like we're getting minions out. This new season is in the Carolinas.

Yep. It's Kristen's what like third season hosting. Within about 10 minutes, I was like,

it's workshop's fucking back. And it was, I realized that because my wife and I were yelling at the screen as if it was the finale. We were like, oh my god. And oh, she's, she's, she's not going to make it. And like that level of intensity. And also a couple of dicks in the cast. Like people who were like, I really, I really, I'm here to bust some heads. Yeah. It's kind of a new thing for the show after a few years of just being like, hey, everybody's really trying to help each other out. Yeah.

And I just, I'm so excited to see this thing return to form. It is so back. This is an excellent

“premiere. I think it's interesting, though, what you said about feeling a budget crunch, because I”

would say I continue to feel it. I don't know. I mean, what one of the reasons why quickfire was

pretty impressive. Well, there's no, there's no shame in the fact that top chef is, it's locations

are about chasing tax breaks. And like, which areas in which states will allow them to film there and give them the promotional opportunities to do things like at motor speedway. Do you have a whole food seems to be a top requirement? But I would also note that there are some other, there's some changes behind the scenes. Like San Pelligrino is no longer sponsoring them. Gratsa, olive oil, which by the way, thank you everyone in the East Side of Los Angeles for giving this

stupid sport bottle oil company enough money to sponsor our favorite cooking show. You've done a service. You've done a service. You've done a lot. You've done a lot. You've done a lot. You've done a lot. You've brought you by Gratsa. You're fucking Instagram, lemon. You bought us another season of worship. No, it's fine. But like, is it more expensive than like, yes, because it's in it, because they were like put it in a squirt bottle and everyone's like, oh shit. I don't find olive oil that affordable. It's not affordable.

Yeah, especially now they have to sponsor top chef. It's great. I may need it to feel my car. It's a great point. So squirt the gratsa in the outie. I'm laughing. I also noted that it appears that BMW is no longer fairing them around, so they no longer get into their cars and go, be I'm double. You drive me to Whole Foods. Oh, yeah, I noticed that. It doesn't matter. We're on here to like check, you know, see if they're still financially solvent. Whatever the case may be,

there seem to be an embrace of what they have as opposed to what they don't have. And the biggest change, or one episode in, we're going to watch the season. Hopefully we'll talk to Gail at the end

“of it. The biggest change I think is in a subtle shift in the editorial POV of the show.”

It used to be that the judges were, you know, the hammers, they stepped in at the end and there was a, you know, a strong pipeline as I'm sure there will continue to be of esteemed guests and chefs and legendary people that made everyone feel nervous. I don't know whether it's the changing times. I don't know whether it's the changing nature of the hosts, but this is fully Christian show now in a way that is remarkable. And it also reminds me now, not of other cooking competitions that we've

talked about before, but it feels a little great British baking show. Great British baking show has a more mellow familiar, the judges aren't our friends, but they're kind of like our extended family. And the role, the way Tom and Gail and Kristen acted throughout this episode being there from the quickfire being there at the end. The way Tom was like, actually, I still think this was the best expression of the sweet potato. That thought that was bullshit. Even though it might have been,

even though she didn't get, you know, left a ring mold on it, that all felt a little warmer

who is an absolutely unique talent, like an absolute unicorn in that she won the show is clearly in a lead cook, but is also an exceptional TV person who is just effortless at being what appears

to be her real self. The promise of hiring her was always so you had someone in that chair who

could relate. So it's, and they ran towards this moment in the premiere in a way that was really

“moving. If you haven't watched it, stop and Kaya and Kaya, the room. Feel free to Kaya is honestly”

dozing right now. Kaya smells of coconut oil and it's just kind of um, there's a moment in the first episode where, and this, I thought this was fantastic challenge because it immediately tied the show to the region where they're given all these different um, this is the sweet potato challenge. And so they're given all these different kinds of sweet potatoes. They're going to sign different ones, different people have like, they're like, fuck, this is like a really stargy, bland sweet potato,

the other one. Some people are like, you barely have to do anything to this sweet potato. At the end,

Nana, who's one of the chefs, basically has like a, a time crunch, like she tried to do too many

things. She is the aforementioned person who left her ring mold in one of her bowls and if plating matter, it would be like a disqualifying thing and plating sometimes does matter. You know,

“her, the end of her service or the end of her cook is just chaotic. I think some”

some dishes are unfinished or whatever, but certainly like just a mess. There's also a chef named Nana has like a panic attack. Yeah, and she also has a panic attack while she's about to serve, which, which the judges who are waiting her dish notice and Kristen in her empathy gets up and goes to her. Yes, and I thought that was without putting too fine a point on it, a defining moment for Kristen's hosting of the show where I, you know, in the past, like, you know, you can see

her tearing up as she has still like let people go and, you know, obviously has like a real emotional connection to what these people are experiencing. But she calmed, Nana down, told her to take a beat, have her come back out, and then I thought crucially what happened was they served this, these, they're going in sets of three, and then the judges along with Sean Brock and some other

guest judges are ranking live who they want, who wins versus one, two, three. Tom puts Nana first,

and Kristen is like really, and I thought that was awesome because it was, she was kind of like, I definitely feel for her as a person, but let's be real. There was a, a cooking mold in my, in a dish. Yes, and I was when I was watching it, I was like, that should, that should be disqualified, right? Like you've leave a piece of metal in somebody's dish, that should probably be disqualified. Instead, it's this woman day who made like an undercooked fish, and

she made it, it tasted like, like a soap bar. She has two, three piles of it. And put a bunch of good products on it. So I thought it was just a great, great, great start to the season. And to your point, maybe this is a little bit more, they have steered away from, um, interior mural, shenanigans, you know, in terms of the shift test and competing against each other, just liking each other, having an attention, and this season, they not only have identical twin brothers competing,

they have a husband and wife, or not, they're not actually, but they're a lifelong partners business and personal romantic partners. I hope they're still a romantic partners after going on reality television together. Exactly. So there's a little bit more opportunity for some shenanigans, but I don't know, there have been good seasons, but they like hit it really hard in a way that was exciting. If you had won the quick fire, is this watch after dark? Yeah, sure.

Yeah, I know they want to, I want to see the. Yeah, you're glowing. That's the thing. Skincare dropped the regime. No, you know, I went on jam session once and talked about my, my skin care routine. I have a hard time listening to you on other podcasts. Do you? It's not because I don't enjoy you, but I feel left out. And I, I talked sweet, the scarier podcast was a lead. I did, did you talk back to it? Go on. I'm singing,

shut up, Sean, see our month. She's, I wanted to ask you this for after dark. Um, had you won, this is top chef related, but I don't think it's spoiling anything. They opening

“quick fires at the, the motor. Yeah, the mask. The winning chefs, they're prized. I think they”

get some cash, but they also get a, a lap in the front. Yeah, of the car. Get up to 170. Would you have eagerly accepted that? Yes. Yes. Yeah. I have gotten up to 100 in a car. I think around 100, what's the fastest you've ever driven? Probably with you on the New Jersey turnpike once in 2003.

to see if it would happen? Was it before the blue route was officially open? It kind of was that vibe,

you know, it was like the Autobahn. Except Pennsylvania Dutch, not actually German. I haven't really pushed it like that. Everyone's in a while on the two. We see we see what we can get up to when it's real open. I want to begin by saying unsurprisingly, I would have said thank you, no thank you to that opportunity to be in the car. I don't think it answered how it's the fastest you're driven.

“I mean 65. I think 66. Once a couple comments here. One, I think the only, I want to be straight with”

you. If I were a for hire political consultants, I would bring you the Oppo Research on you,

which would be limited because you are beloved. But I have some scallions. It's not the scallions

in your closet. It's the one, I think your one vulnerability from the left and the right is your casual abuse of automotive laws. I don't think you come up sometimes on this podcast. I'm not entirely sure. When's the last time you've seen anybody get pulled over on a highway? Like seen in front of me for speeding or whatever happens very rarely. Yeah. So why have speed limits? We're not going to force them. Everybody's running me off the road anyway. So why are we even pretending like there's a

speed limit? Either go full surveillance minority report and start like ticketing everybody for with a camera

“in the sky or just fucking give it up, man. And let us rock. This is this is an incredible land. Let's get”

super road warrior with it. Let's soup up our cars and take the safety plates like the

restrictors off. I don't think this is Nithia's platform to improve. I get to this central valley in 30 minutes if I got my car just up enough. Now, as a point of comparison, what I do is I just nobly some some have said. Yeah. Just set a model for the other people how to behave. By getting into the fast lane in a time when we exact speed limit. Oh, I don't go in the fast line. Yeah. Yes. But one change for me is with these the way cars are.

My children, especially my younger daughter in the back seat, it was like looking at the Google maps display and will comments if the number ever goes red. Because you know, it's like it says you're driving 66 or 67 or 68 in a 65 mile zone. They love. They like you're going too fast. Yes. Real quick. Yeah. Imagine these lights have a green tint now. You think Jalen Carter will be on the Eagles when we do the pit and the industry mail back. Okay. Okay. That's all. Do you think

Adrian Brown will be on the Eagles when we do our podcast on Thursday? Yes. No, I don't. You don't.

“I don't. I don't. I think Alec Pierce resigning with the cults. Clear the path. Clear the”

day for you. It's making the trade. I mean, I haven't looked at the SPN. We could could have already happened. I don't think anything's happened. This is a kind of reporting that the world needs to design John Dotson. Oh, and to a. Yeah. Thanks to everybody for listening. I think this has been. I thought we started out really strong. Yeah. Yeah. You just gone. Not so great. I think it's just been. You're you get me pause. I don't want to make it sound like I'm an unsafe driver. I'm dinging you

up in the primary ahead of the general. That's right. Our iron sharpens iron. You know what I mean? Yeah, you will be a far better hand. It was a Graham just going at it so that he emerges. Who's my fucking Janet Miller? You're older. I was hand selected and put on this podcast. Yeah. But to be the institutionalist and yet. Thanks to Kai. Thanks to Kai. We will be back on Thursday as I said the pit. We didn't really talk about the last episode. And we'll have a new one to talk about. And we have

your wonderful questions about the television show industry and your questions about the tattoo's Chris is hiding under that shirt. Goodbye. Simon, you're over the street. You're also a school flashback. You're just trying to figure out what you're doing. I'm just trying to figure out what you're doing. I'm just trying to figure out what you're doing. If you're trying to figure out what you're doing,

I'm just trying to figure out what you're doing.