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

Chris is joined by Joanna Robinson to talk about the series announcements that came out of Netflix’s first ever UK Upfront presentation (2:09), ‘The Beast in Me’ returning for a second season despite being marketed as a limited series (13:58), and increasing price hikes across streaming services (21:23). Then they discuss the HBO series premiere of ‘Youth,’ starring Sharon Horgan (30:43) and ‘Slow Horses’ Season 6, Episode 2 (43:35). Later, they react to The New York Times’ “100 Best TV Shows of the 21st Century” list and reveal their own ballots (54:35). Subscribe to the Ringer TV YouTube channel here for full episodes of The Watch and so much more! Follow us on IG and TikTok! Host: Chris Ryan Guest: Joanna Robinson Producers: Kaya McMullen and Kai Grady Studio Production: Jason Arreola Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 1:05Speaker 03

  I need sports staff to clear the room. Stand up and walk now.

• 1:11Chris Ryan?

  Hello and welcome to The Watch. My name is Chris Ryan. I am an editor at TheRinger.com. Joining me in the studio, her season one demise was greatly exaggerated. It's Joanna Robinson.

• 1:24Speaker 05

  It's series one, Chris.

• 1:26Chris Ryan?

  Series one, you're right. Well, this is a very Anglo-Philip pod today. Joe, thank you for joining me. Andy is out today. We have some news at the top. We're going to talk about Sharon Horgan's new show. I don't know why I seem to pronounce that with like two Rs and an I in Horgan, but I'm like...

• 1:43Speaker 05

  Just to get, make sure people know she's Irish.

• 1:44Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, exactly. Sharon Horgan's new show, Youth, the first two episodes of which are up on HBO. We're going to talk a little bit about Slow Horses. We're going to talk a little bit about the unfolding New York Times Best of the Century list for TV, which we contributed to. And it's like, as we're recording, I think they've revealed up to 20, I believe.

• 2:05Speaker 05

  I'm like that. And all I know is Andor's 32, which too low for Andor.

• 2:10Chris Ryan?

  Well, I'm sure we have some common ground. We have some diversions. I wanted to talk to you about the act of list making in general, but some news at the top. First of all, how are you doing?

• 2:17Speaker 05

  I'm great. Here's my question about today. Is this our soft launch for Ringer UK? Where you and I move to the UK and just talk about British television?

• 2:27Chris Ryan?

  I know over the years, every time I start to work up the courage to really interrogate it, they get a new prime minister and I'm like, let's see how this one works out. You know, so like I, I'm pretty fired up about Burnham, Burnmentum.

• 2:41Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 2:42Chris Ryan?

  I'm feeling the burn. And, and yet, you know, by the time I, I start packing my bags, I'm going to go in November, so hopefully.

• 2:50Speaker 05

  We're both going in November.

• 2:51Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. Yasi's going in November. It's like, there's just...

• 2:54Speaker 05

  Didn't Yasi just get back from there?

• 2:55Chris Ryan?

  Like, this is...

• 2:56Speaker 05

  Okay, Ringer UK, Richard Osman, we're coming for your job.

• 2:59Chris Ryan?

  That's right.

• 2:59Speaker 05

  That's what I have to say.

• 3:01Chris Ryan?

  Which one of his jobs? Writing cozy mysteries?

• 3:03Speaker 05

  Yeah, cozy mysteries. Hosting a pod with Marina Heinz, you know?

• 3:07Chris Ryan?

  Speaking of England, speaking of British TV, which we, we generally really like and has had such a profound impact on the way that American TV I think is made and received.

• 3:17Speaker 05

  Especially right now.

• 3:18Chris Ryan?

  And is part of like the internationalization, the globalization of television. They did an upfront, you know, sort of a showing their wares for Netflix UK, which was of special interest to me because I am of the opinion that a lot of their shows from this sort of region and this department of Netflix have been kind of keeping some of their prestige efforts afloat.

• 3:43Speaker 05

  Adolescence and Baby Reindeer.

• 3:45Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. And, and even stuff like Black Doves, which certainly will entertain your John Wick fans.

• 3:52Speaker 05

  Sure.

• 3:52Chris Ryan?

  I think has a lot of weight to it. And, and Joe Barton is a, is a great writer and I really like, can't wait for this to come back. So I can run down sort of the big announcements. Netflix UK, Witch Hunt, which is a dark drama, and these are log lines I'm taking from Deadline, a dark drama about a modern day witch hunt, starring Sarah Langkisher, written by Abby Morgan and you say what.

• 4:19Speaker 05

  Could not be more for me.

• 4:20Chris Ryan?

  This is, I'm really glad you're here today because these are...

• 4:23Speaker 05

  These are just for me, are they not? Did it not say, here are three shows for you, Joanna Robinson? A witch show with Sarah Langkisher, an icon. We are going to talk about the New York Times list, but I don't know if you did this. Something I did is I, when I was looking at the sort of like various luminaries who had made their lists, I was playing a game where I would like look at the list and try to guess like kind of who the person was.

• 4:44Chris Ryan?

  Yes. Oh, that's fucked.

• 4:46Speaker 05

  And you know, I was like, oh, this is, and you know, you can tell who's from the UK if they have Happy Valley on their list. Happy Valley was on, was the most, I would say, represented UK show from what I saw.

• 4:56Chris Ryan?

  Yes. If you were involved in one side or the other of Brexit.

• 5:00Speaker 05

  You love Happy Valley. So Sarah Langkisher, an icon for a number of shows. And then Abby Morgan. I mean, honestly, if the hour had been allowed to end on its own terms, it would have been on my, on my list, on my top 10 list. I love that.

• 5:16Chris Ryan?

  I'm going to check you soon because I think you're going to start saying things like that and then you're all of a sudden going to have 63 shows in your top 10 list had there just been one.

• 5:27Speaker 05

  I mean, but that's true. What can you say? There's so much great television. I didn't love her last endeavor, The Cumberbatch Show. Yeah, I wasn't a huge fan, but I, but it's a witch show.

• 5:38Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 5:38Speaker 05

  Chris, like an actual witch show.

• 5:40Chris Ryan?

  And Sarah Langkisher currently kind of a relief pitcher on Black Doves, comes on for like, I don't know, like a dozen scenes a year or something like that or a series.

• 5:50Speaker 05

  The Margot Martindale of the American sort of role.

• 5:51Chris Ryan?

  Exactly. Yeah. And she's great on that, but it's cool to have her back in a leading role and, and paired with Abby Morgan, Witch Hunt sounds really cool. The other one that leapt off this page to me was Black Mirror, which is not Black Mirror, but Black Mirror, but it is from Charlie Brooker.

• 6:11Speaker 05

  What's the name of the fictional town? Is it like Bleakshire?

• 6:13Chris Ryan?

  It's like, it's, so this is a very serious, quote unquote, a very serious crime thriller that takes a satirical look at serious crime thrillers. So I think it's supposed to be functioning on two levels. It is essentially like a, I don't know if it's how lightly it's lampooning shows like Broadchurch and shows these Nordic mores that I love and you love. But Patti Consta Dean is starring with Rory Kinnear and Georgina Campbell. And this is coming in early 27. And it was interesting, even the way that they described this in the deadline.com article where it was going to be airing after Black Doves as if it was almost a, like they were thinking through the programming of them.

• 6:57Speaker 05

  Black Doves into Black Mirror?

• 6:59Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, but like, in a sense, like the way the HBO kind of programs like will lead you for eight weeks through lanterns and then after lanterns, you know, war will come on.

• 7:08Speaker 05

  There's always something on HBO Sunday night.

• 7:09Chris Ryan?

  Exactly. And I wonder, there are a lot of different divisions of Netflix and a lot of different divisions of Netflix programming. And the fact that they're just like, if you were to watch one episode of Black Doves a week, people won't do that. They will watch it in a weekend or over the course of a week. But if you wanted to watch one episode of Black Doves a week, it would take you right up to when we're releasing Black Mirror.

• 7:30Speaker 05

  But to your point, that's so hard to do in the binge culture because they don't know when people are watching their shows and we don't know how to cover their shows because we don't know when people are watching their shows.

• 7:38Chris Ryan?

  This is like me telling myself that like I will look at Instagram for 10 minutes a day, you know, and just respond to some DMs. And no, it's terrible. It's awful. I have so many half-started sweet potato dishes and cats that I'm stalking and stuff like that, you know? I'm all up on this, this lesbian bar drama in the Western Massachusetts. It's just terrible.

• 8:00Speaker 05

  Can I say, the lesbian bar drama has been the joy of my life this week.

• 8:03Chris Ryan?

  It's rocked our household.

• 8:05Speaker 05

  How are the milk takes for you?

• 8:07Chris Ryan?

  Well, on Instagram or?

• 8:09Speaker 05

  The milk adjacent takes?

• 8:11Chris Ryan?

  Oh, yes. I mean, like this is, this has rocked our house. Deeper than any story. I can't even think of until the last time we've been as captivated.

• 8:21Speaker 05

  Phoebe did text me about it this morning. It was very special.

• 8:24Chris Ryan?

  And we haven't even started discussing my dating history in Western Massachusetts, which is not Legion, but is...

• 8:30Speaker 05

  But do you think it touches clowns?

• 8:33Chris Ryan?

  You know, I don't know.

• 8:34Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 8:35Chris Ryan?

  We can't be sure. I may have to go and do some on the ground reporting and just be like...

• 8:39Speaker 05

  Yeah, okay.

• 8:40Chris Ryan?

  Masked up, obviously.

• 8:43Speaker 05

  No other way.

• 8:44Chris Ryan?

  So if people don't know, Boston Globe published an article about a lesbian community in Western Massachusetts that was, you know, very centered around a bar that had been there where they were very COVID conscious to this day. And you know what? The, it turns out that the comment section just blew itself up and this, this bar has kind of fallen apart. The community has fallen apart over, over a lot of stuff. It's really, you got to read it to believe it.

• 9:12Speaker 05

  Like Twitter hasn't been this good in so long. And also, did you see the Boston Globe said this was their most trafficked article in what, like a decade?

• 9:20Chris Ryan?

  Which has led to my gateway to it was everybody making spotlight memes about the COVID conscious lesbian bar in Western Massachusetts and Mark Ruffalo being like, they knew Ruffalo.

• 9:29Speaker 05

  That's my favorite of the tweets. It's the best one.

• 9:34Chris Ryan?

  God damn, it's just the internet. So that's, how did we get onto Western Massachusetts lesbians?

• 9:39Speaker 05

  I don't know, I'm sorry.

• 9:40Chris Ryan?

  Oh, Instagram. Oh, when I tell myself...

• 9:42Speaker 05

  But I did set a clock for myself as to when we would talk about it.

• 9:45Chris Ryan?

  When I, when I'm like, oh, I'm just going to watch one. If I like the show, it's just, there's nothing better. I, I'm, I have to hold myself back usually when I have screeners of stuff to like blow, to not blow through them, which I'm not good at, you know? And I did, I just did that with Youth where I was like, no, watch it with the people. Don't have like a, no, see?

• 10:05Speaker 05

  I, I ruined myself.

• 10:07Chris Ryan?

  You are, you are a gate, like a real enabler when it comes to this.

• 10:10Speaker 05

  It's true.

• 10:11Chris Ryan?

  You're the queen of, hey, have you checked out East of Eden? I've watched it.

• 10:15Speaker 05

  I've watched all of it. The problem with Youth or even something like Furious, if they put a Will They, Won't They in there, it's really hard for me to stop, you know? And if part of the Will They, Won't They is Rupert Friend with a Scottish accent, then I have a really difficult time stopping.

• 10:32Chris Ryan?

  The other show that Netflix UK announced was Hot or Cold and...

• 10:38Chris Ryan?

  This is, this is again, like, if you were gonna say Sarah Lancashire and Abby Morgan making a witch drama, the opposite side of that coin, but still beloved by Joe, would be a new comedy entertainment format and challenge-based game show led by British comedians Bob Mortimer and Richard Iowate.

• 10:55Speaker 05

  I mean, Richard Iowate and Bob Mortimer are two of my favorites of all time. This is, like, drafting off of Taskmaster. Richard Iowate on the current season of Taskmaster, absolutely crushing it.

• 11:05Chris Ryan?

  And what's the name of that show where they can't laugh?

• 11:07Speaker 05

  Oh, Last One Laughing in the UK. Yeah, of course. They're both, you know, Bob won the first series.

• 11:13Chris Ryan?

  Spoilers.

• 11:14Speaker 05

  Spoilers for that.

• 11:15Chris Ryan?

  The most absurd show I've ever seen.

• 11:17Speaker 05

  The fact that there are, like, tasks and challenges involved is very Taskmaster. And they said, like, an all-star cast of comedians, but they haven't announced who, so I can't wait to see who the contestants are.

• 11:29Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 11:30Speaker 05

  This is so for me.

• 11:31Chris Ryan?

  This is, this is great.

• 11:32Speaker 05

  I mean, this is just wonderful. It's interesting to me.

• 11:35Chris Ryan?

  It's kind of like, what these guys do, and it's like, so Taskmaster, I think you can watch on Amazon Prime in some capacity.

• 11:42Speaker 05

  YouTube.

• 11:43Chris Ryan?

  And YouTube.

• 11:44Speaker 05

  It's all on YouTube, yeah.

• 11:45Chris Ryan?

  And Last One Laughing, you can watch on Prime. I would say that, for people who aren't familiar with what we're talking about, this is a comedian, a comic version of British Bake Off. It's so cozy, like, to watch it. Like, these, these shows are, like, so warm, even though they're sometimes spiky and sometimes, like, irreverent and absurd, that I just feel like, like, it levels out my heart rate at the end of the day.

• 12:09Speaker 05

  We've talked about this before, how just UK panel shows, which, you know, include Taskmaster, or Would I Lie to You, or there's just, like, a number of versions, is just my most comfort YouTube re-watch situation. It's why, spoiler, Taskmaster landed on my top 10 of New York Times TV list, which is insane, but, like, I had to have Taskmaster on.

• 12:29Chris Ryan?

  I have an unscripted one on mine as well.

• 12:30Speaker 05

  Yeah, but yours is more prestigious than mine, I think, but, but I think that it's so interesting to me to have these up-fronts, which have to be, first of all, thank you so much to Netflix and the UK in general for making these three shows just for me. I had not said Black Mirror out loud to myself, so the fact that it, well, the fact that it is Black Mirror, but Black Mirror is really...

• 12:51Chris Ryan?

  I hope it's Black Mare.

• 12:52Speaker 05

  Black Mare, Black Mare. But Adolescence and Baby Reindeer being such an explosive, positive thing for them has to be the reason why we're getting such a, like, a splashy announcement for something like this, do you think?

• 13:05Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, I, I wonder whether or not, you know, because Andy has talked about Netflix's efforts to kind of begin doing literary adaptations and maybe getting back a little bit into the more prestigious television space after a couple of years of blockbusters or pretty repeatable, you know, sitcoms and melodramas and stuff like that, and that they might try to, like, make an effort to be more, you know, in...

• 13:32Speaker 05

  Like, it feels like they were trying to do Heartland sort of stuff.

• 13:35Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, I think so, yeah.

• 13:37Speaker 05

  And now they're, they're like, we want back in the Emmys race.

• 13:38Chris Ryan?

  And I think they know, when they look at the numbers, that, like, something like Untamed with Eric Bana, just, like, does blockbuster numbers for them, or something like, I mean, Virgin River was on for, like, five or six years, or whatever it was, like, they know what people are watching, but I think after this Emmys, after, you know, we'll see what happens with the Oscars, like, it's been a minute since they've polished any trophies, you know? I mean, I know Matthew Rees won for a show we're about to talk about.

• 14:05Speaker 05

  But I wonder if, if the Apple success is, you know, part of that, in terms of, like, Apple getting, forever hilarious that Apple got the Best Picture Oscar before Netflix, when Netflix threw so much money at the wall for years to try to make that happen.

• 14:18Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 14:19Speaker 05

  And then, yeah, and then this recent Apple success. And I think as these streamers and these networks continue to try to find their identity, so interesting to watch Amazon's identity, Prime Video's identity coalesce around this sort of YA romance thing that they're doing, the, the Apple identity emerge as original, wildly original sci-fi horror programming and also dad shows.

• 14:43Chris Ryan?

  And like, sensitive dramedies, kind of, like, 30-minute star-driven dramedies, kind of, yeah.

• 14:48Speaker 05

  And then, for Netflix, which has never had an identity, Netflix has always proposed we're everything, you know? I think it's interesting for them to try to put their stamp on one thing or another.

• 14:59Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, well, the one big award, if I'm correct, I believe, I believe I'm correct, that Netflix pulled from the broadcast Emmys last week, last week? And was Matthew Rees's trophy for Best Actor in a Limited Series Anthology or Made-for-TV Movie.

• 15:17Speaker 05

  Correct.

• 15:18Chris Ryan?

  And then today, mere days after the Emmys, after we all said, what a historic victory for an amazing guy.

• 15:24Speaker 05

  Wow.

• 15:25Chris Ryan?

  Nobody deserves it more.

• 15:26Speaker 05

  Three Emmys at the, at the Rees household.

• 15:28Chris Ryan?

  It was announced that The Beast in Me, which was conceived, this is from The Hollywood Reporter, The Beast in Me, which was conceived, executed, and won Emmys as a limited series. Now, though, Netflix has ordered a second season of the show with Claire Danes set to reprise her role and showrunner Howard Gordon returning. Let me just say this, I'm, I'm wearing an A's hat, but I'm all at the Philadelphia and out. Boo!

• 15:52Speaker 05

  Bullshit.

• 15:54Chris Ryan?

  This is bullshit.

• 15:56Speaker 05

  This is horrible.

• 15:57Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 15:58Speaker 05

  Not the first time someone has done this, right? Big Little Lies did this, for, for sure. I feel like a couple, maybe a couple other limited series have done this, but, you know, with love and respect to Matthew Rees, who we adore, give that Emmy back. Also gives his wife a chance to catch up, which he deserves that chance, but I mean, like, I can't, I can believe they did this, but it is, it's, it's flagrant.

• 16:21Chris Ryan?

  After FX, now Shogun, I believe they announced before the Emmys and during the, like, nomination, like, what are you running for? I believe FX was like, Shogun isn't gonna be, is gonna be a returning series.

• 16:35Speaker 05

  Yeah, yes.

• 16:36Chris Ryan?

  I'm trying to remember who, another, I believe HBO did that as well for White Lotus? No, it would be an anthology series, so it would be fine. Somebody else did this.

• 16:44Speaker 05

  Big Little Lies, I think.

• 16:45Chris Ryan?

  Big Little Lies. Announced that, like, hey, do you don't, please don't consider us limited anymore.

• 16:50Speaker 05

  Oh, no, no, I think Big Little Lies won in limited, and then, and I'm sorry, did this, and then announced season two.

• 16:54Chris Ryan?

  So, I think this is horseshit.

• 16:57Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 16:58Chris Ryan?

  I also...

• 17:00Speaker 05

  They knew.

• 17:01Chris Ryan?

  As somebody who's been watching, watching Claire Danes for nigh on 35 years, or whatever, whenever My So-Called Life came out.

• 17:09Speaker 05

  It is 35 years.

• 17:11Chris Ryan?

  I would not say that Aggie from Beast in Me is my, like, preferred character for her to do a continuing role in, like...

• 17:19Speaker 05

  This is just simply not a story that we needed more of at all. And I'm not even sure it was a story that we needed as many episodes that we got in the first place.

• 17:27Chris Ryan?

  So, I'm curious to see whether or not they change the tone of the show, if Howard Gordon, and Howard Gordon's made a lot of really great television shows, but, like, he has shown a propensity in the past, like, for Homeland, to put Claire Danes's fictional characters in the worst possible situations over and over and over again, so, you know, there are certain parts of the first season that I hope don't make the transition.

• 17:48Speaker 05

  Well, like, which monster is moving in next door?

• 17:52Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, I hope this isn't involving her neighborhood in East Hampton. I hope she no longer has writer's block, and I hope she's figured out whatever's going on in her personal life.

• 18:02Speaker 05

  Her love life. What about the plumbing in her house?

• 18:04Chris Ryan?

  That would help, too.

• 18:05Speaker 05

  This is real Only Murders in the Building. I feel like maybe Only Murders did something like this, because that was sort of supposed to be a one-and-done kind of thing. I feel like it was. But that's, that's a premise where it's like, one murder in the building, fine, and then we kept going, and obviously they've, like...

• 18:21Chris Ryan?

  I have stopped watching Only Murders in the Building, but, like, they went to London, didn't they?

• 18:25Speaker 05

  Yeah, and they went to LA, like, they're branching out, but, but there were a couple murders in that building, and, and so, yeah, if, if, if Aggie's neighborhood winds up being a sort of, like, Murder She Wrote Cabot Cove, where there's just too many preposterous psychopaths in her neighborhood, that would be interesting.

• 18:41Chris Ryan?

  I, I hope that they, they mix it up. Maybe she could be on the road, maybe she could...

• 18:46Speaker 05

  Road trip with Aggie?

• 18:47Chris Ryan?

  Aggie goes to LA, like, there's all sorts of things. I do want to ask you...

• 18:50Speaker 05

  Sounds like a really bad time.

• 18:51Chris Ryan?

  So, this award that Matthew Rees has stolen from the Television Academy...

• 18:58Speaker 05

  Who would we give it to instead of him?

• 18:59Chris Ryan?

  That's exactly what I was gonna ask. The other nominees were Riz Ahmed for Bait.

• 19:03Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 19:04Chris Ryan?

  Jason Bateman for Black Rabbit.

• 19:05Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 19:06Chris Ryan?

  Charlie Hunnam for Monster. Oscar Isaac for Beef.

• 19:10Speaker 05

  I'm giving it to Oscar Isaac.

• 19:12Chris Ryan?

  Well, let me, off the top of your head, can you think of anyone who should have gotten the nom slot?

• 19:17Speaker 05

  Not should've, I know that, like, you know, there was a big to-do over Paul Anthony Kelly not getting nominated for, for playing JFK Junior, but I wouldn't have nominated him, so, no, I, you know, did Melton run in supporting for Beef?

• 19:33Chris Ryan?

  I believe he did.

• 19:34Speaker 05

  It was, it was a funky category this year, when in previous years, it's been sort of, there was that era of television when this was all the rage, this category, you know? So, no, I can't think of anyone who was sort of robbed of the nomination.

• 19:47Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, I mean, there's a couple of shows that I think were in, you know, they were limited until they weren't, you know, like, I wonder how much they envisioned, say, The Lowdown as, like, an ongoing series when they first pitched it or first conceived of it, because Ethan Hawke's busy, and it's like, how often can you make this? Yeah, you know, and he had been nominated for The John Brown Show from Good Little Bird, Good Lord Bird, a couple of years ago, but, yeah, I probably, they're, they'd probably give it to the JFK guy. They obviously loved him, right?

• 20:21Chris Ryan?

  I guess Oscar Isaac.

• 20:23Speaker 05

  I mean, I think Beef Season 2 was sort of oddly maligned. I really liked it and I thought he was great.

• 20:30Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. Okay, we've gotten to the bottom of that. Matthew Reese, you've cheated us.

• 20:35Speaker 05

  Uh, your days are numbered.

• 20:36Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, I'm boycotting Windows 8.

• 20:39Speaker 05

  I'm not, you're still quite beloved, uh, but this is bullshit.

• 20:43Chris Ryan?

  It is funny, it's, it'll be like a testament to his approval rating that people are like, eh, I mean, how could he have known?

• 20:50Speaker 05

  Of anyone. Did you hear the story? I mean, like, every single Matthew Reese, Carrie Russell Emmy's story was, could not have been more charming. But did you hear the answer that he gave when they asked where he keeps his Emmys?

• 21:02Chris Ryan?

  No.

• 21:02Speaker 05

  He says he keeps the first one and now, I guess, 2 and 3 in the basement.

• 21:07Chris Ryan?

  Okay.

• 21:07Speaker 05

  And he says they'll come out of the basement when Carrie has an Emmy.

• 21:11Chris Ryan?

  That's, uh, that's just like really classy.

• 21:13Speaker 05

  I know.

• 21:14Chris Ryan?

  That's really classy.

• 21:15Speaker 05

  Could not be more charming, but I say only 2 in the basement, Reese, and give the other one back.

• 21:19Chris Ryan?

  That's right. I wanted to ask you a showbiz question.

• 21:24Speaker 05

  Yeah, please.

• 21:24Chris Ryan?

  Obviously with the Paramount Warner Brothers merger, more or less going through, I saw that a judge asked for a stay today to like scrutinize something, but

• 21:34Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 21:34Chris Ryan?

  by all accounts, by everything you're hearing around town, like, this is happening, people are preparing for it in various ways, I think everybody is sort of taking a look at the landscape.

• 21:44Speaker 05

  WGA settled.

• 21:46Chris Ryan?

  WGA settled, but like there is a judge who is like, huh, let me look at this. I don't really know what he can do, obviously, like, the whole world is like in front of judges right now, but it seems like this is happening and it seems like there's going to be consolidation and it seems like we're going to be entering, I think, an arms race, a new arms race in some ways. I mean, I know that there's a lot of debt attached to the Paramount deal, there's the rumor or the reporting that Elon Musk is going to be a part of like funding for Paramount. Like, you can tell by our, the flatness of our reaction there that that's not something that we're super psyched about, but I was looking at this story that's unrelated to Paramount

• 22:27Chris Ryan?

  Warner Brothers, which is that Disney Plus is upping its subscription fee to $21.99 per month

• 22:32Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 22:32Chris Ryan?

  with, for no ads. Now, I will say that like you can still bundle Disney and Hulu and I think it's the same price, like, it always depends on like what you're, where you got in and

• 22:43Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 22:43Chris Ryan?

  and what you're doing with it and whether you got the whole Disney Plus ESPN Hulu package, like, I think there are still

• 22:50Speaker 05

  Cable packages are back, baby.

• 22:51Chris Ryan?

  Values there. But $21.99 is so far from, I think it was like 5 bucks when they debuted it or something like that.

• 23:00Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 23:01Chris Ryan?

  And there's 2 really important points to make here, one I thought of and one you thought of.

• 23:06Speaker 05

  Look at us.

• 23:07Chris Ryan?

  What is the, what is the ceiling, the price ceiling for these streaming services?

• 23:11Speaker 05

  Right.

• 23:12Chris Ryan?

  They can keep saying, now it's 4K and now it's, now it's in Dolby or whatever and not, which entirely matters on what you've already paid for the crap in your apartment or house. They can say it's, you know, they can start metering it, like, I don't, I don't know, like, where that, the, the problem with is that all these companies are structured as publicly traded technology companies now and so like there's going to have to be constant iteration and constant shareholder growth for them to

• 23:41Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 23:41Chris Ryan?

  kind of maintain control over this. Is there a number in your mind that if you were just like a regular Joe, Joanna?

• 23:50Speaker 05

  Yeah, and not, I need this for my job.

• 23:53Chris Ryan?

  Would just be like, why, I, I just don't

• 23:55Speaker 05

  I think it's already there.

• 23:56Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 23:56Speaker 05

  Don't you think it's already there? Like, past 20 bucks is already there per

• 23:59Chris Ryan?

  I mean, I know

• 24:00Speaker 05

  per streaming service?

• 24:01Chris Ryan?

  Dozens of people in my like normal life who are like, I just, I don't have Paramount Plus, you know?

• 24:06Speaker 05

  Yeah, exactly. Well, no, they all make, not they all, but like a lot of people pick and choose, you know, and that sort of destroys our ability to have conversations about shows when people are like, oh, I don't have that streaming platform. Or they turn it on and turn it off, right? Is there a new season of Survivor? Then I turn it on. If it's not on, I turn it off. Your metering idea was really funny because I just got, I just got a flash of a horrible feeling. You know how in the, when you get sort of, if one has central AC in Los Angeles and the heat is heating and you, and you turn on your AC and then you get your bill and you're like, wow, I was really indulged myself in the AC.

• 24:41Chris Ryan?

  In AC, yeah.

• 24:41Speaker 05

  Imagine if you're like, go through like a depressive phase and you just need to like binge a bunch of television and your, and your bill reflects it and you're like, wow.

• 24:48Chris Ryan?

  I'll tell you one better. What happens when the melatonin hits and you don't turn

• 24:52Speaker 05

  Oh, no.

• 24:52Chris Ryan?

  the laptop off or something and you're just like 64 episodes of Virgin River.

• 24:56Speaker 05

  And you pay the price.

• 24:58Chris Ryan?

  So that's like a speculation.

• 25:00Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 25:00Chris Ryan?

  I mean, I am kind of surprised that, you know, they've, they've come down pretty hard on sharing accounts, on password sharing. I wonder when contracts come into play.

• 25:14Speaker 05

  Interesting.

• 25:14Chris Ryan?

  Like year long, lock your Netflix fee in now for 2 years and avoid any further price hikes.

• 25:22Speaker 05

  Wow.

• 25:22Chris Ryan?

  Like that kind of thing. Netflix is just an example. I'm not saying that's going to happen, but like

• 25:26Speaker 05

  Damn.

• 25:27Chris Ryan?

  Um, look at what Disney does to their parks. Are you saying that that's like?

• 25:30Speaker 05

  No, of course it is.

• 25:31Chris Ryan?

  I'm not putting anything past these guys.

• 25:33Speaker 05

  No, of course not.

• 25:34Chris Ryan?

  The thing that you brought up that I thought was fascinating is, you know, as we just spent 20 minutes lamenting kind of like what Netflix is offering us.

• 25:43Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 25:44Chris Ryan?

  As you spent, we spent like 4 years getting a bunch of Marvel and Star Wars shows of varying degrees of quality.

• 25:56Speaker 05

  How dare you.

• 25:56Chris Ryan?

  All of that stuff seems to be, like, the Disney thing specifically, what are they offering you aside from library right now?

• 26:04Speaker 05

  Yeah, exactly. Um, it's funny, so, you know, I have a Disney Plus subscription. I don't really use it that often, um, because I, I watch a lot of stuff on Hulu, so that's not where I watch it. I get an alert, I do password share, come, come find me.

• 26:20Speaker 05

  Come find me anyway at Disney, but, uh, I password share with my sister who has kids. I get alert every time they log in and I just text her, I'm like, what are you guys watching? It's just like an old, they're just like

• 26:31Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 26:31Speaker 05

  they're constantly on my Disney Plus, love that for them, watching old Disney stuff because they have kids.

• 26:38Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 26:38Speaker 05

  So like if you have kids and you want access to that library, that makes all the sense in the world, but if you don't need that, then what is Disney Plus providing for you that you can't get on Hulu? And I mean, I, I think that, we talked about this, about the, the shrinking of the MCU and the Star Wars properties. This is like, this is Bob Iger's big idea, right? We'll just sort of like, we'll win the streaming wars handily if we take our big franchises, but what it did is it made these big franchises feel small.

• 27:06Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 27:06Speaker 05

  You know, uh, it, it just wore everyone out. It just, it just did damage across the board. It was just like one of the worst moves that has ever happened, I think, in Hollywood.

• 27:15Chris Ryan?

  I also think, you know, our buddy Zach Baron just did an interview with Mahershala Ali on Zach's GQ show, um, and, you know, he talked very candidly about his experience to make, trying to make Blade and Kevin Feige, and I, one thing that leapt out at me was this idea that Marvel's specific approach to making, to doing their storytelling and to doing, like, their kind of creative control over how these stories get told is pretty wonky on a movie to movie basis, but sometimes has its great successes.

• 27:48Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 27:49Chris Ryan?

  It's catastrophic for TV. It doesn't work at all.

• 27:52Speaker 05

  I'm not even sure I understand how it's happened, how it's working right now. I understood how it was working before and not well, but I understood the, the system and now the system has changed slightly, I think because they're in sort of panic mode in, on the movie side.

• 28:06Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 28:06Speaker 05

  So there's less of, they were already stretched too thin trying to handle all of these shows and it, and it just sort of made everything worse.

• 28:13Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 28:15Speaker 05

  But I think once, um, once they sort of returned their focus to, okay, if we, if we can't make Avengers Doomsday happen, if we can't land it with that, if this Sony Spider-Man Copro doesn't make a bajillion dollars, and it did, good job, but like, then what are we even doing here?

• 28:31Chris Ryan?

  Right, it doesn't matter if we have Wonder Man Season 2.

• 28:34Speaker 05

  Exactly. So Wonder Man Season 2, uh, is canceled, uh, they just announced that Daredevil's going to end with Season 3, which I think is a, is a mercy kill, uh, as far as I'm concerned, and, um, they've got about 2 shows that I know of that are maybe in development.

• 28:49Chris Ryan?

  Sure, and then there's like some felony stuff for Star Wars, Ahsoka.

• 28:53Speaker 05

  Kind of.

• 28:54Chris Ryan?

  A

• 28:56Chris Ryan?

  Is there anything else?

• 28:57Speaker 05

  Not really, no.

• 28:58Chris Ryan?

  I mean, like, after Mandalorian the Movie, do you go back to TV? Who knows?

• 29:04Speaker 05

  I know. What's Pedro's price tag at this point? I don't know. But like, it's a, it was a calamity in sort of the live action, let's get adult fans into this space. So if we're gonna lean back into like, sort of, this is for kids, you know, for kids.

• 29:19Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 29:19Speaker 05

  I like, I personally, for me personally, fan of like, the witch show that's coming out. I'm really excited for Vision Quest.

• 29:26Chris Ryan?

  Sure.

• 29:26Speaker 05

  Like, Vision Quest is something I'm genuinely, like, really looking forward to. But in general, the state of Disney franchise television, I think, is pretty bleak. And so the audacity of them to bump their, their price at this point is, is wild to me.

• 29:41Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, and then you read, you know, you read accounts of like, people who are going to the parks and they're just like, everything is like, from the second you start thinking about going, to your experience getting there, staying there, visiting the parks, your experience in the parks and getting out, like, everything is about them maximizing what they can squeeze out of you.

• 30:04Speaker 05

  It's like, it's like the Master of the House song from Les Miserables.

• 30:07Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 30:07Speaker 05

  Where you're like, charge you to sit on a bench.

• 30:09Chris Ryan?

  Those parks used to be like, and, and in some ways, like, the entire, like, this is a good analogy for like, what streaming was supposed to be versus where we've arrived, which is streaming was supposed to be like, oh my God, now I can watch everything, it's at my fingertips. You know, I don't have to live in reruns or DVRs. Like, I can watch all of 30 Rock or all of Lost or whatever, and that's great. And that wasn't good enough. So now there's this kind of fractured, fracturing of all these different properties. They're moving between streaming services, and the services themselves are like, it's been six months, we better like, knock this up $2. And I understand why they're doing that, but it reminds me of, like, in my mind, flying used to just be flying. Like, you would get on a plane and go.

• 30:53Chris Ryan?

  And then somewhere along the line, probably tied with deregulation, they were like, what if we made everything about flying so uncomfortable that the person who was doing it was willing to pay anything they had to to get out of that?

• 31:06Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 31:06Chris Ryan?

  To get out of like, the experience of, whether, you know, you're flying Southwest or whatever. You're like, the, the maddening experience of like, day-to-day travel. And that's kind of like what's happening with streaming, where it's like, oh, like, do you want to have like, no ads? Well, I didn't have ads before. You know, why do I have to?

• 31:24Speaker 05

  So you're connecting comfort, economy comfort plus to Disney Plus? It's the same, it's the same thing?

• 31:29Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 31:29Speaker 05

  I hear you. Extra legroom means no ads.

• 31:31Chris Ryan?

  Exactly, exactly. And then I guess if I wanted a good Star Wars show, it's like, flying first class.

• 31:39Speaker 05

  And/or?

• 31:39Chris Ryan?

  Well, that made my list, as I, I think we share that.

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• 32:13Speaker 01

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• 32:43Speaker 06

  From the studio that brought you WandaVision.

• 32:46Speaker 07

  I was an Avenger, but I'm not a hero anymore.

• 32:51Speaker 06

  The Vision returns for the final chapter of the groundbreaking trilogy.

• 32:55Speaker 07

  That family wasn't real. You sure about that?

• 32:57Speaker 01

  I had a father called Vision. How is this possible?

• 33:02Speaker 06

  Don't miss the two-episode premiere of Marvel Television's Vision Quest. Nothing bonds a family together quite like Mortal Jeopardy. Now streaming, only on Disney+.

• 33:15Chris Ryan?

  It's me, the

• 33:19Chris Ryan?

  We don't need the jingle twice.

• 33:22Chris Ryan?

  Stop it. This is about vacation inflation and how Priceline negotiates amazing deals on hotels, flights, and rental cars.

• 33:30Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, but I didn't mention that you can save up to 60% off hotels in the Priceline app. Fine. No one deals more deals than Please stop. Touche. Priceline. All right, let's talk a little bit about Youth, which is Sharon Horgan's new show on HBO. It's written and created by Horgan, and I would say it's part of a kind of continuum of semi-autobiographical shows that she has written and/or created, or co-created over the last, I believe, 17 years. That's when Pulling comes out.

• 34:10Speaker 05

  Was it 17 years ago, Pulling? It's '06.

• 34:12Chris Ryan?

  '06?

• 34:13Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 34:13Chris Ryan?

  Well, it's then 20 years.

• 34:15Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 34:15Chris Ryan?

  20 years of TV from her.

• 34:17Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 34:17Chris Ryan?

  Starting with Pulling, which she wrote with Dennis Kelly and is about like, young singles living in London. Notably, 2015's Catastrophe with Rob Delaney, which was probably most people's introduction to her and her comedy. She wrote, but did not appear or star in, and maybe she appeared in it, 2016's Divorce, which was her first show with HBO. That was a Sarah Jessica Parker vehicle.

• 34:44Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 34:45Chris Ryan?

  2017's Motherland, which has a funny history where it was a, I think, an American pilot, American TV pilot. I believe she was, like, writing it. It didn't work. She took it back to the UK.

• 35:00Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 35:01Chris Ryan?

  Made it with a bunch of, of her kind of collaborators. And that ran for like, kind of an officey, kind of three seasons and two specials. And now there's a spinoff called Amandaland.

• 35:12Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 35:14Chris Ryan?

  I would say

• 35:15Speaker 05

  Lucy Punch, my favorite.

• 35:16Chris Ryan?

  Motherland is my favorite.

• 35:18Speaker 05

  Mother, you love Motherland.

• 35:19Chris Ryan?

  Well, I'll get to why.

• 35:20Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 35:22Chris Ryan?

  Horgan has also created, like, in the recent years, like, a couple of more genre experimented, experimentation efforts. Shining Vale with Courteney Cox, and very successfully Bad Sisters on Apple, especially the first season, which was fantastic.

• 35:38Speaker 05

  Also 2015

• 35:40Chris Ryan?

  That's right.

• 35:41Speaker 05

  Which I really love, that one. That might be my favorite.

• 35:43Chris Ryan?

  Oh.

• 35:43Speaker 05

  It's sister stuff.

• 35:44Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, I was, you know, I wasn't sure whether that was like, yeah, I guess that is sister stuff, so that should go in the autobiographical category. Youth stars Horgan as Alex, a 50-something divorced book agent. Her on-again, off-again boyfriend, Pat, is played by Rupert Friend. Aaron Murphy, the son of Atlanta brave slugger Dale Murphy.

• 36:06Speaker 05

  Really?

• 36:06Chris Ryan?

  No.

• 36:06Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 36:07Chris Ryan?

  It's Kelly and Murphy's kid.

• 36:08Speaker 05

  Damn. Wait, that's Kelly and Murphy's kid?

• 36:09Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 36:10Speaker 05

  Of course it is! Wow, you just unlocked something, honey.

• 36:15Chris Ryan?

  Plays her university-aged son Rory. Charlene White plays Alex's boss, Sam. Owen McDonald plays her ex, Lorcan. There is a, in the first episode, no big deal, a minor damaged men-from-home land reunion.

• 36:31Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 36:32Chris Ryan?

  Not on-screen at the same time, but we get Damian Lewis in a cameo, and Rupert Friend.

• 36:36Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 36:37Chris Ryan?

  We got Peter and Martin in the show.

• 36:39Speaker 05

  Damian Lewis as himself, delightful.

• 36:41Chris Ryan?

  Really good.

• 36:42Speaker 05

  Some like, extras energy there.

• 36:44Chris Ryan?

  In this show, Youth, Alex has various catastrophes, L.O.L. brewing at any given time. She has professional stress, romantic yearning, an annoying absentee ex-husband, a crisis of confidence about her health and appearance, and perhaps most of all, an antisocial teenage son who seems to have been kicked out of university during his first week of school. This is all kind of like, in the first couple of episodes.

• 37:06Speaker 05

  Wait, by Kelly and Murphy's kid?

• 37:07Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 37:08Speaker 05

  Wow, you really got me on that one.

• 37:11Chris Ryan?

  Let's start with, what's your like, relationship to her work? Is this somebody who you have season tickets to? Do you follow her?

• 37:16Speaker 05

  Yes, I do. I love her. I, I think, yeah, I think Catastrophe was my introduction, and then I went back and watched Pulling, and Bad Sisters, and

• 37:30Speaker 05

  I, I think what she's done, if you look at that 20 year span of, of work, even starting with Pulling, because every show she makes is sort of about a woman doing a thing that you would expect, but later than you would expect.

• 37:46Chris Ryan?

  That's a good way.

• 37:47Speaker 05

  So, you know, in Pulling, you're like a, a group of young women, sort of singles, blah, blah. And she's like, she's 30. You know, like, she's 30 in that show. And then like Catastrophe is about this woman who becomes a new mother, you know, a bit later than, than some people choose to, or something like that. It's just sort of like, I don't know if it's her taking some time out of her own life.

• 38:06Chris Ryan?

  Bad Sisters is about a woman who kills a guy later in life.

• 38:08Speaker 05

  Later than you would think. Start them young, that's what I say, you know? And so I, I think that, and this certainly, like, you know, this is like a, I think a logline they're using is like a coming of age, you know, at 50 or something like that. So just sort of walk, the, the way she teeters the line between unlikably self-centered and sort of the only sane person in the room. And, and the way she's telling stories about women, I think is, is really, really fascinating.

• 38:39Chris Ryan?

  She's fantastic. And I think one of the things I like most about her is how prolific she is. I always have like a soft spot for people who are doers and like get like a lot of stuff, whether it's produced, but just like made. And you can kind of see, rather than any one, you know, huge artistic statement, it's like a bunch of like singles to left, doubles to right, that they're like, you know, I'm, I'm working on this and I'm working on that. And, and when you look at the totality of her work, what I just rattled off is a career, man. Like, that's incredible that, that she's been working for 20 years on this project, essentially, of kind of documenting her, the changes in her life and in her body and in the world

• 39:23Chris Ryan?

  around her for this long. There's very few TV writers I can think of who have done a similar thing.

• 39:29Speaker 05

  I can't think of anyone who's, who's done quite this. And, you know, they're not, it's not an interconnected universe at all. That being said, I went back and watched the first couple of episodes of Pulling. And it's so interesting to watch her in that very first episode of Pulling, she's sort of like looking at her face in the mirror and just sort of like wondering if it's saggy or than it's, than it's been in the past. Or in Youth, when they wind up, when she winds up like late night drunk at a kebab shop, like that just feels like such pull, you know? So there's just sort of like these, it's not the same character, but it is the same character and it is the same world. And like, almost nothing's changed between 30 and 50, but so much has changed between 30 and 50. So I just, I, I love just sort of existing in her world.

• 40:11Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, I like, there's a, a moment on, in one of the first two episodes of Youth, where she's on a, a bus going somewhere and she sees a much older woman who's quite beautiful, but she's looking at this much older woman and absentmindedly like touching her own chin to be like, is my chin sagging like this person? And it's just like these little subtle things. I think Youth is, is quite entertaining. I, I'll just say this for the, for the show in general, we should just always have a show like this on. This is like so low concept. It's just about a person with a job and a family and a love life. And there are like A, B and C and D plots that are of varying levels of interest. But I was so pleasantly like reminded of how much I like low concept TV sometimes.

• 40:56Speaker 05

  Can I ask you, have you, are you current with adults, the FX show? Where, where is your affection level for adults?

• 41:03Chris Ryan?

  Very high.

• 41:04Speaker 05

  Very high, okay. So I, I recently watched season two, which is sort of, I would say similarly, sort of low concept, group of friends living together, a bit like meta zanier, but like.

• 41:16Chris Ryan?

  I think for episode to episode, it reminds me a lot of How I Met Your Mother, where they try to do like these formal experiments within the constructs of the episode, but maybe not, like, there's nothing crazy about like a bunch of people living together and trying to make it work in their twenties. But what they do within the episodes, it reminded me a lot of, of, of How I Met Your Mother and some other shows, happy endings that have done like.

• 41:40Speaker 05

  It gave me real happy endings energy.

• 41:42Chris Ryan?

  What if we do like this completely like left field take on this version of this episode?

• 41:46Speaker 05

  Oh, like the trip episode, but we're going to do the 30 minutes before the, the drugs hit and stuff like that. Yeah, yeah. But it was interesting to me, and this is probably just a reflection of my age, like how much more I enjoyed hanging out in this world versus that world. And, but, but similarly, I just, I do think that when smart people are writing just what it means to merely exist in a very low stakes way. And also there's the added benefit of this, of this show, the professional world that she's chosen, which is, you know, book, book agent, is really, really fun. And, and just, there's a romanticy book that's like a large plotline. I mean, I already told you that I watched ahead.

• 42:28Speaker 05

  Like, it's called Goblin Seed and it's about like, what if the fairy smut, but it's a goblin? And it's just like.

• 42:34Chris Ryan?

  So.

• 42:36Speaker 05

  It's like, having come a bit from the book world and having loved the Sutton Foster Show younger, which just spends all this time in, in just the ridiculous world of publishing. It's really fun to be back there.

• 42:47Chris Ryan?

  What is the, I can't remember the name of the actress who plays, it's Harriet Walter as her daughter, and then her mother is like this 90 year old woman who's writing a book called Wagon Burner, which is like got a lot of indigenous.

• 43:00Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 43:00Chris Ryan?

  It's a Western with a lot of like indigenous sexual violence and they're trying to talk her out of that. And it was like, I was like, who is this person supposed to be mirroring in real life? But I couldn't think of who it is.

• 43:12Speaker 05

  I feel like it's like if, is it Gina All who wrote Planet of the Cave Bear?

• 43:19Chris Ryan?

  Oh, yeah.

• 43:20Speaker 05

  Sort of that meets Danielle Steele, but like decades into her career. So she's just like, whatever flew decades ago is not flying as well now. And also she seems to have lost the plot a bit, so she's just like not taking notes.

• 43:32Chris Ryan?

  Yes, she's not taking notes. Anyway, that, all the publishing stuff is really fun. This is my, like, I don't even think this is like a note or a criticism. It's just an observation. So I, like I said, like of all of her shows, I think I responded to Motherland the most. And part of the reason for that is Anna Maxwell Martin is.

• 43:51Speaker 05

  You love her.

• 43:52Chris Ryan?

  Who everybody saw in Star City, if, if, if they got a chance to see Star City and is in line.

• 43:56Speaker 05

  If they listen to this show, if they respect your opinion.

• 43:59Chris Ryan?

  She's also in Line of Duty, I believe. She plays the Horgan character in that show. And sometimes I feel like Sharon Horgan, the actor, has an inside track on where things are going with the show, because she's also the writer. And sometimes like the, basically like the gear shifts don't work as well for me when she's performing her own writing as when I, the few experiences I've had watching her writing for others.

• 44:30Speaker 05

  Yeah, that's interesting. You think she's ahead of her own character?

• 44:34Chris Ryan?

  Kind of.

• 44:34Speaker 05

  Okay, that's interesting.

• 44:35Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 44:36Speaker 05

  I hadn't thought about it that way. I think there is, however, to her, this sort of like hot girl energy arrogance that like a thinking woman's hot girl arrogance that comes with like particularly who Sharon Horgan is, that I just think works really well for the characters that she's writing.

• 44:52Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, I mean, there's, there's some like pretty abrupt tone shifts in Youth. And I think that might be, if you're like, I want like straight up, like, I, I want to be like put to like, put to bed by this show and I want it to be like really nice and fun, London drinking, going out and meeting Rupert Friend.

• 45:12Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 45:13Chris Ryan?

  It's, it's a little bit.

• 45:14Speaker 05

  With a Scottish accent, we just like really need to underline that.

• 45:18Chris Ryan?

  It's a little bit more, it's a little deeper than that.

• 45:21Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 45:22Chris Ryan?

  And, you know, like, you know, she's got aging parents, she's got a troubled son. She, there's things going on that are.

• 45:28Speaker 05

  Have you heard this, I mean, probably the term sandwich generation?

• 45:32Chris Ryan?

  No.

• 45:33Speaker 05

  I hadn't heard that, but I guess it's the term for when you're still caring for your children, but also caring for your parents.

• 45:39Chris Ryan?

  Oh, wow.

• 45:40Speaker 05

  So like the fact that her son is supposed to go to uni and she's supposed to sort of like, this is my new life.

• 45:45Chris Ryan?

  I'm going to get back out in the dating world.

• 45:46Speaker 05

  And then he immediately moves back in with her. So she's still caring for her son, but also has to care for her parents who can't. Yeah, so like the sandwich generation, which again, like to your point, I hadn't heard of that. It's just sort of like these slight little avenues of experience that maybe haven't been fully explored that she's exploring. Or there's later in the season, not a huge spoiler, but later in the season, like something to do with hormone replacement therapy that is just sort of done in a, in a sexy sexual way that just sort of like, again, these are just stories that not, most, most people aren't telling.

• 46:18Chris Ryan?

  No.

• 46:19Speaker 05

  You know? And so I just love her for that.

• 46:21Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, and, and it's told with a, a nice degree of like style. Like you, you can see some of the HBO money in the show. Like it's running around London.

• 46:31Speaker 05

  There's an Ibiza episode, you know, like we're, we're, we're doing it.

• 46:35Chris Ryan?

  So we recommend.

• 46:35Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 46:36Chris Ryan?

  I wanted to ask you about Slow Horses. I'll try to hit this with Andy a little bit on Monday, or maybe next Thursday, once the third episode airs. But I wanted to ask you about the Slow Horses super story.

• 46:46Speaker 05

  Oh, me.

• 46:47Chris Ryan?

  Well, do you watch the show at all when you're on season six, episode two, which is the one that aired on Tuesday night? And you guys did Prestige about it already. And are you thinking about it in terms of like what was happening in season one and what was happening in season three? And do you think of like a continuity of the British Secret Services and as depicted in the show? Or are you just like minute to minute or season to season, I'm kind of enjoying like a limited story?

• 47:13Speaker 05

  It's a like really complicated question for this show, I think, because I think this is the first season where you are meant to be thinking of it as sort of a larger story with the return of Olivia Cook's character from season one, spoilers.

• 47:29Chris Ryan?

  Season trailers and stuff, yeah.

• 47:31Speaker 05

  Sid's back from season one, like Hugo Weaving's character is back from a previous series. The fact that Diana Tavener is now first desk, you know, there is some like, and, and what that pays off for her whole career journey and stuff like that. There is just a lot of extra connective tissue this, this season, or Strewn Loy, you know, the, who, who's death.

• 47:53Chris Ryan?

  Peter Judge showing up.

• 47:55Speaker 05

  Cold opens this, the series, back from series one. And so I think for the first time, you know, you know, you, you read McCarron's books, so you know, like both his books and this, and this sort of iterative, we can write a hundred of these stories depend on characters not changing and evolving.

• 48:15Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 48:16Speaker 05

  And, and the people who may, you know, Will Smith, when he was still like making the show, like something that he would talk about is just sort of like, Jackson Lamb is a character I don't want to have change. And that was sometimes challenging for me as someone who, the way I like to talk about story and television, just sort of like.

• 48:31Chris Ryan?

  What's this guy's arc?

• 48:32Speaker 05

  I'm constantly looking for, is he being a bit nicer to his Joes this season? Like, has he softened a bit? And it's just sort of like, no, he's Jackson Lamb. It's the, it's the reason people watch procedural television. They watch bones just because like, you know, it'll be solved in an hour and, and that sort of thing. And so like. You watch it for the comfort for the things that don't change. Rivercarway will always fuck up. Like, this will always be the case. And then this is the first season, and maybe it's no coincidence that it's under new, new leadership. But this is the first season where that feels like slightly different.

• 49:03Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, I mean, so they are, six is airing, seven, I think, is shot. Eight is shooting, or is going to be shot. And, you know, we're running up against a little bit of like the, a shorter runway of McCarran books soon. But McCarran is also, I think, still producing Slough House books.

• 49:23Chris Ryan?

  And we've said multiple times, as Gary Oldman has said, like, he wants to do this for as long as they have material for him to do it. But I do think that the show needed a, a season like this. Not in like a desperate way, I would have watched it anyway. But I think you can tell that the way that Adam Randall is directing this season feels different. Like, it doesn't.

• 49:45Speaker 05

  Tell me how it feels different.

• 49:46Chris Ryan?

  Um, I think it's grittier, and I think it's made, he's depicting like a much less attractive London. Like, even though Slough House and a lot of like the places that these guys hang out are pretty dingy.

• 49:58Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 49:59Chris Ryan?

  I find that like, the sky is whited out, it's been raining most of this season. And I know it rains a lot in London, but that's not cheap. And that's not, like, you have to like basically create your own weather when you're doing that.

• 50:11Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 50:12Chris Ryan?

  And I think the violence is kind of hardcore in this season so far.

• 50:16Speaker 05

  There's strangulation in episode two.

• 50:17Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, I think it's like pretty like, this is what it feels like. We're trying to like introduce stakes. It's not James Bond, it's not, you know, and it's also not Jason Bourne, but it is, it feels pretty like bare knuckled, I guess is a good way of describing it. And I, I think it fits the material really well.

• 50:35Speaker 05

  That's interesting, because you know, you and I had talked a bit off pod about the way in which they were willing to kill characters in previous seasons. Shout out Men Harper now and always. Um, but like, in a way that felt brutal and upsetting and is a hallmark of the books as well. But I, I like your point, I need to think about that, about whether or not the act of violence itself, rather than just like a clean bullet to the head, is just sort of like sweaty and more up close and, and and then what that means for our, it's not just like one of our guys could go down in the line of fire, it's like, they're all being hunted this season.

• 51:10Chris Ryan?

  I, I think also, I, I suppose if you were gonna throw like a blanket description of how Slow Horses usually works, the first three episodes, nobody really knows what's going on, and then the second three episodes, they try to fix it. But this season feels much more, almost like, almost like a, like a slasher horror movie. You know, where they're really in the dark about why this is happening to them, and they are almost being like erased, both physically and digitally, you know, legacy wise, and there, there's so, there's even Jackson is, is a bit confused about what's going on.

• 51:50Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 51:50Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 51:51Speaker 05

  He's a bit rattled, which again, like, that does feel like a different place for us to find his character. Because him being sort of nonchalant over noodles is his, is his like MO, and that's what we got in the first episode. But in this episode, when he's like, there's a bit of a frantic energy to it.

• 52:06Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, and I think even like Diana catches him off guard at the funeral, you know, like he, there, there are punches that he doesn't anticipate. And, you know, Diana, who is unflappable, seemingly like gets flapped.

• 52:17Speaker 05

  She got so flapped.

• 52:19Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 52:19Speaker 05

  On camera, yeah.

• 52:22Chris Ryan?

  Kristen Scott Thomas does not get nearly as many plaudits as Gary Oldman does, but has also been doing

• 52:31Chris Ryan?

  it's Kristen Scott Thomas, and she's just like on this show and sometimes.

• 52:34Speaker 05

  Remember when she showed up on Fleabag?

• 52:36Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. But sometimes she's like fifth on the call sheet on this show, and sometimes she's second. And this is a, I, I was very excited by like, let's turn the heat up on Diana Taverner, because like, how does Kristen Scott Thomas play that? It's really cool.

• 52:52Speaker 05

  Diana first desk is really interesting for, for, to see someone get what they always wanted.

• 52:57Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 52:58Speaker 05

  And we talked about this a little bit on Prestige, but something that McCarran has said about this plotline in the book, when Diana finally gets first desk, because he's like, I think about the government like I think about a corporation. And even when you become CEO, there's like the shareholders that you have to answer to. There's always someone else you have to answer to, and so and just that feeling of like to get what you've, what you've always wanted, and then to find out it's a mess.

• 53:22Chris Ryan?

  This is, this place is basically broken, you've got to go out and raise funds to do things. And then, yeah, I mean, I guess my, my overall question to you, it, it had more to do with when you read, say, La Care.

• 53:36Chris Ryan?

  There are lots of different Smiley stories, these sort of, John La Care's most used spy in his fiction. And there is Smiley's arch nemesis Carla, that they are playing the great game across Europe against one another. And it's very obvious, like, they don't say Cuban Missile Crisis necessarily or explicitly, but like, real world events come into play in his work. Heron I think is more interested in something a little bit more granular, and perhaps more cynical, where he's just like, well, what do you do when there really aren't any?

• 54:16Chris Ryan?

  When it's like, there's, as many private companies have security systems than, as, as nation states?

• 54:22Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 54:22Chris Ryan?

  And, you know, arms of media and technology and, you know, ideologically based foundations are pushing their own agendas and have guys working on their behalf, doing security and stuff, and, you know, I mean, not for nothing, but this is also a subplot of Lioness this season, but it is, it is pretty interesting to watch this stuff play out, because I wonder if it's if it's reflective of like our times, or whether it's, it's an easier way to write about this stuff, because you can manipulate the real world, you know, you have to, it's like, is Ukraine happening right now? Like, in the world of Slow Horses, it's unclear.

• 55:01Speaker 05

  What I really like about this, it's true, like, so I'm not as versed in this, in the spy genre as you are, but I guess my best comp is something like the Agatha Christie novels, where, you know, Poirot is always Poirot. And I don't need, I don't, I know that he enjoys hot chocolate, and then like, that's kind of about it, you know, and I don't need to go home with him, and I don't need his, thank you so much, Kenneth Branagh backstory, and

• 55:21Chris Ryan?

  He'll ultimately be the smartest guy in the room.

• 55:23Speaker 05

  Will I watch Young Poirot, but like, he doesn't change, and I don't know much about him personally, actually. And, and sort of that's that's comforting, and that's endlessly interitable and stuff like that. And so, uh, for something like Slow Horses, a universe where everything is fictional to your, to your point, in terms of like these global tensions, and the rot is coming as much from inside the house as it is outside the house, and that changes entirely the moral landscape of what we're watching, right? Like, who are the good guys here? I think that's endlessly watchable.

• 55:55Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, I agree.

• 55:56Speaker 05

  I think something you and Andy addressed that I, that I think is most exciting to me about this season, maybe, is this sort of 24 to 48 hour clock on it.

• 56:05Chris Ryan?

  One crazy night.

• 56:06Speaker 05

  One crazy night.

• 56:07Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 56:07Speaker 05

  That's great.

• 56:08Chris Ryan?

  And this is why it would be cool to binge this, if, but I, God bless Apple for trying to like maintain some semblance of sanity in this world, but

• 56:17Speaker 05

  Right.

• 56:18Chris Ryan?

  it is like, if you have something that has like a clock on it, you almost do want to like blow through it.

• 56:24Speaker 05

  I would love to see the numbers, because I do think that Apple has had a successful run in terms of like, at least, you know, with Pluribus and Widows Bay and some Severance of creating the building conversation week to week, uh, kind of phenomenon shows.

• 56:39Chris Ryan?

  Sure.

• 56:39Speaker 05

  Like, absolutely. I'm really curious, something like Slow Horses, I would love to see the numbers of how and when people watch that show, because my sense of that is it's still a binge show for a lot of people.

• 56:50Chris Ryan?

  People probably wait the six weeks and then just watch it. And also, I think it's like a library show, I think people like to go back and watch.

• 56:55Speaker 05

  It has grown over the seasons, but I think, yeah, that people, because it's a, it's a delightful show, but it doesn't require a profound amount of discussion.

• 57:05Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 57:05Speaker 05

  So I don't think people feel the urgency to be part of a conversation about what happened this week on Slow Horses.

• 57:10Chris Ryan?

  It's not like lanterns where you're like, oh, I think I know who did, what this is now. It's like Slow Horses, it's like, there will be surprises, of course, but like, you're just kind of like, it's a, a little bit more of an atmosphere and a, and a tone and a vibe than it is like, oh, are we gonna finally find out who's behind this?

• 57:27Speaker 05

  Wait, wait, who did it on lanterns?

• 57:29Chris Ryan?

  Uh, that quarterback kid.

• 57:31Speaker 05

  Yeah. Noah.

• 57:33Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, for sure.

• 57:34Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 57:36Chris Ryan?

  Let's talk a little bit about this New York Times list. So, the Times is currently unveiling the 100. How do they describe it? What's the actual best TV shows of the 21st century? I am being pedantic about that, because I think that, that's a distinction.

• 57:54Speaker 05

  Yeah, versus favorite.

• 57:56Chris Ryan?

  Versus favorite.

• 57:57Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 57:57Chris Ryan?

  Versus favorite. And I, I contributed a ballot to this, you contributed a ballot to this.

• 58:03Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 58:05Chris Ryan?

  It's been really interesting to watch this roll out. They, uh, you know, we talked to Wesley on Cannonball over at the New York Times, Wesley Morris, and that episode, I think, will go up when the, the final ballot is, the, the, the top of the ballot is released.

• 58:17Speaker 05

  Friday?

• 58:18Chris Ryan?

  I think so.

• 58:18Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 58:20Chris Ryan?

  I'm happy to talk about my ballot, like, it's not, it's not a state secret or anything, but I wanted to talk a little bit about the distinction between best and favorite.

• 58:27Speaker 05

  I think if you look at my list and you look at your list, I think you were much more successful at best, and I was a little bit more, definitely much more in the favorite camp.

• 58:36Chris Ryan?

  I, I hate, I hate what's happening.

• 58:37Speaker 05

  Okay, tell me about your list.

• 58:38Chris Ryan?

  Because I feel like I just showed up to a party and found out I was the only one who thought it was a costume party.

• 58:43Speaker 05

  Oh, okay, you Bobadooked yourself.

• 58:45Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 58:45Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 58:45Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, because I, I feel like I was like.

• 58:49Speaker 05

  You thought we were doing best, do you want to read your list?

• 58:51Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, sure.

• 58:52Speaker 05

  Okay. Your list that you hate?

• 58:54Chris Ryan?

  It's not that I hate it, it's just, it is what it is, you know, I mean, like, there's no

• 58:58Speaker 05

  It's a good list.

• 58:59Chris Ryan?

  It's a good list, but there's no version of the list that's, there's no perfect list. And I see like Mina Kimes put up about her ballot, and it's such a beautiful expression of her passion and love for television.

• 59:11Speaker 05

  I, I felt like I was.

• 59:12Chris Ryan?

  You're such a special person, why am I such like a half like goober who is like?

• 59:17Speaker 05

  You're not a half goober, this is a best list, that's what you put together.

• 59:20Chris Ryan?

  In no particular order, in fact, I, I think this is, uh.

• 59:23Speaker 05

  Well, your first one is a very you answer.

• 59:26Chris Ryan?

  And or.

• 59:28Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 59:29Chris Ryan?

  Uh, Breaking Bad.

• 59:30Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 59:30Chris Ryan?

  Lost.

• 59:31Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 59:31Chris Ryan?

  Mindhunter.

• 59:32Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 59:33Chris Ryan?

  The Bureau. Anthony Bourdain, No Reservations, Deadwood, Mad Men, Succession, The Wire.

• 59:40Speaker 05

  So when you look at my list, which does not have Breaking Bad, Mad Men, The Wire, or Succession on it, it looks insane compared to yours because yours just looks like, here's a record of what we all agree were the best shows.

• 59:50Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 59:50Speaker 05

  And I have no doubt when we get to the top 10, when they unveil that, that those will be in the top 10.

• 59:55Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 59:56Speaker 05

  You were asking me a little off pod, like sort of my process of making my list, which, uh, you know, Rob and I talked a little bit about our list. We tried to guess each other's lists on our show.

• 1:00:05Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, that was a fun segment.

• 1:00:06Speaker 05

  With medium success. But my list, in definitely no particular order, is Justified, Game of Thrones, Taskmaster, Fleabag, Lost, Normal People, Andor, Midnight Mass, Better Call Saul, and Station Eleven.

• 1:00:19Chris Ryan?

  Midnight Mass, what a curveball.

• 1:00:21Speaker 05

  I love Midnight Mass. I'm a Atlanta fan. But, uh, what I did is I just started writing down shows.

• 1:00:30Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:30Speaker 05

  And I got to about 30. And it's like carving David out of a block of Marvel. You just start chipping away, like, what can I lose? What can I bear to lose? What can I bear to lose? Which was very painful.

• 1:00:42Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:42Speaker 05

  Because like, there are at least 50 phenomenal shows.

• 1:00:46Chris Ryan?

  It's more like the knight in Monty Python getting hacked to pieces.

• 1:00:49Speaker 05

  Yeah, exactly, exactly. But I, I think what I wound up starting to do is like, sort of what, what shows do I feel like shaped me? So yeah, so it became more about like autobiographically me.

• 1:00:59Chris Ryan?

  The top 100 shows that shaped you.

• 1:01:01Speaker 05

  Yeah, that shaped me and changed me.

• 1:01:03Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:04Speaker 05

  Then I did, uh, what was most quote unquote important. And then also I have this demented mindset where I'm like, plenty of people will have Mad Men and Breaking Bad on their list, so I don't, I don't need to.

• 1:01:13Chris Ryan?

  I should have done that. This is like voting, uh, you know, voting green because you're like, I, I live in a Dem state or whatever, and like, I know it's not gonna matter.

• 1:01:21Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:01:22Chris Ryan?

  So I wanna just kinda show my support for-

• 1:01:24Speaker 05

  This is my critics' choice ballot every single, uh, year. I'm just like, what I care about is not gonna matter much.

• 1:01:30Chris Ryan?

  Andy mentioned this-

• 1:01:31Speaker 05

  Don't kick me out.

• 1:01:32Chris Ryan?

  When we talked to Wesley, but it was like, there is an argument to be made that The Wire and Mad Men and Breaking Bad, it would have been fun if we had just been like, we all know, these are probably gonna be very high up on the list. And for people who don't know, this is very strictly 21st century. So shows that premiered before 2000, like Sopranos and Buffy, right?

• 1:01:54Speaker 05

  Buffy not allowed.

• 1:01:55Chris Ryan?

  Uh, are, are not up for, for, for voting.

• 1:01:57Speaker 05

  What would you, what would be on your list if, like-

• 1:02:00Chris Ryan?

  Buffy?

• 1:02:01Speaker 05

  No.

• 1:02:02Chris Ryan?

  Sopranos?

• 1:02:03Speaker 05

  No, what would be on your list if you could pick one from not this strict time period?

• 1:02:08Chris Ryan?

  It's a good question, like specifically 90s?

• 1:02:10Speaker 05

  Yeah, sure.

• 1:02:11Chris Ryan?

  I don't know. I hadn't thought about that. I mean, there's shows that I've watched them, like X-Files? I, I don't know. Maybe X-Files-

• 1:02:17Speaker 05

  I think X-Files is a good answer.

• 1:02:18Chris Ryan?

  I don't know that it would have replaced any of these, yeah. I mean, Seinfeld, yeah, like, yeah, I, I think, I'm trying to think of, Homicide, probably? I think Homicide would be the answer.

• 1:02:27Speaker 05

  Yeah. But you put, so what you did is a combination of like, what matters to you personally. So I think something like The Bureau, a show that you have advocated for. Mindhunter.

• 1:02:37Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 1:02:37Speaker 05

  Which is not on a ton of people's lists.

• 1:02:38Chris Ryan?

  Mindhunter was like, probably the most flop sweaty. It was, I think that might have been 10th. And that was like, if you guys had seen-

• 1:02:49Speaker 05

  You're like, one for me, come on, guys.

• 1:02:50Chris Ryan?

  What would the, like, the, the fight for 10 was like? It was like 50 shows.

• 1:02:55Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:02:55Chris Ryan?

  And then it was 20 and like, you're, you're sort of chipping away.

• 1:02:58Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:02:58Chris Ryan?

  But I was doing that with like, one slot. I went back and forth about whether to have an unscripted show or a scripted show because I'm like, if I have one unscripted show, then does, does like, you know, like, there's 15 unscripted shows, like, do you get into starting to like, open up the gates there? I'm surprised, Andor has been announced, I think Andor is like in the middle of the pack.

• 1:03:21Speaker 05

  32.

• 1:03:22Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. I guess that makes sense. I think, I, I know a lot of people who are like, I don't like Star Wars, or I just don't have the time to watch it.

• 1:03:29Speaker 05

  And I think there's also the fear of like recency bias with Andor or something like that. But I feel like Andor should be higher for that reason.

• 1:03:38Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:38Speaker 05

  Because it is, is, it is one of many IP shows we've gotten in the last 20 years, but did something so different and so special with it, you know what I mean? So-

• 1:03:47Chris Ryan?

  To me, it was like, the, the biggest, one of the biggest like missed cut was Industry, which I think in some ways is the show of the decade, but I didn't put it on my Shows of the Century list. V, Girls, like there's Friday Night Lights, Justified, like, there's-

• 1:04:02Speaker 05

  I know.

• 1:04:02Chris Ryan?

  Eastbound, there's so many shows.

• 1:04:04Speaker 05

  Cutting Friday Night Lights, you don't have any comedies on your list. How do you feel about that?

• 1:04:08Chris Ryan?

  Bad.

• 1:04:08Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:04:09Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:09Speaker 05

  Sorry.

• 1:04:10Chris Ryan?

  Dude, I don't, this isn't gonna be like a, like, here's my list, fight me position for me.

• 1:04:14Speaker 05

  No, no, no, no.

• 1:04:15Chris Ryan?

  No, I'm like, this is, I fucked up, like-

• 1:04:17Speaker 05

  What would, do, do you wanna try to like, put together what your list would be if you could just be yourself?

• 1:04:22Chris Ryan?

  No, but I am being myself, like, we, like, this is the thing, is it's just, I'm not that interesting? Or there's just like, maybe I am a little bit too much inside of the hive mind. The Wire is, I think, the best show ever made. I think Deadwood is-

• 1:04:37Speaker 05

  I don't disagree.

• 1:04:37Chris Ryan?

  The best written show I've ever seen, like-

• 1:04:40Speaker 05

  I think we're having similar agitation though, because I feel so stupid, honestly. When you sent me, you texted me my list with apropos of nothing this morning. You texted it to me, not saying, hey, should we talk about this? You just said like, hey, so your list is this, right? And I was like bracing for you to be like, what a stupid fucking list, Joanna. Honestly, because I looked at it and I was like, what I wrote back to you is it feels insane when I see it written out like that, but I can only be myself. But like, no Mad Men, no Breaking Bad, no The Wire? Are you kidding me?

• 1:05:08Chris Ryan?

  Right, but I think that you promote, you, yours is more of a personal expression of TV passion. And mine is half of that.

• 1:05:17Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:05:18Chris Ryan?

  And half of critical hive mind, like, well, let's all be honest, like, how can we not? Now, I will say, Wire and Breaking Bad and Succession, I have deeply personal relationships with. Mad Men, I adore. I, I was never like in that 99th percentile of like, decoding Mad Men to read the secrets of the, like, all of Western culture.

• 1:05:41Speaker 05

  I'm like, what is all the blue mean?

• 1:05:42Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, exactly. Like, I, I also have not rewatched Mad Men, but I do, I do think it's like an absolute masterpiece. Lost was for me a pick, like what you're saying, which is, you weren't with me on the streets when Lost was out.

• 1:05:55Speaker 05

  Oh, man.

• 1:05:56Chris Ryan?

  You guys don't know.

• 1:05:57Speaker 05

  You don't know how much Egyptian mythology I learned on the fly while watching Lost.

• 1:06:01Chris Ryan?

  Completely unnecessary, deep Old Testament biblical name studies.

• 1:06:05Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:06:05Chris Ryan?

  That, then that character would just disappear and never be mentioned again. And I was like, a week of my life to find out what Ruth meant.

• 1:06:11Speaker 05

  It's true.

• 1:06:12Chris Ryan?

  You know?

• 1:06:12Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:06:14Chris Ryan?

  But the, the stranglehold that that had, it was Lost or Thrones, and I went with Lost.

• 1:06:19Speaker 05

  And I put both because, well, part of that too is, Thrones was actually really close to being cut from my list. Not because I don't think it was a great show.

• 1:06:28Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:28Speaker 05

  It's just sort of like, but I just could not in good conscience, given how much, I mean, yeah, part of that is like, what has covering this television done for us? And there are certain shows that we've gone deeper on than others, and Thrones is, is one we have in common. But like, um, you know, yeah, for you, Industry. For me, um, you know, doing a, a rewatch podcast of Lost, and I spent so much time thinking about Lost. Similarly, Justified was the first show I ever officially recapped. And so it forever has, yeah, so it like forever has this like, I was recapping, uh, yeah, Justified at Pajiba.com, and then I got like, started recapping Sons of Anarchy at Vulture and The Good Wife. I almost put The Good Wife, because like, I was recapping-

• 1:07:10Chris Ryan?

  I almost put The Good Wife in too, that was in the, the long list, yeah.

• 1:07:12Speaker 05

  For Vulture. So like, you know, that time you spent marinating in a show and overthinking a show, it broke my heart to leave Westworld off, but Westworld just became such a mess at the end of it.

• 1:07:22Chris Ryan?

  If you were a character on Westworld, they could just fix the heart and put it right back in you, you know? You would have been all good.

• 1:07:28Speaker 05

  My mind fault? But I spent so much of my life invested in Westworld season one-

• 1:07:35Chris Ryan?

  And trying to figure out Westworld.

• 1:07:36Speaker 05

  And trying to figure out Westworld, and I was just like, it has to have been worth something, right?

• 1:07:39Chris Ryan?

  True Detective season one is probably the one I regret the most. I saw, I believe, I believe it is as season one has been listed so far.

• 1:07:51Speaker 05

  Oh, so they're portioning it out as seasons, True Detective?

• 1:07:55Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, see, it's number 35, season one.

• 1:07:58Speaker 05

  That's, that's a cheat, New York Times.

• 1:08:00Chris Ryan?

  I did not know that we were doing that.

• 1:08:02Speaker 05

  That's some real Matthew Reese limited series bullshit. No one told us we could just portion it out as a season.

• 1:08:07Chris Ryan?

  So I was like, look, I defend season two, I like season three, I love season three. And I think season four-

• 1:08:13Speaker 05

  Because it's an anthology show, then I could put, I, I would put Fargo season one probably high up there. You know what I mean? Yeah, there are particular seasons of shows that I would happily put one way or another.

• 1:08:23Chris Ryan?

  Sure.

• 1:08:23Speaker 05

  But like, I thought we were-

• 1:08:24Chris Ryan?

  If we could subtract season two from Friday Night Lights, that would be great, you know?

• 1:08:28Speaker 05

  It would be great. I'm sure Jesse Plemons would agree.

• 1:08:31Chris Ryan?

  So yeah, that's-

• 1:08:32Speaker 05

  I think your list is great.

• 1:08:33Chris Ryan?

  I think your list is great.

• 1:08:34Speaker 05

  I don't think you should feel bad about your list.

• 1:08:36Chris Ryan?

  Everybody's lists are great. I just, I think I wish, I wish I had been a little bit more interesting.

• 1:08:44Speaker 05

  You are always interesting. I think, I would love to see the like, Chris Ryan's most Chris Ryan list. If, if it involves The Bureau and Industry and a few other of your like, absolute, like, darlings. I would love to see that list as well.

• 1:09:01Chris Ryan?

  Okay. Maybe I'll come up with like, the second 10.

• 1:09:04Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:09:04Chris Ryan?

  But I'll tease that for another episode.

• 1:09:06Speaker 05

  Stretch that content, baby. Make it work.

• 1:09:08Chris Ryan?

  Thank you so much for doing this with me today.

• 1:09:10Speaker 05

  Thanks for having me.

• 1:09:10Chris Ryan?

  Prestige TV, House of R is where you can find Joe. And we will be back on Monday with lanterns and some other stuff, uh, Greenwall remotely. And thanks to Kai and Kaya, and talk to you guys soon. Have a great weekend.

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  From the studio that brought you WandaVision.

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  I was an Avenger, but I'm not a hero anymore.

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  The Vision returns for the final chapter of the groundbreaking trilogy.

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