End-of-Year Mailbag. Plus, ‘Industry’ S4 and ‘The Odyssey’ Trailers.

21:18Yes. In a way I think it will be. All right. This first email comes from Sam. Hi guys. Love the show. Peak TV was a beautiful time and it's over now. But when exactly was Peak TV? Can we pinpoint a year or a moment when TV was objectively peak or perhaps it makes more sense to personalize it? When was your Peak TV? John Rant Landgraf, the FX president, made his peak TV comments in August of 2015. And in my opinion, TV peaked not long after that. This is still Sam speaking at me. I think my personal peak TV moment was probably March 2016 with the girls episode Panic in Central Park also airing in March 2016 was Fargo season two, Better Call Saul season two, American season four, The People versus OJ Simpson and New Girl season five.

22:02What a month. So what's your personal peak? Some other contenders would be when Succession and Barry ended on the same night in 2023 or when Cersei, Game of Thrones spoiler, in June 2016. Or perhaps Peak is a moment right before the whole project began to decline, like Westworld or The Crown. So Andy, do you have an immediate take on this?

22:22Andy Greenwald:It's a great question. I want to reframe it slightly before you give your answer first, I think, if that's possible. I think it's important to be clear that when we say Peak TV in the John Landgraf sense, he was not speaking in terms of quality. He was speaking in terms of quantity. He meant that there were more television shows, more new television shows, more new hours of scripted content being produced in the years 2015, 2016 than at any time in the medium's history. and that he was getting up in front of people pointing out how potentially unsustainable it was, but also what every new series was up against in a way that was completely unprecedented.

22:59Andy Greenwald:And this went hand in hand with a number of major companies launching streaming services and attempting to make a case for their own existence through wild, some might say wildly irresponsible spending, which was possible due to the economic context of that time. we have started to use peak tv not really to speak about um the volume but the quality about it so i think that the word prestige tv and peak tv have started to like merge a little bit because uh so when we're answering right we're talking about when was the most tv for us when was the most best tv sam is identifying maybe um a particular moment where tv was at its best over the years rather than what was peak television, either in the Landgrafian, this is too much, or the, yeah, exactly.

23:53Interestingly enough, I believe Landgraf's projections were even conservative for him, because I think peak TV peaked in 2023, if I remember reading correctly. And then we've now since started to feel the decline, which honestly feels like a contraction after years of operating with 600-some scripted shows. So I do have an answer for this within the framework of what Sam lays out as a perfect specific moment. For me, it's right when I moved to Los Angeles. And in April of 2012, Sunday nights on HBO in April was Game of Thrones Veepin' Girls, which is not only to me a perfect two hours of television, but also a great excuse to get friends over and you watch Game of Thrones and hang out and have hummus and then talk about whatever just happened and then decompress by watching Girls and Veep which go in increasing order of pleasure principle and you just ride this really fun sine wave of a night and it's over at 10pm and everybody goes home and gets her to go to work the next day.

25:07It was an awesome way to spend a Sunday, which traditionally had not been a big deal to me.

25:14Andy Greenwald:I think that's a great answer, and I kind of agree with it. I would say two things. One, that my enjoyment of the era really is more in line with the way TV works, which is something that is ongoing and expanding. And if you go from the late aughts, like 2006, 2007, you have The Sopranos ending and you have Mad Men beginning and then you have Breaking Bad really kicking off and then you have Game of Thrones starting and it did feel like we were in an era of baton passing where the highs would continue to get higher, the tent would continue to get bigger and that would have a trickle down effect on all kinds of entertainment.

25:50Andy Greenwald:That was a sweet spot and I have to admit to some, I mean, that was also when I became a TV critic in 2011. Yeah, you were probably reviewing things in 2009. In those terms, right? Yeah. Yeah, and it really did feel like, oh, this is the golden era to be a part of this and it was very exciting. That said, I'll do a very un-TV thing, maybe a little more of a movie thing and pick like a singular moment. And I think that you could point to the 66th Primetime Emmy Awards, which were 2014. And that was the year where... Because I know every year we talk about the Emmys and we talk about the nominees and over the last few years we've looked at the 5, 6, 7, 8 drama nominees and we've been like, sure, okay, Fallout is a show that people like.

26:29Andy Greenwald:I'm sorry to pick on it. It's back and people seem to love it. But it doesn't feel like prestigy or as era defining as the shows used to. The moment that I would point to is 2014 Emmys. Here were the nominees for drama series that year. Breaking Bad for season five, part two. Hell yeah, brother. Downton Abbey season four. I mean, the pod doesn't exist without it. Game of Thrones season four, House of Cards season two, True Detective season one, Mad Men season seven, part one. And for me, that moment, and I went into the whole Emmy, that year of Emmys in general, and it's just this enormous bounty where it feels like the tap is never getting turned off.

27:09Andy Greenwald:Because in the Outstanding Comedy series that year, Modern Family wins for the umpteenth time, but the nominees are Big Bang Theory, which was the most popular show on TV, Louie, which at the time was a very important kind of button pushing series, Orange is the New Black, before it switched categories, it became a drama, Silicon Valley, and Veep. And there's just a expansionist, like abundance feeling to that awards night that is gone. I'm just saying, you know, I mentioned those drama nominees, not because I thought House of Cards was so exceptional or memorable, but that was an example of Netflix operating within the same ecosystem that birthed Mad Men and Breaking Bad of saying like, this is an exceptional project.

27:50Andy Greenwald:We're going to overspend for it and lavishly present it to the world because we want to be considered on the Emmy stage. Now, Netflix is still considered on the Emmy stage, but that's not what drives their business anymore. They have now fully jumped into a completely different industry than the rest of the industry that it has essentially conquered. So for me, that night is maybe the last, or not the last gasp of that era. That's what you think of. It's a celebration of it, yeah. Yeah. Here's a good question that kind of ties into what you were just talking about, which is from Kristen. Did you guys do an episode on the best shows of the century?

28:22And if not, would you? I don't think we've actually talked about this there had been some discussion both ringer wide and also I think among people who listen to the show about whether there would be a similar 25 for 25 to the one that the big picture is doing and I've really enjoyed that project from Sean and Amanda I think that we would have had fun with it but I worry that it would be 65 % kind of chalky I think that what we saw this year in 2025 with our best shows of the year is maybe you and I, and as we get older, a kind of unification of our tastes in a way that maybe doesn't make for the greatest radio.

29:04But I had a hard time, even on the back of an envelope, cracking up the hierarchy of the best TV of the century. I had a hard time being like, actually, it's this. And I'll hear arguments about it all day, and I love debating it with people. but personally like there's Rushmore is Rushmore for a reason um and I think uh there are some shows that are like edging their way on there and are a part of that firmament but it was tough for me to even be like yeah you know if we did a best best 25 of the century it would be pretty much what

29:39Andy Greenwald:you thought it was going to be well that I think I think it kind of depends on what framework you put on it. I think best TV of the century is exactly what you just said. I think the legends are in Cooperstown for a reason, and it would be worthwhile, maybe, but not as fun to relitigate. I think it would be interesting to do the rankings. I don't know if the pool of shows would be that different than people would imagine. I think that The Ringer just did an exceptional episodic list that I think we could have fun with and maybe we would quibble with here and there, but broadly speaking is really well argued and a really smart account of what television has delivered for us in terms of the specific episode.

30:24Andy Greenwald:When I saw the question come in, I thought it was interesting that my first response wasn't, well, Mad Men or something like that. It was really, my mind went immediately to more singular statements, which is to say like a limited series or an event series or something that didn't come back. I'm not saying that those are necessarily better than the achievement of an ongoing series. It's just deeply apples and oranges because I started to jot things down. Are you thinking about Twin Peaks? Sure, Twin Peaks, but I wrote down Chernobyl. I wrote down Watchmen. I wrote down Station Eleven. Honorable Woman, I May Destroy You.

31:01Andy Greenwald:Fleabag, which was two seasons, but a pretty tight two, as they say. Wait, are you saying that those were your instant write downs accepting the other ones? When I saw the question, and it was like best television of the century, I thought it was interesting that my response wasn't the long-running episodic achievements. It's more that what Vince Gilligan did over the span of Breaking Bad was exceptional, or even what Damon Lindelof did with The Leftovers, turning it from something that I personally didn't like, which is not anyone's benchmark but my own, into something that I would hold up against the very best ever made.

31:37Andy Greenwald:That journey is something that I love and celebrate and would, you know, would, would put on a list, for example, but that my mind immediately went to bang, we are achieving something limited and specific with this medium, which is not traditionally how I engage with TV, but it did make me think about like what, um, what Craig Mazin and Johan Rank did with Chernobyl or what Patrick Somerville and his collaborators did with station 11 are so special and so singular that I think about them in this context, mainly because I still think that episodic television and the demands of it and the fact that baked into the conceit of an ongoing series is failure, is evolution, is change.

32:17Andy Greenwald:I just have a hard time putting them on the same list. I wonder if it's because when you think back about Station Eleven, it feels like you can wrap your mind around the entire project whereas like it's hard to recall at a glance all of lost or all of friday night lights and and you know you might write off large sections of a season because they're figuring it out or doing something with a character that you don't really like um even succession and some of it's like rhythmic like in the beginning some of you know it's rhythmic sort of, uh, stops and starts. I wonder whether like top of the lake just feels like a complete statement to you or I may destroy you feels like a complete statement to you.

32:59Andy Greenwald:It's also because, you know, and I think this is true to our experience as fans of other mediums of books or music that sometimes our celebration of something is tied to our own personal context with how we engaged with it, when we engaged with it, when it came into our lives, the role that it played in our lives. And, you know, with, with series, like the ones that I was mentioning, I feel very connected to the moment that I watched it, as opposed to Mad Men, which came into my life in one way when I was living in one city in a certain way. And then, you know, if it finished, I moved to LA, like these are all just personal things, but they do affect how we watch things.

33:33Andy Greenwald:And sometimes you can look at a series as taking you from one point in your life to another. And we are close enough to some shows that that actually is relevant. I think, I don't think that's too grandiose a statement for the shows that we truly love. But this idea of like, yes, this hit me at the right moment. Um, and station 11 is the great example of that because that was pandemic and, uh, and the show was about a pandemic and the achievement of that series, just in terms of taking something that, that on paper could seem so dark and so claustrophobic and so insular and turning it into something that was about humanity and joy.

34:08Andy Greenwald:Um, I just think it's, I think it's a remarkable achievement. Maybe the other reason why I'm banging the drum for these series so loudly is because I do realize that as we do the show year after year after year, the one and dones kind of fall out of the conversation sometimes. Not because we're forgetting about them, but just because it is hard to compare them. And because they didn't bridge eras the way some of these other series have. Yeah, I think also there is just such an astonishing, deafening demand for more when something hits. And we are not content to be like, that's okay, leave it exactly where we want people to check back into the White Lotus.

34:48We are not open to the idea that that was a one and done for Mike White. And so it becomes an anthology, which will probably have more and more connective tissue if the way things go continue on. but yeah I know what you mean where there's something almost regal about the way that those limited series is like burn out instead of fade away. By the way

35:10Andy Greenwald:that brings me back to the previous answer to 2014 Emmys Fargo season 1 won the Emmy for best limited series and I think Fargo season 2 is one of the best seasons of television of the century. That's the Clemens and Dunst one right? Yes. And Ted Danson. And yes, but I'm not advocating. I'm not saying that the show should have ended after one season. I'm just in the spirit of this conversation. And in terms of eras, like what role would that show have in our conversation about television or would, would, um, Noah Hawley have in our conversation about television had Fargo been a one and done and then onto something else.

35:49That's really, that's a very good question. Uh, speaking of eras, let's talk about the one we're in right now. Jameson asks question for the pod. This year has sucked for a lot of reasons, but as a writer, few things were more disappointing than how little the mantra of survive to 25 paid off. Now with the possible Netflix occasion of Warner Brothers, what is the mantra for 26 to the industry hopefuls and veterans alike? Quote, don't shit bricks in 26 or something will stick in 26 comes to mind. Thanks very much for the conversations this year. you know as we go to record this today Larry Ellison is guaranteed the backstop the financial sort of backstop of Paramount's bid for Netflix so these stories are certainly not over with can I ask you a question?

36:40Andy Greenwald:do you think Larry Ellison has ever agreed to have a catch with David? I feel like so many of our problems they just throw Hawaiian Islands back and forth he's like is this heaven? He's like, no, dad, this is your own private Hawaiian island. It's better than heaven. It's a tax show. Anyway, I think that there are two answers to this question. I will say that from a watching perspective, from the audience perspective, from the I just show up and check this stuff out as a consumer and as a fan, I feel like things have gotten a little bit more back to normal. um i think that uh both in terms of pace and in terms of uh what we're being what is being put on screen and how easy it is to sort of discern for yourself i want to watch this i don't want to watch this i think that this stuff starts to is starting to feel a little bit more grounded to me but i'm very curious for your perspective as you're somebody who also works behind the camera I mean, I think that in terms of programming and the consistency of that programming, I think that it's still a pretty good time to be a viewer, assuming you can afford nine distinct streaming services.

37:59Andy Greenwald:I totally agree with that. In terms of a mantra, I haven't heard one other than I guess everything is Netflix and 26, from your HBO shows to your favorite podcasts to potentially your sports leagues. that just seems like an inevitable drift towards a certain way of engaging with content and one company asserting itself as the biggest voice in the room. I would say behind the scenes, and I can speak subtly, but personally, there has been a slight return to some normalcy and some degree of success in terms of my ability to work, my ability to sell stuff, people being interested in hearing stuff has been really surprisingly good at the end of the year, which I'm really lucky.

38:42Andy Greenwald:I would say that what I get when I talk to people in the industry or on the group chats that I'm a part of, it's just that the margins have shrunk in ways that people haven't really noticed until it's too late. It's kind of a rarefied Hollywood version of a conversation that a lot of people are having around the dinner table, which is like, they keep saying the economy is good, but it's a vibes recession because everything feels bad and everything is a little bit more expensive and we're all doing a little bit less. So that shows are selling, people are getting hired. But if you were getting hired as a number two on shows before, maybe you're scrabbling to get hired as a number three on a show.

39:25Andy Greenwald:I know these are tiny, tiny violin type things, but it is, you know, you're selling a show and you're used to getting paid a certain rate and now you're being offered scale for the year. So everything just slides down a few notches. There are no recognizable wins or even just recognizable benchmarks of, you know, you know, in a booming, theoretically in a booming economy, everyone would benefit. But I think in our new kleptocracy, that is not the case. Everyone is just grateful to have, you know, the slightly smaller piece of bread than they had before. Yeah. It sounds like bigger than ever and smaller than ever at once.

39:59Andy Greenwald:Bigger than ever for some people. And smaller than ever for like regular people's pockets when it comes to making this stuff. Yeah. And I think that as with everything in the economy, like the trickle down effect is hardest, the more, the further down the line you go. And I continued to think like, just because more shows are being bought, which is good for the level of people who are buying and selling shows or wanting to staff from writer's rooms. It does not mean that more of those shows are going to film in Los Angeles where, you know, a gaffer used to be able to like have a house in the valley and make a living and now can't and then maybe move to Atlanta, but now production's not there.

40:33Andy Greenwald:So is he going to move to Budapest? I'm not sure. So yes, like in terms of an industry thing, I don't think, I don't have a cheerful Yuletide message, but in terms of the top line of the industry, like if we're, if we're measuring it in terms of like, will we have good shows? Will we have equal amount of shows? Will we have shows that meet the moment and are people just buying and selling again at the highest of levels? I think the answer is a cautious yes. Okay. but we'll have to see what's on our screens. Debbie asks, I would love to know what each of you consider to be your very first, quote, obsession show.

41:07When you were kids, what was the first show that you remember loving with your whole heart?

41:10Andy Greenwald:I would say two. I would have two answers. One was the late lamented series, Misfits of Science on NBC, which I did not know at the time was basically someone like Brendan Tartikoff being like, can we make sexy X-Men without getting the rights? And when I say sexy X-Men, And it was like, can we hire Max Wright, soon to be the dad on Elf, to be on it? Because what's sexier than that? I feel like the show lasted six episodes, but I was glued to the television for them. I don't know if this is like 84 or 85. And then other than the normal shows that I think everyone our age was obsessed with at the time, like Cosby Show, Family Ties, Growing Pains.

41:46Andy Greenwald:Obviously, everyone knows my origin story with Twin Peaks. And that was when it really hit the stratosphere in terms of fandom and obsession. I would probably say for me, the first thing I remember being, I guess obsessed is a strange way to describe it, but I have a very distinctive memory, especially since I'm doing this recording from my childhood home, of being on the landing outside of my bedroom and looking down the stairs into the living room and watching my parents watch Miami Vice when I was like seven. Oh, yeah. and only being able to see snippets of it, but hearing it and hearing the music and hearing the weird way that adults were talking to each other and what they were talking about, I was pretty enticed by that.

42:27And obviously I've gone on to love the series and the film adaptation of it. My first, I think, time that I realized I loved a TV show and also that I felt protective of a TV show and started to show some of the qualities I think we still show here on the podcast, is Homicide Life on the Street, which premiered after the Super Bowl in 1993. And I was in high school, and it was the first time I think a show came on, and I was aware Barry Levinson was a part of it, and that that meant something. And that the writers who were working on it were journalists and celebrated screenwriters, and that the cast featured legendary actors, but like in like Yafet Kodo and, and Ned Beatty.

43:16So I, I was starting to like understand like for lack of a better way of putting it, who Richard Belzer was. And, and that was like a big moment for me. And then immediately I feel like almost as soon as homicide came out, it was like, is this going to get canceled? Is it too, is it too arty? Is it too real? Is it too good? Critically acclaimed, but not enough people watching. And I became very protective of its survival.

43:40Andy Greenwald:It's such a good call. I'm really still hung up on what you said about like after your bedtime the things your parents would watch because I do have like a very core memory of what I believe is my mother watching what may have been the series premieres of like Golden Girls and 227 and I was like wow that's so racy and adult and I googled it and those shows premiered at 8pm on a Saturday night so which makes me wonder what my bedtime was but then the fact that like generally weren't you up until like 11 I was just up listening till midnight. But like, then my, because this whole thing doesn't exist anymore.

44:16Andy Greenwald:Because now, like, if my kids go to bed and the adults want to watch a television show, there are headphones or iPads. Like, it's not like an ambient thing at the heart of the home is not being rocked by whatever. You put on the Vision Pro to watch those old 227 reruns? I finally get the JK thing. These jokes. Like, it was just... I took a lot of time. It just missed me at the time. my my my sense is that my when my parents watched tv late it was just like rumple of the bailey or like masterpiece theater or something and i was like i'm i'm good i'm gonna go to bed um the one just seared into my mind and like is a very uncomfortable formative memory was when i advocated to watch moonlighting with them which was a big hit show and maybe i had seen diehard i don't really know that the timing of this but i don't remember if this was i don't remember enough to know if this was like a recurring thing where like yes i was allowed to watch moonlighting with them at a certain point because they knew that their their son just loved banter but i do remember watching the david and maddie finally do it episode oh yeah with my parents which is just i do not recommend because do you remember that we've probably talked about this in the pod over the last 13 years but like as a eight or nine or ten year old the when they finally uh it was will they or won't they and then boy do they it's like heightened and comic and they break all the furniture in their bedroom.

45:36Oh, yeah, right.

45:37Andy Greenwald:And it was a real, you know, Ed Rooney, so that's how it is in their family kind of thing from the child's perspective. Because you did not understand the comedia dell 'Eart.

45:50Andy Greenwald:Yeah, it's just like, it's also not the kind of thing you turn to your parents and be like, are they fighting? Like, is this fun? Yeah, you know, it was a move in those kinds of shows and in action movies that I've never in my life experienced with a woman is the like, I hate you. And then they make out like to like the fight that turns into it's attract to her. Just like, you're such a stuck up bitch. And she's like, you're, you're just a chauvinistic pig. And then they make out like immediately. That's never happened to me in your life. Yeah. Well, that's because you keep things that people know this about you.

46:26I've never been like straight up smacked in the face and then French kissed.

46:32Andy Greenwald:First of all, your life's not over. I think that you should not start sundowning on your dreams. But I also think that you keep things at a pretty steady simmer. You know what I mean? Like even during week 15 Eagles Commanders games, you don't get too hot or too cold. So you don't get slapped or French kissed, metaphorically speaking. That's true. Here's a good one. And kind of along the same lines, because we're in a nostalgic moment here. Malcolm wrote, I recently started working in the industry covering shows and movies. And while I've been at it for a few years, I feel like I lack academic knowledge of many who cover films and shows.

47:08Between the two of you, you have decades of experience, which is sort of chilling. And if I have the watch lore correct, then I believe Chris's father had decades of experience as well. It's true. So the two of you feel like the appropriate people to ask the following questions. What do you recommend for people who want to critically understand films and shows? Do you recommend watching certain shows? Consuming as much as you can? are there books you should read or skills you should learn what's shaped the critical mind you have today i hope you have a chance to read these and answer them go owls and i agree with the go owls part for sure this is a great question man um i think i take for granted my education i mean i certainly take it for granted i took it for granted when i uh didn't really take it for all it was worth at the time being but i uh was certainly lucky enough to grow up with pretty literate, funny parents.

47:58You had to laugh sometimes, you know. Keep from crying. But my dad's job, which was pretty abstract to me for a long time, exposed me to a lot of stuff that I don't think I would normally have been exposed to as a kid, as a teenager. And that could be something as simple as him saying, I think you'd like the Maltese Falcon. But also him talking about things casually in conversation with me about things I was watching and talking about things like tone and pace and intention and composition and things that were just foundational ideas about how you make something coherent and successfully. And I think that really did wind up having a pretty huge impact on me.

48:47I just didn't really realize it until honestly, maybe just thinking about it for this question. I have a couple of critics that I certainly adore and that I'll happy, happy to cite, but I was curious whether you felt like you had a critical origin story or a, a kind of background that you wanted to share with, with the listeners.

49:05Andy Greenwald:Um, well you, at least like your dad was professional critic. My father is just more of an, like a lifelong committed critic. He's just a hater. He's just, he's just the haters ball. Hey, Ness. Hey, Ness, Michael. So definitely, the most polite version of it would be that the idea that anything was sacred or served on a silver platter and couldn't be critiqued. That was never part of my understanding, including when I was just like, Dad, do you like this song that I like? And he would be like, no, drivel. We'd be like, cool. How does it feel all these years later to be paying that forward to your children?

49:45Andy Greenwald:do i do the the problem is all all of generational parenting is just swinging in the opposite direction yeah right so so when my daughter sends me like mp3s of like uh joe or the marias or or tate mccray i'm like yeah i like this and then there's just like a long silence um no some of that's actually pretty good but um so i think that that is helpful as was having a again this is this This is a luxury that not everyone could have or privilege that like a sense of a continuum and a larger history so that when you see something, because nothing is made in a vacuum. So, for example, Star Wars, which was foundational to us, was made because George Lucas was still consumed with the radio serials and genre stuff like Flash Gordon and things that he was obsessed with growing up.

50:37Andy Greenwald:So he did his version of it. the kids who received Star Wars as the Ur text might think that that was the greatest ever expression of it. But this idea that everything we're reading, consuming, watching is part of a larger story of influence and rejection and an embrace between ideas and strains throughout cultural artistic history is worth having and worth pursuing. So obviously, like digging in the crates is really important. It doesn't devalue your love of something to learn what that person was listening to and what that person loved or what that person was sampling. I think that's number one important.

51:16Andy Greenwald:I think two, seeing it in context of the reading critics who take great pleasure, joy, and show enthusiasm in engaging with work as a living thing, which doesn't necessarily mean being a hater, but being like, I'm going to run right into this and get messy with it. And whether that's Pauline Kael or A.O. Scott or our buddy Wesley Morris, who does it as well as anyone does it today. I think that's really important in terms of understanding that what you owe to yourself and your ideas and your own taste, as well as what you owe to the creator and being respectful, but engaging with it. Because I don't think any art is necessarily made for the purpose of being hung on the wall of a museum and adored.

51:59That's really well put. I think that for me, the only thing I would add is just the importance of reading critics in other disciplines and applying it to whichever one you happen to be writing about. So I think that Andy and I both got a lot out of literary criticism and reading about not only reading the works of literary criticism, but starting to understand different schools of literary criticism, understanding that groups of critics could form an ideology that they would use as a lens through which to read their works, to watch their films. and then there would be a counter revolution to that there would be a a resistance or a rebuke of those ideas in the next thing you know so to jump from uh you know post-modernism to new criticism to structuralism or what have you and i don't necessarily have the chronology of that right but those are three that were always really interesting to me and i always thought they were in conversation with one another and i certainly noticed that andy and i will be talking about something and I'm like, we're pulling from kind of like our English student education a little bit here where sometimes you just want to be like, I don't care about what went on outside of the frame of this show.

53:14We're only talking about this. And sometimes that's very new critical to be like, it's the text, it's the text. But then sometimes we'll talk all about the market forces that allowed a certain thing to come to light for better or for worse. So that's always been really helpful to me. And I would just also say re-critics you disagree with. I think one of the tragic things that sort of happened in the last few years is that people are primarily reading things for confirmation bias rather than be challenged. Now, I agree that a lot of critics might be out there just trying to get you to click so that there's not a huge amount of substance to the why this isn't actually as good as you think it is.

53:52And then the argument is not actually that persuasive, but I really enjoy reading people and listening to people who I disagree with who have like a really good case to bake.

54:00Andy Greenwald:Remember Armand White? I do remember him, yeah. Who was not doing it for clicks, but would just regularly write incredibly thoughtful, well-reasoned, well-argued opinions that were so far outside of the mainstream that they almost seemed like a provocation. Yes. But that was fascinating to read because I think they were done in good faith, which I think is important. I think that generally with criticism... Well, much more like sort of a recent example of this, and he'll love being mentioned in the same breath as Armand White anyway, but Adam Neiman, who writes a lot of criticism for The Ringer and appears on The Big Picture and is a fantastic working film critic and professor.

54:38I often will love a film or dislike a film. And if Adam disagrees with me on it, I can't wait to read about it because I find his reviews to be like that thoughtful and that dialed, you know? And I think that reading him slightly take issue with one battle after another or slightly take issue with something else. Like I always really enjoy reading Adam's stuff. Sorry, but I didn't mean to cut you off.

55:05Andy Greenwald:No, I think that's a great example. I agree with you about Adam. And I think that, look, nobody likes to be criticized. That's obvious. And there is value in the visceral reaction. I also get a lot of mileage on this podcast with visceral reactions. But the other truth is that nobody pours themselves into something creative, thinking it's going to be bad or wanting it to be bad. Making anything, whether it's a watercolor or a three-hour movie, is incredibly challenging and taxing and worthy of respect, but it's also worthy of engagement with the same kind of seriousness. And I think that some of the best criticism can come from taking things that feel more throwaway and taking them seriously.

55:53Andy Greenwald:Whether it's like a sitcom or whether it's a pop song, like engage with it seriously. Other people put their time and effort into it. And I think ultimately good criticism will engage with the work and not criticize the person or assume the motives of the person making it. Have you ever thought about writing an 800-word takedown of Tate McRae and sending it to your kids as a text message? Have I thought about it? Yes. No, actually, I kind of like the Tate McRae song, but there's a couple others that I'm taking some issue with. That would be great if you started giving star ratings to the songs your daughter sent you.

56:28Andy Greenwald:No, not star ratings, like Chris Gow, Letter Grades. Letter Grades. Um, the other thing that I would recommend in terms of, you know, getting a deeper understanding to the spirit of the question, like deeper understanding or historical context for the industry is that I think you and I both love reading books about the industry. Like you could read Peter Biskins books about the film industry and learn a lot. You can read William Goldman. And I recommend that you do. There's a great book that New York Review of Books put out recently called Picture by Lillian Ross, which is basically a series of stories she wrote about John Houston filming a movie in the fifties.

57:05Andy Greenwald:She wrote it for the New Yorker and it's published as a book. And it's just still completely relevant about what it's like to make anything. Uh, and also what it's like to be come maybe close or too close to the subject of your reporting. Excellent, excellent book, but it's also why we recommend things like, and it came up the other week, the great author, Don Carpenter's Hollywood trilogy, which are published as one volume now, which are basically because Don Carpenter came to Hollywood as a struggling novelist and had a lot of bad luck, because that's basically what this industry does to talented people, tend to chew them up.

57:40Andy Greenwald:But he still loved moviemaking and movie people. And there's this melancholy joy about an era that I think is really instructive about what it was like to be around here in quote unquote, this town in the 70s and into the 80s. Is it the same industry as it was then? No, but the struggles and the allure remain real. And I think that that sort of helps broaden your understanding of it, that for as much as Netflix is a new invention, people really, really trying to get their ideas across the finish line isn't. And I think that helps inform our reception of stuff and our engagement with it. Since we are coming right off of you mentioning a couple of books, why don't we do some book recommendations, or at least list some of the stuff that was our favorite of the year to read because we got a lot of questions about that.

58:23Some people still searching for the next Lensome Dove and I'm right there with you, brother. We could just trade on back and forth if you want. Would you just give me a list of some stuff that you wanted to highlight?

58:32Andy Greenwald:Do you think, how close are we to really doing the Master and Commander books? I know that both of us go to bookstores a lot and we pick them up every time there's a new edition and we're like, that's not the age that I am yet. You know what I mean? But I feel like someday we're going to have to pull the trigger on that. I've been thinking about that a lot, about my dadification without an error, but still my dadification. Obviously, I had quite a journey with the American Revolution this year. And Rick Atkinson is a historian that's heavily featured in the American Revolution. He's delightful on the show.

59:07I don't know if I would describe him as delightful. He's quite informative and interesting person. But he seems like a dynamite dude. I just mean, he's not cracking people up. Got it. He wrote a trilogy of World War II history books called the Liberation Trilogy, which is about, I believe it's like North Africa, Italy, and then the final push of liberating Europe. And I have in earnest started reading this like 15 times. And I just don't think I'm dadded out yet where I need to know like every single time they're like, and here were all the supplies that they loaded onto the boat. and I'm like it's cool but like I also think I am still I'm still fiction brained I still want the best of the story not all the story um so it's interesting that you should bring up Master Commander which I know you know I've never read them frankly no me either we've mentioned

1:00:04Andy Greenwald:this in passing I think the most exciting reading experiences I've had this year were Oliver Harris's Spy Trilogy we've talked about the first book Shadow Intelligence The second book, Ascension, is amazing. I'm here to advocate for, I'm almost finished with the third book, The Shame Archive. Might be the best of the three. I cannot believe, I owe you no gatekeeping. I feel like this recommendation came to both of us from Zach Barron. I think you were pushing it on me. So I did not Columbus this guy, but it is spy fiction that feels so terrifyingly contemporary in a way that most of the spy fiction, even contemporary spy fiction that we read, just hasn't.

1:00:47Andy Greenwald:it just feels like one nanosecond away from the world that we're actually living in and the fear that it can create in you, which is, you know, just a much more living emotional experience than when we read, you know, incredible Le Carre era, you know, first half of his career era, Cold War fiction. You know, it just, maybe it had a different spark at the time, but this feels of the moment in a way that is really exciting. I would also advocate for one of the other great reading experiences I had this year is the most recent book by Charlie Houston, who wrote the book Caught Stealing and the screenplay for the film, which you and I both enjoyed.

1:01:23Andy Greenwald:I think it's streaming on Netflix now. He has a novel that came out this year called Catch Penny, which is like if Stephen King wrote a grownup burnout 90s rocker Harry Potter, it makes magic interesting and cool in a different way than I ever would have expected. I think it's just a great book and great read and hopefully turns into a great series someday. And I did the Kaya recommendation. I really like color television by Dan Zicena. And then, it's funny, this came up in the questions, but I've been Jesselnik-pilled thanks to you, and I saw his top ten list, and I picked up this book, Perfection.

1:01:55Andy Greenwald:I'm holding it up to the camera. Which was his number one book. It's an Italian novel by Vincenzo Letronico. And so far, I've just started it. And it's not a horror novel, but it is about a couple right now who become expats and like surf Twitter for the news. And I'm finding it deeply, deeply chilling. But I was excited to, to, to get on the train of the guy who reads more contemporary fiction than anyone I've ever met. I don't understand how he does it. It's like, it kind of almost, I thought I was like, well, how does Steven Soderbergh do what he does with his, his media diary that he does every year.

1:02:28And he does like 25 to 30 new books a year or books a year. And I don't, I don't, I just can't get through books that fast. And Jezelnik makes, he does like one a week seemingly. I mean, I guess maybe he doesn't watch short form video, which would be a huge time saver.

1:02:43Andy Greenwald:So he doesn't, do you feel like he doesn't, hasn't watched all 120 of James Dimitri's London Greasy Spoon reviews? I don't think so. Yeah. Think of all the books I could have read. I have a question for you just about methodology. Sure. How many books are you currently reading? It's a great question. I brought the three, no, I brought, I'm currently reading four books and I'm not proud of it. How do you do that? Here's where I'm at with my vertical video, Spoiled Brain. Yesterday, Sunday, I had like a two-hour window and the kids were busy. And so I was like, I really want to enjoy the feeling of reading a book.

1:03:22Andy Greenwald:And I sat on the couch with three books next to me, just hoping I could spark one, including I just, because you had reread it this year, Martin Amos' Money. And I'm like, maybe that would hit right now. Yeah, that'll make you feel relaxed about me. Exactly. Traveling back and forth between London and another American city. That was why I put it back down. But often re-reading. That guy is like, jet lag is a virus. You can defeat it with whiskey.

1:03:56There's the ambitious reading, you know, the one is always trying to do,

1:04:00Andy Greenwald:and maybe that's the Latronico book right now. There is the, I know I'm going to like this reading. I'm reading the new Richard Price, not so new, but you read it last year, Lazarus Man. I've got that open. The Oliver Harris book that I'm loving that is probably my primary right now. And then there's stuff like I'm reading All Consuming, which is a nonfiction book about how we eat now by a British writer. I really like Ruby Tando. And I feel like that goes into a different category because it's a nonfiction brain. But then ultimately what I end up doing is I'm like, oh, there's another Elmore Leonard I haven't read.

1:04:30Andy Greenwald:So now I'm reading Killshot instead of all those other books. You finish all those books. Of the ones I mentioned, and I'm not just putting it down as a marker for you. Yes, I will finish all those books, but I probably haven't mentioned the 11 other books that have now been demoted to underneath my bedside table. Yes, I know that feeling. I have to admit that I won't read or finish, but I don't want to admit it to you on a hot mic. I will always finish a shorter book. So anything about 300 pages, I can usually power through. And in fact, I've been really enjoying some novellas recently or some shorter novels because I feel like they give me a sense of accomplishment.

1:05:09I'm not like, oh, I really needed another 400 pages of this. It's been, I feel a little bit like I have training wheels on again where I'm like, oh, look who's getting back into Goodreads, just checking off some big ones. But I am crippled, but I cannot read more than one book at a time because I just feel like that's a recipe for me doing five pages of one thing, five pages of another, forgetting where I'm at, getting stuff mixed up. So I always admire you having a couple of pans on the stove is always really impressive to me. I'll just highlight a couple of things from this year. Some of them are 2025 releases, some are a little bit more recently or just recent years.

1:05:50So Playworld was probably my favorite book of the year. We talked about that a little bit earlier on the show. I believe that that was also a Jesmnic recommendation. It's Adam Ross's coming of age novel set in Manhattan. about a young teenager who's wrestling in high school, observing his parents drifting apart, living with his young brother, and kind of having the 2-1-2 as his playground because he's a latchkey kid and responsible for a lot of his own sort of minding. And then I will say a recent book that I read that I thought was pretty cool was Nymph by Stephanie LaCava. that is a kind of...

1:06:35I want to say it reminded me a little bit of Don DeLillo's The Names or a very sideways way of looking at a kind of pulpy plot. But this is about a woman who becomes an assassin is an easy way of saying it, but it's much more complicated and opaque than that. And I enjoyed the experience of reading it a lot. One recent novel, it's not a 2025 novel, it's a 2023 novel that I've been reading that I found out about from a piece in the London Review of Books by a writer named Leo Robson about the experience of going to movies over the course of his life, which I thought was a delightful piece. he recommends a novel called Brian by an author named Jeremy Cooper and it is about a guy living in London in the late 80s who just starts going to the BFI movie theater every single night and his experience of his own life through his experience as a cinema goer and it is a very very lovely novel there are parts of it that I see myself in and that I find a little bit alarming that I do.

1:07:44And then there's just some really well-observed kind of descriptions of cinema going, but also life-living that I think is quite well-drawn.

1:07:56Andy Greenwald:I told you that I was at one of your favorite haunts. I was at the Foils bookstore in Charing Cross two weeks ago and Brian, the novel, was on a table and a bunch of younger people picked it up and just spent a good three to five minutes laughing about a novel being called Brian. That didn't scare me off of it. Yes, because I know it's important for you to seem cool with people. At all times. So young people, constantly. Yes. Yeah, so those were mine. I have a bunch of spy novels that I read this year. Some more Len Dytons. I read one set in the Balkans recently called White Eagles Over Serbia by Lawrence Durrell.

1:08:35That was pretty good. Oh, yeah. but the those were the the big the big ones were the ones i just mentioned and i spent most of the second half of the year doing vineland and it was really worth it the problem i find is that as one

1:08:50Andy Greenwald:gets older like the thirst to just have the experience of your favorite writers again because it might not and i still i think you and i still live and this is a good thing about us i think we still live with the optimism and hope that we will have another experience we'll discover a writer we'd never discovered before or it'll hit differently at a certain point. But like I did have a feeling while I was sorting through the five or six books that I'm currently reading, which is just a chaotic way to live, being like, I just want a McMurtry right now. I just want that again to be taken care of.

1:09:19Andy Greenwald:So that may end. I'm not saying I'm going to reread Dove yet, but it's getting closer. Let's wrap up with one question that's directed towards you, but I'm very curious to know what your answer is, which is from Tariq. And it's one question for Andy. if you could make streamers or networks follow one rule to instantly improve the TV they're making, what's the rule you would choose and why? It's a great question. And I think that it speaks to the challenge in answering. It speaks to just sort of a problem that cuts across almost every programming department, if that's even what they're called in town, which is there really is no institutional memory anymore that when these streaming services are sold or they re-pivot or they rebrand, there generally is a house cleaning.

1:10:06Andy Greenwald:And the people who work there, the institutional memory of working with each other, working with the various arms of the company. So it's not just like the development team, it's the development team with a history working with the production side of it to make sure that what they are buying are things that they can actually make and that they can work in tandem with each other and not across purposes. Like all of that has kind of fallen by the wayside. And it's one of the reasons why we don't only, champion a lot of a disproportionate number of shows that come from HBO or FX. It's why when we talk about how the sausage is made, we point to their recipes because those are the most entrenched development teams in town.

1:10:40Andy Greenwald:They have been working together for years, in some cases, decades, and they know each other's taste and they trust each other's instincts. And the result of that isn't just a higher level of quality. I do still think there's a way where we can say, I understand why that's an HBO show, or I understand why that is an FX show in a way that we can't always say about Netflix, which has exemplars of the form in every genre, but also a lot of nonsense. That said, this actually brings it full circle since we started talking about my Eagles anxiety. So one thing that I like, and this may be true for all 32 NFL teams, but I certainly only know it to be the case with the Eagles because I don't care about the other 31 teams.

1:11:18Andy Greenwald:On draft night or on draft day or in the days leading up to the draft, they have an all-hands meeting right within the entire general manager's office and all the draft mix and everybody where each person, no matter how junior can make a bang the table case for why the team should draft this player. If that player is available in whatever round, they're not saying that they should draft this like, you know, fluky, non-conventional running back in the first round. They're not saying that they're not even saying they should draft that player for need in the third round. They're saying that if the ball, the board falls a certain way and they're planning on picking up depth at that position, we care about this individual person.

1:12:00Andy Greenwald:We've met him, we've talked to him, we know his coach, or we like the way he runs or we can envision it. They bang the table. And then after the draft, if any of those bang the table picks actually get made, of course, the social media team showcases it as if, you know, it was just a mile. Exactly. Exactly. I wish that these streaming services, this is my holiday wish, had a meeting like that at the end of the year where they could say, look, you know, we have our big ticket IP. We did our hospital procedural. We were covered in the categories that, quote unquote, the town is buying this year.

1:12:33Andy Greenwald:We've been reactive. We've covered our asses. Can everyone here who reads scripts that come in make a case for the favorite script that they read? can you make a case not just why you liked it, but why it would do us good to program it? And there are examples of that happening. And sometimes it's the best examples the network could point to. Showtime basically doesn't exist anymore, but the last garland that Showtime had, and it's, where do you put garlands? I don't remember. I got distracted. I was thinking about the late great Merrick garland. Still alive, but reputationally. We lost a lot of folks this year.

1:13:11Andy Greenwald:was Yellow Jackets, which famously was like a junior executive was like, nah, this is it. This is going to work for us. And was so adamant about that. It made its way all the way up the chain. They took a flyer on it and that became both a ratings hit and a buzz hit and a critical hit for them. And I just think it is a better industry when there are passion projects, not just for writers and creators, but for executives saying like, I know this might not be guaranteed moneymaker for us. But all of the shows that I listed as being the most important shows of the century in my mind, none of those were slam dunks.

1:13:46Andy Greenwald:None of those were the shows that were going to make money or that were created in response to the success of someone else's success. So listen to your people and let them bang on the table once a year. I think we'd have a better industry for it. That's a good way to end the pod. I think that that's a good rallying cry. Greenwald, another great year podcasting with you. Very delightful. the numbers are getting up there. Do you realize that this is January will be our 14th anniversary. I know. Thanks to Kai. Thanks to Kaya. And you'll have our pluribus episode on Wednesday after the pluribus finale airs with some special guests.

1:14:19But until then, thank you for listening and we'll see you guys on January 5th.

1:14:32The right window treatments change everything. Your sleep, your privacy, the way every room looks and feels. At Blinds.com, we've spent 30 years making it surprisingly simple to get exactly what your home needs. We've covered over 25 million windows and have 50 ,000 five-star reviews to prove we deliver. Whether you DIY it or want a pro to handle everything from measure to install, we have you covered. Real design professionals. Free samples. Zero pressure. Right now, get up to 45 % off site-wide. Plus, get a free professional measure at Blinds.com. Rules and restrictions apply. Athletic Brewing Company crafts award-winning non-alcoholic beers for those who want to be part of every round.

1:15:10With over 185 flavor awards, they're exceptional NA beers that fit your lifestyle and any social occasion. Summer's full of good times, and athletic fits right in. Go to athleticbrewing.com to have brews delivered to your door, or find them at a bar, restaurant, or store near you. Near Beer. Athletic Brewing Company. Fit for all times.