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

22:08I think everybody is sort of taking a look at the landscape. WGA settled. 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.

22:43like you can tell by our our the flatness of our reaction there that that's not something that we're super psyched about but I was looking at this story that's unrelated to Paramount Warner Brothers which is that Disney Plus is upping its subscription fee to$21.99 per month with for no ads now I will say that like you can still bundle Disney and Hulu and I think it's the same price like it always depends on like what you're where you got in and yeah and what you're doing with it and whether you've got the whole Disney Plus, ESPN, Hulu package. I think there are still values there.

23:17Joanna Robinson:Cable packages are back, baby. But$21.99 is so far from, I think it was like$5 when they debuted it or something like that. Yeah. And there's two really important points to make here. One I thought of and one you thought of. Look at us. What is the ceiling, the price ceiling for these streaming services? They can keep saying now it's 4K and now it's now now it's in Dolby or whatever. And not 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 problem with is that all these companies are structured as publicly traded technology companies now.

24:01And so like there's going to have to be constant iteration and constant shareholder growth for them to kind of maintain control over this. Is there a number in your mind that if you were just like a regular Joe, Joanna? Yeah.

24:17Joanna Robinson:And not I need this for my job. Would just be like, why? I think it's already there. Yeah. Don't you think it's already there? Like past 20 bucks is already there per streaming service? dozens of people in my like normal life who are like i just i don't paramount plus i 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 a flash of a horrible feeling.

24:54Joanna Robinson:You know how when you get sort of, if one has central AC in Los Angeles and the heat is heating 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. Imagine if you go through a depressive phase and you just need to binge a bunch of television and your bill reflects it and you're like, wow. I'm telling you one better, what happens when the melatonin hits and you don't turn the laptop top off or something and you're just like 64 episodes of virgin river so that's like a speculation i mean i am kind of surprised that you know they've they've come down pretty hard on sharing accounts on password sharing i wonder when contracts come into play interesting like year-long lock your netflix fee in now for two years and avoid any further price hikes wow like that kind of thing netflix is just an example i'm not saying that's gonna happen but like damn i'm look at what disney does to their parks are you saying that that's like no that's what i'm not putting anything past these guys the thing that you brought up that i thought was fascinating is you know as we just spent 20 minutes lamenting kind of like what netflix is offering us yeah as you spent we spent like four years getting a bunch of marvel and Star Wars shows of varying degrees of quality.

26:22How dare you? All of that stuff seems to be, like the Disney thing specifically, what are they offering you aside from library right now?

26:30Joanna Robinson:Yeah, exactly. It's funny. So, you know, I have a Disney Plus subscription. I don't really use it that often because 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 find me. come find me anyone at Disney but uh I password share with my sister who has kids I get alert every time they log in and I just text her I'm like what are you guys watching it's just like an old they're just like yeah they're constantly on my Disney plus love that for them watching old Disney stuff because they have kids so like if you have kids and you want access to that library that makes all the sense in the world but if you don't need that then what is Disney Plus providing for you that you can't get on Hulu?

27:16Joanna Robinson:And I mean, I think that we talked about this, about the shrinking of the MCU and the Star Wars properties. 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. It just wore everyone out. It just did damage across the board. It was just like one of the worst moves that has ever happened, I think in Hollywood. I also think, you know, our buddy Zach Barron just did an interview with Mahershala Ali on Zach's GQ show. And, you know, he talked very candidly about his experience trying to make Blade and Kevin Feige.

27:54And one thing that leapt out in me was this idea that Marvel's specific approach 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.

28:15Joanna Robinson:Yeah. It's catastrophic for TV. It doesn't work at all. I'm not even sure I understand how it's happening, how it's working right now. I understood how it was working before and not well, but I understood the system. And now the system has changed slightly, I think because they're in sort of panic mode on the movie side. So there's less of, they were already stretched too thin trying to handle all of these shows and it just sort of made everything worse. But I think once they sort of returned their focus to, okay, if we can't make Avengers Doomsday happen, if we can't land it with that, if this Sony Spider-Man co-pro doesn't make a bajillion dollars, and it did, good job, but like, then what are we even doing here?

28:58It doesn't matter if we have Wonder Man season two. Exactly.

29:01Joanna Robinson:So Wonder Man season two is canceled. They just announced that Daredevil is going to end with season three, which I think is a mercy kill as far as I'm concerned. And they've got about two shows that I know of that are maybe in development. Sure. And then there's like some Filoni stuff for Star Wars, Ahsoka. Kind of. Is there anything else? Not really. No. I mean, like after Mandalorian, the movie, do you go back to TV? Who knows? I know. What's Pedro's price tag at this point? I don't know. But like it was a calamity in sort of the live action. Let's get adult fans into this space. So if we're going to lean back into like sort of this is for kids, you know, for kids.

29:45Joanna Robinson:Yeah. I like I personally, for me personally, fan of like the witch show that's coming in. I'm really excited for Vision Quest. Sure. Like Vision Quest is something I'm genuinely like really looking forward to. But in general, the state of Disney franchise television, I think, is pretty bleak. And so the audacity of them to bump their their price at this point is is wild to me. Yeah. And then you read, you know, you read accounts of like people who are going to the parks and they're just like everything is like from the second you start thinking about going to your experience, getting there, staying there, visiting the parks, your experience in the parks and getting out like everything is about them maximizing what they can squeeze out of you.

30:31Joanna Robinson:It's like it's like the Master of the House song from Les Miserables. Yeah. Where you're like charge you to sit on a bench. Those parks used to be like, and 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.

31:03they're moving between streaming services and the services themselves are like it's been six months we better like knock this up two dollars and i understand why they're doing that but it reminds me of like in my mind flying used to just be flying like you would get on a plane and go and 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 yeah to get out of like the experience of whether you know you're flying southwest or whatever you're like the the the maddening experience of like day-to-day travel and that's kind of like what's happening with streaming where it's like oh like do you want to have like no ads well we i didn't have ads before you know why you're connecting comfort

31:52Joanna Robinson:economy comfort plus to disney plus it's the same it's the same thing yeah i hear you extra leg room means no ads. Exactly. Exactly. And then I guess if I wanted a good Star Wars show, it's like flying first class. And or. Well, that made my list. I think we share that. FanDuel is now available everywhere in the U.S. I've been everywhere, man. I've been everywhere, man. So you can get in on the sports action no matter where you are, including these places. And Georgia, Houston, Cleveland, Minnesota, Buffalo, Lincoln, Make this your most rewarding season ever with FanDuel. Age and location restrictions apply.

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33:40Joanna Robinson:This episode is brought to you by Born in Roma Fragrances by Valentino Beauty, The iconic fragrance duo. Donna Born in Roma Eau de Parfum is a feminine fragrance featuring juicy black currant, central jasmine, woody cashmere, and warm vanilla. Its masculine counterpart, Womo Born in Roma Eau de Toilette, has notes of fresh violet leaf, aromatic sage, green vetiver, spicy ginger, and mineral salt. Shop at macy's.com. all right let's talk a little bit about youth which is sharon horgan's new show on hbo uh it's written and created by horgan uh and i would say it's part of a kind of continuum of semi-autobiographical shows that she has written and or created uh or co-created over the last i believe 17 years uh That's when Pulling comes out.

34:37Joanna Robinson:Was it 17 years ago? Pulling? It was 06. 06? Yeah. Well, it's then 20 years. Yeah. 20 years of TV from her. Yeah. Starting with Pulling, which she wrote with Dennis Kelly and is about, like, young singles living in London. Notably, 2015's Catastrophe with Rob Delaney, which was probably most people's introduction to her and her comedy. Yes. She wrote, but did not appear or star in. Maybe she appeared in it. uh 2016's divorce which was our first show with hbo um that was a sarah jessica parker vehicle yeah 2017's motherland which has a funny history where it was a i think an american pilot american tv pilot i believe she was like writing it it didn't work she took it back to the uk made it with a bunch of her kind of collaborators.

35:31And that ran for like kind of an office-y kind of three seasons and two specials. And now there's a spinoff called Amanda Land. I would say... Lacey Punch, my fave. Motherland is my favorite. You love Motherland. Well, I'll get to why.

35:47Joanna Robinson:Yeah. Horgan has also created like in the recent years, like a couple of more genre experimentation efforts. shining veil uh with courtney cox and very successfully bad sisters on apple especially the first season which was fantastic um also 2000 that's right i really love that one that might be my favorite oh it's sister stuff yeah i was you know i wasn't sure whether that was like yeah i guess that is sister stuff so that should go in the autobiographical category um youth stars horgan as alex a 50-something divorced book agent her on again off again Pat is played by Rupert Friend. Aaron Murphy, the son of Atlanta Brave slugger Dale Murphy.

36:32Joanna Robinson:Really? No. It's Killian Murphy's kid. Damn. Wait, that's Killian Murphy's kid? Yeah! Of course it is! Wow, you just unlocked something. Yeah. 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 Homeland Reunion. Yes. Not on screen at the same time, but we get Damien Lewis in a cameo and Rupert Friend. Yeah. We got Peter and Martin in this show. Damien Lewis as himself, delightful. Really good. Some like extras energy there. In this show, Alex has various catastrophes, LOM brewing at any given time.

37:17She 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.

37:33Joanna Robinson:Played by Killy Murphy's kid. Yeah. Wow, you really got me on that one. Let's start with what's your relationship to her work. Is this somebody who you have season tickets to? Do you follow her? Yes, I do. I love her. I think, yeah, I think Catastrophe was my introduction. And then I went back and watched Pulling and Bad Sisters. And I think what she's done, if you look at that 20-year span 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. That's a good way to put it. And so, you know, in pulling, you're like a group of young women sort of singles, blah, blah.

38:18Joanna Robinson:And she's like, she's 30. Yeah. You know, like she's 30 in that show. And then like Catastrophe is about this woman who becomes a new mother, you know, a bit later than some people do. It's just sort of like, I don't know if it's her taking some time out of her own life to reflect. It's about a woman who kills a guy later in life. Later than you would think. Start him young. That's what I say, you know. And so 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 way she teeters the line between unlikably self-centered and sort of the only sane person in the room and the way she's telling stories about women, I think is really, really fascinating.

39:05she's fantastic and I think one of the things I like most about her is how prolific she is I always have like a soft spot for people who are um doers and like get like a lot of stuff whether it's produced but just like made and you can kind of see rather than anyone you know huge artistic statement it's like a bunch of like singles to left doubles to right that they're like you know I'm working on this and I'm working on that and and when you look at the totality of her work. What I just rattled off is a career, man. Like that's incredible that she's been working for 20 years on this project, essentially of kind of documenting her, the changes in her life and in her body and in the world around her for this long.

39:52There's very few TV writers I can think of who have done a similar thing.

39:55Joanna Robinson:I can't think of anyone who's, who's done quite this. And you know, they're not, uh, it's not an interconnected universe, um, at all. That being said, I went back and watched the first couple episodes of Pulling. And it's so interesting to watch her in that very first episode of Pulling. She's sort of like looking at her face in the mirror and just sort of like wondering if it's saggier than it's been in the past. Or in youth, 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.

40:29Joanna Robinson:And like almost nothing's changed between 30 and 50, but so much has changed between 30 and 50. So I just, I love just sort of existing in her world. Yeah, I like there's a moment on, in one of the first two episodes of Youth where she's on a bus going somewhere and she sees a much older woman who's quite beautiful, but she's looking at this much older woman and 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 quite entertaining. I'll just say this for the for the show in general we should just always have a show like this on this is like so low concept it's just about a person with a job and a family and a love life and there are like a b and c and d plots that are of varying levels of interest but I was so pleasantly like reminded of how much I like low concept tv sometimes can I ask you have you are you current with adults the fx show where where is your affection level for very high very high Okay.

41:31Joanna Robinson:So 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. 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 like there's nothing crazy about like a bunch of people living together and trying to make it work in their 20s. but what they do within the episodes it reminded me a lot of of of how i met your mother and some other shows happy endings that have done like it gave me real what if we do like this completely like left field take on this version of this episode oh like the trip episode but we're going to do the 30 minutes before the the drugs hit and stuff like that yeah yeah um but it was interesting to me and this is probably just a reflection of my age like how much more i enjoyed hanging out in this world versus that world.

42:26Joanna Robinson:And, 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 show, the professional world that she's chosen, which is, you know, book agent, is really, really fun. And just, there's a romantic-y book that's like a large plot line. I mean, I already told you that I watched ahead. 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, so 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 just the ridiculous world of publishing.

43:12Joanna Robinson:It's really fun to be back there. What is the, I can't remember the name of the actress who plays. It's Harriet Walter is her daughter. And then her mother is like this 90 year old woman who's writing a book called Wagon Burner, which is like got a lot of indigenous. 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, who is this person supposed to be mirroring in real life? But I couldn't think of who it is. I feel like it's like if, is it Gina All who wrote Clan of the Cave Bear? Oh, yeah. sort of that meets Danielle Steele, but like decades into her career.

43:50Joanna Robinson:So she's just like, whatever, uh, 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. Yes. She's not taking notes. Anyway, that all the publishing stuff is really fun. Uh, this is my, like, I don't even think this is like a note or 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 who everybody saw in Star City. If they got a chance to see Star City and is in line. If they listen to this show.

44:24Joanna Robinson:If they respect your opinion. 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 yeah that's interesting you think she's ahead of her own character kind of okay that's interesting yeah I hadn't thought about it that way um I think there is however to her this sort of like hot girl energy arrogance that like a thinking woman's hot girl arrogance that comes with like particularly who Sharon Horgan is that I just think works really well for the characters that she's writing yeah I mean there's there's some like pretty abrupt tone shifts in youth and I think that might be if you're like I want like straight up like Like, I want to be like put to like put to bed by this show and I want it to be like really nice and fun London drinking, going out and meeting Rupert Friend.

45:39Joanna Robinson:Yeah, it's a little bit with a Scottish accent. We just like really need to underline that. It's a little bit more. It's a little deeper than that. Yeah. And, you know, like, you know, she's got aging parents. She's got a troubled son. There's things going on. Had you heard this? I mean, probably the term sandwich generation. No. I hadn't heard that, but I guess it's the term for when you're still caring for your children, but also caring for your parents. Oh, wow. So like the fact that her son is supposed to go to uni and she's supposed to sort of like, this is my new life. I'm going to get back out in the dating world.

46:12Joanna Robinson: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 sexy, sexual way that just sort of like, again, these are just stories that most people aren't telling.

46:45Joanna Robinson:No. You know? And so I just love her for that. Yeah. And it's told with a nice degree of like style. Yeah. Like you can see some of the HBO money in the show. Like it's running around London there's an Ibiza episode you know like we're we're we're doing it so we recommend yeah I wanted to ask you about slow horses I'll try to hit this with Andy a little bit on Monday or maybe next Thursday once the third episode airs but I wanted to ask you about the slow horses super story tell me well do you watch this show at all when you're on season six episode two which is the one that aired on Tuesday night and you 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 are you just like minute to minute or season to season I'm kind of enjoying like a limited story it's a like really complicated question for this show I think because um I think this is the first season where you are meant to be thinking of it as sort of a larger story with the return of Olivia Cooke's character from season one.

47:54Joanna Robinson:Spoilers. Season trailers and stuff. Yeah. 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 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, whose death cold opens the series back from series one. And so I think for the first time, you know, you read McCarron's books, so you know like both his books and this sort of iterative we can write a hundred of these stories depend on characters not changing and evolving.

48:41Joanna Robinson:Yeah. 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 in television, just sort of like, what's this guy's arc? 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 that sort of thing and so like you watch it for the comfort for the things that don't change river cartway will always fuck up like this will always be the case and then this is the first season and maybe it's no coincidence that it's under new new leadership but this is the first season where that feels like slightly different 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 a shorter runway of McCarran books soon, but McCarran is also, I think, still producing Slough House books.

49:49And we've said multiple times, as Gary Oldman has said, he wants to do this for as long as they have material for him to do it. But I do think that the show needed a season like this. Not in a desperate way. I would have watched it anyway. But I think you can tell that the way that Adam Randall is directing this season feels different. like it doesn't tell me how it feels different 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 yeah I find that like the sky is whited out it's been raining most of this season and I know it rains a lot in London but that's not cheap and that's not like you have to like basically create your own weather when you're doing that and I think the violence is kind of hardcore in this season so far

50:42Joanna Robinson:the strangulation in episode 2 I think it's pretty this is what it feels like we're trying to introduce stakes it's not James Bond and it's also not Jason Bourne but it feels pretty bare knuckled I guess is a good way of describing it and I think it fits the material really well that's interesting because you and I had talked a bit off pod about the way in which they were willing to kill characters in previous seasons. Shout out Min Harper now and always. But like in a way that felt brutal and upsetting and is a hallmark of the books as well. But I like your point. I need to think about that, about whether or not the act of violence itself, rather than just like a clean bullet to the head, it's just sort of like sweatier and more up close.

51:26Joanna Robinson:And then what that means for our, it's not just like one of our guys could go down in the line of fire it's like they're all being hunted yeah and i think also i suppose if you were 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 oh yeah you know legacy wise and they're they're so there's even jackson is is a bit confused about what's going on yeah yeah he's a bit rattled which again and 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 him yeah and i think even like diana catches him off guard at the funeral you know like he there there are punches that he doesn't anticipate yeah you know diana who's unflappable seemingly like gets flapped she got so flapped yeah on camera yeah um kristen scott thomas does not get nearly as many plaudits as Gary Oldman does, but has also been doing.

52:57It's Kristen Scott Thomas. And she's just like on this show. And sometimes when she showed up on Fleabag. Yeah. But sometimes she's like fifth on the call sheet on the show. And sometimes she's second. And this is a I was very excited by like, let's turn the heat up on Diana Taverner, because like, how does Kristen Scott Thomas play that?

53:18Joanna Robinson:It's really Diana first desk is really interesting. interesting for, for, to see someone get what they always wanted. Yes. And we talked about this a little bit on prestige, but something that McCarron has said about this plot line in the book, when Diana finally gets first desk, cause 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, um, 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.

53:49This 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 overall question to you, it had more to do with when you read, say, Le Carre, there are lots of different Smiley stories. He was sort of John Le Carre's most used spy in his fiction. And there is Smiley's arch nemesis, Carla, that they are playing the great game across Europe against one another. and it's very obvious like they don't say Cuban Missile Crisis necessarily or explicitly but like 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 when it's like there's as many private companies have security systems than as nation states.

54:48Yeah. 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 an it's an easier way to write about this stuff because you can manipulate the real world you know you have to it's not is ukraine happening right now like in the world of slow horses it's unclear what i really like about this it's true

55:29Joanna Robinson: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 power and i don't need i don't I know that he enjoys hot chocolate and 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 he'll ultimately be the smartest guy in the room. Will I watch Young Park? But like, he doesn't change. And I don't know much about him personally, actually. And, and sort of that's, uh, that's comforting and that's endlessly iteratable and stuff like that.

56:00Joanna Robinson:And so, uh, for something like Slow Horses, a universe where everything is fictional 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. Yeah, I agree. I think something you and Andy addressed that I think is most exciting to me about this season, maybe, is this sort of 24 to 48 hour clock on it. One crazy night. crazy night yeah that's great 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 right it is like if you have something that has like a clock on it you almost do want to like blow through it 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 widow's bay and some uh severance of creating the building conversation week to week kind of phenomenon shows.

57:06Joanna Robinson:Sure. Like, absolutely. I'm really curious of something like So 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. 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. It has grown over the seasons. But I think, yeah, that people, because it's a delightful show, but it doesn't require a profound amount of discussion. Yeah. So I don't think people feel the urgency to be part of a conversation about what happened this week on Slow Horses.

57:36Joanna Robinson:I don't think it can be solved either. It's not like Lanterns where you're like, oh, I think I know 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 little bit more of an atmosphere and a tone and a vibe than it is like, oh, are we going to finally find out who's behind this? Wait, wait. Who did it on Lanterns? That quarterback kid. Yeah. Noah. Yeah. For sure. 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?

58:14I am being pedantic about that because I think that that's a distinction.

58:21Joanna Robinson:Yeah. Versus favorite. Versus favorite. Yeah. Versus favorite. And I contributed a ballot to this. You contributed a ballot to this. Yeah. it's been really interesting to watch this roll out they 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 final ballot is the top of the ballot is released Friday I think so yeah 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 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 i i hate i hate what's happening okay tell me about your list because i feel like i just showed up to a party and found out i was the only one who thought it was a costume party oh okay you babadooked yourself yeah okay yeah because i i feel like i was like you thought we were doing best do you want to read your list yeah sure okay your list that you hate it's not that i hate it it's just it is what it is you know i mean like there's no version it's a good list but there's no version of the list that's there's no perfect list.

59:29And I see like Mina Kimes put up about her ballot. And it's such a beautiful expression of her passion and love for television.

59:37Joanna Robinson:I felt like I was such a special person. Why am I such like a half like goober who is like, you're not a half goober. This is a best list. That's what you put in particular order. In fact, I think this is, well, your first one is a very you answer. And or. Okay. Breaking bad. Yeah. Lost. Yeah. Mindhunter. Yeah. The Bureau. Anthony Baudry and No Reservations. Deadwood. Mad Men. Succession. The Wire. 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.

1:00:16Joanna Robinson:Yeah. And I have no doubt when we get to the top 10, when they unveil that, that those will be in the top 10. Yes. You were asking me a little off pod, like sort of my process of making my list, which, you know, Rob and I talked a little bit about our list. We tried to guess each other's lists on our show. That was a fun segment. 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. Midnight Mass. What a curveball. I love Midnight Mass. I'm a Atlanta fan.

1:00:50Joanna Robinson:um but uh what i did is i just started writing down shows yeah and i got to about 30 and it's like carving david out of block of marvel you just start chipping away like what can i lose what can i bear to lose what can i bear to lose which was very painful because like there are at least 50 phenomenal shows it's more like the nomenon monty python getting hacked to pieces exactly exactly But 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. The top 100 shows that shaped you. Yeah, that shaped me and changed me.

1:01:30Joanna Robinson:Yeah. Then I did 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. I should have done that. This is like voting, you know, voting green because you're like, I live in a dem state or whatever. And like, I know it's not going to matter. Yeah. So I want to just kind of show my support. This is my critics choice ballot every single year. I'm just like, what I care about is not going to matter much. Andy mentioned this. Don't kick me out. 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.

1:02:06it would have been fun if we had just been like we all know these are probably going to be very high up on the list um and for people who don't know this is very strictly 21st century so shows that premiered before 2000 like sopranos and buffy right uh are not up for for for voting

1:02:24Joanna Robinson:what would you what would it be on your list if like buffy no sopranos no what would be on your list if you could pick one from not this strict time period it's a good question like so specifically 90s yeah sure i don't know i hadn't thought about that i mean there's shows that i've watched them like x files i don't know maybe x files is a good answer i don't know that it would have replaced any of these yeah i mean seinfeld yeah like yeah i i think i'm trying to think of homicide probably i think homicide would be the answer yeah but you put so what you did is a combination of like what matters to you personally so i think something like the bureau a show that you have advocated for uh mindhunter yes which is not on a ton of people's list mindhunter was like probably the most flop sweaty it was i think that might have been 10th and that was like if you guys like one for me come on guys what would the like the the fight for 10 was like it was like 50 shows and then it was 20 and like you're you're sort of chipping away yeah but i 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 32 yeah I guess that makes sense I think I know a lot of people who are like I don't like Star Wars or I just don't have the time to watch it I think there's also the fear of like recency bias with Andor or something like that.

1:04:00Joanna Robinson:But I feel like Andor should be higher for that reason. Yeah. Because 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? To me, it was like 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. Veep, Girls, like there's Friday Night Lights, Justified, like there's, I know. He's found, there's so many shows. Cutting Friday Night Lights. You don't have any comedies on your list. How do you feel about that?

1:04:34Joanna Robinson:Bad. Yeah. Yeah. Dude, I don't, this isn't going to be like here's my list fight me position for me. No, no, no, no. No, I'm like, this is, I fucked up. Do you want to try to like put together what your list would be if you could just be yourself? No, but I am being myself. Like we, like, this is the thing is just, I'm not that interesting or there's just like, maybe I am a little bit too much inside of the hive mind but the wire is i think the best show ever made i think deadwood is i don't disagree the best written show i've ever seen like i think we're having similar agitation though because i feel so stupid honestly when you sent me you texted me my list with apropos of nothing this morning you texted it to me not saying hey should we talk about this you just said like hey so your list is this right and i was like bracing for you to be like what a stupid fucking list honestly honestly because I looked at it and I was like what I wrote back to you was 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 wire are you kidding me like I think that you promote you yours is more of a personal expression of tv passion and mine is half of that and half of critical hive mind like well let's all be honest like how can we not now i will say wire and breaking bad and succession i have deeply personal relationships with mad men i adore i i was never like in that 99th percentile of like decoding mad men to read the secrets of the like all of western culture i'm like what does all the blue mean yeah exactly like i i also have not 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 oh man you guys don't know you don't know how much egyptian mythology i learned on the fly while watching completely unnecessary deep old testament biblical name studies yeah that then that character would just disappear and never be mentioned again and i was like a week of my life to find out what ruth meant it's true you know Yeah.

1:06:40But the stranglehold that that had, it was Lost or Thrones and I went with Lost.

1:06:45Joanna Robinson: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. 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 rewatch podcast of lost and i spent so much time thinking about loss similarly justified was the first show i ever officially recapped and so it forever has yeah so it like forever has this like i was recapping uh yeah justified at pajiba.com and then i got like started recapping sons of anarchy at vulture and the good wife i almost put the good wife because like i was recapping too that was in the good way the long list for vulture so like you know that time you spent marinating in a show and overthinking a show it broke my heart to leave westworld off but westworld just became such a mess at the end of it if you were a character on westwood they could just fix the heart and put it right back in you you know you would have been all good my mind ball but i spent so much of my life invested in westworld season one and trying to figure out Westworld.

1:08:03Joanna Robinson:And I was just like, it has to have been worth something, right? True Detective season one is probably the one I regret the most. I saw, I believe, I believe it is as season one has been listed so far. Oh, so they're portioning it out as seasons, True Detective? Yeah. See, it's number 35 season one. That's a cheat, New York Times. I did not know that we were doing that. That's some real Matthew Rhys limited series bullshit. no one told us we could just portion it out as a season. So I was like, look, I defend season two. I like season three. I love season three. And I think season four. Because it's an anthology show, then I could put Fargo.

1:08:42Joanna Robinson: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. Sure. But like I thought we were. If we could subtract season two from Friday Night Lights, that would be great. You know, it would be great. I'm sure Jesse Plemons would agree. So, yeah, that's. I think your list is great. I think your list is great. I don't think you should feel bad about your list. Everybody's lists are great. I just, I think I wish, I wish I had been a little bit more interesting. You are always interesting. I think I would love to see the like, Chris Ryan's most Chris Ryan list.

1:09:18Joanna Robinson:If it involves the Bureau and industry and a few other of your like absolute like darlings, I would love to see that list as well. Okay. Maybe I'll come up with like the second 10. Yeah. But I'll tease that for another episode. Stretch that content, baby. Make it work. Thank you so much for doing this with me today. Thanks for having me. Prestige TV House of R is where you can find Joe. And we will be back on Monday with Lanterns and some other stuff. Greenwald remotely. And thanks to Kai and Kaya. And talk to you guys soon. Have a great weekend.

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1:10:27Joanna Robinson:I'm not giving up. I am selling the building. The final season of FX is the bear. The restaurant is flooded. Everything's either going to be okay. Or not. We are outgunned and we are outmanned. We have each other. FX is the bear. The final season. All episodes now streaming on Disney+.