Oh, and welcome to appointment television, our podcast about the TV you want to make time for I'm Margaret and we are I'm Katherine. I'm Andrew and this week we are going to be chit chatting a little bit about the old Emmy awards. We're going to be talking about what it was like watching them and then we're going to be talking about what we thought of what was awarded and then we're going to swing into some talk about seasonality on television and like how the impact of watching things in a binge is different from the impact of watching them spaced out over time. It's possible we've talked about this before.
Yeah, I was going to say like we were like a cool classic ATP topic to the point where I'm not 100% sure we haven't already done it. But like look, look, it's episode 264. We're in the middle of the pandemic and Katherine just moved into a brand new house and there's nothing in this room with me, which is why I sound like I'm in the couch right behind you. But there is no rug because Katherine packed the tape measure into a box with all of the other useful things they were going to need for the move and obviously and inevitably that box has vanished.
I have found replacement vacuum bags. I have found cake plates. I have found googly eyes and I have found unsharpened pencils, but I cannot find box cutters or the tape measures or the screwdrivers. That was also told me a very sad short story about a Nintendo switch that is feebly connecting to the Wi-Fi network from a mystery box as if to say, help me before my battery is in.
Who knows, but we can see it on the network. It's like a somebody got stranded on an eyelash. Just a little bit. Hello.
Can I get your Wi-Fi network in Morse code and just have a notice? That's right. Yeah. So at least the carbon monoxide monitor with the low battery is in your old house as far as we know and not yet present in this house.
Again, listeners, if there is someone in your life upon whom you would like to be revenge and you have access to their home, please adopt the fiendish revenge method that Catherine's grandmother accidentally introduced her to, which is putting a carbon monoxide detector in a stray box. Yeah. I was telling her, go to other things. Yeah.
And just letting it sit in your home until the battery deteriorates to such an extent that it does the unending perpetual beep. It doesn't say combi. You know, you know, you know, it's a combi. Everybody's looking for the one that's beeping and they can find which one.
It's funny. And it was like that for Catherine for, I think, three weeks before she figured out that it wasn't any of the smoke or carbon monoxide detectors attached to any of her walls. It was just one in a box. Yeah.
I'm forever sad that I learned this. Like, I think three weeks after my very bad ex boyfriend gave me back his apartment key because there were so many places I could have hidden a low battery carbon monoxide detector in his apartment. He would never have found it. He would never have found it.
Honestly, for reasons that I don't want to get into, I did look under his desk once. Digging under there was like an archaeological dig where I could go back in time through successive video game console generation. Yeah. But TV, TV, conclusion television.
You know, what he didn't have in his apartment, any Emmys as far as we know. But you know, who does have Emmys in his apartment now? Dan Levy. Oh my God.
He's all of our minutes just Emmys now. He has the Monica from Friends closet, but it's because he's always Emmys and when he opens it, they just fall on him now. Yeah, the Emmys were in the past sometime in your recent past, depending on when you listen to the episode. Yeah.
According to that, they were three days ago for us and they will probably be 11 days ago for you. Between 11 and infinity. That's correct. And it was one more in the example of like, how do we do TV right now?
Kind of things that we've been seeing over the last several months. Some of the answers to that question have been truly abysmal. Some of them have been sort of strange and surrealist. And so I was very interested to see what the Emmys answer to that question was going to be.
And I got to say, it was way better than I was worried about. Yeah. Honestly, I think it's maybe the best Emmys I've ever seen. It's, it's, you know, it's usually pretty garbage.
Pretty garbage. It should have the prestige and importance of the Oscars because it's like the preeminent television awarding body, but it's so bad at picking things. And it's not even bad in like a, like an interesting way. Like sometimes the Oscars are bad, but in an interesting way.
This is just, it's just, or sats. It's just like, it just decides that modern family is going to get every award forever. And then modern family does. And you're like, I was just going to say, why Emmys, why?
If you want to find an example of how predictable and safe the Emmys is, modern family has been nominated 85 times and has won 22 Emmys. Yeah. And here's the thing is it's like, like the Oscars again can be predictable, but there's still is just like, there's that moment where you're like Oscars, are you going to be predictable and give it to La La Land or are you going to be good and award moonlight? And the thing with the Emmys is like moonlight isn't even in consideration.
Well, and the analogous thing with the Oscars, I think, is if, if like the Hurt Locker came out again every year and they decided to keep giving Emmys to the Hurt Locker, definitely driving the Stacy and driving the Stacy came up every single year and they're like, man, what a picture. We just got to give it to them again. We just got to give them a film. Free book.
Free book. So it's got, it's got none of the cache, but it has all of the stuffiness, right? Yeah. It's not like a sloshing mess like the Golden Globes or the VNA's, right?
So it's just boring for the most part. The other, the other real problem with the Emmys is that they have traditionally not figured out how to then make the award ceremony itself interesting in any way. And I was particularly worried because the host is Kimmel, who I do not particularly is not to my taste often. I was very determined.
How high in the jimmies he ranks for me though, right? They're like a lot of late night jimmies and I got to say, Fallon and Corden, I like less than. Yeah. Yeah.
So here's what worked for me about the, about this, this corn, corn, temis. Corn, temis, yeah. We'll work on that. Yeah.
That's just an initial step. I, so they really decided that they were just going to make it as silly as possible. They did short segments. They did a bunch of weird fuzzy things, but none of them, there was no like long term bit that they, that they kept coming back to even though it stopped working.
And so the variety and shortness of each segment alone meant that even if something wasn't working, you weren't stuck with it for too long. I was, I was kept upon them. Yes. Yes.
When I, the pandemis. The pandemis. Fuck you. Fuck you.
I was sitting here. I had, I had my fingers on myself. I was being so polite because pandemis was exactly what I come up with. And you just swooped it out from under me.
Okay. Pandemis, kind of. So for instance, you know, at one point they just brought out Randall Park and Alpaca. No reason, but they just had him there for about, but barely 60 seconds.
The Alpaca eat his coat a little bit. And then it was fun. They, I think the moment when I realized that it was going to be fun was early in the show when Kim will brought out. Of course, but the first bit is really interesting.
The first bit I thought was a tight, a tight rope walk. And I was not sure what the rest of the show was going to be like. I might have been late because I was thinking of the, the Jennifer Anison thing. Oh, no.
So the very first thing that happened, which I think is really interesting and I liked a lot, but I was still uncertain about was that Kim will delivered a very traditional ceremony opening monologue, a classic, you know, stand on the stage and make a lot of topical jokes about TV this year and the world and some of the land and some of the dope, but they, he did it with, without ever mentioning it. And they cut it so that it looked like he was in a stage full of people of like the, and they use reaction shots from previous Emmys, recent previous Emmys. So it looked like I suggested this for an Oscar cast and I took my idea. They, they, they need it look like all of these people were in this room and that he was standing in front of them because he has hosted these things before and then they were all laughing at his jokes.
And of course, you know, if you were realizing it all was going on, you know, immediately like this cannot be the case. If you are a regular Emmys watcher, you will recognize say what people wore from previous years and you will know that this is not right now. But they let that play on for like quite a while. And so there's like all these layers of jokes, like who do they pick for the reaction shot laughs for some of the jokes?
What jokes do they pick to have like bigger applause and less applause because they have constructed the whole thing, right? And it wasn't until, you know, it was a couple minute long monologue and finally they had a reaction shot of Kim will in the audience laughing at his own joke and he was like, wait, is that, is that me? That's pretty good. And so I thought that really worked, but you can feel the like weird edginess of that.
And I was like, how is the rest of this show going to go if that's the kind of sense of humor that they have working on? But then the next real long segment was Jennifer Anasim and they did a lot of elaborate goofy hygiene theater where they had like sanitization bottles, they were spraying the envelope down and they had to be six feet apart, you know, all the usual COVID stuff except the way that you make this a joke or as you escalate it in some unexpected way. And so it turned out that in order to read the envelope they were going to throw in a garbage can and set it on fire just to let the fire burn the COVID off. But neither of them realized and Anasim then had a fire extinguisher and so they put the matches in, it burns, she does the fire extinguisher, big thing, okay.
Kim will pull the envelope out, but neither of them realized that like it's caught on fire way more than they were intending to. Because they sprayed it with a lot of Lysol. A lot of Lysol. And so Anasim puts the fire extinguisher down and they're going to proceed with a bit and then you can see her look at the trash can and be like, no, I'm going to pick the fire extinguisher back up and really spread like they had to go back in like a couple three times to make sure that they didn't set the stage on fire.
And that really was much more of a like, that was the signal to me like, okay, this is goofy, this is loose, this feels just risky enough and like just not tested enough that it has a little bit of an edge to it, but also not in a way where they're sort of, they're making fun of the absurdity of this experience that they are not making fun of like the fact that COVID exists or how hard this is. There have been elements of that I think in political campaigning and this time around too is like bringing attention to the like how different things are and how empty things are in a way that like heightens the seriousness of what is going on without necessarily always being like dead serious about it yourself. You know, it's like it's a tonal juxtaposition that that works when it's pulled off well. Yeah, I agree.
And I think so there was that and then just the fact that they just continue to mix stuff up, they had really ridiculous bit where most, I mean, all of the winners were either in their houses or in a hotel somewhere or something had set up camp in a place where they were prepared to receive an any if one was going to be provided to them. And then if they won, most of them a person in a hazmat suit that had been like taped to look like a tuxedo showed up and handed them an M.E.A. ward, which I really enjoyed. There was a tweet from Rami of the TV show, Rami, that implied that a hazmat suited person showed up outside your house if you were nominated.
Yes. Right. And if you didn't win, they just waved and left. Yes.
Right. That's the most threatening thing I've ever heard in my whole life. What the f***? It's an admirable commitment to the bit.
Yes. Because otherwise it would be a huge tell. You'd be like, well, there's no one in a hazmat suit outside my house. So I'm clearly not the winner here.
So when I'm in the winner cam, I'm going to know it's not me. And the only way you can prevent that is if you send a hazmat suited person again, not me. It's a black hazmat suit and they do a little taller with a tie. Yeah.
I mean, that is horrifying enough if you know what is going on with that happens. If you were one of their neighbors, just watching one of these people, like walk up the sidewalk, what is going on in your mind? It was so, it was so funny because he posted this little video of like a standard sliding, like sliding French door out into a deck and there's just a nice lady in a giant hazmat suit and she goes like, I didn't leave. And this walks, walks away.
Walks away. Jinkies. So they didn't have a lot of the winners, but not all of the winners for the unscripted programming. They sent all of the contestants a huge box.
And then for the person who won somebody hit a remote control of the box, the box springs open and then a hand with an Emmy inside pops out and confetti. And confetti. Samantha Bee who did not win an Emmy later pride her box open just to see what was inside. And there was a bottle of champagne in there.
So good luck. Samantha Bee. Yeah. Also good thinking.
I was very surprised by how actively I enjoyed watching this program despite having next to no investment in who won what because as is famously appropriate for the host of a TV podcast, I've seen some of some episodes of many of the shows nominated, but certainly not whole seasons of most and obviously not the most recent season of any. Really, this is I can't help but feel like Catherine and I are responsible for however much or however little of each Emmy nominees like work you have seen because we need to be assigning you better. You haven't seen. Little is nothing.
Little is little is little is my work and my work alone. But what I have seen is a direct tribute to you. I think I think you didn't assign me succession at any point, right? No, we've so but you talked about it.
We talked about it. Yeah, we talked about it a bunch of times. I mean, obviously we've talked about a bunch of times. It's one of the best shows on television and it's it's just like it's incandescently compelling to watch.
I've seen a whole season of it and it wasn't even assigned for the show. That's the highest praise I could possibly give any program. But certainly watchman. I've only seen because we watched it for this show and I don't think we watched it for the show.
But again, that was when we're like the positive praise is just like so widespread that you and I had to be like, well, I gotta try it. Yeah, there are shows that become like foundational for us even though we don't formally do a thing around them. I think the version is one. Sure.
From when it was one. But so okay, do we have any like closing thoughts on the program itself before we move on to the things that won because like next year's Emmy's we're not going to be able to talk about the stuff that won because it's all going to be just like this show came out. Marky will believe. The show was released in it.
I would say that maybe the in memoriam segment should always be filmed at a remote location because not having to listen to the varying degrees of applause. Oh, yes. Like the third grip and like Adam Schlesinger get when they show up in the montage was very great. Also, she did a she did a cover of the Prince written, she made a conner performed.
Nothing compares to you number and letter. And it was fire. It was straight fire. The other thing I really appreciated about the in memoriam segment is that they did the graphics in a way that gave you a little bit of context for who each person was.
So for like executives like a CBS executive, they had a little graphic that looked sort of like a hallway as fancy CBS with like art on the wall. So you at least had some idea of who they were. And you know, a lot of these names are not names. And it is always so frustrating in these things that they're just this long list of people and it's like super famous person.
Everyone knows. And then like, oh, no, that is. That is. And it was just really, really nice to see some thoughtful effort to place this person's work in the context of why their name is appearing in the Emmys.
Yeah. Yeah. So I think the third site off site location market totally agree with the applause is extremely attractive. There should be no applause during the more in segments.
Anything else you would like to see carry on between this and a typical Emmys telecast when we when things get back to normal? Let the bits be weirder. Weird bits is great. I'm just going to say I'm absorbed that already.
Like this is the medium of birth like weird as TV commercials and all that stuff. Seriously, you just get like a little get a little of that Geico energy up in there a little more often. Too much. Just let's go.
If you're at like pile of money with googly eyes, you're okay. But if you go all the way to cavemen, you've gone too far. We'll say, I don't know. I mean, this is probably not going to happen.
But one of the really nice things about having a lot of the award winners in their own homes is that the camera would cut to them. They would be extremely legitimately surprised. They would give a little awards speech and then the camera very smartly would stay on them for another extra like five seconds. And so more than once a person would stand up and be like, Mom, I won.
And those are like the sweetest, like because they're family or in their houses and their parents and their families are like watching them give the speech, not this huge weird stage full of people and their heroes dressed in bizarrely fancy clothes. I have this feeling that some of the reaction speeches were more authentic and sort of natural than they often are when they're in that bizarre stage space. So that I also, I don't know how you could possibly carry that on, but that I also really appreciate it. But I do want to say I think one of the things to sort of transition into the discussion of like what actually won Emmys.
I do want to say that I think one of the problems with this telecast is that partly for I think camera operation efficiency reasons, they put all of the comedy awards in the first block. And so what happens then is if Shits Creek has a fucking historic run and sweeps every single fucking comedy award kind of shockingly, shockingly. Yeah, we talk about that a minute. Much though I love the show for ones that it perhaps did not deserve.
And it's not given the strength of a competition. It was up against. That's what I'm saying. Yes.
It then created this feeling where it was like, and we're back to this room and we're back to this room and we're back to this room. And so what should have felt like this amazing culmination of their win instead had this sense of like, and again, and again, which I think was, you know, if you had split it up a little bit more and mixed it up a little bit more, other awards would not have had that same sense. Right. It had been like, Oh, how lovely we're back to Dan Levy.
Yeah. That would have been great. It's fucking Dan Levy of fucking Dan. I'm trying to think how it felt highly susceptible to his whole situation.
What's it be clear? I think it was, I think that's what y'all are asking for is sort of how it felt. I'm trying to think back to when Return of the King kept winning. I was all those Oscars that year.
That's what I'm most triumphant Oscar prediction years because I hadn't seen shit. I was just like, Return of the King for everything. And apparently so is the Academy. So yeah, so to start the conversation about what actually one, whether deserving or not, yeah, Shits Creek is the headline story weirdly for a show that I don't think anybody was talking about 12 or 18 months ago.
It's definitely one of those sleeper shows. Breaking Bad is the one that comes to mind for me, but I'm sure there are others where like it's just quietly on and good for years. And then people really start picking up like people start noticing it in like the penultimate and then the last seasons. But so Shits Creek never nominated before this year.
Is that right? I know I never won before this year. Yes, that is correct. And in fact, I sat in a car with a publicist who represented Shits Creek and we rode for an hour through Canada and she was like, do you think we could maybe get a nomination this year?
And I was like, Oh, I'm like, it's going to have to be a year. But this year, lead actor for Eugene Levy, lead actress for Catherine O'Hara, supporting actor for Dan Levy, supporting actress for Annie Murphy, writing, directing and comedy series nominated and won all of them. Every single one. And this NPR article that will link in the show notes notes that for comedy show that was on for six years, this is neither a particularly impressive amount of nominations or Emmys won because I think you do get a little bit of clustering, right?
Like with the Modern Family and I think with 30 Rock, it was the show for a while that just like routinely won every year, whether it deserved it or not. Yeah, it is not a lot of Emmys, but one year all in a row. Yeah, it feels like a fucking lot of Emmys. Yeah.
And it shouldn't have won the other reference rather than return to the king as I was thinking just a year ago when Fleabag won a lot of these and they had staggered those awards more throughout the ceremony. And so when it finally then came back and won Best Comedy, people had this sense that it was probably coming, but you know, you hadn't just seen Phoebe Waller Bridge, except like seven awards in a row before the end. It has more of a narrative arc, right? Yeah.
And so it was the peak at the end of a night rather than... Exactly. And yet again, it's too Greek. Yeah, yeah.
So I do want to specify, even though it didn't deserve some of them response because I want to be clear that I think it's a lovely show and I am thrilled that it deserves to have this level of recognition and I'm really happy that hopefully this will help Hollywood continue to understand that these lovely personal handmaid shows do really well. Not handmade. No. No.
Not like... Like fewer towels. Fewer towels and like more like homely sweaters on Etsy. Yes.
Yes. But like really, really artful macrame planters. For me, direction, I think is it a word that maybe could have gone to one of the other nominees? I like that.
Because it's just like, I love you so much, but you got like three shots, you know? Yeah. And that's not... It's like outside the hotel, inside the hotel and inside the lobby, inside the room, like one of the two rooms and then outside the hotel.
And that kind of direction is not a lack of imagination. It is a product of the efficiency that they had to build in given the level of budget that they were working with. But it does not then also mean that some of the other shows maybe had more impressive direction. I would also say to me Jackie Robins, Jackie Daytona, not Robinson, Jackie Daytona was robbed.
Sure. Sure. Jackie Robinson might have been as well. Who knows?
Yeah, but I think that's... I've known enough about sports to say. That episode of What We Do In The Shadows on the Run is instant classic. So good.
So, I mean, if there was an episode of Shits Creek where Alexa's put a toothpick in her mouth and cut loose to Pennsylvania because it sounded like Transylane. I would watch the show. I would watch that show. I would be very interested to see where it would go.
Yeah, that is. But... And while all of the Shits Creek Awards, I think actually Annie Murphy winning is the one that I was maybe happiest about because I think her career has been perhaps the most transformed. I mean, Dan Levy's also obviously has catapulted him to a completely different level than he was before.
But Dan Levy has that innate charisma and also the nepotism. You guys can say the innate charisma and also the innate Eugene Levy's son. Yeah, charisma, nepotism. And he's the front of the camera and the behind the camera person on the show.
So like the whole success just kind of accrues to him naturally. He could have won no N.E.S.E. and Dan Levy would have been just fine as far as like offers from Hollywood go. But I think Annie Murphy would have had a much harder time.
And if based on nothing other than how shocking it was to hear what her speaking voice sounds like versus Alexis's because it's just like one transformation. She's so, so, so good in that role. She's really good. And I think we can all agree, all three of us, that we are glad that the M.E.S.
made it a little bit of Lexus. Yeah, that's right. That's right. Also succession one and yeah, that's basically those guys have been my many feelings.
Anyone else? People had feelings about the good place not winning anything because it was sort of an inverse Shits Creek where it didn't win anything. It's whole life and then continued not winning anything in its final year. Yeah.
I mean, so, and the feeling I saw mostly was like that last episode was really good. It was like really well written. Like Mike sure probably should have won an award for that. I think I would, that is the argument that I'm the closest to agreeing with.
The last season of The Good Place as a whole I thought was like I can't make you see, make you hear a jerk off motion. I just do it. But if, but I want you to imagine doing. I don't think, I don't think a jerk off motion is fair, but I certainly don't think that like, look.
I'm not going to say it didn't have its moments. I'm just going to say it was not a particularly strong season of that television. I will always stick up for anything that is attempting something incredibly ambitious. Yeah.
And like mostly six the landing and like getting to the landing wasn't this season's strongest suit. But once we were in the landing zone, I think it kind of crushed it. Yeah. And especially, I mean, the thing that's really, really impressive about The Good Place is it is a show that did not know that it was going to exist during the Trump era that happened to exist during the Trump era that was all about wrestling with the question of what it means to be a good and ethical person and Jesus fucking Christ.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like we need more like more thoughtfulness about what it what it what that means.
And to have that last season turn on the crux of like actually by like by the system that they had established before in a modern world is impossible to be a good person because in buying an iPhone, you were complicit in like half a dozen different major atrocities. Yeah. Like that's really heavy shit for a network half hour comedy. Like Jesus Christ.
That'd be heavy shit for like for like one of those half hour dramas that persistently gets nominated as a comedy just because it's a half hour long. Like if nurse Jackie were doing that on TNT, you would have like, oof, fucking dark nurse Jackie. And that's the good place did that and still felt like a comedy, right? You know, like you would watch it most of the time and it would be funny.
It would be there'd be like jokes. You laughed at every episode at the same time, like the overarching message is exactly what you just described. That's a pretty remarkable thing to have accomplished. Oh, yeah.
The only other one I would quibble with I and this is only like I wish Schitt's Creek had been nominated in other seasons because I think Dan Levy from what I understand. From how everyone feels about the later seasons of this show, David Rose is an incredible character. We're markedly well performed and given what I feel about Dan Levy's whole face and body and everything like I buy it. But I Ted, Ted, dancing in the good place as Michael is so good.
Yeah. And I would have loved to see him. I mean like Ted, dancing doesn't need a fucking Emmy. Like Ted, Dan has done got his Emmys.
He's fine. Nobody's gonna, he's not going to his grave unherald or anything like that. Please don't go to your grave Ted, dancing. Please don't go to your grave until I can be a third in your marriage with Mary C.
Mergan. You're so attracted to both of you. Anyways. Wow.
I don't want to make a comment about how rare it is because I don't know that it necessarily is rare. But Ted, like a P.D. article was about cheers and then the good place happened and now it's about cheers and the good place. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah.
Yeah. I mean, I think I wish, I agree that I wish that he had won but I also feel like almost all of the awards that we want the good place to have are most deserving after the first season, first two seasons maybe. And so it just mostly, I think a shame that we missed that window, which I feel like is a good segue into our second topic, which we can just sort of discuss briefly. But the thing about TV seasons is that there's supposed to be time between them and because of the way that streaming platforms exist now and TV has completely changed in the last five or ten years, sometimes there isn't time between them anymore and it has really flattened and distorted this like fundamental feeling of what it is like to be left with the end of a TV season and be waiting for more.
Andrew, this was a topic that you had brought up. I wonder what sort of made you think about it? I was just kind of thinking in terms of like both shows that have been cancelled in this in like COVID times and Margaret, you can jump in and talk about Stump Town pretty much whenever. Can I?
But just thinking about how especially for like short shows with shorter seasons, so like 10, 13 episodes or less that populate the modern TV landscape, like how important it is for those shows to have time in between. I mean, to be honest, I was thinking about the Venture Brothers because our friend Camille is watching it based on my recommendation. So I'm really enjoying like vicariously getting to watch the show for the first time again. But it's like it's seasons are like space way apart.
They're like 10 episodes apiece. And I until I was talking to her about it, I wasn't really thinking about how that time between seasons, even though I was not, like that show was not airing new episodes and I was not watching new episodes, I was still spending time with those characters in a way. So those characters are still sort of active players or like live balls in my life. Yeah.
And it serves a narrative purpose because when the show does pick back up, you are seeing a character who you've like kind of low key spent two years with or whatever instead of, you know, if you're a Benjing at all at once, it's a character you spent like 31 episodes with or something like that. And yeah, so I just want to chat about it like both in that context and in the context of like COVID stuff, I'm thinking particularly of shows that had big plot stuff planned that got disrupted because their season got cut short. So like super stores saying goodbye to a major character. The good fights season just kind of ends halfway through where they were building to this big thing about like secret extra judicial, like presidential powers that nobody knows about.
And yeah, like, I don't know, that's kind of what I got. That's why it's an early ATV topic is just like, here's some loose thoughts that I had, unless like I'm out of my head, you can all stand around them and look at them and talk about how they make this go. Also, to tie it into the end, it's one of the things that I thought was incredibly interesting because in one of Dan Lavi's 87 acceptance speeches, he explicitly baked Netflix for making this all happen, which I think is completely true. Like there's a reason Shits Creek was not this sort of like cultural phenomenon until the sixth season because it was happening on pop, a channel that I genuinely like, I think I've watched things on pop and I'm still like, does it exist?
Is it real? I've seen that little interstitial logo animation a bunch of times, but that doesn't mean it exists. No, I don't know. Right.
And I would also say that Shits Creek struggles at its first season. It's too much roll and shit. And not enough, not more like shit. And it's one thing if you've got like four seasons ahead of you and some time to kill, right?
And you can just keep rolling through them. And the first season just kind of washes over you in like a vague wave of content and then like suddenly you're invested, but it's all snuck up on you. Whereas like if you had to watch that first episode with rolling shit and then be like, you know what I'm going to do, I'm going to tune in this same time, this same station that may or may not exist to have this experience again next week. And that was the only way you could sort of build the level of affection that that show trades on you having for the Rose family so that you become invested in their emotional growth.
I don't know if it would work as well. So you know what it is? What is it? It's a double-edged sword.
It's a two-edged sword. At least two. We've got a third host. Maybe she can identify a third.
Three-edged sword. I mean, the point is kind of its own edge, right? You've got the left edge and the top edge. No, I was just going to say, you know, when you write fiction and like what fiction is trying to do most of the time is to find stakes for these characters, right?
Like they need to be in some kind of situation that creates tension, that has some level of high stakes that makes this situation something that viewers feel invested in and it can go either way and you are sort of pulled into just the intensity of this moment. And the great thing about seriality is that the form gives you some of those stakes, right? Just the fact that you are stuck often between like a season finale and then there are months before the next episode, like that in itself is stakes and the viewers feel it. And when you remove that, you are left with the TV has to stand by itself, right?
And the best TV does absolutely. You can watch Mad Men and you can get to the end of one of those seasons and you'd be like, oh, fuck, that was good and you're going to want to watch the next episode, right? But for shows like Like a Shits Creek where in those early seasons, particularly that for season, they're really trying to find them, like hold them, catch fire, another great example. The stakes, here's the double edge sword that the stakes work against you, right?
And so I think that you know, you both gain and lose when you don't have that season break experience. I think it's time to let Margaret yell about Sometime now because the other kind of stakes that we have now discovered can happen with this sort of season, interim season break is that the network that needs a decision. Sometimes they can be renewed and you can feel so safe and so happy and so contented. Then, then it or can you fucking take it away?
They can just take back these extra annual. That is especially cruel that they literally renewed it. And then like venture brothers just put the venture brothers will return in there at the end credits of the last episode, which is not apparently contractually binding, but to have renewed the show and then to be like, actually, no. JK, lol.
No, I'm not lolling ABC. I'm not. You I mean, you are lolling, but it means languishing only. Listen, only languishing.
Exactly. I don't know. Just like, Stump Town in particular is a painful one because it was such a it wasn't ambitious, right? It's not like a good place.
Like if the good place had been canceled at any point in its run, I would have been like, I'm sad, but look, I get it. This is a fucking weird experimental drama that's teaching people about like, um, Kierkegaard and moral ethics. It wasn't meant for this world. It's just like a warm, funny, charming procedural with just enough grit and complexity to have like, like, cache and charisma.
But at the end of the day, it was just like, you go to it and there's a case every week and you watch the case get solved. And there's a core group of charming individuals you enjoy spending time with and you spend time with them while crimes go on. And things like that. I just wanted to have the same number of seasons that elementary has.
I just wanted to have a cool. Or look, why stop with elementary? Why stop with elementary? Why not shoot for bones?
Which is what? 2005 to 2017? That's correct. Shoot for the bone.
Shoot for the bone. Shoot for the bone. Shoot for the elementary. Even if you miss, you'll land among the bones.
No, no, shoot for the bones. Even if you miss, you'll land among the elementary. Yeah, but it doesn't sound as good that way. No, it doesn't.
It doesn't. It's just like, like, like, some town had bones potential. Couldn't run. Couldn't run.
Couldn't run. Couldn't run forever. And instead, I'm just getting one season and it's just like, no, I need it there to be. It's like, I wanted to have like a king-sized down comforter back and like wrap around myself in a time of need forever.
I do feel partially responsible. I just got like one of those like, um, one of those like little, little like the hotel towels where you pull it off and you're like, well, whose body fits in this? Holidayed. Certainly not mine.
I do. I do feel partially responsible because. Katherine, why don't you do to cancel Margaret's show? What did you do Katherine?
Why did you personally do to cancel this show that Margaret was so horny for? I believe that bisexual show on television other than high fidelity, which was also cancelled. I believe on this very podcast and probably in some other places as well. I was like, you know what?
This show reminds me of his terriers. Sure. Sure. And by doing this.
Let's do that now, don't it? Yeah. I called upon the wrath of the gods from my attack. So, you know, like, it's in that stage where it's like being shopped around other places.
And so like, I don't know, maybe, maybe someone's going to save it. It's like digital numbers were really good. So like streaming sites. Consider.
Consider. Please let it not go the way of like a lodge 49 or something. Please just let me know. It also reminds me of a lodge 49.
Lodge 49 got two seasons, Katherine. Where do I need to send the artisanal small batch hand roasted coffee beans that I will send as one of those like save my show campaign because I will send a truly staggering number of those extremely expensive bags of coffee to whatever whatever studio or streaming network. I think we'll be sending coffee beans to other places at this point. Save.
Save. Quibi. If you want to change my mind, Quibi. No, I think you may have gotten the math upside down.
I think Stumtown might buy Quibi and then. I think we could buy Quibi. Honestly, successful. Patreon.
On the phone. This show is so well done. And so comforting. I will take my holiday in towels worth and I will thoroughly dry my body with it.
I will be happy. You'll throw it on the floor. But I. You got to hang it out.
To save the environment. It deserved. It deserved to be a king size down comforter. It did.
It's it. A California king size down comforter. I know. Okay.
Do we have any other thoughts on seasons and stakes and holiday and towels? Really. We ended up talking about any longer than I thought we would. So this is working out great.
We didn't need any padding. We were our own padding. We're on the risk of this. Okay.
With that said, do you want to come to us and tell us which part of the Emmys you liked or disliked pandemics, which was my term and the only reason I didn't get to say it first is because I was being respectful of Catherine's time. You hang a while. All right. Fingers on my nose.
I saw them. Thank you Catherine. Thank you for acknowledging me. I said it first.
And today's fast paced world, you know what matters is it's being first to say it first. If you think that what matters is having the idea of likely indicating you had the idea by putting your finger on your nose and waiting patiently until it was your turn to talk. Andrew, where could they tweet at us? I can't wait to keep track of the reasons why you would have your finger on your nose.
Maybe you were just indicating that you needed another bump of cocaine or something. I don't know. Famously, a person in need of cocaine is certainly me. Famously, low-affect Margaret Willison just really in need of cocaine.
What am I? Oh, Twitter.com. We have a link to our Patreon project and we have a link to Apple and Google and our RSS feed. Everyone's botipy too.
Come listen to us and just enjoy our friendship wrapping around you like a shitty holiday in towel. No, like a king-sized blanket. We are certainly a king-sized blanket for friendship. Yes, it's it's it's fall, which means getting that comforted out.
Yeah. Excited. And then do the as shit today, y'all. Mm-hmm.
That's great. I don't know. Like that's pretty much it. I don't know if we have a two-vote club on the horizon.
I know based on well, I wanted to say based on the reaction to the Guild of the Loon's Island stuff, we are going to, I think, continue our foray through recapping old like 50s and 60s TV and just chatting about it because we had a really good time and we think you all had a good time too. Yes, but also we've been watching Never Have I Ever for the next episode. Yes, that's right. That's right.
Right. So we're watching. We're talking about two three and four, right? No.
Yes. Yeah, because we're doing three through three. Yes. It completely displayed my mind that we had already talked about the.
So yeah, Never Have I Ever, Episode two three and four for next time. And then after that, I think we're going to start watching B-Witch. I don't know. Don't hold us to that, but that's what's going on.
Margot, if they want to find us individually on Twitter, where's the go? They can start with me at Mrs. Friday Next. I'm at K-Vayner.
I'm at Andrew writes. And if you enjoyed this, please pencil us in for next week. Until then, bye.