TV Break: February 2025 - Reviews of Hulu's Paradise, Max's The Pitt, & AppleTV's Severance; Plus a Deep Dive on Netflix's 2025 Plans and Mikey Madison's Better Things Revisited

Welcome to TV Break, where Pop Break’s Podcasts Editor Alex Marcus is joined by editor-in-chief Bill Bodkin, and TV Columnist Josh Sarnecky to talk about the happenings in television. Here’s the format of the show: The Best Thing I Saw on TV Last Month – Alex, Bill, & Josh talk about a show/episode/event they liked from the last month including Max’s The Pitt, Disney Plus’s Skeleton Crew, and AppleTV Plus’s Severance, and Hulu’s Paradise.  Newsbreak – This month, they discuss a recent Variety feature by Adam B. Vary detailing Netflix’s ambitious plans for 2025 and their self proclaimed standing as the perpetual underdog, despite also hitting major milestones including 300M subscribers and nearly $1,000 a share on their stock price. Streaming Wars – Alex, Bill, & Josh pick a streamer they think “won the month” based on new shows airing/upcoming shows announced etc. Bill and Josh agree that AppleTV Plus reigns supreme thanks to the cultural juggernaut that has been Severance S2. Meanwhile, Alex gives Mubi its flowers, after its films earned six Academy Award nominations, including for their breakout hit film The Substance, starring Academy Award front runner Demi Moore. New Series Spotlight – This month, the guys pay off their Emmy bet, with Alex forcing Josh and Bill to watch one of his favorite series from the past decade, Better Things, starring Pamala Adlon and Academy Award nominee Mikey Madison. Specifically, the guys watched S5E6 San Francisco, wherein we follow Adlon’s Sam as she takes a gig director an episode of a network sitcom, which shoots in San Francisco, forcing Sam’s oldest daughter Max, played by Academy Award Nominee Mickey Madison (who you may know from Anora, Scream 5, and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood), to step up and take care of her thirteen year old sister Duke while Duke’s friend Pepper is staying with them for a visit. This episode guest stars Ron Cephas Jones and Lena Waithe and aired back in 2022.