TV Break: June 2023 - American Born Chinese Charms; WGA Strikes; & Succession, Barry, Yellowjackets, Ted Lasso, & The Flash End

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, and Josh talk about a show/episode/event they liked from the last month including HBO’s Succession & Barry, Showtime’s Yellowjackets, AppleTV Plus’s Ted Lasso, FreeVee’s Jury Duty, CW’s The Flash, and Disney Plus’s The Mandalorian & Kiff. News Break – Alex, Bill, and Josh discuss the latest on the WGA’s strike and what it is they are looking for in their negotiations. Streaming Wars – Alex, Bill, and Josh pick a streamer they think “won the month” based on new shows airing/upcoming shows announced etc. Bill was impressed by Max’s relatively painless launch, their buzzy series finales, and the news Kim Cattrall would be returning to And Just Like That later this month. Josh returns to talk up the star power of AppleTV Plus’s recent new series including Silo, Platonic, High Desert, The Crowded Room, and Hijack, while also noting Ted Lasso’s maybe series finale. Finally, Alex gives it to Netflix again, this time thanks to its highly rated films A Man Called Otto and Mother, its buzzy new TV releases including FUBUR, I Think You Should Leave, The Ultimatum: Queer Love, and Hannah Gadsby: Something Special, and the fact that David Zaslav and not Netflix has become the WGA strike’s greatest villain, against all odds. New Series Spotlight – Alex, Bill, and Josh review American Born Chinese, Disney Plus’s adaptation of the 2006 Gene Luen Yang Graphic Novel of the same name. The series was created by actor and writer Kelvin You, and executive produced by Shang Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings’s Destin Daniel Cretton, who also directs the premiere and finale of the first season. It stars Ben Wang as 10th Grader Jin Wang and Jimmy Liu as Wei-Chen, the son of the legendary Monkey King who has rebelled against his father by stealing his father’s staff and posing as a human while he embarks on a mystical quest. Academy Award winner Michelle Yeoh, Academy Award winner Ke Huy Quan, and Daniel Wu costar.