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

Podcast: The Watch
Hosts: Andy Greenwald & Chris Ryan
Date: December 23, 2025
Episode Overview:
Andy and Chris celebrate the end of the year with a listener mailbag episode, reflecting on TV’s recent history, their personal obsessions, and the state of the industry. Before diving into questions, they discuss new trailers for "Industry" Season 4 and Christopher Nolan’s "The Odyssey," share tributes to the late James Ransone, and offer wide-ranging recommendations in books, TV, and criticism.

Main Themes

• The state and meaning of Peak TV: When did it start, and is it over?
• TV, movie, and reading recommendations from the year
• Reflections on criticism and critical education
• Current tumult and anxieties in the entertainment industry
• Fond, funny, and revealing personal memories of formative pop culture
• The importance of institutional memory and passion in TV development

Key Discussion Segments & Insights

1. Opening Banter: Holidays, Sports, and Parenting

Timestamps: 01:11–05:07

• Welcoming each other from across the country, Andy and Chris discuss holiday slowdowns and the intensity of their Eagles fandom.
• Andy shares humorous vulnerability about sports emotions, referencing his group chat for Eagles games:
  “I am never at my most honest and vulnerable than when watching Philadelphia sports.... I think I would be 5150'd.”—Andy (02:11)
• Parenting and pop culture: Andy recounts trying (and failing) to pass along his tastes to his children, who now send him songs by Joe Keery’s band.
  “Now I just get texts...and I say, cool. I like him. And I didn’t say because he starred in the Pavement documentary. And Then I get all caps, text response saying, I am in love with this man.”—Andy (04:52)

2. Trailer Talk: ‘Industry’ Season 4 & ‘The Odyssey’

Timestamps: 05:07–13:20

‘Industry’ Season 4

• The final trailer is discussed with praise for its energy and the music choice (New Order), reinforcing how the show is confident in its style. “It’s a really sick trailer. One of my favorite things about the show is discovering which iconic British act from our youth Mickey and Conrad have Columbus’d during the off season. Last year it was Pet Shop Boys. This year it is New Order. No notes. Immaculate.”—Andy (05:45)

Christopher Nolan’s ‘The Odyssey’

• Chris shares his excitement but wants to stay unspoiled for IMAX opening day.

• Both hosts note the trailer’s “futuristic Harryhausen vibes” and epic, “one night out with the fellas” energy, likening it to "Hangover."

• Andy muses on the clean costumes—a critique about authenticity in period epics. “Everybody looks real clean...like they just 3D printed their chest plates. Do you know what I mean?”—Andy (11:35)

• Extended riffing on how pop culture shapes expectations for epic stories, blending humor with nostalgia for ‘Clash of the Titans’ and ‘Die Hard.’

3. Tribute: Remembering James Ransone

Timestamps: 15:20–17:11

• The tragic news of James Ransone’s death is addressed, focusing on his legacy in "The Wire" and "Generation Kill." “He brought a darkness and anguish and a humanity to every role that he played...he was very cerebral about it, but he was also deeply, deeply emotional about everything that he did.”—Andy (16:11)

4. Mailbag: TV Eras, Peak TV, and Best of the Century

Timestamps: 19:20–34:27

When Was Peak TV?

• Andy clarifies “Peak TV” as a reference to quantity (Landgraf, FX), distinguishing it from “prestige TV.” “We have started to use peak tv not really to speak about the volume, but the quality about it. So...the word prestige TV and peak TV have started to, like, merge a little bit.”—Andy (22:23)

• Both share personal "peak" moments:

  • Chris: Sunday HBO nights in 2012 (Game of Thrones, Veep, Girls).
  • Andy: The baton-passing era, citing 2014 Emmys as an “expansionist like abundance” moment (24:15–27:16).

Would They Rank the Best TV of the Century?

• Both are skeptical about making new top 25 lists, feeling the canonical shows (“legends in Cooperstown”) wouldn’t surprise anyone.
• Andy’s mind jumps more quickly to limited series and one-and-dones (e.g., "Chernobyl," "Station 11," "Watchmen") as achievements that feel “complete” and are sometimes forgotten in ongoing Best Of discussions: “When I saw the question and it was like best television of the century, I thought it was interesting that my response wasn’t the long running episodic achievements. It’s more...bang. We are achieving something limited and specific with this medium...” —Andy (30:13)

5. Industry State: Anxieties, Consolidation, and Advice

Timestamps: 34:51–40:03

• Listener asks for a new mantra after “Survive to 25” fizzled ("Netflix-ification of Warner Brothers"). Andy and Chris discuss “vibes recession,” smaller margins, and shrinking opportunities despite apparent content abundance. “The margins have shrunk in ways that people haven’t really noticed until it’s too late. It’s kind of a rarefied Hollywood version of a conversation that a lot of people are having around the dinner table...It is, you know, you’re selling a show and you’re used to getting paid a certain rate and now you’re being offered scale for the year, so everything just slides down a few notches.”—Andy (36:45)

6. Personal TV Obsessions: Childhood & Nostalgia

Timestamps: 40:11–45:51

• Andy recalls "Misfits of Science" and “Twin Peaks” as his first obsessions. Chris’s gateway was “Miami Vice,” later “Homicide: Life on the Street.”
  “I feel like the show lasted six episodes, but I was glued to the television for them. I don’t just like 84, 85. And then other than the normal shows that I think everyone our age was obsessed with at the time...obviously everyone knows my origin story with Twin Peaks.” —Andy (40:11)

• Lively, funny riffing about the awkwardness of watching steamy episodes ("Moonlighting") with parents and the TV tropes (“I hate you… they make out”) that never matched real life.

7. Criticism: How to Become a Better Critic

Timestamps: 45:51–55:11

• Both hosts discuss family backgrounds (Chris’s father was a professional critic; Andy’s, a lifelong “hater”), and how parents shaped their critical lenses.

• The importance of understanding context, reading history, and engaging with critics you disagree with is emphasized:
  “It doesn’t devalue your love of something to learn what that person was listening to and what that person loved or what that person was sampling. You know, I think that’s number one, important.” —Andy (48:17)

• Read across disciplines (literary, film, TV criticism) and expose yourself to different schools of thought: new criticism, structuralism, etc.

• Highlights the need to not just read for “confirmation bias”—seek out challenging perspectives (examples: Armond White, Adam Nayman).

8. Book Recommendations & Reading Habits

Timestamps: 55:35–67:49

• Hosts share their favorite reading experiences and current stacks.

  • Andy shouts out Oliver Harris’s spy trilogy (“feels one nanosecond away from the world we’re actually living in”), "Catch Penny" by Charlie Huston, "Color Television" by Danzy Senna, and "Perfection" by Vincenzo Latronico.
  • Chris recommends "Play World" by Adam Ross, "Nymph" by Stephanie LaCava, and "Brian" by Jeremy Cooper (found via the London Review of Books).
  • Banter about the ongoing temptation of “Master and Commander” and Rick Atkinson’s military history.

• Charming self-examination of their own reading methods: Andy juggles multiple books, Chris can only read one at a time.
  Chris: “I will always finish a shorter book. So anything about 300 pages I can usually power through. And in fact, I’ve been really enjoying some novellas recently…” (63:54)

9. Advice for the Industry: One Rule for Streamers/Networks

Timestamps: 68:41–72:58

• Andy advocates for “institutional memory” and bringing passion projects to the table, highlighting the importance of deep, longstanding development team relationships (fx, HBO).
• Recommends streaming execs hold a draft-style “bang the table” meeting to champion one beloved project each (inspired by NFL practices): “I wish that these streaming services...had a meeting...where everyone here who reads scripts that come in [could] make a case for the favorite script that they read...Let them bang on the table once a year, and I think we’d have a better industry for it.”—Andy (71:30)

Memorable Quotes

• “Brexit is the ultimate act of gatekeeping, isn’t it?” —Chris (06:18)
• “It looks incredible. And I was actually, like, thrilled by the fact that it gave me advanced futuristic Harryhausen vibes.” —Chris on The Odyssey (08:59)
• “It would behoove him from an argument standpoint…if his chest plate had a couple, like, Trojan dings on it. You know what I mean?” —Andy (12:28)
• “There is value in the visceral reaction. I also get a lot of mileage on this podcast with visceral reactions. But the other truth is that nobody pours themselves into something creative, thinking it’s going to be bad or wanting it to be bad.” —Andy (54:06)

Notable Moments & Timestamps

• [05:45] – Enthused breakdown of Industry S4 trailer
• [08:59] – Vibes of the new Odyssey trailer
• [15:20] – Touching remembrance of James Ransone
• [22:23] – Distinction between “Peak TV” in quantity vs. quality
• [24:15/27:16] – Personal and cultural “Peak TV” dates and 2014 Emmy analysis
• [34:51] – Industry contraction: “Vibes recession”
• [40:11] – First TV obsessions stories
• [45:51] – How they became critics; family influences and wider reading
• [55:35] – Book and reading recommendations, multi-book methods
• [68:41] – Andy’s “bang the table” prescription for making better TV

Takeaways

• The hosts are reflective and self-aware about the shifting landscapes—of TV, the industry, and their own tastes.
• They value context, history, and passionate engagement in both criticism and creation, and urge listeners to read widely and curiously.
• This episode is filled with personal warmth, lightly comic banter, and earnestness—making it in itself a catalog of what has made their podcast enduring through “peak TV” and beyond.

For more: Listen to the full episode for additional book and TV recommendations, and the hosts’ always distinctive blend of nostalgia, insight, and humor.