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

Summary

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.

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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

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Key Discussion Segments & Insights

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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)

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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.’

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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)

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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)

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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)

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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.

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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).

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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)

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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)

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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)

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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

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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.

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

Transcript

[Chris Ryan]

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[Chris Ryan]

Paid support staff to clear the room.

[Andy Greenwald]

Stand up and walk now.

[Chris Ryan]

Hello and welcome to the Watch. My name is Chris Ryan. I am an [e-mail] and joining me on the other line, but across the country, it's Andy Greenwald.

[Andy Greenwald]

It's hard to be apart. We've been having such a nice time together.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah, man, I miss you. I'm back in Philly, back on the east coast for the holidays. We've got a mailbag. Today Santa brought us a bunch of email from our listeners. I know Santa's huge for you. A really important figure.

[Andy Greenwald]

Huge. Huge. It was nice of him to work for me in this one capacity.

[Chris Ryan]

Yes, yes, Greenwald. We're going to do some news at the top. I just want to see how you're doing before we get into our mailbag and our roundup.

[Andy Greenwald]

Oh, I'm great. I'm great. It's the holiday season. Work has slowed, society has slowed. Traffic to LAX has increased. Eagles, we're back. What else?

[Chris Ryan]

Are you okay? We've met before, right? You can just let it go with me, man.

[Andy Greenwald]

No, I feel honestly like, I do feel a little self conscious because as you and I think our listeners at this point know, I am never at my most honest and vulnerable than when watching Philadelphia sports. And I think that if one were to just take my text messages that I sent to you and Zach on our war daddy's group chat during the first three quarters of what turned out to be quite a relatively easy win over the Washington team. I think that I would be 5150'd like. I don't think that I was putting my best adult foot forward with you guys. I think I wasn't.

[Chris Ryan]

Well, are you taking a step back and wondering about your level, your relationship to sports, or are you just trying to kind of put it out there that you might need institutionalization? What do you want me to do with this information?

[Andy Greenwald]

This is really more of a. Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

I did wonder on, like, some Stanford prison experiment what would have happened. Because the first you sent a couple of texts like, not how I want things to start would be great.

[Andy Greenwald]

Opening kickoff.

[Chris Ryan]

And then on like, the. I think the third text was, am I alone in watching this? And I was like, I do kind of wonder what would happen if me and Zach didn't respond.

[Andy Greenwald]

I felt that way for a minute. I honestly, there was a moment where I was like, are these guys together right now, looking at each other over their lit cell phone screens being like, oh, also, I'm so cooked right now. And then we get into our television coverage that I misheard you. I thought you said you were predicting a Stafford prison experiment, which is likely what we're facing in the playoffs.

[Chris Ryan]

So, yeah, you gotta have a belief. Last night, I'm not afraid to say it. I was out at dinner in Philadelphia and I saw Jordan Mailata.

[Andy Greenwald]

That's so cool.

[Chris Ryan]

And he looked great. He did not seem to be carrying any of the stress of this season that we are. And if he can do it, we can do it, man.

[Andy Greenwald]

Do you think witches, on the scale of, what's the word I'm looking for? Pathetic witches? Worse. Attempting to play fake mink tracks to my daughters while driving them or showing them human interest Jordan Davis videos before the Eagles game in order to give them someone to root for. Because both happened this weekend. And I, I, I'm here to become clean about that. Which do you think is worse?

[Chris Ryan]

I think that you're going to eventually. When do you think the, the schism happens with, like, they fully just don't want to hear your pop culture recommendations?

[Andy Greenwald]

Oh, I would say probably 2022. I think that's probably. Nevertheless, you resisted. Yeah. That's the thing. Who's the real hero here?

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Andy Greenwald]

Now I just get texts of like, songs by Joe. Joe Keery's band. Yeah. 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.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah. So, yeah, he's a hit. He's a hit with people. Andy, before we get into the mailbag, we did want to jump on a couple of news items. Trailers, et cetera, the industry. Season four, the quote, final trailer dropped. This was probably the most we've gotten to see of Max Manhela's character, but also get more of a sense of the international corporate espionage that Mickey down and Conrad K. Had teased both to us and to other journalists about what the season was going to be about. Thoughts on the fourth season trailer?

[Andy Greenwald]

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 during the off season. Last year it was Pet Shop Boys. This year it is new order, no notes, immaculate. I guess it's reverse Columbus. Well, I guess it's within its own country, so we'll figure it out. Post Brexit.

[Chris Ryan]

Can you even Columbus anything.

[Andy Greenwald]

That's right. No, you can't. It has to be. It has to be stamped with the tag.

[Chris Ryan]

Brexit is the ultimate act of gatekeeping, isn't it?

[Andy Greenwald]

You know that they put the gates back.

[Chris Ryan]

Well, they're just like you. You guys aren't cool enough to experience England.

[Andy Greenwald]

No, it's true. I think that this show just fully understands what it is now. And it's. It's quite sexy. It's quite, you know, it, it. What's cool about it? I'll put it this way. I enjoy a trailer culled from something that understands how to make content that suits a trailer. That's an awkward way of saying.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah, that you can.

[Andy Greenwald]

When you watch enough trailers like us, or maybe anyone at this day and age with access to YouTube, you can feel the ones where editors were scraping and micro cutting dialogue to make it seem punchy to make the sexiest possible version of the show.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah, much like scenes from next week on Mad Men.

[Andy Greenwald]

Totally. What? No, that's my cup. And then it would be like Sundays on amc.

[Chris Ryan]

You're kidding me.

[Andy Greenwald]

So the fact that, like, it's just my holla saying, like, I up and I'm fucking good at it or whatever the direct line is. I'm paraphrasing, but that's essentially what it is, is incredibly exciting. So I, I think they've handled this, this run up beautifully. I'm excited.

[Chris Ryan]

You know who else makes good trailers? Christopher Nolan and the author, Homer.

[Andy Greenwald]

You re. You really faced a. A fork in the Road moment this weekend because the options were see the first six minutes of Christopher Nolan's the Odyssey, but to do so, you will have to pay good money to attend a screening of Avatar, Fire and Ash.

[Chris Ryan]

That's way too much. I, I don't want to see six minutes. This is exactly the right amount of minutes. This, this Odyssey trailer that dropped online today and I have not even delved into. And I am honestly, like, having a huge problem where I'm like, I know what happens in, like, you know, three Spider man movies from now, but I don't want to see any more images from the Odyssey until I am seated in imax, like, as close to opening day as possible. It looks incredible. And I was actually, like, thrilled by the fact that it gave me advanced futuristic Harryhausen vibes. Like, it did have some, like, monster creature feature stuff going on that you see briefly, like in frames. But I'm just so, I'm so ready for this.

[Andy Greenwald]

I do think it's underrated and under discussed how formative Clash of the Titans was to old people of a certain generation. We, we talk a lot. And in fact, in many ways the basis of this podcast is how we both saw Return of the Jedi in the theaters. But Clash of the Titans and like, the way the creatures is also apparently.

[Chris Ryan]

A requirement for our listenership, too, demographically speaking.

[Andy Greenwald]

Yeah, listen, I'm trying. I, I, I keep talking about how Joe Keery is hot. I'm trying to rate lower. The median age. It's kind of like when NBC was like, we have the youngest median age in prime time, 57. We're on the right side of the curve. Anyway, yeah, I do appreciate the callbacks to that kind of vibe. I was heartened by this trailer because I think in all my sort of assumed understanding of what this movie was going to be, I don't think I really rated how much it was going to be an epic one night out with the fellas, kind of movie like that. The entire movie is Odysseus and the fellas trying to get home. You know, in a way, it's like if we had gone to the Chargers Eagles game and tried to get home from Sofi. I thought Hangover was the comp. Like, genuinely, that is the genre that this movie could be placed into, and that's a very successful genre.

[Chris Ryan]

Did you ever read, did you ever read the Odyssey?

[Andy Greenwald]

Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

Straight up. Yeah.

[Andy Greenwald]

Did I straight up read it? Yes, I took a class. I did.

[Chris Ryan]

Okay.

[Andy Greenwald]

I did.

[Chris Ryan]

Do you think it would be, like, a cool project for us to reread it on this podcast.

[Andy Greenwald]

I can tell you're thinking about it.

[Chris Ryan]

But we have to read, like, a hardcore version of it. We have to read like. Like, what's it? Robert. Robert Fitzgerald, who was the. Who's like, one of the guys who was like. I translated this myself.

[Andy Greenwald]

Kai, can you make a graphic for this portion of the podcast that says, Rip the Watch's youth outreach effort. 8 minutes, 31 seconds of this pod to 8 minutes 39 seconds of this podcast.

[Chris Ryan]

This is not. We are not unk here. My man. Zendaya's in this movie. Come on. Tom Holland's in this movie. There's younger people in this film.

[Andy Greenwald]

Do you think the people who go to see the movie to see Zendaya and Tom Holland are going to be like, the next thing I got to do is listen to these two dudes read the Odyssey. This is beautiful, but I don't think that's the right. I think, I think we know diseases. That ship has sailed.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah, you might be right. We have a lot of questions in our mailbag about. About reading projects, but also what we read this year so we could save our culture takes. Yes.

[Andy Greenwald]

Can I ask you one slight concern trolling question about the Odyssey?

[Chris Ryan]

I knew you would.

[Andy Greenwald]

Everybody looks real clean. They're, they're, they're like seriously decade of war. But they look like they just like 3D printed their chest plates. Do you know what I mean?

[Chris Ryan]

Well, first of all, that was before fast fashion. That's back when we actually used to make stuff in this world to last. Yeah. Like the Greeks. It's not like you could stop at Uniqlo and be like, it's cool, I'll just get more underwear midway through my trip.

[Andy Greenwald]

You had to have shit that really.

[Chris Ryan]

Really, really worked back then. And Greece didn't go nearly undefeated through a regular season by having bad armor. By having nearly.

[Andy Greenwald]

Nearly undefeated. I know, but I also feel like it would be a badge of honor, especially. Look, here's the thing. Odysseus fights for years in a war, and then he's like, okay, fellas, time to drive home. Who's got the keys? And it takes another decade plus.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah, but he's taking some obstacles, man.

[Andy Greenwald]

I'm not. Look, I'm on his side, right? I'm on the fellas side. Like, stuff happens. The bro code says, if there were monsters, there were monsters. I'm just saying it would behoove him from an argument standpoint, from a. Making the case if his chest plate had a couple like, Trojan dings on It. You know what I mean? Like, like look like you've been through it. Don't look so. Don't look so polished put together.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah, but that's like, also, isn't that kind of like Steve Wojkowski at Duke who's like always like slamming the floor with his hands and try like a try hard guy. It's like I could go out there and throw a bunch of dirt on my uniform. It doesn't mean I.

[Andy Greenwald]

There are guys like that in mlb. They're just like their head first sliding just to dirty it up a little bit.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah, and Odysseus was better than that.

[Andy Greenwald]

Speaking of modern day analogues to Odysseus, I did have a little Christmas movie night last night and I watched Die Hard, which I think canonically is the movie I've seen more than any other movie in my life. But I did take a 25 year break from it, which is really great because at our age, it wipes the slate basically clean.

[Chris Ryan]

Which 25 years?

[Andy Greenwald]

The first 20. No, the last 25 years I think I saw.

[Chris Ryan]

So you watched it in 2000, you watched it pre 911 and then after 911 you were like, it's not okay.

[Andy Greenwald]

I just didn't feel comfortable going up into tall buildings for a while even. Even with John McClane. So. But one of the things that I will never. That, you know, there's certain iconic moments from that film that that one never forgets. Right. Many in fact, but there were a couple of details that had slipped through the. The old mainframe. But one thing that has always stay is that when John McClane successfully defeats Hans Gruber's invasion of the Nakatomi Plaza and is reunited with his loving wife Holly, who now, you know, once again gets rid of her maiden name, she no hesitation, with the impression, yeah, she.

[Chris Ryan]

Goes back to McClane.

[Andy Greenwald]

He's pretty disgusting at the end of the movie, right? His white tank top is now just like absolutely black. He's covered with blood and sweat. He's been shot, he's been cut up, his feet are bleeding and. And she still embraces him. And I think that is a model for Odysseus coming home. I think that's how he should return at the end, even if it's not true. He should just take a little 30 minutes, you know what I mean, and just really gum up the works when he gets home. Because if it's an interesting pivot for.

[Chris Ryan]

You, I hope 2026 is the year of you becoming a massive germaphobe and being like Howard Hughes in the Aviator with, like, tissue boxes on your hands.

[Andy Greenwald]

And you're just, absolutely not. No, absolutely not. Food poisoning is a myth. I don't care about that shit. I can generate enough illness for myself in my brain without worrying about leaving the rice out overnight. Come on. I'm not worried about that.

[Chris Ryan]

One more bit of news before we get into the mailbag. And this one is obviously quite sad. As people are probably aware by now, the actor James Ransome passed away over the weekend on, I believe, Friday night, took his own life. And I just wanted to take a quick second to just say, obviously people know him as ziggy from season two of the Wire. One of, like, the most indelible TV characters of the last 25 years. I personally really loved his work in the miniseries Generation Kill that David Simon made. And we've kind of misunderstood and underrated at this point, piece of television from during the Wire era. And I thought he was a fantastic character actor and a great member of Spike Lee's kind of expansion. Did rep theater. But, Andy. Yeah, I just wanted to open it up to you and see, see if.

[Andy Greenwald]

You had any memories of him just the same. Just that that my path crossed with P.J. sauer went a few times just by living in New York and being out in the world, and then a few times just exchanging messages on social media. And he was just a lovely, lovely guy who had real skin in the game. I think in terms of the work that he did, you know, he brought a darkness and an anguish and a humanity to every that he played. And he was always. It was always wonderful to see him. And, you know, it was more than just a job for him, I think, to act. I think he was very cerebral about it, but he was also deeply, deeply emotional about everything that he did. And I think he was a beautiful guy. From my limited interactions with him, which you could see in the vulnerability and rawness of his work. And it just hits hard, you know, it hits hard. He had a lot of struggles, he had a lot of darkness, and he had a loving family and he was very much loved. And it's the kind of thing you wish that he was able to hear and feel that, especially today. It's just an awful, awful loss.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah, really tough end of the year here, but, yeah, our thoughts are with his loved ones and yeah, his work will live on, but it's a real tragic loss. Let's take a quick break and then when we come back, we'll get into our mailbag to end the year. This podcast is brought to you by Carvana. Carvana lets you buy your next car on your terms. Explore a massive inventory online filter for what matters and find your perfect match. Then choose delivery to your home or pick it up at one of Carvana's iconic car vending machines. Every car also comes with a seven day money back guarantee so you can make sure it's the right fit. Buy your car on Carvana. Delivery or pickup fees may apply. Limitations and exclusions may apply. See our 7 day return [e-mail] Carvana.

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[Chris Ryan]

All right, brother. So we'll do this now by just going through these emails. I put together a bunch of them and I just wanted to mention some housekeeping in case I did. I forgot to. Uh, we'll be back on Wednesday night with the last episode of the year. This is the last time we're recording, but our last episode of the year will be the Pluribus finale recap with some special guests. Um, so we're really excited to have that going for you after the Pluribus finale airs, which is, I believe they moved it up to Wednesday.

[Andy Greenwald]

Um, for. For people asking. We do. We did have a short lived tradition of doing an episode of the year episode. We were unable to make that happen this year due to scheduling and probably more than anything my travel schedule. So I apologize for that. I saw a couple people asking. Yeah, yeah. They didn't ask you?

[Chris Ryan]

No, nobody asked.

[Andy Greenwald]

You get the positive comments, you get the good stuff. I get the real deep nitpicks.

[Chris Ryan]

Let's find out if that's true by looking at this mailbag, which 100% true.

[Andy Greenwald]

But anyway, so I. But I hopefully this Pluribus episode is a special episode of the year episode. I think I'm very proud.

[Chris Ryan]

In a way it is. Yes. In a way I think it will be. All right. This first email comes from Sam. Hi guys. Love the show. Peak TV was a beautiful time and it's over now. But when exactly was peak tv? Can we pinpoint a year or a moment when TV was objectively peak? Or perhaps it makes more sense to personalize it. When Was your Peak TV? John Landgraaf, the FX president, made his Peak TV comments in August of 2015, and in my opinion, TV peaked not long after that. This is still Sam speaking at me. I think my personal peak TV moment was probably March 2016 with the girls episode Panic in Central Park. Also airing in March 2016 was Fargo Season 2, Better Call Saul Season 2, American Season 4, the People vs OJ Simpson, and New Girl Season 5. What a month. So what's your personal peak? Some other contenders would be when Succession and Barry ended on the Same Night in 2023, or when Cersei Game of Thrones spoiler in June 2016. Or perhaps peak is a moment right before the whole project began to decline, like Westworld or the Crown. So, Andy, do you have an immediate take on this?

[Andy Greenwald]

It's a great question. I want to reframe it slightly before you give your answer first, I think, if that's possible. I think it's important to be clear that when we say peak TV in the John Landgraf sense, he was not speaking in terms of quality, he was speaking in terms of quantity. He meant that there were more television shows, more new television shows, more new hours of scripted content being produced in the years 2015, 2016 than at any time in the medium's history. And that he was getting up in front of people pointing out how potentially unsustainable it was, but also what every new series was up against in a way that was completely unprecedented. And this went hand in hand with a number of major companies launching streaming services and attempting to make a case for their own existence through wild, some might say wildly irresponsible spending, which was possible due to the economic context of that time. We have started to use peak tv not really to speak about the volume, but the quality about it. So I think that the word prestige TV and peak TV have started to like, merge a little bit, because. So when we're answering right, we're talking about when was the most TV for us, when was the most best tv?

[Chris Ryan]

Sam is identifying maybe a particular moment where TV was at its best over the years rather than what was peak television either in the land Graphian. This is too much.

[Andy Greenwald]

Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

Or the. Yeah, exactly. Interestingly enough, I believe Landgraaf's projections were even like, conservative for him because I think Peak TV peaked in 2023, if I remember reading correctly. And then we've now since started to feel the decline, which honestly feels like a contraction after years of operating with 600 some scripted shows. So I do have an answer for the, for this within the framework of what Sam lays out as like a kind of perfect, specific moment for me. It's right when I moved to Los Angeles and In April of 2012, there was Sunday Nights on HBO. In April was Game of Thrones veeping Girls, which is not only to me like a perfect two hours of television, but also a great excuse to get friends over and you watch Game of Thrones and hang out and have hummus and then talk about like whatever just happened and then decompress by watching Girls and Veep, which go in like kind of increasing order of, of. Of pleasure principle. And you just ride this really fun sine wave of, of a night and you know, it's over at, at 10:00pm and everybody goes home and gets ready to go to work the next day. It was, it was an awesome way to, to spend a Sunday, which traditionally had not been like a big deal to me.

[Andy Greenwald]

I think that's a great answer and I kind of agree with it. I would, I would say two things. One, that my, my enjoyment of the era really is more in line with the way TV works, which is something that is ongoing and expanding. And if you go from the late, like 2006, 2007, you have the Sopranos ending and you have Mad Men beginning and then you have Breaking Bad really kicking off and then you have Game of Thrones starting. And it did feel like we were in an era of baton passing where the highs would continue to get higher, the tent would continue to get bigger. And that would be have a trickle down effect on all kinds of entertainment. That was a sweet spot. And I have to admit to some, I mean, that was also when I became a TV critic in 2011. Yeah, you were probably right. Yeah, yeah. And it really did feel like, oh, this is the golden era to be a part of this. And it was very exciting. That said, I'll do a very UNTV thing, maybe a little more of a movie thing, and pick like a singular moment. And I think that you could point to the 66th Primetime Emmy Awards, which were 2014, and that was the year where, because I know every year we talk about the Emmys and we talk about the nominees and over the last few years we've looked at the like five, six, seven, eight drama nominees and we've been like, sure, okay. Fallout is a show that people like. I'm sorry to pick on it. It's back and people seem to love it, but it doesn't feel like prestige or as era defining as the show's used to. The moment that I would point to is 2014 Emmys. Here were the nominees for drama series that year. Breaking Bad for season five, Part two, Hell yeah Brother, Downton Abbey, season four. I mean, the pod doesn't exist without it. Game of Thrones season four, House of Cards, season two, True Detective, season one, Mad Men, season seven, Part one. Okay. And for me, that moment, and I went into the whole Emmy that year of Emmys in general, and it's just this enormous bounty where it feels like the tap is never getting turned off. Because in the outstanding comedy series that year, Modern Family wins for the umpteenth time. But the nominees are Big Bang Theory, which was the most popular show on tv. Louis, which at the time was a very important kind of button pushing series. Orange is the New Black, before it switched categories and became a drama. Silicon Valley and Veep. And there's just a expansionist like abundance feeling to that awards night that go off. I'm just saying, you know, I mentioned those drama nominees not because I thought House of Cards was so exceptional or memorable, but that was an example of Netflix operating within the same ecosystem that birthed Mad Men and Breaking Bad of saying, like, this is an exceptional project, we're going to overspend for it and lavishly present it to the world because we want to be considered on the Emmy stage. Now, Netflix is still considered on the Emmy stage, but that's not what drives their business anymore. They have now fully jumped into a completely different industry than the rest of the industry that it has essentially conquered. So for me, like, that night is maybe the last or not the last gasp of that era. That's what you think of a celebration of it? Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah. Here's a good question that kind of ties into what you were just talking about, which is from Kristen, is did you guys do an episode on the best shows of the century? And if not, would you? I don't think we've actually talked about this. There had been some discussion, both ringer wide and also, I think, among people who listen to the show about whether there would be a similar 25 for 25 to the one that the big picture is doing. And I've really enjoyed that project from Sean and Amanda. I think that we would have had fun with it, but I worry that it would be 65% kind of chalky. I, I think that, like, what we saw this year in 2025 with our best shows of the year is maybe you and I and, and as we get older, like a kind of unification of our taste in a way that maybe doesn't make for the greatest radio. But I had a hard time, even on the back of an envelope, cracking up the hierarchy of the best TV of the century. You know, like I, I had a hard time being like, actually it's this and I, I'll hear arguments about it all day and I love debating it with people, but personally, like, there's Rushmore is Rushmore for a reason, and I think there are some shows that are, like, edging their way on there and are a part of that firmament. But it was tough for me to even be like, yeah, you know, if we did the best. Best 25 of the century, it would be pretty much what you thought it was going to be.

[Andy Greenwald]

Well, I think, I think it kind of depends on what framework you put on it. I think best TV of the century is exactly what you just said. I think the legends are in Cooperstown for a reason, and it would be worthwhile maybe, but not as fun to re litigate. You know, I think it would be.

[Chris Ryan]

Interesting to do the rankings. I don't know if the, the pool of shows would be that different than people would imagine.

[Andy Greenwald]

I think that the Ringer just did an exceptional episodic list that I think we could have fun with and maybe we would quibble with here and there, but broadly speaking is a really well argued and a really smart account of what television has delivered for us in terms of this specific episode. When I saw the question come in, I thought it was interesting that my first response wasn't, well, Mad Men or something like that. It was really. My mind went immediately to more singular statements, which is to say like a limited series or an event series or something that didn't come back. I'm not saying that those are necessarily better than the achievement of an ongoing series. It's just deeply apples and oranges. Because I started doing Peaks, I wrote down, sure, Twin Peaks, but I wrote down Chernobyl, I wrote down Watchmen, I wrote down Station 11, Honorable Woman, I May Destroy youy Fleabag, which was two seasons, but pretty, pretty a pretty tight too, as they say.

[Chris Ryan]

Are you saying that those were the instant write downs accepting the other ones?

[Andy Greenwald]

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 that what Vince Gilligan did over the span of Breaking Bad was exceptional. Or even what Damon Lindelof did with the Leftovers. Turning it from something that I personally didn't like, which is not anyone's benchmark, but my own, into something that I would hold up against the very best ever made. That journey is something that I love and celebrate and would, you know, would put on a list, for example, but that my mind immediately went to bang. We are achieving something limited and specific with this medium, which is not traditionally how I engage with tv, but it did make me think about, like, what. What Craig Mason and Johan Renk did with Chernobyl or what Patrick Somerville and his collaborators did with station 11 are so special and so singular that I think about them in this context mainly because I still think that episodic television and the demands of it and the fact that baked into the conceit of an ongoing series is failure, is evolution, is change. I just have a hard time putting them on the same list.

[Chris Ryan]

I wonder if it's because when you think back about Station 11, it feels like you can wrap your mind around the entire project. Whereas it's hard to recall at a glance all of Lost or all of Friday Night Lights. And. And you know, you might write off large sections of a season because they're figuring it out or doing something with a character that you don't really like. Even succession. And some of it's like rhythmic, like in the beginning. Some of, you know, it's rhythmic sort of stops and starts. I. I wonder whether like Top of the Lake just feels like a complete statement to you or. Or I may destroy you feels like a complete statement to you.

[Andy Greenwald]

It's also because, you know, and I think this is true to our experience as fans of other mediums of books or music, that sometimes our celebration of something is tied to our own personal context, with how we engaged with it, when we engaged with it, when it came into our lives, the role that it played in our lives. And, you know, with series like the ones that I was mentioning, I feel very connected to the moment that I watched it, as opposed to Mad Men, which came into my life in one way when I was living in one city in a certain way, and then, you know, if it finished when I'd moved to la, like, these are all just personal things, but they do affect how we watch things. And sometimes you can look at a series as taking you from one point in your life to another, and we are close enough to some shows that that actually is relevant, I think. I don't think that's too grandiose a statement for the shows that we truly love.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah, not at all.

[Andy Greenwald]

But this idea of, like, yes, this hit me at the right moment, and Station 11 is the great example of that, because that was pandemicy, and the show was about a pandemic. And the achievement of that series just so in terms of taking something that on paper could seem so dark and so claustrophobic and so insular and turning it into something that was about humanity and joy. I just think it's a. I think it's a remarkable achievement. Maybe the other reason why I'm banging the drum for these series so loudly is because I do realize that as we do the show year after year after year, the one and dones kind of fall out of the conversation sometimes. Not because we're forgetting about them, but just because it is hard to compare them and because they didn't bridge eras the way some of these other series have.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah, it's been. I think also there is just like such an astonishing, deafening demand for more. When something hits and we are not content to be like, that's okay. Like, leave it where. Exactly where we want people to check back into the white lotus. Like, we are not open to the idea that that was a one and done for Mike White. And so it becomes an anthology which will probably have more and more connective tissue if the way things go continue on. But, yeah, like, I. I know what you mean. Where there's something almost regal about. About the way that those limited series is like, burn out instead of fade away.

[Andy Greenwald]

By the way, that's. That brings me back to the Previous answer to 2014 Emmys Fargo, Season 1 won the Emmy for best limited series. And I, I think Fargo Season 2 is one of the best seasons of television of this century. So I.

[Chris Ryan]

That's the plebins and dunst one, right?

[Andy Greenwald]

Yes. And Ted Danson and yes. But I'm not advocating, I'm not saying that the show should have ended after one season. I'm just in the spirit of this conversation. And in terms of eras, what role would that show have in our conversation about television? Or would Noah Hawley have in our conversation about television had Fargo been a one and done and then onto something else?

[Chris Ryan]

That's a very good question. Speaking of eras, let's talk about the one we're in right now. Jameson asks question for the pod. This year has sucked for a lot of reasons. But as a writer, few things were more disappointing than how little the mantra of survive to 25 paid off. Now with the possible Netflix Netflix occasion of Warner Brothers. What is the mantra for 26 to the industry hopefuls and veterans alike? Quote, don't shit bricks in 26 or something will stick in 26 comes to mind. Thanks very much for the conversations this year. You know, as we go to record this today, Larry Ellison is guaranteed the backstop, the financial sort of backstop of Paramount's bid for Netflix. So these, these stories are certainly not over with.

[Andy Greenwald]

Can I ask you a question?

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Andy Greenwald]

Do you think Larry Ellison has ever agreed to have a catch with David? Like, I feel like so many of our problems are gone. Yes.

[Chris Ryan]

But they, they just throw Hawaiian islands back and forth.

[Andy Greenwald]

Yeah, exactly. Okay. At least he's back. He's like.

[Chris Ryan]

He's like, is this heaven? He's like, no, dad, this is your own private Hawaiian island. It's better than heaven. It's a tag show. Anyway, I think that there are two answers to this question. I will say that from a watching perspective, from the audience perspective, from the. I just, I just show up and, and check this stuff out. As a consumer and as a. A fan, I feel like things have gotten a little bit more back to normal. I think that both in terms of pace and in terms of what we're being, what is being put on screen and how easy it is to sort of discern for yourself. I want to watch this. I don't want to watch this. I think that this stuff starts to. Is starting to feel a little bit more grounded to me. But I'm very curious for your perspective as you're somebody who also works behind the camera.

[Andy Greenwald]

I mean, I think that the, in terms of programming and the consistency of that programming. I think that it's still a pretty good time to be a viewer, assuming you can afford nine distinct streaming services. I totally agree with that. In terms of a mantra, I haven't heard one other than, I guess everything is Netflix in 26, from your HBO shows to your favorite podcasts to potentially your sports leagues. That just seems like an inevitable drift towards a certain way of engaging with content and one company asserting itself as the biggest voice in the room. I would say behind the scenes and I, you know, I can speak, you know, subtly but personally, like there has been a slight return to some normalcy and some degree of success in terms of like my ability to work, my ability to sell stuff. People being interested in hearing stuff has been really surprisingly good at the end of the year, for which I'm really lucky. I would say that what I get when I talk to people in the industry or like on the group chats that I'm a part of, it's just that 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, which is like they keep saying the economy is good, but it's a vibes recession because everything feels bad and everything is a little bit more expensive and we're all doing a little bit less. So that shows are selling, people are getting hired. But if you were getting hired as a number two on shows before, maybe you're scrabbling to get hired as a number three on a show. I know these are tiny, tiny violin type things, but 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. There are no recognizable wins or even just recognizable benchmarks of, you know. You know, in a booming, theoretically in a booming economy, everyone would benefit. But I think in our new kleptocracy, that is not the case. Everyone is just grateful to have, you know, the slightly smaller piece of bread than they had before. Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

So it's like bigger than ever and smaller than ever at once.

[Andy Greenwald]

Bigger than ever for some people.

[Chris Ryan]

Like smaller than ever. Like regular people's pockets when it comes to making this stuff.

[Andy Greenwald]

Yeah. And I think that as with everything in the economy, like the trickle down effect is hardest the more the further down the line you go. And I continue to think like, just because more shows are being bought, which is good for the level of people who are buying and selling shows or wanting to staff in writers rooms. It does not mean that more of those shows are going to film in Los Angeles, where a gaffer used to be able to have a house in the valley and make a living and now can't. And then maybe move to Atlanta, but now production is not there. So is he going to move to Budapest? I'm not sure. So, yes. Like, in terms of an industry thing, I don't think, I don't have a cheerful yuletide message. But in terms of the top line of the industry, like, if we're, if we're measuring it in terms of like, will we have good shows? Will we have equal amount of shows? We have shows that meet the moment. And are people just buying and selling again at the highest of levels? I think the answer is a cautious yes. Okay, but we'll have to see what. We'll have to see what's on our screens.

[Chris Ryan]

Debbie asks, I would love to know what each of you consider to be your very first quote, obsession show when you were kids. What was the first show that you remember loving with your whole heart?

[Andy Greenwald]

I, I would say two. I would have two answers. One was the late lamented series Misfits of Science on NBC, which I did not know at the time was basically someone at like Brandon Tartikoff being like, can we make sexy X Men without getting the rights? And when I say Sexy X Men, it was like, can we hire Max Wright, soon to be the dad on Elf, to be on it? Because what's sexier than that? 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, like Cosby Show, Family Ties, Growing Pains. Obviously everyone knows my origin story with Twin Peaks. And that was when it really, that was when it really hit the stratosphere in terms of fandom and obsession.

[Chris Ryan]

I would probably say for me, the first thing I remember being, I guess obsessed is a strange way to describe it, but I have a very distinctive memory, especially since I'm doing this recording for my childhood, childhood home of being on the landing outside of my bedroom and looking down the stairs into the living room and watching my parents watch Miami Vice when I was like seven and only being able to see snippets of it, but hearing it and hearing the music and hearing like the weird way that adults were Talking to each other and what they were talking about. I was pretty enticed by that and obviously have gone on to love the series and the film adaptation of it. My first, I think, time that I realized I loved the TV show and also that I felt protective of a TV show and started to show some of the qualities I think we still show here on the podcast is Homicide. Life on the street, which premiered after the Super bowl in 1993. And I was in high school, and it was the first time, I think, a show came on, and I was, like, aware, like, Barry Levinson was a part of it and that that meant something and that the writers who were working on it were, like, journalists and celebrated screenwriters and that the cast featured legendary, you know, actors, but, like, in, like, Yafat Cotto and Ned Beatty. So I. I was starting to, like, understand, like, for lack of a better way of putting it, who Richard Belzer was. And. And that was, like, a big moment for me. And then immediately, I feel like almost as soon as Homicide came out, it was like, is this gonna get canceled? Is it too. Yeah, is it too arty? Is it. Is it too good? Critically acclaimed, but not enough people watching. And I became very protective of its survival.

[Andy Greenwald]

It's such a good call. I'm really still hung up on what you said about, like, after your bedtime, the things your parents would watch, because I do have, like, a very core memory of what I believe is my. My mother watching what may have been the series premieres of, like, Golden Girls and 227. And I was like, wow, that's so racy and adult. And I Googled it, and those shows premiered at 8pm on a Saturday night, so. Which makes me wonder what my bedtime was. But then the fact that, like, generally, were you drinking Coke all day?

[Chris Ryan]

Weren't you up until, like, 11?

[Andy Greenwald]

I was just up listening till midnight. But, like, then. Then my. Because this. This whole thing doesn't exist anymore. Because now, like, if my kids go to bed and the adults want to watch a television show, there are headphones or iPads. Like, it's not like an ambient thing at the. What the hearth of the home is not being rocked by.

[Chris Ryan]

You put on the Vision Pro to watch those old 227 reruns.

[Andy Greenwald]

I finally get the Jet K thing. Like, it was just. It just missed me at the time. My. My. My sense is that my. When my parents watched TV late, it was just like Rumple of the Bailey or, like, Masterpiece Theater or something. And I was like, I'm I'm good. I'm gonna go to bed. The one just seared into my mind and like is a very uncomfortable formative memory was when I advocated to watch Moonlighting with them, which was a big hit show and maybe I had seen Die Hard. I don't really know the, the timing of this, but I don't remember if this was. I don't remember enough to know if this was like a recurring thing where like yes, I was allowed to watch Moonlighting with them at a certain point because they knew that their, their son just loved banter. But I do remember watching the David and Maddie finally do it episode.

[Chris Ryan]

Oh yeah.

[Andy Greenwald]

With my parents. Which is just. I do not recommend because do you remember that we've probably talked about this in the pod over the last 13 years. But like, like as a 8 or 9 or 10 year old, the when they finally it was will they or won't they? And then boy do they. It's like heightened in comic. And they break all the furniture in their bedroom.

[Chris Ryan]

Oh yeah, right.

[Andy Greenwald]

And it was a real, you know, Ed Rooney. So that's how it is in their family kind of thing. From the child's perspective because you did.

[Chris Ryan]

Not understand the commedia dele art.

[Andy Greenwald]

Yeah. It's just like are. Are. It's also not the kind of thing you turn to your parents and be like, are they fighting? Like, is this fun?

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah, you know, it was a move in those kinds of shows and in action movies that I, I've never in my life experienced with a woman is the like I hate you. And then they make out like to.

[Andy Greenwald]

Like the fight that turns into track.

[Chris Ryan]

Who are just like, you're such a stuck up. And she's like, you're. You're just a chauvinistic pig. And then they make out like immediately.

[Andy Greenwald]

That's never happened to me in your life. Yeah, well, that's because you keep things that people know this about you. You keep things at a low smacked.

[Chris Ryan]

In the face and then French kissed.

[Andy Greenwald]

First of all, your life's not over. I think that you should not start sundowning on your dreams. But I also think that you keep things at a pretty steady simmer. You know what I mean? Like even during, Even during Week 15 Eagles Commanders games, you don't, you don't get too hot or too cold, so you don't get slapped or French kissed. Metaphorically speaking.

[Chris Ryan]

It's true. Here's a good one. And kind of along the same lines because we're in a nostalgic moment here. Malcolm wrote I recently started working in the industry covering shows and movies. And while I've been at it for a few years, I feel like I lack academic knowledge of many who cover films and shows. Between the two of you, you have decades of experience, which is sort of chilling. And if I have my the Watch lore correct, then I believe Chris's father had decades of experience as well. It's tr. So the two of you feel like the appropriate people to ask the following questions? What do you recommend for people who want to critically understand films and shows? Do you recommend watching certain shows? Consuming as much as you can? Are there books you should read or skills you should learn? What shaped the critical mind you have today? I hope you have a chance to read these and answer them. Go Owls. And I agree with the Go Owls part for sure. This is a great question, man. I think I take for granted my education. I mean, I certainly take it for granted. I took it for granted when I didn't really take it for. Well, it was worth its time being. But I was certainly lucky enough to grow up with pretty literate, funny parents. You had to laugh sometimes, you know, keep from crying. But my dad's job, which was pretty abstract to me for a long time, exposed me to a lot of stuff that I don't think I would normally have been exposed to as a kid, as a teenager. And that could be something as simple as like, him saying, I think you'd like the Maltese Falcon, but also him talking about things kind of casually in conversation with me, about things I was watching and talking about things like tone and pace and intention and composition and things that were kind of like, just like foundational ideas about, like, how you make something coherent and successfully. And I think that really did wind up having like, a pretty huge impact on me. I just didn't really realize it until, honestly, like, maybe just thinking about it. For this question, I have a couple of critics that I certainly adore and that I'll be happy to cite. But I was curious whether you felt like you had a critical origin story or a. A kind of background that you wanted to share with. With the listeners.

[Andy Greenwald]

Well, you at least like your dad. Dad was a professional critic. My father's just more of an. Like a lifelong committed critic.

[Chris Ryan]

He's just a hater.

[Andy Greenwald]

He's just. He's just the haters. Ball. Hey, Nas. Michael. So definitely the most polite version of it would be that the idea that anything was sacred or served on a. On a silver platter and couldn't be critiqued, that was never Part of my understanding, including when I was just like, dad, do you like this song that I like? And he would be like, like, no drivel, like, cool.

[Chris Ryan]

I'm still all these years later to be paying that forward to your children.

[Andy Greenwald]

Do I do the. The problem is all. All of generational parenting is just swinging in the opposite direction. Yeah, right. So. So when my daughter sends me, like, MP3s of like, Joe or the Marias or. Or Tate McCrae, I'm like, yeah, I like this. And then there's just like a long silence. No, some of that's actually pretty good. So I think that that is helpful, as was having a. Again, this is a luxury that not everyone could have or privilege that like a sense of a continuum and a larger history, so that when you see something. Because nothing is made in a vacuum. So, for example, Star wars, which was foundational to us, was made because George Lucas never, you know, was still consumed with the radio serials and genre stuff that he. Like Flash Gordon and things that he was obsessed with growing up. So he did his version of it. The kids who received Star wars as the UR text might think that that was the greatest ever expression of it. But this idea that everything we're reading, consuming, watching, is part of a larger story of influence and rejection and an embrace between ideas and strains throughout cultural, artistic history is worth having and worth pursuing. So obviously, like, digging in the crates is really important. 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. I think two, seeing it in context, right, of like, the reading critics who take great pleasure, joy, and show enthusiasm in engaging with work as a living thing. Which doesn't necessarily mean being a hater, but being like, I'm going to run right into this and get messy with it. And whether that's Pauline Kael or Ayo Scott or our buddy Wesley Morris, who does it as well as anyone does it today. I think that's really important in terms of understanding that what you owe to yourself and your ideas and your own taste, as well as what you owe to the creator and being respectful but engaging with it. Because I don't think any art is necessarily made for the purpose of. Of being hung on the wall of a museum and adored.

[Chris Ryan]

That's really well put. I think that for me, the only thing I would add is just the importance of reading critics in other disciplines and applying it to whichever one you happen to be writing about. So I think that Andy and I both got a lot out of literary criticism and reading about not only reading the works of literary criticism, but starting to understand different schools of literary criticism, understanding that groups of critics could form an ideology that they would as a lens through which to read their works, to re watch their films. And then there would be a counter revolution to that. There would be a resistance or rebuke of those ideas in the next thing. So to jump from postmodernism to new criticism to structuralism or what have you, and I don't necessarily have the chronology of that. Right. But those are three that were always really interesting to me and I always thought they were in conversation with one another. And I certainly noticed that Andy and I will be talking about something and I'm like, we're pulling from kind of like our English student education a little bit here where sometimes you just want to be like, I don't care about what went on outside of the frame of this show. We're only talking about this. And sometimes that's very new critical to be like, it's the text, it's the text. But then sometimes we'll talk all about the market forces that allowed a certain thing to come to light for better or for worse. So that's always been really helpful to me. And I would just also say, read critics you disagree with. I think one of the tragic things that sort of happened in the last few years is that people are primarily reading things for confirmation bias rather than be challenged. Now, I agree that a lot of critics might be out there just trying to get you to click so that there's not a huge amount of substance to the why this isn't actually as good as you think it is. And then the argument is not actually that persuasive. But I really enjoy reading people and listening to people who I disagree with who have like a really good case to bake.

[Andy Greenwald]

Remember Armand White?

[Chris Ryan]

I do remember him, yeah.

[Andy Greenwald]

Who was not doing it for clicks, but would just regularly write incredibly thoughtful, well reasoned, well argued opinions that were so far outside of the mainstream that they almost seemed like a provocation.

[Chris Ryan]

Yes.

[Andy Greenwald]

But that was fascinating to read because I think they were done in good faith, which I think is important. I think that generally with criticism, much.

[Chris Ryan]

More like sort of a recent example of this. And he'll love being mentioned in the same breath as Armand White anyway. But Adam Neiman, who writes a lot of criticism for the Ringer and appears on the Big Picture and is a fantastic working film critic and professor, I often will love a film or dislike a film. And if Adam disagrees with me on it, I can't wait to read about it because I find his reviews to be like that thoughtful and that dialed, you know, And I think that reading him slightly take issue with one battle after another or slightly take issue with some something else. Like, I always really enjoy reading Adam's stuff. Sorry, but I didn't mean to cut you off.

[Andy Greenwald]

No, I think that's a great example. I agree with you about Adam. And I think that, look, nobody likes to be criticized. That's obvious. And 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. Making anything, whether it's a watercolor or a three hour movie, is incredibly challenging and taxing and worthy of respect, but it's also worthy of engagement with the same kind of seriousness. And I think that some of the best criticism can come from taking things that feel more throwaway and taking them seriously. Whether it's like a sitcom or whether it's a pop song, like engage with it seriously. Other people put their time and effort into it. And I think ultimately good criticism will engage with the work and not criticize the person or assume the motives of the person making it.

[Chris Ryan]

Have you ever thought about writing an 800 word takedown of Tate McCray and sending it to your kids as a text message?

[Andy Greenwald]

Have I thought about it? Yes. No. Actually, I kind of like the Tate McRae song, but there's a couple others that I'm taking some issue with.

[Chris Ryan]

That would be great if you started giving star ratings to the songs your daughter sent you.

[Andy Greenwald]

No, not star ratings like Chris Gal. Letter grades.

[Chris Ryan]

Letter grades.

[Andy Greenwald]

The other thing that I would recommend in terms of. Of getting a deeper to the spirit of the question, like deeper understanding or historical context for the industry is that I think you and I both love reading books about the industry. Like you could read Peter Biskin's books about the film industry and learn a lot.

[Chris Ryan]

William Goldman.

[Andy Greenwald]

You can read William Goldman and I recommend that you do. There's a great book that New York Review of Books put out recently called Picture by Lillian Ross, which is basically a series of stories she wrote about John Huston filming a movie in the 50s. She wrote it for the New Yorker and it's published as a book and it's just still completely relevant about what it's like to make anything. And also what it's like to become maybe close or too close to the subject of your reporting. Excellent, excellent book. But it's also why we recommend things like, and it came up the other week, the great author Don Carpenter's Hollywood trilogy, which are published as one volume now, which are basically because Don Carpenter came to Hollywood as a struggling novelist and had a lot of bad luck, because that's basically what this industry does to talented people, tend to chew them up. But he still loved moviemaking and movie people. And there's this melancholy joy about an era that I think is really instructive about what it was like to be around here in quote unquote, this town in the 70s and into the 80s. Is it the same industry as it was then? No. But the struggles and the allure remain real. And I think that that sort of helps broaden your understanding of it, that for as much as Netflix is a new INV and people really, really trying to get their ideas across the finish line isn't. And I think that helps inform our. Our reception of stuff and our engagement with it.

[Chris Ryan]

Since we are coming right off of you mentioning a couple of books, why don't we do some book recommendations or at least list some of the stuff that was our favorite of the year to read? Because we got a lot of questions about that. Some people still searching for the next Lonesome Dove, and I'm right there with you, brother. We could just trade on back and forth if you want. Like, what? Would you just give me a list of some stuff that you wanted to highlight, do you think?

[Andy Greenwald]

How close are we to really doing the Master and Commander books? Like, because every. I know that both of us go to bookstores a lot and we pick them up every time there's a new edition. And we're like, I'm not. That's not the age that I am yet. You know what I mean? But I feel like someday we're gonna have to pull the trigger on that.

[Chris Ryan]

I've been thinking about that a lot about, like, my dadification without a. Without an error, you know, but still my. My dadification, obviously. I had a quite a journey with the American Revolution this year. And, you know, Rick Atkinson is a historian that's heavily featured in the American Revolution. He's delightful on the show. I don't know if I would describe this delightful. He's quite informative and interesting person, but he seems like a dynamite dude. I just mean he's not like, cracking people up.

[Andy Greenwald]

Got it.

[Chris Ryan]

He wrote a trilogy of World War II history books called the Liberation Trilogy, which is about, I believe it's like North Africa, Italy and then the final push of liberating Europe. And I have in earnest started reading this like 15 times. And I just don't think I'm dadded out yet where I need to know like every single time they're like, and here were all the supplies that they loaded onto the boat. And I'm like, it's cool. But like, I also think I am still, I'm still fiction brained. I still want the best of the story, not all the story. So it's interesting that you should bring up Master Commander, which I know you know. I've never read them, frankly.

[Andy Greenwald]

No, me either. We've mentioned this in passing. I think the most exciting reading experiences I've had this year were Oliver Harris's Spy trilogy. We've talked about the first book, Shadow Intelligence. The second book, Ascension is amazing. I'm here to advocate for. I'm almost finished with the third book. The Shame Archive might be the best of the three. I cannot believe I owe you no gatekeeping. I feel like this recommendation came to both of us from Zack Baron. I think you were pushing it on me, so I did not Columbus this guy. But it is spy fiction that feels so terrifyingly contemporary in a way that most of the spy fiction, even contemporary spy fiction that we read just hasn't. It just feels like one nanosecond away from the world that we're actually living in and the fear that it can create in you, which is, you know, just a much more living emotional experience than when we read, you know, incredible Le Carre era, first half of his career era Cold War fiction. You know, it just maybe it had a different spark at the time, but this feels of the moment in a way that is really exciting. I would also advocate for. One of the other great reading experiences I had this year is the most recent book by Charlie Houston, who wrote the book Caught Stealing and the screenplay for the film. But you and I both enjoy it. I think it's streaming on Netflix now. He has a novel that came out this year called Catch Penny, which is like if Stephen King wrote a grown up burnout 90s rocker Harry Potter. It makes magic interesting and cool in a different way than I ever would have expected. I think it's just a great book and great read and hopefully turns into a great series someday. And I did the KYA recommendation. I really like Color Television by Danzy Senna. And then it's funny, this came up in the questions. But I've been Jeselnik pilled thanks to you and I saw his top 10 list and I picked up this book Perfection. I'm holding it on the camera which was his number one book. It's an Italian novel by Vincenzo Latronico and so far I've just started it and it's not a horror novel but it is about a couple right now who become expats and like surf Twitter for the news. And I'm finding it deeply, deeply chilling. But I was excited to get on the train of the guy who reads more contemporary fiction than anyone I've ever met.

[Chris Ryan]

I don't understand how he does it. It's like it kind of almost I thought I was like well how does Steven Soderbergh do what he does with his media diary that he does every year and he does like 25 to 30 new books a year or books a year and I just can't get through books that fast. And Jeselnik makes he does like one a week seemingly. I mean I guess maybe he doesn't watch short form video which would be be a huge time saver.

[Andy Greenwald]

Do you feel like he doesn't hasn't watched all 120 of James Dimitri's London greasy spoon reviews?

[Chris Ryan]

I don't think so.

[Sponsor Announcer]

Yeah.

[Andy Greenwald]

Think of all the books I could have read.

[Chris Ryan]

I have a question for you. Just about methodology.

[Andy Greenwald]

Sure.

[Chris Ryan]

How many books are you currently reading?

[Andy Greenwald]

It's a great question. I, I brought the three. No, I brought. I'm currently reading four books and I'm not proud of it.

[Chris Ryan]

How do you do that?

[Andy Greenwald]

That I, I. Here's where I'm at with my vertical video spoiled brain. Like yesterday, Sunday I had like a, a like a two hour window and the kids were busy and so I was like I really want to enjoy the feeling of reading a book. And I sat on the couch with three books next to me just hoping I could spark one including I just because you had reread it this year Martin Amos's Money and I'm like maybe that would hit right now.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah, that'll make you feel relaxed about being exactly traveling back and forth between London and another American.

[Andy Greenwald]

That was why I put it back down. But often re like rereading like I.

[Chris Ryan]

Was Jet lag is a virus.

[Andy Greenwald]

You can defeat it with whiskey. The read there, there's the ambitious reading. You know that one, the one is always trying to do and maybe that's the Latronico book right now there is the. I know I'm going to like this reading. I'm reading the new Richard Price, not so new. But you read it last year. Lazarus Man. I've got that open the Oliver Harris book that I'm loving. That is probably my primary right now. And then there's stuff like I'm reading All Consuming, which is a nonfiction book about how we eat now by a British writer. I really like Ruby Tando. And I feel like that goes into a different category. Cause that's a nonfiction brain. But then ultimately what I end up doing is I'm like, oh, there's another Elmore Leonard I haven't read. So now I'm reading Killshot instead of all of those other books.

[Chris Ryan]

So will you finish all those books.

[Andy Greenwald]

Of the ones I mentioned and I'm not just putting it down as a marker for you? Yes, I will finish all those books. Books. But I probably haven't mentioned the 11 other books that are under that have now been demoted to underneath my bedside table. Yes, I know that I won't read or finish, but I don't want to admit it to you on a hot mic.

[Chris Ryan]

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 or some shorter novels because I feel like they give me a sense of accomplishment. I'm not like, oh, I really needed another 400 pages of this. You know, it's been. I feel a little bit like I have training wheels on again where I'm like, oh, like, look who's getting back into Goodreads, just checking off some big ones. But I am crippled. But I cannot read more than one book at a time because I just feel like that's a recipe for me doing five pages of one thing, five pages of another, forgetting where I'm at, getting stuff mixed up, up. So I always admire you. Having a couple of pans on the stove is always really impressive to me. I'll just highlight a couple of things from this year. Some of them are 2025 releases. Some are a little bit more recently or just recent years. So Play World was probably my favorite book of the year. We talked about that a little bit earlier on the show. I believe that that was also a jes recommendation. It's Adam Ross's coming of age novel set in Manhattan about a young teenager who's wrestling in high school, observing his parents drifting apart, living with his young brother, and kind of have having the two 1, 2 as his playground because he's a latchkey kid and responsible for a lot of his own sort of minding. And then I will say a recent book that I read that I thought was pretty cool was Nymph by Stephanie Lakava. That is a kind of. I, I want to say it's. It reminded me a little bit of Don DeLillo's the names or like a very, like a sideways way of looking at a kind of pulpy plot. But this is about like a. A woman who becomes an assassin is. Isn't. Is an easy way of saying it, but it's, it's much more complicated and opaque than that. And I enjoyed the experience of reading it a lot. One recent novel, it's not a 2025 novel, it's a 2023 novel that I've been reading that I found out about from a piece in the London Review of Books by a writer named Leo Robson about the experience of going to movies over the course of his life, which I thought was a delightful piece. He recommends a novel called Brian by an author named Jeremy Cooper. And it is about a guy living in London in the late 80s who just starts going to the BFI movie theater every single night and his experience of his own life through the. Through his experience as a cinema goer. And it is a very, very lovely novel. There are parts of it that I see myself in and that I find a little bit alarming that I do. And then there's just some really well observed kind of descriptions of cinema going, but also life living that I think is quite well drawn.

[Andy Greenwald]

I told you that I was at one of your favorite haunts. I was at the Foyles Bookstore in Charing Cross two weeks ago and Brian, the novel was on a table and a bunch of younger people picked it up and just spent a good three to five minutes laughing about a novel being called Brian. That did scare me off of it.

[Chris Ryan]

Yes. Because I know it's important for you.

[Andy Greenwald]

To seem cool people at all times to young people. Constantly. Yes.

[Chris Ryan]

So, yeah, so those were mine. I have a bunch of spy novels that I read this year. Some more Len Dytons I'm reading. I read one set in the Balkans recently called White Eagles Over Serbia by Lawrence Durrell that was pretty good. But those were the big. The big ones were the ones I just mentioned. And I spent most of the second half of the year doing Vineland and it was really worth.

[Andy Greenwald]

The problem, I find, is that as one gets older, like the thirst to just have the experience of your favorite writers again, because it might not. And I still, I think you and I still live. And this is a good thing about us. I think we still live with the optimism and hope that we will have another experience. We'll discover a writer we'd never discovered before. Or it'll hit differently at a certain point. But like, I did have a feeling while I was sorting through the five or six books that I'm currently reading, which is just a chaotic way to live. Being like, I just want a McMurtry right now. Now I just want that again to be taken care of. So that may end. I I'm not saying I'm going to reread Dove yet, but it's getting closer.

[Chris Ryan]

Let's wrap up with one question that's directed towards you, but I'm very curious to know what your answer is, which is from Tariq. And it's one question for Andy. If you could make streamers or networks follow one rule to instantly improve the TV they're making, what's the rule you would choose and why?

[Andy Greenwald]

It's a great question, and I think that it speaks to the challenge in answering. It speaks to just sort of a a problem that cuts across almost every programming department, if that's even what they're called in town, which is there really is no institutional memory anymore that when these streaming services are sold or they repivot or they rebrand, there generally is a house cleaning and the people who work there, the institutional memory of working with each other, working with the various arms of the company. So it's not just like the development team, it's the development team with a history working with the production side of it to make sure that what they are buying are things that they can actually make and that they can work in tandem with each other and not across purposes. Like all of that has kind of fallen by the wayside. And it's one of the reasons why we don't only champion a lot of a disproportionate number of shows that come from HBO or fx. It's why when we talk about how the sausage is made, we point to their recipes, because those are the most entrenched development teams in town. They have been working together for years, in some cases decades, and they know each other's taste and they trust each other's instincts. And the result of that isn't just higher level of quality. I do still think there's a way we can say I understand why that's an HBO show, or I understand why that is an FX show in a way that we can't always say about Netflix, which Has exemplars of the form in almost every genre, but also a lot of nonsense. That said, here is my here's. This actually brings it full circle since we started talking about my Eagles anxiety. So one thing that I like, and this may be true for all 32 NFL teams, but I certainly only know it to be the case with the Eagles because I don't care about the other 31 teams, teams on draft night or on draft draft day or in the days leading up to the draft. They have an all hands meeting right within the the entire general manager's office and all the draft nicks and everybody where each person, no matter how junior, can make a bang the table case for why the team should draft this player if that player is available in whatever round. They're not saying that they should draft this like, you know, fluky non conventional running back in the first round. They're not saying that. They're not even saying they should draft that player for need in the third round. They're saying that if the ball, the board falls a certain way and they're planning on picking up depth at that position. We care about this individual person. We've met him, we've talked to him, we know his coach or we like the way he runs or we can envision it, they bang the table. And then after the draft, if any of those bang the table picks actually get made, of course the social media team showcases it as if, you know, it was just a mind meal between Howie and the Junior. Exactly. Exactly. I wish that these streaming services, this is my holiday wish, had a meeting like that at the end of the year where they could say, look, you know, we have our big ticket ip, we did our hospital procedural. We were covered in the categories that quote unquote, the town is buying this year. We've been reactive, we've covered our asses. Can everyone here who reads scripts that come in make a case for the favorite script that they red can you make a case not just why you liked it, but why it would do us good to program it? And there are examples of that happening and sometimes it's the best examples the network could point to. Showtime basically doesn't exist anymore. But the last Garland that Showtime had in its. Where do you put garlands? I don't remember. I got distracted. I was thinking about the late, great Merrick Garland still alive. But he's still alive.

[Chris Ryan]

Well, we lost a lot of folks this year.

[Andy Greenwald]

Was he ever alive? Unclear. Clear was Yellowjackets, which famously was like a junior executive, was like Nah, this is it. This is going to work for us. And was so adamant about that. It made its way all the way up the chain. They took a flyer on it and that became both a ratings hit and a buzz hit and a critical hit for them. And I just think it is a better industry when there are passion projects, not just for writers and creators, but for executives saying, like, I know this might not be guaranteed moneymaker for us, but all the shows that I listed as being the most important shows of the century, in my mind, none of those were slam dunks. None of those were the shows that were going to make money or that were created in response to the success of someone else's success. So listen to your people and let them bang on the table once a year, and I think we'd have a better industry for it.

[Chris Ryan]

That's a good way to end the pod. I think that that's a good rallying cry Greenwald. Another great year podcasting with you. Very delightful.

[Andy Greenwald]

The numbers are getting up there. Do you realize that this is January will be our 14th anniversary?

[Chris Ryan]

I know. Thanks to Kai. Thanks to Kaya. And you'll have our Pluribus episode on Wednesday after the Pluribus finale airs with some special guests. But until then, thank you for listening and we'll see you guys on January 5th.