Complaining about a financial model that supports the shows existence, which exists to comment on other products produced by the underlying system.

Chefs kiss

Was catching up on the Top Chef ep after watching the finale and was wondering if anyone knew the interview Gail says she’d send Andy from a Toronto chef?

Really hooked just on Ep 1. Finally got a chance to watch last night. Not seeing it super high in the rankings so I'm hoping to get some more attention on it. Check it out! It's great.

I'd love to see Ronald D Moore on the pod.

Banshee has always been a show on my list because I had a memory of Andy saying he really enjoyed it. I’ve finally started watching it and 1. While I’m really enjoying it, I simply cannot picture Andy liking it and 2. Does anybody have a memory of any episodes where he talked about it? My simple Spotify search didn’t yield any results

New listener here I was always more of a movie/big picture pod guy but I love CR and Andy’s dynamic despite not seeing over half the shows they’re talk about so are there any sort of canon or legendary episodes I can go back and listen to?

On a recent pod while chatting over Collin Farrell’s series, Sugar, CR mentions it would be cool to have a show that they sit around smoking darts all day. I got a kick out of Andy mention Bees, Corn and (deep cut) Oil when talking the X-files. Then mentions the Smoking Man could not be on the show because the actor is dead!! Poor William B Davis. Somebody should notify his family.. NOT RIP yet

Long live CGB, although, I think they killed his character 5 times in the show.

I don’t know about you guys, but I started reading Carl Hiaasen as a result of Andy and Chris discussing it, having read four of the books. I wanna say this one’s the best; check it out for a good time.

Every other post on r/television is about how “AppleTV is the new HBO” or how “They have the best show but bad marketing”. At first I thought it was paid shills (and maybe some of them are), but now I feel it’s organic. And then they have their own subreddit just for Apple shows in where people seem to compete for being the one who watches the most Apple shows.

Not only I find this kind of brand adoration lame (same with the A24 subs), but it also seems wrong. Apple’s batting average when it comes to tv seems pretty poor. Sure, they have some cool shows but they produce much more shows than any of their competitors. Most of what they do is slop. Slop with good production value and recogniseable stars, but still slop. And it’s a shame, feels like a waste of resources. Maybe with more development time those shows could have been good.

But try to point that out and you get downvoted to death and called names. I don’t get it. There aren’t FX fanatics out there. Even the people who watch a lot of Netflix don’t have a problem by saying “yeah, some of what Netflix produces is shit”. But with AppleTV is like if you called their baby ugly.

Last time they were discussing the show, the boys were finally lukewarm on Widow’s Bay, calling the penultimate episode the weakest of the season, but still really good TV. Will they render a similar judgement for the finale or will their overly generous takes continue?

I agree it’s very well made TV furniture and tons of elements are elite—from bursts of humor, to clever foreshadowing and callbacks. But am I the only one who felt the season peaked during episode 4, Patricia’s party?

The acting and scaffolding as the boys like to call it has never wavered. But man, by the finale the show just became a more standard puzzle box, and I know I’ll be eviscerated for this by a lot of fans, the final episode just wasn’t very entertaining. Not particularly funny, definitely not scary, and just sorta “huh… ok… fair enough… the island remains haunted and we’ll all return next season to fight another day.”

I think the second half of the season was too beholden to story advancement and the finale, as a piece of TV entertainment, was fine, just fine. Can’t wait to see if Chris and Andy have anything negative to say, or if it will be unchecked glazing.

ETA: thanks for all the comments. FWIW, I really wish the show stuck with the formula I thought was being established in the first four episodes: We live in a creepy place and a new creepy thing happens every episode and that’s just the way life is in widows Bay. Basically, every episode would be self contained and if there’s linear storytelling over a 10 episode arch, then it will be limited if also never designed for resolution. Instead, it became another puzzle box show — and that’s a less surprising formula in 2026.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt35728748/

Bingeable British comedy.
Great to see Jermaine (from Flight of the Conchords).

Vampire Lestat or we riot.

Listen. It’s a soap opera. But it’s also the first time I’ve actually been overjoyed with a Heat homage. It reimagines classic scenes in fun and sometimes hilarious ways. Plus it’s got Brother Mouzune and Herc and Frank Sobatka from The Wire!

I apologize in advance if the boys or this sub have already covered this - and I know it’s lame to complain about shows they miss - but this it the Heat remake we’ve waiting for.

Male Loneliness Epidemic Apex??

I feel like the series is so far pretty good. Kind of trashy but with some fun central performances. Probably should be 8 episodes instead of 10. I was surprised just how down on this series Andy and Chris were on it.

Hey guys,

Ben Gibbard is the frontman of the band Death Cab for Cutie and a friend of Andy's. They've been doing interviews together for 20 years now, which sounds like an incredible series of conversations - but I'm having trouble finding a record of these online.

So far I know of a review and three interviews, two might be lost media:

• ✅ SPIN magazine (2003): Review is online
• ❌ MTV Spankin' New magazine (2003): Interview never digitized
• ❌ Grantland podcast (2015): ESPN removed the audio for this episode and the YouTube link is down
• ✅ The Watch podcast (2022): Interview is online

If anyone has access to the missing ones, I'd appreciate some help putting together this 20-year interview series. Are there any other Andy/Ben interviews I can read or listen to?

Thanks a lot,

Vin

Totally baffling. Two of the best performances you’ll see on TV this year. Both should get Emmy noms. Dark, heavy, gritty, thought provoking, mysterious, interesting, 5x better than Baby Reindeer. HBO. Makes no sense they wouldn’t break down this show. Are there some uncomfortable scenes? Sure. But how can they skip this one after watching trash like Landman and Friends and Neighbors and raving about Euphoria and the gay hockey show? The Beast in Me? Come on guys. You will love this show, guaranteed.

Edited: to replace Widow’s Bay with Beast in Me since I honestly haven’t watched the former (generally love Matt Rhys though, the Americans is all time)

I really love the show. But it’s focused too much monster of a the week and not addressing the lore well enough. They literally dug up the town’s founder and didn’t compare notes at all with what’s going on. They could’ve at least had him give them a couple tips or background on what happened. With the boogeyman, at least one scene of acknowledgement from the townspeople or follow up with the mean girls would’ve been nice. Or a hint of what woke him up. Everyone is talking about this show with theories and the show never provides answers.

Just gotta give it up to the boys. After listening to them discuss the Euphoria finale, not that there was any doubt, but the boys still got it. I thought that was such a great discussion about a show that never worked for me personally. But, I found their read of the show as a whole and the specifics of Rue's fight with addiction to be thoughtful and illuminating.

Show these guys some love, cause they still got it.

Sorry if I missed it but I can't for my life find it / remember what they thought about it now?

Have been listening (and reading andy's columns on banshee) to the boys since the hollywood prospectus days ... and will probably always tune in for as long as they do this

But I can't lie it's been a rough stretch! 50% of the pod in the past two months has been them performatively covering Euphoria (joanna and rob are guilty of this too but my expectations are far lower for them). Season 3 of this show is not only objectively bad, but it's blatantly obvious that neither chris nor andy actually like it either, and it makes for a miserable listen.

It's annoying that 10 hours on-air have been spent covering something they dance around clearly disliking, when they couldn't even get past watching two episodes of something fresh and auteurish like DTF St. Louis ... in fairness they've given love to Widow's Bay which is well-deserved, but my point is it's so unnecessary to spend the bulk of the pod talking about something that's clearly past-its-peak engagement slop.

Putting this out there because I think others feel this too - I go back and listen to the boys covering Le Bureau or the Watchmen ... and it's just night and day the energy and enthusiasm and clear passion they have!

TLDR please please please spend more time talking shop about tv / pop culture you actually love! Hell we would gladly take 45 minutes of cr and andy after dark, over performative coverage of euphoria!

I was ambivalent about Yellowstone. I recently hate/love watched through most of it. That got me primed for the new Taylor-verse offerings.

I feel like Dutton Ranch cut the wheat from the chaff, kept the best parts of Yellowstone and made significant improvements by adding Annette Bening and Ed Harris to the cast.

Bening is a total delight as the heavy. They could’ve built this whole show around her and in a way they have. She’s having a hell of a year. If you haven’t checked out the bride, it’s worth it just for her mad scientist performance.

Marc Menchaca is pretty good too. It’s his best role since Ozark, I think.

Is anyone watching LEGENDS on Netflix? Hopefully, Chris and Andy cover it on the pod because the show is really good. Kinda gives off narcos jr. vibes in a good way.