12min chapter

The Watch cover image

A Eulogy for ‘Tokyo Vice’ With Mina Kimes. Plus, the Case for ‘Presumed Innocent.’

The Watch

CHAPTER

Analysis of Various TV Shows Including 'Criminal' and 'The Morning Show'

The chapter delves into a discussion on different TV shows such as 'Criminal' and 'The Morning Show', exploring aspects like storylines, characters, and performances. The hosts share their thoughts on the impact of popular shows on viewers and the challenges faced by platforms like Apple TV in the current TV landscape. They highlight the importance of storytelling and resonating content in entering the zeitgeist and attracting audiences.

00:00
Speaker 2
So I like those shows. I mean, you recommended Criminal Minds to me. Just, it's just criminal.
Speaker 1
Criminal Minds is a CBS, like that's been going on for like 20 years. And Mandy Patinkin was on it for a while. What
Speaker 2
is the show
Speaker 1
that you're... It's just criminal and it's Peter...
Speaker 2
It's called Criminal. See, this is the problem. That's the worst name for a show I've ever heard. It's Peter Capaldi and Kush Jimbo. And it's, I love like BBC detective shows like Broadchurch and this and Sherwood no. Criminal record. Criminal record. Criminal record. This is the problem with Apple.
Speaker 1
Why are we like it's either criminal minds or criminal and it's actually a third one. It's
Speaker 2
if you like cop shows that are sort of it's not a procedural it's about there's one case but it's about a crooked question mark cop and Peter Capaldi is let me tell you cooking with gas in this show is unbelievable. Christian Bose great too, but he is unreal. I don't watch Doctor Who, so I didn't know. I was a Shaq not familiar with your game, sir. It is incredible. So you've never seen the thick of it? You've never seen in the loop? Never seen the thick of it. Oh my god, you will die if you see the thick of it. It's so good. I'd be able to watch anything with this dude. Yeah. Bad Sister says Apple TV. I feel like more people watch that one. Manhunt is not, did you like it? I
Speaker 1
liked the first couple. And then I got to a little bit of like, I think that there was something to it where I was just like, I kind of understand where this is going. and I, I just had other stuff. I was watching it. It was like just good enough. I thought the first couple episodes were good. I, I, I think it's just a nature of the beast thing where like, I just don't always finish stuff if I'm like, I think I got it. You know how it ends. Yeah, I do know how it ends unfortunately.
Speaker 2
this is embarrassing, but part of the reason I watched until the end is while I do, I knew that they caught John Phoox's poo. Yeah. I like, 80% of the history in the show was news to your girl. Yeah. I didn't realize he was like the Ryan Gosling of the time, or that his trial that they were trying to, that there was a Confederate conspiracy, pardon me, or they thought that there might be, I had no idea about any of that. So I was just watching to learn history, Chris. Some of the casting that killed me. That might be dangerous
Speaker 1
to rely on Apple TV for major history lessons. The
Speaker 2
alternate history of the space race. That's
Speaker 1
like watching Masters of the Air and just being I guess every pilot was a total smoke show. This is cool. These guys had great skincare in 1943. Why
Speaker 2
does nobody, why is it just that people don't buy the service? Cause I don't think it's the, as we've discussing, the shows are good as you know certainly what's on Netflix in my opinion yeah
Speaker 1
I you know I'm sort of surprised by it I do feel like they they advertise their stuff fairly well I think it might be at this point and they're trying to correct that this year because they've got a new show every every month it seems like I think it's just a thing where people are pretty tapped out, and they've got their Netflix account, they probably have Amazon Prime, they have probably Max because they want to watch Dragon or Last of Us or whatever, and they're older, they're grandfathered in from the sort of peak prestige TV days of HBO. And Apple is something that like they were giving away for free with a couple of different cell phone plans for a while. And now it's like, do you want to pay for this? I don't know. I think it's also like a lot of their shows are kind of too vanilla to be super interesting, but not basic enough to be easy to watch TV. focus on hour -long dramas in a time when I don't really think that there's a lot of those, you know, and they're not superhero shows. You're not connected IP shows for the most part.
Speaker 2
Slow horses isn't grabbing the TikTok generation.
Speaker 1
I don't think so. I don't think Gary Elman farting has quite taken over TikTok just yet, but that's my favorite show is Slow Horses. The
Speaker 2
strategy aside from the sci -fi bent seems like just getting really famous or good actors, right? But I guess that's not enough because none of the it feels like none of these shows have sort of entered the zeitgeist where I see it inspiring Twitter trends or a conversation on social or just genera - like I just - other than Ted Lasso, which is sort of - I mean
Speaker 1
- season and a half of kind of like iconic, you know, everybody is talking about this. And then it kind of, I think it sort of ran out of error in the last season.
Speaker 2
Yeah. Yeah. So nothing's really captured people or captured America. So I guess, I don't know, if I was studio, I'd look at that and say, well, like the actor isn't enough because you're right. I mean, we're even, as we're talking about the basic plots or points of these shows, I'm not really even doing a good job explaining what any of them are about.
Speaker 1
Well, there is like an - Just like this one has. You know what? The one that I think probably did the best, if I had to guess, was Hijack. And Hijack did really good job just being what it was. Hijack was a pulpy, really well done, very expensive looking piece of pulp. And it was something that was compelling enough that you felt like I need to watch Hijack when it comes out because I need to find out what happens on this plane. And a lot of their shows more like 20 episode ABC shows from like the late 90s or 2000s or something that are just kind of like drifting. Lessons in Chemistry is a good example of that. I think to some extent Morning Show is, where Morning Show isn't just about a hot button political topic. It's about every hot political topic every hour. And it becomes really exhausting to watch.
Speaker 2
Morning Show, which I do watch somewhat to my own embarrassment because it is truly it's a lot it's pretty slop.
Speaker 1
Yeah. And let me just say all in on Morning Show season four because Mary and Koteer is in season four. And I guarantee you she has never seen the Morning Show. I guarantee you Mary and Koteer has never, she does not have Apple TV. If she does, it would be the shock of the century. If she's
Speaker 2
not, she didn't mainline drops of God. Drops of God, by the way, might be my favorite Apple TV show. I love trying to explain the premise to random people to convince... Drops of God is like the ultimate, because really a lot of your job is just convincing people to watch certain shows, Chris. Trying to convince the... We should do a man on the street where you try to convince a random Angelino
Speaker 1
to watch Drops of God. We should have Billy Eichner run up to them and be like, have you seen Drops of God? It's about wine. It's
Speaker 2
a competition between this guy and his daughter. It's a random Japanese person who... It's hard to explain without twins. She's allergic,
Speaker 1
but maybe not. Some of it takes place in Tokyo and it's a really beautiful shot.
Speaker 2
morning show, tonally quality, it's really similar to the newsroom for me, which was, I can't remember how well that did at the time. It was
Speaker 1
very difficult because that was a time when like, if you looked at Twitter, you would be like, I guess everybody on the planet watched newsroom last night, but it was probably 100,000 people.
Speaker 2
Yeah, like Aaron Rodgers. Yeah, I feel like the way now sometimes clips from the newsroom go viral for being cringe, like the infamous speech on the plane. I think in five years' morning show, we'll have a second life when people realize how insane it is. Yeah. But because it lives on Apple TV, I don't feel like it's kind of crossed over in that way, despite the fact that they're trying to collect every A -list and award -winning. actor that they can and just throwing them onto the show. I've
Speaker 1
often thought about coming in and just having a segment where I tell Andy what happened on Morning Show. It's something I really enjoy watching with my wife. But like, Reese Witherspoon nearly dying in space. That happened, right? Like, was it her character or was it Aniston? Aniston Bales, right? So, Reese has to go up there?
Speaker 2
There, it's, okay, yes. And they're also the stars of the show, but they're barely on screen together anymore. They are clearly not on screen together. It has, I don't know if you watched The Good Wife, but I don Joanna Margulies and Clint. Archie Padomme, yeah. Stop talking. I think to the point where they had to Photoshop the video equivalent of Photoshop, shoot them separately and use movie magic to... I don't think that's
Speaker 1
It's one of the last remaining mysteries in the world, is whether or not they were actually on set together during their last conversation on Good Wife. Good Wife.
Speaker 2
Good Wife, yeah. But yeah, The Morning Show is approaching that sort of territory with their two stars. I don't understand what's happening. It is one of my... That show, I feel like Amanda Dobbins and I have that show where when they did Jan 6, she didn't tell me and I just texted her, they're doing Jan 6 and she knew exactly what I was talking about. Similarly to how I
Speaker 1
was at January six. And her brother was there. Oh my God, dude. Oh God. That's another one where I was just like, I think I told they, I think Andy's only experience of this show after like the first episode of the first season has literally been me being like, Steve Carell is living in seclusion in Italy and is making a documentary about his cancellation. Yeah. What a waste of talent. Like there's so many good people on this show and it's just like, yeah, this is a good idea. But that's
Speaker 2
the thing. This Apple TV, like so many of these shows have such incredible actors. And to what end, I guess? Well, I think that I
Speaker 1
will say this for criminal record, I think I got a little bit frustrated by... It's basically this single case that gets just a little bit dragged out towards the second half of the season, but it starts very strong. I've got really high hopes for Presumed Innocent. One of the things that has bothered me, I think about Apple shows is the very like, affirmative, like not, it's not, don't worry, you won't get too disturbed by anything you see here. And I think with Masters of the Air, it took a while for me to get around, like, Band of Brothers in the Pacific are actually incredible documents of like, you know, why war is very traumatizing. And Masters of the Air had a little bit of that, but it was also like, you'll still look like Austin Butler when you land this plane. Like you were, there was never really a lot of like, reckoning with what was going on. It was just sort of like cool guys flying planes. Presumed it since the first thing I've come across on this service in a long time where it was like, pretty violent. It was a lot of sex and the characters are all very deeply, deeply flawed, not in a like cool way. Like it's like, these are really fucked up people. And it is a throwback to like that 90s erotic thriller style But I'll be kind of curious to see where the series goes because obviously this is a story that's essentially predicated on this giant twist, which may or may not be known. So I'm not going to spoil the movie or the book. And I think now there is like some 4d chess going on where people are like, well, it can't be doing the same twist. So what's the new twist? And you actually wind up watching it with these new eyes because you're like, huh, it doesn't seem like they're going to go in the same direction. It's not the same, same story, but at the same time, like, who could it be? So it actually has rekindled the mystery part of presumed innocent while being like a really well done show. This
Speaker 2
is David Kelly.
Speaker 1
Yes. It's David Kelly and Jake Gyllenhaal is the lead and then like, he's surrounded by like really overqualified character actors like Bill Camp and Peter Sarsgaard and Ruth Negga in the cast.
Speaker 2
Lily Ropp.

Get the Snipd
podcast app

Unlock the knowledge in podcasts with the podcast player of the future.
App store bannerPlay store banner

AI-powered
podcast player

Listen to all your favourite podcasts with AI-powered features

AI-powered
podcast player

Listen to all your favourite podcasts with AI-powered features

Discover
highlights

Listen to the best highlights from the podcasts you love and dive into the full episode

Discover
highlights

Listen to the best highlights from the podcasts you love and dive into the full episode

Save any
moment

Hear something you like? Tap your headphones to save it with AI-generated key takeaways

Save any
moment

Hear something you like? Tap your headphones to save it with AI-generated key takeaways

Share
& Export

Send highlights to Twitter, WhatsApp or export them to Notion, Readwise & more

Share
& Export

Send highlights to Twitter, WhatsApp or export them to Notion, Readwise & more

AI-powered
podcast player

Listen to all your favourite podcasts with AI-powered features

AI-powered
podcast player

Listen to all your favourite podcasts with AI-powered features

Discover
highlights

Listen to the best highlights from the podcasts you love and dive into the full episode

Discover
highlights

Listen to the best highlights from the podcasts you love and dive into the full episode