Wine and...TV: SEVERANCE Season 1, Part 1 - How Did This Get Made?

The best TV show of 2022, sez us! This is the first in a 5-part series covering all of Severance Season 1, the show created by Dan Erikson, directed by Ben Stiller and Aoife McArdle, and starring Adam Scott.

Part 1: How Did This Get Made?
Part 2: Episodes 1-3 (and wine pairings with those episodes)
Part 3: Episodes 4-6 (and wine pairings with those episodes)
Part 4: Episodes 7-9 (and wine pairings with those episodes)
Part 5: Interview with Chris Black, Executive Producer and Writer on Severance

In this episode, we run through the history of the show, cover how an unknown writer, Dan Erikson, got his script into the hands of the one and only Ben Stiller, how Stiller got Adam Scott onboard, and got the greenlight from Apple TV.

We also tangent quite a bit, and discuss spoiler culture and maybe we should take more personal responsibility for that, then speaking of responsibility, we discuss “consumer responsibility” when viewing streaming selections and/or attending the theater, plus pretension in both Hollywood and the wine industry. 

It's a bloody great talk! Though your mileage may vary. :P 

We will get to specific episodes and the wine pairings starting in Part 2!

Dan Erickson's 2011 short film, League of Wonder
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DwGe1O57jXo

Chapters

• 0:57 Rollout Plan for this 5-Part Podcast Mini-Series
• 2:57 Wine Pairing Plan
• 6:51 How Did This Get Made?
• 20:06 Spoiler: It's Not Hard to Avoid Spoilers
• 22:49 The Opportunity of Every Consumer: Vote with Your Views!
• 31:58 Our Respective Histories with the Show
• 41:15 Are You Pleasantly Surprised or Annoyed when Something is Good?
• 55:04 We Will Talk More About Severance in Part 2, We Promise!

Transcript

0:16

He's Dave and I'm Dallas and we have opinions on just about everything. Sometimes they're on point and sometimes they go down better with a glass of wine. Join us. This is the Wine and Podcast. Welcome back everybody to Wine and the show where we pair wine with movies, music, books, comics, and finally TV. We have arrived people. TV seasons are There is a lot to cover, a lot to watch in preparation. So we're going to do any given season of any given TV show across multiple weekly episodes. So for instance, sidebar, I'm recording this many weeks after the fact because the rollout plan has changed since we initially recorded this. The plan now is that our Severance episodes will be a five part mini series within the larger podcast. So for instance, today's part one is going to cover the history of the making of the TV show, our own respective histories with the show. And then we admittedly get a little sidetracked with some heady topics on consumer responsibility and pretension in both Hollywood and the wine industry. But then part two will then cover episodes one through three of Severance season one. Part three will cover episodes four through six. Part four will cover episodes seven through nine. And then part five, we have a. very special guest that we're going to have on Chris Black, the man who ran the writer's room for Severance and is the credited writer on episode eight. And he's also the co -creator and showrunner for another Apple TV plus show, Monarch Legacy of Monsters, The Godzilla Show, starring Kurt Russell out right now. Season two has already been greenlit, just like Severance season two has already been greenlit. So Chris has been working in TV since the late 1980s. He has worked on Weird Science, Sliders, Star Trek Enterprise, Desperate Housewives. Yes, that happened. He's also worked on Mad Men. I mean, you name it, he has probably worked on it. One of the reasons I'm recording this so many weeks later, this is probably two months after we recorded the first episode of this Severance coverage, is because I wanted to make sure that Chris could actually be on the show. He was filming in Australia for a month. And so once we locked him in, and recorded his episode, it's done, it's in the can. So once we had it in the can, I knew what the plan was going to be to roll all this out. episodes will drop twice per week. So this episode drops at the end of this week. Next week, expect parts two and three and then parts four and five the week after. So five episodes, two and a half weeks, then back to once a week EPS. Here we go. Part of the fun there is gonna be seeing if whatever it is we pair with these first few episodes today. continues into the future episodes. Maybe we feel there's enough distinction between different episodes to demand a different pairing, or maybe we simply update the additional great matches that we decided upon. Truly, there's never one single wine and one wine only that matches with any given thing. There's a reason Dallas and myself and our guests often all pick completely different wines or not wines. So so that's going to be a big part of the fun is just seeing like, how do we update? What do we add to the pile to the list of things that we think make a really great pairing? Maybe one batch of episodes were like, here's a match match. And then the other one were like, here's a contrast match. Here's a what would a character within the episode be drinking if I was a character within the episode or maybe one of the characters that we're actually watching? We'll see what we do. We're going to get creative with it. But let's get to the housekeeping. Let's get that out of the way and get this party started. So As always, if you like what you hear, please make sure to hit that follow or subscribe button. It does help the podcast grow and reach new listeners. And if you love us, then please leave a five star review on Apple iTunes or any other platform that allows reviews or scores. And if you don't love us, just bury it deep, deep, deep, deep, deep. Don't let it out. Just just feel angry. Very, very angry. Be but you be Banner, not the Hulk. Right. Just keep it buried and don't let that beast out. Or just send us an email. All right, if you really want to do that, just send us an email, which is wine the letter N as Nancy pod pod at gmail .com. could not get wine and at Gmail. could not get wine and pod. They were all taken you assholes who has those emails. You're not even using them for anything you worthwhile, but we had to get wine the letter N pod pod wine and pod at gmail .com. Send us an email. We will read it. We will even honestly we are is early enough. in the show that we will actually give a shit. We will care and actually listen to what you have to say. So send us an email now if you have feedback. And if you just loathe us and you're like, what the fuck is this show? We want it to die. OK, fine. Leave us a poor review or score, I guess. But for the most part, don't just send us an email. We'll take the feedback, but then don't kill the show. Right. All right. So other also I wanted to mention you can find uncut. lengthier versions of these episodes. So you really love us right along with articles on the intersection between entertainment and wine interactive polls, bonus pairings and more on our sub stack wine and dot sub stack .com. Go there find all interact with us. There's ways to chat with us. There's ways to leave comments. Some of that content is free. Some of it is for paid subscribers supporters of the show only. but go check that out on our sub stack, winan .substack .com. And if you are on your phone, you can also send us a quote unquote text. You'll find a clickable link at the beginning of the description of this episode. It doesn't work on every platform, but it does on most. Click that, which opens up your text app, send us a direct message via that, which shows up in our Buzzsprout inbox as a message and does not show us your full phone number. Never fear, it only shows us your final four digits, like how a credit card shows up on a receipt. It's just a right here right now quick and easy way to send us a message, especially if you just want to be like you rock. Thanks. We love that. Please send us more of that. No crybaby complaints. We don't want the crybaby complaints. Save that for email because we want the crybaby complaints to actually be constructive. So don't send us a text because you're not going to write enough. You know, you're just going to send something like really that we're not going to be. It's going to be like one or two lines and you're going to be like my thumbs are tired and then you're just going to send it. So save that for the email where you're actually going to type something coherent in that. can actually take in all the way. All right. Today, we are here to talk about the best TV show of 2022 hands down, Severance on Apple TV Plus. First, a little bit of background and then we will talk about our backgrounds with this TV show. So Severance was created by writer Dan Erickson. Erickson had worked in development for the revamped Super Deluxe production company, which pumped out a seemingly endless supply of reality TV shows between 2015 and 2018 before going out of business. Now, they were they actually were a company that wasn't business in the OOs went out of business, then came roaring back to life in 2015. And it was the 2015 incarnation that Dan Erickson was a part of. He worked in development there. Ericsson himself had written pre -shows for Lip Sync Battle between 2016 and 2018. But this and a 2011 short film League of Wonder, which I will have, it's on YouTube for everyone to watch. I will leave a link of that YouTube short video down below in the description of this episode. These were the only credits to his name as writer prior to Severance. He submitted the pilot script to the Blood List. Got a little attention there. You may be familiar with the blacklist, the end of year list for the best on produced scripts that made the rounds. Well, the blood list follows a similar format, but exclusively highlights projects in the thriller, science fiction, horror, dark comedy, dark fantasy, and psychological drama genres, or like what we like to colloquially call quote unquote genre fiction, right? mean, drama is a genre, comedy is a genre, yes, but in the local colloquial parlance, Straight drama and straight comedy are not genre fiction, quote unquote. They're too straight for whatever reason. So what we consider genre fiction, if you ever see like a festival and they're like, we're a genre fiction festival or what have you, they mean the not straightforward dramas. So you have to have like black comedy. You can't just be a comedy. have to be black comedy or horror comedy or some sort of blend of that. And then of course, all the sci -fi fantasy horror, all of that is all wrapped up. psychological thriller, all of these things are considered genre. So Blood List is the blacklist for explicitly genre fiction. Severance is about a team of office workers who have their memories surgically severed between their work life and personal lives, which sounds as Patton Oswalt described it at the Severance Comic -Con panel, like the greatest Philip K. Dick novel never written. Erickson submitted this pilot. to Ben Stiller's Red Hour production company as a writing sample. And Stiller liked it so much, he bought it on the spot and put it into development. And as we all know, the damn thing actually got made. Though it did take five years for it to get made. That's with Ben Stiller attached and Adam Scott, who was on board as of 2017. The series was finally given a series order by Apple TV Plus in November. 2019. So something I want to point out here, I have a bit more history to give but quickish side note, the timeline here means that Ericsson wrote the pilot well before he submitted it to Red Hour, right? And submitted it to Red Hour in 2017. Then it took five years for it to premiere in 2022. That means Ericsson had only just begun working at Super Deluxe during the years that Severance was in development. And he wrote the pilot even prior to that. So folks, just keep in mind, Ericsson had to keep working, keep hustling. keep his day jobs. Ben Stiller picking up his pilot did not mean he got to quit his day job. Only the series getting made allowed for that. And now of course, he's a writer show runner by nature. He doesn't have to work for groups like Super Deluxe anymore. At least not so far. We'll see what the future brings because the entertainment industry is in a very interesting contracting as they call it place. We're going through contraction. We're going through a lot. More rounds of layoffs still didn't stay. Production is not ramped up. Post strikes the way we all expected it to or hoped it would. So we'll see what the future brings. But right now, Severance, motherfucker, Severance is great. So a few more things before we get to the conversation at hand. Some changes were made to the OG pilot. Originally, it was Ben, Adam Scott's character, who wakes up on the table. And Helly R, played by Britt Lauer, who wakes him up and is that older sibling mentor to him. And according to Stiller, the OG pilot was much, much weirder, if anyone can believe that. It was much more quote unquote acid trippy. Erickson mentioned at a Comic -Con panel at one point that a pair of disembodied legs ran by in one scene. But that didn't make the didn't read that note. So there was a lot of things like that that were in the original treatment, the original pilot that were excised from the final pilot where it became a bit more streamlined. So it's weird, but it's not weird in a, as Ben Stiller put it, acid trippy way. Now it's weird in just a mood slash like everything's off and you're not sure. what's going on or why half the time in the show, but you don't get the feeling that the show doesn't know what's going on or why. that's a key difference right there, right? Adam Scott was the first to be cast for the show. He'd been looking for something outside of comedy ever since the ending of Parks and Rec. Now, and he even came from drama first and then fell into comedy. But once he fell into comedy, that actually, and he fell into comedy because he had done, I'm gonna forget the name of the show. but he was on a show that was very dramatic and he liked, was like, it's a very good show. I love this cast, but it was very serious. And he's like, I had to go to work. And like, how am going to cry today? Because I'm gonna, my character is gonna cry. And then he did Step Brothers, the movie. And it was, it was like a whole different experience. He's like, I want to go to work. Like I'm feeling like lighthearted and like bouncy and this is going to be fun versus like I have to be in character. and I have to like find my way to do the scene. And after that, he really wanted to do comedy for a while, but post Parks and Rec, he's like, okay, now I've done that. Now I've done it for a good long chunk. So how do I get back into drama? And he actually had difficulty in securing any such part. because Hollywood is Hollywood and now he's the Parks and Rec guy, right? Now he's the sitcom guy. So now he's comedy. No one, everyone magically forgot that he had ever done drama. Like even Dallas, heard his own, I'm like, he came from drama and Dallas was like, you know, and that's like, yeah, we forget. Life moves on and you are always what your most recent big, especially if it's a big hit. you recently did, if no one watched it, no one cares. And that's cool. But if everyone watches it and it's a hit, that's who you now are. But he was able to get a small part on Big Little Lies. That was his first little transition back into drama. And then Ben Stiller, his credit, thought of Adam Scott and sent him the pilot script for Severance. Yet even though Stiller sent Scott the script directly, Scott was certain he would never get the part. In his own words, quote, when you read something that's great, you think, well, I'm never going to do it. They're never going to give it to me. But they did. And the rest is history. Beautiful. rest of the cast was rounded out by Zach Cherry, Britt Lauer, Trammell Tillman, Jen Tulloch, D 'Chun Lackman, Michael Cherness, John Totoro, Christopher Walken, and Patricia, motherfucking goddess, Kett. yeah. The series premiered. The series premiered. On Apple TV Plus on February 18, 2022, it received acclaim from critics and audiences for its cinematography, direction, production design, musical score, story, and performances. The series received 14 nominations at the 74th Primetime Emmy Awards, including outstanding drama series and acting nominations for Scott Titoro, Walk -In, and Motherfucking Goddess, Arquette. It won for main title design and musical score in April, 2022. The series was renewed for a second season, which wrapped principal photography in April, 2024, just two months prior to recording this podcast. Hmm. Whoo, baby. Yeah, it's, it's, it's got a crazy little production history. Every time I talk to someone about this show, they are so surprised that Ben Stiller is associated with. not only associated with it with production, but associated with directing at least six of the nine episodes. So it's kind of fantastic. It's a trip for sure. And another bit of trivia here, So Ericsson has been has gone on record sort of saying that some of the inspiration comes from the creepy pasta. Back rooms. Back rooms. Internet meme, if you remember, was very popular, sort of a quasi -alternate reality games based on eldritch locations, are just sort of alternate worlds, filled with infinite sort of spaces and rooms. And it's curious because I remember playing around with those years ago and - I'd never heard of them. Really? Yeah, it was only looking up the history of this project that I was like, what the fuck are back rooms? Had no knowledge of any of that. And what's amazing is, you know, when we watched that first episode, I remember sitting there thinking, God, this feels like that sort of those games that I played years ago. And it's part of the reason I think I enjoyed it so much, because it was just kind of meandering through this fairly empty world. with no real sort of texture in the background to kind of give you a clue as to what's happening. yeah, just a bit more trivia about this sort of crazy world that comes from Ericsson. Yep. Yep, yep, yep. And so the three episodes we're going to be talking about today, we're going to talk episodes one, two and three. All three are directed by Ben Stiller. That's right. It's only and then our second podcast episode when we cover episodes four through six, That is the only other director on the show, Efe McArdle or Effie McArdle. I'm never sure how to pronounce that Irish name, is Effie or Efe. But I'm gonna go with Efe, Efe McArdle, who directed all three of those middle episodes and then Ben Stiller returned for the final three episodes and that's it. Two directors on an entire season. That's kind of unheard of, folks. don't, mini series will sometimes have the same director all the way through with only a little bit of pinch hitting. which I guess you can kind of maybe look at Severance closer to a mini series than a series series. yeah, it has a limited series kind of feel for sure. A little bit. you know, I'm going to say this right now because I'm a little confused. Now they have not, even though season two wrapped production two months ago, there's still no release date for it. They have not announced it for season two. And apparently there's only six episodes in season two, which is baffling to me. I'm not. I'm really uncertain how what to make of that. Especially because in this season one, Dan Erickson wrote episodes one, two and nine the last episode, right? And with other with other writers coming in for the episodes in between. In season two, he only wrote the first one someone else even writes the end of season two. So at first I was thinking, you know, season two is only six episodes. Maybe that's the finale, maybe that's it, because they're like, this is all the story there is. So let's just wrap it up in six episodes versus nine versus 12 versus whatever, because that's all the story requires. But because it's not Dan Erickson writing the finale of season two, I'm like, okay, no, exactly. This is a weird interim season. Yeah, yeah, where I'm like, this is gonna be they're advancing a few things, but this maybe they're saving why only six episodes? I'm like, And that's why I really think it's an interim thing where they're they're exploring maybe something a little more on the side to the core. Yeah. And then they're going to bring it together maybe in season three. think it's either that or I imagine what Apple has done since the response has been so, so interesting is they're probably asking them to lean into. this sort of black mirror kind of aspect and kind of like you said, sort of veer off into other sort of secondary kind of themes and worlds. I also think they may play with the link a little bit more per episode. So we'll see. I'm quite excited about this. So. Yeah. All right. There's nothing online, no hints whatsoever online. what's going to happen? which is for the best. mean, I'm not someone who I never get involved with online discussions and TV shows for that very reason. A lot of people are like, but spoilers, but spoilers, why does everyone spoil everything? And I'm like, what are you doing to constantly be spoiled? Because I'm like, I can go through life and I'm online all the time and I can still go through life and not know what's happening in my TV shows that I like. It's not hard. You just stop opening every fucking article about it. Like let it go. When the season drops, you'll know when it drops, it'll be available to you. You know when it happens. And then and unless that headline is like, here's the date, you know, it's not a headline you want to read unless you want hints and spoilers. And then they're going to watch all the trailers. They're every fucking trailer, every version of the trailer. Get involved in discussions about every version of the trailer. Have people tell them other things they read elsewhere. And I'm like, right. If you're going to do all of that, You need to shut the fuck up. need to shut the hell up and go home. Right. Because you're doing it to yourself at that point. It's like either have a modicum of fucking patience and just wait for the goddamn thing to drop or be spoiled. That's right. But that's your options. And but it is an option. And you are choosing every fucking time to be spoiled. You have to stop blaming everybody else and the Internet and the whatever the fuck. It's your choice to do that. And so many people are like, No, no, no, it's everywhere. It's ever present. I'm like, No, no, because I it is ever present. And I'm never spoiled. Like, I know it's a choice, because I'm on the other side of that choice. I make that choice all the time. I see an article that's like, behind the scenes of Datsudon. I'm like, Okay, no, I don't want to read that article. Because it might it might spoil some things that might I'll know more of the cat. I don't even want to know who's cast in season two. And I haven't looked that up. I like I've seen the list of names like in passing and I don't look look at that list because I'm like no I'm just gonna watch the show just like I did for season one because season one of course no one knows it's coming no one gives a shit what it is so no one reads up anything about season one really and then you watch it and you're pleasantly surprised keep that you were so into Severance season one because it was a surprise because you knew nothing about it going in Why would you not want to repeat that experience? Repeat that experience, folks. Don't read all the shit. There are also people who just enjoy complaining. They just enjoy complaining. And I think that's most of that crowd. And people also, know, people are very... This is something that I feel like a lot of younger folks as you get older or even older folks now, maybe we're just in a point of our... culture and society where 10 years from now we'll all understand what we've done. But right now we're refusing, which is, you as a consumer, consuming something is the only, it's an opportunity to, to vote essentially what you want more of and what you don't want more of. It's your vote to support something or not support something. And we're living in an era right now we're consuming is just drop of a hat. Something is released, you want to be part of the conversation, want the points on social media. And so you're going to consume it so you can talk about it. Right. And it's like, okay, but then you will get five more rebel moons. Absolutely. Like you will. And Netflix will invest 500 and half a billion dollars in five more rebel moons. Just because of that. Exactly. Just because or least predicated mostly on that initial bump. of everyone tuning in so they can be a part of the conversation. And the reality is, if you don't want more Rebel Moon, then you'd likely know you don't want more Rebel Moon going in. Right. Or you do, and then you watch it to support it. you're a Snyder bro, you're like, like Snyder, I like everything he does. You're like, great, then watch it. That's your vote for it. But everyone else who wants to talk about it but doesn't like what Snyder, and you can tell by the trailer that it's going to be Maybe maybe it's a better version of Snyder, but it's still Snyder and it looks just like a Snyder movie like plainly. He's not doing anything wildly different there. So, you know, going in what it is when you consume it, all Netflix cares about is the view and especially in early review. They need a view. Sorry. Not review, just view. So that is the vote. Like if everyone watches it its first couple of weeks, boom, Netflix will make more of that. And we know the industry is contracting right now. They're going to make less of everything. So you're watching Rebel Moon means they will dump a lot of less money. They have less total budget to make things and they're now going to make more of this big bloated Snyder blockbuster stuff. And that means a lot less of everything else. So your opportunity as a consumer is to vote for one thing and not the other. I think a great example of this, let's take Furiosa, the latest Mad Max movie that's in theaters right now, right? Or the fourth Bad Boys. If you want, Furiosa might be for you personally a misfire. You might watch it and be like, I liked Fury Road better. Sure, absolutely. But the question is, do you want studios to take risks like Furiosa in the future? Or do you want them to stick to the safe thing which will be another Transformers, another Bad Boys, or maybe you want more Bad Boys, which is totally fair. Honestly, I haven't seen number four, but I saw three. I liked it quite a bit. Bad Boys three, they're safe, but they're good. Minor inventiveness, but very minor. It's a great, it is one of those generational, like these icons are aging. It's all about them aging. It's all about them becoming the older version of themselves. That's fun, it is all it's still like, let's just keep dragging things from our past up and never do anything new. Which do you want that? Now, Mad Max ain't exactly new either. So let's let's get that out of way there, too. Let's make sure we've given some lip service to the fact that Max is an ancient franchise. But talk about a legacy franchise. Right. Yeah. But at the very least, two things about Mad Max I want to point out. One, George Miller is on record as saying that every single Mad Max movie he makes, he He considers it a complete reinvention of the franchise every single time, which is why Thunderdome does not feel like Road Warrior, which does not feel like the first Mad Max, which does not feel like Fury Road, which now Furiosa is itself a different beast than Fury Road, which a lot of people are like, yeah, it's not Fury Road again. And it's like nothing Miller does in Mad Max will ever be like the one he did before. That's right. And God bless you for it, Miller. Right. Right. It's always a fight to make these movies in the studio system like we know just that he needs. It took almost 20 years for him to make Fury Road. And he had to make Happy Feet one and two in order to get Fury Road made. these movies are, you know, again, do you want risks like a Mad Max franchise or do you want risks like a like a bad boys franchise or do you want quote unquote risks like Transformers or Ghostbusters? It's up to you or more Zack Snyder, rebel moon. These are choices that we as consumers have to make by watching or not watching shit. And you have to make that active fucking choice. There are consequences to just buying tickets to nonsense. There are consequences. Like you said, they're not buying tickets. That's the other point. That's the counterpoint is like you Dave are saying, if you want them to take more risks and you have to support the risks with your attendance, you have to. Right. And go with word of mouth to the best of your ability, but also things like The Creator that came out recently. It might not be the most mind blowing movie ever ever made. It might not be the thing that like wows you per se, but it was a stab at making a lower budget block sci fi effects heavy blockbuster. Who did the creator? The creator was the American Godzilla director, Monsters director. yeah, yeah, you're right. We just talked about him in the Godzilla episode. Edward... crap, we just talked about him. circle back around. director. Right, right. Star Wars Rogue One director. So on and so forth. But he was doing this, he went back to his kind of gorilla, like they were doing this almost gorilla filmmaking again back in the day. And so something that should have been a $250 million blockbuster, he made for 80 million. So he brought that price tag way down while still making it big. Honestly, he even thought he could make it for less, but he was shooting post pandemic when all prices skyrocketed. And so. ballooned from I think he wanted to make it for 50 or 60 million and it went up to 80 million just because everything was suddenly Inflation hit everything was more expensive than he then blah blah blah by the way guys shameless plug if you haven't seen his which is basically his calling card monsters monsters It's just it's beautiful. It's a ride. It's fun. You don't notice the price tag, which is always a great thing so But anyway, we're going to get to actually talking about severance here and just to reiterate one last time, one last time. Consumers, you are consumers. You can either consume everything willy nilly, but then you do lose the right to complain about everything being the same and never getting anything different. Say that one more time for the cheap seats. You can choose to consume everything willy nilly. But if you do, you lose the right to complain that everything is the same and all you get is the same thing that you've been consuming willy -nilly left and right. I had a conversation online with someone and I know it was a conversation online, but nevertheless, this still surprised me. I had a conversation with someone online where I basically stated, was like, but if you watch it on Netflix, and I think this was Rebel Moon we were talking about, I'm like, if you watch it on Netflix, you're voting for, you're supporting it. You're voting for more of it. And I don't know, it was an internet thing. It was online. I think it was on Letterbox. So I have no idea how old this person was. I don't know what generation they were from. don't know if they're in their teens, 20s, 60s, who fucking knows. But they literally were like, that viewpoint baffles me. I don't see it that way at all. Wow. Really? They fully rejected it as a theory of how it works. And they were like, no, if I watch something that has not, I'm not voting for it one way or the other. And I was like, it doesn't matter what you personally think. Like, that's the point. It's like we know views are how Netflix makes all its decisions, just views. And especially opening quote unquote opening weekend views and opening month views and how long it stays on their top 10. If everyone races to watch something to talk about it, they will make more of that. They will. And if you didn't like it, if you're all talking about how much you don't like it, Netflix don't give no shit. They only care that you race to watch it and that you will race to watch the sequel to give it to talk more shit about it. That's all they care about. And so you are voting for more shit if you think it's shit. If you don't think it's shit, if you're like, no, I like this. Well, great. Then you did it right. Because that is your vote for that thing that you like. Anyway. All right. Down off the soapboxes now. Yes. subject here. So Severance Dallas. So for me, My story is pretty simple. did watch Severance pretty shortly after it debuted on Apple. I watched it back in 2022, I believe. It just looked super, super intriguing. And it was brand new. So I was like, you know what, let's watch it because I might not like it or it might be one of those like it's intriguing, but it's intriguing in all the wrong ways or like a lost kind of a thing where you're like, they're just making this shit up as they go. There's no plan here. I'm not I'm not on board with this. Is it intriguing? Yes. Do I like it? I think no, I think I'm checking out. But in the end, I had just recently watched all of Netflix's Dark, the German TV show. Time travel, multiversal, mind fuck of a movie that blew me away. And Severance looked like it might be a much calmer, lower key version of that, but similar mind fuck, but in a good way. And it absolutely was. And I love Adam Scott, I love Parks and Rec. So I watched it, I watched it. We watched it fairly quickly. I'm not a binge watcher. I hate binge watching. That was my next question. How did you consume it? Okay, good, good, good, So we must have watched, the nine episodes took us at least two months to watch. And I'm okay with that because especially I know I was watching it early on. So I'm like, I know I got a year or more to wait for season two. So like, again, what's the rush? What's the rush? take your time and let it settle and let it percolate. So I'd seen all of this before preparing for this podcast. This was my second viewing. I had not rewatched it since. And it was, you know, I remember I remember loving it. And this show, the both the the both strikes really postponed this show tremendously in terms of its production of season two. So I've had a lot of time. to sit on season one much longer than we should have. So I did not remember all the details like episode one right off the bat. We'll talk more in depth about this in a minute, but right off the bat, I wrote a note down. like, so much more happens in this episode than I remember. I remembered the show being quote unquote slow burn and it is, but it isn't. It's only nine episodes. So in a way, shit happens fast. Shit is. always happening. It's they're introducing new characters. Every episode advances the plot in unexpected ways that you're like, Whoa, I did not expect this to move so fast. You expect it to kind of be glacial and just like brood on the weirdness and just sort of sit like they'll introduce one new weird thing and then just sit on that for two or three episodes. No, every episode is like taking you further into this weirdness and darkness and and offness of the whole thing in shocking ways. So The second rewatch has been very I'm loving I like it even more So Dallas go ahead So, you know, I'm I'm generally a guy who doesn't follow the hype in terms of a show's release I will watch a trailer and if the trailer tells me too much about the show generally I'm not interested that goes for the same same for film and when this came out, I remember seeing a brief sort of teaser trailer and they had included some of the opening title sequence montage, which is basically sort of an AI kind of animated. AI animated, yeah. Generation kind of thing. And it was the first time I remember seeing that in sort of, you know, a studio. Right. And folks who are opposed to AI, can I just say, I think This is one time when I'm really all for it because the AI, it looks so weird and eerie. it's blatantly AI or whoever animated it was trying to replicate AI animation and AI drawings. And remember this was probably made, this dropped in end of 2022. So this must have been made early 2022 or late 2021 when it was all being worked on, who knows. This was early into the AI thing, but The show does so well with it because the show is so off, right? And this animated sequence, you're looking at these AI animated Adam Scots and you're just like, God, they look eerie as fuck. And it's so perfect. It hearkens back to why the creepy pasta era was so interesting because there was always a little dissonance, a little sort of lack of resolve in the animation, in the frames and it was creepy. was definitely creepy. And the title sequence for Severance is so creepy, but the colors are sort of vibrant. And so there is this kind of contradiction that forces the eye to watch every frame. And it is one of the first times in 20 years where I actually watched every frame of a title sequence, and then rewatched it and then rewatched again. So when this first came out, You know, I said to myself, OK, this is this is probably just going to be them throwing everything at the goddamn board to see what sticks. It's probably not going to have any cohesion like lost like lost. Exactly. And to be fair, we have no fucking clue if that's still going to happen in season two or season three. So but season one on its own has sold me. But when this first came out. I sort of poo -pooed it. I wasn't really watching anything. I kind of checked out of the streamers, honestly. I was over it. And it wasn't until about three or four months ago, my partner said, you know, let's watch the first episode of Severance. I was like, all right, fine. You know, wasn't really a big fan of Adam's comedic work. I really am not a huge fan of seeing him in comedic roles. Really? Yeah. But let me tell you. I don't care if he does another comedic role in his life. He was perfect in Parson Wreck. only want to see him in drama. He is fucking phenomenal and thrillers. He's just, his subtlety, his... Anyway, so yeah. Can I just say as a quick in defense, not that you... mean, comedy is so subjective, so it is what it is, but... His subtlety is what I think makes him so good in comedy because everyone else is like larger than life and his reactions and his characters are usually very subdued. Right. Even though they're twisted slightly for comedy purposes. and like how he reads in comedy and how he reads in drama is distinct. Yes. It's nevertheless he has this very every man, plain spoken, very subdued. Like his reaction in Park and Rec, like everyone is going You know our very cartoon characters and then he's just giving the audience that look like you know He's like Jim Halpert in the office. Yeah, right. It's like that character who is So us because he's looking at the zaniness and the shenanigans and being like yeah, these guys are all wack. He's the audience, right? yeah, yeah, yeah but I You know they play I what's crazy is I totally forgotten that I had put this show on my list two years earlier when it came out. And so we played the clip and the opening sequence, the title sequence played and I was like, what the fuck is this? This has been fantastic. It's cause I just love it. It's kind of a skew. love the distance. I love it all. And, and that first, first two scenes, I was just, I was hooked. The first two scenes, the fact that they were so sparse, and the location and the set and just they had me they had me and I was annoyed by it. So yeah, that that's my sort of route into this world. And it's just been fascinating ever since I will say I learned that Ben Stiller was associated with the show halfway through episode one and immediately got a little offended. I'm not sure what that was. I have a knee -jerk reaction to Ben Stiller sometimes. You have a knee -jerk reaction to anything mainstream. And the moment you see something Ben Stiller, you're like, I can't like this anymore. It's Ben Stiller. I'm not supposed to like Ben Stiller. not what I say. I take a moment. pause and consider, I go, no, there's a moment of pause. I will absolutely admit that. you know, I sort of let, you know, let that go. And I let, you know, my sort of idea that I wasn't a fan of Adam Scott, you know, he's an actor, of course, he's going to, he's a chameleon. And, you know, it just sort of blossomed and opened up right, opened up right in my fucking face. And I was hooked. And I was annoyed. Again, I keep saying this, I was absolutely annoyed that I was hooked. You shouldn't be. See, the only, you know, I I'm hoping this podcast will turn over a little bit of a new leaf for you over time in terms of, know, like you have this way of viewing things, I think. And you can see it in the language choice that you use, like you're annoyed that you like something. And it's like, why? Why not pleasantly surprised? Like, why is it annoyance for you when someone comes through even like especially when a creator or a studio or an actor, whoever it is, someone comes through in a way you wouldn't have given them credit for. And it's like, that's awesome. That's great. Like that to me is why you watch any media, why you consume any media is for those experiences. So don't be annoyed. The annoyance isn't at the individual's work. That's not the annoyance. The annoyance is that I walk in expecting, you know, sort of a certain thing or something not to be good. And yes, I'm not saying that pleasant is that sort of idea of pleasant being pleasantly surprised isn't the next beat because it clearly is. But the initial beat, the initial beat is annoying because now I have to I can't discount it outright. Well, why do you want to? That's the thing. Because there's so much trash, damn it, and I don't have time. Right, but this is not that. And that's the thing. You've now found something that is not trash, as far as you can tell. Right. And so that's it. Your search for now is over. Right. You get to have something. So again, why annoyance? That's just the machinery. That's the machinery. That's the thing I'm to to to that's never going anywhere. that's never going anywhere. I'm hoping we change now. Change is change is constant. great. Yes. So change in people, evolution is good. No, okay. It's good. You don't want to go as long as what and I know you would consider it like I'm not going backwards, but you've never been different. You've never been open to what you would consider mainstream trash. So you're not going backwards. You're just allowing The moments. do mean? I the Transformers series. What you talking about? I'm really, I'm clearly open to mainstream dress. You do not love the Transformers. I love Michael Bay's nonsense. I love it. But the Transformers nonsense specifically. Yeah. Love it. It's, it's just, it's pure ridiculousness and there is no other. Okay, so you're okay with liking something ironically in that regard, right? So you're okay, like dismissive, like in a way where you're like, but I love it because I know it's no good. I love it because it's beneath me. And but then when you see something where you're like, fuck, they're good. Exactly. That's what it is. because in that first reaction is annoyance, you know, tandem to that right after that, the next beat is absolutely pleasantly surprised. It's just, you we got to go through the annoying stage first. I suppose, suppose. You're so pretty. But I always love - Were you about to say pretentious? yeah. Come on. So I was just rephrasing. I was about to say it anyway, which is I was just like starting the sentence over again, but I have a knee -jerk reaction against pretentiousness. I think in both entertainment and the wine world, like whenever Nolan or Tarantino get on their soapbox about cinema and the theater, the theatrical experience and 70 millimeter, I'm like, I just check it. I'm like, you all are so full of shit. I'm like one. You all are rich, like embedded. Like you don't know what the theatrical experience is for the common person. So, you know, stop speaking for us, please. And if your movies only work in 70 millimeter and 7 .1 surround sound, I mean, okay, but your shoot, like if your work is only that specific and it can't well. be well received or in your opinion, well received or understood or you don't get the experience the way it's supposed to be. In any other way, I'm like, I feel like you're not doing your job. As a modern creator, you need to be creating something that can work in both formats, easy and well. and then same thing in wine, right? Like in the wine world, the pretension in the wine world kills me. Where I'm just... The idea that like wine is supposed to be one way or, know, varietally correct. Agreed. Is the way this thing is supposed to taste. And I'm like, look, either it's tasty or it's not. And from there, we should be doing everything under the sun in the wine world. And it shouldn't be about we need to be trying to bring costs down, if at all possible, without sacrificing the quality of the wine or, you know, making sure we're not sacrificing the environment or the sustainability or things like that. But we get, pretension is about standing still. Almost 999 out of a thousand times. Absolutely. You're creating prestige. Yes. You're creating the idea You're not moving forward. You're not finding new ways. You're not bringing back. You know, even in the wine world, one of the things, I'm going to write a whole article about this at some point, but orange wine. yeah. We are still trying to get over the quote unquote newness of orange wine. And it ain't new. There's new about it people. Right. We forgot about it in most of the world. That's right. And then the supposed experts, the pretentious people, like literally forgot about it and didn't realize it was historical. So when it came back, they're like, this newfangled thing. And like, it's not new. It's not new. You just stopped making it that way for a long, time because of conventional wisdom of these prestigious, important figures in the wine world all decided it wasn't a thing anymore. And then a generation later, no one remembered it. And they were the keepers of the knowledge. And so we had to accept and but to this day, they're like new styles like orange wine, like calling it that. Right. I'm like, I get it. It came back. It's new to us. It's new you. But generations. But let's we have to stop calling it new style because that's making it something it's not. And it's giving press because again, they're trying to keep that prestige of the knowledge keepers. I don't want to call gatekeepers exactly. But you could call it. Actually, I think I think I think I I'm more term is actually gatekeepers because you know it's like you said the keepers of the knowledge the idea that you're creating this sort of prestige and remember there's a whole economy that is built around that notion of prestige you know and you know that's essentially what people are attempting to protect you know when they position themselves as gatekeepers or you know okay so fair so gatekeepers And to that point, I have a very knee -jerk reaction, both in wine and in entertainment. The moment, what's Pretension. I was like, not prestige. Pretension rears its head. I'm like, chill out. I'm like, come on. It's like, it's too much. It's like, try, the moment I start, and I'm guilty, I'm a human being. Like, we're all guilty of pretentious thoughts and pretentious knee -jerk reactions to things. But for me, the moment I catch myself getting that pretentious knee -jerk reaction where something I want to be beneath me, I immediately unclench because I don't want that to be my thought process. I don't want to be pretentious about it. no, the thing might suck. It might be terrible. It might be like, I don't like Michael Bay or Zack Snyder stuff for the most part. feel like both are, especially Michael Bay who are, who's often still more celebrated than Snyder in wider circles. And I get the celebration, get what he brought to the table, I get what he did for tent pole action cinema, especially in the West. And he gets credit for a number of those things. But I do think it's a bit overblown at times. And especially now, he's he's definitely not doing anything new anymore. He's just not at all. Not at all. That's what that's essentially what you're saying is, you know, I definitely don't consider I hope there's no one who's speaking about Michael Bay with any sense of pretension. Because I mean, there are people who speak of his sort of it's not even an artistic kind of platform that he is associated with. It's really just his ability to kind of wrangle chaos and which is really his strong suit. Now, is he genius because of that? No. But is he just the guy who did it bigger and louder than anyone else? Yes. will say, though, like I need to go back and revisit, because I never actually saw bad boys one and two back in the day. Yeah. I only saw them relatively recently, like in the 2010s. I finally saw bad boys one and two and then saw bad boy three in the theater. Haven't seen bad boys four yet. Yeah. And a lot of people for bad boys three and four, they're like, well, these directors are no Michael Bay. And I'm like, I'm OK with that. like, I really wasn't looking for yet more. One, these actors are older. Let's not put them through those paces again. But Michael Bay is he he's kind of like Shane Black without the wit. You know what I mean? He's like he's sending up the most extreme cliches of the genre. But then in Bay with Bay, it's not a send up. Right. And whereas with Black, there's this sort of very cleverness to it where it's like he's very aware that he's like, this is all silly and stupid. And I don't think Michael Bay is aware of that. Some people, and I think that's what some people like about him is like he's so committed to the excessiveness. I think that sort of masterstroke, masterstroke for Michael Bay is that his films are made for, and there are gonna be a lot of people disagree with this, for children. And so when your audience is... yeah, mean, except the content is not, right? That's the problem. But that's just it. The content isn't. But he's making films, the aesthetic and all the sort of components for children. you know, those really poorly drawn archetypes are just they are center stage. They aren't played with any irony. They aren't played with any sort of send up. So, yeah, that that is a sort of difference between he and Shane. I mean, one of them. Well, and I will say a lot of people, of course, will say, well, Michael Bay was taking a lot of Hong Kong, you know, cinema aesthetics and tone and the tonal mashup and that type of extreme, like extremeness. And again, it's like for children, if you ever watch Hong Kong cinema, like a lot of like the humor takes you back every time because the humor is almost like talking down to like the lowest common denominator while the violence is so excessive and extreme and in your face and visceral. that you're just like, who is this for? And Bay really did bring that over to the West. And again, I love Hong Kong cinema. I do. But a couple things there. One, lot of it, some of it is a lot better done than the rest of it, right? So you have really like fine tuned, this is firing on all cylinders. The humor is not as gratuitously childlike and the violence is dialed in like the balance between them and the way they flow into one another is actually, you know, like a John Woo hard boiled or something where it's like, there are moments of kind of sort of levity or almost like a Shane Black wink wink. But then it works so much so well as a piece of better tomorrow is another one from John Woo that does that. Whereas then plenty of and then plenty of John Woo rip offs and wannabes during his period that are, you know, again, they're like, more generic Hong Kong cinema where it's the humor is a little too much and does take you out of the picture and doesn't quite match up. And you can enjoy that as an experience, but do I call them good movies as a complete movie? Not really. Would I recommend it to just any cinema goer? God, no. And I think that's the difference is Michael Bay is like, you can like, I mean, we all like what we like and whatever you like. Awesome. You know, good on you. Go for it. Support it. Go see it. But in terms of like everyone should love it is I'm like, no, I will argue like John Woo, pretty much everyone should be able to admire what John Woo does. But the John Woo rip offs? No, not really. I mean, you're either you either love it so much, you even want those movies and you're going to enjoy those movies to the lesser versions of John Woo. But for everyone else, no, I wouldn't say that Michael Bay is one of those where I think he has a few movies that are like honest to god gems. And then there's a lot of other output. Especially the Transformers movies, like you said, he's controlled chaos or he does chaos in a way that other people can't. And I think actually he fails in the Transformers movies in terms of wrangling that chaos. can you cannot follow what the fuck is outside of like maybe the first. But here's the thing. You're not supposed to follow. It doesn't matter if you can follow it. Sure, sure. It actually doesn't matter. I kind of get that. But at the same time, I'm not giving him credit for it. You that's the difference. That's the difference. Right. Right. Right. He, started making films for global audiences, truly global, to open globally. And so what you end up having is, first of all, you've got a universally identified toy brand archetype, right? That's the baseline. Everybody knows what a transformer is. Every country has a version of the transformers. It is the idea of a mech, right? It is, that's nothing new. But also, the characters he starts to draw become so one dimensional, maybe two dimensional, that there is no need to update for regional color and specificity. of course. So that's another reason it is That's the Holy Grail and certainly was during the Transformers movie. That's what everyone was after, It really is. And he really sort of stamped that space, not to say that it is any artistic feat or creative feat, But I think in terms of the industry, really became kind of, he became the tent pole, so to Anyway, moving on from that. I I grant all that, but I think all the points stand. of course, there's a reason they were made. There's a reason Michael Bay is so big. And by the way, Michael, as you're out there, you want to direct a short. I wrote a short called Michael Bay, Please direct my kitchen table drama. Just make that without him, god damn it. And then go by the pen name as a director. Just spell Michael differently, like inverse some of the letter, put an E at the end or something. Michelle, like Michelle Bay. Michelle Bay. Michael Old Bay. Michael Old I like it, I love it. Thank you so much for listening to our very first TV show episode. And we're so sorry for getting sidetracked for the whole second part of this part one. We will talk Severance in part two. promise episodes one through three will be in part two with our first wine pairings for those first three episodes. So please join us then. Thank you so much for listening. We will be back. in less than a week with another wine and entertainment pairing for your entertainment. This actually same pairing this show but with an actual wine pairing. Thanks so much guys. See you then. you