Fun TV Is Back
Industry, Paradise, and more
Entertainment has been in a fun drought in the last few years. Not that nothing has been fun but, man, not much has been fun. So much, at least in the world of television, has either been too self-serious, too newsy, or just too...dull.
But I think right now that fun is kind of back! At least a little bit. Two shows are proving that theory: Industry and Paradise.
Let’s start with Industry since we’re deeper into the season at this point. Some spoilers ahead for both shows, so if you aren’t caught up and don’t want some plot points ruined, maybe save this newsletter for when you can power through the available episodes. But if you already watch or kind of don’t care about spoilers, read on. I honestly think even if you know stuff that’s happening on these shows, it won’t ruin the experience of watching them. Because they are FUN.
First of all, exciting Industry news is that it was renewed for a fifth and final season this week! Huge news for all of us. I’m glad because I thoroughly enjoy watching this show, but I also love that HBO continues to support its programming, that they actually let shows have long runs and don’t cancel every show after one or two seasons just because it wasn’t an immediate breakout hit. And guess what happens to most shows if you let them breathe and keep making seasons? They get better! Wow, what are the odds???
I have to be honest about Industry: I have almost zero idea what is happening at any moment on that show. I don’t work in finance. I don’t understand finance. I can’t even imagine where I would start to learn what is going on with that show. But it’s a testament to the acting, writing, directing, editing that I can still enjoy and follow along without having any idea what is actually going on. Like sure, I don’t always know the procedures and diagnoses on The Pitt, but Industry is a whole other animal. I’ve been in a hospital before. I’ve never been on the floor of a bank.
This show has always been a fun, sexy time. Television depicting the world of high finance could easily be pushed into the world of biting satire or some important mirror for the current economic state of the world and people and greed. And certainly those themes are present, but that’s not the point of the show. The point of the show is characters, suspense, and impeccable clothing. The point of the show is London nightclubs and sex scandals and smoking inside. The point of the show is fun.
I am a completeist when it comes to television, so I personally think everyone should go back and watch the whole show from season one to get the full experience of Industry. You really learn who everyone is and what their flaws are. But what is especially interesting about this series is that clearly, the third season (last year) was written as a final season. I work in television of course so I know that they had to write and shoot this before they knew if they were getting a season four, and given the current landscape, I’m sure no one was banking on that. So they tied up all of the knots, dotted all of the i’s and gave us a real finale that felt like we knew where everyone was going.
And then the third season did well and they were renewed for another season. Smartly, the writers didn’t try and then go backwards and return to the same show they had made for three seasons. Season four feels like a fun and sexier departure from the previous ones, with new characters and institutions. The trading floor of Pierpoint is mostly gone, replaced by board rooms and hotel suites. They didn’t just try and start over, they kind of started making a whole new show.
A FUN show. It has everything: start-up bro ego, online sex work, drugs, murder, professionally risky threesomes, disturbing family drama, Kal Penn in a strip club, literal French Revolution cosplay, a giant strap-on. It’s refreshing to see a show not afraid to show sex and for it to actually feel exciting and fun, and not the neutered, faux horny version of sex peddled by other corners of the entertainment industry right now (ahem, Emerald Fennell).
Also, everyone on it is hot. They’re all just hot. It rules.
No one is having more fun on that show than the costume department. My god. The choices are perfect and I could watch Myha’la and Marisa Abela and Kiernan Shipka and Miriam Petche wear anything and everything. The strong “I’ll fucking destroy you” shoulders and angles of Harper’s suiting are flawless. Yaxmin’s rich London girl turned aristocratic wife turned CCO looks make me think “should I wear more shawls?” Hayley’s mini skirts and tall boots should have told me that she’s an escort, not an assistant. Sweet Pea’s linen vests and wide leg pants on her trip to Accra told a story of a woman who is fine being judged as long as you don’t underestimate her. They all have these super defined styles and are wearing actual LOOKS and not just a parade of outfits inevitably coming to Shein next week. This isn’t the quiet luxury of Succession, these are clothes telling a different story. And I’m fucking obsessed.
One of my favorite parts of Industry is the music supervision. It’s perfect. The synthy score to the show builds tension even when I don’t know a single word being used in a scene besides “buy” and “sell.” But apart from that, they pick perfect songs for every scene. “Our House” by CSNY in the episode showing the reality of Yas and Henry Muck’s life in his country estate. Judy Collins’s “Both Sides Now” as Eric walks down the suburban street in Westchester at the end of episode six. Daft Punk, Enya, Prodigy, Pet Shop Boys, the list of great artists goes on, but it’s the choices and the application that make it so good. I haven’t seen such great music supervision since season 5 of Fargo. (Also, if you haven’t, go watch season 5 of Fargo).
For all the suits and songs and sex, what it is about Industry right now that I’m really responding to is that it’s just having fun. It’s keeping the stakes super high and letting the characters fail and fall in ways that are fun to watch and not a horrific allegory for modern life in a way that you’re like, “Didn’t I just watch this all day on my phone?” It’s not trying to be anything other than an exciting show, at which it absolutely succeeds.
But speaking of fun shows, I now need to shift to the other, more recent fun show whose return is maybe one of four good things in America right now: Paradise. If you aren’t watching Paradise, I need you to stop reading this right now and just go watch the pilot and then you can decide to come back to this. The rest is major spoilers in general about the show, so at LEAST watch that first episode.
Okay, you’re back, great. When I pitch people on Paradise I often refer to it as like, Lost meets Homeland meets This Is Us. It kind of has...everything. It’s every show ever at once. I haven’t actually seen This Is Us nor any of the other broadcast television hour long dramas that live in that world, but this show has JUST enough of that for it to be fun and dumb but not so much that I’m like ugh, this is stupid.
Paradise is not “so bad it’s good” television, but it’s also not and is not trying to be prestige. It’s just...having a good time. The pilot is entirely about how someone shot the former president, and then you get to the end of the episode and it’s like, oh but that is NOT what this show is going to be about, it’s about something WAY wilder. Josh and Maris both watch the show too, and we find ourselves texting during episodes “OH MY GOD HAHAHAH THIS SHOW” almost too often.
Not unlike Industry, Paradise also could EASILY be a show that is trying to make a point or be important given the topics it covers. But rather than self-seriously try and show the dangers of tech billionaires and our outrageously fragile environment when it comes to climate disasters, it simply uses those things to drive an insane story further and further along. No meaningful monologues or handwringing, just some good ol’ fashioned story about secret service agents and underground societies and nuclear footballs. Sick!!!!!!!!!
I’d like to stop and say there is a lot of hotness on this show, too. Sterling K. Brown and James Marsden are Babe City, USA (well, kind of USA, you’ll see). The therapist character on the show is so hot that she would never, ever be a therapist in reality. Unless she was like a Tiktok therapist who like, mostly uses a Dyson air wrap and points to captions on a screen about avoidant attachment styles. But this isn’t a sexy show the way Industry is. Or at least I thought that until a very steamy shower sex scene where you see Sterling (or his body double’s) whole ass. Okay Paradise!
The second season of the show premiered this week and dropped three episodes for everyone to watch. And thank god. I needed to plow through all three immediately because the show is so off the wall that I physically cannot stop watching it, even when I have work to do. There is a LOT going on with this show and I love every minute of it. A pregnant lady at Graceland! A pack of quiet nomadic children living in a washed up boat! Bad guys in Arkansas! A power siphoning secret project by the architect of an underground society! A hit man back story for a secret service agent who was murdered by his Wii loving girlfriend who knows a secret code that means to kill someone? YES YES YES YES YES!
Something true about both of these shows (and plenty of others, I’ll be honest) is it’s so refreshing to see things actually...happen. It feels like 90% of media these days is celebrities talking to each other in a studio. Or worse, non celebrities talking to each other in a studio. Nothing happens. Oh, now we know what time Gwyneth Paltrow likes to make a dinner reservation? Ground-breaking entertainment. Ah, cool, let’s see what a former Bachelor has to say to some losers from Love Is Blind. WHO CARES! I’m sorry, I know I have a podcast and all, but the video podcasts in slick studios where you know someone is making a lot of money are making me want to go live in the woods for the rest of my life. That’s not entertainment. If I am going to sit down and give my attention to something, I want things to happen! I want a fun story and hot people and sexy revenge and apocalyptic events. I want my fun TV (said in the tone of the former “I want my MTV” refrain, RIP).
It feels like fun television is just having a moment again. After so many years of striving for importance, some shows exist just to do what they are supposed to do: entertain us. Heated Rivalry, while I haven’t been able to really get into it, seems to scratch this itch for a lot of people. Love Story about JFK Jr. and Carollyn Bessette is next on my list not because I love Ryan Murphy, but I long for a show about the 90s and romance and wealth. Tracy Morgan and Daniel Radcliffe’s new comedy looks promising knowing it’s from Tina Fey, who however you feel about her and her writing, you know she makes comedy that’s fun. I’m eagerly awaiting season 2 of Hunting Wives for the same reason I like all the shows I listed above. It’s a fun romp, it’s a good time, it’s an actual break from the world rather than a reminder of what is waiting for us outside our doors and on our phone screens when the credits roll.
I love when people making entertainment embrace fun. And no one does that more than my good friend and brilliant comic and actor Liza Treyger. I went to see her do an hour at a SOLD OUT Gramercy Theater with some of our friends last Saturday and it was just a delight to watch someone on stage who wants you to have fun in the crowd but also is having so much fun herself while she’s up there. She’s giggling, she’s goofing off, but she’s also performing great jokes that are FUN. If you get the chance, go see Liza on tour. She’s an absolute killer (and a great hang).
Fun! Is! Back!
MORE STUFF! MORE STUFF!
A baked potato can be dinner. Make a baked potato for dinner!
Ruined this week tackles the movie Borderline.
Thursday Strapped at Stonewall Inn. Monday I’m hosting Frankenstein’s Baby at Union Hall and Tuesday I’m at Caveat on a show for The New York Groove!
Once again, I’m working through a new solo stand up show called For This? at Union Hall on Saturday 3/7 at 7:30pm. Come check it out!
And every week until July 7, a reminder to pre-order my debut book of essays, I’m A Lot wherever you get your books!
I preordered your book! Wee!