#2: Like a Strike, I Keep Going On
I write more than I talk.
The problem with writing a little something about the time between newsletters is not that I struggle with what to talk about. It’s actually a two-fold problem: there is too much to choose from, and the majority of it is sad and depressing. The good news doesn’t sell. But you know what does? Tickets to a Titanic expedition submarine. It was controlled by a £40 Logitech PS2 controller, James Cameron would never.
I could talk about ‘Partygate’ and how fucking depressing that party looked. The party I threw at 17 was way better, and I wasn’t even fucking over the whole country to do it. Something that reminds me is what I hate is the insistence of the media on assigning the suffix ‘-gate’ to everything. I understand it comes from Watergate, but is it really necessary to call the Horse Meat ‘scandal’ HorseGate or the Pizza throwing incident with Man Utd and Arsenal in 2004 "‘Pizzagate’. Surely we can be more inventive than that? I found out the pizza throwing was otherwise known as the Battle of the Buffet, which is infinitely better. Get the gates out of here!
This newsletter is like Barbara Kingsolver’s Women’s Prize awards. There are two of them! Enjoy!
TV
The end of May brought about the end of TV as we know it. The conclusion of Succession was, as
put it in her Griefbacon newsletter, “the finale of television.” However, it was not just the one major show that ended that week.Ted Lasso, in its current form, ended on May 31st. Its third season was, for me, an improvement on the second season. As time has gone on since it finished, I am getting more and more content about interesting story choices that echo through the three seasons.
The first season of the Apple TV+ show was unquestionably a critical and cultural phenom. I had hoped that it would become a Lionel Messi type. However, for some, it ended up becoming a little bit of a Freddy Adu situation, an incredible amount of promise in the early days which peters off into obscurity. Actually, from a personal perspective, I think that assessment is unfair, I’d say the show is akin to someone like Martin Odegaard; early promise, faltered a little bit but is up to a great standard these days.
I had been looking for an important, good football show to sink my teeth into ever since Dream Team on Sky ended in the late 2000s. It’s a tricky sport to portray on screen. Dream Team used footage of Leicester’s games to pass as their own, which barely worked. The uncanny valley is a very real problem with football on film because of the high levels of commercialisation woven throughout the culture. For me, as Ted Lasso went on, that side of it got less and less successful. By the end, it was the only major negative I had about the show. There’s a cameo in the penultimate episode by an important manager that I won’t spoil that effectively breaks the show logic for me. Why is the manager of a real team managing a bunch of fake players? I think that if it had come in the first season, then I’d have let it go much easier. The cameo interacts with one of the AFC Richmond players in a way that makes sense for the story, so that bit was legitimately the only positive from the whole thing. If you’ve watched it, you’ll understand what I mean.
Honestly, that first season was transcendent for me personally. Funny, and engaging. Incredible performances from everyone. I have loved Brett Goldstein and his podcast, Films to Be Buried With, since 2018, but my god, Roy Kent is amazing. I’m obsessed with Hannah Waddingham now. From top to bottom, this cast is hilarious and was a dream to spend 2020 with. I said as soon as the first season finished, “This is one of my favourite shows I’ve ever watched.” I bored my partner by talking about it so much, I’m sure.
The reception of the first season was not something anyone was expecting, including those who made it, and the natural progression into season 2 was too different for some people to handle. It went from a 20-minute comedy in the vein of co-creator Bill Lawrence’s other work like Scrubs to a 40-to-50-minute dramedy (don’t like that word). If you sign up for one thing and end up with another, then it may be a bridge too far for the audience to join you. Please see the mad shit that happens in Riverdale as my forever example of this. I did really like that first season.
The claws have come out for the show throughout the final season, talking about the cloying nature of the story beats. As a Brit, I am not surprised to hear that, to be honest. It’s a thoroughly American lens to showcase a British version of the sport, if it were the Seattle Sounders that Lasso was managing, would it be such an issue? Who can say?
In recent times, The Apple TV+ Twitter account has teased further stories being told in the Ted Lasso universe. The most concrete is this tweet from the Apple TV account:
I would honestly take a few more seasons of this throuple ripping up the Premier League together. I feel like cutting Ted out of the main story would mean that the focus could potentially fall back on the comedy. The Diamond Dogs being the focus of the story would be a winning thing, in my opinion. It must include Trent Crimm though.
In summation, if Ted Lasso had finished after one season, it would be incredibly high on my list of the top shows of all time. It was honestly that good. Season 2 was the low point, and then Season 3 was better again. I love a lot of the characters, and I would love to live in their world. I will need the real-life teams to be filled with actual players—a pipe dream—but I’ll get over that if we get a bunch of laughs again.
Football is life.
PODCAST
When the influx of celebrity-hosted podcasts started streaming in, Dax Shepard was one of the first big ones to break through.
Any podcast between friends is interesting (as massive generalisations go, not bad). The first 25 minutes or so feel like Tony Stark audio cosplay, playfully combative. Also, he’s effusive with the lady in the room, which makes sense as Monica is great. Somehow, it feels like we’re minutes away from a rendition of Thunderstruck breaking out of seemingly nowhere.
By the time the podcast interview ends, they have spent a lot of time waxing lyrical about each other. Some will say that it is a circle jerk or words to that effect; however, I believe that the superpower of Dax is that he is a huge guy who is never shy about exposing his true emotions about a situation. He tells RDJ about the fact that he dreamed about meeting him for 20 years, and everyone takes it in stride; it’s not too much, and it’s not creepy. Downey Jr. seems happy and potentially a little moved by that revelation.
The talk about their fathers and grief as a concept is a real high point (strange way to put it but you get it), it is never alienating, too raw for the public. They manage to do that by talking about someone important—Robert Downey Sr.—through the prism of the film made about their life in Sr., which you can watch on Netflix (it could well be in contention for Best Documentary Oscar next year).
When Armchair Expert is great, it’s really one of the best podcasts out there, in its genre.
MUSIC
In my eyes, there’s an argument to be made that Stormzy is the most important artist of the last 10 years, here in the UK. He trades in iconic moments, whether that is headlining Glastonbury, which is probably the best live music set I’ve ever seen. On the other hand, he’s got music videos that are moments in culture; Shut Up, Big For Your Boots, Vossi Bop, Wiley Flow, Mel Made Me Do It, and the list goes on. Added to the list is Toxic Trait with Fredo. The song itself is unreal, one more in the lineage of great single releases from Stormzy in recent times.
I’ve always thought of him as our Chance the Rapper in a lot of ways. The gospel inspiration is in the veins of the work, as is the mixture of a copyrightable rap style and a love of singing their own hooks, but for me, I love them both when they are rapping rapping you know?
The video is full of random people who are great, didn’t expect to see Alison Hammond, and didn’t expect to see Specs Gonzales. I guess Wretch 32 makes a little more sense, but not to just be in the video with no feature. Fredo did his thing and I found a couple of lines funny, especially “Put the Urus in start, I'm makin' it fart, let's have a race on the 'Zart” They are funny. I’ve noticed that the Lamborghini Urus is having a real moment in rap verses right now.
Stormzy has such a specific worldview and style when it comes to his visuals. it really got me thinking, “What would Stormzy’s TV show look like?” I can see it being something similar but hopefully better executed than The Idol from the Weeknd. He’s got so many fingers in different pies that I see him doing something for the BBC or Channel 4 as a co-production with a HBO or Netflix in the future. Get me in the writers’ room when the time comes.
TIKTOK
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A simple joke that got me to cry laugh. It’s exactly what Tiktok should be used for. Big Vine energy with this one (can you tell I’m a millennial?)
ARTICLE
https://variety.com/lists/spider-man-movies-ranking/
There’s something that I think about when I go around the internet, clicking on my apps, doing the swipey swiping, and it is this statement: “Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should.” That sentence makes its way to my brain when I’m on TikTok a lot.
I get it with certain articles occasionally, mostly around a negative viewpoint of something that is near and dear to me that I don’t want to get into right now. Very rarely do I think about a ranking list. Every person is entitled to their own opinions, and I know what the currency of the internet is, clicks, so in a sense, Variety has smashed it there as I am talking about it.
My god, have they gotten it wrong? The order of the 10 films they’ve got feels like they’ve thrown them all in a blender and spiked the results ball at the wall.
The lack of Spider-Verse love is criminal; the same is true for Homecoming. The scene in the car with Michael Keaton and Tom Holland alone is worthy of a higher placement. The two Spider-Verse films are genre-defining, medium-shifting works that you could call masterpieces without much fallout. Sean Fennessey of The Big Picture podcast called ‘Across’ “the first five-star film in years.” I could definitely be persuaded by that statement.
I also think that the Raimi films are fine. Andrew Garfield is probably my favourite actor and voice in the real world as well; the Colbert interview was a thing of beauty.
Variety, you’re wrong. But I’ve bitten, so I guess you win?
TWEET OF THE WEEK
WarGames is one of my favourite films, and I love this miniature of Matthew Broderick’s David’s bedroom from the film. I'd love to own this, my daughter or my dog would destroy it somehow, but those few hours with it would be cool.
You can find the artist’s work at miniatua on Instagram or the original tweet is here.
Let me know what you think. I’ll see you next time out.