Too Much TV: Your TV Talking Points For Tuesday, April 11th, 2023

A chance to talk about my favorite go-to "lean back" TV show

Here's everything you need to know about the world of television for Tuesday, April 11th, 2023.

SUBSTACK NOTES, BLAH, BLAH, BLAH
Nearly everyone who subscribes to TooMuchTV also subscribes to multiple other Substacks. Some of you dozens of other Substacks. And if my inbox is any indication, nearly every one of them has sent you an email today about the new Substack Notes. Which - as everyone seems to notice -works a lot like Twitter.

Substack now has two ways to connect writers with readers outside of the regular newsletter. Chat functions more like an old-school message board and so far I have been using it primarily as a way to post a specific question to readers, such as "which one season show deserved to get an official wrap-up?" You can visit Substack Chat in your Substack app (which I highly recommend, especially for those of you following multiple newsletters), by visiting toomuchtv.substack.com and clicking the "chat" button on the horizontal navigation bar or by going directly to substack.com/chat/9858. It's possible to send out a message to everyone when I post something new on Chat, but that feels like a bit much right now. I will mention that anyone can start a thread and I am going to make sure to get in there throughout the day to see if it builds into something.

As I mentioned, although it's a bit glib, Notes feels a lot like Twitter and as a subscriber to TooMuchTV, you’ll automatically see my notes. Feel free to like, reply, or share them around. You can also share notes of your own. I hope this becomes a space where every reader of TooMuchTV can share thoughts, ideas, and interesting quotes from the things we're reading on Substack and beyond.

All of this is a work in progress, both for myself as well as Substack. They are continuing to tweak Notes, so I would expect to see regular refinements in the near future. As for myself, TooMuchTV has just shy of 50,000 subscribers and it's a mix of a lot of people working in the industry as well as a large number of "civilians." So it's always a challenge to balance to two audiences and I'll be working on dialing that in over the next few weeks.

One other thing as long as we are wading through this. Along with TooMuchTV, I also do two other free newsletters. This Week In TV & Streaming is exactly what it sounds like, a Sunday rundown of all the new TV & streaming titles premiering in the upcoming week. Here's a link to this week's edition.

10 Stories You Should Know is a Monday-Friday rundown of the global TV and streaming stories that should be on your radar. It's a mix of higher-profile stories as well as some more obscure stuff you won't see anywhere else. Here is a link to this morning's newsletter. 

A CHANCE TO TALK ABOUT MY GO-TO 'LEAN-BACK' TV SHOW
Like a lot of people, I have this dream of owning a cool old house filled with history and old light switches that don't seem to be connected to anything. Like dating a supermodel, home restoration feels like it would be a wonderful life, albeit one that is way out of my income bracket.

But that doesn't mean that I can't vicariously live the dream and since the show debuted on the old DIY Network, my favorite go-to series has been Restored, starring Brett Waterman. Waterman is a lanky guy in a Stetson who looks as if he was picked out of a casting call of people responding to an ad asking for someone who looks like a guy in Southern California who is passionate about architecture and restoring old houses back to their original beauty. But unlike a lot of TV hosts, he also comes off as casual and knowledgeable without veering into over-rehearsed territory.

I recently had the chance to speak with Brett in a wide-ranging interview that touched on everything from his time as a political science major at UCLA to his penchant for sometimes sleeping in the houses he is restoring:

Q: Listening to you talk about that ties into something else I wanted to ask you. It strikes me that one of the things you probably had to learn was to be a bit of a psychologist with people. I can always tell you have this desire to take their home back to the way it was originally a hundred years ago. And there will be these discussions where you'll tell them, "No, the crown molding was pink with little lion's heads." And the homeowners look at you like "That may be, history boy. But I'm not living like that." So you have to do this triangulation between restoring as much authenticity as you can, but also respecting their desires.

Brett Waterman: I think that's always a challenge. And I think actually, it's a real privilege. To be able to work with people and restore their homes, because they let you into their lives, right? These are people that are trusting you with their largest investment. It's where they have most of their security infrastructure, and they're turning it over to me.

They're saying, "We want you to help us make the house of our dreams here." And somewhere along the line, I always remind people that I am never going to tell them what to do. But I'm definitely trying to put up a few guardrails, and I'm trying to bolt them down a path to something that I think will achieve the results they're hoping for. But also pay respect to the property. Because I'm a firm believer that we don't own anything in this life. We are all just stewards for a future generation. And if we do a good job in our humanity, we help those around us, we try to make our lives better. And we try to leave something of the past for the future so that they can appreciate all the sacrifices and investments that our grandparents and people before made in our communities. That drives a lot of my mindset for not only my work life, but also what I do personally.

TWEET OF THE DAY

TOMORROW IS A BIG DAY FOR WARNER BROS. DISCOVERY
Tomorrow everyone favorite streaming punching bag is set to unveil its "new" streaming service, which will apparently be called "Max." Although technically, it's not "Max" because the company is still keeping Discovery+ as a standalone. And some of its smaller streaming services such as Motor Trend. But anyway...

Company executives are widely expected to also make some content announcements, including a new Harry Potter series. And while it's impossible to predict what the tone of the news coverage will be after the announcement, I'm sure executives would love for most of it to be as warmly deferential as this piece from the normally skeptical Joe Frost in The Wall Street Journal. The article frames Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav as a bit of an industry truthsayer, who saw the need to slash content spend at a time when all of this rivals were still committed to the industry's "streaming is the future" philosophy. As opposed to the alternate framing, which is that's Zaslav's performance as a CEO running Discovery was not especially impressive. And that his desire to cut spending as head of the newly merged media giant has more to do with efforts to improve the company's stock price so he and fellow top executives can take advantage of their huge performance-based bonuses:

In contrast with the previous leadership at Warner, which wanted its television-production arm to focus primarily on making shows for its own family of cable channels and streaming platforms, Mr. Zaslav has said he prefers the “arms dealer” approach. “There’s a lot of bidders for content,” he said back in November. 

He has even rethought the idea that Warner Bros. Discovery will have only one streaming service, deciding instead to keep the Discovery+ platform up and running even after the new as-yet unnamed combo-platter platform launches. 

“No subscriber left behind,” Mr. Zaslav said of the decision to keep Discovery+ going for those customers who want a low-price service and aren’t interested in getting content from HBO and the Warner Bros. library of movies and TV shows.

I....don't know where to start. The piece makes it sound as Zaslav was some kind of visionary when he decided to keep the two services separate. As opposed to the executive who touted a combined service even before the Warner Media/Discovery merger. And based on numerous people I've spoken with, Zaslav had to be convinced repeatedly to change his mind and only relented in part after he was told how much money it would cost to combine the two services, especially when dealing with European markets where Discovery+ has a robust lineup of live linear channels.

I have thoughts about the new streaming platform, most of which I can't share until tomorrow's unveiling. I love the Warner Bros. Discovery content and the company has a lot of great, creative people working for it even after the latest round of cutbacks. But I continue to be skeptical about the company's top management and fear that Zaslav and the rest of the Scooby Bunch would be a great team for the company if this was 2003. 

Unfortunately...

ODDS AND SODS
* Apparently the DeSantis Administration is taking another run at Disney and the handpicked Reedy Creek Board is proposing a rule that would allow it to completely take over operational control of the district. Part of the plan seems to be to put in new rules that would inconvenience visitors. Which doesn't seem like the brightest political move?

* How are TV subtitles made? This post on the Duolongo site has a great explanation of all the nuances of the process.

WHAT'S NEW FOR TUESDAY:

Am I Being Unreasonable? Series Premiere (Hulu)
An Interview With Brian Cox (Britbox)
FBI True (Paramount+)
Grace (Britbox)
Leanne Morgan: I'm Every Woman (Netflix)
Road Wars Season Premiere (A&E)
The Wall Season Premiere (NBC)
Yonder Series Premiere (Paramount+)

Click Here to see the list of all of the upcoming premiere dates for the next few months.

SEE YOU WEDNESDAY!

If you have any feedback, send it along to Rick@AllYourScreens.com and follow me on Twitter @aysrick.