Newsletters: We Have Officially Reached the Too-Much-TV Apocalypse

We Have Officially Reached the Too-Much-TV Apocalypse

with Kevin Fallon

Everything we can't stop loving, hating, and thinking about this week in pop culture.

This week:

A guide to all the TV shows you're never going to watch.
The Molly Shannon Fan Club now in session.
An ode to the art of episode plot descriptions.
Mickey and Pluto, outed as lovers!!!
The musical pairing that might heal your soul.

The Week That TV Officially Got Out of Control

If a TV show starring Julia Roberts and Sean Penn falls in a forest and there's no one there to hear it, does it even make a sound?

It's a wild situation. The biggest movie star of her generation is in a TV series with one of the most celebrated actors, she in glorious glam, replete with a teased blonde bouffant and a brassy Southern accent, and he swaddled in a melted wax museum's amount of prosthetics. More, the show is a juicy thriller about Watergate. Did you know that Gaslit exists? Or where to watch it?

There was a time that something like this would be a capital-'E' Event in pop culture, and, in the world of Kevin Fallon, akin to a religious experience. Now? It's just exhausting.

That "tree"—Gaslit—premieres on Starz on Sunday, amidst a dense, crowded forest of more than 15 shows that are airing their season or series premieres on that one night alone, not to mention new episodes of already running programs or streaming releases that audiences could theoretically be mid-bingeing. Roberts, Penn, Watergate: It's a tall, proud, fancy tree, but we're all too distracted with the other ones to notice it fall. Maybe it does make a sound, but it's merely a whimper. And that's not a slight on Gaslit. In the current television climate, that's all any tree—I mean show—can hope for.

Now that I've given myself a migraine trying to make that tree-forest metaphor work, which it absolutely does not but I spent far too much energy on it to delete it, here's the real point, the point besides "I Can't Believe We're Not All Supporting Julia Roberts the Way She Deserves." It's that the lack of buzz for Gaslit is emblematic of a larger industry problem.

We've reached the Too Much TV Apocalypse. It's a dystopian level as we approach the end of April. But, at a time when over 500 scripted TV series alone come out each year, there is something sort of existential about it, in terms of the industry and for us as fans. When there's this much content, so much of it that people don't even realize it exists because it would be impossible to have awareness, let alone interest, in all of these projects, then what is the point of it all?

The easy answer that smug industry folk have at the ready in relation to, at least, why right now seems so busy is: Emmys. The deadline for TV shows and episodes to be eligible for Emmy consideration is the end of May, which means weekly series need to launch now in order to qualify. But when there are dozens of these series coming out at the same time to the extent that my beloved Julia Roberts alongside Sean-Penn-in-a-fat-suit can't command people's attention—because none of the series can—I again ask: What's the point?

Let's take this last week and next week alone, two weeks in April when, sure, you're probably done with Bridgerton and still reeling from the Severance finale and could use something else to watch. But maybe not 100 things. (That's not an exaggerated number. There are literally 100 premieres in those two weeks. Actually, there's more.)

Sure, a lot of those are niche docuseries, innocuous home renovation shows, or kids' fare—the kinds of shows that sort of exist in the background of our lives. I call them White Noise TV, and I could not mean that more lovingly.

But there are also a ridiculous number of series premiering that, in other times, we'd all be at the water cooler buzzing about—star-studded prestige series that would dominate the zeitgeist and be at the center of every social conversation. Now if you were to bring any of them up in the coffee room, there wouldn't be buzzing so much as a collection of blank stares and a few errant huh's.

This last week, a series in which Viola Davis plays Michelle Obama and Michelle Pfeiffer plays Nancy Reagan premiered, and it somehow wasn't the only thing people are talking about. The second season of Russian Doll, one of the best reviewed comedy series of the last few years, came out, which is probably new information to many of you. A TV show starring Nicole Kidman, Issa Rae and Cynthia Erivo premiered. Were you aware of that?

Kaley Cuoco's super-fun show The Flight Attendant is returning. Bill Hader's Emmy-winning dark comedy Barry is finally back. A TV adaptation of The Man Who Fell to Earth, the 1976 sci-fi film starring David Bowie, arrives. The Wire creator David Simon has a new series called We Own This City, which returns him to the corrupt streets of Baltimore. A big, splashy show about the making of The Godfather, called The Offer, hits streaming.

Andrew Garfield continues his run as the year's most booked lead actor with the limited series Under the Banner of Heaven. Elisabeth Moss leads the unsettling thriller Shining Girls. The underrated gem Made for Love returns. Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin are back for the final episodes of Grace and Frankie, which will become Netflix's longest-running original series.

Then there's the silly fun stuff. Selling Sunset is back. The Real World Homecoming: New Orleans reunites the show's best cast. (I won't budge on that one.) They Call Me Magic gives The Last Dance/Michael Jordan treatment to Magic Johnson. I Love That for You, which, praise God, stars Molly Shannon and Vanessa Bayer, aka your new favorite comedy, debuts. Stanley Tucci is about to search for Italy again.

And these are things that are new. That's not to mention the big shows that are already airing weekly—WeCrashed, Atlanta, Top Chef, the final season of This Is Us—and all the stuff you've meant to binge but haven't gotten around to yet.

Sure, there's a way to look at this and celebrate. What a gold rush of content! Manna from heaven for couch potatoes! (Chips from heaven?) But what good is TV, especially good TV, if it's not possible to watch it? I've seen a lot of these series, and many are definitely not worth your time. But a lot of them are!

How do you figure out the queue of things to watch during the little free time we all have when the queue is so long you'll never make a dent in it anyway? Why make a very expensive series with very famous people in it when, barring some shift in the space-time continuum, it's not possible for people to watch it?

And then there's the most existential question of all, the doomsday inquiry, the harrowing truth: What is the point of anything when we're all just going to watch The Ultimatum anyway?

More Reasons to Love Molly Shannon

It's mere pages in when you start crying reading Molly Shannon's memoir, Hello, Molly!

Maybe that's not what you expect from a book by the Saturday Night Live alum, who has made a name for herself being the funniest person on TV, the most valuable player of any project she's in, or, how she's referred to my inner society, "Molly Shannon OH MY GODDDD I Love Her So Much She's So Good I Can Barely Take It." (It's an official title.)

Hello, Molly! is as funny as you'd crave from Shannon. It's incredibly heartfelt and emotionally honest, which also maybe shouldn't be a surprise, especially if you've seen her work in films like Other People, in which she proved that the same way every frayed nerve in her body crackles and flares in the name of great comedy, she's as fearless in exposing her humanity.

It could be that it is simply jarring that the book begins with a story so impossibly sad. When she was four years old, her father was driving under the influence and crashed their car, killing Shannon's mother, sister, and cousin.

But the memoir had to begin this way. It is an event that shaped everything in her life going forward: how she came of age in school; the ways in which she acted out and sought attention; her attraction to comedy and the melancholy that simmers underneath even her wildest characters; the warmth and joy she intends to give; her experience as a mother; and even her Sally O'Malley character on SNL. Her father had to walk with a leg brace after the accident. Sally's limp is an homage to him. When she can "kick, stretch, and kick," she's triumphantly kicking the brace off for her father.

If you've ever watched Shannon tell a story on a talk show, you've marveled at the way she can flit through an anecdote, doing funny voices and channeling the different characters, veering into an important aside that moves her to tears, laughing at herself over that, and then continuing to share the lovely, vibrant memory. She's an emotional gymnast, tumbling through the entire human condition in every story, a skill she brings to Hello, Molly!

There seems to be a surge of appreciation for Shannon, following raves she received for her performances in The Other Two and The White Lotus, and with her new series I Love That For You premiering next month. This book only sweetens the moment.

Atlanta Episode Descriptions

I've always been curious about the little plot descriptions of TV episodes that show up on your TV guide or next to the episodes on streaming services. Who writes them? Who decides what to include? How often do they think about wanting to make them seem interesting or stylish, or when is it just a rudimentary service for the reader? Someone, somewhere was given the job to write them. Tell me everything!

One series that always tickled me with this is Pamela Adlon's Better Things on FX. Its fourth season gave us "Sam picks up the girls from a trip," or "Sam takes Duke to ballet and Frankie to Pinkberry," referencing two of Adlon's character's (Sam) daughters. On the one hand, they're so mundane as to be a meta commentary on the art of a plot description. On the other, they're wonderfully perfect for this show, a series that celebrates and dignifies the enormity of life's everyday tasks, just muddling through. I love it.

This week on Twitter, Mindy Kaling pointed out that Atlanta was doing similarly cheeky things with its plot descriptions. The new season's third episode: "This one was cool. Going to rich parties and meeting weirdos. Season 1 was better." Episode four: "I was legit scared watching this." The most recent one to air: "Sometimes shows just be over my head acting fake deep."

Amazing show. Amazing plot descriptions. No notes, just a question: Are you the person who wrote these? Please get in touch with me! I will only need four-to-seven hours of your time to discuss your process in extreme and intense detail.

Ted Cruz Thinks a Lot About Gay Cartoon Sex

I don't like to talk or rant about the current state of politics in this country. That is something I reserve solely for rare, appropriate occasions, like anytime I am in a room with another human being at any time of any day no matter if they asked me for my opinion or not. Barely ever.

In any case, Ted Cruz was speaking about Disney opposing the "Don't Say Gay" law and offered a take so dumb that it is my civic duty to ensure than every person I know hears or reads it. "In every episode now, they're gonna have Mickey and Pluto going at it… You can always shift to Cinemax if you want that."

Yes, that's what this conversation has always been about. Not to stop a law that would contribute to the alarming rate of suicide and depression in LGBTQ+ youth and maybe, just maybe, finally validate that LGBTQ+-identifying people in this country exist, deserve dignity, and shouldn't be ashamed, othered, or endangered. No, it's always been about making sure that flaming queer Mickey Mouse can finally buttfuck his dog.

When Harry Met Shania

Over the weekend, a cultural event that shifted the axis of entire existences occurred, and I fear we have not been talking about it enough. Have you watched the videos of Harry Styles performing with Shania Twain at Coachella at least three dozen times today? If not, is there a reason you are denying yourself of the one guaranteed true path to happiness?

Barry: One of TV's truly good shows continues to be very good. (Sun. on HBO)

The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent: Nicolas Cage being meta and weird, always a welcome treat. (Fri. in theaters)

Gaslit: We support Julia Roberts unconditionally in this newsletter. It's the founding bylaw. (Sun. on Starz)

Selling Sunset: It was fun. (Kind of actually wasn't.) But I think we can be done. (Definitely should be done.) (Fri. on Netflix)

The Offer: Here's an offer you shouldn't refuse: Just watch The Godfather instead. (Thurs. on Paramount+)

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We Have Officially Reached the Too-Much-TV Apocalypse

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