Welcome to the 159th episode of TV’s Top 5, The Hollywood Reporter’s TV podcast.
Every week, hosts Lesley Goldberg (West Coast TV editor) and Daniel Fienberg (chief TV critic) break down the latest TV news with context from the business and critical sides, welcome showrunners, executives and other guests, and provide a critical guide of what to watch (or skip, as the case may be).
Here’s how this week’s episode plays out:
1. Headlines
Renewals at Netflix and Starz, Ramy Youssef on the move, Shonda’s return to the White House and Nick Cannon’s swing and miss.
2. Franchise mania!
We’ve got new updates on HBO Max’s spinoff plans for The Batman, AMC’s The Walking Dead finale gets neutered with news of yet another spinoff, Disney+ takes another swing at The Muppets and the -ish-verse continues on with a new-yet-familiar face.
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3. Pilot season breakdown
After two straight years of pilot season being anything but normal, the five broadcast networks are back at it this year with a 10-year low in overall orders. In this segment, we look at the why behind the reduced volume.
4. Showrunner Spotlight
Ellen Rapoport, creator of HBO Max’s upcoming Minx, opens up about the 1970s porn magazines for women that inspired her feminist comedy. “I read something about one of these magazines and it struck me immediately: these magazines in the 1970s were feminist magazines, which I’d had no idea about,” she says. “It was a workplace that was populated by feminists and pornographers. If you’re a TV writer and read that and don’t immediately think ‘workplace comedy,’ they take away your WGA card.” The half-hour series, which stars Ophelia Lovibond and Jake Johnson, was pitched and passed over at a number of outlets — including NBC — before finding a home at the WarnerMedia-backed streamer, but the show’s male nudity was never discussed. “I didn’t say we were going to have 30 flaccid penises in the pilot,” Rapoport jokes. “I wanted as many as we could afford; I wanted all different kinds, body types, penis sizes, races and specialty ones.” Ultimately, Rapoport says she hopes the show’s use of full-frontal male nudity subverts expectations and doesn’t come off as gratuitous. “I wanted to do the thing you came for,” she notes. “It felt like a cheat to not have full-frontal male nudity in pilot and then we don’t revisit it until episode 104. I didn’t want to be a one-trick pony and have penises flopping around in every episode. The way male nudity is used is really gratuitous and I don’t have problem with that. That’s what Playgirl and Viva were doing. I wanted to go tit for tat so women would be able to see men naked.”
5. Critic’s Corner
As usual, every episode ends with Dan offering his reviews of what to watch in the week ahead. In this episode, he reviews season two of Amazon’s Upload, Peacock’s Bust Down, Apple’s The Last Days of Ptolemy Gray and Netflix’s Ryan Murphy-produced docuseries The Andy Warhol Diaries.
Hear it all now on TV’s Top 5. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast to never miss an episode. (Reviews welcome!) You can also email us with any topics or Mailbag questions you’d like addressed in future episodes at TVsTop5@THR.com.
