Today's What's Alan Watching? newsletter coming up just as soon as I read you a two-word review of the album Shark Sandwich...
What's next?
The holidays are here, but the content doesn't stop! Here's what's coming over the next week or so:
- More superlatives, with a look at some of the best new shows and limited series that didn't make my overall top 10 for the year;
- Spoiler thoughts on the next batch of Stranger Things Season Five episodes; and
- My review of the Pluribus season finale.
- For What Else Is Alan Watching? bonus tier subscribers, I have a few thoughts on this past Wednesday's 20th anniversary of "Lazy Sunday," the SNL Digital Short that literally changed internet culture. I'm also hoping to do another Ask Alan video mailbag soon, either before year's end or in early January, so send those questions on in!
Catching up
Here's what I've published since last Friday's newsletter:
- I went into Fallout Season Two hoping the video game adaptation would finally have better command of its tone, and/or that it would realize that less is more with all the ironic mid-20th century pop songs during action sequences. Unfortunately, the show still only occasionally hits the Goldilocks-esque "just right" sweet spot, which I discussed in my review:
Alan Sepinwall
- I picked some of my favorite episodes of the year, all of them from series that didn't make the top 10. There will be another list with more episodes coming near the end of the month:
Alan Sepinwall
- I recapped this week's Pluribus, in which Carol finally made an effort to get to know the Others in general, and Zosia in particular:
Alan Sepinwall
It's a wonderful night for a livestream! Livestream livestream! Who will win?
The Motion Picture Academy announced this week that YouTube has acquired the rights for the Academy Awards ceremony beginning in 2029.
On the one hand, if you're enough of a traditionalist to still be watching the Oscars — and, perhaps, to get the Billy Crystal reference I just made — this could feel like a shocking sea change. There was a time when the telecast was pretty regularly the most-watched entertainment program of the year, and a broadcast network institution. But that was a long time ago. ABC has of late been trying desperately to turn the show into something designed to attract viewers who aren't watching, rather than making the best version for the ones who are, and the ratings have trended downward.
Putting the show for free on YouTube will make it easier to see for many people, given how rampant cord-cutting is. But for older viewers who still have cable/antennas and can't easily watch YouTube on their TVs — i.e., at least a decent chunk of the remaining Oscar audience — this will be a hardship.
The main question I have is whether moving away from broadcast will change the philosophy for producing the show. Will there be as much pressure to make the speeches shorter, to push all non-glamorous awards to the earlier ceremony, etc? Might the career achievement awards be put back into the main show? Or will the Oscars under YouTube wind up an even more aggressive version of the Oscars under ABC recently?
Meathead and so much more
Alan Sepinwall
As you can imagine, I spent a lot of time this week writing and talking about the legacy of Rob Reiner in the wake of the tragic murder of him and his wife Michele. This included my tribute to him as a filmmaker, and appearances on MS NOW's The Eleventh Hour and CNN's One Thing podcast.
My tribute did acknowledge how funny he was as an actor on All in the Family, and how crucial he was to making that iconic show work. But I'd like to take this opportunity to celebrate more of his work as an actor. Unlike his ex-wife Penny Marshall, or Ron Howard, Reiner didn't entirely give up the acting bug once he found success as a filmmaker. Where Howard has pretty much stopped playing any characters other than himself, Reiner continued to play small supporting roles in film and television for the rest of his life. Here are just a few of many highlights.
First, because I already linked to the hilarious shoes and socks argument between Archie and Meathead, I wanted to single out how good Reiner could be as a dramatic actor in that role, with the scene where Mike and Gloria finally move out of the Bunker house to go to California. You get fantastic work from all four leads here. But the moment when Mike thanks Archie for their time together, and Archie can't bring himself to say how he really feels about Mike, is extraordinary:
Next, we've got Reiner and Marshall, then spouses, together in a sketch from the third episode of Saturday Night Live. This is the first time where the host really interacted with the cast. As he was so often in his acting career, he's playing straight man here, setting up John Belushi for the big moment. It's a turning point for the series, as Lorne Michaels and the other writers realized that the show should primarily involve the hosts playing scenes with Belushi and the other Not-Ready-For-Primetime Players:
This isn't acting, but I don't want to leave it out, because it's hilarious. At his Friars Club roast, Reiner read aloud from Roger Ebert's brutal pan of Reiner's North:
One of my all-time favorite clips of Rob Reiner, from his Friars Club Roast in 2000, as he reads aloud Roger Ebert's infamous scathing review of his movie North. The man had an amazing sense of humor about himself. RIP.
— The Jerk Store called, they're running outta me (@tonygoldmark.bsky.social) 2025-12-15T03:53:11.499Z
Reiner was so good in a recurring role on New Girl as Jess's father, and particularly good when playing opposite Jake Johnson. Here he is explaining the proper way to make a sandwich:
And here he is reacting to Nick admitting that he has feelings for Jess:
Reiner didn't have an ego about his collaborators. When Harry Met Sally was at least as much his pal Nora Ephron's movie as it was his. And when Ephron started directing herself with Sleepless in Seattle, he agreed to play a small role as a friend encouraging Tom Hanks to get back into the dating scene:
Speaking of good friends and collaborators, Reiner was so tight with Christopher Guest that Guest got married to Jamie Lee Curtis in Reiner's house. (Curtis then played Reiner's ex-wife on New Girl.) And he has never been a better straight man than he was in this scene from This Is Spinal Tap, where Nigel gives Marty a tour of his guitar collection, along with the legendary amp that goes to 11:
Finally, unless Marty appears in the concert film Spinal Tap at Stonehenge: The Final Finale, if and when that's ever released, then I believe Reiner's final screen performance was on The Bear, where he played Albert Schnurr, a successful businessman trying to pay it forward by helping Ebraheim develop the sandwich business. When Albert first appeared, I worried he was going to try to steal the business out from under Ebraheim and/or Carmy, but he turned out to be a good guy genuinely looking to help. Reiner was so warm and slyly funny in the role, and he gets as funny a final line to a career as any actor has ever had:
That's it for today! What does everybody else think?
