Today's What's Alan Watching? newsletter coming up just as soon as I teach you the true meaning of Chrismukkah...
Whatever holiday you're celebrating at this time of year — even if that holiday is simply "I get a few days off from work/school" — I hope it's a happy, or at least peaceful, one. We're going to be very quick today, but there's still stuff coming up between now and when we get into January. And speaking of which...
What's next?
The TV business is more or less shut down until the first full week of January — where I'll be back at fuller capacity with the likes of The Pitt Season Two — but I'll have a couple of stories for paid subscribers over the next week or so:
- My final superlatives list will go back to the idea of episodes I loved from 2025, this time mostly emphasizing examples from my overall Top 10 list.
- Because Netflix isn't giving out screeners of the Stranger Things series finale, because said finale is over two hours, and because it's a holiday week, it may take a bit for my take on how it all ends.
Catching up
Here's what I published since last Friday's newsletter:
- I picked a bunch of new shows and limited series I liked this year that didn't make my Top 10 for one reason or another:
Alan Sepinwall
- For What Else Is Alan Watching? bonus tier subscribers, I looked back at the legacy of "Lazy Sunday," which debuted on SNL 20 years ago last week:
Alan Sepinwall
- I recapped the Pluribus season finale, which had an epic mic drop:
Alan Sepinwall
- For The Ringer, I spoke with Vince Gilligan, Rhea Seehorn, and several other key members of Team Pluribus about the finale, and about the many behind-the-scenes decisions that led to this first season being so great:
- I wrote about HBO Max's early winter phenomenon, the queer hockey romance Heated Rivalry, which hooked me even though I'm in no way the target audience:
Alan Sepinwall
- And I wrote about the penultimate batch of Stranger Things, which had some wonderful moments, but also much more padding than the season's first four episodes:
Alan Sepinwall
RIP, James Ransone
As part of the prep for my upcoming book about The Wire, I've been gradually rewatching the series, often as my treadmill show. That binge is currently on Season Two, where I've once again been reminded of how great James Ransone was as Ziggy Sobotka, the screw-up stevedore who seems determined to live down to everyone's low opinion of him. Sunday afternoon, I wrapped up watching the episode where Cheese takes Ziggy's car as punishment for Ziggy screwing up a package, then came home to the terrible news that Ransone died by suicide.
A few years after the end of The Wire, Ransone teamed back up with David Simon for Generation Kill, the HBO miniseries about a group of recon Marines in the early days of the U.S. invasion of Iraq. He is an absolute joy to watch in that show; Alexander Skarsgard is the clear lead, but as Skarsgard's obnoxious colleague, Ransone pops off the screen. At a TCA event tied to the launch of the miniseries, I told Ransone how good I thought he was in it. He was relieved, and asked if I thought it might make people stop thinking of him as Ziggy. Though The Wire wasn't a hit in its lifetime, the show had a long afterlife, and he felt typecast by it. He never hit it big the way Skarsgard did, but he kept working, from a recurring role on Simon's Tremé to playing one of the adult Losers Club members in It Chapter Two to a guest role earlier this year as a killer on Poker Face.
Here he is in the most memorable Generation Kill scene:
And here's his most memorable moment from The Wire, which Matt Zoller Seitz watched next to me in The Star-Ledger newsroom, turned to me, and said, "This is like a Springsteen song come to life."
PSA to anyone reading this who might be thinking harmful thoughts at this time of year, or any time: please reach out to loved ones or a professional. There is help out there, even if it doesn't feel that way to you right now. And the world would be much poorer without you than it is with you.
Merry happy to you?
Before I go, an open question to anyone who wants to keep talking TV over the holiday weekend: what is your favorite December holiday episode, or even scene, of all time? I'm not saying this scene from The Sopranos isn't my pick, but it isn't not my pick:
Enjoy whatever break you get! See you in the next year, Jack!
