When the B-story deserves an A+

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Today's What's Alan Watching? newsletter coming up just as soon as I'm a transponster...

What's next?

Coming up in the next week or so:

My season of superlatives continues with the first of a two-part look at my favorite episodes of the year;
Thoughts on Fallout Season Two; and
My recap of the penultimate Pluribus episode of Season One.

It's the most praiseful time of the year!

When I announced plans to add paid content — way back when it was just meant to be a bonus to what I was doing for Rolling Stone — I said the Friday newsletter would remain free, and that some weeks, it might include condensed versions of the paid stuff. I would say my list of the year's 10 best shows qualifies. If you're a free subscriber who wants to read my thoughts on why these particular shows were chosen, you can upgrade. But if you just want to know which series I loved the most, here they are:

10. The Studio (Apple TV)

9. Long Story Short (Netflix)

8. The Chair Company (HBO)

7. Adolescence (Netflix)

6. Severance (Apple TV)

5. Andor (Disney+)

4. It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia (FX)

3. The Lowdown (FX)

2. Pluribus (Apple TV)

1. The Pitt (HBO Max)

Deal or no deal?

The big TV news of the past week was Netflix's deal to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery and all its major properties, including the Warner Bros. film and TV studios, and HBO/HBO Max. I got a couple of freelance assignments to write about it, starting with this piece for The Ringer about how the deal puts an exclamation point on Netflix's absolute victory in the Streaming Wars:

Except when writers are running their own solo operation like this, they don't write their own headlines, nor do they choose the photos or graphics that go with their stories. So using a version of George W. Bush's infamous "Mission Accomplished" banner moment wasn't my call. But it did wind up being appropriate, because right before it published, Paramount launched a hostile takeover bid of WBD, in an attempt to beat Netflix at its own game.

As a result, the other freelance article I wrote, approaching the deal from a different angle, wound up being delayed to acknowledge the rapidly-changing circumstances. In theory, that will be published next week, and I'll link to it then.

Oh gods, book two

As I say at the end of my review of the second season of Percy Jackson and the Olympians, Rick Riordan's books are a big deal around the Sepinwall household. I've read all the books in the original series, and all of the Heroes of Olympus books that followed, and copies of Riordan's other series have made their way on and off various bookshelves over the years. We even went to see the short-lived but very fun The Lightning Thief Broadway musical in 2019.

So I'm invested enough that I keep hope-watching the Disney+ series, which has its moments, and has definitely improved in this new season, but still feels like a Cliff's Notes version of the books. The fact that the last of the four screeners I watched was easily the best gives that hope something tangible to hold onto, at least.

Hit the road, Manousos

Today's Pluribus was probably my favorite of the whole season, including the two remaining episodes coming later this month. If you haven't already watched, get to that. If you have, here's my review:

Super subplots

This week brought the latest installment of my Ask Alan video mailbag for the What Else Is Alan Watching? bonus tier subscribers. One of the questions sent me off on a tangent that I wasn't specifically asked about: TV episodes that are much more famous for a subplot than their main story. The examples I used there included NewsRadio's "Super Karate Monkey Death Car," where everybody talks about Jimmy James reading aloud from his twice-translated memoir, and nobody remembers that the episode is primarily about Lauren Graham giving the WNYX staff polygraph tests; and The Simpsons' "In Marge We Trust," whose subplot about Mr. Sparkle inspired lots of merchandise, whereas the A-story about Marge giving advice to people from her church is completely forgettable.

The subject proved an itch I had to scratch, so here are some other examples:

Unless you're a hardcore Ross and Rachel 'shipper, odds are your favorite Friends scene of all time has Joey and Chandler competing with Monica and Rachel in a trivia challenge that would force the women to swap apartments with the guys. Yet the episode isn't called "The One with the Game Show." It's "The One with the Embryos," where the main story is part of the ongoing arc about Phoebe being a surrogate for her brother Frank.

Also improperly titled in hindsight are a pair of Always Sunny episodes. It's a bit more splitting hairs in this case, because Sunny stories usually run in parallel. Nonetheless, "Sweet Dee Has a Heart Attack" has become immortal as the source of the Pepe Silvia meme, which Dee has nothing to do with (other than inspiring Charlie and Mac to get office jobs in the first place). There's also one whose title I won't repeat, but involves Dee being unsure whether her new boyfriend is developmentally disabled; that one's best known these days for introducing Nightman and Dayman, as the guys dreamed up rival bands.

Though New Girl was designed as a Zooey Deschanel vehicle, it very quickly turned into an ensemble comedy. And what the guys were up to often upstaged the Jess stories. Maybe the best example of this was "Models." As the name suggests, it's mainly about Jess offending a group of Cece's modeling friends. But it's best known for Nick and Schmidt feuding over the subject of cookies:

Like Mr. Sparkle, Seinfeld launched a ton of merchandise with the creation of the fake holiday Festivus. Matt Zoller Seitz and I even used to do an annual Star-Ledger column on that date where we would list the people and shows from the TV world who had disappointed us most that year. If I were to offer you $100 to tell me what that episode's A-story was, could you? It would help to know that it was called "The Strike," and involved Kramer being involved in a years-long job action from his day job at H&H Bagels.

When I ran through memorable Thanksgiving episodes last month, I noted that while President Bartlet calling the Butterball hotline was the most memorable West Wing moment involving the holiday, Season Two's "Shibboleth" was a much better overall episode. But for today's exercise, that scene — from "The Indians in the Lobby," whose titular story is just okay, even with the presence of Gary Farmer — absolutely qualifies:

Not all of these situations involve bad A-stories, necessarily. Case in point: "The Fight" from Parks and Recreation has a lot of fun with Leslie and Beautiful Ann being at odds for once in their perfect friendship. And yet it's been completely and totally eclipsed by the subplot where everybody gets drunk on Snake Juice, which includes the introduction of Burt Macklin love interest Janet Snakehole:

An even better case in point comes with "In Care Of," the sixth season finale of Mad Men. That series tended to do some of its best work at the end of each season, and this one is no exception. (I just got a little choked up thinking of Judy Collins' version of "Both Sides Now" playing as Don takes his kids to see the brothel where he grew up.) And yet, its entire existence may as well just be these 9 seconds, in a moment that has completely transcended not only the episode, but Mad Men itself:

Finally, I would be wildly off-brand if I didn't note that the episode of Scrubs where Turk dances to Bel Biv Devoe's "Poison" to audition for Ted's air band comes in an episode where JD buys a half-acre of land while dating Mandy Moore. Whatever. Just enjoy the dancing: