The Studio

I didn’t expect to like The Studio on AppleTV as much as I have. Inside-showbiz seems to have been done so well already—The Larry Sanders Show comes to mind—that I was wondering if we really needed more neurotic, passive-aggressive Hollywood nastiness, with stars playing themselves?

Turns out the show made one big choice that saved everything: the lead, Seth Rogen as a newly minted studio head, is nice! He loves movies and just wants to make great ones.

I don’t buy for a second that somebody as bumbling and often idiotic as Matt could actually ascend to a run a studio—it’s all very cartoonish—but it makes the show fresh and fun.

On top of that, the filmmaking is incredible. Every scene is a “oner” (shot in one take), and the entirety of episode 2 is a single take stitched together as Matt neurotically upends the filming of a Sarah Polley movie (which is also being shot as one-take, natch).

They do seem to have copied the jazz percussion score from Birdman.

I am really enjoying this. Kudos to the creators.