Speaker 1: From Schwartz Media. I'm Ruby Jones and this is seven
Speaker 1: AM's summer series. If a TV series entertains you and
Speaker 1: transports you somewhere new for an hour, it's.
Speaker 2: A good show. But if it tells you.
Speaker 1: Something about yourself and the moment that you're living in,
Speaker 1: well that is a very good series. And this year
Speaker 1: the best television came in surprising formats, including a queer
Speaker 1: dating show in Japan, a technicolor reimagining of ancient Greece,
Speaker 1: and in the depths of a beloved, if stressful Chicago kitchen. Today,
Speaker 1: I'm speaking to the Saturday Papers TV critic Sarah Kresmastin
Speaker 1: about the best television of twenty twenty four and how
Speaker 1: it grapples with ambition, love, grief, and the gods. It's Tuesday,
Speaker 1: December twenty fourth. Sarah, Welcome to seven AM.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much.
Speaker 1: A huge year for television. It feels like there was
Speaker 1: a lot that came out of wildly variable quality. But
Speaker 1: let's talk about the best. Yes, tell me what your
Speaker 1: first pick of the year is.
Speaker 3: So I like to shake it out between fiction and
Speaker 3: nonfiction television or scripted and nonscripted, because that's where my
Speaker 3: interests so as go, and I feel that Nonscripted really
Speaker 3: gets the short end of the stick and a lot
Speaker 3: of end of year raps. My first pick was Lance
Speaker 3: Oppenheim's three part docu series ren Fair.
Speaker 1: Okay, tell me about rent Fair.
Speaker 3: Ren Fair is vibe wise a mix between Game of
Speaker 3: Thrones and succession and it's all true.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Texas a Renaissance Festival.
Speaker 3: It's about a battle for succession in America's largest Renaissance festival,
Speaker 3: which is the Texas Renaissance Festival, after its eighty six
Speaker 3: year old founder decides that he's going to retire.
Speaker 2: Now that guy's is George.
Speaker 3: Kulham and he's referred to as King George, the Ruler.
Speaker 1: He's not crazy, he's just thinking on a level that
Speaker 1: you can't comprehend. I don't know what's going to happen
Speaker 1: to it after he's the house if he ain't work
Speaker 1: and it don't work.
Speaker 4: George George, George George.
Speaker 2: And he's a deeply unpalatable human being.
Speaker 4: The perfect way to go would be have a woman
Speaker 4: screw me to death, and that's my goal.
Speaker 3: But that's what makes for the power dynamics and the
Speaker 3: power struggle and kind of palace intrigue that takes place
Speaker 3: over each of these three episodes. With the place where
Speaker 3: this actually takes place in Texas is so lawyer on
Speaker 3: such a large physical scale that George incorporated it as
Speaker 3: his own city, of which he's been the mayor for
Speaker 3: the last forty years. So his retirement and the possible
Speaker 3: change in this festival is quite significant for a lot
Speaker 3: of people. So as a documentary, it explores all of
Speaker 3: these elements. Openheim's really interesting to me because he has
Speaker 3: a lot of heightened kind of cinematic elements that come
Speaker 3: in to make it visually really compelling, really fun to watch.
Speaker 3: And then we have this kind of push me ploye
Speaker 3: relationship with this odious man at the center of the action.
Speaker 2: And it's just another way of proving.
Speaker 3: As our best kind of factual story telling does that
Speaker 3: fact is stranger than fiction.
Speaker 2: But it was a super transporting documentary.
Speaker 3: I don't think it got the attention it deserved this year,
Speaker 3: and I think will be perfect kind of summer watching.
Speaker 1: Tell me a little bit more about the odious man
Speaker 1: at the center, King George, Are you on his side
Speaker 1: at all?
Speaker 3: Like I am never on George's side, But I'm deeply
Speaker 3: interested in all of the factors which coalesced to make George.
Speaker 3: I mean to describe him. I think the most effective
Speaker 3: way is telling you that he has an employee who's
Speaker 3: devoted solely to managing his profile and dating on a
Speaker 3: sugar Daddy website, which you have no judgment to either
Speaker 3: party if that's what they.
Speaker 2: Freely choose to do.
Speaker 3: But he's quite explicit about his sexual life, and there's.
Speaker 1: He's the mayor of the festival and like the Sugar
Speaker 1: Daddy correct.
Speaker 3: See seeking a mate and everything in his life is
Speaker 3: defined by great power imbalances.
Speaker 2: So, yeah, that's George.
Speaker 1: It sounds fascinating. Your second pick, Sarah.
Speaker 3: Yes, so again did not get the attention that I
Speaker 3: wished it had this year. Another factual genre pick is
Speaker 3: The Boyfriend, which is Japan's first queer dating show.
Speaker 5: When I saw Kazuto, I was surprised. He's a really
Speaker 5: good looking guy. Think you must be popular.
Speaker 1: My first impression is that he's friendly and kind, but
Speaker 1: it's also a little bit mysterious.
Speaker 2: I was initially attracted by the blurb, which.
Speaker 3: Was something along the lines of nine men move in
Speaker 3: together and run a coffee truck.
Speaker 2: In an effort to find their one.
Speaker 3: True love something like this, which seemed unlikely.
Speaker 2: Yes, it was just like, what is this? So it's
Speaker 2: nine men.
Speaker 3: They move in together four months in Chiba, which is
Speaker 3: near the beach, and they paired up in different combinations
Speaker 3: to go out and actually run this coffee truck business.
Speaker 5: So far, we're serving a cafe latte, hot nice latte,
Speaker 5: hot niced, and regular drip coffee also hot niced.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So the people that I've recommended it too, who wouldn't
Speaker 3: have otherwise watched it. The reaction has been unanimous that
Speaker 3: it's extraordinarily moving, so surprisingly compelling and emotional and not
Speaker 3: at all what you would expect from the description of
Speaker 3: this is a you know, a reality dating show.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it sounds very wholesome and non toxic.
Speaker 3: It is both of those things, and it's like the
Speaker 3: rare show where and this is not particular too, you know,
Speaker 3: factual storytelling.
Speaker 2: I do feel it made me slightly better in my
Speaker 2: own relationships. It wakens up something in you.
Speaker 3: When you're watching it that is like a little room
Speaker 3: in the house that you didn't know was there. They
Speaker 3: are so deliberate and intentional with their choices.
Speaker 5: So I realized that I've never been able to really
Speaker 5: let myself commit to the idea of being in love
Speaker 5: before I thought if I'm vulnerable or grow So it's
Speaker 5: amazing to be able to meet you.
Speaker 2: That's so cool.
Speaker 3: The pacing is very gradual, the camera is extremely intimate,
Speaker 3: and we get to know each of these men very slowly.
Speaker 6: Their backstore, their character, and you get an idea cumulatively
Speaker 6: across all these episodes, not just into how relationship is
Speaker 6: just hard for anybody, but particularly for members of the
Speaker 6: queer community in Japan, and they're working in groups, they're
Speaker 6: working on themselves and then slowly, slowly as a group
Speaker 6: towards this beautiful cohesion that just has this wonderful emotional
Speaker 6: effects that we're seeing change over time in real life.
Speaker 2: And I just find it the most gorgeous thing I've
Speaker 2: seen in a very long time.
Speaker 1: And so this show, it's Japanese. There hasn't really been
Speaker 1: a queer reality TV series in Australia, has There is
Speaker 1: that something you've noticed?
Speaker 3: Yes, I have noticed that for a very long time,
Speaker 3: and I wish there was something exactly like this. People
Speaker 3: who know me know that I'm an enormous reality TV nerd,
Speaker 3: but I think something that was not just prurient or voyeuristic,
Speaker 3: something that's actually relatable and generous and slowly paced. I mean,
Speaker 3: maybe we just don't have as a culture the patients
Speaker 3: for it, but I don't think that's true. I think
Speaker 3: that people who watch this and invests in the show
Speaker 3: can see that it could work in any other culture
Speaker 3: as well.
Speaker 1: After the Break, Kitchens and Chaos. So, Sarah, we've been
Speaker 1: talking about your favorite TV shows of the year. So
Speaker 1: I far we've spoken about the nonfiction, But tell me,
Speaker 1: tell me about the fiction.
Speaker 2: What have you seen? What have you loved? So this
Speaker 2: was a very very difficult list to narrow.
Speaker 3: Down because it's a phenomenal year for storytelling.
Speaker 2: The Bear has to be mentioned. Part three.
Speaker 3: We continue to see the full range of human experience
Speaker 3: represented in an old sandwich shop, which for me never
Speaker 3: gets old. But they're also doing new things in new
Speaker 3: ways with all of these familiar people and settings.
Speaker 2: In the third season.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so in this third season, Kami has the new
Speaker 1: restaurant and and these big ambitions.
Speaker 5: Three mushroom wait an application, no no, no, no, no,
Speaker 5: no customer requests no mushrooms.
Speaker 3: Is it a moffication or an allergy? Doesn't he doesn't
Speaker 3: like mushrooms.
Speaker 2: Doesn't he doesn't like mushrooms.
Speaker 1: Doesn't it the mushrooms? It's about the clamer deal with him.
Speaker 3: I'm not doing anything to this time.
Speaker 2: Guy hates fucking mushrooms.
Speaker 5: Customer, you get here, chie, I'm gonna send you.
Speaker 1: But the themes, would you say they remain the same,
Speaker 1: this theme of pressure and chaos.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's like, be careful what you wish for. You know,
Speaker 3: things will be great. My life will be great once
Speaker 3: I achieve this goal or dream. So he's kind of
Speaker 3: at the pinnacle of where he had wanted to ended up,
Speaker 3: and yet he's being still plagued by these old ghosts
Speaker 3: and these old kind of reactions in himself. We see
Speaker 3: Chef Sidney Ao and Abiri in more detail.
Speaker 2: We're letting even more into her backstory. I feel like
Speaker 2: I've been here an hour. Yeah, it's it's a lot.
Speaker 1: Why are you doing this.
Speaker 5: So that I can push you and you can push me?
Speaker 2: That's what you want it right, and we can see why.
Speaker 3: You know, the true achievement is not the opening of
Speaker 3: the restaurant or getting a perfect review. It is the
Speaker 3: way in which they deal on a daily basis with
Speaker 3: these ghosts that they're each dealing with. So it is
Speaker 3: just so absorbing and immediate and compelling. It feels so
Speaker 3: lightly handled as it explores, you know, grief and dysfunction
Speaker 3: and hope and relationships that I just find time stops
Speaker 3: whenever I watched any of those episodes. You know, there's
Speaker 3: so many ways of framing this show that do and
Speaker 3: don't work. We saw it win so many Comedy Emmys
Speaker 3: this year, and for people that expect comedy to look
Speaker 3: a certain way that was not pleasing to them.
Speaker 1: It might be the most tragic show to ever be
Speaker 1: built as a comedy.
Speaker 2: Though this is what we get.
Speaker 1: This is herm. It feels appropriate to twenty twenty four
Speaker 1: in some ways, it's true. Okay, So your fourth final
Speaker 1: pick Sarah Chaos Camelinazus.
Speaker 2: Come on, she's right, the King of the Guards.
Speaker 6: King of the Guards.
Speaker 2: So I feel like this has been Jeff Goldbloom's big year.
Speaker 3: He gets to be Zeus in Chaos, and he was
Speaker 3: oz and wicked and just Jeff Goldbloom in both roles
Speaker 3: very successfully. So it follows, you know, Jeff Goldbloom Zeus,
Speaker 3: who becomes increasingly unhinged, and the interlaced fates of a
Speaker 3: lot of gods and demigods and mortals as they each
Speaker 3: face and interpret differently the same prophecy.
Speaker 4: The line appears the Order Waynes, the Family, Fools and Chaos,
Speaker 4: name a line appears.
Speaker 2: You see this?
Speaker 4: You see this? Nkal right here that this is vertical wrinkle. No, no, no,
Speaker 4: that's the line.
Speaker 2: That's the line.
Speaker 4: I discovered it just now. I'm supposed to be immortal.
Speaker 4: How is that aging? What's next to dipping bone density?
Speaker 4: Gummer session es, necessity for the daily student, prune the
Speaker 4: Order Waynes, that's what it says.
Speaker 2: Oh, my friend, I'm waning.
Speaker 3: I'm waning.
Speaker 4: The humans act like they think.
Speaker 3: It's Charlie Covell's creation, and it's dexterously doing new things
Speaker 3: with these old classical material And I hadn't seen something
Speaker 3: that was that steeped in genre here, you know, the
Speaker 3: classical myth, but at the same time so original and
Speaker 3: how it was putting it together and so every kind
Speaker 3: of aspect of this show was really like astounding to me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, what I really liked about it was its ambition.
Speaker 1: I don't think it made every single shot that it
Speaker 1: aimed for, but I loved how high it ended, and
Speaker 1: I also thought it was very funny. The way that
Speaker 1: the Underworld in particular was conceived is this place of
Speaker 1: kind of like interminable bureaucracy. I found very very funny.
Speaker 3: We have this high, technicolor beautiful Elasian world of the
Speaker 3: gods and Olympus, and then Creed does the mortal world
Speaker 3: and everything looks like vaguely dusty and kind of grim,
Speaker 3: and then the Underworld it is this desaturated, monochromatic, kind
Speaker 3: of bureaucratic.
Speaker 2: Hellscape, but in a familiar health.
Speaker 3: So it's the hell of you know, the office place,
Speaker 3: which is done just so gorgeously. So yeah, it felt
Speaker 3: new in a way that was rare even in a
Speaker 3: euro of great shows, and was packed with wonderful actors.
Speaker 3: Misha Butler as Knaeus was just extraordinarily compelling, Aurora Perano
Speaker 3: as Eurydice.
Speaker 2: Susi Azadas one of the fates. It was a delight.
Speaker 1: Okay, that's chaos, and we'll be back with some honorable
Speaker 1: mentions after this, So Sarah, before I let you go,
Speaker 1: are there any other notable mentions? Any other excellent TV
Speaker 1: that you've watched that you've liked to throw out there.
Speaker 3: Well, I wanted to say that this is an unlikely
Speaker 3: Companions suggestion if you're into any of the stuff with
Speaker 3: Chaos in terms of like reinventing genre or referencing genre.
Speaker 2: Interior Chinatown, so that is on Disney.
Speaker 3: It's Charles Hugh's creation is based on his novel and
Speaker 3: it stars Jimmy O Yang and Ronnie Chang. It's kind
Speaker 3: of always gesturing towards graphic novel sensibilities and video game
Speaker 3: sensibilities and police procedural sensibilities in ways that are just
Speaker 3: so meta and fun and engaging type of hit TDS
Speaker 3: and executive producer. So if you're a fan of his work,
Speaker 3: you can definitely see the kind of that trace. It's
Speaker 3: particularly in the early episodes that's just been so fun
Speaker 3: and again it feels very new and necessary. Somebody somewhere,
Speaker 3: which I've only started like two weeks ago, Somebody somewhere
Speaker 3: has this wonderful and for me, it was very unexpected
Speaker 3: because again it seems to have gone under the radar,
Speaker 3: the soaring lightness as it's dealing with these themes that
Speaker 3: like are just about common humanity. I couldn't recommend that
Speaker 3: one enough. And then Ripley I really loved. I just
Speaker 3: found it gorgeously sinister. Again, this kind of monochromatic landscape
Speaker 3: Italy in the summer thriller What more could you want?
Speaker 2: That was a stand up for me as well.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I watched that, and then I went straight back
Speaker 1: and watched the original film. Highly enjoyed both the experiences.
Speaker 3: Than you and the relatch who knew that it was
Speaker 3: such that Ripley would be a seemingly infinite text. I
Speaker 3: look forward to the next reinterpretation of it. The look
Speaker 3: iman a lot liked it, so that was good, And
Speaker 3: I also liked the few, the Caupodi and the Swans.
Speaker 3: I mean, that's been again, reasonable minds have differed greatly.
Speaker 3: I found it kind of had this soap opera charm,
Speaker 3: or even like an actual operatic charm.
Speaker 2: The period detail.
Speaker 3: Also, it's a writer's movie in many ways. There's episode
Speaker 3: four with James Baldwin. Just if you're a fan of
Speaker 3: Capodi at all or New York in the fifties, sixties, seventies,
Speaker 3: this is a wonderful immersive experience. It has certain narrative flaws,
Speaker 3: But again, I think that would be a wonderful summer
Speaker 3: watch and I'm actually gonna rewatch it myself.
Speaker 1: So I mean, speaking of soap operas, you haven't mentioned territory.
Speaker 2: Oh I know, so this is.
Speaker 1: Yes, well it's my favorites because you know, in no
Speaker 1: small part because I grew up in the Northern Territory.
Speaker 3: Would you put it as scripted or unscripted?
Speaker 1: I just thought it was so much fun, so much Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 7: It has been a devastating year politically, and as devastating
Speaker 7: it it has been, it has been a fabulous year
Speaker 7: for our TV arts and entertainment, so you know we've
Speaker 7: got that going for us.
Speaker 1: Sarah, thank you so much for your time.
Speaker 2: Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: Ruby seven Am will be back tomorrow as we explore
Speaker 1: the best music of twenty twenty four.