With this posting we have officially, finally covered all five types of media we promised since the beginning - movies, music, books, comics…and now TV.
It took us a beat to figure out how we wanted to do this!
This was also a work in progress - we recorded today’s episode almost 3 months ago, but had the opportunity to invite a special guest on for the grand finale, and we chose to hold off on posting these eps until we had our guest confirmed and his interview in the can.
So I can now reveal the big rollout!
This podcast will be a 5-part mini-series, dropping 2x per week for 2.5 weeks. The schedule is as follows:
Part 1: How Did This Get Made? (Today! It’s this post!)
Part 2: Episodes 1-3 (and wine pairings with those episodes) (Tues, 9/10)
Part 3: Episodes 4-6 (and wine pairings with those episodes) (Thurs, 9/12)
Part 4: Episodes 7-9 (and wine pairings with those episodes) (Tues, 9/17)
Part 5: Interview with Chris Black, Executive Producer and Writer on Severance (Thurs, 9/19)
And because synchronicty is weird like that, THIS article just dropped as I’m drafting this:
All 5 of these episodes will be free to all, as it’s our very first TV coverage, we’d love the feedback on what you think of it as it goes and once it’s done!
In This Episode
We run through the history of the show, cover how an unknown writer, Dan Erikson, got his script into the hands of the one and only Ben Stiller, how Stiller got Adam Scott onboard, and got the greenlight from Apple TV.
We also tangent quite a bit, and discuss spoiler culture and maybe we should take more personal responsibility for that, then speaking of responsibility, we discuss “consumer responsibility” when viewing streaming selections and/or attending the theater, plus pretention in both Hollywood and the wine industry.
It's a bloody great talk! Though your mileage may vary. :P
Also, as promised in the podcast, here’s Dan Erickson's 2011 short film, League of Wonder:
Pairings
Note that there are no wine pairings in this Part 1, we’ll get those started in Part 2! And every few episodes we take stock on whether the pairings should change or not - has the show itself evolved? Has the tone shifted to where it demands a different pairing? (Spoiler: in most cases, that answer is YES! Though in one case, a pairing held the course.)
What is Severance?
SEVERANCE is, in the not remotely humble opinion of both Dallas and myself, the best TV show of 2022. Created by then-unknown writer Dan Erickson, and produced and directed by Ben Stiller (yes! He directed SIX of the nine episodes!) this was the little show that could. And it brought actor Adam Scott back to drama, after spending many years in the comedy trenches.
Starring Adam Scott, Britt Lower, Zach Cherry, Tramell Tillman, Jen Tullock, Dichen Lachman, Michael Chernus, John Turturro, Christopher Walken, and Patricia mother f**king goddess Arquette.
Released on Apple TV+ in 2022, Season 2 was greelit but delayed by the dual Hollywood strikes in 2023. It wrapped production in April of this year, jut 2 months before we recorded today’s episode. So it’s coming soon!
PART 2 drops next Tuesday! See y’all then!
The episode can also be listend to at any of the below:
Wine and...TV: SEVERANCE Season 1, Part 1 - How Did This Get Made?