#87 Crossing The Streams – Bonus Episode #3

CTS Announcer 0:01

Looking for your next TV show or movie to binge? Well buckle up, grab the remote and settle into your couch for this special edition of crossing the streams. We're here to help you tune in and get the most out of those 50 monthly streaming channels you're currently paying for. So without any further ado, here's your host of crossing the streams. Jeff Dwoskin

Jeff Dwoskin 0:30

Hey everybody, Jeff Dwoskin here welcoming you to yet another bonus episode. The feedbacks been so great, Jeff, we're so happy. We finally have TV shows to binge watch. We had completely run out of ideas and your show saved us rights of viewer from Topeka, Kansas. Well, thank you, and thank all of you who thought about writing but didn't but have been touched by our show crossing the streams. Of course, the idea of crossing the streams is a bunch of friends getting together talking about TV shows that we love to binge and watch with hopes that you'll walk away with new ideas of shows you can watch as well. You can find full episodes of all the shows on YouTube at the Jeff Dwoskin show on YouTube. You can of course Listen Live every Wednesday at 9:30pm Eastern time when we go live with crossing the streams on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and the fireside app. This week's bonus episode has segments from Episode 2044 and 40. Wide didn't say those in order. I have no idea. But I didn't. Here we are. Let's move on. We're going to be discussing the Americans with friend of the show Scott Curtis documentary now with Howard Rosner, and sheitel with Ron Lippitt. If you're like Jeff, some of those shows I've never even heard of that's the point of the show. We'd like to introduce shows that maybe you haven't heard of some gems that are just hiding out there. Sure. We cover the shows that everyone's talking about like last week we did squid game, but we also dive deep into some of our favorites that maybe no one else has even heard of. So without further ado, let me turn it over to Howard Rosner to tell us all about documentary now. I owe me now.

Howard Rosner 2:20

Yeah, so documentary now was an IFC show. It's at Netflix. Now there's three seasons. It is a show that was created by Seth Meyers, Bill Hader, and Fred Armisen, who collectively are three people that I absolutely love and find absolutely hysterical. Bill Hader is one of the funniest people on the planet. And it is a send up every episode is a send up of a popular famous documentary. So in the three seasons amongst the shows, the famous documentaries that they make they parody great Gardens, which is a famous one voice just vice documentaries are is an episode with Jack Black called drones, the hunt for algae and gun, which is a great episode. It's one of the best ones. The bunker, which is, was the famous Clinton election team episode. The best one is probably a two part send up in season one of the history of the Eagles documentary about a band called The Blue Gene committee that is just superb. There's some great musical cameos in that throughout all three of the episodes or all three of the seasons in every episode are some just incredible cameos. A bunch of the shows were written or CO written by John Maloney. It's very much his sensibility. So it's, you know, all these guys that were, you know, friends on on SNL, and the SNL writing staff. They send up Jiro Dreams of Sushi, which was a great documentary swimming to Cambodia, which is a great documentary stop making sense the famous Talking Heads performance documentary, so so these are basically just spoofs of all of them. But it's so there's so well, we could

Jeff Dwoskin 4:12

do an entire episode of Just The real ones. Yeah. Yeah, seriously.

Howard Rosner 4:17

It's, it's so well done. The last episode of season three was actually written by Tim Robinson, who we've talked about from Detroiters Did you should leave, which is still one of the funniest shows on streaming right now. I did that about a while ago. So it's, it's just great. Yeah, I mean, definitely catch the drones episode. If you want to cherry pick the drones episode and the two part Blue Gene committee from season one, the last episode, which was called any given Saturday afternoon, which is a send up of a league of ordinary gentlemen, which is about the PBA tour. And the guys that were big on the PBA tour at the time. So it's a bowling Fake Boeing documentary. It's just it's a really, really smart, funny show, and hater and Arma center and you know, almost every one of the episodes, and they're they're so good it's it's just it's a really really good parody. I liked it a lot. So three seasons on Netflix.

Jeff Dwoskin 5:20

All right, that was documentary. Now. You love comedy you love documentaries? Sounds like that is the show for you. Check it out, tweet us at Jeff Dwoskin show that it's no if thank, if you've seen it, or after you see it. I can't wait to hear from you. Our next show is the Americans starring Keri Russell, Scott Curtis front of the show is going to talk us through that this segment also turns into a really cool conversation about different ways to watch and consume shows. Enjoy this. This is a show that I am excited to hear about Scott because I kind of wanted to watch this show. I hear it I hear it's good. But let's let's Yeah,

Scott Curtis 6:02

yeah, I saw. So when this first came out, this came out in 2013, that five seasons and I watched a few episodes by myself and because my wife was watching something else. And then I decided as I was watching it, that this would be good for us to watch together. So I didn't watch anymore. And then I forgot about it and never watched any more seasons and then showed up on Amazon Prime. So I pulled it up and didn't remember much of it. But it's it's a really cool show. And it makes me wonder you know how much of it could actually be true because it's weird. It's during the Reagan years Cold War is just at its peak. And these two KGB trained agents come to America or they're in America that kind of opens with them there with their fake married but I've got two kids that are real and being raised as American kids and they have all these missions they got to do and it's always impossible missions and there is a lot of graphics, sex and violence. Probably too much for the show. They could they could just allude to things rather than go right into it. But anyway, they there's there's a lot of intrigue there. FBI agent moves next door or across the street from and he becomes a big part of it. He tries to turn a woman that works for the KGB head there at the diplomacy place. And it's just, there's so much to it. There's so many layers, the you know, watching it, especially because we just got through season one and we're about two episodes in the season two, just going through it. I I'm really hooked because I want to know what happens and I hope they tied it up well, because if they didn't I'm going to be yes, they did. Okay,

Jeff Dwoskin 8:06

they did. Okay, so you guys are seeing it. i Yeah, I stopped watching after Season Two because she cut her hair and it ruined the whole thing for me.

Bryan Green 8:15

Kerry Washington,

Ron Lippitt 8:16

Carrie. Carrie Russell. Russell. I love her that show. And I think she does a great job. It is a little bit gratuitous. I will I will agree with you on that. But I don't mind.

Scott Curtis 8:30

She's well yeah, yeah. When she's in the one sheet. Yeah, there's a lot of but there Yeah. And and it's it's it's okay. I'm okay. I'm okay with it isn't necessary, all of it? I don't think so.

Ron Lippitt 8:44

So I'll say this about the Americans without without giving anything away, Jeff it it does suffer from the same thing. For those of you who've watched Ozark and other shows like it, there's only so much stress you can put on your audience before they start kind of it actually reverses the interest. And and I Ozark suffers from that same thing, every single show, you're exhausted by how close they came to, you know, being caught or being killed or whatever. And that's my only criticism of the Americans because I always I always feel like they're so close to, you know, things going wrong for them, I think.

Jeff Dwoskin 9:24

Yeah, go ahead. Very good.

Bryan Green 9:25

I'm sorry. Go ahead, Jeff.

Jeff Dwoskin 9:27

I wouldn't know I was just gonna say that's one of the reasons I can't rewatch Breaking Bad guy. Like I love Breaking Bad. Same thing, same all the way through. But some of those episodes when I think back to the episode where they were trying to get rid of that body and they were using the thing that how Yeah, it was like, and I think but I can't even I can't even imagine watching sitting through that hour again. You know, I mean, like, there's certain episodes of that show. I just, I couldn't I don't think I could I didn't want and I enjoyed that ride 100% Night think everyone should take it. But like I'd sat back and rewatch,

Bryan Green 10:04

I think it's such a fair point wrong that you make that there's a that every episode bends you to the point of breaking almost right? Almost every single episode, there's a few filler episodes here and there, the characters are so well developed, you feel like you know these characters and you're so invested in what's happening that every episode becomes a real ride. But I think like Breaking Bad I watched it once. And even though it's everywhere, it's so available for me to watch again. And it's one of my it's in my top three Shows of All Times as as the Americans, I don't choose to go back and do that again. Because I took that ride. I like the way that it made me feel I was okay with the way that it ended. Same with the Americans. And each episode, the way that it unraveled, I was so emotionally invested in, I know that I won't be that way a second time around. So I'm just choosing like, it's not the moment, it's not the time for me to go back around. So I almost enjoyed the fact that it kind of stressed me to break and like I knew there was not going to be a boring episode of the Americans. Now I'd say in season three or four. There are a couple episodes. I'm like, okay, then we do this, like in episode two and episode. Yeah, but I think the Americans is a true gem of US television. Creation, no doubt,

Unknown Speaker 11:13

and I accept payment by

Jeff Dwoskin 11:15

too much. But

Scott Curtis 11:16

yeah, a little bit too much. And it came 2013 was when there was such a proliferation. It really started, like everybody had a good show on TBS samsi, everybody had a good show. And there was no way that unless you watch TV 18 hours a day that you're going to keep up with all that stuff. And he had to pick and I don't remember which one I pick, I don't know, might have been Longmeyer or something like that. Anyway, but yeah, I watched you know, we picked one, and we watched it together. And now we're, you know, through the magic of streaming TV, I just don't care if I miss something anymore. It's just like, it's always gonna be there. So I'll watch it when I watch it. So, and the fact that this is a period piece, you don't really get taken out of it. Because, you know, even 2013 years was different than it is now. You know, every COVID and all that kind of stuff. It doesn't take you out of period, because you're in the Reagan period anyway. So it's not like it's ever going to be dated. Is it? Because, you know, playing on history?

Ron Lippitt 12:24

I think you make a really good point. Yeah,

Jeff Dwoskin 12:27

you make a good point. Yeah. Yeah, the Americans was like the show. I didn't watch this because I was already maxed out. I remember people talking about it. But you know, I didn't catch breaking bad at first you there. And we ended up with Breaking Bad. I think we talked about this, maybe maybe Breaking Bad I watched with my wife, we caught up and then watched the last eight episodes live, like as they were actually airing. So and I you know, I gotta say like, there's something about binging and not watching things when they actually happen, that I feel makes it a little easier to watch. Like, for example, Breaking Bad, or even like, I remember, I think back to the sopranos, and I think we talked about this, there was so much time in between seasons of The Sopranos, it in those later years, I'd forget the show was even on still. And so by the time the show comes back, and the streaming channels, we're always bad at this are getting a little better. This now there was no recaps, who was nothing like if you waited a year and a half to see the Sopranos. There was nothing that reminded you what happened. And like you would only and think about that in the terms of like the streaming, how we watch TV now, right? A new season. If this only murders in the building had just come out and they put all 10 episodes out or all the tabasco's were out at the same time. Well, the majority of people would watch that that six hours, eight hours within seven days, right, the new episode when the new series wouldn't come out for 300 more days, right. So it's like you don't even remember some of the nuances and the things that happen because you watch it so fast. But the nice thing about watching why

Bryan Green 14:04

that these these streaming platforms are choosing to roll them out to an ala carte television style is because they want to keep the PR going. They want to Yeah, that appointment television appointments streaming that's going I think that's

Jeff Dwoskin 14:19

it I think it's always a mistake when they new shows that they don't create the the events, you know, I mean, like, every Wednesday, people are talking about what if the new Marvel show and every Friday people talk about the new Ted Lascaux show, if you put everything out in the same week, which Netflix has done, right, they'll put out this huge new show, and then literally seven days later, nobody's talking about it again. Right? It's like why wouldn't you like that's the beauty of it is Marvel shows Loki people talks about Loki for two months to two and a half months, as they kind of stretched out all those shows all those shows, right? So to me it's also like you can't have a conversation Because if if you have eight hours of TV available to you, and you're in Episode Six and Ron's on four and Scott's finished and I'm halfway through, Scott can't talk to any of us because he can't. He watched it so fast. He can't remember what happened in Episode 123 or four, and he'll accidentally give something away or it just it makes it impossible to have conversations and the fun of guessing what's coming next. You know, it just takes all that away. So I enjoy this little burns.

Scott Curtis 15:30

That's me and I think the whole releasing the entire series thing I think it's almost like a standoff now. It's like, who's gonna be the first one who is smart enough to get away from the sun go back to the weekly episodes and nobody's nobody has enough guts to do it. But Steve, Steven Martin Short, they are doing it. So there was another show. Just recently

Bryan Green 15:55

demand DeLorean was doing the same thing, wasn't it?

Jeff Dwoskin 15:58

Yeah, they did weekly. Anyway.

Ron Lippitt 16:00

Yeah. Yeah. Scott, I I wanted to follow up on what you said a second ago about, you know that it's okay to miss things. And I'll just say that the technology and the algorithms now are so good. And they're so accurate about reminding you, reminding you of what you've missed, and things that it predicts accurately, I might add of what you're going to like, and like Apple TV is fantastic at that. And I mean to

Jeff Dwoskin 16:27

watch the Snoopy show, but is there a way Wait, I don't want to rob Scott Curtis of his Casey Ryan plot convinced. Rob you there.

Scott Curtis 16:39

Thanks. Thanks, CRP.

Jeff Dwoskin 16:45

Right, thank you, Scott. Curtis, let us know what you think about the Americans. Have you seen it? Great conversation that just sort of happened. That's what happens with the live show. You never know where it's gonna go. We start talking about a show. And we branch off into different conversation topics all the time, usually always related to whatever we're talking about. But it's live. It's fun. And don't forget to catch us every Wednesday at 9:30pm. Eastern time. If you get on the fireside app, you can actually come on stage and talk with us. In the meantime, let's turn over to Ron Lippitt. And schnitzel. This is shaped shed. So yes, it again, ships. This is I have to tell

Ron Lippitt 17:25

you, that's half the fun of this show is trying to find people to pronounce this show correctly.

Jeff Dwoskin 17:31

kichel is my one of my favourite Jewish pastries. It's got a nice crunch to it. And it's made with a twist. Yeah, yeah. Nice.

Ron Lippitt 17:39

Nice. So the correct pronunciation of the of the show is diesel. And it's decently so she saw she saw. And you know, Shulam diesel is the is the main character. And this is a really interesting show. And I have to say, Jeff, I think this is my fourth, or maybe even my fifth Israeli show that I have reviewed on crossing the streets. There's something about these Israeli shows, whether they're comedy or drama. There is a burgeoning Hollywood like industry coming out of Israel right now, that's being recognized by the American, you know, cinematic universe out there. And I think what's, what's fascinating about this show, right from the start is this show the season one, it's only three seasons and finished up. It's it's three seasons and out. But what was interesting is the show was actually season one was in 2013. And this show had a slow and steady build in Israel, and then across Europe, and it started building momentum. And if you can imagine this, and I don't know, I can't think of another show that might have the same tracking like this. Netflix didn't pick up the first season of diesel until 2018. Five years had gone by before, before Netflix grabbed it, and and started to reproduce it for American audiences. And by then they'd already had the first few seasons. It was actually produced by an Israeli production company called Yes. Which is the same production company that produced unorthodox and a couple of other big Israeli shows. In fact, you may recall Shira Haas, who was the big star of own fun orthodox. And you you know, Zack, I think you talk or I think you talked about how you and I might have had an argument about about her overacting. But she's the big star that came out of diesel originally, even though diesel. We're watching after unorthodox, but actually happened long before on orthodox. So it's just it's just interesting how this all went down. Anyway, it's the story of a modern Orthodox family in Jerusalem, Israel. And one of the things I truly appreciate about this show is it doesn't take the cheap way out at all. It's not the story of somebody trying to get Out of an oppressive family or an oppressive religion, it's more about the reverse about people who are content living inside this this very hard to understand subculture of Judaism of this of this ultra orthodox sect within within Israel. But it it paints the picture that families are families, no matter no matter who you are, no matter where you come from, no matter what your religious beliefs are, you still have the family drama, that that can come out anywhere. And I found it really, really interesting because I, I kept waiting for the show to take a cheap way out with us. And it never does it. It stays true to who this family is. Their problems are real, the solutions are not very convenient. But they're true to life. And you really sympathize with a lot of the characters. I love the fact that they invest in characters that at first, you don't understand or maybe even dislike, and they turn out to be much stronger, deeper characters than you had realized going in and you end up rooting for these people. People that that you didn't understand to begin with gentleman named Michael Aloni, plays the lead character of Akiva Shetty. So this is the sun, another ultra orthodox actor who becomes a very famous artist his character does in Israel. So he's got to balance the fact of how do you become How are you ultra orthodox and an artist at the same time, which is a very unusual thing. And his his story arc takes him to places that you wouldn't expect for an ultra orthodox and I think that's really interesting. Some of the things are about you learning about life, within the ultra orthodoxy, things like it's okay to smoke and drink, and costs and, and have fights and for people to be shysters and, and thieves and liars. And people who are faithful to their wives like this is all real stuff in the show, the show does a really great job of package things up in one community and one family. And I just, I just love it. And one other interesting thing I'll just tell you about this show, which is also true about unorthodox. But maybe this is true for a lot of these really shows a maybe I'm starting to learn this is that they had flawlessly move between Yiddish and Hebrew in the languages, and then move on to German, in some cases, and even French and in some cases, and it's just it's so beautiful how culturally, they feel so comfortable moving from language to language, because that's part of who they are. It's part of what the culture is. So I thought that was interesting. There's very little English in this. So if you're not in the subtitles, shiso might not be your thing. But I will tell you this. It's a very compelling show, every episode leaves you wanting more, I keep saying it, there's nothing cheap about this show. The characters are beautiful, they're well developed. They're real. There's a lot of uncomfortable things that happen in the show that end up being taken care of one way or another. And in three seasons, they sew up the storyline very, very neatly. Maybe not the way you wanted. But it's real. And I really appreciated about that. So go ahead and watch diesel. Great show. And I think you guys will enjoy it.

Jeff Dwoskin 23:26

Right. Ron? Can you clarify? Like, what if it started in 2013? Yep. But it has dates that go all the way up to 2020? Yeah, so

Ron Lippitt 23:37

this is interesting. So So 2013 and 2015. Were the first two seasons, and then they the actors guild in Israel could not come to terms with the yes network for the third season. So they got paused. And then Netflix came in and said, well, we'll take care of that and we'll we'll pay these people to to do it but they were still under contract with us. It became a big thing then COVID It it halted any thought of production. And then they they rushed through I say that negatively sounding but it's it's still well done. The last season, just this past year, during during COVID What's interesting about that I kind of hinted at this a little before is that in 2021 share a house and Michael Aloni are huge stars in Israel now. So it's not what it'd be like, you know, trying to get the cast back of the untouchables like 20 years after they did the you know, it's just it's it was very difficult. Is there an obvious time jump I mean, if they film like eight years later now it's they they didn't address it. The characters look a little older one of the characters I want her in it one of the characters looks a lot older unfortunately, it kind of didn't fit quite well you know, but but all in all, I think they did, they did a nice job with it. And that's

Jeff Dwoskin 24:56

why I said development when searching for a mine. It was a It happened like five Minutes after season three, yeah.

Ron Lippitt 25:02

But I appreciated that they were gonna, they were in a situation the show wasn't done, they were stuck, they needed they needed these big the only way they were going to finish the show was with these big stars now who were still under contract technically with the show. So the fact that they were able to get it together and that the stars were even willing, just for the art to go back and finish up this show. I respect that a lot. And I think it's cool. It's

Howard Rosner 25:26

it's one of the things that Netflix has really done a great job of, I mean, obviously, all their original stuff has been great. But it's like what they did with Kingdom they've gone and found all over the world and license to the shows that nobody else saw. And you know, like, if you have if you have a need for content, you know, and it's everybody all over the world is doing great content, it's to license it and put it out to people and let people watch these shows that are great. They figured

Ron Lippitt 25:56

it out. I mean, I who produced the the great British, big big show is that is that that was a Netflix. See, it was BBC BBC, so that's like a perfect example. There is a great content everywhere. And Netflix is figuring out. Why are you smiling? What's going on? Nicely done.

Howard Rosner 26:15

It's all with the Schnauzer.

Jeff Dwoskin 26:19

Yeah, it's it's, you know, it reminded me it's like the stars coming together. It reminded me of the other cinematic classic. They got the entire cast back together for Wet Hot American Summer.

Ron Lippitt 26:29

Oh, I thought you're a bunch Christmas Special.

Howard Rosner 26:35

Ron, it's funny you bring up the show because I was sitting doing work in my office on Monday afternoon. And from the other room, I hear the opening notes of Fiddler on the Roof. My wife who is not raised Jewish is now watching Fiddler on the Roof for the first time and then about an hour and she texts me from the other room and says our people have some really killed me. I'm like yes, our parents do have some really weird customs

Jeff Dwoskin 27:08

All right, that was sheitel Thank you very much Ryan lipid. If you like foreign TV shows that can be found on any of the streaming services Ron lipids your man he finds them all the time brings them to the show. Definitely tune in weekly to hear him live. Eventually they'll make them to the bonus episodes side. So rounds off the third show we'll be talking about today. We covered that the Americans and documentary now plenty of homework for you. Don't forget to join us live every Wednesday at 9:30pm Eastern time on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and the fireside app. We look forward to hearing how much you love the shows. In the meantime, don't be afraid to tell your family you're busy. You're watching TV, go cross some streams and I'll see you next week.

CTS Announcer 27:57

Thanks for listening to this special edition of crossing the streams. Visit us on YouTube for full episodes and catch us live every Wednesday at 9:30pm Eastern time. Now turn this off and go watch some TV. And don't forget to tell your family y'all be busy for a while.

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