It's the downbeat. I'm ninety seven to one, the Tree Yima thirty minutes
away, the Jeff and Julie iHeartRadio and Employee Performance Review to Speak Easy two
to six pm. They'll join us via zoom in thirty minutes. Look at
d Good Morning News. In a minute. We were doing our top ten
TV shows at twenty twenty three. Danny's in Order number ten, Fargo number
nine, FX's Fleischmann is in trouble, and Hulu number eight, paramounts Mayor
of Kingston or Kingstown. Number seven HBO is the last of us number six
succession for Kevin always Sonny in Philadelphia. Number nine, I think you should
leave Netflix. Number eight, The Curse on Showtime, number seven, The
Righteous Jim Stones HBO, and number six Barry HBO. You have not broken
ranks with the comedy genre yet, have you noticed that? What do you
mean? You're ten through six. They're all comedies. They are close to
the comedy world. It's what I prefer. I want comedies. You're a
funny man, kevoh I miss I miss comedies. We need more Comedyvin.
Kevin claims there are no funny movies anymore. I do we've it fell off.
We don't have any funny movies. We need more fun and funny stuff.
Well, let me first responder out here, and I need to laugh.
Nothing funny about my top five. Oh, starting with number five,
we are, yes, we are doing our top ten best TV shows of
twenty twenty three. My list versus Kevio's list. We ran through ten through
six. Now let's get five through number one. Number five. Part one
of the final season of this series on Netflix is complete, and I am
talking about The Crown, something that I have taken years to catch up on,
one of those shows that I started years ago. When it came out
and i'd watch a few episodes, I'd forget about it. I'd go back
kind of be lost about where I left off, and started over again.
I've started this show over about four times, and I finally committed to it
this year and got caught up from the middle of season one all the way
through where they are now. We are now at the point where Lady Die
has passed away in the car accident in Paris, and they're picking it up.
I believe any pretty much. Any time they take like a two or
three week break and then they're going to drop the final eight I guess seven
or eight episodes and then it's over. But it's so well done. It's
so good. The thing I love about this show, rather than aging characters,
after a certain time period lapse has lapsed, usually two seasons, then
they reintroduce a new queen, a new king, a new prince charge all
of that. It's like a different different characters that are more age appropriate for
those roles, keep depending on that time in history. It's so damn good.
And I love that the the king is now I guess he's the king
or the Duke or whatever. The Queen of England's husband is now McNulty from
the wire. That's crazy, really funny, really funny. But yeah,
the Crown's just phenomenal. It's what it should be and it's so incredibly well
done. Number five, okay, Number five for me is going to be
Apple TV and it is shrinking, which I forgot, but it came out
in January and then when I realized, I was like, oh, yeah,
I've got to get this in here. And Jason Siegel as your headliner.
Harrison Ford serves in a supplemental role. He's not featured prominently. He
is in every episode. But you know, Jessica Williams is kind of the
she steals the show. Basically very funny. And this show also features our
friend Michael Ury who so basically the show's therapist, and Jason Seagulls a therapist,
but his wife died and he's not handling her well and he's trying to
raise a teenage daughter too, a teenage daughter who doesn't really want to talk
to him that much because she thinks he's corny and other reasons, and she
sees a therapist as well, his boss who's Harrison Ford, and it goes
on a lot of different you know, it's from the guy who made Scrubs
and the guy who made ted Lasso, and as those you know, heartstring
feels to it. But it's very funny. Jason siegells so damn likable,
and I don't know, there's a lot of good things. The other guy
that Brett Goldstein, was also a co creator as well. He's the guy
who was Roy Kent on Ted Lasso too. I liked it way more than
I liked Ted Lasso, like any season of Ted Lasso. Yeah, I
think Shrinking is three times as good as Ted Lasso, I've heard shrinking.
I've heard so many good things about this show. I know Kavanaugh is a
huge fan of it. And it's that damn Apple TV problem where I've got
an older Roku and it will not allow me to use the Apple platform on
Roku. But that's about to change because coming up on December twenty sixth is
the third Spielberg Hanks collab based on events of World War Two, called Masters
of Air starring Austin Butler, which follows a European campaign of the guys flying
the planes, the bombers, the fighter jets, all of that stuff,
but it's taking on that's kind of the setting for this portion of their World
War II storytelling, which is Band of Brothers. Pound for Pound is the
best series of television that's ever been created. I've seen it more as many
or more than any other series that's been out there. Limited series ten episodes,
so I don't count it against Pranos or Six Feet Under or Breaking Bad
anything like that, but as far as a limited series, it's the best
thing that I've ever seen. But it used to be on HBO. HBO
refused to retain the rights to this, and now Masters of the air will
be on Apple Plus. But speaking of HBO, my number four is something
that I don't think a lot of people watch. I think it's incredibly underrated,
but it is so freaking good. It's based on the work of Earl
Stanley Gardner and it's a drama series that traces the origins of the famed criminal
defense lawyer Perry Mason. Okay, I know you haven't watched this. I've
seen so little of it just to find Christina Chicken. Okay. It stars
Matthew Reese, which we should all know from the great television show The Americans
Spectacular and it's nineteen thirty one. It's a killer period piece based in Los
Angeles. He's a defensive criminal defense attorney. But whereas the old Perry Mason
kind of followed, each episode was its own case, you know, kind
of like a law and Order kind of thing, where it's beginning and end,
they wrap it up, they go to trial, all of that stuff,
this series takes its time and they focus on one case over an eight
episode series. It's so damn good. And if you've got HBO Max and
you've seen that on there and going like, oh, you know what,
Perry Mason, who's that guy? Is that guy from some other stuff?
Watch it? It's amazing. Number four for me HBO as well. The
Last of Us Pedro Pascal is incredible and the show will absolutely destroy you.
A couple of times it will or a couple episodes you will just be I'm
obliterated, but beautiful and I can't wait to see how they continue it because
a lot of people are just amazed at how well it's held up compared to
the video game, which I didn't play, but I love hearing because it's
people in that video game world you would expect your pookle, Well, it's
not like this. It is not like this. It's not like this the
way we were maybe even talking about the von Aerck movie a little bit.
But they're like, well, they did a great job with how they handled
that, you know, letting people who it's good to voice actors in the
game have a role you know in the TV show and little things like that,
and it's just a classically great done HBO show. That's cool. Uh.
Number three for me, dude, I know that nobody's seen this,
but I love, love, love this series, and they did had their
final season. It's a British It's a British crime show and it's called Happy
Valley. It was my number three favorite show of twenty twenty three. It's
based in West Yorkshire, which is around Leeds Sheffield, that part of that
part of England, and it follows this female police sergeant. Her name is
Catherine k Wood, not not the actress, the character's name. She's a
divorced police sergeant. She's got two children and she's trying to recover from the
suicide of her eldest daughter. And it had the suicide happened eight years ago,
you know, eight years prior to the series starting, So it's this
woman that's still dealing with the grief of losing her eldest daughter, and she
also has to juggle, you know, raising two other kids divorced and she
is a police sergeant of this smaller unit. But dude, it's so unlike
any other crime show that I've ever seen, because it really does. This
series has the ability to really be very, very human. It's so relatable
and you fall absolutely in love with this with this police woman. It's so
damn good. It's one of the best best British television shows I've ever seen.
I absolutely love it. Happy Valley. If you've got box, yeah,
britt Box or PBS. I believe it's on one of those. But
yeah, it's incredible and they just wrapped it up this year and the ending
is shocking. Yeah. Number three for me, only five episodes in.
It's Fargo. I mean their play on the Night remember before Christmas, and
how they're using that on the side, which I remember Before Christmas was one
of my favorite movies. So the way they're using that and evolving that into
the storyline. John Ham incredible f and Steve from Stranger Things is really good,
is playing the moron. The killer Guy is good in Juno Temple from
Ted Lasso is great as well. I mean, I just it's the one
show right now that I'm watching live on Tuesday nights at nine because I look
forward to it so much. You are watching a television show that has commercials
in it because I love it. It's that because I look forward to it.
I mean, it's just like we just turned the lights off and it's
got a horror film vibe totally. But I've loved it so far. It
could fall off because you know, you never know, but through five episode
I'm sitting here, going and feeding me. We're halfway done, and this
thing's amazing. There's something incredibly fun about watching a series that's based around Minnesota
and North Dakota, especially in the winter time. Yeah, it's just there's
just such a vibe ball and you're right in. The accents are just wonderful.
And I kind of have a big crush on the the cop, the
police lady cop, the Native American police lady cop that has the dufest husband
that thinks he's going to be a professional golfer, and that guy, every
day, all day long, all he does is play simulated golf in his
garage and buy new clubs thinking he's gonna get his PGA card. That it's
really good. There's a world where that was SIROI. I don't know if
it's that world, but there is a world where that's Siroy, maybe when
he was younger. I gotta get my swings in. I hope this is
in your top two. I think it probably is, but number two for
me, and it could have been number one so easily. You know what
this is? This is one B because I don't think that this is one
my one and two or one A and B This is FX is the Bear.
It may be the best television show that I've seen in the last I
don't know, five years, two seasons. Maybe that's maybe that's why it
made number two because it's still kind of a young series. I don't know
how long they plan on going with this, but this show is so stinking
good. Jeremy Allen White is the main character the premises. If you haven't
seen it, he is a kind of a world renowned chef, like this
guy paid his dues, worked for you know, a Michelin rated restaurants in
New York and abroad, and his brother commits suicide and he kind of takes
it upon himself to move back to Chicago take over the family business, which
is a freaking Italian beef sandwich stop. It's basically like a walk up service
stand that sells Italian beef sandwiches, which is very popular in Chicago, and
it's number one. The first season about is him kind of getting it in
the red, you know, or getting it in the black out of the
red end of the black to where it's profitable and cleaning the place up and
passing health inspections and getting all the infrastructure of the place and the staff and
all that, and then he realizes it's like, you know what, we
can elevate this place. We can turn this into a pretty kick ass restaurant
and still do the Italian beef stuff and the hot dogs and all that.
But kind of like he has this vision, and that's what season two is
about, is him putting his vision together. But there's no more heartfelt,
realistic human family show on television that I've seen in a long time. The
Bear is effing brilliant. And the most episodes of thirty minutes. Number two
for me is The Bear on Fax. I love it. And obviously there
are two landmark episodes if you want to catch up a much season one.
Season one, it's when they are inserting the basically the online ordering app,
you know, and how they're and that causes chaos in the kitchen. To
me, that was beautiful. But then when they move past just what's going
on, yeah there, and you see more about the family, And there's
the Christmas episode which has a million cameos in it, and it's a little
longer than thirty minutes, and there's a lot of arguing. You know,
it's very Chicago, it's very the family is stressful. Yeah, the way
they communicate with one another is very stressful. The kitchen scenes are stressful.
I have a ton of friends that work in that business, friends that are,
you know, own catering companies, friends that are chefs, friends that
run restaurants, and a lot of them said it's really hard for them to
watch because it's kind of like they're taking their work home with them. It's
like, dude, I don't need to watch this. This is what I
live every day, and they're nailing it. They are absolutely nailing the restaurant
scenes. So if you want to know what it's like to work in a
high pressure, fast paced kitchen, kind of like the stuff that's described in
board Aine's Kitchen Confidential, which I don't know if you've ever read brilliant,
brilliant, brilliant book, if you ever, if you've had any interest in
seeing what that's like. From all estimations, the Bear nails it. It's
so good. Season two is better than season one. Agree, And now
these shows are getting better. It's kind of crazy. And number two for
me, all right, number one. I couldn't wait for this to come
back out on Netflix. They took a long time off it is one of
the most unique crime shows that's out there. I put this maybe I wouldn't
say it's as good as The Wire, but if you like The Wire,
I think you will like this show. It's called Top Boy. And this
show is about a power struggle between childhood friends that grow up together and they
become leaders of an East London drug empire. Okay, These two characters named
Dushane and Sully childhood friends and they they are in the game. And that's
the that the deal, and it's it's all about the power struggle. It's
how they run their business. It's how they don't see eye to eye.
It's very uh, it's very much like god, I can't even think of
their names now anymore. String and uh Stringer and I'm sorry, kill me
too, Oh my god. Sorry, Come on, Stringer's partner in the
Wire, not di'angelo. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah,
Barks deal avon Sorry my god, yes, okay, yes, it's kind
of very much like that that where they don't quite see eye to eye.
One of them is real hard and wants to do the whole street life thing
and keep it real, and the other guy wants to go more legit business.
But man, the thing that's great about this is it's not as broad
as The Wire. Where's the Wire? You you know all of the cops,
you know, all of the detectives, you know, all of the
politicians in Baltimore. It's more about the city. The Wire's more of a
study of a city and how complex and corrupt it can be, from the
lowest drug user in bubbles to the mayor you know, and it covers every
facet and every element in between. That's sparity between those two. Top Boy
focuses on these dudes, their crews, their families, not a lot about
it a law enforcement But dude, it's so good. And the last season
finally dropped in twenty twenty three, and the ending is one of the most
unexpected, fantastic, somewhat controversial endings of a TV series that I've seen in
a long time. But if you are into that kind of show, into
the shows kind of like The Wire, Homicide, Life on the Streets,
put on the subtitles, go to Netflix and start watching Top Boy. You
will not be disappointed. Someone texted in Danny has a kink for women in
uniform, doesn't he two different shows? He loves the cop ladies. What
was the other one? I don't know. Happy Vale, well, Happy
Valley is like this an older woman. Yeah, it's not not that there's
anything wrong with it has been anything for you though, women in uniform at
a number one for a succession on HBO. I think I've taken too much
of this and just related it directly to the Jerry Jones family, because I
think you can do that. You have three kids, and the way Alan
Ruck played kind of the fourth kid who actually runs for president in the final
season and gets nothing. But I was like, if you want to make
that Jerry's mystery daughter Alexandra, you can. And I do think that there
will be a battle similar to this between Steven and Charlotte and maybe Jerry j
Jean. You don't take his Jerry Junior for whatever reason, we don't take
it seriously. Bianks, Stephen Jones and Charlotte are going to battle for Jerry's
crown when it's time for Jerry to go, and maybe Jeane gets it,
I guess, But that is I mean, I think the similarities in that
I think there are very very clear, and I think the way they handle
a big event that happens in that final season was great. Yeah, and
handle it differently than I had ever seen and your hanging by the edge of
your seat not knowing going into the final episode who gets the company? And
for them to hide that and conceal that, and the way it ended up,
I think was really good. So succession number one for me because they
just had a brilliant season. I think in other years they wouldn't have been.
You know, I like that show a lot, probably top five.
They nailed the final season they did do that. You get points from me,
Yeah, for sure that that could have been number one. Any any
one of mine, may you know, six out of the ten of mine
could have been my number one. I think like the best My favorite was
Top Boy, but probably the best show on my list. The best show
is, in my opinion, is The Bear. Yeah, it's just too
good. It's too good for television. It's it's incredible. That's I'm going
to rewatch that too at some point we watch them all. If there's any
that we've left out, Texas he come in two and four, eight seven,
eight seven, Well that will take the place of what we normally have
as Dingo's morning news. Don't apologize to me it's good stuff, and I
wanted to do this with you, but I mean, at least we can
go to the comic section, right, Who doesn't want another Christmas joke?
It's Wednesday. We got today and then two more and then I'm gone.
Bitches, All right, here's your joke. Everybody knows that Santa is a
notorious ladies man. How has he remained free of STDs for decades? Well,
he always wraps his package before he crams it into a chimney. What
a dirty old man. He's Kevin Turner. Shake that tiny d and thank
you Santa, and thank you Andrew's American Pizza Kitchen for sponsoring not only that
segment, but especially that joke. We all know you must be proud with
any Let's continue our series this week of handling the iHeart employee performance reviews.
Jeff Cavanaugh and Julie Dobbs of The Speakeasy will Zoom in. Next, we
put them under the microscope and review their twenty twenty three on ninety seven one three