Not to give anything away (except the plot), but the Jonestown massacre makes a terrible backdrop for promoting a product. Seth Rogen’s The Studio kicks off by ignoring this consideration, letting the hero get flattened by a disaster that the rest of us see thundering up from the horizon. Tolerate that gimme and Apple-TV+ can take pride in a very decent first episode for its new series. The direction, by Rogen, features a weave of tracking shots and pans, with a virtuoso long pull-in to a pair of characters having a heart-to-heart. Through all this unblinking scrutiny the cast keeps the ball in the air instead of relying on cutaways. Good to know that such high-level craftsmanship matters to some sectors in Hollywood, especially when the episode’s plot reminds us that a movie about the Kool-Aid man could really happen someday.
Rogen plays Matt Remick, who’s just been promoted to head of production. Like the antiheroes of The Larry Sanders Show and Curb Your Enthusiasm, Matt’s a feckless character who’s lodged at the top of the showbiz pyramid but has no great ideas about what to do there. Much like the two Larrys he chooses not to rise above his many failings, instead trying to juggle circumstances until he’s escaped whatever disaster now looms; by the time a given episode ends, the circumstances fall atop his head one by one. Unlike the two Larrys he’s longing for purpose. He’d love to have a vision, if only he could see something (to borrow a joke from Max Beerbohm). In the meantime his substitute is to sign on with whatever Martin Scorsese has in mind. Remick tells himself he wants to make great movies, but really he’s just afraid of feeling like a hack. He’s also afraid of getting fired, and these two fears result in his juggling act.
But this production chief, one who’s downtrodden enough (and polite enough to assistants) that he’s playable in Rogen’s likable-nebbish mode, represents the one innovation on hand. Otherwise the writing’s solid enough but very familiar. “Would you like a green juice?” an assistant asks, and the show opens with a scene that turns out to be a movie being shot. We have a crass, fast-talking agent, and a loud-mouthed, bullying top boss, with the top boss lording it over ass-kissing executives. Famous stars turn up, playing themselves, and characters choking with emotion bargain rapid-fire over contract terms. Everybody yearns after status symbols—in this case an invite to Charlize Theron’s party—and they live their lives trapped by a sticky layer of bad faith, a perpetual series of fake smiles and lies about big and small that chokes the souls of those schmucks dumb enough to have a soul. (Rogen’s character, on hearing that his mentor’s job has opened up because she’s been fired: “Yes! Yes! I mean I’m very sad, but.”) I guess it’s hard to satirize Hollywood without all that, but writing shouldn’t give you the sense of unavoidable elements being trundled into place. On the other hand, the running joke about Steve Buscemi’s name is nice—none of the show’s Hollywood insiders know how to pronounce it, possibly including Martin Scorsese and Buscemi himself. (One says Boo-shemmy, the other Boo-semmy.)
The show’s version of Hollywood is an after-everything affair now on the downslope. The prospect of a Kool-Aid movie’s one symptom; I guess another is that this Hollywood has given up sleek décor and spilling sunlight for a heavy, murky look where dark rooms are crowded by busy tiles on the walls and floors. The men’s faces are spotted among muttonchops and expansive lapels, with the guys’ wardrobe showing so many shades of pumpkin that we’re back in 1970. Bryan Cranston, looking like a mean Stan Lee about to go on Dick Cavett, wears big wooden love beads. He plays the monstrous top boss and as always he’s good.
In fact, as happens often enough these days, everyone’s good. Even as Hollywood sinks, the acting schools have been doing a fine job. Martin Scorsese, as himself, does far more than a cameo, basically functioning as the episode’s second lead. When a performer does more than you expect and does it much better, you call him a revelation. In this show Scorsese’s a revelation. So is Catherine O’Hara as the ex-chief of production who thinks poor schlubby Remick stole her job. (“I barely even got hired!” he says.) She’s always been funny; now she’s funny as someone whose life has just collapsed.
Those are the highlights, and with all the names on hand there are bound to be some. Even so the series plays a joke on itself. “It’s for sure the best version of the very, very, very, very middle-of-the-road version of this,” Remick says of one pitch, looking for something more than proficient. He’s seen it all and wants something new. He can’t even take the usual Hollywood kidding about all the Jews on hand, not because he’s sensitive but because he’s heard it already. “Yeah, we’re all Jewish. It’s very, very funny,” he says to a super-agent who’s belaboring the point. One of the episode’s better dings is the teaser the sales head comes up with for the studio’s big project, a Kool-Aid movie. The teaser’s funny just because it’s so exactly what a typical studio would come up with. But The Studio’s exactly what a typical satire of Hollywood looks like. Except the tracking shots, of course.