The hottest Television Substack posts right now

And their main takeaways
Category
Top U.S. Politics Topics

The Weekend Press: Bad Therapy, Coming to a Screen Near You

Common Sense with Bari Weiss • 259 implied HN points • 21 Mar 26
🎭️ Culture Television
  1. Popular TV and reality shows are glamorizing bad therapy by showing therapists who break boundaries and people using “therapy-speak” to excuse harmful behavior, which can mislead viewers about what real therapy looks like.
  2. A recent legal win for an artist who mocked police after a flawed raid is being seen as a strong defense of free speech and a check on official misconduct.
  3. The newsletter highlights cultural reinvention and leisure—profiles of people who reinvent their careers, movie and music picks, and simple weekend recommendations to read, listen, or get outside.

Bad Therapists Make Good TV. But at What Cost?

Common Sense with Bari Weiss • 213 implied HN points • 20 Mar 26
🎭️ Culture Television
  1. When therapists cross professional boundaries they can exploit and control patients and cause long-lasting harm.
  2. Boundary violations typically benefit the therapist and can damage the patient even if the therapist believes their motives are benign.
  3. Dramatic stories of bad therapists make compelling TV but they also spotlight real ethical problems and the serious harm those violations do to vulnerable people.

The Over-Therapized Lives of Mormon Wives

Common Sense with Bari Weiss • 231 implied HN points • 20 Mar 26
🎭️ Culture Television
  1. The women aren’t really living secret lives or fitting the image of traditional Mormon wives; fame and follower counts have become their main identity.
  2. Their lives are saturated with therapists, specialists, and healing retreats, but the heavy use of therapy often looks like a performance rather than real recovery.
  3. The show spotlights messy relationships, breakups, and personal struggles while turning private life into entertainment, making micro-celebrity status more important than stability.

Hollywood Franchise Reboots Are Full of Overpowering, Stultifying Reverence

Freddie deBoer • 5785 implied HN points • 02 Mar 26
🎭️ Culture Television
  1. Many modern franchise reboots treat their own past like sacred scripture, stuffing films with reverent callbacks and sentimental moments that make new entries feel self-serious and stale.
  2. This kind of reverence kills surprise and risk, so studios default to safe repetition, rigid canon, and fan-service instead of bold storytelling or real invention.
  3. Original hits often worked because they were irreverent and playful, so revivals should treat old material as clay to reshape and update, not as relics to be worshipped.

What I Learned from Binge-Watching Cowboy Movies

The Honest Broker • 17587 implied HN points • 07 Feb 26
🎭️ Culture Television
  1. Classic westerns offered clear moral authority and simple hero-versus-villain stories that gave audiences a comforting sense of right and wrong.
  2. Social and cultural upheavals made the genre darker and more ambiguous, spawning antihero and nihilistic westerns that eroded that moral certainty.
  3. The western still matters today as a flexible mythic space to debate authority, virtue, and the trade-offs between freedom and order, and it can swing between deconstruction and revival.
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Miyazaki's Sherlock

Animation Obsessive • 32560 implied HN points • 12 Jan 26
🎭️ Culture Television
  1. Miyazaki took the Sherlock Hound job during a career lull and treated it as serious creative work. He reshaped the premise into richly realized, three-dimensional worlds full of flying machines, emotional characters, and old-fashioned slapstick energy.
  2. Sherlock Hound was an Italian–Japanese co-production that ran into constant creative clashes and funding problems. Italians wanted a flatter, more commercial style while Miyazaki pushed for cinematic quality, and production stalled after a funding delay leading to his departure.
  3. Even though the series was partly shelved, the episodes Miyazaki and his team made are high-quality and influential. The project became a training ground for young talent who later worked at Studio Ghibli and helped Miyazaki grow as a filmmaker.

Did you know Gordon Ramsay is basically two different people on television?

Erik Examines • 716 implied HN points • 16 Mar 26
🎭️ Culture Television
  1. Gordon Ramsay appears like two different TV personas: explosive and confrontational on American shows, but mentoring and empathetic on British programs.
  2. Production choices—fast cuts, dramatic music, and repeated reaction shots—amplify conflict on U.S. reality TV, while British shows use more observational editing that lets scenes breathe.
  3. This highlights a cultural difference in storytelling: the same events can feel very different when one culture presents them more loudly and dramatically than another.

Hating Stranger Things During the Death Rattle of Criticism

Freddie deBoer • 29764 implied HN points • 05 Dec 25
🎭️ Culture Television
  1. Honest negative criticism is disappearing because critics and outlets avoid upsetting fanbases, turning cultural commentary into timid PR instead of meaningful evaluation.
  2. Stranger Things is held up as an example of that decay: it's criticized for lazy nostalgia, contrived plotting, too many characters, weak visuals, and pandering that flattens people and moral consequences.
  3. Fandom-driven reference culture and fear of backlash prioritize viral, comforting content over authenticity and nuance, tokenize representation, and discourage critics from calling out bad art.

The New Anxiety of Our Time Is Now on TV

The Honest Broker • 29356 implied HN points • 29 Nov 25
🎭️ Culture Television
  1. Popular sci‑fi shows like Pluribus and Severance reflect a deep public fear that people could lose their individuality and turn into a hive mind.
  2. Modern tech—AI, social platforms, and search algorithms—encourages sameness and follower-based behavior, which weakens education, public debate, and personal responsibility.
  3. A backlash is forming: local reforms, creative platforms, and a cultural 'New Romanticism' aim to restore personhood, and political and legal changes will likely follow as pressure builds.

All Kidding Aside, I Find the Creative Arc of Stranger Things to Be Quite Sad

Freddie deBoer • 8663 implied HN points • 13 Jan 26
🎭️ Culture Television
  1. The show started as a tight, self-contained story but gradually retconned and overcomplicated itself, which weakened its original themes and emotional clarity.
  2. Internet fandom and the pressure to keep expanding a franchise drove creators to add more characters, lore, and big reveals, often at the expense of coherent plotting and character development.
  3. Industry and production trends — long gaps between seasons, low episode counts, and visuals composed for social-media clipability — eroded the show’s momentum and cinematic atmosphere.

Things Worth Remembering: James Van Der Beek Was the Best of Us

Common Sense with Bari Weiss • 2198 implied HN points • 15 Feb 26
🎭️ Culture Television
  1. He wanted to teach his kids how easy it can be to laugh, to love, to cry, to learn, and to find joy in both the plans and the detours alike.
  2. He became a defining teen idol through Dawson’s Creek and left a strong nostalgic imprint on the generation that grew up watching him.
  3. His death at 48 after battling cancer prompted people to remember both his on-screen work and the heartfelt life lessons he shared.

A few choice words for SNL (Odds and Ends #89)

Odds and Ends of History • 737 implied HN points • 04 Mar 26
🎭️ Culture Television
  1. There’s a small reader meet-up in Manchester tomorrow night, and both free and premium subscribers are welcome to sign up.
  2. The YIMBY Pod highlights that Cornwall could become a lithium superpower, Oxford Street is getting pedestrianised, and funding for curiosity‑driven astronomy is under threat.
  3. This issue rounds up short reads on culture (including a notably bad SNL sketch and a short AI film), energy and gas price outlooks, the mostly‑fake AI backlash, street and roadwork fixes, government use of mobile data for surveillance, and a handy war‑monitoring website.

Make Art Complicated Again

The Rubesletter by Matt Ruby (of Vooza) | Sent every Tuesday • 855 implied HN points • 14 Feb 26
🎭️ Culture Television
  1. Good art shouldn't be an endorsement; it should show ambiguous, complicated human behavior instead of preaching how to act.
  2. Pressure to make every character a clear moral example or perfect representative flattens stories into simplistic, moralizing cartoons.
  3. True representation includes letting marginalized people be messy, flawed, or even villainous sometimes, because that complexity is more honest and often more empowering.

The Pressure That Made Miyazaki and Takahata

Animation Obsessive • 28523 implied HN points • 28 Jul 25
🎭️ Culture Television
  1. Miyazaki and Takahata faced a lot of challenges early in their careers, producing shows that often did not succeed. They learned from these failures and began to create works that felt more real and relatable.
  2. Their work on series like Heidi focused on everyday life and human relationships, aiming to draw viewers into a believable world. This unique approach ultimately led to their success.
  3. As they grew as artists, they started to drift apart in their creative visions. Miyazaki loved fantasy, while Takahata leaned toward realism, showcasing how different pressures and experiences shaped their art.

The Monday Media Diet with Shannon Deep

Why is this interesting? • 965 implied HN points • 03 Feb 26
🎭️ Culture Television
  1. Podcasts are her go-to medium — she prefers comedian-hosted shows that dig into the creative process and quieter, therapy-like narrative podcasts that explore people and cultures.
  2. She reads widely but leans toward literary craft over commercial fiction, recommending contemporary women writers like Marie-Hélène Bertino and Lisa Taddeo and currently favoring nonfiction (especially polar exploration).
  3. She curates short-form and visual media for creative inspiration — following therapists, feminists, and artists on TikTok, watching off‑beat creative competition shows, and enjoying beautifully designed apps and games.

The Visual World of 'Samurai Jack'

Animation Obsessive • 30856 implied HN points • 26 May 25
🎭️ Culture Television
  1. Samurai Jack told stories through visuals instead of dialogue. The team focused on creating beautiful images that captured emotions and actions without needing words.
  2. The show's unique art style came from mixing different influences, like classic films and mid-century cartoons. This made the backgrounds and characters really stand out.
  3. Tartakovsky believed kids could understand complex stories, so he created a show that treated them with intelligence. This bold approach made Samurai Jack memorable and different from other cartoons at the time.

‘Bridgerton’ Only Pretends to Be Progressive

Common Sense with Bari Weiss • 1386 implied HN points • 29 Jan 26
🎭️ Culture Television
  1. The show is sold as progressive but mostly repackages traditional patriarchal norms into a glossy product. It presents itself as liberated while keeping familiar power dynamics intact.
  2. Stylish casting and sexy marketing act like a rebrand that distracts from old romance-and-power tropes. The production values and diversity paper over conservative plot patterns.
  3. It romanticizes a fantasy of preserved courtship and traditional marriage roles rather than imagining real social change. The series offers nostalgic ritualized romance dressed up as liberation.

The Saturday Selection, Vol. 93

Why is this interesting? • 241 implied HN points • 21 Feb 26
🎭️ Culture Television
  1. Science and AI are turning curiosities into clear answers — explaining why skies look different across planets and even decoding the rules of ancient games.
  2. Hidden, tangled infrastructure under city streets can derail projects, so cities are making detailed maps to locate and fix buried utilities.
  3. Design and culture shape everyday life and identity — from chaotic women’s sizing to diplomats using clothing as a signal and the lasting cultural presence of long-running shows.

The Greatness of Catherine O’Hara

Common Sense with Bari Weiss • 941 implied HN points • 01 Feb 26
🎭️ Culture Television
  1. Her sudden death at 71 was especially shocking. She had been consistently brilliant in every role across a long career.
  2. She never had a single peak or a career lull, making it hard to point to one best performance; she was exceptional throughout. This steady excellence is particularly rare for a female comedy performer.
  3. She stayed active and delivered strong work into her seventies, including a notable recent role on Seth Rogen's show The Studio.

Bill Maher Resorts to Cheap, Classless, Ignorant Stunt

TK News by Matt Taibbi • 13317 implied HN points • 16 Aug 25
🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Television
  1. Bill Maher can be funny and entertaining, but sometimes he avoids deep topics. This can make discussions feel shallow.
  2. Respecting guests is important, and cutting them off for laughs can be disrespectful. It’s better to let them share their views.
  3. Some hosts, like Bill, manage to stay funny while also balancing serious topics, but they still need to engage more thoughtfully.

The Children Are Our Future and They Want to Be Chinese

Common Sense with Bari Weiss • 231 implied HN points • 27 Feb 26
🎭️ Culture Television
  1. Chinamaxxing is a TikTok trend where mostly young Americans copy everyday Chinese habits like squatting, drinking hot water, and wearing slippers at home.
  2. The trend blends meme humor with genuine admiration and promotes simple, cozy practices as an easy alternative to elaborate, consumer-driven self-care routines.
  3. It shows a Gen Z fascination with adopting cultural habits as a form of identity play and low-effort self-improvement, sometimes ironic and sometimes sincere.

The demise of CNN

Robert Reich • 29167 implied HN points • 06 Jun 23
📰 News Television
  1. CNN underwent significant changes under Chris Licht's leadership.
  2. There was a shift towards aligning CNN more with Trump and right-wing views.
  3. Despite the changes, CNN's viewership declined rather than attracting new audiences.

Everyone Needs to Stop Being So Weird About the Gay Hockey Show

Common Sense with Bari Weiss • 843 implied HN points • 27 Jan 26
🎭️ Culture Television
  1. The show is basically softcore gay porn about closeted hockey players, but it has become a big cultural hit, especially among women and celebrities.
  2. Mainstream critics and magazines are over-intellectualizing the show, comparing it to classic gay literature to justify the hype.
  3. Its popularity has exposed awkward tensions about audience and representation, with some gay viewers feeling sidelined because the series was written by and for women.

My Fellow Americans, You Must Watch ‘Pluribus’

Common Sense with Bari Weiss • 1131 implied HN points • 16 Jan 26
🎭️ Culture Television
  1. Totalitarian control can come not just from force but from drowning people in safety, comfort, and pleasure until they willingly give up freedom.
  2. Being human isn’t about being perfect but about being broken, and wiping out struggle and pain can erase what makes us truly human.
  3. Managing or censoring books, ideas, and platforms keeps people content and prevents challenges to the system, making pleasant control self-sustaining.

Ancient Wisdom: Dick Van Dyke Is (Almost) 100 and He’s Still Having Fun

Common Sense with Bari Weiss • 2652 implied HN points • 07 Dec 25
🎭️ Culture Television
  1. A performer can stay active and joyful even at 100, still dancing, singing, and embracing life every day.
  2. The 'old man' comic persona grew out of watching and learning from elders in the family, showing how personal history shapes performance.
  3. Iconic character roles can be easily forgotten, and credits or pseudonyms sometimes obscure who actually played them.

The 2025 Culture Wrap-Up Edition

Why is this interesting? • 965 implied HN points • 04 Jan 26
🎭️ Culture Television
  1. A community pooled personal recommendations to create a year‑end roundup of favorite books, films, and TV shows.
  2. Many standout picks explored history, power, and political systems — from wartime espionage and CIA scandals to historical myth‑making and authoritarianism.
  3. The list mixed new releases, indie and horror cinema, ambitious TV, and older classics, with readers enjoying surprise discoveries and revisiting overlooked works.

The Americans

Kvetch • 48 implied HN points • 07 Mar 26
🎭️ Culture Television
  1. Marriage is the emotional heart of the show: a state‑arranged cover marriage becomes a real covenant built on duty first and love later, and in the end the couple are left with only each other.
  2. The series dissolves the line between fake and real — identities, sham marriages and staged friendships become indistinguishable from genuine bonds, producing real loyalty, tenderness and loss.
  3. It’s a moral study of disillusionment and consequence: the Jennings grow doubtful of their cause, commit brutal acts that haunt them, and the show traces how ideology corrodes people while friendship and family remain meaningful.

The First Lady Really Doesn’t Care. Do U?

Common Sense with Bari Weiss • 421 implied HN points • 31 Jan 26
🎭️ Culture Television
  1. The documentary is visually lavish and full of staged, glamorous moments, but it stays tight-lipped and offers little real insight into the First Lady's inner life.
  2. The film's release was wrapped in big-money deals and controversy, with Amazon spending heavily to acquire and promote it and a director who has a troubled past, drawing extra scrutiny.
  3. Much of the attention felt performative and press-driven, with reports of chaotic production, contested ticket sales, and premiere audiences dominated by reporters rather than regular viewers.

The Weekend Press: On ‘Melania,’ and Chugging Milk with RFK Jr.

Common Sense with Bari Weiss • 384 implied HN points • 31 Jan 26
🎭️ Culture Television
  1. Ancient myths and ritual stories still matter because they help people make sense of life and death, while modern obsessions with reversing aging often miss that moral wisdom.
  2. Celebrity and political figures increasingly become fodder for performative media spectacles, turning serious debates into quirky, chaotic controversies.
  3. Popular TV exposes cultural contradictions: shows can brand themselves as progressive while promoting traditional fantasies, and fandoms often react in unpredictable, overheated ways.

Note on Bill Maher

TK News by Matt Taibbi • 5237 implied HN points • 16 Aug 25
🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Television
  1. The author admitted to cutting their piece short due to needing sleep, which left them feeling upset. It's important to take care of ourselves, but sometimes that affects our work.
  2. An updated version of the article will be sent out, and the author appreciates the readers' understanding. Communication with your audience about changes is key.
  3. Feeling emotional about a work can lead to a better final product, especially if the author is passionate about the topic. Passion can improve writing when it’s channeled correctly.

A Tom-Clancy-meets-Jeff-VanderMeer Native American sci-fi novel, a great new psychedelic conspiracy thriller TV show, and more

Read Max • 553 implied HN points • 18 Jan 26
🎭️ Culture Television
  1. A new Native American cosmic-horror sci‑fi novel mixes fast‑paced geopolitical/tech‑thriller action with weird, ecological surrealism.
  2. The roundup highlights in‑depth essays and reporting on politics, journalism, and the healthcare industry, and it recommends a comedy‑thriller TV show about a psychedelic miracle cure and the conspiracies to suppress it.
  3. This is a paid weekly newsletter that offers subscribers extra curated reading, watching, and listening lists, merchandise deals, contact options, and notes that some links may earn small commissions.

Making the Video That Made Gorillaz

Animation Obsessive • 15517 implied HN points • 27 Jan 25
🎭️ Culture Television
  1. Pete Candeland, the director behind the iconic Gorillaz video for 'Clint Eastwood,' used innovative animation techniques to blend 2D and CGI, creating a unique look that set the standard for animated music videos at the time.
  2. Candeland's animation style evolved from a limited budget, leading him to focus on the most important movements and actions, resulting in a distinctive, under-animated approach that became a signature for Gorillaz.
  3. The editing process was crucial for Candeland, allowing him to manipulate timing and create a dynamic flow with the music, making animation a more live and engaging experience.

The deep structures of human history, a reality comedy game show that make me hurt myself laughing, and more

Read Max • 605 implied HN points • 11 Jan 26
🎭️ Culture Television
  1. This weekly roundup recommends a slim, erudite book about the deep structures of human history, a hilarious reality-comedy game show, and four great albums from last year that the author missed.
  2. The newsletter is paid and subscription-based, with subscribers getting weekly emails, curated master lists of good movies and books, and discounts on merchandise.
  3. The author encourages reader recommendations, offers a free preview of the post, and notes he may earn small commissions on book purchases through linked recommendations.

Sick of spelling February

Austin Kleon • 4596 implied HN points • 01 Mar 24
🎭️ Culture Television
  1. March is here, which many people find refreshing after spelling February for so long. It's funny how small things like that can affect our mood.
  2. Keeping a blog can help you track your thoughts and creative journey over time. It’s a great way to share your interests and projects with others.
  3. Owls can be found on every continent except Antarctica. They’re fascinating creatures, and we can help them by creating safe habitats and being mindful of outdoor lighting.

😀😱 Of 'Pluribus' and progress

Faster, Please! • 1188 implied HN points • 10 Dec 25
🎭️ Culture Television
  1. Prioritizing peace and sameness can wipe out individuality and creativity, leaving a society stuck and unable to imagine a different future.
  2. Real innovation needs private space for ideas, the freedom to be wrong or strange, and competition or friction that challenges the status quo.
  3. A collective that removes disruption may seem peaceful but can lose the ability to reproduce, create, or even sustain itself, turning stability into civilizational decline.

Two Drinks with. . . Bill Maher

Common Sense with Bari Weiss • 853 implied HN points • 19 Dec 25
🎭️ Culture Television
  1. His home podcast studio is very casual and cannabis-friendly — he smokes during recordings and prefers getting high over having drinks.
  2. He just got his first Golden Globe nomination but says he won’t go to the ceremony and would be annoyed by a room full of "super-woke" Hollywood people.
  3. He projects a provocative, irreverent persona, shown by keeping an anatomically correct Whitney Cummings sex doll in his studio and making blunt, playful remarks.

The Look of 'Over the Garden Wall'

Animation Obsessive • 15786 implied HN points • 04 Nov 24
🎭️ Culture Television
  1. Over the Garden Wall is a special show that stands out for its unique visual style and storytelling. It mixes comedy, drama, and horror in a way that makes it feel like a timeless classic.
  2. The art team, led by Nick Cross, worked hard to create stunning backgrounds and designs using inspiration from old cartoons and paintings. This attention to detail made the show feel like an independent film on TV.
  3. Despite the challenges of making a short series, the team enjoyed a lot of creative freedom. This allowed them to take risks and try new ideas, which is something that’s rare in the animation industry today.

Composing 'A Charlie Brown Christmas'

Animation Obsessive • 13095 implied HN points • 20 Dec 24
🎭️ Culture Television
  1. The music of 'A Charlie Brown Christmas' by Vince Guaraldi became a key part of what makes the special so beloved. Many people love this Christmas classic mainly because of its wonderful soundtrack.
  2. Guaraldi wasn't widely known when he composed the score, and he thought it was just another gig. Yet, this music changed his career and became defining for the 'Peanuts' series.
  3. The show faced tight deadlines and a small budget, which made the team worried it would flop. Surprisingly, it became a big success and has remained a holiday favorite for years.

The Post-Post-#MeToo Novel

Common Sense with Bari Weiss • 329 implied HN points • 23 Jan 26
🎭️ Culture Television
  1. Jennette McCurdy’s new novel fictionalizes a teenage girl’s relationship with a much older teacher and shows how an adult’s grooming becomes sexual and emotional abuse. It turns private trauma into a tense, unsettling story.
  2. Told entirely from a 17‑year‑old’s viewpoint, the book vividly captures obsessive thinking, impulsive behaviors, and the cycle of psychological violence that comes with such a relationship. It makes the reader feel the cravings for approval through fashion, food, social media, and a dangerous romance.
  3. Following her brutally honest memoir about childhood abuse, this novel pushes readers into even more uncomfortable territory and sharpens the conversation about adults abusing power over young people. It’s part of a wave of stories testing how we see and respond to abuse in the post‑#MeToo era.

We've Never Seen TDS Like This - Online Left Devastated As David Ellison’s Paramount Wins Warner Bros Bidding War

Unmasked • 69 implied HN points • 01 Mar 26
🎭️ Culture Television
  1. Hollywood is overwhelmingly left-leaning, with many in the industry pushing progressive views and often sidelining conservative voices.
  2. David Ellison’s Paramount bid for Warner Bros. has provoked strong liberal backlash because he’s seen as more commercially focused, less overtly political, and linked in some ways to the right.
  3. There’s a common argument that politically driven content has alienated audiences and hurt studio finances, so shifting back to broad-appeal, non-ideological entertainment could help revive the industry.