David Furst: This is All Of It. I'm David Furst in for Alison Stewart. Coming up on today's show, we speak with composer Andrew Lloyd Webber. Yes, Andrew Lloyd Webber. Yes, Andrew Lloyd Webber, so get your questions ready. We'll also talk about where to find nature in New York City. And we'll send you into the weekend armed with suggestions of things to do, which we are also going to be asking you to supply in about an hour. We want you to call in and share your weekend plans. That's all coming up, but let's get the show started with a TV show roundup.

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Last month, Vulture called The Pitt, The Studio and Adolescence some of the best TV shows of 2025 so far and some of the most talked about shows in previous years recently returned. Severance wrapped up its second season. Max's The Last of Us returned to the mushroom zombie apocalypse, and people are buzzing about the second season of the Star Wars rebel spy series Andor, and there's a lot more on the small screen to talk about.

Vulture critic Nick Quah normally comes on to talk about podcasts, but recently contributed to that piece on the best TV shows of 2025. Today he's here to suggest a few shows to check out right now. Nick, welcome back to All Of It.

Nick Quah: Hello.

David Furst: Listeners, what shows are you excited to watch? Is there a particular show that you've been keeping up with that is back for another season, or maybe something you've seen in previews that you can't wait to watch? Give us a call or text, 212-433-9692. That's 212-433-WNYC. Nick, tell us, what is the show that you're most excited about right now?

Nick Quah: Well, right now it's Andor. It has returned for its second season. I do think it's hands down the best Star Wars project ever made, especially if you are--

David Furst: The best Star Wars project ever made. Not just the best Star Wars TV show, but best Star Wars project.

Nick Quah: I totally believe this.

David Furst: Wow.

Nick Quah: Yes, and I'm a huge fan of the entire franchise in general. I'm really interested in its place in culture, but what this show does is really take everything and the sum of all the relationships you might have with this franchise and kind of move it forward into a place of real genuine sophistication, and intelligence, and asking a lot of really interesting questions about the world and how we relate to each other. So much of the Star Wars franchise these days is about itself. It's about the Skywalkers, it's about Jedis and things like that. Andor is really truly the first time that I've seen this franchise ask you to redirect all that fantasy towards the world, and that is a beautiful thing.

David Furst: What expectations did you have for this project before it launched?

Nick Quah: Years ago, I believe it's 2023, and it went into it like, you know, it was kind of in a moment of nadir. Obi-Wan Kenobi, that TV show just came out at a time, and it just felt like, "Oh, we're just feeding the beast. We're just feeding the fantasy. It's more Skywalker stuff, whatever, I don't really care," and suddenly, Andor, which is about a bunch of nobodies in this universe, really. It came out in a way and it was just the most intelligent thing I've seen within this franchise I've seen in forever. It is this larger story about how nobodies are somebodies within a larger revolution.

David Furst: Do you think feel like you're grading on a curve because of some of your relationships with recent projects? How does it compare to the original Star Wars film?

Nick Quah: The thing is that maybe I am [inaudible 00:03:52], but I really don't think I am. I think even if you didn't watch Star Wars at all and you came into this cold, this thing feels more like Better Call Saul. It does. To me, it really feels within that tradition. But, yeah, if you did grow up with the mythologies of the original Star Wars and all that feeling, man, it's only going to deepen that love. It really enriches it.

David Furst: Better call Cassian is the--

Nick Quah: Better Call Andor.

David Furst: Better Call Andor. Okay, got it, got it. If you would like to join this discussion, maybe you have a different take or you want to talk about a completely different show, 212-433-9692. That's 212-433-WNYC. I do want to ask, do you have to be a mega Star Wars fan and be well versed in all Jedi lore to know what's going on here, or can you just jump in cold with this series?

Nick Quah: I would say you can jump in cold with this series. It really does help because it is ultimately a prequel to something, and obviously it's drawing a lot of these larger mythologies, but it really is written in a way to be dense to begin with. Much like if you could step into, I don't know. I really don't want to go too extravagant with these comparisons, but it is a novel of a thing. You can walk in and it doesn't really situate you in a way that really confident TV shows without a franchise do. It works. It fundamentally works at a storytelling level. That stuff is a plus.

David Furst: If we do want to know exactly where it fits in, though, in the Star Wars universe, where does this story happen?

Nick Quah: Right. So the series was created as a prequel to a movie called Rogue One, which was also Tony Gilroy, who made Andor, and who also, more importantly, directed Michael Clayton, one of the best films of all time. He did a lot of work on Rogue One, and Rogue One itself was a prequel to the original Star Wars. So you could step in fresh and then you could ladder your way into the original franchise. You could do that, or you could just take it the way it is. It's really-- one of the great things about it is how accessible it is.

David Furst: Can you talk about Diego Luna's character? It is Cassian, right? Tell us about this character. He's a thief. Is that right?

Nick Quah: Yeah, so he starts on kind of a drifter. He starts out he owes people money, he's a thief, he's a smuggler.

David Furst: This sounds like Han Solo's origin story a bit.

Nick Quah: Absolutely, but he's a little bit more angsty. He's a little darker. He has this kind of a stranger quality to him. The first season is really about the radicalization and the birth of a rebel. We watch Andor as he evolves through a series of experiences and be shaped by political awakenings around him to become a revolutionary and a rebel. The second season decenters him a little bit and it becomes the story about how difficult it is to build a resistance and what you give up within that fight. It's really, really fascinating stuff.

David Furst: We're in the second season. Is this going to be the last season?

Nick Quah: Second and final. Without giving anything away, and really, you can't give anything away, it ends in the moments leading up to the movie of Rogue One, and if you've seen Rogue One, you know how the story ends.

David Furst: But if you haven't, then let's not spoil it.

Nick Quah: If you haven't, what a gift you have in front of you.

David Furst: Very cool. If you would like to join this conversation, the number, 212-433-WNYC. It's also-- excuse me, spelling out the numbers there. Reading out the numbers. 212-433-9692. A lot of shows coming back for another season. We do have a text right now, someone saying, "I'm so sad that Mrs. Maisel is not returning.

Nick Quah: Well, congratulations because you have a new show from Amy Sherman Palladino to welcome to your lives. I don't know how to pronounce this because I don't know French, but it's Étoile, Étoile. I believe it's a ballet term. My colleague at the magazine, Jackson McHenry loves this show. So if you're mourning Maisel, you have a new world of ballet that's set in both the city and France waiting for you.

David Furst: Étoile, and this is a show about dancing, right?

Nick Quah: It is specifically about the world of ballet. I believe the concept is, and I have not seen it yet, it is on my list, I will be watching it next week at some point when I need a pick me up. It's about two ballet companies, one in France and one in New York City, who switches stars to revitalize their respective companies. So hijinks ensue I believe.

David Furst: Hijinks ensue, okay. Let's move on to another show. This is The Last of Us. This is a post-apocalyptic drama starring Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey. This has returned for a second season earlier this month. It's based on a video game, right?

Nick Quah: Yes.

David Furst: What made The Last of Us so effective for audiences that were maybe unfamiliar with the game, had no idea it was even based on a game?

Nick Quah: Yeah, so the game, the first one came out, boy, 10 years ago. I believe it's 2013, more than that at this point. At the time, and remains one of the most effective pieces of narrative storytelling within a video game. You can take that a bunch of different ways, but one of the ways-- you could also say that it was structured to be a playable HBO show. The fact that it leapt onto the screen as an actual HBO show makes a ton of sense. At minimum, it is an excellent take on the zombie genre, a really moving character piece, and has a really fundamentally interesting moral question that executes itself at the very end of the first season.

The second season, and my understanding, our understanding is that it will be seasons two, three, maybe four, is adapting the second game, which came out in 2020 at the depths of the pandemic. Not the best time to play a zombie video game, but whatever. If you are already watching this, you probably already know that something really big happened in this past week. I'm not going to talk about the spoiler here, but it is huge. What happened this past week, which is the same thing that happens in the very beginning of the second game reframes what the story is about.

I'm not going to spoil anybody's experience here because it is quite interesting, but in the show itself, it has the addition of Kaitlyn Dever, who is a fantastic actress. You might remember her from Booksmart, you might remember her from Unbelievable from a couple of years ago, she just did a show called Apple Cider Vinegar, which is just okay, but she's fantastic in it. She's a remarkable addition to this cast as a really interesting character that asks, again, a lot of interesting questions about mythologies and stories that we tell. It's a very good show at minimum,

David Furst: What do you think is most interesting about how the creators of this series continue to expand the world of this video game and the show on screen?

Nick Quah: I think it's less a question about expanding and more about adaptive tweaking. There are certain things and choices that they've made in the adaptation, particularly around the emotions of the piece. Bella Ramsey, she plays a young woman now. In the first season and in the first game she was a 14-year-old girl who is basically shepherded by Pedro Pascal's character through this apocalyptic wasteland, and it is about the bond between them as surrogate father and daughter.

In this second season, it feels like they're amping up the emotions a little bit more. Bella Ramsey's playing this character as a bit more of a true teenager. She's petulant, she's rebellious, and it's sort of an interesting emotion to have within the post-apocalypse, and it's a little different from where the game was with that character. There are these little tweaks that I find quite fascinating, but it just speaks to the craft of creator Craig Mazin. [unintelligible 00:11:48] is Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann who was also a co-director of the game. Really interesting choices there.

David Furst: It's called The Last of Us. I have to mention that we're having a problem with our digital streams and that we are investigating. We're getting to the bottom of that right now. I just wanted to let you know. If you would like to join the conversation, 212-433-9692. That's 212-433-WNYC or text @AllOfItWNYC social media.

Before we get any further, I have to ask you a bit of a separate question, I guess, and that is something that you recently wrote about, your experience watching the new Minecraft Movie. Can you explain?

Nick Quah: Right. Well, so the story goes like this. My editor wanted a piece about this chicken jockey phenomenon that's been happening in theaters everywhere--

David Furst: We're speaking with Vulture critic Nick Quah, and please explain what the heck you're talking about.

Nick Quah: Thank you for identifying me before I incriminate myself. This situation, this phenomenon, it's an outcome of a meme. Jack Black, who is featured in the movie, there's a moment where he shouts, "Chicken jockey," which is a reference to something that happens in the game. When he does that, it tends to happen that the teens and tweens who are in the movies watching this, they just go crazy when he says this word. They cause a ruckus. They throw popcorn everywhere. In one instance, a teen smuggled an actual chicken into the theater.

David Furst: Oh, my goodness.

Nick Quah: It's a whole participatory thing. Very horrible for the janitors and the people doing the cleanup work, but I do find it's an interesting thing that we're seeing a real participatory, real excitement around young people with the movies in a time where the movies are worried about young people engaging in the cinema. Now, I suspect that you're asking this question because of the context in which I wrote this piece, because I told my editor I could write this [inaudible 00:13:48] of that moment because I was in the theater when this happened was a little altered by the fact that I was on mushrooms when it happened. I would say it's the most visceral thing I experienced the cinema in many, many years.

David Furst: I will not advocate for that or for bringing a chicken into the theater. I will say, my son did go to see this film and was quite prepared to go berserk during the moment that you're talking about, and the theater seemed to have no qualms with people doing reasonable things during that moment.

Nick Quah: Reasonable is a slippery line, is the thing.

David Furst: Yes.

Nick Quah: That's the thing we're kind of figuring out in this relationship between participant interaction and what's happening on the screen. I spoke to a local theater owner for the piece about this to get a sense of how people are feeling. It really is on the one hand, on the other hand situation. On the one hand, we love to see this excitement. On the other hand, boy, are we worried about the payments we have to make if we get the screen damaged.

David Furst: Yes, yes. Okay, good to keep in mind. And let's get back to some more TV shows. What should we go? How about Black Mirror? The most recent season of the British anthology season, Black Mirror just came out on Netflix. Can you tell us your initial thoughts on season, is it season seven?

Nick Quah: It's seven, yes. He's been making this boy since 2011. It's season seven, what, 15 years now, 14 years? It's kind of wild. Charlie Parker, still at it. He's still making these really interesting Twilight Zone-esque television internal narratives, little parables, little tales. The interesting question to ask at this point in time about the series is how it feels in an age where everything that we've worried about technology has basically come true. We're now more or less trapped by our phones. We're in social media systems that have turned us against us and against ourselves. It's kind of a grim time in the world, so do we want to spend more time in this grim show?

To some extent, yeah, you could argue it's a great way to work out your anxieties. It's the same reason we watch horror movies under bad situations, but this latest season, it's an interesting one. I will say it's a very mixed season. There are really, really bad episodes and there are really, really good episodes, which is again par for the course for Black Mirror. But if you're down with what Charlie Perkinson putting down, go at it. It's more of the same.

David Furst: Well, let's listen to a quick clip. This is part of the trailer.

[Black Mirror Trailer]

Speaker: We'd like to welcome you back.

Speaker: Ready?

Speaker: Yeah. Three, two, and action.

Speaker: They call it mind expanding. It alters your neural structure. The mind is a computer. Suddenly, you're not just more receptive, you become a receiver.

David Furst: Oh boy. Well, Nick, have the creators of the show found new and interesting ways to scare us about technology this season?

Nick Quah: The thing, I was thinking back about the legacy of the show and everything that Brooker has sort of portended, it's always like specific to what we're worried about at that point in time, which is-- it speaks to the original inspiration for the show, which is The Twilight Zone, and that show was marked by the way it took the anxieties of its time to create stories that felt universally and scary in an evergreen way.

There's one episode in particular at the very top which ostensibly is about the horrors of subscription services. You're being upsold continuously. The premise there is that Rashida Jones' character is dependent on paying the subscription service to stay alive, to remain living and as a full person without ads coming out of her mouth if she goes for the cheaper plan. That's one of the main horrors of that episode. It's hard to watch that episode and not think about big pharma, and not think about how dependent we are on system, and how sort of systems of capitalism forces us to be in bondage financially to things that keep us alive that should be human rights, that should be basic rights. I interviewed Brooker for this season just to get a sense of what his inspirations were, and it was shocking to me that he was like, "Oh, I wasn't even thinking about big pharma at all." Every time you watch an episode of this show, it is really about the frequencies they're picking up off your current moment.

David Furst: Well, that's Black Mirror. We are speaking with Vulture critic Nick Quah about some of the most exciting series premiering on the small screen this spring and taking your calls. We're still getting a lot of reports that there's some problems with our digital stream. We are trying to research that and find out what's going on and fix that for you. If you would like to join the conversation, 212-433-9692. That's 212-433-WNYC. Take a quick break. We'll be right back. This is WNYC.

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David Furst: This is All Of It on WNYC. I'm David Furst in for Alison Stewart. We're speaking with Vulture critic Nick Quah about some of the most exciting series on TV right now and taking your calls. Thank you for letting us know about the problems with our livestream. We think they are resolved now, so thanks for letting us know. If you're still having problems, text us and also tell us your favorite TV show or something that you're watching right now. 212-433-9692. Let's take a call right now. Judy in Brooklyn, welcome to All Of It.

Judy: Hi. I do not have cable, never had cable, but this year there are really good shows on network TV. Elsbeth, Matlock, The Hunting Party and Channel 13, of course, Call the Midwife, second seasons of Wolf Hall and Marie Antoinette.

David Furst: Judy, thank you so much for that. Nick, what about those shows and sticking up for network TV right now?

Nick Quah: Oh, absolutely. As my colleagues Kathryn VanArendonk and Joe Adalian have argued, network TV is back, so back in many senses.

David Furst: So back.

Nick Quah: So back as there is Matlock, there's Elsbeth. If you want to go [unintelligible 00:20:31], you've got Dr. Odyssey, you've got 911. What is interesting about this particular moment is that the network television new shows that are coming, like High Potential is another one that's really good, it feels like it is a direct response to the riches that streaming has had over the past couple years and then the sort of nadir of it, the bloated nature of streaming series, of how the lack of a broadcast discipline has caused or re-emphasized a certain hunger for a really good procedural or a really good thing that you can expect coming in every week.

Something like Elsbeth, for example, which comes out of a long tradition of the CBS network franchise of The Good Wife and then The Good Fight, which was on streaming, coincidentally, it has this classic murder mystery procedural concept at the center of each episode. Some things are just comforting and television should be comfort. That's really driving how we feel, this resurgence of the network vibes.

You could argue that, as my colleagues have, that The Pitt itself, which is not a network show, is perhaps the first true successful hybrid of taking all the good stuff about network procedurals with all the good stuff about streaming and finding this new center.

David Furst: Well, talk more about The Pitt, you just brought that up and, oh, I'm seeing messages right now saying the live stream is good, so that's fantastic, but talk about The Pitt, yes.

Nick Quah: We don't know what the word is yet, but here over at Vulture, we're big Pittheads. We can't say this necessarily because the ER estate is being contentious about it, but The Pitt is a virtual successor to ER, which is this iconic medical procedural from decades ago.

David Furst: Of course.

Nick Quah: Noah Wyle, who came up through that show is the anchor of The Pitt, and the conceit here is that it's-- it's a 15-episode season where each episode is an hour within a 15-hour emergency room shift. It's set in a emergency room in Pittsburgh. There is such a pleasure to going into a show and that you're going to go in and out with these characters that you're going to carry over from week to week and that there's a rotating situations of different kinds of patients.

You're always triggered by a new stimuli, a new catalyst, a new loop to close within each individual episode and across a couple episodes, and so it has this really nice metabolism that really, really makes me think back to the times of House and all these other medical procedures that I grew up watching but have not watched anymore because I'm a cord cutter and I can't afford cable when I was in college and so I was on streaming instead.

David Furst: That's great. We're getting a text right now. Maybe they missed the very top of our show saying, really want to hear us talk about Andor and we did talk about Andor right at the very beginning. This person writing in to say, "By far one of the best written series in a long time," so that's very cool to hear.

Nick Quah: Yeah, that's my people. That person's my person.

David Furst: That's your person. Let's talk about change of pace here, Jon Hamm starring as the lead in a new Apple TV+ comedy drama called Your Friends & Neighbors as a former hedge fund manager. Tell us about the premise of this show.

Nick Quah: Such a relatable central character. Your Friends & Neighbors, which is, I should say it has no relation to a Ben Stiller movie from the '80s and '90s, I believe it's the '90s, also called Your Friends and Neighbors, so if the name of the show sounds familiar, don't worry about it. Jon Hamm returns to his first big lead dramatic role belief since Mad Men. It's not that he's gone away, but he's been around doing a lot of comedies and doing a lot of really good supporting parts and things like Landman.

He returns here as a big white rich guy and he stars as a New York hedge fund manager who is recently divorced and becomes suddenly unemployed from his hedge fund job and slips into criminal methods like breaking and entering and stealing to maintain his lifestyle basically. It's supposed to be a satire of rich people at this point in the series. We're not quite there yet, I guess, so it's a bit more of a family drama. It's a bit more of a character piece.

I will say that I don't find it a terribly compelling hook of a show. There's just a little bit too much story in this, but boy, is it a pleasure to see Hamm do Hamm. He speaks in the confidence that you associate it with his biggest role, Don Draper, but it's interesting to sort of see him kind of work through this leading man position again. I'm a huge fan of him in general, and he's flanked here by other stars like Amanda Peet and Olivia Munn, and this is interesting. I'm not totally sold on the show, but I'm still interested to see where he goes.

David Furst: And give it time to evolve. It's probably still coming into focus. That's Your Friends & Neighbors. Let's take call. This is Edie. Thank you for joining us. Welcome to All Of It.

Edie: Hi. Thanks for taking my call. I just want to shout out since you mentioned it, network TV. I actually haven't cut the cable yet. One show that I really love is Abbott Elementary. I worked in schools my whole life. I'm a child psychologist and those relationships between the staff, amongst the staff and be it teacher, teacher's assistant principal, therapist, it's really funny and touching and on point.

David Furst: That's great. Thank you so much for sharing. Do you want to add to that?

Nick Quah: Still a great show. It's been on for a bit now and it's nice to see a new institution being built. Abbott Elementary has been such a joy for as long as it's been around and it still continues to be a joy.

David Furst: We just got a text. "I'm watching and not necessarily enjoying the new and final season of The Handmaid's Tale, which," it says here, "Is more like a documentary at this point. However, from a critical's perspective, the season is really delivering."

Nick Quah: I have not tuned into Handmaid's Tale in a while because-- and frankly, when I heard that a new final season came out, my first thought was like, "Boy, wow, I can't believe the show is still going on." But yes, it is still going on and I believe there will be a spinoff series from this show that has been greenlit and will come out eventually. Yes, you could situate it in the same thorny feelings era as Black Mirror. Both shows portending, when they first came out, portended a dark future and we seem to be living in them at this point.

David Furst: Well, we have a lot of texts coming through right now and if you missed the first part of our show, by the way, due to the streaming problems we were having, it will be available later today up on our webpage or wherever you get your podcasts. A lot of texts coming through right now. Someone says, "The Studio, love all the cameos of real life Hollywood actors, directors, but it is a very stressful show to watch at times." Another text here says, "What about Hacks? Such a great show with real heart."

Nick Quah: Hacks has returned for its fourth season and it follows through on the premise that was set up at the end of the last season. Deborah Vance finally gets her late night show. The season begins with this core tension between Deborah and her sort of, I guess, surrogate daughter situation, played by Hannah Einbinder. I've seen a whole season. It goes to an interesting place. I am a little mixed on where it ends up, but, yes, if you love Hacks, it's more of the stuff that you love, but we should have a big conversation about what the show wants to be.

David Furst: Interesting. Well, I have a lot of TV to catch up on based on this conversation, so thank you so much for giving me some watching to do. We've been so we've been speaking with Vulture critic Nick Quah about some of the great TV shows that are on screen right now premiering and also continuing this season. Nick, thank you so much for joining us.

Nick Quah: Thanks for having me.