Prestige TV is facing an existential crisis. Why HBO’s ‘Industry’ is the exception

Welcome to Screen Gab, the newsletter for everyone who’s just getting initiated into the cult of Pierpoint & Co. — or has been waiting for the bandwagon to grow all along.

The fictional financial services behemoth serves as the backdrop for HBO’s electric workplace drama “Industry,” now in its third season, and longtime fan/Screen Gab editor uses this week’s edition to explain what its slow burn reveals about the crisis in prestige TV.

Also in Screen Gab No. 146, we chat with “Only Murders in the Building” boss John Hoffman about the new season, plus recommend two documentaries to stream this weekend.

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Turn on

Recommendations from the film and TV experts at The Times

A still from “Going Varsity in Mariachi.”

(Sundance Institute)

“Going Varsity in Mariachi” (Netflix)

I have a soft spot for teen coming-of-age stories and the endearing “Going Varsity in Mariachi” delivers. A documentary that premiered at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival, the film primarily follows the members of Mariachi Oro de Edinburg North High School for one school year, shedding light onto the competitive world of high school mariachi in Texas. The many trophies that line Mariachi Oro’s band room highlight the ensemble’s past success at competitions, but the group this year is less experienced, so it’ll be a challenge to live up to the high bar set by the program’s legacy. Directed by Alejandra Vasquez and Sam Osborn, the film doesn’t really dwell on the intricacies or specific rules of mariachi competitions, or even the history of the music. It instead offers heartwarming glimpses into the lives and dreams of these teens who live in the Rio Grande Valley, each juggling rehearsals, promposals, driving lessons and even college scholarship applications and all connected by their love for mariachi. —Tracy Brown

An airplane cockpit, as seen in “The New York Times Presents: ‘Lie to Fly.’”

(FX)

“The New York Times Presents: ‘Lie to Fly’ ” (FX, Hulu)

You may remember hearing last year how Joseph Emerson, an off-duty pilot riding in the cockpit jumpseat on a packed Alaska Airlines plane, suddenly pulled a couple of levers that shut down the engines. You may also remember thinking, “What the —?” This elegant, enlightening hour-long documentary answers that question, and raises more regarding the subject of pilot mental health, critiquing a system that deters pilots from reporting problems or even seeking help in order to keep from being grounded — for months or, due to bureaucratic short-staffing and backlog, indefinitely. Emerson, still facing 83 counts of reckless endangerment (and one of endangering an airplane), speaks at length about the incident and what led to it. Depressed over a friend’s death, sleep-deprived and under the extended influence of psychedelic mushrooms friends thought might help his depression, he believed he was trying to escape from a dream. He cuts a sympathetic figure — not a joke, not a madman. The case for reform is strongly argued and raises another question: Is it better to fly with a pilot openly taking antidepressants or one who, hiding his condition, is actually depressed? —Robert Lloyd

Catch up

Everything you need to know about the film or TV series everyone’s talking about

Harry Lawtey in “Industry” Season 3.

(Simon Ridgway/HBO)

The third season of “Industry,” HBO’s feral, coke-fueled drama about up-and-comers at a London investment bank, has all the trappings of a series that‘s finally arrived: effusive critical acclaim, proliferating fan accounts, a splashy set visit by the good people at New York Magazine. Four years on from its premiere, though, Mickey Down and Konrad Kay’s trading-floor thriller isn’t just catching on thanks to best-it’s-ever-been notices. “Industry’s” long, slow rise is an object lesson in the existential crisis facing prestige TV.

Admittedly, the series’ first season (not unlike “Succession’s”) indulged a few of its feeblest instincts, killing off a minor character in the pilot simply to underscore the brutality of the business. But I suspect many missed the glimmers of today’s “Industry” — the sexiest, seamiest mash note to workaholism since Don Draper polished off his last bottle of Canadian Club — for structural reasons as much as creative ones. It can’t have helped, for instance, that the series premiered in the U.S. on Nov. 9, 2020, at the tail end of “Election Week” and eight months into the COVID-19 pandemic, when even the most committed binge-watchers among us were burnt out on TV. Or the two-year gap between seasons. Or the shift to late summer from late fall. It’s a small miracle “Industry” even made it to Season 3: If it launched now, it would almost certainly find itself on the chopping block before it found its footing.

On the strength of its barnstorming second season, however, in which Gen Z anti-heroine Harper Stern (Myha’la, delivering one of the most riveting performances on television) finally displayed agency rather than merely discussing it, HBO brass gave the green light for another go-round. Season 3 is simply the latest and greatest evolution, so tightly focused on Harper, mentor-turned-rival Eric Tao (Ken Leung), rival-turned-friend Yasmin Kara-Hanani (Marisa Abele) and lovable also-ran Robert Spearing (Harry Lawtey) that it practically springs at the touch, aided by sterling guest arc by Kit Harington and Sarah Goldberg. As it turns out, the very thing Hollywood executives seem least likely to give series these days is prestige TV’s defining strength: time. To develop character. To refine style. To gain confidence. To grow audience.

Prestige isn’t earned overnight, and lucky for you latecomers, “Industry” appears to have been granted the leeway of a pre-pandemic drama to accrue it. Or, at least, a rich, hot, young, ambitious, anxiety-ridden version of it. Welcome (back) to the feeling. —Matt Brennan

READ MORE: Inside the sex-soaked, drug-fueled, cutthroat world of HBO’s answer to ‘Wall Street’

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A weekly chat with actors, writers, directors and more about what they’re working on — and what they’re watching

Steve Martin, Selena Gomez and Martin Short in Season 4 of “Only Murders in the Building.”

(Eric McCandless/Disney)

In the current season of “Only Murders in the Building” (Hulu), our favorite trio of unlikely friends-turned-true-crime podcasters — Mabel (Selena Gomez), Oliver (Martin Short) and Charles (Steve Martin) — take their sleuthing from New York to Los Angeles as they investigate the death of Sazz Pataki (Jane Lynch), Charles’ longtime stunt double, who was shot and killed at the end of last season. And their journey is as L.A. as it gets because Hollywood has come calling to adapt the first season of their popular podcast into a movie. The Times was on set for the show’s three-day visit to the West Coast. We caught up with John Hoffman, its co-creator and showrunner, who told us about his move to L.A. in the ‘90s, the show that has him hooked as much as any whodunit, and the comfort show he prefers to curls up with when there’s time for such luxuries. —Yvonne Villarreal

READ MORE: ‘Only Murders in the Building’ goes Hollywood: ‘This is a dreamy way to start the season’

What’s the last true crime/whodunit story that completely captivated you?

“Ripley” [Netflix], which is neither true crime nor whodunit, actually, but boy oh boy was I captivated. To answer maybe more to the point, but still a bit off (which tends to be my way), I was way too into the more subtle crimes and “who’s gonna make it?” qualities of that Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders show [“America’s Sweethearts,” Netflix].

“Only Murders in the Building” pays a visit to L.A. this season. You hail from Brooklyn. What do you remember about landing in L.A. for the first time?

My friends Billy Morrisette, Kevin Kane and Maura Tierney were living in Venice, all three of them. And they said, “Come stay with us and start your life in L.A.” And so we traveled across the country in Billy and Maura’s van. We played the “$100,000 Pyramid” game all the way across West Texas for nine hours. I put an old, ratty twin mattress on their living room floor in Venice, right on Abbott Kinney Boulevard, and I started my life with a three-cylinder car that I bought on a credit card; I had no money. I’d be creeping onto the highway hoping to God I was going to be OK, and I would go and try and get work. I didn’t think I was going to survive out here. Actually, I saw in the paper that there were auditions to be a contestant on “$100,000 Pyramid” about two months after I got here. Because I had no money and I was really desperate, and because it was early ‘90s, I thought, “OK, I’m gonna go.” And Billy and Kevin went with me. I said, “Whoever wins, we have to split it.” I stupidly made that deal — I ended up getting on, and I won $16,000.

What made you interested in taking this kind of bicoastal journey with the show?

There are two things I was very conscious about for this season: bringing our trio back to the trio work and being with them as they go through the season together in solving this mystery. This is a very personal mystery; there’s real deep resonance in every fiber of their being to solve this case because of who it was. I also really want people to know it’s in New York, because people got confused, I think, in thinking the whole season is in Los Angeles. We’re a New York show. We’ll follow that track. The other thing I’m excited for viewers to see, which I was nervous about, truthfully, is this collection of incredible people coming to be a part of the show. I’m always trying to balance — last year with the theater and the musical and all of that that was happening, it was all about integrating the musical into our show so it felt organic, and it felt like a part of, not something that takes it over. Same thing with the movie, and same thing with this amazing collection of stars that are a part of the season; they had to feel in the show and and tracked through so they’re not diverting away... There isn’t a part where I feel like, “Oh, this now looks like we’re just tap dancing for this guest star.”

To that point, the way the show incorporates its A-List guest stars is one of the highlights each season. When I heard that Melissa McCarthy would be on this season, all I could think was, “Please let there be a physical comedy showdown with her and Steve Martin.”

I promise you, there is maybe one of the most signature physical comedy things we’ve ever done in our series in that episode [with her].

I keep hoping Jennifer Coolidge will make her way to the Arconia. Who else would you like to see join the fun in future seasons?

I would kill to work with her on this show. The lists are getting shorter. Truthfully, I can’t believe it. The last thing I want is to bring on some amazing person and not have the thing that feels either fresh for them or unexpected and, yet, let them sit in their perfect wheelhouse, too. I love Jennifer Coolidge. Love her. I love Catherine O’Hara. These legendary, comedic forces. With Zach Galifianakis this season, he had a lot going on with his life. And it was one of those things of Paul Rudd talking to Zach and saying, “You will have the time of your life.” That kind of thing is just lovely.

What’s your go-to comfort watch, the film or TV show you return to again and again?

“Antiques Roadshow” [PBS]. Sounds like a joke. Not in the slightest. I tend to like quiet TV shows and the thrill of the wait for what the estimated value of an antique find might be is all the stress I need for my home life. For film, a real comfort go-to is “Terms of Endearment.” Perfect mix of funny, unexpected, poignant life. I can’t resist, wherever I happen to be, joining in watching.