reflections #1: All's Fair, Pluribus, and Taylor Sheridan

It's been a weird week for television (and me).

Nov 07, 2025

Happy Friday, tvscholar hive. I’m sitting by the fireplace with my cat Bramble and my coffee and reflecting on the week that has passed us by, inspired by the poll I put out on my Instagram story which concluded that readers of my newsletter overwhelmingly want a casual, loose weekly brain dump instead of more well-defined essays and in-depth interviews. After some reflection, I’ve decided I will do a bit of both. Going forward, there will always be something in your inbox from me on Fridays. Most of them will be in this casual format. This will be the only free edition of this “reflections” newsletter so if you’re into it, consider upgrading to a paid subscriber to catch the next one.

Looking ahead: Next week I have an interview with a phenomenal television director who’s worked on one of my favourite shows, and the tv scholar awards are almost upon us (first week of December)! I still want the occasional television scholar or critic interview, and to deep-dive emerging themes I observe in the television landscape, but I think there’s a way to do that by weaving it into this newsletter a more casual style (while maybe saving the hard-hitting essays for publications where I can be properly edited).

Since I’m writing so much more these days (like 6,000 words a week?!), it’s nice to have a soft place to land my brain and throw out some hot takes about what I’m watching and feeling that week. It is also an embrace of the newsletter as a form. There is such a temptation to try to shape this newsletter into a mini magazine, with verticals and themed posts and in-depth reviews — but a Substack run by one person will never replace traditional publications like Vulture or AV Club, which is why it’s important to support the writers and critics stewarded by trustworthy editors over there. And ~the newsletter~ was never supposed to be all of that, anyway — my data shows that over 80% of my views come from folks opening their email, not SEO or even Instagram links.

I think at the end of the day, what most people want to read are my opinions on television with a sprinkle of subjectivity. So this is me, leaning more into that.

What does it say about me if I would rather watch Landman than All’s Fair?

It’s been a rough television-watching week at tvscholar HQ. I was commissioned by a publication to rank all of Taylor Sheridan’s shows, and let me tell you, I take such a duty very seriously. I actually watched so much: Lioness’s second season, the first season of Tulsa King, all of Landman, and enough of Mayor of Kingstown to get the gist. I feel I can properly wrap my mind around Sheridan as a writer and a person — if the opportunity ever came up I would totally profile him because I have so many questions about his politics that to me, after watching that much, often seem in conflict.

I wrote a bit more about that in the piece so I won’t spoil it here before it’s published but basically, I was shovelling terrible, violent slop into my brain and hoping that All’s Fair would be a kind of reward at the end of a hyper-masculine, MAGA-coded journey. Boy did I set myself up for failure. Where do I even start?

There is a top-to-bottom problem with All’s Fair. From the performances to the writing to the elevator music score and the terrible lighting, there were bad decisions made at every turn in an incredulous way. It is almost impossible to consider this is the same director as episodes of The People v. O. J. Simpson: American Crime Story. However much “camp” was thrown around in the writer’s room and on set, it did not register to me.

It dawned on me as I was watching that this is Ryan Murphy’s first Hulu Original. Even Grotesquerie, the Niecy Nash-Betts vehicle that was not kindly received by critics, aired on FX. It also dawned on me and many other critics in my DMs that Ryan Murphy’s team refuse to distribute screeners anymore. All of the reviews that were published were likely written by critics who stayed up late, watched the first three episodes with everyone else, and drafted something as quickly as they could for their editor the next morning. I honestly wonder if the show would have received a slightly warmer reception if critics were allowed to sit with the episodes for a few days (maybe it would get a 30/100 score instead of zeros across the board). Not to mention journalists actually having informed questions for the cast during their press days.

All’s Fair has uninteresting cases, rough dialogue (the gay AI allegations…), uneven performances, and a focus on girlbossing the ultra-wealthy that is uncomfortable and could only have been written by someone who is ultra-wealthy. In one scene near the end of the pilot, the girls are calling Kim Kardashian out for liking “rough trade.” Naomi Watts says Kim likes men a little unwashed, “guys that start out working at gas stations end up as models.” Niecy scoffs. Implicitly, these wealthy women are sitting around laughing at disgusting working-class men. That scene and this episode — which of course, focuses on clients with way too many diamonds — told me everything I needed to know about this show, which clearly wants to be aspirational in its representation of wealth rather than self-aware or critical in any way.

So to me, based on that episode, there is something rotten to the core about this show that a few campy line deliveries and my adoration for Sarah Paulson cannot overcome. It arrives at the same time as Elon Musk has been deemed the first trillionaire on the planet. Whose money do you think is in his hoarded stash? Ours. And what is it all about? Well, power over others, of course. Maybe All isn’t Fair. Just watch Matlock, y’all.

Unfortunately Landman, fossil fuel propaganda and sexualization of a 17-year-old character aside, has better performances from actresses like Ali Larter and Kayla Wallace that actually register as camp in my head. I am in the upside down.

What else?

Three-time Emmy nominee Rhea Seehorn in *Pluribus* (Apple TV+)

The first two episodes of Vince Gilligan’s Pluribus are out. As of now, I’ve seen four. The pilot is excellent, but later episodes don’t necessarily maintain that heart-pounding momentum. I’m hoping the second half of the season picks up steam. To spoil the plot does it a disservice, but I will say it’s one of the best Apple TV+ shows since Severance, and it’s incredibly high concept.
Jovan Adepo has been part of some of my favourite shows on television. When I interviewed him for It: Welcome to Derry, I told him how Sorry for Your Loss is iconic in my books, but so is The Leftovers and Watchmen. He picks great projects.
GLAAD’s yearly “Where We Are On TV” report is out and it includes a depressing statistics: 41% of queer characters on TV will not be returning next television season, and you can bet there won’t be as many new queer characters. Another reminder that we should support queer shows LOUDLY when they come out — especially those with trans characters.

on tvscholar’s nightstand:

watching: Because of T*ylor Sh*ridan I’m an episode behind on my entire weekly schedule. But I’ll be prioritizing The Vince Staples Show (Netflix), All Her Fault (Peacock), and Death by Lightning (Netflix) over the next few days. Plus screeners, of course. You can read my take on I Love LA and Surviving Mormonism in last week’s newsletter.
listening: Rosalía’s Lux album and I’m still not over Rochelle Jordan’s Through The Wall.
reading: I started Heated Rivalry by Rachel Reid to prepare for the upcoming Crave Original series. IT’S SO SMUTTY?
eating: It’s weekly soup season, and I made this dairy-free creamy white bean chicken soup from Minimalist Baker. It’s unreal but I had to go to two grocery stores to find diced green chiles.
“Life is so wild gratitude moment of the week”: I interviewed Da’Vine Joy Randolph. Gag.

Up next:

Nov 10: The Paper (airing weekly on NBC, starting Monday, November 10 at 8:30|7:30c)
Nov 11: Surviving Mormonism (Bravo, S1)
Nov 12: Palm Royale (Apple TV+, S2)
Nov 13: The Beast in Me (Netflix, S1)
Nov 13: The Last Samurai Standing (Netflix, S1)
Nov 14: Malice (Prime Video, S1)
Nov 14: The Seduction (HBO, S1)

If you enjoyed this reflections newsletter and you can see yourself reading it weekly with you Saturday morning coffee, consider upgrading to a paid subscriber if you’re not already, because this will be the only free dispatch for all subscribers. By being a paid subscriber you enable me to keep watching and writing about television as my full-time gig.