The Studio

No one would fault you for not wanting to give anything that Seth Rogen is a part of a chance. The man has seemingly fully shoved his head, shoulders deep up his own rectum over the past twenty years, becoming one of the most insufferable celebrities in Hollywood—and that is saying a whole lot. The Studio in no way deserves all of the accolades that it's getting. The lion's share of its recent 13 Emmy-win, is almost entirely thanks to Hollywood smuggly patting itself on the back for being able to take a joke. However, The Studio is a genuinely entertaining bit of fluff.

Credit where credit is due, the first episode is stellar. It's funny and brisk, full of larger-than-life characters masterfully played by people like Brian Cranston, who steps back into farcical comedy like Malcom in the Middle wrapped yesterday. The cinematography is viscerally integral to the storytelling without being obnoxious, and the dialogue is crisp and identifiable without the pretentiousness of many other wink-and-nod Hollywood send-ups.

After the fantastic beginning, things don't take a dive, but the magic does dwindle rather steadily. The end result is a not-so-mundane program that delivers laughs and benefits a lot from leaning hard into episodic storytelling. So, each episode has a freshness that doesn't necessarily require audiences to be bogged down by anything that they didn't love from the previous offering.

I don't know that I can bring myself to mark it as worthy of our Worth it moniker, but if you're a fan of this site, I bet you would dig The Studio as a nice distraction.