This week I am bringing back my weekly mailbag newsletter.
Part of this will eventually go behind a paywall, but that’s a few weeks off.
If you have any TV or media questions you’d like answered next week, email me at [email protected].
‘Should Hollywood’s Creators Keep Their Politics Out Of Their TV Shows And Movies?’
I have received several variations of this question recently and the issue almost always pops up when I cover a story in a way that some readers find political.
This version of the complaint comes from Cindy K.:
Why does it seem as is every TV show I watch has some political agenda? I miss the days when television was just entertaining and wasn’t trying to cram Hollywood’s politics down our throats.
As someone who writes about the media industry, television and streaming, I get asked this question a lot.
All art is a series of political decisions. The stories that inspire you, the shows that make you think, all reflect your political beliefs. And it's the same when you're creating art. It's impossible to fully separate your core political beliefs from the stories you find important, the perspectives you believe need to be shared with the world.
That's why I'm always perplexed by people who complain someone is "lecturing" the viewer. Sure, sometimes that happens and the storytelling is heavy-handed. But there are an unsettling number of people in 2026 who believe that merely including characters they aren't comfortable with is the equivalent of lecturing the viewer or even grooming.
And believing that way leads to madness.
Take the criticism swirling around the movie The Odyssey. Some viewers are unhappy with the diverse casting choices and if you feel that way, fine. Even the most mainstream piece of art isn't supposed to appeal to 100 percent of the audience.
But that discussion has now shifted to outlandish conspiracy theories. That somehow the casting decisions on the movie were driven by some secret DEI cabal. Or that anyone would spend $250 million on a film and then slant the movie in some way that is supposed to lecture the audience.
This is Hollywood. No one spends $250 million on a film without making every decision possible that will help make it a success. If the casting is really a problem, it wouldn't have happened. And certainly no one is telling Christopher Nolan to make decisions he doesn't believe in.
Which brings me back to the original point. All art is a series of political decisions. But politics almost always comes in second to the bottom line.
“Why don’t you include casting info in your newsletter?
Bob L. asked me this question:
“I enjoy your odds and sods round-up of TV info and it helps keep me on top of what’s going on. But I was wondering why you don’t include casting info or some of the stories I see at places like Deadline?”
There are really a couple of reasons why I shy away away from that. Part of it is that casting info only matters at all if it’s fresh. And an unsettling amount of it ends up going to one of the Penske Trades as an “exclusive.” It’s the same reason why I rarely highlight some out-of-context comment some star made on a podcast. Granted, it’s one of the things that Deadline has built their brand on. But I think in most cases, it just doesn’t matter to readers. And even if it did, this type of information is something readers could see 50 other places.
Honestly, there is an entire range of stories I typically won’t do unless it’s a very unusual situation. I don’t post stories about someone signing to a new agency. Or vague stories about deals which are “close” to being done.
My general philosophy is that I am not here to be an industry stenographer. That’s why most of the show announcements, trailers, etc., are lumped under “Odds & Sods.” It’s information worth knowing. But unlike a lot of publications, I am not going to build a story about it simply for SEO purposes.
But if you think there is something I should be covering, or have a suggestion, please reach out to me at @[email protected]
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“What ‘dumb’ TV show are you addicted to watching?”
I was speaking with a publicist last week and we were discussing the near disappearance of set visits. She asked me what show I would most like to do a set visit for and I only somewhat jokingly said History’s The Curse Of Oak Island.
One of the challenges of being a critic is that you struggle to find something you can watch that you know you won’t write about. Not that there’s anything wrong with the show, but that the structure of it doesn’t lend itself to regular coverage.
I have tried all sorts of shows when I needed to relax my brain and honestly, most of them are kind of boring. Most of the treasure hunting shows are obviously not going to find any treasure. And at this point shows such as Finding Bigfoot are just exercises in watching people dressed in camo gear stumbling through the woods in the dark saying things such as “It smells squatchie out here tonight.”
I have been watching The Curse Of Oak Island since the first season and in recent years it’s turned into one of the few TV shows my son will sit down and watch me every week.
The big attraction of the show is that while I am not convinced any treasure remains on Oak Island (which is in Nova Scotia), it’s pretty clear there was SOMETHING there at some point in the past.
If you’re not familiar with the island, rumors of treasure have swirled around the island since the early 1700s. Some believed a story that suggested more than $2 million worth of treasure from Captain Kidd had been buried on the island.
In 1795, a man named Daniel McGinnis found a depression in the ground he believed might lead him to the treasure. Stories claim he and the two other men digging discovered a layer of flagstone two feet deep, with oak platforms discovered every ten feet after that.
McGinnis abandoned the dig, but a later expedition in 1802 continued down to about 90 feet, where they uncovered a large stone marked with strange symbols just before the shaft flooded.
A series of treasure hunters and full-fledged expeditions have attempted to the find treasure over the past 200+ years, including an expedition whose investors included Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
And he wasn't the only well-known figure that invested money in the treasure hunt. Actor Erroll Flynn invested in one dig, as did John Wayne.
But despite all of that activity - and a series of deaths - no absolute proof of treasure had been found.
And none of the seasons of The Curse Of Oak Island have uncovered actual treasure either, although the Laginas and their company have found a variety of artifacts that date to as far back as the 1200s.
If there were any treasure on the island, I suspect it is long gone. But the show is a fascinating mix of history and rumors about everything from the Knight’s Templar to the Lost Ark of the Covenant. So the show is a great mental palate cleanser, even if all the Laginas ever recover is a lot of random old boards and iron nails.
And if you are looking for another show along these lines, the UFO/Secret Wormhole/Creepy Animals show The Secret Of Skinwalker Ranch premieres this Tuesday on The History Channel.