Succession feat. Judy Berman

Time's TV critic joins us to talk about a show we are beyond hyped to finally discuss

Hello!

On this week’s episode of Criticism Is Dead, we discuss Succession, a show that needs no introduction.

We’re joined by a special guest: Judy Berman, one of our favorite critics, who writes about TV for Time.

Click here to listen to the full episode on the web

Or listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Pocket Casts, Google Podcasts, or other podcast apps.

04:24 HBO series Succession is among the all-time greats — and here’s why.

(Note: Spoilers up through S3E7; at the time of recording, we had NOT watched the last two episodes of season 3.)

Oh Succession, how do we love thee? Let us count the ways. The darkly funny satirical drama about an intrafamily fight for a media empire is a success on multiple levels: writing, direction, acting, score, design, costuming. We have heard the complaints about season 3, and we don’t entirely disagree with some of the points raised, but we do still think the show remains pretty stellar.

Some things we discuss in this Succession special:

• Winners and losers of this season so far

• Kendall

• Shiv

• Roman

• Our favorites — and the whole concept of favorites overall in this fandom

• The show’s place in larger cultural/television context

• and more!

Where to find Judy

• Follow her on Twitter: @judyberman

• Read her work on Time, including:

• “Suddenly, Everyone We See on TV Is Very Rich or Very Poor. What Happened?”

• “The 10 Best TV Shows of 2021”

• “Welcome to TV’s Era of Peak Redundancy”

• And watch Work in Progress on Showtime, per her recommendation

Bonus links

WE ARE ON TIME’S LIST OF 10 BEST PODCASTS OF 2021!!!!

JEREMY STRONG NEW YORKER PROFILE. This is worth your time.

And since we couldn’t cover the latest episode on this podcast, here are some tweets about it:

Esther Zuckerman @ezwrites

A masterpiece

anja @contzavoce

The way she transformed into Lawyer Gerri so quickly was PERFECTION #SuccessionHBO

Garin Pirnia @gpirnia

This explains so much about why Kendall, Roman, and Shiv are the way they are. Scary Poppins: “Your father never saw anything he loved that he didn’t wanna kick it just to see if it would still come back.” #Succession #SuccessionHBO

That’s it for this week. See you next time!

— Jenny

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Inquiries, complaints, and recs for what to watch can go to criticismisdead@gmail.com.

Some credits:

• Music: REEKAH

• Artwork and design: Sara Macias and Andrew Liu