Tom's Top 3: November 25, 2025
A Coupla Two-fers
Hi everyone! Welcome to this week’s installment of Tom’s Top 3 Tuesdays, where I highlight three pieces of content (Podcasts/Shows/Songs/Articles/etc.) that I found interesting or noteworthy from the prior week.
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[TV Show + Podcast] Apple TV - Pluribus + The Watch - Vince Gilligan On The Premiere of ‘Pluribus’
Vince Gilligan is back with another banger.
Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul are two of my favorite shows of all time, and so far I am loving his newest project, Pluribus. Much of the show’s premise was not given away in the marketing, which is I think was a good move. Before listening to the podcast, check out the first couple of episodes. One of the most captivating premieres I have seen.
Watching the interview with Gilligan, I have to say, he just seems like a good dude. It’s hard to believe that such a nice-seeming guy wrote some of the most despicable characters in TV history. I loved hearing about his process. Two things stuck out to me from his interview:
Chris Ryan complimented Gilligan on how he is the master of showing the seemingly mundane with great attention to detail. Gilligan credited Stephen King’s book, On Writing, as being the main inspiration behind that style. He said when he read it in college, he noticed how King said that people love seeing other people doing their jobs, especially ones they are not familiar with. Gilligan took that to heart, and you see that repeatedly throughout his shows.
Gilligan also talked through his preparation. He doesn’t like to storyboard, because he feels he would waste time making sure all the images are drawn perfectly. Instead, he spends hours with a map of a each set, marking the location and orientation of the camera for each shot.
[Article + Podcast] Derek Thompson - Everything Is Television + Plain English - Everything Is Television
This recent essay from Derek Thompson explores how certain mediums have evolved/devolved into something similar to television. He refers to TV as an “attractor,” or an inevitable end state. Put more eloquently by Thompson:
When I say “everything is turning into television,” what I mean is that disparate forms of media and entertainment are converging on one thing: the continuous flow of episodic video.
To argue his point, Thompson offers three examples of where we are seeing this change in our world today:
The “social” is being stripped from social media
Social media is now largely user-generated short-form videos
Meta recently argued in an antitrust case that they cannot be considered a social media monopoly because they are not “social media,” citing that over 80% of time spent on Facebook and Instagram is devoted to watching videos
Video podcasts are growing 20 times faster than audio-only ones
Netflix is intentionally making “casual viewing” movies that are designed to be watched while multitasking
In the podcast episode, Thompson is interviewed by the hosts of the Mixed Signals podcast, diving deeper into his TV theory.
[Trailer] A24 - How to Make a Killing
I haven’t heard anything about this movie yet, so it was a pleasant surprise!
I am excited to see Glen Powell in an A24 movie, and this one looks particularly fun.
That wraps up this edition of Tom’s Top 3 Tuesdays. If you made it to this point, please drop a 1️⃣, 2️⃣, or 3️⃣ in the comments to let me know what you found most interesting/useful. And as always, please like and consider sharing with a friend who you think would enjoy! I’ll be back next week. ✌️