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Know Your Enemy

"Succession," "Extrapolations," and TV Writing Today (w/ Dorothy Fortenberry and Will Arbery)

Matt and Sam talk to two television writers, Will Arbery of "Succession" and Dorothy Fortenberry of "Extrapolations," about how they approach political topics and themes on their shows, and close out the conversation with a discussion of the WGA strike.
Duration
1h 16m
Broadcast on
04 May 2023
Audio Format
other

With the Writers Guild of America strike underway, the plight of television writers—especially their treatment in the age of streaming and artificial intelligence—is garnering new, and overdue, attention. Matt and Sam are joined by two friends of the podcast, Will Arbery and Dorothy Fortenberry, who write for major television shows: Will is a writer for HBO's Succession, and Dorothy for Apple TV+'s Extrapolations. They discuss how they write about political topics and themes, such as rightwing political candidates or the effects of climate change, in these fraught times, when the demands of good art can seem in tension with a simplistic and moralistic culture. Also discussed: parents, children, and families, now and in the coming climate crisis; how and whether people can change; and, of course, the WGA strike and why it matters.

Sources Cited:

Michael Schulman, "Why Are TV Writers So Miserable," The New Yorker, Apr 29, 2023

Alex Press, "TV Writers Say They’re Striking to Stop the Destruction of Their Profession," Jacobin, May 3, 2023.

Sam Adler-Bell, "Succession's Repetition Compulsion," The Nation, Nov 10, 2021.

Pope Francis, Laudato si’ (“On Care for Our Common Home”), May 2015

Listen to previous Know Your Enemy episodes with these guests:

"We Can Be Heroes" (w/ Will Arbery), November 11, 2019

"Suburban Woman" (w/ Dorothy Fortenberry), October 29, 2020

"Living at the End of Our World" (w/ Daniel Sherrell & Dorothy Fortenberry), September 2, 2021

...and don't forget to subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon for access to all of our bonus episodes!

Welcome listeners to episode 73 of Know Your Enemy, I'm Matt Sippman, your podcast co-host, and I'm here as always with my great friend Sam Adler Bell. Hey, Sam. Hi, Matt. How are you doing today? I'm good, as we were just saying, both of us are coughing a little in the spring release of pollen. That's right. Well, we have a great episode to share with listeners. It's a little different, you know, we've had some pretty heavy, serious episodes recently, both topically and real meat and potatoes, Know Your Enemy stuff. This is an equally great episode, but one that was just a little more fun, I thought, and a little more about stuff happening now. Yeah. And so we had on two of our friends who are both playwrights, turn TV writers, Will Arbery and Dorothy Fortenberry. Will is a writer for Succession, and Dorothy is a writer for the new Apple TV+ show, Extrapolations. And so we thought, why not get them all behind mics and talk to them and see what happens? Yeah, exactly. And it turned out great. I mean, the idea was sort of like, how do you write about politics, about like contemporary intense political issues for television? People will know Will Arbery from an episode we did several years ago now on his amazing play, Heroes of the Fourth Turning, which is about sort of young conservatives having a long conversation about God and politics. And Dorothy listeners will know from two episodes we had with her one, which was about suburban mothers and politics. That was during the 2020 election run. Yes, it was. And we also had her on for a wonderful episode we did about climate change and climate grief with another friend of the show, my friend Dan Shirel, maybe a year ago. But this episode, we're talking about TV. Yes. And we do ask Dorothy to mention a little bit about her show at the start. Since it's brand new, it's a show set in the future and about climate change. I mean, basically the world has not done what it needs to have done basically now. Yeah, to avoid the future we see in this show. And it's just, it's an interesting look at the future, again, with climate change in mind. And the show that Will writes for is Succession, which I suspect a lot of our listeners are watching. I mean, we're obsessed with it. And that comes through in the show. And for for listeners who are really into the show, you're going to get some cool details behind the scenes on how they thought about putting together the past few seasons and this season in particular. But for listeners who do not watch Succession, I can give you the briefest summary of what that show is about. It's basically a version of the Murdoch family. They own basically a version of Fox News, as well as a multi billion dollar conglomerate that's family owned. And the sort of plot of the show is about the children of the Rupert Murdoch figure, Logan Roy, vying to succeed him as the head of the company. And that's four seasons of television now, that's just about that problem, the problem of Succession. But I hope that even for listeners who don't watch Succession, they'll get a lot out of this episode. Because we're talking about kind of the challenge of writing these sorts of characters, conservative characters, billionaires, people engaged in some kind of political struggle, political controversy for contemporary TV audiences. And I think it's really fascinating. Well, there's one other thing to mention about this. At the end of the conversation, we do ask both Dorothy Will about the WGA strike, the writer's guild strike, that now is happening. And I think when we recorded this with them, Sam, it had been authorized, but hadn't actually began yet. Yeah, that's right. We recorded actually appropriately enough on May Day, on May 1st. And then I think that night, you know, at midnight was when the writers went on strike. And so for listeners who are interested in labor politics, you're going to get a little bit of an inside look on what the stakes of that strike are, what it's like to be a TV writer today. And both of them had really fascinating things to say about the stakes of that contest. Yes, indeed. Well, we should get to it. But before we do, here's a few housekeeping items. As always, we're grateful to our partners at Descent. They sponsor the podcast. One thing they do for us is if you subscribe to our Patreon at patreon.com/knowyourenemy for $10 a month, you not only get all of our bonus episodes, but you also get a free digital subscription to Descent. And so if you get that soon, you will be able to read my piece on the January 6th report in the spring issue. Yeah, and you should. So consider doing that. And of course,

Transcription truncated.

Matt and Sam talk to two television writers, Will Arbery of "Succession" and Dorothy Fortenberry of "Extrapolations," about how they approach political topics and themes on their shows, and close out the conversation with a discussion of the WGA strike.