I Don't Know Why Halston Isn't Better

Plus: Girls5eva, The Nanny, and What's Making Us Happy [View this email online]( [Pop Culture Happy Hour]( by Linda Holmes Welcome! It was the week when we learned [more about the Friends reunion](. It was the week when Ellen DeGeneres announced the upcoming end of her talk show, and ... [started talking about it](. And it was the week when the cast of the Knives Out sequel [just kept getting better](. Let's get to it. Opening Argument: I Don't Know Why Halston Isn't Better You would think that Halston would be a really great piece of television. A five-part series from the production shop of Ryan Murphy, who often makes TV that's extremely pretty to look at, even if it's not great? Ryan Murphy plus one of the most significant fashion designers of the 1970s? Ewan McGregor, a pretty reliable actor, playing Halston? It seems like it should be a good show -- or if not a good show, at least a solid or pretty show. The guy's got Netflix money, after all. And it's a show that's literally about beauty. Instead, it's really lifeless and meandering, plagued mostly by the sense that it has very little to say about Halston except familiar things (important things! But familiar) about the loneliness Halston felt as a gay man of his time. It's not a very specific portrait, Halston himself displays the same affect in just about every scene (he's ... a haughty sort of ingratiating), and it left me with the sense that I wasn't sure why the people who made this show thought he would be an interesting subject for a series, except that they wanted to shoot a lot of beautiful footage of women in caftans. (Of which, I should say, there's surprisingly little!) It's one of the lessons of watching and reading a lot of things that sometimes, it's just hard to say why things don't turn out the way you thought they might. Sometimes, you can see another better version of whatever the project is, and it's peeking around the corner trying to reveal itself. Sometimes, as was the case [with Murphy's Ratched]( you get the sense that there was an idea at one time, but it just hasn't turned out to be a good idea (in that case, it turns out that villains don't really need explaining). Sometimes, a wildly ambitious notion goes flying off the rails, big and weird and broken by the time it's ready to be seen. And sometimes, a show has the dutiful feeling of something that seems like it was inevitable more than it was inspired, like the adaptation of Hillbilly Elegy. I'm not sure what happened with Halston, though. Maybe the creative team expected to be able to mine more drama from the broad strokes of Halston's life, including what they treat as his "selling out" period, in which he went from a high-fashion icon to a designer of carpets and JCPenney collections. There may have been more to explore in that arena, had they not also been trying to cover his cocaine use, his adoration of Liza Minnelli, and so many other story threads that feel incompletely woven together. It feels ... messy. It feels indulgent, like a first draft. And again, honestly, it doesn't even have that many caftans. --------------------------------------------------------------- Newsletter continues after sponsor message --------------------------------------------------------------- We Recommend: There are several things out this weekend that we'll be covering on the show that you might want to catch up with: [Hacks with Jean Smart]( [The Woman In The Window]( with Amy Adams, [Those Who Wish Me Dead]( with Angelina Jolie (which is our Friday show today), and Barry Jenkins' [The Underground Railroad](. There has been a little bit of a feast-or famine situation with new much-awaited content, and this week is the "feast" part. [The show Generation Hustle]( on HBO MAX has the stories of a number of scammers and people who have been classified as scammers. Some episodes told stories I knew (Anna Delvey, the Hollywood Con Queen) and some told stories I didn't know, but I did find it a diverting show, as a person who loves stories about this kind of thing. I'm not quite done with the audiobook of [Fredrik Backman's Anxious People]( which is about a bank robber and the hostages who wind up in the bank robber's orbit, but I like it very much. It's very energetically performed by actress Marin Ireland, who really knows how to give you a lot of voices. What We Did This Week: [Nanny image]( CBS via Getty Images On Monday's show, Stephen [talked to Maria Garcia]( of the Anything for Selena podcast about Selena: The Series on Netflix. On Tuesday, [I had a delightful chat]( with the great Saeed Jones -- a great poet and writer and perhaps Twitter's top Fran Fine fan -- about The Nanny, now streaming on HBO MAX. Wednesday, [we took a breath from brand-new stuff]( while Glen and I reflected on some of our favorite games for the Nintendo Switch and other platforms. On Thursday, [Aisha talked to Margaret Willison]( about the Peacock show Girls 5eva, which is a giant hoot. Aisha also [reviewed the show more fully]( at NPR.org. And on Friday, [Stephen and I talked]( to Chris Klimek and Walter Chaw about the Angelina Jolie movie Those Who Wish Me Dead. I wrote a review [of the long-awaited Amy Adams vehicle]( The Woman In The Window, which has arrived on Netflix after traveling a very bumpy road. [Glen wrote about]( Hacks, an HBO MAX show with Jean Smart that you should watch -- if for no other reason -- because it has Jean Smart. I spoke [with Rachel Martin of Morning Edition]( about some of the shows that are coming up in the next few weeks, including a food documentary, a salute to the 1980s, and the next landing spot for the great and talented Annie Murphy of Schitt's Creek. I had a [really lovely and unexpected discussion]( with the actress Ann Dowd (Aunt Lydia on The Handmaid's Tale, also of The Leftovers and a lot of Law & Order episodes) on the NPR podcast Bullseye this week. I encourage you to check it out. What's Making Us Happy: Every week on the show, we talk about some other things out in the world that have been giving us joy lately. Here they are: - What's making Chris happy: [Hudson Hawk]( - What's making Walter happy: [Invincible]( - What's making Stephen happy: [Rock Band]( - What's making Linda happy: [Interviewing Ann Dowd for Bullseye]( --------------------------------------------------------------- Stream your local NPR station. Visit NPR.org to find your local station stream. --------------------------------------------------------------- What do you think of today's email? We'd love to hear your thoughts, questions and feedback: [pchh@npr.org](mailto:pchh@npr.org?subject=Newsletter%20Feedback) Enjoying this newsletter? 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