“This shit should not be cheesy,” Sera Gamble says. She’s talking about the visual effects and production design on the terrific Syfy fantasy series The Magicians, which just completed its third season, a cinch to make Todd’s top 10 of the year. While the show is one of TV’s most inventive, it has a fraction of the budget of something like Game of Thrones, which makes finding interesting ways to present otherworldly scenarios without breaking the bank a creative challenge.

Fortunately, Gamble is up to the task. Her work on the long-running CW series Supernatural won her fans, thanks to her affinity for deeply creepy but deeply affecting monsters. And The Magicians, while a fantasy show, is one of TV’s most thoughtful shows about mental illness and the tough choices you have to make in your 20s when you’re still trying to figure out just who you are.

Gamble joins Todd for the first installment of a series of episodes with writers Todd loves. They talk about producing great fantasy TV on a budget, what makes a great monster and how The Magicians became an unlikely but timely show about women's anger. 
      
      
      
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The Magicians' Sera Gamble on making great fantasy TV without Game of Thrones money

The entertainment industry is brimming with interesting people who are responsible for your favorite movies, TV shows, and more. Join Vox’s critic-at-large Emily VanDerWerff every Thursday as she speaks with the very well known, up-and-coming and need to know folks responsible for the most exciting projects in art, entertainment, and pop culture – diving deep into their influences, inspirations, and careers in a frank, uncensored fashion. The series finale aired in December 2018.

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Few actors have had as surprising a past few years as Mahershala Ali. Known for his parts on TV shows like The 4400 and House of Cards and in movies like The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and the Hunger Games films, Ali went from steadily working actor to legitimate star with his 2016 role in Moonlight. He’s only in the film’s first half-hour, playing Juan, a drug dealer who can tell that a sensitive young boy needs a space to just be himself, but he’s magnetic and warm, caring and thoughtful, in a role Hollywood rarely allows to have much care and thought. Ali won an Oscar for Supporting Actor, and from there, he’s charted an eclectic, fascinating past couple of years. He’s getting Oscar buzz again for his Golden Globe-nominated role in Green Book, and he voices a pivotal character in the highly acclaimed Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. Then in January, he’ll be playing the lead character in the long-awaited third season of True Detective. The role, originally written for a white actor, spoke to Ali, and he convinced showrunner Nic Pizzolatto to reconceive the part so he could play it. Ali joined Todd to chat about his remarkable rise to stardom, taking the role in True Detective, and what he thinks art can do to help heal society in the 2010s. And stick around after Todd and Ali’s conversation for some of our favorite I Think You’re Interesting moments from over the years! 
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Mahershala Ali, from Moonlight to True Detective

Michael Schur is one of the most adept minds in TV comedy. From his early days producing the Tina Fey and Jimmy Fallon-era Weekend Update on Saturday Night Live, to his work as one of the key writers on The Office, he charted a career that touched some of the best TV comedy of the 2000s. But in the 2010s, he’s become perhaps the principal figure in network TV comedy, with his shows Parks and Recreation and The Good Place. (He’s also co-creator of Brooklyn Nine-Nine, though his fellow co-creator Dan Goor is the showrunner on that series.) Parks was a tribute to the idea of a kinder, more loving America, just barely holding off a dark and horrifying one, while The Good Place is the only show in TV archives that balances advanced lessons in ethics and philosophy with elaborate jokes about shrimp. That’s what made Todd want to talk with Schur not just about his shows, but about his overall philosophy of comedy. They delve into questions of what makes a good comedic premise, what makes a good character relationship to build a comedy around, and what the best comedic actors have in common. And maybe they’ll even answer that age-old question: Why is it so much easier to set a successful sitcom in a bar than it is to set one in a restaurant? Notes from our sponsors: LEGO: In today's show you heard advertising content from The LEGO Store. With LEGO, every gift has a story. Start your story today at https://LEGO.build/Vox-Ship 
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What do The Good Place, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, and Parks and Rec have in common? Michael Schur.

If you've talked to Todd at all, you know how much he enjoys Christmas music. And, sure, he enjoys the stuff that gets overplayed year after year, but he gets why you're sick of it. Finding good music often means going a little off the beaten path. That's why Todd talked to PJ Morton, a musician who's recorded with Stevie Wonder and was a member of Maroon 5, and who has his own successful, Grammy-nominated solo career. He asked Morton both about his new Christmas album (Christmas with PJ Morton) and to pick his five favorite Christmas albums of all time. Morton's choices are great, not so hyper-obscure as to be impossible to find but also not overplayed to death (save for Mariah Carey, but you gotta have Mariah Carey on a list like this). And along the way, he and Todd chat about why these songs endure, what it means to put your own spins on them, and what it's like to sing songs about snowy white Christmases when you grew up in New Orleans. Notes from our sponsors:LEGO: In today's show you heard advertising content from The LEGO Store. With LEGO, every gift has a story. Start your story today at https://LEGO.build/Vox-Pop 
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Christmas music you won't get sick of, with R&B star PJ Morton

The Chris Gethard Show might have been Todd’s favorite talk show of the decade, a weird, tossed-off calamity that emerged every week like an odd magic trick. It made the trip from New York public access TV to more traditional networks. And then earlier this year, it ended, as its network, TruTV, and comedian Gethard opted not to continue with it. It ended up being the most weirdly appropriate promotion for Gethard’s new book imaginable. Lose Well, published in October, is a self-help book with a twist, a tome that is meant to help people figure out not how to avoid losing but how to lean into it, how to learn from it, how to change thanks to it. It compiles the stories Gethard has collected over a long career peppered with high-profile failures (and, yes, some high-profile successes), mixed with his signature blend of earnest, sincere humor. And here’s the paragraph where we’d put some of the stuff Gethard and Todd talk about in this episode, but honestly, it’s one of Todd’s favorite interviews he’s ever done, and he couldn’t narrow it down. So just listen to it already. 
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Losing is hard. But comedian Chris Gethard says it’s necessary.

This episode originally ran in November of 2017. It’s almost Thanksgiving, which means home chefs all around the United States (Todd among them) are trying to find a way to hew to tradition without turning their plates into a giant pile of indistinguishable starches. In this Thanksgiving Spectacular, we’ve invited Samin Nosrat to join us and offer her hints and tips for a successful Thanksgiving meal. Samin’s book, Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat, is one of the best cookbooks Todd’s ever read, and the information it provides about how the four elements in the title interact to make delicious food will help any chef — no matter how experienced — cook even better food. But it can also help brighten up that Thanksgiving plate, and Samin offered Todd advice on making tastier turkey, zingier mashed potatoes, and sharper Thanksgiving salads. She also stuck around to talk about writing a cookbook, devouring delicious food she didn’t cook, and enjoying the perfect vegan holiday season. Pull a chair up to the table and dig in. 
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The Magicians' Sera Gamble on making great fantasy TV without Game of Thrones money

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