I haven't yet seen the show but that clip suggests that Affleck, indeed, seems to be under the influence of something. He was kind of slurring but who knows. He definitely seems "off".
The Bill Simmons Thread
- Thread starter RedOctober3829
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I thought it was terrible. Simmons can't read naturally off the prompter and the show had him doing it a lot. The show was lit and shot horribly---Affleck might have been on something but the lighting and camera angles weren't helping him. The bit on Curry looked like something someone put together in AfterEffects in 20 minutes and wasn't funny. Both of The Ringer shows look like public access shows next to the other interview shows on HBO.
It was ok. I liked the Barkley part and Bill definitely guided and protected him so other athletes will feel safe, but Affleck was a waste of time and no one cares about deflategate. Hell, the thread here has finally taken a nap! And did they need a deflated football in the opening montage? Unless they are changing that each week to match the conversation it makes no sense to put it there.
I'll give this show a few weeks to hit it's stride.
I'll give this show a few weeks to hit it's stride.
Bill did the Jeb Bush "please clap" during the Affleck rant and got crickets. That was pretty funny.
I also thought that Bill (and Ben, to some extent) were consciously taking advantage of being on "premium cable" and using Fuck more often than they would have in ordinary conversation.
I'd bet it changes each week. John Oliver's show has a different pre-roll that stays within the same theme before each episode as well.
Bill needs to stick to what he is passionate about and ditch the teleprompter. "Here's what sucks about ESPN" would be a great episode, and Bill wouldn't have to read off anything. It shouldn't be hard to find a couple of guests. I am probably in the minority but I think a deflategate episode would be good too.
He was definitely in the bag. Compare this appearance with the one he made on Maher's show. He's slurring and stumbling all over the place.
FWIW Simmons posted last night on twitter they filmed "in the late-AM" in response to rumors about Affleck.
The tweet ended with "Thats it" I can't embed tweets from work. It was a denial. I don't really care if its true or not, just passing on information.
He seemed to be implying that because they filmed in the AM, how could Ben possibly be drunk/fucked up?
At least that's what I assumed. Kind of a flimsy defense.
At least that's what I assumed. Kind of a flimsy defense.
I thought that Will Leitch had a good summation of Episode 1:
"In his interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Simmons talked about how he wasn't trying to be John Oliver, how he didn't have those performative skills. (Few do.) Instead, the show would be catered to what he does well. The first episode was precisely that: casual conversations, and amusing light takes on current sports events. That might not blow you away. That might not be reinventing television. That might not Meet The Hype. But when you look around the current state of cable television sports conversation … it feels like more than enough. It's just a normal television sports show. In this landscape, normal feels like its own sort of revolutionary."
"In his interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Simmons talked about how he wasn't trying to be John Oliver, how he didn't have those performative skills. (Few do.) Instead, the show would be catered to what he does well. The first episode was precisely that: casual conversations, and amusing light takes on current sports events. That might not blow you away. That might not be reinventing television. That might not Meet The Hype. But when you look around the current state of cable television sports conversation … it feels like more than enough. It's just a normal television sports show. In this landscape, normal feels like its own sort of revolutionary."
I got the distinct impression from that article that Mary McNamara was annoyed that her assignment to review AGW interrupted her viewing of the House of Representatives protests. Not that she's wrong in her conclusions about Simmons but that was a strange piece of writing.
Swearing and slurring aside, I enjoyed Affleck's DFG takedown and it can't be said often enough on a large platform like HBO. It's a total sham and the people behind it should always be called out on it for the awful way they've behaved.
To the rest of America, it really did come across as two people from Boston talking in their native language.
Yeah, he just looks/sounds exhausted to me. Add in jet lag and I think that's quite a plausible explanation.
Not saying that's the only reason Ben was flying back to LA, but that's a pretty big favor to ask from a pretty big celeb who had nothing to promote or anything to really gain from that interview. Hollywood Billy.
Edit: I must not be fully thinking out these posts before hitting submit because I think I've edited my last few, but I just remembered the HBO/Affleck/Project Greenlight connection. So maybe that has a bit to do with it.
Edit: I must not be fully thinking out these posts before hitting submit because I think I've edited my last few, but I just remembered the HBO/Affleck/Project Greenlight connection. So maybe that has a bit to do with it.
I am a Bill Simmons fanboy, and I was very disappointed in the show. It felt incredibly under-produced -- a few scripted monologues, a couple of interviews with subjects who can drive interviews pretty well by themselves, and the Curry and weekly belt bits which a.) weren't visually interesting, b.) weren't distinctive, and c.) weren't funny. If they started working on the show last week, I'm not sure how different it would've been compared with the 4-5 months ago they actually started.
The interviews were so lame -- Simmons didn't ask any intriguing questions that reflected genuine curiosity. Ask Charles about gambling, or about PEDs in the NBA, or about politics? Nah... let's just argue about a tired old Top 10 list and whether Kobe is better than Kareem or something equally irrelevant. And I'd have loved to had Bill ask Affleck about Brady's affection for Donald Trump, rather than just backing off and letting Affleck unfurl a prepared DFG rant that was clearly scripted in advance and served largely just to take advantage of HBO's loose language standards and practices.
This show could easily have been irrelevant filler on Fox Sports Net. HBO and Bill Simmons can do way better.
The interviews were so lame -- Simmons didn't ask any intriguing questions that reflected genuine curiosity. Ask Charles about gambling, or about PEDs in the NBA, or about politics? Nah... let's just argue about a tired old Top 10 list and whether Kobe is better than Kareem or something equally irrelevant. And I'd have loved to had Bill ask Affleck about Brady's affection for Donald Trump, rather than just backing off and letting Affleck unfurl a prepared DFG rant that was clearly scripted in advance and served largely just to take advantage of HBO's loose language standards and practices.
This show could easily have been irrelevant filler on Fox Sports Net. HBO and Bill Simmons can do way better.
I haven't seen the episode yet. Was Affleck's rant about DFG at all intelligent? I cringe when guys with only a surface knowledge of the issues go off on a rant like that (Simmons doesn't even do it justice).
I couldn't make it though. The high TelePrompter was driving me crazy, and the talk seems like a rehash of stuff we've read or seen already. I mean, there is worse content out there, but the overall awkwardness makes it very unpleasant.
Agreed.
It's funny that Bill was saying on Katie Nolan's podcast that he didn't want to do "the box" over his shoulder. Seems like that idea was mainly scrapped.
It's funny that Bill was saying on Katie Nolan's podcast that he didn't want to do "the box" over his shoulder. Seems like that idea was mainly scrapped.
Was much better. Could have listened to Cuban for the whole half hour. They should put extra content on demand or on the website
I couldn't agree more. I literally didn't want the Cuban/Gladwell thing to end and Simmons did a nice job letting them talk. Hader is funny as Hell. Really, really good show.
They will put the rest of the material on HBO go or HBO now. The rest of the sffleck interview, when he talks about good will hunting is there
My Dad and I are both big Simmons fans and he thought last nights show was painful. The Hader and Knicks part were good. Couple reasons and suggestions that are fixable.
1) The Summer of Steroids bit was decent if you hadn't seen Oliver do a much more thorough bit about it on Sunday on the same network.
2) The Cuban Gladwell convo should have been split. Gladwell was trying to be cross examiner and while the content was interesting everyone had to know Cuban wasn't going to grant Gladwell anything re stadium subsidies. They are both fascinating interview subjects split them up give 8-10 mins a piece and tell audience rest of content online. Separating those two would have helped dramatically IMHO. The transition was also very poor for a show with no commercials which is a time management issue should be fixable
3) I'd toy with ditching monologue. Simmons is at best with free flowing interviews ie podcasts not solo speeches on tv. Especially on a network with Oliver at top of his game its more obvious.
4) Simmons is essentially a basketball guy. He's decent at producing pop culture content but he's best at basketball. On his show I want more of that.
1) The Summer of Steroids bit was decent if you hadn't seen Oliver do a much more thorough bit about it on Sunday on the same network.
2) The Cuban Gladwell convo should have been split. Gladwell was trying to be cross examiner and while the content was interesting everyone had to know Cuban wasn't going to grant Gladwell anything re stadium subsidies. They are both fascinating interview subjects split them up give 8-10 mins a piece and tell audience rest of content online. Separating those two would have helped dramatically IMHO. The transition was also very poor for a show with no commercials which is a time management issue should be fixable
3) I'd toy with ditching monologue. Simmons is at best with free flowing interviews ie podcasts not solo speeches on tv. Especially on a network with Oliver at top of his game its more obvious.
4) Simmons is essentially a basketball guy. He's decent at producing pop culture content but he's best at basketball. On his show I want more of that.
I think as the shows goes along, a panel style discussion is going to be where the show finds its stride.
Simmons, with a special guest, along with a familiar Simmons buddy like, Katie Nolan, House, Cousin Sal, Michael Lombardi(?) etc.
I would've preferred more of an interview with Hader than a rapid fire exchange. But maybe that was because the questions were kinda weak in the beginning. Trainwreck is a year old. Who has even thought about it since last June? I would've loved to have heard more about Hader's time at SNL.
All that being said, I think it was a pretty nice improvement over episode one.
Simmons, with a special guest, along with a familiar Simmons buddy like, Katie Nolan, House, Cousin Sal, Michael Lombardi(?) etc.
I would've preferred more of an interview with Hader than a rapid fire exchange. But maybe that was because the questions were kinda weak in the beginning. Trainwreck is a year old. Who has even thought about it since last June? I would've loved to have heard more about Hader's time at SNL.
All that being said, I think it was a pretty nice improvement over episode one.
Is anyone here still watching?
Viewer drop this week from 362,000 to 276,000.
Obstacle Course racing on ESPN2 at the same time brought in 220,000.
Viewer drop this week from 362,000 to 276,000.
Obstacle Course racing on ESPN2 at the same time brought in 220,000.
I watched this week. I liked episode 2 and I can't speak about how much this episode bothered me. The Bosh and Anderson part was fine and I actually liked some of Bosh's superteam insight on what it was like to be hated after playing in Toronto where most visiting crowds didn't even know who he was.
The UFC portion encapsulated everything I hate about Simmons. The pretaped piece about how Simmons knew about and attended UFC before it was cool and now it's bigger than boxing was annoying at best. The interview with Rogan had good info but everytime Rogan said something insightful, Simmons felt he had to step in with something clever and none of it worked. I just don't think his schtick is going to work with a larger audience.
The UFC portion encapsulated everything I hate about Simmons. The pretaped piece about how Simmons knew about and attended UFC before it was cool and now it's bigger than boxing was annoying at best. The interview with Rogan had good info but everytime Rogan said something insightful, Simmons felt he had to step in with something clever and none of it worked. I just don't think his schtick is going to work with a larger audience.
I may have fast forwarded thru 1/3 of this episode.
One more weak one and I'm cancelling my DVR order for it
One more weak one and I'm cancelling my DVR order for it
Even when I was just looking to kill time and watch something last night, I couldn't bring myself to watch it on HBOGO. I'll likely give eps 2 and 3 a whirl at some point, but it's definitely not a must-watch. The weird thing is that I really enjoyed his ESPN basketball show, so I should be a target viewer for this show.
I thought the Bosh insight was good, but otherwise the episode was a snooze. If I liked ufc I might have been more into it.
I just gave it a try. NBA as Silicon Valley was just awful.
Oh, look, here's "art to accompany the argument"!
Cha-ching sounds!
And it's the most insider baseball ever. Only die-hard NBA fans are really getting it. Even average sports fans are sort only hanging on to why it's funny.
The demographic for this seems so small, like the college-educated, well-compensated users of Twitter. It's journalists and the people who pretend to work in front of computers all day who also follow sports like a religion.
Oh, look, here's "art to accompany the argument"!
Cha-ching sounds!
And it's the most insider baseball ever. Only die-hard NBA fans are really getting it. Even average sports fans are sort only hanging on to why it's funny.
The demographic for this seems so small, like the college-educated, well-compensated users of Twitter. It's journalists and the people who pretend to work in front of computers all day who also follow sports like a religion.
I think other users have mentioned this before but I've always found Bill to be someone you listen to while on the way to work, at the gym, waiting your turn at the hairdresser's, etc. He's just not captivating enough to warrant actively sitting down and watching him attentively (imo).
I think this show is damn good. So far, he's gotten really solid guests and it's just started. It's very funny, this week's UFC bit was definitely funny and entertaining. It's a half hour show, not a 2 hour movie, and it's captivating enough. I think this show will be a success, I don't agree that Simmons can't helm a TV show. He's literally doing it and it's been great thus far.
on his last pod, BS indicated that some of the extra clips will be made available on his podcast
Yeah, I tried watching it and it just seemed so dull and low energy. I couldn't last five minutes (yeah yeah story of my life).
I just read the article on awful announcing and they have the exact opposite from week 1-2, in that it went from 276k to 362k. So, according to them, his ratings rose 39% from the first to second episode.
Edit - are you talking about week 3? I can't find the ratings online for that.