There’s been a lot of hubbub lately about the mass exodus of film and television production from Hollywood. For a town so identified with show business—Hollywood literally defines the term “industry town”—Los Angeles has found itself at quite a crossroads, watching the vast majority of its core jobs being shipped out of town, out of state and even out of country, where it’s cheaper to produce. In a recent viral conversation in a podcast that shed a very sad but true light on the state of the industry at the moment, Adam Scott and Rob Lowe, two former castmates in the television series Parks & Recreation, which shot entirely in Los Angeles back from 2009-2015, lamented the fact that shows don’t film in Hollywood anymore. Lowe, who hosts a game show called The Floor, noted that he films the show in Ireland because it is cheaper to fly 100 people over to Ireland than it is to film on the Fox lot just down the street from where they live in Southern California.
This current state of the business of show is one of the many underlying themes behind the newest Apple TV+ genius show The Studio. Creators Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg aren’t going to let Hollywood go down without a fight, as not only have they made a show that is clearly and very intentionally filmed entirely in Los Angeles, including on studio lots, but they have made a show that is a love letter to the industry, with all its flaws and foibles, egos and eccentricities, talents and tantrums, in a show electric with satire and yet purring with sentimentality. The Studio is one of the most rewarding experiences available on television and well worth that AppleTV+ subscription you’ve been putting off.
And I haven’t even gotten to the good stuff yet.
The inspiration behind The Studio is undoubtedly the 1992 Robert Altman classic film The Player, in which Tim Robbins plays a put-upon studio executive. The film is most famous for its 8-minute opening shot, an uncut sequence that takes us through a studio backlot and introduces the audience to the world of the movie and most of the characters in a brilliant single take. Rogen and Goldberg pay homage to The Player in multiple ways, both in plot, character and cinematic device: Seth Rogen plays a stressed out studio executive and every scene is done in a single, uncut shot. It truly is a staggering achievement for an episodic television show, especially one with such a lowbrow conceit as a Seth Rogen satire, but The Studio really is magnificent. The technical, crafty part of the whole thing is amazing enough, when you realize how they do this all in a single room with actors moving around. But then when they travel in and out of rooms and then go up and down stairs and then go in and out of buildings and it’s still in a single shot—and they are all still carrying on insane dialogue while it’s all happening—hold onto your hats. And if you think that’s something, you aren’t even ready for episode two, which is literally called “The Oner.” If you think they were ambitious by going in and out of buildings, you ain’t seen nuthin’ yet.
But what about the actual show, you ask?
It’s absolutely raucously hilarious. The Studio is satire at its best, it skewers Hollywood in every way, offering up A-list actors and directors to be gleefully roasted in perfect cameos, but it is the insightfully passionate love for movies that drives the heart of The Studio and what gives it its bittersweet punch. Much like The Player and Barton Fink, certainly two movies that must have inspired Goldberg and Rogen, there is a darkness and a cynicism behind the Hollywood fantasy and it is in this kernel where the dark comedy roams and The Studio finds its bite. Rogen’s studio head has to learn how to compromise his love of cinema with the cold hard reality of making decisions based on the bottom line and that slow bankrupting of the soul that you see playing out is the twisted delight of The Studio that Rogen and Goldberg capture so perfectly, the most perfect reflection of a town whose glittering, smiling, artistic surface covers up a rotting, money-grabbing, corporate core.
You may have seen all this Hollywood skewering before, but you’ve never seen it done with such breezy whimsy, casual confidence and artistic excellence, at least not in an episodic comedy on television, I promise you. The dialogue is Sorkin-esque, quick and loaded—worthy of rewind and repeat—and the cast is stacked with talent delivering knockout performances, led by Kathryn Hahn, Chase Sui Wonders, Catherine O’Hara and Ike Barinholtz, who all sizzle with satiric comedy fire. As for Rogen, I’ve never been a fan of his on-screen acting, he certainly is a performer who is an acquired taste, but he manages to make it work here. Let’s just say he doesn’t detract and leave it there. Rogen the producer seems to know where the focus should be and so he lets his character drive the car, certainly, but allows everyone else to have the meatier roles. In other words, I can understand you being dissuaded by this being a Seth Rogen project and I beg you: don’t be. The Studio is so much bigger and so much more than just Seth Rogen. And he does, in fact, make it better. And you might, just maybe, come out liking him just a bit more.
Give The Studio on AppleTV+ a watch. It may not save Hollywood, but it sure is trying.
The first season of The Studio premiered on AppleTV+ on March 26, 2025 and new episodes air every Wednesday through May 21. There are 10 episodes in the first season. There is no word yet on whether there will be a second season.