The 10 episodes ranged from forgettable at best to excruciatingly boring at worst. (An exception must, however, be made for the Ayo Edebiri-directed “Napkins,” centered on Liza Colón-Zayas’s Tina, which is excellent.) While the likes of Bridgerton and Emily in Paris left me in a zen-like state, I found even ambiently watching The Bear extremely draining.
I felt the same frustration and profound disappointment with House of the Dragon. After a 20-month hiatus, I was desperate for more jaw-dropping dragon battles and delicious palace intrigue—but after a first season which mostly set the stage for the epic civil war to come, the second installment continued dragging its feet. It had a strong start and, later, a couple of memorable sequences, but also included stretches of nothingness as Rhaenyra struggled to settle on a plan of action, Alicent sulked, Daemon stumbled around a castle having weird dreams, a slew of illegitimate Targaryens were given backstories I didn’t care about, and random factions had disputes that threatened to send me to sleep. Once again, I kept watching because I felt like I should, but I did so while replying to DMs and doing some summer vacation planning. It was a real endurance test.
Why, exactly, these previously critically lauded prestige-TV fixtures have become unintentionally ambient is anyone’s guess, though I suspect it’s because both The Bear and House of the Dragon are in their middle seasons, with additional installments already confirmed. Knowing that an explosive conclusion is somewhere on the horizon means there’s less pressure to deliver, resulting in sleepier seasons which, in both of these cases, go nowhere.
By mid-August, I’d reached a crisis point. Did I have some form of attention deficit disorder? Was I now destined to watch everything ambiently?
As it turns out, no. It was then that I started watching the screeners I’d received for the third season of Industry, the heart-pumping banking drama on Max. Like everything else I’d streamed over the past few months, I began watching it while doing busywork. But then I found myself putting down my phone, abandoning my dirty dishes, and actually sitting down, my eyes glued to the screen.
After a first season which I thought was almost faultless and a second which I found less engrossing, this third installment, though far from perfect, is gripping television. And it was proof that, even when we live in a world with countless distractions, when a TV show is really, truly good, it momentarily feels like nothing else matters.
