Manic, biting and intoxicating: The Studio is the best TV show so far this year

The building was said to be designed by Frank Lloyd Wright during his Mayan revival era. Its textural blocks architectural style is distinctive, looming large over the fictional Hollywood backlot in comedy The Studio.

A tour group is standing outside and the guide tells them the headquarters of this movie studio was built “as a temple to cinema”.

Later in the episode, Seth Rogen’s character, the newly promoted head of the fictional Continental Studios, tells his mentor that sometimes, the “temple” feels more “like a tomb”.

That’s the inherent conflict at the heart of The Studio, a raucously funny, sometimes intensely stressful and always superbly written series. It is, easily, the best TV show of the year so far.

Yes, smarter than Severance, more entertaining than Adolescence and miles and miles and miles ahead of The White Lotus, although such comparisons aren’t necessarily intuitive other than as a declaration that The Studio is so damn good.

It also happens to look amazing with beautiful cinematography and shot on location in Los Angeles. Scenes hum with vibrancy.

There’s not a moment of The Studio that isn’t engaging, that doesn’t grip you in its clutches. It’s intoxicating, as if you’re on some wild, drug-assisted ride. You’ll feel everything — frustration, giddiness, disbelief, loathing and euphoria.

Rogen plays Matt Remick, the aforementioned studio executive who has been promoted to call the shots of which movies get greenlit and which ones don’t. Matt wants to make serious, acclaimed films but the reason he got the job is he agreed to commission a big-budget IP play based on the Kool-Aid drink.

The bombastic studio chair (Bryan Cranston), a sweaty, moustachioed relic from the 1970s, lets Matt know in no uncertain terms that Continental doesn’t make “films”, only “movies people want to see”.

Matt swears it’s not a hopeless cause, citing Greta Gerwig’s shepherding of Barbie into a billion-dollar blockbuster that was also artist-led. “Only the finest auteurs for Kool-Aid,” Matt insists.

Auteurs like Martin Scorsese, who Matt tries to recruit for the project. Scorsese is just one of the names who cameos as himself and he’s absolutely wonderful – never before has someone sold the line “If there’s one thing I know, it’s furtive” with such natural conviction.

Other big names appearing as themselves include Charlize Theron, Adam Scott, Jean Smart, Aaron Sorkin, Anthony Mackie, Ron Howard, Greta Lee, Zoe Kravitz, Sarah Polley, Ice Cube, Dave Franco, Olivia Wilde, Zac Efron, Ramy Youssef and even Netflix boss Ted Sarandos.

There are dozens more, and some are quick cameos, while others, like Kravitz, have a multi-episode arc.

Structurally, each episode has a singular focus, which suits The Studio’s week-to-week release schedule, although two episodes will drop on day one.

One episode takes place at a fictional Golden Globes ceremony (teeming with real-life celebrities); Wilde plays herself as a demanding director in another chapter; and there’s one in which Matt tries to convince a group of paediatric oncologists that what he does is just as important as what they do.

There’s the episode in which Matt and his friend and colleague Sal Saperstein (Ike Barinholtz) visit the set of Polley’s vibey arthouse drama. The production is on a time-crunch with only a few minutes to get two goes at a “one-shot” take during golden hour. The last thing any of them want is the studio head getting in the way.

That’s exactly what Matt, who says his favourite thing is being on set, does, and it escalates as he fumbles around. Pratfalls are taken and blood is shed. It’s so stressful, but it’s masterful, and the episode itself appears to have been done in one take.

Rogen and his co-creators, which includes his creative partner Evan Goldberg, have mined their own experiences in Hollywood and every seemingly over-the-top scenario comes from a place of truth. It’s amazing anything ever gets released.

The Studio’s thematic foundation is art versus commerce and whether you ever find the balance in an industry that literally has “business” in its nickname. But it explores this tension through wildly entertaining stories that will appeal not only to obsessives in or adjacent to the bubble (like film and TV critics!), but to anyone who’s ever watched a series or movie and asked, “Why?”.

So, it may seem “inside baseball” and certainly there are loads of references and in-jokes that deepen the experience of watching The Studio if you read the Hollywood trades or have devoured other industry satires such as Robert Altman’s The Player, Armando Iannucci’s The Franchise, and, to a lesser extent, Entourage.

But this is an accessible series for all because everyone in the audience is beholden to the whims and egos of the executives who control the budgets and make the calls.

Matt desperately wants to be liked by actors and filmmakers and genuinely considers himself an artist — his mentor and former boss, Patty Leigh (Catherine O’Hara), says of him at one point, “His film boner is at full mast” — when everyone else views him as a bean counter.

When he has to go against his heart, usually out of cowardice or panic, those moments are so uncomfortable.

Matt is afraid that he’s ruining the artform he loves (hence the “tomb” comment) but that’s the rub of the industry. But for every sequel, remake or recycled piece of IP, there is still bold, original storytelling, even if you have to work harder to seek it out.

Hollywood studios are under threat — from AI, from contracting budgets, from streaming disruption, from IP-driven priorities, from YouTube and TikTok — but evolution doesn’t have to be existential, and watching the inside scramble at least makes for hilarious TV.

Ultimately, despite all the absurdities and idiocy on display in The Studio, you still love these infuriating, egomaniacal characters (Matt: “I’m singlehandedly keeping film [stock] alive”) because they still love the magic of movies.

The Studio is on Apple TV+ from March 26