As far as new television from this year goes, The Rehearsal was one of the only shows to make every viewer have a collective personal crisis that may or may not have been brought up in therapy. But it worked, which is why HBO decided to give the show another season, and now everyone is scrambling to create a series experience that asks the question: are you confident that you understand what you are watching right now?
The next wave of meta-TV will come in 2023 with Peacock’s puzzling new series Paul T. Goodman, from Jason Woliner, director of the similarly bonkers Borat Subsequent Moviefilm, along with a single episode of Nathan For You, so the resume is pretty stacked.
Paul T. Goodman starts out with a simple premise. A nice and normal man named Paul T. Goodman wrote a book, turned it into a screenplay, and even acted out parts of it, as many teenagers with a flip phone and a dream did in the early 2000s. Only it caught the attention of Woliner, who then fell down a deep rabbit hole surrounding Goodman and his life.
“It instantly became my favorite book I’ve ever read,” Woliner said in a press release. “The story is equal parts fascinating, hilarious, shocking, and often weirdly moving. It has endless bizarre turns, and Paul himself is the most captivating person I’ve ever encountered.” As the story unexpectedly twists and turns, it quickly became a much larger project than Woliner anticipated. And he did it anyway!
Thus began the years-long push to create this story, starring Goodman himself, produced by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg. Woliner added that the unconventional setting will be a mind-bending experience. “The format, combining familiar doc elements with dramatized scenes that Paul wrote about his story – starring Paul playing himself – and weaving that with behind-the-scenes footage from the making of this show was essentially my way of taking a camera inside this very unique person’s brain,” the director continued.
The plot details are sparse but there are hints that not everything is quite as it seems here. Plus the guy from those Allstate commercials makes an appearance, so you know you’re really in good hands. Here is the official synopsis:
Paul T. Goldman is a mind-bending series from the director of Borat Subsequent Moviefilm and the producers of The Disaster Artist. It’s a project that director Jason Woliner has been shooting for over a decade and a story that continues to pile on jaw-dropping new twists. In the style of Woliner’s work on Borat Subsequent Moviefilm, the series is a groundbreaking project that mixes fact and fiction to tell a bizarre and incredible tale.
The first three episodes of Paul T. Goldman will be available on Peacock on January 1, with the remaining three dropping every Sunday through January 22nd.