We may never get to season two, I could barely get Felice to finish season one, that’s how intense, gritty and realistic this prison drama is. I mean I’m watching it thinking this is the best prison show I’ve ever seen. I mean there’ve been tons of movies and I did enjoy “Oz,” but plot does not supersede the vibe, the drudgery and pressure inside the walls is primary in “Time.”

What we’ve got here is Sean Bean as Mark Cobden, a white collar person in a blue collar jail. Cobden had an alcohol problem and killed a man and…

You’d think he’d go to a special prison, somewhere with people like himself. But no, he’s thrown in with the general population.

Cobden was a teacher, and he’s recognized as such in the prison. He thinks he can keep his head down and just sleepwalk through the four years of his sentence.

But then he starts to be bullied.

He’s a man who works with his mind, not his fists. And this goes on and on until the mastermind says Cobden must fight back. The intellectual mastermind, the one who looks out of place in prison, keeps a low profile but is really in charge of contraband and…

All I could think about was Trump and Carney. There comes a time when you’ve got to say no más, when you’ve got to stand up. And the funny thing is when you’re on the side of right, your constituency will support you. The tariffs may hurt the population of Canada, but they’re willing to stand up for what’s right, if only Americans felt the same way.

So how does Cobden survive?

Well, with the help of the chaplain, Siobhan Finneran, who is a staple of British television. If this were an American show, they’d end up getting it on, but that’s not a feature in real life.

But the true star of the show is Stephen Graham, as Eric McNally, the prison officer in charge of Cobden.

Graham is a superstar. You know him from “Adolescence.” Graham conveys his inner thoughts better than any actor out there, even Meryl Streep, and he’s more believable in his character than she ever is.

Once again, if this were an American production, Graham would cozy up to the inmates, end up becoming friends. But that’s not what happens. He is not unduly violent, but he’s not overly compassionate either.

And he’s not touchy-feely like today’s supposed parents. He can’t hug his son. And what is more important, his job or his family?

So what we’ve got here is a constant owing of favors. That’s the nature of life, but it’s enforced more rigidly in prison. There’s always something you want, but you’re going to have to pay for it, even though the ask may be far in the future.

And you expect Cobden’s wife to rise to the occasion, be supportive…

There are no caricatures here. Everybody is an individual.

But really, you feel the walls of the prison closing in on Cobden, and you feel it yourself. You cannot watch this show without putting yourself in it. Could you survive in the general prison population? You might think you’re special, can stay at arm’s length, just quietly do your time, but this is untrue. As for your date of exit… Is it only a matter of time before you do something to add to your sentence, if you survive at all?

It’s kind of like the police, the thin blue line. It’s a gang, with a hierarchy, and you’ve got to play to survive, to keep your job.

Also, this one show is the best anti-drive while drinking advertisement I’ve ever seen. They don’t hammer the point, but if you get behind the wheel telling yourself you’re sober enough to drive… In truth, you shouldn’t get behind the wheel at all. This show will school you.

And like the best art, you’re completely involved, not on the outside.

It’s a nail-biter.

But if you’re up to this kind of thing…

This is what I live for, I don’t want no stinkin’ fantasy, give me real life. People are people, we’re all in it together, don’t tell yourself otherwise.

P.S. Just for the record, the second season is a different story, with women this time.

P.P.S. This is not a huge time commitment, there are only three episodes, the cost is mostly emotional.

This is why the streamers’ lunch is being eaten by YouTube.

So it’s Friday night, I’ve had a busy week, not that I’m complaining, and I come home from an evening hike to finish my favorite new show, “Furious.” There are two episodes left and just enough time to watch them.

BUT THEY’RE UNAVAILABLE!

Chalk this up to the old guard still being in control. It’s not only Congress, it’s in every walk of life. The Boomers still rule and think they know better, to the detriment of the companies they own. They somehow think that by dripping shows out week by week they’re building momentum, via water cooler moments…the only problem is there are no water coolers and no one wants to go to the office anyway. Hell, you consume water from your own bottle, everything is personalized, one to one, but the anti-internet oldsters still want to cram you into a paradigm that expired years ago.

We want it all and we want it now. NOW!

The record business is the canary in the coal mine when it comes to digital disruption. Remember when the companies were pissed about pre-release date leaks? How they messed with their marketing set-up?

How quaint. The issue now is getting ANY attention. If you don’t make it easy…there are just too many other options in the marketplace. Certainly when it comes to visual entertainment.

There’s a reason Netflix rules. It’s run by veritable youngsters. Who know that to be inured to the old ways is a recipe for death. All of Hollywood is up in arms over the Paramount/Warner Bros. Discovery merger when in truth, those are both also-ran companies combining to survive. Makes me crazy, the wealthy only thought those who worked with their hands could lose their jobs with impunity. These two entities are merging because they missed the moment, and are trying to survive. We live in a capitalist society, with no guaranteed employment. But when it comes to the denizens of Hollywood… No wonder so many have contempt for the entertainment industry, it’s out of touch.

But it does connect occasionally.

Now in truth, the best television is made overseas. Israel/Denmark/Korea. That’s the trifecta. But then there’s “Ethos” from Turkey…

Now if you’re on the social media the Boomers abhor, you’ll encounter self-described experts telling you what to watch on television. And I know who to ignore by the fact that they never mention a foreign series. Then Friday, I encountered Max & Tyler:

@ohhelloentertainment

Save for whenever you need a fantastic crime thriller! #tvshow #britbox #crimethriller #television #tv

? Moody – Pacific

I was stunned because they got it right. And I’d seen every show they listed in this clip, stunned that they mentioned “Spiral” and “The Bureau,” other than “Time,” and I pulled that up when the last two episodes of “Furious” were unavailable.

Some lessons are immutable. We learned this in record retail. If the album is not available when the customer walks in to buy it, chances are they’ll purchase something else, or walk out without buying anything, and the odds of them returning for the original disc are extremely low.

I wouldn’t have watched “Time” if “Furious” was available. And if “Furious” wasn’t so damn good, I wouldn’t go back to it.

But “Furious” is GREAT!

I found it via research.

I ask everybody what they’re watching. And when they come up with the usual suspects, my eyes roll into the back of my head and I shut up, because nothing I say will resonate with them, because they haven’t seen anything I have.

And not one single person has contacted me about “Furious.” Never has a show so good generated so little scuttlebutt.

Now what we’ve got in “Furious” is a serial killer.

(I’m not going to cough up much here, but if you want to go in completely fresh, you can stop reading now.)

The main character in that half of the show is Lola Petticrew.” An Irish actor you will recognize from “Say Nothing,” a series about the Troubles that is a must-see. But Petticrew plays a different role, a different character here, she’s got range, like too many of the pretty faces we see in American productions.

But this is an American production. And on the other half of the series, the cop side…

We’ve got Emmy Rossum. Whose name I know but could not pick out of a lineup.

Emmy as Alice Black has left her job with the NYPD to work for the FBI. She’s trying to get away from her abusive boyfriend. Emmy/Alice wants to jump straight in, but is constantly held back. The NYPD clears cases, the FBI investigates.

And when Emmy/Alice is stunned by the wisdom of Quincy Tyler Bernstine as Nora, who heads the FBI’s sex crimes unit, Nora responds:

“I’m not a former cop. I went to a fancy school, and I’m very smart.”

This is so brilliant, so right. Too many people judge others by the color of their skin. Alice thinks she’s equal to Nora, but in truth, Nora is not only intelligent, but educated. Yup, she went to a highfalutin’ school, even though she’s Black and working in the basement.

Petticrew and Bernstine are the highlights of the show. Petticrew is a tiny little thing who uses her feminine wiles to her advantage. Bernstine is world-weary, but is willing to do the right thing, even at a cost to herself. Watching them alone makes the show.

But Emmy/Alice is three-dimensional. Not only with flashbacks and fears from the physical abuse of her cop boyfriend, but a need for rough sex and…

Her ex is Jake Lacy, the beefy silent type who normally has no backbone, but here…he’s a grenade ready to explode. All the while trying to get Emmy/Alice to change her story so he can advance up the ladder.

You know Rob Delaney from “Catastrophe,” or maybe another show, he’s been in many. He always plays a light type, yet here he’s a He-Man of the Universe who thinks he can always bend things to his advantage, but can he?

And then there’s Scoot McNairy, who was so good playing Walt Breslin in “Narcos: Mexico.”

The cast is first rate.

But the plotting is too. Predictability is kept to a minimum. You’re on the edge of your seat, wondering what is next.

They say that “Furious” is loosely inspired by the 1987 film “Black Widow.” You remember that one, right? The Bob Rafelson film featuring Theresa Russell, Debra Winger and Dennis Hopper? This was still when we went to the theatre, what was exhibited there could not be found on TV. And what intrigued us was the auteurs, the holdovers from the sixties and seventies like Rafelson. Before the industry flipped to summer blockbusters like “Jaws” and “Star Wars” and evolved into extravaganzas like the Marvel movies.

As for Theresa Russell… She hasn’t been seen in years. And all you really have to know about her, in terms of her magnetism and desirability, is that Pete Townshend hit on her and when he was rejected wrote “Athena” about her. Yup.

But now we follow series instead of flicks. There’s great stuff there if you know how to dig, if you skip over the low hanging fruit. This is not the television of yesteryear.

And, in truth, “Furious” is better than “Black Widow,” more fleshed-out, grittier and a bit more believable.

I highly recommend it.

But know if you get hooked, the final episode won’t air until August 31st.

So either you get started now and binge, which is what will happen, because you’ll be entranced, and get frustrated that you can’t finish.

Or wait until it’s complete before you start…

But by that time there will be something new to watch. And you may never go back.

That’s the truth.

All the focus is on streaming numbers when it should be on how many tickets you can sell.

Pop music is a highly-promoted arena based on a single song, which may stream prodigiously, but that does not mean the act has any fans.

Fans are made live. That’s where the bond is sealed.

For nearly two decades acts have been complaining that they have to go on the road to make their bread, as if this is a bad thing. The paradigm has shifted completely, if you’re not willing to work live, the odds of you having a lengthy career are not good. Furthermore, what works on the road is oftentimes completely different from what’s in the Spotify Top 50.

See streaming as promotion. In truth, many artists are making a fortune as a result of streaming. But then there are the artists complaining that despite even six digits of plays, they’re not making any real money.

Now the dirty little secret is very few of the acts in the so-called golden years ever got royalties. You may have heard them on the radio, and money was generated by airplay and sales, but this cash was eaten up by expenses and bad deals. The label would charge everything to your account, from limos to videos. It was very hard to get ahead unless you had a slew of hits/success and you had a manager who renegotiated. So, this fantasy that you’re being screwed by streaming is a falsehood. And the sooner you accept this, the sooner you can focus on building your career.

Streaming is the best thing that ever happened to you. Whether it be the DSPs like Spotify or social media. Your music is exposed. In the pre-internet era, very little music got exposure. But now, if people want to hear your music, it’s just a click away. The audience doesn’t have to buy it to hear it. Then again, there’s a plethora of material in the food chain and it’s harder than ever to gain attention.

So don’t focus on boosting your streams, focus on building your audience, which starts live and is goosed utilizing social media. See your recordings as an afterthought.

Look at Billy Strings… He plays arenas, seen as one of the biggest breakthroughs of the last five years, with tons of media attention, never mind fans. But his streaming numbers? Positively anemic for an act of this caliber. Not a single track of his breaks a hundred million streams. Sure, he’s got stuff in the low eight figures, 18 or 22 million, but only two cuts even break 50 million.

Now these numbers are nothing to sneeze at, but compared to the acts in the Spotify Top 50, they’re a joke. And it’s not like there’s a hit that’s waiting to go stratospheric. The material is secondary with Billy Strings. It’s about his playing ability and the music made live. Yes, you can check in with the cuts on a DSP, but you’re probably more interested in a live video on YouTube or recordings from Nugs.net or the Internet Archive.

Sure, you can call this Grateful Dead model, but don’t take that too far. Yes, the recordings were a secondary revenue source for the Dead, but they were progenitors, from a different era. Jam band music survives on the fumes of the Dead, and its live business is nothing to sneer at, but that’s not the only kind of music that works live.

But one thing that doesn’t work live on the way up is production. The Spotify Top 50 play big buildings and charge a lot for tickets and therefore believe they have to provide a ton of production, oftentimes with a lot of the music on hard drive. That’s more like a Broadway show than music.

And interestingly, what works live is oftentimes not in the genres featured in the Spotify Top 50. If you’re a starting pop singer, who doesn’t write, or only gets credits in collaboration, good luck. No, live, first and foremost you must have the chops, you must have the ability to play and sing.

Writing is important too, but not as critical as it is with the Spotify Top 50.

Rather you’re selling more than music, you’re selling a performance, an experience. A live, human experience in a computerized/mechanized world. Audiences are not looking for perfection, they’re looking to feel connected, to be moved.

And once you make a fan live, usually they’re a fan forever, if for no other reason than they paid for the ticket, they’re invested, it’s a sunk cost!

Guitars? They rule live, even though they may be hard to find in the Spotify Top 50.

Rock is not dead live, it’s fully alive!

So if you’re an up and comer, focus on gigs, whether they pay or not. Get yourself in front of people, learn the ropes, hone your act. If you’ve got it, people will respond.

And this does not mean you can never have a hit. And you never know when the Spotify Top 50 might flip, to career artists who are individuals who have something to say.

Also, live, bands rule. On recordings… It’s easier to focus on a single person, and no one wants to share the wealth, and managers don’t want to have to deal with four or five people or more.

All this focus on streams is skewing perception. The media constantly publicizes the record charts, but ticket sales and grosses might as well be locked up in a black box. Then again, everybody lies about ticket sales on the way up, it’s part of the hype.

It’s amorphous as opposed to clear-cut.

This is why the label groups are in trouble. They’re in the wrong business. The focus now is on live. There’s a much broader audience for live. Talk to people…it seems that everybody is going to multiple shows, acts don’t only play the metropolis anymore, people are hungry for live music.

Provide it.

Tune in August 22nd to Faction Talk, channel 103, at 4 PM East, 1 PM West.

Phone #: 844-686-5863 

If you miss the episode, you can hear it on demand on the SiriusXM app. Search: Lefsetz