{"id":23237,"date":"2026-05-10T17:04:55","date_gmt":"2026-05-11T01:04:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/?p=23237"},"modified":"2026-05-10T17:05:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-11T01:05:09","slug":"tehran","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/2026\/05\/10\/tehran\/","title":{"rendered":"Tehran"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span class=\"embed-youtube\" style=\"text-align:center; display: block;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"youtube-player\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Hm_vHTy9IYA?version=3&#038;rel=1&#038;showsearch=0&#038;showinfo=1&#038;iv_load_policy=1&#038;fs=1&#038;hl=en-US&#038;autohide=2&#038;wmode=transparent\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" style=\"border:0;\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-popups allow-presentation allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox\"><\/iframe><\/span><\/p>\n<p>1<\/p>\n<p>Apple pulled off a masterstroke, but it&#8217;s not the fruit company news everybody is talking about. Yes, Apple gained the rights for Formula 1, which used to be free on ESPN and&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>Free TV is going the way of the dodo. There&#8217;s just too much money in desirable product for streamers not to lay their money down. But there&#8217;s only so much desirable product out there, and the most desirable is sports.<\/p>\n<p>Now the truth is Netflix made Formula 1 big in America. Credit Liberty, which bought the series from Bernie Ecclestone&#8230; It&#8217;s kind of like a tech company, a founder may have the vision, but they may not be the best person to steer the enterprise once it breaks through and matures. Then again, I&#8217;m mostly for leaving the founder in place, assuming the founder knows that the world keeps evolving and you&#8217;ve got to keep up with it. This is what Mark Zuckerberg&#8217;s bets with Instagram, WhatsApp, the metaverse and now AI have been about. Then again, did you read this article?<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Meta Is Dying. It\u2019s About Time.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2026\/05\/08\/opinion\/meta-facebook-zuckerberg.html<\/p>\n<p>I think there are some holes in this argument, but it&#8217;s an interesting thought experiment, and the truth is Zuckerberg has been flailing.<\/p>\n<p>So Apple TV has not been able to retain, never mind significantly grow, audience, i.e. subscribers. At first they charged little, wanting to build a business that had little product. Then finding that mostly diehard Apple fans were laying down their cash, they decided to raise the price. But for those who were avid cancelers, like me, or those who never subscribed at all&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>I refuse to pay for a service I do not watch. I find it an insult. Because I feel like I&#8217;m being pecked to death by ducks by streaming outlets to begin with. So I only sign up for Apple TV when there&#8217;s something I want to see, which has historically meant I don&#8217;t subscribe, because I&#8217;m not going to pay all that money to watch a show that is dripped out week by week, it&#8217;s an insult, there&#8217;s a reason why Netflix is so successful, but traditional outlets, and now new ones, like Apple, are afraid to follow the paradigm.<\/p>\n<p>We live in an attention economy. I hear about a good show and if it&#8217;s not available all at once, I don&#8217;t watch it, I figure I&#8217;ll pick it up when it&#8217;s complete, BUT I RARELY DO! Because my interest has been piqued by so many other productions that have come down the pipeline.<\/p>\n<p>So how is Apple going to get my money every month?<\/p>\n<p>WITH FORMULA ONE!<\/p>\n<p>These are live events, they are inherently dripped-out, so if you&#8217;re interested, you&#8217;re not going to drop your subscription.<\/p>\n<p>So I&#8217;m going to keep mine, and since I&#8217;m paying every month, I decided to delve in&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>2<\/p>\n<p>The Israelis and the Danes make the best television, which is kind of ironic in a world that has turned against the Jewish nation. Can you be pro-Palestinian and watch &#8220;Tehran&#8221;? I&#8217;ll let you decide.<\/p>\n<p>And the truth is I thought we had watched one episode and were thumbs down. But it came up in therapy and since we&#8217;re paying anyway, I decided to pull it up, and I was wrong, we hadn&#8217;t seen it.<\/p>\n<p>Now &#8220;Tehran&#8221; would be a much bigger show if it was on Netflix, if it were not behind a paywall that few people are laying down the cash to jump over. This is where distribution is king. Occasionally there&#8217;s a good show on MGM+, but really there&#8217;s almost nothing on the outlet, so I don&#8217;t subscribe. We have it much better in music, where everything is available for one low price (but that doesn&#8217;t keep people from complaining&#8230;)<\/p>\n<p>The thing about Israeli television is it&#8217;s the exact opposite of American TV. In American productions it&#8217;s all whiz-bang, with stars. In an Israeli series, there can be extreme tension with very little happening. And needless to say, unless you&#8217;re a fan of Israeli TV, you don&#8217;t know the actors (although the same ones pop up regularly in series).<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Tehran&#8221; is not perfect, I&#8217;d call it a middling Israeli series, but compared to the dreck on most outlets, it&#8217;s a huge cut above.<\/p>\n<p>Seemingly in each season there&#8217;s an action scene out of a Hollywood blockbuster.<\/p>\n<p>Then again, the twists in the final episodes are always unpredictable.<\/p>\n<p>On the other hand, the series is laden with near-misses. Just when they&#8217;re going to be caught, revealed&#8230;they escape. You get used to it, you accept it, but&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>The funny thing is we&#8217;re at war with Iran right now. And &#8220;Tehran&#8221; just came out with a new season this year and that&#8217;s not a factor. But if you&#8217;ve been paying attention to the crisis&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>But most people are not.<\/p>\n<p>But this last season is all about the bomb. And ultimately, it&#8217;s the least satisfying, too many twists at the end&#8230; I won&#8217;t say it&#8217;s jumped the shark, like &#8220;Hacks,&#8221; with its &#8220;Amazing Race&#8221; episode, but usually you&#8217;re on pins and needles to the very end.<\/p>\n<p>3<\/p>\n<p>Now I recognized Niv Sultan from other Israeli shows, but she&#8217;s not slumming it, playing against character, trying to win an award like American actresses, in &#8220;Tehran.&#8221; You know, the big bad action hero bitch.<\/p>\n<p>No, Sultan plays Tamar, who is subtle, and not always right, and not always in charge, but she&#8217;s true to her country first and foremost, she&#8217;s a spy, for the Mossad, which had a reputation as being unbeatable prior to October 7th.<\/p>\n<p>Tamar is not one-dimensional, she&#8217;s not an automaton, she can&#8217;t just cast aside feelings.<\/p>\n<p>So what we&#8217;ve got here is a Mossad operation in Tehran (the series is actually shot in Athens). And there&#8217;s an inherent tension in foreign operatives being in a country that does not look kindly on Jews&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>And the first season is really good.<\/p>\n<p>But the second is even better, with Glenn Close.<\/p>\n<p>However the third&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>It gets pulpy, but Sasson Gabai as the Owl portrays such an interesting character.<\/p>\n<p>So you&#8217;ve got Tamar scurrying around on missions, which are run by the Mossad in a headquarters back in Israel that is akin to NASA Mission Control and&#8230; She&#8217;s on the street, in danger, and they&#8217;re all calm, cool and collected.<\/p>\n<p>But this ain&#8217;t the United States.<\/p>\n<p>Here we feel safe, untouchable. But Israel is one lost battle from being history.<\/p>\n<p>And they might play Iranians, but they&#8217;re Israeli actors, and so believable in their roles, especially Shaun Toub as Faraz Kamali. Who despite everything, always comes back in defense of his country.<\/p>\n<p>There&#8217;s a lot of cat and mouse, there&#8217;s a lot of changing of plans, and through it all you&#8217;re hooked. I&#8217;ve watched other series that have had me more tense, but this one is up there and&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>Either you&#8217;ve seen it or you haven&#8217;t. Those who are Apple devotees have been watching it for years.<\/p>\n<p>Still, most people have not seen &#8220;Tehran,&#8221; but it&#8217;s hiding in plain sight.<\/p>\n<p>And although its events may not exactly parallel what&#8217;s happening in the real world today, there is the dissension within Iran&#8230; The unrest, those against the religious regime. They just killed 30,000 of them. Protesters Trump said he was going to support. Is there anybody who is going to rely on Trump anymore?<\/p>\n<p>But everyone&#8217;s focused on Israel&#8217;s actions against Hezbollah, they&#8217;re critical of Jews, but they just can&#8217;t dig in or fathom what&#8217;s on the ground in Iran&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Tehran&#8221; is a very good show, you should watch it.<\/p>\n<p><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>1 Apple pulled off a masterstroke, but it&#8217;s not the fruit company news everybody is talking about. Yes, Apple gained the rights for Formula 1, which used to be free on ESPN and&#8230; Free TV is going the way of the dodo. There&#8217;s just too much money in desirable product for streamers not to lay [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23237","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-television"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s96vPs-tehran","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23237","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23237"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23237\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23239,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23237\/revisions\/23239"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23237"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23237"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23237"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}