This article contains spoilers for The Studio Season 1, Episode 1Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg’s new Apple TV+ comedy series, The Studio, is a spot-on satire of contemporary Hollywood, and it kicks off with one of the strongest pilot episodes in recent memory. Rogen plays Matt Remick, a lifelong cinephile who finally achieves his childhood dream of running Continental Studios and quickly finds that it’s not as much fun as it seems. The Studio brings the Hollywood satire of Robert Altman’s The Player into the modern film industry, where I.P.s like Jenga and Kool-Aid are the new A-list stars and marketability is more important than good storytelling.

In episode 1, “The Promotion,” Matt is promoted to head of the studio with ambitious plans to produce Oscar-worthy prestige films that will also make $1 billion at the box office. However, on his first day on the job, he’s tasked with putting together a movie based on the Kool-Aid Man. So, he sets out to find a Greta Gerwig-level auteur to give Kool-Aid the Barbie treatment. His prayers seem to have been answered when Martin Scorsese arrives with a pitch for an epic chronicling the Jonestown massacre, but Matt’s boss would prefer a safe Mario-style family blockbuster.

The Studio Has A Great Main Cast & Plenty Of Memorable Guest Stars

Rogen Leads A Star-Studded Ensemble

Rogen gives one of his strongest acting performances as Matt, giving a more understated and curmudgeonly turn than usual, and he ably leads The Studio’s star-studded cast. Kathryn Hahn is typically hilarious as Matt’s head of marketing, Maya, who has no qualms about publicly screaming at her boss if he pitches a movie she can’t sell. Rogen shares great chemistry with his Neighbors co-star Ike Barinholtz as his right-hand man Sal, while Chase Sui Wonders is a fantastic foil as newly appointed creative executive Quinn.

The Studio is streaming on Apple TV+ on Wednesdays.

Bryan Cranston taps into his early-career comedic chops to play Matt’s slimy, eccentric boss Griffin Mill, who couldn’t care less about creating art and wants nothing more than to make lots and lots of money. Catherine O’Hara doesn’t pop up until near the end of the episode, but she steals the show as Patty, the erratic veteran producer whose job was taken by Matt. And that’s just the main cast; The Studio has a who’s-who of celebrity guest stars poking fun at themselves. Scorsese is the standout in this episode, going from Matt’s best collaborator to his worst enemy.

The Studio's Shaky-Cam Visual Style Perfectly Captures The Chaos Of The Film Industry

The Studio Has Its Own Cinematic Aesthetic

The Studio features some of Rogen and Goldberg’s best directorial work to date. The series has its own distinctive visual style, marked by shaky handheld camerawork and muted Old Hollywood-style colors. The show’s frantic camera movements and long continuous takes swooping all over the studio lot perfectly capture the chaos of the film industry.

With profane tirades in a professional setting, colleagues lying to each other’s faces, and a new complication around every corner, The Studio is essentially Veep for the movie business.

With profane tirades in a professional setting, colleagues lying to each other’s faces, and a new complication around every corner, The Studio is essentially Veep for the movie business. Just as Veep used biting comedy and horribly insulting one-liners to highlight the cutthroat nature of politics, The Studio does the same for the business of filmmaking.

The first episode’s script — penned by Rogen, Goldberg, Peter Huyck, Alex Gregory, and Frida Perez — does everything a good pilot should: it establishes who all the characters are, what their relationships are, and the world they inhabit, and has a ton of fun doing it. The second episode builds on the characters, their world, and relationships established in the first episode, elevating the satire even more and making for a series that deeply understands what it's trying to do and excelling at it.

The Studio is so far a really funny comedy with a handful of big laughs in every scene, but it also has a strong satirical core. It’s about the battle between art and commerce. Matt wants to make great films, like a Scorsese epic about Jonestown, but Griffin wants to make big blockbusters, like a story about the Kool-Aid Man living in a world full of anthropomorphized corporate logos. It should be simple enough that movies that get respect and movies that make money are the same thing, but The Studio outlines why that’s not the case in hilariously frustrating fashion.