Industry is back with Season 3 and the stakes are now higher and the competition gets bigger. As the show expands, many fans are clamoring for unique storylines that are compelling and entertaining.
With such high demand, the studio will have to deliver if they want to sustain the series’ popularity, and they are doing it with a bottle episode reminiscent of some of the best chapters in NBC’s Friends.
HBO’s Industry Films A Bottle Episode Focused On Rishi Ramdani
Speaking with Film Updates, Konrad Kay explained how Sagar Radia’s Rishi Ramdani leveled up his role and why they are now making an episode with him as the focus. The series creator said Rishi was “very much a peripheral character in season one.”
When the actor returned for Season 2, he was confident and “in total command of the character.” Radia and his onscreen persona had “some kind of weird melding” and the actor just stepped into his character with full conviction. “His confidence level really shone through,” Kay added.
Because of his popularity among fans, they decided to give him more things to do in the show.
When we were working on season 3, very early on, we had the episodes on the board, and one of them just said ‘Rishi episode,’ like a bottle episode. We had no idea what it was going to be about. We just knew that we wanted to explore what it would look like if we followed this guy for 48 hours.
Kay said this was an experiment they wanted “to try and see if we could sustain an hour of tension.” What exactly is a bottle episode? It’s an inexpensive way of producing an episode using cost-effective methods without sacrificing quality. It is typically confined to one setting with only limited characters.
While the series is at its height of fame, co-creator Mickey Down admits he doesn’t know if they’re getting another season, hence why they are doing everything in hopes of amusing fans and giving them a satisfying conclusion. “The most important thing is to entertain, and that was always the crux of what we were trying to do in season three,” he added.
Friends’ Most Iconic Bottle Episodes
Friends also had its own terrific bottle episodes, because even though the franchise was massive, it still needed to be economic in terms of budget.
It has 11 bottle episodes throughout its run, and its most iconic is definitely its very first one entitled The One Where No One’s Ready. So many things took place in this episode and each character has their own issues with something except for David Schwimmer’s Ross who is waiting for everybody to get ready.
The One With The Lottery is also one of the best bottle episodes. The group buys lottery tickets hoping to win and share the prize. They soon discovered that Courteney Cox’s Monica bought extra tickets for her and Matthew Perry’s Chandler, and a quarrel ensued.
Friends definitely mastered the art of making bottle episodes over the years, and it’s quite exciting that shows today are following this popular trend.
Industry streams on HBO. Friends is available on Netflix.
