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DANCES WITH FILMS ’26: Series

Title: It’s Getting Late with Owen Reed (2026) Director: Ryan Dougall Writer: Ryan Dougall Studio: Windowpane Productions IMDb Plot: A documentary crew follows a struggling late-night talk show as an overwhelmed showrunner tries to unite her dysfunctional team in an effort to save the show from cancellation. Joe Says: This is a mockumentary fueled by caffeine, creative panic, and beautifully awkward energy ultimately producing low-key comedy gold.

There is a beautiful irony within It’s Getting Late with Owen Reed – a show about people desperately trying to make a show. Deadlines loom. Egos collide. Budgets disappear. Impostor syndrome wins a few rounds. The audience laughs, but rarely because someone delivers a punchline. Instead, writer-director Ryan Dougall finds humor in something far more recognizable: the quiet absurdity of creative work itself.

Imagine The Office wandering backstage at This Is Spinal Tap. That’s the wavelength Dougall is operating on. The comedy is subtle, observational, and comfortably awkward. This is a mockumentary fueled by caffeine and creative panic, where the funniest moments often arrive without announcing themselves.

The series follows first-time showrunner Alex Teller, wonderfully grounded by Marissa Pistone, as she attempts to keep a low-budget digital late-night talk show held together with coffee, optimism, and the weight of its own dysfunction. Alex spends her day juggling cast, crew, her producing partner David (Mark Schroeder), a phone that won’t stop ringing, and a mother who seems to believe guilt is a legitimate management strategy.

Honestly… she’s doing great.

Dougall wisely drops viewers directly into the chaos. Owen Reed (Jeremiah Watkins) can’t make it into the building thanks to an overzealous security guy (Luke Barnett). Bandleader Bonavega and back-up host Kyler (Abdul Seidu) both want top billing and the writers are more concerned with Tik Tokking than actual writing.

Drawing from Dougall’s own years working behind the scenes in television, the series premiere captures the strange cocktail of ambition, anxiety, collaboration, and exhaustion that fuels creative productions. The humor arrives in waves rather than explosions. Dougall aims for smiles over guffaws, finding comedy in hesitation, failed communication, and the thousand tiny disasters that happen backstage. Production anxiety is turned into low-key comedy gold.

Once the talk show itself finally begins, the pilot finds its rhythm. The improvised segments are among its strongest moments, giving the pilot an organic looseness that suits the material perfectly.

More than anything, It’s Getting Late with Owen Reed succeeds because it believes in its characters and celebrates them. The people chasing impossible productions with impossible budgets because they simply have to create something.

That’s a sentiment every independent filmmaker understands.

And perhaps that’s the pilot’s greatest accomplishment. It leaves you wanting another episode, not because of some cliffhanger, but because you’d genuinely enjoy spending more time with these wonderfully frazzled people.

This pilot doesn’t just deserve another episode. It deserves another season.

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Be sure to check out It’s Getting Late with Owen Reed and many other indie films during the Dances With Films fest.