It’s closer, somehow, to the end of June now than to the beginning, which makes it a good time to take stock of the best TV of 2026 so far.
We’ve done this many different ways here at IndieWire. We’ve made our own, objectively inarguable lists; we’ve called out unforgettable moments and finales that will stick with us; we’ve asked actors about their favorite scenes and department heads about their peers’ work and what makes great casting, stunts, or scores stand out.
But the IndieWire Craft Team wanted to throw some love toward below-the-line crew that almost never get editorial coverage — although sometimes they do get played by Himesh Patel in an HBO comedy, so that’s something. We are, of course, talking about assistant directors, the people who actually run the set, wrangle crews of hundreds, solve scheduling snags and location issues like Rubik’s Cubes, and are, in many respects, the coaches who make sure that the team sport of filmmaking actually crosses the finish line.
These metaphors aren’t just ours, either. We reached out to some of the directors behind our favorite shows of the year to ask them about how their ADs support their work, and got back maybe the most walls of effusive praise we’ve ever gotten when running a craft survey. Lee Sung Jin, the creator of “Beef,” who said he’d work with first assistant director Gavin Kleintop any chance he got, had maybe the most direct and immediate description for the unsung work that the ADs do. He called it triage.
“What nobody sees is that an AD is doing triage on the director’s behalf, the HODs’ behalf, the show’s behalf, all day, every day. The AD filters every department’s needs and constraints so that only the right things reach the director at the right moment. On a show like ‘Beef,’ where everything lives or dies on whether the performances feel real, the AD is the one protecting or sacrificing the conditions that make that possible — they’re making directorial decisions constantly, they just don’t get the credit,” Lee told IndieWire.
“Pluribus” director Gordon Smith shouted out the show’s ADs Angie Meyer and Rich Sickler as masters of background action, which, given the state of the hive-mind haunting Carol Sturka (Rhea Seehorn) from the moment the show turns in the pilot, is absolutely mission-critical to the Apple TV series succeeding. It’s not just that the background has to be legible. It has to look incredibly smooth and streamlined while conveying the uncanny weirdness of the hive-mind.
“Angie and I had the fun of figuring out with Nito Larioza, our movement choreographer, how to refill a supermarket, empty out a hospital, and make a small Quechua village sing. Literally getting hundreds of extras to move together with the camera or to work with some complicated VFX and, crucially, to make it all feel as light and effortless as our hive-mind world would experience it. Often, those sequences took days and days of prep and rehearsal, which Angie arranged. That was the only way we could make very ambitious shots go off on our schedule,” Smith said.
ADs also have to make very ambitious shots safe. The AD team on “Pluribus” had to proof helicopters with atom bomb cases flying through a neighborhood, wolf-dog hybrids prowling around set, a drone camera intentionally crashing (and the shrapnel that sends flying hundreds of feet). Sarah Adina Smith, who directed three episodes of “A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms,” which comes with every sword and flail that the world of “Game of Thrones” can throw at a set, said that the best ADs make sure every tiny detail is accounted for, from props to effects to stunts.
“They act as a co-pilot during prep, often chiming in with helpful creative fixes and suggestions based on past experiences. They also work closely with the producers to make sure the production plan works within the budget constraints. Once we’re shooting, the AD runs the floor. They are mission control for the whole set — the very center of communication. They work closely with the director, DP, and the rest of the crew to help make the day while magically juggling the work of preparing for days to come,” Smith said. “They also almost never get a break — always taking meetings at lunch and reviewing future call sheets. An AD is an essential creative ally and can absolutely make-or-break the entire production.”
Uta Briesewitz, one of the directors on Season 2 of “The Pitt,” said that, for directors, the first AD is their closest confidant and creative collaborator; and that, on “The Pitt,” she’s been lucky to work with ADs — Eric Tignini and Kevin Zelman — who support the director in different ways.
“They have completely different leadership styles. One is a ball of energy, spreading joy and excitement with every announcement on set. The other is gentle and calm, creating an atmosphere of warmth and care. They are both so wonderful in their own ways,” Briesewitz said. “ I feel incredibly spoiled to experience the best of both worlds on different episodes!”
So does Kat Coiro, who directs on “Matlock” among other fine shows and films. “[First AD Michele Labrucherie] is a director in her own right, so, during prep, when we are managing the schedule, I always welcome her input. Michele has a sense of humor and understands that the AD department dictates the vibe of the set,” Corio told IndieWire. “The biggest thing that I think people don’t realize is what an art making a schedule is — it’s not just about fitting lots of pages into a day, it’s about scheduling the actors to give their best performances.”
That can be especially challenging for child actors, who have very limited schedules, so for Marc Munden, director of “Lord of the Flies,” his AD team’s work on scheduling and wrangling 30 boys under the age of 14 was crucial. “[First AD Ben Rogers] kept his cool throughout a physically challenging shoot, never cowed by the adult creative ambition the show demanded from a cast of children,” Munden told IndieWire.
Assistant directing is its own special discipline, a mix of strategy, tactics, safety, and creativity. Almost all the directors we talked to either said they’d be terrible ADs, were (briefly) terrible ADs, or weren’t smart enough to even attempt ADing. Mickey Downs, director and co-creator of “Industry,” told IndieWire that the show sometimes shoots eight pages of material a day across multiple locations. “It’s the AD’s job to ensure we get everything we need while making sure the quality and time we need with the actors doesn’t suffer — it’s a huge balancing act that requires extraordinary organization skills and a cool head during times when everyone else is feeling the frustration,” Downs said.
Jeremiah Zagar, director on “Task,” may have put it the most vividly when he told IndieWire, “As my mother would say, they hold our world in their hands like a chicken by its ankles.” However you want to slice it, assistant directors are the bridges between vision and reality. Marcos Siega, director on “Dexter: Resurrection,” told IndieWire that he spends a tremendous amount of time shot-listing, designing scenes, and thinking through the emotional and visual rhythms of an episode.
“What most viewers never realize is that an AD is constantly balancing hundreds of competing demands behind the scenes. This could be anything from location issues, crew and equipment logistics, cast availability, weather, or the safety of the crew. They do all these things, which ultimately allows me to do what I need to do to deliver the best episode,” Siega said.
All the things can involve organizing fleets of carriages on “The Gilded Age,” as director Salli Whitfield leans on her ADs to do, or horses running free on “Marshals” — as well as, of course, everything under the sun that humans get up to. But according to “Marshals” director Christopher Chulack, assistant directors are the ultimate listeners and communicators.
Zagar said it in respect to “Task,” but probably all TV directors would agree: If you like a TV show, that show owes everything to its ADs.
