Watch My Show: ‘Going Deep’s David Rees on the Proper Way to Pet a Dog ‘and’ Bounce a Ball

You may think you know how to pet a dog, take a nap or bounce a ball, but you really don’t.

That’s where David Rees comes in. Esquire TV’s Going Deep with David Rees follows the host as he examines the mundane tasks of every day life and proves there’s an art to even the simplest of tasks. Going Deep, from True Entertainment, aired last season on National Geographic Channel, but returns Wednesday night with a new batch of episodes and a new home in Esquire. We asked Rees to fill out our “Watch My Show!” survey and explain why we should dive into Going Deep.

I’ve got room in my life to watch just one more show. Tell me why it should be yours.
Rees: WARNING: Technically, I am not the showrunner for Going Deep. I am the co-creator and host, and one of the executive producers. Our showrunner is the great Dan Miller, but he moved to Canada two days after we wrapped post-production on our latest season. So I will answer on his behalf. Anyway, you should watch our show because apparently, it’s so intense, it made our showrunner FLEE THE COUNTRY.

Who should be watching?
Rees: Anyone with a sense of humor who is curious about our world and wants to be really, really good at doing simple things.

What happens if we don’t watch your show?
Rees: You don’t learn the best way of doing everyday tasks: You take ineffective naps, you never bounce a ball correctly, you waste water washing your dishes, you don’t learn how to moderate the moisture in your toast, you leave your signature vulnerable to forgery. It’s a dangerous game, not watching our show, and we can’t be held responsible for what happens if you don’t tune in.

What’s the best thing anyone has said or written about your show?
Rees: Vice said it was the best science show since Carl Sagan’s Cosmos. That made us really happy and excited.

What’s the worst thing?
Rees: Have you ever seen YouTube comments? Just imagine the worst thing possible, then double it, then multiply it by four, then make it even meaner, and then add some misspellings, and boom—that’s it.

Who was right?
Rees: The only opinion about our show that I trust is my friend’s 8-year-old son. He told me it’s “pretty good.” I can live with that.

What’s an alternate title for your show?
Rees: No, Your TiVo Is Not Drunk: This Is Actually A Television Show About How To Take A Nap, You’re Welcome

Give us an equation for your show.
Rees: Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood plus Look Around You minus fake facts, plus Wild Boys minus the nudity and vomiting, plus Empire minus everything about Empire

Come up with a premise for the spin-off.
Rees: Going Even Deeper with David Rees: A five-hour miniseries on how to take the cap off a ballpoint pen.

What credit of yours would you prefer we forget?
Rees: I’ve never been on TV before, so I don’t have any previous credits. But, for the record: I wish more people had seen me play Snoopy in our fifth-grade class’s version of “You’re A Good Man, Charlie Brown.”

Tell me one thing about your cast.
Rees: The host is kind of a prima donna.

What other series would you most like to be an executive producer on?
Rees: I don’t want to be in charge of a show, I want to be in charge of a network! My fantasy is to run a 24-hour sign-off network that broadcasts nothing but old, network-television sign-off clips. I remember, years ago, staying up late watching television as a high-school night owl in North Carolina—eventually, the local TV stations would end their broadcast days with patriotic music and nature montages, and, finally, the ominous drone/dial tone of the color bar test screen. Those sequences always made me feel melancholy, and, now that I’m older, I think a network that did NOTHING but show end-of-day packages would be exciting and comforting and weirdly emotional. And THAT’S why I will never make money in television, I suppose.

Let’s scare the network. Tell us an idea that didn’t make it on to the screen.
Rees: How to go to the bathroom.

Finish this sentence: “If you like _______, you’ll love our show.”
Rees: “If you like anything at all about the world—no matter how inconsequential—you’ll love our show.”

Pick another show, any show, to start a fake feud with.
Rees: C-Span Book TV. All the explosions and profanity and gratuitous nudity is getting old.

What other show would you like to do a cross-over episode with—and how would that go?
Rees: Since we shoot GOING DEEP in my house, I’d love to do a cross-over episode with Project Runway, because I think Tim Gunn is fantastic and I don’t know how else I could convince him to hang out with me in my living room.

How will your show change the face of TV as we know it?
Rees: Ha! It’s enough of a challenge just learning how to make toast correctly; changing the face of TV is too much to even think about without my head exploding.

Going Deep with David Rees airs Wednesdays at 10/9c on Esquire.