TV Talk: Former President Barack Obama visited Pittsburgh to film Netflix’s ‘Working’ documentary

Inspired by the 1974 non-fiction Studs Terkel book “Working: People Talk About What They Do All Day and How They Feel About What They Do,” the four-episode Netflix docu-series “Working: What We Do All Day” not only counts former President Barack Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama as executive producers, the 44th U.S. president also narrates the series and occasionally appears on camera, including in interviews filmed in Pittsburgh over a single day visit in late spring 2022.

Streaming all episodes on May 17, “Working” follows several Americans working in different sectors, including three people who live and work in Pittsburgh.

“We knew we wanted Pittsburgh to be a location just because the history is so rich and so many things have happened there and it resonates with all of these themes in the series,” said director Caroline Suh (“Salt Fat Acid Heat”). “(It’s) a place that had been the center of industrialization and then had hit hard times and was experiencing this boom because of tech and that was all really interesting to us. And we felt like if some of that seeps into the story, that’s great, especially considering tech is one of the sectors of the future.”

Episode one, “Service Jobs,” spends time with Pittsburgher Carmen Smith as she attempts to make ends meet through work as a food delivery driver and makeup artist.

In episode two, “The Middle,” the focus turns to Beaver County native Luke Starcher, a 34-year-old senior machine learning data engine operations specialist at Aurora Innovation, the autonomous transportation company in the Strip District.

Starcher is shown driving around Monaca with his parents – his dad wears a “Let’s Go Pens!” T-shirt – and trying to scrape together funds to buy a house. He eventually buys a home on Troy Hill and welcomes President Obama to his basement to talk music (Starcher’s hobbies include making music and running his own label, Delicate Cashmere; he opened for Girl Talk at Stage AE last year).

Starcher said he didn’t know Obama was involved in the documentary until a year into filming. He thought Suh was pulling his leg when she suggested over Zoom that Obama would come to his house for an interview. Two months later and after four days of having production crewmembers in his home lighting his basement in advance of filming, Obama arrived.

“We just clicked,” he said of his conversation with the former president. “Everything felt natural. He was a really nice guy. It was a great conversation for an hour-and-a-half, sitting down with a person who was very down to earth.”

Suh said Obama’s questions to Starcher were largely spontaneous.

“He had seen (rough) cuts (of the series) at that point so he knew Luke from the cuts and he knew all of the facts of Luke’s life when he walked in that room in a way that we didn’t even realize that he did,” Suh said. “He just brought up all of these different things about Luke. He really came prepared. We didn’t give him questions to use. That’s him. It honestly was fun to watch.”

In episode three, “Dream Jobs,” the Pittsburgh focus is on Karthik Lakshmanan, an Aurora robotics engineer who left Pittsburgh midway through filming on “Working” for a new job with a San Francisco-based company. Episode four, “The Boss,” moves on to Aurora’s co-founder, who’s based in the San Francisco Bay area.

“Working” has a smart structure, not only following multiple employees at Aurora in Pittsburgh but also working its way up through the ranks of New York’s Pierre Hotel, from workers to a manager to the company’s CEO.

Suh said staying within a company was a way to show how work looks different depending on what kind of job you have “while also showing how one’s job is also related to other peoples’ jobs. So even though you do this one particular thing you rely on the work of all these other people. So it’s about interconnection.”

While the Obamas’ production company, Higher Ground, has embarked on many projects, including the filmed-in-Pittsburgh movie “Rustin” that’s expected to premiere on Netflix this fall, President Obama is featured more heavily in “Working” than some other Higher Ground projects.

“I don’t want to speak for him but this is an important subject for him,” Suh said. “He spent years in office thinking about things like inequality and work and so this is kind of his life’s work, not the series itself, but the subject matter.”

As far as directing the former commander-in-chief, Suh said she became more comfortable in that role over the two years of production.

“He is so generous and kind and supportive, and he wants people to feel at ease and not feel like he’s judging you,” she says. “It is a surreal experience, not one that I ever could have imagined that I would have. And I feel so grateful and lucky to have had that particular experience.”

Between Carmen’s story as a delivery driver and Luke’s and Karthik’s stories involving autonomous vehicles, “Working” features a lot of scenes of Pittsburgh’s streets, from Downtown to Oakland to Lawrenceville to The Strip.

When “Working” puts Obama in an autonomous vehicle at the autonomous vehicle test track in Hazelwood Green, he notes, “It’s like the Invisible Man is sitting here,” as the Toyota Sienna motors along with an empty driver’s seat.

In these scenes, eagle-eyed Pittsburgh viewers may also notice Pittsburgh Easter eggs in the test track’s street signs: All the streets are named after characters from “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood” including Daniel Tiger, Queen Sara, King Friday and the deepest of “Neighborhood” deep cuts, Harriet Cow.

‘Heels’ returns, Harrison out

Starz’s small Southern town wrestling drama series “Heels” is back for its second season at 10 p.m. July 28, but former Steelers linebacker James Harrison is no longer a part of the cast.

In season one, Harrison played the journeyman wrestler Apocalypse. My understanding is there’s no explanation for where Apocalypse has gone — he’s just not there anymore – as the story moves on to provide context to how the Spade family and the small town ended up where the show left off at the end of season one.

Eliminating the Apocalypse character isn’t a huge surprise. The writers did little to develop the character in season one and the cast has ballooned to 17 other characters, which probably makes a little-developed character more expendable.

Pure Flix merges with GAM

Sony-owned faith and family streaming platform Pure Flix has merged with Great American Media, which includes the linear Hallmark Channel clone Great American Family channel.

GAM will retain a majority interest in the merged company with GAM CEO, former Hallmark Channel CEO Bill Abbott, running the newly merged company.

Kept/canceled

Comedy Central renewed animated comedy “Digman!” for a second season.

Fox renewed “Next Level Chef” for an additional two seasons.

The CW canceled “Kung Fu” and “The Winchesters.”

Channel surfing

Pittsburgh’s Fred Rogers’ Production’s PBS Kids show “Alma’s Way” will air a one-hour special, “Alma Goes to Puerto Rico,” at 7:30 a.m. June 5 on WQED-TV. … “Yellowstone” prequel “1883,” which streamed on Paramount+, will air on Sundays this summer on linear Paramount Network beginning June 18 at 8 p.m.; for those who catch the original “Yellowstone” on Peacock, the first eight episodes of season five, which already aired on Paramount Network, will stream on Peacock beginning May 25. … For its fifth season this fall, daytime’s “The Kelly Clarkson Show” will relocate from Universal Studios in Hollywood to 30 Rock in New York City. … NBCUniversal says it will stream all 2024 Olympics events live on Peacock next year while continuing to air coverage on its linear channels. … BET+ will add an ad-supported “BET+ Essential” tier for $6 on June 25 while continuing the $10 ad-free version. … Eva Pilgrim and DeMarco Morgan will join Dr. Jen Ashton to anchor ABC’s “GMA3: What You Need to Know” following the ouster of T.J. Holmes and Amy Robach, who had a personal relationship revealed by tabloids; Gio Benitez will co-anchor “Good Morning America” Saturday and Sunday broadcasts alongside Whit Johnson and Janai Norman. … Canceled AMC series “61st Street” will re-air on The CW this fall with its completed but unaired second season debuting on The CW in 2024.