At this point, soon-to-be-octogenarian (that means “old as fuck”) Woody Allen has accomplished everything, from learning to play the clarinet to getting nominated for multiple Oscars to voicing the lead role of an ant in the animated motion picture Antz to portraying John Turturro’s pimp in the breathtakingly realistic Fading Gigolo to marrying his longtime partner’s adopted daughter. That’s quite a life he’s led, so no one would blame Allen for riding off in the sunset at his creative peak. 

Actually, that’s about all Allen has accomplished. Other than that, he’s been snoozing his career away, but now the neurotic New York filmmaker is looking to finally make something of himself by writing and directing a television show for Amazon, which is rapidly looking to make a name for itself as a creator and distributor of original series. 

Of course, Allen began his career in television as a boy wonder, as part of the legendary writing staff behind The Sid Caesar Show and The Colgate Comedy Hour back in the 1820s, but then he took a slight detour into film. Now, Allen, at age 79, is crawling back to the medium where he whiled away delirious hours of his contented youth in an attempt to finally receive the respect and acclaim that has eluded him these past eight decades. 

Not much is know about Allen’s untitled television project. For example, it is not yet known whether the star will be Allen or merely a man or woman coached to perfectly reproduce Allen’s tics and mannerisms. But in a press release, Allen adorably fretted, “I don’t know how I got into this. I have no ideas and I’m not sure where to begin. My guess is that (Vice President of Amazon Studios) Roy Price will regret this.” It’s disappointing to hear that Allen, who’s experienced scattered success as a filmmaker—winning four Academy Awards for example—thinks Amazon made a mistake hiring him to make this series. Either it’s because the premise is weak, the scripts he’s written so far are terrible, or Allen fears, rightly, that he’s probably going to die of old age before a single frame is shot. We admire Allen’s candor—some might even say self-deprecation—in downplaying the show before it’s even begun filming, and will honor his sentiments by not watching a show even he concedes is probably a mistake on Amazon’s part.