Outlander: Blood Of My Blood, Platonic, and Ridley. With Guests Adrian Dunbar and Paul Wesley

15:15Adrian Dunbar:So I can actually speak about it. So it's been so long, but it's here. It's already gone out in America where it's very, very successful, where they split our two hours into, you know, one-hour segments. And, yeah, so we're looking forward to it eventually. And so are all the team. Obviously, the cast and the crew have been very keen for it to come out because, well, we're very proud of it.

15:41Paul Wesley:Absolutely, yeah. It must be incredibly satisfying to have a show that's built around your character, this kind of soulful, complicated, complex guy that, you know, as an actor, it's kind of like what you dream for, isn't it?

15:54Adrian Dunbar:Yeah, yeah. It's kind of like, you know, it's something exactly that you might dream might happen that you'll end up getting your own name series. And also, you know, in my case, having a deal of control over what happens in it and working on the scripts and kind of from the get go, working with Jonathan Fisher, who I did a series called Blood with for Channel 5, which did very well. Jonathan and I You know put the template of the show Together and kind of You know with the musical aspects etc Kind of changed it a little So it was slightly risky But the Public went for it And we got you know did great Numbers the first time around and so We're keeping our fingers crossed This time again even though we are going to Go out August September which You know in the old days people used to say oh you don't want to go out during the summer and etc but you know people's viewing habits have changed and you know it doesn't make that much difference these

17:03Paul Wesley:days no no yeah huge shows launch in in kind of late summer now yeah yeah it's a yeah it's a kind of all-round thing isn't it yeah for sure um the other the key i think that the kind of most um intriguing element of the show for me is is the jazz is your singing element of it and the richard Hawley songs and I was looking back at um how Richard got involved and he tells the story of how you went to see him in Sheffield do you remember this and and talk to him about using the songs and he says you both got uh pissed together basically yes yes that's right we

17:35Adrian Dunbar:he took me to a really really brilliant uh pub in Sheffield I think it might have been a bit of an Irish pub in the day yeah and the two of us kind of got got stuck into it and uh it was it It was a great day. But, you know, it was a great day for me when I found his songs, because I didn't really know about Richard until I started, you know, thinking about this series and thinking about where the music might come from and kind of, you know, looking north, because, you know, we, you know, the series is set kind of in the, you know, in the post-industrial landscape around north of Manchester. and I just started looking around and then I came across Richard and I realised that a lot of his songs are to do with male grief and lost love and longing and I thought this really suits the character of Ridley and also where the songs are placed they're placed in a kind of area where I can sing them I thought this feels good and I talked to Jonathan about it And, you know, and, you know, Jonathan's very quick to recognize a good idea.

18:47Adrian Dunbar:And he was straight on it. And so we got hold of Richard. And the songs, I think they're really they're really interesting because, you know, we've used them to kind of, if you like, tie up the denouements. And somehow they kind of fit the episodes. And this series, we've done something else where we put a song at the start. So that kind of gives you a kind of indication of what might be coming down the line, which is also interesting. But no, they're a big element of the show. And people really, really like it.

19:26Paul Wesley:Well, in the first story that I've seen, the song comes kind of in the middle, kind of late on. And it's like a pause almost in the story. And you get to kind of catch up with it. I thought was really effective in that song is brilliant. And it almost becomes quite epic because initially, obviously it's quite intimate with you singing with a small backing band, if you like. But then that song in particular, I thought in episode one, it sounds quite epic and adds to the whole thing.

19:51Adrian Dunbar:Yeah, yeah. No, those things do add. And one of the things I realised as a writer was that audiences, what they like, there's something about taking the audience, taking them somewhere else for a moment and then bringing them back to the story. It really gives the story a big sense of scale and, you know, that you've been with it for some time and also that you can kind of digest everything that's gone before. And it sets you up for the last run in. And, you know, I've done that on writing films as well, where the kind of you take the lead character or, you know, or the audience rather, and you take them away somewhere else and then you bring them back.

20:32Adrian Dunbar:And it's a really effective thing to do in storytelling. and yeah so this so in that first episode it really acts like that I agree with you yeah yeah

20:42Paul Wesley:what would you I feel like the songs are so integral to the show what would you have done if you haven't have got Richard all his permission to use them I wonder what what how it would have

20:51Adrian Dunbar:ended up well it would have been really awful because you know what would have happened was we would have had to find songs from maybe the Great American Songbook or something like that, and those songs would have had their own baggage with them. Whereas prior to Standing on the Sky's Edge and all that, and the musical, Richard's Musical, which was hugely successful at the National Theatre and subsequently in the West End, using the songs, people may not have, you know, he has a huge cult following, don't get me wrong, Richard, but the general public didn't quite know those songs. So they're, you know, so they're hearing them for the first time and that is so, so brilliant.

21:46Adrian Dunbar:And I don't know how it would have went to answer your question. It would not have been as effective, I can tell you that.

21:53Paul Wesley:Yeah, yeah, absolutely, yeah. Do you get nervous when you're performing those songs, or is it just the same as acting, and presumably you know what you're doing, or does it kind of add an extra frisson of nerves to the whole thing?

22:06Adrian Dunbar:No. In fact, the first time we did it was after lockdown. It was a very strange moment because we came in, and all the cameras were looking at the stage, and so behind the camera was like this 40 or 50 of a crew who have just been, you know, setting everything up and doing the cameras and the sound and the lighting and all that stuff's been going on. And everybody had been in lockdown. And suddenly we got up and we did this song together, me and the band. And when we came to the end of it, the whole place just burst out in applause because it's been the first time that we'd all been together at a live gig for months and years, in fact, in some cases.

22:51and everybody just thought, yeah, you know, it's live music.

22:56Adrian Dunbar:It's fantastic. And so, but of course, we record, I record the songs here at our studios with Ben and then we do them to playback. But so it is just a job of acting really and you've already recorded the song and, you know, they cover it with several cameras and so forth. And, you know, I've been in bands since I was 15. So I kind of, the business of being on stage and singing is, you know, is not a scary thing to me. So I was cool with that.

23:36Paul Wesley:Yeah, yeah. That's interesting. You've been in bands for so long. So musically, what are your influences? Like apart from, you know, this kind of music that's in the show, what kind of stuff has inspired you?

23:46Adrian Dunbar:Well, you know, when I started, I started at 15. I had my own three-piece country band and because I came from Inniskillen towards the northwest of Ireland and what we were interested in then was stuff that 30 years later people went, these guys are great. But at the time, everybody thought we were just hokey kind of country people who really didn't know a lot about music and should be listening to something else. And so we took a lot of stick for that. But my heroes were people like Johnny Cash, hank snow merle haggard you know uh loretta lynn dolly parton uh you know these were the you know porter wagner you know loads loads of this was the kind of music that we were listening to and that people were showing up for and the people country people really liked and so that was my first grounding doing that kind of music then i moved from there i moved on to play bass guitar with a guy called Frank Chisholm.

24:47Adrian Dunbar:Frank was a really brilliant Elvis Presley impersonator. So we had this kind of really tight band doing kind of a kind of Elvis Presley spectacular show. And Frank really was brilliant. You might be able to see a few bits of him on YouTube. And like we did huge audiences, you know, those massive audiences for us. We travelled all over Ireland. And then in the late 70s, we went to New York. so 78, 79 I was in New York playing in the Bronx it was a very dangerous place we were playing a lot of Presley stuff but of course we were playing in these Irish bars so they wanted Irish music so we went back to playing a lot of Irish and country and then I came back and I got an audition for the Guildhall School in London because I'd been doing a bit of amateur dramatic stuff, not much, just a couple of plays, and people thought I was quite good at it.

25:48Adrian Dunbar:So I got an audition, and the guy said, you know what, I mean, you're off to London, you know, we can't keep your place in the band. So I realised that was it. They were going to get somebody else in to play a bass guitar. This was either going to work or I was going to end up in London. I didn't quite know what I was going to do, but I thought it's going to be music. You know, my mother was a fabulous singer. I'd been in singing competitions for the feshes we call them in Ireland and won prizes and so forth so I was always singing and I thought I'll do something in music if I don't get in luckily for me I got in to the school there for three years got my equity card and came out went back to Belfast and started to work in Belfast in the theatre but I never dropped the music thing And then later on, when I got to my 40s, when the work sort of dried up a bit, I thought, you know what, I'm getting, you know, two or three nice jobs a year.

26:51Adrian Dunbar:I'm taking along nicely. I'll start a band up back in Ireland. And I started a band where we had double bass, 12 string guitar and pedal steel. and so we were able to do the kind of Willie Nelson type country jazz, you know, moonlight in Vermont and kind of, you know, by the time I get to Phoenix, a lot of Jimmy Webb stuff, really powerful. And with the strings, you could create that big kind of wide feel of stuff, you know, so that was really good and that lasted for a while. And then, you know, as luck would have it, I got this job called Line of Duty. and that kind of put an end to my kind of relaxed lifestyle.

27:42Adrian Dunbar:And suddenly, you know, I had to kind of, I had to get up and run it again. I thought, oh my God, I've got a career here. And, you know, so I haven't been, but then of course, when it came a chance to get back to the music through Ridley, I really pushed it. And luckily with Jonathan, and the two of us were able to see that through and the network went with it.

28:05Paul Wesley:So Ridley is kind of like a culmination of your love of music and acting and everything. Yeah, yeah.

28:12Adrian Dunbar:It's been a fabulous way of kind of putting the two of them together. And I suppose, you know, through Ridley, it was probably through doing Ridley that I got offered Kiss Me Kit at the Barbican, which was another kind of, you know, So another kind of really fabulous thing to do, get involved with a musical of such a high standard and so successful. So, yeah, I really enjoyed that.

28:42Paul Wesley:Yeah, fantastic, fantastic. As you say, you do get involved in the writing and the creation of Ridley. It strikes me that the stories in the show are very grounded. These are mysteries and crimes that are grounded in reality. They're not kind of big flights of fantasy. Is that kind of a key element of it for you, that it's not, it's one of those detective dramas that is rooted in reality to a large extent?

29:07Adrian Dunbar:Yes, yes, it's not a cosy crime at all. I was determined from the get-go that there wasn't going to be any twinkles or kind of, you know, there wasn't going to be any warming up what was, what are kind of crimes. crimes. And, you know, on the other side of it, of course, you know, on the human side of it and getting to know the characters involved, there's all sorts of stuff happening. But I was determined that we were going to take the central core of the stories very seriously and play them for what they were worth. And even though it was Sunday night and you're not allowed to be too visceral and, you know, the kids are up and all the rest of it.

29:47Adrian Dunbar:So, yes, that was really important to me that we did that. And I think the second series kind of really knows what it is now. It's kind of like it's settled into something and it sort of, it knows where it is. And, but the musical end of it and the club end of it was something that I realised if I was going to go down that route, if we all were going to go down the route of taking it seriously, then on the other side of that, we would have to create something that was a bit warmer. And that's where the jazz club comes in. and, you know, that's where the music comes in and that's where all that other stuff, wonderful stuff with Annie and John Mickey and all that sort of stuff happens.

30:28Paul Wesley:Would you like this to be like a long-running thing, you know, that you can carry on doing for a few years? Does that appeal to you, you know, to do kind of more and more of this show?

30:36Adrian Dunbar:Yeah, yeah, it does appeal to me because I think it's a really good show and, you know, and it's partly my creation with Jonathan and the writers and the network. And so, you know, between us all, I'd really, you know, when you get something that the public like, you know, yes. Yeah. It's another, you know, you feel good about doing something that's a returning series that the public are actually into. So absolutely is the answer to that.

31:03Paul Wesley:And I have to ask you contractually, you know, what any news on line of duty? We're, you know, still holding out for another show. There's just loads of us who love it.

31:12Adrian Dunbar:Wow. It's in your contract. Yeah.

31:14Paul Wesley:My own contract to myself.

31:18Adrian Dunbar:Yeah, yes, line of duty. Well, I mean, Jed is writing. We all want to do it, and we're waiting on the BBC to make an announcement. And when they say it's happening, then it's officially happening. But as far as we're concerned, we're looking forward to getting back to Belfast and, you know, doing another series next year. and keeping our fingers crossed that that announcement comes sooner rather than later. So, yeah.

31:52Paul Wesley:Yeah, great, great. I saw Keely Hawes yesterday. I was hosting a Q &A with her for her new show. And, I mean, you remember looking back at her character in Live Duty, that was such an extraordinary element of that show.

32:06Adrian Dunbar:Yeah, yeah, absolutely. No, I was having work with Keely on Life of Mars and stuff. You know, I was absolutely delighted that she came. And of course, Kayleigh has a great connection with the British audiences, with the British public. And I also knew that that bringing her onto the show would would bring audience with with her as well. And yeah, but she's such a great actress. And yeah, yeah. Brilliant. and how she carried. And this is the other element about Line of Duty that people don't realise. Most shows, they will have guest leads, but we don't. We actually give the show over to someone, to Stephen Graham or to Keeley.

32:55Adrian Dunbar:We actually hand the show over, which is a kind of extraordinary, really. and so yes she was able to kind of you know she brought so much to it and really set us up over series 2 and 3 because it was during series 2 that everything started to really take off for line of duty you know yeah absolutely

33:21Paul Wesley:sorry I was just going to kind of thank you draw it to a close and congratulate you on series 2 of Ridley which is highly enjoyable as you say yeah brilliant Oh, yeah. Great. Thank you. That was Adrian Dunbar. Now, Boydie, you got to interrogate Ted Hastings. That is one for the bucket list. Oh, I've interrogated him a few times before. And he's an absolute delight to interrogate, by the way. It's not like a tense one-on-one from Line of Duty or anything. Did the interview start with that? Nice. Line of Duty. Can you imagine if I'd done that? I wish I had, but no. But I did ask him, as you've just said, I did ask him about Line of Duty in the end.

34:02Paul Wesley:And I think it's noteworthy that he's basically saying there will be more Line of Duty imminently when the scripts are finished by Jed.

34:12Adrian Dunbar:Is he essentially saying when Jed pulls his finger out? Yeah.

34:14Paul Wesley:Yeah, basically. Yeah. Because you thought, James, misguidedly, they'd already announced it, didn't you? I think this might be the worst-kept secret in TV is that everyone knows there is a new Line of Duty coming, but it hasn't officially been announced, and yet everyone knows it's coming. It definitely hasn't been officially announced. so apart from Guildfoot and Guildfoot is another one of your hang on didn't you just have it confirmed by Ted Hastings himself I think that's pretty official yeah but but even he is like no but it hasn't it's not official it's just not official come on you know the way this is the Boyd Hilton exclusive we're announcing him right here on the podcast this is like the comeback

34:48Adrian Dunbar:all over again your last bombshell exclusive yeah

34:51Paul Wesley:exactly yeah which was obviously a huge news making it was huge huge news brilliant news yeah yeah alright Yeah, so I'm excited about that. And he was a delight. Good, good. I'm very pleased. Kay, do we have a delightful listener question for this week's show?

35:07Adrian Dunbar:Yes, well, we have a funny message for one of our listeners, Maggie, who says, thank you for the wonderful podcast and the excellent TV recs. And then she said some nice stuff, which I won't read out. And then she said, meanwhile, I need some relationship advice from you all. I started dating a great guy a few months ago, and we've been having a really good time. At first, it was all planned meetings and outings and dates and spending time together endlessly talking as you do. We've now gotten to the stage in our relationship where we spend time together doing things like watching TV, and here is the issue.

35:38Adrian Dunbar:He likes TV, we've talked about shows we've both loved, and he'll say he wants to watch something. But as soon as we start, he's on his goddamn phone the whole time. I'll say, what are you looking at? And he's just scrolling Instagram or whatever while he watches. Currently, we're watching Department Q, and it drives me crazy that he's trying to multitask during this show. I want to scream at him to pay attention because he's always like, wait, who's that? Or is this a flashback? Dude, look at the effing screen and you'll understand. It's so annoying. Anyway, is this a deal breaker? Am I being too uptight?

36:12Adrian Dunbar:What should I do?

36:14Paul Wesley:Yes, get rid of him.

36:18Paul Wesley:I love this question. 100 % a deal breaker. I don't know. That's a tough one, isn't it? because that's really annoying. Because not only is it just kind of a little bit annoying that he's not paying attention to the show, but he's going to be distracting if he's scrolling through Instagram while you're trying to watch it. And then if he's asking questions as well, on a basic level, even if you don't break up with him over it, and I'm not necessarily saying you should do that, you should absolutely be really passive-aggressive about it and 100 % refuse to give him any information about the show.

36:48Paul Wesley:So he says, oh, who's that? Say, nope, if you're not paying attention, I'm not going to tell you and just refuse to do it.

36:53Adrian Dunbar:This gives a real insight into Jamie's relationships in terms of just go for passive aggression.

36:58Paul Wesley:Yeah, passive aggression is your go-to.

37:00Adrian Dunbar:Do you know what? I find obviously it's kind of irritating when you see someone scrolling outside because you want to enjoy something together. But then I think that's like, you have to let everyone do what they want to do. And it's about relinquishing control of people having to do the same thing as you at the same time, I think personally. However, when it impacts you, because they're saying repeatedly what's going on, that would irritate the shit out of me because i'd be like make your choice you can make your choice that's fair enough you're an adult if you're choosing not to watch this that's fine but then you have to deal with the consequences so i'm suggesting if you want to continue dating this chap which is totally fine i'm advocating that is can you get a modesty screen or something to put up in between you so you can't see him at all yeah so you can't you can no avail avail so A thin veil maybe So you can still get a little Hang a towel Yeah no that's too

37:54Paul Wesley:No what she should do Go on What's her name again Maggie Yeah this Maggie What you should do is this You should get The biggest laptop you can find Or the biggest tablet you can find And you Start scrolling through it Doing something that he wants to watch You You You take it further You go You You have your phone out You're checking Instagram on the phone You're just working on your laptop Or Or even better Take a call literally take a do a facetime with someone you just write write more roughshod

38:24Adrian Dunbar:over anything yeah no yes this is giving an insight into your min your mindset escalation

38:32Paul Wesley:you've got to escalate it you've got to treat these people the way they deserve and you've got to show what it's like to be on the other end of someone not focusing on what that what they should be doing so you should you know what you should do you should record a podcast while he's doing it so i'm recording a tv podcast and just actively record a podcast while he's watching

38:46Adrian Dunbar:I mean, all I would say in terms of Boyd saying, you know, do that, is that it's very rich coming from him, considering that a lot of my conversations with him in the past have involved him looking at his phone at the same time. However, I'm saying if Maggie does this, then they'll definitely spell the end of their relationship. So I think she's clearly someone who wants to concentrate.

39:09Paul Wesley:Why should it? She's just giving her a taste of his own medicine. Yeah, but then they'll just be constantly looking at their own tablets. well then so be it but she'll at least give give him give him a as i say give him a case of what and showing him how you know what what effects it can have oh dear i mean i think i think i think the thing is the thing is though if you are watching this together and this is the time you are spending together and you don't live together if you live together it's slightly different but if you don't live together then that is together time now that is time for the two of you to be together and so while he's on his phone it's not that he's not concentrating on the show he's not concentrating on the time you are sharing so you know and that i would argue is not great like if you're spending time together no matter what you're doing if you walk into the park you go to me saying whatever like you kind of want the person with you to be paying attention and even if it's a communal viewing experience i think you want that person to be present uh and so i don't think it's unreasonable to say get your fucking phone you twat uh that's a perfectly perfectly measured and reasonable response.

40:09Adrian Dunbar:I've got a new solution. Maggie, next time he does that, just crank up this part of the podcast and just play it. Just let him hear or bring him to the live show and we will reprimand him on stage.

40:20Paul Wesley:Yeah, publicly. We will address him and make him see the error of his ways. It's a new service we're offering, I've just decided.

40:27Adrian Dunbar:New side hustle. Reprimanding inattentive partners.

40:32Paul Wesley:Yes, I think clearly the best solution here is to maybe communicate and just say that it bothers you for you know the following

40:38Adrian Dunbar:reasons well the previous one because because the man who suggested passive aggressiveness

40:44Paul Wesley:hey boy suggested nuclear escalation i'm very measured by comparison uh but i think as with all things like if someone's being annoying but they don't know they're being annoying then you can kind of give them a bit of a pass but once you tell them they're being annoying if they still do it then i'm afraid you have to kill them so maggie i'm not sure if any of this yeah

41:03Adrian Dunbar:Yeah, Maggie, I'm not sure if any of this has helped, but please do keep us abreast of the issue and send us updates.

41:08Paul Wesley:But can I ask a sort of a tangential question of this? Like, you guys presumably watch TV shows communally on occasion, you know, whether it be with friends, with partners, whoever it is. And I would suggest, like, when you're watching, if you choose to watch reality TV, it's absolutely fine for it to be a discursive experience. If you need to chat about what's going on, oh my God, I can't believe they did that, blah, blah, whatever you do. But if you are watching, I don't know, for example, Foundation, I don't think it's unreasonable to have an absolute rule of silence for the entire runtime so that no one speaks.

41:39Paul Wesley:Because I would not be happy with any form of communication when I'm trying to immerse myself in a show.

41:45Adrian Dunbar:Mate, I would absolutely be talking through that, just going, what the fuck's happening? Why am I watching this? This is ridiculous. It's prohibitively dense.

41:51Paul Wesley:Can I just say, and I think I speak on behalf of Kay on this one. The idea of either, of anyone apart from you, communally watching something like Foundation is utterly, utterly absurd. Yeah, I mean, that's fair. That is not going to happen. I'm sorry. I only watch Foundation in the comfort of my own home with the blinds drawn and, you know.

42:13Adrian Dunbar:What, you're not attending the Foundation Festival

42:16Paul Wesley:in Box Park, arranged by James? No, absolutely not. A point-to-closet Foundation watcher. He doesn't like to admit to it publicly. Absolutely not publicly, yeah. No, I mean, that is insane, that idea that you'd watch that kind of show with your friends. I mean, absolutely. For my part, it's just insane that you'd think that I'd watch it. Well, that's true. That's true. Okay, follow-up question. Are there any shows that you would 100%, no matter what the situation, save for when you were definitely alone? Okay, just for the record, I don't mean sexy shows. Well, you know what? Funnily enough, last night, you know what was on TV last night?

42:52Paul Wesley:I don't know if you're aware of channel. Okay. on Channel 4. There was a documentary last night on Channel 4 about that.

42:56Adrian Dunbar:Oh, Bonnie Blue.

42:57Paul Wesley:Woman, Bonnie Blue. There was a Bonnie Blue documentary. Oh, I wanted to watch that. And I wasn't watching it because I worked through it. I was transcribing an interview, right, beavering away. But it's just, I had my TV on and it was just on Channel 4. It had been on Channel 4 all night. And then this Bonnie Blue documentary, and oh my God, put it this way, they did not censor some of the most extraordinary images from, you know who this is, James? Not a clue. Your fingers.

43:22Adrian Dunbar:So she's the adult content creator who slept with over 1 ,000 men in 12 hours.

43:30Paul Wesley:Oh, I've heard of them. I didn't know that was a person, but yes, I've heard of him. Yeah, yeah. You're probably a big fan of hers, but anyway. Or one of the men, who knows? Please like and subscribe.

43:40Adrian Dunbar:Don't go too far. I'm joking.

43:44Paul Wesley:This documentary pops up on my massive TV screen. I didn't know where you were going with that sentence, Pordy, just so you know. I'm glad you finished it that way. Yeah. And all I can say is there's hardcore sexual imagery is happening on my TV while I'm trying to... Not hardcore, thankfully. Not hardcore, no. I mean, hardcore would be easy to do. When you said that, you sounded like the guy who used to do the BBFC ratings back in the 1990s, you know, and may contain sexual swear words. You're like hardcore sexual imagery. Yeah. But yeah, so it was just a flashpoint and it was quite distressing.

44:21Paul Wesley:and unexpected. And yes, it's not the kind of thing, that's the kind of thing you definitely don't want to watch with anyone else. It's excruciating. Yeah. Or imagine if someone, imagine if I saved that up to watch on my, you know, my iPad or something as I'm flying off to Barcelona. Yeah, no, no, no. And there's loads of stories though, because you know, these days, they don't, back in the day, they used to only show heavily censored films and TV shows on flights, right? And we didn't have to worry about anything. now i think pioneered by virgin atlantic i think in my mind anyway they show completely uncensored ironically quite rightly really ironically um tv shows and we complete with rampant nudity etc so often you're sitting there watching this thing and then some little kid wanders by you know don't worry sorry i'm watching and just like that or whatever um and it is quite a deep quite quite

45:13Adrian Dunbar:a scenario that happens quite a lot of scenario i am to answer james's original question the show that I think that I wanted to watch in silence I watched it communally but I wanted no one to talk over it because it was at Christmas time and you know my family likes to talk over everything is the Gavin and Stacey final episode and you're like guys guys shut the fuck up yeah I actually said I said to them like it was a bit passive aggressive but I was like yeah guys you know like actually maybe I'll just go and watch it upstairs

45:40Paul Wesley:oh well that is passive aggressive yeah

45:43Adrian Dunbar:but then we all we all took a a vow of silence and we all loved it

45:47Paul Wesley:yeah That's what Maggie should do. Maggie should be like, do you know what? I think I'm just going to go and watch this upstairs.

45:52Adrian Dunbar:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Within the house. They're together, but not together. The perfect scenario.

46:01Paul Wesley:Did we answer that question? This is a new, this is a new feature. The new Pilot TV Agony Aunt column where we deal with your relationship woes and offer guidance. I chose it.

46:08Adrian Dunbar:It was a bit different. I liked it.

46:10Paul Wesley:I mean, it'd be good if that has some kind of tenuous connection to TV. But you know, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, but it has to be somehow connected to TV or maybe resemble a scenario that was in a TV show. That'll do. That's all we need.

46:25Adrian Dunbar:That's a good connection.

46:27Paul Wesley:Were you on a break? You know, if so, congratulations, that qualifies. If you would like your question read out on this podcast or have any personal life questions you would like us to help you with, do send them into pilotTV at empiremagazine.com. I can see it now. Dear Pilot TV, I live in Guildford. It's pronounced Guildford.

46:46Adrian Dunbar:okay shall i do you want me to put you out of your misery

46:49Paul Wesley:i've seen i've seen some of the messages okay basically james is wrong i don't say the d i question this i question of course you do people who have grown up

47:00Adrian Dunbar:live in guildford they're actually saying they're actually saying james you're wrong

47:03Paul Wesley:but you're like no i still question it just accept it james knows best it's just yeah i would just like to say some kind of like testamental proof that the d is silent

47:14Adrian Dunbar:Testamental?

47:15Paul Wesley:Yeah, like written down, preferably witnessed by several notaries.

47:19Adrian Dunbar:Listen, you've got testimonials from people who live there and they are saying it's the silent D, you don't say it. So let that be the end of the matter.

47:27Paul Wesley:I reckon it won't be the end of the matter. I reckon there's going to be like a group of James Dyer's closest followers who are like, you know, try and launch a campaign to change the name of Guildford to Guildford. Oh, let's make it happen. A petition. Yeah, yeah. And then it will culminate in us doing a live show in Guildford. Yeah. Yes, we should do that.

47:51Paul Wesley:Anyway. Bringing the D to Guildford. Hang on, that sounds wrong. Anyway, let's move on from that. Let's move on to this week's news. I've been on a plane for the last 20-odd hours or whatever it is, so I don't know what's happened. So somebody tell me what has happened in the world of news.

48:05Adrian Dunbar:Quite a lot of news, actually. Boyd, over to you. You can start.

48:09Paul Wesley:Oh, okay. Well, the most exciting news for me is the return of the I Am series. Oh, exciting. Dominic Savages. Yeah, Dominic Savages and a series produced by Me and You Productions, Krish Majumdar, a friend of the pod, and Richard Yee. They have made brilliant 90-minute one-off TV dramas before Channel 4. Actually, some of them were only an hour or so, weren't they? Kate Winslet did one with her own daughter I think that was the most recent one wasn't it off the top of my head I think and they're always incredibly thought provoking and intense viewing experiences, fantastic viewing experiences anyway the first they've announced first new one this is a new series but the first star is Nicola Coughlin in I Am Helen Nicola Coughlin of what's it called Bridgerton and many other excellent things and she's going to be starring opposite Joe Cole of Gangs of London fame and as in all of the series it's created by Dominic Savage in close association the story developed with Nicola Cochran herself she says it's an absolute honour to be part of telling the next I Am story alongside Dominic Savage, a singular talent and a storyteller deeply committed to exploring the breadth of the female experience so yeah, it's all very exciting That is exciting, that's a really good show We talked about this quite a lot.

49:36Paul Wesley:That was a show that I never would have watched in a million years before I'm not doing this podcast. I was really, really pleased I did, because it's not normally my thing, but it's an incredible series. Speaking of incredible series, Kay, did you watch the trailer for Starfleet Academy, which, of course, is a very exciting Star Trek spin-off set at Starfleet Academy? That's a show they've been trying to make genuinely for decades. It does feel like it's been rattling around forever. I'm slightly disappointed that it takes place in the same kind of far-future timeline that Star Trek Discovery ended in, and yet…

50:05Paul Wesley:I did enjoy the trailer. We all are. I mean, you all are. Of course you are, really. But I really liked the trailer. I was quite taken with that. So, yeah. Yeah, Starfleet Academy is finally coming. Is that a live action show? It's a live action show. Think of it as like, think of it as, I don't know, the grassy high, but with phases.

50:23Adrian Dunbar:I'll tell you what I was taken with. The first look pics of Down Cemetery Road. So that is the new adaptation of Mick Heron's novel of the same name, which has been written by Moenna Banks and will star, excitingly, Ruth Wilson and Emma Thompson. And they've released the first look pictures, Ruth Wilson in a particularly good leopard print jacket, which I endorse because I love leopard print. And I'm excited for this. So the official synopsis reads, when a house explodes in a quiet Oxford suburb and a girl disappears in the aftermath, neighbour Sarah Tucker, played by Wilson, becomes obsessed with finding her and enlists the help of a private investigator, Zoe, played by Emma Thompson.

51:06Adrian Dunbar:So Mick Heron, exciting.

51:08Paul Wesley:Yeah, I was going to say, the team behind Snow Horsets, in case you didn't like me, and Mick Heron's books. And yeah, I was hoping that they would be on my Apple TV previous hub, frankly, so I could watch. Because I really...

51:22Adrian Dunbar:Just be grateful for the morning show, yeah? You're being a bit of an ingrate there.

51:26Paul Wesley:No, I'm totally grateful for the morning show. I just thought, because usually when they release a trailer like this for a big show on Apple, you think they subtly put it on our viewing platforms, but it's not there yet. And this is the most exciting, because of the Mick Herron connection, etc. This is one of the most exciting shows coming up on Apple 2 plus in a long time. And Moenna Banks has done brilliant work writing on a slide of horses as well. So the whole, and that cast, this is a dream project, so I can't wait to watch this.

51:55Adrian Dunbar:Similarly exciting, some Bergerac news, guys. as you know I'm into Bergerac, the reboot.

52:00Paul Wesley:Yeah.

52:02Adrian Dunbar:With Damien Maloney on...

52:04Paul Wesley:Is the reboot saying Guildford?

52:06Adrian Dunbar:It should be. No, it's in... Where is it? Is it in Cornwall? I can't remember, Devon.

52:10Paul Wesley:No, it's the Isle of... Somewhere, isn't it? Isn't it?

52:13Adrian Dunbar:I've actually watched it. Can you believe that? Isle of Man or something?

52:15Paul Wesley:Yeah, I mean...

52:16Adrian Dunbar:But anyway, back to this. It was the highest rated programme on UN Drama. Anyway, it's been renewed for a second season. We knew that. It was renewed in April, I believe. Anyway, they've listed... They've announced some new names that will be joining the cast, and they include Adrian Edmondson, aid, so we're big fans of him, and also Leslie Sharp. So they will also be joining Damien Maloney for season two.

52:41Paul Wesley:Set in Jersey, of course. Jersey, yes. Famously set in Jersey. It's all about Jersey. What an idiot, Cornwall. I mean, what absolute fucking idiot. What a doofus.

52:50Adrian Dunbar:Maybe they're going to take my fan membership away from me because I forgot.

52:57Paul Wesley:yeah um i'm going to mention a um a tv show that's been commemorated you've already mentioned actually k um it's going to be commemorating a big live event now obviously everyone listening first of all you should book tickets for the king's place friday 350th pilot tv podcast with very special guest host of t davis that's your main priority right now but once you've done that once you've booked your tickets for that event do have a think about whether you want to when Gavin met Stacey, an evening with Ruth Jones and James Corden at the London Palladium. Oh, wow. On the 6th of October, 2025.

53:36Adrian Dunbar:I would love to go to this event, but there's something stopping me and I can't think what it is.

53:41Paul Wesley:Well, I'm sure tickets will be available, Kate. Really? Who's hosting? I don't know. I can't confirm it may or may not be hosted by someone not a million months away from this podcast. Okay, that was what I was alluding to. At the London Palladium. That's exciting. yeah and you'll get a copy of the book when gavin met stacy as well which is uh all about the creation of that show and friendship between reese james and james cordon sign me up fyi yeah

54:05Adrian Dunbar:um did you see the pictures of um the bennett sisters pride and prejudice the new adaptation netflix adapted by dolly alderson that's exciting so we already knew i think that um Emma Corrin will play Elizabeth and Jack Loudon will play Mr. Darcy with Olivia Colman as Mrs. Bennet. But now they've released the pictures of the remaining Bennet sisters. So we know that Freya Mabel will play Jane. We've got Rhea Norwood as Lydia Bennet and Hopi Parrish and Holly Avery as Mary and Kitty Bennet too. So yeah, exciting times ahead.

54:45Paul Wesley:Another version of Pride and Prejudice.

54:47Adrian Dunbar:I know.

54:49Paul Wesley:Just leave it there.

54:51Adrian Dunbar:Dolly Oldson is great, so I am excited to see it. However, as you know, my heart will always belong to the 1995 adaptation.

54:58Paul Wesley:Which you re-watch on a regular, as we know.

55:02Adrian Dunbar:The thing that's going to be interesting, I would say a really good signing is, because you know one of my favourite characters is Mr. Collins in the adaptation that I love, played by David Bamber. Well, this time round, do you know who he's going to be played by? someone very I think will be very good at this role no

55:20Paul Wesley:let me think Richard E. Grant or someone

55:23Adrian Dunbar:you recently actually spoke about this person in a recent podcast talking about his Netflix special

55:31Paul Wesley:Brett Goldstein no

55:32Adrian Dunbar:although he would be good

55:35Paul Wesley:Who is it? Tell us. Jamie Dimitri. Oh, yeah. Brilliant. Yeah. Jamie Dimitri. I did know that because he Instagrammed about it. He'll be fantastic.

55:43Adrian Dunbar:Yeah, he'll be great.

55:44Paul Wesley:Who's playing the one who comes at the Colin Firth coming out of the lake? Mr. Darcy.

55:49Adrian Dunbar:Jack Loudon.

55:50Paul Wesley:Mr. Jack Loudon. He'll be good. Yeah, he'll be excellent. Yeah, definitely. Well, I wanted to ask you, Boyd, did you watch the trailer for Pluribus? Yes, exactly. That's exactly what I was going on to. Vince Gilligan's new show. Go on, take it away. This is Vince Gilligan of Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul fame, reuniting with, now I believe you pronounce it Ray Seahawks, is that right? That's correct. We established over many, many years of discussing her lack of money nominations. Yeah, comes from Guildford, true story. Comes from Guildford, comes from Guildford. Yeah, they released a taster trailer for their project together, which is Vince Gilligan's first project since Better Call Saul.

56:28Paul Wesley:So it's a huge, huge thing. It's for Apple TV+. It's called Pluribus. and it is which would excite I can't I was thinking of James how much more excited can it be that the creators of these two legendary shows of which you are a fan like me and this has gone sci-fi for this series genre bending sci-fi a genre bending high concept sci-fi in which Seahorn plays Carol the most miserable person on earth who must save the world from happiness you can tell that Vince Gilligan is not English otherwise Carol would be Karen yes that's true that is true um apple tv will send out additional casting for the series with um carolina ouidra of from sneaky pete and carlos manual vetka um guest starring miriam shaw from american fiction etc etc but it was a 30 it was a cryptic 30 second teaser for the series um just featuring um a woman wearing like pink scrubs licking donuts and putting the back in a box um labeled help yourself with a smiley face it's all very mysterious but just the whole idea of vince gilligan doing sci-fi with ray seahorn is top level top level project excitement it is very very exciting that he's turned his hand to sci-fi it's like i feel like i must have wished on some kind of candle at some point and this is now it coming true uh but this is this is very good news um yeah definitely the big news of the week the only other news i can share with you is that The Walking Dead Daryl Dixon has been renewed for a fourth and final season.

58:04Paul Wesley:For those three of you listening for whom that is important information, there you go. And also one of Kay's favourites. Are you still watching The Gilded Age, Kay?

58:13Adrian Dunbar:I haven't caught up in the most recent series.

58:17Paul Wesley:Lazy. Well, you should catch up because it's been renewed for another season, season four.

58:28Adrian Dunbar:I do love it. And this is interesting

58:29Paul Wesley:because it slightly flies under the radar, I think, Gilded Age, because it's not Bridgerton, it's not quite even, you know, Downton Abbey, even though it's written by the same guy, obviously. But it does really well for HBO. It's a big hit for HBO. Yeah, also Carrie Coon, it's got a great cast.

58:46Adrian Dunbar:Cynthia Nixon.

58:46Paul Wesley:Yeah, brilliant cast. Yeah, Carrie Coon can do no wrong. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, so it's back for a fourth season. Yeah.

58:53Adrian Dunbar:Sorry, I'm temporarily distracted by the fact that I didn't know that, I forgot that Bergerac was set in Jersey.

58:59Paul Wesley:It's really thrown you, hasn't it?

59:00Adrian Dunbar:Yeah, I'm still reeling from that.

59:02Paul Wesley:I mean, fair enough, because it's basically the only scene that makes it unique. It's so embarrassing. Yeah, yeah. It doesn't resemble the original in any way, apart from that it's got someone called Burjrak in it.

59:13Adrian Dunbar:Can I just say that we are recording this very early in the morning and I can only put it down to the fact my brain hasn't fully kick-started. So apologies to the Burjrak fans out there.

59:23Paul Wesley:my final um news contribution is that the bbc trailer for a very exciting new thing called keen and conqueror have you heard about this james keen and conqueror oh king and conqueror king yeah you've spent too much you've been in thailand too long i have conquered the quinoa it's absolutely true is this with james norton this is james norton and nicolai costavaldi are they battling for the throne and it's an eight part historical epic and yeah the trailer looks very exciting it looks very intense and Emily Beecham's in it, Clemence Posey is in it Juliet Stephens with Eddie Marsan star studded and it's going to be extremely intense and exciting there you go extremely intense and exciting says Boydie yes on board for that And that is news.

1:00:22Paul Wesley:We're done with news. And it's time to move on to this week's second guest. And our second guest this week is Paul Wesley. You may know him as Stefan Salvatore from the Vampire Diaries, but he's here in a sort of official Starfleet capacity as he returned to Star Trek Strange New Worlds last week in the episode A Space Adventure Hour, which sees him play a holodeck simulation, actually. But he's playing an actor who also plays a character who's not a million miles away from old school Shatner Kirk. it is absolutely wild it is really fun to watch i really love that episode and he's really fun in it uh and i think he had a lot a lot of fun making it which he's about to tell you about because i chatted him over zoom uh when he was in a hotel room in new york a few weeks ago and this is what happened engage well paul thank you very much for joining us on the podcast it is uh it is very nice to have you uh you're in new york at the moment i am in new york city i am in new

1:01:13Adrian Dunbar:New York City. Very nice. Yeah, yeah. No, it's awesome. I grew up here. I mean, kind of. I grew up in Jersey, but I like to say New York because it sounds a lot cooler. No, I moved to Manhattan when I was like 14. So, you know, I spent a lot of my childhood here.

1:01:27Paul Wesley:Nice, nice. Well, it's nice to have you here. And it's also nice to have Strange New Worlds back on the air. It's a show that I very much enjoy. I'm a big Star Trek fan myself. I like all the Star Trek shows, but I do particularly love this one, it has to be said. And obviously, you're playing James T. Kirk, kind of an iconic character, right?

1:01:41Adrian Dunbar:like one indelibly played by Bill Shatner I would say so yeah and I remember like reading an

1:01:46Paul Wesley:interview with you when you first played Kirk and you said you know the only real way you can play a character like Kirk is to do a completely different spin right on this character you know which makes absolute sense because otherwise it becomes parody so I'm just curious what you thought of when you got the script for episode four of this third season so I should say this podcast will be going out after that episode has aired so it's fine to talk about no you you watch that episode watched that episode and i enjoyed it enormously yeah so it's funny because um you

1:02:16Adrian Dunbar:know so obviously i'm not i i play a character named uh maxwell saint if i think i think that's correct yeah and and what he's his own you know it's not by any means uh the james t kirk from the original series that we saw in the 1960s but there is a bit of an homage to that and so my my idea with that character and really honestly they they what I love about strange new worlds is that they really do kind of of course they give you guidance but at the end of the day it's like they let every actor kind of explore whatever they want creatively and so initially I was going to do this character that is his own thing Maxwell Saint he's like this you know you know it's like he's this sort of typical kind of narcissistic actor from from you know back old school Hollywood who like like thinks it's all about himself and, you know, whatever.

1:03:10Adrian Dunbar:And then I thought, oh, what, it might be kind of fun to just also throw, create a whole new character, which is this Maxwell Saint guy. But then also, wait a minute, he's on this 19, you know, he's on this show in the 70s. It's like this, you know, space adventure show. I was like, I have to throw in like a little bit of an homage to some of the kind of caricature that exists in modern time of the sort of James T. Kirk, William Shatner, which has been deeply exaggerated over the years. But I think I wanted to have a little bit of fun with it within, in a respectful way. And so I wanted to wink to the audience and give them a little wink and a little bit of a, I know you guys are picking up on this and let's have a little bit of fun.

1:03:57Adrian Dunbar:And I hope people enjoy it as like a lighthearted sort of thing and don't think I'm trying to mock it in any way. But I also, in a weird way, you know, I know there's a lot of fans out there that are TOS fans who look at the Kirk that I'm doing, the young Kirk that I'm doing, and they go, wait a minute, he doesn't have the cadence and he doesn't do this and he doesn't move in this way and he doesn't have this kind of thing. And it's like, yeah, I don't because I'm not William Shatner. But here's what I could have given you. You know, we could have done this for, you know, the last, you know, 10 episodes.

1:04:35Adrian Dunbar:And is this really what you want? You know, and so in a way, I also wanted to give them that little gift to show them what it could have been and why it probably would have been a bad idea. Oh, 100%.

1:04:47Paul Wesley:But it's great. And I think it's important that Star Trek be able to make fun of itself. I think. And also, I think it always has all the way through. It's always known exactly what it is. And I think this episode really sums that up brilliantly. I love that intro sequence where you're on the USS adventure and you're shooting that because it's so old school. You know, even down to the kind of throwing yourselves around as they shake the camera. Do you know what I mean? Oh, my God.

1:05:09Adrian Dunbar:And I wanted and I don't know if you noticed, but like I wanted to exaggerate. I mean, if you look at what I love about TOS so much is it's such a theatrical show because, you know, they didn't have VFX and they didn't have all the CGI and all this nonsense, you know, so they were doing everything practically. And so everything was exaggerated. You know, when Bill Shatner, when something hit the spaceship, he was just like throwing himself in this sort of acrobatic, almost ballerina like way. And it was so amazing. And I was like, I have to do that. You know, I have to I have to sort of do the Shatner moves.

1:05:42Adrian Dunbar:And everything is sort of exaggerated in this incredible 1960s way. And I had so much fun. And I got to tell you, I even told the writers, I was like, guys, like, can we just do a show like about this? Can we create a separate spinoff of this with these characters in this setting? Because it is it was the most fun I had ever had shooting anything in a 20 plus year career. and Jonathan Frakes and I got along so well. We were just laughing our asses off the whole time. And it's like, that's what I want to do. Very rarely is acting that fun. Half the time you're stressing, oh, you need to be in a dramatic scene.

1:06:29Adrian Dunbar:You need to sort of be present, be in the moment. And by the way, it's not that you don't hear, but you get to loosen up, improvise and be spontaneous and just do whatever comes to you and make people laugh and make yourself laugh. And that's like, that's my favorite thing.

1:06:43Paul Wesley:And Jonathan Frakes has got to be having time of his life as well. Cause it like Star Trek is in his DNA, you know, all of this stuff you've got holodecks on there. There's nods to the next generation. This is all, these are the building blocks that he essentially placed. Right. Absolutely. And there was even, I don't,

1:06:56Adrian Dunbar:I don't know if they kept it in the final cut, but did you see the blooper reel? Yes. At the very end of the episode. It's genius. So did you see me, did you see me jump over the, try to put my leg over the chair?

1:07:06Paul Wesley:Leg over gag. Yeah.

1:07:07Adrian Dunbar:You know, so that's something that that that Frakes did for many years. And that was like his character was Riker. Riker. Right.

1:07:16Paul Wesley:Yeah.

1:07:16Adrian Dunbar:Yeah. So Riker was thrown his leg over a chair became like this. You can even Google it. You can Google like Riker chair. And there's like a YouTube compilation of him putting his leg over the back of a chair. And I and Anson Mounts, who's, you know, so collaborative and so awesome, was like, dude, you got to do the Riker. And I was like, what? And he's like, dude, you got to put you got to kick, try to put your leg over the chair. I was like, OK, the chair was so high. And I was like, let me give it a shot. And of course, my leg couldn't go over and I just smashed the chair and it all went flying.

1:07:46Adrian Dunbar:And then I improv that like the chair wasn't meant to fall apart. It just fell apart. And then I was just like, OK, what would Maxwell do? Maxwell would start screaming that it was their fault and say, you can't work like this. So it was all improv. Everything was improv.

1:08:02Paul Wesley:And it was so fun. that's genuinely genius no i love i loved all of that so i mean do you know what this whole episode just from the line delivery there were so many references to it uh and but i think what really interests me about this so so obviously we have the holodeck here holodeck very famous for next generation stuff what the holodeck used to do kind of more than anything else is enable them to break the formula because obviously i mean you've been in long-running shows right you're doing the same stuff episode in episode out it can get a little bit restrictive for you as an actor but this allowed them to go to like victorian england or be in you know uh like a arthur conan doyle novel like all these different things and you do do that here but what i really like about strange new world is it's actually a show that almost doesn't need that because it is a show that has never been afraid to kind of mix it up and do crazy things whenever it wants to it has been a horror show it has been a musical it has been a comedy of manners it's been an animated series like it's

1:08:54Adrian Dunbar:done absolutely everything you know i gotta tell you two things i'll just add to that you know i i've been doing this for so long and when you when you're doing a show um i'm not a series regular on this show but i do a fair amount of episodes and frankly speaking it's inevitable that when you're acting on a television series it becomes somewhat monotonous after some time even if you're having the best time of your life you know even david harbour said that on stranger things which is a huge hit he said but you know it becomes you're playing the same beat i know i don't feel that way on the show and i can tell you that none of the series regulars do because every single episode is its own adventure and it's not that every episode there's a new storyline that's not so novel it's that you're sometimes playing completely different characters i mean i don't want to give away anything but like season four um the episode that i'm about to shoot starting tomorrow, literally, is so out there.

1:09:51Adrian Dunbar:And I'm playing a totally different character. And it's just like, I have to create a whole new world that I didn't have to think of a week ago. And that is so exciting. You're not doing the same thing over and over. And that's the beauty of Star Trek. And that was the beauty of Star Trek in the 60s, is they would visit new planets, new you know strange new worlds and they would visit things and and and every episode was a different adventure and it's just it's incredible and and it's it's it's such a brilliant combination of creativity imagination and science um you know and that's what's so brilliant about star trek

1:10:33Paul Wesley:but i think no star trek before has managed what strange new worlds has done which is this almost tonal elasticity the fact that so take subspace rhapsody like that you come straight off an episode which is about trauma and war crimes and ptsd and then you go straight into one where you're singing and dancing on the bridge right like it's a tonal whiplash but within this show it's primed us for this like we don't even blink we just go straight into it and you just

1:10:57Adrian Dunbar:accept it and it's genius yeah and and it makes it makes each episode not predictable right you're like what's gonna happen this week you know um and um but but i but it's still it falls within the sort of tonal realm of the Star Trek that you love. You know, I mean, Akiva and Henry are just geniuses.

1:11:18Paul Wesley:Yeah, it's been extremely well constructed, this show. I think also it's a breath of fresh air for the franchise as a whole, which is fantastic. But I'm just curious, like when you did your season one finale debut, when you turned up as kind of like almost like an alternate future Kirk, like you presumably didn't realize that the next season you would be singing and dancing on the bridge in that particular episode. So I just wondered, what did you think when they were like, Okay, so Paul, we're going to do a musical episode. You're going to be doing Gilbert and Sullivan. How do you feel about that?

1:11:45Adrian Dunbar:Well, it's funny because I got a call and he was like, hey, do you sing? And I was like, well, I mean, I sang in Phantom of the Opera when I was in fourth grade in a public, in a school play. He's like, okay, okay. And I'm like, why? And he's like, guess. And I was just like, what the hell? And the first thing I said, and I was being dead serious, I was like, Spock and Kirk start a boy band. And he's like, he's like almost. And he's like musical episode. No, it was I mean, I couldn't believe it was like I was so excited because frankly, like I hadn't sang in ages. And and I was like, great. A new challenge.

1:12:26Adrian Dunbar:And it was terrifying. And but then oddly freeing, you know, and then all of a sudden they're like, you need to take dance classes. And I'm doing these dance and doing the dance classes with Rebecca Romijn. and it was like i don't know it fell at first i was so like a fish out of water and then i just was like oh my god i totally get this you know and i'm not a big musical theater guy um and then i was like oh by the time it was over i was kind of like okay i understand why people do musical

1:12:55Paul Wesley:theater this is really great you know i mean it looked so much fun also absolute bangers on the

1:13:01Adrian Dunbar:soundtrack which is massively streamed yeah by the way like bangers like i i was like i remember we were filming it or recording it and I heard everyone's song I was like guys like this is really good music like you know when I saw Hamilton back in New York like back in the day I actually ended up seeing a few times but same thing like you see it once and you see it twice and you're like listening to the soundtrack I was listening to the Hamilton soundtrack for months and months and seeing with this one I was like these are dope songs and also like chris chrissy and celia are like real singers you know and beautiful voices and great range and i can't say the same for myself but um you know i hung in there hung in there um but it was like um it was like really good stuff and i even hear there's like i i don't know they like want to do something with that whole i i don't know maybe they'll take it take it take the show on the road and do something with it with like some musical theater people.

1:13:59Paul Wesley:That's right. Yeah, yeah. The Klingon K-pop sequence was, I think, absolutely inspired.

1:14:05Adrian Dunbar:Oh, my God.

1:14:06Paul Wesley:The Klingon K-pop secrets was hands down the best thing about that episode. Genuinely incredible. I mean, so you've got conventions now, right? You've been to Star Trek conventions. Like, presumably they don't ask you to sing when you get there.

1:14:20Adrian Dunbar:No, no. I've actually only been to two. I do a ton of conventions for Vampire Diaries, which is shockingly still wildly popular worldwide. But Star Trek, I've only done two, I believe two. And the first one I ever did was actually I did them both in Vegas and I did them with Shatner. Bill and I did some duo photo ops, which was amazing. um and uh you know i so yeah i've only and i'm doing it again in august with uh and i believe bill's gonna be he's there every year it's a bit it's like the big convention in las vegas and there's like you know 30 000 people you know it's a whole thing so i'm gonna do that one again

1:15:03Paul Wesley:no but i've been to those conventions like you know i've it's the passion from that fan base is extraordinary but how different is that from because as you say you go to vampire diaries conventions like they're very different fandoms like do you feel a distinction between those two

1:15:18Adrian Dunbar:worlds oh yeah i mean the biggest distinction is the age disparity i mean let's be honest like and also like you know i when i go to a vampire diaries convention it's like 96 percent women yeah and you know the majority of them are like in between the ages of like 20 and 35 um when i go to a Star Trek convention, it's like, you know, 60 to 70 percent men and they're usually over the age of 50, you know. So, you know, and it's a different kind of thing. You know, there's less screaming and oh, my God, it's like it's less that and more. Let's discuss this. And let me tell you what I think of this episode.

1:16:00Adrian Dunbar:And here's why I like what you're doing about Kirk. And here's what I think you can do to you know it's like a very much like a a different kind of energy you know it's

1:16:10Paul Wesley:totally different energy i can imagine that it's you know it's funny like i've got a friend who's a she's a she writes for sort of ya audiences like like novels and stuff and she she loves the fact that her audience is why because she says that when you talk to kind of teenagers there is an absolute purity and an intensity to how much they love what you do and it makes her feel so valued and she really really feels that she's actually impacting these people i wonder if that

1:16:34Adrian Dunbar:came across to you no yeah i i have the amount of times that i've been at a vampire derives convention and i have had someone say to me i grew up watching you and you saved my life i was depressed i was suicidal i escaped to this world as a teen and i this world gave me hope um or i've had mothers and daughters come up to me and say, we didn't really spend time together. And then we both fell in love with the show. And that was our Monday night ritual or whatever night, I forget what night we aired. And it's interesting, like, so, but it's less men, but it's like, it becomes a part of, especially since the show was on for eight years, it's a fantasy show that is very, gosh, what's the right word I'm looking for?

1:17:21Adrian Dunbar:It's very, I can't think of the word, but, you know, when you're putting yourself in that world and putting yourself in that position.

1:17:30Paul Wesley:It's transportational. Yeah. A hundred percent.

1:17:31Adrian Dunbar:And you live and breathe that world for years. That's a big deal. I think a lot of people likely experienced that in the 1960s, there was less television on the air and, you know, William Shatner was so brilliant. And I think probably a lot of young boys watch TOS and looked at, at Captain Kirk as almost like a father figure in a way, you know, and they were like wow i mean or someone that they aspired to be like one day you know because bill shatner was amazing he was really incredible he had this like you know boyish charm but then he had this real ability to command you know and that's this balance that i try to find as a young kirk is like try to find that ability to command but without losing that sense of boyish wonder and charm and that is like kind of the brilliant dichotomy that bill brought to kirk and why kirk became one of the most um influential and infamous fictional characters

1:18:33Paul Wesley:in television history yeah without without a doubt but what you say there is is incredibly important like you know people actually less so i think these days but a lot of time people look at genre fiction whether it be written whether it be tv or film with a certain amount of sort of there's a sneeriness to it sometimes but actually i think that kind of transportational escapism is so valuable and escapism that was the word i'm looking for thank you but it is it's it's a huge thing for me it wasn't so much kirk's uh and it wasn't as much shatner as kirk it was uh you know it's patrick stewart's picard like next generation was my oh yeah all those all the yeah but it is it takes you to another place like enables you to and you know if people are going through difficult times these things are actually really valuable to them so you know it's it's a kind of like a fiction-based therapy.

1:19:13Adrian Dunbar:No, truly, truly. Absolutely. I mean, I had that as a kid with music and with, and honestly, I was, I was teased in high school. And then all of a sudden I discovered acting in New York city. And I was like, Oh my God, there's a whole new world. And I started watching great theater and really great performances on film. And I was like, Whoa. And it really took me out of this kind of thing of thinking that high school and my peers and all this nonsense sense was the whole world all of a sudden you were like oh there's other stuff out there and there's other characters and there's imagination and all these things and you're like okay it's a big world you know what i mean and it kind of allows you to step outside of your own problems and see something else and that can be very healing no it's it's it's fantastic stuff

1:19:58Paul Wesley:and i mean look for eight years you did you did that show you know that is a very long time and on the one hand, great. It was a great show. It got huge ratings and you, you know, were catapulted into the, you know, the spotlight for it. But eight years is a very long time to do one thing. Yeah. So like when you obviously, you must have been to a point where by the time you finished up, you were kind of pleased to move on and do different things. But it must also be kind of difficult because you come almost accustomed to working with these people day in, day out, you know, knowing these characters, living these things.

1:20:26Paul Wesley:Were you very conflicted by the end of

1:20:28Adrian Dunbar:it or were you just like oh my god do other things now um i look i'll be both on the show i was ready to leave the show after five or six years um and we stayed on um for you know variety of reasons i love working with everyone it was a great stable job the money was really great the character was awesome um it was a great opportunity how often are you going to come across a hit show don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. There's a million, you know, kind of things. But of course, creatively, I was like, I want to do other stuff. But you know, once the show ended, the difference between the show that I did and like a show like TOS is TOS, not TOS, sorry, S &W, you're doing 10 episodes a year.

1:21:13Adrian Dunbar:I was doing 22 episodes a year. Okay, I was there for nine and a half months out of the year. And when it was hiatus, I barely had time to do anything else. So I did a little bit. I did a couple movies and some plays, which are really cool. But I didn't have time to break out of the sort of Stefan Salvatore stereotype. And so when I left the show, I knew that I was going in with running a marathon with a with a 80 pound weight. You know, it's like you have to prove yourself and prove that you can do other things. And you're not just like some CW, you know, actor with, you know, no range. And people have a kind of stereotype.

1:21:54Adrian Dunbar:They kind of look at you and they're like, well, that's what he did. So clearly that's all he can do, you know, and I'm still having to fight that. So that was something that made me nervous. And then the second thing was just life. You know, I was living in Atlanta. um the show ended and i i i kind of make this joke where you know the guy that's uh the guy the old man from shawshank redemption he spent his entire life myself in jail and they let him out and brooks and he's like whoa what is this there's traffic there's cars and then he hangs himself obviously i didn't hang but it was a little bit of that i was like i got to la and i was like yearning to get back to la because that's where i had been living and i get back to LA and I was like, what the hell is this?

1:22:38Adrian Dunbar:I was like, I don't want to be here. This isn't the LA that I love. None of it was what I had imagined. I ended up leaving LA after like a few months and I went off to Europe just to like find myself. Like literally, I'm not kidding. And then I moved to New York city and, and then it just took months and months of months of adjusting and realizing that I didn't have to be somewhere. Um, and then I got a couple other cool gigs and then honestly, strange new worlds came to me um after a few years and i was like yes this is what i want this is exactly what i want different audience amazing character uh completely different just genre and i was like i've been waiting for this moment to play this character yeah which it just

1:23:21Paul Wesley:takes that doesn't it something to come in fact you're doing you're doing unspoken aren't you uh

1:23:25Adrian Dunbar:coming up um i am it's a project it's a passion project that we were supposed to shoot actually in December and due to Russia and obviously Ukraine conflict and some political things we had to push. So that has now been pushed. So we don't know the exact start date, but it has been that's a labor of love. But it's also something that people it's the script is so remarkable, but it's also something people are somewhat afraid to touch because it's so topical and so current. You know, it's the Ukrainian war is such a huge part of, you know, everyday sort of news feed. And people are terrified to sort of make a show out of it.

1:24:05Adrian Dunbar:But there's so we actually had someone that we had a buyer pull out. And now we're trying to find a new buyer. And it's a bit of a thing.

1:24:14Paul Wesley:I mean, obviously someone who has a Polish family, you know, and there's a Polish writer involved in the project. Like it must feel quite close to home. Oh, very much so. And I get this.

1:24:21Adrian Dunbar:My character speaks Polish. and that's my first language and I've been wanting to do something in Polish for, gosh, 20 years now. So I really hope this thing happens.

1:24:31Paul Wesley:Last thing I was just going to ask you is, we know, now know, unfortunately, The Strange New Worlds will not be running for eight seasons. It will be running for five. So you're shooting four at the moment. You've got one more to come. Are we going to be seeing more of Kirk going forward? Obviously, you're still doing it now. You're working on four. You're doing exciting new episodes. But how much more are we going to see of you before the show ends?

1:24:51Adrian Dunbar:Fair amount. Good. i'll leave it at that okay fair amount fantastic whether you like it or not no no it'll be fun yeah fair amount i haven't seen any of the um the new um you know season five stuff nobody has but um yeah i think we're we're gonna get get some kirk in there did you just just

1:25:10Paul Wesley:out curiosity like do you watch your episodes of tv and crucially did you end up having a cast and crew screening of subspace rhapsody because it feels like it's it's it needs one of those right We did not.

1:25:22Adrian Dunbar:They may have. I didn't go to the cast and crew screening. They may have. But I do and I don't. I do when I feel that the character is still evolving and I can improve things, which feels the case with Kirk because he's Lieutenant Kirk. He's not actually a captain yet. I feel that there is still room for me to grow into the captain sort of commanding captain presence. and I'm slowly getting there as the show progresses. And so I watch to see the levels, how unequipped is he for sitting in the chair? And is that evolution tracking properly for me? So I do watch it, but I hate watching myself truly.

1:26:08Adrian Dunbar:I don't think I'd know any actor that likes watching themselves. And if they do, then they're weird. so I try not to unless I I feel that it can be constructive you know um but yeah I mean Akiva who has won you know an Oscar told me that Subspace Rhapsody was the his favorite thing

1:26:29Paul Wesley:that he's ever done in his entire career wow and he's done yeah yeah exactly amazing well give it some space give it a few years maybe you'll come back and you can all watch it then uh because they still do replays of the Buffy musical episodes you never know in 10 20 years time

1:26:42Adrian Dunbar:Oh, yeah, that's a classic.

1:26:44Paul Wesley:That's a classic. Could end out the, you know, the comic con. Exactly. Well, Paul, thank you very much for your time. It's been great talking to you. Thank you so much. Cheers, man. Okay, that was Paul Wesley. And time now for this week's reviews. And first up this week, we have Outlander, Blood of My Blood. Now, this is a spinoff from Ron D. Moore's Outlander, obviously, which is itself based on the bodice-ripping novels by Diana Cabaldon. And this series takes place in 18th century Scotland, and it follows the parents of the parents series to Leeds. Clear? Excellent. So who should we talk to about this Scottish saga?

1:27:22Paul Wesley:There can be only one, and it is Kay Ribeiro. Kay, who desperately shook her head and pointed a boy to you when I said that. Kay, to use the parlance of this show, what did you ken about this? Oh, God, James.

1:27:40Adrian Dunbar:oh no now that's all the scottish listeners we've lost i mean we offended all the scott's i will say

1:27:44Paul Wesley:all the way through they do that a lot i said who's ken i'm very confused yeah do you know what

1:27:48Adrian Dunbar:i haven't said it took me a while i was like wait a minute they keep on saying this word referring to this guy ken but he never actually turns up it's ken barlow coming on what's happening um okay yeah no the reason why i was like uh shaking my head is because to be fair i haven't watch any of Outlander. I know it's hugely popular. I've got friends. In fact, one of our colleagues, Lisa Howes.

1:28:09Paul Wesley:I've got friends. No, just clip that bit. Sorry, just a humble brag there.

1:28:15Adrian Dunbar:No, our friend and colleague, Lisa Howes, I believe, is a massive fan of this show and Izzy Broome. So I know people who really are invested and love it and I just haven't ever watched it. So then to jump in at this point, this prequel series which as you say is focusing on the parents of the lead characters in um outlander and it's dealing with two different timelines it is a little bit confusing in terms of um what's what but overall so all i have to say is overall i did enjoy it even though like i have no connection to the show and investment in these characters just as a standalone i enjoyed um watching so for example in the early 18th century Scottish Highlands it focuses on Jamie's parents and they are from two different tribes and when they first meet there's a lot of danger involved because they can't be seen together let alone embark on a romance so you know there's a lot of things to root for and it is compelling in that way but the whole timeline shift was a little bit confusing to me because then we watch all this we're set in Scotland and it's very immersive and as I say there's warring tribes and a lot of people are very angry shouting at each other.

1:29:31Paul Wesley:A lot of people call Ken. Yeah, a lot of Kens. Ken is fucking furious throughout this entire show. Yeah.

1:29:37Adrian Dunbar:And then we're transported to World War I England where Claire's parents are and they have a small accident and then there's a connection to Outlander in terms of there's this stone which I didn't realise as well so I was like why are they just staring at this slab of stone which then when I did some extensive Googling, I understood. So what I would say is for fans of the show, they will enjoy this because it's more of the same. And it goes as some explanation as to how these two lead characters came about, literally, their parents getting together. And I think it's a good entry point potentially for new fans.

1:30:16Adrian Dunbar:But for me, it was just a little bit confusing.

1:30:18Paul Wesley:See, I have questions. I have questions. So I've watched, I reckon, three quarters of the first season of Outlander. because it's Ron D. Moore who did my beloved Bathurst, so of course I was going to watch it. And it is like a period piece. I mean, this is 18th century. I guess the other ones are the 18th or early 19th century. And it is set in Scotland. But there's this time travel component, because it's based on the books, and in Katrina Balfe's character, Claire walks through some magic stones and gets transported back in time to this 18th century Highlands situation. Now, that's fine, and that's obviously the conceit of that show.

1:30:54Paul Wesley:I stopped watching Outlander because it is just wall-to-wall sexual assault. That seems to be the grammar of that show, that first season. It got to the point where I was just like, I just can't take any more of this. And that's basically what turned me off the show. But the crux of it is this time travel element. And yet it seems to be that that time travel element persists in this prequel series. And for me, surely that throws it all into absolute nonsense. I mean, look, like I say, maybe this is all absolutely canon at this point anyway. But I'm like, so your parents were time travelling as well?

1:31:27Paul Wesley:It's very confusing. So all of that was completely bamboozling to me.

1:31:32Adrian Dunbar:Wait, the parents aren't time travelling, are they? We're just looking at them in their time period they live in. No, I don't think they're time travelling. Oh, but then at the, oh, yes, yeah.

1:31:43Paul Wesley:No, no, no. Jeremy Irving pops up. He is the time traveller. he's the one who's out of time right? He pops up as Henry Beecham or as James would pronounce it Beauchamp and he's like their Duke of Guildford he's the Duke of Guildford and he's the family hanger on, PR man almost, right? The hype man and then he pops up at the end with his love and that's when that whole it all kicks off i'm trying to yeah it's like that but he's the one who pops up early yes yes that is true so you kind of have to work there's a whole thing going on now the thing interesting thing about this is the time traveling aspect of this and i i felt like i was channeling k a bit here i didn't love it because it kind of that that really kind of derailed me because up until that point i'd been really enjoying this just as a part of period melodrama because when i love science fiction when i love fantasy i love great world building.

1:32:45Paul Wesley:I love these environments, these worlds that suck you in, that they feel transportation because they feel real, they feel lived in, they feel believable, they've got real texture to them. And the characters inhabit that world and are really interesting. And I just get sucked in, and I want to live in this place. And I got that from this show. And I was loving the idea that, you know, this guy had died, this Lord had died, and then there was a battle for who's going to, you know, essentially the arguments on the brothers, who's going to take on the mantle of Lord or Laird, as they say. And then the daughter who had been protected by her father, but now isn't protected and maybe married off to someone else.

1:33:16Paul Wesley:Lots of drama, love interest. There's some sappy romance in there, which I really liked as well. Loving all that. And then it goes a bit mad. I was just like, okay. And that kind of threw. I definitely want to watch more of this. And it's also annoyingly made me want to go and watch Outlander as well, because I quite like all that Highlandery type stuff. The thing that neither of you are mentioning, which is the key to not only this show, but Outlander as well, apart from the, as you say, the frequent sexual assault is the extraordinary sex romps that happen all of a sudden with no warning whatsoever.

1:33:51Paul Wesley:I watched this on the plane next to people I did not know. And there was a point where I kind of coyly kind of put my hand up to kind of guide the screen away from the person next to me where there's rampant shagging on a picnic blanket. Yeah, there's one edit that I thought was hilarious whereby suddenly the camera pans Because Jeremy Eyupin's butt cheeks is thrusting away. I'm like, hold on. You need an establishing shot. You can't just throw this in. It was so funny. It was like, it really made me laugh. The classic buttock dissolve editing technique. Yeah. It was a buttock dissolve. It was a butt dissolve.

1:34:28Paul Wesley:And the sex scenes are hilarious, I think. I think they're, it reminds me of like, you know, the Red Sheep Diaries back in like the 80s or whatever when that was rocked. It's like a weird softcore kind of weird music going on. It's just a lot. I had questions, though. I had logistical questions about what was going on there. Because when they, shall we say, find completion, he rolls over. And his pants are clearly on. And yet his hands have never gone down to pull them up. So unless he genuinely is a clever dick, I don't see how his pants got up again. Oh, my God. Wow. Yeah, I mean, it is a logistical.

1:35:06Paul Wesley:challenge.

1:35:06Adrian Dunbar:I mean, I think there's a, okay, be an explanation. I'm not going to get into it, but yeah, that was the least confusing part of this whole thing for me. Yeah.

1:35:15Paul Wesley:Why, if I'm funny, is this whole Outlander is like an absolute phenomenon, right? I mean, it's incredible how popular it's been. And, you know, like 91 episodes, there have been 91 fucking episodes so far and there's another season starting next year. There's another season on next year, by the way, And 10 more episodes ready to arrive by the by. Like whilst this is, and I'm sure this would do brilliantly well on MGM plus, but what's funny about it is there's loads of articles about why is Outland so successful? It's all about, you know, female oriented, you know, definitely ended women, you know, historical element, the time travel element, the swoon, some romance, and the relentless sex.

1:35:56Paul Wesley:I'm like, don't miss out the relentless sex scenes because they are key to the whole thing. I think, but it is, I enjoyed it. um it is feature length it was a good well 80 minute i mean it's like longer was it 80 it was definitely over an hour i don't think it was quite feature it was 80 minutes it was 80 minutes i was having a wild time if i'd had the next episode i'd have gone straight into it and i couldn't it's literally a romp it is an absolute romp and all the scottish characters being um kind of showing each other about ken it's very entertaining ken was the standout for me actually he's the mvp of the entire show he was the standout yeah um so it's yeah it's very entertaining and And you can see why the show and this spin-off are so popular.

1:36:37Paul Wesley:It absolutely makes sense. So I think you'll be a big kid. Maybe I need to go back to the beginning. Maybe you do. I mean, there's a lot. There's 91 hours of Scottish shagging. Yeah. I mean, go for it. Scottish shagging the spin-off then. The blood of my blood lands on MGM Plus when, Boydie? Saturday. This Saturday, the 9th of August, 2025. Saturday it is. Right. Next up, we have a show that's not about rampant shagging because it's called Platonic. And this is series two of Apple TV Plus's show. We see Seth Rogen and Rose Byrne as kind of best friends in a slightly weird codependent friendship.

1:37:13Paul Wesley:And they're embroiled in midlife crises as well. And in this very first episode, it should be said, a shocking shortage of good champagne. So clearly a problem we can all get on board with. Not least of all, Boydie, who never leaves the house without putting on a magnum of moat. That is absolutely true. So, Boydie, what was the verdict on this particular champagne problem? Well, by the way, it's all about verve. It's all about verve Clicquot champagne. Veuve, it's not veuve. They say veuve. Veuve, yeah, veuve. It's like Guildford all over again. It's like veuve. Yeah. This is the show. This is one of those shows that, for me, you think, like, 10 years ago, if you just said, right, there's going to be like a half-hour comedy on TV with Seth Rogen, Rose Byrne, you know, created by Nicholas Stoller with his actual partner.

1:38:08Paul Wesley:And, you know, and it's perfectly decent. You'd be like, oh my God, this sounds amazing. Like, you know, what a brilliant project to come to celebrate. But it almost like gone by the wayside a little bit because these are the studio, which is obviously Seth Rogen's own creation. It's so, it's had such a kind of instant impact in such a brilliant show, by the way, which also features Nicholas Stoller, because he is the preferred original director, if you remember, from the studio for the Kool-Aid movie before Martin Scorsese gets involved. And Nicholas Stoller's like, I'll do it. I'll do it in the show, playing himself in the studio.

1:38:43Paul Wesley:And here he is as a mate of Seth Rogen. Seth Rogen is, of course, one of the producers of the show as well as starring in it. So I think, Bill, and I felt like the first season of this show, which I think we must have reviewed it. Yeah, we did. I remember being a bit lukewarm about it because even though it's an interesting idea can there really be a platonic relationship between a grown man and a grown woman who haven't seen each other for a while and then kind of get back and they renew their friendship but the talents involved you know they're all like top level you know really really clever funny you know talented people but I did find it slightly underwhelming I have to say that when we reviewed it the first season and I didn't finish it so I I'll keep an open mind about this.

1:39:28Paul Wesley:I really like this first episode of the season. It is, and as I said, I think it's like one of those things where if the studio didn't exist and all the other myriad brilliant shows that are on Apple TV, let alone all the other streaming services, you'd completely embrace it. I thought it was really entertaining and funny. And the whole idea of Rose Byrne's character planning this engagement party for him and his fiance worked really well, the kind of madcap quality to it, their desperate search for fief. Fief. Fief. And just the whole thing, I thought it was very entertaining and funny and very well done.

1:40:12Paul Wesley:And I think I will watch more of this season because I think I enjoy hanging out with those characters. I mean, his character has the worst dress sense of anyone on television. I mean, he has the most grotesque outfits. I don't quite like that about him Oh god, it's awful But once you get over that There's a lot to enjoy, I really enjoyed it I think she's brilliant Everyone loves, well I love Seth Rogen You know, he's great in everything But Rose Byrne, I think she's the real Star of this particular show Her reaction shots Because she's constantly getting Into scrapes and escapades And things going wrong with her More than anything, whereas he's having a great time about to marry an extremely rich and successful woman who has a lavish home in California, etc.

1:40:59Paul Wesley:But I think, yeah, she is the MVP for this one and is worth watching alone. But I really enjoyed it. It's not going to be as iconic, use that overused word, or as amazingly, or as big a hit as The Studio, the other Seth Rogen Apple TV Plus show. But so what? It's still a really good show in its own right, I think.

1:41:18Adrian Dunbar:I agree. Do you know what? I watched the first episode of Series 1 and I was slightly underwhelmed too and I didn't continue with it. And then I watched this and like some of the jokes didn't quite land but then I think it like sort of really warmed up this episode and then I found it really funny and I really like, they've got such a natural chemistry between them, Rose and Seth. And I just like the idea of this of whether it can actually work and whether it can remain platonic and the fact that he's now, you know, in the first series he was, he'd just divorced and he was still living this kind of like, He's still kind of an adult toddler, right?

1:41:53Adrian Dunbar:And she's the one who's grown up. She's got the kids. She's got the responsibilities. But I just like the fact that now he's moved on. There's some growth in that character. He's engaged. He's starting his new journey with this new person. And that she's trying to assist him with it, but also kind of failing. Do you know what? I enjoyed the first episode of the second series so much. I just go back. And like I said, I'm eight episodes in. Because I just like hanging out with these characters. And I like that it's not predictable. and that you know because it would be so easy for them to have these this maybe this is a sport you know like close misses or you know that there's just being this tension that needs to be resolved between them but I like the fact that there isn't so much do you know I mean it's just a it's just a deep-rooted uh intense friendship um and I like seeing how the other characters particularly her husband reacts to that and deals with it but yeah overall I think it's really fun entertaining and funny and I would recommend and I know it's not maybe like for me I would like say it's not as sharp and funny as for example my favorite shrinking however I think it's a really good sitcom you know and it's really worth people's time if they're looking for an easy watch

1:42:59Paul Wesley:do you think you everyone would be saying these same things about this if it was sort of two up-and-coming but largely nameless actors in the two leading roles

1:43:13Adrian Dunbar:no probably not

1:43:15Paul Wesley:no no not at all but I mean yeah but it plays on their

1:43:19Adrian Dunbar:I think it plays on their charisma and charm

1:43:21Paul Wesley:personalities anyway doesn't it it's all about who he is his persona and you know who she is so I know what you mean I know what you're getting at I just think that they give it a layer of starriness and you know partly credibility but also that there's a sheen And they're like, okay, this must be good. This has got good people in it to it. And I wonder whether, you know, if you take that away, whether it's quite as good. But I mean, look, I'm not, as you know.

1:43:49Adrian Dunbar:But you could apply that to a lot of the shows we reviewed, to be honest. Like, I mean, I think there are other shows that you could apply that to.

1:43:56Paul Wesley:Yeah, you're absolutely right. There are definitely shows we could also apply it to. I don't know that it's always the case. But I think sometimes, and I think in this, certainly for me, and obviously, you know, longstanding sitcom fan that I am, I think I struggled to find it sufficiently funny or charming and the reason I was kind of going along with it was because I just like Rose Byrne and Seth Rogen and I think they you know so I quite enjoyed seeing them do their thing but I kind of it didn't really make me laugh it's quite you know it's quite a pleasant easy watch it wasn't stressful it wasn't taxing you know it was fine there's nothing wrong with it but I kind of it's that thing that I always come back to which is that if it's not brilliant or if it's not great, you know, okay-ish slash good maybe isn't good enough with all the other stuff that's out there.

1:44:42Paul Wesley:So it's probably not one for me is what I'm saying. I probably won't continue watching it, but I cannot think of anything, you know, overtly wrong with it. Like it had Verve, if not Vuv, but I don't think it's going to hit my top 10 of the year.

1:44:55Adrian Dunbar:Fair point.

1:44:56Paul Wesley:I think the scene where the tab of acid, they realised there's a tab of acid put into someone's champagne glass and what happened was very funny I thought that was like a very funny idea very well executed how they deal with that etc and then the subsequent trip to find the Vuv that was all entertaining enough I put it this way I thought that was funnier than what I'd seen of the previous the first season so it felt like they'd ratcheted it up a bit but I know what you're saying it's not going to be number one on my keep watching it list but I definitely feel much more tempted to carry on watching it than I did when we reviewed season one, that's for sure.

1:45:33Paul Wesley:Okay. Platonic then, Apple TV +, when? Wednesday, the 6th of August, 2025. Okay, finally this week, we have Ridley, a series of feature-length mysteries, I cannot emphasise that enough, created by Jonathan Fisher, and this sees Adrian Dunbar as a retired detective. But you know this because you've already heard the interview. Now, Boydie is obviously in the pocket of big Hastings. well he did the interview it's a shame actually boy that you didn't do the q a or you've been you would have been paid in giant hastings stacks and that's and that's and that is an excellent joke it's a reach it's a reach you nearly missed it i can't believe james you nearly missed this whole review out with that amazing part in the middle of it because i mean i did nearly forget i did nearly forget we had another show and tried to wrap up the podcast so we haven't done ridley Yeah, but you didn't get to hear any of that.

1:46:24Paul Wesley:Anyway, let's turn to Kay, who is not in the pocket of Big Hastings. Ridley, review it or not? I don't know. What did you think?

1:46:33Adrian Dunbar:So Ridley, as you say, is feature-length detective drama. So Ridley is played by Dunbar. He is a detective who had to retire early because he had suffered this trauma of his wife and daughter being killed in a fire. And he had a subsequent breakdown. but he's been brought on by a consultant as a consultant by his former protege played by Bronagh Waugh and so this is how it you know in the first series it was all about establishing his background and why he's being brought on and then him solving cases and so series two picks up pretty much it's the same vibe where in this case Ridley's brought on to investigate a spate help investigate a spate of very violent jewellery heists in the local area from jewellery shops and um it's all going swimmingly until the main witness is mowed down that happens very soon so it's not a spoiler and then ridley is having to sort of um navigate this territory of he's got undercover um operative who is in the local area and who potentially can help identify the notorious gang um but there are questions over whether this person this woman is reliable so i would say the things i enjoy about this for me it's less about the crime which is interesting enough but it's about ridley and his relationships and his dynamics with uh bronor war's character carol and um his sort of his friend slash potential love interest um played by julie graham her name is um annie in this and she owns the jazz club with i think ridley owns it as well right do they part own it together but it's basically where ridley goes to let off some steam and to um sing some songs i'm laughing because that's the element i could potentially i could live without the thing adrian dunbar's got a lovely voice um and it's definitely a um you know it's the usp of this but it sort of takes me out of it a little bit but anyway that he's he's in a scenario with Annie where there's potentially feelings there more importantly he's it's his connection with his wife because she was friends with her but it's compromised because the friendship because Annie's got a new boyfriend who is potentially a wrong one so yeah that's what I'm most interested in I think in his personal relationships and the way he's dealing with his grief which this time round.

1:49:01Adrian Dunbar:It's interesting because he's sort of projecting the loss of his daughter on this undercover cop. So that's of most interest to me. Will I watch any more despite loving Adrian Dunbar? Probably not. Because also the other thing is it's feature length. And when I look at other feature length detective dramas available, i.e. Karen Pirie, I think it sort of really highlights the superiority of that show. But yeah, I'm probably not going to invest any more time in it,

1:49:28Paul Wesley:but it's enjoyable it's quite low energy isn't it do you know what i mean like it's quite it's quite it's not cozy crime but if there's a middle ground between hard you know crime thriller and cozy crime that's where this probably lies like it's not too demanding it's not too stressful it kind of resolves itself like it's very good adrian darman's good in it there's nothing wrong with it it's fine but i just thought i thought this is all a little bit you know it's just it's a little bit low energy like i i wasn't it wasn't propelling me anywhere i felt like i was maybe i was maybe it was like it was the lazy river to like karen perry perry's rubber dinghy rapids if that makes

1:50:07Adrian Dunbar:any sense that's a great analogy yes i totally get it and the thing is all the cast are what you know they're all great in this like um dunbar and war and everything like that so it's not a reflection on their performances it's yeah i think you've nailed it i think it is that it's sedate.

1:50:25Paul Wesley:You were talking, James, earlier about would platonic be the same with a different unknown people playing. I mean, this trades very, very heavily on him. The likeability. He's why you're going to watch it, isn't he? Yeah, he's a soulful, inherently soulful actor who, when given this, and this role is quite soulful. And I think you're right, in the interview he talks about it's not cozy crime, he doesn't want it to be associated with cozy crime because the the criminals in in in the cases are quite rough types you know they're kind of you know there's a lot of um it's quite it's quite gritty it's too gritty to be called cozy crime put it that way but i agree with you i i think james is right the yeah it's kind of like midway between something that's really propulsive like line of duty for example right you know he's been in the most i I would say, thrilling cop show on British TV, you know, of the decade or the last couple of decades, maybe.

1:51:22Paul Wesley:And this is a very different prospect. It is more laid back in its storytelling and it is, you know, like a two, it's an episode, it's a story each, each two hour episode with including ads on ITV. So naturally, its pace is slower. But I think there is something very watchable about it. And my favorite bit actually is, is his singing, singing the songs because this, Russia's, Richard Hawley, whose songs they use, is an absolute legend. I mean, he's a brilliant, brilliant singer-songwriter. And in the interview, Adrian Dubois talks about how they've managed to convince him to let him use his songs in the show.

1:51:58Paul Wesley:And they had a drunken night out in Sheffield, where Richard Hawley comes from. But his songs are so brilliant. I thought in this episode, the song, which then has a kind of montage develop over it, I thought that was my favourite scene in the whole thing. I thought that song is brilliant. The whole montage was well done. And just him watching him emoting and singing in his way, I really enjoy it. So, yeah, I'm very happy with the original songs. It's very watchable. It's not going to win any awards or anything, but I enjoy it. Ridley then. Ridley Series 2, the feature length. And every episode is feature length, isn't it?

1:52:39Paul Wesley:Because everyone's a separate mystery. So, you know, strap in. but this lands on ITVX and ITV1 when Boydie? Sunday, Sunday the 10th of August 8pm 2025 2025 right, what did we miss this week? that's the question, well something's coming out on Wednesday Boydie but I can't remember what it is, can you remember what is the show that's out on Wednesday? he's not going to get it I can't seem to remember, no yeah, no, Wednesday Wednesday season 2 is out on Wednesday, we're going to cover that on Pilot Plus heavily embargoed. Heavily embargoed. Heavily embargoed. Yeah. So we couldn't cover that. That's the main thing.

1:53:19Paul Wesley:I suppose the other thing is Eyes of Wakanda, which is the Disney Plus animated new MCU show. Yeah, I mean. Kay obviously petitioned for us to cover that this week. We weren't able to because it's embargoed. Sorry, Kay. But yeah, that's also on. That's on Wednesday too. Yeah. That's pretty much it, isn't it? I think that is about it. It's quite a thin week, yeah, which may be a clue as to why we ended up reviewing second seasons of shows. Yes, indeed. Because there isn't anything brand new arriving this week. Apart from the Outlander's prequel. What is our pick of the week? Oh, that's quite difficult, actually.

1:53:58Paul Wesley:I'm going to go for Tonic. I don't think it is. Oh, okay. I'm going to go for Tonic. Oh, what are you like? Yeah, you're going to go Outlander, aren't you? Of course I'm going to go Outlander. The rampant shagging, of course he is. Yeah. Who can resist a buttock transition? I'm 100 % here for Outlander buttock of my buttock or whatever it's called. It's good. Yeah. Outlander bum of my bum. Anyway. That's it. We're done. We're finished for the week and finished for this podcast until we do the live show. We're obviously going to have Pilot Plus on Thursday. But yeah, next time we see you, it will be in the flesh that is very exciting and we will be reviewing Alien Earth on the live show I don't know what else we'll be reviewing but there will be other things and Russell T.

1:54:45Paul Wesley:Davis will be there as well and it's going to be great if there are tickets left and you don't already have one you can go over to kingsplace.co.uk and order one there otherwise please do leave us a five star rating on whatever platform you choose and feel free to follow us on the social medias at K.Ribero at James C. Dyer at Boyd Hilton and at Pilot TV Pod exciting times alright fine fabulous well you guys need to go off to the office really, don't you? Well, Boydie does. Kay probably needs to have some breakfast, one of your peanut butter smoothies, I'm sure will go down a treat at this point.

1:55:13Paul Wesley:And I should probably go and have some sort of massage on the beach, you know, something important. Oh, God, James. Work-related, some kind of treatment. You're so annoying.

1:55:21Adrian Dunbar:More annoying than usual.

1:55:23Paul Wesley:Why don't you have one of those special smoothies? A special smoothie. I see what you're saying.

1:55:30Adrian Dunbar:No, he can't have a special smoothie. We need him for the live event.

1:55:33Paul Wesley:Okay. Let's hope I make it back in time. From Thailand. Pilot out.