LIVE: Alien: Earth, In Flight, and Butterfly. With special guest co-host Russell T. Davies

20:38What are you doing? Wait a minute. He was slagging off TV and he directed the recent and most disappointing Jurassic Park film. What was very interesting

20:45Boyd Hilton:is because I...

20:49Boyd Hilton:Wow. Shots fired.

20:50Russell T. Davies:You can't come for TV and expect Boy to say something. I mean, that's fair.

20:53Boyd Hilton:That is fair. His thing was, and look, I'm not saying it had anything to do with the fact that the current thing that everyone's talking about this year is Andor, which he may or may not have, you know, issues with. But his thing was, well, that's a whole other story. But his thing was he loves endings. Endings are his thing. He thinks endings are the most important part of any film, and I think he loves that they are self-contained. And he always thinks when he writes, he starts with the ending, and he works backwards. He listens to endings. But his whole point was he thinks TV is not about endings.

21:20Boyd Hilton:It's about avoiding endings because you want something to continue. And so I think he enjoyed... Unless it's a limited series. Which, of course. Yeah, and he loves The Twilight Zone because he said they're little self-contained little nuggets. They're like mini films. But I thought that was a really interesting idea and not to name any names, Chris Hewitt, but some people on the Empire staff, I think one of the reasons Chris likes films and doesn't like TV is he likes the self-contained thing. That it's an artist. That's just... But that's all very well. So you like the self-contained thing. You don't only like the self-contained thing.

21:50No, exactly. And then you like other things. This is the whole... They love a silo, these people. This is the whole... I like this. Yes. And I won't go for it. Like other things as well. James will not watch... The list of things James won't watch is extraordinary. Soap operas, quiz shows, anything... Reality TV, terrestrial. Comedies, except for Friends. You're the anti-terrestrial. Yes. Even sci-fi, they consider, in quotes, too silly. Look, I...

22:16Boyd Hilton:My grandmother used to say that, darling. There's nothing modern about that. I may or may not be an elitist twat. It's absolutely fine. But there's something to be said there. You mentioned that. So let's talk about science fiction because it's something that you know a lot about. But take Apple science fiction, right? So Apple science fiction, you could argue, is a little bit snooty, a little bit gatekeepy, a little bit sort of adult and selective. Like it's not for everyone. It's for a very select group, me. It's for me. It's basically for me. You're basically talking about foundation here. I'm not just talking about foundation.

22:45Boyd Hilton:Do you not mention F? Very good, pretty much. It's not just Foundation, but you know, they've got tons of stuff on there. My beloved C. Did you watch C? No, what? I'm very disappointed. That's the correct answer. Do you know, there's so much television there. Do you know I watched an Apple the other day? Go on. Acapulco. Oh, yeah. Anyone? Oh, what's it like? Is it good? It's terrible. It was. At the time, they're thinking, watching a show no one else has watched. I am the viewer. And I think they made like two or three series of it. I only watched it because that sexy boy from Glebe is in it. that's why come on and that was enough

23:17Russell T. Davies:that's a good enough reason he'd aged spoiler alert

23:21Boyd Hilton:Glee was a long time ago but like assume you had watched something I'm taking you've never watched Foundation you've never watched C you've never watched any of those I've tried them I've tried I've tried didn't like them no but I'm curious I like Severance that's science that's Gatekeepian Elitist that's true I love that so but is it like what do you think makes for great science fiction storytelling because some of the science fiction that I struggle with, which includes sometimes Doctor Who, is because it's very accessible and because it deliberately casts its net very widely to bring in a large audience.

23:52Boyd Hilton:Like, it appeals to adults, it appeals to children. You know, right, and Star Trek now, more than ever, like Strange New Worlds, which I really do like, does the same sort of thing. Yes. Do you like Strange New Worlds because it's bringing in... Do you know what? I don't fully understand why I love it. I do love it, but I shouldn't love it, and I'm confused by it. I love it, I love it. You're looking forward to that. Starfleet, I'm looking forward to that. Oh, Starfleet Academy, next year, wonderful. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Kate's over the moon. That's a great big popular show reaching out to be Discovery.

24:18It is.

24:19Boyd Hilton:Yeah, yeah. Well, Discovery. Did you? Oh, yeah. First two years. Yeah. Okay, we're aligned. Yeah. Before it went off the deep end. Yeah. But it's like you're just trying to use science fiction as a category for everything. These are wildly different shows. And I do, I'm positive. In terms of Star Wars, I'm the one who loves Return of the Jedi more than anything. Really? Yes. But that's fine. Because it's fun. It has fighting teddy bears for God's sake. And one of them dies. It's amazing. I literally remember sitting in the cinema in 1983, watching Return of the Jedi, thinking I've never been happier.

24:52That's been the story of my life. Wow.

24:57Boyd Hilton:But I wonder, does it recapture something that takes you back to the shows that you loved as a child? Because I sometimes think, much as I love Foundation and all of this sort of Apple stuff, it doesn't take me to that sort of childhood happy place in a way that Star Trek does. It could be, in a complicated way I read something once that sounds like rubbish but I've been thinking about it ever since it said you will have had every idea you will ever have by the age of 16 and you spend the rest of your life you spend the rest of your life coming to terms with that it said and you kind of go oh nonsense nonsense and then the more you think about it you think oh that okay science fiction that was embedded in me I was like gay stories it's like was I ever more interested in that than when I was 16 and closeted it's interesting that yeah it's And then I think it was when I was writing A Very English Scandal, which was literally set in 1979 when I was 16.

25:47And that was the Jeremy Thorpe trial with Norman Scott. So that's a coincidental date when I was literally 16. But take that theory away and keep thinking about it, because it's like you dismiss it and it keeps making sense to me. It's quite depressing. No, it's kind of rich. Do you have the same approach to writing when you're writing Doctor Who, science fiction, essentially, as you do when you're writing It's a Sin or Cucumber, or is it something slightly different about the way you... No, I don't know. I think it's me sitting there working hard in the end, not particularly. You're aware of a different audience, I suppose.

26:24But no, in the end, I think I'm just writing them for myself. Sometimes that works, sometimes that doesn't. So, it's just all it is, it's I mean, I've got a BAFTA for an under-five show. I wrote an episode of Uncle Jack's boat with Bernard Gribbins that won a BAFTA. And that's for under fire. So it's just like changing your voice. I'm talking to you in a certain tone of voice. If my grandmother walked in, I'd say you're dead. But I'd say, you talk in a different tone of voice. If a baby was here, you talk in a tone of voice if your best friend was here. So it's just, it's as simple as, you don't think about it really.

26:58It's only when, to be honest, it's only when journalists ask that sort of question. You have to think about it. It's completely, and I think every writer can do it. It's completely natural. And there is an amazing, I was going to say this before when you were talking about comedy, when you steered him away from the slightly boring topic of AI. Sorry. I was doing well, didn't I? Chad GPT came up with this fucking question. Okay. Yeah. With comedy, because all your shows, no matter how serious the subject, it's a sin. In the darkest, you still have humour and comedy coming through all the time in your show.

27:25So have you ever been tempted to do a sitcom, to do an out-and-out? I suppose. I actually, do you know? Thank you for mentioning this, Boyd, because I can now mention the fact that in 2001, I won comedy writer of the year for Bob and Rose, actually. It's like, that was a long time ago. But that surprised me. I thought that was a drama. So did I. And that was in the same year as the first year of Phoenix Knights. I think the first year of The Office, that was a bit mad. I think everyone, I think it was a very gay panel. We'll give him that award. So I do, no, I think, I think there are times when I've thought I'll be funny now and it dies to death.

28:00I did a Welsh show called Mine or Mine that I love, but I thought it was funny. I'm being funny here, died a death, was that when I wrote Bob and Rose, for example, I was being deadly serious about the roles of gay men and the prejudice against them. Deadly, I was actually offended when people, I was younger then, but genuinely people say, it's a comedy drama. I go, what do you mean? It's a drama. And then people laugh. I went, oh God, that is funny. I'm writing funny. So it's, again, it's not something you think about really, but I do think for me, it's when I think I'm being funny, that's when I'm not.

28:27Yes.

28:27Russell T. Davies:The bear, comedy or drama. Oh, drama, isn't it? That's mad. Yes. Correct. mad decision yeah um and how many projects at any one time do you have on the go oh i try to do one at a time it's like when you're young when you're young you do lots and lots of things all at once and then you you're lucky you just gain in confidence and in security you earn enough money to be able to do that as well so now for years actually for about for about 10 years or more it's just been well actually since queer as folk actually that's 26 years it's it's before that i was like doing itv dramas i do an episode of touching evil for paul abbott's i did think all the grand yeah i used to write cludo for granada oh wow yes the quiz show yeah like it had little dramas in it where um they got me to write cludo and they said um you know so there'd be an all-star jerry hall was included and there'd be an all-star cast and there'd be a little murder then you go to the studio where rich maidly would work out with some celebrity panelists who the murderer was so they said will you write one of these yeah i'll do that it's like 250 quid yes i'll do anything for doing in the 90s yes and um so i said how does it work this format it's like do i lay clues did you plant a prop there do you work out was it led piping they went no just write anything and just make it who the murderer was so you just wrote a load in all this and in studio they went yes it was miss scarlet with the lead piping and you're like what like that so yes in those days you do anything or write anything i used to write little dramas for like janet street porter used to run a part of a reportage which she did def too at the bbc they do little dramas right i was in an office next to them and they do dramas about people being mugged in city center alleyways and so i'd write those for them and things like that you just do anything when you're young and then so then when you get something like queer as folk you also have have the clout to be honest to be able to say right i'll just do one thing at once now and it's just I wasn't sure because sometimes Roy say I've got an idea, I've got multiple ideas percolating at the same time.

30:25Russell T. Davies:Well, there is that. It's like at the same time, I want to write this and I want to write that and I want to do that. But I don't really concentrate on them. I just let them percolate away and then just do the one. Are you very disciplined when you go into the zone? No. Or do you procrastinate? I want to feel like procrastinating. I always deliver on time. If not early. My next show, Tiptoe, I deliver the last episode a week early because I knew exactly what happened in it and got on with it. So no, I'm never late. I'm not disciplined but I am disciplined and I'll always deliver I mean Nicholas Schindler and I I work a lot with Nicholas Schindler with Key Street Productions used to be Red Productions in Manchester and we often kind of say to each other it's like the reason we get a lot of work is we deliver on time and on budget and that's half that's 90 % of the job it's not half the job it's like you'd be amazed how many people don't so it's a good opportunity to have yeah and they're quite good as well James is talking about the Gareth which Gareth was it again?

31:18Edra talking about how the endings but most of your shows apart from Doctor Who are limited series aren't they? Weirdly I also agree with that because and the one I set out to do as a long runner was Mine All Mine that then fell apart because maybe I didn't have that did have a good ending actually but yes I do always have an ending in mind I always know where I'm heading but that's you don't have to work like that if anyone's listening to this

31:41Boyd Hilton:Depends on the type of TV isn't it? Because traditional like American network TV that was not really an option for people was it? Yes It might run for one season it might run for seven seasons and you have to be prepared for both Avengers. But look at that dying. It's amazing. It's all good old Elspeth. My only one who watches Elspeth. You may be. I watch Elspeth. I love Elspeth. Thank you. She fell in love with John Griffith the other week. Lovely. It was a strange show, that one. It is a strange show. I just watch strange shows, don't I?

32:07Russell T. Davies:What are you currently obsessed with? Either terrestrial or strange. Do you know what?

32:11Boyd Hilton:That's an excellent segue because what we've been watching. Look at that. We didn't just throw this shit together. You see, I'm going to launch my manifesto, you see, which is the Mr. Fucking Streaming. That's what you like to call him. I'm going to say there is something great on television every night of the week. Every night of the week. And we get so used to it and bored of television and cynical about it that we miss what's going on. So knowing I was coming on this podcast, I sort of looked out for the past week. Last Friday, there was a contestant on the chase and it was like three were knocked out, one contestant up against the chaser he won in the last minute our second the last question and I was so happy it was it might have been a repeat but and it's best the chase is like the best thing on TV right the chase is incredible look lost I literally don't know what it is I've explained it you don't listen I've explained it to you many times you're literally missing emotion and joy and excitement you're fighting a losing battle Russell we've tried Saturday Saturday, there was an episode of Casualty that was so well directed.

33:21It's on very, really good form at the moment, Casualty. It's brilliant stories. These box sets they tell are really clever. And they did an episode where everyone went out clubbing. You know how bad that always looks, especially on a lower television budget, which Casualty is. It looked excellent. They really conquered it. They worked out what songs were going to play. It was a great director. It was really well done.

33:40Russell T. Davies:No awkward dancing. But isn't the thing with clubbing? It was good. Yeah. They kind of, they kind of... Because it's hard to get right, though. Exactly.

33:45Boyd Hilton:They can't play the music in the room, can they, really? Because they're doing the dialogue. There were moments where they had meetings. Okay. Thinking about your problems. So it worked. It was brilliant. What was on Sunday night? Something good. Oh, those spiders eating their mother. Oh, yes. I know.

34:02Russell T. Davies:Parenthood. David Attenborough. These were animals, by the way. Okay. It's good to know. Actual parenthood. Monday night. I am going to go into streaming because Monday night was the Gilded Age, which might not be the coolest show on telly. It might not be. It's no Downton. Listen, they had a scene in which the gay son, his lover had died, and he couldn't tell anyone he was gay, but he was upset. He said, I had to go to his funeral and sit on the back row like a stranger sheltering from the rain. That's a line. That's a company. I mean, that old war horse. What's his name? Who writes a good...

34:37What, Fellows? Julian Fellows. Julian Fellows. He can still write it. But there was a scene of the son expressing grief and what a cast it was blake ritson to cynthia nixon christine baransky louisa jacobson you couldn't get a better cast with him coming out and them all realizing that he was gay but without saying a word and their different reactions and their lack of reactions that was a stunning piece of work and that kind of that flew past us no one arrived in our green room tonight say did you see that episode of the gilded ages good stuff just flies past you Wednesday, Thursday, we've had the great delight of we're not bored of MasterChef.

35:15Which, I mean, is a great hour to watch MasterChef. That's great because of the amount of thinking you put into it. I'm not saying it's great. I'm not saying it should be shown. I'm not taking a side in this because I think its existence is fascinating. So I sat there thinking for an entire hour about television, about how it works, should you show it. That's great TV. I'm really happy to have watched that. And just to watch to see how they've edited it. And there's definitely a different tone, I think. No. No, go on. Disagree. Okay. I think, oh, this is Poacherton Gamekeeper time. I think they haven't edited it enough.

35:51I think they didn't. My theory, it's like, look, it opens. It has a little, you know, it always has that opening title sequence where famously Greg once said, cooking does not get tougher than this. This year's title sequence, at the beginning of every episode, ends with Greg saying, let's go and find the talent. But now... That's a very good point. If you... It is someone's... It was supposed to be someone's job to watch that and think about how we're going to laugh, but also how many people are going to get upset by that. A woman who wants it all edited, it's actually had a point. It's like how provocative that is and I find it stunning that no one went in and edited that out.

36:33It's going to transmit every week that line. and that is and I think and I think in this situation you've got to look at Banigay because that's a rich rich company they are millionaires and to edit every single episode whoa £60 ,000 maybe£100 ,000 because you've got to make it up they didn't do it I don't believe that happened I don't believe that you've got to ask

36:54Russell T. Davies:why they kept it in there I think I think there's a lack of responsibility there we should we laugh at it but I think you should have removed that line I think because it's just making a piss take out of you it's just if you are wanting to enjoy the show, you don't stand a chance while that line stands there as a barricade. It's just lack of work, I think. See, I was thinking maybe he's just pissed someone off. You know, like who he's annoyed that they've left it in. But yeah.

37:20Boyd Hilton:Yes. It's a tricky one. Trolling is what you're saying.

37:23Russell T. Davies:Yeah. Like I thought, you know. Oh, do you think? Well, no, because you hear when talent are annoying, sometimes stuff gets left in.

37:28Boyd Hilton:I hope that's true. I really hope that.

37:30Russell T. Davies:Maybe that's just how my brain works. Is that bad? Oh, wow. Do you think? I think it's just negligent. I think everything we've read about I don't think anyone actually said let's spend money and go into the edit because I'm being Richard Osman now but I suspect knowing how things work I think we're not paying for that I think Banerjee the BC went we're not paying for that and that's what happened so apart from there is the one woman as you said who wanted to be edited out I can't wait to see that one that's what I'm fascinated by how's that going to work right you know like when people hide their children on Instagram maybe she'll just have like a big duck's head over it it should be a vegetable or something food based I kind of look forward to that but funnily enough that comment immediately passed me by because I was focusing hyper focusing on every single other word they said during the whole but that is I do think that's a great hour of television no matter what oh completely even if it's bad I've never thought so hard in ages watching an hour

38:28Boyd Hilton:so I don't know what this show is and one of you will tell me I was no no I know what Even I'm aware of that. But I was on some social media platform, doesn't matter which one. Anyway, a clip came off from a cooking show and it was Gordon Ramsay. So what show would that have been? He's got a few. Most of his shows at the moment are American. He does Hell's Kitchen. No, it was definitely English people. And some guy had made what looked like some kind of sticky toffee pudding. And it was a really big deal that he was making this sticky toffee pudding in like 45 minutes. I don't know why. I don't know how long they take to make, apparently longer than that.

39:01Boyd Hilton:and Gordon Ramsay was heckling him like you're not going to do this you can't do this this is my sticky toffee pudding recipe you're not going to do it you cannot possibly do justice to this pudding in 45 minutes and I was so fucking drawn in by this and then and Gordon takes a bite out of this pudding and he looks at him and he's just swirling it around his mouth which is not how you should eat a pudding quite frankly he's swirling it around his mouth and he with silence he picks up these three aprons apparently that's a big deal he gives him three aprons and the guy breaks down floods of tears he's devastated the human drama in this I have never been so sort of drawn to something on social media in my life and I was like maybe there's something in this The Chase is like that every night The Chase every night The Chase is like that every night and Masterchef every week most episodes happen Isn't that that show where they go up and down in a house on different levels Yeah but that must be a repeat of an old series Yeah I think there's a few cooking shows where they go up and down levels Yeah exactly we end up in the basement Gordon Ramsay's on that isn't he He is on that yeah but I think he's got about four or five It's called up and down levels.

40:01Yeah, that's right. Genius type. It's clever. But I think he does one of the foreign versions of MasterChef and a couple of other American shows. Isn't he meant to be coming back with Hell's Kitchen here? Yes, I think so. On my TV. I can't wait. Yeah, which was amazing. Yeah, yeah. Hell's Kitchen was incredible. The other one, on top of the chase, which is one of the greatest formats ever, you were on The Wheel, which I consider to be a genius performer. I did The Wheel because I wanted to see The Wheel. Right. I wanted to go...

40:26Russell T. Davies:Did you do the dancing? They make you... You have to dance. you're a cutaway so this is what I wanted to learn so they make you dance on your own no but the production team will stand there on the wheel and dance with you behind the camera so you're doesn't that make it worse with the production team no it helps and the wheel is vast Deborah Meaden was like half a mile away from and you discover I love this they've got speakers in the back of the chairs wow so you can hear Deborah Meaden over there I loved it I was in heaven I want every detail I'm sorry I might have to take over the part is that right James if you do half hour on the wheel?

41:00No idea what you're talking about. They're not underneath you. They're over to the side. The contestants? Yeah. They're behind a black curtain. What? But there is room underneath for them to go and come up.

41:11Russell T. Davies:So you like crawl underneath? Oh my God, are they going to kill me for spoiling this? Imagine Michael McIntyre takes out a hitter. You're in a safe space. Spoiling. I keep asking them to do a set visit and they keep fobbing me off. Really? Maybe because they don't want to. Oh, it's great. It's a beautiful, beautiful set. Yeah. It's really amazing. I loved it. And do you have a laugh? I found out chatting away the way he would do a doo-doo, having a laugh. And how brilliant is Michael McIntyre? Yes. I think he's so, because a lot of people, I'm sure James, look down on him. A lot of people, you know, that pure skill.

41:36It's absolutely, the way he deals with it, everyone. It's that doesn't repeat. All those hosts are. Yeah. All those hosts are brilliant at their jobs. I love what that is. Brad Borsh. That's another reason I wanted to do it, was to see him run that floor. And it's very much kind of, it's edited down, but it's done as live. It keeps you happy. It keeps you laughing. He's very, very nice to you. Yeah. Very, very welcoming. I mean, great team. I loved it.

41:54Russell T. Davies:Who else were you on with? Anyone good? A.J. O'Doodoo, a football person. Now you sound like James. Yes. Deborah Meaden was way over there. William Hansen, the etiquette man. Oh, yeah. Who won. He won. I can't second. I was living to have. What was the subject? Doctor Who? Yes, of course it was. Of course. Are there any other of those shows that you'd like to go on? There's a line where you start to become a tart. I want you to go on Celebrity Gogglebox. Oh, God. Yes, yes, yes. Except, yeah, I don't know. You and David Tennant. Oh, hang on. I'm sensing some dissent here. Is he running a bit out of steam?

42:29Are you not on Gogglebox? It's like June and Leon today. A woman passed me on the train. It looked like June. And I thought, wow, those were the days. It was kind of new and fresh then. I don't know. Does it need a bit of a kick up the arse? I don't know. It's doing very well. I still love it. You watch that? Do you like that? Is that something?

42:44Boyd Hilton:I feel like if you're watching TV, which is people watching TV, the snake has eaten its own tail at that point. Actually, you'd be amazing on Gogglebox because they'd be playing the chase. You'd be going, what the hell is going on? Yeah. Wow. If you want money like that, you'd be brilliant. It'd be me and Boyd. You'd have to explain. No, you should be there with someone else who doesn't watch television just like the two of you discovering the rules like twins brought up in a cupboard to develop their own language. That would be amazing. Let's make this happen. Let's make this happen. Let's pitch it right here, right now.

43:15Boyd Hilton:Oh my God. Oh, this is incredible. Okay, so I'm going to say, are there any other shows? You mentioned streaming. you said they were streaming you promised I slipped the Gilded Agent that's streaming yes yes I'll let you well Acapulco what's on at the moment I don't know so many things did you watch the Jacob Elordi Australian War I loved it Narrow Road which was Sunday night Deep North Deep North I can never get this name I love that because that's an amazing it's awful oh really oh my god but they did it they've done it in the last episode no oh my god Oh, it's heartbreaking. Oh, it's like that's...

43:53The ending is perfect. They do the ending absolutely perfect. I think that's a fine piece of work. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Very good.

44:01Boyd Hilton:Well, Boydie, is that what you've been watching? Is that on your list? I have been watching... Well, I've watched three... I've watched half of it, yeah. But I need to watch the rest. It's fantastic. You've seen episode four. Yeah. The torture. Yeah. It's a lot. Yeah. But it has to be unfinished. The torture. Have you seen the torture? Yes. It's really good. It's all about the torture. It's torture. To tell you what I watched, I watched one of the few Netflix shows recently that we completely ignored. I know what you're going to say. You know what? Yeah. Because we didn't have time. It's been renewed for a second season.

44:29Yes, it has been renewed. Two weeks after it aired. Untamed. Yeah. It is Eric Banner as a National Park Service Investigative Service Branch Special Agent at Yosemite. Longleat. It's a long... Yeah. Longleat the TV series. It's Longleat the TV series.

44:46Russell T. Davies:Oh my God, I used to love that show. His boss though. Wait, wait, wait. His boss is Sam Neill. Sam Neill. Always worth watching. I watched the first episode and I didn't love it. I found it quite slow. Well, it has a spectacular opening sequence where they're climbing like a cliff in Yosemite where they're literally like 90 degree and this woman flies down, dead woman dies between these two guys and that's the mystery that he's exploring. And it's spectacular. The first five minutes are spectacular. Then it settles down. Then it plods along like that horse he rides on. Are they park rangers? Is it like Yogi Bear?

45:18Kind of Power Rangers, yeah. Yeah, basically. It's one of those things where... The picnic buskers. Yeah, as soon as he arrives to investigate Eric Banner's character, his colleagues hate him for some reason. They're all, like, resentful. Is he untamed? He's untamed. He drinks and rides a horse.

45:32Russell T. Davies:Untamed? Yes. He drinks and rides. He drinks and rides at the same time. Does someone say you're so untamed to him? Pretty much. Please. Yeah. I'm sure if they haven't yet, they will do. I love it with that. Very soon. The other one that I wanted to mention, which I'm sure you must have watched, which is possibly the most dramatic unscripted show on TV that isn't the chase is Fake or Fortune. Oh, I love that show. It's fucking brilliant. Yes. I never missed that. Fake or Fortune. Fake or Fortune. Why are you doing this podcast? Yeah. Oh, it's... Nike. We ask ourselves. What the fuck is Nike? Fake or Fortune is Fiona Bruce and a very popular...

46:06Philip Mould. In a cravat. Answer me this. Why is it not advertising when we see Philip Mould's gallery every week? No, I know. We see it a lot. What compliance rules is that crossing? At the BBC, I'd like to know. Oh, my God, I'm like... There'll be an inquiry. Emails once this has gone out. And they genuinely research whether paintings are fake or fortune. And some of them are like, you know, proper 100-year-olds. Have you watched the Winston Churchill one? Yes, it's amazing. I thought it was incredible. It's not a real Renoir. Yeah. And they research them. They search for the Provenance. Provenance.

46:38It's pronounced Provenance. Yeah. And they have pictures extra. It's amazing. Honestly, it's really...

46:44Boyd Hilton:They gamified the Antiques Roadshow, is what you're saying. but with a lot at stake these beautiful pieces a lot of the owners of the paintings have a lot invested in it and the research is fascinating they did they oh I'm off they've they they researched the history of the pigments whether that Prussian blue existed in 1836 I've lost you you lost me at Prussian blue it's absolutely true I love it so much it's so and what I love about it is I'm fascinated by it they they find these these objects of art these paintings etc and they they genuinely don't know the team they're making the ones making the show cannot know whether it's real or fake or whether they won't be able to.

47:19Russell T. Davies:Do they really not know? No, they genuinely don't. Well, in the Winston Churchill one, Winston Churchill one, this guy bought a Winston Churchill painting for 140 quid, I think it was, at an antiques fair. And he, you know, people are told him, that's going to be worth it. That's really a Winston Churchill that's going to be worth a lot, hundreds of thousands. And in the end, they couldn't find anyone, even though they're pretty 90 % sure that it was real. They couldn't find anyone to confirm. So he's left in limbo. He's totally in limbo. He just doesn't know one one or the other. No one's going to say to him, Yeah, it's definitely Winston Churchill, even though...

47:46That's so frustrating. And so, you know, it's a show where sometimes it has to be open-ended. And I think they definitely... They're not lying. They're not pretending when they choose the subject. They just have to go for it. And sometimes, yeah, I think it's fantastic. I think we've lost the crowd. We may have lost James, but, you know, I don't care. Not much going on out there. No.

48:02Boyd Hilton:Anything germane to this podcast, Boydee? Well, Hostage, which is the new Sir Ann Jones. Ah, yeah. I've watched all of that. Netflix. We will be reviewing it next week, yeah. But it's... Oh, where she's Prime Minister. Yeah, Prime Minister. and Julie Delpy is the French Prime Minister. And all of a sudden... Would they go on the run with guns together? Kind of. Yeah, eventually. I'm going to write Longley. Yeah, yeah, yeah. As an adventure series. Lost, you're trapped in the lion enclosure. You're going to get out with cocaine. The lions have taken the cocaine. Oh, it's just brilliant. Longley.

48:35It's definitely going to work. Stay in your car. That's the tagline. Yeah, sorry, that's me. Kay.

48:43Russell T. Davies:Okay, so I'm going to be quick because I've watched quite a few things, but things that we've talked about. The studio, I finally finished that and loved it. Oh, it's a good last episode, isn't it? Fantastic. I didn't love that show. No, I know. Oh, I really enjoyed it. It's a bit preaching to the choir. Aren't there like 100 of us who like it? Yeah. Except for that ending, which I thought was sublime. I thought it was great. I also liked the episode, The Golden Globes. That episode where Sal was getting recognised.

49:09Boyd Hilton:Also, the casting episode is incredible. and the Warner episode also incredible yeah you look at the streets of Port Talbot anyone's sitting there going oh that casting episode was great so you're saying I like it because it's incredibly what is it matted smug and elitist that's uh yeah

49:27Russell T. Davies:moving on to I finished The Assassin oh yes

49:30Boyd Hilton:me too

49:31Russell T. Davies:which I want us to do a spoiler special on because I've got so much to say about that that's one of Keeley Halls have you seen The Assassin okay Keeley Halls Keeley Halls yes Yes. I've got things to say about their partnership also with Freddie Highmore. And yes, but we'll save that, I think. It's a lot of fun. Because we can do a spoiler. Let's get you to agree to it.

49:50Boyd Hilton:When I say we, I mean you, because I'll be on holiday. But you should absolutely do one. Oh, yeah. It's great. Okay. You're going away for like three weeks. We'll get into that later. There are so many White Lotuses around the world, I don't know what to tell you. Think of all the terrestrial TV you'll miss. I mean, right. It's fine. They have streaming abroad. It's all good. But no, but you're right. I know I really like that. and the Williams-ness of it all. I think I really enjoyed just the mad tonality of it. And there's an absolutely killer line in that show where at one point, because obviously they're discussing parentage at one point, where Keely Hall turns to Freddie Heimer and goes, for fuck's sake, this isn't fucking Mamma Mia.

50:23Boyd Hilton:And I just thought that is genius. It really made me laugh. Is nobody here watching Destination X then? Is that not happening? Oh yeah. Oh, I forgot to mention that. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

50:32Russell T. Davies:I did not like it. What is Destination X? Do you know what? I didn't it's about assassins yeah yeah right I'm in trying to kill people all over Europe I'm in blackened out buses and only Rob Brydon can stop them he's like a superhero I'm kind of warming to it I'm enjoying it I'm not no I think it's I think it's one of those formats where at first you kind of think it's too complicated they're spending too long explaining it it's got the curse of modern television tasks yes who the fuck wants to watch tasks yeah it's tasks I mean it's kind of built into tasks they have to do a jigsaw and a feeling just cut the task that first episode when they're stuck in a box and they were showing them those things and you had to decide between the red herrings I was like come on but the traitors has tasks and somehow fast forward the task do you yeah okay fair enough no actually the traitors has very good tasks yeah they've done their when they had to go to those haunted dolls and sing songs backwards they had haunted dolls and sang songs backwards I'm here for the haunted dolls okay it was great or they died yes or you do die yeah yeah yeah it's like

51:32Boyd Hilton:you don't even watch the traitors no I did I did I did I watched the very first episode of the very first series of The Traitors. That was good. They made me do it for the podcast. You didn't come back? I quite enjoyed it. I thought it was quite good. That's when they chucked those two people off straight away, that nice day. I know, and then they came back later. Yes, they did. The drama. But none of them were crucially in space. No. While he's gone,

51:53Russell T. Davies:I was very happy Alexander came back onto The Traitors. Oh yeah, of course. Yes. While he's gone, why don't we do Destination X? Yeah, or the Fortune Hotel. I thought Fortune Hotel sharpened up a bit. I liked it. I love Stephen Mangan kind of tasks again okay moving on to another show that is probably illegal to talk about but I can talk about it because it's you know what I've been watching so I think to give you context safe space I am to give you context I'd been down the allotment to help my 82 year old friend Ruth with her allotment I was feeling wholesome and I thought okay what should I watch when I get back I watch Clarkson's Farm I watched two series series two and series three I'd stopped after series one because he'd said some Clarkson-ish you know kind of stuff and I was like oh god I absolutely watched two series in a week.

52:35Russell T. Davies:I love it. Very watching. It's so well made. I really love the people who work on there. You know, they're fascinating. They're kind people. You shouldn't ban someone just because you don't like the things he says. No, exactly. That's why you should watch him. But also, it's so informative about like farming and the struggles the farmers are facing. And I know James is really angry. And he's funny. Let's be honest. He's funny. You might, whether you think of the man, he's funny. And that's quite a compliment. Also, he's shown quite, I think he's shown quite a lot of humanity on the show. Because, you know, the highs and the heartbreaks the piglets series 3 if you haven't seen it RIP that family you're referring to it was like some actual animals the piglets they had they had they had so many of them and then they all died because their mums rolled on them in their sleep

53:21Boyd Hilton:Jesus Christ what is this

53:23Russell T. Davies:pig snuff it was terrible it's all going into long late the pigs the pigs don't roll too late slow motion no It was honestly, the drama, it was devastating. I quite like clocks and doing Millionaire, by the way. I think it's still pretty good. And that format still works, doesn't it? Yes. Yes, that's true. Okay. And then this is my last thing. Okay. Fisk. Now that's the Australian comedy. Oh, yeah. With KC Flanagan. I absolutely love it. And Series 3 had taken ages to come out. Wasn't sure who was going to pick it up. It has landed on ITVX. So if any fans of that, go check it out. Fisk. Fisk. It's really good.

54:02I don't know at all. Australian comedy

54:05Russell T. Davies:it's just me it's about a woman called that man watches everything it's really really good he's watching now he's not paying attention actually I put it on my stories and Sarah Phelps is a fan as well she was excited for it to come back so look I knew that you'd listen to her it's about a woman she's a lawyer she's down on luck she joins this crappy lawyer firm in Australia it's just very funny check it out ITVX Fisk. Fisk. And that's it. That's all I've been watching.

54:37Boyd Hilton:I have a list. I'm going to rattle through it really, really quickly. Okay? Pass egg. I finished The Assassin. Really enjoyed that, as we've said. I carried on watching Karen Pirrie as well, which is fabulous. Oh, so good. She's great, isn't she? Isn't she? Orin Lyle, isn't she? And Amy McKinney, she does such a good job. She's so good. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's so gripping and it's funny and I love it. I've never read the Val McDermott books, but I mean... Oh, she's brilliant. To see Val McDermott And finally having a big success like this is, I mean, she doesn't need it. She's brilliant anyway, but it's so nice to see, so deserved.

55:06Boyd Hilton:Yeah, loving that. So very much enjoying Karen Peary. I watched part of what you're going to be reviewing next week, season two of Peacemaker, which I, and all the way through it, I couldn't help thinking, I have no idea what Kay is going to make of this and I'm devastated that I'm not going to be there to find out. Well, the main thing to make sure is that she watches season two. Yeah.

55:32Russell T. Davies:technology is very hard sometimes it motivates me russell that's all i can say there's a whole

55:37Boyd Hilton:new title sequence with an 80s banger and completely stony face dancing it's wonderful there's a fucking orgy in the first episode oh that's why he likes it it's extraordinary it's extraordinary it's always face light up yeah oh yeah so i've seen a few of those and uh yeah well i can say because i'm not gonna be on next week's podcast and say i really like it so there you go that's what's his name who james gunn right it is it is actually writes it and and some of the characters from or some of the actors from Superman are in this as well oh and they were in Superman weren't they yeah because Peacemaker turns up in Superman so I'm watching that what I didn't watch was The Pit because when I went to Thailand oh no you just don't when did we get that?

56:13Boyd Hilton:well fuck knows we don't know so they didn't have it on the plane I checked they had six episodes six of the first series of Special Ops Lioness I was like that's just awful just the first six anyway so I didn't watch The Pit because they didn't have it but I am going to watch it on the way to Florida so I'm excited about that the other thing I watched wait so now it's the segment

56:31Russell T. Davies:things you're going to watch

56:32Boyd Hilton:yeah hey if you could talk about shows I've never heard of I can go off piece with this now I'm going to watch longly and he's running through these quickly the other thing I watched non-linear non-linear that's what you call this is something I've not watched in many years and it was the first episode of the new season of South Park oh yeah of what? South Park oh South Park oh yeah the popular animated comedy honestly I find that show tedious and pure art and I'm not a fan, but that was an extraordinary half hour of television. Now there's the future of AI. Well, I mean, 100%. That's extraordinary.

57:06Boyd Hilton:Just rendering Donald Trump's penis. AI, it's just, it's already won. But rendering him, it was an astonishing. It was, wasn't it? Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I mean, what I find amazing is like the deal that they got for Power to continue doing South Park and then the merger having gone through and then that to be just the most gloriously rendered fuck you I have ever seen created. It was masterful. The second one as well. it's after the ice agents and stuff it's meant to be equally provocative come on I love them good for them it's genius so yeah I watched that and I was like yes okay this is very very good indeed okay brilliant I'm glad we covered that look and we're almost on time as well so what's next let's find out it is news I think we've got to start only one place to start long lead long lead

57:50Russell T. Davies:so when are we thinking it's going to come up though eight episodes eight episodes 2027 yeah yeah yeah lead it's cast She ran Jones as a woman who got out of her car one day and has lived in the lion enclosure ever since. Yes. She's a legend in Longley. Did she really? Did the lions really obey what she says? Come on. There is actual Saran Jones-based news. You're joking, why would watch this? Is there? Okay. Yeah, there is actual Saran Jones-based news. There is? Yes. You know, she's in the show Frauds coming up for ITV with Jodie Whittaker. Yes. What a duo. Yeah. I mean. They play complex duo, according to the press release, Bert and Sam, who's intertwined past surfaces in the setting of southern Spain after a decade of separation.

58:34So set in Spain. A decade of separation. Are we saying lesbian here? A decade of separation. What's that mean? Exactly. Complex. I know, yeah. But it's exciting. Yeah, they release the first pictures, etc. But that is a great... Oh my God, those two. That'll be brilliant. Yeah, yeah.

58:49Boyd Hilton:I want to know how Kay feels about the cancellation. Can we call it the cancellation, the ending of And Just Like That?

58:54Russell T. Davies:I feel good

58:54Boyd Hilton:you feel good? you think it was the right decision?

58:57Russell T. Davies:yes absolutely interesting because they self-empty it yeah no wouldn't you miss it because I know it's not not you know the quality it is now no it can be so mad but then suddenly so brilliant yeah I agree the end of episode 9 where she ditched him in the street and then that last shot where she went into the cafe I would say there were a million episodes that's what I mean about television always having something great we might not like and just like that but that ending was beautiful I love that I really like the show I really like the show oh no I think what they've done to the characters Aiden like he should never come back I never needed to have seen or heard that sex scene play out right the wide fronts all of that he's just such a toxic character but anyway like yeah what they did with the characters I felt very sad about

59:41Boyd Hilton:this was a hate watch for a lot of people though right wasn't it yes it became the definition of a hate watch it's complicated I don't believe in hate watches because I know it's just more interesting than that when something's bad that's really fascinating and you sit there going, why are they doing this? And how is it happening? And what are the stresses? And sometimes you sit watching and thinking, I can't believe the cast or executive producers on this because if you have a say in this, how are you agreeing to do that? Or maybe it was your idea. Wes? Yes, I'll do karaoke in this episode. Oh, no, don't.

1:00:10You know, so it's a debate going on in my head. I love. I'm happy to watch an hour of television. Yeah, I'd much rather watch that than some bland, boring, you know. It has a... A cabulco. It's quite, exactly, yeah. It's quite daring, isn't it? from one scene to the next and just like that they'll do something mad and wild and stupid and kind of excruciating and then they'll do something kind of and then suddenly even with Aiden that story about his ex-wife asking Carrie to get drugs for the son and Carrie gets drugs via what's her name via the school from the school mums have the Adderall drugs to tell that was an amazing story and that whole remember that whole scene where they all sat around together his whole family with her I thought that was one of the best scenes and also the Charlotte stuff

1:00:52Russell T. Davies:in the cancer storyline. I enjoyed everything to do with Charlotte. I think it was clever Michael Patrick King, the showrunner, creator, etc., to end it now. I think that's a good move. Is that so you can focus on the comeback? Yeah, it's going to be doing the comeback. Yes, season three. Very excited about that.

1:01:05Boyd Hilton:Russell, which streaming services do you subscribe to? Oh, probably most of them. Disney, Amazon, and then on Prime, I've got Paramount, Prime to watch Star Trek for the Star Trek content. That's it though. I think Netflix.

1:01:18Russell T. Davies:Apple, you must have Apple. Yes, Apple. Oh, good. That's all of them, isn't it? You've got to watch. I mean, so pretty much all of them then. Hardly ever go to Apple. Let's be honest, you have to dust that Apple remote off. Remember how to use it. That's the most annoying remote in the world. Russell, you forget. Jesus. Slow horses, slow horses. Slow horses, no, love that. Bad sisters. I discovered the other day that 42 years ago, I met Mick Herron. Did you? We were both in the same room together. Isn't that, that's really, why would you, with that? No punchline to this. We didn't make sweet love or anything like that.

1:01:48I love that. Where was it? It was Oxford. We were both at Oxford. A friend of mine said, oh, why introduce? And through a long set of circumstances, I recently had to email Mick Heron. And he said, yes, 42 years ago. That was us. Is he writing an episode of Doctor Who? No. Oh, my God, don't start that story. Don't start that.

1:02:03Russell T. Davies:Back to Apple.

1:02:04Boyd Hilton:You heard it here first.

1:02:06Russell T. Davies:Back to Apple. They've got loads of great stuff. Bad Sisters, Shrinking, I would like you to watch.

1:02:10Boyd Hilton:Yes, that's true. Yes, Shrinking. Sea, Dark Matter, Constellation, all of the good stuff.

1:02:15Russell T. Davies:Yada, yada, yada. Daniel May's news. So he is set to play a sex attacker in a new ITV true crime series. He's going to play John Warboys in Believe Me, written by Jeff Pope. And the series will tell the true story of the three victims of the black cab rapist who went on a spate of crimes between 2006-2008. And they've got Amy, Fjorn, Edwards, Miriam. Now are we saying Petchy? Petch? From Industry Boyd? Petchy. Okay, Petchy. and this is how the recording usually works I go to him do I say it like this and he goes yeah he says it was confidence and then I believe him and Asaya Shah who will play the the three women that he sexually assorted she'll be fantastic Jeff Pope Jeff Pope is the master such quality and Daniel Mays

1:03:03Boyd Hilton:yeah yeah yeah Daniel Mays is great this show gives me the ick though I don't like I'll have to watch it because we'll review it I have no doubt but it's not for me it sounds upsetting well you're not meant to be going hooray there's a rapist no I know again people just go I don't like things and you dismiss it. It's like, it's really interesting that it's about something that's awful. I don't know, I find like true crime stuff, it just gives me the ick. I can't. He couldn't. It would be really weird if it didn't. I mean, yeah. So it's succeeding in what it's doing, I guess. But yeah.

1:03:33Russell T. Davies:I am so happy you're here.

1:03:35Boyd Hilton:We all are. Everyone is. I'm permanent. This is my year. We need you. Can we talk about The Holiday, please? Because whenever people talk about Christmas movies and obviously Love Actually is the best, people mention the holiday right and I have never seen the holiday I know I've never seen I've never seen Elf where's your humanity that's shocking tell you what this Christmas we'll have a party we'll watch Elf and watch the holiday back to back Christmas onesies

1:04:03Russell T. Davies:I don't watch films as you know but I have seen the holiday and I thought oh shit well that's famously a bit of a hate watch I didn't think it was good but a lot of people love it

1:04:13Boyd Hilton:but they're making a tea TV series. Apple are doing a TV series.

1:04:17Russell T. Davies:But do you know why I'm excited about that?

1:04:18Boyd Hilton:Do you know that?

1:04:19Russell T. Davies:Rob Delaney's writing it. Oh, is he? We're laughing then. Yeah, literally. And also, that's gorgeous. People at Christmas. Do you know what? I'd love to write that. That's great. Yeah, it's good. I'd really like to see it. What's your go-to Christmas movie that you have seen? That's interesting. Actually, it's Jimmy Stewart's It's a Wonderful Life. It's a Wonderful Life. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Love that.

1:04:38Boyd Hilton:See what we did there? We got some movie chat in there. Dude, we got movie chat in. Oh, in fact, We made a promise, didn't we? We said we would do this, so we have to do it now. It's all right. To the audience. And Russell, you can adjudicate this. So let's talk about what makes a film. Keep it brief. Let's settle this shit once and for all. So there is some discussion that certain mad people think that if it is on TV and not in cinema, it is not actually a film. What is the distinction between a film and a one-off dramatic event? What would you think? Where does the line, where do we draw that line?

1:05:10Boyd Hilton:I think you shouldn't be drawing lines. I think again you're just setting out to hate things you don't fit in you must do this it's like how really interesting that we can't draw a line and some pieces of television are two hours long and they're gorgeous and maybe that's who cares if that's and it's not sometimes it isn't a film it just happens not like the recent Jimmy McGovern hour 45 minutes yes show about the paedophile yes which was absolutely brilliant not film 100 % not film but what makes it not a film because it's a it's like we just call it a play a television play or it's a TV drama in no way is any point in the creation of it aimed to be we're making a film but if you sat and watched that in the cinema wouldn't it be like watching a Mike Lee film oh yeah sure no yeah absolutely but I just think it wasn't part of the whole creation of it to think oh we're doing a film we're doing a feature length one off drama did they label it do you think they labelled it when they made it what do you think they referred to it as

1:06:02Russell T. Davies:he's big on labels

1:06:03Boyd Hilton:I love a label a drama a drama in TV land you just said we're doing a drama but more to the point if you define You wouldn't say film. You wouldn't say film, no. And the problem with you defining it as a film is it means that we wouldn't then review it or consider it. But it's a TV. It's a bit of classic TV, that film. Kathy Come Home, which is one of the most influential and important television plays of all time, was a one-off TV drama. It's not a film. It's just misleading. You'd have ignored it under your fascist regime. Democracy will rule. Fascist I may be, but we're going to be democratic.

1:06:36Boyd Hilton:Right, okay. A one-off TV dramatic event, which is fucking feature length and basically a film. Raise your hands now if you believe that to be a film. I hate you all. This is a fix. How they have turned. Next. By the way, you're as wrong as... All you're wrong about this is you are about the pronunciation of Guildford. Oh! I mean, I may not... No, listen, don't backtrack now.

1:07:04Russell T. Davies:You accepted it on the podcast.

1:07:05Boyd Hilton:It is Guildford. It is Guildford. It is Guildford. It is not... There is no... The D is silent. It is implied. It is not pronounced. I will concede this point. I will concede this point.

1:07:13Russell T. Davies:Listen, I'm moving on to some Matt Smith news.

1:07:16Boyd Hilton:Some who?

1:07:17Russell T. Davies:You might have heard of him, Matt Smith.

1:07:18Boyd Hilton:Oh, Matt Smith. Yes, I've heard of him. Very good.

1:07:21Russell T. Davies:He's got a new drama. And it's a...

1:07:25Boyd Hilton:Series? One of... Drama...

1:07:26Russell T. Davies:Oh, well, yeah.

1:07:27Boyd Hilton:A one-off cinematic television dramatic event.

1:07:30Russell T. Davies:He's going to play the titular character in Skies, The Death of Bunny Monroe, which is based on the 2009 novel by music star Nick Cave. and follows a door-to-door salesman who embarks on a road trip in southern England with his young son after the death of his wife. The adaptation is written by Pete Jackson and it will be directed by Industries' Isabella Eklhoff. I don't know why I always point to you when it's about industry because you love industry.

1:07:53Boyd Hilton:Based on the novel by Nick Cave.

1:07:56Russell T. Davies:People doing more than one thing. Shocking. How dare they? But you know what the big... I think you'll agree with me on this, the TV news of the day. Did you hear them talking about The Box, which is the new ITV. I'm sorry, Jamie.

1:08:08Boyd Hilton:This is the thing where they put you in a fucking box and they take it somewhere and then they open the door and you don't know where you are and then you complete some kind of task. Am I right? Yes. Come on. Yes.

1:08:19Russell T. Davies:See, when you sent that to us, I thought you were talking about the Q... What's the other one? Is it the Q? Yeah, I was getting confused. No, no, no. Don't confuse it with Philip Schofield. I thought he was getting... I loved it. The lately mentioned Philip Schofield, yeah. No, this is... Sorry. This is... Sorry. Wow. But this is big news because what's interesting, this is the late, along with Destination X and the ITV one with the luggage. Fortune Hotel. And these are, all the channels are coming up with their own. And this is the ITV one. They're spending a lot of money on this format, a foreign format.

1:08:51The box. And it's being hosted by, do you know? It was revealed earlier today. Announced today. Gary Lineker. Oh, wow.

1:08:59Russell T. Davies:Anyone who was worried what he was doing after match of the day. Yeah. Oh, he's sexy. He's such a sexy. I don't know what to think. Oh, my God. He's gorgeous, Gary Lineker. Absolutely. I'm in. Well, you know what you'll be watching. He's a beautiful man. He's a beautiful man. Oh, he's hot, yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. But it's interesting because he, yeah, it's quite a daring choice, I think, because it's not the kind of show you'd normally expect him to do. So I think that's... Well, he's free. He's definitely free, yeah. He's got some time. I think that's genius. Yeah, it's quite clever, isn't it?

1:09:25I'd love to see him present to someone. Really. That's clever, clever. Yeah. I knew it'd be big news, James.

1:09:30Boyd Hilton:Sorry. That was big news. Did you see the teaser for

1:09:35Boyd Hilton:Did anyone see this? It's not a petite... There we go. Thank you, good man. So it's not exactly a trailer. It's basically just them taking the crown of Morgoth. It's very exciting. What happens this time? I mean... You're not a fan, are you? No? Well, I've got a friend who's in it, so I quite like it. Okay, fair enough. So, Lord of the Rings. Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings films. Classic movies? No, not for me. Not for me. No, not. Look, I admire them. Yes, same. I just wouldn't sit down and watch them. No. Really? I've seen them once. Yeah, it's enough. Extended editions. I did fall asleep in the first one for about an hour.

1:10:06No! An hour. I do fall asleep in the cinema, though, because it's like the womb. Yeah, it's not a dog. Off I go. Especially in a three, three and a half hour film. There was a, what's that Woody Allen film? Melinda, Melinda. I literally fell asleep in the open titles and woke up at the end. That's amazing. Turned to my eyes, but what happened? That was one of his most boring films, to be fair. I knew. So, no, sorry. Well, anyway, it's in production. Hooray. This is the third season.

1:10:31Boyd Hilton:Yes. And it's the most expensive thing ever. I mean, yes, the first season in particular what do you mean it's in production you say that like it's taken them by surprise have they not been doing it for a long time I mean but they started filming they're actually things are moving it's happening there are orcs and elves and hobbitses and things and it's very exciting okay before we finish this segment I just wanted to mention one thing in case people get annoyed that we haven't addressed this can we just make it what is happening with Doctor what do you know about that's true literally there was nothing I didn't come on this podcast to announce any news there's nothing to report nothing's happening you'll know when you know when we know I don't know it's like because anything conversations between the BBC and Disney.

1:11:07I don't work for either of them. I work for Bad Wolf, so I'm not part of those rooms. So I literally don't know. And even people I work with every day, so they go, no, what's really going on? I'm going, I don't know. I really don't know. So hope for who knows. So there's no Doctor Who Neuters. Well, we have got a spin-off coming, The War Between. Right. The Land and the Sea with Russell Tovey and Gugu and Batarore, which I'm immensely proud of. I think it's absolutely brilliant. it's like we had a good edit sometimes you finish a show and they're great good we did a really good job and sometimes they go through post-production where everything comes in you work on the effects on the music and the grade sometimes magic happens and it's happening with this it's even better than we thought it was I'm delighted with it I was lucky enough to go on set the sets are phenomenal are you in it Boydie are you a seed I don't think I'm in it unless me hovering beside Russell Tovey gratuitously somehow made it in

1:11:59Russell T. Davies:he's a newt yeah if only when are we going to get if only I knew that no one will decide that that's up in the air I wish I knew genuinely wish I knew but it's looking lovely will you tell us first when you do know yes thank you okay yeah well no there'll be a press you'll be sitting with TV news everything's meticulously planned within an inch of its life yeah of course exactly

1:12:25Boyd Hilton:okay well I think that wraps up the first half of the show we're going to have a 15 minute break so you can go out and buy sweets or whatever it is you do. And we'll be back very, very soon.

1:12:42Boyd Hilton:Welcome back. Hello, hello. Yes, it's on. It's on.

1:12:50Boyd Hilton:Are we fully refreshed? Good, good, good. Let's have everyone back out. Kay, Boydie, Russell.

1:13:05Boyd Hilton:It's time for this week's reviews.

1:13:09Russell T. Davies:Thank you for that.

1:13:10Boyd Hilton:Full disclosure, full disclosure. We, being the organised souls that we are, did not think to provide Russell with really any of the shows that we're reviewing this week. Guess who's dying to see Alien Earth and didn't get a link? Me. It's fine. Boydie will be happy to spoil it for you in a minute.

1:13:26Russell T. Davies:It was another thing he was meant to organise.

1:13:29Boyd Hilton:Blame me for everything. But we will press on regardless. So first up this week, we do have Alien Earth on Disney+. And this is the first, if you can believe it, TV series to be spun out of the long-running Alien franchise. And this sees Noah Hawley in the showrunner's seat. He's fulfilling the promise made all the way back in 1997 with Alien Resurrection. And answering the question as to what might happen if the xenomorph made it to Earth. Now this is set two years before Ridley Scott's Alien. and it sees a ship crash land on Earth with a kind of menagerie of alien flora and fauna in the hold.

1:14:02Boyd Hilton:Now, this is a show with so much pull that it literally has, and have you seen this? There is an alien egg in the Natural History Museum. This is absolutely true. This is the promotional thing they've done for it. They have got an egg in the Natural History Museum to plug this show.

1:14:15Russell T. Davies:When are you going? Tomorrow?

1:14:17Boyd Hilton:Yeah, absolutely, without a shadow of a doubt. It's the only thing that can get me. He laid the egg.

1:14:24Boyd Hilton:Spoiler. But anyway, Boydie, you are a man familiar with both the original Alien and its vastly superior 1986 sequel, Aliens. So please tell us, can they hear you scream? Thank you, Russell. You're my favourite. I agree. You prefer Aliens to Alien? I do. Wow. Russell is a man of impeccable taste, Boydie. Well, yeah. You want one or do you want a thousand? This time it's more. I might ask for a show of hands on this one. I'm interested. Who likes Alien over Aliens, first of all? Yeah, how many of you are wrong? It's quite a lot. Quite about half, maybe. Oh, it's not half. I think that's half. Who's for Aliens then?

1:15:00Boyd Hilton:Oh, it is more, yeah. It's more. I think that's more. All right, everyone who liked Aliens, fight everyone who liked Alien. And Alien 3? Anyone for Aliens? Yes. Someone at the back who likes the assembly cut. Okay, Boydie, tell us, can they hear you scream on Disney Plus? Very good. Well, so this is, there's really kind of two main strands to this series one is as james explained i think he did that um there's a big spaceship just like the nostromo from the first one called the magino and um basically that spaceship crashes to earth and it's carrying a cargo of not just a xenomorph the traditional alien we know and love but kind of three or four other types of alien including a little a kind of bulbous eye with spidery legs which is truly horrific when you see it in action on the show.

1:15:52There's a scene involving a sheep. I think in episode four, do you remember? I wouldn't possibly want to spoil it. I'm not going to spoil it. I'm just saying, watch out for the sheep scene. So the one strand is this ship carrying loads of aliens, including the alien we all know and love, crash lands to Earth. To an Earth... You know where it crashes, Boydie? No, go on. Thailand. Ah, okay. Everything's in Thailand now, according to James. His spoil about Thailand. It crash lands to Earth. to an Earth which is run by, in 110 years' time, I think, by five corporations. So instead of North America, et cetera, it's run by a corporation, which in itself was created by a 12-year-old boy.

1:16:32A really annoying 12-year-old boy walks around in his pyjamas.

1:16:35Russell T. Davies:Samuel Blinken. Thank you. And so that's one big strand of it. Well, a space land crashes to Earth and lots of aliens are suddenly going to invade and you have to try and kill them because they're going to destroy Earth. But there's a whole other strand, which involves – they've created that technology. The company run by the little guy, the annoying guy, the multi-billionaire, he's created this technology whereby a dying person's kind of personality and soul can be transplanted into a body of someone else, into an adult body. A robot, we should say. A synthetic body. A synthetic body, indeed.

1:17:07But basically, that means that there's a whole troop of kind of – they're known as the Lost Boys, even though some of them are girls, including the lead character.

1:17:13Russell T. Davies:They're always young, though, aren't they? Yes. They are young, sick children who have been saved, if you like, by being transplanted into an adult's body. So there's an interesting whole kind of, almost like Freaky Friday style, you know, actors, old actors playing young people in older bodies. Foot really well. Really brilliantly. Yeah, they're fantastic. They kind of underdo it. They play that kind of tween stroppiness perfectly. They're very good at Freaky Friday. Yeah, absolutely. Of course. Yeah. There's a whole Peter Pan vibe, isn't there? Yeah. Yeah, it's not subtle. Yeah, it's not subtle at all.

1:17:47Russell T. Davies:It's called Neverland. She's called Wendy. Yeah.

1:17:51Boyd Hilton:All of them are named after Lost Boys or Pirates. They are. Smee and Tootles and whatever. And Boy Cavalier, which is the name of the aforementioned annoying billionaire. It's called Boy Cavalier, played by Sonia Blank. He actually reads out from Peter Pan off the way through the series. He does, yeah. Have they given any money to the hospital that Peter Pan gives all its charities? I very much doubt it. Well, that's shocking. I know. Maybe after this. It's very Ormond Street, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. Maybe they will, though.

1:18:18Russell T. Davies:They'll hear this, and then they'll make a donation. Absolutely. So the main character, Wendy, is played by Sidney Chandler, and she is the first of the hybrids, the person who has their human consciousness transferred to a synthetic body. And her brother, who she obsessively watches from afar, is played by Alex Lawther, who I interviewed this morning. He was a very nice man. Yeah. And the whole thing is showrun by Noah Hawley of Fargo and Legion fame. I was worried about this thing because Alien the original Alien is and this is a phrase that I use as anyone who listens to the podcast will know one of my favourite films of all time I think it's perfect Alien I love Alien no it's brilliant yeah it's absolutely phenomenal brilliant and this what he's done I think what Noah has done is to take the kind of DNA of that first film the way it looks the way it's shot there's lots of slow pans in and out it dissolves it dissolves It feels like a late 70s, early 80s film, the whole look of it and the whole way it's directed.

1:19:17And down to the technology, because it's set, what was it, two years just before Alien. So he somehow found a way to use all the quite simple-looking digital technology, but this is set 100 years. It's all knobs and switches and old CRT television. Exactly. It's glorious. It's weird. So he hasn't kind of revamped it to make it look as modern as you might expect it to look, especially a show. at 110 years in the future, but he retains the kind of core feel and look of Alien in such a, I think, beautiful way. She's the type, the world building is astonishing. Like the production design of, they live on this private island with a little kid, the annoying kid.

1:19:54Will you just tell me if it's brilliant? I'm leading, you know I lead up to it. I like to lead up to it. Because I'm so excited. I like to build up to the drama. Right, okay. So I'm nearly there. Any minute now, any minute now, any minute now.

1:20:03Russell T. Davies:He's building to a climax. Deferred gratification. Always. That's my, always, always. You witcher. Oh yes. Boyd, tonight is edging Russell on the podcast. Yes. I'm edging, I'm edging. Images. But just to answer your question, I fucking loved it. I think it's brilliant. I'm so excited. It's so beautifully done. And both the kind of strands of the story, all the actors playing these kids transplanted to adult human fake bodies are all phenomenal. And there's Babu Susei in it, who plays like the, he's like the only survivor of the crash. Yeah. And he's phenomenal. Absolutely. Absolutely. And kind of relentlessly, he will do anything to save the eggs, I think, because he's working for another corporation, one of the other corporations.

1:20:50But all its ideas, it's quite radical. The whole idea of these five corporations running the planet in a hundred years time completely rings true. You're like, absolutely a hundred percent could happen. You know,

1:21:00Boyd Hilton:it's like capitalism's final form. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. It's about setting. Yeah. It's just slightly away from where we are now. Yeah. And all, and it's quite, I think it's quite edgy and radical, the way it deals with all of that, the political side of it. The characters are genuinely fascinating. Alex Lawther is basically running around with a gun. And if you know Alex Lawther from the end of the fucking world, he's a winsome young man. He's a very slight young thing. And it's really... Winsome is a good word that we don't hear enough on this podcast. Sorry. I don't know where that came from.

1:21:32You've gone very Jane Austen. Thank you. He's a very unexpected action hero. and yeah he has at one point he gets attacked by a xenomorph and he has to deal with it and he does it brilliantly it's just hugely ambitious and I think I think everyone in here feel like there's a love for Alien and there's a love but those two films particularly it's easily the best Alien thing since Aliens 100 % I agree I don't think there's any

1:21:58Boyd Hilton:I don't think there's an argument there is an episode in this which is genuinely the best Alien film since Alien yeah wow where but there's a very particular episode, which is essentially the second and third acts of Alien, but done differently. And it's extraordinary. And this series, which, and look, like I said, Aliens is my all-time favourite film, because it's the best one. But also, it's my all-time favourite film. I was nervous about this as well. Like, it scared me a little bit. But Noah Hawley, like, he cosplayed the Coen brothers when he did Fargo, and he did it very well, because it's very much his own thing, but it feels very much an iteration of their style and their sensibility.

1:22:35Boyd Hilton:this is exactly the same but he's he kind of code switches between ridley scott and james cameron like there's real alien stuff in here as well i think there's way more aliens way more even you will agree with that 100 way more but there's there is both in there but it begins on this ship which is the spitting image of the nostromo from the kind of white padded walls the kind of you know daisy petal cryo tubes you know you know the monitors where they spit the text out and they chatter away. The noises. All of the noises. It's spot on. You are in 1979 from the minute it starts, and it is wonderful.

1:23:07Boyd Hilton:But what's really clever about this, and I guess what worried me, is this is an eight-episode show. Eight hours of this. I was like, I'm not sure an alien film, the grammar of an alien film, can survive over eight hours. I was like, I don't know what they're going to do. And then you get into the second episode of this, and you realize, oh, it's not about the alien at all. The alien is wallpaper. The alien is scenery. the alien is in the same way that you know like uh the walking dead isn't about zombies it just has zombies in it this isn't about the alien the alien is just a part of it and i think the other creatures in this really help because while the alien is genius hr kiger the design is iconic we know its life cycle we know the queen we know the eggs the face huggers the chest but it's not it's not exciting it's not uh there's no mystery to it so he introduces five other aliens which all have fucking gnarly life cycles and the body horror is so upsetting but but it's that sense of mystery that sense of horror and the unknown comes back and we haven't had that in decades so that's wonderful and then you've got this human drama this this kind of chasing immortality through you know imbuing these these android bodies with these with these essentially child consciousness and so you have this idea of what what is humanity what is consciousness like what are these people?

1:24:22Boyd Hilton:Are they property? Are they people? Like, what are they? Are they proprietary for this corporation? And the way they relate to each other, they interact like teenage boys and girls. Like, it's really lovely and funny and they're naive. But you know how kids, they have this really freaky hyper-focus where they just stare into your soul and just like this all the time. It's just terrifying, isn't it? But they do it really well. And I love the way that was played. I love the way all of that kind of plays out. And I just thought there are so many threads to this that I felt if you took the alien out of this show, it works just as well.

1:24:57Boyd Hilton:Like you don't need it. And I thought that's almost the highest praise I can give it. Like it works without the alien. It works just as a human drama. And it's beautiful. And randomly there's Metallica and Smashing Pumpkins and Jane's Addiction and shit on the soundtrack. Because of course there is, because it's Noah Hawley. And yeah, this for me is up there at the very top of the show. I reviewed this for Empire and I called it Andor for Alien. So, you know, make of that what you will. You're quoting your own review now. I'm quoting myself. I am that guy. I'm literally quoting myself. But Kay, crucially, so you've not seen Alien or Aliens, any of these films, they're not your thing.

1:25:32Boyd Hilton:What did you make of this as kind of a standalone entity?

1:25:36Russell T. Davies:I think you're going to be surprised when I say that I actually enjoyed this. In that I understood it.

1:25:42Boyd Hilton:And that's good.

1:25:44Russell T. Davies:I know that sounds ridiculous, but I'm not going to get into Foundation. but it was so prohibitive, like so dense, you know, in the sci-finess of it all. I couldn't get it.

1:25:52Boyd Hilton:Dense, much like yourself.

1:25:54Russell T. Davies:Thanks for that.

1:25:55Boyd Hilton:No, no, no, no. That's because Kate doesn't float.

1:26:00Russell T. Davies:Yeah, it's a callback to a joke. To be fair, listen. She sinks. If he was calling me thick, you'd know about it because I'd fly across there worse than any alien he's ever...

1:26:07Boyd Hilton:If you were to put her in a body of water, like a rock, straight to the bottom.

1:26:11Russell T. Davies:It's true. We did discuss the fact that I'm very dense and I don't float.

1:26:15Boyd Hilton:Unbelievable. The crowd fucking turned on me. I mean, that was, don't come for Kay, honestly.

1:26:20Russell T. Davies:But yeah, no, so I enjoyed it. I actually got to enjoy it because I understood the concept of it. It was, you know, very well told. I liked the domestic drama of it. I liked Wendy and the brother, all that storyline. Wendy played by Sydney Chandler. I thought she was great. So yeah, I was as shocked as you probably are, James, that I enjoyed this much more than I thought. I'm really glad. So exciting.

1:26:41Boyd Hilton:I think you're going to really enjoy it. Is it weekly? It is dropping weekly. I've seen six. because I'm assuming you've seen Six as well. Six of the eight. You know who else is in it? Ade Edmondson. Yes, he is. Ade Edmondson pops up. He's not the eyeball with legs. Almost. Almost. He is the assistant to the obnoxious little kiddie billionaire. Oh, I love him. And he's fantastic. It's just Adrian Edmondson popping up in this show. There's something fantastic about it. Yeah, but on top of everything else. Oh, that's exciting. I love everything. I love the fact that you've got synthetics. You've got now cyborgs, which are new things.

1:27:13Boyd Hilton:So people kind of augmented. And then you've got these hybrids. And there's even a kind of a hierarchical, almost like prejudice between them. There's a bit where one of the synthetics and one of the hybrids, no, with the cyborg, are having a conversation, essentially just like throwing barbs at each other for who's like top of the line and who's obsolete. And it's just, it's like, there's the attention to detail. Does it kind of make sense of Alien, like why they sent the Nostromo to that planet? Do you know what? Is there a continuity? Well, to an extent, I don't want to drop any spoilers. I think it's interesting.

1:27:43Boyd Hilton:there are multiple corporations and weyland yutani is the corporation we're most familiar with and this is very much from the perspective of prodigy which is a different corporation so you could argue what people know and what people don't know might be split along corporate lines but also i think that it actually casts the beginning of alien in a in a slightly chilling new light uh because and and the beginning of aliens as well because if you think well actually if they do know what they know from this series then actually the plot of that film is altered slightly yes in an interesting way and they're innocent on maldon or stroma anyway yes yeah can i do because i haven't seen this can i do an interesting sidebar go for on on showrunners as novelists because the marvel thing about noah hawley is that he's a novelist as well it's quite a tradition there's quite a few showrunners uh who are also novelists noah hawley's written a fantastic but he wrote a few books there's one called the good father that's absolutely excellent tell you's a novelist as well as David Benioff from Game of Thrones.

1:28:39He's written a few novels. He's written, it's a novel of his, I would recommend to anyone, called City of Thieves. That's absolutely excellent. And I cannot believe, given David Benioff's fame and power, that they haven't turned it into a film. Because it's such a bit, it's set in the siege of Leningrad, where everyone's starving, and a pickpocket is tasked, is arrested, and instead of being executed for his crimes, they say, all right, I won't execute you. Go and find me a dozen eggs. and that's in a city that's starving it's in a city where they're eating the glue off the spines of books in order to survive and you've got to go and find a dozen eggs what a perfect plot and it's got a perfect ending he's brilliant and then on the novel front to end my sidebar there's jesse armstrong who we all love his novel is it's called love sex and foreign policy goals again i'm surprised that hasn't been made that's a really excellent book about people touring europe and the adventures they get up to it's like so there's some follow those careers there's some great books out there that I think anything you should go and have a look at you'd enjoy them.

1:29:37Okay. What a useful sidebar. There's a bridge sidebar. That sounds like a nice little PSA. Because you wouldn't let me see the show. Why?

1:29:44Boyd Hilton:I mean at least you didn't have to watch it with Boydie's name across the middle in a watermark though which is I would argue not the way Noah Hawley intended so. But Boydie, Alien Earth comes to Disney Plus when? Wednesday the 13th of August 2025. We're sold. Fabulous. I think you'll love it. I'm confident. I'm dying to do it. It's wonderful. Yeah. Next up this week we have Channel 4 thriller In Flight. And this is a six-part series. This is Catherine Kelly as Jo Conrad. She's a flight attendant whose son is banged up abroad after an altercation in a sort of Bulgarian bar goes awry. Now, things go from bad to worse when she is approached by a gang of criminals who try and get her to do illicit things in exchange for her son's safety.

1:30:25Boyd Hilton:So, Kay, please, can you tell us, was In Flight entertainment?

1:30:30Russell T. Davies:Yes, it was. Yes, well done. You won't be raw dogging during this. It was very thrilling. So as you say, Catherine Kelly plays Jo and she's facing a mother, a parent's worst nightmare. Her son has been arrested, maybe wrongfully, for a brawl in a bar in Bulgaria. He's locked up and she thinks that's the worst of it. Only it's not. It gets more tense because then she is told by some criminals that unless she smuggles heroin for them, then um her son will die um and so it's like what i would say is you do have to suspend your belief during um parts of this it is a little far-fetched but that's fine because it is so the twists and the turns make this so tense and thrilling because you are on that journey with her and katherine kelly is great at those characters right she's so believable and convincing as this mother who will do anything anything to save her son but your heart is in your mouth half the time because I mean, I'm very by the book.

1:31:31Russell T. Davies:I mean, obviously, I'm not going to be smuggling drugs through customs. But now when I go through, I'm going to be so nervous because they're watching you like hawks, obviously. But the way she does, you know, she is just going through. And she's cabin crew, right? So she thinks she's going to sail through. She's also one of her ex-partners is in customs. That's lucky. And yeah, it's one of those. Do you accept the fact that her ex is a customs officer? then you'll go along with Arthur. Listen, in Longley, her ex is a lion. Genius. Fine. But yeah, it's a very tense watch. And yeah, I really enjoyed it.

1:32:14Russell T. Davies:It's very entertaining and stressful. ITV. Channel 4. Channel 4. Channel 4. It feels like an ITV. It feels like ITV Monday night, 9 o 'clock. Which is in no way a diss or anything. It just does feel like... It'll be a diss if it was from James. It will be a diss if it was from James. But it's a Channel 4, they're showing across three nights a week. For two weeks. And then three nights a week the following week. Nice. My only problem, I think it is tense. And I think she's phenomenal always. Catherine Kelly is phenomenal always. And she does stress and tension brilliantly. She's on edge. She can be on edge.

1:32:48Also one of the nicest people in the whole show. I agree, yeah. She's absolutely delighted. Interviewed her a few times and she's always a complete delight. Absolutely. So she's brilliant. and um but the big the big two big issues i had and i did enjoy it's very it's very intense and it and it kind of um it's compelling it's gripping it's it's fast moving all those things and well made but the fact that her ex is the customer's officer because without that it turns out to be so so key to the way she manages to smuggle a heroin through various airports that you're kind of like, there must have been a more elegant way of making that happen.

1:33:26Russell T. Davies:I mean, there's a lot of sticking points. But that is a big sticking point for me, that element to it. And the fact that he's kind of umming and ahhing about, well, shall I help her? Yes, I think I will, because she's my ex. Well, she says, how do you smuggle? Yeah, basically. She gets a lot of information for help from her. Oh, we've all been there for a short time. Yeah, exactly. But my other beef with this show, which is slightly unfair and is very particularly personal to me, is it's called In Flight, right? it's about an air steward oh you're gonna be a pedant aren't you yes i thought this would be a james thing no it's me it's not enough plane action no almost none almost none almost none you know you've had flight show i suppose it's all about the customs though yeah it's about smart it should have been called on custom yeah there's a lot of scenes of going through customs and going through the electronic thing and you know there's some dog messing around in front of her that is It adds to the tension.

1:34:16And there's a lot of checking of suitcases, you know, in the airport. There's a lot of airport action. Well, they couldn't call it, please take off your shoes. No. It's not going to work. Laptops out. 100 milligrams of liquid. They should have called it 100 milligrams of liquid. But I was just expecting more in-flight action because I do love, I have red eye. Red eye. You were spoiled with hijack.

1:34:37Russell T. Davies:You were spoiled with hijack. Hijack, the brilliant hijack on, furiously entertaining. if you make a big entertaining flight in flight set show then that's a dream for me and this is called in flight and it's not that show so although you could argue since you could name all those other in flight shows that they sat there going well let's not do that right because it's been maybe yeah i mean you may be right you made a good point fair enough i just want everyone to know if don't go expecting loads of tension in the confined space of an airplane because it's not going to happen then you will may well enjoy it and i did enjoy yeah it's really just sort of

1:35:10Boyd Hilton:queuing to go through security that's more that's james what did you think i thought it was fine like i i get i get the itv thing i did think of course you do think like i mean it's it's okay i think katherine kelly is very very good and i but i also feel if katherine kelly was not in this i would 100 % not watch it because it's like again it's like you're right it's quite contrived uh And there are aspects of it that just kind of didn't ring true. I will say the stress was real. Like it is super stressful because anyone who's been through customs, it's always fucking stressful. But, you know, even if...

1:35:48Russell T. Davies:Even if you're not carrying heroin.

1:35:49Boyd Hilton:Even if you're not carrying heroin. I don't know if you've ever experienced that. But like, but genuinely, like it's really stressful. But also just like the fact that, you know, these people are essentially holding this sort of sword of Damocles over her head and there's no end to it. there's no in the sign because it's not like they'll be like oh yeah do it once and then you're fine so this she's on the fucking hook for this you know I've also because it has it's got that central dilemma you know she's got her son in prison in Bulgaria and they're saying to her if you don't agree to smuggle the heroin through we will kill your son so that but part of the reason why that works as a dilemma in a drama is if you're not quite sure whether they'll kill him or not right you're kind of like so she has to decide am I putting my son in grave danger if I call the police or now I get my ex-boyfriend who's a customs officer involved but in this they make it so clear that he is going to be healed there's not really any what's Channel 4-ish about it?

1:36:39nothing really absolutely nothing that's why for me it was so ITV because Katharine Kelly is an ITV star of long renown there is absolutely nothing I would say Channel 4-ish about it which is quite interesting I think their dramas are slightly the next door one what's that called the one with the couple next door which is Channel 4-ish because it's quite I guess it's quite sexy and it goes quite far

1:37:03Russell T. Davies:it's quite sexy so yeah sure but it's not quite it's not quite streaming sexy no no but it's more than ITV sexy yes it's Channel 4 sexy in the rank there's a hierarchy there's a sexometer streaming sexy streaming sexy there you go that's my online name that's your only fans so yeah so in a way it's another thing like not only not much set in the air but also not very Channel 4-ish would be my notes. But maybe that's a clever move. I think it'll do well. I do think it'll do well.

1:37:35Boyd Hilton:I think what works about it is I couldn't think of a way out of her situation. I was like, and that stressed me out because I thought, you are just fucked. There is no way out of this situation. You're in so much shit. And that really... Yeah, so that's a good point because I guess the big question is how is she going to get away with it in the end? 100%. I have no idea how this ends. We know from what you've said she'll never be clinging to the wing of the plane. exactly that's true do you know what I haven't seen the final couple of episodes so there may be more playing action there may be I recommend that yes that'd be great wouldn't it yeah that'd be good go on the wing go on the wing marvelous that's a good that's a good idea in flight then which is anything but that airs on channel 4 when channel 4 Tuesday Wednesday Thursday this week 12th 13th 14th August at 9 o 'clock and the following week oh I like that yeah I like a good good bit scheduling yeah good stuff finally this week we have butterfly and this is on prime video and this is based on a graphic novel and it sees daniel day kim as david jung and he's a former u.s intelligence guy living in south korea and he has his eyes set on a hit woman called rebecca played by reina hardesty and she works for a private espionage company called caddis run by an evil piper parabbo So, Boydie, this one has soul.

1:38:52Boyd Hilton:It also has soldiers. But is it killer? Oh, come on. An actual grove. Come on. We'll draw a veil over that. It takes fucking hours. Yeah. By the way, so I do want to credit the writers of the in-flight, which are Mike Walden. Going back. Brilliant. See, I'm just going back, just to ruin the whole thing. Phil, you have to credit writers. Because you want Russell to hear it. Yes, thank you. Mike Walden, who wrote on Marcella. Adam Randall, who wrote on Slow Horses. Marcella. Oh, Marcella, sorry. And it's directed by Chris Ball, Bauer of Tin Star. Tin Star was quite a good show.

1:39:22Russell T. Davies:Oh, I liked it. And this show, Butterfly, is co-created by Ken Woodruff, who worked on Gotham and the Mentalist, and Steph Shah. And I think it's Steph Shah's first show, I believe, because I couldn't find any other credits. And it's directed by Kittau Sukurai during the first two episodes. Now, this show starts with a 15-minute action. Oh, you timed it. I've timed it. 14, 15 minutes action set piece that is, I thought, pretty spectacular. I don't know what you guys thought. But you know, can I just say, you know how you just described the show? I can't remember a fucking word. It's what? People and things?

1:39:59I'm dancing around a plot point. It's what? Russell, that's one of the issues. What's the butterfly? What? Oh, I have no idea what the butterfly is yet. It's not the Carla Lane sitcom. It does just sound like a bunch of words. Exactly, Carla Lane. Or there was a butterfly one, Red Productions, about trans. And I understood why that was called Butterfly. This, not so much. Daniel Day Kim, I remember. And then what? Yeah. Daniel Day Kim. So he is... Things happen. Yes. He is a mysterious maverick, former US intelligence officer. Is he mysterious? I know. I know. Yeah. But as James is alluding to, the problem with...

1:40:35Is he mysterious? He is kind of... You don't know what the hell he's playing at. He's intriguing. Yeah. He's intriguing. What do you mean he doesn't know what the hell he's playing at? Well, you don't know... Does he hide? What? He does hide. He literally hides. How is he mysterious? Because you don't know quite who he works for or why he's doing what he's doing. Or what he's doing. Or who he is. He's a maverick. How is he working for anyone? He's in car.

1:40:57Russell T. Davies:Who said maverick? Why did he say maverick? What's a mysterious maverick? I mean, in fairness, he could be unemployed. I'm kind of relaxing because I obviously don't know anyone who works for this. So I can rip the nonsense. Go for it. I'm not sure I've actually seen it. It's our banal description of it. You're really critiquing it. But anyway. episode by episode what does he do? Okay well he finds someone who's important in his life You presume he's working for the CIA and then is trying to who's important just trying to protect them Who he loves or Yeah pretty much I'm skirting around a key plot point

1:41:32Boyd Hilton:Please do not push him

1:41:33Russell T. Davies:towards spoilers There is a

1:41:35Boyd Hilton:I mean it's not really a twist is it but there's a development in the first episode which is kind of pivotal to the set up of the show Which by the way Can you imagine this any of you? Can you imagine the show? I know there's a man. But he can't move left. He's mysterious. Mysterious maverick. He's a bit shadowy. He's a maverick, so he smokes a pipe. And I don't know anything else that's happening in that picture. Yep. That's pretty much it, to be honest. I'm disrupting the review, I know. What's to teach you not to show me?

1:42:05Russell T. Davies:What you need to know is the fight sequences are spectacular. They're very well done. We do. Who's he fighting? Well, no. Do you know what it is? You need to not fixate on David's character and you need to focus on Rebecca. Yes. Right? Rebecca, also a maverick. Rebecca, she's a female assassin. She's taken out a Russian ambassador to South Korea and she's now made the target of, and I'm going to bring it back to David because David is now after her and I can't tell you why. No. You know what's funny? I'm pretty sure she's not the Russian ambassador

1:42:38Boyd Hilton:to North Korea. I'm pretty sure she's not the Russian ambassador. to North Korea.

1:42:44Russell T. Davies:If you use your listening ears, I said she's a female assassin who takes out the... Oh, right.

1:42:49Boyd Hilton:Okay, because I was going to say... With a gun. I genuinely thought I'd fundamentally misunderstood this show at that point. She's the Russian ambassador? Is she? That's good. I mean, that's... I'm on board.

1:43:00Russell T. Davies:I was on board. I know it. I know it doesn't understand stuff, but I love that you thought I thought she was a Russian ambassador. Wow, the... You know what? An ambassador who is an assassin. That's great. I'm expecting you. That's a show. Unfortunately, not this show, but that is a show. You know what there also is, Russell, is there's a mysterious...

1:43:21There's an enigmatic... Dog, a mysterious dog. An organisation called Caddis, which I consider to be a terribly named... Caddis. Caddis. C-A-D-D-I-S. What is that? Butterfly for fuck's sake. What's called butterfly? Maybe it's like

1:43:33Russell T. Davies:Butterfly Effect. Exactly. Why is Caddis the name of anyone... Caddis. Caddis. It doesn't work, does it? Oh, no. Oh, Cadiz are after me. Yeah, I mean, God. Terrible, yeah. But anyway, I've been a mysteriously vanished. It's run by Piper Parabo, right? Right. And for some reason, even though they're off, they're not responding to the... What happens in this? Do you... He's standing there. Do you literally cut to Cadiz HQ? Pretty much. Are they going... Yes. Do they hire the assassin? Right, yes. Oh, so they're... Right, we're giving a plot now. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We must stop him so we will hire that assassin and they're going to be brother and sister or something as a spoiler.

1:44:10Exactly. Ah, there we go. Not exactly that one, luckily enough. Not that one. Yeah, you've got it. What are they like in Canada? Do they mutter? You know what they're like? Is it like Squid Game? Right, well, I'll tell you what,

1:44:20Russell T. Davies:it's helmed by an American who is a traitor to her country. And she is. You know what she is? In what way is she a traitor to her country? I will specifically tell you, because she is giving Russia information on ally movement. Oh, that's a traitor. Which I think is quite, you know. That's a traitor. Yeah, it's treachery. She's a mercenary. How do we discover this? She's a mercenary. But she meets a Russian ambassador. Listen, there's a lot of... Here are the secrets. Well, I will tell you, there is a lot of exposition. You find it out. In fact, what happens is someone says it, tells us. Yeah, literally.

1:44:47Well, you need to, otherwise... Well, completely, yeah. Someone who's slipping secrets doesn't say, here's the secrets. Otherwise, you're not a very good spy. Yeah, no one says what Buzzfly is, though.

1:44:56Russell T. Davies:The only thing that isn't said out, allowed. Yeah, yeah. Anyway, she is... She's running Caddis. And she's absolutely... Caddis. Caddis. Caddis. Yeah. It's almost a caddish, which is a Jewish thing, but not a white. central assembly yeah something like that dead key yeah she is a mercenary and she is ruthless she's a mercenary in what way is she a mercenary she will take she will take money from anyone she's got a maverick an assassin and a mercenary actually this is a good show yeah bit by bit you win you could have a mercenary in Longley in Longley what does she do what does she do oh yeah yeah yeah ammunition what does she do that's mercenary She kills people after torturing them, after they've given her the secret she wants to extract.

1:45:45She passes to the Russians. Yeah, she does that thing where she's torturing a guy to get a secret from him. The torture gets so bad that he gives them the secret and then she goes to shoot him anyway. So that's how horrible she is. Do you know what she is? Is that a mercenary or is that a spy? She's a mercenary slash spy slash... I think it's just being a twat. She's a nasty bastard. And she's got quite a camp relationship with... Is it her actual son? Yeah. Her actual son is like her assistant. Crucially, neither a maverick nor a merciless. No. More of a dog's body. And you get the impression...

1:46:14It's a camp. The relationship is quite camp. She slags him off constantly. I'm liking it now. Yeah, yeah, yeah. In our inner. He kind of follows her around trying to be efficient and join in with her operations, but she's not having any of it, and she thinks she's a bit of an idiot, basically, in quite a camp. I literally cannot picture how a single scene in this works. I think that's more of a... I'm supposed to be good at this. I'm supposed to be like, right, this, Russell. Yeah, okay. Oh, fuck, what? I don't know how people walk into rooms in this. I feel like we've butchered it. I'm telling you what, they run in with a gun, shooting everyone in sight.

1:46:44That is this first, I started this by saying, before I was rudely interrupted, thanks. I did derail it a bit. Show me the clips then. You're right, you've got a point. There's a 15 minute action scene, which is actually very well done, but you have no idea what the fuck's going on.

1:46:58Russell T. Davies:Rebecca. Rebecca. Rebecca. Rebecca, Rebecca working for the mercenary assassin. Taking out the Russian ambassador. Crucially, not the Russian ambassador. No, not the Russian ambassador. Son in there, going, oh, pretty much pretty much and she had by the way by the way what really made me laugh genuinely caddis caddis this operation that could be run from our office in you know wherever our home home office really it's a spectacular you know the one in slow horses the control room the mi5 wherever it has where you know the beautiful control room with massive screens and a whole troop of people working for you that's caddis that caddis is just like that oh how could she afford that kind of level of sophistication?

1:47:40But I want to know where the control rooms... It goes back to the Bourne identity. You have a big, lavish control room where you can hone in on one person anywhere in the world in half a second. Do those actually exist? Do you know? Have you ever done any... Who are you asking? You! Who's asking us? Us or you? Yes, yes, Boyd, yes. Thank you.

1:48:03It's a bit like you, Nick, to be honest. It is, Nick. you know I thought you might have invested I think they kind of do we did it we did an American Torture and that had an American base and that was kind of based on Real Rooms they went and searched so yes I think there is a bit of sitting at desk well that was many years ago it's probably all just on one tablet now yeah absolutely I'm talking like I care about Cadiz now I know I don't care I know the bottom line is I don't care either and Amazon Prime Video as it's known they love they love an espionage thriller like this like Citadel like Citadel they are the dadcore entertainment they love a bit of they love ruthless assassins mavericks enigmatic mavericks who are secretly related to each other in some way shape or form blah blah blah and they've got boy they've got another one and it is apart from the 15 minute opening sequence she says well done but you don't know what's going on it is very generic isn't it I thought it was generic anyway I don't know what did you think Kay

1:48:58Russell T. Davies:I won't be watching anymore there we go I was impressed by the fight sequences but beyond that yeah Yeah, it's... I'm out. And you literally don't know why it's called Butterfly? No. Not at the moment. This wasn't a shtick. Can you imagine if it was a bit? No, you literally... I know, it's weird, isn't it? Yeah, that's a... I mean, that's a mistake, isn't it, really? Maybe at someone's tattoo or something? She just... I miss... Go to her son and say, you're as delicate as a butterfly. Maybe episode two, maybe. Maybe. Yeah, but they should really... Get there. No. They should really have got it out of the way in episode one.

1:49:27Shouldn't they? Just think they spent millions on this. Oh, it's quite... It feels quite high budget. It looks quite expensive. Yeah, it does. Isn't it bad? Mainly the control room, to be fair. Yeah, it is mainly that. Which isn't as good as units. So it's not as good as the one I went on set for in the war between the land and the sea. That's a room. That's a room. That's a control room. So, Boydie, butterfly. Yeah. Prime video, Wednesday the 13th of August. Not as good. That or alien earth. Yeah, I was going to say. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, not as good as Longleat, really. Well, sure. Yeah, that's what it is.

1:50:01Boyd Hilton:And I would ask you if we'd missed anything this week, but I don't think we did, did we? I don't think we have. Every week, by the way, on the show, I just go through Heat magazine. Yes, you probably hear it every week. And I look for things we might have missed. So I can do that now. But basically, there's a lot of reality TV on this week. There's a documentary about Peter Andre and Katie Price's children, by the way. Oh, wow. Yeah, which is... Oh, gosh. Yeah. I haven't watched it. Celebs go dating. Use of celebs go dating. I'm just listing things as it would annoy you. Nothing is what we're saying is nothing.

1:50:28Yeah, pretty much. Oh, FBI Most Wanted. the FBI franchise oh my god those shows are huge so that's the girl JT has got the beast on it from the chase he's a chase yes it has you're right I can't fancy watching that I'm interested but you know what he's not in the first few episodes he comes in halfway through I think you would have seen it exactly yes but that is the most that's the reason to watch for sure

1:50:47Boyd Hilton:need I ask what our pick of the week is no it's alien even I'm going to say alien

1:50:52Russell T. Davies:it's alien

1:50:53Boyd Hilton:even Russell he hasn't seen it I'm literally dying to watch it honestly it's like wow it is fabulous and butterfly oh my god we managed to get through that yeah it is time finally for a q a can we have the house lights please and bring out the roving microphones be shy bit shy with the hands but gentleman over there was the first one with his hand up microphone coming your way yes yes pass it along like a little parcel just don't unwrap it hello hello um i'm a massive fan of uh fantasy genre things. You may remember a few months ago I wrote in an impassioned defence of the Wheel of Time. Already my favourite person here, carry on.

1:51:35Boyd Hilton:So I was obviously heartbroken when that was cancelled and I just wanted your thoughts on why fantasy as a genre seems to not be doing so well at the moment whereas simile niche sci-fi seems to be having a real moment. There are so many sci-fi shows being commissioned whereas fantasy shows are just not doing so well, there aren't as many of them and a lot of them are being cancelled. there never have been though have there like and i always think like because because if you if you think prior to peter jackson's all of the rings like we had things like krull and and hawk the slayer and things like that but they always felt like poor cousins to science fiction i think partly the reason for that is is a fundamental lack of imagination so science fiction for me is a completely blank canvas you can tell any story you like using any metaphor you can whatever you can think of you can turn it into a science fiction story whereas i think a lot of people when they think fantasy they just think tolkien they think high fantasy they think wizards they think dwarves they think orcs they think elves uh if you read a lot of fancy you know literature you can do so much more with fancy it can be a lot more interesting but i i think that's not what people think of and i think you know game of thrones was an interesting one because yes it's fantasy but it's also not really fancy right like it's it's it's basically just it's incest and it's and it's it's vying for power and we all know incest like something you know stuff that we you're gonna want to identify with but but do you know i'm bit but but right it's human stories right there's something just quite almost i'm not soapy and i don't mean that in a bad way but just there's a universality to the themes in that uh and i think that that that's why it was a crossover hit it was a crossover hit because it was about sex and violence and politics we have time bless it much as i love it it's not about any of those things it's about the one power and the great evil and the prophecies and it's all those fancy tropes that i think nerds like me love and normies do not um so i think that's that's part of the reason russell you've never written any fantasy have you no it's i'm thinking about i have i bear in mind i haven't thought about this so i don't know but like every politician i will then answer the question and i don't think i mean this is interesting i think because i'm not so much into fantasy i like it but so maybe to me fantasy seems more one note and science fiction can vary widely you can go from andor to return of the jedi to to Star Trek Strange New Worlds, to Star Trek Discovery, to Doctor Who, to, you know, there's a wild, to Black Mirror.

1:53:56So there's a wild variation there. To me, fantasy seems to be the same orcs, witches, spells, the witcher in a bath. Cock teaser. That may be massively unfair. And I'm sure in terms of literature, it's wildly different. But from the outside, it feels like the same note being struck again and again, maybe. And I don't mean any offences to fantasy at all there. What do you think, Lav? I find fantasy What do you think butterfly? Thank you That's the real reason Why it's called butterfly It's called butterfly Butterfly bite

1:54:26Boyd Hilton:That's his name now I do find fantasy Quite forbidding Yeah quite kind of I don't know Kind of Difficult to find your way in Sometimes You do struggle With the lore And the names And the magic And the nomenclature And all that stuff I mean I think it all Goes back to probably I tried to read Tolkien The Lord of the Rings When I was a kid I found it very tough going very heavy going whereas I'd read sci-fi which I loved I would happily read Arthur C. Clarke or something but I always found I think Gormungas you heard the Gormungas books I love those but they're kind of right on the edge they're not really actually fantasy they were adapted they've been on telling yeah a couple of times yeah so I loved those because they didn't quite get in step into fantasy they hovered around the edges of it but I do I find it quite yeah it takes I just find it needs time for me to get into those worlds and all of that.

1:55:19And I think that's probably why there might be a bit of a prejudice against it from the powers that be in TV land as well, because I'm sure partly they're going, oh, what the fuck is this all about? All of the stuff that's going on, the goings-on that happen in the Wheel of Time and such. Whereas I think, as Russell says, sci-fi, you can have a sci-fi... It's hard to think, because you've also got to think that compared to when I was young, in my teenage years as well, it's a fantasy bonanza compared to what used to be on television. It's partly why I'm not quite latching onto the argument because I'm like, wow.

1:55:49And I liked The Wheel of Time. I thought that was lovely. I thought it was colourful. I thought it was gorgeous. I thought the women were amazing in it. So I'm kind of like going, well, it used to be nothing. So, you know? Kay, I know you're a huge fan.

1:56:00Russell T. Davies:Yeah, I've got nothing to this conversation.

1:56:04Boyd Hilton:Next question. Hi, thank you. Almost kind of follows on from that last question a little bit. Just thinking about the way streaming is now made, and the way it's commissioned and, you know, 10 episodes with FX heavy, then it takes two years for the next season to arrive. And when there's a show, I'm just asking, I'm asking and answering, if a show is very lore heavy, you're asking a lot of viewers to remember what the hell was going on without doing a lot of homework and watching YouTube recaps and stuff. And I just wonder how much the nature of TV changing from the especially the americans 22 a year you're back in production three weeks after you started finish the last one has just changed that and especially now the more complex stories we're trying to tell it's interesting i think what you say we're in a new age a new age of television no one's quite sure how well these things are working and i agree i watch shows and i've gone and watched the last episode again when a new series has come out is that working then again for some of these great big huge shows they're more successful than ever when stranger things comes along in the autumn, that's going to be huge.

1:57:13And I probably will have to go and watch the last episode again to find out what's going on. It is creaking. It's creaking at the edges and the seams. It's like we seem to be on a bigger level. We seem to be built on financial models that are simply not going to sustain themselves. And there's going to be an implosion eventually. Someone somewhere is going to go bust in the end and everything is going to fall down to earth and we'll see where we are. So there's no right or wrong answer to that. Yes, that's a problem. right now for the big shows that doesn't seem to be a problem because people will happily remember stranger things and and and and they feed off the fact that you have to remember that law and stuff like that but it's gonna i had to go you right i did have to revise on what was happening a wheel of time so it's it's not a basically you're asking questions about a system which no one knows what's going on i think no one knows how it works no one knows how long it'll work for no one knows if there's a better system so people keep on trying the days of like making 22 episodes of something a year seem impossible and distant and yet then the bbc do something like drop suits on you know six eight years of suits onto the iplayer and that's a success 22 episodes a year as a lot of stories of younger viewers getting into those because the amount of the volume of stuff so maybe that works i have no answer to but i just think it's fascinating but it's also that shift

1:58:30Boyd Hilton:isn't it away from episodic tv towards heavily serialized storytelling so if you look back at you know like dick wolf shows or csi or anything like that you could jump into season one of season 28 it makes no fucking difference does it you just watch it and i think they were very aware of the fact that And people, because it wasn't streaming, if you were in on Tuesday night at 8 o 'clock, you could watch it. If you weren't, you missed it. And that was it, unless you remember to record it on your VHS. And I think they were very conscious that they didn't want a situation where you'd miss one episode and then you'd just tap out because you're like, oh, I can't follow it anymore.

1:58:59Boyd Hilton:I can't do it. So they needed to be - They made a lot of those shows so you could show them in any order. Exactly. They wanted to syndication. They could just loop and it doesn't matter. And that was the secret to a hit show, essentially, wasn't it? Yeah, yeah. Whereas nowadays, like those kind of, and I don't love those kind of shows. You know, there's very episodic shows. I want an ongoing long form piece of storytelling. I need it. But you do have that problem. I swear to God, when I teed up The Witcher, I was just like, and I love this shit. I was like, I have no fucking clue who any of these people are.

1:59:26Boyd Hilton:What the hell is a Gilderfort? But luckily, you know, they do know that. And so they do have a recap so that you can understand. Okay, so that you're him and you did that and you broke that. And okay, brilliant. But you need it. when I got to Foundation Season 3, I was like, you almost have to re-watch the previous seasons because it's so dense and it's so impenetrable otherwise. And you do forget, especially if you have to watch six new shows a week.

1:59:53Russell T. Davies:Do you think a little handy recap at the beginning of a new series would help?

1:59:56Boyd Hilton:Yeah. I mean, I think they're mandatory at this point. And I actually think Netflix, they did it so well with The Witcher Season 2. They had, I think it was like about five minutes, this is what happened on The Witcher Season 1, but it was really funny. I think that's the key thing about recaps. They're not for people who've missed it. They're for people who watched it. Yes. I've tried watching shows I've never seen watching the recaps. You haven't got a clue what's going on.

2:00:17Russell T. Davies:Refreshing your mind. It's a refresher. Exactly that.

2:00:19Boyd Hilton:And it's actually really interesting, I think, just sort of going back to Alien Earth. Alien Earth does episode recaps. They are the coolest recaps I've ever seen because they don't say anything. They're almost silent. They're just like weird sound effects and just images from the previous episode just to kind of trigger your memory but without loading you with that. That's good. They know. they know it's a refreshing yeah absolutely and there's loads of weird little montage like scenes in oh yeah just to go back to Alien Earth yeah let's go back to that fuck it which are like nothing else I've seen really but in answer to your question sometimes I think every major show like that does have a recap and has to have a recap at the beginning but what's interesting and this is this is this is critic TV critic complaining here but because we often get sent shows obviously quite early three or four and they haven't done the recap yet and particularly this happens with me because he's really good.

2:01:07James is very good at remembering the law of all shows. I live for this shit. I forget the names. Of us. A show like Foundation. Yeah, of you, whoever. Who are you? Yeah. So, yeah, it's really annoying. You have to... But hold on, you like Strange New Worlds best. I do. And that's not serial. It's not.

2:01:26Boyd Hilton:And this is why I'm so uncomfortable. He's a hypocrite as well, Russell. Because it's exactly what I should hate, which is basically a fucking space procedural. all but and then i've talked about this in this podcast before the just it's so and i'm bold obviously with star trek is cliche but there's an elasticity to the tone which you do in doctor who wonderfully that you'll go from like i got the number wrong but it was 73 yards yes you'll go from like folk horror to like dot and bubble and all this stuff and you're ping-ponging from like genres to tones to ideas to and you know as a storyteller it's incredible because it gives you this this amazing canvas to do something different from week to week and i think strangely well to leaned into that.

2:02:05Boyd Hilton:They'll have a musical episode. They'll have a horror episode. They'll have a comedy of manners. There's a fucking puppet episode they've done for the next series. It is absolutely wild. They are living their best lives and I just absolutely salute it. But yes, you're absolutely right. I shouldn't like it. I don't know why I do. See, no one knows. No. You posted a thing about 73 Yards Today, didn't you? Which was very interesting. I did. Three years ago today, I started writing it. Yes, funny enough. Wonderful. That was interesting. Classic, classic episode.

2:02:31Russell T. Davies:And you lost a yard, didn't you? Yes, it was 74 yards. that first time. Brilliant. We sounded better. That was all. Yes. It wasn't at your eyesight. More questions. More questions. Questions. You pick someone. Russell, you pick someone. That person there, that lady there. Hi, I've got a question for Russell. Oh, yeah. I chose that. So, I've been watching Doctor Who Unleashed and I feel like a lot of the episodes were filmed out of order and I was just wondering like how much do the actors know about what episodes haven't been filmed yet? Oh, right. they weren't madly out of order we shot in the second series we shot episodes um one and four together and then two and three together so that that's all but we were very ahead on production so they would have read all scripts they would have had by that stage they would have read they would have had at least the first six scripts if not all of them they're probably already by that stage so um and we talked to them as well talked to shooty and and varida and um and millie in the first season so we would have talked them through it and again they're kind of self-contained stories so if you're on top of that script you're on top of that script so nice healthy relationship but it tends to be shot in order really it's not much out of order that was a good brisk short answer yeah thank you thank you for asking thank you for watching Unleashed love Unleashed thank you man in front there I'm from Northern Ireland so it's been good to like see shows like Blue Lights and Derry Girls big breakout hits recently and I know the creator of Derry Girls has a show coming to Netflix set in Belfast but just thinking about Russell there's like a lack of shows from like Wales and Scotland does more regional shows.

2:04:03I'm just wondering why that is, whereas you have quite a lot like Happy Valley and the likes of England that are in regional England, but the lack of Wales and Scotland. Yes, it's not bad in Wales. There's Death, what was it called? Death Valley, what was it called? Oh, yeah.

2:04:19Boyd Hilton:Keeping Faith is Welsh, isn't it? Keeping Faith is Welsh. They've got Mudtown coming in. The thing with Tim Spall. I think it was Death Valley. Death Valley, yeah, yeah, yeah. I loved that. I thought it was funny. But you're right. I mean, I could talk forever about Wales being a subordinate voice full stop in Britain. Someone said to me when I was about 18, they said Scottish and Irish people leave their countries and they keep their accents. Welsh people leave the country and lose their accents. And I think there's a certain amount of truth in that. I think that's got better. When I was 18 was a long time ago.

2:04:47But I do think there's a kind of Wales that's subsumed into England and still fights to recover from that, still fights rich identity. So I think that politically across the board, it's why the more we can have a separate government like Scotland does and have its powers as well, the better. I'm all for that. So that reflects culturally into everything then. It's part of the reason when Doctor Who was such a big success back in 2005, that's why I invented Torchwood and set it, literally I sat in my flat in Cardiff Bay and there was that big silver tower and I said, I'm going to set this right here, right underneath that silver tower.

2:05:23to show Wales all across the world. And I'm very proud of that. So every so often someone will come along and do that. Every so often it won't. And equally, there's not that much Irish stuff on. I think we always have to fight against the English stuff. There's not that much Irish stuff on. Blue Lights is extraordinary and award-winning. And that team is brilliant. And I met them and they were just lovely. And so there's always a fight. There's always a fight against the Scottish stuff. We're always the minority. it feels mainly probably that's all decisions made out of London and I've never lived or worked in London and I'm very proud of that I'm very proud of I've done the Manchester stuff I've done the Welsh stuff so the fight is on it's just a constant fight I'm going to choose the next question now but that man there who watches everything see the man who just goes that yes that's Scott who is we won't just do the front row supporter of the show oh it's Scott isn't it yes oh I know him it's corrupt I'm going to start in film and theatre but will get to TV so bear with me.

2:06:22In terms of what were you saying about Prime Video

2:06:25Boyd Hilton:and its obsession with spy dramas and things like that at the theatre last week I was at A Role to Die For which is a play about a fictional family who have control of the Bond franchise but her now in league with a streaming service and the future of that character after daniel craig has left is the theme of that play uh and it struck me watching the assassin and listening to that score which is very bond infused violin that keeps going over and over again yeah i agree to hate but i wondered whether i'm actually at the theater coming out and saw the news that stephen knight has been tagged for writing the script for a new film i wonder whether actually prime video are missing a beat now now that amazon mgm has creative control of the franchise whether bond would actually work better as a high-class streaming series rather than film.

2:07:39Could be it, I think, after my review of Butterfly. Yes. Work with me. Yes. Top of the list. Get Davis. Get Davis, they'll say. Yeah. There's something about Bond. I think it suits films. I think it suits, you know, rather than having a... Do you know, by the way, whilst you're talking about the Prime Video MGM, but you know they're bringing back that the bond flavored reality show which is called was it 007 road to a million road to a million you know do you remember that was that brian cox

2:08:08Russell T. Davies:got involved in yeah no he's back in it extraordinarily brian cox who seemed embarrassed by the whole thing first time around is back in it they've tweaked it i'm assured they tell us they've tweaked it so that it's better this time apparently but we'll see but um but that was the first you know you know that they really milked the the uh the ip for that show um but i think there must be there must be thinking about making it into a series at some point there must be you sound against it a little i am a huge fan of the films and i like i wouldn't be against necessarily some kind of spin-off involving money penny they talk to the money penny team imagine yeah no i'm typing all day yeah i'm not against that at all solves crime yes yes

2:08:51Boyd Hilton:marvellous honestly if you think for one second there's not going to be an animated Q series like you're mad like we live in the era of IP farming they will put out this film and they will be very respectful and it will make lots of money and then there will be a spin-off show and then there will be a kid show Blofeld at home with his puppet cat right the cat will have its own show you'll have all of this stuff because they can do it and they can make money out of it and the cat thinks he's in charge yes I will rule the world like that of course they will yeah yeah no they will do a lot but yeah no I'm totally open to it but we stick with the Bond films being the Bond films the core double X7 films and then you can do what the hell they like with the rest because it sounds kind of cynical but give Moneypenny to Noah Hawley you're right and you'll have an amazing show absolutely it's going to be like wow it's who you get to do it isn't it yeah yeah yeah because you know this is Stephen Knight writing the film it's Denny Villeneuve directing the film I have very high hopes for it if they get the Slow Horses team to work on a Bond spin-off series I'm there oh yeah Yeah, 100%.

2:09:50I've met Nick, Aaron. Have I told you? Yes. Thank you, Scott. Nick, questions. I'm in charge of the questions. Man way at the back with the white T-shirt there. He's under the light. Shiny. Yes. Yes. What's the best TV show in the last 20 years that no one's seen? Ooh. See. Can I just tell you the worst show that no one's ever seen? Go on. Leslie Joseph in Rumble. Leslie Joseph on prime time Saturday night played a wrestling manager. A wrestling manager.

2:10:25Russell T. Davies:Leslie Joseph. Leslie Joseph as a wrestling manager. I love that show. And I literally, how can no one have seen it? And Scott did, but it's like... Of course Scott's seen it. How can a show go out that doesn't even leave a shadow? It's amazing, isn't it? Yeah, that's terrifying. Anyway, that wasn't the answer to your question, but every so often I like to think of Rumble. Rumble.

2:10:48Boyd Hilton:they called it rumble um best go on i mean it's almost like take your pick of what's on apple tv plus right you know it's no one is watching that service but they have all of the best stuff but you know it it is shows like that i mean there'll always be obscure science fiction shows i've seen i go for i'll go for alex garland's devs have you seen devs do you think no one saw devs like it's hbo right so it's like made in manchester you know that was incredible absolutely incredible but not many people saw it it did not do well it's a show definitely that seems to have faded from the zeitgeist. And I think it's the best thing I think it's the best thing Right.

2:11:22Yes, that's right. That's what everyone I think it's the best thing he's ever done. I think it's Oh, yes. Yes. It's very, very It's shown on BBC2 here. BBC2 here.

2:11:30Boyd Hilton:I still haven't seen it. Yeah. But then, you know, not being funny and I know we are playing the fucking greatest hits at this point but how many people actually watch the OA? I don't think many did. Well, that's why it was cancelled. Right, exactly. So... I know a great show that everyone ignored and I loved it which is Debbie Horsfield's The Riff Raff Element. anyone see no nothing that went out on bbc that was that 20 years that might be late 90s so it might be outside your limits i defy your limit i don't know who you are so um that was about 25 years ago it was a bbc drama i absolutely loved it it was so it was about a rich it was about some poor people some working class people going to live with some rich people who'd actually lost a lot of their money and it was so rich they had one mad episode where a spaceship landed and an alien came out and waved and then went back it was nuts she just did whatever she wanted in it and it was greg wise was in it it's a phenomenal cast i love the riffraff element so there we go that look anyone remember it absolutely no one it was gorgeous really gorgeous there we are okay next question oh yes and this man in the t-shirt here hi yeah um there's been some great needle drops in tv in in recent years in the dramatization of the pilot tv podcast what would be your needle drops when your characters enter the room i asked tonight for the music for lost in space season two from the 1960s yes that one anyway so we did genuinely request that to be playing when you came into the room i don't know if it was or not can i just say they cost a fortune needle drops i've got this new drama coming out for channel four i'm gonna spend a week taking all of them out they cost a fortune fortune fortune it's and that is very interesting it's they will exist in the big budget streaming shows.

2:13:19It's disappearing off terrestrial television because the prices are so high now.

2:13:22Russell T. Davies:You can choose one for me. Oh, can we?

2:13:25Boyd Hilton:The Lady in Red. I'd want to choose something.

2:13:28Russell T. Davies:The Lady in Red.

2:13:29Boyd Hilton:That's good. I'd want to say that mine would be something edgy. You know Smoke has that really nice original theme tune by Tom York. I'm not a huge Tom York fan, but it's a great piece of music that is. I love also Mick Jagger's Slow Horses thing. It's great. But realistically, and I think we all know, it would be Love Story by Taylor Swift. And the Pink Panther. Yeah, I'm good with that. Yeah, yeah. That's fine. Thanks. Here he comes.

2:14:03Here's Bide. That's perfect, yeah. And what would you like? Henry Mancini. I don't know what I'd have. The Boyd of Summer by Don Henley. Oh. That's one of my favourite songs. Sorry, that was terrible. Denim? Yeah, back to, let's stick with the Pink Panther. I can't get an improvement on that. They won't be able to use the Pink Panther.

2:14:24Boyd Hilton:It'll cost a fortune. That's true. Another needle. It depends on what the budget of our show will be. I think that... You'll add it. It'll be Royal Street or AI generated. Okay, who's next? Oh, it's Darren. Darren! Darren! That's not fair. Cut this question out, Darren. Darren can ask this question anytime. It is actually just an admin question. When do you want this edited by?

2:14:46The next five minutes. I've got a busy day tomorrow going to Secret Cinema Grease. So I just wanted to check on the schedule. How short do you want it to be? Ten minutes.

2:14:55Russell T. Davies:Do you know what? Absolutely typical for Darren to get the biggest laugh of the night. Yeah.

2:15:01Boyd Hilton:You remember this for the book. That was the question. Another one. Yeah. way at the back there look at the dog shirts like there yes you the one who just looked round yes that's it hooray why did I say hooray bursting in a dog shirt so this is kind of building off some other questions that have been already said and what people have been saying during the night which is something we've noticed with a lot of these premium series coming out is that episode counts of series have been shortening so to 8 or 6 or with casualty I know that's not premium but that's half and a lot of these shows are getting really quite smaller there are a lot of shows but their run times are shorter than shows typically would be do you think that that might change in the future as production costs go down for various reasons maybe higher quality cameras get cheaper or something like that maybe shows that were six episodes could go back to 20 or 22 or as you were saying people want sitcoms there aren't any right now that's kind of telling that there is going to be a big resurgence of them yeah do you think it's possible for longer shows to come back to television yes i do i i'm not sure we'll ever see 22 episodes a year ever again probably because people died making those they did we'll it sounded like that was easy that was very hard work for a lot of people and and and a tough system i think people do want 12 episodes 18 episodes i think like i was saying to this gentleman here the system is creaking it's not sustaining it's like fantasy shows are running out the beginning to fall things are beginning to slip streaming's money is good it's going to be an implosion somewhere and after that will come healthy things out of that it's very interesting it's like this um oh no i'm not supposed to talk about tiptoe in much detail but for example we're not making that much money and i'm it's really exciting to make and we're actually kind of invigorated by it and um it's like the old days and we know how to do that we're also very skilled in doing it so all those skills are still there um and it's it's it's so yes i think i think everything will come to pass in the end and circles go around and cycles come around and those things will come back and there will be a great big sort of 12 episode 18 episode lawyers drama on the BBC.

2:17:26Remember North Square? I love North. That only went for six episodes a year, but I watched 12 episodes of North Square every year, so I think they'll come back. But it's not always a good thing, is it?

2:17:35Boyd Hilton:Do you remember the Marvel shows on Netflix, and they were 13 episodes long, and they were at least five episodes too long those stories were? How very interesting that that's made by teams that had no experience of making those shows. They famously said they had to get showrunners into Marvel to make those shows, and I think you were making shows by people not used to long-form television. It's an art. and it's a skill it's a science and I think the skills weren't there I think people work very very hard I hate to say that about teams in which they would have worked very very hard but there's a lot to learn actually you need the people it's like you don't need necessarily that wunderkind who's made a great big science fiction film you actually need the people who made 22 episodes of Suitsia they'll come and keep your show on the rails and they're very ambitious they're not worker ants they are ambitious and clever and wise and like going outside the format and stuff like that so it's like yeah you know you used to think how mad and inventive shows like ali mcbiel used to be and i used to hate ali mcbiel in all sorts of ways but i mean songs and and talking babies and things like that it was invention just pouring out of its gills it was nuts that show so all of that's still there all it comes down to is people in the end all the people with those ideas are still there and those ideas will come out but there's also that idea that we as viewers want more of it because we love it and we think you can't have too much of a good thing except the thing is you can and I think shows unlike and I think we're talking sort of episodic shows I think that's maybe slightly different but for a serialized show I think it should be as long as it needs to be to tell the story and not a second longer than that so if it needs to be four episodes brilliant if it needs to be 20 episodes that's fine too but do justice to the story that you're trying to tell don't stretch it out don't truncate it final season of Game of Thrones was too short for cost reasons they needed more time to tell that story they didn't get it and they fucked it not necessarily their fault but that's unfortunate but equally i think you know there are certain shows where you're like this and we've talked about this on pilot like this didn't need to be 10 hours long god knows and i think that's a mistake so i think maybe start with the story and then work out and kind of the fact that the rules don't apply what can be good it's like with tiptoe which i'm gonna make now for channel four they literally went how many episodes is that and i went five they went fine and no one was saying it's got to be six uh no one's saying it has to be three i just went five and i know i'm in a very privileged position where they listen to me but nonetheless five yes done like that so that's healthy that's that's not stretching it out to 10 that's not compressing it into into into two hours it's like they're listening to what the story is so it's a good place to be in sometimes apple seems to like nine episodes yes they do smoke is nine there's a couple of other shows yeah nine but i think the weird thing about all i was just gonna say is with comedies with sitcoms particularly um it's you know friends on Netflix is massive.

2:20:16Famously, more people watch Friends on Netflix than anything else, pretty much, except for maybe Wednesday or whatever. Seinfeld in America on Netflix is massive. They spend a huge amount of money acquiring the rights to show that on streaming. And yet, every now and then, they tiptoe into the world of a half-hour sitcom Netflix. They've done it a couple of times recently, and they've been terrible, absolutely awful. But I think they really would love to stumble upon their own long-running, maybe not 20, but certainly 15, 1516 episode sitcom i think they'd love it but they haven't yet found it so i think i think eventually there will be more of those in the streaming world i think unfortunately we are out

2:20:53Boyd Hilton:of time oh my god as i hate to say it so that is it well well well actually no oh no it's not it

2:20:59Russell T. Davies:apparently i've just got a little bit of last minute admin i wanted okay right so russell when i first joined i set a target of us reaching 2 000 reviews now it sounds like a small thing but I've been very unseemly I've been asking people you know begging people etc etc James was reluctant so will we be able to do it well I would like to tell you all that on our two 349th episode this glorious moment that I can say that we actually finally reached our target no way yeah are you happy yes now it's such a small thing yeah and as per our agreement I said I would commission us a cake and I have. So one of our lovely listeners, the patisserie chef, Eleanor, can you put your hand up if you're not too sure?

2:21:46Russell T. Davies:There. She made us a cake. This is amazing. A little surprise. Look at this. We're going to eat cake in front of people. We are literally going to eat cake in front of people. No, no, no, no. We are, but then I've got forks and stuff, but there's only 10 forks you're going to have to share. Yeah. Are you giving away my cake? So do you know what? The best thing is, I'll never have to talk about this again. So you know when you've got bored of me Oh, my God. So I'm scared to tilt. It's enormous.

2:22:12Boyd Hilton:Yeah.

2:22:12Russell T. Davies:I'm going to tilt it.

2:22:13Boyd Hilton:Yeah, don't drop it. That is gorgeous.

2:22:15Russell T. Davies:That is gorgeous.

2:22:17Boyd Hilton:That is a magnificent cake. Ooh. Yeah.

2:22:22Russell T. Davies:It's amazing.

2:22:27Amazing. Thank you. That's beautiful. That is one great surprise.

2:22:31Russell T. Davies:So don't leave without getting a slice.

2:22:32Boyd Hilton:And I was about to say, you can all have some cake, although they will throw us out of here because we have overrun. Just buy it. just what do you say you can order some cake how's it going to happen yeah I'm on my butterfly not to get scary

2:22:42Russell T. Davies:but I've got a knife

2:22:43Boyd Hilton:yeah Kay's handling the logistics that is wonderful I'm not sure what I'm going to mock you about after this yeah exactly

2:22:50Russell T. Davies:I just wanted it to end so you know

2:22:52Boyd Hilton:wow okay well okay on that note it is it for our 349th episode of Pilot TV thanks to Becca and everyone at King's Place thanks to Marco for taking the pictures to Darren the editor for the wonderful job he's going to do by first thing Monday morning. Thank you to the wonderful, the magnificent, the splendiferous Russell T. Davis. Woo-hoo!

2:23:20Boyd Hilton:For coming down here from Manchester to talk shit with us on a Friday night. So thank you for that. Loved it. And we didn't pay for his train. And Boydie didn't pay for his train, honestly. I've got a new show, Longley. Such a bumblebe. thank you to all of you obviously for coming out and giving up your evening as well if you have not yet left us a five star review you are literally not allowed to leave the hall and no cake for you

2:23:44Russell T. Davies:we don't care crucially

2:23:47Boyd Hilton:crucially and if you are please do follow us on social media at James C. Dyer at Kay Rivera at Boyd Hilton at Pilot TV Pod and Russell what's your handle Russell T. Davis 63 on Instagram as well on next week's show we can have Alex Lorth on the podcast talk about Alien Earth Earth, plus Peacemaker season two arrives on Sky, Invasion's on Apple, Hostage comes to Netflix, many, many other wonderful things. But none of that is my problem because I'm not going to be here because I'm basically off now until September. Because, you know, I'm taking a leaf out of Boydysburg. I'm checking out. I'm clocking off.

2:24:20Boyd Hilton:I'm going to have a little walk on the beach, you know, enjoy the sun. Be a bit lazy, really. Maybe do a tour of other White Lotus hotels, you know, that kind of stuff. We'll have to see. But I'm sure Kay and Boyd and Steph and maybe Russell we'll look after you in my absence Russell's permanent permanent host now clearly I may have a job that's it we're done but honestly thank you to all of us all of you for coming out and don't go anywhere because we're going to take a selfie from the stage with you all in it which is going to be very exciting and don't forget to have some cake as well so how yes how is that going to happen okay how is he a maverick there's a maverick mysterious mercenary cake what It's going to be carnage.

2:25:01Russell T. Davies:We've got 10 spoons. Carnage. It's fine.

2:25:04Boyd Hilton:All right. Come and have some cake before I eat it all and before Russell goes off to pitch long lead to Apple TV+.