Mix Tape, The Narrow Road To The Deep North, and Washington Black. With guest Mark Gatiss

35:28But he committed suicide because someone had his letters. You know, it's all about that, all about the danger of it. And I think it's something quite moving. And the fifth episode, I think, was a really good choice to show to journalists because it's got everything in the series it's got, it's got kind of quite a moving undercurrent. Yeah, yeah. Lots of laughs as well, but it is. It's actually quite a lot because of the stuff with poor Contrati talking about their own relationship and then the flashback to Book's lover, Felix. Now, what did you do for that flashback sequence? You're not a huge amount younger, but I felt like there's a little, they kind of youthed you up a bit.

36:02It's clever, isn't it? It's very clever. What happened there? How did that work? Well, it's amazing techniques. Simple things actually the my wig it's the best wig i've ever had it's a it's a masterpiece and it's really one of the great things about it is it's not a hard hairline it's actually receding yes it's you can see the light through it's good really good yeah but um uh esther who do hair and makeup uh just moved it forward and it does it's amazing what difference it makes and then a little bit of post-production magic to take away my dark circles. And I took my glasses off. Of course. It's one very different.

36:40Fair enough, fair enough. I spoke in a higher voice. Oh, did you? Okay, slightly higher. It's quicker, actually, quicker. Oh, okay. Interesting. The title sequence is beautiful. Isn't it? I think the title sequence is so important, aren't they, I think, because they established the tone of the show. And this one does it beautifully. Who did it? Where did the music come from, etc.? The music is by Sarah Warne. Yeah. who again, the brief is, she just completely got it. And it's interesting because it's not strictly period at all. There's quite a lot of techno in it, quite a lot of what one would call fat synthesizers, P-H-A-T, kind of farty, farty noises.

37:16And it works. Why does it work? I don't know. I just know it does. And it's really, it's like another character. The title sequence was, they had done this test for it, but they were so keen. it was virtually as it is. I mean, sort of in maquette form, but that whole thing of the dagger coming out of the book and everything, and it's a very rare instance. Carolina showed me the test, director Carolina showed me the test about a week into filming, if that. And I was, it's so unusual. I just said, it's perfect. And it was. And actually, after that, I said to everyone, we have to live up to the promise of the title sequence because it's so much fun.

37:57and it's and like Sarah's music is slightly off kilter so it's I was just thrilled I love it when that happens I'll never forget on the fourth series of Sherlock um the people came into with their their basic their their idea for the advertising and it was we Sue Virch and I sat down and they just got out these pictures and they were everything was great like there was a It was a fourth series, a violin with the fourth string broken. And we just went, it's great. And we left after about 10 minutes. It was like, those are the meetings you want to have. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's brilliant. And it was like that with this.

38:36It was just, gosh, that's gorgeous. Yeah, that's fantastic. Having written Sherlock with them off and have that experience of writing whodunits and mysteries, murder mysteries, does that make it easier? Do you know how they work now? Is there a secret to knowing how they work? Well, I mean, Sherlock is much less like murder mysteries. It's the adventures of Sherlock Holmes. And obviously we were explicitly basing them mostly on original stories. So that was easier. Yes. But murder mysteries are fiendishly difficult. I mean, I've read thousands of them, I say, and I know my way around them. But they are very difficult.

39:11And there's a reason why Agatha Christie remains preeminent. I mean, I've said tell the story many times that Billy Wilder, when he was making the film of Witness for the Prosecution, a journalist dared to ask him why he was wasting his time with Agatha Christie. And he said, listen, my friend, Agatha Christie's characters, her dialogue I could write in an afternoon, but her plots are like fucking bald bearings. And I, you know, that's true. It's so good. And everybody is trying to match that for invention and the twists. And she's a magician. She tells you things explicitly and you don't notice until you go back and go, oh, my God.

39:47And I read them, almost all of them, when I was a teenager on holiday, one after another. And, you know, you find, you know your way around them. And then I just spread the net because I love them so much. I started reading Lord Peter Whimsey and Albert Campion. And, you know, there are manifest pleasures, but you often return to Christie. And the reason they're so famous is because they're just so good. And I like the fact that in this series, the initial crime, if you like, there's a deliciousness to the initial crime, particularly the last story with the cocktail, the poison cocktail, and the second episode, which is all about this kind of movie studio.

40:28So there are great settings for these mysteries as well. Oh, yes. I mean, that's the other thing. To go back to Doctor Who, it's the one with or the one where. It's a big thing. And I think I've learned that with my mother's milk. You know, those are the ones, the one with the maggots, the one with the spiders, you know. And it does, it's a great thing. So I said to Matthew, because Matthew Sweet, because he'd written this wonderful book about the British film industry called Shepparton Babylon. And the wonderful book about London hotels during the war called the West End Front. And I said, can you write one on that and one on that?

40:59And so it's just perfect. You know, it's of the period, but it's unusual. It's familiar, but full of real surprises, you know. And you can enjoy all the scenarios that go with it. And you've got a lovely poisonous film journalist in the middle story, played by Amanda Drew, Norena Bean, the brilliantly named Norena Bean, who I very much enjoyed. Are you getting your revenge there? She's made for Norena, called Norena Shute, who is almost exactly like that. Okay, excellent. Yeah. No revenge. No revenge. No, no, no. No, I don't think so. Probably because critics have been very good to you, haven't they, over several years?

41:40Have you ever had a... Treat these imposters just the same. Okay. But do you read reviews, though? This is coming out any day now. As an actor, I don't read reviews. I think that's very important. I really don't. It doesn't help. As Ken Kesey said, the good ones don't help and the bad ones stay with you forever. As a writer or a producer or a director even, like reading reviews of plays I've directed. I think you have to. It's part of the job. It's difficult. I remember when I directed Stephen's play The Unfriend, I lost two weekends worrying about what the Daily Mail were going to say. Oh, no.

42:16And at the end, I loved it. Yes. Which was awful. We did a good job with that. It was fantastic. Fantastic play. You know what I mean? But, yeah, I mean, I'm very keen to see what people think. I really principally just in this fractured broadcasting age, I just want people to see it. Yes. And luckily, thus far, the publicity has been wonderful. And I have to tell you, as everything is to please the eight-year-old version of myself, to be on the cover of the radio and the TV Times at the same time is like Christmas. Explicitly like Christmas. Well, the radio, if I was interested, I don't like to promote a rival magazine, but anyway, it's fine.

42:54The Her Majesty's Radio Times, as I like to call it, has got this. It's talking about the proliferation of classy, I feel, crime stories. I mean, there are more crime shows than ever before. It's extraordinary. Every week there's like one or two. I think maybe the new golden age started with knives out, maybe. So it's not that long ago. But I think the reason for it is probably the same reason as the initial one in the 20s and 30s, which is the world is very uncertain. So somehow the order of a puzzle, and it's particularly one set in the past, is quite comforting. But I don't particularly care for cosy crime as a term because I don't think it...

43:42There's nothing wrong with being cosy at all, and I don't want to be pejorative about that. But I think you can do more. You can give it teeth. And I think that's what we've hopefully tried to do here. Yeah, Cursive Crime has become kind of a descriptor of anything that's kind of starts at eight o 'clock, maybe. And it goes for an hour and a half on ITV. Anything that's on. Anything that's on, yeah. And regardless, regardless question type. Yes, exactly. Yeah. This is a very kind of geeky detail, but it's interesting because Sherlock really worked as a 90 minute per episode thing. And in this, you've got one hour episodes.

44:14American hours. American hours. So was that something you thought? Which is basically 50 minutes. Right, right. Was that something that you decided was the best way of telling these stories or was that kind of partly...? I think it was. No, I definitely, I explicitly conceived the first one as a two-parter. And I don't know then whether, no one at any stage said we need to make these individual ones. And I'm really glad we've got the room to breathe. I do think, and I watch a lot of murder mysteries and read a lot of them, but I do think it's nice to have a bit of space. Sometimes if it was all in 45 or 50 minutes, you barely get time to meet the suspects.

44:53And therefore, inevitably, they become a bit cut out because you haven't got time, you know. And again, you can do it. I wouldn't rule out if we're lucky and we get more serious. I wouldn't rule out doing shorter ones for a different flavor. But there is something nice about enjoying the location and enjoying the twists and turns. I think particularly actually in one and two, slightly foxed, certain characters come to the fore as suspects and then slightly recede. And then, Oh, it's interesting. And one thing I've found really good and very instructive as I constantly worry about where the clues are too obvious or too obscure is as soon as you watch it in a room full of people, it changes.

45:35I watched, we did a screening of one and two for the core cast a few weeks ago, just because they hadn't seen it. And watching it in a room full of people, And I suddenly thought, God, he looks suspicious. I thought, God, I look suspicious. And I found that really, really helpful, actually, to think, oh, it's not, you know, and people pick up on things or don't. And they think there's, you know, I think this is always the way. There's more to it than there is. But then you pretend, you just twiddly a mustache and go, yes, that was the platter or a lot. Or they miss something which you think is blindingly obvious.

46:09But you definitely, I think you're absolutely right, giving it time to breathe. Because you get humorous moments. which I really liked in the, I think in the fifth episode, when you talk about the F word and it's foils, which is great. Because we're old enough to remember that, what a bizarre nightmare foils was to buy a book in. Although I don't think Buck hates it for that reason. No. Because his world is very chaotic. I was just talking to someone about that who was too young to remember, but it was joyous. It was so mad. You couldn't pay for something directly. You had to get a shit. Exactly.

46:39And I explicitly remember once going upstairs and there was a power cut and I watched people stealing books by the arm. And no one stopped. That's amazing. The other brilliant thing, my foils memory, is, I don't know if you had it, but obviously I had the Alan Frank movie treasury of horror movies, right? Of course. But do you remember on the back flyleaf, there were other books in the series, which one never saw. Right. Movie treasury of gangster movies, western thrillers. Yeah. And I'm very interested in those because I had the horror movies. But the only time I ever saw the others was in Foil's top floor, where they were all stacked together and had clearly not been moved since 1974.

47:23And I thought that was magic. Yeah. The film book section was extraordinary. Yeah. I mean, and they used to do the most weird. They used to do every year there'll be an annual book just summarizing all the films. I guess it was pre-internet, wasn't it? So we needed that kind of thing. Yeah, I've still got a couple of those. I've got a couple as well, I think. I love those. Yeah. See, I thought the F4 was, although it wasn't your characters, I thought that was you and Matthew kind of having a comment. It's Matthew's joke. It's my favourite joke in the whole thing. It's great. And we need to continue it.

47:49There's a little reference earlier when Jean, the lady, comes in asking the judge at hair and her husband says, we should try foils, and the book just goes. Yeah, exactly. Just wins. It's not a campaign of abuse. No, no, no, no. But it's fair enough. It's fair enough. Tonally, because it has, in the story, in the last story with the two exiled princesses of Scutari, who are quite camp and kind of over the top, brilliantly so. Did you and Matthew decide at the start what kind of tone you're looking for and then you wanted it to be quite funny and at certain moments, you know, kind of almost knock about a little bit?

48:26The tone I wanted and had in my head is somewhere between Green for Danger, the great Alistair Simm film, The Lady Vanishes and the Euston of Evil Under the Sun. So that I think they are brilliant black comedies with often quite scary, thrilling moments and a great plot. that's my ideal and that's what we're trying to get somewhere obviously within that there are very shifting sands of melancholy and pathos versus something quite, but it's weird I was worried that it was too somber and then the Guardian said arch high camp fun and I went god, okay I just can't tell. That's interesting isn't it but I think, I mean it's the balance I'm trying to get and I don't want it to It's very, tone is vital.

49:24But I think we've got it. And I think people recognise it. Someone said, my favourite review so far, someone said, this is the most Mark Gatiss thing you've ever done. I was very pleased with that. That's very good. Yeah, I would second that for sure. When you're writing, did you, I mean, obviously you're writing a lot with Matthew as well, but did you show it to Stephen Moffat, for example? Did you show it to other friends? Or are you, you know, confident enough in what you're doing? Stephen and Sue actually saw a very early version of the first episode, the script. I mean, this is years ago.

49:57I think I just remember talking. Before I was sure quite what it was. But no, no, they've got, they're coming on Monday to the BFI. But no, no, I didn't really. It was just, I mean, I think you probably know already that it came about. I tried to write it as a book in lockdown. I couldn't get the tone right, but I thought I can do this as a script. I know weirdly how it'll work. And then after lockdown, I was at the Radio Times covers party, and I met Walter and Joe from Eagle Eye. And Walter said, you don't have a period detective in you. And I said, well, actually, I've got a script. And that's how it started.

50:35So no one else really outside of that circle saw it, and they loved it straight away. And it was commissioned remarkably quickly after that. So it had a long, weirdly long fuse. Yeah. And it kind of went off. It's already been recommissioned, hasn't it? Some congratulations. Yes, brilliantly. Which never happens, does it? I know. A bit scared of it. Have you got the stories for series three? Oh, it's written. Oh, that's nice. Yeah. I mean, that's the joy of that because Helen at UKTV recommissioned it because basically we said, if you want to do it, we need at least two to make it sing. and also, you know, imagine now if it went out and people liked it and they said, yeah, great, go for it.

51:16And I say, right, day one. Yeah, but that happens on all those. Yes, of course. And you have to wait two and a half years for the series two. And I really hope that means we can get quite a lot of them quite quickly. That would be excellent. Yeah, if you could deliver it this time next year, that would be great. Finally, I have to, would you, Mark Gatiss, like to do another episode of Sherlock? Would I? Yes. Would you like to write, you and Stephen, would you like to write another episode? Yes, well, we'd like to do a film. Okay. That's what we keep saying. Yeah. But it never happened. Surely someone can make it happen.

51:46Yes. Perhaps, I don't know, Elon Musk. He's got a penny. Don't get him involved. Thank you, Mark. Congratulations on a fabulous show. Thank you. Thank you. That was Mark Gatiss and time for this week's news. And we begin, I assume, with the Emmys, which I think will take a little while. It was an interesting Emmy week, I would say. So just to kind of give you the broad strokes before we start delving into individual categories, leading the run in this year's Emmys was Severance Season 2 with 27 nominations, a record for that show. 24 nominations for The Penguin, which I have to say I was very surprised by.

52:2523 nominations for The White Lotus. 23 nominations for The Studio. 16 nominations and 157 corridors for The Last of Us Season 2. 14 nominations for and or including absolutely no acting nominations which is criminal 14 nominations for hacks and 13 nominations for the pit but we can't really comment on that because we haven't got to fucking see it anyway so not a bad not a you know an interesting spread 142 total nominations for hbo or of course whatever they're calling themselves this week uh and i think was i can't remember how it was 120 something for netflix and 81 nominations for apple which i think might be a record for them as well so interesting all-round body what were the big standouts for you um the big standouts for me were that um i think overall most big shows you know that we that we kind of like and love on this podcast were acknowledged and um but a couple of like real standout kind of shock elizabeth moss basically not getting nominated at all one nomination for the Handmaid's Tales final season one given that it's pretty much swept the board in season one but again I wonder if it's it feels like it's been going on for so long now I wonder whether fatigue has just set in but like watching this and this is something I guess we talk about a lot with the Oscars it's like with the Oscars it feels sometimes like the nominees for the Oscars are a bit obvious like it's almost like the Academy only watch the obvious films and don't really watch the other ones I imagine that as an even more acute issue for the Emmy are they an academy what are they the enemy organization yeah the tv academy fine because obviously tv shows require a great deal more time to watch and again like you watch this year after year and it does feel sometimes like they do go to the obvious places and the obvious shows a lot of times not that's not sound like throwing shade i mean their choices are all very worthy here like i can't complain about them but it is also predictable it's because i would have thought the handmade so but i think it's what's interesting is i think it is a reflection of shows like the Handmaid's Tale, which I really like, but I think has gone on too long, right?

54:24And I think when it goes on that long, it loses some of its cultural cachet. Yeah, without a doubt. I think it does. Also, it's a bit too close for comfort at the moment. Well, yeah, that as well. But, you know, I think it's a shame anyway. I think it's a shame it hasn't been launched. But in terms of, there are still surprises. Like, Sharon Horgan's been nominated as lead actress in a drama series for Bad Sisters. Which I think is brilliant. Amazing. That's amazing. I would say that's a slight surprise just in terms of, you know, there aren't that many other nominations for Bad Sisters but that's brilliant she's on Bella Ramsey she's up against Kerry Russell for The Diplomat our favourite second nomination for Bella Ramsey Brit Lowa for Severance Kathy Bates for Malick who's the oldest nominee ever I think for Best Actress how old is Kathy Bates she's 77 I think do you know what I loved it because Sharon Horgan posted this video of I think Kathy Bates I don't know where she was walking into if it was like her agent's office or just whatever but there was like a real reception for her like flowers and Sharon was like I can't wait to go into like Merman production see what happened how they react to my nomination yeah well and Jason Isaacs talked about someone got him on the phone and he said when did you find out that you've been nominated because Jason Isaacs has been nominated in the supporting actor category and he said I'm trying to fix my fridge so I had no idea what was going on and his on-screen son Patrick Schwarzenegger phoned him and told him he was the one to tell him and Patrick Schwarzenegger but hasn't been nominated.

55:50He's one of the few White Lotus ensemble cast members who haven't been nominated. But I think, I can understand why. First of all, I'm thrilled that White Lotus got so many nominations because it would definitely, like, there was definitely a sense among other people, not us, other critics, that it wasn't as good as previous seasons. I think it was the best season. I mean, in supporting actress in that category alone, it's got four noms. Yeah, right. Yeah, incredible. It's incredible. Yeah, absolutely brilliant. Yeah. So I'm thrilled that that's been recognised and it's got so many nominations.

56:20I also think that, you know, in a drama series, which is the big category, they've got eight nominations, eight shows nominated, right? Let's talk about that. Yeah, let's talk about that. That's a lot. One of these things is not like the others. Yeah. Andor, our favourite, your favourite, my favourite, one of my favourites. The Diplomat, another big favourite, The Last of Us. Paradise. Uh-huh. Severance. I'm leaving it out, the one. Severance. Oh, okay. Slow Horses, brilliant, and The White Lotus. and the aforementioned show we still haven't seen and showed no sign of arriving, The Pit, which has got a lot of nominations considering we can't watch it.

56:56But that isn't the surprise for me. The surprise for me was Genuinely Paradise, which I really enjoyed and absolutely devoured, but it was a guilty pleasure for me. Like, I didn't think it was like, I thought it was, I think I gave it three stars, which I stand by. I really liked it because it was fun, but it was a bit trashy. I'm very surprised that made Best Drama Series, genuinely. Oh, I think because it was brilliantly made. I think technically it was fabulous. And I think your point you made earlier about members of the Academy, it's such a gripping, intriguing premise. I think they probably were gripped right from the start, even though, as you say, it had a cheesy-ish tone to it as well.

57:35The Bear, of course, was an outstanding comedy series, not outstanding drama, but the lesser about that, the better. Okay, I was about to say something because I could see you formulating. No, I was thinking about, you know, was the diplomat on that list did you say yeah yes because the thing is i love the diplomat but i wouldn't say it's prestige tv either so this is because of the bit of the running in the final episode which you know scandal no but i'm just thinking about what you were saying about paradise which i agree but i'm just like i don't i know what you're saying it's gourmet burger but you're right it kind of leans more into that that's but i don't know this like the diplomat is extremely well written it's definitely accessible in that way and very melodramatic but i do still think you know it's it's it's genuinely great in a way that paradise i think is more i'm surprised as many people like paradise as they did it's a very me show i'm surprised that it's a an emmy show but you know i don't think it's gonna win i can tell you that oh no it definitely won't yeah yeah um some other lead actor in the comedy series is adam brody case favorite that's right yeah nobody wants this yeah seth rogan for the studio the studio got loads as you mentioned at the beginning can we talk about can we talk about the guest actor in a comedy series category which is literally only the studio well plus one is it oh is it one there's one that isn't um for the bear yeah um the one non the studio nominee is john bernthal for the bear and of course the irony of that is he's dead i mean his character's dead he only appears in flashbacks it's true but yeah he He's great when he's in there.

59:09Oh, no, he's great. It's Bryan Cranston, Dave Franco, Ron Howard. Ron Howard's first ever Emmy nomination. And this is Richie Cunningham from Happy Days. He's never had one before. We've got this. And Martin Scorsese and Anthony Mackie. And all of them. Bryan Cranston is the only... So I wrote a little piece about this for Empire in the next issue of Empire. And it's fascinating because Bryan Cranston is the only one of those who doesn't play himself. He played the annoying studio head. Whereas Dave Franco, Anthony Mackie both play themselves as well. and Ron Howard and Scorsese play themselves.

59:40Listen, sometimes it's hard being yourself. Yeah, yeah, it is. But what I would say is I think Scorsese is going to win it because I re-watched that episode. Oh, he's so good. The pilot episode for this piece I wrote. The performance of mine in Scorsese is amazing. He has to run the gamut, right? First of all, he's really thrilled and pleased that he's going to have his Jonestown Massacre film with a$250 million budget because the studio head needs him on board. And then when he finds out he's been lied to and that they're not going to make that film at all, he's crushed. And his performance is brilliant as a crushed creative genius who's been told this final film is not going to happen.

1:00:18So I think he's the favourite. He's so good. But it's such a brilliant category. Yeah, you're right. It's amazing. I would like to highlight that my favourite show, Shrinking, has been shown a lot of love. Seven noms. Not as many as your other big shows, but still. and particularly I'm excited about Jessica Williams being nominated in the Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series category, which I really hope she wins. I mean, she is against Catherine O 'Hara in the studio and some other great nominees. But yeah, I really, really want her to win. Yeah. And Harrison Ford's first ever Emmy nomination at the age of 83 for that show as well.

1:00:55Very exciting. Yeah, he's got to grab that too. Also, there was some love shown to Dying for Sex, Michelle Williams. Oh, yeah. also Rob Delaney both nominated that was a show that I really enjoyed I think you guys liked it as well right but I finished it I didn't love it personally I thought it was good I did think it was good but I didn't finish it yeah I didn't like the performance of the oh that's right you had a real being upon it about a best friend didn't you you were slating Jenny Slate who's actually been nominated supporting actress in a limited series yeah I'm sure she's great yeah no but I just god no one's safe around you Jenny Slate She's in the gym surgery pocket, yeah.

1:01:33Can I just request that you don't say no one's safe around you? Especially not in this week's climate. I mean, oh my God. Any sound, beginning with S. I'd like to recant that outrageous suggestion. I do. Yeah, that is unbelievable. Thank you. What else happened? Squid Game not showing a lot of love. And bear in mind, this isn't even for three. This is for season two, which would be eligible for this. I think that's the problem, though. because I think season two is a bit of a dip. I think it comes back, the excitement comes back with season three. But I think season two just didn't need to be that long and that involved.

1:02:10I think the issue is that season two isn't the season. I think season two and season three are season two and it was a long one split in two. And I think they've just kind of, yeah. I'm not sure that was a great decision. Do you remember all the fuss about the theme tune to The White Lotus? Do you remember that the - Yes. Oh my God, the hoo-ha. Yeah, the hoo-ha. Well, it's been nominated for outstanding main title theme music. He's getting the last laugh. Yeah. so I'm just pleased to see that in just a little aside and do you know what's been nominated for best choreography or choreographed sequence in a TV show go on Doctor Who the sole nomination for Doctor Who and remember in the Beatles episode they're all dancing around it's been nominated for that really?

1:02:51interesting Taylor Sheridan completely ignored yet again this year, interesting nothing for Lansman or anything like that I was surprised Jon Hamm didn't get something for your friends and neighbours. I know that show wasn't universally well received, but his performance is great in that. Yeah, I agree. The Andor thing absolutely blows my mind. Stellan Skarsgård, Genevieve O 'Reilly, all of these incredible performances. Cyril, for God's sake. I don't understand how that didn't get any nominations at all. I think that's absolutely wild. I think Tony Gilroy actually put out a post about it. I think he was kind of floored by that.

1:03:24He's got loads of nominations. I got 14. but to get no acting nominations for those performances I thought was a huge injustice whereas on the other hand Presumed Innocence which I really really liked got loads you know and not only did it get Jay Gyllenhaal and Peter Sarsgaard who I think we probably could have guessed but Ruth Neger got a nomination, Bill Camp got a nomination both very good but equally and or just saying. Someone who does deserve recognition Owen Cooper right let's give you a little time and think about him Well, I was going to say Adolescents in general got nominated in all the main categories as well.

1:03:59Fantastic. But Owen Cooper particularly, I think this is his first big, you know, TV show. Well, in fact, isn't it his first acting gig? To be in that category alongside Rob Delaney, Peter Skarsgård, Ashley Walters. Yeah, it's amazing. I should say, Adolescents like The Pit also got 13 nominations, which is a great suite. And I can't believe we've not even mentioned that until this point. Yeah, absolutely. Incredible performance for that show. and and really really good jack thorn got a nomination um yeah It deserves all of them. Yeah, it was a good list. The thing that I think a lot of people didn't notice is that, you know, if you look at the nature of the nominations, traditional broadcast networks got, I think, one series nomination for Abbott Elementary.

1:04:43And I think it were like five acting nominations for broadcast stuff. They are so soundly eclipsed by all of the streamers. It's quite extraordinary. And kind of, you know, premium cable channels. and cable yeah so streamers and cable yeah but you know what the show that we alluded to it alluded to earlier the one the show for me that is the surprise in the sheer volume of nominations that it's got that i did not watch all of is the penguin yeah same i mean absolutely same i'm i'm amazed it's got it's a real phenomenon it's like a prop people are absolutely loving that show and i just gave up halfway through the first yes so did i i made it a few seasons in and i liked it I thought it was good, but it was one of those shows where I thought, this is good, but I've got other things that I think are better.

1:05:30And so I didn't press on with that. And you'd think it would be a very me show. Yeah, yeah. But I might have to go back to the Penguin. After 24 Emmy nominations, I kind of feel like I need to now revisit it. I feel the same way, yeah. Anyway, yeah. But yeah, let's not go through category by category. I think we've pretty much covered off the broad strokes there. But yeah, an interesting year for Emmy nominations. What else has been happening in the world? Well, I'll tell you the greatest new story of the week. Oh, tell us. Bold claim. Yeah. Larry David. Have you heard about this? His next project.

1:06:00He's going to be in Foundation. No, no, no, no. Larry David's next project is an American history sketch comedy show, right? But the best thing, that's the first bit, half hour sketch comedy with Larry David creating and starring and writing in it. It's produced by Michelle and Barack Obama. Oh, wow. Their production company. and they have had creative meetings with Larry David. I keep, I shit you box. Were they televised? That's the question. Well, I mean, I'm pleased to God they've filmed that. Is it a bonus episode of Curb? I mean, listen to this quote, right? I've sat across the table from some of the world's most difficult leaders and wrestled with some of our most intractable problems.

1:06:42Nothing has prepared me for working with Larry David, since former President Barack Obama. How brilliant is that? This is incredible. When I read this story, I genuinely had to think, did I dream it or was it actually a real story? And it is, I can confirm, it's a little story. It's not a fever dream. No, it's not a fever dream. There you go. Talking of slow horses earlier, Jack Loudon has been cast in a new Apple TV drama series. It's adapted from Philip Kerr's Berlin Noir book series, which I'm unfamiliar with. And apparently he'll be playing a detective, Bernie Gunther. What a fantastic name.

1:07:19will take place in 1928 and apparently Bernie is a police officer who's been newly promoted into the intimidating and elite Berlin murder squad and has to investigate what seems to be a serial killer who's targeting victims on the fringes of society so we're going to get more Jack Loudon that's can only be a good thing on Apple also these books are fucking great so these are the Philip Kerr books I've read these I'm going to appear to reading all the Philip Kerr stuff but the Bernie Gunter stuff is it's really good and because it's in this kind of wartime setting it has a very distinct kind of feel and identity to it.

1:07:51And he's a really compelling central character. Oh, is that how you say it? Gunter? Yeah, because he's like a German police officer. But it's like, yeah, they're really good. I read, God, it must have been like 25 more years ago. I read these books, but they're really, really good. That's another one for you to binge in its entirety when it lands on our screen. Oh, I absolutely will. You can bet your ass. Berlin Noir, give me it now. I'm excited about, you know, a couple of weeks ago, So I mentioned that they're doing a – Ryan Murphy is producing an adaptation of Brayson Ellis' novel The Shards, which is one of my favourite novels of recent years, and I'm obsessed with Brayson Ellis and his podcast.

1:08:26They reveal casting news this week. And the most interesting thing about the casting is there are young actors who I've never heard of. But one of the main young actors who I had never heard of until this point is Homer James. Now, how do you pronounce this? J-I-G-M-E. J-I-G-M-E? J-I-G-M-E? Sure, why not? Homer James Jimmy Gere who is the son of Richard Gere and actress Carrie Lowell and so Richard Gere's son is in this um adaptation of the Shards which I can't wait for but what's also the other one to mention is if you listen to um Bertie Sinez's podcast he's been going on about all the different versions of the adaptation that happened at one point it was with HBO and this that and the other a couple of weeks ago he said on the show he was going to talk about the latest developments with the production TV adaptation of The Shards, and he's not done so.

1:09:14And I'm still clinging away. And I think there's some interesting, he's very vocal about stuff he does. And he hasn't been the biggest fan of Ryan Murphy shows down the years. I think he's like some of them, but not others. So I'm fascinated to know how that's going to play out and how kind of involved he is in this adaptation of his book. So yes, I'm excited about it. My last bit of news is that Brie Larson is going to start opposite Olivia Colman. Yes, yes. apparently in a limited series called cry wolf it's been greenlit at fx and the lead i think the writer except producer and showrunner is sarah treem apparently it's been described as a psychological family thriller following a social worker played by olivia coleman and a mother brie larson thrust into crisis when the mother's teenage daughter alleges abuse pushing both women to their limits as they navigate an impossible situation good people yeah that Sounds quite chewy.

1:10:08I quite like the idea of that. Walking Dead Dead City's been renewed for a third season. I don't even know how I feel about that, let alone what anyone else feels about it. But that's the thing. Did you watch the Stranger Things trailer? Yes. The final season. Yeah, it looked good. That's exciting. Linda Hamilton is in the trailer. Yeah, yeah. They all look mid to late 40s in it, which is weird. Yeah. But yeah, it's mad. It got me very excited about seeing the end of that, especially having finished the rewatch recently. So I'm excited about that. the only other thing that of note i guess is there's been some sort of like there've been the harry potter pictures so harry potter's begun production we saw um nick frost as hagrid he looks almost exactly i mean literally exactly what you expect him to look like and he does sound fine yeah yeah they've not pushed the boat out with reimagining the aesthetic but yeah and then yeah we saw the new uh harry potter as well so obviously and you know interesting uh the conversation around that show but you know we'll see as it shapes up uh anything else we've missed no no no no okay brilliant well that's us done with news let's move on to reviews and first up this week we've got mixtape which is an irish australian miniseries set largely in sheffield please do bear with us so this is adapted by joe spain from jane sanderson's novel and it tells a kind of twin timeline love story of allison and daniel who fell in love as teenagers in 1989 and then encounter each other once more a few decades later.

1:11:32Now, there are 80s bangers in this left and right. There's an assortment of era appropriate perms. And of course, Boyd's personal bait noir, Mr. Jim Sturtis. Obviously, because of that, you can probably feel his animosity radiating like a furnace. We cannot go to Boyd for this. We will have to turn to Kay. But before we do, I have to ask both of you the following question. Have either of you made someone a mixtape before? Because this is a long lost art, I feel. I have, yeah. I made a mixtape for a friend in a school in the early 80s, and he's still got it. My friend Andrew Wilson. And I think I tried to find it last night, but I couldn't find it.

1:12:15I remember him sending me a photo of the mixtape that I made. Yeah, it's kind of like, you know, because we go and see Elvis Costello together. There's a lot of Elvis Costello on it. Yeah, back in, I think it was 1982, probably. when I was 15, 14, 15. It wasn't like a love. I wasn't in love with him. It was just friends. Yeah, you were just educating him. I certainly made bloody mixtapes. I've received mixtapes. I haven't, yeah. It takes a level of patience. That says a lot about you, Kay. Yeah, it does, doesn't it? I've received, never given.

1:12:52Listen, if you two want to make me a mixtape, I'm happy to receive. You know, I might do. i yeah i used to make mixtapes all the fucking time but that's mainly because a lot like jim sturges in the show i was one of those really tedious teenage boys who thought his music taste was better than everyone else's and so insisted on quite and quite educating people you weren't like that james yeah it was all like sort of like you know early 90s grunge stuff was uh was what i used to put on tapes but yeah i made loads as a succession of unfortunate sort of 90s girlfriends i had who probably still have tedious tedious tapes that i made them endlessly now you're now your tapes are considered hate crimes that's true i i mean i used to i used to put so much effort into you thinking the exact formulation and sort of the mood flow going from one song to the other and the filler how you would end side one that was a big that was a big decision how you would end the first side of a mixtape because of course back in the tape page you would flip them over halfway through and did you figure out like did you focus on the label and spend time decorating that no because my handwriting looks like 18 drunk spiders having a bar and brawl so no that was never going to go well so you can still i mean it was probably more of a surprise to people because they would look at my writing and think i have no idea what is on this tape so they just have to listen to it um what so before keg what the the the technique the technology of making the mix say this show did highlight very well that you had you know the dual tape machines tape and the the whole kind of yeah process was very well but i think there was something about that about like it would be like especially in a relationship like when you had a girlfriend boyfriend whatnot you would make a tape and it would be like because the emotional impact that these songs would have on you and you would be like these are the songs that mean that are like a part of my dna that are part of who i am but also these are the songs to express how i feel about you do you know i mean so actually it was such a personal thing to do and it was so important and i don't know this because i'm no longer a teenager but i i wonder whether kids nowadays do say hey i've made you a spotify playlist and they said yeah is that a thing that happens i don't know do they spend as much time doing young listeners get in touch let us know ask your kids find out how do they send each other mixtapes i need to know this but but but we have digressed uh let's talk about the series now okay i know you've seen this is this because you saw this in rimini or did you do some kind of mixtape related thing no no i saw uh there was a screening of it in rimini right um at the italian global series festival yes i saw it and then i was really desperate for us to do it just because i really like this did kev like it oh my god I do know what I've managed to block this terrible joke you keep on making about me being friends with I was gonna call him Kevin Costner then he has changed his name is true anyway what did you think about it what did you think about it spacey yes basically that's it right anyways I really really like this and I have to say I know Boyd has got a beef but I think Sturgis is really good in this and he plays so as you said we have a dual timeline So following the lives of teenage Daniel and Alison, who are played, I think, fantastically by Rory Walton-Smith and Florence Hunt.

1:15:58And then the adult versions is played by, so you've got Jim Sturgis as Daniel, who's a music journalist. He's living in Sheffield with his wife, is currently an empty nester. And you've got adult Alison played by Teresa Palmer, who is in Sydney. And she's an author and she lives with her husband, surgeon husband and kid. and king of twats oh yeah he's he's he's a overt bellend right there's no nuance with that character in that he is just a knob but um yeah what i read i just love so much about this it's nostalgic it's full of heart it just taps into that feeling you know the first love and how you feel and all the emotions that go with it so the angst the adrenaline the all the good feelings and the tension and the pain and everything.

1:16:46And I think the two young actors just do a really great job because they're so believable. Like I really believed in them and that sort of slow, fledgling relationship and the emotions that are bubbling underneath the surface because Alison has things going on in her personal life that Daniel's not aware of fully. And so you see that kind of push and pull with her wanting to sort of pursue this relationship but also trying to hide a part of her. um i just i really i really liked it i think the soundtrack as well is brilliant um and nostalgic and the fact that it taps into also like the the fact that you know this middle-aged sort of contemplation of where is my life going and where has it been and like you know you start to think about those old relationships perhaps or what could have been and that you know with this in this story it's a simple sort of facebook request that is made which sort of like then opens up the floodgates of communication between these two characters in their adult lives and how they're going to navigate that i've only i've only seen the first episode so i don't know how it's going to pan out i think there's four three or four episodes i can't wait to watch the rest of it though and like i said i think sturgeon's done a good job here sturgeon the aquatic incarnation yeah nicola's husband jim has done a fantastic job no casting yeah listen let me can i just address the Sturgis point because this has become an unfair running joke my objection to Sturgis was when he did a couple of shows one in particular that was a drama it was like a post-war drama I think it was Stephen Polyakov wrote it where his performance and it may have been the director it was just a whispery he did that stage whispery performance which I did not enjoy but he's a good actor I have nothing against him in general he's been in some good stuff Listen, I'm going to be fair to Boyd is that I have also felt in the past, personally I've felt that his performances haven't always been where they needed to be.

1:18:46We saw something recently in the last, well, this year we've seen something, but also he was in with Anne Hathaway and I remember that film. Was it One Day? One Day. One Day, yeah. The ill-fated movie adaptation of One Day. Yeah, the big bowl of wrong that was One Day. So I have to stand with Boyd with that in terms of that. but it's just a fun ongoing joke like James' silly Kevin Spacey joke yes indeed of course but anyway my line is he's perfectly good in this he's good in it I would say he's not whispery he's like playing you know he's well cast I think as like a northern rock critic who gets stuff in the NME and there's a line where he goes oh I'm just gonna phone in this review for Rolling Stone I'm like that wouldn't happen because you know like Rolling Stone doesn't run live reviews of stuff like that it just There are certain details that didn't ring true, but it's hard when you're trying to depict freelance rock criticism in a TV drama.

1:19:42I think it was almost there. I like the nostalgic music, et cetera, the late 80s, early 90s stuff. I think this is all about the premise. I think the premise is really clever, the idea that using Facebook, let's face it, this could not happen without social media and Facebook in particular, that two people who had a meaningful relationship of some kind back when they were teenagers and then after years of not being in touch and establishing their own lives and with their own families, et cetera, suddenly can get back in touch using Facebook and social media and what that means for them and their loved ones.

1:20:19I think it's a really good, strong idea. All I'd say, I really, I did enjoy it. I think I probably will carry on watching it. It's not quite, you know, I think the dialogue was fairly routine. I didn't think it was the most, if you compare it to Nick Hornby, right? Nick Cormie's High Fidelity, both the TV show and the film of High Fidelity, are both really excellent. And I think that's partly because his dialogue is so funny and smart and engaging in the novel of High Fidelity. And so then when you go out and it's about one bloke trying to tell everyone about his musical taste, he doesn't come across as a complete twat.

1:20:51He comes across as an engaging figure in the story. In this, I felt like the characters weren't quite fully intriguing enough because the situation was compelling. So it almost didn't matter in a way, but I don't think, I felt like it could have been slightly more funnier or more dramatic or more, I don't know. I just, I didn't quite, I didn't quite feel the script was as polished as it could have been. That's good. You're not coming for Sturgis now, you're coming for the script. I mean, this makes a change. I'm joking. Unbelievable. Boyd's new Bates Noir is of course Joe Spain, the person who adapted this from Jane Sanderson's novels.

1:21:31sorry we're being really out we're being out of order now we're kidding we're kidding sorry joey that's a joke yeah we're living dickers it's just a counterbalance uh boydie there i thought this was wonderful and i watched all four episodes pretty much back to back oh you finished it oh i was obsessed with it absolutely obsessed with it i thought it was delightful as you know uh amidst all my love for foundation and all things science fiction i am a real soppy sod when it comes to like really well told love stories and i thought this this really just got me it really did i think it works on so many different ways but i think and you're not wrong boy i think the dialogue is is certainly not as crisp or sparkly i don't think it's designed to be to be fair but it's not hornby-esque in that way but it's fine because these characters are incredibly believable and as you said kate for really really good performances i thought in particular sort of young Alison Florence Hunt and Rory Walton-Smith as young Daniel, where they really got that kind of yearning adolescent first love thing.

1:22:31And you get absolutely swept up in it, which I thought was wonderful. And I had no notes on the Sheffield accents at all, which I thought were great. And I even really liked the way Teresa Palmer, who is, by the end of it, has an Australian accent, when she starts to spend more time around people from Sheffield, she lapses into a sort of cross between a little bit Sydney, a little bit Sheffield, which I thought was quite nice as well. um but really it's the two timelines because the two timelines work in a way that i think we're going to get onto on a show very shortly that each of those timelines works completely independently of the other like they work on their own then they enrich each other but it's not like the the back timeline are flashbacks and it's not like the other one is flash forwards they are two completely distinct stories that tell interesting sagas of love in and of their own right but then they enhance each other and i thought the musical stuff although i have i have questions about their respective ages because they are older than i am because they're gen x but they're older gen x so they're sort of like coming to sort of like their sort of like 17 18th year in the 80s and stuff i'm like and i question how old they are if if if it is if the modern sequence is set literally in 2025 then they look very good for people in their mid 50s you're right yeah oh my god i was like this this is not at all well if it's if it's set in the modern day yes that's how old they'd be they'd have to look pretty fucking good for that yeah i mean let's face it i'm i'm in my late 50s i could be easily be on the show right exactly so i had questions about the chronology unless of course i don't know when the book was written but it might be that the modern sequences are supposed to be like pre-pandemic type times you know like where early sort of like noughties or whatnot mid-noughties 2010s i don't know uh so it could it could be that and it's just this is when it's been adapted but you know if you're looking at their handsets and their phones it feels pretty fucking modern to me anyway the novel came out in 2020 oh okay so it's not so yeah so then there's just some maths questions around the casting but but i'm not gonna throw shade on that because i thought i thought it was really good and i and i think you're right it's the technology thing it's the this couldn't happen without facebook but it also couldn't happen without the absence of technology in the 80s because the whole point of them falling apart is they lose touch because there's no way to stay in touch because they don't have each other's addresses or phone numbers or what it's fascinating but yeah i thought it was lovely there are a couple of i would say clumsy moments if you haven't seen all of it i'm not going to give any of it away obviously but there are some clumsy moments and there's some there's some bits i was just like really are we going here i was like i'm not wild about that but that said i thought it was handled relatively well and i do think it serves the story and actually it heightens a lot of the stuff that comes later on in terms of, let's just say, when people start to open up and finally kind of talk about the things that have happened to them.

1:25:17But it's a really lovely bit of romance drama. It's a lovely story, BGV told. Lovely bit of stuff. Lovely stuff, Alan Park. Lovely bit of stuff. You know, and if you, unlike Bordy, can tolerate Jim Sturgis, then, you know, you might have a good time with it. I like it. I will carry on watching it as well. Yeah, I mean, it's only four episodes. four hour long episodes but they're really good I had a really really good time with it and put it this way put it this way I watched all four of these when I had episodes of Slow Horses to watch so that should tell you something and I still watch this instead so you know make of that what you will but this I'm sure the makers will be delighted they should be they should be it's great and this we say it aired on Binge in Australia previously but it's on BBC 2 this week when Boidy or last week it's already aired hasn't it all on iPlanet It's already started on BBC Two on Monday night, I think, or Tuesday night.

1:26:11But yeah, it's all on iPlayer. But Kay lobbied for us to review this, and I rolled my eyes, and I take back the eye roll because this has been one of the shows I've enjoyed most this year. It was worth her going on that lavish trip to Sicily or wherever it was. Hey, I'm not saying we only reviewed it because Kay had already seen it and she's lazy. That is not what I'm saying. Frontline reporting at the festival. You're welcome. Yeah. No, this is really good. Bringing back these nuggets of gold. It was all worth it. Yeah. Genuinely one of the shows I've enjoyed most this year. I really liked it.

1:26:36so mixtape then next up we have the narrow road to the deep north a and i know this is based on a famous novel specifically uh it's richard fandengan's booker prize winning novel but for some reason the title of this show will not stand my head and whenever i was i was like is it is it like that the long road to the distant north is it the short road to the south i could not remember the configuration of like depth and direction i'm just now calling it narrow road yeah i just It must be the way to do it because I cannot, cannot keep the name of the show slash book in my head. But anyway, The Narrow Road to the Deep North.

1:27:13Pick your adjective, which is an Australian drama that is not filmed in Sheffield. And it is a love story, but it's, let's say, a slightly different flavour of love story to mixtape with significantly fewer 80s indie bands. This is Sean Grant's adaptation of the Richard Flanagan novel. And it stars Jacob Elordi and Kieran Hines as Dorigo. Is it Dorigo? Is that how you pronounce his name? Dorigo. I'm going to say it's Dorigo. Dorigo. There we go. dorigo evans and he's a man who falls in love with his uncle's wife as you do but who also goes through a grueling ordeal as a japanese prisoner of war working on the burma railway um boydie please give us your narrow review of the deep north well funnily enough someone in the office was asking me about like what would i recommend coming up on tv you know and i was like well there's this show uh this like australian british show called the thing then something about the road to the north and i could not remember the title for the life of me yet is But the amazing thing is, it's a terrible title.

1:28:03Surely when the guy wrote the novel, the publisher must have been, are you sure? Are you sure you want to call to this? Are you absolutely sure? But it worked and he won the book prize. It's been a massive success. So who are we? Who can tell? Anyway, it's interesting. We've got another Australian slash British story across timelines in the same week. We love Australia. We love Australia. This one, what I would say, this one is from very highly respected filmmaker Justin Kozl, who made Assassin's Creed, The True History of the Kelly Gang. I love that you started with Assassin's Creed. Highly respected filmmaker Justin Kerslou made Assassin's Creed.

1:28:39I quite liked Assassin's Creed, so there you go. Night Drag and best of all, The Order, which came out late last year and was an excellent, excellent film. It's better than Assassin's Creed. Much better than Assassin's Creed. And he co-writes most of those films with Sean Grant and they have created together this adaptation of the Richard Flanagan novel, which basically cuts between the two timelines of when he is a medic in the army in the Second World War, experiencing horrendous traumatic death and injury and all of that. And with his life, he then becomes a renowned surgeon in the kind of present-day narrative where he's played by Kieran Hines.

1:29:17And he's kind of reflecting and looking back, he's writing about these experiences. So he's got that kind of framing device of him thinking about his life because he wants to write about it. but what I was going to say was I think because this is made by a filmmaking team a very respected I think visually this was fascinating and I think one of the things I didn't actually say about Mixtape because it didn't need to be visually particularly interesting but I thought it was a bit bland looking and part of the you know Kate's like furious with me for expressing any kind of criticism for Mixtape I enjoyed it I just didn't think it wasn't particularly cinematic whereas this is a widescreen beautifully shot there were fewer bombing runs aerial assaults or POW camps in mixtape.

1:29:59I can absolutely say that. But even its depiction of the locations where it was set, these are spectacular in the narrow road to the deep north. Every shot in this show is almost like a work of art. It is beautiful to look at. Even when it is showing you highly distressing prisoner of war, you know, imagery is still like, you know, kind of beautifully made. And Jacob Illordi, we should say, is the young version of the character, is hot. I mean, he's like seven foot tall, muscled, you know, kind of almost like slightly too perfect, I thought, for the role. Not too perfect. Just right. All right.

1:30:35Kay, we're fine with it. I was fine with it until I Googled and saw his age and I was like, oh, God, no. Yeah. But of course, he's most famous for Euphoria and Saltburn. And he's a really good actor, but he is incredibly handsome and incredibly charismatic. And he almost doesn't have to do anything in the show. He just kind of stands there, you know, like smoking a fag, looking out at the kind of women, literally like, I was thinking there's like three women lusting after him, like dribbling almost in anticipation. I mean, you can't blame them. No, I don't blame them. I don't blame them. But it is quite, it's borderline funny how he just doesn't have to do anything.

1:31:11He just stands there and they're all flocking to him and having sex with him. And it's quite, you know, it's quite full on, the sex immunity. It's very homoerotic because there's all this stuff about the prison. where it's all these like half-naked soldiers corralled into a train taken to a locale you know somewhere and they're all like prolicking around in the water and there's a whole one of them's called tiny for yeah there's a whole sequence about this guy's dick you know how big it is it's intriguing that's an intriguing element to the whole thing but bottom line i thought this is one of those shows that tells you about something that you kind of you know all right world war ii how did it affect australians where were they fighting what were they dealing with that you don't really know about.

1:31:51And then it's really kind of showing you what it feels like the reality of the situation must have been for a character like this guy. And I really thought it was very good. I thought it was really well made, beautifully done. And I'm fascinated by it. Can I ask you both a question? Did you find the timeline stuff in this a little bit bamboozling? Because they all have distinct flavours, but it does hop about quite a lot. No. weirdly i didn't i've got something to say about timelines but in the next show we're reviewing but um no i not so much i didn't find that um because the narrative so it's not it's not like it's too well certainly it didn't appear to me that it's two very clear chronological timelines it does appear to flip backwards and forwards even within its own so it's got two broadly speaking narratives and it flits backwards and forwards within the chronology of those two narratives and so so like the time on a technique of you know hair changes for timelines you know or in this case kieran hines to jacob lordy which you can get your head around that but it does flip about you and i'm sorry and you're like what so hang on this is before you're in the pow happened after this and you're on because he joins the army and then he's on leave and then he's in a cabin you're like i i was trying to get the timeline clear in my head yeah i think i think you're meant to like let it flow over you yeah i remember he's right he is conjuring these memories semi-randomly for what he's writing, whatever he's writing.

1:33:14Yes. And so he's going through his own memories of all these events and they are naturally out of order because he's thinking about different things. And this love story is kind of almost like the through line that kind of, even when he's a POW, that's the thing that kind of grounds him. Yeah. I really enjoy this. I completely agree with you, Boyd, about how beautiful it is to look at. Just completely gorgeous, beautifully shot and atmospheric and consequently it's just transformative. Like you feel like you're there, immersed in it. I like Jacob Elordi's performance I think the chemistry that he has no I think he is great in this I mean obviously he's nice to look at but I think he is great in it and I think he's well cast and I particularly like his chemistry with Odessa Young who I believe is going to be in the new Bruce Springsteen biopic as the love interest and I think their chemistry is fantastic because she is his uncle's young wife and they have feelings for each other.

1:34:12And I just like how that kind of, a little bit cat and mouse and they're just sort of fighting their feelings for each other. But, you know, obviously it's going to go one way. So overall, I just loved it. I thought it was just such a wonderful viewing experience. However, my only concern is I've seen reviews of the book and also I've got a friend who has read it and they were like, yeah, there's going to be some really even more sort of hard to watch. uh prisoner of war scenes coming up in the next few episodes and i don't know if i'll be able to handle that which yeah yeah i was i was actually reading up on why that was so horrible and it was interesting to read about obviously the japanese at the time were very much of like beholden to the bushido code which was like you know in war you either succeed or you die or you kill yourself to kind of absolve yourself of dishonor you know in the kind of very shogun fashion and so the idea that these soldiers had surrendered was so dishonourable that apparently it kind of dehumanised them in the eyes of the Japanese because they had no honour at all because they had surrendered.

1:35:13So they were treated absolutely appallingly. Apparently that was the root of a lot of it. But it's brutal. I mean, the first episode is kind of like manageable, I think. Yeah, well, it lulls you into slightly full sense of security, doesn't it? Because they're kind of frolicking around and almost having fun. And it's going to get very much, much worse. Not so much fun. no yeah yeah yeah so that's my yeah that's my reservation but overall i just thought it was it was fantastic it i mean it is cinematic you could if you saw us in the big tree and you'd be like yeah it's a film of course it's a film i will argue that uh you know the japanese jungles and the war you know world war ii is naturally more cinematic than a sheffield council estate but but equally no it's beautifully shot it's stunning it's sweeping in its scope in its visuals like all of it like it feels luxurious and textured and all of these things and the performances are incredible but i will say like of all the things in this to continue my love story trip this week uh jaco lordy and odessa young's chemistry is palpable yeah to the point where you're like oh my christ like they're they're first i guess you'd call it a date like when they're hanging out together and like the sexual tension is almost suffocating it's so so well played i was like the way that is edited the way it is acted the way it is directed all of that is absolutely on point and you get it like you absolutely get it this sort of the forbidden you know nature of it and just the intensity of it all i thought that's yeah that was very very well i mean you just have to look at the screen and you get it yeah you do it's it's but it's very powerful is what i'm saying and then equally i think kieran hines really plays the the older version of that character you know with his with his regrets and his demons and you know he has a discussion with a journalist and he's like saying you don't know first fucking thing about war and the point being that i think in his mind there are people who were there and there's everyone else and they speak different languages and you can never understand what they went through and i think even before you see the really horrific stuff which is coming you see it through his eyes that you can see the scars on his face and it's yeah it's quite it's quite upsetting but yeah it's powerful it's heavy viewing like it's not fucking laugh riot again no no no that would be weird and deeply inappropriate.

1:37:20But yeah, it's a very good show. Which is on, when is it on, Boydie? BBC Two. It started yesterday, Sunday, the 20th of July at 9pm, but it's all on iPlayer. Yeah. And I think it aired in the States on Prime a while back as well. Yeah, I think so. BBC's really delivering this week. They are. Yeah, it's a big BBC week. Let's see if Disney Plus can hold a candle to it, because next we have Washington Black, which is a miniseries on Disney Plus. This is adapted from, and forgive me as I clearly butcher the writer's name, I'm going to say Essie or Isai Eduyan's novel about George Washington Black.

1:37:52He's played here by Ernest Kingsley Jr. And he's an 11-year-old enslaved boy from Barbados who embarks on this wild adventure with a scientific crackpot mentor called Titch, played by Tom Ellis, who was a guest on our 200th episode. And this also stars Culling Sterling K. Brown. Sharon Duncan Bruce is in it. Oh, Charles Dance is in this as well. Kay, tell us about Washington Black. So I wasn't initially that keen on this because I felt like the storytelling was a little simplistic as opposed to Karen Pirie, which we reviewed on Plus and even The Narrow Road, as I'm calling it. I think the flashbacks to the past in this felt quite jarring.

1:38:34um so yeah at first I was like you know it's lavish you know you can see they've spent money but I was like oh I don't know if this is really a kind of quality as as much of a quality drama as you'd expect with the talent involved however I then warmed to it considerably and I think it was specifically the timeline where Wash as he's known is more grown up he's this young man he's managed to escape the plantation and he's gone on this global adventure and he's then trying to make his way in life but he's also a fugitive and trying to outrun there's a there's a you know uh ransom on his head there's basically there's a bouncy yeah bouncy for him don't you make me hungry um and yeah so i i preferred that um that timeline with ernest kingsley jr um so So I would say overall, it's decent.

1:39:29But for me, considering the other two shows we've watched, it's not my must watch. I had a question for you. I've obviously never read the original book here. But I read some of the reviews of it. And they talked about it's a very effective mix of horror and high adventure. And it's quite a hard-hitting book. And that kind of surprised me. Because I found the tone of this a little bit twee. Do you know what I mean? Especially the score. the score at times had a really kind of like boy's own adventure like clinky plonky very upbeat quite you know light-hearted feel to it which i didn't know necessarily fit particularly well with quite a with you know with the themes of slavery and whatnot and all these various things and i found it a bit discombobulating almost deliberately not magical realist but almost slightly surreal that treatment of it like am i did that no you're right i know what you mean i know what you mean I mean, there's a certain type of story, novel particularly, that mixes kind of rollicking adventure with harsh reality.

1:40:30And that's what I think this is trying to do. So you've got the scene around that dinner table where the guy smacks the woman, right, around the face, and she's bleeding. And that is horrific. That's, I think, what the review's alluding to. And it's unflinching in its depiction of slavery and all of that. And at the same time, there's fairly knock about the inventions that the guy, Tommy Leskakis. It's all a bit Phileas Fogg, 80 Days Around the World. I think that is a thing that I've seen attempted to particularly be done in books, in novels before. And when they try and do it sometimes. So, you know, the author comes to mind is The World of Coons of Garp.

1:41:07You know that writer whose name I've forgotten. He used to be one of my favourite writers. He used to read all his books. He definitely mixes the ludicrous and the kind of almost slapstick with the harsh, you know, sexual abuse. And he marries those two. That's almost like his thing. And there's a certain type of writer that likes doing that. And I think this is that genre. This is roughly in that genre. And it is discombobulating. And I would say that I actually liked, I think Tom Mellis did a great job. I really liked the scenes where him and the kid are bouncing off each other. and he is, you know, making it clear to the kid he's not one of, you know, he doesn't believe in slavery.

1:41:42He's not a supporter of that system. He's not a horrendous racist monster, whereas everyone else in his family is. And you see that there. But I think it worked pretty much. I actually think the tonal shifts, I was okay with it because I could see what he was trying to do. And I could see how it was adapted from the book. But having said that, there's not enough in this first episode to make me want to carry on watching it at all. I feel like I've got what it's getting at. I don't need to carry on. There's not enough dramatic tension for me within this story to warrant carrying on watching it, unfortunately.

1:42:14It's perfectly well made. Actually, I'd say it's perfectly well made. Again, I would say this isn't compared to The Narrow Road to the Deep North, which, by the way, is on BBC One, not BBC Two, just to mention. And that's so cinematic. Something like this comes across as not particularly so. It was fine, but yeah, I didn't think it was outstanding. yeah no i'm i'm with you i i i struggled to become sufficiently invested in whether or not he would be captured with the love story with uh there's some interest in this love story it's a love story with a young woman who's of kind of mixed race descent sort of in a difficult time in america uh and i think she's she wants to get more in touch with and explore her african roots and her father is very keen that she kind of pass as white or try to and so the i think that the racial politics there are quite interesting but i wasn't too invested in the character work so i yeah same thing i kind of i didn't really at the end of it i don't really care and i didn't i didn't think the tonal balance worked maybe as well as it perhaps does in the book or maybe it just didn't fit with me but i found again i was i kept coming back to you're in these really awkward difficult scenes and then like the musical choices just seemed so curiously jaunty yeah like and i was like i can't i can't go from like goonies type score to you know the abuse of enslaved people on a plantation like i just can't marry those two things in the show it's not it's not working for me so um so yes no more washington black for me sorry okay it's it's yeah but case got going about 30 seconds i think haven't you by the way i've got i've got wallace island i've got It's the island.

1:43:53Wrap it up, for God's sake. All right, that's Washington Black. When's it, Airboy? Disney Plus, Wednesday, 23rd July 2025. Fabulous. What else is out this week? Before mentioned, here we go. Friday, 25th July. Yes, everyone watch it, please. The Assassin, also Friday. Yeah, The Assassin. We would definitely have reviewed that if it wasn't heavily in buggered until its date comes out, Friday the 25th July. That is Healy Hawes. Freddie Highmore. Freddie Heimer. Yeah, we're going to cover that on next week's show. We'll cover it on next week's show. Acapulco still going on FNTV+. Who knew? Who knew indeed.

1:44:28That's on Wednesday the 23rd. Mr. Big Stuff? Yeah, Mr. Big Stuff, case favourite. You can go. You should go. Okay, we're just showing on now. Skymax now, Thursday the 24th of July, 9 o 'clock. And the whole thing's on Sky as well. Sky, catch up. The aforementioned Unforgivable, that child abuse drama I was telling you about. G.M. McGovern, that's on Thursday, BBC Two, 9 o 'clock. It's a good week for TV. Under the Bridge is on ITV1 on Friday. I think we reviewed it when it was on whatever stream it was on. Yes, Apple. Apple, whatever, first of all. Yeah. And yeah, there's a lot going on. There you go.

1:45:02Yeah, okay, fantastic. We'll review one of those many things that we missed on Thursday's Pilot Plus, and we will get into, I'm sure, The Bear as well, where we just talk about the one thing we forgot to talk about, which is what happens next, and something else on Pilot Plus as well. I can't remember. There was a thing that we said we were going to cover, and I don't remember what it is, but we'll be doing that as well. there you go that's a brilliant trail for Pilot Plus we'll be doing a thing I don't remember what it is but I'm sure it's great please subscribe give us your money if you loved all this then come to the live event as well come and watch us forget what we're doing live on stage it'll be unmissable but there will be a great guest trust us fantastic please do leave us a five star review on Apple Podcasts Spotify and let's be honest anywhere Amazon if you like wherever you want and we are at Pilot TV Pod at Boyd Hilton at Carabera and at James C.

1:45:49Dyer and we will be back on Thursday as promised or threatened. And we'll be back, of course, next week when we will be dealing with other things. Fabulous. But we have to go now. Why? Because Kay has a date with Wallace Island. Yes. Enjoy, Kay. You have to tell us what you think of it. I will do. Yeah. Do a film review. Bye. Bye. Pilot out.