PLUS Little House On The Prairie

0:07Welcome to Pilot Plus, your extended guide to every show that matters. And if I sound a little bit weird, like maybe I'm underwater or in some kind of goldfish bowl, it's because I'm in a literal glass case of emotion in that I am in a small glass box in our office because all of the studios were taken. So if the audio is a little bit weird, that is the reason why. So I can only apologize for that, Steph. However, her audio is going to be spot on. And let me tell you why. Because we've been doing this podcast for how long is it, Steph? And you have only just today. You were today years old when you discovered how to set it to the correct microphone setting.

0:44Isn't that right? Okay. In my defense, neither of you told me that it didn't make any difference what it said on my MacBook. But you had to do it in the thing that we're recording. It's awful. Yes. It is awful in so many ways. It is awful. I would just say that I think that you have been kind of encouraging my level of stupidity about this. because every time I go, yeah, but on my MacBook it says this, and nobody said, have you tried? Neither of you said that. So actually, this is on you guys, I'm just saying. It is 100 % awful, Boydie, for not telling Steph to do it properly. I can only apologise.

1:21But anyway, we are here. We can all be heard to greater or lesser extents. In many ways, she's been on her own odyssey, and it's been every bit as epic and challenging as the one. Yes, as the Homeric one that Boydie may or may not have been to the premiere of last night, but we won't get onto that here. Why? Because that's a film and this is a TV podcast. What we are here to talk about is Little House on the Prairie, which is not to be confused with the original Little House on the Prairie, which aired on September the 11th, 1974. 1974. It was older than I am. And it finished in March 1983. But that hasn't stopped Netflix from resurrecting the property for a new series on that service.

2:08And it sees, it's obviously based on The Little House on the Prairie books written by Laura Ingalls Wilder. And it is about, wait for it, a house, not a large one, a little one. And you will never guess where it is. Steph, tell us about this Chex Notes little house on the, is it prairie? It's on a prairie. okay so a couple of revelations here um I don't know if it'll surprise you but I loved loved Melissa Gilbert original Laura Ingalls in Little House on the Prairie and I used to watch it every weekend when I was a little girl I was absolutely obsessed with it yeah because it was just it was destination destination tv for me at the weekend I loved her running down the Little Hill.

2:55It was all wonderful. Was I really, really distressed when, I don't want to spoil it for anyone, one of the girls becomes blind. Yes, I was. And then they have to set up a blind school and it's, oh God, it was very distressing. Anyway, so I was like, oh, you cannot remake Little House on the Prairie. You absolutely can't. There's no way. This is a complete classic. It's amazing. However, as you guys know, I have a real issue with anything that decides it's starting again, right? Anyone starting again anywhere, okay? I don't like it. But I tell you what I'm really here for. I'm really here for the Ingalls family starting again on the prairie.

3:36And when I say starting again, they are literally building their house, fleeing their former home under mysterious circumstances. Oh, I absolutely locked this up. I watched all eight episodes. What? Yes. I know. And you know why, right? This is going to sound strange. Not because it was like so incredibly compelling. It wasn't like massively propulsive. I didn't even, it was like a gentle brook of watching, like a gentle babbling brook of watching something delightful. Bubbling and babbling. babbling and babbling. It was so nice. I just, do major things happen? Not really. Are there ghosts from the past?

4:20Yes, there are. Is one of the major draws the dog, Jack? 100%. In the first episode, okay, they're going to the prairie and what they're going to is everyone's making claims on the land. So they're going to make, Charles Ingalls is going to make his claim on some land, right? And it feels like there's not going to be a lot of jeopardy, but my God, they have to cross. This is not a spoiler. They have to cross a river with their horses. And God, I was fearful of them. Again, this is not a spoiler. But at that point - Could I just say, that is in literally the first five minutes of the show. Had they been swept away, I'm saying it would have been a very short series.

5:02Yeah. Well, James, as you'll know, So what does happen is Jack goes missing. Fair enough, yeah. Jack the dog, okay? So the Jeopardy, I was here, I was like, oh my God. Highlighted in my character guide in Heat Magazine this week. This has now all become about, is Jack going to come home to the prairie? Okay? Yeah. And the other thing that will keep you going with it is you go, right, I've really got to see this bloody house get built. Because it takes, I'm telling you, it takes, I think it's episode four until you see the house be built. Okay. And when you say it's a little house, it really is a little house.

5:39There's, it's got everything you want from Little House on the Prairie. It's beautifully shot. The use of natural light is absolutely outstanding. There is, again, I can't give that, I can't give away what happens to the dog, but, you know, it's, it's okay. And. It would be quite something if the dog died, wouldn't it? Oh, it would be. It would be. It's an easy watch. The other element that I really love, which it didn't ham home in the original, is the use of the indigenous people in this is brilliant. It's absolutely, it's deployed brilliantly and it's wonderful to see. Laura Ingalls is absolutely the heroine of Little House in the Parish.

6:22She was then and she is in this one. But the whole cast, the whole cast is fantastic and you start to love these people. and the enduring mystery of what's happened to Jack the dog and also why did they flee and why if they had to come to Little House on the Prairie, it keeps you watching. It absolutely, I was totally hooked. And the other thing I really like about it, do you guys, I don't know whether you guys loved Deadwood. I love really, like, I love Calamity Jane. I love Doris Day. I know this sounds like a tenuous link, but I enjoyed - I have no idea where you're going with this. But the town, the town, because this is all about them, you know, these settlers creating a town claim.

7:00Yes, this is much like David Mills' Deadwood, actually. It's almost indistinguishable. Yeah, totally. It gave me the Deadwood feels. Yeah, oh, absolutely. The murders, the crime, the deaths. It was extraordinary. Whoa, whoa, whoa. The mysteries. And I'm just saying, I don't know how many you've watched, but there are some shady characters. When Ian McShane turned up and called everyone a cocksucker repeatedly in the first episode of this show, I was surprised. Especially Jack the dog. look I really loved it I've got a feeling both of you hated it but I think it's it's not going to set it's not setting the world alight but is it an easy and comfortable watch for a Sunday afternoon absolutely I have two things I just want to quickly ask first of all we should mention it's kind of like autobiographical isn't it because you know it's written like the little house books are written by Laura Ingalls like it's like a whole thing so it's her life although I guess the original series was should we say loosely based on her autobiographical stories rather than, you know, a detailed adaptation.

7:57The second one is, and I do not fully understand, but in my slightly hazy brain, Little House on the Prairie and Heidi get conflated, and I don't really understand why. No. So even when, like, I even hear the Heidi theme tune, and I was quite disappointed that it wasn't playing at the beginning of this, and then I realised that's Heidi, not Little House on the Prairie. The show that it really reminds me of is The Waltons. And in fact, for me growing up, I had this, Little House on the Prairie, The Wartons, and to a lesser extent, Heidi, but I know what you mean. There was a little gaggle of TV dramas that were family-friendly.

8:34In the mountains. Yeah, set in, you know, kind of rural or Western US. I was going to add Gentle Ben into that. You know Gentle Ben? Gentle Ben had a bit of that feel as well. Yeah, a little bit. And Lassie, you know, they're all of these very dog-based Lassie, obviously. Yes, famously so. Famously so. So, Heidi Lesso, in fact, I was just trying to kind of, I don't know. Was there a dog in Heidi? It's unclear. Oh, there had to have been. But as you say, not set in the American planes, shall we say. But for me, most of those shows, including Little House on the Prairie, for sure, for me growing up, were like shows that I had to wait to finish before the really good stuff started afterwards.

9:16I don't know if you're like, for me, in my mind, the scheduling of Little House on the Prairie, there was something exciting. It might even have been Star Trek, OG Star Trek, something like that. It was in a moose-boosh, is what you're saying. Yeah, it was like a thing you had to get through to get to the really juicy stuff on later, because it was kind of a bit bland, you know. And I wasn't that into the whole idea of the Western, family-friendly Westerns and all of that. I mean, Barry, I'm talking about literally being 10, you know, 11 years old. But, and also there was these like rural shows as well that kind of tried to emulate that kind of...

9:49I was like, who's interested in this rural shit? You know, I was like, take me to the future in Star Trek or in the very least in the present, you know, in Spyship. Hey, Star Train was a riff on Wagon Train, so it's all thematically linked. That's true. But so anyway, yeah, for me, like, The Last of the Prairie, unlike Steph, does not represent like a must-see thing with my childhood. In fact, it almost represents a must-avoid thing for my childhood because I found the whole idea of it quite boring. But I was aware of the, you know, what it was. And remember, there were 200 episodes of it. 200 episodes, for fuck's sake.

10:20So there was a lot. It was a huge phenomenon, pop culture phenomenon. Anyway, so then this came along. I'm like, oh, you know, I'm not exactly thrilled by the idea. But you can only judge something on what it's setting out to do. And this first episode does as good a job as you could hope for in establishing a situation you are vaguely interested in. And, you know, it's got some jeopardy. as you say, as soon as the frankly idiotic dad takes the whole family and his two horses and Jack the dog on this wagon through across this river that's clearly, like, ultra-dangerous. And his wife's like, what the fuck are we doing, you madman?

10:59And he's like, no, we must go forge ahead across the river, and it all falls apart. Poor Jack the dog leaps into the water in a brilliant moment. You know, for me, like, yeah, that got me. The Jeopardy was there from that moment onwards, and I was interested in how they come back from that and how they find poor Jack, the dog. I cannot emphasise it enough how it's all about the dog for me. Do they find Jack or does Jack find them? Well, exactly. That's the Jeopardy. Yeah, it's a very good point. And the whole idea of him building the little house, the very little house apparently, which it kind of begins in the very first stage as they find their bit of land on the prairie, with no help from the, frankly, annoying little group of old guys who are in charge of that bit of land, shall we say.

11:44So the whole idea of him actually, the dad, and getting the wife and kids involved in the building of the house somehow as well, giving them a lot of wood to chop, by the way. Fucking hell of a lot of wood to chop. The whole thing, I thought, did it as well as it could have done. I thought it was pretty gripping and absorbing and well-acted and nicely shot, as you say, using the natural light. It looks great. so in the end am I ever going to watch it again? Absolutely not I mean how you sat through all eight episodes How did you sit through eight episodes? That is deranged. You deserve some kind of award just for that I think it's really easy to sit if you just put it on on a Sunday and just have it on you kind of slip into it and it's nice it's a bit it's dreamy and you know I did care about the dog and I really cared about the family and like I said I mean you have to get to midway through to see the bloody house and which you do want to see is he ever going to build this house because another guy comes in there's a lot of wood involved yeah another guy comes in and you don't know whether he's a goody or a baddie and then various things happen and you so they it it gently propels itself is what I'd say enough to keep me watching that every year in our internal awards thing there's a category hero you know unsung hero I'm not going to nominate you for unsung hero for sitting through eight hours of this shit yeah I think that's fair it's definitely not shit no shit is the wrong word this stuff this lovely stuff it's you know what it's you know what you can definitely like there's no swearing there's no I mean yeah can you imagine if Ted Sheridan had got his hands on this it would be um well he did and it was called now called Yellowstone but like it's it's you can watch it as a family and then it's nothing one of the big to be My final point was going to be, actually, one of the biggest challenges of this whole show, of course, is that there's a difference between making a show in the 70s and 80s family-friendly and doing it now, you know, in 2026.

13:44And I thought that's another – I would compliment them on the way they've navigated. They've made this family-friendly, and yet it is, at the same time, quite absorbing, but not enough for me to carry on watching. But I'm sure families watching it together will happen to some extent, I imagine. it's a hard thing to pull off it feels like televisual wallpaper do you know i mean like it just it feels like it's just a thing that happens in the background while you're doing other things i i can't i was going to say originally i can't imagine anyone voluntarily sitting through all eight episodes of this and yet and yet i am in the presence of one such here so i feel like maybe i should just shut up you know what really this just wasn't heidi enough for me i want heidi give me heidi take me to the swiss alps uh you know i want to see that i want the theme tune do you remember the theme tune do you remember that the heidi theme tune no wow i don't know why that's in my brain but it is uh yeah so really this just wasn't wasn't wasn't enough heidi also not enough the west like if if i'm gonna be you know out on the range i want people being branded with wise i want like you know i want i want rip running around and punching people i need that kind of western i'm not i'm not here for this let's wander around and look for Jack the dog and occasionally build a log cabin house thing okay whoa all right okay hey Rip doesn't like dogs and you know it's true I do know it's true you've been ruined for all other western-based family-friendly dramas by watching Yellowstone but this is Yellowstone family friendly no no depends what kind of family you have if you have if you have a bloodthirsty republican family that is very family friendly well okay i think what we're saying about this is it's it's the very definition of inoffensive right it's completely inoffensive and so maybe for you guys there's kind of i don't know there's just not enough to it but it's it's just it's nice it's just nice do you know what you should watch steph you should watch yellowstone 1883 which is the it's the pioneering it's the it's the little house on the prairie version of yellowstone because it's set in like the old west times it's just you know with more scalping is that the helen mirren one no no that's the that's the one in 1923 where everyone's dying there's no food right okay right it is confusing i think there are a lot of them but yes uh we will get on to that a little bit later on i think we've wasted enough time talking about little house on the prairie so So let's wrap that up.

16:14It is airing on the Netflix as of, I want to say, today, Boydie. Um, yes. Boyd says, sure, why not? Just checking. Hold on, hold your horses. Live on our admin. No, you're right. Thursday, the 9th of July. Yes. There we go. Little House on the Burry. I'll just say, there's also a whole episode which is largely dedicated to some kittens. So that really tells you all you need to know. Yeah, it probably does. I mean I wasn't going to watch it Steph but now that there's kittens I'm on board Listen I cannot divulge what happens to Jack if Jack is reunited with his family or what happens Is he involved with the kittens?

16:52Well we can't say because Jack may be dead Boydie we don't know that's the crucial thing I was going to make a very rude joke there but carry it Do not say anything No Jack in the first episode is swept away and we do not I do not know what happens to Jack, okay? I'm intrigued by the... You've seen old yeller, haven't you, Boydie? Oh, no, don't bring that up. Too soon. Too soon. Okay, let's move on. Let's move on. We're going to have the post bag next, and then we may, although there's some contention about this, we may have a brief paradise spoiler chat at the end. But Boydie is not on board with this.

17:31Despite having watched the show at this point, He is not on board with this idea of a sudden, spur-of-the-moment spoiler chat, are you? I would have thought, Boydie, that your guilt for not having watched The Pit would carry you into this with open arms. I feel no guilt. And just a little bit of advance warning would be nice, right? Steph, back me up on this one. I am 100 % in your corner, Boydie. He is stealthily trying to get you to agree to it on air. Yeah, this is on-air peer pressure. Yeah, and also, Boyd's now been awake for like 107 hours. watching the World Cup. He is hoist by his own petard.

18:06I cannot give him sympathy for that. All right, fine. Well, as long as you watch The Pit for next week, Boydie, then I can delay it. We'll see how it goes. While we're on that, James. So, yeah, just as long as you watch Widow's Bay in time for next week's spoiler special that we're going to do for Widow's Bay. Oh, yes. Oh, I see what you've done there. I see what you've done there. This kitty has claws. Okay, yeah. That's right. I brought a knife to a gunfight, clearly. That's what happened there. Yeah. Okay, fair enough. we should say that it is the middle of the year at this point and I have as promised solicited the I nearly said film, film of the year list no, not films, this is not that podcast, there's another one for that, our show of the year lists have been, I've got Steph's, do I have boys, boys do I have, I don't do I?

18:49I've literally got it down to 11 and we need to get it down to 10 you need to get it down to 10, send it over do not consult, do not speak to Steph about it, but we will be revealing the results on Monday's show. James, did you get my revised one? Because I forgot a really important show. Did you get the revised list? I did get your revised one, yes. Don't worry, I will go with your revised list and not, in fact, the former list. Obviously, we just had enough time for you to insert Little House on the Prairie at the top, and the final list will reflect that. Okay, good, good, good. Right, let us on with the post bag.

19:27Triage. it's the post bag now there are going to be a few messages in here following a similar theme i cannot address them all at once because they are scattered amongst the various sort of arms of the post bag but we will get to them you'll know them when they turn up but we're going to start with a message from carly which is simply titled yellowstone special and carly says hi team Carly here or as I am better known to the pod John's friend John and I started to listen to the Yellowstone special together on our commute home but sadly had to go our separate ways just minutes before unbeknownst to us you read out John's letter devastating anyway I just wanted to set the facts straight and say that I previously was not actually a listener of the pod at all but I am now a proud paying pilot subscriber not just a free trial as you speculated after getting to know the pod from John's initial timestamps he sent me for the Dutton Ranch and Yellowstone chats and of course the Yellowstone special last week but what I am really holding out for is a Dutton Ranch special at some point surely there is so much to discuss from just one season p.s.

20:37I have also listened to some of the other stuff I promise I thoroughly enjoyed the off-campus chat last week Carly Carly we are 100 % going to do a Dutton Ranch special aren't we James Well, we need to watch it first. Obviously, you've been digressing onto Little House on the Prairie. But yes, we should absolutely continue to discuss the Yellowstone of Earth as we make our little journey through it. So yes, the Dutton Branch will return. Fear not. Fear not. Okay. This is the first of, shall we say, a theme of messages we've had. And it says, oh God, in defence of Steph's seasonal hearing. Yes!

21:16Yes! Yes! And this comes from Tom. Oh, Tom. I'm about a week behind. Hold on. I'm just going to interrupt you there to remind you that you said that not only was I deranged, but it was the most deranged. It was the most deranged of all the things I'd ever said on the podcast. It was the most deranged. Show me the lie. Show me the lie. Please continue. Anyway, Tom says, I'm about a week behind on listening, so might be late to the party, but I had to jump in to defend Steph's seasonal viewing schedule. Some shows 100 % work better when viewed at different times of the year. Yes, you can watch whatever you want, but you run the risk of losing a special atmospheric something in the process.

21:58Stephen Moffat agrees. During his time as Doctor Who showrunner, he shifted the airing schedule from summer to winter because he felt the spookier tone of the show was better served being watched as the nights drew in outside. Also, just on a practical level, shows like Silo have a visual style that can generously be described as murky. and for those of us not watching our TVs in an actual underground silo and battling with the blinds to keep the sun out waiting for the winter evenings helps us normies see what is bloody happening and as an added bonus viewers who wait until winter will see the whole season in one go as opposed to the weekly release schedule which for a show I love as much as silo would be super unpleasant so take that James and Boyd god I wish I'd had all those absolutely excellent points at hand.

22:41Yeah, I will say Tom made the argument far better than you did. Oh! Unbelievable. Unbelievable. Yes, yes, yes. Right, what else have we got? There are more of these. I'm going to see if I can find a few of them together. Stephen says OMG, Steph is so right. I would normally describe myself as a card-carrying member of the Direhards. I agree with almost everything James says and consider his opinion on TV to mostly rank above all else. Thank you very much. Who is the psycho? Before I play too much smoke in the direction of James, I also feel similarly to Boyd, and I would happily die on the hill that Larry David's humour is perfect, and I love him.

23:19If it wasn't for sporting tribalism, I would probably hold Boyd in just as high regard as James. However, on last week's pod, Steph proved herself the best of you, and you two boys have really let me down. Steph, you are absolutely 100 % correct. there are indeed summer and winter shows and James Boyd can get in the sea there is a special vibe that comes with a hot drink sofa blanket dark and wet outside and a massive big series to get stuck into that cannot be recreated when it's 33 degrees and sunny outside at 9.45pm a few of the bad examples Silo Winter Paradise Summer Shrinking Summer Game of Thrones Winter Alice and Jack Alice and Steve and One Day summer stranger things winter happy valley winter normal people summer slow horses the exception that proves the rule it's omni-seasonal because like steph and her observations it is perfect wow oh my god that's oh i love that i love that email so much yes indeed yes indeed okay i mean so it's it's it's interesting to me how many of our listeners are as deranged as you are Steph I don't quite understand it but apparently this is spreading isn't it's quite a flex I mean I disagree with you but it's quite a flex for the host of a podcast to tell here as listeners that they're deranged I would just say that yeah it really is yeah look I speak the truth Boydie I don't know what to tell you I am unfiltered I know but you know what this proves I am at one with the people that's just like we're thinking same yeah you are you are queen of the pogs I am you are I'm so happy about this I'm so happy is there anyone's any does anyone email in saying it's absolutely preposterous and uh we can watch what we want anytime no no we haven't we actually haven't which troubles me but maybe it's implied boydie i think it's implied like it's the silent majority yeah everyone else yeah who whose email you haven't read out that's right i'm happy watching all of them yes yeah so sorry but we all know what assuming does let's just remember that guys yeah makes an ass out of you and me yeah okay thank you yeah thank you for explaining steph it's really really important you did that listen guys if you need anything else to explain to you as you know i am now the person who can explain all things you are that is true you and with with your flawless opinions so that's uh that's good uh we have a message here from chris you'll remember chris sent in the message last week about uh our sort of like separating the art from the artist thing he very much enjoyed us giving that the uh the airing that it deserved but he also said apart from appreciating that the foundation is his favorite current show and as a proud tv snob for no time for itv or channel five i beg you please come back with dutton ranch spoiler specials the fans demand it and he says and you're right i love beth dutton but she is a terrible human so fair uh right let's see what else we have in the post bag okie dokie someone here rachel says for us normies the season one finale of Star City airs this week.

26:26Spoiler special or just a spoilery chat? It's fun to hear thoughts on seasons as a whole. I loved it myself. Wow, the sequence at the end of episode six was good. Now, Sarah Phelps, good old Phelpsie, was raving about Star City. I don't know if you've seen on Instagram. I think she thinks it's absolutely magnificent. To my eternal shame, I have not finished it. I am woefully behind on Star City and I need to catch up because it is really, really good. But yeah, I'm not up to date. And Boydie, you just chimed in with an ooh there, I put it to you that I don't believe you are up to date. No, I'm not up to date at all, but I would have expected you to be up to date.

27:00I know, I should be. I'm shocked that you're not up to date when you should be up to date, but I'm not up to date. Well, there were just so many episodes of Little House on the Prairie Party, I just don't know. Exactly. Are you not up to date because they didn't put the last one on your screen as thing? No, no, no, it's nothing like that. There's just been so much else that I've had to watch. Are you secretly watching the World Cup? I'm not secretly watching the World Cup. I've not gone that insane. No, I have studiously not watched a single match. You'll be pleased to know. So I'm doing okay.

27:27Right. Okay. We have a suggestion here from Damien. And Damien says, If you could please indulge me in a little on-air admin, I'd very much appreciate it. Whenever I see a cast photo from the earlier seasons of Star Trek Deep Space Nine, Lieutenant Commander Worf is noticeable by his absence. Although he didn't join until later seasons, any cast photo without him feels somewhat incomplete. Similarly, the banner image used by the mod team on the Pilot TV subreddit features a group photo of Boyd, James and Kay, but Steph is sadly nowhere to be seen. Given what a fantastic addition she has been to the podcast, that image also feels equally incomplete.

28:07So my suggestion is that the next time all four hosts are together in the studio, perhaps a new group photo could be taken, which would allow Steph to take her well-deserved place alongside the rest of the team. Steph, as we said, I've always seen you as the Commander Worf of this podcast. You do have, honestly, quite similar hair. I tell you, you know what? When I was younger, people used to say that to me all the time. Did they really? No. Yeah, they used to say it to me all the time. You know what you look like? And I'm like, yeah, I know, the guy from Star Trek. I know. Do you know what? I was just doing a number crunch thinking, okay, what's this going to be, this Star Trek Deep Space Nine?

28:42You know, I loved Star Trek Deep Space Nine. I was like, what's going to be the question about? and actually it was a very sweet um question about me i'm just deeply unphotogenic and james doesn't really want a photo of me that's what no this is not true in fact we did do a shoot recently and we did shots of the three of us together but k was not available we did do individual shots and we might have to do some kind of photoshoppy jiggery pokery of like comping the three of us in with k so we have like a four shot composed of like separate things yeah that can be done we shall have to work on that yes i have been uh toying with updating the logo of the podcast at some point so uh maybe we'll work that in in some in some capacity we shall see uh we have a rather more business focused message here this comes from guy and guy says just to pick up on the paramount takeover of warner brothers although you are right in saying the secretary of state for culture media and sport can't really block the deal because it involves james's friends at channel 5 who are owned by paramount cnn international and leaves and studios it does fall within her purview as such she can ask questions so what well if she keeps asking questions and the deal does not complete by the 30th of september paramount has to play warner's shareholders 650 million dollars every three months this is painful no matter how rich your daddy is so if lisa nandy asks for guarantees regarding uk production safeguarding lots of jobs for example or children's television paramount are currently much more inclined to say yes minister oh my god i really feel like we've we we we really tried to ridicule we didn't try we ridiculed least didn't we we're like least has got nothing yeah i was like i was like yeah oh steady nandy's on the case but no apparently that was harsh apparently she's got you know some juice so it's all complicated by the fact that itv is in in the process of being sold to Sky and that makes the whole kind of situation even more complicated and confusing and stuff for Lisa and Andy to investigate Lisa's going to be so busy she's chock-a-block Sky are buying ITV that's the plan why?

30:52that's an excellent question that's a good question I'll tell you why because there will be what are called synergies that horrible word is always used in the media, in our kind of business. And there's huge production costs that they probably share, although actually the ITV studios, which makes stuff, isn't part of the deal. So it's channels, it's the people who work on publicity, I hate to say. There's loads of savings that can be made when two huge TV operations merge, shall we say. So why does one company take over another company? It happens all the time, doesn't it? Because it's seen as they will make more money if they do that, if they absorb the costs and share the costs, and they'll come out of it in the end with making more money.

31:39I think it's the simple answer. Right. So it's like hubbing, you know, where people hub together. It is a bit like a TV hub. TV version of hubbing in a way, yeah. But it'll be interesting to see how it affects what happens on the screen. For example, you know, like, will Sky News be affected? Because it's a huge, you know, rival to BBC News and, dare I say, GB News. there's loads of questions about which which Lisa Landy will have to investigate frankly and we can look look we can all rest easy because Nandy's on the case okay it's fine it's fine it's good we should we get on to talk about it yeah leave it with Lisa Lisa's going to sort it out yeah I'm sure we will end up talking about this a little bit on the main show as well uh but let's move on to a question from Scotland and of course I should be slightly more specific but unfortunately I don't know where Stuart lives.

32:27Anyway, Stuart says, just a minor criticism that really applies to all media, not just you. But in the intro of your review of The Dark, you went with the blanket set in Scotland without saying where. I'd be fine with this if you could be consistent with other shows and just say they're set in England rather than being more specific. You did then mention the Highlands later on, so that's good. I'd also be interested to know if it falls into the usual terribleness of every show made in Scotland, being that no matter where it is set the cast almost all have glaswegian slash west of scotland accents as i say this not being more specific than scotland thing is pretty endemic on all england-based media i just wish people would sometimes go for a little bit more specificity love the show stewart you know the funny thing about this is i i actually i genuinely labored long and hard over which bit of scotland this fucking show is based it's in inverness and you know how i know it's in Vaness because that's what I said in the fucking introduction to the review.

33:25I'm sorry, Stuart. I call bullshit on that because I have the script in front of me and it literally says in Vaness. Did I say set in Scotland? Certainly you that's being racist. Yeah, absolutely. Don't say that. The official ITV press release, which I've got in front of you, variously it says it's getting the Scottish wilderness, it's getting the Scottish countryside, blah, blah, blah, but it does not specify it. that I can find that it's set in Inverness, as you say. Because I think some of it, I think there's various locales, by the way. There's where the body's found. So that may be some kind of bit of Inverness.

34:03I don't know. Is that suburban Inverness? I don't know. Yeah, but there are other places featured as well. But I think it's a fair enough shout to say that. Oh, my God. It's so, and can I just say, I love Scotland. Like, I'm absolutely obsessed with the Isle of Skye. I am. Like, I love the Isle of Skye. I've visited this so many, so many times. I love it so much. And also I really love Edinburgh. And I know that's probably like two of the... That's a really shit thing to say because there are a million, billion other places in Scotland. But I feel terrible about this. What's wrong with Dundee all of a sudden?