0:00:00It's a holiday weekend, sort of, so I felt, who better than my good friend, John?
0:00:04Happy to do it. Particularly when you said that we would just be talking about TV shows, assuming
0:00:10that's what we're going to do. Yeah, I mean, I think that's what we should do because I kind of,
0:00:16I just did a show with Quinn Nelson and we kind of covered the WWDC. The only news that sort of
0:00:22is broken this week is that the EU's announced a thing against Microsoft, which I don't really have
0:00:30a lot to add other than, of course, I don't know. Well, they're sharing wealth. I keep meaning to
0:00:38get a column out about this and I will soon. I know, although, I don't know. Do you feel this
0:00:44way too? Like when you podcast something, it takes all the urge to write out of it.
0:00:52It does feel like sometimes I'm just repeating myself a lot, yeah.
0:00:55Yeah, I feel like if I've, I feel like it should be the other way. I feel like if I've talked about
0:01:02it on a podcast, I should still have the urge to put it in writing where I feel like I'm good with
0:01:09words and I— Yeah, yeah, I think it's a better way to make sure that you're saying what you mean
0:01:15to say as opposed to on a podcast. But I find that what actually happens though is sort of the
0:01:23opposite. If I've written about something first, I still don't mind blathering about it on a podcast.
0:01:29But once I've podcasted it, it does somehow, there's a part of my brain. But I guess the thing
0:01:36that—before we move on, it's, I keep coming back to the fact that it, obviously people's opinions
0:01:45about the EU and the DMA and Apple are polarized, to say the least. I think that's a fair
0:01:51description. There's some people who are go-go European Union, stick it to Apple, they're getting
0:01:59what they deserve. And from people, I keep hearing from people who think that the government or a
0:02:07government anywhere forcing Apple to in particular open up the App Store isn't just what these people
0:02:14want or what a political contingent wants, but who actually think from their perspective that this is
0:02:20actually good medicine for Apple, that this actually would be good for Apple. And you know,
0:02:24I'm amenable to that. And then on the other side, there's people where I would find myself
0:02:28who think that this entire endeavor is ill-advised. Not that Apple isn't in need of regulation or that
0:02:36I'm a knee-jerk, right-wing, all-government, get-the-government-off-my-back sort of political
0:02:44person, which I think I'm not. But... Yeah, I think there's a line between where regulation is good.
0:02:51I mean, I think opening up the App Store so that there are more options obviously is better for
0:02:57consumers and it's better for most everybody, probably I think even better for Apple. But
0:03:02there's also a line to which you can go and almost it's starting to seem in certain circumstances,
0:03:09things that you've heard people say from the EU, that they're getting to the point where
0:03:14you're going to start running into things that they, Apple's just not going to want to do things
0:03:19anymore. I mean, I don't think they're going to pull out of the EU. You've mentioned that a few
0:03:23times. I don't think they're going to do that. I think that would be cutting off their nose
0:03:26despite their face, but it could get to the point where they're going to be less inclined to do,
0:03:32to make certain features if they feel that they have to make those features available to everybody
0:03:38to use. Right. And it's like when I first started spitballing, hey, maybe this sort of regulatory
0:03:52guillotine hanging, I mean, guillotine's a little harsh because you die when you go through a real
0:03:57guillotine. But it is the EU themselves or the European Commission who keeps reiterating
0:04:06the profound size of the fines that the DMA allows them to apply to companies that they
0:04:14deemed to be violating. 10% of worldwide revenue on the first offense. And then after a first offense,
0:04:20the maximum goes up to 20%. Now, they haven't fined anybody under the DMA yet for anything.
0:04:25I mean, and it is by regulatory standards, still a dripping wet law, right? It came into effect in
0:04:33March. And I know at this point, it feels like that was a long time ago, and we've been talking
0:04:38about this for a while, but at the pace of regulatory action, it kind of makes sense
0:04:43that nobody's been fined yet. And so we don't know when they start finding people under this,
0:04:48are they really going to pursue maximum penalties, 10% of worldwide revenue,
0:04:53doubling for second offenses, or is that just bluster, whatever, but Apple doesn't know either.
0:05:00And I really, I mean, very few people inside Apple know, ultimately, what they really know from the
0:05:10highest levels of sort of diplomatic back and forth with the European Commission. Does Apple
0:05:15know that they're really not going to find them 10% of the worldwide revenue and so that the
0:05:21pressure isn't as high? I don't know. I don't think Apple knows. I think the European Commission
0:05:26is purposefully inscrutable on this. It does seem that Apple in the past, though, has been fined and
0:05:31just doesn't care. Because it can pay almost anything. Right. If you don't find them something
0:05:39that's large and possibly larger than your market size, you'll never get anywhere. Right. So I get
0:05:46that. But I guess the one where I'm going with this, though, is that the one split in public
0:05:54opinion that I feel certain that one side is wrong about is, is the argument that Apple is taking this
0:06:06lightly. And that it's and I've seen this repeated multiple times that they don't think Apple's taking
0:06:14this seriously at all. And that I think it's sort of comes from a perspective of thinking that if
0:06:23they took it seriously, their compliance plans would have been designed, knowing that they would
0:06:30make the DMA proponents happy. Right? I mean, it's, I think something something to the effect
0:06:40of here, okay, fine. Here in the EU, here is an easy way for anybody to distribute apps and pay
0:06:50Apple nothing to distribute to iOS, right? More or less, that's what we all kind of know, would
0:06:57placate the DMA strongest proponents, both in the European Commission and people outside who are
0:07:03cheering it on, right, they want to be able to install software on iOS devices the way you can
0:07:09on the Mac, more or less. You know, and people bring up that example all the time, and including
0:07:16on my show, where I thought Craig Federighi on stage was as clear as any Apple executive has ever
0:07:23been, that as much as they like the Mac, love the Mac, and think the Mac is as safe as a personal
0:07:30computing platform can be, that this, it is nowhere near as safe as iOS in terms of I think
0:07:36Federighi even said like his own mother or something like that, like in terms of here,
0:07:41go install whatever you want. She can do that on her iPhone and feel safe and telling your
0:07:47a non-technical family member, go ahead and install whatever software you want from any source
0:07:53on the Mac is probably not good advice. I mean, that's the truth. And I kind of feel like that's
0:07:59a PR thing that Apple's had to sort of dance around, because they don't want to throw their
0:08:05own platform under the bus, right? It's like a long-standing fear. Go back to seven, eight,
0:08:12nine years ago, when there was sort of a fear that Apple was going to let the Mac sort of
0:08:19go into retirement, the retirement home for old computing platforms, and let iPadOS sort of be
0:08:26the new big screen. We've got the phone OS, iOS, and we've got iPadOS for bigger screens, and
0:08:32that's the future. You know, sort of the famous Federighi slide at WWDC, are we going to merge
0:08:38Mac and iPadOS? No, we're not. Or that they were going to force everybody to use the App Store
0:08:43on the Mac. Right. But it's exactly, well, that's what I'm talking about. That's the sort of merger
0:08:50thought that some, forget about the actual details of what it would be, just yada, yada, yada, let's
0:08:56combine iPad and MacOS, one fewer platform, but this new merged for the future platform
0:09:05would have those rules like iOS, right? That's the fear. I have the fear. I certainly,
0:09:10I feel like Apple's current strategy is okay, where the iOS platforms, the phone and the iPad
0:09:19have the rules where everything has to go through the App Store, and the Mac gets to be a true
0:09:25personal computing platform where you can not just install whatever you want, you can compile
0:09:30your own software, make your own software, there's a command line, and if you want to with minimal
0:09:35protections, going through settings and saying, okay, yes, allow installations from sources
0:09:41outside the App Store or whatever, that you can do that. I feel like that's a good balance.
0:09:47There's definitely a part of me that sort of wishes, you know, in a way that there's both
0:09:52for laptop style computers, both iPad, more locked down, tight, and Mac, which is more open,
0:10:00definitely more open, I kind of wish that we had the same option for phones, that there was sort of
0:10:05a lockdown version for most people, and a power user version where you can do the stuff that
0:10:12people want everybody on the phone to be able to do. But that's basically though, just circling
0:10:19back that I just want to get this off my chest that I really don't think Apple is taking this
0:10:24lightly at all. I think they're taking it seriously as a heart attack. I think that and I think they
0:10:29see it as an existential threat, not because the EU itself is so large, that losing the EU market
0:10:36or shrinking in EU market because of this would do them in. But the fear that DMA style legislation
0:10:46will spread throughout the rest of the world. That would be the existential threat to Apple.
0:10:51Jared I don't think that
0:10:52necessarily dragging your heels or trying to fight it a bit is not taking it seriously.
0:10:58Michael Right, right. I definitely,
0:11:00capitulation is not the only option. And I think that the scope of some of this stuff,
0:11:09browser engine kit in particular seems to be a thorn in people's side, like the people who
0:11:14really want to see the Chrome rendering engine on iOS devices, or let it gecko to the one from
0:11:22Firefox. And it's, I think there's a couple of factors, but browser engine kit is definitely
0:11:31more complicated than just somehow getting Xcode to compile a version of Chrome with the chromium
0:11:38engine and it okay, it runs and launches. It's there's a bunch of things that are third party
0:11:45rendering engine that wants to be there for the platform has to comply with to go through browser
0:11:50engine kit, but it's reasonable. And it is about safety. There's so many of the security
0:11:56vulnerabilities that go through the browser, whatever the browser, WebKit, Chrome, gecko,
0:12:04but that's when people talk about like zero days or something like that, where it's like you
0:12:09carefully craft a link and somebody taps it in WhatsApp or messages or whatever app you're using.
0:12:14And if it exploits a bug in the browser rendering engine, just by tapping the link and loading it,
0:12:21you might be vulnerable to it. There really are serious issues that come up through this.
0:12:25And it's just one example where if Apple wanted to be lazy and didn't take it seriously,
0:12:30they would just say, here, just do whatever you want. And if a user checks this checkbox to allow
0:12:36any software they want on their phones, have at it. You can riddle your phone with malware.
0:12:44That's not our problem. We gave you one warning up front. That would be the lazy, malicious
0:12:49way of complying. Right. Yeah. Anyway, we weren't going to talk about. So we weren't going to talk
0:12:56about this. Anyway, let me take a break here and take our sponsor for the show, our very special
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0:16:03So anyway, my idea, the July 4th extended holiday week. Give people some feedback. Our favorite picks
0:16:13of recent TV shows and movies. I know you're big on that, right? That's your podcasting career.
0:16:18Jared: That's right. Yeah, and I'm just starting to do a thing with the incomparable. We're going
0:16:23to do the Planet of the Apes, the recent Planet of the Apes series. So I've been working my way
0:16:29back through those, which I've seen all of them except the one that's out now. I still haven't
0:16:33gotten out to see that one yet, but that's a pretty good series. So I'm kind of happy to do
0:16:37that. I've seen them through it once, and so now I'm going back and watching them again.
0:16:41Pete: Yeah, they're pretty good. I have not seen the latest one. How about Godzilla minus zero?
0:16:49Jared; That is very good.
0:16:50Pete; Have you seen it?
0:16:51Jared; Have you seen that yet?
0:16:51Pete; I have seen it. And I feel, I want your guidance on this, John, is where to toe the line
0:16:58on recommending something without spoiling something. So interrupt me and cut me off if
0:17:04you feel like I'm crossing the line. But I kind of feel like one of the nice things about Godzilla
0:17:09minus zero is we can't really spoil it, in my opinion. Because guess what? It's a Godzilla movie.
0:17:16So guess what happens?
0:17:18Jared; And it's a prequel.
0:17:19Pete; Yeah.
0:17:20Jared; So Godzilla's gonna make it.
0:17:22Pete; Right.
0:17:25Jared; He's got a date with, who was the guy? Perry Mason? Raymond Burr.
0:17:34Pete; Raymond Burr, that's right.
0:17:36Jared; I can't believe I didn't remember, couldn't remember that.
0:17:38Pete; It takes place, Godzilla minus zero takes place in, I guess, just after the end of World
0:17:44War II in Japan.
0:17:46Jared; Yeah, I think it's, yeah, I mean, maybe a year or two, something like that.
0:17:49Pete; Yeah, something like that. So it's like 1945 or 1946 in Japan.
0:17:54Jared; Yeah, because it starts out right at the end, toward the end of the war, right? Because
0:17:58they're boarding planes to fly them into American.
0:18:04Pete; Right. There's like a kamikaze pilot landing a shaky plane to start the movie.
0:18:10Jared; Yeah.
0:18:11Pete; Entirely in Japanese, I believe, also, and I think, and this is one of those movies where I
0:18:19just said up front, you can't really spoil it, but somehow, because I knew I wanted to watch it,
0:18:24I didn't read a lot about it, other than the fact that I knew it was a prequel. I'd heard that the
0:18:28effects were very good. I think it, did it win Oscars for visual effects? I don't know.
0:18:32Jared; I think it did, didn't it? Yeah.
0:18:34Pete; It should have, in my opinion, because that was one thing too, is somehow, I don't know,
0:18:40it was extremely compelling.
0:18:41Jared; Did you say minus zero? It's Godzilla minus one.
0:18:43Pete; Oh, I keep saying it wrong. I do keep saying it wrong.
0:18:49Jared; I went with it. I didn't.
0:18:50Pete; No, I was wrong.
0:18:51Jared; Yeah, but it won an Oscar for best visual effects.
0:18:53Pete; Yeah, Godzilla minus one. Do you understand the title? This is why I can't remember that it's
0:18:59minus one instead of minus zero. I guess minus zero doesn't do anything, right?
0:19:03Jared; No, minus zero does nothing. Yeah, I guess it's supposed to be the year before,
0:19:06before the original movie, maybe?
0:19:10Pete; Yeah, maybe. The one thing though I saw get praise, and again, it sort of feels
0:19:19a little trite, but I'm glad to see it, that the whole cast is Japanese. There are no,
0:19:27"Oh, we're going to spend all this money on a Godzilla movie. We've got to put some
0:19:32American actors and actresses in at some point."
0:19:35Jared; Well, that's what they did with Raymond Burr, right? I mean,
0:19:38he's just injected into that film. He's not, he obviously was not in the Japanese release of that
0:19:42movie, and then they were like, "Well, we want to release this in America, so we got to put an
0:19:46American in here," and he's just like standing there with a microphone at a window through the
0:19:50whole thing.
0:19:50Pete; Right! It really does exemplify the old thinking on, well, nobody wants to watch,
0:19:58nobody elsewhere in the world wants to watch a movie with an entirely Japanese cast.
0:20:02So, I'm glad we went past it because I feel like, I feel like it was a really good story for a
0:20:08Godzilla movie too.
0:20:09Jared; Yeah, I mean, it's really more of a post-war story than a monster movie in a lot of
0:20:13ways. I mean, obviously Godzilla's in it, but it's more about the lives of these people who are
0:20:20damaged by the aftereffects of the war.
0:20:23Pete; Right, of a very long, arduous, gut-wrenching war that at least
0:20:28Jared; Affected all of their lives.
0:20:29Pete; Yeah, pretty much. And I guess, well, not even I guess, I mean, I think kind of famously,
0:20:35the original Godzilla was clearly an allegory about nuclear war and knowing that Japan has a
0:20:46unique in the world perspective on nuclear war as the only ones to have been the
0:20:52victims of it. And so, I did think about that and again, going into it, I didn't know,
0:21:00but coming out of the movie and sort of processing my feelings about it, and it was,
0:21:06in some ways it's just pure Godzilla where it's, yeah, you get lots of all the Godzilla stuff you
0:21:11want to see, smashing buildings, stepping on people. Jared; It's always unclear to me like if
0:21:18he's going to be a good guy or a bad guy in a given movie.
0:21:20Pete; Yeah, I do too.
0:21:22Jared; Like, there are so many movies like after the original where he becomes like the hero who
0:21:29fights off all the other monsters.
0:21:31Pete; Right, right. Mecha Godzilla and all those other characters. I guess whenever there's other,
0:21:37and I guess there is, I haven't seen it, there's also a new King Kong and Godzilla movie.
0:21:42Jared; Yeah. I tried to watch that first one, I did not get very far.
0:21:46Pete; I did watch the first one and, well, it sums up my feelings about the first one that I don't
0:21:53have the second one on my watch list, but yet they made it, so I guess it was a hit? I don't know.
0:22:00Jared; I guess so, yeah. Did you watch the Apple TV show?
0:22:03Pete; Yes.
0:22:04Jared; Legacy of Monsters? I haven't finished it. I watched a bunch of it and have not
0:22:08finished it yet, so I got to get back to, I thought it was okay. I thought it was okay.
0:22:12I didn't think it was, I didn't think a lot of it, but it was entertaining enough.
0:22:15Pete; It was better than I expected, but it fits in with the whole industry-wide
0:22:23cinematic universe era, right? I mean, and Legacy of Monsters, I mean, it's a good segue
0:22:32into talking about something afterwards, and I think Godzilla minus one is still trying to fit
0:22:39into this because it's a prequel, right? That they're not really-
0:22:42Jared; It could, yeah, right.
0:22:43Pete; Yeah, it's-
0:22:44Jared; Yeah, I don't know.
0:22:45Pete; But I don't know.
0:22:48Jared; There's a difference between, there's usually a difference between the American movies
0:22:52and the Japanese ones. I think, like, the recent Godzilla movies and the Godzilla and Kong movies
0:22:58are part of the same universe as the show, but not necessarily Godzilla minus one.
0:23:07Pete; Yeah, I-
0:23:08Jared; But it could be, it could fit in fairly perfectly well, but it's not necessarily.
0:23:14Pete; Right. In the modern day extended cinematic universe, and it is
0:23:21explaining the science behind giant King Kong gorillas and giant lasers shooting out of their
0:23:28mouth lizards, and that there's some sort of Edgar Rice Burroughs style underground world
0:23:39under the surface of the earth that still somehow has light sources and gravity, but that it's
0:23:47through these underground, unknown to human civilization magical portals that these monsters
0:23:55can sort of zap around under the Pacific Ocean, more or less.
0:24:00Jared; I think the lesson of the show is don't think too hard about a monster movie.
0:24:04Pete; Yeah, I think so. All right, you and I have talked on podcasts, well, everybody our age with
0:24:10the podcast has talked about the Star Wars universe and too much. And I think ultimately
0:24:16it gets down to going back to the prequels. It's like one of everybody, everybody loves to talk
0:24:21about Jar Jar first, and then second, everybody wants to complain about the whole midichlorians,
0:24:27"Oh, now they've got like a blood test for the force." And it's, I think that was a mistake,
0:24:32right? I agree. Yeah, there's lots of stuff about the prequels that I think are subjective, but I'm,
0:24:40I've always been more on George Lucas's side with the prequels. I don't love the prequels like I
0:24:47love the original trilogy from the 80s, the 70s and the 80s. And, but I appreciate it. And I
0:24:55think that George Lucas made a prequel trilogy that was what he was shooting for, which is
0:25:03interesting. I don't think it's a failed trilogy at all. I would just say that the whole midichlorian
0:25:09thing though, even given the overall arc of the prequels and the style and the way Lucas wanted
0:25:15to take the series, the midichlorian thing, come on, George. No, that was not, yeah. It's a fantasy.
0:25:21It's not, it doesn't need a scientific explanation for how the force works. Right. It's mystical.
0:25:27It's not, it's not a bunch, it's not something you could see with a microscope in your blood.
0:25:32But anyway, I think that applies just as well to trying to figure out where the light sources
0:25:38are coming from. Exactly. Yeah. With Godzilla. I guess this show is kind of popular though,
0:25:46because I made a couple of t-shirts. I watched the first episode and actually,
0:25:49I think from the trailer, there were these signs that were a Godzilla exit route and it had been
0:25:54written in Japanese as well. And so I made some t-shirts of those because I thought it was cool.
0:25:58I still have a lot of those. I was really surprised. So apparently people like the show
0:26:02or at least watched a number of people watch the show. Well, I do think, and that is part of the
0:26:10modern day cinematic universe world building idea is you have a steady stream of feature films
0:26:18with the big budget and you put the stars in and whether it's Avengers or whether it's Star Wars
0:26:24or whether it's Godzilla, you've got some feature films. And then in between the feature films,
0:26:29you make TV shows and tell smaller stories. Certainly, I would say Disney has sort of
0:26:37staked the company on this strategy. That's what they're doing with the Marvel universe. That's
0:26:44certainly what they're doing with the Star Wars universe. And now whoever owns Godzilla and King
0:26:48Kong is doing it. And sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. Right. An interesting
0:26:54casting note in Legacy of... Now I'm going to screw this one up. Legacy of Monsters, right?
0:26:59Is that the...
0:27:00Yeah. Monarch Legacy of Monsters. That's what it is.
0:27:03Right. But Kurt Russell is in it as Kurt Russell and his son who...
0:27:09Well, he's in it as a character. Yeah.
0:27:10Right. Well, but...
0:27:12Well, I forgot the character's name, but he's... Yeah.
0:27:14I meant though that he's playing a Kurt Russell aged character, but his younger self,
0:27:19because there's flashbacks to the '50s or '60s, is played by his son, which is really,
0:27:26really interesting. What's his son's name? Wyatt Russell. And it's... He's not...
0:27:32I like that. And that's one of the things I like about the show, actually. I think that works
0:27:36pretty well. They look plenty enough alike. And it's a nice way of doing it without throwing a
0:27:43whole bunch of CGI on them. Not that there's anything wrong with CGI. It doesn't have to be
0:27:48used for everything. Yeah. And that's like, I always think to... Which a movie that I liked,
0:27:55I really liked a lot. Although I've only watched it once because it was three hours and it's
0:28:00therefore not easily re-watched. But Scorsese's The Irishman from a couple of years ago,
0:28:06which was on Netflix, but had used a lot of CGI to make young Robert De Niro. I think they did
0:28:14Young Joe Pesci too, but certainly young Robert De Niro. And it was good enough, but not...
0:28:22There is something to me more satisfying about seeing Wyatt Russell play younger
0:28:31Kurt Russell than it would be watching a de-aged Kurt Russell play both.
0:28:36Yeah, I agree. And it's weird that to me, sometimes the de-aging process works really
0:28:41well and sometimes it does not work well at all. And for some reason to my eye, it works better in
0:28:47the Marvel movies than it does in the Star Wars movies. And I don't understand why that is. You'd
0:28:52think that it would be all coming from the same place, but maybe it doesn't. Yeah. Who are you
0:28:57thinking of in the Star Wars? Well, Carrie Fisher and Tarkin. I don't think those worked all that
0:29:05well for me. Whereas younger Ant-Man in the beginning of the first Ant-Man movie was pretty
0:29:11good. I'm trying to think of what else. There's been other ones too that I think worked well,
0:29:18but I can't take them off my head. I thought Tarkin... Tarkin I kind of liked.
0:29:21It's hard to share with Tarkin because you're making him up completely. You don't have the
0:29:25original actor to do it, but still. It just seemed a little clunky. Yeah, a little bit. But the
0:29:33Legacy of Monsters, good show. And it kind of brings me to maybe an overarching point,
0:29:40which is that Apple TV sort of... I think, A, Apple TV is really hitting its stride. And
0:29:48even with a couple of shows that I sort of thought, "Eh, I don't think I'm going to like
0:29:55this one." And now I've wound up really liking it a lot. Palm Royale would be an example of that.
0:30:00Did you? I don't know. I have not watched that yet. Kristen Wiig is the star and it's sort of...
0:30:06It kind of reminds me of Mad Men because it takes place in that era. I think maybe a little after
0:30:13the... I think it's like 1970 or '71, but it's in Palm Springs. And Amy wanted to watch it. You
0:30:20know how it is. You take turns picking shows. I really liked it. And then we did the... I think
0:30:27sort of what I liked doing is get into it. If it's an eight-episode series, get into it a month in.
0:30:34And then if you like it, you can kind of go faster than one a week, but you don't necessarily binge
0:30:39it. But Palm Royale was one that I got to the end of. And then I found out that Apple had renewed it
0:30:44for another season and I'm like, "Yay!" But there's two things about Apple TV that are sticking out to
0:30:50me. Palm Royale is obviously an exception, but it does seem like they are, without saying so,
0:30:57they are deliberately sort of eking out of position as the home of sci-fi.
0:31:03Yeah, well, yeah, weird sci-fi, right? I mean, a lot of it is, I don't know, has a sort of odd
0:31:10twist to it, I would say. Yeah, maybe less... And again, I know it's a very loose distinction,
0:31:17but less sci-fi and more science fiction, right? Like, where...
0:31:22Yeah, yeah, true. I get weird.
0:31:25Like, I've always thought the distinction, like, Star Wars is sci-fi, but it's just laser guns and
0:31:32the force and it's a cross and, you know, I don't know. How long does it really take for light speed
0:31:38to get you from Alderaan to Coruscant? Who knows, you know? What happened? How in the world,
0:31:46when the Millennium Falcon didn't have a hyperdrive, did they get from Hoth to Bespin
0:31:52without a hyperdrive? I don't know. Who knows? Forget it. That's sci-fi, right? Laser guns and
0:31:57laser swords. And science fiction, 2001 would be the canonical example where it's like, "Hey,
0:32:04this is actually, like, maybe technically possible or to some degree of realism or just
0:32:10thoughtfulness." And it's less... Right. Something to make you think.
0:32:16You can actually, you can use your, you can turn your brain on a little bit for it.
0:32:19Right. And in terms of being weird sci-fi, I think nothing is weirder than Severance, right?
0:32:27Oh, yeah. Yeah.
0:32:28Like, do you like weird sci-fi? You should watch Severance, right?
0:32:34I didn't, yeah. And that was a show, like, looking back, I'm surprised I liked it as much as I did
0:32:37because it's pretty dark. It's pretty bleak in a lot of ways.
0:32:43Except for the way that it looks, right? I mean, and that's sort of, I think, one of the very
0:32:47interesting things about the show. It is a very bleak, dark show. But everything, once the people
0:32:54in the company go to their, I mean, this is a bit of a spoiler, but the whole season's over and the
0:32:59new season's coming out. So I presume it's safe to talk about the premise of Severance.
0:33:03Yeah, I would think for this one, yes.
0:33:04Where there's this mysterious company where everybody, and they know it, they sign up for it,
0:33:10and they know that when you go to work, you come in the front and then you go down an escalator
0:33:15and you sort of forget about your entire outside life. And you only, when you're at work,
0:33:22you only know work. And then when you leave for the day, you go back up and you forget all of
0:33:28your work. And now you're back into real life and you're like, "I don't know what happened the last
0:33:31eight hours, but, you know, I assume it was okay."
0:33:33Right. I don't need to worry about it.
0:33:36But when they're down in their work world, instead of lighting it dark, moody, it's very,
0:33:46very brightly lit white walls, very clean, almost surgical, which, just to bring Kubrick into it,
0:33:53is that the Shining is, almost none of it takes place in the dark. And that's sort of,
0:34:00that was something he set out deliberately to do, that let's make a scary, terrifying horror movie,
0:34:06and instead of having jump scares and everything's dark, let's make it really light and have a whole
0:34:14bunch of it take place in the daytime. And I think Severance kind of gets that, where it, to me,
0:34:18comes across creepier by being not looking creepy.
0:34:22Yeah.
0:34:23What else? One of the first shows on Apple TV, and now it's, I forget what season they're up to,
0:34:30there's For All Mankind, which kind of started them down the path of this, but the science
0:34:36fiction shows just keep coming. Do you watch For All Mankind?
0:34:39Oh yeah. Yeah. That had a slow start, I thought. Like, the first couple episodes, I was like,
0:34:44"I wasn't sure if I was going to like it," and then now I'm completely hooked, of course. I
0:34:48gotta find out where they're going.
0:34:50Right. And it's, I also wonder with that one, and again, I don't, I think the basic premise isn't
0:34:57really spoiling it, but it's like, it starts with the 60s, right? Before we got to the Moon,
0:35:06and it's what if the Russians had gotten to the Moon before us? And then the whole world—
0:35:11I think that's the opening, right? It's like, they're doing the Moon landing announcement,
0:35:14and then the big surprise is the flag that gets placed is a Soviet flag instead of a US flag.
0:35:21Right. It's a Soviet flag, and the Soviets on their initial trip to the Moon sent up both a man
0:35:27and a woman, so they landed both the first man and woman on the Moon, and therefore put pressure on
0:35:33the US to accelerate integrating women into the astronaut force, which, A, I think was kind of a
0:35:42clever idea in general, but B, gets them over the hump of, hey, you can't—it would be awkward in
0:35:55today's world to make a show about an alternate history of the astronaut force where the astronaut
0:36:00force was seven white guys, right? Which was true. So how do you explain why in the alternate
0:36:08universe there's women in the astronauts and there are people of color in the astronaut corps,
0:36:14and it's because the Russians stuck it to us by sending a woman up on their first mission.
0:36:21Yeah. It's awkward. Did you watch Masters of the Air?
0:36:24No, that's one I haven't watched.
0:36:26It's a little awkward, and that—I mean, obviously, it's much more—it's not completely
0:36:30factual, but it's much more factual, obviously. It's very much based on actual stories, and they
0:36:36have one episode that is about the Tuskegee Airmen. Unfortunately, it's not one of the
0:36:43stronger episodes, I would say, and it comes off a little trite. I don't think it works as well as
0:36:50some of the other, but it's not an amazing show. It's not nearly as good as the other shows in that
0:36:55group of—like, the Band of Brothers is fantastic, and the Pacific is really good. This one is by far
0:37:01the weakest, but there are things that I enjoyed about it, but that episode I don't think holds
0:37:08up all that well, unfortunately. And of course, they're telling a real story, so they had to
0:37:12be factual, or at least pretty close to factual about it. They couldn't just
0:37:17put a bunch of people of color in the cockpits of the bomber planes.
0:37:23Right, and that's sort of the freedom of—I feel like if I were writing for one of these shows,
0:37:30I would prefer to write for like a For All Mankind where—
0:37:35Yeah, where you have more latitude.
0:37:37Yeah, where it's like you can just make up stuff like that and say, "You know what, what if there
0:37:43were a representative number of Black people in the astronaut corps in 1968? What if?" Wouldn't it
0:37:51be—because it doesn't just make the cast look better today when you say, "Here's the cast of
0:37:56the show." It just—I don't know, it just feels better, right?
0:37:58Yeah, it is. Yeah, yeah.
0:38:00And you get to draw from a wider pool of talent, and you get some good actors who otherwise wouldn't
0:38:04be able to play in the show. One thing where I think they maybe should have used CGI to age up
0:38:12Ed Baldwin in that show, because I think his makeup in the most recent series was a little bit like a
0:38:19Star Trek episode from—
0:38:20Yeah, I have to say, I agree with that. And it did—and I remember thinking—
0:38:26He's a good actor, and I've enjoyed him throughout the show, but they feel like that makeup
0:38:30was not as good as it could have been.
0:38:32It felt like when you go see a play, right, and you expect that, "Oh, if there's a 45 or—I
0:38:40don't know how old, but a middle of his career actor who's playing somebody—"
0:38:45King Lear.
0:38:46Yeah, or something like that. You don't expect it to look realistic. If you have close seats and
0:38:51you can kind of see the makeup, you're like, "Well, yeah, I'm watching a play." And even
0:38:55that's sort of what Ed Baldwin looked like there.
0:38:58But I'm trying to think if any other streaming network really even compares to Apple in terms
0:39:06of the amount of science fiction stuff as a percentage.
0:39:10Yeah. It doesn't obviously have all the Star Wars stuff, but that's a franchise,
0:39:13so it's kind of different. They don't really have independent—I mean, I guess there's some Hulu
0:39:19stuff maybe, but I don't think there's even that much science fiction stuff on Hulu, really.
0:39:24Yeah, not really. Netflix has everything, right? I know that they had—I've already forgotten the
0:39:30name—but the guy who did the Superman movie, Snyder—
0:39:35Yeah, it was Zack Snyder, yeah.
0:39:36Zack Snyder. He had the big science fiction two-part thing on Netflix, and everybody was
0:39:42like, "There's a part two?" I haven't watched it yet, so I can't complain.
0:39:47I heard very bad things about it. I've never really liked him very much to begin with.
0:39:51The same here. And that is exactly why it's never bubbled up to the top of my watch list,
0:39:57is I'm not really a fan of Zack Snyder.
0:39:59I like Watchmen okay. I thought it was all right. I think that's the best thing of his that I've—
0:40:04Yeah.
0:40:04The thing that I've enjoyed the most, but I feel like I've suffered through the other stuff that
0:40:09he made.
0:40:09Yeah, I liked his Watchmen, and in terms of sort of famously deemed to be un-filmable
0:40:19original content, which I think often means when the source content, which is often just
0:40:26a written novel, but in the case of the Watchmen was a graphic novel. But I'm sure you agree—I'm
0:40:31speaking to the choir here—that there's no hesitation to put graphic novels on par with
0:40:37prose novels in terms of artistic quality or intent. But because it's so beloved and so
0:40:46meaningful to so many people, it's like a fear, "Oh God, please don't botch a translation to film."
0:40:53And I think Zack Snyder obviously had reverence for the source material. The movie sticks about
0:40:59as close to it as it could. I mean, you can't just shoot the graphic novel because it doesn't
0:41:04have the pace of a movie.
0:41:06Right. I think so too. I went back and read it, and there are definitely some differences. And
0:41:11some people seem to think that it's—I don't know, I've talked to a lot of people who seem
0:41:15to think that it's wildly different than the graphic novel, and I don't see that, honestly.
0:41:19No, I almost think that it sticks to it maybe too much. I don't know.
0:41:24The HBO series Watchmen is absolutely fantastic.
0:41:29Yes, exactly. I really like that one. And again, it is sort of the cinematic universe play,
0:41:36right? It's instead of, "Oh, now, you know, I guess they're talking about doing this with
0:41:41the Harry Potter novels." They've obviously made a series of films that was super, super popular,
0:41:48just as popular, if not more so than the novels.
0:41:50Well, yeah, I think they're remaking them, right, on Netflix, I think.
0:41:54I think—well, I don't know if it's Netflix or HBO because it used to be
0:41:59Warner Brothers, but who knows who got the rights?
0:42:00Yeah, I think I thought Netflix was—
0:42:02But the idea being that J.K. Rowling wrote these books that—and as the series got on,
0:42:09they got longer and longer, and so there's 800-page Chapter 5 novels.
0:42:15This is, yeah, Harry Potter series due to hit max in 2026. So I may be thinking of The Lord
0:42:20of the Rings, actually, because I think they're redoing The Lord of the Rings,
0:42:25The Fellowship, Two Towers, and Return of the King as a series on Netflix.
0:42:31Well, and it's the same—it is the same problem. I know that the tone of the two series is sort of
0:42:38different. Harry Potter is obviously more modern and casual prose-wise, whereas The Lord of the
0:42:45Rings, Tolkien is sort of—I mean, you're either into—I liked reading them. It's one of the few
0:42:50series of books I've ever read twice, so I am a fan of Tolkien's work, but it is—even when I was
0:42:57rereading it the second time, there's points where I was like, "This is like homework."
0:43:00Right? Try reading The Silmarillion.
0:43:04I know. Oh, I tried. That was one that I had to—
0:43:07I tried, too. I did not get that far.
0:43:09And I heard that it was difficult and academic, and then I was like, "Oh, they weren't kidding."
0:43:16This is like that opening of the one book that I was like, "Eh, maybe I can flip a couple pages
0:43:22here." And it's like the whole Silmarillion is like that. But the idea is, even if you
0:43:29let the movies run to three hours, which is long for a movie, you're still cutting a 600-page novel
0:43:38way down to fit there, whereas if you make Game of Thrones-style, a series of 10-hour-long episodes
0:43:46per book, you can cover the whole book, you know?
0:43:50Yeah.
0:43:50I'm trying to think. Well, we were going to talk about Dark Matter, right? Which I think—
0:43:55Yeah, yeah.
0:43:55I haven't watched the final episode, but that's a really good show on TV+.
0:44:01That's a great show, I think. I was surprised how much—because I watched the first episode
0:44:05of Constellation, and that did not stick for me. And I heard from others that that was the right
0:44:13call, but maybe some people's mileage might vary. But this show—and I was probably concerned that
0:44:21it was going to be too dark, and it's pretty dark. There's some dark stuff that happens in it for
0:44:25sure.
0:44:26It is called Dark Matter.
0:44:27Yeah, yeah, exactly. You like the main character and his family well enough. There are people who
0:44:35you can root for, and I think that's the thing that always bothers me. There's a show where
0:44:40there's no one that you can root for. So, this turns out to be pretty well done, and I think
0:44:46it makes a good point about how to live your life, I guess.
0:44:53Yeah, maybe. I mean, that's obviously the theme. Have you ever seen the show Counterpoint?
0:44:59Oh, yeah. Yeah.
0:45:01Jason Snell turned me on to this show a couple years ago.
0:45:06Yeah, he's a big fan of that show. It's a good show.
0:45:08So, I feel like we can spoil a lot of Counterpoint, but the premise—what's the main actor?
0:45:17JK Simmons.
0:45:18JK Simmons. And the premise of Counterpoint is that at some point, I think in the '70s,
0:45:27it happened, but there's some kind of—
0:45:31Or I think it's the late '80s, but I might—
0:45:34Maybe, all right.
0:45:34I think it's the late '80s, yeah.
0:45:36Yeah, maybe. And maybe it was around the time that the Berlin Wall came down.
0:45:41Yeah, because it's a Cold War story, basically. It's a Cold War story between two universes.
0:45:46Right.
0:45:47But that's something—
0:45:48Two alternate realities.
0:45:49Something happened at a secretive physics facility in Berlin that forked the universe into two
0:45:59universes.
0:46:00Right.
0:46:00And—
0:46:01So, yeah. So, it then split in '88 or something like that.
0:46:05Yeah. And so, everybody who was born before 1988 has a—or Counterpart is the movie,
0:46:13not Counterpoint, right?
0:46:14Yeah, Counterpart.
0:46:14Yeah, Counterpart, right. And everybody has a counterpart in the other universe,
0:46:21that there's two John Grubers, two John Moltas.
0:46:25Right.
0:46:25And for some people, their counterparts are living very different lives than the other.
0:46:33And it's just two worlds, and the governments have kept this very secret. Very few people in
0:46:39either world know about the existence of the other world. As soon as I knew the premise,
0:46:46I was like, "Oh my God, how have I not heard about this? This sounds amazing."
0:46:49I loved the show.
0:46:51What was it on? It was on some—it was on, like—
0:46:54FX or something?
0:46:55Yeah, I think so. I think, yeah. And now it's not streaming anywhere. You have to buy it.
0:47:01Yeah.
0:47:01Well, it's—no, it's—well, if you're in Canada, it's streaming on CTV and Apple TV,
0:47:06but everywhere else, it looks like you have to buy it. But you can get it. Yeah, I mean,
0:47:11you can get it most of the places.
0:47:13And the bummer is that there were only two seasons, and it didn't get renewed, and the
0:47:19end of the second season clearly wasn't the hoped-for end of the series.
0:47:26Yeah.
0:47:26It's not the—
0:47:27I mean, it is—yeah, you can consider it an ending, but I don't think that's what they
0:47:31were going for.
0:47:32Yeah, and I actually have seen an interview with the showrunner who more or less said
0:47:40they were hoping for a third season, but kind of knew that there was a chance that this
0:47:44would be it and so sort of purpose—and I think that's what it felt like. It is unsatisfying,
0:47:50but the show is so good that I would recommend people watch it anyway.
0:47:54Yeah, me too.
0:47:54Just know, though, that it's going to be unsatisfying at the end.
0:47:58It's interesting, I mean, that's a show where the—like, J.K. Simmons plays two different
0:48:04versions of himself, and they're very different people, even though they were the same up
0:48:08until 1988, basically. Their lives led them in very different directions since then, and
0:48:14so he plays them brilliantly.
0:48:16It's unbelievable how good he is, really, because it's both—it's everything you
0:48:22would think would be difficult and impossible. It is clearly the same guy, and you can see
0:48:28how different events led him to be quite different 20 years afterwards.
0:48:35But yet you definitely can feel that it is the same guy, even though they're different.
0:48:41But yet on a scene-to-scene basis, it's very easy to tell, "Oh, that's the guy who's
0:48:47more aggressive and successful, and this is—oh, that's the other one who's a little bit
0:48:51more of a milquetoast bureaucrat."
0:48:53There is Jason, the character in Dark Matter, they're much more alike, even though they
0:48:59are still definitely different, and I think he plays them well, but they're just not
0:49:04quite as different as J.K. Simpson.
0:49:06Joel Edgerton.
0:49:08Joel Edgerton, yeah.
0:49:10Yeah, and again, because Dark Matter's new, I don't want to spoil too much, but it's
0:49:14sort of the counterpart premise, but instead of a nuclear incident, it's a big box that
0:49:20this guy, the main character in one of the universes, invented, and when you go into
0:49:27it, you can go to alternate universes.
0:49:31But there's a lot of alternate universes.
0:49:32Are I guess infinite alternate universes, ultimately?
0:49:35Jared Yeah.
0:49:37And I really enjoy how they explain the process of traveling through.
0:49:42Joel Yeah.
0:49:43Jared Because at first it seems sort of fantastical,
0:49:48more like fantasy than like it's a magic box, but it's not.
0:49:52They have a decent scientific explanation for it, I think.
0:49:55Joel Yeah, I think so too.
0:49:57And it's another, it's a show, I forget if it's seven or eight episodes, somewhere
0:50:01around there, but it is a show that—
0:50:03Jared I think it's nine, isn't it?
0:50:05Joel Oh, maybe nine?
0:50:05I don't know.
0:50:06But there hasn't been a bad episode, and to me, it's—
0:50:10Jared And it gets better and better, I think.
0:50:11Joel Yeah, I'd say so too, where I was like two
0:50:14or three episodes in, and I thought, "This is pretty good."
0:50:17Jared Yeah.
0:50:18Joel And by like episode five or so, I'm like,
0:50:22I cannot wait.
0:50:22Jared Yeah, it's nine episodes.
0:50:24Joel Right.
0:50:24Jared And yeah, when you get to episode eight,
0:50:27I was, because I sometimes watch while I'm making dinner, and I started to turn, I turned
0:50:32on episode eight while I was making dinner, and I was just like, "Whoa, what is going
0:50:35on here?"
0:50:36And I had to stop.
0:50:37I was like, "I need to be able to pay attention.
0:50:39I can't make dinner and watch this show at the same time.
0:50:41There's no way."
0:50:42Joel I would wholeheartedly recommend it.
0:50:46I really do.
0:50:46And especially if the general idea of an alternate universe show appeals to you, then you should
0:50:52definitely do this one.
0:50:53But I also think it makes sense that the different Jasons are harder to tell apart because it
0:51:00only happened recently, right?
0:51:01Jared Yeah.
0:51:01Joel Like the whole reason that some of the characters
0:51:04are so different in counterpart is that it takes place 20 years after the incident or
0:51:11whatever they call it.
0:51:11Jared Yeah.
0:51:12Joel You know, in two decades.
0:51:13Jared I think it's the age of that kid, right?
0:51:15So it's 16 years because he's learning to drive or 15, maybe 15 years.
0:51:20Jared Right.
0:51:20Joel Supposed to be.
0:51:21So it's a while, but they're definitely different, but it's more subtle in ways that
0:51:26you don't necessarily expect.
0:51:28Jared And they play it to very good effect where
0:51:32it's very clear that as an audience member, you're not supposed to be sure which Jason
0:51:36you're looking at at certain points.
0:51:38Joel Yeah.
0:51:38Jared You know?
0:51:39Joel Yes, yes.
0:51:39There's a lot of trick, you know, and they fool you in a number of instances and that's
0:51:43very fun, I think.
0:51:44Jared Yeah, yeah.
0:51:45They do a really good job of that and it's just, I don't know, very engaging show and
0:51:50I don't, and you just don't, there just aren't a lot of shows like that.
0:51:54Like, I just feel.
0:51:55Joel I will recommend one to you that you probably
0:51:58haven't heard of.
0:51:58It's a British show called The Lazarus Project.
0:52:01Jared I have not heard of it.
0:52:02Joel Started in 2020 and it's on TNT of all things
0:52:06and you can also, I think you can buy it or you can get it off the back of a truck.
0:52:11It's a time travel show, but they basically, they can only jump back like a few months
0:52:16or something like that.
0:52:17So they're trying to protect the world from these catastrophic events and for some reason
0:52:21that all these catastrophic events keep happening.
0:52:24And part of the reason is because the people who are involved in the time travel project
0:52:28keeps screwing things up.
0:52:30It's not a comedy at all.
0:52:32Although the parts of it are funny.
0:52:33It's pretty, it's fairly dark, but it is like what, it's basically like what happens
0:52:38when you know, you can manipulate time and go back and try and change things in your
0:52:43life to make them better.
0:52:44And a number of the people who work on the project try and do that and it really screws
0:52:48everything up.
0:52:49But that's a good show.
0:52:52That's a good show too.
0:52:52So that's two seasons as well.
0:52:54And I'm only just started the second season.
0:52:57Pete That sounds good.
0:52:59I will add that to my list.
0:53:00What was the show on Netflix?
0:53:03It was sort of a time travel show and it takes place in four different time periods in the
0:53:09same alleyway.
0:53:10Jared Oh yeah.
0:53:11Yeah, right.
0:53:12I think we talked about that before.
0:53:14I think I was on.
0:53:15Pete Yeah, I think we did.
0:53:16Jared Yeah.
0:53:16That was pretty good too.
0:53:18That was a, oh yeah, that was a series.
0:53:21Yeah.
0:53:21It felt like a movie for some reason, but that was because I guess, I guess it's only
0:53:24one series, one season.
0:53:25Pete Bodies.
0:53:26Jared Bodies, right.
0:53:27Right.
0:53:27Pete Bodies on Netflix.
0:53:29Yeah, it was sort of a limited, but again, it, time travel.
0:53:32Jared Travel and alternate universes sort of go together, right?
0:53:35Because the whole premise in time travel is that you change time and all of a sudden.
0:53:39Pete Right.
0:53:39You change things and then you end up with a different result.
0:53:42Yeah.
0:53:42Jared Or you end up disappearing from your family
0:53:44photographs while you're playing, while you're inventing Chuck Berry on stage.
0:53:49Bodies on Netflix was another good one.
0:53:52Pete Yeah.
0:53:53Jared You're on the show a couple times a year and
0:53:56what do we talk about most of the time?
0:53:57We talk about Apple.
0:53:59So, what are the odds that when Apple, who I have sort of devoted my career to pontificating
0:54:06about, that they decide to get into streaming entertainment, that they wind up being my
0:54:13favorite streaming channel overall?
0:54:15I mean, at this point, I'm not all winners.
0:54:17Jared They're not all winners.
0:54:19I mean, they take some swings and misses.
0:54:20I thought Constellation was going to be really good.
0:54:22I don't think it turned out so well.
0:54:24And then the other one was Bright Side, which I didn't watch that one.
0:54:27Pete Nobody ever really talked about it.
0:54:28I think I watched the first episode and that didn't stick for me either.
0:54:32I don't think very many people watched that show.
0:54:35Jared And what was the show, I actually wound up,
0:54:38even though, surprise, surprise, I'm a big Harrison Ford fan.
0:54:40Pete Oh.
0:54:41Jared I didn't like, I didn't like
0:54:42Pete Shrinking?
0:54:43I love shrinking.
0:54:44Jared Shrinking.
0:54:44But you know what?
0:54:45Pete I like that show.
0:54:46Jared Well, but I worry though that I only gave it
0:54:48one episode and it's like, I never got back to it and maybe I just wasn't in the mood for it.
0:54:53I really expected to like it. So it's, and it's just been lingering on my list of, I'll get back
0:54:59to that, but it's, I don't know. It's like I've had a really good stretch of never running out of,
0:55:07hey, there's a new thing that just came out that I've been really looking forward to.
0:55:10I haven't had to dip into my older, I'll keep that in my back pocket to watch if I run out of stuff.
0:55:17Shrinking's been on the list, but, but it really is overall, if I just
0:55:22had to at this point pick a, there's a new show. If somebody just said, we're not even gonna tell
0:55:27you the premise, we're not going to tell you the cast, but it's a new show and it's on, you just
0:55:32have to pick which streaming one, but you have to watch the whole thing. I would pick Apple TV. I
0:55:37think the average Apple TV show satisfies me and, and Amy, that we both enjoy watching these shows
0:55:44better than any other streaming network. And the fact that a couple of these are science fictiony
0:55:50or quite science fictiony, and yet Amy still enjoys them. I think she just is not into nerdy
0:55:57science fiction type stuff as much as I am. And she's really like, in a way...
0:56:00Yeah, but these are much more thoughtful. I mean, they're not, yeah. Like you said,
0:56:04they're not pew pew. I mean, they're not like...
0:56:05Yeah, they're not pew pew. Amy does not like watching the various Star Wars shows. I mean...
0:56:10Yeah.
0:56:11And...
0:56:11Yeah, neither...
0:56:12But like Silo...
0:56:13Although she, and or, I mean, and or is the exception that proves the rule.
0:56:16Yeah, yeah.
0:56:16That's right. Because and or is just so good.
0:56:19Yeah, but Amy didn't watch it just because. And I was like, you would like this one. She's,
0:56:23no, I wouldn't. And I'm like, well, I'll just leave it. I'll leave it at that.
0:56:27The thing that I'm very excited about is Apple TV got picked up the Murderbot Diaries,
0:56:32which is a book series that I've read recently. And they plowed through, there's like six of them,
0:56:37I think, and then a couple of short stories, or maybe it's five in short story, I can't remember,
0:56:41but I started reading the first one and I just, I blew through the rest of them in a few weeks. And
0:56:48it's, it's a very fun series. And I'm very excited to, I hope it's going to turn out well,
0:56:55because I think there's a lot of good material in there.
0:56:57Yeah, I have not heard of it. But, but again, you just tell me that Apple TV picked something up.
0:57:03And at this point, their batting average is high enough that I'm like, oh, I'm excited.
0:57:07The other thing I really am loving about Apple TV is that when they haven't once broken my heart
0:57:17with a cancellation. Which I guess not. Right. Yeah. Trying to think if there was
0:57:23anything. They've, there've been some shows they haven't renewed, but I don't think any of the ones
0:57:30that gained traction, right? I'm guessing, I'm going to guess Constellation doesn't get a season
0:57:35two. I think they've already announced that it's not having one. Right. And I wonder if they'll do
0:57:39Dark Matter, because I mean, this one, this is a show that it's a little bit more, I think,
0:57:43because people who read the books, I thought said that they were using material from,
0:57:47I think there's three of them or something like that. And that they were using material from all
0:57:51three. So I feel like maybe they don't need to do another season, but I would certainly enjoy it if
0:57:56they did. All right. Well, Silo got picked up. Did you watch Silo? Yes. Oh, Silo. That's the other
0:58:01one. Yeah. I like Silo. Yeah. I think Dark Matter is a little bit better for me, but I really enjoyed
0:58:05Silo. Silo had the sort of padding out problem that I see in so many eight, nine, ten episode
0:58:15seasons. Yeah. Where everybody always, of course, wants a good, you got to have a good first episode
0:58:19to grip people and everybody wants to finish well. It's those episodes four and five where sometimes
0:58:26you're like, I kind of feel like they had a contract to deliver nine episodes and they had
0:58:31six and a half episodes of good scripts. Yeah. And here we are in the middle of it. I feel like
0:58:35that's a problem in a lot of the Marvel and Star Wars. Definitely. I really think so with that
0:58:41stuff. I don't want to go off on a Star Wars would be a whole other episode, but I liked the Obi-Wan
0:58:49Kenobi show overall, but I really feel like the easiest thing they could have done to make it
0:58:55better is make it shorter. I honestly think that they might've been able to cut it down to a two
0:59:00hour or a little more than a two hour movie and it would have had way more dramatic impact. I just
0:59:07thought, man, there's. Yeah, there is apparently someone has edited it. Someone that I want to
0:59:12watch. I want to watch that because there's an edited version that, and I don't think it's the
0:59:17kind of thing where it was like, oh, we're going to take out all of the characters of color. Cause
0:59:21there are definitely those kinds of edits. I think it's more like, no, we're just going to tighten
0:59:25this up a little bit. And I think you're right. It would benefit from that. So I would like to
0:59:29watch that. Like there's one episode again, not spoiling it, but there's at least all I remember
0:59:34from at least one entire episode of the show is it's Obi-Wan and a couple of characters who he's
0:59:40trying to rescue in a spaceship that's being chased. And that's the whole thing. They're just
0:59:47there, you know, like are the shields going to hold up? Are we going to make it? Can we,
0:59:52can we fix the hyperdrive before they blow us up? Oh yeah. And that was a, that was a problem,
0:59:57very big problem, I think with the first season of Foundation. There's a lot of stuff that happens in
1:00:02the middle there where it's just like, nothing is really accomplished or it'll do a bunch of things.
1:00:08And then like an episode later, it's all reset back to where they were at the beginning. And
1:00:13it's like, why did we take that journey? The second season I think is significantly better
1:00:18than the first season. Are you talking about Foundation? Foundation, yeah. Yeah, I agree too.
1:00:22That's another, but that's another high profile science fiction story. I don't know. I'm just
1:00:27really glad and I feel like Apple is leaning into the fact that Apple doesn't own any major
1:00:36franchises, you know, that they don't have a Star Wars or a Harry Potter to milk. And yes, I guess
1:00:43the closest they've gotten is with the monarch legacy of monsters, which is in a cinematic
1:00:49universe. But overall, it just feels like they're picking up cool books or a series of books like
1:00:56the silo and like the dark matter. And yeah, let's just do that and we'll just make sort of...
1:01:01There's plenty of material out there. It's not like you don't need to redo all the same things
1:01:07over and over again. Although I will say in general, I am opposed to making big companies
1:01:14even bigger, but I do very much, because it is so dear to my heart, want Star Trek to find a decent
1:01:20home and Paramount is making that very difficult, unfortunately. Yeah, it's too good of a franchise
1:01:27to be on a floundering platform. Yeah. Right. Yeah. And they've got, they almost sold it and
1:01:32then they seemed to blow up the deal. So I don't know. Yeah. Trying to think here, what else? Is
1:01:38there any other shows that we want to mention? I am, I just started watching. Have you watched
1:01:42Sugar? Yes. Yeah. Okay. Oh man. Yeah. Another one. A show that you don't even have to... We shouldn't
1:01:51do details on that show. Right. You don't even have to warn me, but it's like the less you know,
1:01:56the better. Right. But boy, was that really good. And I had no idea what to expect from it. No,
1:02:04I didn't either. Yeah. To the point where I'm not even sure why I decided to watch it. It was like,
1:02:12something about it. It's, I don't know. I kind of like detective shows. Yeah. Yeah. It has a good
1:02:16mood. It's a modern detective noir. Yeah. Like a modern Rockford Files sort of vibe. And it's like,
1:02:27and every single episode I was like, man, that was pretty cool. I have no idea where they're going.
1:02:34And then all of a sudden it's like, I wrote... What? One thing I really liked about Sugar I've
1:02:42noticed, have you noticed this? Sugar episodes are really curiously long. They're not that they are
1:02:49long, but the length is curious. There's a bunch of them that are only like 35, 36, 37 minutes.
1:02:53They're curiously short. Yeah. Yeah. Which I think is just great. It's okay. Here's a story.
1:03:00It turns out it's 37 minutes long. It's like a chapter in a eight episode arc. This one turns
1:03:07out we've got 37 minutes, a beginning, a middle, an end. The end leaves you wanting more. It's,
1:03:13Oh my God, that's a twist. I didn't see coming. But instead of adding 20 more minutes because
1:03:19they're all supposed to be about an hour. It's yeah. If you got 37. Yeah. I mean, none of these
1:03:24are going to be shown on, I don't think they're ever going to appear on network TV. It's like,
1:03:29you don't have to worry about like sticking a couple of commercials in and making it be an hour.
1:03:33You know, you're doing a streaming service, just make them an hour long they should be.
1:03:37While we're saying about curiously short episodes, the other show that pops to mind on that is,
1:03:43and I know you and I have spoken about this a year or two ago, Servant,
1:03:47which is also on Apple TV, sort of. Yeah, I only watched the first episode of that.
1:03:53It's M Night Shyamalan and it is a very M Night Shyamalan premise. I'm not big on horror to begin
1:04:00with. Yeah, so and that's, this is all coming. It's usually a tough sell, but. It's all coming
1:04:07back to me, which is why you didn't watch it. But if you like horror, it's good. And it was,
1:04:13it was like a must watch for our family because they literally shoot the show, like three blocks
1:04:20from our house. It is not just in Philadelphia, but in our neighborhood, which is like bizarre.
1:04:26The funnest thing they ever did, at least as when they're shooting in your neighborhood, was making
1:04:33early October look like a snowy middle of winter. But it's like salt, like the fake snow was all
1:04:40salt. And really, yeah, it was really, really cool. And you could like just sort of walk. I mean,
1:04:45they had like police barricades, so you wouldn't, wasn't like I could wander onto the set. But
1:04:50yeah, I could wander by the end of the block and just sort of stick my foot out and crunch.
1:04:54And it's man, I was like, how are they going to clean this up? And then you come back,
1:04:58literally the next day, it's all gone, gone. I mean, do they just wash it into the,
1:05:03I don't know. I have no idea. I really thought that I was like, I don't know. I bet this is,
1:05:08it seems like that wouldn't be great. I was like, I'll bet all this salt that is posing as fake snow
1:05:14is really easy to dump in shape. And I bet it's going to be a week before they clean it up. And
1:05:18I came by the next day and it was just gone. It was unbelievable. It was like the crew that John
1:05:22Wick calls to clean up a crime scene. But that's, that's,
1:05:27Pete: Speaking of that, there's another, is it Clooney and Brad Pitt?
1:05:33Pete: Yeah. Yeah. They showed that at the WWDC keynote that it's,
1:05:36Pete; Yeah. Right. Right. Yeah. That looks like that might be fun.
1:05:40Pete; Yeah. Yeah. But they're always good together, but that's, I don't know. It just seems like
1:05:45that's, it's just become the home for people who, you know, and again, not like highbrow
1:05:50entertainment per se, but just sort of, Hey, you don't have to completely turn off your brain
1:05:57entertainment. And I, it's just kind of amazing to me that it's Apple of all companies that's sort of
1:06:04eking out the specialty. I'm trying to think if there's any other show I wanted to shout out. Oh,
1:06:08I know what it was. I just started watching Presumed Innocent, not science fiction.
1:06:12Pete; Yeah.
1:06:13Pete; Jake Gyllenhaal. There was a Harrison Ford movie that I haven't seen
1:06:18probably since it was new in the 80s and, you know, it's…
1:06:22Pete; That's the thing. I saw that movie and now I feel like I know the,
1:06:24maybe they'll change it at the end, but I know the, it's sort of a who done it and I know who
1:06:30did it. Pete; Right. Well, I don't remember the movie, so don't say anything. I don't,
1:06:35I don't know where it's going, thankfully, but it is, it's the classic Hitchcock
1:06:41man accused of a crime he didn't commit, but with the twist of, or did he commit it? I don't know.
1:06:48Right? That's, I… Pete; Harrison Ford, that was the, he had a lot of,
1:06:52got a lot of traction out of that genre, I think. Pete; Right, right. Because what was the,
1:06:56the Tommy Lee Jones one? Pete; Yeah. The Fugitive.
1:06:59Pete; The Fugitive, right. Pete; And then there's another one, there's another one where he goes to
1:07:03Paris with his wife and she disappears. Pete; Oh yes. That's, that's the…
1:07:08Pete; No, it's not missing, but it's… Pete; No, but that's the one that was directed by
1:07:11Creepy McCreeperson… Pete; Polanski?
1:07:15Pete; Yeah, Polanski. Pete; Oh, okay. Oh, God, I forgot that.
1:07:18Pete; So, keep it in your back pocket. Pete; Yeah, yeah. I mean, I haven't,
1:07:23I've not watched it since the '80s. Pete; Polanski, Harrison Ford, Frantic.
1:07:29Pete; Frantic, yeah, that's right. Pete; Yeah, yeah. Takes place in France because…
1:07:33Pete; Because he can't leave. Pete; Because they don't, they wouldn't extradite him to
1:07:38the United States if they shot the film in Paris. They shouldn't laugh. It's not…
1:07:42Pete; No, it's terrible, yeah. Pete; But he, but, but unfortunately,
1:07:46well, fortunately or unfortunately, he is a talented director, but it is what it is. But
1:07:52I don't think Frantic is going to happen in today's world. But yes, Harrison Ford has eked
1:07:58out a pretty good sub-career in man accused of crimes he didn't commit or did he, sort of things.
1:08:05Pete; What's the, what's the Amish movie? He's not, he's not…
1:08:08Pete; Witness. Pete; Witness, yeah. He's not guilty,
1:08:11and you know, he's not a suspect in that one, but he's on the run.
1:08:14Pete; Yeah. But Presumed Innocent, I'm like two episodes in, and it's pretty good.
1:08:19And it really did, there was a moment where I thought to myself, boy, I'm glad I've never
1:08:25cheated on my wife and had the woman I was cheating with wind up, wind up gruesomely,
1:08:30murder, and I'm like, ooh, wait, I should… Pete; That's awkward.
1:08:33Pete; Yeah, I shouldn't actually say that out loud. That's, that's what's keeping me honest.
1:08:40Pete; I was gonna cheat on her. I just don't want to go through that.
1:08:44Pete; Yeah. Pete; Because I know it would happen.
1:08:46Pete; I was gonna cheat on my wife, but what if she gets murdered?
1:08:53They're gonna come and look at me. And then I'm gonna have to…
1:08:55Pete; Karen was interested in watching that show, then she got, she got sucked back into the wire,
1:08:59a rewatch of The Wire, so… Pete; Oh, boy, there you go.
1:09:02Pete; Which is really good. She wanted to watch Homicide, but you can't, it's not streaming
1:09:05anywhere. Pete; Well, and, but I heard that it's going too soon.
1:09:08Pete; Is it? Okay. Pete; Yeah, I heard that it was like the…
1:09:10Pete; I'll have to find that, I'll have to find that, because she's, yeah.
1:09:11Pete; The good news of the summer is that, like, the most wanted to stream show that's
1:09:18never streamed is Homicide, and I think maybe it has something to do because Andre Brauer
1:09:24died last year and it sort of re-upped it, like, hey, this was too good a show not to be streaming,
1:09:31let's take this one off the pile and prioritize figuring out a way to get it on Netflix or
1:09:37somewhere. Pete; Yeah, I see that here. Let's see.
1:09:38Trying to see which, HBO, I guess. Pete; Yeah, yeah.
1:09:44Pete; Just one of those articles where they, like, put the thing that you want all the way
1:09:49down at the bottom so that you have to scroll through.
1:09:51Pete; All the way down at the bottom. Are the people in your family, are they,
1:09:56are they subtitles fans? Pete; Yes, yeah. And we've become
1:10:02subtitles fans over the years. And now, like, I mean, I think Karen and I turn it on, I mean,
1:10:08Hank has a bit of a hearing loss, so I think that's how it started. He always needs them
1:10:12and would always prefer them. And then now that I've gotten used to them, I like to have them on.
1:10:18Pete; I don't watch most shows with them on, but I need them for a couple of shows. I've griped
1:10:24about it on the, you know, in my writing sometimes about the way that audio gets mixed these days,
1:10:30or I was writing about the fact that certain apps on Apple TV don't support, there's a triple click
1:10:34shortcut to, you triple click the back button and it automatically does the go back 15 seconds and
1:10:43turn on subtitles temporarily. One of the coolest features they announced at WWDC, which is sort of
1:10:49like, hey, why didn't somebody think of this a while ago, is it's when you go back 15 seconds,
1:10:54they're just, it's, Apple TV is just going to turn on subtitles automatically. So, like,
1:10:59you just go back with the new, come fall when the new tvOS update comes out, which is a great
1:11:05feature. I'm sure there's an option to turn it off, but every time I go back 15 or 30 seconds,
1:11:10I do want subtitles back on. But I think the other thing about watching more English language stuff
1:11:16with subtitles on, either throughout or just for stretches or certain scenes, is it's made
1:11:23watching foreign language stuff better, like, to go back to Godzilla minus one. Amy and Jonas,
1:11:32just less of a fan of foreign films with subtitles than I am. Nobody's got their foot down like, no,
1:11:37I'm not going to do it, but yeah. Well, like I said, I watch a lot of stuff while I'm doing
1:11:42something else, like usually making dinner. And so, when it is a foreign language movie or show,
1:11:48I have to devote other time to it in order to be able to understand. I've tried watching, like,
1:11:52I tried to watch Dark with the Dub version and I just, it doesn't work as well, I think,
1:11:58because everyone says Dark is such a great show and I started watching and thought, this is dumb.
1:12:02And I think it's just because I'm listening to the Dub version. So,
1:12:05Trying to think, is there anything else? That's probably enough recommendations.
1:12:11To follow up on homicide, I think they haven't picked a streamer yet, but I think,
1:12:14yeah, the point is that they can now sell it to a streamer. So,
1:12:17Right. That they've at least packaged it up. Should be coming soon, yeah.
1:12:21Right. It was pretty cool. That's the other thing too, is sometimes these things happen by surprise.
1:12:25Netflix is pretty good at keeping stuff under surprise. There was some weird, just to bring it
1:12:30full circle back to Godzilla minus one, there was some weird licensing thing with Godzilla minus one,
1:12:39where the, to make a prequel that's sort of outside the cinematic universe that Universal
1:12:47is currently spending billions on, the streaming rights for Godzilla minus one were ambiguous for
1:12:55a while, you know, and it hit theaters last fall, was a surprise hit. It won the Oscar for best
1:13:00visual effects and it got really high remarks from reviewers. And they were like, but this kind of
1:13:06stinks because you'd think ordinarily like six weeks after it leaves theaters, it'll hit streaming
1:13:11somewhere and it didn't. And then all of a sudden it was like the news came out, Netflix has it,
1:13:17and it's there right now. You can just go watch it today, which is sort of the Netflix way,
1:13:22which is kind of cool instead of, oh yeah, write that down or put it in your app so that three
1:13:27months from now, you'll be reminded to watch this movie that's coming to Netflix. Netflix is like,
1:13:32nope, there it is. Just hit play. Yeah.
1:13:34Yeah. And so that was one, yeah, which was in a foreign language. And also I managed to squeeze
1:13:40in, like I didn't know what else in my family wanted to watch it particularly. And so I,
1:13:43when Karen and Hank were out of the house, I got to watch it on the big screen TV. So that was,
1:13:47because I wanted to make sure I was seeing it on something that was decently sized,
1:13:51because I think that would have been a good one to see in the theater, but I just missed it.
1:13:54That's about it for me. I am looking forward to now that it is out. Have you watched The Bear?
1:14:00Oh, I have not seen, yeah, I've seen the first two seasons, but have not. Yeah, the
1:14:04most recent season just came out the other day.
1:14:07Right. And they did the Netflix, it's on FX, but they did the Netflix style. Here,
1:14:12we'll just drop the whole season. Huge fan of that show.
1:14:14That's a tough one to watch. I mean, I think I have to space those
1:14:17down a little bit, even though they dropped them all in one day.
1:14:21Yeah, yeah, yeah. The, it was called, what was it? The episode was titled Three Fishes,
1:14:26but it was the, yeah, but boy, that was, that was,
1:14:32Rough.
1:14:33It was the most realistic depiction of a family holiday get together I've ever seen put together.
1:14:43I think ours, ours never got quite that bad.
1:14:45Well, in the way that it was, yes, it was a little worse than my family or anything I've seen, but
1:14:53the feeling of it was, including the fact, and it's just like a little thing that's always
1:15:01driven me nuts, even as a little kid, the way that in movies, people have much bigger houses
1:15:07than people in real life have. And in that episode, it's like a one hour episode about a
1:15:13Christmas dinner with an extended family and a lot of, a lot of tension between family members.
1:15:20And sort of a documentary feel, you know, like it's not quite like the old 24 show where it
1:15:26takes place in real time, but it was, you know, maybe two hours of a family dinner compressed
1:15:31to 45 minutes. But the thing that really got me as, oh my God, this is so realistic, is trying to
1:15:37fit 12 family members around a dining room table that ordinarily is for five or six people. And
1:15:44it's like everybody's chair is up against the wall. And when two family members maybe are going to
1:15:50have a fist fight, they can't even get to each other because it's too crowded. That to me,
1:15:55on both sides of my family for decades is sort of the feeling of like Christmas or Thanksgiving
1:16:01dinner. It's give me that chair. I don't care if my back is against the wall. And then I'm like,
1:16:05why did I take this chair? I can't even stand up. We went to, my mom had her 90th birthday last
1:16:11November. And so the family flew to Florida to see her. And we were there for a few days. We
1:16:17had a very good time. One night at dinner, we go to dinner at a very nice place and we're arguing
1:16:24fairly quickly after dinner. But the wait staff there was so great. The guy, like the maitre d'
1:16:30came up and I think he was from Albania. I think he said he was from Albania. And he's,
1:16:36and like we're having this argument and the guy comes up and says, gosh, you made it 20 minutes.
1:16:42Usually in Albania, we're fighting by the first five. And it just like, it deflated the whole
1:16:49thing. And the rest of the evening was great. That's a gamble. I appreciate it.
1:16:54Yeah. But I think that's a gutsy move and I wrote, but it worked.
1:16:58Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Read the family. That would fly very well in my family too, as an icebreaker.
1:17:05But I can imagine some other families where it just makes it worse. Now we've got the waiter
1:17:10involved. Right. All right. Thank you, John. That's a pretty good watch list, I think, for
1:17:18our listeners for the rest of the summer. Yeah, we live in a golden age of television.
1:17:21We really, really do. It's pretty lucky. I will just give a shout out to our sponsor of the
1:17:27episode, our good friends at Squarespace. Go to squarespace.com/talkshow and otherwise,
1:17:33see you soon. Okay.
1:17:34Otherwise see you soon. Okay