Screen Babble: Oscars, Celebrity Big Brother and farewell to Steven
All the latest TV and screen reviews, plus we say farewell to our long-standing host.
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00:00 (upbeat music)
00:02 - Hello and welcome to Screen Babble,
00:15 your guide to what to watch.
00:16 We'll be tuning into hours and hours of TV
00:19 so we can tell you what you need to be switching on
00:21 and what's to be avoided.
00:22 I'm your host, Kelly Crichton,
00:24 and I'm joined by National World's TV critics,
00:26 Stephen Rasp and Benjamin Jackson.
00:28 But it's an emotional episode,
00:30 as we are sad to let you know
00:32 that today is Stephen's last episode.
00:35 I was, I had to hesitate getting my black veil
00:37 out of the cupboard, to be honest.
00:39 We'll be sending our faithful friend and host
00:42 off to Pastures New with a pat on the back,
00:44 but more on that shortly.
00:46 Remember, if you want to see our faces,
00:47 you can head over to Freeview Channel 276 Shots,
00:50 which is brought to you by a network of journalists
00:51 across the country who are transforming stories
00:53 at the heart of your community into great TV.
00:56 You'll find true crime stories,
00:57 football news and analysis,
00:58 plus coverage of lifestyle, TV, film, and much more.
01:01 If you haven't tuned in before,
01:02 each week we'll be chatting about what we're watching,
01:04 as well as looking more closely at a new programme
01:07 or something making the headlines in the deep dive.
01:09 This week, we couldn't let the Oscars go by
01:11 without talking about it,
01:12 so Stephen will lead us through his thoughts,
01:15 having watched it all live on Sunday night.
01:17 Well done, you.
01:18 Finally, we go back to the future
01:19 to tell you about a programme you may have missed
01:21 when it first aired or streamed.
01:23 Benji is bringing us Silicon Valley,
01:26 not from ancient history,
01:27 but finished a few years back,
01:28 and Benji was just impressing some Silicon Valley lingo
01:33 on us before we started recording there,
01:35 so we might visit that as well.
01:36 So as I mentioned,
01:38 Stephen is leaving us to go to a great new job.
01:42 Do you want to tell us what you'll be doing,
01:44 swapping crime drama for real crime slash?
01:47 - For crime, yeah.
01:48 (laughing)
01:50 No, I'll be working for the local police force
01:54 in the communications department.
01:56 So it'll be a little bit different,
01:58 probably less watching TV on the job.
02:01 - Yeah.
02:03 Well, you never know.
02:04 Maybe like TV. - Yeah, you never know.
02:06 - What about starting a podcast with your top-ranking?
02:11 - Well, genuinely, I might have to have a nat
02:12 with you later on,
02:13 'cause that might be something
02:15 that I might try and do over there.
02:17 But again, it'll be a slightly different podcast.
02:19 It might be a bit more like strategies
02:21 to reduce knife crime rather than top,
02:26 Oscar winners of the year.
02:28 - True crime. - Sounds incredibly done.
02:31 - All you need, true crime.
02:33 Well, you know, with it being Stephen's last podcast,
02:36 I reached out to some luminaries in the cinematic field.
02:40 I got a couple, Stephen.
02:41 I'd like to read those out now to you if I could.
02:44 This one comes from Quentin Tarantino.
02:48 So ideally you have been wearing the shirt today.
02:50 And he wrote, "You've been anything but a hateful late
02:54 while writing anything but Pulp Fiction for National World.
02:58 Someone would easily kill Bill to have your talents."
03:01 And I wrote Jackie Brown.
03:02 I just had to mention that.
03:04 I don't know why he had to put that at the end.
03:06 (laughing)
03:07 Steven Spielberg also regaled us with this fact
03:09 that you will not find an IMDB.
03:11 He wrote, "Not many people know this,
03:13 but when I was writing and directing 'Jaws,'
03:15 I was thinking about Steven Ross.
03:18 Maybe not the Steven Ross,
03:20 but the spirit of Steven was with me
03:22 during the filming of 'Jaws.'
03:24 Not so much when I did Munich,
03:25 but definitely when I did 'Jaws.'"
03:27 And then finally, Martin Scorsese chipped in as well,
03:29 but it's like a three hour long kind of tribute to you, man.
03:33 He mentioned Bobby quite a lot of the time.
03:35 So I'll forward that on to you, man.
03:37 But yeah, you will be missed
03:38 within the pantheon of Hollywood directors.
03:41 - Thanks very much.
03:43 - Yeah, Steven, who is your favorite director?
03:44 Can you commit to that?
03:46 - What, Living?
03:49 - Yeah.
03:51 Obviously it's quite stereotypical
03:53 to be like a 25 year old male and love Tarantino, but-
03:57 - I don't think it's exclusive to...
04:01 I think loads of people love Tarantino.
04:02 I don't think it's-
04:03 - Yeah, they do.
04:04 He's got broad appeal,
04:05 but there's also that sort of niche of like younger men
04:07 that seem to be really obsessed with him.
04:09 But no, I love Tarantino.
04:11 I've got the Pulp Fiction screenplay on my bookcase.
04:15 I'm obviously wearing the Reservoir Dogs t-shirt.
04:17 And I think the Hateful Eight's
04:19 one of the most underrated films of all time.
04:22 But in terms of like directors living or dead,
04:26 probably Stanley Kubrick, I think is fairly unmatched
04:30 as a person, by all accounts,
04:32 fairly horrible to work with.
04:35 Yeah.
04:37 - I was reading an article about him recently
04:38 about his hoarding.
04:39 Like he had so much stuff.
04:41 He had a box and box and box of files
04:44 for projects he never completed or never, you know.
04:46 But-
04:47 - For sure, yeah.
04:48 - Okay, well, look, we, along with those fabulous directors,
04:53 wish you all the best, Stephen.
04:54 But we come back to that before the end of the program.
04:57 We'll definitely miss you.
04:58 So, but tell us briefly now,
04:59 because we've been napping on for so long,
05:01 what you've been watching recently.
05:04 - Okay, yeah.
05:04 I started, finally, Sharp,
05:09 the Sean Bean history series,
05:12 set during the Napoleonic Wars,
05:14 based on the books by Bernard Cornwell.
05:16 I'm currently reading-
05:17 - Oh, I'm not familiar with it.
05:19 - Yeah, '90s, '93, but it ran,
05:22 each episode is feature length,
05:24 so it's like hour 40 episodes.
05:26 - Wow.
05:27 - And then sort of like Sherlock style,
05:29 like two, three episodes in a season, 18 episodes overall.
05:33 I've been wanting to tuck into it for a while.
05:35 And now that I've got a little bit of time off
05:37 coming up before I switch over to the new place,
05:40 I thought I'll tuck into that
05:42 so that I can sort of get through a lot of it
05:44 before the new job.
05:46 - Where are you watching it?
05:48 - "Break the Box."
05:49 - Hmm, never heard of it.
05:51 Now, let's say I like Sean Bean,
05:52 so, and I like a historical drama,
05:55 so I might check that out at some point.
05:57 Great, okay, and obviously, yeah,
05:59 you watched the Oscars,
06:00 which kind of took over everybody's lives there
06:02 for a few days,
06:03 so we'll talk about that in a little while.
06:04 Benji, what have you been watching?
06:06 - Right, believe it or not, try as I might,
06:09 I have been trying to give "Celebrity Big Brother" a chance
06:13 because unfortunately, in this line of business
06:17 that we're in, or that Stephen's shortly leaving,
06:19 you kind of have to keep your eye on the site, guys.
06:23 And it's awful.
06:24 I honestly don't understand the appeal of it.
06:27 I really, really don't.
06:28 I understand-
06:29 - I am watching it.
06:30 - Yeah.
06:32 - I'm watching it, and I died laughing
06:35 for about 10 minutes on Thursday night
06:37 when that conversation between Louis and Sharon
06:39 about Simon Cowell was happening.
06:41 I honestly, I was texting my sister,
06:43 I was like, "This is the funniest thing
06:44 "I've seen in a long time.
06:45 "You've got to put on 'Celebrity Big Brother'."
06:48 But other than that, you're right.
06:49 Yeah, go on, I know it's a bit factious, isn't it?
06:53 - Everyone proverbially poop in the bed,
06:56 for lack of a better term,
06:57 that, "Oh, Sharon Osbourne's going."
06:59 But she's always been,
07:00 she was always meant to be in there just for five days,
07:03 maybe like an extra six.
07:04 - Was it?
07:05 - Yes, that was always the plan for her.
07:08 And it's almost like people forget what they read sometimes
07:12 as opposed to like, "Well, why is Sharon Osbourne leaving?"
07:14 Well, 'cause she was always meant to be leaving.
07:16 I find the most salacious members of "Celebrity Big Brother,"
07:21 like Kate Middleton's uncle,
07:23 the moment that they go,
07:25 that's not gonna be that kind of interest
07:28 because it's gonna be the same humdrum reality stars
07:31 or what have you, apart from Levi Roots.
07:33 Got a soft spot for Levi Roots massively.
07:36 But I guess each to their own.
07:39 It's not for me.
07:40 I just think that there's an interest
07:43 when it is just your average Joe on the street
07:46 because you do not know what those people are like.
07:48 But I think in terms of celebrities,
07:50 especially with the advent of like Instagram, Snapchat,
07:53 Faux Moi, everything like that,
07:55 that if you want to get your dose of schadenfreude
07:59 at watching a celebrity mess up,
08:01 there's so many other ways of doing it.
08:03 Dedicating time and money onto an ITV show
08:06 that, let's be honest,
08:08 we'll probably die a death this time next year
08:10 because people will get over the kind of magpie,
08:12 shiny new thing approach.
08:14 But if you like it, don't get me wrong.
08:16 It's just a completely, completely, not for me,
08:19 but it's one of those things I had to watch
08:22 because it's in the zeitgeist at the moment.
08:25 - Yeah, I was ruminating on it the other day as well.
08:30 And I was thinking, these people go into this house
08:33 and they're in there and then they act like
08:35 they don't know what it is
08:38 or they don't know what happens in there.
08:40 And they start sort of after the initial sort of 36 hours
08:45 of kind of elation, very quickly,
08:47 they're all like crying in the diary room.
08:49 And it's like, what did you think was going to happen?
08:51 And because they're celebrities,
08:53 they're all very performative, you know?
08:55 - Yes, 100%.
08:56 - As you say, with lay people, if you want to call them that,
09:00 you don't get that same, a little bit nowadays,
09:02 'cause they do kind of put in some sort of
09:04 social media, Instagrammy people or whatever.
09:06 - Oh yeah, they panto it up.
09:08 - Yeah, but they've always done that.
09:10 They've always put larger than life characters
09:12 in there as well.
09:13 But with the celebrity version,
09:15 it's like everybody's performing
09:18 and therefore they're all kind of trying to vie
09:20 for the bit of attention.
09:23 And it's all a bit cringy.
09:25 Like it's a bit, yeah, it feels kind of pathetic in ways,
09:29 you know, but having said all that,
09:30 I am watching it and I did, I thought that chat,
09:33 the chats between, which is a bit just voyeuristic
09:36 and stuff, the chats between Louis and-
09:37 - 100%.
09:38 - Sharon about slagging Simon Cowell off basically.
09:42 And they've put them in there to get that stuff.
09:44 And they put, you know, Kate Middleton's uncle in there
09:47 to get that stuff, Gary,
09:49 because they wanted to get this gossip, you know.
09:51 And they've achieved that to an extent.
09:53 And Fern said something about Philip Schofield
09:55 and they've got some, you know, lines out of it as it were.
09:58 But yeah, I do like one or two of the people in there.
10:02 I like that girl, Marissa, you know,
10:03 she's like a West End star.
10:04 She's, I think she's pretty normal.
10:06 Nikita's not, he's okay.
10:07 - Yeah, I mean, anyone that hasn't been kind of like
10:10 publicly facing as much as some of the other guests have,
10:14 it's interesting because you're starting to learn
10:16 a little bit more about them, but like,
10:19 I mean, I gotta be careful
10:20 'cause I don't want Sharon Osbourne coming after me.
10:22 Get litigious at times, bless her, eh?
10:25 Do we need to know the intrinsic kind of ins and outs
10:30 of Sharon Osbourne's life,
10:31 given that we had the Osbournes detailing all of that?
10:35 - I know, I know.
10:36 And then she was talking about it.
10:37 I was like, this is a bit weird.
10:38 Yeah, right.
10:39 You're right, you're right.
10:39 - But you know, you're still into it.
10:41 ITV1, ITVX, weeknights.
10:45 - Yep, yep, absolutely.
10:45 - I'll drag myself to watch some more.
10:47 I can do that.
10:48 - I have been watching loads of stuff
10:51 that we've been talking about over the last few weeks.
10:52 I started Shogun, which I enjoyed the first episode,
10:54 I have to say. - Nice.
10:55 - I've watched a couple of episodes of The Gentleman,
10:58 which I'm like, oh my God,
11:00 this is so Guy Ritchie by numbers, it's ridiculous.
11:03 But I will stick with it, I think, until the end,
11:06 'cause there's a couple of funny characters in it.
11:07 But honestly, like Guy Ritchie, it's like he's regressing.
11:10 Is he ever going to change what he's doing?
11:12 But anyway, and then the other thing was,
11:15 I watched Poor Things at the weekend and Dune,
11:18 and I really enjoyed both of them.
11:20 And I think I enjoyed Dune more
11:21 because I know Dune part two is gonna be more and better.
11:26 So I think I was like, my expectations were kind of,
11:29 you know, tempered a little bit
11:30 around what you guys had told me.
11:32 So I've actually watched loads of TV in the last week,
11:35 TV and films, but yeah, there you go.
11:37 And I finished The Way, which was a bit off the wall,
11:40 and I'll maybe talk about it in a bit more length
11:42 in the next podcast.
11:45 So yeah, thank you for joining us.
11:47 We will be back in part two
11:48 with the Oscars and Silicon Valley.
11:53 And saying goodbye to Stephen.
11:54 (upbeat music)
12:04 - Okay, so we are in full morning gear now, sort of.
12:08 Stephen, yours looks like you're just going off
12:10 on a jolly jaunt somewhere, which is the case, I suppose.
12:12 Whereas I am in a deep one.
12:13 - Yes, well it's black and it's a hat.
12:16 It's the best I can manage today.
12:18 (laughing)
12:19 - And you've got your black t-shirt on, Benji.
12:21 So we are-
12:22 - I didn't realize it was formal attire,
12:24 so I didn't bring anything.
12:26 - On the deep dive this week, we're talking Oscars.
12:29 And I was so delighted that Cillian Murphy
12:32 got his Oscar and he spoke some Irish on stage.
12:37 First Irish born man ever to receive an Oscar.
12:41 So very pleased with that.
12:44 Over to you, Stephen.
12:45 - Yeah, it was a big night.
12:47 So I watched a couple, by the time of the show,
12:52 I'd seen seven of the best picture nominees.
12:54 So they're pretty well-
12:54 - That's good, yeah.
12:55 - I don't know how you manage that much of an effort.
12:57 I saw "Anatomy of a Fall", "The Day Of".
13:00 I thought that was pretty spectacular.
13:02 And I saw "Poor Things", which I did really enjoy,
13:06 but I think I went into it with such high expectations
13:10 and it fell slightly short for me.
13:12 I thought-
13:12 - I thought it was a little bit frivolous
13:14 or something as well.
13:15 I didn't, it wasn't as weary as I thought it was gonna be.
13:19 - Was that I knew it was too long,
13:21 or it felt too long to me.
13:22 I didn't know why.
13:23 And then at the end I thought,
13:24 you know when Emma Stone's real husband
13:28 comes back into it at the end?
13:30 - Yeah.
13:31 - I don't think they needed any of that
13:32 because we'd already done all of that
13:34 with Mark Ruffalo, et cetera.
13:36 And it just felt like a little sort of bridge too far for me.
13:39 But I mean, I think in terms of performances,
13:42 Emma Stone definitely deserved it over,
13:46 help me out over-
13:48 - Lily Gladstone.
13:49 - Lily Gladstone, yeah.
13:50 I thought Lily Gladstone was just getting it
13:52 off the back of it being a Scorsese film,
13:55 whereas Emma Stone's performance was pretty spectacular.
13:58 But yeah, the actual award show itself
14:00 were a few big moments.
14:01 I mean, most British people I don't think
14:05 are fans of Jimmy Kimmel.
14:06 I'm with them on that.
14:09 He's sort of painful.
14:12 The jokes with Robert Downey Jr.
14:15 He sort of doubled down when he could have just
14:18 sort of moved on.
14:19 You see Emma Stone rolling her eyes at him
14:21 when he's making digs about poor things
14:25 being too sort of adult to show.
14:29 I don't think he did a great job,
14:30 but no doubt the Americans loved him.
14:32 And I guess that's what he's there for.
14:34 In terms of the presenting and things, the highlights,
14:38 so obviously John Cena coming in in the buff.
14:41 That was quite funny.
14:43 He seemed to be really committed there.
14:44 Quite ironic that he was doing it
14:46 for best costume as well.
14:47 - Yes, that's quite funny.
14:50 - And then of course you get to the big moment,
14:52 the best picture announcement.
14:53 You get none other than Al Pacino,
14:55 one of the greatest actors of all time,
14:58 I think in "The Godfather Part II".
15:00 I don't think you'll find a better performance really.
15:03 And he's got one sort of line
15:06 to deliver the best picture nominee
15:08 and he completely butchers it.
15:09 He goes, "My eyes see Oppenheimer."
15:12 (laughing)
15:14 And what does that mean?
15:15 My eyes see Oppenheimer.
15:16 - Did you hear?
15:18 Did you hear that?
15:19 - He goes, "Oh yes, Christopher Nolan,
15:21 Oppenheimer wins."
15:22 - Did you hear that the explanation afterwards
15:25 was that he thought he would have an envelope
15:27 that had the five nominations in it
15:30 and when he opened it because they were being rushed
15:32 to the timeline.
15:33 - He didn't even run through the list, did he?
15:35 We expected him to go through these,
15:37 the 10 best picture nominees and he didn't.
15:38 He just said, "This is it."
15:39 And he goes, "Oh, my eyes see Oppenheimer."
15:42 - Yeah.
15:43 - He didn't practice.
15:43 - Apparently, apparently.
15:46 - Is this how you got the Godfather gig?
15:48 - Well, it's like apparently he was meant to do it that way
15:51 because they had showed all of the best pictures beforehand
15:55 but it's still pretty impressive because, you know,
15:57 "Oh, wow, do I do some Shakespeare?"
16:01 - Did you like that?
16:02 - That's good.
16:02 - "Ah, see Oppenheimer, get me a coffee."
16:05 - Can you do the line from "Heat" where he's like--
16:09 - No, but I can do it every time I think that they--
16:11 - You are going down.
16:13 - No, but I mean, I can do the whole,
16:14 "Every time I think that I get away,
16:16 they drag me back in."
16:17 Like, oh, okay.
16:18 (all laughing)
16:19 It's not really a Pacino impression.
16:21 It is me doing Charlie's--
16:22 - Oh my God, I feel like we've been missing a trick
16:24 all along.
16:25 We should have had like an impressions corner
16:27 every week on the podcast.
16:28 - You broke my heart, Fredo.
16:30 (all laughing)
16:31 You broke my heart.
16:33 - I can't do De Niro yet.
16:34 - It wasn't Oppenheimer's finest hour, but you know,
16:36 who cares?
16:37 Oppenheimer won, that's what we cared about.
16:39 Oppenheimer probably deserved it.
16:41 Of the seven best picture nominees I saw,
16:45 Oppenheimer found a way the best cinematic experience,
16:48 blew me away, loved it,
16:50 paced fantastically for a three hour film.
16:52 Robert Downey Jr. was amazing.
16:55 It's probably his best role.
16:56 Best role I've seen him in anywhere.
16:58 I've not seen "Chaplin," which was the other movie.
17:01 Did he win for "Chaplin" or was he just nominated?
17:03 - No, he got nominated.
17:05 - Other sort of big winners,
17:08 you had "Zone of Interest" winning for "Sound,"
17:13 which I was adamant it was going to.
17:16 It was a movie completely built around "Sound."
17:19 - I was listening back to our episode during the week
17:22 that we did when the nominations came out.
17:24 And so many of your predictions are accurate,
17:28 but well, between all of us,
17:29 like we're really on it in terms of,
17:32 and you said best foreign film as well for that.
17:35 And it got-
17:35 - Oh, sorry, what was best foreign film?
17:38 - Best international film was also "Zone of Interest."
17:40 - "Zone of Interest," exactly, yeah.
17:43 - Which was the first British winner in that category.
17:45 'Cause obviously he wouldn't normally do a British film
17:48 under international,
17:50 but it was a completely foreign language, so.
17:54 - Yeah, I think that is something to be said though,
17:56 is that this one didn't really have any surprises.
17:58 - No shockers, yeah.
18:00 - That's all of our predictions
18:02 were pretty much on the money
18:03 because it was all basically done by numbers.
18:05 We sort of knew, like Oppenheimer was always gonna win,
18:09 best picture, best director, best supporting actor.
18:12 The Holdovers only really got one Oscar, I believe,
18:19 and that was for the best supporting actress.
18:22 That was a great performance,
18:23 but Holdovers was a great film,
18:25 just a tough year for it to really cut through,
18:26 especially as an indie sort of comedy.
18:28 I think in some years it might've been in
18:32 with a proper shot at best picture,
18:34 if it had been the year "Green Book" won
18:37 or something like that, it'd be in with a shot.
18:41 So sometimes it is just,
18:42 I mean, poor things would have cleaned up
18:44 without Oppenheimer, poor things would have been
18:47 a probably best picture. - Do you think?
18:48 Yeah.
18:52 I find it very flimsical or something though.
18:54 I don't know, it's weird.
18:55 Maybe I just feel like-
18:56 - No, for sure.
18:57 I don't necessarily think it should have won,
19:00 should be in with best picture,
19:01 but I definitely think it's the kind of Oscars darling film.
19:04 - They like it, yeah.
19:05 - Without Christopher Nolan,
19:06 Yorgos would have won best director, I think.
19:08 It was the close second, I think, throughout.
19:13 Obviously, Barbie, way down in the back there
19:17 after all of the success at the box office,
19:19 not really an award winner in the end,
19:20 but it got best song for Billie Eilish.
19:24 And of course, Ryan Gosling's performance
19:26 on the ceremony with "I'm Just Ken"
19:29 was brilliant to watch as well.
19:31 So yeah, it was a great, great Oscar really.
19:34 - Okay, right.
19:35 Thank you for that, Stephen.
19:37 Benji, we are quickly running out of time,
19:39 but do tell us about "Silicon Valley" please.
19:42 - Fantastic.
19:42 Well, I've always been a fan of Mike Judge
19:44 ever since I was a young wee thing
19:47 with access to MTV
19:49 and then access therefore to "Beavis and Butthead."
19:52 Mike Judge also was involved in "King of the Hill,"
19:55 which I think is one of the greatest
19:56 adult animation cartoons of all time.
20:00 And he's had some dalliances with film as well.
20:02 Now, "Silicon Valley" almost feels
20:04 kind of like a bit of a successor
20:06 to one of his earlier films, "Office Space,"
20:08 which was a great, great cult classic
20:11 just regarding the monotony of working
20:14 in those American-style cubicle spaces.
20:17 But with "Silicon Valley,"
20:18 it's more of a case of a coder played by Thomas Middleditch.
20:23 His name is Richard Hendricks,
20:26 who inadvertently creates this fantastic algorithm
20:29 that makes streaming light years ahead
20:32 of any other platform that they've got.
20:35 So throughout the series,
20:36 we're watching a startup company grow
20:39 from this little kind of invention
20:42 that's been created in an incubator in Palo Alto.
20:46 And it's all based around "Silicon Valley."
20:49 The acting is brilliant,
20:51 despite the fact that both TJ Miller and Thomas Middleditch
20:56 have in the past been accused of problematic behavior.
20:59 But given the fact that they have a background in improv,
21:03 they're incredible.
21:04 Martin Starr, who we all remember as Bill Havichack
21:08 from "Freaks and Geeks."
21:09 He's brilliant as the LeVean Satanist
21:13 security programmer, Gilfoyle.
21:16 But for me, the standout performance is Kumar Nanjiani,
21:20 who kind of broke through with "Silicon Valley"
21:24 and then went on to write "The Big Sick,"
21:26 speaking of like award seasons,
21:28 that did pretty well during the awards seasons.
21:30 And then he went on to do "The Eternals," of course,
21:33 where he got shredded.
21:35 And then the story after that is he had to go to therapy
21:37 because of how badly it flopped.
21:39 But aside from that, it's a lot of fun.
21:43 Now, you don't have to be an expert
21:46 in what goes on in business of "Silicon Valley,"
21:48 because half the enjoyment of the show
21:50 is that it shows you exactly,
21:52 from inception to execution, what goes on.
21:56 But for me, the heart and soul of the show
21:59 is just watching how corruptible
22:00 the main character, Richard Hendricks, gets.
22:02 A guy that had this idealized vision
22:06 of what he wanted this company to be,
22:08 until you get to the end of season six,
22:10 where he's basically being Zuckerberged,
22:12 having to stand in front of Congress,
22:14 having to deploy this system, which has so many bugs in it,
22:18 that it might affect humanity, as ridiculous as that sounds.
22:22 And it's available on Sky Atlantic.
22:25 It's a bit of a recent kind of back to the future situation,
22:30 but given how quickly technology develops year by year,
22:34 there is still some historical kind of value to it.
22:38 I mean, they rag on Snapchat all the time.
22:40 And yeah, it's just brilliant.
22:42 I really enjoy it.
22:43 It ticks all the boxes for the nerdy quality,
22:45 but for that adult entertainment,
22:48 that kind of aggression,
22:50 a little bit of Curb Your Enthusiasm sardonicness,
22:53 it's great.
22:54 And it's just another representation of Mike Judge
22:58 kind of really being counterculture
23:00 and against corporate kind of politics.
23:03 - There you go.
23:04 Thank you very much, Benji.
23:06 Right, well, from everyone who works on the podcast,
23:09 a big thanks and farewell to our resident curmudgeon,
23:13 just kidding, our resident young team superstar.
23:16 - I'm not going anywhere.
23:17 What are you on about?
23:18 (laughing)
23:19 - You're not young team Benji, I hate to tell you.
23:21 - No, curmudgeon though, you had me there.
23:23 - For our resident young team superstar, Stephen,
23:27 we'll miss you, Stephen, the very best
23:29 with your new adventures.
23:31 Thanks for joining us this week.
23:32 Do look out for Friday morning's Screen Babble weekend watch,
23:36 Stephen's last one,
23:37 which will preview what to watch over the weekend and beyond.
23:39 If you have any suggestions for what TV
23:41 we need to get into our lives,
23:42 please do drop us a line.
23:44 We'd love for you to rate, review,
23:45 and subscribe to the podcast
23:46 so we can reach as many TV lovers as possible.
23:48 We'll be back next week with more Screen Babble.
23:51 Thanks, bye-bye.
23:52 - I'll miss you guys too.
23:54 - Bye.
23:55 - Bye.
23:56 (upbeat music)
23:58 (upbeat music)