Sam 0:00 Sam, I want to ask you a question. Yes. Unknown Speaker 0:03 What do you think of the broccolis getting rid of the one bond which confirmed the fact that bond can break the fourth wall at any time he just chooses not to. Sam 0:13 This never happened to that other fellow. Tessa 0:32 Welcome to monkey off my backlog the podcast where we exercise our pop culture demons by tackling our media to do lists one week at a time. I'm your host, Tessa Swehla and with me is the lawful good character on this podcast Dr. Sam Morris. Hello. Andy is off again this week. So joining us in the third chair, his friend of the podcast person of many podcasts, James Hello. You can't see it but I have a pipe in my mouth is our third chair. In this episode I find out what this last year has been like for our soap opera first responders. James becomes food in bugs snacks and Sam stars in one James Bond movie. Sam 1:16 Say Tessa, I asked having no idea what the answer is. What is station 19 Tessa 1:22 I love that all of our questions have become very meta like because we have our notes and we've just started it's it started becoming part of the bit and I'm not tirely sure when that happened but I am enjoying it immensely. Station it in a very simply is an ABC television drama that is a spin off of the very famous medical drama of Grey's Anatomy. It was developed for ABC by Shonda Rhimes and Stacy McKee and it premiered on March 22 2018. It is the second spin off of Grey's Anatomy after private practice. It is also set in Seattle and it focuses on the lives of the men and women and NBA people at Seattle fire station 19. The show's stars Jana Lee Ortiz Danielle Safra, Jason Winston George who's from the original Grey's Anatomy run is Ben J. Hayden, Barrett dos gray Damon. Oh, Carrie Eddie and our Diwan and Stefania spam peinado. So yeah, that is very, very briefly what station 19 is, and that was my monkey for this week was the fourth season. Sam 2:28 All right, moving on. No, wait, hold on. James, what do you know about Grey's Anatomy station 19. Any of these? You know, Shonda Rhimes, any of that nature of show Unknown Speaker 2:38 I've seen I've seen exactly one episode of Grey's Anatomy, and it's the episode where Patrick Dempsey's character dies. What? Wow, wow, Sam 2:47 that's a that's an episode. Unknown Speaker 2:48 Yeah. Um, I was like, I had watched it fairly recently after watching Transformers Dark of the Moon, where he's the human villain. And I was like, Okay, now I can root for him. And like, you know, he's hot, but like, he's not evil in this and then he dies. So they really hit me with the one two punch there. Sam 3:15 This is well, I do because fortunately, that leads me right into my next question. So James has seen one mid run episode of Grey's Anatomy. Which brings up a good question, Tessa, what's it like starting a show during the middle of its run? Tessa 3:32 So I am a longtime Grey's Anatomy fan. We've talked about Grey's Anatomy on the show before I did an episode on Grey's Anatomy for the pop culture trust with Sam and Martha, our other friend of the podcast from Martha and Colby, grow up. I love Grey's Anatomy, Grey's Anatomy has been with me in sickness and health, there are 17 seasons of it. I've rewatched. Many of those seasons. It is like the most chicken noodle soup show out there. I love it so much when I started watching station 19 because I did want to give this a chance. There are some characters that come over from Grey's Anatomy, most notably Ben, who is the anesthesiologist who is married to Bailey from Grey's Anatomy and Bailey herself, guest stars as she guest appears on many of these episodes. And so I was interested, they did a really good job of introducing the show, I believe, in Grey's Anatomy, by having Gina Lee Ortiz, who was technically the lead of the show, although we're gonna get into how they've backed away from that a little bit. Oh, here in a few minutes. They had her come in on an episode and have like a whole arc with Meredith. During one of the episodes she like she, she sticks her hand inside a patient because she's a first responder and she like to like stop some bleeding. And so she has to go into the operating room and she has this whole conversation with Meredith. And that's how they introduce that character. So all of this was very intriguing to me. So I tried to watch the first season. It's not Good, it is not great television. And here's why. It was trying way way too hard to be Grey's Anatomy like even to the point where they had Gina Lee Ortiz's character Andy knit, like doing the monologues that Meredith does the voiceovers because every Grey's Anatomy episode starts with Meredith voiceover and ends with Meredith voiceover. So they were trying to do that as far as structure they were trying to have it be her, you know, being you know, in the life of this first responder being a firefighter, and focusing on like her love life. And it was very soapy. And it was very, like dramatic, but it was trying to follow too hard the beats of a Grey's Anatomy episode, which makes it not a good spin off. If you look at quality spin offs, which we have on the show before, and I can think of several off the top of my head. Usually, the way a good spin off works is if it can distinguish itself from the show that has been spun off from in a way that's interesting, and yet it still carries the mood or charm of the original show. So for an example, Frasier, which we've talked about before, is a spin off of Cheers. And I was really worried when I started watching Frasier that it was just going to be like, Oh, this character from cheers went to Seattle and found a new bar. And now it's just cheers, but in Seattle, but that's not what they do. Frasier is an interesting character in his own right. And so they make a show that's about that character in the show has a different feeling from it, but it still relies on some of the same humor. Same thing with Angel, when they split it off from Buffy, they went a different genre route with that one, with the good fight, they actually grew a character from the show, like put took a character or put her in a different situation. This is what good spin offs are made of. And frankly, the first season of this was just not very good. Sam 6:42 James, I have a question for you. So one of the other things about this show, that doesn't work in the beginning, but then works later, is this approach to doing a show about first responders station 19 is a show about firefighters. and to a lesser extent, paramedics who also work out of the firehouse. In the first season, they spend way too much time trying to teach us about how to fight fires, whereas later it becomes about storylines that affect first responders. So here's the question. We're not talking about police today. But those other first responders, the firefighters, the paramedics, so here, even though we have this moment with the police, that's really longer than a moment, we generally look at first responders positively. How are they viewed over there? Unknown Speaker 7:37 So like, I mean, it's kind of the thing, like no one really has any problem, it seems across the board with first responders, like firefighters, amongst drivers and things like that doctors, they're all great. Like, I mean, you know, by and large, it's kind of their own personal problems. That's really, it's though it's those first responders and like, you know, it's if they had personal problems, you know, like, where they were doing bad things. You'd be like, Okay, that's it, but it's not, it's not necessarily like an across the board thing. However, I don't know how like, politically charged I can make home on the show. Sam 8:14 I think you're okay. Unknown Speaker 8:16 Okay, so like, I mean, we, you know, we recognize like the a cab movement and stuff in America, but there's been like, you know, there's been like a large problem with how on guardi she Akana, which is our police force has been dealing with stuff but in recent events, and I don't know when this episode of the podcast will go out, but like a time of recording, the police have become exceedingly heavy handed in dispersing crowds and things in Dublin. It's not great. And it's it's waking up a lot of people to the reality that the system is broken, and we need not to defund it but to disband it. However, that being said, No one has ever written a song called the fire brigade. So true. Very true. That is true. So station 19. From my outsider's perspective, you know, it's good to go. Yeah, Tessa 9:11 it's just it's really interesting to because just like Grey's Anatomy, this, this show did have some really good things in its DNA. Because just like Grey's Anatomy, they did, like the blind casting. And so it's a very diverse show, in terms of both race and sexuality, I believe as well. And so there are a lot of different I mean, I don't know how diverse firehouses generally are in the US, but if they are this diverse that I think is a good thing. So there's a lot of really good things going on here. There are a lot of really great characters as well. Our personal favorite is Victoria Hughes. We love her. She's such a great character on the show. And because both Grey's Anatomy and station 18 are on ABC. There's a lot of crossover between the two shows. So like I said, Bailey will often show up On stage 19, because she's married to Ben, like Victoria Hughes has been on Grey's Anatomy. They do usually a big crossover event every year where like one episode will, you know, Grey's Anatomy will start a story and then it'll finish on station 19, or vice versa. So I stopped watching the first season because it started to feel like homework. I didn't like the show, I thought it was too much like a ripoff of Grey's Anatomy. And it just wasn't working for me. But I love Grey's Anatomy. So I kept watching that. And I kept seeing these characters show up on Grey's Anatomy, which was kind of frustrating at first, because I was like, I don't want to have to watch the show that I don't like in order to understand what's going on, on the show that I do like, so that was irritating. But I still really liked the characters. Like I still wanted to know what was going on with most of the characters and try to figure out like how I like the way they interacted with the Grey's Anatomy people. I like all of that. Well, it turns out that what we started watching the Grey's Anatomy season this season, the COVID season, which took a very, very close look at COVID in hospitals, how the pandemic was being handled in hospitals, Meredith Grey gets COVID she almost dies, like there's this whole storyline. And they did a crossover with station 19. Because station 19 is a spring show. It is a it does not premiere in the fall, it always premieres in the spring, and they did a crossover with station 19. And there, it started with a very interesting storyline about police brutality, where these firefighters were trying to help this black woman get her daughter out of a house like this, this white man had kidnapped her and was going to like trafficker and this black mother was trying to get her daughter out of the house. And these black firefighters were trying to help her. And they both get arrested by the cops for trying to break into this man's house. And so it's to me, we watched that storyline, and it was very seamlessly integrated into Grey's Anatomy because they have to go to like the hospital, and all of these things. And I just thought this is interesting. This is different what then what they were doing before I want to see where the storyline goes. So I started watching season four of station 19 and it just grabbed me and pulled me in. And I'll talk about why that is in a minute. But one of the things we discovered after the fact is that they had changed show runners. So Stacy McKee had started station 19 but she was taken over by Krista vernoff. Oh, Krista vernoff, we could talk about her so much on the show. She is the showrunner that is always relied on by other people to keep their shows going, she could never get her own show. She's been on Grey's Anatomy since the beginning. She's been show running it for well over 10 years. And so they finally gave her station 19. She says that Stacy in an interview recently, she said that Stacy McGee was overburdened by notes from the studio. And that's why the first couple seasons are really clunky and awkward. She has taken over though and really made station 19 into its own show with his own voice. We don't have the awkward voiceover anymore. It's more of an ensemble show than Grey's Anatomy is I believe, even though Jay Gina Lee Ortiz is still kind of the main character. She's not really the main character anymore. There's a lot more screen time given to the other characters. And I think these were all very smart decisions to differentiate the show from Grey's Anatomy. What did you think about the shift, Sam? Sam 13:32 I mean, it was it was clear that something had happened and the show had gotten better. I don't know. It's funny. I I find it fun to get really into the weeds of this kind of behind the scenes how televisions made I won't say it was fun. Exactly. But the recent news about the CBC in Canada with Kim's convenience and some of the issues behind the scenes that have made the show Kim's convenience into what it is. I don't really know how much of that goes on literally anywhere else. I mean, I could the the the number of production companies I know of are really cbcs production company and kudos. That has a lot of shows on BBC and ITV. That's it. So I don't really know how much drama there is anywhere else. But like it's very fascinating to me how the drama of behind the scenes production affects the product you get on your television, Tessa 14:27 especially with Krista vernoff. I mean, she's been doing Grey's for however many years she did, she's been doing station 19 and as soon as they give her her own show on ABC they cancel it after five episodes. Like she is running the like highest grossing show on television right now and station and station 18. They still can't give her her own show, which I just think is ridiculous. Like Sean is gonna steal her away back to Netflix. I think that should be interesting. Sam 14:55 Have you seen bridgerton James? Unknown Speaker 14:57 No. I confess I haven't. But I don't know whether that's for good or worse because I've heard mixed things but also like, I don't know. Tessa 15:08 Do you like Do you like like a soapy like Gossip Girl drama for drama sake type of thing. You'll like this one. It's Shonda Rhimes doing a period piece and she you don't get superior than that. You don't. Unknown Speaker 15:21 I I feel like I'm gonna let you down when I say I don't know who Shonda Rhimes is. Tessa 15:26 Oh, Shonda Rhimes is the highest paid black woman in television. I think she's actually the highest paid woman in television now. But she is responsible for such shows as Grey's Anatomy scandal. bridgerton. She's very, she's like the queen of network television, except for she's not doing network television anymore. Sam 15:47 So let me ask you this, then. Do you know who Ryan Murphy is? Yes, unfortunately. So those are your two. And the interesting thing is they were both lured away from traditional broadcast networks here to go to Netflix. And one of them has squandered that opportunity by making subpar material. And the other one is Shonda Rhimes. Unknown Speaker 16:15 I'm gonna have to look into this more. It's just like, I've never seen any of those shows you listed off bar, you know, one episode of Grey's Anatomy, as I've said, so it's more like I've never encountered her than, like, willful ignorance. So it seems I'm gonna have to remedy that. Tessa 16:30 Yeah, she's such a big, like pop culture TV icon, How to Get Away with Murder. That's the other really big show that she did with Viola Davis. Again, it's very soapy, very dramatic. That's kind of her. She wants, she wants to show you the tea. That's what she wants to do. And she's very, very good at it. As an Irish person, I can appreciate that. Yeah, but like, they're just a couple more things about station 19. Before we move on, I, I really appreciate all of the characters on the show. But they did this season, they did that prove police brutality storyline, which was not just a one off episode, they actually continued to talk about that. throughout the season, I really appreciated the way that both Grey's Anatomy and station 19 talked about COVID. Because a lot of shows, I think did the thing where they were like, okay, we're just going to push right past this and pretend that either the pandemic never happened, or we're going to jump ahead in the future and not talk about the pandemic all, which is fine. Like I don't want everything I do to be about the pandemic either or any all of the pop culture I do. But I really appreciated the intelligent, and frankly, kind of cathartic way that both Grey's Anatomy and station 19 talked about it like everybody on station 19 was wearing masks. They you know, they were all doing COVID related things where they were doing like there's an episode where they did a rapid test station, there were episodes where they talked about how hard it is to fight fires, you know, when there's a ton of people sneaking around, you know, trying to trying to be in groups together. There's a lot of queer storylines. This season, at least two of the characters are gay, actually three of the characters because there's a by a couple. They're both by and they get married. During this season. I cried very much during the wedding episode. I'm just going to let everybody know now I cry at gay weddings. I'm sorry. It's just a thing. So yeah, it was it was so good. And like they talked about the George Floyd murder like that happens in the middle of the show, because it's still set last spring, I should have mentioned that the show is set during last spring, even though it aired, you know, it started airing in January. And so it was really interesting, looking back at something that I remember, you know, that happened in the very near past. But looking at it through this lens of you know, that it's a bunch of black first responders trying to figure out how they, how do we work with the police when we know that all of these things have happened? How do we you know, change these things systemically? like can we even change them systemically. And it was a very good season, the person at the personal stuff was also very good, but the broader themes, I think just like elevated at the season way past what it had been before. So I guess my answer to your question is like starting a show in the middle can be good. Sam 19:14 So then, are you going to go back and watch the earlier episodes? Tessa 19:21 No, I don't think I need to. I really don't. I feel like I there were some things this season that I was like, Okay, I don't know what that is because they were referring to something that happened earlier. But for the most part, I didn't really feel like I needed a lot of backstory, which might be a plus for network television is that for a lot of network TV shows. You can kind of jump in the middle like unlike a lot of streaming shows, but I don't plan on going back. I think this is good television. I think if I went back I'd be disappointed. Okay, James, I have a question for you. So we are trying on monkey off my backlog to incorporate more International things onto our pop culture lists. Because I think that for a lot of people in the US that we have Well, I mean, I don't think I know this is true. We have a lot of blinders on when it comes to international pop culture, except for maybe Korean pop groups that seems to have really broken to a crossover for some reason, into the US. So we've been we've been trying to incorporate like more music and more film into our lists. And before we started recording this episode, we, we talked a little bit about the fact that so many Americans have so many stereotypes about Irish pop culture, you know, like, I think flogging Molly as a band came up like, that's like a big thing in the US when it comes to like Irish pop culture. Do you want to say your joke about you to hear? Sam 20:51 No, I'm saving it for later. Okay, Tessa 20:52 save a new joke for you about you too. Later. I, you know, there's a lot of Americans who take a lot of pride in their Irish heritage. But if you dig any deeper on that Irish heritage, you realize that it's all based on a lot of stereotypes, and a lot of like misunderstandings about what Ireland is, and they're not really Irish at all. They're just Americans trying on a different culture. So my question for you is, is that if you were to give a short list of things that Americans actually should consume, should read should watch should listen to that you think is a more indicative of, you know, Irish culture than say, flogging Molly, are you to? What was some of the things that would be on that list before you? Unknown Speaker 21:34 Okay, so is this the point where I'm free to pop off about the Irish diaspora? Sam 21:39 Go right, I'm ready. Tessa 21:40 We're ready. Unknown Speaker 21:41 Okay, so I don't know, I don't know how much you or like the listeners know about Irish history, because by and large, is not taught an awful lot abroad, like maybe the 1960s and rising, but like, you know, in the previous century, before that, we had a giant famine, where all of the potato crops caught lice. And so well, it's a famine, but it was largely kind of genocide, because the English people and colonial occupation, you know, they didn't give us food. And so we have, you know, like, we have a fairly large population on millions emigrated or died. We're one of the few countries in the world that had such a drastic decrease in population that we still haven't recovered from in terms of population numbers. So a lot of people did go abroad. And so we have this really wide like diaspora, like, especially in places like America and Australia. But I think like a lot of the misconceptions are based around sort of the stereotype that seems to be founded from Darby, oh, Gillen, the little people films like that are the quiet man. And you know, like the infamous Lucky Charms, unlike I realized that people, some people in Ireland do talk like that. And I've certainly played up that aspect of my Irish accent. When I was I was doing some voice acting for a vampire, which is explicitly written as, like, exceptionally Irish. So I was talking like, you know, like, Asher, jazz is like that, but not. But there's far more like diverse accents in Ireland. And I don't want to, I don't want to like critique people too much. Because at this stage, it's, like, nearly ingrained that this is what Ireland is perceived as in global media. And there was the whole debacle of wild mountain time, which is based off of a play, which is set quite near to where I live, they sound nothing like anyone who lives there. And also, despite the fact that the film is set, post Freedom Tower being built in New York, none of the Irish characters look like they've ever seen running water. So Tessa 23:47 okay. Unknown Speaker 23:49 They're all they've all got dirt on their faces like they're living in like 1800s peasant time. They got they got Jamie Dornan in who has an Irish accent, and they made him do a different, worse Irish accent. Tessa 24:05 This movie sounds horrible. Unknown Speaker 24:07 Yeah. Oh, no, it's so bad. But it's also so it's meant to be like, it's meant to be this romancey movie where it's like Emily Blunt is trying to get with Jamie Dornan, his character and the twist of the film. I'll spoil it for you. And now, because so my friend Hannah, look this up because we had a wild tangent about it. When we were recording an episode of our cover. Myers he feels that he can't be with her because he thinks he's a bee. like a bumblebee. Yes, that's in the original one. And they put that in the film. Tessa 24:38 like okay, like he thinks what Unknown Speaker 24:42 he thinks he's a bee. And so for that reason, he thinks he cannot be with human Emily Blunt. Whereas as we know, from the DreamWorks hit animated film, B movie, humans and bees can have meaningful and loving relationships. That's right. Sam 24:58 What's up with that? Come on. What's happening? Who are these people? That was my best Seinfeld? I'm sorry. It's not good. I can do better Millennium sorry. Tessa 25:13 A B, it's this absurdist theater Like what? No, it's supposed to be like a Waiting for Godot type of twist. Unknown Speaker 25:21 No, we see cuz like Waiting for Godot is good. And it's Samuel Beckett is fantastic Samuel Beckett has wrote a play called play. And at the end of it, it has the stage direction, repeat play. So it's like a never ending loop of this play. Whereas wild mountain time, on the play, it's based off of which I can't remember the name of, for the life of me, it's not wild mountain time, is created and distributed in total earnestness with no degree, or like self awareness, no degree of irony whatsoever. So seeing all of this, it really makes you just, oh, it makes you so mad. And I don't think any other culture in the world has this kind of problem. Because, like, obviously, there were, you know, racially insensitive depictions of people of color, and Asian minorities of it. Like, I'm not erasing those books, you know, like they've gotten better. And how they put on like blind casting, makes a more racially diverse, ethnically diverse cast in Hollywood, which prevents that, however, Irish people it's founded on this myth of it being a land of leprechauns, and that kind of thing. And it's not something we can really do, because it's not really a racial stereotype. So when I look at it, it really pisses me off, but I recognize there's nothing we can really do, because, or T, who is our national broadcaster will not fund Irish creators to make their own things on the network. So they have to go elsewhere. So which is why when I eventually get round to actually answering the question, a lot of these things are just crazy, which are good Irish media are created by Irish people, but they're distributed. And funded by things like the BBC, which is a British Corporation. Tessa 27:13 See, I find all that fascinating. Like Sam really likes the drama of television, I find like, production fast, like, like, who produces what, like which creators get to be on which networks are which channels are which streaming services? I find all that really interesting. Unknown Speaker 27:30 Yeah. So if I were to, if I were to make a list of things you should consume across multiple media. Let's see. So I'm not a fan of the book or the show, but I recognize normal people is, especially the show is exceptionally well crafted. So I'd recommend that dairy girls, which is that size, a lot of these as well deal with, there's a lot of shame and secrecy that Ireland has to deal with in its national past, especially like what the Catholic Church has done. And like a lot of these will deal with that book, dairy girls specifically, you know, like it's a comedy, but it's set during the troubles in Northern Ireland. And it's like, it gets very serious about topics like the hunger strikes and things like that, but it's framed within a comedy. So it makes it easier to understand because it is a you know, make no mistake, it is a very complex issue. It's you know, it's fairly easy to understand on the surface, but there's a lot of history that goes into it. Other things, you know, that deal with what Ireland has done in the past, which I'd recommend. Dara Martin's future Pope's of Ireland, more or foully Doyle's all the bad apples. These are both books. Let's see, in terms of in terms of films, I don't really think there's any good like films which are being made by Irish creators. That I mean, there was this film Pixie, which came out which was set in like slideshow, and I it looked fun from the trailer, and I've had Alec Baldwin in it, but I'm not sure. Another TV show, which is a comedy I'd recommend is called Frank of Ireland, which has all of the Gleason's, in us don't know and Brendan, I watched one episode of it on the TV while I was waiting for taskmaster to come on and it was great, but a lot of the good things that are Linda's putting out in terms of media seems to be music, and I happen to know I have the privilege to know a lot of these people so they were make this like you know you have big acts like Hosier and Niall Horan and whatever who is from the same town as I am, well roughly but there's also you know, like little indie artists last and static and his band speakers Eve Eve Bell, Rebecca lock, these are all like, they're all fantastic. They're all on Spotify as well. So, you know like they can, you know, they can be heard. It's not limited by geography. Because the internet is a thing now. So like I, you know, these are all wonderful people. But I feel like they're a more accurate representation of how our like Ebell has a song about the housing crisis in Dublin and how it's increasingly more and more difficult to actually get a house as a young person and not have to rent it from vulture funds. And that's, you know, that's an exceptionally earnest representation of what it's actually like to live in Ireland instead of the quiet man or anything else. I feel like I feel like I've popped off for too long. Tessa 30:37 No, you're This is all great. You've given me a lot to put on my own list. I will say that my father did make me watch the quiet man every St. Patrick's Day, until I was 18. So I my father is definitely not my father is definitely one of those people, but I can't tell if it was because of the Irish content or the john wayne content. That might be a good question to ask him. Sam 30:58 I'll say too, and no matter how I say her name, I'm pretty sure it's gonna be wrong. But I guess for the over a decade or so I've been listening to Rasheed Murphy. Roshi roshen. See, I was closer to see that's what I thought and then I got it wrong. I like her a lot. But so I don't just listen to you too few. Yeah, the joke was the joke from earlier that I didn't want to tell the time was like, I've read Castle Rock rant, and I listened to you too. What else do I need? Tessa 31:36 I'm gonna make James rage quit this episode. I Sam 31:38 know. I know. Move on to bug snacks. I've never Unknown Speaker 31:43 I've never raged quit recording a podcast episode. But I've also never had a podcast episode begin with an apology beforehand to me for that they're going to talk about you too. So we're really covering all of our bases here. Sam 31:59 Can I can I recommend a podcast to you? It's called. You talk in YouTube. To me? Is that a real thing? It's a real podcast. It's actually it's Adam Scott from Parks and Rec with Scott aukerman. It's actually you know, if you don't hate you, too, it'd be a fun time. But anyway, what is bucks? The acts? Unknown Speaker 32:23 completely normal segue after that. Oh, what is wonderful transition. You're welcome. Yeah. I'm gonna answer I'm gonna answer that with a question of my own. Which is what isn't books snacks? Sam 32:39 That is that is. That is. So how is bug snacks? Why is bug snack? I was gonna say that. Why is bug snacks? Unknown Speaker 32:50 No. So okay, so book snacks. So like they debuted the trailer for this game around, like the PS five showcase. You know, it seems like you know, just a fun, like wacky indie game where it's like, oh, haha. You know, you play these, like, cute little bear looking things and you feed them food and parts of their body become that food. And it's like, Okay, this is, you know, bizarre, but okay. And I was like, I sort of jokingly was like, I want this, I need this. This is going to be the best game of the console generation. And then PlayStation. As part of its PlayStation Plus lineup, they start, they started bringing out like a free PlayStation five game as well as the two PlayStation four games. And so book snacks was one of them. So I was like, hell, yes. I don't have to pay like 15 euro for this. So I got that. And then we had to go through the whole rigmarole of actually securing a PlayStation five then which we managed. And so then the first thing I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Sam 33:52 It's okay. It's okay. Unknown Speaker 33:54 I don't think I don't think we had encountered one another. What like when they initially went up, or I don't know whether you saw this, but I had one in my basket at the time, like when they first went up for pre order and November, through this toy company called Smith's, they also sell like video games and whatever. But there were so many people on the site, it kept lagging and having to reload. And I had one in my basket fairly early on. Like I kept getting timed out and delayed and whatever it circled again, I was like, okay, it's fine. I'm just putting in my card details. I just have to enter on it refreshed. And it had a picture of a red minion. And it said, oops, that's terrifying. Yes, terrifying. And I was, um, several months later, eventually, we just happened to snag one, much to your chagrin on Twitter, it seems. Sam 34:45 Yeah. Well, you know, it's really interesting because, as you mentioned, the the PS Plus thing to get two bucks Max, it got me thinking, I guess maybe we should just go ahead and start subscribing to that, you know. just collecting the games every month until we get the system, which I don't know, would you would you endorse that plan? Unknown Speaker 35:07 I'd endorse it in the sense that like, I don't get all the games all the time because some of them are like, I don't like this game. It's a sports game. I have no interest in bladder chasing activities in real life or in virtual life. Sam 35:22 I got it. I got it. I got the joke. Tessa 35:25 Okay, I did it. Could we? bladder Chase. Oh, good. I Sam 35:30 like it. I like it. That's much. Okay. First of all, the American equivalent of that is I don't like watching sports ball, which is such a reductive, like, it makes me so angry as a sports person. But I like yours because it's smart. Yeah. Oh, is it because of the ball like the ball used to be made out of? Unknown Speaker 35:51 Yeah, pig's bladder. Yeah, used to be made from a pig's bladder. Hence, hence a pigskin ball in American football. I've gotten some I've gotten some really good games and like, a lot of times they'll give Should I give us time to recover from that? Because I could see Sam still laughing. Sam 36:12 I'm okay. Unknown Speaker 36:13 Okay. So sometimes they give like, you know, indie games and whatever alongside like, you know, they'll do like a Call of Duty game, and then they'll give you like, the witness that was March 2020, I think was their lineup. And there was one of the games there was a PS five game, there was the month after book snacks or whatever, in the cat, which I was like, Oh, this is a fun game where you, you know, it plays on? Oh, you got to use like scale models of things. And it you know, folks with the perception of like size, you know, you put things into a model, and they'll come up bigger or smaller in the real world. But it's also a surprisingly, emotionally engaging game. Bryce Dallas Howard is in it, she does one of the two voices you hear. And that's sort of the experience then that I had to bring it back. That's the experience that I've had with both snacks, where I was like, Oh, this is a fun game I'll and then it was like, it changed me books, snacks, as a piece of media physically changed something inside of me. And so the basic plot remains the same as what they present. So it's developed by this studio called young horses, who I haven't heard of before and haven't really looked into up aside from following them on Twitter. But I haven't like seen any games of theirs if they've made them before. So really, they seem to have come with this like a bolt out of the blue and it's billed as like one of the flagship starting games of the PlayStation five like it's you know, it's beside Spider Man Miles Morales is the remake of Demon Souls death loop, which I know came out slightly later. But they kind of announced these all of them go like the sequel to Horizon Zero Dawn, which I'm still mad is not called horizon one dawn. Sam 37:57 It's sad when they miss the obvious. Unknown Speaker 38:00 Yeah, the basic premise like remains the same You play as this reporter who's never named. And you go to this island called snack to the island, in search of you all have it's all whimsical names, you're going after someone called Elizabeth Burke mega fig, who is looking into bug snacks. The person who sends you is called colombi, who is sort of like a hard boiled a journalist. And so you go there and you have to, like encounter all the secrets of the book snacks and this kind of thing. The race of characters you play as their rhombuses, which I think is funny. You know, but it's like, and they sort of broadly fall into character trope stereotype things at the start when you meet them with their whimsical names. You know, betha is kind of like an online like teen you know, she says like things like totes, and bestie. And this like, she's a Snoop. And then you have Chad Lowe, who's voiced by Yuri loewenthal of spider man, Playstation four fame. And he's like a gym bro. And then you have like Rambis, who's like salt of the earth type farmer. And then you know, there's all these ones like, and it quickly become, I'm trying not to spoil this as much as possible. Because I feel like both us and everyone who listens to this needs to experience book snacks in as uninformed way as possible. But quickly, like books next sets itself out as like, this is a commentary. And it's a commentary on genetic modifications and stem cell culture, things like that, because the books next physically change how our rhombus looks. So like rhombus is you know, he's like, Oh, yeah, we grow book snacks, their food, we eat them, that's great, you know, whatever. And he's diametrically opposed by someone who views them as intelligent animals. Book snacks, they look like books. They are they look like food. They go around this They their names and you know, like the Pokemon type fashion, they just say their names. So you have like, this thing which looks like a burger, which is called a bunker. And I was like, as I was catching them, I was mimicking their voices. So the bunker goes around and it goes like. So, like it's so patently ridiculous in the way. It's set up that you like it nearly blindsides you, when things start to go awry. And you have to bring back this disparate group of people who really really hate each other and make them realize that like they've got things in common. But there's, there's a character who pretend like is a mystic. And they say like, oh, the, you know, like book snacks are toxic. We shouldn't be eating them, like from a religious zealot point of view, but is secretly eating book snacks. On the side. It's got full on conspiracy theories, it's got LGBTQ plus representation. Some of the characters are, are referred to with a, they them pronouns. And I don't know whether that's intentional, but it made me happy. It's such an experience because it's like, it's like you've taken some LSD while watching, like children's network programming, like Sesame Street, that kind of pedigree. But it also feels like the Island of Dr. Moreau. There's a point like where they're threatened by something unseen in the nice, and I will tell you what it is. But like they turn around on the sign above their town, which says snacks Berg has been scratched through with no more books, snacks. So it's really like, this is an intense game, and you play through it and it leaves you like in tears at the end. Sam 41:49 Tessa I think we were all wrong about Spider Man, we should be wanting to play bugs, snacks. bugs, snacks is why we should be upset that we don't have a PS five. Tessa 41:59 It sounds like it sounds like we're missing out. What's the format of this game? Is it like more of a puzzle game where I have an RPG like what's Unknown Speaker 42:08 so the gameplay is like, the gameplay is like so you go in and you meet these characters, you have to look like the ultimate goal is finding Elizabeth. But to do that, you got to like, help all the characters come back to town. And so you talk to them, and they'll give you like quests and stuff. And to do that, and most of them revolve around go here and catch this bug snack and feed it to me or do this thing. There's also like mini bosses and stuff, which is fun. But it's a puzzle game. So like it's an RPG in that sense, where you've got like characters and they've got quests, and they've got dynamic relationships which evolve, and like, you know, are impacted by the themes of the story. I'll say this now in case I forget, there is a post credit scene to book snacks, which blows the case wide open. Yeah, I think like Sam Jackson showing up at the end of Iron Mountain one, it's that level of like, post credit scene, or you just go watch. Like imagine being a nerd in the theater in 2008. That's how I felt when the post credit scene to book snacks came on the TV. Tessa 43:14 I was a nerd in the theater in 2008. So this sounds just perfect to me. Sounds great. Unknown Speaker 43:21 Yeah. And so yeah, the puzzle aspect is like the bug snacks, you got to do different things to like actually catch them sometimes they only come out at certain times of day or in certain weathers or you got to like you know, set traps for them. And some of them you need to bait with like different sauces which lower than some of the some of the books snacks are hot foods, like, you know, chili peppers and that kind of thing. And some of them are like ice cream, and like frozen popsicles, books, snacks will fly and destroy your traps, things like that. Like it really, some of the puzzles solutions are kind of difficult. Tessa 44:00 So it sounds like this is a hard recommend for you Who would you recommend this to Unknown Speaker 44:04 everyone needs to experience bugs next. And also like the age rating is the age rating is like three or whatever. Like, it's a relatively small number on the ESRB rating scale. And so it's like, you know, anyone of any age can enjoy it. Because like, you know, children play if they see like the cute like, it's also got a cutesy like soundtrack so it really is build kind of like that. So they can play and be like Haha, fun, you know, puzzle catching food, you know, animals which look like food, and then you know, anyone who's like really into real world issues and you know, this kind of like, should we be killing animals? Do they have souls? You can be like, oh, okay, this is stuff for me too. Tessa 44:48 This is how the socialists get you. They get you from an early age. Yeah, I want to play this game you have completely sold me on it. Unknown Speaker 44:57 Like I said before books next is something you should really go into blind? Because there are twists. There are narrative twists that you just you just need to experience yourself. So I hope you get a PlayStation five at some point soon. I'm not sure whether you can play it on the PlayStation four. Definitely on the PlayStation five. Tessa 45:17 All right, let's go to Sam your segment. So you watch the I say this like I also did not watch it again. You watch the documentary becoming bond which is on Hulu. What is this movie? Sam 45:33 Okay, so becoming bond is billed as a documentary drama from 2017. It was directed by Josh green bomb in the US at least it was distributed by Hulu. And what it is, is it is George Lazenby his story of how he became and then and became James Bond. The film is narrated by George Lazenby. At the beginning, he sits down in a chair, and he tells you the story from start to finish with some questions lobbed at him throughout by the director. But mostly This is him telling his story. And that's the end of that sentence. James, have you heard of this? Unknown Speaker 46:18 I haven't. Which is really odd because the James Bond franchise was like, my whole personality on Twitter for a while, like if you asked people you know, one of those things where it's like, let your Mutual's tell you what you're known for. It was, I did that a while back, and it was like Stephen King and watching all of the James Bond films. Because I did that I watched three of them a week, and did like a tweet along with, you know, like, no one really cared. But I was tweeting about them. And it's become like, there's a card and Cards Against Humanity, the UK version, at least, which is people keep sending to me sometimes when they'll draw and they're like, Oh, look at you. And it just says the way James Bond treats women. Because so many of my so many of my tweets is like this makes me exceptionally uncomfortable. And I want to like watch a spy film. I don't want to have to deal with this. Yeah, well, we'll Sam 47:17 pick up on Timothy Dalton era bond next month, so we'll have to have some tweet exchanges then. But you and I have talked about George Lazenby. We both like him as as a bond actor. So it was really great to get to see this story. Tessa 47:34 Yeah. So wait, so you said this is I know it's a documentary but you said it's basically him narrating it? Is it more of a documentary or a drama. Sam 47:44 So I think documentary is very misleading term for whatever this is. So what happens is George Lazenby sits down in a chair in front of a camera, and then we cut to act, an actor playing him as a child, and that goes on for a little bit. Eventually, the film Josh Lawson plays adult George Lazenby. So it's one of those things where George Lazenby says something happened to him. And then we watch it dramatized by an actor. So the main two actors in this movie, Josh Lawson plays George Lazenby. Cassandra Clemente plays Belinda, his his first love. And so the film doesn't really document so much as it retells in a memoir ish fashion, his upbringing in Australia, how he followed Belinda to England, how he became a male model, how he conned his way into being bond. And he was also used car salesman there for a while. So it's very interesting to hear him tell his own story, and then see it dramatized. So it's like a documentary biopic memoir thing. Tessa 48:59 I know I usually don't like it when documentaries do things like this where they like dramatize like what happened, but I think it worked pretty well don't you for for this because he was we could hear his narrative voice throughout the whole thing. How well did this idea work for you? Sam 49:16 In addition to the two main actors, Jane Seymour plays a role Jeff Garlin who most people know from Curb Your Enthusiasm. Jake Johnson from New Girl and Dana Carvey, from Dana Carvey, all are in the film. And there's this really great moment about halfway through the film where the director says, did all of this really happen? And he said, Well, if it didn't, I remember it awful. Well, so it's kind of like I guess I don't know. It's so like, you're left with this. And the more he tells the story, the more you feel like Yeah, all of this did really happen. Like it's it's incredulous to a point and then it adds up. And it's like it had to have happen this way. There's no other way. This could have all happened. Cuz I know the end point about becoming bond is true. There's no other way any of this make sense, unless it's all true. And so I thought that that was really interesting. Unknown Speaker 50:10 I like when, like, when fictional films do that, you know, with the unreliable narrator and like, a lot of the ones that are based off of true stories are, you know, where they take liberties, or, you know, I don't find them as interesting as something like I know, US have discussed American animals on the podcast, which, you know, like the way it's told with the actual people. And then it's like, I don't know whether he actually went to Amsterdam, but that's what he told me and I presume that's what happened. He could have just made that all up. But you know, it, you know, it doesn't make sense if he didn't go. So we're going to go at that. Or Robert Redford, suppose it last film, deal man in the gun is an art. That's what it's called, you know, where it's like this story is mostly true. Where it sort of precludes itself from being something which takes Liberty with its source materials, like Hacksaw Ridge is a good film. But it takes a lot of liberties with the actual life of Desmond Doss, at least in the early parts. Because, you know, like, not everyone is documenting their lives because we don't know that they're going to grow up to be a famous person. There's a lot of expectation then on people where it's like, oh, you must have had some spectacular childhood. You know, you were like a prodigy or precocious young genius. Like that's why a lot of people conspiracy theories don't accept the glove makers song from Stratford upon Avon could have written all of Shakespeare's plays, because he's a poor, working class person. I've never really seen it done in documentaries. The closest thing I've seen is there was a documentary which came out recently called finding jack Charlton, which was about the coach of the Irish soccer team. As I've said before, I've no interest in sports, but I sat down and watched this with my landlord one evening. And it's so like moving because he meant so much to like, he wasn't Irish. But he became like this beloved Irish figure. And then, as he got older, he had, like, he ended up having dementia. And so like the call between him and like, archival footage of football matches, but like, for some of the stuff where it's like, oh, this is the moment where he accepted the job working as it they have actors cast, but they only ever show like their hands on stuff. So I've never like I've never seen a film or documentary where they're like, we fully recast these people to do what the narrator is saying. So it's interesting. I feel like I've rambled on a while, but I think that's very interesting. Tessa 52:37 No, I mean, I think it's interesting too, especially because there'll be scenes where you hear lots of BS voice, not the dialogue. So you'll see like the actor say something, but it's, you hear laws and beats saying it. So like, I'm trying to think of a good example of this, but like you'll say, and then I went and I said, blah, blah, blah. And then like this person, like you'll hear it, you'll see the actor like mouthing the words, but it's like completely dubbed over by Lazenby, which I just think it's such a fascinating film technique. But Sam, according to Lazenby, we all know that laws can be made the hugest mistake of any James Bond, right? And that's why he never was James Bond again. According to him, why did he make the big mistake? Sam 53:19 So this is the really interesting thing, and it's really difficult to spoil a documentary, but if I can, I will. So the the big mistake and it is referred to as the mistake is popularly known, his agent told him that, you know, Clint Eastwood made half a million dollars a picture he could make two of those a year he didn't need bond that happened, but it is downplayed in the documentary. Instead, it's it sounds like everything that happened in his lifetime prepared him to say no to bond and basically the answer is, the broccolis are terrible people who should never be in charge of any franchise that anybody ever likes. You know, this could be come a mini rank that list of the top five broccoli errors with James Bond. It could be, you know, making Connery mad, not getting Lazenby under contract, rehiring Connery hiring Roger Moore, firing Timothy Dalton. And those are just the five things we haven't even talked about the Icehotel from Die Another Day. You know, it's just they're terrible. They're terrible people and I hate that they're still in charge of this franchise. But anyway, that's why he didn't want he didn't know. Tessa 54:38 No such feelings about the broccolis. Sam 54:41 I do not like dislike them. And that's just amateur status. Like I haven't read enough to be professional broccoli hater, but Unknown Speaker 54:49 what is the best that someone will come along and be like, ah, actually, I was hating the broccolis before. It was cool. You know, like they're, they're a hipster broccoli hater. Sam 54:57 That's Sean Connery. He's dead. Now. Don't worry about But the whole point is like he walked away and he acknowledges it as a mistake. But he says he walked away not because his agent convinced him to walk away, which did happen. But because he didn't want to sign away his life, to the broccolis. He didn't want to be banned from growing his hair out or having a beard, or being told where he could go and who he could talk to. He just didn't want to do that. And so he said, No, the great thing about this this film, is that you have to see his life play out in a very particular way to understand why, and to agree with that decision, because that's the point of the film, to no longer see this man as the doofus who turned down bond, but is the very wise person who understood what he wanted from life and turned down bond and got what he wanted out of life. Tessa 55:59 I found it fascinating that he described James Bond as a fantasy. He says james bond is a male fantasy, and you can't live there all the time. And they wanted him to live there all the time. And I just I found that really interesting about this film. Unknown Speaker 56:14 I think it's an important piece of media in that regards to come out now and for people to consider because well, first of all, you have the whole method acting thing where it's like method acting, I think was Martin Freeman, described as like the most selfish like prick thing you can do. You have your people who are like Daniel Day Lewis was to do things like you know, film and respond to Mr. Lincoln on set and whatever. And then you have the other end of that, which is Jared Leto on the set of suicide squad, terrorizing and abusing his co stars, which is not excusable in any way. Even if you're getting in the mind of a character and especially with Joker, there's this expectation that you need to method act, you know, because Heath Ledger did a Jared Leto tried to do it. Joaquin Phoenix lost an insane amount of weight to portray Arthur fleck, pre becoming the Joker. But I think it's more interesting, or at least important in terms of like Marvel people, because they'll sign on like five, six films at a go. And they're like, they're locked into this thing they can't leave. Unless you're like Terrence Howard in the first Iron Man film, or Edward Norton. And there's a lot of creative control, which Marvel takes away from the directors. You know, like, famously, Edgar Wright was going to do Atma, and things like this. And Scott derrickson is no longer doing dr. strange too, because he had creative differences Marvel, blah, blah, blah. Patty Jenkins was going to do a Marvel film up until like creative control. Things happen. I like I can only imagine what it's like for the actors because they're playing superheroes, which is another male fantasy, which they're forced to inhabit, but also, because there's toys and stuff, they have to sign away the rights to their own image. And they have really no say in how toys are produced or cover shots you sell it with, like Elizabeth Olsen and covers leading up to one division where she was like, digitally edited to look a certain way. Tessa 58:14 Yeah, I mean, and just thinking about like the recent thing with the Tyco, ytt and Rita Ora and Tessa Thompson, where they were photographed participating in what appears to be a polyamorous encounter. And Marvel reportedly was very angry with all three of them, because they weren't, they weren't showing like the wholesome image that Disney I'm sorry, Disney was very angry with them because they weren't showing like the wholesome image that Disney wants, you know, because they want everything to be kid friendly, and they want everything to be, you know, pretty conservative and a lot of ways and so I found that that that is really interesting that that kind of those franchises really want to exert creative control, not just like what happens on set, but what happens in the actor's personal lives as well. Sam 58:59 Imagine that you're more upset that your film director is doing a polyamory than you are when he literally played Hitler. Yeah, like where are your priorities man? Unknown Speaker 59:16 This has gotten like wildly away from Georgia Laysan be as bond but it's like you know, studios need to just stop Tessa 59:25 Yeah, I mean, we were talking about while we were watching this just seeing some of the footage from like the behind the scenes of making On Her Majesty's Secret Service that I mean, like production value was probably way more on that series than it had been on many films before that and so I you could kind of see this as like the, the genesis of you know, large franchises like Star Wars and Marvel and you know, these these things that just suck up so much of pop culture. Would you recommend the documentary to anyone? Or who would you recommend this to? Sam 59:59 I want To say I recommend it to everybody but I mean if you dislike bond I frankly think there's still something in this I think if you dislike bond, this will convince you why you dislike bond. You know, you'll be like, you got out good job, you Australian person. And there's a there's quite a bit about that, about how they tried to get the Australian out of him to do this role. Yeah, I mean it was it was interesting. It was not what I expected, but I enjoyed what I got out of it. Yeah, that's it. Tessa 1:00:32 All right. Tune in next week when Megan spell is going to join us for a fast and furious adjacent episode. Question mark. Oh, I saw on the notes and I was like, Final Fantasy. Sam 1:00:47 Final Fantasy starring Vin Diesel. That's right. A final final point. Now you got me saying it. Fast and Furious themed episode to get everybody ready for F nine, the final and the fantasy, and the final and the fantasy. Final Fantasy, Unknown Speaker 1:01:08 but also by that logic, that means Final Fantasy as a series is the fifth entry in the series because you've got Fast Five, Tessa 1:01:17 final five, fantasy seven. All right. fantasy. All right, where can you find us? Where can people find you James? Unknown Speaker 1:01:27 You can find me on Twitter at spicy Nigel where I do things like tweet about the boss baby. Sometimes I tweet about the Beatles and my hatred of their cultural homogeny. You can find me on tik tok under the same app where I haven't posted anything recently, but I'm there. I also have podcasts. As Tessa mentioned at the start of the episode, you can archive admirers, which is a discussion slash breakdown of the other podcast, the Magnus archives that's on Twitter, at admirers archive and then hyper fixations which is a podcast where listeners you can't see it but Tessa is wearing a shirt with the hyper fixations logo on it. Because who guessed it on an episode? Tessa 1:02:13 I did I guessed it on the last episode of hyper fixations where I talked about the Discworld. Unknown Speaker 1:02:19 Yeah, so you can find that on twitter at hyper fixations p or on Instagram at hyper fixations pod. I have to be careful not to go into the whole spiel of rate and review us because that's that's ingrained in my head now. Tessa 1:02:33 Where can people find you, Sam? Sam 1:02:35 on twitter at Sam underscore Morris nine. Tessa 1:02:38 You can find me on Twitter and letterbox at suela. Tessa, send your thoughts about the monkeys we talked about today? What pop culture you've crossed off your list lately, what you'd like for us to talk about on future episodes or anything else that comes to mind. Find us on Twitter and Instagram at monkey backlog. Email us at monkey off my backlog@gmail.com our theme song Hot Shot by Scott Holmes can be found on Scott Holmes music calm, please rate review and subscribe on iTunes. Follow us on Spotify, Stitcher, Amazon podcasts, Google podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts. Get that monkey off your back Transcribed by https://otter.ai