Michelle and Joe run down the list of celebrities we lost this week with the passing of Luke Perry and Jan-Michel Vincent. We briefly discuss the unfortunate news of Alex Trebek’s medical issues before diving into the Spielberg versus Netflix battle that is heating up. We’ll take a deeper look into some questionable comments from Ian McKellen regarding his take on some accused sexual predators in the entertainment industry before wrapping the news up with Britain’s Royals response to social media trolls. As usual, we wrap the podcast with a couple of great insightful picks of the week.
Episode Transcript
Speaker 1:0:02Yeah.
Speaker 2:0:04Welcome to insights into entertainment, a podcast series, taking a deeper look into entertainment and media. Your host, Joseph and Michelle Waylon, a husband and wife team of pop culture, phonetics are exploring all things from music and movies to television and fandom.
Speaker 3:0:26Welcome to insights into entertainment. Episode four, dead, dying into pre. I’m your host, Joseph Waylon with my lovely cohost Michelle Waylon. Hello everyone. How are you doing today Michelle? I am Fan tastic. How are you Joseph? I’m incredibly awesome. We have a very busy show today. A lot of topics to discuss. Uh, we’ll be talking about a few celebrity deaths that we’ve had an during the last week. Hey, we have a popular game show host who is facing some serious health concerns. Then we’ll talk about a Steven Spielberg and his battle with Netflix Free Academy Awards. Uh, we will also talk about and Mckellen, um, who made some questionable comments that he’s back peddling on now. And we’ll finally finish up the news discussions with, uh, the British royal family, releasing some new social guidelines, uh, social media guidelines. And then we will finish up as always with our insightful picks of the week.
Speaker 4:1:33Okay.
Speaker 3:1:35A followup to the last week where we talked about Luke Perry from 900 to one. Oh yeah. That was very sad. Having suffered a stroke. He has since passed away since then. Just a programming note on that, or sympathies to the friends and family there. It doesn’t come as a surprise to me. I kind of figured, given the lack of information that was coming out of his camp, that it was far more severe then most people probably thought. Right. And that’s what we kind of, we were hoping for the best last week when we were discussing it and you know, yeah. Unfortunately, 52 though, that’s, that’s unfortunate. But yeah, very young.
Speaker 4:2:19Okay.
Speaker 3:2:21Also in the celebrity of obituaries this week, Jan Michael Vincent, who shot the fame in the 80s for his role as Stringfellow Hawke in the television series, Airwolf has passed away as well. Uh, he was in a series of films in the 70s, appearing with the likes of Burt Reynolds and Kim Basinger. Uh, he was also a staple on some, uh, television shows, including lassie, bonanza and Gunsmoke. Uh, and his last appearance was in 2000 choose white boy, but I think everybody remembers him from Airwolf and is the helicopter or the rogue helicopter pilot of the Super Airwolf helicopter. Right, right. Then that series ran from 84 to 86, and I have to confess, I was a huge fan of the series, loved it the third, third season. They kind of went off the rails with it and swamped the entire cast out. But that’s largely attributed to Jan, Michael Vincent and his pretty severe cocaine addiction at the time.
Speaker 3:3:31Significant substance abuse issues. But while the show was in its hay day, he was actually the most highest paid performer on television at the time. Right. I remember that. Yeah. He was pulling in an estimated 200 grand per episode, which I guess in hindsight now is not that significant. But back then, back then it was huge. Absolutely. Uh, he’s had several, um, brushes with, with death, I guess you could say, and health issues. And in 2012 he wound up suffering from a rare infection that actually cost him his, his right leg is an amputation. Right. I did a read that, but uh, from everything that I’ve seen, his death was not attributed to that. He was still a form of death was cardiac arrest. So he is no longer with us. He was 73 years old as well. So that’s unfortunate. And he had a troubled life after air walls. Yeah.
Speaker 4:4:33Yeah.
Speaker 3:4:35And continuingly more of a news whenever pickup. Um, Alex tribec came out that I should say he’s still here. So yeah, just came out with a statement saying that he’s suffering from stage four pancreatic cancer. Uh, he is 78. What, what I thought was, was interesting was he felt obligated to come out and, and discuss with his audience in a statement. He basically said he didn’t want people finding out from a rumor site,
Speaker 5:5:08TMZ or something like that.
Speaker 3:5:10He, he wanted people to know the facts. He was completely open about it. He was in high spirits. He was even joking around saying, you know, I have to keep hosting because under the terms of my contract I have to host jeopardy for three more years.
Speaker 5:5:24Yeah. Yeah. And, and the thing is, I think the last time I, I happened to watch or, or see him, he did look a little bit thinner. Yeah. You know, so it, you know, I’m sure that was probably a reason for coming forward and being so forthright with it just because, okay, people are going to start wondering or if I’m going to certain doctors, people that are going to start, yeah. You know, speculating, let me just come right out. You know, I have nothing to hide.
Speaker 3:5:54Well on. What I thought was interesting was he had done interviews in the past couple of months where the question kept coming up as to who his successor should be. And yeah, he’s, he’s 78 he’s close to retirement, these past retirement for most average people. But you know, the fact that they’ve been talking about his successor, I think seem to strike me as kind of odd with this, with this news.
Speaker 5:6:21Right. Because in entertainment for what he does, you know, it, it, you could go on forever. It’s not like, oh, well you don’t look your age anymore. You know,
Speaker 3:6:33we’ll look at Bob Barker. How old was he? Was 82 I think something when he finally retired. The pencil stick microphone. Right, right. Just to throw away a stunning statistic out there, uh, the five year survival rate across all stages of pancreatic cancer, uh, is 9% on average. So it is a tough one to beat. But what I also thought was interesting was the outpouring of support that came out in Palisades.
Speaker 5:7:02Oh, well you figure he’s been hosting wheel of fortune for, you know, probably almost just as long as, you know, Alex has been doing, you know, jeopardy. They kind of started the shows, you know, that whole time, uh, Merv Griffin, you know, game show, you know, you had all these game shows that were, that were on, you know, TV at the time, and they’re really the only two that are, are still around.
Speaker 3:7:29That is true. That’s true. There were well wishes. The came from a number of jeopardy champions, uh, Ken Jennings being one of them, probably the most famous. Sure. Um, so you know, everyone is pulling for him. I mean we absolutely certainly would love to see the be this if for no other reasons than to not be one of the those that statistic, but 9% just absolutely
Speaker 4:7:56okay
Speaker 3:7:58on to other news that has less to do with deaths and more to do with ego. I think Steven Spielberg, and again this is in the wake of our, our Oscars discussions that we’ve had a Steven Spielberg is and I was facing some backlash for urging the academy to block Netflix from eligibility at the Oscars. So before your arrest, I guess. Yes. Yeah. But before we get into the deep discussion, I think it’s worthwhile to talk about how it, how you become eligible as a movie. Right? Right. So, and this is, this is taken directly from the Academy Awards website, their bylaws of eligibility and it’s not the entire subsection, but it’s basically what governs movies. So you need to be a feature length, which they define as anything over 40 minutes. Then you need to be publicly exhibited and they have technical specifications or the 35 or 70 millimeter film or in 1424 or 48 frame progressive scan digital cinema where the minimum project, the resolution of 2048 by 10 80 and then it goes into a deep granular dive on what digital cinema is. Okay. The only thing that’s worth while taking away from that is that blue ray format is not considered digital cinema. And they explicitly call that out. And I thought that was kind of interesting in the rules almost as if they were targeting sites like Netflix. Okay. There has to be paid admission in a commercial motion picture theater in Los Angeles County.
Speaker 5:9:33Okay. So it has to at some point be shown. Yes. And they, they qualify the Angeles though.
Speaker 3:9:40Correct. And they qualify that a little bit further. Right. It doesn’t have the pure makes you want it just in Los Angeles. Okay. They also say qualifying run of seven consecutive days with three screenings per day, uh, one of which must be between the hours of 6:00 PM and 10:00 PM.
Speaker 5:9:58Okay. Somebody is watching it at night, I guess, right? Yeah. Right.
Speaker 3:10:03Then they go on to determine that to define the advertising where advertise it must be advertised and what they termed as exploit it, which I’m not really sure what they mean by that than at the find that during the Los Angeles county run and it must be released within the awards year, which makes perfect sense. Right, right. And it also says that films that received their first public exhibition or distribution in any manner other than a theatrical motion picture will not be eligible. So I guess to interpret that, if a movie is released on Netflix before it appears in the Los Angeles county theatrical release wouldn’t then it would not be.
Speaker 5:10:44Okay. So as long as they go through the motions and it appears in the theater, they follow the guidelines for that and then it gets released, then technically it should be right anymore.
Speaker 3:10:58And the, the films that were up for a nomination from Netflix abundant by these rules. Okay. Spielberg claims that Netflix has been negatively affecting the theatrical experience. Uh, he’s argued that Netflix should compete for Emmy’s in the television area, but not for Oscars and the academy motion pictures despite the fact that they clearly meet the standards set forth by the motion picture. Yeah,
Speaker 5:11:31right, right. The academy. But I, I see his point because there are made for TV movies that the other channels do that they’re not eligible obviously for the academy awards because they are just shown on television, you know, they’re never shown in right in theaters for the most part. Where do you go to see Netflix? You see it, you know, in your home on your phone. You know, while you were in a doctor’s office, you don’t usually go to a theater, but obviously Netflix kind of found the loophole and said, well as long as we do this, this and this.
Speaker 3:12:11Well I guess that’s where my question is, is Netflix gaming the system or as Netflix using the systems rules as they were intended. Like you fulfill all the obligations of, of qualification to be nominated. Why shouldn’t you be nominated?
Speaker 5:12:27And the other thing too is that if the voting members of the academy didn’t feel it was a substantial, uh, nominee, why would they vote for it? Why did you know Romo Win so many awards this past Oscar season? Because everybody thought it was a great movie. You know, they don’t win, you know, just because, you know,
Speaker 3:12:54and that’s a very good point. You know, they’re not, just because you’re nominating it doesn’t mean you’re going to win and still has to be a certain level of quality in order to win. Right. And if the academy is picking you as a winner, then clearly you’re, you’re meeting those requirements. Absolutely. Cause it’s voted on. I mean, it’s not an arbitrary,
Speaker 5:13:14it’s not based off of how much you earned in the box office. It’s not based off of what critics, you know, um, said about you. It is clearly done based off of people that are able to vote.
Speaker 3:13:30Right. Well, uh, in response to Spielberg’s appealed to the board of Governors, uh, director of, uh, uh, Duvernay who received her first Oscar nomination in 2017 for her Netflix documentary. 13th, wrote a letter to the, uh, Academy Board of director is basically saying, and I quote a, this is a board of governor’s meeting and regular branch members can’t be there, but I hope if this is true that you’ll have filmmakers in the room or read statements from directors like me who feel differently. So there’s push back inside the industry itself from people who don’t want to limit the scope of the academy awards and eliminate really quality programming in this past awards. Netflix had 15 nominations, so, and they want a good portion of it.
Speaker 5:14:29And some of them were also in other for other films and other, uh, categories, not just for Roma. Um, I happened to catch on Netflix. Um, it was the winner of the best documentary and it was, the documentary was shown on, on Netflix. And I know usually, you know, most years any of the or live action or you know, the shorts are, you know, I usually never know about them or never see them or have an opportunity to wash them. But because of Netflix I was able to, to enjoy this one and it was, and it was well done. And I was, you know, I was pleased that they had won an award for, for their film.
Speaker 3:15:13And, and I think that speaks to the response that the formal response that Netflix had to Spielberg’s objections. They tweeted the following. We Love Cinema, here are some things we also love in a sort of tongue in cheek bullet point west access for people who can’t always afford or live in towns without theaters. Letting everyone everywhere enjoy releases at the same time, giving filmmakers more ways to share art. These are not mutually exclusive. And I think those points very well strike at the heart of the matter that Netflix reaches a larger different portion. It services more fans of entertainment. And I think the antiquated approach that Spielberg has where he basically wants to turn the, the Academy Awards into this elitist, um, showing and restrict very good talent. Um, there’s a whole pool of talent out there. I mean, you just, even if you just want to look at it from a dollar standpoint, the billions of dollars that Netflix is pouring into original content
Speaker 5:16:24about, which we talked about
Speaker 3:16:26last week is paying off, um, the produce incredibly poignant and well scripted, well researched and well, um, produced documentaries, films. Uh, yes, some of what they do should be classified for Emmy’s because they’re serial programs. Um, but a good portion of what they do are the quality of feature length films. And I think if you’re producing the material, you’re abiding by the academy’s rules, then there’s absolutely no reason why you should not be considered for a prestigious award like that. And if you start restricting that, then the prestige of that award, it starts to diminish when rapidly. I agree. Um, I think this is a case of Spielberg probably being a little too purist and a little too old fashioned in his approach to things. And I think it’s, it’s a detriment to the industry really.
Speaker 3:17:34Uh, the next thing we have on the docket here is Gandalf himself and Macallan is taking heat for some comments that he made. So he was doing an interview for a podcast Hashtag Queer Aaf. Uh, he was asked about sexual misconduct allegations against director Bryan singer, who he’s worked with in the x men franchise, an actor, Kevin Spacey. His statement, and I quote with a couple of names you’ve mentioned of people I work with, both of them were in the closet, hence all their problems as people and the relationship with other people. If they had been able to be open about themselves and their desires, they wouldn’t have started abusing people in the way they’re being accused. Now. That statement can be interpreted different ways. Uh, and I think, and based on, on his back peddling on this, basically what he was saying is that if society didn’t stigmatize homosexuals and force them to stay in the closet to protect their careers and themselves, people wouldn’t be forced to, to uh, I’ll say make decisions they shouldn’t be making. That’s the gist of what he was trying to say. What came out and what did he took heat for was he’s basically blaming sexual predatory practices on these men for being in the closet. And, and I think that’s a miss statement and a disservice to, I don’t even want to say just a homosexuals, but to everybody. I mean at that point in time you’re trying to justify the actions that these people may, by blaming their actions on society.
Speaker 5:19:24Right. Where, you know, if the allegations were coming from somebody of the opposite sex, would it still, you know, it has nothing to do with right.
Speaker 3:19:36Being in the closet
Speaker 5:19:37closet as we’ve, you know, we talked about the other debt, you know, the other week with, you know, the, the misconduct, you know, in the allegations and you know,
Speaker 3:19:48if you were in the closet about anything at that point in time when it’s being in the closet about being a sexual predator. Right, exactly. Exactly. Not Straight or gay or whatever. I don’t think it has anything to do with, with that. Um, he went on, Raquel McKellen went on this to sort of buried himself even further in this by saying, uh, those accused of sexual misconduct should not necessarily be forced to cease working. And I took exception to that because in cases of the entertainment industry here, the situations in which people are abusing people in a sexual way is industry specific. Yeah. Basically it’s, you know, if you don’t do what I want you to do, you’re not going to have a career. You’re not going to have a career. So if you in a position of power, you’re using that power, you are abusing that power to assault other people, then by no means should you still be allowed to be in that position of power while an investigation is.
Speaker 5:20:50Absolutely, and again, we talked about this, you know, last week as well, where depending on what your job is, you shouldn’t be able to still be in that career. It’s one thing if you’re an accountant that works from home and you’re being accused of, you know, sexual misconduct. Well if you’re at home and you’re not coming in contact with anybody, fine, you can continue to work while something’s being investigated. But if you, you know, if you’re a high school teacher and you’re being accused of, you know, misconduct with your students will of course you shouldn’t be allowed back in the school to work. So if you’re an actor or a director and you have to be in contact with people of, of all genders and of all, you know, orientations, you know, you shouldn’t be allowed to be with those other people while an investigation is going on.
Speaker 3:21:47And that’s not the say that you should not be considered innocent until proven guilty. But slowly you have to take an approach of an over abundance of caution for the potential victims and victims that are out there. Right. Where it should, the allegations prove true, then you’ve exposed so many other people to that potential Predator or the process. Right. You know, I’m, I’m firmly of the belief that if you’re in that position and accused, you can’t actively work in that position. But that’s not to say that you shouldn’t be continually compensated while you’re stepping down. Um, but to expose other potential victims to that kind of predatory practices is reckless and it’s unfair to those other victims. He did issue an apology on Twitter where he says, as part of an extended podcast recently, I suggested that if closeted people were instead open about their sexuality, they wouldn’t abuse others, that of course is wrong.
Speaker 3:22:54My intention was to encourage the LGBT audience I was addressing to be proud and open about their sexuality and doing so. My point was clumsily expressed. I would never ever trivialize working, don’t abuse of any kind. So, yeah, he was trying to make a valid point that was intended to be encouraging to the LGBT community. And I don’t know if he just stumbled over it could’ve been too. Yes. And it’s, it’s difficult to believe someone as eloquent as Ian Mckellen expressed himself, so in eloquently. Yeah. Um, but I guess it happens just for the record. Um, both singer spacey have denied the allegations of sexual misconduct against them. Um, and lawyers for spacey were to attend a pretrial hearing for the stars sexual assault case on Monday. So there has been no court cases to prove them innocent or guilty one way or the other. Right. It’s still has to play itself out in court. Right. But this is a, this is a situation where it’s a sensitive subject
Speaker 5:24:14and, and I think also it doesn’t matter whether what your sexual orientation is, if you are predetermined, you know, if, if you’re a Predator, you’re a Predator no matter what, you know. So coming out of the closet, you know, would that have made things easier for some people? No, I don’t, you know. And, and the other thing too is also the, the other person that that was the victim, you know, did, you know, not saying that they were, um, in the wrong the of anything, but, you know, maybe there were, I don’t know, signals crossed or, you know, again, the, the whole, you know, was it just hugging? Was it this, was it that, you know, I think in some cases there’s a little bit of over sensitivity in some cases. Not to say that in some cases it’s, it’s not right or it or it is right or whatnot. It just seems like every little thing now is being, you know, under the microscope.
Speaker 3:25:19No, and I agree, but I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing because for so long these things have been, oh, absolutely stigmatized and brushed under the carpet and the victims have been terrified to come forward. Absolutely. The other thing that I would point out is, while this isn’t industry specific, it could be situational. Um, for instance, people in a position of power tend to abuse that power. And I think that’s human nature. Oh, and that’s across the board, no matter where. Yes, where are you are, which is why, you know, contrary to McCollins other statement, if you’re in that position of power and you’re accused of this, you should not be allowed to retain that position of power while you’re being investigated. So we’ll see how this one plays out in court, but I think, uh, I think Gandalf has learned his lesson and making his statements now. Yeah.
Speaker 4:26:17Okay.
Speaker 3:26:19The last piece of a poignant entertainment news, uh, we go to England for this one. The British royal family has released social media guidelines, uh, that will govern the rural family clearance house and Kensington Palace, uh, communications. And this was in response to a of sexist and racist remarks that were aimed specifically at Kate Middleton and Meghan Markle. Um, some of which have been rather alarming. Um, in the official statement from the Royal Press Office, they said, we asked that anyone engaging with our social media channels, uh, shows courtesy, kindness and respect for all members of our social media communities. We reserve the right at our discretion whether car contribution. So our social media channel breach our guidelines, we reserve the right to hide, delete comments made on our channels as well as block users who did not follow these guidelines. We also reserve the right to send any comments we deem inappropriate, uh, deem appropriate to law enforcement authorities for investigation as we feel necessary or as required by law. Now they do go on to define what those guidelines are further, but that’s the general statement of what they put out. I don’t think there’s a disagreement between you and I about the cesspool that social media, oh my God,
Speaker 5:27:54it’s, and, and that’s the thing is I think over time it’s just gotten worse. You know, people feel that they can sit behind their computer and spew whatever hatred they they want without any repercussions. And you know, it’s almost the fact of people, you know, they would never say it in public, they would never say it face to face, but behind a screen they, they can let go. And they do. And you know, there are people that have very thick skin and just brush it off. But yet there are times when there are, you know, there was a statement that comes out about something and you’re, you kind of have to take it seriously and you know, especially when it’s a death threat or something like that because you don’t know who that psychopath is. This sitting behind the screen, you know, what arsenal does he have, you know, sitting behind him that he’s going to go off and do what he says he’s going to do.
Speaker 3:29:02Absolutely. And, and there were two confirmed violent threats through social media towards the rules just in the last year that when they were investigated, they were, they basically felt the sward it could have been an attack. Um, there was a recent analysis by an advocacy group called hope not hate of more than 5,000 tweets containing anti Megan hashtags. And they determined that about 20 accounts are responsible for about 70% of those tweaks.
Speaker 5:29:33Some people just have way too much time on their hands. Yeah. Well, you know, when it comes to that,
Speaker 3:29:40well to take it even a step further, um, many of those accounts were also associated with political hashtags, including Brexit and Manga are make America great again. Let me act surprised. So it’s, I dunno, to me it’s, it’s, I don’t see there being a need, especially for the royal family to be on social media. There are commercial advantages to it. There are business advantages to it. Um, it’s difficult to run any kind of nationwide or worldwide business without being on it. But I’m not sure that the royal family or politicians or individuals need to be on social media.
Speaker 5:30:30Well, and I think in, in some respects when it comes to that, it gives people access to them. It makes them, you know, seem like regular folk,
Speaker 3:30:42but they’re not.
Speaker 5:30:43Oh absolutely. And, and they should be, you know, a higher, you know, regard for, you know, for them. But I could definitely see, you know, politicians though, having some sort of social media accounts so that you know, their constituents or you know, can, can get in contact with them, you know, but you know, does it need to be as flooded as, you know, like does every royal member of the royal family need their own account or could they just have one, you know, basic account, you know, or you know, the, the White House and the Senate, you know, do you need to have all these individual, you know, accounts. I think the more accounts you have, the more you’re allowing the floodgates open to, you know, more hate coming in, you know, then maybe good being done.
Speaker 3:31:42Well, and the way that I look at it is Britain has had a royal family in place for 1500 years now and they’ve only up social media for 15 years. So somehow they managed to make it work. They’ve managed to keep the kingdom going without Twitter for quite some time. And you look at the United States, you know, the country has been in existence for 250 years without, without Twitter. Uh, all of a sudden we get a, you know, political entity now who lives on Twitter and stars, more fires in anything. Twitter, he’s the biggest troll on Twitter.
Speaker 5:32:22Right? No, I, I definitely agree with that.
Speaker 3:32:25I think it’s a detriment at this point in time to these forms of government to have that kind of access because these institutions were not built around that kind of access, especially the royal family. The royal family always been above the common people. That’s the whole point of royalty. Right? But I think also in terms of getting news and information and statements out, think about, you know, you know, 200 years ago you, you know, it took how many weeks for news of something to get released or be known about. Um, you know, sometimes months before a town would hear about something or, you know, so I mean, if you want to look at technology like that, television and radio, television and radio been around about a hundred years now and they’ve served the public quite well, inform this hallway. Uh, I don’t need to have the presidents or, you know, the princesses sending me a direct message on my Twitter account.
Speaker 3:33:40I don’t know, to be kind of cool. I don’t need that level of access to them. No, I agree. It doesn’t serve a purpose to me. Well, and no, I, I definitely agree that, you know, there’s a certain level of, okay, this is kind of Nice. And then there’s the over the top, you know, and that’s, I’m okay with the, you know, the, the mid, mid to lower level. Like you want to, you know, post something, you know about something historic, that’s fine. But the over the top trolling like our current president does, then, you know, that’s where it’s, or over and above. So just to compare the United Kingdom to the United States. Um, basically the rules came out and said they’re gonna censor their social media and they’re perfectly fine with that. Um, president Trump trying to do the same thing. He had this nasty tendency of blocking people on Twitter who didn’t agree with them, argued with him, um, pointed out his errors in his lies and, and whatnot.
Speaker 3:34:55Basically, he wanted to silence his detractors. Well, in May of 2018, Judge Naomi Resa, uh, Buchwald ruled that it was unconstitutional for the president to block users on Twitter for their comments that opposed to him because it was a violation of their first amendment right to free speech. Um, so I thought it was kind of an interesting parallel that our government tried to do what the rules are trying to do, but our judicial system wouldn’t allow it because our constitution doesn’t allow it. I don’t know if this was a good precedent to, um, give Twitter a sense of legitimacy saying that they are constitutionally protected. I think that that scares me as much as a president who relies on it. But I think it’s an interesting contrast to this latest move by the royals who don’t have a problem silencing the critics or, or whoever now crane it. They’re using a violent threats and hate speech as a reason to silence them. But the fact that their silencing them at all is I think a major statement. Absolutely.
Speaker 4:36:12Oh,
Speaker 3:36:15that moves us on to our insightful picks of the week. And Michelle, I will defer to you first.
Speaker 5:36:26Well thank you. So my insightful pick going back to our good friend Netflix, really need to get them as a sponsor. That would be awesome. Would be a a web series called the chilling adventures of Sabrina. And I believe I’m kind of mentioned them last week. Um, when I was comparing my last week’s pick of the umbrella academy to a, reminded me a bit of the chilling adventures of Sabrina. So it’s an adaptation of the Sabrina, the teenage witch tail, which is a dark coming of age story that traffics in horror and the occult. And it’s the a reimagined origin story of Sabrina Spellman as she wrestles to dis, um, to reconcile her dual nature being half witch and half mortal and how she deals with the evil forces that threaten her family, including her two aunts that she lives with, um, as well as the, um, friends and other people within the town that she lives in.
Speaker 5:37:39Um, so for anybody that grew up in the 90s, there was Sabrina, the teenage witch television series that was a comedy. Um, and this is definitely not, uh, that same version. This delves more, um, more I think closely related to the, the comic which was, which was a bit dark and also I believe is by the same production company or a producers that make Riverdale, which is the darker tale of Archie. Yeah. Um, so it’s, it’s uh, has a lot of parallels with that. Um, funny in some cases that dark humor, I’m the darker cult, uh, that I, I tend to like, um, just very well done. A season two, we’ll actually be airing next month, April 5th, I believe. Um, so the series came out, I believe it was 12 episodes. They actually did a Christmas episode, um, over the holidays as well. So it starts up again from the reviews that I saw for season two.
Speaker 5:38:51Uh, some said it was he, uh, if not better than season one, it was definitely on par. Um, the way that, uh, the, the first season went was her deciding whether or not to stay mortal or to go more towards her, which side basically, you know, she comes of age and you have to make a decision. Are you signing the book of the beast or you, you know, stay immortal forever and obviously at the end, not to give it away, she signs the book. Um, you gave it away. I know. I was kidding. If you read it, you’re going to know that that’s what happens. Anyway. So season two picks up with, okay, she signed the book. Now what happens? How does she deal with her mortal friends and everything else and all of these beasts that are coming after her. Um, so I’m, I’m definitely looking forward to season. Yeah.
Speaker 3:39:51So have they done a Buffy the vampire slayer? Oh, here’s your goal for it. Yeah,
Speaker 5:39:56no, they haven’t. One of my best
Speaker 3:39:59episodes ever or favorite episodes. Okay. Well thank you for that. Pick Michelle. Not a problem. Joe. I did watch one episode with you briefly and uh, I definitely can confirm that it is a very dark or cult, which not really my style, but nothing wrong with that. Nope.
Speaker 4:40:21Oh,
Speaker 3:40:24so Bonnie safe. We’ll pick this week. We’re going to go sort of on the geek side with quark science. Quark science is a production available on Amazon prime video. Uh, it is a documentary series hosted by British physicist, a gym out Khalili, uh, seasoned one consists of six episodes dealing with some of the fundamental questions of science. Um, what I found interesting was about this was it was not originally produced as a series. It was produced as a bunch of stand off episodes. They were packaged up and put on Amazon prime as a series a or as a season, I should say. Uh, and it’s interesting because the time difference varies. You have some of these episodes are two hours long, some of them are an hour long. Um, but each of them deal with their own fundamental principle of science. You’ve got things such as, you know what the series is named after the quark and dealing with a subatomic particles, you have gravity, you dark matter.
Speaker 3:41:35Um, there’s a, there’s a number of, of topics there. I think the first four episodes in a series probably are, are, are the best. I think the last two in season one, they were kind of stretching from material to do stuff lawn, so they’re a little harder to get through. Um, what was interesting was I think the show presented, um, was presented in a form of a living science project. Um, they take you through the experiments and they take you out and they visit various, you know, scientific locations, like a gravity sensors and particle accelerators. Like you see where the science is actually being done. So it’s a mix of lectures and interviews and actual science. I mean they at one point in time when they’re, when they’re dealing with gravity, they send a team around England to measure gravity with various devices and the base, the take that information and then they actually calculate the time dilation effect based on the gravity and your speed.
Speaker 3:42:52And it’s just fascinating to see how some of Einstein’s theories on, on relativity are applied to practical daily life. Um, and, and you can calculate that you age faster in certain areas they can do and others and all that. You were talking microseconds, but it’s still, it’s, you can calculate it then that’s it’s, it’s fascinating the way they apply it. Um, it’s a, it’s a refreshing take on science programming that is often a dry and lecture based where they try to spice things up just with computer graphics. This almost feels like you’re part of the science program. Um, so I highly recommend quark science on Amazon prime. That is my pick of the week. Did you have any closing words my dear? No, I don’t think I did for this week. Um, we do have our contact information is available now. You can visit us on our website@insightsintothings.com. Uh, all of our podcast episodes are up on that site for this series and our other productions. You can email us@commentsandinsightsintoentertainment.com, uh, with questions, suggestions, topics you’d like us to talk about, uh, or just feedback on the productions. And I think that’s all we have for this week. Okay.
Speaker 6:44:32We’ll be back next week with another. Great. Okay.
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