This week we have a slightly different set up. We are focusing on five things you should have in your TV diary for the coming autumn and winter months.
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00:00 Hello and welcome to Screen Babble, your guide to what to watch.
00:04 We'll be tuning into hours and hours of TV so we can tell you
00:06 what you need to be switching on and what's to be avoided.
00:09 I'm your host, Kelly Crichton, and as ever, our resident TV
00:12 critic, Stephen Ross is here.
00:14 We're on our own this week as we're looking forward to some of the big hitters
00:18 coming to a small screen near you this autumn and winter.
00:21 We have five shows to tell you about.
00:24 Gen V, Boiling Point, Doctor Who,
00:27 Fraser and Squid Game, The Challenge, the last of which there
00:31 I've heard zero about, so I'm excited to hear, Stephen,
00:34 what you have to tell us about that.
00:36 Remember, if you want to see our faces, you can head over to the brand new
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00:43 across the country who are transforming stories at the heart of your community
00:46 into great TV.
00:48 You'll find true crime stories, football news and analysis,
00:50 plus coverage of lifestyle, TV, film and much more.
00:53 So we have these five things.
00:55 Stephen, you are going to talk to us about Gen V first.
00:59 Yes. And remember to tell us when we can expect all these things.
01:03 That's a very good point.
01:05 So Amazon generously gave me the first six episodes of Gen V
01:10 to watch. It's not a bad gig, is it?
01:13 So it's a spin off series of The Boys.
01:16 So for those that don't know, The Boys is a series about superheroes.
01:20 But most of the superheroes are quite corrupt and actually quite villainous.
01:26 Homelander is like the big bad in that series.
01:28 He kills a lot of innocent people, essentially,
01:31 in his sort of lust for power.
01:35 Is that another Amazon series?
01:36 Yes. OK.
01:39 So Gen V is set after season three of The Boys, which aired last year
01:43 and presumably before season four, which is still to come out.
01:46 And at the end of season three of The Boys, there's this revelation that
01:53 superheroes were getting their powers because
01:56 their parents had been giving them this drug called compound V
02:00 when they were young and that awakened in them superpowers.
02:05 And it follows a group of students who had been given compound V
02:11 at a college for superheroes.
02:14 And it's weirdly thematically very similar to Sky High.
02:18 That like really like
02:22 just that children's film from like 2006
02:27 about a school for people with strange superpowers.
02:30 Oh, yes. I know what my kids watch it.
02:33 Yeah. Yeah.
02:35 It's kind of like that, except like stylized like The Boys.
02:38 So there's lots of
02:39 nudity and extreme violence and...
02:44 A bit more grown up then.
02:45 Yeah. And some sort of very cringey violence as well.
02:50 And it's pretty good.
02:55 But there are some like, like I say, it's a bit like Sky High
03:00 and it's a bit hard to get past that.
03:01 And in some ways it feels like
03:04 a bit of a cliched teen drama.
03:06 OK. Because of that.
03:09 But it's interesting.
03:11 And the plot's sort of begun to sort of develop the further in,
03:15 I get the first couple of episodes where
03:17 we're interesting.
03:20 The first episode ends in a way that I really didn't expect it to,
03:23 which I don't think many people expect it to.
03:25 And it sort of takes the show in an entirely new direction.
03:28 But essentially it follows one girl at the school,
03:33 at the school, Marie Moreau, played by Jaz Sinclair,
03:37 whose superpower is basically she can control her own blood,
03:40 which is a bit grim.
03:43 But there you are. Interesting.
03:45 Yeah. And when that power was awakened in her,
03:48 when she got her first period, she accidentally killed both her parents.
03:52 So she's very traumatized.
03:54 But I think I've heard, did we talk about this before?
03:57 Did we? No.
03:59 No. Do you know what's reminding me of?
04:01 So is that and I don't remember the name of it is just as you're talking about it,
04:05 is that series that was about,
04:08 you know, it was like flipping the patriarchy on its head
04:12 because all the women had the superpowers.
04:14 Oh, yes.
04:17 Is it the power? It was called the power.
04:20 Yeah, there you go.
04:22 It reminds me of that slightly as you talk about it there, but go ahead.
04:26 Sorry.
04:27 Yeah. So Marie Moreau can control her own blood.
04:31 And then there's Golden Boy, played by Patrick Schwarzenegger,
04:36 who I believe is related to Arnold and stuff.
04:38 With a name like that. Yes. OK.
04:41 And he's like very super powerful.
04:44 He can like set himself on fire like the human torch
04:49 and also has pretty good strength.
04:51 And then you have Marie Moreau's roommate,
04:55 Emma Shaw, played by Lizzie Broadway, who can make herself tiny.
04:59 But because it's the from the world of the boys,
05:03 it's got this sort of darker take on all these powers.
05:06 And she basically to make herself tiny
05:10 has had to develop an eating disorder.
05:11 And it's it's yeah, it's really
05:14 OK, really quite.
05:16 It sounds like it sounds like it's like trying to be sort of modern.
05:20 The I or sometimes it's just a bit too gritty
05:24 for the sake of being gritty and edgy.
05:26 And OK, yeah. Yeah.
05:28 But the general plot is that Marie Moreau and her superhero
05:32 friends band together to help free
05:37 another character who's related, who's the brother of one of the other characters
05:41 from a secret government compound
05:45 where they seem to be experimenting on superheroes,
05:48 a young superheroes and torturing and tormenting them.
05:52 It's definitely not something you want to watch if you're squeamish.
05:55 OK, don't want
05:59 close up shots of penises.
06:03 Most every episode.
06:04 I'm sure there's people out there who that's exactly what they want.
06:06 So, yeah, I don't know if they'd want it in the way that it's presented in this show.
06:11 Yeah, OK.
06:14 I kind of I'm kind of what's the word intrigued now?
06:17 Yeah, well, you're talking about you get back to me in October.
06:22 The first three episodes land on Amazon Prime on the 29th of September.
06:28 And then that's too far away.
06:30 And its weekly releases thereafter, I believe there's eight episodes in total.
06:34 It'll end sometime in November.
06:37 OK, cool. So out of our five programs we're talking about on this episode,
06:42 that is the only one we've actually seen, correct?
06:44 We've not seen the other ones.
06:46 So, yeah, so it's the other the other previews are going to be more like.
06:50 Yeah, I take no responsibility for the others.
06:52 Yeah, exactly.
06:54 So we're we do proper, maybe proper reviews when they come out.
06:57 But for the moment, it's more like these are things that you should have
06:59 on your radar that are coming up.
07:01 So the first thing I want to talk about is Boiling Point.
07:05 Which I think I had heard that we're going to make a TV series of it.
07:07 But that was quite a while ago and sort of it all went quiet.
07:10 But basically it's a sequel to the 2021 film,
07:13 which we have definitely talked about on this podcast before.
07:18 I suppose the unusual thing about it was it's a one it was a one shot film.
07:22 So the camera continuously follows the main character,
07:25 Stephen Graham, around or whatever.
07:26 And it was set across whatever, an hour and a half in this restaurant
07:31 that he runs in London, quite an upmarket restaurant, Christmas time.
07:36 And they've just had an inspection, which they've been downgraded
07:40 because there's been problems with how they've been storing things in the kitchen.
07:44 And he's really cross with all the staff.
07:45 But it turns out he's kind of partly to blame himself.
07:48 And it's kind of, you know, a perfect storm because they have an old colleague
07:53 of his that he trained under comes in to have dinner with a food critic.
07:58 I mean, it's kind of that's challenging in itself.
08:00 But also then they've got a proposal happening in another table.
08:03 The restaurant is overbooked and then somebody chokes on something.
08:07 And it's just like quite a frantic, high energy, stressful watch.
08:12 One of the most stressful things I've ever watched in my life.
08:15 Like you are constantly on the edge of your seat from the minute it goes.
08:19 And I think it's not only the content, but it's the way it's shot, obviously.
08:23 And it's Stephen Graham is so good at that sort of.
08:25 Put upon man sort of playing that part, you know.
08:30 And the film is available on Netflix currently.
08:33 Yeah. So so the film got really positive reviews.
08:38 And then off the back of that in 2022,
08:42 it was revealed that the series was going to be a four part series
08:46 was commissioned by BBC one.
08:48 So there are four one hour episodes.
08:50 It's the same director of the film, Philip Barantini.
08:53 He's directing the first two of the new series.
08:56 And then there's another director, Munia Akal,
08:59 who are he's directing episode three and four.
09:02 So basically it picks up eight months after Andy, who's Stephen Graham's
09:07 character, suffers a heart attack at the end of the film.
09:10 And his head chef, Carly, who's played by Vinette Robinson.
09:15 She's battling to forge a new new name for this restaurant,
09:18 a new restaurant in Dalston called Point North, which she's running
09:22 with the old crew.
09:23 So it's all the old characters from the including including Stephen Graham.
09:28 He is in it. Yeah.
09:29 But I think we don't know an awful lot about it, but I get the vibe that he's
09:33 he's still a main character in it, but he's not in the kitchen
09:36 for whatever reason, or he's not.
09:38 Maybe he's trying to get back in or something like that.
09:40 But he's maybe still struggling.
09:42 You know, a lot of problems in the first in the film.
09:46 So I think we're sort of picking up there.
09:48 So, yeah, so all we know about is that the the team are we're following
09:52 the team as the stresses of keeping the restaurant running
09:54 bear down in the midst of hospitality industry in crisis
09:58 with the pressure to draw in new hungry customers and the financial squeeze
10:02 to keep the business profitable.
10:03 The team must find a way to manage their complicated personal lives
10:05 whilst creating quality food day in, day out.
10:07 So, yeah, we don't know exactly when it's going to air.
10:11 But it's safe to say that excitement for the first series like is high
10:17 and that it was the film was nominated for loads of awards and stuff.
10:21 So I have no doubt it's going to be well received.
10:25 So we will let you know on the main podcast, obviously, when that is coming up.
10:28 And obviously, Stephen will catch it on a weekend watch as well.
10:31 So that is boiling point.
10:33 OK, cool. Over to you, Stephen.
10:34 This is one of the most hotly anticipated events of the coming TV schedule.
10:40 The return of Doctor Who and its 60th anniversary.
10:45 Is that correct?
10:46 Yeah, it will be the 60th since the original series aired
10:50 back in the 23rd of November 1963.
10:55 I think the day after the JFK assassination.
11:01 Was it? Wow.
11:03 I think. Interesting.
11:05 And yeah, that was the Unearthly Child, the debut episode of a show
11:11 that at the time was supposed to be this little sci-fi project
11:15 that may have run for a couple of seasons and ended up going on for decades.
11:21 Obviously, there was a break and then it got brought back in 2005
11:25 and has become, if anything, even more popular.
11:29 And I guess one of the most popular actors
11:35 to play Doctor Who or the Doctor is David Tennant, right?
11:38 I mean, he was my favorite Doctor by a mile.
11:41 I think Alex incorrectly thought it was Nick Paldi, did he?
11:48 Yeah, I think so.
11:50 Bless him. But yeah, so David Tennant.
11:55 I feel like this is a, it's like, I don't know, it's like people debating
11:59 over what Star Trek's. Yeah, it's an eternal.
12:02 It's one of the, it's a testament to how good or popular the show is, though.
12:06 That, yeah, since the 80s, people have debated who the best Doctor is.
12:12 And obviously every time the new one is, the debate just gets longer.
12:16 But yeah, David Tennant returns as the 14th Doctor.
12:21 So Jodie Whittaker will regenerate into David Tennant.
12:29 Or has done already. I'm not.
12:32 Anyway, David Tennant will reprise his role.
12:35 And the plot of the three specials, which are due to air from November,
12:43 has been kept pretty much under wraps.
12:46 But we do know that David Tennant will reunite with Catherine Tate as Donna Noble,
12:51 which is interesting because last time she was involved with him,
12:57 she wasn't able to sort of remember her time with the Doctor,
13:02 because if she did, basically her brain would explode.
13:06 Or that was the theory. So presumably they found a workaround.
13:08 And then again, in a bittersweet moment, Bernard Cribbins will return as
13:14 Donna's grandfather.
13:16 They were spotted filming together before Cribbins death earlier in the year.
13:22 So that'll probably be his last onscreen role,
13:27 which is quite nice, really, because he starred in the 1960s
13:32 Doctor Who and the Daleks movies
13:33 and then came to Doctor Who again in like 2010 sort of time, 2008.
13:41 And then his last screen role will most likely be Doctor Who.
13:45 But yeah, the plot of the specials has been mostly sort of
13:52 kept a secret for now.
13:54 We do know that it'll be three one hour long specials.
13:57 And at some point during that,
13:59 Nikuti Gatwa from Sex Education, he plays Eric in Sex Education,
14:07 will return, not will return, will become the Doctor,
14:13 the new Doctor, the 15th incarnation following David Tennant's regeneration.
14:17 And it'll be joined by...
14:20 Does that lead into a new series then next year?
14:22 Or what's the timing?
14:23 In spring 2024.
14:26 And he'll be joined by Millie Gibson as the new companion.
14:29 She's the youngest Doctor Who companion yet.
14:32 I think she's 18 at the time it was filmed.
14:37 I think Nikuti will be great as the Doctor.
14:39 He looks just like seeing the sort of preview images of them in there.
14:46 They've released some images of them in like 1970s dress.
14:50 And they look like they really embody it and they're really having fun.
14:55 And I think, yeah, I think that'll be great.
14:58 But I'm really excited to see David Tennant return.
15:02 I think a lot of people who haven't watched Doctor Who for several years
15:05 and like myself, I've not seen it since the first season of Peter Capaldi properly.
15:11 I think a lot of people that watched it in 2005, 2006, 2010 will come back.
15:18 It's hard to believe it's 13 years since David Tennant left the show.
15:22 I know. It's funny because obviously they're doing this as a sort of a bridging thing.
15:27 There's a lot of this going on in the BBC at the moment
15:29 and they're doing stuff in EastEnders where they're bringing all characters
15:31 back to programmes to sort of entice people back, obviously.
15:34 Yeah, well, it's fair enough.
15:36 I think it's going to work.
15:37 It's going to work.
15:37 It works because people are either intrigued or nostalgic, you know.
15:42 So, yeah, why not?
15:44 Like, you know, I think I heard back to the sci-fi's I would have watched
15:47 like Star Trek and stuff growing up, and I just found that the quality,
15:51 it didn't have the same quality.
15:52 I don't know.
15:53 I think that's the appeal though.
15:54 I think that's the appeal.
15:55 But yes, Doctor Who will be back on BBC in the UK and Ireland.
16:01 And then since Disney has bought the brand, it'll be released on Disney+
16:05 in other territories.
16:07 I didn't know that.
16:09 We don't actually officially know the air date yet,
16:11 but given that it was the 23rd of November that the first episode came out,
16:15 I imagine that it'll be around the 23rd of, sorry, 23rd of November.
16:21 I imagine it'll be around the 23rd of November that the specials begin to air.
16:26 Cool. OK. Right.
16:28 Moving along swiftly then.
16:30 My second show I want to talk about is The Return of Fraser.
16:34 It's not a re, I suppose it's not a reboot.
16:38 It's not a spin off.
16:38 It's just coming back, but it's coming back in a different sort of setting.
16:42 Yeah. So basically we're picking up like however many years later.
16:47 I don't know. I'm not even sure.
16:48 Like a modern day, I guess, from when we left it.
16:51 And Fraser, Kelsey Grammer, it's
16:55 he's moved back to Boston where his character was born as a character
16:59 in Cheers, obviously.
17:00 And Fraser was a spin off from Cheers, for those of you
17:03 who are not old enough to know that.
17:04 And he goes back to work at a university and his son is there.
17:12 His nephew becomes a prominent character as well,
17:14 which would have been Niles and Daphne's son.
17:17 And even though Niles isn't in this at all, which is a shame
17:21 because I love him, but fair enough, people move on, et cetera.
17:25 And but Roz does come back.
17:28 She's kind of recurring character, as is Lillian, which is Fraser's ex-wife.
17:33 Also, also a Cheers character originally.
17:36 But basically we pick up on this new sort of set on campus type idea.
17:42 He's teaching the new character of his friend
17:46 Alan Cornwall, who is a professor,
17:52 is played by no one other than Nicholas Lindhurst,
17:56 which is going to be absolutely brilliant, I think, because he's such a great comic
17:59 actor. Most people would know him as Rodney in Only Fools and Horses.
18:06 But he's been in many, many, many other programs since.
18:08 So so it's a whole new sort of setting.
18:12 And it's all the sort of challenges around, you know, his next
18:15 the next chapter of his life, new relationships.
18:18 And, you know, he's got a dream or two that he wants to fulfill.
18:20 That's the bump on it.
18:21 And they want to kind of pay tribute to the people that
18:26 were on the old show as well.
18:26 His father, played by John Mahoney, he passed away since the last series.
18:31 So there's probably a little tribute to him in there as well.
18:34 And yeah, so and just a funny little aside when I was looking this up,
18:39 there is going to be a competing remake called Our Fraser Remake
18:45 is scheduled to premiere online on October 11th.
18:49 It's a fan made collaborative remake of the original show's season one finale
18:53 with over 100 artists, animators and filmmakers,
18:56 each reimagining chunks of the show in their own visual style.
19:00 So you can watch out for that as well.
19:02 And we do actually have a date for this.
19:04 It's coming to Paramount Plus on the 12th of October.
19:08 So that's next week when you'll be listening to this.
19:10 So there you go. That's Fraser.
19:11 Finally, the one I was saying I had heard nothing about, Squid Game,
19:15 the challenge, presumably a follow on from Squid Game that was massive.
19:21 So it's based on the Netflix South Korean series Squid Game,
19:25 which broke Netflix records in 2021.
19:28 It got like a billion hours streamed.
19:31 I think it was one of the first shows to do that,
19:33 or the first foreign language shows on the platform to do that.
19:35 It was a pretty fantastic series about
19:40 400 and so fairly desperate
19:45 Korean citizens who are convinced to take part in this deadly game show where
19:51 they get through a series of bloody challenges.
19:57 Yeah. And towards the end, you have
20:01 a handful of the 400 left alive because they've been gradually,
20:06 brutally killed off in competing for this huge sum of money.
20:11 And it was sort of a critique of, I guess, the class system in Korea.
20:15 South Korea.
20:17 And also sort of a excuse to have this really bloody, violent series.
20:22 And it was very good.
20:24 And Squid Game, the challenge
20:27 could fall on its ass, depending on how it is presented.
20:34 It's a reality series based on the show
20:39 and will feature the same sort of
20:43 games that were featured in the show.
20:45 But obviously...
20:47 But happily, no one's going to get murdered.
20:49 Well, you can stay happily, yeah.
20:50 And obviously that's a good thing.
20:52 But if you think about the challenges in Squid Game,
20:57 if you take out the threat of death.
20:59 Yeah, true.
21:00 Well, one of the challenges just becomes tug of war.
21:03 Yeah.
21:04 Another is like cut out a bit of honeycomb music.
21:09 What's the time, Mr. Wolf?
21:10 Yeah, what's the time, Mr. Wolf?
21:11 Exactly.
21:12 So there are kids games, aren't they?
21:14 And marbles and stuff like that.
21:16 Yeah.
21:16 And the whole point of Squid Game was that they were quite simple games
21:19 with brutal stakes.
21:23 So I'm not sure.
21:26 Yeah, but you could see how they could like emulate it.
21:29 And, you know, if you've ever watched The Floor is Lava or one of those things,
21:32 it's probably going to be more similar to that, you know.
21:34 And I think it's going to be...
21:35 The tug of war isn't going to be onto a bed of spikes.
21:37 It's going to be into a pool of lava.
21:39 Yeah.
21:40 I.e. slime or whatever.
21:41 But maybe it would be better as a fully children's show.
21:45 But they're putting a lot into it.
21:47 Maybe even better if they did actually maim them and kill them.
21:49 Yeah.
21:50 There's 456 contestants like in the show.
21:54 So that's big.
21:56 I think that's the biggest number of players
21:59 that have ever been in like one reality series contestant.
22:01 OK.
22:02 And they're playing for three point...
22:03 I like that idea.
22:05 They're playing for 3.65 million,
22:08 which I think is also the biggest cash prize
22:11 for a reality series of its kind as well.
22:14 And if they do that thing that they do in the original Squid Game,
22:17 which is they kind of tell you the backstory of the characters,
22:20 like that would be interesting, you know, if we've got influencers
22:22 and bodybuilders and gymnasts.
22:25 And if there's that real element of picking these people against each other
22:28 to really test their skills and qualities and that kind of thing.
22:31 So that'll be good.
22:32 But you're right.
22:33 You need to get the task bit correct.
22:35 And I hope they don't try and semi-dramatize it
22:39 where they like...
22:40 Oh, yeah.
22:41 ...blend that it's like Squid Game
22:43 and then it just becomes this goofy thing.
22:45 Yeah.
22:47 But yeah, that will be coming sometime in November on Netflix.
22:51 We don't have released it yet.
22:53 I think it'll definitely spike when it lands,
22:55 because A) some people will think it's another season of Squid Game
22:58 and B) some people will just...
23:01 Obviously, a lot of people really like Squid Game.
23:02 So because it's connected, people will tune in.
23:05 I don't know how many people will continue watching it.
23:07 Again, it depends on whether they get the right vibe with it.
23:11 There's definitely potential for it to be a really fun reality series,
23:15 and it could also be really goofy, which might not be a bad thing.
23:19 It just depends if it's good goofy or bad goofy.
23:21 That's us for this week.
23:22 It's great to know there's so much coming up in the next few months.
23:25 And we will, of course, keep you up to date when all of these are coming to air.
23:28 Thank you for joining us this week.
23:30 Do look out for Friday morning's Screen Babble Weekend Watch,
23:32 which will preview what to watch over the weekend and beyond.
23:35 If you have any suggestions for what TV we need to get into our lives,
23:37 drop us a line by our social media.
23:39 We'd love for you to rate, review and subscribe to the podcast
23:42 so we can reach as many TV lovers as possible.
23:44 We'll be back next week with more Screen Babble.
23:46 Ciao. Bye.
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