TV Round-Up 2023: Best Series, Streaming Hits & Must-Watch Reviews with Paul Critoph

Well, it's the year 2024.

How did we get here?

This came around fast, didn't it?

Very futuristic.

Trying to think of when I was a kid and how long four years was, you know.

I grew up in the 80s, so like 1980 to 1984.

So many things happened, like I was living in England, and I sort of got taken to Ireland and traveled around Europe.

I was involved in post office robberies with my parents, read my book, you shot my dog and I love you.

I was brought back to England.

I lived in London.

I traveled to school on the tube.

I got arrested.

I got sent back to my grandparents.

And a year later, I moved to Peterborough.

And all of that is the same amount of time as the pandemic to now.

And that has gone by in a blink of an eye.

So, you know, time is relative, I guess, especially when you're a kid.

Everything just seems to be very, very long.

Anyway, here we are in 2024.

I'm glad to say I have the studio mostly up and running.

I've got this nice big desk.

I was looking for a desk, a nice big wooden desk made of wood.

Impossible to find these days.

Everything's empty F and made of crappy old fiberboard.

But this guy was selling a Welsh dresser, a Welsh dresser, sound like Sean Connery, a Welsh dresser, which my wife wanted to use in the sort of dining room for the kids to keep all their arts and crafts in.

And when you delivered it, I went out to the van and he had this old desk.

And he goes, oh, I'm getting rid of this.

You can, I'm throwing it away.

Do you want it?

And I was like, well, I'll give you a tenner for it.

And it's just this massive piece of wood with fold down tables at the end, like little circular tables, which I chopped off.

And I'm now making sort of as high shelves.

Anyway, it's a solid piece of, I think, I don't know.

I mean, oak maybe?

Fucking massive it is.

Brought these legs online, sucked my own legs on it, took the original ones off.

Now I've got this amazing desk and it cost me 60 quid all in.

So I'm absolutely chuffed.

I guess at some point it was a kitchen table.

It's quite deep, but it's great for what I'm doing.

Anyway, the New Year's come around nice and fast, isn't it, after Christmas?

Lots of stuff with the kids, the usual Christmas stress and all of that.

I'm really happy when Christmas is over.

Not in a negative sort of screwgy way.

It's just like, it's a lot.

It's a lot of cardboard, it's a lot of stuff, it's a lot of paper, it's a lot of organizing.

And having been that we have just moved, it's just all added to it, you know?

That's part of it.

We had a few funny incidents, I guess.

There was a bit of a sort of, what do you call it?

Like clutziness around Boxing Day, I think.

My daughter tripped on a cable, which pulled down our Bodom and shattered glass all over the floor.

So I've since repurchased that.

Turns out they're now made of plastic.

All of it, even the sort of circular, metal-y bit that pushes down the grains.

Nope, made of plastic, everything's plastic.

Bodom, fucking hell, guys.

What are you doing?

All over, oh shit.

It looked like it was made for two quid, it cost like 20-something.

I'm pretty unimpressed, and I may take two social media because of it.

So the most classy thing that probably happened over the Christmas period is the garage door fell off, which is very, very annoying because it's not secure.

But that was annoying, and it was annoying, and I felt my sort of, I don't know, I felt myself drain a little bit.

But the worst bit was we got two fridges now, two-fridge family, which is ridiculous.

Turns out the fridge that's in the house already doesn't really work, and I always wanted a smeg fridge.

And we found one online secondhand for like just a hundred quid.

So we went and got that, put it in the room.

It doesn't quite work, but it's got this little egg tray, old-fashioned egg, you know, in the tray, little egg shapes.

And I thought it would be really nice, but because it's in this sort of carpeted room, I was thinking, fuck, I'm going to drop those in there.

And at that time I was thinking about it, I was actually cracking an egg in the kitchen, putting it into a pan.

And I dropped that egg while I was thinking about dropping an egg in a different room.

I just looked at it on the floor, and I thought just like, fuck my life.

This is, I think I thought, you know, I guess I know what kind of day.

This is going to be.

So there's a lot of that.

I guess it's all down to tiredness, right?

All down to tiredness.

But nothing worse than a fucking disgusting egg on the floor, is it?

It's gross.

Makes you want to go vegan.

Not quite.

It's a new year.

We got a new logo.

We're having a soft relaunch, I guess you could call it.

Pod isn't changing much, but it looks different.

I'm going to stop those audiogram vids.

I think I'm getting very bored with those.

You don't need to hear them.

Just press the link and listen to the podcast.

Do you know what I mean?

I'm going to get you in a different way.

I'm going to go back to my roots, which was when I used to have jobs in retail and stuff like that.

I would pretend comics, very influenced by Viz and things like that, like Privateye-esque comics.

I would make covers of magazines and I would get my Tipex out, get my Tipex out.

Sounds rude.

And just make these fake covers and fucking lambast and take the piss out of everybody.

I did it at college.

I did it of all my jobs.

So I thought what might be nice, as soon as this is a podcast about television, is to sort of mock up a TV guide type cover every week with a few snippets about what the guest is talking about, but also just some ridiculous headlines that aren't anything to do with anything.

They're just sarcastic.

So I'm gonna be doing that from now on.

So if that doesn't hook you in, nothing else will.

So I'm not gonna be putting up any audio snippets.

I'm not gonna be doing any of that sort of stuff.

I'm just gonna put this image up every week and come back to the pod if you like the guest and you like what you see.

If you don't, don't listen to it.

You know what I mean?

Now, this week, we've got my favorite guest back.

It's Paul Critoph.

Now, he is a friend of mine, obviously.

He's an actor.

He's an all-around decent, funny guy.

Travels the world a lot with his wife.

Just got back from Miami and Florida and where he went on loads and loads of theme park rides, which we'll talk about.

And we already agreed to do sort of end of the year TV roundup for 2023.

It didn't quite turn into that because we both had lists.

Paul lost his list and he lost his computer connection.

And it was an absolute fucking nightmare to try and get it all started up.

So it ended up being a bit more free flow and just see what we can remember basically.

So it's all very, very on the fly.

As is this intro, I'm not really editing this the same way I have been editing pods yet.

I will be getting back into that with the big name guests very shortly.

This is a quick throw it together.

Sorry, Paul, throw it together.

Get it out there New Year episode because I haven't got the facilities and everything up and running.

I only put the desk legs on last night.

Well, this morning, effectively.

I don't even have a mic rigged up.

I'm still holding the SM58, which is the comedian's mic, as it were.

Right, let's get on with it.

So here he is, Paul Critoph.

He's back for more.

Our only ever returning guest so far.

Here he is with the TV Roundup of 2023.

Welcome to Television Times, a weekly podcast with your host, me, Steve Otis Gunn.

We'll be discussing television in all its glorious forms.

From my childhood, your childhood, the last 10 years, even what's on right now.

So join me as I talk to people you do know and people you don't about what scared them, what inspired them and what made them laugh and cry here on Television Times.

And you say your loudest thing.

Okay, exactly the same.

Okay, cool.

Perfect.

Here we go.

Marvellous.

And we're off.

Brilliant.

Only 45 minutes later than scheduled.

Did you watch Selly when you were traveling around America?

Did you manage to do that?

Not really.

Well, we watched whichever news channels were on.

We watched yeah, morning shows, kind of the insipid this morning equivalents that they have.

I mean, it was all fine, I suppose.

It's just the adverts really in America.

The fact they're all medical products and tell you exactly how they're going to kill you if you take their product.

Yeah, which is well documented, but remarkably, remarkably strange.

But it is annoying, isn't it, if you go on all four and...

Yeah, everybody get fresh.

Do we need to see that guy in the snow anymore?

Seriously.

But now it's kind of part of the process for me.

If I watch Taskmaster, I need that dude swimming up uphill, or else it's just not the same.

Did you finish the recent season?

Don't tell me who won, because I haven't.

I did, I did.

Yeah.

Who do you think won?

Gotta be Julian Clary, isn't it?

That's not him, then.

I thought I had a wonderful poker face, then.

What's been your most surprising TV show of 2023?

Like something that you thought, huh, that's weird, I wasn't expecting that, and I really like it.

The most surprising, well, interestingly, I made some notes.

They're on my other laptop, which has now just been reset.

Nice.

And those notes have gone into the ether.

Yeah, apparently so.

Apparently so.

I guess I didn't save it last night or before my wife reset it.

And it's my fault.

It's my fault.

I'll be the first to admit it.

Yeah.

Well, this year, I have mainly, it's been the year for me of reality elimination shows, which, hmm, when it comes to hard-hitting dramas and things of that nature, I just don't find the time.

I found time for Succession, but everyone talks about Succession.

Everyone jabbers on about it.

And understandably so, it's a great show, if a little heavy-going and non-bingeable.

I think the one that surprised me the most was Physical 100, are you aware of that?

I'm aware of it, I haven't seen that one.

Yeah.

Tell me about it.

It's a Korean show, a Korean elimination show, and it has the slightly sinister purpose of finding the perfect physique.

It starts off with 100 South Koreans of various body types, all in a room together next to a plaster cast of their torso.

Strange.

Yeah, it does sound strange.

So you've got bodybuilders, you've got martial artists, you've got actors, you've got stuntmen and women, you've got the whole gamut.

And through a series of games and teaming up in teams and various things, they whittle it down one by one.

When they get eliminated, they have to break their plaster torso with a sledgehammer.

Until we find ultimately the perfect physique, you know, be it muscles or athleticism or whatever, which doesn't sound thrilling, but something about the respect that Korean people give to each other makes it an incredibly affirming experience.

Because if you had this show in America or Britain, everyone would be awful to each other.

There would be trash talk and everyone would fall out and it would all be about the drama.

But it isn't because everyone respects each other and everyone's complimentary of each other.

They respect their elders.

Like there's a dude who, he's an MMA fighter apparently, but he's pushing 50 and he is the most dapper, smooth motherfucker you will ever see.

He's like Asian Brad Pitt, basically.

He's kind of handsome and wise and everyone reveres him.

And everyone, even like a fellow, a much younger MMA fighter in a game where they have to, they're in a playground basically.

There's one ball and whoever's holding the ball at the end of five minutes proceeds.

And this young MMA fighter said, it's always been my dream to take you on.

Would you please fight me in this game?

Kind of bows respectfully.

I mean, the older guy won.

It was great.

He's fantastic.

He's a legend.

But the whole thing kind of culminates in this kind of festival of goodwill.

That I would just, I would recommend.

It sounds like it should be just throw away crap.

But in practice, it was a really, really entertaining show.

Well, I mean, I've been watching very similar TV.

In fact, we've started watching Takeshi's Castle reboot purely because Rom and Tom doing the overdubs and just taking the piss out of it, like Eurovision or something.

And that is a lot of fun.

I watched that with my son as well.

And I just watched the 007 thing, The Road to a Million, which was very peculiar.

I've not seen it.

What do you think?

Because I read some reviews, all of which trashed it.

I mean, it was enjoyable in a sort of race around the world.

I watched the celebrity race around the world just before it, which, and I didn't know any of the celebrities, people from Busted or whatever.

I don't know if there's some celebrities to me.

But it was still good to watch because it's just people I don't know.

And everyone was actually quite nice on it, right?

It wasn't, they weren't ripping the shit out of each other.

And there's a little bit of competition.

But then I watched that one sort of on the back of it.

And it was like, well, where's the budget?

How did they get there?

How did they go in that thing in the jungle?

Now they're in Morocco.

I mean, the budget was huge, but there's this new tendency, they have it in traitors.

Not so much the UK one, a little bit, because you don't believe Claudia Winkleman owns the castle, but with the American one and the Australian one and the New Zealand one, of traitors, for instance, the premise is that you're on the grounds of that person who's the host of the show.

This is their family home, and we've invited you into our castle.

And this is, look at my lovely land.

Look at this thing that my family, it's all bullshit.

It's just a film set.

And there was a little bit of that with Road to a Million in that, you're looking at Brian Cox, and he's behind this, a load of TV monitors and the controllers, and he's sort of pressing a button on a mic and he's talking to them through a tannoy in like Chile or whatever.

And you're thinking, well, obviously that's not happening.

So it was just, it was very staged.

I mean, it was good.

Obviously, he's in front of a green screen in his own office.

I think he was there for two hours tops, the whole thing, right?

And it was really obvious, and it's got nothing to do with him.

It's just, but there's this sort of new thing does he tell anyone to fuck off?

He doesn't tell anyone to fuck off, but he gives a lot of bombastic side eye, as my son would say.

That's a shame, missed opportunity.

Yeah, I mean, it was good and I liked it.

But if you're talking elimination television, then obviously, obviously Squid Game-The Challenge comes up, which I very much enjoyed.

I loved it.

Yeah, I did too.

Who knew, who knew it would actually work in reality?

Who knew that they could do that in Dagenham?

I used to live as a kid.

I was like, where's this film?

There's way too many British people.

I mean, there was loads of Americans in my home.

They got a jumbo, they put 456 people in it and they flew it over because everyone seemed to be American.

And I was like, well, this isn't American, is it?

Soon as I saw the size of it, I went, oh, that looks like it might be filmed here.

Again, I think that this, I mean, it's all in the edit, of course, but I think it's because Americans provide the most drama because maybe British people tend to be a bit more staid and reserved, whereas Americans, a lot less God.

So much God from the Americans, it drove me.

And the entitlement as well.

Oh, yeah.

Wow.

I mean, it was great when he went out.

But at the same time, a part of me was sad because he was great TV.

I didn't want him to win.

Also, that woman who basically threw the mummies boy under the bus.

Spoiler alert.

Well, we don't say anything, but like the fact that she wouldn't move forward and then she pretended that it didn't happen.

Then I was like, everyone didn't.

No one mentioned it apart from my afterwards.

Yeah.

And then we're blaming her for trying to get rid of this woman who was 100% responsible for going.

Yeah, absolutely 100%.

And outraged.

My favorite bit, I think it was in the game that I've never played as a child from the 70s, which we now have.

So I don't want to give it too much away, but it involves the word ship.

Where the really tall guy, who's very good with a ball that goes in a hoop, kept going on about like, you got this, you got this, you got this, no one's going home today.

I guess, well, first of all, you don't got this.

You are going home today.

Yeah, and also that particular game with which we won't spoil these...

It's based on luck.

I mean, yeah, there's a certain, after a point, you can use your intuition to kind of work out where things could be in this mysterious game.

But it's luck, it's luck.

You can't make guarantees like that.

You can't say that God's going to protect you, ultimately, because God couldn't give a shit.

And they're crushing themselves and stuff.

Yeah.

Before a game of marbles or something.

And when you cross yourself, play marbles and lose, does that mean that your God now hates you?

Is that how it works?

I guess.

Yeah, I didn't understand why you said God.

And it got to a point, like, you know, I know I have listeners who are religious, so I want to be a little bit more careful nowadays.

And good for you, guys, good for you.

I'm not saying it's a mental illness, but when you see it like that, an American contestants on TV shows, it starts to look like, what are you talking about?

Is this what you want your God to be doing?

You don't want the flood or the dead baby, no, you want them to sort your game out where you might win some money.

Anyway, and I don't even want to think about what the winner might have done with the money, but I think they might have donated it to such things.

And the way it ended as well, I can't say what it is, you can't ruin it, but it's just so simple, isn't it?

The games are so simple.

They're like, I mean, big sets, big ideas, but the games themselves just playground games, real small stuff.

And of the final two, I liked both of them.

I would perhaps have preferred the other person to the one.

Me too, big time.

And I thought in the editing that they had won because I'm not saying that they're not they's going to contribute anything.

I'm just saying they as in not to give a gender away.

But yeah, I was 100% sure.

Oh, well, I know exactly who's won this, you know.

And I was wrong as I am in all elections and all guessing games.

Predictions for the election next year?

Labor landslide, Trump in the White House.

That's what we've got.

Well, I hope that one of those is true and the other isn't.

Oh, you're a big fan of Trump, are you?

I love that guy.

Wow.

Give me Tories and Trump all day long.

Yum, yum, yum, yum, yum that stuff up.

You've been in Florida too long, mate.

Bye.

Something that happened to me this year is like, do you like football?

I'm thinking not.

I am aware of football.

So you like me.

So I always sort of had a healthy hatred of football because I always came with yobbs and bullying as a child because I didn't give a shit about it.

And you know, it's a different group of people that like that than is the group that I would consider myself in, you know.

But because I liked Always Sunny, I started watching Welcome to Wrexham, and I started sort of appreciating it a bit.

And obviously, with the Ted Lasso thing as well, you know, soccer being a thing on television now.

And then I watched the Beckham documentary.

So I started watching that, and I thought, I can sort of see the beauty in it, then the sort of choreography of it and the cleverness.

And I don't understand the fanaticism and the linking to a team.

I don't have that gene, but I can see the beauty in it.

And it sort of led me in this kind of, like a celebrity documentary kind of period of time that was happening.

And I watched the Beckham one and I was quite, and that was after his Joe Lysett situation.

And I kind of warned to him and I kind of, I remember being around when that sort of, the tabloids went for him.

I guess that's what's happening.

There's a lot of documentaries about how tabloids are treating people.

And that's why I watched the Robbie Williams one as well, which was a real big insight because I didn't know anything about what he really went through and his, from his side of things and his big concert and actually deep down, he's fucking having panic attacks and taking drugs and, you know, and then the press are going for him.

I don't really remember all of that.

So it's been like this celebrity, almost like, you know, Christmas, celebrity or biographies come out.

It's like this slew of celebrity documentaries that are basically little biographies and windows into like perfect worlds or what we think, basically making fame look absolutely fucking horrific and why would anyone want that?

You know what I mean?

People at the height of their career with all the money in the world having a terrible time.

That seems to be, have you seen any of those?

You've been exposed to any of that?

I watched a bit of the Beckham one.

My wife is a huge Beckham fan and I suspect not just for his on the ball ability.

He's underpants on the giant billboards all over Asia.

Yeah, yeah, pretty much.

Yeah, I watched a bit of that one.

The Jimmy Savile one probably doesn't count.

Oh, the Steve Coogan?

No, no, no, there was a documentary on Netflix previously, but that is definitely more true crime.

I could not watch the real guy anymore, but I loved the Coogan, the reckoning.

Oh my God, he was so good.

I've yet to see it.

A good friend of mine and former flatmate played his assistant, Alice Metcalf.

She's a very good actress and a wonderful writer.

But no, I've not seen that yet.

I thought it would be uncomfortable, but I have to say it was just, it was strangely compelling and it draws you in.

And honestly, it's so strange to say, but after a while you forget it, Steve Coogan.

I mean, you absolutely forget it.

And that is, for someone so famous, that's like saying, oh, I forgot it was Tom Cruise.

You know?

Yeah, yeah.

I honestly didn't, I had to remember.

Oh yeah, that is actually, he did such a good job.

I highly recommend it, even though it's a very uncomfortable watch.

I'll have to give it a go.

You don't see anything, but this, what it, ugh, ugh.

Disgusting.

Dig him up and burn his fucking corpse.

Oh, damn right, damn right.

Damn him, Tom.

In thinking of celebrity docs, I'm just trying to, the thing is, I may have, I may have seen it, but my brain is Swiss cheese for remembering the content it consumes these days.

Let's have a little Google search.

Maybe I have.

Well, that was also this year, wasn't it?

The Wham documentary, and I watched that, and I felt quite nostalgic and sad at the same time that he's no longer alive.

There's one on Angela Merkel.

What's that called?

It's called Merkel.

Oh, not, a different angle.

A different angle.

That'd be good.

There's one on Sylvester Stallone.

They're all, I need to see these clearly.

Oh, yes, Stallone.

There's an Arshaw, Schwarzenegger one.

Yeah, Arnold.

Stallone.

Jesus Christ.

No, I think this is a genre that's passed me by.

He was Beckham, wasn't it?

Beckham, he's talking to Fisher Stevens.

But you never see Fisher.

And I thought that was a really weird person to be asking him and you can tell it's him.

And I know it's him because I heard him speak about it.

But Fisher Stevens knows nothing about football.

But every time Beckham's talking, he's talking to Fisher Stevens.

And all I can think of is him doing his Indian Impression in Short Circuit, which I'm not going to do.

Yes.

Yeah, I think that's where internal editing is important.

Yeah, Gargar's got one.

Kevin Hart's got one.

The least said about that, the better.

Anyway, I'll cut that.

So you haven't seen the celebrity.

Did you watch Traitors at all?

Do you watch things like that, the other celebrity TV shows or I watch the end of Traitors?

Oh, right.

So I'll tell you what I'm watching at the moment, which if you if you've not seen it, then you really should.

The Devil's Plan.

Tell me more.

What's this?

It's on Netflix, Netflix.

And you'll be surprised to learn it's a South Korean elimination show.

But this one is cerebral to an almost daunting degree.

They basically brought in, I think it's 12 contestants, 10 of which are celebrities, but all of whom are renowned for being incredibly intelligent.

So there is there's a YouTuber who's a science YouTuber in South Korea.

There's an actress who set up her own business and has made five inventions on the market.

Then there are two normal people, normal people.

There's an orthopedic surgeon and a young 20-something year old guy who's in the middle of a PhD.

They're all put into this essentially big brother house.

There's a living area and there's the game area.

Every day, there are games in the game area that take up most of the day, which are, the first one is similar in a way to traitors.

It's a variation on kind of a mafia thing, but there are terrorists.

Everyone has a different randomly assigned role of like a fanatic, a journalist, various things.

They're spreading a virus and there are researchers.

Basically, every game, the rules take about 10 minutes to explain on the screen, because they are so complicated, so complicated.

But then the duplicity of the contestants mixed with that, again, traditional Korean respect for each other, is just a really strange mix that just becomes addictive.

It's a really good show.

Yeah, yeah, do so.

I've been recommending it to everyone at the moment.

Yeah, there's kind of drama, but kind of polite drama.

And if people are betrayed, as they need to, because it's an elimination show and people do need to get eliminated, there's no recriminations and pointing and anger.

They kind of blame themselves to a way, well, I should have played the game differently.

You know, I left myself open.

Rather than, you know, it's a great show.

It's a good recommendation.

Yeah, totally brain-busting.

Yeah, I will watch that.

I love stuff like that.

I really do.

And there's nothing on right now like that, is there?

It's the kind of things people who love board games with lots of rules, I think, would really be.

They have survived.

They have survived.

You will be delighted to watch it.

I fully predict that there will be a tie-in board game at some point.

And I predict, we haven't got to the end of it yet, I predict there will be a twist at the end.

And I think I know what it'll be.

Well, I did want to speak just very briefly.

So since I saw you, I have now seen three seasons of Midnight Diner.

I haven't seen the movies.

And there's one season I haven't seen.

And it's the early one.

So I've watched them sort of the other way around.

But yeah, really beautiful little sort of vignettes of time.

And my attention span, I can feel, is less these days.

Like there's some hour long shows that I'll just watch half of and we'll watch it the other half.

Mostly because we're absolutely exhausted.

But a lot of the time, a short TV show is like perfect.

And I really enjoyed having lunch with Midnight Diner.

Like I make my lunch and it would make me eat slightly differently as well because then, you know, I don't eat meat.

But I don't mind watching him cook the stuff and, you know, the little stories.

I loved it.

Loved it.

And just that theme tune as well, the plucked guitar.

I mean, I've no idea what the lyrics are, but yeah.

Don't find out.

Pictures of like Shinjuku at night time.

Yeah, it's just, yeah.

I have dreams where I have two travel dreams that I constantly see in my head.

I'm either in Australia or in Japan.

Those are the two places, I guess, I long to go back to.

So, you know, but for short vignette TV, there's a TV show that somehow passed me by.

I watch a lot of Danish and Swedish TV.

And there's a Danish TV show called Face to Face.

It's three seasons of it.

And it's really clever and it's such a simple premise.

And I've never seen it done before.

Or am I imagining it?

I think I don't think I've seen this before.

Each episode is only 20 minutes, which is really short for Danish Swedish TV.

And the first series, basically, this person, this policeman, I'm not going to spoil it too much, but the policeman finds out something has happened to someone he's related to.

And in the first scene, he's finding that out.

And then he has an altercation with that person and they send him to another person.

So basically, each episode is just the interaction with that next person in the chain of the story.

So it's like each scene is its own 20-minute episode.

It's really clever.

I don't think I've seen that before.

And there's three seasons of it.

That's a great concept.

Yeah, it's really nice.

It's like little tiny 20-minute plays and really intense and I really enjoyed it.

But yeah, really good show face-to-face if you like short things that are just 20 minutes while you're having lunch.

It's so much easier.

Yeah.

Nice bite-sized chunks.

Another of the things I like this year, Barry.

Barry.

Brilliant.

Half-hour episodes.

Great.

Yeah.

Really great show.

I have.

Yeah.

I will say...

No spoilers, of course.

I mean, there's most...

Spoilers for Barry coming up.

If you haven't watched Barry, don't watch it.

We've done spoilers for Last of Us and...

Great.

Loads of things.

White Lotus.

So as long as we say it, it's fine.

Awesome.

Well, in which case, I felt a little bit disappointed by the final episode, which is common with series that are incredibly enjoyable.

And I assume it was the intention, but in the entire final season, I think Barry killed one person, which for a show about a hired killer, I don't know, I felt a little shortchanged.

I know that's the point.

He's trying to get away from it.

So you wanted a bit more Dexter, you wanted a bit more...

Yeah, in the prison break, there was the guy in the ceiling that he got the gun and blam, blam, blam, because everyone else was dead in the room by that point anyway.

And I understand that it was supposed to be disappointing because we saw him go into Walmart and get strapped up with guns and then immediately getting shot by Kuzno, if I'm spoiling.

There we go.

Almost inevitable.

Yeah, yeah.

But I was left disappointed by that.

And they resolved it quite nicely with the Hollywood version of what happened and his son watching it and getting an incorrect view of who his dad was.

I thought that was nice.

And also I know that Hank had to die, but Hank was just such a wonderful character.

So funny, so brilliant.

And got really less funny in the last season.

I mean, obviously the tone of the last season was no longer funny at all.

It was not dramedy in the end.

It was just drama.

And his character became way less funny.

There were moments of comedy occasionally, but yeah, he really did, which was a really...

And it was done quite gradually over the episodes of the final season, which was great, because yes, he is a villain when you look at his actions.

Throughout the time he's betrayed everyone for money and status.

And also I found it a little...

I wasn't quite on board with the transformation of Fuchs either, because it happened after a time jump.

And we had seen him being the weak kind of Fuchs previously, and then he emerged with tattoos and he was in better shape.

Yeah, that was so weird, wasn't he?

And he was suddenly an incredible badass.

I know, that was really odd.

Which I thought, just from being in prison for eight years, we've established, because Barry's son is eight, and now Fuchs is an unkillable badass.

I don't know.

I don't know.

All the stuff at the beginning where they were just in the house and you didn't know where they were and what was going on and why he was talking about God and he had a son.

And the way the mother was treating the son, it was all very uncomfortable and confusing.

I did not understand what was happening for a good portion of that season.

But Bill Hader, I think, is glorious.

I mean, he's one of the actors.

I congratulate myself now on being able to remember his name because for a number of years, whenever I could picture him, I could see what he's been in, but the name Bill Hader just straight from my mind.

Just think of him as Skeleton Face.

Because there was the other Napoleon Dynamite guy.

He's got a Hader name, hasn't he?

I can't even get it.

John Hader.

Hader-ish name.

Yeah, I got confused in my head.

Yeah, I loved Barry, so it was brilliant.

Yeah, in season two, there is one of the almost perfect episodes of television, I think, which was the one...

Do you remember the one where he was...

He went to assassinate a guy who turned out to be a martial arts expert.

But at the beginning, he's saying, look, I'm here to kill you, but I don't want to kill you.

Do you have any family?

And the guy's like, yeah, I'm in Chicago.

And he's like, right, great, pack a suitcase, go to Chicago.

It'll be for a year.

All this will blow over.

And then he follows the guy into his room, and there are just Taekwondo trophies all around.

And I think it's in a one shot.

And they end up having the Taekwondo guy just kicks off.

And Barry, I think, punches him in the throat and breaks his windpipe.

And the fight continues on with this guy just wheezing.

Look, stop, I've broken your windpipe.

And then his daughter turns up, who's like a little girl in a Taekwondo outfit.

And the whole episode is...

It's a few takes, but it's a handful of takes with absolutely incredible fight choreography, very little dialogue that just rattles on at a pace.

And it was the first one that afterwards I was like, well, I need to see who directed that.

And it was Bill Hader.

And it was like, wow, okay, there we go.

He's just cementing himself as, you know, a real talent.

Yeah, I do remember that episode.

I'm breathing.

And you can imagine it.

It was just like a broken chicken bone.

Absolutely horrific.

I've noticed another trend this year is that horror tropes are in everything.

Have you spotted that one?

So what am I watching at the moment?

I'm watching two shows.

One of them is Fargo, season five, which is absolutely brilliant.

I need to see.

I'll watch the first three seasons and then for some reason I dropped off.

Well, the last season with Chris Rockenwald, it was good.

But I mean, it was it was boring.

Nothing was happening.

This one fucking hell.

You don't need to see any other seasons of Fargo.

Just watch season five because it's just a thriller and it's a ride.

And everyone in is brilliant.

And I just don't want to say anything about it because it's on right now.

It's on episode five so far.

And there's loads of horror tropes in it.

And I'm just noticing it in everything.

Obviously, there's shows like The Fall of the House of Usher.

I don't know if you've been exposed to that, which is essentially succession and every horror film that's ever existed.

Episode two of that has left me traumatized, I think, to be honest with you.

I don't know if you've seen it.

No, I haven't.

Yeah.

Something happens at the end of episode two that if you see it, I don't know if you can ever really unsee it.

And it's pretty disturbing the way the whole thing runs.

It's a real fun ride, House of Usher.

Really fun, but it's silly.

And I spent the first ten minutes going, why are they pretending this is like succession?

Because it's a big family.

They've got loads of money.

And the music was kind of succession-like, you know?

And I was like, oh, I don't know about this.

But then they got me on because of what happened.

And yeah, I mean, it's fun.

It's silly.

It's enjoyable.

I'm going to watch that show.

Yeah, it's quite...

Do you mind if I have a very quick toilet break?

Great.

Here goes.

I'll be back shortly.

What the hell is going on here?

What's happening?

This is...

The fuck is going on?

Okay, I'm turning down...

What's happened, Durand?

Speak me through.

All of my wife's windows to her little shows that she watches on YouTube just started playing at once.

Not sure why.

Fair enough.

I think if we do one next year, Paul, we should do a top 10.

I've just realized, why haven't we done a top 10?

Just thought, oh, she had done that.

Yeah, nevermind.

Anyway, but you haven't got your notes.

Well, it's organic.

It's organic.

We're just chatting about the year.

There's a new, I don't know if you're aware of it, but Gordon Ramsay, apart from his next level chef nonsense where he's stolen the platform idea, he also bought, weirdly, considering how far he's moved on, he bought back Kitchen Nightmares USA.

Is he really?

Yeah, I've been watching it and it's like-

I used to love that show.

Is it 10,000 ago?

Yeah, I know.

You know, it's just like nothing's happening and he's a bit nicer now.

He can't be quite as canty because it's not really what people do anymore and it's considered a little bit rude.

So he's a bit nicer.

But still, I don't know what anyone brings him.

It's fucking shit.

You know, the man can't be pleased with anything he eats.

So I'm just really amazed that all this cooking stuff is still going on, is what I'm saying.

Like, how is that still a thing?

And also, you know, there are numerous bake-offs and Bake Off The Professionals, which I have to say, I love Bake Off The Professionals.

I haven't seen them.

Anyway, they like what it sounds like, what it is.

It's exactly what it sounds like.

They bring in teams of two from different, normally luxury hotels around the country and battle it out.

The judges are what make it good, though.

Who are they?

There are two judges, Benoit Bliss, not Bliss, it's not Benoit Bliss.

It's Benoit something big.

He is a French pastry chef, just a wonderful stereotype of a man.

Like says, ooh la la, and things.

So if I was to literally do an impression of him, I would be correct.

Oh yeah, yeah, he's the Frenchest man you will ever see.

And also a lady called Cherish Finden, who is, I think she's from Singapore.

Are you sure these aren't characters from Stephen Toast?

Yeah, I mean, they very well could be.

And she is Cherish Finden.

Cherish Finden.

Is her name.

And she's full of catchphrases and just, I mean, I won't do the accent.

It could come across bad.

I mean, I'm just thinking of Finda's crispy pancakes for some reason.

Yeah, but one of the things she says, oh, shalala, I think it is.

And which could mean either good or bad.

They've all got catchphrases.

They've all got catchphrases.

Ooh la la, shalala.

It's a great show.

Shalala, is it shalala?

I feel it must be, but it's a great show.

Much better than Regular Bake Off, I would say, which we started watching this year because we watch elimination shows.

That's what we do, which I don't know if this, maybe this is just me and my wife.

I feel before we live together, I would watch a lot more dramas and comedy shows and such, but when you're living with someone and sharing your space, you have to find compromise shows that you can both watch and enjoy.

Don't you do the thing where you watch something, like I watched the first 10 minutes of Deadlock the other day, the first episode, and I thought, a woman who married me would like this, so I'll stop.

And then I'll re-watch that and we'll watch it together.

Because sometimes I'll think, she don't want to watch this.

Anything with Nathan Fielder, she's out.

So I watch that on my own.

But if you've got like, basically in my head, I always think if she knew I was watching this, would she be annoyed that I didn't tell her about it?

Yeah.

That's kind of the measure that I use.

Yeah, I think there's a certain degree of that.

But then there are shows that I have started watching with her that she has no interest in and vice versa.

I think the first episode of Succession, whenever that first aired, we watched together and it didn't click with her, so I continued by myself.

But the problem is, I also play a lot of video games because I'm a nerd and so the time that I have to consume media is drastically reduced.

Yes.

So, yeah, finding those shows and committing time into watching 45 minutes of prestige television is not always there, so it's great when our crosshairs meet on the same thing and we're able to, say, watch The Last of Us together and such.

But yeah, it doesn't happen all that often, unfortunately.

But it does for Bake Off.

The worst thing is if your partner is falling asleep and you're watching something really good, like really good, and you're looking over and they're sort of drifting off, shall I stop it?

Yeah.

No, no, I saw it.

No, you didn't though.

And then next one, you're going to be like, I don't remember what happened.

I can't bear that.

Yeah, that does happen occasionally.

And, but the me offering to stop it is somehow a confrontational act.

It's like, no, no, no, no.

But no, for both of us, we can enjoy it again.

You were clearly asleep.

No, no, I wasn't.

No, I wasn't.

You look over again, asleep again.

And then you know, like, okay, so I've got to re-watch this entire episode now.

Some of the worst bit is if they've been asleep for half an hour and you didn't notice.

Oh my God, wasn't that, huh?

I will say, for me, it happens more in the cinema.

When I will just glance to my right and yeah, she'll be soundly snorseling away to herself.

Oh yeah, yeah, quite a lot.

Have you?

I don't think I have.

No, I haven't, I haven't.

But I have learned that I can get away with maybe, maybe two mild shakes or prods before.

That's getting into snoring territory.

It's just a fucking minefield and stuff.

But anymore on the third nod, it's like, what are you doing?

What are you doing?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Sorry, darling, I thought that you might want to watch the film.

And I think I'm safe because I'm fairly sure she won't get round to listening to this.

I watched something that was cute and very old-fashioned, but I watched it last week just for fun.

Do you remember Mr.

Monk or Monk, the Tony Shalhoub show?

He's a detective.

Yeah, where he's got OCDs and doesn't mind touching anything else.

Yeah, they brought it back for one episode post-COVID because of all the sort of hand sanitizer, things they could do and all that.

And it was like watching, it was like opening a time capsule of television.

It was like pre the era we're in now.

It was like, you know, each, there's a little case and you can see it come in a mile away.

Who's the culprit?

And there's a sort of Elon Musk character in it.

And he's like older, but he isn't really doing detective work anymore.

And it was really sweet.

It was really like, it made me feel nostalgic for a time that probably didn't exist.

It was just, you know, this like, that's sort of the way 90s TV sort of went into 2000s in a way, you know, with like, like House.

House was brilliant, but it had the premise of a 90s television show, you know, and Monk definitely had that.

And just the font of the music and the sort of cheesiness of it.

But I did enjoy it.

It's weird.

Some of those shows kind of still persist and are incredibly popular, but lurk in the background.

Things like The Good Doctor.

I'm not sure if you're aware of that one.

It's a network American show.

I've heard of it, but I couldn't place it.

My wife loves it.

Is it from The Good Wife?

Is it a spin-off or something?

No, it isn't.

It's about a doctor in a hospital who, I think he's autistic.

He's played by a British actor who played, what's his name, played Charlie in the Tim Burton, Charlie in the Chocolate Factory.

Who's a grown-up now, but he's playing an American.

He sounds a bit like Kermit the Frog in Space.

I call him Space Kermit.

I mean, it's broad strokes of how to play somebody with a condition like that.

I would say, but it's an incredibly popular show in America.

I think it's on like season eight or nine now, The Good Doctor.

It's on NBC or something.

Yeah, yeah.

Seven seasons.

Is it seven seasons now and just keeps on going.

Isn't like Grey's Anatomy still on and things like that.

They're still running on me.

Is it?

No way.

I think it is because my wife used to watch it.

It's one of those things where she tries to get me to watch it and I was like, well, I can't watch this.

This is rubbish.

I watched one episode and there was like a siege in the hospital and people were hiding under beds and people were in guns and the doctors were saving everyone.

I was like, this is a cartoon.

Brilliant.

Yeah, but I mean, oh yeah, there we go.

Oh, because of the strikes, it has been the 20th season will not come out till 2024.

So 20 seasons.

The 20th season.

And presumably there are no original cast members, I would imagine.

I mean, there must be one or two, right?

I mean, there always is.

Because wasn't the idea that they were all like sexy doctors?

I think they were all sexy doctors.

Yeah, I think it was sexy doctors and you know, people, well, ER was also sexy doctors, wasn't it?

I mean, to an extent.

But there was that bald chap with the glasses who, what's his name?

Anthony Edwards, was it?

Anthony Edwards, yeah.

Yeah, I'm not sure if he was particularly anyone's kink.

Who knows?

Who knows?

I don't know.

He was in Top Gun.

He was in Top Gun.

Anthony Edwards.

Yes, yes, it's the same guy.

And he dies.

I've seen of him dying as a goose.

Goose.

Goose.

Yeah, I've never seen Top Gun.

It's one of the things I've never seen because it's just my anti-American aircraft defense system will kick in too hard if I watch that because there's too many flags and too many gung hoes.

It's pretty jingoistic.

It's not for a non-patriot like myself will spontaneously combust if I see that.

And I can barely watch Tom Cruise as it is, so you know.

Wonderful stuntman come actor Tom Cruise.

Stuntman first.

I like it.

Did you watch Hijack?

Did you watch that silly thing?

There was people saying hello to Jack.

Well, you know, those things that I think you suffer from the same thing as My Misses, which is British dramas, just like how many can you watch?

How do you get through them?

They all look the same.

Police things, BBC, Sunday Night, I mean, who's got the time for that?

You know what I mean?

And this wasn't that.

It was like the slightly Americanized version.

It was kind of fun.

It had great people in it, but it was all just very silly.

And it was, it was that Neil guy who used to be in the comedy show.

Fuck, I've forgotten it now.

Neil Stook used to be a comedy actor.

Oh, yeah.

He plays like that show.

He lived over the street from me.

Oh, there you go.

What was this show?

It was great.

It was when he took over from the other guy, Ben Chaplin, who was a plushie-flyer.

What was it called?

I loved that show.

Game On.

That's what it was called.

Game On.

Game On.

Game On was good.

I think it was good.

Good ol Stucky.

Wouldn't have aged well.

I mean, looking back, I imagine it's probably incredibly inappropriate.

I mean, of course, Drag Race, but...

Oh, yes.

So, your big one, is that the thing that you've got into this year, or is that...

Not this year, although I have consumed two of its multiple series this year.

Okay, so educate me about Drag Race, because I've not seen a single episode, and not for any reason that I don't like it or what.

It's just never been something that I've leaned into or...

Understandably.

What is that, you know?

Well, it's an elimination show.

It should come as no surprise to learn it's an elimination show.

You don't care what it is, as long as it's an elimination show.

As long as people leave every week, I'm delighted.

Here's the thing.

I was initially told about it, I mean, years ago, by, do you know Stu Goldsmith?

Comedian?

Yes.

Stu Goldsmith.

Yeah.

Yeah.

He's a good buddy of mine.

Yeah.

He said that it's one of the most wonderful shows he's watched, how life-affirming and positive it is.

I disregarded that and then put it on as a laugh one day when my mate was around.

Give it, let's give it a watch.

And since that time, I've been all in.

I would say the initial appeal has diluted slightly as more and more franchises have come in.

It is, as he said, it is an incredibly positive show about identity and about queer culture in popular society.

And it's adapted as time has gone on.

Because I know that I think I remember you saying on one of the pods that you're not sure how it will age.

I just had that conversation with two panto dames.

The joke is, you know, what was my joke?

Something like Generation C will have a problem with this, you know.

Some of it in the early days, I can kind of get that there could be an argument made that certain early seasons or certain queens maybe the joke was about women.

But it really isn't that anymore.

The joke is about I mean, it's not even a joke.

It's a celebration of queer culture, not necessarily men pretending to be women in a derogatory way.

It's men embracing their feminine side and promoting that.

And also, there are now there are trans men and trans women who have been contestants and done very well both ways.

There are now bio queens.

So women, drag performers.

Bio queens.

Well, this is a thing.

And I'm an incredibly left-wing, woke person.

As you know, bio queen is perhaps the only bit that I'm slightly.

I think it's great and it's positive and encouragement.

But I'm not sure where bio queen ends and a cabaret performer begins if you see what I mean.

Because it's a woman who embraces drag as a woman and so has the makeup and the costumes and the hair.

So it's a woman dressed as a man dressed as a woman.

And not dressed as a man dressed as a woman, a woman dressed as a woman, a woman dressed as an extravagant woman.

So that's the thing.

That's very old fashioned of me then to say a woman dressed as a man dressed as a woman, where you're saying there's a woman dressed as a woman.

Man, this is a thing.

I mean, I'm keen to learn.

I'm not here.

I'm not judgment.

I just don't know any of it.

Exactly.

Exactly.

And it was an education for me as well.

And there's a whole lexicon of terms used by the community.

And the ultimate thing is, it's about embracing who you are, whichever way you are.

And I understand behind the scenes, Ru, maybe RuPaul may have taken a little bit of persuading over some of this.

I believe that he initially wasn't overly keen on having trans women on the show.

But as it's gone on, he's grown.

Because it's a celebration of who people are.

And the general message of the show is highlighting the stories of the various queer people who come on the show, and giving them kind of a platform to talk about their lives and be positive role models for any queer children, or not just queer children, any children across the world who happen to be watching.

And, you know, I'm a cisgendered straight white man.

Yeah, we're the boring ones.

I know.

That's what I hate being like, like I'm starting to get The dull majority.

The dull majority.

That's great.

I just don't like, I get so irritated when I hear straight white man as if it's like this big negative thing.

Like, at some point, I'm not saying like we need to rise up and for us.

But I don't want to be I don't want to be in a category of people that is like the shit bucket of like, you know, fucking gender and everything, you know, can't we all just stop with the I think we all need to stop with some of that.

We are allies.

That's the thing.

I don't want to be an ally.

I just want to be a me.

Got a special badge.

I want to be.

I mean, obviously, you know, being an ally just means not being a phobic person, right?

So, you know, that that should be pretty much everyone unless you, you know, you want to make a stand.

I mean, who cares about any of this?

But the point is, I think what you're saying, I might put words in your mouth.

So the show has basically become, and I guess it should be, right?

It's whoever is the best drag queen.

Do you still say drag queen?

Is that?

Is that?

Yeah.

So queen.

So whoever's the best at drag, wins, regardless of what gender they're born, what gender they are, what their sexuality is, is irrelevant, I guess.

Exactly.

Right.

So the thing is, I have made it sound boring.

Have you?

It doesn't sound boring.

I think so.

Fucking stepping over a minefield is what it sounds like for me to watch that and say that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Which is why I've been maybe pondering my words a little bit.

Yeah.

But it's also, it's very funny.

They swear an awful lot, which is, as I'm sure you agree, is a lot of fun.

Yes, of course.

I mean, they constantly joke about fucking, you know, bumholes and the like.

That's just like backstage.

As you would hope.

As you would hope.

It's entertaining and cringe-worthy as well in certain moments.

Not cringe, certainly not.

It's cringe-worthy.

Over the years, it has become slightly sanitized and you can see the editors at work, I think, deciding who they want to proceed.

You can see it in the editing.

You can, and you can predict what's going to happen.

You think, oh, well, I think I know who's leaving this episode because they're getting more talking heads and various things like that.

And like I say, it's been saturated now, oversaturated.

At the moment, I think there's Drag Race UK, the original American Drag Race, Drag Race Canada, Drag Race France, Philippines, Germany, Australia.

Well, down under, it's Australia and New Zealand together.

And possibly more Thailand as well, and All Stars.

Oh, and Versus the World.

So there are too many iterations of the show.

So now I'm just watching, I'm just watching three.

I'm watching All Stars, I'm watching American Drag Race, and I'm watching UK.

And that's enough to give me my fix.

Because it's great.

I even had it.

Imagine this, at my wedding, once we had said our vows, my little friend KG, who was doing the honours of being a celebrant, said one of Rue's catchphrases, which is, and remember, if you can't love yourself, how are you going to love anybody else?

Can I get an amen up in here?

Everyone said, amen.

Then said, now let the music play.

And played to to to to the moon, which is the Drag Race UK theme tune as we went strutted our way back down the aisle.

Yeah.

Talking of Rue Paul, I'll talk to you, Paul.

Oh, that was good.

That's terrible.

Let's just end.

Oh, I need two minutes to lure my cat over here as well.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I just want to ask you, did you see the show Uncanny?

Have you seen that?

Spooky Ghosts one?

No.

No, you should check that out.

No.

That's kind of fun.

What channel was that?

That's BBC.

Spooky Ghosts Things.

Spooky Ghosts Things.

So right at the end, we're going to get Paul's cat.

And the name of your cat again?

Let's hope.

Is it Dumpling?

Dumpling.

Dumpling.

Dumpling's coming.

Dumpling.

Here we go.

Dumpo.

Might be more friendly this time because last time he was calling you.

He was behind the TV last time.

He's not supposed to go there.

And he knows it.

Dumpling.

Come on.

This is for one listener.

Definitely one listener.

I know he's going to love this.

He was sat over there just for most of this recording session.

But now the little baguette seems to have fucked off.

Sorry, I put a sound effect in.

So Paul, thank you for coming on this.

We've got one other show that we haven't brought up that you think everyone should watch from 2023.

We'll give one each.

One show that maybe is not so popular.

You don't have to talk about it.

Just give them a hot take.

I think it's quite popular.

Maybe that's just amongst people I know, which would be I Think You Should Leave on Netflix comedy show.

Talking about bite-sized chunks.

Every episode is 15 minutes long.

Very short.

Oh, really?

And yeah, it's...

He's another one of those people whose names I can't remember.

Steve Robinson.

Is it Steve Robinson?

Something like that.

I think you should leave it Tim Robinson.

Tim...

Tim Robinson.

Yeah, yeah.

He's fantastic.

He was on SNL, I believe, although I never saw him.

He gets angry.

It's kind of grown people displaying childish behavior, getting angry and frustrated and swearing.

But that's the kind of...

Those are the tools.

And where each sketch goes is completely unpredictable.

And in terms of sketch comedy, just absolutely balls out, laugh out loud funny, I think.

It just really scratches that itch for me, of just a good old belly laugh.

I've only heard good things.

I will take your recommendation.

It's on my list here.

Things I should watch.

Because I keep forgetting to watch this.

And it's short, it's short.

I think you should leave.

Physical 100 and Devil's Plan.

Devil's Plan, I'm gonna look up straight away.

Yeah, do so.

Do so, you will love it.

My one would probably be How To with John Wilson.

I don't know how many people have seen that, but it's a HBO show.

John Wilson, there's three seasons now.

It's produced by Nathan Field as a production company.

And he, so basically John Wilson goes around and he's got all this footage.

He's always filming stuff.

He's always filming stuff and he is mostly in New York and he'll do one on toilets or like how you can't find a toilet in New York.

But he'll follow the story and it will turn into something else.

But every single episode is just genius.

I love it.

I think it's one of the best things I've ever seen.

And he's just, you're just watching footage he's taken and there's one on scaffolding, which is absolutely brilliant.

But there's three seasons of it.

How To with John Wilson.

I mean, granted, yeah, that doesn't sound gripping.

No, but it's fantastic.

It's really, really good.

It's really good.

John Wilson.

Yeah, How To with John Wilson, HBO.

Yeah.

Well, thanks Paul.

I'll speak to you shortly and I'll speak to you properly on here in a year.

We'll do it on October 10th, 2024, if you're up for that.

Yeah, yeah, of course.

All right, man.

Well, thanks for coming on.

And I promise to watch more appropriate television, not just elimination shows.

We will sort the technology out for next year that I'm using something that isn't incompatible with everyone.

Oh, well, I mean, if...

I mean, every day I tap don't update in the corner.

Oh, tell me in 24 hours time.

And I've been doing that probably for five years.

I've been doing it for five years.

So that's why my computer is not operational.

Thanks Paul.

I'll see you soon.

See you later.

So that was the wonderful Paul Critoph joining us again for our end of year special, or beginning of year special, obviously, because this is going out in January 2024.

Now, you'll probably hear from Paul again in the future, and he'll definitely be back in a year.

So listen out for that, and hopefully we'll get our notes sorted a bit better, and hopefully we'll sort out all our internet issues and all of that.

Anyway, the studio will be well up and running properly by then, right?

So we'll hopefully, hopefully in a few weeks.

Anyway, now to our outro track.

Now we ended the year with a collaboration with my friend, Ethan Ali, The Christmas Song.

And we're gonna start the new year with another collab.

This song was not actually written by me.

It was produced by me, and the instrumentation and everything, you know, was done by myself.

But originally the song was written on a guitar by my friend, Hanan Elsharif, who sings on this.

It was under her mantle, Chenova Springs, her band name at the time.

I just love this track, and I love the graphics that we did for the single, the CD single, and it came up the other day as a sort of template for what I'm trying to do now visually.

And I thought, oh, I love that song.

Let's pop it on the pod.

So here it is.

This is called Don't Forget Me by Hanan Elsharif, otherwise known as Chenova Springs, written by her, produced and played by me.

That was Don't Forget Me by Chinova Springs, written by Hanan Elsharif.

I produced that one in Tokyo, I believe, in 2007.

I was doing a lot of work with other artists at the time.

So a person could have been born then, gone to school, had their whole school life and left home and be in the workforce in the time since we made that song, which is kind of insane.

Now it's a new year, it's 2024, so we're doing things a little bit different.

So there's a lot of chat about films and American theme park rides on that podcast, which you did not hear.

So that is going to be put out as a little mini short bonus episode later in the week.

Look out for that.

Thanks for listening and we'll be back to a regular schedule, schedule, schedule, schedule schedule as of now.