• last year
This week on Screen Babble Kelly and Steven are joined by Benjamin Jackson, Digital Journalist for National World.

Steven has been watching Derry Girls, following its arrival on Netflix last month. Benji has been checking out One Piece and lots of classic anime. Kelly has started Screw and The Tower which she's enjoying but has thrown out hospital drama The Resident after only 2 episodes. She also watched The Founder which is the McDonald's story essentially - worth a watch for sure.

On the 'deep dive' Steven talks to us about Top Boy, the final series is about to land on Netflix. Benji takes us through American sitcom cult classic Arrested Development and why editing changes jeopardised the whole thing.

Category

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TV
Transcript
00:00 Hello and welcome to ScreenBabble, your guide to what to watch.
00:03 We'll be tuning into hours and hours of TV
00:05 so we can tell you what you need to be switching on and what's to be avoided.
00:08 I'm your host, Kelly Crichton.
00:09 And as ever, resident TV critic Stephen Ross is here.
00:12 In addition, this week, we are joined by digital journalist
00:15 for National World, Benjamin Jackson.
00:17 Welcome, Benji.
00:18 Thanks for having me.
00:20 We are very welcome.
00:21 Remember, if you want to see our faces, you can head over
00:23 to the brand new Freeview channel 276 Shots,
00:27 which is brought to you by a network of journalists across the country
00:30 who are transforming stories at the heart of your community into great TV.
00:33 You'll find true crime stories, football news and analysis,
00:35 plus coverage of lifestyle, TV, film and much more.
00:39 If you haven't tuned in before, each week we'll be chatting about
00:42 what we're watching, as well as looking more closely at a new program
00:45 or something making the headlines in the deep dive.
00:47 This week, Stephen is talking to us about the new series of Top Boy.
00:51 It's all very complicated.
00:52 It's on Netflix. We'll talk about that in a while.
00:54 And finally, we go back to the future to tell you about a program
00:57 you may have missed when it first aired or streamed.
00:59 This week, Benji joins us as guest host to talk about American sitcom
01:03 classic Arrested Development.
01:06 But first, we like to talk about what everyone has been watching recently.
01:09 Stephen, what have you been watching?
01:11 Yeah, so I finally got round to finishing Derry Girls.
01:15 So did you?
01:17 Yeah, I watched the The Good Friday special.
01:21 Yeah, so good. Yeah, it's interesting.
01:24 The really good episodes of the comedy shows are always the ones
01:27 that are like the most emotional, at least comedy.
01:30 Sentimental. Yeah, I know.
01:32 But I suppose you've built up a rapport with the characters by then,
01:35 and you couldn't just start with something like that.
01:37 It wouldn't work. You have to kind of end with it.
01:39 Or yeah. So go on, tell us what you thought.
01:41 Well, it was weird how the...
01:43 I don't know if when it was coming out, Good Friday came out
01:46 just after the season six episode, but the season six episode
01:49 just ended with just Claire's dad dying.
01:52 And that was just sort of it.
01:54 And they were at a funeral, all teary eyed.
01:56 And I thought, Christ.
01:58 But then the Good Friday special really sort of picked things up a little bit.
02:05 And it ended on a much nicer note with all like the hoppy, changey
02:10 sort of thing.
02:12 And then it takes you through sort of the history of
02:15 like the post Good Friday agreement world
02:20 and how Ireland became much more peaceful.
02:24 Obviously, it was made before all of the shenanigans
02:28 with the Windsor framework, etc.
02:31 And, you know, it could all go to pot now.
02:33 But there was a bit of all that going on when it aired.
02:37 Yeah, that's true.
02:39 They were talking, you know, there was a lot of chatter at the time
02:41 about how everyone should be like not lose sight of what
02:46 what happened and how it was so important in the lives it influenced, etc.
02:50 I think what you're talking about there when they kind of go from,
02:53 you know, the death to the Good Friday agreement, it's
02:56 there's something about obviously they're leaving school
02:58 and they're kind of burgeoning and they're heading off into a big grown up world.
03:02 So that's I guess what the transition is.
03:05 I heard Lisa McGee's got a new series coming out about a group of friends
03:09 in Northern Ireland again.
03:10 So we've got more of the same of some sort coming down the line,
03:13 which would be welcome because it's very funny.
03:15 Yeah. And you love your Northern Irish shows as well, don't you?
03:18 I actually do. I actually do.
03:21 So, yeah, anything else?
03:22 So Derry Girls, yeah, definitely hard. Recommend always for Derry Girls.
03:25 Yeah, actually, I was watching the first episode of the new series
03:27 of Screw last night, which is Jamie.
03:30 Jamie, what's her surname?
03:31 Jamie Lee O'Donnell, is it?
03:33 Yes. She's obviously in Derry Girls. She's great.
03:35 So she's in Channel 4.
03:38 It's a prison series, started back this week.
03:40 So, yeah, enjoying that. I enjoyed the last series as well.
03:43 It's kind of it's like any prison, prison series.
03:47 But obviously it's a bit more modern than most of them.
03:50 So that's what it's kind of got going for it.
03:53 But sorry. Go ahead. Yeah. What else? Anything else?
03:55 Well, I'm trying to burn through Peep Show for the 40th time or something
04:00 because it's it's coming off Netflix at the end of the month, which is
04:03 oh, hilarious, an absolute tragedy.
04:06 I'm still not that person.
04:08 I like there's very, very, very, very, very, very, very few things
04:13 I've ever watched twice.
04:14 I know that's probably a confession, but there you go.
04:16 Yeah. But you're enjoying it.
04:17 Yeah. I mean, it's great. It's a great sitcom.
04:19 It's just a shame that Netflix is losing that and Fresh Meat
04:22 at the end of the month, as well as a few.
04:25 Well, a lot of other far less famous titles.
04:29 And you do sort of wonder
04:31 how much it's going to rely on Netflix originals,
04:35 which can be very hit and miss.
04:38 We'll see what happens moving forward.
04:41 Well, listen, you're going to have more time in your life for other things.
04:44 So there you go. That's true.
04:45 Um, OK. Right.
04:47 Well, over to you then, Benji.
04:49 Tell us what kind of stuff you normally watch and what have you been watching recently?
04:52 I mean, that's a difficult one because I'm into all sorts.
04:55 I don't mind the old crime. It's a bit like me.
04:57 Yeah, I don't mind a crime procedural.
04:59 I don't mind a silly slapstick comedy.
05:02 I too have been rewatching Peep's show, much like Stephen has said,
05:06 before it leaves Netflix.
05:08 If it does, because we've seen before with Friends
05:11 that there's such a coarse celebre about something leaving that they change their minds.
05:16 But with One Piece making its debut on Netflix last week,
05:22 I ended up taking a look at a lot of older kind of Japanese animation because...
05:30 Oh, hilarious. That's what we were talking about last week.
05:32 Yeah, because I was very fearful how One Piece is going to be received
05:37 after one of my most beloved animes to watch, Cowboy Bebop, got the Netflix treatment.
05:43 - And... - Oh, dear.
05:44 Yeah, I think that's all that needs to be said about that one.
05:47 - Oh, everyone. Yeah. - So I've been going through things like
05:51 Neon Genesis Evangelion, which I also believe was on Netflix for a short while.
05:55 It might still be there as well.
05:57 Going back to Akira, which is one of those animes that I will always show
06:03 anyone that's not familiar with the genre or the art form.
06:07 It was kind of one of the originals, Akira, wasn't it?
06:09 - Oh, yeah, without question. - It's like 80s, 90s. Yeah.
06:11 I think it was late 80s.
06:13 And then it was one of the first animes that got brought over to the Western markets
06:19 and it blew up, which led to that whole manga boom and being like a hot-blooded teenager
06:25 in like the 90s, just grabbing as many VHS covers as possible
06:30 with gnarly kind of artwork on the front.
06:33 So, but you know, I've evolved now and I'm not quite as bloodthirsty.
06:36 So I've been shaking up those other little bits and pieces as well.
06:40 But yeah, definitely a ton of anime, one piece.
06:44 And it's got to be Peep Show, because I think it's an institution at this point in time.
06:49 Mm hmm. Yeah.
06:51 Peep Show is a definite so for cover stories for today then.
06:56 I have been, I didn't watch as much TV this week as I did last week.
07:00 Last week I feel like I had tons of stuff to talk about.
07:02 But I've started a few new things and dropped a few things
07:06 because I'm getting a bit more ruthless in my old age around.
07:09 I used to just be like, I have to watch the whole thing as I've started it now.
07:12 Whereas I'm like, no, I just don't have time for anything that's not decent.
07:16 So I started a thing called The Tower, which was out a few years ago.
07:19 The second series of it is just started.
07:22 And and I completely missed it the first time around.
07:26 It's ITV, isn't it? I think it's ITV. Yeah, I believe so.
07:29 And I'm quite enjoying that.
07:32 It's, as you say, like a crime procedure.
07:35 You kind of can't go wrong and the acting is quite good.
07:37 And there's a element of like dirty dealing within the cops, you know.
07:44 So it's kind of got two layers to it.
07:46 And then I started a thing called The Resident because Grey's Anatomy is
07:52 I finished Grey's Anatomy and I need a hospital drama in my life all the time.
07:56 And then so did New Amsterdam finished as well, quite suddenly,
07:59 which was a bit of a shock to the system.
08:01 And not because it's a great TV series, but just because my kind of
08:04 reliable easy watch thing once a week.
08:07 And so I started this thing called The Resident on Disney Plus.
08:13 Oh, it's terrible.
08:14 I've watched two episodes of it. I was like, I can't watch anymore.
08:16 And so avoid, avoid if you are looking for a hospital drama.
08:20 There's like three or four series of it.
08:22 But I was just like, oh, this is so cringe.
08:24 So other than that, then I watched a film at the weekend called The Founder.
08:30 It's fairly new to Netflix.
08:31 This is a story of McDonald's, essentially,
08:35 two brothers who set up a fast food outlet and what made them different.
08:40 And then this guy that came along, essentially, and franchised the idea.
08:44 That's not giving anything away, but it is interesting
08:48 that it's almost like a biopic of the guy
08:52 who who sort of made a franchise out of it.
08:54 And I didn't know the story.
08:57 And there was some very interesting stats in it about McDonald's.
08:59 So, yeah, he's a very easy watch.
09:02 It wasn't that long.
09:03 And Michael Keaton plays the main guy whose name escapes me.
09:08 And he's great.
09:10 And it's actually he's
09:11 he's one of these people I feel like plays a similar character and everything.
09:15 But this guy, this is a quite a different character.
09:17 He's quite an you don't really
09:19 you're not really rooting for him.
09:22 He's a bit of a
09:23 prick. A-hole for want of a better word.
09:26 Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
09:27 He's not nice.
09:28 He's not really a nice person.
09:30 And like, I don't know, he's kind of a stereotypical
09:33 cliched salesman at the start, who's like, you know,
09:37 trying to do everything to earn a buck and blah, blah, blah.
09:39 But anyway, he comes good, obviously.
09:41 But yeah, so that's easy watch worth of view.
09:44 Did you see it, Benji? You watched it.
09:46 Oh, yeah. No, I mean, I'm a big fan of Michael Keaton.
09:49 And I completely agree.
09:50 You start off with the idea that he's this every man
09:53 traveling kind of character.
09:55 And by the end of it, it's
09:57 began to loathe him quite a lot,
09:59 which is very difficult for me and Michael Keaton, to be honest with you.
10:03 So good on him.
10:03 I know. Good on him for letting me hate him.
10:05 He does play the good guy in most stuff, doesn't he?
10:08 Like, but yeah, he's and we were talking actually about
10:12 he's had a bit of a resurgence, hasn't he?
10:14 In in his career, he was kind of out in the wilderness there
10:16 for about 10 or 15 years, and he's been big the last few years.
10:19 What was that film where he like thought he was a bird?
10:22 Birdman. Birdman.
10:25 Birdman.
10:26 That's classic me, isn't it?
10:28 Something to do with a bird.
10:29 Oh, there you go.
10:32 OK, moving along.
10:33 Right over to you, Stephen.
10:35 We are going to talk about Top Boy and the deep dive.
10:38 The only things I know about Top Boy are, well, it's quite violent.
10:42 That's about all I know.
10:43 You love a bit of violence, don't you Stephen?
10:44 I do. It's fantastic.
10:47 And it is it is pretty violent, but more like sort of
10:51 knifey knifey, stabby, shooty violence
10:54 rather than particularly gory violence.
10:57 It's more bloody than gory, I would say.
10:59 OK, OK, good.
11:01 So I favour that.
11:03 Absolutely.
11:04 It's more like blue lights than Texas Chainsaw,
11:08 but season five is coming to Netflix.
11:11 Or season five of Top Boy, but season three of Netflix is Top Boy
11:16 because the first two seasons were Channel 4
11:19 and then it got cancelled in like 2011, 2012 sort of time.
11:23 And then in 2019, I want to say Netflix saved it
11:28 and brought it back for another three seasons.
11:32 And this is the fifth and final season of the show overall coming out.
11:36 So did Netflix first series continue?
11:40 Yes, it's the same characters.
11:41 I mean, they may have a few, but it's the same storyline,
11:44 same overarching thing.
11:45 And there was like a big furrow when it was cancelled
11:48 because it was a brilliant show.
11:49 It was a great London crime drama.
11:53 Set in an East London council estate
11:55 or housing estate, rather, and it follows the main two characters
12:00 of DeShane and Sully, two friends who are both up and comers
12:04 in the sort of drug world.
12:07 And through the first couple of seasons, they basically gain a foothold
12:11 as like sort of the big fish in a fairly small pond.
12:15 And then in sort of the Netflix series, they're branching out further
12:19 and taking over a lot of London's
12:22 criminal networks.
12:25 And Sully and DeShane begin to sort of drift apart as DeShane tries to go
12:30 legitimate and sort of leave that world behind
12:34 with all of the money he's made from drugs.
12:37 It's not like he's a saint.
12:38 And then Sully wants to sort of continue the sort of inter-scene warfare
12:43 and the climbing that ladder in the underworld.
12:46 So I've seen the first four episodes of the new season.
12:52 Which is out on the 7th.
12:53 They'll all drop in one go, the six episodes in total.
12:56 So the new season very much continues that divide between Sully and DeShane.
13:02 And Jack, who is a sort of supporting character in the last few seasons.
13:08 She's one of the like foot soldiers of Sully
13:13 and one of like his best earners.
13:15 She gets a much more prominent role.
13:18 I think her character's finally done justice in this new season
13:21 because she's always been, I think, one of the better characters.
13:25 And the actress, Jasmine Jobson, is really good as well.
13:30 So it's sort of great to see her get a better go of it.
13:34 The sort of main crux of the new season
13:40 is that these Irish gangsters come onto the scene and become a big threat
13:44 to Sully and to DeShane through that.
13:49 And their leader is played by Barry Cohn.
13:52 Oh, yeah.
13:53 So it's really nice to see him in something like...
13:55 I think I last saw him in Banshees of Inisheiran.
13:59 And this is a very different role.
14:02 Like obviously in Banshees, he's a village idiot, essentially.
14:06 And in Top Boy season five, he's a fairly sadistic
14:12 young drug lord or wannabe drug lord.
14:17 Yeah. But I don't necessarily think
14:20 they did as much with his character as they could have done.
14:23 I think from what I've seen so far, there's a lot of...
14:29 They could have made him more of a menace.
14:33 When he's first presented, he's this massive threat.
14:37 And then that quickly sort of doesn't go anywhere.
14:40 It definitely could have.
14:45 Well, you've got a couple episodes to go.
14:47 You never know what might happen.
14:48 Yeah, for sure. For sure.
14:50 And it's got all the good stuff of the first few seasons.
14:53 The good shooty shooty.
14:57 It's more shooty shooty than stabby stabby now because they've got...
15:01 Is it? I'm probably going to say the completely wrong thing now,
15:05 but is there like a martial arts element to it?
15:07 Or was there a different Top Boy that was a martial arts kind of thing?
15:10 Are you thinking of Old Boy?
15:13 Oh, maybe.
15:14 Which is a really interesting Korean movie.
15:19 That's probably what I'm thinking of.
15:21 Sorry. Very, very different.
15:22 Also very, very good.
15:24 Yeah. Not for the faint hearted.
15:26 That is a lot more
15:28 disturbing for many, many, many reasons.
15:32 Two reasons, really. Yeah.
15:36 Just speaking of Barry Kuhn or Kuhn,
15:40 he's in a new film as well, that's Saltburn.
15:43 I'm interested to see what... I was having the same thoughts as you, which is...
15:47 Which might be a bit unfair, but like you feel like anybody can play
15:51 the village idiot because, you know, you just play it a particular way.
15:54 And I was kind of surprised he got the nominations, the Oscar nomination.
15:57 Yeah, the range.
15:59 Yeah. So I'm glad to see that he's getting these kind of more serious roles
16:02 where he's a chance to kind of shine a bit.
16:05 But yeah, so this Saltburn, he's a lead in it.
16:08 So, yeah. Anyway, go on.
16:10 He's good in this. He's very good in it.
16:12 I just don't think he gets enough opportunities.
16:15 Yeah. But the really interesting thing with season five is that
16:19 it's always been quite political.
16:21 It's always about sort of poverty, gentrification, crime
16:25 and how one sort of leads to the other, leads to the other.
16:29 This season is very much...
16:32 There's scenes where the police are coming to deport a man
16:37 who came to this country as a baby.
16:39 And at the time when he came over, he didn't need papers
16:43 because of the rules of the time.
16:44 And his mother's like, you can't deport him.
16:46 And then the police keeps saying the home secretary has ordered
16:49 he be deported, the home secretary.
16:51 And obviously they don't name her.
16:53 But it's very obvious that...
16:55 I mean, and it's a Netflix show as well.
16:57 So they get to do that.
16:59 That they're taking a stab at a certain
17:01 member of our government.
17:05 God bless her.
17:08 Have you seen it? Have you watched any of the series, Benji?
17:11 No, because I got it confused with Top Buzzer, which was another...
17:14 Which is another kind of gritty, but more in the comedy vein.
17:19 But no, it's one of those shows that when I first came over here,
17:24 much like Luther, I...
17:25 Because the accent, if it didn't give it away, I was from New Zealand.
17:30 It was one of those shows where I got told I'd really enjoy it
17:34 if I liked that gritty procedural stuff of like HBO's The Wire
17:39 and The Corner and stuff like that.
17:41 OK, cool. So that's all on Netflix and various guises,
17:44 but you will find it there.
17:45 And the new series is landing?
17:47 7th September, all six episodes.
17:50 Yeah. Excellent. OK, thank you for that, Stephen.
17:52 Right, Benji, time to go to you for Back to the Future.
17:55 We're talking about Arrested Development, a cult classic,
17:59 I would say, potentially. Yes.
18:01 But yeah, I would agree with you up to a certain season,
18:04 which I hope Stephen agrees with.
18:07 Yeah, we're doing a lot of Netflix, aren't we?
18:09 But again, Arrested Development
18:12 with the first three seasons that were originally on Fox.
18:16 Many purists like myself will remember the outrage
18:20 when Fox cancelled it after three seasons and then
18:24 the great kind of joy that we all experienced
18:28 when Netflix said they would pick it up.
18:29 So I was rewatching the whole thing.
18:33 And then I realized when I got to season four,
18:37 they released two versions, the original version and the remix version.
18:41 The original version decided that they would instead of.
18:45 Having that whole ensemble kind of comedy,
18:49 which made Arrested Development brilliant in the first place,
18:52 they would instead pick out certain characters
18:55 and have that character just for one episode.
18:58 Oh, which for me just completely destroyed
19:01 what made Arrested Development brilliant.
19:03 You had such a really good ensemble cast, such as Jason Bateman,
19:07 Portia de Rossi, David Cross, Will Arnett,
19:11 Michael Cera, Ali Shawkat, everyone coming together
19:16 and just really bouncing off one another.
19:18 And you always felt like they were dumbing it down by just having
19:22 single character story arcs throughout all the episodes.
19:26 Now, thankfully, Mitch Hurwitz decided he was going to remix it
19:31 by including all the scenes with everyone together.
19:35 But I think by that time, the damage had been done, which is a shame
19:39 because I ended up finally biting the bullet and watching season five.
19:43 I really enjoyed it because it went back to that ensemble piece again.
19:48 So, yeah, I mean, you kind of if you're like me, I'm completely opposite
19:52 from you, Kelly, where you're going to give up on a TV series like,
19:58 no, it's not doing anything for me.
20:00 I'm the kind of personality that has to sit through it, you know, just to.
20:05 This is only a recent thing for me.
20:08 I used to be like that.
20:09 I feel like I've been self-flagellating for years, though,
20:11 so it's time to, like, give up on that,
20:13 especially because we're doing Screen Babble
20:14 and I feel like I need to watch the good stuff, you know,
20:16 so I need to get rid of get rid of what looks like it's going to be pretty poor,
20:21 especially if, you know, there's like five series of it.
20:23 I could probably stick out a six part or something like that, you know,
20:26 but I get what you're saying.
20:27 I get I used to be you.
20:29 Yeah. And like you said, there's just not enough time.
20:32 So I think that's the excuse I'm going to use for skipping season five
20:37 of Arrested Development for a while.
20:39 But no, it was definitely well worth it.
20:41 And it leaves it kind of open ended, but kind of closed ended.
20:45 I'm not going to spoil anything because I don't want to be that guy.
20:47 But so but just give us the give us the sort of
20:50 what is the story then for anyone who is completely unaware
20:53 of what Arrested Development is.
20:54 It's it's around this main character who it's kind of like a family dynasty thing.
20:58 And they're they're as far as I know, because I haven't really watched
21:02 much of it over the years.
21:03 And it's a family.
21:05 Does the does the he take over the business, the main character?
21:09 Yeah. So Michael Beluth, played by Jason Bateman,
21:12 begins his life off as kind of like the straight man
21:15 amongst this incredibly dysfunctional family involving
21:20 mothers that are effectively really in charge of things
21:24 and fathers that are going to jail for embezzlement.
21:27 And, you know, to quote George Blue for a moment, some light treason.
21:31 And it's effectively throughout three seasons
21:36 trying to discover whether the patriarch of the family
21:39 was really involved with some dodgy dealings that led to the light treason.
21:43 Yes, yes. Whether he was a patsy.
21:45 But within that, you've also got intertwining kind of storylines,
21:49 like how Michael Cera's character, George Michael,
21:52 has some kind of weird relationship with his cousin, played by Alia Shaw,
21:57 a cat that he can't shake off or David Cross being brilliant,
22:01 joining the Blue Man Group, only to discover it's not really
22:05 the Blue Man Group that he thought it was.
22:07 And it's just very interesting.
22:10 Like you said, it's about the family dynamic with a bunch of people
22:14 like a softer.
22:16 It's always sunny in Philadelphia, I would say.
22:18 Yeah, yeah, yeah. A lot of it's crude.
22:21 Yeah, yeah, definitely.
22:22 But still, a lot of the characters are very loathsome with some of the
22:26 options that they choose and where the audience then become kind of like,
22:30 you know, the moral arbiter, whether what they're doing is right,
22:33 given the circumstances they're doing or whether it's just completely wrong.
22:38 And it's brilliant.
22:40 It makes you think of like Schitt's Creek and Modern Family,
22:43 and they're all in the same sort of milieu kind of thing, maybe.
22:46 But yeah, so definitely a classic, I think.
22:49 And if people want to watch it, where is it available?
22:51 Netflix is available on Netflix.
22:54 All seasons one to five.
22:56 Definitely worth checking out.
22:58 Yeah, and I think it's one of the most important comedies in the 2000s
23:01 that came out and informed, like you said, Schitt's Creek
23:04 and the other sitcoms that deal with ensembles.
23:07 Yeah. OK. And a stellar lineup.
23:10 I think Michael Cera, that was kind of maybe one of his launching kind of pads.
23:13 Maybe. Yeah, definitely.
23:16 OK, cool. And we love him.
23:17 Well, I love him.
23:19 All right. Well, thanks for joining us this week, everybody.
23:21 Do look out for Friday morning's Screen Babble weekend watch,
23:24 which will preview what to watch over the weekend and beyond.
23:27 If you have any suggestions for what TV we need to get into our lives,
23:31 drop us a line by our social media.
23:32 You'll find us on Twitter at National World TV and on all other platforms
23:36 as National World.
23:37 We'd love for you to rate, review and subscribe to the podcast
23:39 so we can reach as many TV lovers as possible.
23:42 We'll be back next week with more Screen Babble.
23:44 And thank you, Benji, for joining us.
23:45 We'll see you again in a few weeks, no doubt.
23:47 And thanks, Stephen. And bye, everybody.
23:50 Bye. Bye.
23:52 Bye.
23:53 Bye.
23:54 Bye.
23:55 (upbeat music)
23:57 (upbeat music)

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