This week Steven has been rewatching some old Friends episodes following the passing of Matthew Perry. The team is sad to see him go for his work that impacted our lives but also for the way he helped other people in real life to deal with addiction issues.
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00:00 (upbeat music)
00:02 - Hello and welcome to Screen Babble,
00:14 your guide to what to watch.
00:15 We'll be tuning into hours and hours of TV
00:17 so we can tell you what you need to be switching on
00:19 and what's to be avoided.
00:20 I'm your host, Kelly Crichton,
00:21 and as ever, our resident TV critic, Stephen Ross, is here.
00:25 In addition to this week, we're joined by Simon Cutler
00:27 from the marketing team at National World.
00:29 Remember, if you want to see our faces,
00:30 you can head over to Freeview channel 276 Shots,
00:34 which is brought to you by a network of journalists
00:35 across the country who are transforming stories
00:37 at the heart of your community into great TV.
00:40 You'll find true crime stories, football news and analysis,
00:42 plus coverage of lifestyle, TV, film, and much more.
00:46 If you haven't tuned in before,
00:47 each week we'll be chatting about what we're watching
00:49 as well as looking more closely at a new program
00:51 or something making the headlines in the deep dive.
00:54 This week, Stephen is gonna talk to us
00:56 about JFK One Day in America, new to Disney+.
01:01 Finally, we go back to the future to tell you
01:03 about a program you may have missed
01:04 when it first aired or streamed.
01:06 This week, Simon joins us to tell us
01:08 about Garrett Marenghi's "Dark Place,"
01:10 ye olde comedy from Channel 4.
01:13 But first, we like to talk about
01:14 what everyone has been watching recently.
01:16 So Stephen, start with you this week.
01:18 Tell us, what have you been watching?
01:21 - Well, yeah, I started watching,
01:24 well, re-watching "Friends" for obvious reasons.
01:27 - Yeah.
01:29 - But I couldn't, it was too sad, to be honest.
01:31 - Too sad.
01:33 - I think Matthew Perry was probably the best friend.
01:38 I know they all fulfilled different roles
01:41 and you needed all the-
01:42 - Definitely the funniest.
01:43 - He was most people's favorite, I think.
01:45 He was definitely my favorite.
01:47 - Me too.
01:47 - And, you know, outside of, I know,
01:51 after Matthew Perry died,
01:54 it was resurfaced, those interviews,
01:55 where he said that he wanted to be remembered
01:57 for helping people with drug addiction
02:00 rather than for being Chandler on "Friends."
02:03 But he also said he knew that that wouldn't happen.
02:05 And obviously he is gonna be known forever as Chandler.
02:09 So yeah, I was watching that more
02:11 just to try and soothe my aching heart.
02:14 And it was, you know,
02:17 - Yeah, it was very sad, wasn't it?
02:18 - Very little knew that we still got "Friends," really.
02:20 - I think the thing is with "Friends,"
02:23 you kind of always thought that he was proper funny,
02:28 if you know what I mean, like funny, writer funny.
02:31 Like, and that a lot of his stuff was sort of
02:35 probably ad-libbed or slightly developed from the script,
02:38 you know, and that was always the impression he gave.
02:41 Yeah, he wrote with them as well, did he?
02:44 - I believe so, yeah.
02:45 - Yeah, so-
02:46 - More than the others, anyway.
02:47 - Yeah, so I think that always came across,
02:49 but yeah, obviously it was known for quite a long time
02:52 that he struggled and actually my husband was saying
02:55 to me the other day that he heard him say once
02:57 that he, when he looked, he doesn't, he can't watch
02:59 or he couldn't watch "Friends" back
03:01 because series one, it was like drug addiction,
03:04 series two, alcohol, series three, alcohol, you know,
03:07 and he could just see in himself his deterioration.
03:09 So it just, I guess it just makes you aware of that,
03:14 you know, whatever somebody might be doing on television
03:16 or in the public eye,
03:17 they could be struggling in elsewhere in their personal life
03:20 so it's good to bear these things in mind.
03:22 And yeah, he was, as you said, all these little interview
03:27 clips and stuff have come out of him talking about
03:29 how he wanted to be remembered and yeah,
03:32 it's good to say that as well
03:33 because he did do an awful lot for people
03:35 with alcohol and addiction problems,
03:37 including like opening a facility for men in LA
03:40 and things like that.
03:40 So yeah, so nice to acknowledge him
03:44 and his impact on all our lives
03:46 'cause he was definitely massive when I was a teenager,
03:48 "Friends" was first on when I was a teenager
03:50 and it was like, you know,
03:52 the water cooler moment of the week was "Friends,"
03:56 you know, so yeah.
03:58 Okay, anything else?
03:59 Anything more cheery?
04:00 - Yeah, well, it's not necessarily more cheery,
04:03 but I started, well, I started "Unfinished Time" season two.
04:08 - Oh, I started it.
04:09 I was gonna talk about it as well.
04:10 So you go, you go, you go.
04:12 - Okay, well, it's the follow-up to the Stephen Graham,
04:15 Sean Bean prison drama,
04:16 but with a different cast setting on all women's prison,
04:20 Jodie Comer, Bella Ramsey, and Tamara Lawrence, I believe.
04:25 Fantastic, fantastic cast.
04:29 Bella Ramsey's incredible in it.
04:30 - She's incredible.
04:31 - It's the thing with the first season
04:35 was that I thought it was an incredible show.
04:38 I think I did it as a "Back to the Future," in fact.
04:41 - You did.
04:41 - But it was just too realistic.
04:45 Like it gave me like just irrational fear
04:48 of being sent to prison.
04:50 - I remember we talked,
04:51 I remember we were talking about it, yeah.
04:53 - Yeah, and I mean, this I could distance myself a bit
04:57 because it's an all women's prison, but yeah, it was-
04:59 - Yeah, but having said that, one of the main-
05:02 - Incredibly horrible.
05:03 - Yeah, one of the main protagonist storylines
05:05 is literally about how you can easily be sent to prison
05:08 'cause she like fiddles the lecky, as she says.
05:11 And she's a good person,
05:13 she's looking after her kids, everything,
05:15 but she does this one sort of pretty,
05:18 what you would say is a pretty minor crime.
05:21 And she ends up being sent to prison for six months.
05:22 And essentially it's kind of commentary
05:24 on how broken that system is.
05:26 This woman who was functioning well in society
05:28 made one mistake and ended up like losing her kids,
05:32 losing her home, all that.
05:33 Now I've only seen the first episode,
05:35 but it's heartbreaking, that story.
05:37 And you just know we're gonna see her again.
05:39 So it's gonna get worse and it's that type of program.
05:41 - Well, yeah, so at the end of the first episode,
05:44 obviously Jodie Whicker's character
05:46 is released from prison.
05:48 But you know, it's a three episode long miniseries.
05:50 - And she's gonna be in the whole thing, yeah.
05:53 - So yeah, it's a very powerful attack
05:57 on the current prison system that we have.
06:02 The argument of this show, I guess,
06:05 is that the current prison system
06:08 is not built around rehabilitation or helping people.
06:11 It's built around just punishment.
06:14 And also there's huge issues of underfunding
06:19 and understaffing and yeah.
06:22 - Yeah.
06:23 - But it's a fantastic series, yeah.
06:25 Loved the second season.
06:27 Watched the first two episodes last night
06:28 and then wanted to finish it for the podcast.
06:30 So I got up this morning and finished it.
06:32 - Good on you, you're true.
06:33 I wasn't sure if it was actually all available
06:35 'cause I was doing my linear thing of one a week
06:37 with it anyway, but.
06:39 - Yeah, it's all on iPlayer.
06:41 - I think it's worth mentioning as well,
06:43 Bella Ramsey, their performance is absolutely outstanding.
06:48 The character they play, she is very agitated.
06:52 She is very absent, sort of very fixated
06:56 on where her next drugs are coming from
06:59 and absolutely convincing.
07:02 And I just think they are going to be absolutely massive.
07:05 They're so young.
07:06 - Yeah.
07:07 - Yeah, the future is bright there.
07:09 So, okay, right.
07:11 Do we know if there's gonna be another series?
07:14 Have you looked into that?
07:15 - Not been confirmed yet.
07:17 I don't know where they'd go with it now.
07:19 They've done an all male,
07:22 I mean, maybe a young offenders would be interesting.
07:24 I think that would be really good.
07:25 - It's kind of interesting though that they've,
07:26 like what is, it's just a prison,
07:30 it's prison stories rather than,
07:32 like that's the only things that are in common.
07:35 - So the prison chaplain from the Happy Valley actress,
07:39 the sister in Happy Valley, she's in both seasons.
07:42 - Oh, is she?
07:43 - So she's like the glue, I guess.
07:46 But yeah, I think it'd be interesting to do one
07:49 in a young offenders institution,
07:53 but I don't know, I like the grittiness
07:57 of the like adult high security places.
08:02 But I don't know if they're gonna do another season.
08:04 - It's Siobhan Finneran is the name of the woman,
08:07 the actress, and she was just in the Reckoning as well.
08:10 And she was really good in the Reckoning, wasn't she?
08:12 And they did a really good job of aging her
08:16 and anti-aging her in the Reckoning, I thought.
08:18 She looked so young at the start of it.
08:21 And then she was an old woman at the end of it.
08:23 And it was very convincing, I thought.
08:24 Sorry, just an aside there.
08:26 Okay, yes, she plays the chaplain.
08:28 Yeah, big, massive recommend from both of us on time.
08:34 Okay, thank you for that.
08:36 Simon, tell us, what have you been watching recently?
08:38 - I recently finished watching the Philomena Kunk,
08:44 Kunk on Earth, which is released on Netflix this year.
08:50 Bit of a, yeah, I guess a bit of a more lighter comic relief
08:55 compared to some of the other ones
08:58 we've spoken about so far.
08:59 - Nice bit of social commentary though from her,
09:02 isn't there, and that kind of thing, so.
09:04 - Yeah, yeah.
09:05 It's, I think we love playing the game of,
09:10 my wife and I watched it,
09:11 we love playing the game of trying to figure out
09:13 whether all of the people she interviews on the show,
09:16 whether they're in on it from the start
09:18 or how long it takes for them to kind of clock that.
09:22 Yeah, maybe it's not quite so serious.
09:27 - So, is there anyone of note that she interviews
09:31 in this series?
09:33 - Oh gosh.
09:35 Not that I'd be able to name.
09:39 - Okay, all right, no, that's fine.
09:40 I was just wondering because usually you think
09:42 some people with a particular profile would be weary
09:45 of someone like her asking them for an interview.
09:49 It's often politicians and things like that, isn't it,
09:52 where like, they're just kind of eager, aren't they, so.
09:55 - Yeah, so this one's mainly just historians,
10:00 but she covers the main advancements of humanity
10:05 throughout the years, from Stone Age through to now.
10:10 But Diane Morgan, who plays,
10:13 whose character is Philomena Kunk,
10:15 she's just brilliant at the deadpan mock dumbness,
10:20 I guess you'd say.
10:24 - Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
10:26 She's very funny.
10:27 I loved her in "Motherland" as well.
10:29 She's great.
10:30 So, okay, and so how long was that series?
10:34 And it's on Netflix, you said?
10:35 - Yeah, so it's just one series.
10:40 I think it's about six episodes long, something like that.
10:44 But yeah, definitely recommend watching it.
10:46 - Cool, cool.
10:47 What else?
10:48 Anything else been on your telly recently?
10:50 - Yeah, so almost just about through,
10:54 halfway through the final episode,
10:56 but I had to cut it short,
10:57 but I've been watching the "Wheel of Time" series on Amazon.
11:02 - Oh yeah, tell us about that.
11:03 Tell us the premise.
11:04 - Yeah, so it's based on a series of books,
11:10 fantasy novels by a author called Robert Jordan.
11:14 I think unlike "Game of Thrones,"
11:20 the actual book series has been completed,
11:23 so there's no fear of,
11:25 or no danger of overtaking the source material.
11:28 - Okay, yeah.
11:29 - Yeah, it's very epic in proportions and scales.
11:36 I would say, because I watched
11:39 the "Rings of Power" on Amazon as well,
11:42 and I think this is probably a better version
11:46 of "Rings of Power,"
11:48 or better than "Rings of Power,"
11:50 although probably not as big a budget.
11:53 (upbeat music)
11:56 The whole thing is there's a wheel of time,
12:06 so people, ages pass by,
12:10 and then these famous heroes from previous ages
12:15 are resurrected, and it's a constant battle
12:18 between good and evil, essentially.
12:20 - Okay, okay.
12:21 Isn't it always?
12:22 (laughing)
12:24 So that's the first series, is that right,
12:27 that's on Netflix?
12:30 - It's the second series,
12:31 so they just added the second series this year.
12:35 - Oh, okay.
12:36 - And it's Amazon Prime, right?
12:37 Is it, or is it Netflix, sorry?
12:39 - Amazon Prime, yeah.
12:40 - Amazon Prime, okay, cool.
12:42 Very good, so that's one,
12:43 if you're looking for a long commitment,
12:45 that is for you, that'll be the one for you,
12:47 and you're enjoying it.
12:51 - Yeah, I think on the whole,
12:53 it's, I haven't read the book,
12:55 so I've not got a lot to base it on,
12:59 but I mean, I wasn't as pleased
13:02 with how they did "Rings of Power,"
13:03 so I'm not sure whether some fans of the books
13:06 will find it.
13:08 I mean, understandably, you've got so much source material
13:11 to fit into a short series,
13:13 you're gonna have to cut things out,
13:15 but I think on the whole, it's been enjoyable.
13:19 There's, it's quite similar to the "Witcher" series
13:24 in that it takes some time to figure out what's going on.
13:29 I think it could do a better job
13:31 at kind of explaining things as it goes along,
13:34 but you kind of get there at the end.
13:36 - Okay, cool, cool, cool.
13:38 Okay, Amazon Prime.
13:39 Right, me, I've been watching "Time."
13:44 The only other thing I was gonna mention was
13:45 I watched a documentary on Amazon Prime
13:48 at the weekend called "No Woman, No Try."
13:51 It's about women in English rugby.
13:54 It follows Shona Brown,
13:56 who's an ex-international rugby player for England
14:00 and a couple of other players,
14:01 sort of tells their story and tells the story
14:03 of how women in rugby,
14:05 like the kind of barriers they come up against
14:08 and the challenges they've had and the wins they've had
14:12 and sort of everything that's left to be done,
14:14 but it's really eye-opening and really educational
14:18 and just, you know, Shona Brown's
14:21 absolutely a great character,
14:22 so I love hearing her story.
14:24 So yeah, would recommend that.
14:25 It's only an hour long.
14:26 It's definitely worth investing an hour of your life in it.
14:28 It's really good.
14:29 Okay, whether you like rugby or not,
14:31 there's not an awful lot about the actual game.
14:35 It's more about everything around the game.
14:37 Okay, right, moving along.
14:40 So we're gonna talk to you, Stephen, now
14:42 about "JFK One Day in America,"
14:45 and I fear that your happy positive streak
14:48 of the last few weeks is about to come to a sudden end.
14:51 Tell us.
14:52 Yeah, I needed this show like a hole in the head.
14:57 Oh no, not that bad.
15:00 It's okay.
15:02 Well, it's not really okay.
15:04 I guess what I would, if I was being honest,
15:08 I would call it sort of completely pointless.
15:13 The JFK 60th anniversary of his assassination in Dallas
15:17 is on the 22nd of November this year.
15:21 So obviously they've had to create some documentaries
15:25 for it, but nothing new has come out on the JFK case
15:30 since like the '80s, right, of any sort of substance.
15:34 So everything's already been done.
15:36 So this is from National Geographic,
15:40 and it's on Disney Plus.
15:42 And then like fresh angle is,
15:43 oh, we're getting some of the last remaining,
15:45 last surviving eyewitnesses from the time
15:48 to give their perspective on the events of JFK.
15:51 It's called "One Day in America."
15:52 It covers five days.
15:54 That annoyed me to begin with.
15:56 You're hilarious, go on.
15:59 And it follows-
15:59 Called artistic license.
16:01 But it's the actual title, "One Day in America,"
16:07 and then it's not.
16:09 It's the best part of a week.
16:11 Anyway, it follows, it's from the perspective of Sid Davis,
16:14 who was a reporter at the time,
16:15 and I think went on to become the CEO
16:18 of a news channel or something.
16:21 Clint Hill was one of his,
16:22 Jackie Kennedy's secret service officers.
16:24 He sort of rapped with guilt
16:26 that he couldn't protect her husband.
16:29 And then there's Paul Landis, another secret service agent
16:32 who was in the motorcade and very close to the events
16:36 as they unfolded.
16:39 It's basically being made
16:41 because someone at Nat Geo or Disney has said,
16:44 "Oh, we need to have a JFK documentary."
16:47 So the original aspect of it
16:51 is these sort of personal anecdotes of like,
16:53 oh, this is what I felt at the time,
16:55 and I can still remember it now, and I'm very sad.
16:57 They talk a little bit about John Kennedy Jr.
17:05 as a two-year-old and how sort of affected he was by it,
17:09 and I didn't know that,
17:12 but I basically knew or had heard vaguely
17:17 of everything that was sort of mentioned,
17:20 and it just was totally unoriginal,
17:24 and then also just not presented
17:27 in a very interesting or engaging way.
17:29 There are just a lot of faces to camera,
17:33 and then the same archive footage
17:34 that you've seen time and time again,
17:36 you see Lee Harvey Oswald getting walked from the courtroom,
17:41 and you're like, "Well, he's gonna get shot now, isn't he?"
17:46 And then that happens, and then Jack Ruby gets arrested,
17:49 and it's just a big load of nothing, really,
17:54 to be totally cruel,
17:58 but there's not really anything to recommend it.
18:04 And also, it's three 45-minute episodes,
18:07 and frankly, it could have been one.
18:10 It could have been one day in America
18:11 and just the one episode.
18:13 - Okay, for any hardcore JFK enthusiasts out there,
18:17 where can they find it?
18:18 - Yeah, if anyone wants to watch it,
18:20 just following that glowing recommendation,
18:22 all three episodes, I believe,
18:24 come to Disney+ in the UK on the 6th of,
18:29 Monday the 6th of November.
18:31 I think it's on in the US a day earlier
18:34 and then comes to us on Monday.
18:35 - Okay, well, thank you for watching that.
18:37 - That's all right.
18:39 - Did you ever watch Kevin Costner's "JFK," the movie?
18:43 - Yeah, yeah.
18:44 That was, I mean, I know a lot of people hated that
18:46 because it was a three-hour, 20-minute,
18:48 whatever courtroom drama,
18:50 and also not based on any historical fact.
18:54 I quite enjoyed that.
18:55 I would recommend, yeah, the Oliver Stone "JFK."
19:01 - Over anything.
19:01 - I would recommend that above this,
19:03 although it will be slightly less informative
19:06 'cause it's all made up.
19:07 (Sian laughs)
19:08 - Oh, well.
19:10 Okay, thank you for that.
19:11 Right, over to you, Simon.
19:12 We're gonna talk about Gareth Marenghi's "Dark Place"
19:15 on "Back to the Future" today.
19:16 Tell us about it.
19:17 Comedy, Channel 4, 2000 and?
19:22 - 2004, so. - Long time ago, yeah.
19:25 - Yeah, sadly, a lot longer than I remember it.
19:30 It feels like yesterday.
19:33 But I think, yeah, a bit more topical
19:35 in the week of Halloween.
19:38 It's a kind of mock horror, spoof horror.
19:42 It's created by Richard Ayoade and Matthew Holness
19:47 who plays the character Gareth Marenghi,
19:52 and it's a show within a show.
19:55 So Gareth Marenghi in his,
19:57 I'm gonna have to pull this up,
19:58 but in his own words,
20:00 Gareth Marenghi, author, dream weaver, visionary,
20:04 plus actor.
20:05 (Sian laughs)
20:08 And yeah, it's got a good cast.
20:11 So yeah, Matthew Holness,
20:13 I think that's probably the main role
20:15 people would know him as playing.
20:18 Richard Ayoade, Matt Berry also stars in it,
20:23 and I just love Matt Berry's voice.
20:26 I could listen to him in anything.
20:29 And Alice Lowe as well.
20:31 So they're the main,
20:32 plus a few appearances from the likes of Julian Barrett
20:37 and Noel Fielding.
20:38 And I think it's very much of that time.
20:41 If you're a fan of "Mighty Beach,"
20:44 you'd probably enjoy this.
20:45 But yeah, so the whole premise is
20:49 Gareth Marenghi is a horror writer,
20:52 and it's, "Gareth Marenghi's Dark Place"
20:56 is a series he shot for Channel 4,
21:00 but they refused to air because it was just so,
21:04 just too scary, too outrageous.
21:07 And then they finally released the tapes.
21:10 So it's, the show is,
21:12 within that, he plays Dr. Rip Douglas, MD,
21:17 and it's set in this '80s hospital in Essex.
21:23 And then it's intercut with scenes of him,
21:27 Matthew Holmes as Gareth Marenghi
21:29 and Richard Ayoade as Dean Lerner
21:32 doing interviews about shooting
21:35 and filming and various things.
21:37 It's brilliant.
21:39 It's just got that real '80s trope,
21:44 cliche vibe to it.
21:47 There's little things about it
21:50 that I think are just brilliant,
21:51 just kind of out-of-sync sound effects
21:55 as they're walking along the corridor
21:57 and really obviously poor budget, low budget quality.
22:02 Yeah.
22:05 - Okay.
22:06 So both fans of kind of spoof horror,
22:11 spoof documentary,
22:14 and then "Mighty Bush" all mixed into one, essentially.
22:19 - Yeah, some proper absurdist, surrealist comedy
22:23 with a slight horror theme.
22:26 - With a slight horror theme, excellent.
22:27 Okay, so maybe that's kind of up my street.
22:29 I'm not big into horror,
22:30 so it's like, I'll take the kind of
22:32 semi-funny horror stuff instead.
22:34 Okay, cool.
22:37 And that is Channel 4,
22:37 so you'd be able to just get that at Channel 4, yeah?
22:40 We're calling Channel 4 just Channel 4 these days,
22:43 isn't it?
22:43 Yeah.
22:45 Okay, cool.
22:46 That's a good one.
22:46 And they're just short little half hours,
22:48 and there was only one series, is that right?
22:50 - Yeah, just the one series.
22:52 So it's a great little half hour.
22:55 - Handy watch.
22:56 Cool, okay.
22:58 Up there with your favorite comedies of all time?
23:03 - I would say, I think I would say so.
23:05 I don't know how well it's aged,
23:08 but if you're a fan of the comedy at that time,
23:10 I know sometimes comedy is very subjective,
23:14 but it's up there with mine.
23:16 - I think everybody knows that type of
23:18 absurdist, surrealist stuff that they're all known for,
23:20 so yeah, if you like that, then it's for you.
23:23 Okay, thanks Simon.
23:24 And thank you everyone for joining us this week.
23:26 Do look out for Friday morning's
23:27 Screen Babble Weekend Watch,
23:28 which will preview what to watch
23:29 over the weekend and beyond.
23:31 If you have any suggestions about what TV
23:33 we need to get into our lives,
23:35 do drop us an email via,
23:37 oh, sorry, do drop us a line via our social media.
23:39 You'll find us on Twitter @NationalWorldTV
23:42 and on all other platforms as National World.
23:44 We'd love for you to rate, review, and subscribe
23:46 to the podcast so we can reach as many TV lovers as possible.
23:48 We'll be back again next week with more Screen Babble.
23:51 Bye-bye.
23:53 - Bye.
23:54 (upbeat music)
23:56 (upbeat music)