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Transcript

The (X) Hamster Files - Ghost in the Machine (featuring Agent Ioan Morris) · A Hamster With a Blunt Penknife - a Doctor Who Commentary podcast

• 0:30
  Please, Agent Morris, I'm absolutely desperate with this
• 0:34
  case. I know we worked together a long
• 0:37
  time ago, and I think I told you absolutely everything you know,
• 0:41
  of course, but I'm in dire straits.
• 0:44
  I need my little push up the ladder, the corporate ladder.
• 0:48
  Will you help me with this case please?
• 0:51
  Just this once. OK?
• 0:52
  Joe, I've told you just this once.
• 0:55
  I told you that the first time. I told you that the second time.
• 0:58
  And now for the third time. I really mean it.
• 1:00
  This third time. Just this once, OK?
• 1:03
  Absolutely promise you that you know if you do do the work, I
• 1:06
  will steal it and use it, OK? That's fine, it's happened
• 1:10
  before. What a prick that Jerry is.
• 1:14
  Hello, Joan. Hello again.
• 1:18
  Oh, you're back. Third time's a charm.
• 1:20
  Or maybe not. Let's see.
• 1:22
  Well, I did. I did ask you for a lesser
• 1:26
  episode, or at least something with the lesser reputation this
• 1:29
  time around, didn't I? You were.
• 1:30
  The only person you know who's put their hand up to do this
• 1:34
  xhamster files and said please give me a dog to talk about.
• 1:38
  But sometimes they are more interesting to talk about.
• 1:41
  I think certainly the reputation of it is interesting to talk
• 1:46
  about. That's the thing that I found
• 1:48
  most surprising is what I perceive as its reputation
• 1:52
  versus what I thought about it. I What do you think of Do you
• 1:58
  know much about Howard Gordon and Alex Ganza, the two writers
• 2:03
  of this episode? Only from seeing their names on
• 2:07
  X-Files episodes. I've never really followed
• 2:10
  anything in their in their career beyond that.
• 2:13
  If you can sort of point at any mid episode of The X-Files,
• 2:18
  yeah, you can guarantee it's going to have their their names
• 2:21
  stamped on it. A mid script.
• 2:25
  Just a solid pair of hands I guess.
• 2:27
  Was it? I think you need a solid pair of
• 2:30
  hands on a show like the XR, someone is just going to churn
• 2:32
  it out that you don't really have to cast too much of an eye
• 2:35
  on. And Carl is writing his own
• 2:37
  scripts, so he hasn't really got the time to do that, and I think
• 2:41
  they fit the bill. What surprises me about Ghosting
• 2:45
  the machine is this is quite early in The X-Files run to do
• 2:52
  the hoary old cliche of murder building by AI.
• 2:58
  It is. It definitely is, but it's also
• 3:01
  the first time they're doing like a contemporary technology
• 3:04
  gone wrong episode. So they've done, you know,
• 3:08
  they've done their monster of the week with Squeeze.
• 3:10
  They've established that's One Direction they can go in this, I
• 3:13
  think right is the first one where they're going, oh,
• 3:16
  something's wrong with the computers.
• 3:18
  It's tech, yeah. Which, yes, is a horeal cliche,
• 3:22
  but is the first time they do it, so they get points for that
• 3:26
  at least. You remember in the past when we
• 3:28
  talked about The X-Files having one foot in the door of reality?
• 3:32
  They even here, they don't jump into the pool, do they?
• 3:36
  It's still a procedural, it's still a character story and the,
• 3:41
  you know, the evil AI. They will go on to do better and
• 3:46
  certainly more Florida versions of this story.
• 3:50
  It's still quite tentative. It is they they do stick with
• 3:57
  that squeeze mould. Actually, funnily enough to
• 4:01
  because there are quite a few similarities with that episode
• 4:04
  in terms of the setup of having someone from one of the Leeds
• 4:08
  past, a sense that the Leeds had a life before and beyond the
• 4:13
  partnership, which does add some personal stakes.
• 4:17
  Although here they're not really resolved in any way because he
• 4:21
  gets killed. But you get quite quickly the
• 4:26
  idea that he's wrong. And so you do get some sort of
• 4:28
  karmic justice, I suppose out of the relationship.
• 4:31
  But it's something it's something to get you into the
• 4:35
  story. And actually, I would say that
• 4:38
  when it gets into, when it puts all its eggs in the basket of
• 4:43
  the crazy tech, that's when it goes wrong.
• 4:47
  So maybe they should have kept the guy alive a little bit
• 4:49
  longer. I know.
• 4:51
  I mean it's a bit of a bizarre coincidence that you've done 2
• 4:55
  episodes on the bounce now where one was, you know, irritating
• 4:59
  prick from Scully's past and the other one is irritating prick
• 5:03
  from Moulder's past. Are we just sort of doing the
• 5:05
  rounds with this sort of thing at the moment?
• 5:07
  Apparently, and we're doing another, perhaps ill advised
• 5:12
  invoking of the horrors of World War 2 again, this one, this one
• 5:16
  actually, probably more overtly and more directly because he's
• 5:20
  making the case between himself and Oppenheimer, which I know
• 5:24
  you were. Well, I think we're coming out
• 5:25
  as a different angle. I mean, I think, you know,
• 5:29
  Oppenheimer certainly changed the world in a pretty radical
• 5:33
  sort of a way. I'm not sure that what's his
• 5:35
  fellow's name? Brad Wilchek Wycheck.
• 5:38
  What's his name? Yeah.
• 5:40
  Wilcher, Brad. We'll call him Brad, OK?
• 5:43
  It's a good old soap, you know, Australian soap name.
• 5:47
  I don't know if Brad's going to change the world with the Cos
• 5:50
  machine. It's sort of a humble brag as
• 5:52
  well though, isn't it? He's going, yes, Oppenheimer did
• 5:56
  these terrible things, but I'm quite like him.
• 5:58
  So you know, or I will be 1 day. But it feels like a reach,
• 6:03
  doesn't it? Even at that point in the
• 6:04
  episode, it feels like that plus the escalations of the defence
• 6:08
  department. It's kind what the episode needs
• 6:11
  to go into that last bit of the story, but it's also where the
• 6:14
  story falls down so that you just don't quite get it right, I
• 6:17
  guess. This.
• 6:18
  Is the line where he goes? He loved the work, Mr. Molder
• 6:23
  when he's talking about Oppenheimer.
• 6:25
  They're both obsessives that have created terrible things.
• 6:30
  I thought he was really good. The actor, though, Perfectly.
• 6:32
  Cast. And I was trying to work out
• 6:34
  where I remembered him from, and he's been in loads of stuff, but
• 6:37
  I think I remember him from Smallville, where he played
• 6:40
  probably quite a similar part because he just has that look.
• 6:45
  And of course, if you're going to go for it, just go for it.
• 6:48
  I think when The X-Files comes to casting, like, stereotypes,
• 6:52
  man, creepy kids, you know, nerdy geeks, they just get it
• 6:57
  absolutely spot on. It's they.
• 6:58
  Really do. Somebody in the casting room is
• 7:01
  like, yeah, that is the geekiest geek you're ever going to see.
• 7:04
  When he's there in the trailer going, what is it?
• 7:07
  You're killing me. You're killing my company.
• 7:11
  I wonder if there's like a special casting agency because I
• 7:14
  know there is one for like unusual looking extras in the UK
• 7:19
  that a friend of mine passed from.
• 7:21
  Yeah, I can't remember. I thought you were about to say
• 7:24
  he was one of the people they cast.
• 7:26
  No, no, but there must be, you know, there's like generically
• 7:31
  good looking TV people and then there's not that.
• 7:35
  And I thought he fit the bill. Weirdos, etcetera.
• 7:39
  No, I think there might be 1 called uglies or something.
• 7:41
  Maybe I'm making that up. I'm not joking.
• 7:44
  I'm not joking. Ugly.
• 7:48
  He's not ugly though, he's not a bad looking guy, he's just
• 7:50
  fortunately stressed. You and I will never end up in
• 7:54
  uglies. You.
• 7:54
  Know thank you so much I. Know we're doing all right, you
• 7:57
  know? OK, well, look, where do you
• 8:00
  want to focus first? Because we've already named
• 8:02
  about four plot points there with Brad, Jerry, the computer
• 8:07
  itself, and the delve delve into Moulders Pass.
• 8:11
  Come on, you tell us where we're going.
• 8:13
  I think it would be interesting to look at the the idea of doing
• 8:17
  contemporary or near future technology as a subject for this
• 8:21
  type of series because it's bound to be the thing that dates
• 8:26
  the quickest, right? You're on a hiding to nothing
• 8:29
  doing this type of thing if you're like a genre TV show or a
• 8:33
  genre movie because it's going to overlap you so quickly.
• 8:38
  And I think for the last 30 years or however long it's been
• 8:42
  since this episode went out, the reputation has large largely
• 8:46
  been born of people going, oh, the future wasn't like this at
• 8:50
  all. And it's really embarrassing
• 8:51
  that they thought it would be. But now we're at a point with
• 8:54
  some elements, the story seem a little more prescient than they
• 8:57
  probably did about 10-15 years ago.
• 8:59
  And that's weird. The stuff that gets wrong, it
• 9:03
  also gets really wrong. But the stuff it does take a big
• 9:07
  swing on and gets right, you're like, oh, that's kind of
• 9:09
  interesting. I thought they didn't do too bad
• 9:14
  a job. Now I think the technology
• 9:16
  itself, I mean, you and me have been reared on Doctor Who.
• 9:19
  So we are used to seeing big boxes just covered in flashing
• 9:22
  lights and being told that is a very smart machine.
• 9:25
  So, but for an American audience, there are probably
• 9:28
  like, Oh well, it looks like a tumble dryer with a few extra
• 9:31
  lights. You know, the actual Cos machine
• 9:33
  itself is a bit lame. Yeah, and you can see the black
• 9:37
  curtains in the back of that room and the HD transfer does
• 9:41
  not do it any favours. Great Wizard Oz was going to
• 9:44
  come out from beyond that, you know, IE Brad Wilchek.
• 9:49
  Yeah, it doesn't look good, sadly, but I thought where it
• 9:54
  might have looked laughable five years even after it came out,
• 9:58
  it's probably worn a little better than people might have
• 10:01
  expected by now. Why did thing worked really well
• 10:05
  was the murder house element that we talked about earlier and
• 10:09
  I just the idea of being trapped in its belly and it's trying to
• 10:12
  kill you in various spectacular ways because that doesn't date
• 10:15
  lifts don't date, ventilation shafts don't date you know like.
• 10:20
  Although, although Joe, who has a phone in their bathroom,
• 10:24
  that's what I want to ask you did.
• 10:26
  Think that as well. Yes it was.
• 10:28
  I thought the phone was going to kill him.
• 10:29
  Obviously he was the victim. Wasn't he the guy at the start?
• 10:33
  I mean, I thought it was a push probably, but I don't know these
• 10:36
  things. To have a bathroom in your
• 10:38
  office, that just seems a bit weird to me.
• 10:40
  But maybe that's what the CEO's have.
• 10:43
  Incredibly ostentatious. Did you see the marble flooring
• 10:46
  and that? It was just beautiful.
• 10:48
  That's nice of the bathroom. A phone call can't wait that he
• 10:53
  has to have it in the bathroom. Who was he ringing?
• 10:56
  I think he was just answering a call as far as I remember.
• 11:01
  You're on the loan. There's a business called that
• 11:02
  can't wait. OK, I'm just having a dump.
• 11:05
  But you know, please tell me the stocks and shares now.
• 11:09
  These are busy guys, they've got no room, they've got no time to
• 11:12
  spare. What could possibly have given
• 11:14
  away the fact that he was going to be the victim as well?
• 11:16
  It may have been Brad saying it at the end of the first scene.
• 11:19
  You're going to regret this, you know, and then storming off.
• 11:23
  And then Mark Snow's music, ominous music, comes in.
• 11:28
  It's a great sequence though, despite the phone in the
• 11:31
  bathroom thing. And yeah, I think that and the
• 11:34
  lift sequence especially are very well done.
• 11:39
  That's probably the highlight of the episode, if I was going to
• 11:41
  pick one, is that lift sequences, It's all done very
• 11:45
  well, you know, cutting between the screen and we'll check and
• 11:49
  the lift and like the CCTV footage from the left really
• 11:53
  good. The the dramatic fisheye shots
• 11:58
  from the camera, they're really like, I was really taken aback,
• 12:02
  especially when poor old Jerry was plummeting to his death and
• 12:06
  it cuts to that shot and it just looks like CCTV footage.
• 12:10
  It was like really. But what I found really
• 12:13
  interesting, we did squeeze and it's almost like blow for blow.
• 12:18
  The squeeze pre title sequence, somebody at work.
• 12:21
  It's really so you're following them around the office and then
• 12:24
  there's a sudden shock. This time it's an electric
• 12:27
  shock. There it was that crack of the
• 12:29
  door, but it there's another crack because there's a mirror
• 12:32
  crack in this time. I thought it was similarly well
• 12:35
  directed. I can imagine that once Squeeze
• 12:40
  came in, once they've done it, they were going, OK, now we've
• 12:43
  got our week to week mode. And then you send the writers
• 12:47
  that script or you send the directors that episode and you
• 12:50
  go like, this is the kind of thing we're hoping for.
• 12:54
  So it's not really a surprise that the few that come after it
• 12:58
  are much closer to that because they feel like they've landed on
• 13:01
  what a week to week X-Files episode is probably.
• 13:04
  But yeah, that doesn't mean it, you know, there's some really
• 13:07
  good stuff that feels unique to this episode.
• 13:09
  I thought the sequences in Wilcheck's house late at night
• 13:15
  or early evening really nice. If you're talking about design,
• 13:18
  I mean who the hell has that water feature in the floor like
• 13:22
  that? Well, you literally have to walk
• 13:23
  across crazy paving to get across the lake in the floor.
• 13:28
  It's clearly a theme of having electrical objects near water in
• 13:31
  this episode for whatever reason.
• 13:33
  Well. You'd think because of the pre
• 13:35
  title sequence they were leading up to a sequence where that
• 13:37
  house was going to turn on him, but.
• 13:39
  Yeah, perhaps they were going for that, but yeah, doesn't
• 13:42
  really push it in to read it that way.
• 13:45
  It's got to be right. That's so weird, I'm sorry.
• 13:48
  I couldn't imagine tiptoeing for a lot of water to go and get a
• 13:51
  cup of tea. Well, it looks very nice, but
• 13:54
  the water bills must be very expensive I'd imagine.
• 13:56
  I think they're doing what bugs in the UK full heartedly try to
• 14:03
  do. We were supposed to be high
• 14:04
  tech, you know, So they just shot around Canary Wharf as much
• 14:08
  as possible and found every high tech house and office that they
• 14:13
  could possibly find just to give it a bit more of a polished sort
• 14:17
  of, yeah, a bit more, a bit. So it feels more what?
• 14:22
  What am I trying to find Joe and help me out here?
• 14:25
  Lustrous. I don't.
• 14:27
  Lavish. Lavish is a good one.
• 14:29
  Lavish is a good one. Yeah.
• 14:31
  One more connection with Squeeze, in fact.
• 14:33
  Is that OK? Wilcheck has developed this
• 14:37
  learning AI, which is very impressive, but so far what he
• 14:40
  seems to have used it for is home security.
• 14:43
  Again, like a smart home. It's an obsession, isn't it,
• 14:47
  with Season 1? Apparently so.
• 14:49
  So Molda must have been absolutely chuffed that a couple
• 14:52
  of episodes after he's had this little monologue about home
• 14:54
  security not being enough, finds this tech bro and he's thought
• 14:59
  of all that. He's got the smart home.
• 15:00
  I think he actually says that the term smart home as well.
• 15:04
  He didn't foresee Jamie Oliver looking through the door of a
• 15:08
  fridge to see the ingredients inside.
• 15:11
  But otherwise, it's, it's bang on, you know?
• 15:14
  You know, I I could just see the same speech from the end of
• 15:17
  Squeeze. You know, all these people
• 15:19
  working in high tech buildings. I look around this place and I
• 15:23
  think it's not enough. What do you think?
• 15:27
  Although maybe the advice here should be don't have a phone in
• 15:31
  your bathroom, don't have a computer near your indoor
• 15:35
  swimming pool. Which is that, you know, that's
• 15:37
  a niche bit of advice, but some people might need to hear it.
• 15:41
  You're saying don't mix water and electrics?
• 15:43
  Yeah. Apparently people need that
• 15:45
  spelled out to them. Say that The X-Files isn't
• 15:48
  offering an education, a safety education to people.
• 15:52
  So did you think we'll check might have been based on Steve
• 15:56
  Jobs? I thought that was kind of an
• 15:58
  interesting part of it was that we we are in the timeline of
• 16:02
  technology there in the mid 90s. Apple was kind of a joke at that
• 16:08
  point, right? So was this balding, intense
• 16:15
  tech guy supposed to be Steve Jobs at the time?
• 16:18
  I'm not sure. Well, I, I did wonder that, but
• 16:22
  because they didn't like beyond him being a, you know, a tech
• 16:25
  boss, like, if Darren Morgan had written this, yeah, it would
• 16:29
  have been overloaded with pithy jokes about Steve Jobs.
• 16:35
  But because Gordon and Ganza are right in this, they just sort of
• 16:39
  take the template and use it to tell the story.
• 16:42
  I don't think there was anything sort of knowing in the script.
• 16:45
  No, that is true. And what initially in the, in
• 16:48
  the first few minutes of watching, I was going, oh, this
• 16:50
  seems like kind of a fresh thing, a fresh approach for the
• 16:54
  90s to have the tech bro character in that role.
• 16:59
  But then I thought, well, maybe it's just a variation of the mad
• 17:02
  scientist thing. And that goes all the way back
• 17:04
  to like, Frankenstein, right? He's got the look of a mad
• 17:07
  scientist, hasn't he? That crazy hair.
• 17:09
  So you're just applying it to a slightly different technology,
• 17:12
  but the the theme is the same, you know, Metropolis, whatever
• 17:16
  else you can think of, He. Does talk about that computer
• 17:19
  with a weird sort of passionate zeal, doesn't he?
• 17:22
  With crazy eyes. I did think story wise they
• 17:26
  didn't go close enough into that.
• 17:28
  I thought they could have explored that a little more
• 17:30
  because it comes off a little as a little flimsy.
• 17:35
  I thought if they tied him and the AI together a little more
• 17:39
  closely, they might have ended up feeling like a bigger deal at
• 17:43
  the end. But.
• 17:44
  I didn't get any sense of a relationship between them, but
• 17:47
  clearly they're supposed to be. Because when he's killing, when
• 17:51
  the Cos is killing Jerry, Jerry, what a name.
• 17:55
  When Jerry is plummeting to his death in that lift and you know
• 18:00
  Wilshire's going, what are you doing?
• 18:02
  You know, like, like, so as if they have conversations on a
• 18:04
  regular basis. And then at the end, when the
• 18:06
  computer dies, he goes like Brad.
• 18:09
  Why? Like, like, like they were
• 18:12
  Bessie Mays. Yeah, and it doesn't kind of
• 18:15
  bear out in the rest of the episode, so those moments feel a
• 18:18
  little forced, I suppose. Do you think they were too
• 18:22
  afraid to go there at this point?
• 18:25
  Like when they do kill Switch in Series 5, right?
• 18:27
  And that's sort of technology being abused for various things.
• 18:32
  Like, it's just like a comic book, isn't it?
• 18:35
  It is, and it gets more into the world of hackers, which is his
• 18:38
  own variety of 90s cheese, which is dated just as badly, perhaps.
• 18:43
  Worse fun, I would probably say. It is, and they've gone from the
• 18:47
  sort of lavish world of penthouse offices to trailer
• 18:53
  parks in that instance, right? It gives it a grittier feel.
• 18:58
  It makes it feel a bit more dangerous I suppose, but this
• 19:02
  did have this appeal. So I guess you know, going back
• 19:05
  round to what I thought about the reputation thing is that
• 19:08
  because I know this has a poor reputation, I thought it was
• 19:12
  quite fun and it was better than my expectations.
• 19:17
  I've always considered this above average.
• 19:20
  When I used to see this lingering at the bottom poles, I
• 19:22
  was like, oh please, you know, have you watched Space and
• 19:25
  things like this? This at least has a lot of fun
• 19:28
  set pieces. It's got caricatures in it, but
• 19:31
  they're well played, sort of fun caricatures that drive the story
• 19:35
  along. I don't think it's boring at any
• 19:38
  point this episode. No, you're absolutely right.
• 19:39
  That's that's the worst thing. An episode the Xbox can be is
• 19:44
  boring and there are a lot of boring episodes.
• 19:47
  You've seen the list, have you? So this one keeps moving and I
• 19:52
  thought it made sense at the point in the story with with
• 19:57
  Deep Throat and Defence Department stuff comes into it.
• 20:01
  The episode probably did need a jolt at that point and it
• 20:05
  provides it, but it's also at that point where the whole thing
• 20:08
  kind of falls apart a little bit.
• 20:10
  So I think if people dislike the episode, it probably is those
• 20:13
  last 10 minutes or so. I.
• 20:16
  Need to fight you on this scene, yo.
• 20:17
  And I'm afraid because I love the last 10 minutes of this
• 20:20
  episode. It's like Paradise Towers with a
• 20:23
  budget. You know, they're in this high
• 20:25
  rise building that's trying to murder them horribly and
• 20:30
  suddenly it's the car park barriers are coming down and
• 20:34
  shearing cars in half and pour off Scully the computer somehow
• 20:40
  as a way of changing the axis of gravity.
• 20:43
  So she's suddenly sliding down ventilation shafts towards great
• 20:47
  whirring fans. Gonna jump into pieces.
• 20:50
  Now, don't get me wrong, it's pony as hell.
• 20:53
  It is. I love this stuff.
• 20:55
  I love it. I especially love it when they
• 20:57
  toss about Julian Anderson because she just froze herself
• 21:00
  into this. I mean, do you see the state of
• 21:01
  her at the end? She's covered in bloody bruises
• 21:04
  and scratches. Yeah, it looks like she's been
• 21:06
  out in the wild two weeks. She looks.
• 21:08
  It's not the Jersey Devil at the end of this.
• 21:12
  Yeah, she did something else after leading that event, so I'm
• 21:14
  convinced of it. Maybe she fell in a dumpster or
• 21:17
  something. Is your issue that it sort of
• 21:20
  comes away from potentially interesting ideas just to do a
• 21:23
  load of action? I don't think I've a really, I
• 21:26
  don't really have a problem with it.
• 21:28
  You know, you said Paradise Towers.
• 21:30
  I was thinking Episode 4, Pyramids and Mars Death, the
• 21:33
  Daleks, that kind of thing where it just becomes that our Leeds
• 21:37
  versus the thing, you know, the the house basically, like you
• 21:42
  said, the death house. But I could imagine, you know,
• 21:46
  serious science fiction fans finding that all a bit overdone
• 21:51
  and a bit embarrassing. I embrace it, yeah.
• 21:53
  I feel sorry for those people. You know, they want this show to
• 21:57
  be that PO faced. I mean, wait till we get to
• 22:00
  space, right? And we're just hanging around in
• 22:01
  Space Command for an hour and just seeing some face come in as
• 22:05
  I'd rather see Scully being thrown down a ventilation shaft
• 22:08
  screaming her head off. We all have our taste.
• 22:14
  I thought we were like abusing women.
• 22:16
  That's not what I'm saying. I'm.
• 22:17
  Not. Saying I don't have a torture
• 22:19
  chamber, You're an honest, I've said too much.
• 22:25
  I do think though, I do think there are things they could have
• 22:29
  explored here that they chose not to.
• 22:32
  I didn't really understand what danger this building was outside
• 22:37
  of the people that are inside it.
• 22:39
  Like there's no sort of talk about the Cos, you know, jumping
• 22:44
  into the Internet or anything like that, is there?
• 22:46
  It's like it is literally a contained threat.
• 22:50
  Yeah, you're right. The one bit that I found really
• 22:53
  messing and I just didn't understand was near the end
• 22:56
  where Scully's computer is being hacked.
• 22:59
  And I wasn't sure was Mulder doing that.
• 23:02
  I couldn't quite tell because it sort of implied the Will
• 23:05
  checkers doing some stuff, but then Scully's computer is being
• 23:10
  hacked. I don't think that's resolved.
• 23:12
  Or maybe it wasn't listening closely enough, but I didn't
• 23:16
  understand what that was for because it didn't get us to the
• 23:19
  next bit of the story. It was just happening.
• 23:22
  Very strange. I can't remember, did we have
• 23:25
  the standard Scully at the keyboard voice over in this
• 23:28
  episode? I don't think we did.
• 23:30
  No, but they also get to show us everything she's already written
• 23:34
  because the Cos is stealing it. So they kind of have their cake
• 23:37
  and eater, I suppose. Can I ask you a leading
• 23:40
  question? Yes.
• 23:42
  It's about Jerry. Jerry.
• 23:44
  Sorry. I just can't get over that
• 23:45
  night. I mean, it's a proper loser's
• 23:47
  name in it. Sorry to any listeners, it might
• 23:49
  be called Jerry, but you're a loser.
• 23:53
  But is it not like the bleakest conclusion you could possibly
• 23:56
  come to, right to to OfferUp such a loser as Jerry And the
• 24:01
  only good thing he could possibly do is die?
• 24:06
  Like he doesn't really achieve anything.
• 24:08
  The only thing he does is provide us with a a superb death
• 24:13
  scene. Yeah, it's a pretty sad end.
• 24:16
  And then they sort of crowbar a line in about, is it because you
• 24:19
  feel bad about Jerry? And I don't think Mulder even
• 24:22
  feels that bad about Jerry. I don't think we do either.
• 24:27
  No, yeah, I forgot. I mean.
• 24:29
  Was he really saddled with him at the Academy?
• 24:33
  I know. How does someone get into the
• 24:35
  FBI Academy who's essentially copying someone else's homework
• 24:38
  the entire time they're there? I don't know.
• 24:40
  I mean, I'll just then fall back to sort of my time at school and
• 24:44
  things like that. And I actually, I did have a
• 24:46
  Jerry that I was saddled with. It wasn't called Jerry, But,
• 24:49
  yeah, I think we've always got that one person in our lives.
• 24:51
  But can I ask you, please, let's do the comparison game now.
• 24:55
  So who's more irritating, Colton from Squeeze or Jerry from
• 25:01
  Ghosts in the Machine, who both have exactly the same function?
• 25:09
  Remember Colton? You know, way to the top, yo.
• 25:12
  And all the way to the top. I would say Jerry, although he
• 25:19
  didn't achieve more in life, he did achieve more narratively
• 25:23
  speaking, because Colton doesn't really, he he blocks them, but
• 25:29
  he doesn't really achieve a lot in terms of the the end of that
• 25:32
  story. Whereas Jerry's death does get
• 25:36
  us somewhere, doesn't it? So well done, Jerry.
• 25:39
  I mean, I think Jerry's a better character because Colton, he
• 25:42
  does bring them into the case. Yeah, he he lets her know about
• 25:44
  the case, but then he is literally just cop blocking
• 25:47
  throughout the entire episode. The reason squeezes 45 minutes
• 25:51
  long is because he's there going No, molder can't look at it.
• 25:53
  No, we can't do this. Whereas at least Jerry's going.
• 25:55
  Please get involved. Please help me out.
• 25:58
  Let's get this story going. Yeah, and he goes and
• 26:01
  investigates. He's proactive.
• 26:03
  He's trying to solve it, and that's what gets him in trouble.
• 26:06
  So he deserves some credit for that.
• 26:07
  Well done, Jerry. Also see, once you start saying
• 26:10
  his name, it's irresistible, isn't it?
• 26:13
  Also, Colton, as we said in the episode, literally just departs.
• 26:18
  The story does nothing. That's nothing.
• 26:21
  In the climax, he just vanishes. Yeah, he does.
• 26:24
  And at least Jerry gets a good death.
• 26:28
  He does. I wanted to remark on the
• 26:32
  computer's pithy lines. Guns file.
• 26:38
  Deleted the teaser. No, I don't think I can.
• 26:46
  File diluted, there you go. You knew how to do it and the
• 26:50
  other one if you'd also like to say this is program executed.
• 26:55
  He does it in such a offhand way as well.
• 26:57
  It's sort of like program executed.
• 26:59
  It's just like it's good. Yeah, they're good lions, right?
• 27:05
  But again, it's another episode which is really upfront in in
• 27:10
  the pre title sequence as to what this is about, right?
• 27:12
  It's like, you know, a scene where a man says to another man,
• 27:16
  no, no, we're take we're wrestling this great computer
• 27:19
  off you. Well, you're going to regret it.
• 27:20
  He dies clearly by the hands of some some technology and then
• 27:25
  the the computer says file deleted.
• 27:28
  It's very clear what's going on here.
• 27:31
  Yeah, it is. And then I suppose you try to
• 27:34
  get characters in the way of finding out why.
• 27:38
  I don't know it's but squeeze. Was 2 wasn't it?
• 27:42
  Squeeze was 2 very upfront in its pre title sequence.
• 27:46
  Yeah, but Tombs is just a more interesting character than the
• 27:50
  computer. So you don't mind spending the
• 27:53
  time, you know, watching the characters catch up to what you,
• 27:58
  the viewer already know. I think that's the difference is
• 28:01
  that, you know, in this case, if you turn the plug off, he's
• 28:04
  done. And that's not quite as
• 28:07
  compelling. Backup reserves if you turn the
• 28:10
  plug off. This ain't bloody school reunion
• 28:12
  all right. He's got the.
• 28:13
  Flickering LE DS at the end so you know he's not gone
• 28:18
  apparently. It is very bizarre though, like
• 28:22
  you said, piffy what 9 is, yes, but they're just computer words.
• 28:25
  Whereas at the end where he's begging for his life.
• 28:28
  Don't do this, Brad, Please, Brad.
• 28:30
  I mean, it's like we've got fucking how from 2001 suddenly
• 28:34
  in the building. Yeah.
• 28:35
  So obviously that is the other big comparison, right is 2001
• 28:40
  and how and I don't know in in any direction.
• 28:46
  They're kind of tiptoeing, you know, they're not going full
• 28:50
  prestige, they're not going Frankenstein, they're not doing
• 28:55
  they're not quite doing any of these things, which is fine.
• 28:58
  You know, it doesn't have to be a prestige of these other
• 29:00
  things. But it also feels like they're
• 29:03
  turning down a little bit of dramatic possibility in in at
• 29:08
  the same time, although. What were we going to have, you
• 29:10
  know, in, you know, having a sparkling personality
• 29:15
  throughout? No, no, you're right, They're
• 29:17
  not. They're not aiming that high.
• 29:20
  And I'm not sure with this premise you can aim that high.
• 29:25
  I think the safest thing they could possibly do was that
• 29:28
  murder house thing, because then it's not too science fiction.
• 29:31
  It's all just physical set pieces, you know?
• 29:33
  So again, the people watching it are just seeing, you know,
• 29:38
  people down ventilation shafts, cars being attacked, you know,
• 29:42
  molder standing in front of a great big building.
• 29:45
  But it's not too much. It isn't too sci-fi.
• 29:48
  No, it's not aiming for the profound.
• 29:50
  I think these days if you did a similar episode about AI, oh
• 29:54
  God, there'd just be conversations about what it
• 29:58
  means. What does it mean?
• 29:59
  Now come on, you've seen it in the rebooted X-Files.
• 30:04
  All the technology came after Molder and Scully.
• 30:06
  That was that I did see that one was.
• 30:09
  Scully's vibrator started jumping out the drawer after
• 30:12
  her. Do you remember?
• 30:15
  I don't remember that specific moment.
• 30:16
  Somehow I remember the vac wasn't the like the robot
• 30:19
  vacuum. There's a load of drones go.
• 30:21
  It's just great. I ever say no, Don't you
• 30:23
  remember? She's running for her house,
• 30:25
  right? Suddenly she just hears this.
• 30:26
  What the hell is that? She thinks it's her phone.
• 30:29
  She holds her phone out and then she runs in the bedroom, goes oh
• 30:33
  please no. I mean, they've developed a bit
• 30:38
  of a sense of humour by that. .11 seasons in.
• 30:41
  Yes, that is a good version of the premise.
• 30:43
  You are correct. Maybe.
• 30:44
  That's a good point. Do you think this might be could
• 30:46
  have been done with more of the it's very pro faced.
• 30:50
  What's the episode before this? Oh boy, you're now.
• 30:54
  Shadows, which I do not remember at all.
• 30:57
  Oh, that's the one with Lauren and her ghost of a boss that's
• 31:02
  trying to kill all the people that are trying to kill her
• 31:04
  because she's a witness to his death.
• 31:07
  It's very serious. Again, very serious.
• 31:09
  OK. And then ISIS afterwards, which
• 31:11
  is a classic but. Very serious again.
• 31:15
  But also very serious. Yeah, you might be right that I
• 31:17
  don't think they really do much in the way of humour at all in
• 31:20
  the first series. That's fine.
• 31:22
  We're really all early on in the run.
• 31:26
  But why? While it is serious, it is fun.
• 31:30
  This episode, you know, it doesn't take itself too
• 31:32
  seriously, even if you're not, you know, doing gags.
• 31:37
  Well, I thought that because the dialogue was kind of hackneyed
• 31:40
  and cliched, I felt as if the actors knew it.
• 31:42
  And so especially that fellow playing brat, he just went for
• 31:45
  it, you know? Yeah, they lean into it,
• 31:47
  absolutely. And I actually the big
• 31:51
  difference I noticed in this from the first two that we did,
• 31:55
  I think Duchovny is already much more comfortable in the series.
• 32:00
  OK, interesting, I thought. Maybe that would happen later,
• 32:03
  but. I found it a little odd honestly
• 32:07
  that he just the notion that he had this friend like a normal
• 32:11
  person as a friend. Well, it's Jerry.
• 32:15
  It is Jerry. It's like you having me as a
• 32:17
  friend. You couldn't say that's a normal
• 32:18
  friendship, you know? Yeah, I guess that makes sense
• 32:22
  that this, you know, someone who's a bit of a chancer gloms
• 32:26
  on this person who's extraordinarily talented, but,
• 32:30
  you know, bit of a social outcast within his within his
• 32:33
  peer group. But still thinking of Mulder in
• 32:37
  those terms was kind of strange. And then that they expect him to
• 32:44
  have emotions at the end about his friend tying and it doesn't,
• 32:48
  you know, he doesn't really have any.
• 32:50
  And that that does feel correct. It does.
• 32:53
  And I love the fact that Scully, the second she meets him, she's
• 32:56
  she's got him clogged, hasn't she, Jerry?
• 32:58
  She's like, oh, Molda, why are you bothering?
• 33:00
  I think she says at one point she's rolling her eyes at the
• 33:02
  back of the seats. And then when he steals the
• 33:04
  evidence, she's like Molda, that prick has stolen your
• 33:07
  assessment. Yeah, I mean, again, that does
• 33:10
  feel somewhat truthful to friends you might have who are
• 33:13
  kind of grandfathered into your friendship group and they're
• 33:17
  they're not reliable. They might be asking for money
• 33:20
  every once in a while. Or are you looking at me right?
• 33:22
  Now I'm looking at you. You.
• 33:23
  Are Oh yeah, we're on a call together, that's why.
• 33:27
  So. Yeah, don't turn up on Zoom
• 33:29
  calls. Do you think that's what I
• 33:30
  think? Yeah, exactly.
• 33:35
  So I was. Scared that night, yo.
• 33:37
  And you know that my house was going to start killing me.
• 33:39
  You know you had some special technology going.
• 33:42
  When was this? You know the other night when I
• 33:44
  didn't turn up on. A Zoom call, right?
• 33:45
  Yeah, but then I didn't turn up on the previous Zoom call.
• 33:48
  We're pulling the curtain back here.
• 33:49
  We're pulling back The Wizard of Odds, The Wizard of Oz slash Co
• 33:53
  s S Black Curtain here just. Developed my own version of the
• 33:56
  Cos machine for that now, right? You better watch yourself in
• 33:59
  your house tonight. Well, I did think afterwards
• 34:02
  that the reason I couldn't do it last week this episode business
• 34:07
  is that my Internet went on the Fritz.
• 34:11
  It was all very suspicious. The Cos knows.
• 34:14
  I felt like that might be what was happening.
• 34:16
  I think it knew we were going to mock it in this episode, how it
• 34:20
  looks. Why?
• 34:23
  Indeed, although that did make me think, you know, there's
• 34:26
  probably a better story about a house turning on people, right?
• 34:30
  You could do wonderful fun things with exploded microwaves
• 34:33
  and houses belching, sorry, ovens belching flames and things
• 34:38
  like that. Yeah, they might have had a
• 34:41
  better episode buried somewhere in this episode.
• 34:44
  I mean that that one we were talking about from the late
• 34:49
  twenty 10s or whenever it was. That's kind of what that is,
• 34:52
  right? It's is it just in Scully's
• 34:55
  home? Is it also molders as well?
• 34:57
  Well, it starts off there in that sushi restaurant, and the
• 35:00
  joy of that one is there's no dialogue.
• 35:03
  It's a silent comedy. It's a.
• 35:04
  Silent comedy where every bit of technology is trying to kill
• 35:07
  them. They really were trying to push
• 35:09
  the boat out and do an experiment there, even more so
• 35:14
  than Buffy's Harsh, which tries the same thing because in that
• 35:17
  there's lots of gestures and things like that.
• 35:19
  So they're having dialogue, but in this episode it's just run.
• 35:23
  Everything's trying to kill us. Yeah.
• 35:26
  So maybe there was an angle there where they went to this
• 35:29
  tech pros house and the smart home turned against them.
• 35:34
  I don't know. We're trying to rewrite
• 35:36
  something that was just, you know, as you say, it was
• 35:38
  delivered by a couple of competent writers.
• 35:40
  Chris Carr. I didn't have to worry about too
• 35:42
  much. And they made it and it went out
• 35:43
  on TV. Well, yeah, and I've got three
• 35:45
  more things I need to talk to you about before we never think
• 35:49
  about Ghosts in the Machine again.
• 35:50
  Until the next time we do a tech episode and compare it to this.
• 35:54
  OK #1 is what did you think of Snow's score in this one?
• 35:58
  He was doing lots of bleeps and blobs and mechanical whirrings
• 36:02
  and things in the music. He was.
• 36:04
  There was one little bit that stood out as being dated, which
• 36:11
  was I think when they first go to Wilcheck's house.
• 36:15
  And there's a bit of sampled fretless bass, like played on a
• 36:19
  keyboard that is just that kind of sound is not really used
• 36:25
  anywhere now. So whereas most of the is other
• 36:28
  sounds, the ambient stuff, the piano, they might have been sort
• 36:31
  of updated, but they're still broadly in use across scoring,
• 36:36
  This specific kind of fretless bass sound did sound dated in a
• 36:40
  way that stuck out to me. There's not much you can do
• 36:43
  about that. And it sort of got me thinking
• 36:45
  about, you know, every musician uses the tools at hand.
• 36:49
  You have no control over how it's going to sound and how many
• 36:53
  years time. But the rest absolutely did its
• 36:56
  job. Yeah, the bongo drums that he
• 37:00
  was playing, that sort of that. I loved all this.
• 37:04
  Nice stuff in there. Yeah.
• 37:06
  Was that accurate? I didn't question it, It sounded
• 37:10
  very good to me. You sort of nod in your head,
• 37:12
  but apologetically. And I just think he genuinely
• 37:17
  did go for like a tech theme in this as well.
• 37:21
  He was bringing in lots of weird electronic sounds and things and
• 37:24
  it was sort of disconcerting. Yeah, you know an attempt to
• 37:28
  make a bit more immersive I suppose.
• 37:30
  Yeah, I didn't quite nothing else from it like stuck out.
• 37:36
  You know, it's been a real high quality bit of his work or
• 37:40
  particularly bad or anything, although I don't think he ever
• 37:42
  does anything bad as such. But only that sound stuck out to
• 37:46
  me as being dated I. Think.
• 37:48
  Go back and listen. To that, now it's just something
• 37:50
  I would pick up, I guess. It's not something like, I don't
• 37:56
  know, it's just a sample like an old MIDI sample is what I'm
• 38:00
  talking about. It's proper wanky stuff, but.
• 38:03
  I did notice and a simple turn on a coal.
• 38:05
  Because hardly an expert. No, no, but you literally gave
• 38:08
  it like a technical term and I said electronic bleeps and
• 38:11
  blobs. You might have got close to the
• 38:14
  spirit of what he was trying to do.
• 38:16
  Well, my second thing is, is just how fooled were you by the
• 38:20
  red herring of the, you know, the man who's in the background
• 38:23
  of the episode. I just happened to be here, you
• 38:27
  know, working on the Cos and, you know, don't worry about me.
• 38:31
  Let the episode run without me. And then in the end, he's pulled
• 38:33
  out a gun and goes, oh, I'm working for the government, all
• 38:35
  right, Like, and we want the technology.
• 38:38
  I was. I was more surprised than I'd
• 38:41
  probably like to admit. I.
• 38:44
  Was what does that say about me that this guy who haven't.
• 38:48
  Consumed enough telly, that's what it means.
• 38:52
  Yeah, but still, I couldn't believe I fell for it.
• 38:55
  I mean, I fell for it to the point where he opens the door on
• 38:58
  Mulder again. You know, I didn't question him
• 39:02
  being in the first scene and then having disappeared.
• 39:04
  I just thought you some guy. That's fine.
• 39:07
  But yeah, I, I mean, when you find out he's there on the
• 39:13
  Defence Department's behalf, it is an eye.
• 39:16
  It's one of those ones where it's an eye roller.
• 39:18
  Even if you didn't suspect her somehow, he's.
• 39:22
  So cash, he just goes, oh, well done, Agent Mulder.
• 39:26
  He doesn't even get like a great evil villain Lion, you know?
• 39:30
  No, but again, he's one of these actors who understands the
• 39:33
  assignment, doesn't he? He knows that role.
• 39:35
  He just does it and does it well.
• 39:37
  Yeah, but, and you know, and I know you don't like to talk
• 39:40
  disparagingly of women, so, but I'm not talking disparagingly.
• 39:44
  Now, how hot does Gillian Anderson look then when she
• 39:46
  comes out with a gun and she's like, put the disk in the drive?
• 39:50
  Enough of your boys toys, for God's sake.
• 39:55
  Was it a floppy disk or was it a CD?
• 39:57
  I can't remember. I think it was a floppy disk.
• 39:59
  Maybe a very special kind, yeah. But like, I mean that there you
• 40:04
  go. There's technology dating right
• 40:05
  when they put in a floppy disk to bring this evil computer to
• 40:09
  an end. Any time they use specific
• 40:12
  amounts of memory or whatever to describe this computer's got
• 40:17
  like 5 Meg of data. That's, you know, nothing dates
• 40:23
  more quickly than that. Why don't they just make up a
• 40:25
  number, you know, 500 billion terabytes.
• 40:29
  Just go wild. Don't say what's on the latest
• 40:33
  High Street computer you know you're making.
• 40:36
  Much sense as a the average Star Trek episode to me right now.
• 40:39
  I have no idea what you're talking about.
• 40:43
  And the other thing I wanted to ask you about now, Squeeze ended
• 40:48
  with that fabulous sequence in the prison cell close up on Doug
• 40:52
  Hutchinson's face, like the end of Psycho.
• 40:54
  You know, grinning at the the hole that he's going to squeeze
• 40:58
  through at some point and murder everyone in the prison.
• 41:01
  Yeah, well, Ghost in the Machine does its own Twilight Zone.
• 41:05
  The horror is still here, ending as the the Cos lights up like a
• 41:11
  Christmas tree at the end. What did you think?
• 41:14
  Yeah, talking of hoary old cliches, I mean, perhaps you
• 41:20
  should keep a running count of this.
• 41:23
  How many X-Files episodes do the the squeeze ending?
• 41:26
  Let's call it that because already by the first time they
• 41:31
  recycle it, it feels pretty weak I think.
• 41:34
  That they've already done it. The Jersey Devil and the worst
• 41:37
  one of all time. Do you not remember the end of
• 41:39
  that? No.
• 41:40
  OK, so the Jersey Devil has been killed.
• 41:43
  Yeah. A molder who's fallen in love
• 41:46
  with her or something. It was just dismal.
• 41:48
  Is so upset and then he's just like, he's there, he's got a
• 41:52
  tissue and then you think that's going to be the end, right?
• 41:54
  OK, he's upset. He's lost this fabulous hairy
• 41:56
  woman. And then it cuts to some random
• 42:00
  forest, right? And the camera goes down a hole
• 42:05
  and this little girl goes, oh, a child Jersey Devil.
• 42:11
  The horror goes on and but this poor girl is this this young
• 42:16
  actress? She must be about 7 and they've
• 42:19
  just put her in tatty wig. You know if you think Ghost of
• 42:24
  Machine was bad that everyone is dismal.
• 42:27
  OK, so what's that three they've done so far, including the
• 42:30
  original 3 three out of seven? I think they do the Twilight
• 42:34
  Zone ending in every episode of season 1.
• 42:38
  I think almost without fail. There's a lot of it.
• 42:41
  It feels like the stock X-Files episode, doesn't it?
• 42:44
  You get this little tag at the end where it's not actually
• 42:47
  defeated. Yeah.
• 42:49
  I think they learn better in series 2, but sometimes the
• 42:53
  definitive ending is actually quite nice.
• 42:55
  It is. It is.
• 42:56
  It's actually a surprise when things stay dead.
• 43:00
  I mean, Eugene Tombs still being alive at the end of Squeeze,
• 43:04
  that's the most horrific thing that that episode could possibly
• 43:07
  do. Whereas the Cos machine turning
• 43:11
  on at the end of Ghost in the Machine.
• 43:14
  Who gives a fuck? Well, no, I mean it leaves U.S.
• 43:16
  Open for a sequel. Why did they never write it?
• 43:19
  Yeah, maybe we'll get it in The X-Files.
• 43:21
  Reboot or something. Do.
• 43:22
  You know what, it could have been here.
• 43:23
  I just thought, right, If they did the third movie, yeah.
• 43:26
  That, you know, remember, 10 years in the future, the alien
• 43:29
  invasion is going to happen. The alien invasion genuinely
• 43:32
  happens. The sources all come down.
• 43:34
  The grey aliens are taking over all of the, you know, shape
• 43:37
  shifters in the government, all this.
• 43:39
  God, this sounds so exciting. Why didn't they do it?
• 43:42
  And then just when you think all hope is lost, the Cos machine
• 43:47
  turns on and saves the day. Oh, OK, I'm, I'm into that.
• 43:53
  I'm into the, you know, the appending of my expectations.
• 43:57
  I like that you expect the Cos machine to come back and be
• 44:00
  evil, but it's actually good. Well.
• 44:03
  I'm judged. I've judged humanity wrong, you
• 44:06
  know, And this is for Brad. Yeah, OK, yeah, let's go with
• 44:13
  that then. That can be our fan fiction for
• 44:16
  the The Ghost Machine sequel. I'm scared, you know, for your
• 44:19
  critiques going ahead, if you think that pitch is worthwhile.
• 44:24
  It was better than I expected that.
• 44:27
  Better than you expected. Not your pitch.
• 44:33
  I was about on par but. Everyone's going to have fun
• 44:36
  with this episode, you know? And I, I listened to you the
• 44:40
  episode about Deep Throat, The X-Files episode.
• 44:46
  That's right, I should clarify. So watch the movie as well.
• 44:49
  The. Movie what he talks about he
• 44:51
  talks about it in it yeah. No woman with the the clitoris
• 44:56
  for a throat. Oh, that's what it's.
• 44:58
  Basically, no, I haven't seen it and due to the Online Safety Act
• 45:03
  I sadly never will. But no, what was I even talking
• 45:09
  about? I was talking about what I gave
• 45:10
  the rating of the first step at the pilot, right?
• 45:14
  Which was like AB plus or something.
• 45:16
  I'm I'm getting us to the ending quicker.
• 45:18
  I don't know why. Do you want to have your dinner
• 45:20
  or something? Are you?
• 45:22
  No, no, I've got a point. I've got a point to a list,
• 45:26
  which was more that I thought the pilot was an A as a pilot,
• 45:31
  so and probably less than that as an episode, therefore B plus.
• 45:36
  And so most of these episodes, I think we gave the same to
• 45:40
  Squeeze, right, which was again based on my expectations.
• 45:44
  You gave it AB minus? OK, I gave it an A minus and we
• 45:49
  settled on AB plus. OK.
• 45:52
  So in that case, clearly it was under my expectations.
• 45:55
  So I guess that's all I can do in terms of judging these
• 45:58
  episodes, if I remember them, that is, is to go with what I
• 46:04
  remember and what my expectations are going in.
• 46:06
  It's kind of hard to judge it on the whole X-Files, you know what
• 46:10
  I mean? Can't correctly place these
• 46:12
  things. So when I get round to my rating
• 46:15
  now it might be high for some people, but I well like I said,
• 46:21
  had a good time. Oh, what would I give this?
• 46:24
  I think in terms of the script, I'd probably give this AC plus.
• 46:32
  In terms of the production and what they pulled off out of all
• 46:39
  of these cliches, I'd probably give it like AE Minus.
• 46:45
  No, now you're overrating it. Am I going to bring it back
• 46:48
  down? Oh well, so.
• 46:50
  So what's the middle of? Ground of all I don't is C What
• 46:54
  I don't? I'm not even sure I understand
• 46:56
  this grading system, by the way. No, well, I've never done
• 46:59
  letters before. I usually do numbers which is a
• 47:01
  lot of simple. Yeah.
• 47:03
  Well, let's just say like it goes like a plus to a minus is
• 47:07
  sort of like, you know, 9 or 10. Yeah, BS are like a. 7:00 or
• 47:13
  8:00. Yeah.
• 47:14
  So CS is sort of 6 average or just above average.
• 47:19
  I think it's a perfectly a good average X-Files episode, and I
• 47:24
  don't mean that in a derogatory way.
• 47:27
  I think it's a, if you wanted a solid 45 minutes of TV bit of
• 47:33
  fun, this would do you fine, yeah.
• 47:36
  Yeah. And I think, you know, for a mid
• 47:38
  episode of The X-Files, which this absolutely is, it's it's
• 47:43
  enjoyable. And as you said earlier, there
• 47:46
  are mid episodes of The X-Files that are interminable.
• 47:51
  Yeah, I mean, I can't really remember how many more tech
• 47:56
  episodes, like specifically as much as this.
• 47:59
  Maybe they made this and found like didn't quite deliver in the
• 48:02
  way we were hoping, and that I definitely remember some worse
• 48:07
  ones from later on in the run. But 77 episodes into the series
• 48:13
  so far is worth a go, and it broadly turned out quite well.
• 48:18
  You know, compared to somewhere like the Jersey Devil with a
• 48:20
  bloody winner. Or do you know I've been sitting
• 48:22
  here looking at your name on the Zoom call, right?
• 48:24
  I'm trying to think how we could do a sequel to Ghost in the
• 48:26
  Machine using the initials IOAN, and the best I've come up with
• 48:32
  in 45 minutes is international online animatronics nonsense.
• 48:41
  I'll take that. OK.
• 48:44
  That should be my business name when I fill my tax returns in,
• 48:47
  shouldn't it? Well, it's sort of got
• 48:49
  everything really international so you're worldwide online, it's
• 48:52
  very impressive yeah, animatronics, it means that you
• 48:56
  can be have physical capability nonsense because.
• 49:01
  The most accurate of all? Yeah.
• 49:03
  Oh, is that right? Well, let Yowen, where are we
• 49:07
  going next? So you've done a great pilot,
• 49:10
  you've done a very good monster of the week.
• 49:14
  You've done a maze, but fun monster of the week.
• 49:17
  Better than expected. Where are we heading next?
• 49:22
  I believe we are headed beyond the sea next, which feels like
• 49:27
  we're climbing the mountain of excellence.
• 49:32
  I didn't know where I was going with that sentence quite
• 49:34
  clearly. I.
• 49:35
  Think it might only be downhill from there for series 1 after
• 49:38
  that. Yeah, you might be climbing back
• 49:40
  down that mountain again. I have good memories of it.
• 49:44
  I have high hopes of it. Let's see if it matches those.
• 49:49
  Yeah. Although you are doing Darkness
• 49:51
  Falls as well and I know you love that one.
• 49:53
  That is a great one. That's a really good one, but.
• 49:58
  Shall I get this over and done with before we record the other
• 50:01
  episode? Yeah, you probably should.
• 50:04
  OK, Come. I can't be here every week.
• 50:06
  Come on. No, no, I mean I meant this.
• 50:09
  Oh yeah. Oh.
• 50:10
  Beyond the sea, somewhere waiting for me.
• 50:15
  Does this mean you can't do it in the episode itself?
• 50:17
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. OK, that's fine.
• 50:19
  You once. What's the next bit?
• 50:21
  My level no. No, no, I'm terrible with
• 50:25
  lyrics. Ask me about threatless base
• 50:28
  samples from the 1990s. I'm your man.
• 50:30
  But lyrics? No.