The Toy Department – Episode 310

In Episode 310, Madden and Kolsky refuse to waste time before diving into this week’s pop culture smorgasbord:

  • The latest episode of The Challenge USA (1:25) and whether these CBS competitors are using the wrong strategy, plus the Fear of Tyson that seems to be pervasive in the house…
  • The latest Disney+ Marvel release, I Am Groot (32:00) and how it’s relatively insubstantial but largely enjoyable, plus a discussion of Vin Diesel’s voice-over workflow…
  • The second season of HBO’s Industry (37:40) and what makes it so interesting to Derek while Kolsky can’t get into it…
  • The newest season of All or Nothing, focusing on the Arsenal football club (46:20) and how entertaining a watch it is, thanks in large part to the wild insanity of Arsenal’s last season, which Madden experienced live as a die-hard fan…
  • The new Netflix fantasy series The Sandman (57:25) and how it’s really quite good and incredibly entertaining and watchable…
  • Homework for next Friday (1:08:00), including: Amazon Prime Video’s adaptation of A League of Their Own, the Netflix film The Man from Toronto and the limited series Black Bird on Apple TV+, plus the next episode of The Challenge USA on CBS…

The Toy Department – Episode 34

In Episode 34, Derek Madden and Matt Kolsky open with a recounting and reviewing of their weekend at Outside Lands music festival in San Francisco, and then discuss:

  • Netflix’s new show Stranger Things (14:30) and the guys’ differing opinions on the experience… and a little compare/contrast with the other big summer show, HBO’s The Night Of…
  • The latest episode of USA’s Mr. Robot (29:10) and how the show seemed to maybe, possibly figure some things out about itself in last week’s episode…
  • The 2016 Olympic Games in Rio (44:00), with some discussion of the TV ratings and NBC’s broadcast choices as well as the viewing interests of Madden and Kolsky… which somehow develops into a US Women’s Soccer debate (56:00)…
  • And while they’re on the soccer subject, a little bit of an English Premier League preview (1:01:40), by which we mean Kolsky asks Madden how to properly watch the EPL and gets scolded for choosing Chelsea as his team…

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