The Toy Department – Episode 352

In Episode 352, Madden and Kolsky talk about life getting in the way and the challenges of moving a family across the country before getting to the business of the day:

  • The return of Raylan Givens in Justified: City Primeval (3:30) and how great it is to see Timothy Olyphant doing his US Marshall thing again…
  • The BJ Novak movie Vengeance (7:50) and how it’s a great little indie flick hiding under the radar (but free on Amazon Prime Video right now!)…
  • The Netflix documentary Wham! (14:40) and the pretty remarkable story of how quickly everything happened for George Michael (and Andrew Ridgeley)…
  • Showtime/Paramount Plus’s documentary Goliath (31:50), the remarkable story of Wilt Chamberlain and how it has too often been reduced to a couple of ultimately meaningless media narratives…
  • The new Negro Leagues documentary The League (52:20) and how important it is for historical documents like this to exist and be seen…
  • A wrap-up discussion about The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (59:00) after its truly marvelous final season…
  • Homework for TWO weeks from now (1:06:25), including: the return of THE CHALLENGE!! with The Challenge: USA Season 2, the Quarterback documentary series on Netflix, the Steven Soderbergh-directed series Full Circle on Max, the return of HBO’s Winning Time for Season 2 and Season 3 of Hulu’s Reservation Dogs…

The Toy Department – Episode 351

In Episode 351, Madden and Kolsky get right into things after some apologies for not completing their homework, covering:

  • Netflix’s new mediocrity The Out-Laws (1:10) and how the new Netflix creative model seems to be flailing at best and outright failing at worst…
  • Marvel’s new series Secret Invasion (9:35) and how, once again, one of our hosts liked the Marvel stuff better than the other (lol) along with a discussion of Disney+ and its major properties…
  • A rave review for season two of The Bear (26:00) and just how few TV shows are operating at that high of a level…
  • A wrap-up of season six of Black Mirror (32:45) and how the new season doesn’t quite follow the traditional Black Mirror formula, to varying degrees of appreciation from our hosts…
  • A few minutes on The Challenge and Top Chef (49:30), the two show favorites that will be returning relatively soon…
  • Homework for TWO weeks from now (55:30), including: the new Negro Leagues documentary The League (available to rent digitally), the Wilt Chamberlain doc Goliath on Showtime/Paramount Plus, the BJ Novak movie Vengeance on Amazon Prime Video, the return of Justified on Hulu and the Wham! documentary on Netflix…