Monthly Archives: October 2025

The Toy Department – Episode 437

  By toyAdmin | October 31, 2025 - 11:53 am | Uncategorized
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In Episode 437, Madden and Kolsky hurry through an intro after Derek applies the dreaded short-show curse, so they can get to:

  • This week’s action from The Challenge: Vets & New Threats (2:35) and how bizarre it is to see the vets panic over gameplay when the rookies are handling it reasonably well…
  • The second season of Netflix’s Nobody Wants This (26:20) and how it remains compulsively watchable and driven by excellent characters…
  • Netflix’s new Kathryn Bigelow film A House of Dynamite (33:05) and how it’s a dynamite mood piece that doesn’t totally come together as a narrative film…
  • DEREK FINALLY SAW One Battle After Another (41:10) and both our hosts loved it, so that’s the conversation…
  • Homework for next week (53:10), including: another episode of The Challenge: Vets & New Threats, the new HBO Max comedy I Love LA, Tracy Morgan’s new sitcom Crutch on Paramount+ and the new Netflix movie Ballad of a Small Player…

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The Toy Department – Episode 436

  By toyAdmin | October 24, 2025 - 11:41 am | Uncategorized
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In Episode 436, Madden and Kolsky must address Derek’s continued truancy at the movie theater before they can get deeper into:

  • The latest from The Challenge: Vets & New Threats (4:35) where there are increasingly fewer vets (especially on the men’s side) but plenty of threats all over…
  • The Shane Black film Play Dirty (20:50) and the joys of watching Lakeith Stanfield, plus a spoiler that we forgot to pre-alert, so look alive 😂…
  • The Hulu documentary Lilith Fair: Building a Mystery (26:15) and the importance of the festival, in retrospect, plus Kolsky’s irrational distaste for Sarah McLachlan…
  • Colin Hanks’ documentary John Candy: I Like Me (36:10) and the relative ambitions of a bio-doc versus an event doc…
  • The new Naked Gun movie on Paramount+ (43:45) and how Liam Neeson & Co. did well to capture the essence of the franchise but could have provided a few more laughs…
  • A handful of sports thoughts (48:20) from gambling in the NBA to Arsenal’s spot atop the EPL favorites…
  • Homework for next week (1:10:00), including: another episode of The Challenge: Vets & New Threats, actually making Derek get to the theater to see One Battle After Another, plus Season 2 of Nobody Wants This and the new Kathryn Bigelow movie A House of Dynamite, both on Netflix…

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The Toy Department – Episode 435

  By toyAdmin | October 17, 2025 - 12:28 pm | Uncategorized
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In Episode 435, Madden and Kolsky return from an extended absence with Derek running on fumes to discuss:

  • Three weeks of The Challenge: Vets & New Threats (4:15) which featured lots of content but maybe not a whole lot of action…
  • The Chair Company on HBO (26:05) and why both of our hosts are all the way out on Tim Robinson…
  • Hulu’s football comedy Chad Powers (33:35) and what it looks like when a movie star is in a middling TV comedy…
  • Netflix’s new period drama House of Guinness (38:05) and whether it will pick up enough to draw one of our hosts in…
  • Mae Martin’s new Netflix thriller Wayward (43:25) and its extremely chaotic energy…
  • Derek’s failure (49:30) to watch One Battle After Another…
  • Homework for next week (51:30), including: another episode of The Challenge: Vets & New Threats, actually getting to talk about One Battle After Another, the new Naked Gun movie on Paramount+, the new Shane Black movie Play Dirty on Amazon Prime Video, the Hulu documentary Lilith Fair: Building a Mystery (despite Kolsky’s sexism) and the Colin Hanks-directed documentary John Candy: I Like Me on Amazon Prime Video…

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