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The best TV of 2023 including The Bear, Loki and Ted Lasso
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00:12Hello and welcome to Screen Babble, your guide to what to watch. We'll be tuning into hours
00:17and hours of TV so we can tell you what you need to be switching on and what's to be
00:21avoided.
00:22I'm your host Kelly Crichton and as ever our resident TV critics Stephen Ross and Benjamin
00:26Jackson are here and I'm delighted to say this is a really exciting episode. We are looking back
00:31on the year that was considering our favourite shows and potentially giving you some ideas for
00:36some more festive viewing if you have the time on your hands. Remember if you want to see our faces
00:41you can head over to Freeview Channel 276 Shots which is brought to you by a network of journalists
00:47across the country who are transforming stories at the heart of your community into great TV.
00:51You'll find true crime stories, football news and analysis plus coverage of lifestyle
00:54TV, film and much more. So this is exciting. We get to talk about programmes we love this year.
01:02To be fair this episode could probably go on for like two or three hours but we're going to try
01:06and keep to normal time so we've decided we're all going to talk about two things and then maybe give
01:11some honourable mentions as well at the end and we're going to focus on things that were new this
01:15year rather than like oh we watched this really like I wanted to do Yellow Jackets but actually I'd
01:19only seen the first series and it wasn't new this year so I thought I won't do that. So yeah
01:26as I say
01:26new content. Stephen you're up first. What are your two shows of the year? Okay well there's been
01:34a lot hasn't there this year. Has there actually been more good stuff than bad even though there's
01:39been a lot of rubbish shows as well but I think for me The Last of Us which actually debuted
01:46in January 2023 so pretty much a year ago now. I know it's bizarre. That was yeah fantastic. I think
01:57because it was a video game adaptation and it was really good you know video game that adaptations are
02:04normally a bit of a cursed chalice um a poisoned chalice even uh you know the assassin's creed
02:11uh etc they're normally not all that good this one was actually fantastic yeah yeah anything Paul W.S.
02:19Anderson did video game wise maybe not but it's been a good year for video game adaptations really
02:26because you had the super mario brothers movie as well didn't you which was which was probably my
02:30favorite film of the year? I'm one of the highest releasing of the year as well um got a lot
02:36of
02:36acclaim but yeah The Last of Us obviously a bit different to Super Mario Bros it's set following
02:41a global pandemic caused by some sort of mushroom spore that turns people into well I don't think
02:49they're actually called zombies but they're basically zombies um mushroom zombies taken over by this
02:54mushroom virus and you have these two survivors at the center of it Pedro Pascal whose daughter was
03:03killed very early into the uh into the pandemic who takes on almost an adopted daughter in the form of
03:11Bella Ramsey who plays um a child taken into his care who is immune or seemingly immune to the mushroom
03:20spore thing um and and the series becomes a sort of American road trip with Pedro Pascal taking
03:31Bella Ramsey under his wing and trying to get her to uh a sanctuary where they can hopefully use her
03:40to
03:41to find a cure and by the end of the series we're left on a sort of quite a low
03:46note and we're waiting for
03:49season two which because of the uh SAG-AFTRA strikes and the WAG WGA strikes is not expected until 2025
04:00um but the first season essentially adapted the first video game and the second season when it does
04:08come out will adapt the second video game and for those who aren't familiar with the games I think the
04:13second season will be quite um shocking uh quite brutal um and also very good but yeah I think what
04:21I loved about the last of us was the the just performances from Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey and
04:28Nick Offerman in the one-off episode that he's in probably my favorite episode um they just they knock it
04:36out of the park and it's a really good soft soft horror series that's just yeah it's got a bit
04:43of
04:43everything I think it's a genre I think what surprised people about it is although it was and you know
04:49hardly anticipated you know um but I think what definitely surprised me about it was you know that
04:54sort of stereotypical sort of blokey kind of video game thing that you expect you know violence shoot
05:02them up you know misogyny blah blah blah and then this kind of turned it on its head you know
05:08and
05:08there's so much more depth to it and I absolutely love the standalone episodes the the love story
05:14right in the middle of it like was so powerful it was so ingenious it was brought us back down
05:20to earth
05:21about like what being alive is about you know what living truly living is about in in amidst all this
05:27action and zombies where you can kind of forget you know it becomes sort of fantasy but then that sort
05:32of
05:32brought us back down to earth and yeah it was really powerful and absolutely amazing performances
05:38um was this a game you would have played benji before what was your take on it i mean i
05:44i loved it
05:44it basically gave me a newfound hope that video game adaptations can be good uh like i cut in earlier
05:53on
05:54saying that you know it's not just the myriad of paul w west anderson doing resident evil movies or
06:01ue bowl doing that it was legitimately good and i think it also demonstrated that video games can be
06:09a well saying this to gamers it's like preaching to the converted video games have always been a
06:14great source material for like fiction in terms of like how the storytelling is good and um i mean for
06:22me the biggest bonus with the last of us is that uh a video get a former video game producer
06:28called
06:28hideo kojima saw it realized oh it can be done really well so we're now going to get an adaptation
06:34of death stranding starring norman reedus uh in the near future which is going to be produced by a24 so
06:41thank you the last of us for that another game basically reinstalling our faith another game i'm
06:46not familiar with but hopefully we'll be talking about that next year benji and you can do some a little
06:51preview for us on um the deep dive yeah but i mean ultimately the last of us you didn't have
06:56to be
06:56a fan of the video games to appreciate it it was just such a good story by itself and just
07:02being a
07:02video game fan it's just nice that it was faithful to the source material okay cool great yes absolutely
07:09i think everyone most people 99 of people are in agreement the last of us is great okay what else
07:15stephen what's your number two well this is actually probably my number one i think this is my favorite
07:19show of the year um and it is a small light which was released on disney plus in may and
07:29it followed
07:29uh me guys the woman who along with a few others helped to hide the frank family and frank at
07:37all frank
07:37etc in holland during the nazi occupation and god damn man it is an emotional very moving very well
07:48directed series um about a character of history that you don't necessarily know all about i mean
07:55obviously everyone knows anne frank but um i think it's sort of assumed by people that haven't really
08:02done any deeper research into it that the frank family sort of hid in an attic and would occasionally
08:10like go out and forage for food and it was basically a self-contained system but it was very much
08:16tied into the resistance movement and they would not have been able to survive without outsiders in the
08:22world helping them um but i think the idea of the series is very much about maintaining humanity in a
08:32world of inhumanity and that's sort of the small light of the title it's very funny as well which you
08:41wouldn't expect for an anne frank drama series but it is um and it looks at sort of the day
08:48-to-day of the
08:49family as they're essentially hold up for years in a fairly small space um the bickering that goes on
08:57between them the sort of everyday conversations the um yeah it's it is very good and you also see a
09:07bit
09:07of um an alternate and also a parallel story with me at geis's partner who is working for the uh
09:16dutch
09:16resistance and attempting to blow up like nazi archives and things like that to disrupt the war effort and
09:25it's um a very good look at how um people that didn't need to resist the nazis because they were
09:37part of the you know arian locks they would have been relatively fine um risked their lives to uh disrupt
09:46the nazi regime and to help their friends and it also looks at the people that on the opposite side
09:52of
09:52track don't feel like they can do that um so it's it's it's a great great great series fantastic cast
10:02as well bell powerly is amazing as me did you um you're a bit of a history buff like do
10:08you think
10:08it sort of would appeal to history buffs more or do you think it's quite accessible i think it looks
10:14like
10:14it's quite hard to get into but it's not it's a very universal story of sort of you know a
10:24friend
10:25who helps out her friends in the face of like massive cost and risk but you know it you don't
10:34need
10:34to have a very coherent understanding of the history of the time to to to understand what's going on
10:41and is it dramatized to some extent obviously yeah i'm not sure how much um partner jan guys is um
10:52i think his story might have been somewhat um okay embellished okay okay i don't think he was a huge
11:01um mover in the um resistance movement and how many episodes and is it still it's on netflix is that
11:09right or no it's disney plus disney plus there's eight episodes okay cool brilliant also very different
11:17so thank you for that um my first show and again i'm kind of cheating with this one because when
11:23i
11:23actually finished the second series so i'm kind of cheating but it's the bear because i feel like the
11:29bear i didn't watch the first series when i first came out i watched it this year and i'm nearly
11:33through the second series and i was trying to get through it but i just didn't get there in the
11:37end
11:37um but i just love what they do in the bear i just think it's so different to anything else
11:44that's
11:44that's on tv okay we're going to go to a little break now and we will be back after the
11:49break with
11:49more recommendations from me and benji and we're going to do some honorable mentions too
11:53come back after the break if listeners do not know what the bear is it's an american comedy
12:08created by christopher storer and it um first series came out in june 22 and the main character
12:17is carmy played by jeremy allen white who is a young award-winning chef and he comes back to chicago
12:23to run his brother's sandwich shop after he dies by suicide and basically kind of inherits a bit of a
12:33shit show um you know staff who are kind of rule themselves and the business is in a major financial
12:40trouble and he's got all these interesting characters around him and again some stellar
12:47performances like really good acting you know when like when people get like characters that annoy you
12:54like really annoy you like that is good acting usually you know um so yeah so his cousin um is
13:01played
13:01by even mass back back rack he is so annoying he's such a a-hole in the thing but i
13:09mean that's that's
13:10kind of the charm part of the charm of it um and yes episode or sorry series two came back
13:16this year
13:18and the season finale of series one is outstanding i just loved it it was a little bit of hollywood
13:24maybe for some people but i absolutely absolutely loved it and i don't want to give away too much
13:28in case people haven't watched it but um series two kind of feels like it's actually grown a little
13:35like it's it's moved on from series one where it's like situational and you know just trying to get the
13:41restaurant back on track whereas series two is kind of exploring the people and their relationships
13:47and there's one lovely sort of almost standalone episode where one of the chefs goes off to train as a
13:53patisserie dessert chef in um europe and it's so gentle and insightful and it's it's such a
14:02different you know pacing change to this first series where it's like oh my god really intense
14:07kitchen drama you know almost like boiling point or whatever um so yeah highly recommend and really
14:14great music oh the soundtrack is absolutely fantastic and yeah it's got it all it's got like you know
14:21money drugs guns uh but that's not really the main thing food love family all the stuff so um
14:30yeah highly recommend okay so my second program is and this is probably no surprise to most people
14:37red so it is
14:40so succession uh sadly came to a finale a finish at an end it's over done uh
14:48in 2023 and uh once we were very sad to see it go
14:54it was fantastic it was so good it was one of those endings where you're like
15:00it was always going to end this way wasn't it yeah it was i loved the fact that it was
15:05such
15:06a downbeat kind of ending where especially like the the final two characters holding hands in the
15:12car and realizing yep we're stuck in this position now aren't we that could have gone with a super
15:18happy ending for succession but i love the fact that it stayed true to its roots and decided no
15:23you're getting a downer you're 100 getting a downer yeah i feel like you know they maybe went
15:30almost back to the start they are they're almost all still in the same position they are at the
15:35start by the end of it so spoiler alert if you haven't watched succession people we are going
15:38to talk some spoilers now so basically are we a little oh you better cover your ears oh come on
15:47listen i'm not waiting till next christmas to do this i tell you what no no no no no i
15:52tell you
15:52i won't give it away it's fine but i am gonna you just have to like not pay too much
15:56attention
15:56okay i won't give you away the big spoilers anyway so we have the family we have the patriarch logan
16:03roy played by brian cox and yeah essentially the final series is what what you think is going to
16:10happen happens and the three kids are left well he's got four kids but the first his eldest um connor
16:18he is kind of like it is never really properly explained why he's kind of like the outsider but
16:25anyway he's not it's the three kids i guess they had a different mom to the three kids and so
16:31kendall
16:32um roman and siobhan and again just to mention like just the performances are absolutely out of this
16:40world jeremy strong as kendall kieran culkin as roman and cyrus snook as siobhan and actually do you know
16:46what it doesn't even stop there like matry mcfadden who plays tom siobhan's husband is brilliant and
16:54and uh the comedic role he's kind he's semi comedic and then we've got nicholas brawn as greg the cousin
17:01who is completely comedic he's logan's grand nephew um also employed by the company but yeah
17:07just outstanding and they've they were all winning awards weren't they for um for their acting and
17:14and and whatnot but yeah so i think there's not an awful lot to say again a bit like the
17:20last of us
17:21it has had huge critical acclaim for its writing acting humor music directing production values
17:27everything um you know it's it's examination of the the subject matter which is essentially
17:33big bad media company people with loads of money and no morals you know these kids trying to impress
17:40their dad and be the people be the person to take over the company and eating themselves and eating
17:47everyone around them in an effort to do it and you know in in walk various different characters to sort
17:53of um try and be part of it or take it over or whatever and the last series is very
17:58much about this big
17:59big threat of the company being sold and the kids are banding together to stop it from happening
18:06much to actually their own detriment like they're actually it's actually they make this they would
18:12make a killing in this sale but they decide they want it and therefore nobody else is going to have
18:18it they don't make an actual decision based on financial gain which is just says it all really
18:23um so anyway the last yeah they go to kind of new lows in the in the last series and
18:30particularly the
18:30last episode is like a roller coaster of what is going to happen what isn't going to happen so anyway
18:36i had some stuff here that i was going to talk about that i can't know because so that's the
18:41end of that but they're my two anyway i absolutely love them and i'll give you some honorable mentions
18:45in a while benji over to you tell us well i mean like we can't talk about 2023 without talking
18:52about
18:52the finale of ted lasso on apple tv plus um i mean i know that in some regards there it
19:00was quite
19:01predictable some of the ends of the storylines involved but just because something is predictable
19:07doesn't necessarily mean that it was bad and i love how it was just this incredibly warm you know it
19:14dealt with ted this year dealing with homesickness um also dealt with nate's redemption arc it did feel a
19:23little bit like it was speed running towards the end because we do or do not know if there's going
19:28to be
19:29uh a new season or if jason sediacus is going to be involved in it or not or if you
19:35know the the
19:36character of ted lasso incredibly popular but it was the supporting cast as well that made ted lasso
19:42just incredible phil dunster as jamie tart uh brett goldstein as uh roy king yeah is he well what
19:50brett goldstein i met him once so yeah he is hi brett hi thanks for listening and then
19:57yeah i appreciate it uh nick mohammed of course is nate the gray and it was just such a real
20:03feel
20:04good moment that as much as i do want there to be a brand new season uh spun off from
20:10ted lasso maybe
20:11it's roy ken and uh nate trying to manage the the team um we love it ended on that if
20:20it yeah we do
20:21love it so if it ended like that i'd be more than happy to end it like that so i
20:25mean that was one of
20:25my highlights and the other one amidst an absolute shower of problems that the marvel cinematic universe
20:33has had cinematically this year um loki season two was definitely a high point on the mcu calendar
20:41uh tom hiddleston and owen wilson returning once again this time to try and solve the problem of
20:48the uh the entire kind of universe at the time variance authority are based in to stop it imploding
20:55and ending existence as we know it um controversially jonathan majors was in it and he actually was
21:03quite good in that regardless of his um court case and and allegations aside
21:11keng was still portrayed as quite a strong character and his variant victor timely was portrayed as
21:17quite a sympathetic character um kei hu kwan uh what a fantastic you know 12 months he had coming back
21:25winning an oscar for everything everywhere all at once and now one of the standouts in loki season two
21:32but uh my mvp from that entire series has to be uh tara strong who provides the voice of miss
21:40minutes
21:40uh i'm not gonna i don't want to spoiler it for anyone but uh who knew that an animated clock
21:46could
21:47be just such a benevolent a benevolent character in the mcu so ted lasso unfortunately you're gonna have
21:55to get an apple tv plus subscription but many of you are probably getting apple products this year sign up
22:00for
22:00the six month deal and get it for free and uh with regards to loki it is currently on disney
22:07plus and
22:07there is my boy roy kent there he is thank you thank you brett goldstein and me and my friends
22:15pointing at
22:16his crotch uh after a very entertaining show at the fringe about 10 years ago before he was famous people
22:25before he was famous uh oh that is amazing i feel like we're running out of time which is a
22:30shame
22:30because we could talk about all these things for much longer but honorable mentions time steven give
22:36us two or three honorable mentions don't go into any details literally the names blue lights 100 best interest
22:42yeah okay for the pose of usher and top one oh very good okay what about you benji and it'd
22:49be a
22:50monarch legacy of monsters the castlevania nocturne series okay and uh one more sod it i quite enjoyed
22:58what i watched of i'm a celebrity get me out of here this year it's not something i'd probably go
23:04into
23:04again but for research purposes oh sorry mom i'm coming home this christmas a changed man i actually
23:11dropped i'm a celebrity get me out of here i enjoyed big brother this year though i have to say
23:15um and the gallows poll from shane meadows and colin from accounts and happy valley there you go people
23:23what a year we're looking forward to 2024 with much augusto as well and next week we will be here
23:30to
23:30tell you all about the big shows that are coming in 2024 some of them we'll have dates for some
23:34of
23:34them we won't for most of them but we'll know they're coming thankfully even amidst all the
23:38strikes and crazy stuff that went down this year so we want to say thank you so much for watching
23:42we will be back next week have a safe christmas in the meantime and yeah keep listening share with
23:49your friends bye bye bye
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