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New Podcast! The Time is Now – Season 2, Episode 23 (“The Time is Now”)

Posted on July 1, 2020 by Darren

And with that, The Time is Now finishes its coverage of the second season of Millennium, and I was flattered to be invited to discuss the second part of the two-part season finale The Time is Now with the fantastic Kurt North.

I’ve talked a great deal before about how the second season of Millennium is one of my favourite seasons of television ever made. And it has been an absolute joy revisiting it for these podcast discussions. It’s been amazing to see that the show still holds up more than twenty years after it was originally produced, and to see how it resonates in entirely new and surprising ways with the world as it exists today. Twenty years later, the second season is still a monumental and underrated piece of television.

It has been a huge honour to talk so much about the season. I think, outside of Kurt, I’ve been the contributor who has appeared most frequently on these episodes. I hope I’ve been able to make a coherent and convincing case for why I think so many of the individual episodes – and indeed the larger season as a whole – are masterpieces of storytelling and among the very best material that Ten Thirteen ever produced. Thanks to Kurt and Tony for having me, and thanks to the listeners for putting up with me.

As ever, you can listen directly to the episode here, subscribe to the podcast here, or click the link below.

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Filed under: Millennium, Podcasts! | Tagged: apocalypse, death, destruction, end of the world, frank black, millennium, podcast, the time is now | Leave a comment »

New Podcast! The X-Cast – Fight the Future Minute #54 (“The Syndicate II”)

Posted on June 24, 2020 by Darren

So The X-Cast reached the end of the show’s fifth season, and approached The X-Files: Fight the Future. This naturally meant it was time for another breathtakingly ambitious project, so the podcast is going literally minute-by-minute through the first X-Files feature film. I’m joining the wonderful Kurt North for two brief stretches featuring the Well-Manicured Man.

The delineation between my second and third minutes on the project is a bit looser than the clear demarcation between the first and second, in that it is a continuation of the same scene. Still, Kurt and I take a little bit of a closer look at the character of Strughold, the special celebrity guest star “big bad” who is drafted in to provide suitable amounts of menace to Fight the Future and then never appears again – probably because Armin Mueller-Stahl was a bit above the show’s paygrade, even after it moved to Los Angeles.

You can listen to the episode here, or click the link below.

Filed under: Podcasts!, The X-Files | Tagged: armin mueller-stahl, conspiracy, fight the future, kurt north, podcast, the syndicate, the x-files: fight the future | Leave a comment »

New Podcast! The Time is Now – Season 2, Episode 22 (“The Fourth Horseman”)

Posted on June 24, 2020 by Darren

The Time is Now is winding down its coverage of the second season of Millennium, and I was flattered to be invited to discuss the first part of the two-part season finale The Fourth Horseman with the fantastic Kurt North.

I’ve talked a lot about my love of the second season of Millennium, and I’ve argued that the show has one of the finest season (and arguably series) finales in television history. The Fourth Horseman and The Time is Now were episodes that really shattered my expectations of what was possible on network television in the nineties. They are bold, provocative and melancholy episodes of television. They remain one of the most evocative depictions of the end of the world that I have ever encountered in media. So it was a thrill to get to discuss them.

As ever, you can listen directly to the episode here, subscribe to the podcast here, or click the link below.

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Filed under: Millennium, Podcasts! | Tagged: kurt north, Lance Henriksen, millennium, plague, podcast, the end of the world, the fourth horseman, the time is now | Leave a comment »

New Podcast! The X-Cast – Fight the Future Minute #53 (“The Syndicate”)

Posted on June 23, 2020 by Darren

In some ways, this section of the film is an illustration of how tightly structured Fight the Future is, in terms of communicating exposition and character dynamics to an audience that may not be entirely up to date with the grand mechanics of the X-Files universe. So Fight the Future spends almost exactly a minute with the Well-Manicured Man before throwing him into conflict with the Syndicate. In doing so, it draws a contrast between the two that serves to very clearly define what distinguishes the Well-Manicured Man from his colleagues and partners.

Again, it would be too much to describe the storytelling here as elegant, but it does communicate things like character motivation quite clearly without distracting too heavily from the emotional crux of Fight the Future. Carter and Bowman both understand that the key is to communicate all of this as clearly and as quickly as possible, in order to get back to what is the movie’s real attraction, the movie-star tension between David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson. However, even with that in mind, the storytelling here is commendably efficient.

You can listen to the episode here, or click the link below.

Filed under: Podcasts!, The X-Files | Tagged: aliens, conspiracy, conspirators, fight the future, kurt north, podcast, the syndicate, the well-manicured man, the x-files, the x-files: fight the future | 2 Comments »

186. Det Sjunde inseglet (The Seventh Seal) – World Tour 2020 (#155)

Posted on June 13, 2020 by Darren

Hosted by Andrew Quinn and Darren Mooney, and this week with special guest Phil Bagnall, The 250 is a (mostly) weekly trip through some of the best (and worst) movies ever made, as voted for by Internet Movie Database Users.

This time, Ingmar Bergman’s Det Sjunde inseglet.

Death stalks the countryside of medieval Sweden. Antonius Block is a knight returning home after a long crusade to the Middle East, and horrified to find that the black death is ravaging his homeland. On the beach, Block is confronted by the spectral figure of the Grim Reaper himself. Block challenges Death to a game of chess, hoping that he might escape his opponents glare. As Block continues his journey home, he tries to make sense the fleeting nature of human existence and seeks desperate reassurance that something – anything – lies waiting beyond.

At time of recording, it was ranked 155th on the list of the best movies of all time on the Internet Movie Database.

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Filed under: The 250 | Tagged: death, ingmar bergman, max von sydow, phil bagnall, plague, podcast, The 250, the seventh seal, world tour | Leave a comment »

New Podcast! The Time is Now – Season 2, Episode 20 (“A Room With No View”)

Posted on June 10, 2020 by Darren

I have been lucky enough to appear quite frequently on the second season of The Time is Now, discussing the second season of Millennium, which remains one of my favourite seasons of television ever. So I was flattered to get asked back to join Tony Black to discuss the second season’s big Lucy Butler episode, A Room With No View.

A Room With No View is an interesting episode in a number of ways. Most obviously, it forms part of an arc that nominally connects the three otherwise disjointed seasons of Millennium, focusing on demonic forces at work in the world. However, it is also an episode that feels like it belongs to the second season specifically. It is a tale about the banality of evil and the intimacy of apocalypse, which are themes that play across the season. The result is something of a strange hybrid, and an episode of television that feels very distinct.

As ever, you can listen directly to the episode here, subscribe to the podcast here, or click the link below.

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Filed under: Millennium, Podcasts! | Tagged: a room with no view, lucy butler, millennium, podcast, the time is now, tony black | Leave a comment »

185. Kumonosu-jō (Throne of Blood) – This Just In/World Tour 2020 (#245)

Posted on June 6, 2020 by Darren

Hosted by Andrew Quinn and Darren Mooney, and this week with special guest Chris Lavery, The 250 is a (mostly) weekly trip through some of the best (and worst) movies ever made, as voted for by Internet Movie Database Users.

This time, Akira Kurosawa’s Kumonosu-jō.

War rages across feudal Japan. Tsuzuki has finally managed to subdue the latest insurrection against his rule. Journeying through Cobweb Forest, victorious generals Washizu and Miki stumble across a strange woman, who offers a prophecy that augers great and terrible things for the two men. Promised the throne, can Washizu resist the lure and temptation of power? More to the point, what terrible things will he do to procure such power?

At time of recording, it was ranked 245th on the list of the best movies of all time on the Internet Movie Database.

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Filed under: This Just In | Tagged: akira kurosawa, chris lavery, destiny, fate, japan, macbeth, podcast, revenge, samurai, shakespeare, throne of blood, toshiro mifune | Leave a comment »

183. Koe no katachi (A Silent Voice) – This Just In/Ani-May 2020 (—)

Posted on May 23, 2020 by Darren

Hosted by Andrew Quinn and Darren Mooney and with special guest Graham Day, The 250 is a (mostly) weekly trip through some of the best (and worst) movies ever made, as voted for by Internet Movie Database Users. New episodes are released every Saturday at 6pm GMT.

This year, we are proud to continue the tradition of Anime May, a fortnight looking at two of the animated Japanese films on the list. This year, we watched a double feature of Hayao Miyazaki’s Tenkû no shiro Rapyuta and Hauru no ugoku shiro. We’ll also be covering a bonus on a recent entry on the list next week, Naoko Yamada’s Koe no katachi.

This week, the third and final installment of this year’s Ani-May, Koe no katachi.

Teenager Shoya Ishida finds himself haunted by guilt over his merciless bullying of his deaf classmate Shoko Nishimiya six years earlier. Coming back from a suicide attempt, Shoyo makes an awkward attempt to reconnect and reconcile with Shoko, but are either of them prepared for the strong emotions that this reunion will provoke and the consequences that it will have for their friends and their families?

At time of recording, it was not ranked on the list of the best movies of all time on the Internet Movie Database.

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Filed under: This Just In | Tagged: a silent voice, animated, bullying, culture, graham day, Guilt, japan, kyoto animation, mono no aware, podcast, regret, Shame, suicide | Leave a comment »

New Podcast! The Time is Now – Season 2, Episode 15 (“Roosters”)

Posted on May 13, 2020 by Darren

I have had the immense good fortune to appear on The Time is Now quite a lot lately, but was particularly flattered to be invited on to talk about Owls and Roosters, the big “mythology” two-parter in the late second season of Millennium. It’s an honour to join Kurt North for the second part of this conversation.

Owls and Roosters are two of my favourite episodes of television, because they demonstrate everything that Millennium did so well. They’re incredibly densely packed with information, in a way that really captures the sense of modern living – a constant influx of often contradictory stimulae that the individual often struggles to parse or process. In many ways, the second season of Millennium has aged remarkably well, capturing a sense of information overload in a manner that resonates even more strongly today than it did on broadcast.

As ever, you can listen directly to the episode here, subscribe to the podcast here, or click the link below.

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Filed under: Millennium, Podcasts! | Tagged: apocalypse, conspiracy theory, information, internet, kurt north, millennium, podcast, roosters | Leave a comment »

180. Sorcerer – World Tour 2020, w/ The New Wave (#—)

Posted on May 2, 2020 by Darren

Hosted by Andrew Quinn and Darren Mooney, and this week with special guest Tony Black, The 250 is a (mostly) weekly trip through some of the best (and worst) movies ever made, as voted for by Internet Movie Database Users.

This time, a special treat. William Friedkin’s Sorcerer. And we’re crossing over with The New Wave, as a bit of a teaser for their launch.

Four men drift idly around a deadend town in the heart of South America, when an unlikely opportunity strikes. A terrorist has caused a fire at an American oil well, and the company is offering a lavish payday to anybody who can help. The only catch is that to earn that money, these four men will have to drive extremely volatile nitroglycerine across some of the most treacherous terrain imaginable. Those who survive will have enough to escape the hell in which they’ve found themselves, and those who don’t won’t care.

At time of recording, it was not ranked on the list of the best movies of all time on the Internet Movie Database.