Episode 14: Out of This World

Episode 15 · October 22nd, 2013 · 1 hr 3 mins

About this Episode

You may have noticed that, much like your favorite TV shows, the Screeners took a summer hiatus there for a bit. We figured it was time to tell you that this scheduling decision was part of an avant-garde social experiment to probe the liminal boundary between media and media commentary, and...OK, it was all Chad’s fault. Chad just didn’t love you enough to see Closed Circuit with the rest of us. There, we said it. Does it feel better to know the truth? Does it?!

OK, now that the unpleasantness is out of the way, it’s time for the most popular segment to ever come first in the Screeners lineup, Jump Cuts!

Stay Classy, Dreamworks

Ron Burgundy’s baaa-aack. Not in a movie - not yet, at least. He’s back in SUV ads. SUV ads? Yes, SUV ads. (Yes, those are all different links. So is this one. Oh, and one more.) And you know what? Ron Burgundy can be in ads for smooth jazz for all we care. He’s Ron *%&$ Burgundy.

In a tangentially related story (if you were listening last year, or whenever our last episode was), a company called Oyster is trying to become the Netflix of books. Will they succeed? What does success mean in this arena? Shh, no one tell Amazon about their plan! They’ll never figure it out!

As you may have heard, Tom Clancy died recently—he might have died a little young, but that’s not going to stop Hollywood from profiting from his intellectual property. There’s a new Jack Ryan movie in the works, this one starring Captain Kirk (no, not the good Captain Kirk). Predictions:  We will see Jack Ryan cry, something will explode, and Josh will falsely pretend he was contributing to society during the time he spent not watching the movie.

You may have also heard that Breaking Bad ended two weeks ago. If you had not heard that, you are almost definitely not reading this, so why should we talk to you? Go away. (Are they gone?....good.) In perhaps the most unfitting tribute possible to one of the great television shows of our time, the Screeners attempt to cover 

  1. The finale
  2. The other 5 seasons of the show, and
  3. A Machiavellian plot to keep the gravy train rolling just a little bit longer

in the time allotted to a lightning round question. Yeah, good luck with that.

“Did It...Pull You?”

It’s difficult to merely talk about things that must be experienced to be appreciated, but the Screeners give it a shot this week by tackling Gravity in the Main Event. It’s a movie that’s been well-hyped and well-advertised, but in trailers distinctly different from the typical Hollywood headliner. The creators have given us surprisingly little of the story arc and fewer snappy one-liners, leaving us wondering if they actually wrote a movie at all. We expect to know exactly what happens before we ever set foot in the theater, so this kind of reticence is jarring. We’ll respect it, though, by not saying anything important (until the spoilers section, at least). We do have one question, however:  They called it Gravity, but it happens in space, where there’s, like, no gravity, right? What’s the deal with that? (No, that wasn’t a spoiler. You can turn off caps lock and close Gmail.)

Coming This Fall...

Gravity may be a tough act to follow, but that won’t stop the Screeners from at least mentioning some of the other things they’ve been watching recently. There are a few new shows in this fall’s lineup, but the ones getting the most air time from us are the David E. Kelley/Robin Williams joint The Crazy Ones, The Blacklist (starring a creepily baldish James Spader), and Joss Whedon’s Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Are they worth the space on your DVR or your, um, HuluTube queue-stack (whatever the digital natives are calling it this week)? Listen and find out, then shoot us a comment/e-mail/tweetbuzz to tell us why we’re wrong.

See you next time! (Or will we?...)