0:00

M It's

0:05

one fifty six am

0:08

in the Zone of Alienation and

0:10

you're listening Tonight Call. Hello

0:25

everybody, and welcome to Night Call, a

0:28

podcast for your strange days and lonely

0:30

nights. I am Molly Lambert and with you

0:32

here in Los Angeles Tess Lynch,

0:35

and over in New York we have Emily

0:37

Orshida. Hi, guys,

0:39

Hello, what are you doing today?

0:42

We are going to talk about the new black

0:44

Mirrors and a Chernobyl

0:47

conspiracy introduced. Yes. Uh,

0:50

And first we are going to

0:52

talk about just some newsy

0:54

news news. Um

0:58

you guys, you put this so blind

1:00

item from our problematic

1:02

fave Crazy Days and Nights about

1:05

Okay? Should I just read this? Um?

1:08

Okay? The foreign

1:10

born former A List syndicated actress

1:12

turned A List celebrity has an encryption key

1:14

that was given to her by the foreign born infamous

1:16

celebrity. It will only work upon

1:19

his death. I'm not sure I would want to be the

1:21

one who had that key. I wonder if he disappeared

1:23

for several days and couldn't contact anyone, if that would

1:25

trigger it to uh

1:29

So, this is about Pamela

1:32

Anderson and Juliana

1:34

sand Allegedly,

1:37

I take issue. By the way, I really think

1:39

Pamela Anderson an apologies to

1:41

Pamela Anderson. I think she is B list.

1:44

I do not think she is a list. She's a

1:46

list name record they said, they

1:50

said a list syndicated. Okay,

1:52

that's

1:52

it. I

1:56

really feel like she she was a for

1:58

a long time. I think we have to but

2:01

this is now she is a Sange's

2:04

That's what's so weird. I mean, just

2:07

the whole Pamil and Anderson Julian Assange

2:10

weird romance.

2:12

You want to call it, I wouldn't want to call.

2:15

Does anybody know the full story about

2:17

their relationship? Nobody knows. That's

2:19

what makes a mysterious.

2:22

They were just

2:24

at a party together, you know, and the

2:26

um what was at the at the embassy.

2:29

Uh, it's so cyberpunk.

2:32

They met in weird rich people circles, which

2:35

is how all these people know each other. But

2:37

the idea they met in like the spa from

2:39

um from Sexy Beasts, like

2:45

the idea that pam Anderson has some kind of like a

2:47

doomsday key to anything. Oh

2:49

my god, it's a it's a very twenty

2:51

nineteen. Yeah, we can't help but stand

2:54

I'm afraid. I

2:56

can't stand it. You got Oh, it's bad. I

2:58

don't approve of her relationship with Julian

3:00

Assange, but I've been I've been forced

3:02

to clarify several times that he

3:05

is probably a rapist, but he also is

3:07

maybe being held for

3:10

things that are just about releasing infoe. All

3:13

right. I hesitate

3:16

to uh promote something

3:18

by my partner slash Bouse

3:20

on the podcast, but my husband

3:24

David did a video years

3:26

ago re enacting

3:28

some friends of this filmmaker did a short

3:31

that was basically a re enactment of the time that Julian

3:33

Assange crashed in their house for like a month

3:36

what was supposed to be like a week and then turned

3:38

into like kept kept

3:40

getting stretched out and stretched out and he basically like was

3:42

doing work on their couch and just like was filthy

3:45

and like left food everywhere. I would like to

3:47

see the crashing staring exactly.

3:51

Well, that's basically what they made and starts

3:54

David as Julia typecast.

4:00

When you have cool white hair and

4:02

you know a lot about stuffy and

4:06

can just do like a totally blank

4:08

affect on you, do you have a doomsday

4:11

key to David? I

4:13

know that's like the downside

4:15

is that romantic? Is it romantic to

4:17

give someone the doomsdake tremendously

4:21

better than trust? I

4:23

think that that's like, that's

4:25

like the great thing about

4:27

being a celebrity, like on the

4:30

order of a Pamela Anderson. Is it like sometimes

4:32

you can just like find you can just trip

4:34

and fall into a situation where you have a doomsday.

4:39

It's just like her show was a v

4:41

I P. Was that the one where she was a secret

4:43

agent? Love that show, by

4:46

the way, syndicated a list show. She

4:48

played like a superspy on a show

4:50

that was on television late at night. UM

4:53

for discerning viewers like me, it

4:56

was a good show, talkings

4:59

type jam. Yeah, it's

5:01

just it makes sense. Yeah,

5:04

speaking of the dystopian future present

5:07

more celebrities from the past, celebrity

5:11

dogs from the past, more like guys.

5:15

I this came to us. I put this in

5:17

the dock after it was posted

5:20

in the Facebook group.

5:23

So Barbara Streisand

5:25

brought her three dogs who

5:27

were cloned from her deceased

5:30

dog, to the deceased dog's grave and

5:32

shared a picture of it on social media.

5:35

Very odd, I mean, I think it's

5:37

supposed to be heartwarming. It's amazing,

5:40

but it is. It is weird. It's

5:42

about what you would expect, a bunch of dogs

5:44

that all look the same. Well, there's isn't there

5:47

like a picture of the dead dogs on the

5:49

grave. Yeah, it's like one of those grays that has a

5:51

photo a little a little circle photo in it.

5:54

Um. And then three triplet dogs

5:56

sitting on to our sisters

5:58

ones. Sorry, okay, okay, all right,

6:01

And also we should name them because their names are amazing.

6:04

Scarlet, Violet and Fanny, who

6:06

were cloned from Samantha. Samantha.

6:09

You know what this is all preparing

6:11

us for is that barber Ship

6:14

has cloned herself. Clearly, I

6:17

don't think she'd want to be no, so she

6:19

could live on after she dies. Yeah.

6:26

Um, well we'll link to this photo or

6:28

put it in the show notes, which wink

6:31

wink, you can get if you subscribe

6:33

to our patreon. UM always

6:36

always looking for an opportunity to plug that UM.

6:39

Also in news this week,

6:41

guys, First of all, a meta comment

6:44

about this um. Life

6:46

Science is kind of like a bullshit website,

6:48

right, it's

6:51

in what way

6:54

every time Molly

6:56

or tests sends me a link from life Science.

6:59

If I'm at a computer, I will like go and

7:02

search the keywords from the news

7:04

story to see if it's popped up on any other

7:07

like science news website, and

7:09

I would say, like one out of three times

7:11

it does. Oh yeah, well,

7:13

I mean it's kind of like the Live strong

7:16

of science aggregator.

7:19

In fact, for a while I was kind of confusing

7:22

them and being like, oh, it's

7:24

weird to just go from like lemonade

7:27

to help regulate your blood sugar to like outer

7:29

space, and then it's like, no, there're two different websites

7:31

that are largely aggregators.

7:34

You know, don't don't dis the source of the

7:36

moon minute news. That's true. Those

7:38

things are true. They come from space dot com,

7:40

another reputable science website

7:43

that everybody trusts. If you

7:45

work at Live Science or

7:47

if you are if you work at a content

7:50

farm. I follow some of the science

7:52

the content farm scientists at from

7:55

Life science. Some of them are real, but they

7:57

do. We're

7:59

so used to like the content farm, like

8:01

the values of a celebrity or entertainment

8:04

driven content farm, because we worked places

8:06

like that, but the science one

8:08

is such a different game. It's like the moon

8:10

must be the equivalent of the Kardashians.

8:15

Um. Anyway, this is not about the moon though.

8:18

Um, this is about Bigfoot's

8:20

FBI file turns

8:22

out the government some hairs,

8:25

that some hairs supposedly belonged to big

8:27

Foot. That's why we read

8:29

Life Science because it gives us the hard news.

8:31

Um. But it shows

8:33

you that the FBI took it seriously

8:36

enough. I mean, they didn't throw out

8:38

this. This guy like apparently just sent them some

8:40

some Bigfoot hairs, being like this, these

8:42

are hairs that came from Bigfoot,

8:45

and they didn't throw them out. So

8:47

they were like, what a coup. They were like, we must

8:50

keep these in case Bigfoot kills again, which

8:53

he obviously well kills

8:55

again. They

8:57

were dear hair is

9:00

correct. It was not able to

9:02

compare the hair with that of any

9:04

known creature on this continent I'm

9:07

reading here. Unfortunately, for Bigfoot hunters,

9:09

the results weren't what they may have hoped. In

9:12

seven, the lab examined the fifteen hairs.

9:14

A final letter from Cochrane, addressed to Howard

9:17

S. Curtis, Executive Vice president of the

9:19

a a S, read like this, Dear Mr

9:21

Curtis, the hair is which you recently delivered

9:23

to the FBI laboratory on behalf

9:25

of the Bigfoot Information Center and exhibition

9:28

have been examined by transmitted incident

9:30

light microscopy. Okay.

9:33

Also, the hairs were compared directly with hairs

9:35

of known origin under a comparison microscope.

9:37

It was concluded as a result of these examinations

9:40

that the hairs are of dear family origin.

9:43

The hair example you submiss being returned.

9:47

So for for most

9:49

of the article they were like the FBI,

9:51

I was taking it very seriously with these big

9:53

foots. That's the problem with life science.

9:55

Though they buried the lead. Um,

9:58

but yeah, they had that science

10:00

in there at the end. Um. The letter

10:02

really reads like a rejection letter from

10:04

like a literary magazine. That

10:07

what they would say, right

10:09

right, okay, Okay. Chloy

10:12

is nodding his head because he agrees they

10:14

are trying to cover up dear

10:16

family origin. I mean, hey,

10:18

if Bigfoot were a giant

10:21

like you know, bear

10:23

crossed with and ape crossed

10:25

to the deer, you know, it would

10:27

make sense he wants to have the like the slick

10:30

short hair so it can easily

10:32

wick away moisture, doesn't

10:34

show him down. Yeah,

10:37

there's probably different types of fur for different

10:40

biomas. Speaking

10:44

of biomas, Yeah, so

10:47

the world has Chernobyl fever

10:49

right now. UM, I feel like we

10:51

have not gotten into that. I was talking, I was talking

10:53

to you guys last week, and I was like,

10:55

I want to watch Chernobyl. Everybody says it's

10:58

so great, but I'm just like not in

11:00

the head space to watch a bunch of people puking

11:03

from um from

11:05

radiation poisoning. Oh you got the puke

11:07

warning, because I was going to say, I

11:10

watched the first one and I'm

11:12

going to puke right now, just like anyone

11:17

might do before they watched something

11:20

about Chernobyl, like make

11:22

a big old plate of food and

11:25

sit down to watch Ernom. You

11:27

just can't do that, You can't. I did

11:29

the first time I watched Dexter, and I was like,

11:31

really regretting it exactly.

11:34

Oh yeah, you will. You would

11:36

regret it even more. With Chernobyl.

11:39

I had a really hard time. I watched the first

11:41

one, and I was telling Molly before we started

11:43

recording that, as with

11:45

anything that's been so heralded

11:47

by critics, um, the last

11:50

example of this being Horace and Pete, which,

11:52

as everyone knows, you're right, yeah

11:55

right, So I'm on

11:57

the right side of history with that one. But it was hard because

11:59

I was, like, everyone loves it,

12:01

let's give it a shot. And I

12:03

know that there have been a bunch of articles explaining

12:06

why none of the actors are using

12:08

Russian accents, um,

12:10

but I have a problem with it. I I it's

12:12

like a mental block using

12:16

British accents that will not use they and

12:18

and it was a decision that makes sense because

12:20

it came off as kind of cartoonish. It was distracting

12:23

when they were trying the Russian accents. Or

12:25

you could just have them have like regular Russian

12:28

acts. I mean, you could have us

12:31

Russian accented English. It just to

12:33

me, it was like so so

12:35

strange, and it took

12:38

me out of it and I just couldn't plow forth.

12:40

I know that eventually that's the kind of thing

12:42

that you get used to you. The finale

12:45

apparently leans really heavy into

12:48

the kind of Russia Gate. No. I

12:50

haven't seen the finale yet, but your friend Sarah was

12:52

saying that, and I could see how

12:54

it would go that way. I mean, it's it's it's

12:56

very it's like on the nose from them. Maybe

12:59

we'll get to it later at some point.

13:01

The point is that a lot of people

13:03

have been into Chernobyl, so

13:06

much so that there is now an influx

13:08

of tourism at Chernobyl,

13:11

people planning exotic

13:13

holidays to side

13:16

of a giant Yeah, a side

13:18

of a giant nuclear accident. Um.

13:20

And we happened to know

13:23

somebody who did go to Chernobyl

13:26

as a tourist before it was cool, just

13:29

before. She was a trendsetter

13:31

before the show made it spike in popularity.

13:35

And luckily she called

13:37

it in with some

13:40

a tale, a tale from the ground. This

13:44

is a I'm a film critic on an

13:46

odal sense of the beloved back behind. And

13:49

I'm going to tell you guys about the time I

13:52

took a day told to share Noble. This

13:54

was in two thousand and sixteen. It was two years

13:56

after Ukraine had their one

13:59

revolution where like open Hunka people

14:01

got killed. And let me just start by

14:03

giving like the quickest most passionate

14:05

shout out to visiting Kias. It's like if

14:08

the city have to go, if you want to go to Chernoble and you have is

14:10

the greatest pus I've ever been on planet,

14:12

by the way, like you meet um

14:15

right outside the squarer at the point of evolution was

14:17

outside of a McDonald's. So I

14:19

got in the two of us with a bunch of people and

14:21

we drove a couple of hours out to tripat

14:24

to sharn Noble Wall that well that happens. And

14:26

in our tour of us, the guy who was

14:28

this like young teenager, really really really

14:30

really lovely, always making these

14:32

jokes like he would playing an animals

14:34

in Chernoble when he would go you

14:37

see that, Doug, I used to be

14:39

a chat that's

14:41

the sort of humor. And he was also playing stuff

14:43

like the Shared Noble Diaries, that horror

14:45

film in the van, Oh my god,

14:48

you're driving snoble. So

14:52

he walks around it

14:55

out with like this guy your counter kind of telling

14:57

you wrote to stuff and he tells you like basically, try

15:00

to keep off the dirt, try to walk on this cument.

15:02

You're more or less fine. And the kind of

15:04

beings shows you're on the tour, or like you go to villages

15:07

where there's a couple of people still like stubborn

15:09

by living in the woods. You go

15:11

to this river where like the catfish in the river which

15:13

just drinking agin huge and my

15:15

friends I went with my best friend Eva Anderson, and she has

15:17

to bring all the bars. She was like feeding the

15:20

nuclear catfish ranola bars

15:22

and they're just sucking, fighting and killing

15:24

for it um. And then you

15:26

kind of realize as you're going through that, Yeah, like the true

15:28

horror of cher Noble, isn't that a bunch of people

15:31

did in the explosion, which, to be honest, I kind

15:33

of dumb. I always thought that's how it was until I was

15:35

actually there, and you kind of getting

15:37

annoyed a little bit because there's

15:39

all these artful stagings where photographs.

15:42

Either you go to like the old kindergarten and

15:44

there's all these bump beds and like artful blackened

15:47

daity dolls left on these bump beds, and you're like, actually,

15:50

kids didn't really sleep here. Honestly, it didn't

15:52

really happen because the explosion

15:54

happened before the town took off. You're a little bit like, al

15:56

right, guys, you know, and it's very instagram

15:59

summer, but they just kind of letting, like

16:02

in the old schools and the old buildings of

16:04

Pripyat, where you're like,

16:06

I walked into a gym and there

16:08

are all these glass bricks in the gymnasium and trip

16:11

yet that was destroyed and to get the

16:13

picture of his glass bricks, I climbed through like a broken

16:15

shot. I guess my question to you

16:18

the night called listeners is what is the weirdest

16:20

place that you have been? And secondary

16:22

what'd you go back? I'm gonna say

16:24

that really quick. Kazakhstan, I

16:27

don't know Romans to be seen. I

16:29

would buy an apartment there for to die. Okay,

16:32

where do I go? WHOA? Amy? That was such

16:34

a good night call. Thank you so us

16:36

on a journey. Um, thank you so

16:38

much, Amy for calling in. Amy's

16:41

a great film critic. She has

16:43

a couple of podcasts. She hosts a podcast

16:45

called Zoom. She also hosts

16:47

a podcast called Unspoiled on Earwolves.

16:49

So she's a she's a power podcaster.

16:52

Um, but you're a great adventurer.

16:55

Well she gets to go the thing about like she goes

16:58

on all these really ex aotic

17:00

um film festival trips,

17:03

which is I think part of being

17:06

uh like a freelance critic. Like

17:08

I couldn't go to a lot of these places where they

17:10

send you there and they like give you the trip

17:12

and everything. But like Amy

17:14

would always take him up on it. I was always so jealous because

17:16

I was like, man, that's like, so's such

17:18

a cool way to see the world as by

17:21

going to the film festivals of the world

17:23

and like crazy out of the way places that you would

17:25

never also goes places

17:27

just not for film festivals. Oh

17:29

yeah, for fun. She is the most adventurous

17:31

person I've ever known, which is why it was not super

17:34

surprising she went to Chernobyl. Can

17:36

I just jump in really fast to remind you guys

17:38

that I wrote about the Chernobyl Diaries

17:40

for grant Land. It was like

17:43

I was nine months pregnant and they

17:45

were like, go see the Chernobyl Diaries

17:47

and I was like, okay. So it

17:50

was horrible. It was totally

17:52

bleak and boring and depressing

17:54

and awful, and I was so nervous

17:57

I was going to go into labor and that that

17:59

would somehow I call her my child's

18:01

whole life. But instead I was very overdue

18:03

and my mom saw a raised her head while

18:05

she was pregnant with me. Oh, of course a

18:07

monstol ran ron the

18:11

film Um Anyway, so Amy

18:14

wanted to know what were the most

18:16

uh, I guess what's the

18:18

word you would use disturbing.

18:21

Maybe dystopian,

18:24

Yeah, like maybe not exactly a place

18:26

that feels like a

18:29

Bucolic getaway. It's

18:31

interesting what she was saying to that they staged

18:33

the area to be stor what you imagine

18:36

from just stupid. Like that's a little

18:38

disappointing to me. Wait, but

18:40

I want to know what's the what's the most dystopian

18:42

or weirdest place you guys have been and

18:44

when you go back. Um,

18:47

I've been to Pompeii. UM.

18:50

I think though, actually like the most

18:52

sort of intriguing place or that it

18:54

was all during the same trip and long trip to Italy

18:57

when I was in high school. Um is

18:59

like the part of Rome that was like Muslini's

19:01

neighborhood, like the super

19:03

brutalist um like Italo

19:06

futurist um neighborhood,

19:09

where like all of them just have this total

19:11

like it's I mean, it's like I feel, like I said this

19:13

before, a fascist architecture is like a problematic

19:16

fave of mine. I like, I'm sorry, I can feel like

19:18

brutalism. I was just talking about fascism

19:20

is camp it is

19:23

and I was just saying, like they this

19:26

is so to make to take it really

19:28

serious for a second. But people staging

19:31

like fun influence or photos

19:33

or whatever in a place that was like destroyed

19:36

by something really fucked up or like had

19:38

something really fucked up happened. It

19:40

feels like we're so beyond the pale with

19:42

that already. You know, like it's going

19:44

to happen anyway, and that's like if

19:47

it helps bring tourism back to this area

19:49

that's been so fucked over. But

19:52

I don't know how tourism is, well,

19:54

yeah, what what the doctor orders.

19:57

But but the thing about

19:59

the a you are, which is the neighborhood

20:03

and the Oscars of Rome, is like it's

20:05

just a normal neighborhood. It's just

20:07

like the most bizarre landscape to put

20:10

like, I mean, it still has like you know, people have like

20:12

laundry lines hanging out their windows, and it's

20:14

just like normal, except all the buildings look

20:16

like they were rendered in a computer. Um

20:19

so this is a really weird clash of textures

20:21

and stuff that I think is like kind of that's how I feel

20:24

about those weird condo blocks they put everywhere

20:26

here. Now, I'm just like, oh, fascist

20:28

brutalism, fascist twee

20:30

brutalism, and like the paint will

20:33

wear off and then it'll just be brutalism. Can I tell

20:35

you the worst place I've ever been? Worst? I

20:37

think I've talked about this before is

20:39

Onion Town. Yeah,

20:42

it's in Duchess County, I think, um

20:44

New York. And it is a

20:47

community of people who are very hostile

20:49

to outsiders. So it's like the place from making a murderer.

20:51

It's like, yes, but then there was there

20:54

was someone went in and took a video driving

20:57

through Onion Town and then visitors

20:59

were attacked and stuff that I grew up not far.

21:01

Yeah, that was the scariest place and I would never go back because

21:04

also because like I don't want to. I feel bad

21:06

for them. I don't want to get in a chainsaw maska an Onion

21:08

Town Chainsaw massacre. I thought you

21:10

were talking about that place. That town

21:12

like about an hour outside of l A. That

21:14

like smells horrible, but it's where all the onions come

21:17

from. Oh, I don't know about that. What

21:19

it's on the in the five I'm forgetting.

21:21

I'm blanking on the name. But it's like by Los

21:23

Banos. It's like it smells

21:26

terrible. It

21:29

smells like cou shit like that.

21:31

Oh yeah, Molly,

21:34

what was your terrible place? My

21:36

it's not terrible. I mean

21:38

it is terrible, but it's also like interesting

21:41

weird. Uh. Which is jazz

21:43

Land, which I also I think wrote

21:45

about for Grantland once. It was where they filmed Jurassic

21:47

World. But it's an abandoned six flags

21:50

in New Orleans that got

21:52

destroyed by Hurricane Katrina and

21:55

then just went back to nature, so

21:58

it's totally just a swa ump now and

22:00

it is really it's like

22:03

sort of the things you see in the Churnable

22:05

pictures. It's like a giant fire stroll with like you

22:07

know, vines growing all over it.

22:10

Um. But they started using it for filming because

22:12

they filmed so uch stuff in Louisiana now and

22:15

they, I guess make it

22:17

possible to film there, but it still seems

22:20

terrifying to me because it's literally covered in

22:22

snakes and alligators. You

22:24

know. Yeah, the

22:26

abandoned theme park thing is like good,

22:28

like the Spree Park in Berlin. Yeah,

22:32

there was like also on a list. We talked about the dome

22:34

homes last week. That was like on a list, But I found

22:36

that on a list that also had the Spree Park on it because

22:38

it's like it's like beautiful doctor

22:41

and it's like and like also it got shut down

22:44

because the owners like tried to smuggle like

22:46

some insane amount of cocaine into Germany

22:49

or it's like one of these insane stories.

22:51

I think things like that. It gives you a glimpse

22:53

of the post human future. And that's

22:55

why it's not just depressing, because you're

22:57

like, oh, actually, like things grew back here

23:01

and uh yeah, the six flags

23:04

yesterday here in Los Angeles

23:06

almost fire um is

23:09

suddenly very very hot. It

23:12

became likerees, can I tell you

23:14

guys briefly about a Chernobyl conspiracy

23:17

that I learned about from Amy who learned about it

23:19

from the film festival. So there's

23:21

a thing in the Chernobyl

23:23

area in the city that I can't say

23:25

the name of correctly that

23:28

is like a giant radio transmitter

23:32

in the you know water body

23:34

of water um that was supposed to either

23:36

send out or block like secret radio

23:39

signals for the Russians

23:42

um. And it's called the Russian Woodpecker

23:44

by everybody who I don't know if that

23:46

was the nickname they were given or if

23:48

it's a colloquialism. But there

23:51

is a conpiracy theory among the

23:53

Ukrainians who live around

23:55

Chernoble, and there's a documentary about it called the Russian

23:58

Woodpecker, where the conspirec

24:00

is basically that the Russians,

24:03

like did did the Chernobyl meltdown

24:06

on purpose in order to cover up

24:08

that the Russian woodpecker was not

24:10

working correctly or had not worked. Can

24:13

I briefly say that? So this was is

24:15

technically called the Douga or Doja

24:17

radar. It was called the Russian woodpecker

24:20

because it would interrupt radio broadcast

24:22

with a tap, a loud tapping noise that sounded

24:24

like a woodpecker, and so it interrupted

24:27

like all sorts of different kinds of radio

24:29

broadcast broadcasts. So people were

24:32

just kind of random lease since just

24:34

subjected to this tap tap tap tap

24:36

tap. And so when they started talking about

24:38

it, they started coming up with conspiracy theories

24:40

about what it could bend. Control.

24:43

Weather Control supposed a picture of it too. It is

24:45

like this giant, sort of weird monolith

24:47

in the water. It's very weird looking.

24:50

It looks like a total alien structure. Um

24:53

the documentary the theory is not true. It's

24:55

sort of a nine eleven conspiracy parallel.

24:57

It's like it's it's like a Chernobyl was

24:59

an inside job conspiracy. It's

25:02

turn was an inside job so that the Russians

25:04

could sunk over the Ukrainians because

25:06

they don't care about the Ukrainians and they

25:09

needed someone to blame for the thing not

25:11

working. But the documentary, which

25:13

I haven't seen yet but Amy said, is great. Apparently

25:15

it's just really interesting because it follows a guy who believes

25:17

this to be true, and it gets just into

25:20

sort of the history of relations between

25:22

Russia and the Ukraine and how fucked

25:24

up it is. So they're like, the Ukrainians

25:26

do have a lot of resentment towards

25:29

the Russian government for like how they were

25:31

treated, um, and there is a lot

25:33

of weird, interesting stuff going on under the surface.

25:44

Everybody flew to England this week, flew to

25:46

England. We didn't need to fly to

25:48

England, but we still flew to England for old time's

25:50

sake. For anyone who doesn't know why we say

25:52

that, it's because when we talked

25:55

about Black Mirror many years ago, was

25:57

not available to be wanting

25:59

in the US before to go on a

26:02

Russian UH satellite

26:05

service. She

26:07

used to fly to England, but now we just

26:10

reminisce about our flights to England and watch

26:12

it in the US. Um. But you

26:14

old Netflix. We love Netflix

26:16

so much. All hail

26:19

our leader netflce um.

26:22

But yeah, I mean, I feel like I

26:24

wanted to talk about these new episodes with you guys

26:26

because for old times sake,

26:29

because we always used to talk about Black Mirror and

26:31

the hoodies days. Also because I

26:33

think that these are pretty good. I think

26:35

we all do love that. Yeah,

26:37

I've been kind of out on on the Netflix

26:40

era of Black Mirrors.

26:42

I didn't even watch Bandersnatch,

26:44

just because I don't know, it just felt like such

26:46

a stunt and I just I did

26:49

not see how I was going to

26:51

have a good time watching it. Um.

26:54

I think that a lot of the I feel

26:56

like a lot of the Netflix once have been kind

26:58

of a like they've felt

27:00

like fan fiction. Like, Yeah, I've

27:02

just been a little bit out on the Netflix are was

27:04

with a couple of exceptions, but a lot of them

27:07

kind of just felt like kind of

27:09

rushed fan fick or like a kind

27:11

of not as interesting idea

27:13

of of of what Black Mirror

27:16

ought to be or at least what it was for those

27:19

first two um UK

27:21

only seasons, and like

27:23

I don't know, I was not a fan of stuff

27:25

like nose Dive or it's just like gods

27:28

were so sucked into the rating system on

27:30

everything would have the rating system

27:32

was all of society. The

27:35

show can do that kind of maximalism, like let's blow

27:37

up like one one aspect of modern

27:39

living and imagine if it was like truly everything,

27:42

like fifteen million merrits. The one with the bikes

27:44

is one of my favorite Black Mirrors, but

27:47

I think that these I think the Black Mirror

27:49

is best is sort of just like it's kind of like I

27:51

was described as to somebody else, it's like a can opener.

27:54

Like black mirror is like a tool that

27:56

like lets you access the discussion about

27:58

something through fiction, you

28:01

know, like which should be like all speculative

28:04

fiction. But I think the Black Mirror tends to do it particularly

28:06

well with like contemporary issues, and

28:09

it's just become like cool to rag on

28:11

it because or like make

28:13

it like talk about it like it's more alarmost

28:16

than it is um or really

28:18

like a sign like a really schooldy tone

28:20

to it that I don't think cool. I

28:22

don't understand people who are too cool for Black Mirror.

28:25

Before we start talking about Black Mirror,

28:27

we would like to issue a stern warning

28:29

that if you have not watched the three new episodes

28:32

that are available in Netflix now, please

28:34

don't listen to this next segment until

28:36

you have. There will be tons of very serious

28:38

spoilers, and we don't want you to get mad at us.

28:40

Thank you. I've been super into

28:43

almost all of the Black Mirrors, even the ones

28:45

that I didn't like that much, and I really actually

28:47

liked Nose Dive a lot, but I think

28:49

Crocodial may have been like

28:52

some of the really big ones have

28:54

been hard to ones. It's just like punishing, like

28:57

that's that's when people make fun of Black Mirror

29:00

are thinking of those episodes, and I think those are the least

29:02

and it was good about these. It was like

29:04

he was responding to the criticism and being like, I'm

29:06

just gonna make like two of them are fun and

29:08

one of them is not as fun, and it's probably the least

29:10

good one. I well, we should say

29:13

that first thought, there are three in this season

29:15

because Bandersnatch took so much time and the three

29:17

are Striking Vipers, um Smitherens

29:20

and Rachel Jack and Ashley two, which we briefly

29:22

talked about last week because Molly had seen it.

29:24

Um, we've all seen it. I

29:26

did not like smith Reens, which I believe was

29:28

also the longest one, and

29:31

it is very yeah, and the only one of the only

29:33

Black Mirrors, if not the only one that was not

29:35

set in the present or very

29:37

near future. Instead it was set one

29:39

year in the past, and it had instead

29:42

of kind of being in this like weird

29:44

geo, you know, geographic location that doesn't

29:47

quite exist and seems like you threw a bunch of places

29:49

in a blender, it was set in London,

29:51

um, and I I felt like that was more

29:54

on the kind of preachy, Like it was

29:56

preachy. It's kind of like a p s

29:58

A about don't text nder see, but had

30:01

it that way at all. I

30:03

have to say the performance by

30:05

Andrew Scott was good. Ended

30:08

up enjoying it. Yeah, it's a really incredible

30:10

performance. My husband was comparing

30:12

it to Andrew crenanen um

30:14

in Versachi. He was like, it's just so like explosive

30:17

and natural and like he has such a huge

30:20

range in it. It's he really like drives it and propels

30:22

it, so it's still really good. Yeah.

30:25

I think the performance is what helps it

30:27

for me, helps it not just be a p s

30:29

A about not texting and driving because you don't

30:32

you don't get that's a bit of a spoiler. You don't

30:34

realize that that's sort of like been the

30:36

place where his life went off the rails until

30:38

sort of late is that he was in a texting and driving

30:41

accident and his fiance was killed in it. This

30:43

guy who's holding an intern

30:45

from a Twitter like company, like he's

30:47

basically yeah, he's holding a Twitter

30:49

in turn a hostage. He's an Uber

30:51

driver and he drives out to the country

30:54

with this kid and is just holding

30:56

the hostage until I can talk to Jack

30:58

essentially played to for grace

31:01

Um on the phone. I think smitherens

31:04

for me because of that, Like very

31:06

it almost felt like a kind of palate cleanser, which

31:09

is a weird thing to say, because it was like a very dark and

31:11

kind of rough hour plus,

31:14

but it felt like such a

31:16

return back to like very

31:19

contemporary concerns, like it wasn't this big,

31:21

like what if we were all on stationary

31:23

bikes that we had to bike on so that we could be on American

31:25

I like, it was just such a simple idea, and

31:28

I think it really reflected how people

31:30

feel now about technology and

31:32

how they feel about people who have all

31:34

the power that a person like a

31:37

Mark Zuckerberg or Jack Dorsey have and

31:39

that frustration and like kind of just

31:41

feeling like this bug like under the foot

31:43

of these tech giants. They just like have this

31:46

all like enormous power they can wield.

31:48

That felt incredibly real and human

31:50

to me. So I liked it for that. Um,

31:53

it is too long, but I thought

31:55

that was really well done. Also another toe for

31:57

Grace performance as a

31:59

shitty douche bag. You know, I was saying, like

32:01

David Duke and Jack Dorsey

32:05

and under the Silver late and and

32:08

the silver like too. Yeah. Yeah,

32:10

he's played He's played a lot of like just

32:12

sort of hapless but awful

32:15

people like I think Toper Grace

32:17

brings such an accessibility to his characters.

32:19

Maybe that's why he that's what's horrifying

32:21

about the performance, and is so like the

32:24

moment where he's like look, I didn't like

32:26

he just has the Zuckerberg line of like look,

32:28

I just invented this in a dorm room, Like I didn't

32:30

think it would be all this thing. It's totally under control,

32:32

and it's like you want to feel like sorry

32:34

for him for a second, then you're like, shut up.

32:37

It's just so hapless that he's like the last

32:39

person that you would want in control of

32:42

anything, and obviously like he feels

32:44

overwhelmed. They look at it. They all

32:46

look like what you guys, you could punch out. Yeah.

32:49

Um, I have to say my favorite of the three episodes

32:52

was Striking Vipers um,

32:54

which is about two

32:57

best friends or good friends I

32:59

guess, who played video games together and then end

33:01

up kind of in a romantic entanglement

33:03

via virtual reality on a Mortal Kombat

33:06

type game. Yes, um, their avatars

33:08

have sex, but then in real life

33:10

they are not attracted to each other. And um,

33:13

one of them, Anthony Mackie, has a

33:15

wife and child and you

33:17

know he feels very conflicted. Uh.

33:20

I thought it was such a great portrayal

33:23

of virtual relationships, um,

33:26

and how those sometimes exist only

33:28

on the virtual plane and don't transcend

33:30

that at all. Uh. And I thought it was like a really

33:33

nuanced handling of it. Yeah,

33:35

Anthony is so good she

33:39

appreciate pain and gain. Oh yeah,

33:42

taking everybody. And this

33:44

was such a different kind of performance for him. It was

33:47

so he's so believably

33:49

depressed, you know, like I

33:52

don't know he. I think this

33:54

has been one that I have thought about more

33:57

than most other Black Mirror

34:00

episodes, even ones that I really like a lot, Like

34:02

this one was really stuck in my mind. And I think

34:04

it's also funny. It's funny, and it's

34:06

like, I want the I want the Mortal Kombat

34:09

asked game where there's an option to just kiss

34:11

like that please, I would

34:13

like to play that. Um.

34:15

But the response to it, like there's

34:17

been like a totally like homophobic

34:20

or like like gay panicky type

34:22

response to have, Like oh when your friend says

34:24

like you wanted game like and you

34:26

freak out and it's that that that gift

34:28

of like Jordan Peel sweating like

34:30

that kind of thing. It's just like that kind

34:32

of ship. And I think like there have been

34:34

some points made by people that it's like, why

34:37

can't they just be gay together? Why does it have to do

34:39

this thing that they like, I don't know that

34:41

you fit into your you have like a hall pass

34:43

or something for it but I

34:45

don't know. I think it's such an interesting question

34:49

of like, yeah, I thought it was about future

34:51

sexuality. Yeah, it's like new

34:54

it's a totally new things, right. I

34:56

was like, it's about people who can't even like

34:58

they don't know how to ualify it because

35:00

it's like not something that exists in real

35:02

life at all. It was sort of

35:04

like, I feel like you talked about this before on

35:07

the show about how the Matrix, written

35:09

by the Witch House kis sort of as an

35:11

exploration of like identity

35:14

in virtual reality. Uh,

35:18

maybe more about how that affects identity

35:20

in real life. This is just about like you can

35:22

do whatever you want in virtual reality

35:24

but doesn't count well. I was talking with

35:26

our l A producer Roy about

35:29

this because he is a virtual reality

35:32

person who knows a lot about it, and he was like, I

35:34

didn't know. I didn't feel like it was very realistic,

35:36

And I thought my take on it was

35:38

that it was a way to show

35:41

relationships that forum online usually through

35:43

pros like message boards, emails, but

35:46

because there's no real way

35:48

to show that dramatically or to like make that,

35:50

you know, theatrical and interesting to

35:52

watch, that, they decided to use VR

35:55

like street fighting games, because

35:57

that's you know, that's kind of like

35:59

a more theatrical presentation of

36:02

just how relationships form in

36:04

this kind of like disembodied world. Yeah,

36:06

and it can't be them because it's not that

36:09

you're they're even attracted to each other

36:11

physically. It's like, but if you kissed

36:13

an Immortal Kombat game, yeah, yeah,

36:15

I mean yeah. And it reminds me

36:17

of people I know have like had like you

36:20

know, long distance flirtations or something

36:22

with something that they only email with, that they only the

36:24

only text with or or or face

36:27

time with or whatever, and like how

36:29

there's always something different about it when you're in

36:31

person, and sometimes that's it's still

36:33

there and sometimes it's not. And it's like

36:35

like this is just like a heightened version

36:37

of that. It's like the heightened intimacy

36:40

of talking to people online, which can

36:42

totally be false. Also you feel

36:44

like you know somebody from interacting online, but

36:46

you don't. Well, I think that I would say

36:48

that this kind of posits that it's not false,

36:50

but that it's different, like that they're

36:53

you know, personas are no less real,

36:55

but that they just don't exist in a physical sense,

36:57

and that a person can have an

37:00

avatar that is them but nothing

37:02

like their physical because

37:04

and the enjoyment is totally real. Yeah,

37:07

and it and it doesn't condemn it. That's

37:09

what also made it good if not it didn't

37:11

at the end to be like everybody fucked

37:14

up and it's a terrible person and horrible things are

37:16

going to happen to them, which is what you expect from a black

37:18

mirror sometimes. Uh, it

37:20

sort of had like a happy ending where

37:24

well, it just says that you're allowed to have

37:26

both lives, that that both your online

37:29

life and your real life can be can can

37:31

coexist if you balance them. Well, the

37:34

question is, you know, either like if

37:36

you completely block it out, then are you denying yourself

37:38

pleasure? But if you completely commit

37:41

to being online all the time, then you

37:43

know, can you really be happy? And so if

37:45

you can find a balance, which is like obviously

37:47

a real issue that we all kind of face, it's

37:50

impossible to find. But if you can, is

37:53

it possible to have people kind of accept

37:55

that as as a healthy choice for

37:57

lifestyle. I think the one reason it kind

37:59

of I thought at the end was a little bit tragic. It's

38:01

just because like both of them, at different points,

38:04

you know, acknowledge the fact that they've never

38:06

had anything that felt this good, you

38:09

know, and no relationship, no, you

38:11

know, intimacy has ever felt as good

38:13

as making out as Mortal Kombat characters.

38:16

Um, but is that also like the cheating

38:19

high Like is it just maybe

38:21

but doing something taboo? It's like people,

38:24

because there was also it seemed like it was a little bit going

38:26

into the like is it cheating

38:28

to like pay a cam girl or whatever?

38:31

You know? Yeah, I mean, I don't know,

38:33

it's interesting, that's all. I was. Good. Yeah, again,

38:37

like I'm still thinking about this one.

38:39

I think I think it's become like a punchline

38:41

really quickly ever since it came out.

38:43

But I think it's like one of the most kind of thought

38:45

provoking. Well, it's also the best troll

38:48

on gamers the world.

38:50

We love Charlie Brooker, uh,

38:53

because it's perfect video

38:55

games. He he's a total gamer. That's

38:58

he was like, here's the subtext of all of the

39:00

rest of every wrestling game, of course,

39:02

and you know fighting game. The last

39:04

one is is the one that we

39:07

discussed briefly, the

39:10

Rachel Jack and Ashley too, the

39:13

the Miley Cyrus one, as it will

39:15

probably be known more commonly.

39:17

Um, this is probably my least favorite of the three of

39:19

them, but I still thought it was like pretty silly and

39:22

fun. I didn't hate

39:24

it. It was just like deeply silly. I

39:26

loved it. You said it was like a show show

39:28

Mega. Yeah, I mean all

39:31

this, like all the hijinks of

39:33

it and like driving around a car that looks

39:35

like a mouse. So the rescue of your favorite

39:38

pop star is like something that would happen on

39:40

sailor Moon, you know. Yeah, and some

39:42

of that stuff too. I was like, I feel like whenever

39:44

we complained about like what if stranger things

39:46

was just about like some girls going on adventures,

39:48

you know. I was like, oh, girls going on an adventure?

39:52

Um, And I just feel

39:54

like things are so depressing in

39:56

the world, Like I was just expecting something

39:59

so bad to happened. Oh, it was said

40:01

there were many kind of avenues

40:03

it could have. Was waiting for something horrible

40:05

to happen, and then when it didn't,

40:07

I totally was so happy

40:09

and well. As soon as you see teenagers

40:11

in technology together, especially

40:14

in Black Mirror, you feel like you know where

40:16

it's going. But the tone is always it's like

40:18

suspenseful suspenseful and

40:20

and the fact that you know, artificial intelligence

40:23

and like a pop star. I mean all

40:25

of that kind of the free Brittany movement really

40:27

being tied to this episode

40:29

of Black Mirror and having the timing be kind

40:32

of strange, say

40:34

like do a free Britney shout out at a

40:36

show or was that somebody else? Oh? Did

40:38

she? I don't know, but I mean free Brittany.

40:40

Free Brittany. For sure. We waffled

40:43

on this, but now we can say now that Brittaney's

40:45

in the Free Brittaney movement. I think it was just

40:47

like this is what I said to somebody because I was like, to

40:49

me, it was a little bit like Sandypero, where it

40:51

was like, maybe it is sort of like

40:53

an escapist fantasy, but like that's

40:56

what we need sometimes. You

40:58

know, you only ever see like tragic

41:00

lesbian relationships and TV shows. To have

41:03

an episode where it like and happily,

41:05

it just felt really good. And then I

41:08

felt the same way about this. I was like, you only ever see

41:10

like the pop star like self destructing

41:12

or horrible things happen, just to see them

41:14

escape. It was like very cathartic

41:17

and I mean nice. I thought

41:19

that I thought the part that I think

41:22

the second half is where it gets like it just

41:24

becomes like high camp for me, and it's like enjoyable,

41:26

but also I kind of disengage a little bit the

41:28

first half where she where

41:31

Rachel has the UM

41:34

has the Ashley to like you know, Amazon

41:36

Echo type device, and

41:39

it's feeding her all this you know

41:41

positive you can do it um

41:44

like if you believe in yourself type messaging

41:46

and basically convinces her to

41:49

enter this talent show UM

41:52

dancing to an Ashley Too song,

41:54

which is of course disastrous.

41:57

That I thought was interesting. I thought,

41:59

like it's kind of taking empowerment

42:04

rhetoric type thing and like turning

42:07

that into like a personal advisor for you

42:09

if you're a child, UM like

42:12

embodying and that, which is like totally what

42:14

those songs are. Ye I tell you what Hannah Montana

42:16

was all songs like that. It's

42:19

just so funny you can pitch shift a song

42:21

and do a major a totally

42:23

different song. So that's

42:25

to me. What also made it work so well is

42:27

that it is a hit on a

42:30

roll. Is the summer hit,

42:32

the night Call summerhead. We should just say for anyone

42:35

who didn't who missed this discussion last week

42:37

or hasn't seen the episode, and also if you haven't

42:39

seen these episodes, again, I apologize for spoiling.

42:42

But this was Had like a hole by nine inch nails

42:45

turned into I'm on a roll

42:47

achieving my goal roll

42:50

achieving. Doesn't it start

42:52

up? I'm says.

42:56

I think she says had like a hole because I thought

42:58

about it. I saw the episode early and then I like, I

43:00

couldn't talk about it with anybody, and it was all I

43:02

wanted to talk about, especially that specifics

43:05

like but just like, I'm so like,

43:08

it's the cadence of it

43:10

is so off. It's so fun because it's

43:12

like so ambition. Ever

43:16

get what it takes a

43:18

minute to realize what it is and then you're

43:20

like, oh, you just make Ednie song in a major

43:23

key. Um. It is like a

43:25

joke. I have heard about how you can turn

43:27

any Christmas song into a Hanukkah song

43:29

by putting it in my case music

43:33

theory here on Nightcall. I

43:36

mean I think that this one is like it

43:39

was a good one to go out on just because it's like it feels

43:41

like kind of the blockbuster of

43:43

the three of them in a way like it's a big adventure.

43:46

Um I, but yeah,

43:48

I I feel like maybe

43:51

they need to go back to just doing three episodes watches,

43:54

because like they had, they felt more

43:56

considered all three of them instead of just being

43:58

like, let's think of another like apocalyptic

44:01

computer scenario, like they're

44:03

all, they're all they all have their own sort

44:05

of thing that they're working

44:07

on and thinking about instead of like what if you had to

44:09

kill a baby? Like and

44:12

striking vipers too was almost I

44:14

mean, it was complex and

44:16

also did a great job the

44:19

Nicole Berry who played the wife, like,

44:21

they also did a great job of making her

44:23

very sympathetic. You felt for everybody

44:25

in this situation. Um well

44:28

that's and that's like the what's

44:30

it called the entire history of you. I thought

44:32

that that that episode, like a classic

44:34

Black Mirror episode, was you know,

44:36

the first time we really could see

44:38

the full potential of that of just like

44:41

introducing a bad

44:43

idea into a but like for a

44:45

bunch of flawed people to mess with that we all

44:47

ultimately feel sympathetic for in some way or

44:49

another because we can see with all

44:51

be right back. Yeah, yeah,

44:54

I feel like some of them are like what if what

44:56

if technology is good well

44:58

that I think. I think that's what they really

45:01

great episodes all have in

45:03

common. And I think it's a double edged

45:05

black mirror. It's a doublegged exactly, yeah,

45:08

exactly, But I mean I think striking

45:11

Vipers they use the same VR

45:13

technology across, you know, in the whole black

45:15

mirror universe of like a temple sticker

45:18

that you know, your eyes kind of cloud over and roll

45:20

back in your head, which is so scary.

45:22

And then I think my issue with Smithens

45:25

is that I think that gets across what

45:27

technology does to people, for better

45:29

or worse, so much more effectively

45:32

than you know, a shot of people

45:35

looking at their phones reading tragic news putting it

45:37

away, which is, you know, it's true, the

45:39

metaphor for the thing better than

45:41

the exactly. I feel like the

45:43

thing itself just seems like Brooker is really it's

45:45

also filling to show people on their

45:47

phones. You're right, it's just like uncinematic and

45:50

to show people it wouldn't be cooler if

45:52

we put a little dart in our brain and then

45:54

we just looked like totally passed out and

45:57

and like halfway halfway

45:59

did and halfway like ecstatic. It's just

46:01

yes, Yeah, it's an interesting rain

46:03

candy. Yeah, we should

46:05

watch rain Candy another

46:08

predict before it's time, Yeah, predictor.

46:11

Thanks for listening to Night Call. If you

46:14

have any

46:20

if you've had any strange journeys that

46:22

you would like to tell us about, please give

46:24

us a call at two four oh for six

46:27

night Or if you had any interesting reactions

46:29

to these new black mirrors or any black

46:31

mirrors that you that we haven't

46:33

discussed, let us know, give

46:36

us a call. Also email

46:38

us at Nightcall Podcast at gmail dot

46:40

com, and you can follow us on social media

46:42

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46:44

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46:47

support us on Patreon. We're on Patreon

46:49

and patreon dot com slash Nightcall

46:52

First. A little as a dollar a month,

46:54

you can get out access to show notes. You

46:56

can subscribe to our

46:58

book club podcast us, which we are recording

47:00

the first one this week and it should

47:02

be out by the time you hear this. I can't remember

47:05

how dates work, but I think it'll be out by the time you hear

47:07

this. We're our first book club is for Value

47:09

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47:11

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47:13

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47:16

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47:18

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47:39

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47:41

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47:43

thanks everyone who supported us. We really appreciate

47:46

it. This is the very earnest part of it where

47:48

we say we really do appreciate everybody supporting

47:50

the show. We are just and it's

47:52

been such a good way to like hear from everybody,

47:55

just you know, through people who have reached

47:57

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48:00

you know talking about you know, our newsletter

48:02

that came out this month and um

48:04

and all the other stuff that we've been doing in addition

48:06

to the pot mix tape. The mix tape.

48:10

Yeah, it's just been cool to hear from all you guys and

48:12

find new ways to interact with you. So it's

48:14

been fun and we hope to keep doing it.

48:18

We're on a roll. We're on a roll achieving

48:21

our goals, keep goals. We'll see

48:23

you all next week. Bye,

48:32

she soo.