Down To Watch

This week, the DtW crew watched the rest of Poker Face and is back to discuss whether it's flush with quality writing and acting or just full of jokers! Dan and Raul finished up the series they checked in on a few months back and are both happy to report the show is a hit with not a lie detected. Natasha Lyonne has appeared in a few other Down to Watch shows and is quickly becoming a pod favorite for her dry wit, hapless courage and rapport with the murderer's row of acting ringers that fill the episodes with victims, witnesses, red herrings and the aforementioned killers. A throwback to classic TV and a great new show, no bullshit!

The month of March has descended upon us and with it plenty of new shows for the DtW crew to sift through in search of your next favorite show! Dan and Raul have an extensive summary of anything worth checking out this month, and the wide range of shows arriving on the streaming apps mean there's something for everyone. The guys get into the returns of some Mandalorians, lines of Succession and Ted Lassos, Chris Rock doing his thing live on Netflix, pop fans Swarm-ing the haters, and what went down in Waco. The shows this month are chock full of big-name stars and there's plenty of new series that will be talked about all month, so listen to this pod and get your info so you can win conversations!

The DtW crew is doing a flashback double-take, trying to understand how Danny DeVito and Arnold Schwarzenneger could be twin brothers in the classic comedy Twins! Dan and Raul are again traveling to the 80s to fill in pop culture blind spots by catching up on classics, and this dual-lead caper is a great glimpse at what a couple of legends were like in their heydays. Arnold stomps and smiles as a giant fish out of water trying to find his long-lost brother after being born to a sketchy science experiment, while Danny DeVito sleazes and smarms into the hearts of audiences long before he gave Philly its sunniest days. Does this relic of a bygone comedy style still hold up in the modern world where such mismatched lab-made twins would surely be a giant story? Probably, but to be sure, you better listen!

This week, Down to Watch has been dealt a dream hand with Peacock's new original series, Poker Face! Dan and Raul make three of a kind with guest Hannah back to talk about another Natasha Lyonne show that everyone on the pod thinks hit the jackpot. They discuss Rian Johnson's career of cool colors and quick talkers, the structure of classic network mysteries, and the place of a breezy, brainy detective show in the current tv landscape. More than anything, everyone agrees the show is bouncy and engaging, and chatting about it is half the fun, so come listen!

Down to Watch has your freshly baked February TV releases hot out of the oven and ready to shake off the winter cold. Dan and Raul have to look outside of the big red N for their picks this month, as Apple TV+ steps up and delivers Hello Tomorrow, a retro-futurist sci-fi salesman story, and Dear Edward, a drama centered around a miracle, grief, and trauma.  As well as, The Reluctant Traveler, which sees lovable Eugene Levy globetrotting to exciting locales and more! Not to be outdone, Prime has the darkly comedic The Consultant is set to release, Showtime delves into profound injustice in the docuseries Murder at Big Horn, Party Down returns to the delight of all, and even more! This pod is Feb in a nutshell; go crack it open!

The Home Box Office has launched a big show for 2023, and the guys at Down to Watch are just the fun guys to tell you about it! Dan, Raul, and the game-veteran guide Jonnie help you wade into mushroom mayhem and madness as the Red Viper and the Lady of Bear Island team up to try to cross a fungus-filled zombie America. These actors from Game of Thrones play a found family fighting humans and infected alike as they attempt to turn this Playstation adventure into another HBO hit while maintaining everything that made the source material worth experiencing. So should the hopeful fans and critics look forward to a satisfying and entertaining adapted story, or are they high on shrooms for getting their hopes up? Listen up and get into the conversation!

Down to Watch is back this week with something a bit experimental from the big red N. Dan and Raul saw some or most of the new Netflix show Copenhagen Cowboy, full of slick synth and burning neon edges as well as bits of misery, magic, and mayhem to flesh out an artistically told tale. The nearly mute Miu has arrived in a particular corner of European hell, as the current denizens refer to it, and seems to be using almost otherworldly powers of perception to process the actions of the flawed, damaged, and depraved that populate her current situation. Fairly quickly in, the guys realize this show is going for some strange angles and hiding some of its more fantastic features but is it enough from the visionary director and Dan's favorite NWR to capture the attention of people skeptical of the pretention? Whatever the answer, at least the guys get to it quickly!

The year starts out weird as the DtW crew gets into some experimental TV in January! Dan and Raul are scratching their heads, trying to make heads or tails out of two tricky shows with different twists. First off, the duo dissects a couple of episodes of the new Netflix show Kaleidoscope. It's a couple of eps because the crime caper starring Gian Carlos Esposito purports to be watchable in any episode order, apparently. Then they dig into Paul T Goldman, a Peacock venture that is at once a biopic adaptation, behind-the-scenes investigation, and subversive deconstruction of a "regular guy" that is anything but. Do these shows with aspirations to break the mold remember to entertain along the way? These podcasters know!

Down to Watch starts 2023 with some sneaky spy stuff from both sides of the pond with the two new Netflix streaming series, The Recruit, and Treason! Dan and Raul can't help but compare how the levels of haplessness the protags of each secretive show bring to their similar situations, measuring The Recruit's cast shoehorning comedy into a bouncy action-filled fish-out-of-water thriller with the writers of Treason introducing more than a few soap opera level stakes throughout what plays like a serious drama. Are either of these shows worth meeting in a smokey dark alley for the spy game goods, or is the audience being set up as the fall guy holding the bag? This pod knows the truth!