Hyped!

Thongs, egregious bikini tops, and bizarre takes on the English language as love is sought amid the embers of modern romance: Zoe is convinced that Love Island is the most telling social document of our time, while Tom is... forced to agree. Partially. Tune in for a deeper dive on Love Island's gender, race and class politics - oh, and its aesthetics too – than you're likely to find elsewhere (some might say for good reason).

Why is the sheer mundanity, the dreary colourlessness of police procedure, so utterly transfixing when it comes to the doings of AC-12? (That's anti-police corruption unit 12 if you're one of the rare uninitiated). Zoe and Tom consider the latest season (six), its shortcomings, its relationships, and the formal majesty that lent earlier Line of Duty such magic, as well as what role such drama serves in our society. 

A Jpeg by digital artist Beeple (Mike Winkelmann), 39, sold for $69.3 at Christie's New York in March. For his pennies, the buyer got an NFT, a non-fungible token, a marker of authenticity enabled by blockchain technology. Zoe and Tom discuss what the sale – and the frenzy for NFTs – means for art and aesthetics and discuss the nature of the new digital markets redefining value itself. 

Zoe and Tom pick over the interview and its reception, considering the couple's claims to victimhood and their path to 'authenticity', and chewing over the biggest casualties of the interview in the Royal family. They brooch race and class, wondering how, in the rush for righteous blame, the latter somehow seems to get lost, along with any thought for the British taxpayer. Something for everyone. Well, perhaps not everyone. 

The inauguration was a jamboree of digital pomp, and saw the making of a star in Amanda Gorman. Zoe and Tom discuss the pageantry and celebrity and where it all fits within American political culture, plus their thoughts on the 'unity' message.

Since we recorded, this diverse Regency romp has become Netflix's biggest series ever, downloaded over 80 million times in the 28 days after its release. Zoe and Tom find this fact both hilarious and terrifying. Join them as they dissect the series' appeal and above all its vision of the Regency court as a diverse utopia, in which present values very much dominate the picture of the past. And why does everyone have to be so thin? Well, all bar one....

The latest series of the Netflix smash hit is different: more recent, nastier, and closer to home. It covers a period within living memory of old millennials like Zoe and Tom, with one of the most painful marriages of the 20th century at its core. This season is the most controversial yet. Its treatment of the past has stirred high-level and intense controversy about whether it is obviously art or a devious form of history.  Join Zoe and Tom as they consider this question, plus the strengths and weaknesses of the portraits of Charles and Diana, Thatcher and the Queen and what it all says about society today and the royals' place in it.

The Queen's Gambit (Oct 2020) fast became Netflix's most-downloaded scripted miniseries of all time. Join Zoe and Tom as they regroup to deconstruct this silky, sexy televisual creature. There is much to enjoy about the mid-century rise and rise of Beth Harmon (Anya Taylor-Joy) from tranqued-up Kentucky orphan to world chess champion... but as usual, Zoe and Tom have some reservations.

These days, it is a challenge to find someone who has not read Sapiens, Harari's astonishingly bold and popular global bestseller from 2014. Sapiens attempts to explain the whole history of mankind, from early versions of the species through to the globalised, gas-guzzling world of today, via the devising of agriculture, money, empire and industry. Yet is this honest history? Harari's story is a political one - an ecological polemic - that ultimately rails against humankind, and prefers to see our legacy as one of destruction rather than ingenuity and betterment. Zoe and Tom discuss the book's flaws and strengths.

The first non-English language film to win the Best Picture Oscar, Parasite lit not just the critics alight but punters too. Rarely has one film - a relatively low budget, highly culturally specific film at that - created such a global talking point. Who or what is to blame here? Is it capitalism? Class warfare? Morality gone awry? Wealth? Who is the real parasite, if there is one? What about the mad tonal shifts in the film from comedy to horror? Join Zoe and Tom as they unpick the extreme excitement around Parasite, the 2019 film directed by Bong Joon-ho, and place it in wider context.