Park Rush

This week, we pay tribute to the theme park TV shows that helped us get through the lockdown! Tom has also seen the new Mulan and has some thoughts to share, we talk about some really bad RollerCoaster Tycoon games for smartphones, and Josh kicks off a very worthwhile discussion about the price of coffee.

This week's show opens with what everyone turns up to a theme park podcast for: film reviews. But once Tom has some brief thoughts on Tenet and The New Mutants off his chest, we dive into a decent week of news as raptors begin arriving on the site of a new Jurassic Park rollercoaster at Islands Of Adventure, Disney begins recruiting superheroes for Avengers Campus in California, and much more!

We continue our march through the history of theme park video games and - after fighting through the doldrums of some less-than-stellar console efforts - finally reach the promised land of Planet Coaster. Frontier's spiritual successor to RollerCoaster Tycoon 3 is just as good as we'd been led to believe and we invite you to share in the fun of what is undoubtedly the best theme park video game since the genre's heyday.

Our theme park video game review series returns after some time off with Screamride, an early Xbox One title from Frontier. But unlike the studio's previous work on the RollerCoaster Tycoon franchise, and subsequent releases like Planet Coaster, this one's not up to much.

You wait about a year for some new London Resort details and then you get some on consecutive podcast episodes! The team behind the project have been holding online Q&As and Tom and Josh popped into one of them to eek out even more new info about the plans. We also talk about a tonne of leaks regarding Super Nintendo World (remember that?), relief for one of the UK's favourite family-run theme parks, and Josh has been watching a series about Disney weddings.

The London Resort has - after years of delay and uncertainty - actually taken a major step forward this week by launching its public consultation, providing up-to-date details about plans for two theme parks, a water park, an entertainment district, shops, hotels and more! We do a deep dive into the planning documents and discuss whether this project really could come to fruition. Plus, there are some murmurings of trouble for Universal's Epic Universe.

This week we talk in more detail about how coronavirus has impacted some of Epcot's major plans, notably the renovation of Spaceship Earth and Mary Poppins in the World Showcase. We also have news of Halloween cancellations across Disney and Universal parks, a rare violent incident at Thorpe Park, and much more.

Josh made it two theme park trips in the space a week by following up his Thorpe Park visit by hitting up Alton Towers. Once again he guides Tom through all the major rides, including some record-breaking rollercoasters, as well as how everything's operating in these unprecedented times. Plus, there's a few tidbits of news from the US, including all four of Walt Disney World's parks being back up and running and some bad news for upcoming attractions at Epcot.

Josh has risked his life and those of everyone he loves by visiting Thorpe Park in the midst of a dangerous pandemic. He guides Tom round the park as per usual on our trip report episodes, covering all the big rides from Stealth to Swarm, but also talks through all the new safety measures in place to keep guests safe from the threat of the coronavirus. Do you have to wear a mask? Are people paying attention to social distancing? How's eating KFC during these unprecedented times? All that and more on this week's bumper show!

An almighty cock-up during recording rather compromises the audio quality on Tom's end this week, but hopefully you can still garner some enjoyment from an episode packed with theme park news. We've got a report from the opening week of The Bourne Stuntacular at Universal Orlando, the latest on Walt Disney World's return, a delay for Super Nintendo World in Japan, and how we reckon the UK theme park scene will get on as the country's hospitality and tourism industry makes what some feel could be a premature return.