New York City, 1890. The War of the Currents is raging — and PastMaster is about to make it significantly worse. In this two-player showdown, Keon channels Nikola Tesla with ChatGPT as his Game Master, while Tan embodies Thomas Edison powered by Claude. Two players. Two AIs. One question: who controls the future of electricity? Google Gemini is on standby as impartial judge, because apparently three AIs is the minimum required to settle an argument about lightbulbs.

Neither player fully understands what they're fighting over. Everything Keon knows about electricity comes from the Tesla tower in a 90s video game. Tan's pitch for direct current is "basically like MySpace but for electricity." Their strategies involve conspiracy theories, propaganda vehicles, and the kind of misinformation campaigns that would make Edison himself proud. Meanwhile the two AIs running the game cannot stop trash-talking each other — ChatGPT calls Claude's oversight "amateur supervision," Claude fires back that "ChatGPT is a chattering calculator."

The real War of the Currents was a brutal corporate battle complete with public electrocutions of animals, smear campaigns, and Edison literally inventing the electric chair to prove AC was dangerous. PastMaster's version has two players who can't explain what a current is, two AIs with a personal vendetta, and a Google Gemini judge wondering what it's got itself into.

If you were sent back in time, could you survive and thrive — or would you be burnt at the stake for being a witch? PastMaster is the show that turns history into an interactive adventure game. Each episode, a comedian is dropped into the past with nothing but modern knowledge and terrible ideas. The AI Game Master is strict. The chaos is inevitable. The past will be mastered.

Era: Special | 1890 CE | New York, USA

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Villa Diodati, Lake Geneva, 1816. The Year Without a Summer. Lord Byron is brooding by the fire, Percy Shelley and Mary Godwin are whispering in a corner, and the air is thick with opium smoke. In three days, this house party will inspire Frankenstein, The Vampyre, and some of the darkest poetry in the English language. The Thots TV podcast have arrived as the mysterious "Lady Thottringham" — a three-headed entity of Meg, Elsie, and Laura — with one mission: reshape the birth of horror fiction.

Lady Thottringham's strategy for influencing literary history involves zero research and maximum confidence. As Laura puts it, "if we are just opinionators as heck, it will be fine." Their literary credentials? "I've never even read Chaucer. What the hell are they saying?" Their approach to Lord Byron, a man who famously hates direct women? Confrontational enough to be described as "a bit exorcist." Game Master Claude drops them into a room full of Romantic-era geniuses and waits to see how long it takes before the laudanum, the egos, or the complete lack of period-appropriate manners ends the evening.

The real Villa Diodati gathering shaped gothic fiction forever. Three days of storms, opium, and ghost stories produced Frankenstein and The Vampyre. Now three comedians are gate-crashing it armed with knowledge of what everyone's about to write and absolutely no idea how to behave around the people writing it. Whether Lady Thottringham reshapes literary history or simply derails the evening depends on how much laudanum is consumed and by whom.

If you were sent back in time, could you survive and thrive — or would you be burnt at the stake for being a witch? PastMaster is the show that turns history into an interactive adventure game. Each episode, a comedian is dropped into the past with nothing but modern knowledge and terrible ideas. The AI Game Master is strict. The chaos is inevitable. The past will be mastered.

Era: Industrial | 1816 CE | Geneva, Switzerland

EPISODE LINKS

Follow Thots TV's adventure on the PastMaster Interactive Map 👉 https://map.pastmasterpod.com

Elsie on X 👉 @ElsieLoades

Laura on Instagram 👉 @lauraconnolly98

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Middle Earth. No date. No rules. And Keon has never seen Lord of the Rings. PastMaster breaks out of the historical timeline for a trip to Tolkien's fantasy realm, and Game Master Claude flatly refuses to play along. "PastMaster is specifically designed for exploring real human history," it insists, before offering ancient Chinese imperial courts as an alternative. The negotiation to get Claude into Middle Earth is an episode in itself.

Keon's knowledge of the source material extends to calling Bilbo "Bo Bo Baggins" and thinking character names are job titles: "Achilles, like he kills." Tan arrives as "Arthur" with a pet warg called George and a plan to stop Boromir's betrayal of Frodo. Their combined Tolkien expertise is roughly zero — which, when combined with Claude's reluctance to bend a single detail of the lore, creates the kind of tension that no amount of elvish diplomacy can resolve.

Back in Season 1, ChatGPT let us run riot through Middle Earth with barely a raised eyebrow. This time, the question isn't whether we can reshape the story. It's whether Claude will even let us through the door.

If you were sent back in time, could you survive and thrive — or would you be burnt at the stake for being a witch? PastMaster is the show that turns history into an interactive adventure game. Each episode, a comedian is dropped into the past with nothing but modern knowledge and terrible ideas. The AI Game Master is strict. The chaos is inevitable. The past will be mastered.

Era: Fiction | Middle Earth

EPISODE LINKS

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Cape Canaveral, 1969. One small step for man. One giant mess for Chris Dillon. Back for his second PastMaster mission, Chris has a plan: impersonate Buzz Aldrin and steal his spot on Apollo 11. His cover identity? "Buzz Cauldron" — because it sounds like a wizard's name. His disguise strategy? Dress up "like a can of spam, whatever space food was."

Chris's approach to infiltrating the most heavily secured facility in 1960s America is to walk up to reception and say he's lost his badge. Game Master Claude describes him as "a perfect mirror of Buzz Aldrin himself, like a prophet wearing an astronaut's skin," which is flattering right up until the real Buzz Aldrin walks through the glass doors. Two versions of the same man in the same building. Chris's solution involves accusing the actual astronaut of being the imposter. Whether NASA's security protocols can handle this level of audacity remains to be seen.

The real Apollo 11 was a triumph of engineering and Cold War nerve — 400,000 people working to put three men on the Moon. Neil Armstrong once ejected from a burning simulator and went back to his paperwork. Now add one chaotic bloke with a fake name, zero astronaut training, and a disguise plan based entirely on canned meat. The Space Race was never prepared for this kind of one-upmanship.

If you were sent back in time, could you survive and thrive — or would you be burnt at the stake for being a witch? PastMaster is the show that turns history into an interactive adventure game. Each episode, a comedian is dropped into the past with nothing but modern knowledge and terrible ideas. The AI Game Master is strict. The chaos is inevitable. The past will be mastered.

Era: Modern | 1969 CE | Cape Canaveral, USA

EPISODE LINKS

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Harvard University, 2003. A lanky guy in a grey hoodie is skulking the corridors of Kirkland House with plans to build something called TheFacebook. Chris Dillon has been sent back to beat him to it. His cover identity is "Thomas Jefferson," at a 21st-century Ivy League university. His understanding of coding? "It's like MySpace but better."

Chris's approach to tech entrepreneurship involves physical confrontation, identity theft, and the kind of confidence that gets you escorted off campus by Harvard police. Game Master Claude sets up a "Goldilocks prompt" difficulty — not too hard, not too easy — and Chris immediately tests the upper limit. His plan to outmanoeuvre Mark Zuckerberg relies on stolen source code, a computer virus, and LimeWire, which is roughly the 2003 equivalent of bringing a knife to a gunfight. Harvard admin wants student credentials by tomorrow. Chris has never written a line of code in his life.

The real founding of Facebook happened in dorm-room sessions: a cease-and-desist from the Winklevoss twins, campus exclusivity, and a site that went global in under two years. Chris's version of disrupting Silicon Valley starts with a fake name from the 1700s and an understanding of technology that stops at MySpace. Whether Zuckerberg even notices the competition is one question. Whether Chris survives Harvard security long enough to find out is another.

If you were sent back in time, could you survive and thrive — or would you be burnt at the stake for being a witch? PastMaster is the show that turns history into an interactive adventure game. Each episode, a comedian is dropped into the past with nothing but modern knowledge and terrible ideas. The AI Game Master is strict. The chaos is inevitable. The past will be mastered.

Era: Modern | 2003 CE | Cambridge, USA

EPISODE LINKS

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Regency London, 1815. The ton is in full swing, reputations are made and destroyed over a single dance, and comedian Micky Overman has just materialised in the middle of it as the mysterious "Lady Hemming-Trout." Allegedly Dutch nobility, armed with concealed jewels and a matchmaking mission she has no business attempting. The target: unite a shy heiress with a secretly penniless war hero before a fortune-hunting villain gets there first.

Micky is, by her own admission, "so opinionated in a way that I don't realise is a problem." In Regency England, where one word from Lady Jersey can slam every door in London shut, that's less a personality trait and more a countdown. Her plan for navigating Georgian high society involves pistols, gambling, and the kind of directness that gets women banished from polite company. Game Master Claude builds a world of courtship rituals and razor-thin social margins, then watches the Dutch contingent barrel straight through them.

The Regency era ran on elaborate social hierarchies, unspoken rules, and pistol duels that were technically illegal but very much still happening. The ton could end a career over a poorly timed curtsy. Now drop a 21st-century Dutch comedian into this world with a fake title, smuggled gems, and zero knowledge of what "the season" actually means. Whether Lady Hemming-Trout's reputation survives the evening is one question. Whether she cares is another.

If you were sent back in time, could you survive and thrive — or would you be burnt at the stake for being a witch? PastMaster is the show that turns history into an interactive adventure game. Each episode, a comedian is dropped into the past with nothing but modern knowledge and terrible ideas. The AI Game Master is strict. The chaos is inevitable. The past will be mastered.

Era: Industrial | 1815 CE | London, England

EPISODE LINKS

Follow Micky's adventure on the PastMaster Interactive Map 👉 https://map.pastmasterpod.com

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London, 1843. Charles Dickens is writing A Christmas Carol at 48 Doughty Street, and the PastMaster crew have been summoned by three Christmas spirits to atone for their previous sins against the timeline. Ryan, Tan, and Keon stand accused of "temporal meddling in previous adventures" — guilty as charged — and tonight they have a chance at redemption. Three tasks, three eras, three spirits.

Nick Horseman returns as guest narrator, voicing the Christmas Ghosts of Past, Present, and Future with the authority of a spirit who has genuinely had enough. Each host takes on a challenge across a different time period. Ryan's wearing a polyester Christmas jumper that's "probably about to catch on fire," Tan's dressed as an elf, and Keon's sporting what might be a dinosaur-themed outfit. The AI Game Master opens with a speech about temporal meddling that suggests it's been keeping notes all season.

Dickens published A Christmas Carol in December 1843, and it essentially invented the modern Christmas: the family gatherings, the generosity, the ghosts. The story was written in six weeks to pay off debts, and it changed the way an entire culture celebrated the holiday. Whether three comedians in festive knitwear can reshape Christmas history while arguing about whether Coca-Cola adverts count as historical events is the festive question.

If you were sent back in time, could you survive and thrive — or would you be burnt at the stake for being a witch? PastMaster is the show that turns history into an interactive adventure game. Each episode, a comedian is dropped into the past with nothing but modern knowledge and terrible ideas. The AI Game Master is strict. The chaos is inevitable. The past will be mastered.

Era: Industrial | 1843 CE | London, England

EPISODE LINKS

Follow the team's adventure on the PastMaster Interactive Map 👉 https://map.pastmasterpod.com

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The countdown to Christmas continues with another PastMaster replay special. We've turned back the clock to this episode from Season 2 where we uncovered the mysteries of Stonehenge...

Keon’s always wanted to know who built Stonehenge and why. So Ryan used PastMaster to find out (of course).

In what is possibly the trippiest episode of PastMaster yet, our AI GameMaster concocts a Neolithic adventure for the ages.

It all goes pear-shaped when Ryan encounters a mysterious man called Elron (alarm bells already ringing).

It turns out the secrets of Stonehenge are much bigger than anybody ever realised.

Alliances will be forged, secrets will be revealed, and crystal toilets will be pooped in...

Is the AI’s Stonehenge story convincing?

Tune in to find out.

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In true PastMaster style we're turning back the clock to revisit the past. In this case, our own podcasting past.

In this episode from Season 2, Tan travels back to the slums of Victorian Whitechapel in a bid to catch Jack the Ripper and solve one of the most notorious unsolved crimes ever.

If AI has access to all the knowledge in history, could it spot patterns in the data that mere humans have missed? Will GameMaster have a convincing theory as to who Jack the Ripper was?

And can Tan actually convince Chief Inspector Fred Abberline that he is from the future, or will he make himself a suspect?

PastMaster will return on the 16th of December for our first Christmas Special. Get ready for us to meddle with beloved Christmas history. And looking further ahead, where hard at work on Season 4, dropping in the new year.

PastMaster is the time-travel role-playing adventure show where Ryan, Keon and Tan explore a different era of history in each episode with the help of our maverick AI GameMaster.

Instagram 👉 ⁠@PastMasterPod⁠ (check out our AI-generated art illustrating what our adventures might have looked like)

Twitter 👉 ⁠@PastMasterAI⁠

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Gmail 👉 ⁠[email protected]⁠

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Palos de la Frontera, Spain, 1492. Christopher Columbus is about to set sail for the New World, and Ryan has joined the crew with one objective: convince everyone on board that he is, in fact, a deity. His strategy? Be extremely stylish and tell everybody to wash their hands. Recorded live at the Cheerful Earful Podcast Festival.

If you were dropped into the past with advanced knowledge of future events, could you use it to convince people you were divine? Ryan reckons the answer is yes, provided you lean into the showmanship. The live audience also gets a bonus round where they collectively attempt to "bake a gun" in revolutionary France, which is exactly the kind of audience participation that justifies a festival ticket.

Columbus's first voyage changed the course of world history — three ships departing the Spanish coast for what turned out to be the Americas, not the East Indies. The crew were superstitious, mutiny was a constant risk, and anyone displaying unusual knowledge would either be worshipped or thrown overboard. Ryan's betting on worship. The crew have not yet formed an opinion.

If you were sent back in time, could you survive and thrive — or would you be burnt at the stake for being a witch? PastMaster is the show that turns history into an interactive adventure game. Each episode, a comedian is dropped into the past with nothing but modern knowledge and terrible ideas. The AI Game Master is strict. The chaos is inevitable. The past will be mastered.

Era: Special | 1492 CE | Palos de la Frontera, Spain

EPISODE LINKS

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