Steamy Potential

We start this episode discussing the terrible sinful crimes of Hugh Jackman, and end it discussing the holiness of a character to be played by Hugh Jackman. I'm starting to think we need an embargo on discussing HJ, but maybe we should just stop talking about German brother-to-brother incest, and then he'll just naturally stop coming up.

Sometimes you just get two ideas that feel like part of a spiralling-downwards pattern. And that's what we have here: A body-inversion reality show, and a genre-inversion documentary series. But it might help to think of them as a spiralling-upwards kind of a trend. Because if you're flipped upside-down, that's what our podcast would look like. Spiralling upwards towards freedom.

Imagine if Christopher Nolan kind of winged the plot of Tenet on-the-fly during filming, and you'll get the half-baked concoction of our first time-travel nugget. Turns out time inversion is really hard to think about while you're also trying to be Professional Friends. We return to our core competency for the second pitch: the rules of the Santa Clause universe.

This one's hitting the waves a little late, since we did some due diligence on a pitch and decided that it had a little too much Fritzl Flavour - even for us. So we went back to the cutting room floor, scooped up some nail trimmings and old condoms and produced a replacement pitch. Together, these two pitches represent Jon Hamm's biggest legacies: The marketing wizard Don Draper, and a swingin' dong. We gently salute him for that inspiration.

Come with us on a journey to the bottom of the barrel. Let's hang out amongst the sludge and algae that congeals at the bottom of every website: The Chum Box. We spend the better part of this episode re-discovering our love of this beautiful piece of internet paraphenalia, then string it into a loose premise for a TV show. 

We also chisel what is essentially a hallucination into a statue that resembles the Matrix 4, but as a TV show, but then as a documentary.

Today we travel back - back in time. But not too far. Just to a simpler time, when every boy was a nerd-hero, every girl was the girl-next-door, and every night was Prom Night. Then we travel to another place where everyone is awkwardly trying to get laid: North Korea. Which, now that I think about it, is like one huge never-ending prom, everyone slow-dancing to 50s music, putting on a show for each other, and nervously wondering how it's all going to end: with a bang or with a whimper.

Okay, since we went pretty hard on Schitt's Creek in this one, I want to walk it back a little. I'll offer a complement schitt sandwich. Complement: Stevie is a revelation. Criticism: Now, listen to this episode of Steamy Potential. Complement: At a 22-minute runtime and 13 episodes a season, you could add a silence-trimmer to this bad boy and breeze through all 6 seasons in about 4 hours. 

We also talk about regional tennis round robins, and the birth of modern humankind. But mostly we tied a bow on Schitt's Creek. We won't talk about it again. Or if we do, we'll use code.

This week, our first guest appearance comes in the form of one Aradie Walters, who helps tear our pitches a new one. And she's just in time: We have to celebrate Christmas as a family! Santa features in our first pitch, and is quickly killed off. Indeed, the spirit of Christmas is quickly killed off in this episode as the subsequent pitches diverge from any seasonal relevance. 

To those who celebrate it: Merry Christmas one and all! To all others: Enjoy just another day in Paradise.

Today we ride a very high horse (thanks), and take the theatre world down a notch. You can do that when you've perfected the art yourself, hence our comfort in criticising all these well-meaning idiots.

There were a bunch of times where we said "Space Mutt" in this episode, when of course we meant "Ghost Mutt". The latter is a Simpsons reference. The former is nothing. We apologise for the interruption. Have a nice day. We also talk about some TV shows that would never get made or find an audience. But all of that is par for the course at this point. Again, have a lovely day.

Best regards,

S. Potential (esq.)