Conor

We watched an episode of uh the marvelous Mrs. Mazel.

Bryce

I do love that show. It's a great show.

Conor

Oh yeah. Have you have you watched it?

Bryce

Of course I have I watched that show. Of course I've watched that show.

Conor

Welcome to ADSP The Podcast episode 22, recorded on April 17th, 2021. My name is Connor, and today with my co-host Bryce, we talk about our favorite technology TV shows.

Bryce

One, it's this it's the same folks that created Gilmore Girls, which is a show that I really loved as a kid because it was a show about a uh a single parent, only child, and I who lived in Connecticut, and I was a single parent, a single child, an only child with a single parent that lived in Connecticut. Um and uh did like ridiculous rich white people stuff, and that that was also my childhood.

Conor

Damn, so this is definitely going in the episode that Bryce.

Bryce

At this junction would uh would feel the need to correct me and say, we were never rich, Bryce, we were upper middle class. Well, my mom, mom, if you're listening to this, relative to most of the people in the world, we gr I I did I had a pretty good childhood. Pretty good childhood.

Conor

So wait, so uh we we did lose all of our audience. Um actually maybe 10%, 20% know what the Gilmore girls are. I myself have three sisters.

Bryce

I just thought that you meant that like the quality of our past few episodes and lost all of our audience.

Conor

I mean they don't know they don't know what you what we are talking about. Um so Bryce, would you explanation? No, no, no, no.

Bryce

If you No, no, you you you started on some analogy about your three older sisters. I want to hear it go.

Conor

Well, no, I all I was gonna say is that I know what the Gilmore Girls are because we used to vote as the four children, we would vote on what we were gonna watch. And as a 25% population representing the the male children, I consistently always lost. So 4 p.m. was Oprah. Uh I don't know what else we watched. Oh, yeah, Martha Stewart. That didn't turn out too well. I know how to make lots of cupcakes though. And um, and yeah, go on.

Bryce

Yeah, I saw the uh the cupcakes and the muffins that you sent me a picture of uh on Twitter earlier. Yeah, those look good. Crushed it. I was looking, I was looking for something to critique and I like couldn't find anything. So I'm like, Connor, I want to see the inside. I want to make sure that I want to make sure you it baked well. And I looked at the inside and I'm like, damn, it did bake well.

Conor

Your response to words good bake, period.

Bryce

I was just like I was just like looking for something, anything.

Conor

What is this master chef?

Bryce

Yeah, yeah. But uh so in a nutshell, in a nutshell, Gilmore Girls is is uh is a kitschy show about a uh a single mother who had uh a uh a daughter when she was a teenager who unintentionally got pregnant, had a daughter. Now her daughter is a teenager too, and they both live in uh Connecticut. Um and if you if you don't live if you're not from Connecticut or New England, it's kind of hard to understand um uh or appreciate the show really fully. But uh they do like they have a very typical Connecticut lifestyle where there's like they have affluent, you know, grandparents, they're not super affluent themselves, and uh and the daughter's uh very smart, and uh yeah, that's the show.

Conor

Gets into Yale, correct? Yeah. We just ruined it.

Bryce

Yeah, and they they run a the the mother runs an inn.

Conor

Yeah, and her dad or her dad runs like a little coffee shop, right?

Bryce

Uh no, the boyfriend, the boyfriend, the the the guy who becomes a stepdad. I guess that also ruins it. Yeah, sorry, spoiler alert, if you haven't watched Gilmore Girls, um we just uh we just ruined um like two of the three main things that we could spoil. Oh.

Conor

Whoops. Well, I mean I wouldn't recommend it as a show, because I never really was a big fan.

Bryce

Um It was a it was a bond it was a bonding thing from my mom and I, like when we were when I was like 10 or 11 before she married my stepdad, it was like I don't know, it was a bonding thing.

Conor

Well, I mean uh we weren't planning on talking about Gilmore Girls. Uh how did that even come up?

Bryce

Uh uh Well, because we're talking about the Marvelous Miss Maisel. Yeah, the same the same uh the same writer, producer, uh whose name escapes me, um that uh I am desperately googling. Um uh Amy Sherman Paladino. Yeah. She also created Marvelous Miss Maisel, which is about like a Jewish female comedian in the like 50s or 60s, which is another show that I, coming from a family of New York Jews, deeply connect with.

Conor

Yeah, I feel like uh the same way when I watch like Silicon Valley, like I think everyone can watch that show and find it funny, but if you actually do work in tech or adjacent to tech, there's a bunch more like jokes in there that might fly over your head. I feel like I watch Marvelous Mrs. Mazel and I find it very, very funny, but there's also a bunch of like other jokes that I I don't I don't understand that they're happening because I I'm not Jewish and I don't understand like what it means.

Bryce

Um You know, I I um there's a show I really dislike in that sort of category of shows about you know tech and science people and nerds, and that's the Big Bing Theory. I I really dislike that show, and I'll tell you why, because I think it promotes um like like it's so the the main the main the the main characters who are supposed to be these like nerdy guys are supposed to be like the protagonists of the show. Um and so in some ways it's like good because you know it shows that it shows them as being you know the main characters the protagonist, but I also think it like promotes a lot of like negative stereotypes. Um uh because like not everybody who is in uh uh science or academia or tech um is you know this awkward um uh uh sort of nerd type. And the the the main character, Leonard, um he's like the most, I'm gonna say quote unquote normal of the group. Um uh and he like dates the you know the waitress character and and sort of he's supposed to be like the the more the most common man of the group, but like under the hood, he's like very much a uh sort of the stereotypical nerd too. So I I feel like the show sort of promotes this stereotype that, like, oh yeah, everybody who's like really smart, and tech is sort of like the stereotypical uh geek who wears glasses, and even the ones that sort of seem normal, like under the hood, this is who they are. Um whereas Silicon Valley, I feel like there's a lot more depth to the characters, um, and I feel like they do a much better job of capturing both the ridiculous stuff that goes on in Silicon Valley, but also of making um you know of making all the making it clear that like not everybody who's in tech is just, you know, the stereotypical nerd. Um I mean the the the CEO character in Silicon Valley, he has like a lot of the you know socially awkward problems too, but like he there's a lot of depth to his character throughout the show.

Conor

Um we can uh we can talk about TV shows for a bit if you want, because I I basically watch every tech TV show. I will say though, like I I'm not a big fan of Big Bang Theory. Although in general, I'm not a big fan of like the 30-minute sitcom kind of shows. But yeah, I've never I've never really liked that show for the same for the same reasons. Um Big Bang.

Bryce

Speaking of 30 minutes sitcoms, have you seen the TV show Weeds?

Conor

No, I have not.

Bryce

Um okay, so so Weeds is a show about a widowed mother who uh becomes a uh pot dealer. Um and it's uh very violent and sexually explicit, and I tell you those two things because that's the context you need for this next story, which is I'm on a uh our our Passover family Zoom call with my whole family and my grandparents who are like 92 and 88, and we're talking about TV shows, and they mention that they've started watching weeds, and everybody just falls silent. And it's it would be it would be as if your parent your grandparents had said like um uh they're like you know, they're watching the same, you know, raunchy uh uh, you know, sexually explicit movie that that you've you've watched as guilty pleasure. And it was just like a super awkward conversation. Anyways, TV shows, tech TV shows. Have you seen Halt and Catch Fire?

Conor

Oh my goodness. So, okay, uh this this episode is definitely, we can record two right now if you want, but this one's definitely gonna be called like, I don't know, TV shows or tech TV shows. So uh I'll let you say whatever you're about to say about Halt and Catch Fire, but like so I'll go through my top, I think there's like eight tech TV shows that I really, really like. Um and I'm not sure if it's number one, but Halt and Catch Fire is definitely top three. And it's a TV show that I found that like the most number of like folks haven't heard about it. So like everyone's heard of Mr. Robot, everyone's heard of Silicon Valley, but a large number of folks haven't heard of Halt and Catch Fire. It's four seasons. I've actually seen it twice because I enjoyed it so much. And just last week I was talking to a guy who was responsible for all of like the code and a lot of the like so any code that you would see on screen and any scenes that were very like code driven, uh he was responsible for, and he drove like a lot of the subplots with respect to like the technology stories. And and he asked me at the beginning of the call, he's like, Oh, have you ever have you ever seen a show called Halt and Catch Fire? And I was like, Have I seen it? Like, I that's like one of my favorite TV shows ever. And he's like, Oh, like I did I wrote all the code for that. And I was like, What? anyways.

Bryce

Now I I I have a feeling I'm not the only person who does this. Whenever there's a show, uh a scene in a TV show where there's like code or on the screen, or there's some like panel that has information, or like even if it's like a document, I will pause it to go and and I will pause it right there so that I can go see if it's bullshit or not. And it's like it's interesting, like for the code, it's very oftentimes very bullshitty. Um one of the nice things about Halt and Catch Fire and Mr. Robot is they both don't put complete gibberish up. Um we should also explain. So Halt and Catch Fire is a show set in, is it the 80s or the the late 70s, uh early 80s?

Conor

It's it's uh it starts around the time that like uh home computers and like uh bring home computers, and I believe that's like late 70s. Yeah.

Bryce

Yeah, it's like it's at the it's a show that starts at the dawn of the personal computer age, and it's about a vr a series of um engineers and um uh and tech uh business folks um who you know s try to launch the next big revolutionary product um sort of in that time period. Um uh and uh they they there's a various series of different companies and startups that they do. And there's like there's sort of like one character who's sort of like a Steve Jobs-esque um uh marketing guy. I don't really know if there's like a Wozniak equivalent.

Conor

Yeah, yeah. I don't I don't remember his name, but like the main the main uh engineer that is like becomes really good friends with Joe. I'm terrible at the end of the year. Oh yeah, yeah. He is like that's the thing is though, like a lot of the characters like are are loosely molded after like actual people in history, but like a lot of them they fuse like characteristics of like a few different people. So it's it's not it's not based on a true story, but it is based on like true history. Um and yeah, I checked up the Wikipedia and it it says it takes place over the 80s and the early 90s, um, over the dawn of like yeah, personal computing.

Bryce

And and interestingly, and I I wonder when the show came out, um what they uh sort of the main um the one who I would argue is the most like technic like the the engineer, the one who's like the the technical whiz kid is um this like female hacker, um uh which Cameron. I yeah, Cameron, yeah. Um I I I liked that the show um uh did not uh uh like I liked that the show chose to not like have an all-male cast. Um although it now that I'm looking at when it was produced, it was pro produced in like 2014. So it's not super surprising that they were um uh uh uh thinking of that. But like it's a it's a show where they very easily could have just had like no women in the show, but they chose to make one of the um main female characters um uh one of the main characters um uh female, and it adds a lot of interesting dynamics uh uh to the show.

Conor

Yeah, apparently, so the same individual I mentioned uh that wrote all the code, uh apparently Cameron was originally written as male, and he like pushed to have it changed, which I think is like she's one of my favorite characters in the whole show.

Bryce

Yeah, and yeah.

Conor

Um a part of her character is like navigating because she's ends up being like the tech lead on both her like first software project and then on her future projects when they're like building out their companies, and there's like a dynamic there of like her having to manage, you know, just basically a fraternity of guys. Um which is I I think it makes the show so much more interesting.

Bryce

Yeah, and it's it's interesting because there's you know, there's there's she's definitely like harassed at certain points in the show and like has to deal with a lot of bullshit. And um, I like that the show does a good job. Like the show isn't just like a glorification of the culture of like that late 70s, early 80s um uh era, like it does a good job of exposing some of the warts of that time period, I think. Um and I think they wouldn't do as effective a job if if Cameron had been cast as a male character. Um now Mr. Robot, I I actually I I I didn't have that on my list because I I think of that a little bit less in this category um of like Silicon Valley and Halt and Catch Fire, because it's not like about the tech industry itself n necessarily. Um but I really like that show, and I I I think I like it for the same reason I like Silicon Valley, is that I I think the protagonist in Mr. Robot um is not presented as sort of the stereotypical nerd. And in fact, he's presented as another um uh sort of archetype from the tech uh world that I think most people outside of the tech world maybe aren't familiar with, which is sort of the um the the hacker or the um uh the programmer who who has a a strong um who who does what they do but c out of strong moral c convictions. You know, sort of that they're uh maybe like hacker activist is the um term. Although I guess in his case, maybe he's more on the like hacker terrorist um side of things. Um but I think it does a really good a really good job of uh of portraying a um portraying somebody that's in tech, that's that's a hacker, who is motivated by, you know, not he's not somebody who's going and playing Dungeons and Dragons on the weekend. Like that's not what gets him up every day. Like he he he wants to go and fight um uh the evils in the world um and do good. Um yeah.

Conor

Yeah, Mr. Robot, it starts off in the first season with like sort more tech focused and like hacker focused, but then in the later seasons, honestly, it becomes more like like there's a whole economic like subplot with cryptocurrencies and corporations and income inequality. But yeah, mr Mr. Robot's fantastic. Yeah, and just to revisit Halt and Catch Fire, so yeah, there's uh Joe McMillan is like the Steve Jobs character, Gordon Clark is the engineer, which is quote unquote Steve Wozniak-ish. Uh Cameron Howe is the lead female engineer, but then also Donna Clark is Gordon Clark's. Oh right, I completely forgot about that. And she's like, she also plays like a massive, like they're the four main characters of the whole show.

Bryce

And so uh and Donna's story I think she's like so well acted in that.

Conor

Yeah. I mean, all of it is amazing, but her character, like it shows her like uh like they're raising a family, they're having marital problems, but then also she is like a brilliant engineer, and at times is basically providing like Gordon with the solutions to like their problems, and like really she's the hero of the day, but she's behind the scenes, but then ends up anyways. I don't want to give away the whole show, but highly recommend uh Halt and Catch Fire. I think it's like probably, like I said, the the number one least well-known tech show, and I I don't know what my full rankings are. Devs also is a is a new um TV show by Alex Garland. He's the director behind Ex Machina. Oh man. It's so um I absolutely it's like an eight episode or ten episode single season show, and it stars uh what's his name from Parks and Wreck. Yeah, Nick Offerman. And speaking of, speaking of, well, here's a tiny tangent. I said that I'm not a big fan of like sitcoms, like 30, you know, 30-minute sitcom shows. The one sitcom that I am a massive fan of and that I watched all the seasons of was Parks and Wreck. And that's because for whatever percentage of our audience watched Parks and Rec, there's uh once again, I'm not gonna remember his name. Um he's an accountant and he plays the have you seen Parks and Wreck?

Bryce

Um, yeah, of course I've seen Parks and Rec.

Conor

What's you know the accountant's name that is the husband or works up to being the husband of Yeah. Um I want to say Scott, uh, but that's not definitely not it here. Cast and characters. Oh, you mean Ben? Yeah, Ben! Ben Wyatt! Yeah. Adam Scott is the actor's name, and Ben Wyatt plays this accountant, and so the tiny context is that I I started my career as an actuary, which is like a more mathematical, nerdier version of an accountant. And Ben Wyatt in this TV show, he shows up in like the third season, and his like recurring joke is that he's always going and like interviewing at this one accounting office. Um and and you know, we just finished saying how we don't like uh stereotypes being promoted, but and they this is what this sort of subplot does. And so Ben Wyatt is viewed as this like really, really cool accountant that like whenever he goes and interviews at this office, all these sort of older, nerdier accountants think he's just like the coolest guy ever. And like the the the apex or the epitome of the joke is that he designed this game called the cones of Dunshire that is like super mathematical and that everyone thinks is lame, but he brings it to the accounting office or somehow, and it ended up being like the number one uh game recommended by accountants, and they actually had a copy, and then he was like, You guys have cones of Dunshire? What the hell?

Parks & Rec (Clip)

They're playing cones of Dunshire. Hey, you invented that game. Um excuse me, how did you guys get your hands on this game? Someone sent it to us. Have you played it? I invented cones of Dunshire. You're the architect? Yeah, right. And I'm the alchemist of the Hinterlands. I can't be an alchemist of the Hinterlands. The Hinterlands is a shadow kingdom that can only sustain a provost or a denier. That's right. Hey, how about this? Let's play. If I win, you give me another shot at Free Wireless for Pawnee. Have a scene. You want to be corporal or warrior? Neither. A maverick.

Conor

Looks like someone's out of resource gems.

Parks & Rec (Clip)

You made one crucial mistake. You forgot about the essence of the game. It's about the cones. Move my abbot to the ocean hex, which moves my Brinksman to the devil's lair and pushes my farmer. Yes, my humble farmer, directly into the central cone.

Conor

Anyways, it's probably that nobody thought that was entertaining, but just like I I really identified with Ben Wyatt because I always thought of myself as like the cool actuary, but like amongst normal folks that aren't nerds, you know, they're it's they're still pretty, you know, not that funny or cool, but then uh in their little circle, you feel cool. Um, anyways, Nick Offerman and a tangent plays uh this like billionaire person in devs. I won't say more, um, and it's based it's based on it's based on In San Francisco slash Silicon Valley, and it uh it is all about like quantum um quantum theory. I don't even I'm it's like it's above my head. Uh but it's like you know, the the what do they call it, the multiple worlds, and they're playing off of like you know, is is it possible to go back in time or you know that's not that's not all that I expected.

Bryce

I guess I'll have to add it to my list of stuff to watch.

Conor

Yeah, it's it's crazy. Like that's the thing, is it's based on it's a startup called the Maya, and they have this like special part department of their company, and then a bunch of stuff ensues. Anyways, so yeah, Mr. Robot, Halt and Catch Fire, Silicon Valley, Devs.

Bryce

Yeah, you know, it the the whole family dynamic with um uh Donna and the the husband whose name I'm not gonna remember in Halt and Catch Fire. Gordon, yeah. That's one of the things that I uh like about that show that I dislike about Silicon Valley and um and uh the Big Bang Theory. For Silicon Valley, I sort of understand it. They're trying to they're trying to portray the like typical startup, which is like a bunch of like 25 something 25-year-old something guys, but um I don't think I think it's like bad for our industry if um the perception is that everybody in tech and everybody that works at an like early phase startup is a 25-year-old something that you know doesn't have a family or kids. Um and like throughout that entire show, they're always like working under these crazy deadlines and they're spending like all their time working on, you know, on the uh on the startup. And at no point is there really any character where that has a family and where sort of the trade-off of um like work-life balance is portrayed in that show. Um, and like the the reality is that most people in tech aren't a 22-year-old um uh guy that's living in, you know, uh some tech incubator with a bunch of other 22-year-old guys. Like most people in tech are probably have a family, you know, probably have kids, probably have a life outside of their work. And uh I wish we had more TV shows that uh portrayed that and that portrayed the um the challenge between um you know uh of balancing you know your commitment to work that you're really passionate about and your commitment to your family.

Conor

Yeah, it's it's uh it's an amazing show for for so many reasons. And that's the thing, is like b based on that explanation, it sounds like sort of like, oh, it's like a family show. It's it's not at all. Like it's it's just a show, it's like probably one of the most techie shows in terms of um the subplots and stuff and and the code and the projects that they're developing. Um but it just it doesn't cut out all the rest of the stuff that actually happens in like real life. Um and they don't they don't just they don't just add it in because that's the other thing, is there's some shows these days that are just trying to check boxes, and so they'll they'll add some character or they'll add some subplot just to check a box. Like this show doesn't do that at all. Like it it integrates everything and it all of it is just it's just fantastic. Like, I mean, yeah, there's there's what there's one scene in that show where like he's trying to get home and needs to buy some I can't remember if it's a gift for a birthday, but it's some doll that like his daughters want or one of his daughters wants, and he's like trying to get something done at work, and then ends up, you know, it's the long weekend and he's like driving around, you know, late and all the stores are closed. Anyways, there's just something very like there's something very like, oh yeah, like that's a real thing where you're you're trying to do two things work and then bound something else, and then something slips and it shows like how he's just so f frustrated about the whole thing because it's not that yeah, anyways, it's uh Yeah.

Bryce

Yeah, no, I mean like I'm I'm sure most of us in tech have have had to deal with those, you know, those struggles. Um you know, I I I remember that that very vividly from Launch and Catch Fire, because I I mean I don't have kids, but I've I have had similar similar uh experiences. Yeah, and it you know, it it um it it's it's really that's one of the things that really bothers me about the Big Bang Theory is like I if I go visit um my my parents live in like a little uh uh it's not a retirement community, but they they live in a com uh uh uh a a neighborhood in Florida where all of their friends are um retired, and I go and visit them every now and then. And uh uh inevitably when I'm introduced to one of their friends, and when I'm I say what I do, like it is it's it's fairly common that somebody will be like, oh, you're like Sheldon on Big Bang Theory or something like that. And like that that could not be further from the truth because like one, I'm not even that like deeply technical of a person. Um like like these days my job is is mostly um, you know, roadmap and vision and you know, enabling other folks to do stuff. Um like my skill set is not going and hacking a bunch of code. Like my primary skill set, I think, is like enabling other folks, mentoring other folks, and uh having like building like a long-term vision for things. Um and it just like it really bothers me that very often I'm talking to somebody that's not in tech, um uh that like me just me like that that's just the perception that that a lot of people outside of tech tend to have of us that oh it's all it's all you know 20-something white guys with glasses who are nerds, and like that's not true. Um yeah.

Conor

Yeah, I gave up I mean I had this issue back when I was an actuary because a lot of folks never heard of that profession. So like, yeah, it was impossible to explain. I would just say like insurance statistics, but yeah, now I I I try not uh yeah, you inevitably try to explain, oh, you work on you know an open source project, like most most people that aren't in tech haven't heard of that.

Bryce

And it's actually become easier now that I work at NVIDIA because um uh everybody knows the name NVIDIA now because we've done real like the stock has done really well over the past few years. So back when I worked at Lawrence Berkeley Labs, and I and somebody asked me what I'd do, I'd have to say I work at Lawrence Berkeley Labs, and then they'd ask me more questions, and then I'd try to explain them, they'd be confused. And like my my my family would always ask me, oh well what what what should I tell people you do? And and they I could never give them a good answer. But now I don't have to do that because like I can just say I work at NVIDIA and people don't ask a lot of questions outside of that because they know what NVIDIA is at least.

Conor

Yeah, I was I was getting delivery uh the other day or a couple weeks ago, and the person from whatever app that was dropping off the food and I happened to be wearing in my NVIDIA t-shirt was like, Oh, you work at NVIDIA? And I was like, Yeah, and he's like, I have their products, it's the best. And uh was like, that's yeah, that's cool when you work for a company that people associate with um, I'm not doing cool things.

Bryce

I've had that happen once when I was on a plane where somebody was like really excited that I worked at NVIDIA because their kid uh their kid uh really enjoyed our our gaming products. Okay, okay, but what one more one more uh uh Tv slash movie related thing, which is I've recently been re-watching uh Terminator. Um uh and um the you know the first Terminator movie came out in like 19 oh god when? I think it was in the 80s because the second one came out in like 92. Um uh hang on, I'll Google it. 1984, that's what I thought. And I I think it's really interesting um like movies of that era just to see how the impact of um uh of like A V tech on the story writing. So in in the original Terminator, um they've got these robots that look like humans. Um and like that's like some pretty like next generation uh technology. Um but like think about like why did they do that? Why didn't they, you know, they they only introduced the idea of like the Terminators that could change shape in the sec in the next movie, because by that time they had CGI or sufficient CGI to be able to do it. But in the first movie, they have this terminator that looks like a human. It can mimic human voices again, pretty easy um uh uh effect to do, um, the mimicking voices. Um but uh like they they couldn't they couldn't really show too much of Arnold's like exoskeleton, they couldn't really do a really really good job of that because they just they didn't have the technology for it. Um and and like if if you know if you made that movie today, if you made the Terminator today, maybe you wouldn't have had the Terminators look like humans. Maybe you would have just like had them be like you know scary robots that you sent back in time. Um like like what why why why should it need to disguise itself? Like it's a big killer robot, it can just go kill all the things. Um but because of the uh constraints of the era, they had to uh to make that choice. And uh I it's I like when when I'm watching movies of like that era or like Star Wars. Yeah, um, that's what I was thinking Star Wars slightly earlier generation. It's just it's interesting how the limitations of uh of visual and audio effects um uh led to innovation um in sort of in the storytelling itself.

Conor

Yeah, that that uh that's what I was thinking. Yeah, Star Wars. Whenever you go back and watch it, it's it's amazing to like you watch it and you're like, yeah, this is clearly effects and stuff, but for the time it's still pretty impressive um and watching how that stuff changes. So let's let's do like a because I still there's a couple TV shows that I want to watch.

Bryce

The fact that like so many humans in Star Trek look um or that so that so many races in Star Trek look humanoid. Well, the very simple explanation was it's a lot easier and a lot cheaper to cast humans that you put a little makeup on. And so they had to like they had to um world build around that restriction.

Conor

Anyways, yeah, we should we should we should let's do like a rapid because I just want to throw other TV show names out there and then uh potentially choose one non-tech one uh for folks. So the rest on my list are definitely top three, it's gotta be Black Mirror. I absolutely love Black Mirror. I mean, skip the in my opinion, skip season one, episode one. That one's absolutely awful, but all the other episodes are amazing. Not super tech related, and it's honestly not the best TV show, but altered carbon.

Bryce

I liked season one. I was happy with season two.

Conor

I loved season one, and I was very disappointed with season two as well. It basically deals with, I don't know, several hundred years into the future, you're able to, you know, copy your brain onto something called a stack, and so you can switch sleeves, which are just human bodies, but it it the more interesting part of the show that I find is it it has a version of like extreme income inequality where literally like the wealthy live up above the clouds and then like the rest of society is like down in the you know earth level, and that's kind of interesting. There's a couple other I'm I'm missing and I'm gonna be disappointed that I I haven't thought of them, but um, I guess if they weren't at the the top of my head. The one non-tech TV show that I would recommend if you haven't watched it, it's not for everyone, but it was one of my favorite TV shows of all time, is called Sense Eight. It's by the Wachowski sisters. They made The Matrix, and so they're a directing uh pair. And it's a TV show that I think is like a decade ahead of its time. It's shot across the globe in like eight different locations, including like a couple different sites in North America, um, there's one site in Africa, there's one site in Seoul Korea, there's a couple in like Iceland and Europe, and they actually like shoot on location in all these. So like from a cinematography angle, it's absolutely beautiful. But I just it's a very, very progressive show that is just I don't know, it's like it the plot is amazing, but the way that like they actually have like a diverse set of like cast and sort of characters in their show is I think like the blueprint for like future shows, and it's also just like the best story ever with action and whatnot. And they canceled it because it was too expensive and not enough people watched it. Um, because you can imagine flying a cast of you know, whatever double-digit number of people constantly around the globe. So like they have to shoot it all eight or ten episodes per season, like out of order, because the way it is is like these eight people can um share basically skills and they share sort of one brain. And so one of the like there's a white guy that's a cop, there's a a Korean woman who's like um a martial arts expert. They're all in these individual scenarios in their own locations, but when they run into things, they can like, oh, I need to beat someone up, so I tap into the Korean ladies, like, you know, martial arts skills, and the way that they shoot it is just unbelievable. Um, anyways. What are your your rapids? That was not super rapid.

Bryce

What are your uh I think for me, so obviously Firefly, but I think that's like that's gotta be on a lot of a lot of people's lists. Um I really like Stargate. That's out of like all of the sci-fi TV series that had like multiple series and like had a really long run, which is like I think like it's like Stargate, Star Trek, Star Wars, although admittedly Stargate's not as big as those of the two. I think Stargate's maybe my favorite. Um and I don't know, it competes with Star Wars. I'm a really big Star Wars fan.

Conor

But so tell me this. Uh I tried to get I tried to look into getting into Stargate, but like when you go to the the like the you know different series and TV, there's like an intro TV show, then like three different series across like what what is like how does one start watching Stargate if they haven't watched it?

Bryce

I I would typically if you Google, there's like there's viewing orders. Um and it's com the viewing orders are complicated because two of the TV series overlapped with each other and had crossover between the two. Um uh so you have to watch like eight seasons of SG1 and then switch over to watch like three seasons of Atlantis and then switch back over. So if you Google for Stargate viewing order, there is like there are some pretty good resources for it. We'll put it in the show notes. We'll put it in the show notes. I I generally recommend you start with the movie and then you start with SG1, and then um you start watching Atlantis at the same time. Um but the reason that I like Stargate is it's a it's a it's a sci-fi TV show, but it's actually really just like about like anthropology and archaeology. Like every episode is like they go to some planet and they do some anthropology or archaeology. Like that is primarily the TV show. Yeah, there's like some parts where they're like shooting at aliens, um, and there's like parasitic worms that are trying to take over the galaxy, but primarily it's let's go to this planet and uh and learn about their uh their culture. And like to some degree Star Trek does that, but this does it in like a much more direct way because part of the idea of the show is that um all of like there's these humans that are interspersed all throughout the galaxy that were like seeded by these all-powerful aliens, and a lot of them have cultures that are similar to cultures on Earth. Um and uh and yeah, so so it's just like I I just I like how it's a it's another example of how like they used a really innovative um story mechanism to make it easy for them to produce the show. Because like inherent to that world is the idea that like that yeah, there are aliens, but also there's just like a lot of humans that are distributed across the galaxy, and you know, shooting an episode where you've got a bunch of humans is a lot easier than when you've got a bunch of aliens. Um yeah, so I I really like that show. Um and uh I really love Westworld. Um yeah, yeah, Westworld, sorry, way up there. Way up there. I I I think Westworld's probably up there for like it's gotta be I it's probably the my favorite TV show at least in the past decade. Um I really love that show, yeah.

Conor

What what um uh without spoiling it, although I'm sh um well, I'm sure there's gonna be some people that start watching it because of this. Um what how did you feel about season three?

Bryce

I liked season three. Um I know some people didn't like season three, but I I I very much liked it. I enjoyed seeing a um a wider world than in season one and two. Um uh the yeah, I I liked it um and it had an ending where I was like, yeah, I I I I I thought I thought it was all well done.

Conor

Did you actually and once again without um because I I have to say uh just I asked that question because I season one and two I thought were amazing, and then season three uh without giving anything away, yeah, it just it took it sort of in a new direction, and I missed I missed sort of the feel of season one and two. Um yeah. Uh and once again, yeah, without giving anything away, were did you follow like it's clear by the end of season one or two, like what was going on in season one, but like I was so not following uh like I was enjoying the show and I and I thought it was amazing, and then when I got to like a certain point in the show, I realized like the actual how do I say this without giving stuff away? Like the s the storyline mechanics, like were you tracking that the whole time? Because I was not. And then when I when I found out what was going on, I was like, wow, where are all my IQ points? Like, how am I not noticing?

Bryce

Especially one of the things that I like about the show is that it has um enough complexity to it that I can't always guess where exactly it's gonna go. And uh I think the third I I I I I have like many TV shows I like, but I think the third show I'd I'd I'd say is um Futurama, um, which is uh it's like an it's sort of like The Simpsons, it's like an animated 30-minute um uh series, and it's like a comedy show and it's set in the future, um, and it's usually like mostly a comedy show, except there's actually a lot of like really deep um uh there's a lot of really deep content there sort of under the surface. Um it's actually like there's a lot of like uh college classes uh on film get taught uh and use some some Futurama episodes as examples. Um it's it's it's it may be the show that I've re-watched the most times. Um yeah.

Conor

I'm trying to I'm trying to get the story on um like w I personally have not watched Futurama. I've seen a couple episodes. The the the humor is not really my style, and I'm pretty sure there's a bunch of folks listening being like, what it's the best, because uh, but like who created it? Aren't they like it's some crazy like Harvard geniuses or something?

Bryce

Um I don't know. One of the things that I appreciate about it as a you know it's it's created by Matt Groning, the the the same guy who did The Simpsons. What one of the reasons that I like it as a show is because it it it definitely has like two levels of viewing it. You can watch it solely as a um as like a a light comedy show, but then there's also like a lot of episodes also have like a much like deeper um uh meaning. Like it's it's like a show that's like like there are episodes of Futurama that will like make me emotional. Um and and I think that that it's pretty impressive for a comedy show to have such breadth that to be able to do that.

Conor

Um here from the Wikipedia page it says the writing staff held three PhDs, seven master's degree, and cumulatively more than fifty years at Harvard University. Series writer uh Verone stated we're easily we were easily the most over-educated cartoon writers in history.

Bryce

Yeah.

Conor

So yeah, that's I I don't know, I don't know a ton about the backstor uh about the backstory, but I know that uh there's a lot of years of education, and that's the thing, is that like there's one episode that sort of went viral that was about like quantum realms and stuff or some theory and and it went viral because they were like this is a better demonstration of this theory than like has ever been sort of uh demonstrated before. Yeah. I'll try and find that episode and put a link to it if if folks are.

Bryce

Yeah, my definitely my my favorite episode is uh uh is one called Godfellows, season three, episode twenty.

Conor

Thanks for listening. We hope you enjoyed and have a great day.