The Toy Department – Episode 412

In Episode 412, Madden and Kolsky have a quick chat about vacations and the city of New Orleans before focusing in on:

  • The conclusion of a lackluster reunion for The Challenge: Battle of the Eras (4:20) and a look ahead to the hopefully much more entertaining All-Stars 5…
  • The Oscar-nominated Bob Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown (16:30), some big-time acting performances and the impact of Dylan going electric…
  • The Amazon Prime film Unstoppable (27:50) and what a classic high-quality true-story drama looks like…
  • The return of Apple TV+ sensation Severance (35:05) and what Ben Stiller & Co. are driving at with this bizarre and stylized show…
  • Peacock’s goofy new comedy Laid (44:25), the irrepressible charm of Stephanie Hsu and the absolute wheelhouse of Zosia Mamet…
  • A touch of sports talk (49:30) as we careen towards the end of both the NFL season and the soccer transfer window…
  • Homework for TWO weeks from now (1:04:05), including: the first two episodes of The Challenge All-Stars: Rivals, the new Hulu show Paradise, the return of Netflix’s The Night Agent and Oscar contenders Anora and A Real Pain…

The Toy Department – Episode 184 (a mini)

In Episode 184, Derek Madden and Matt Kolsky are on the clock for a quickie so they dive right into:

  • The first network TV show of the week, as The Good Place (2:40) returns for it’s fourth and final season…
  • Network TV show 2 — Stumptown (8:30) starring the charismatic and convincing Cobie Smulders…
  • Wrapping up network TV with Mixed-ish (16:50), a thoughtful comedy about race in America…
  • The new film Hustlers (23:20) and how it does a phenomenal job of exactly what it sets out to do (and also DAAAAAAMN J-Lo!!)…
  • Homework for next week (30:35), including: Netflix’s Sacha Baron-Cohen drama The Spy (seriously, we’re really gonna watch it this time), the new season of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, the return of Big Mouth on Netflix, the new Diego Maradona documentary on HBO, plus the show The Politician and the Between Two Ferns movie (both on Netflix)…