Down To Watch

Spooky season starts early on Down to Watch with witches, zombies, and creepy vibes across two new shows! Dan and Raul checked back with a couple of TV offerings they highlighted in the September TV Premieres ep, to solidly scary results. First up, AppleTV+ has Lakeith Stanfield fighting memories, mystical wishes, and witches by the lake when his wife makes the unfortunate decision to make 3 wishes in a horror thriller. As an 8 episode series that starts with a visual flair, the series is poised to tell a taught and terrifying tale, but the many different parts might not fit perfectly if the critics are to be believed. In the meantime, over on an entirely different streamer, fan-favorite Daryl Dixon from The Walking Dead has ended up on an entirely new continent and in his spinoff! He's trekking through France after an as-yet-untold event saw him overboard when he runs into a mix of acid-blooded zombies, weapon-wielding nuns, a few groups of people with bad intentions for him, and possibly a new world sav

This week (dundundun) Down to watch (dunDUNDUN) is fightin' cyborgs for the fate of 80s Earth! Dan and Raul slipped back to the days of big hair, synth tunes and a young Arnold Schwarzenegger in the original James Cameron series starter, The Terminator. More famous as the launching point for its worldwide smash of a sequel, the original film sees a less lethal Sarah Connor being singled out by time-traveling murderbots bent on killing the mother of the general who would see them defeated before he was even conceived. Time travel rules, 80s culture, and the future of sci-fi film are all on display in this classic mix of slasher and science fiction, but do these parts still come together as a fun film, or is this an artifact of a young director poised for massive success? Answers possibly await within one possible version of this! --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/downtopod/message

This week on Down to Watch, the climate conversation EXPLODES! Dan and Raul watched the indie film How to Blow Up a Pipeline, based on the Swedish nonfiction book that some might say is a call to excessive action. The story follows a group of young adults with various reasons for banding together to commit admitted acts of terrorism in response to a generation of despair after being handed over a wasted planet and grim future. The gritty realism in the acting and filmmaking does a great job of revealing sympathetic reasoning over a series of flashbacks, but do the filmmakers do enough to put you on the side of domestic bombers? That probably comes up on this pod!  --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/downtopod/message

This week DtW is going Deep Cover on the incognito tip! Dan and Raul travel back in time but stay in the state of CA for a 90s crime drama with a famous theme song. Lawrence Fishburne, going by Larry back when Deep Cover came out in 1992, plays a cop who saw his stickup thief father shot down while criming and has devoted himself to the law. However, in this exaggerated 90s Los Angeles crack game, he's been assigned to put his morality aside and lean into the crazy characters and costumes of this sordid street parable. Does this count as a legit crime classic with an early gangsta rap feel or is it a mishmash of cultural curiosities from the time? Maybe these two hosts have both opinions! --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/downtopod/message

The Down to Watch pod for September! Dan and Raul are back with some new Fall shows that are about to drop, and despite the strikes and the TV seasons changing, there's enough to keep any TV fan chasin' the clouds away. Right off the bat, The Changeling is a creepy and mysterious drama that will keep our friend Darius from Atlanta pretty terrified. Later in the month, the Morning Show and Wrexham series have new seasons lined up. The Walking Dead, John Wick, and The Boys have spinoffs starting in Daryl Dixon, The Continental, and Gen V, respectively, and animation has a moment with Krapopolis and Castlevania: Nocturne. A few more new shows and returning favorites round out the conversation, but you won't know which unless you listen to this pod! --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/downtopod/message

Down to Watch is drivin' through August with the tank full, the guns loaded, and a little bit of horror in tow! Dan and Raul open the show with a little "elevated horror" talk in honor of the film Talk to Me, a movie that rides between fun, scary flick, and indie arthouse horror film and has both audiences and critics praising it. Then the motors get runnin', and the drivers get gunnin' in Twisted Metal, adapted from a plot-thin destruction derby video game into a Peacock original with some star power and little holding it back. The story of a world after an early 2000s apocalypse where people in killer cars are all playing Mad Max outside the safety of the walled cities, and the strange characters we find running amok there. Does this show keep the levels and flavor of weirdness just right, or is this wild ride teetering on becoming a wreck of smashed-up nonsense? Either way, these guys know! --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/downtopod/message

Down to Watch is back to the heavenly hosts and their sinister counterparts in Good Omens Season 2! Dan and Raul watched the first two eps to catch up on David Tennant's demon Crowley, his existence-long angel friend Aziraphale (Michael Sheen), and apparently a butt-naked John Hamm back as the amnesiac Archangel Gabriel. When the memory-wiped angel lands at Mr. Fell's door, the best bud protagonists worry that the holy and evil alike will descend on them, ruining their peace. A bit of miraculous magic sets up a season's worth of antics to be laid out alongside recaps of the pair's history, and while the trips down memory lane illustrating the flowering friendship of the two charming leads are executed terrifically, is it enough for the second season to hang a whole halo on if the main story loses its wings? The answers and more angelic analogies are on this pod! --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/downtopod/message

This week, Down to Watch is full of shifty imposters with the Disney+ series Secret Invasion! Dan and Raul are dipping back into the MCU, so they meet who they believe to be the real Jonnie (Dan and Jonnie open the show with a brief discussion of BarbenHeimer) as they discuss the ups and downs of a Marvel series that is seeing mixed reactions. Sam Jackson's Nick Fury feels responsible for a new threat to the safety of Earth; this time in the form (or forms?) of the shape-shifting Skrull race of aliens who have taken the places of prominent figures in the world. While "Nobody calls me," Nick promised them a home world in exchange for spywork on our planet, he also disappeared for five years thanks to Thanos, and in the meantime, the Skrulls left behind have begun their takeover. Does Fury still have what it takes to carry a show that feels like it should have been a movie? If the DTW hosts are who they say they are, the answer is likely on this pod! --- Send in a voice message: https://podcast

Down to Watch has possibly the last full upcoming shows pod for the foreseeable future, and we support unions trying to get a fair shake out of the obscenely wealthy studios, fun stuff! In the meantime, Dan and Raul are looking forward to a ton of returning favorites, like more action on Physical, an increasingly dangerous domicile in Only Murders in the Building, more purple and gold history in Winning Time, one last season with the Reservation Dogs and a bunch more! New shows are a bit light in quantity but Ahsoka is the big Disney show of the season, and Netflix has One Piece showing off another attempt at anime adaptation. Creators Dan Harmon, Shea Serrano (or is it a movie?), and the Safdie Bros are all behind new shows, so there's plenty to talk about on the pod before the shows all go awaaaaaay! --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/downtopod/message

Gunfighters beware, cuz Down to Watch rolled back into town with Raylan Givens in tow! Dan and Raul dive into the world of Elmore Leonard adaptations with another outlaw-hunting adventure in Justified: City Primeval. The new miniseries, broadcasting on FX and streaming on Hulu, returns to the holster of the fastest draw in Harlan County as he trades fast banter and much faster bullets with a collection of criminals and lowlives. Having been transplanted to Detroit for the length of the story, Timothy Olyphant is tasked with pulling off the previous show's success without his stable of scene partners and against a villain with a very high Boyd Crowder bar to clear. Is actor Boyd Holbrook bringing enough to live up to more than just a matching first name, and can they hit the bullseye again after an 8-year absence? This pod takes dead aim at answering that after only two eps! --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/downtopod/message

Down to Watch is on a plane this week and it's been taken! Dan and Raul watched a few episodes of the new AppleTV+ series led by Luther himself, Hijack! Idris Elba is some sort of a highly talented business negotiator who's gotta maneuver a bunch of randos who apparently have a plan to take a plane traveling from Dubai to Heathrow. If that wasn't enough, his wife is carrying around with a cop man to her son's chagrin, the pilot and the stewardess are also fooling around on the side, tough guys, worried ladies, and some kids who are just as bad as their parents! This show might carry the audience through a complex, fascinating conundrum or fumble the specifics of the scary situation with cheesy choices; who knows? Maybe the guys on this pod do! --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/downtopod/message

Down to Watch is ready for a big dang summer! Dan and Raul are scanning the sunny horizon for the most interesting and unique shows during the lean months of the television year, and the new Prime series I'm a Virgo is an oasis of originality. A giant black teenager grows up watching a world of exaggerated culture and politics from the safety of his hidden backyard. His parents fear a world that hunts down giants, but a teen's gonna teen, and soon enough, Cootie, the 13-foot-tall 19-year-old, is riding with friends, smoking weed, and tackling a world that wants to use him. Walton Goggins and Mike Epps lend impressive performances to class up the joint, but this is an absurdist comedy with many strange layers & angles. Strange enough for you? Listen and find out! --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/downtopod/message

Half the year has already scampered past, and the summer months are famously bereft of quality content on the small screens. Thankfully, Down to Watch has Dan and Raul to dive deep and find the worthwhile stories that will fill the sunny season. This month there's plenty of returning shows to be excited about; specifically, the conversation bops around Futurama's brainy eps, another round of Raylan Givens givin' justice in Justified, some metaphysical fun represented in more Good Omens and What We Do in the Shadows, and the fascinating observations of How To with John Wilson. New shows were slimmer pickings, but the guys come through with a trippy true crime caper, The Horrors of Dolores Roach, some shady kidnappings among the rich in Full Circle, and another game adaptation with Twisted Metal. That's literally all the shows on the list, so go listen now! --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/downtopod/message

This week the Down to Watch crew is checking out alt-versions of animated worlds in Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse! Marvel guide Jonnie joins Dan and Raul to dive into one of the year's most loved films. The continuing story of Miles Morales meeting other spider-people hits several bumps in the road in a story about finding your place in the world, connecting with your family, and forging your path. Does this foray into the wider multiverse that the MCU will eventually pillage earn all the adoration it has gotten from audiences and fans? These are the best versions of these hosts to tell you about it! --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/downtopod/message

Down to Watch is a 90s throwback podcast this week with the cult classic Dark City! Dan and Raul meet a collection of young Kiefers' and Connellys' darting around dark alleys in what looks at first to be an amnesia-based whodunit noir but quickly reveals the sci-fi mind trip it was hiding under its hat like a translucent alien bug. The themes of individualism and free will aren't the only things this movie has in common with The Matrix, and the guys discuss how the two films share sets, storylines, and more. So does the indie look allow this fan favorite to remain evergreen, or do the dated effects and odd acting choices fail to hold up to our memories? Only one way to find out, and it's not a needle to the dome!  --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/downtopod/message

Sneaky stuff is afoot this week at Down to Watch! Dan and Raul dipped into the clandestine world of cloak and dagger, and have returned from the shadows with Citadel from Prime and The Night Agent streaming on Netflix. Citadel is a star-forward vehicle with a huge price tag and middling reviews that has two spinoffs in the works. The banter and action might be subpar, but do pretty faces from magazine covers make up for it? Also, The Night Agent flaunts similar tropes from the spy romance thriller playbook, but does a different cast and tone bring better results? This top-secret pod has been declassified just for you! --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/downtopod/message

The barren summertime TV landscape has reared its dusty face again as we roll into June, but Down to Watch is an oasis of content, ready to quench the thirsty viewer. Dan and Raul put their safari hats on and properly searched for television programming to fill the hot days on the way and are pleased to see plenty of returning friends like Jack Ryan, that Witcher over there, our friend The Bear, and the gang from the ever-sunny Philadelphia. Some questionable company appears around HBO(?)'s controversy-saddled The Idol, and Secret Invasion may see Marvel struggle with a new slate of television, but there are some high hopes for everyone in The Crowded Room and a couple of Kate's. There's a lot of hot new shows, enough for everyone, but best come get it before it all evaporates! --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/downtopod/message

This week on Down to Watch, there's double trouble to be found deep down! Dan and Raul are a few eps into a couple of new shows and have plenty to say about 'em. First up, the Cronenberg film Dead Ringers has a miniseries remake on Prime that has Rachel Weisz in the dual twin OB-GYNs, and the discussion covers the excellent acting and directing, the deeper themes and intense visuals, and some storytelling troubles the show may wander into. Over on the other show, society has retreated into the safety of Silo, the new post-nuclear apocalypse series on AppleTV+. There are plenty of inventive and exciting actors and situations, but the overarching story once again seems to stumble. Did these streaming services end up birthing modern classics, or is it an irradiated wasteland across our televisions? These guys know! --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/downtopod/message

This week, Down to Watch is down with the Algorithm! Dan and Raul are lucky to have guest Hannah add her analysis to the DtW brain trust as they try and unravel the mysteries of the new Peacock original series Mrs. Davis. Betty Gilpin is a "cowboy nun" who serves as a possibly literal bride of Jesus at the convent by day and runs down scammer magicians outside of Reno by night when we are introduced to this wacky world. Mrs. Davis, an algorithmic AI that communicates to nearly all humans via earbud, has pretty much taken over the world and a particular interest in our protagonist Simone, formerly Lizzie. It's bloody, funny, irreverent, and action-packed, but does it have any depth behind the Coen Bros-esque incongruity and hyper-violence? These three podcasters know the trick! --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/downtopod/message

Another month is upon us and DtW has it mapped out for you to safely travel across May with no new show unturned! Dan and Raul travel across content-continents to bring you the latest tales of series from the corners of the globe. They dive into an underground Silo to see the remnants of humanity, a reunion of Seth Rogen and Rose Byrne (formerly in the comedy film, Neighbors) as longtime friends, and check in on a loopy detective in the High Desert while they're in the neighborhood. There's some action in the DC area between the motley crews making up the Class of '09 and White House Plumbers, murder and arson in NY with a City on Fire, and L.A. lady soccer in Angel City. This pod is a great guide, even if it's a little all over the map! --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/downtopod/message