Beacon 23: Interview w/ Glen Mazzara, S2 co-showrunner

[00:00:00] This summer we enter a new era of Star Wars. You mean the dawn of the Star Wars Canon timeline podcast? Yeah, yeah sure, that too. But I was obviously talking about the accolade. We've got to cover that on the Lorhounds.

[00:00:18] Oh, but the Star Wars Canon timeline podcast is exactly at that point in the timeline, the end of the High Republic 100 years before the prequel trilogy. We've got to cover it there. Why not both? Okay, deal. It's the first live action Star Wars outside the Skywalker saga.

[00:00:37] Nobody can miss this. Listeners kick off your hot Lor Summer weekends with seem-by-seem breakdowns of the accolade, found in both the Star Wars Canon timeline podcast and the Lorhounds mother feed and the Lorhounds Star Wars feed.

[00:00:51] Wherever you like to listen a couple of days after each new episode is released. Researcher Quest Granted, Spoilers Unlocked Welcome back beacon heads to Wool Shift Dust, the adaptation analysis podcast that has the guts to ask the would you rather questions no one else thought care about.

[00:01:51] Who's asking what you ask? I'm Elisha, your host here to drop beacon 23 spoilers and grill my co-host Luke on everything beacon 23 like Luke would you rather be a potentially immortal personal AI under Aleph's thumb or an AWOL super soldier with memory gaps on the run?

[00:02:11] I think an AWOL super soldier with memory gaps on the run. To be honest, I mean neither of them are particularly appealing choices, but I think I'm going to go with super soldier. At least you'll be able to beat people up in cool and interesting ways.

[00:02:28] Okay, okay. Luke, would you rather enter the artifact and get all the answers but never be able to come back or live out your life in our universe? Never to know. Oh definitely enter the artifact would not be able to come back. I need the answers.

[00:02:43] That's how badly we need a season three. I need to close you damn it. Okay my turn. I am going to go with the potentially immortal personal AI under Aleph's thumb because as we saw from Harmony for special cases there might be a way out

[00:03:02] or you just piggyback on someone who's special like Dev did. And for the other, I don't know can I like hook up with the artifact at the end of my life? No that's cheating. That's cheating. That's like a deathbed conversion. That's just

[00:03:22] cheating. Do I get to bring my five best buddies with me? Yeah I think you get to bring your five best buddies with you. The four people even. The people even. The four best buddies. Okay, okay then I guess I'm going in. Okay.

[00:03:39] All right so listeners our spoiler policy for this episode is the same spoilers for every episode. There will be spoilers for both seasons of Beacon 23 of course every episode that's ever aired and as the resident Hugh Howie book reader on this podcast I reserve the right to

[00:03:54] bring up any bits of the book I feel are pertinent. Don't expect too many but I won't spoil the ending just in case there are more seasons or you want to read the book yourself. Abby and I did do a

[00:04:05] full breakdown of the book in the book club so you'll find that link in the show notes if you want to check that out. Yeah and this is our wrap-up of season two of Beacon 23,

[00:04:15] the potential final season we don't know. We don't know. I have an interview with season two co-showrunner Glenn Matzar later today as Luke and I are recording. You'll hear that later this up though but first Luke and I wanted to talk through another interesting interview Matzar

[00:04:32] had with three hosts in a Beacon, the podcast sponsored by Boat Rocker, the production company so you'll find that link in the show notes as well. Luke what did you you I know you gave that interview a listen. What did you think? Did anything stand out to you?

[00:04:46] I mean I think the extent to which Glenn Matzar is just happy for the audience to draw their own conclusions unlike a really wide range of stuff which I find kind of which I've got to be honest

[00:05:02] I find a little bit frustrating my attitude is very much you're the writer I want to know what you think like um yeah but I also thought that the discussion towards the end of the

[00:05:16] interview where they talk about the role of AI in society and getting Glenn Matzar's views on that was quite interesting. I thought he made a really good point about AI sort of draw around

[00:05:29] human history and how that might mean that you've got to be careful that AI doesn't replicate like the worst parts of human history and you can already see that with the way the algorithms push

[00:05:41] content on social media so I thought that was a really good point um and something that doesn't get talked about often enough in the debate over over AI it's the old adage of you know

[00:05:54] IT garbage in garbage out. Right um so yeah I thought I thought that I thought that was interesting yeah that was a good point. Yeah I mean I didn't I didn't really get the sense

[00:06:08] that he was confident that there was going to be a third season I think he kind of hopes there's going to be it I mean you know I'm sure your sense are still built but yeah I'm sure you're gonna ask him but you're on

[00:06:17] sure of course yeah I gotta shoot my shot but I'm sure he doesn't know yeah um yeah so he did kind of answer all of our more nitpicky questions about continuity with the phrase dream logic

[00:06:33] yeah again I thought that's yeah that's that's a bit of a weasley that's a bit of a weasley I don't know but did you know like I don't I don't hate it because first of all it does fit with

[00:06:43] the the feel of the show is it's very dreamy it's always been a very dreamy show even though we don't have the tripping on glib juice this season um but and I know I was also just discussing

[00:06:56] this season this week's episode of Doctor Who which kind of like their their thing this season is there is a villain no spoilers but a villain says I've rewritten your whole history so

[00:07:07] it's like oh so anything that doesn't make sense it's because yeah well I mean this is this is the thing like the Doctor Who is the Doctor Who is notorious for that like it has always done that

[00:07:20] yeah yeah so I don't I don't hate dream logic and that's okay then like I don't need to worry about the doctor saying he was leaving and then being at work again like that's fine yeah also

[00:07:33] like when you when you sent me the link for the show I'm always a bit sort of you know my natural attitude towards podcasts that are sponsored by the production company is to tend to avoid them

[00:07:47] okay I actually thought I actually thought I don't know the host but I actually thought they did a good job yeah of like asking Glamour Sara the questions you'd want answered because I always feel like the

[00:07:59] if they're sponsored by the production company or they're sponsored by HBO you know am I just gonna get 40 minutes of rah-rah basically right but they didn't do that right yeah they did directly

[00:08:12] ask a question they dashed the hopes of a theory that I've been supporting on this podcast which is that Harmony equals hope and Glamour Sara said Harmony is definitively not hope it was a

[00:08:26] different actress I don't know why she's not I still think if you listen to that that's Natasha Mumba's voice I don't I don't that's if not it's somebody that sounds remarkably like

[00:08:40] Natasha Mumba yeah I don't know why they wouldn't credit her but this is what he says so yeah we also found out Joy Blake did a lot of things that I a lot of the things that I liked about

[00:08:54] the ending like she pushed for the Harmony transcendence storyline and the Harmony and Aster on the stairs moment was apparently her and also bringing Hélène's father back into the fold and it sounds like Glamour Sara is most proud or excited about his contribution

[00:09:15] of the creature so that creature we see at the very end the jellyfish kind of creature he says it's his first creature design that made it to the air he did create one for a dark

[00:09:24] tower pilot that never aired but yeah it's did you feel vindicated when you heard so first of all he worked on it with Weta which is the New Zealand you know that that's the special effects company

[00:09:39] that set up to do Lord of the Rings basically and does a lot of the best work in the business but yeah did you feel vindicated when you heard he said it could have opened its mouth and

[00:09:50] had a thousand teeth yes yeah because I thought for a second that was that was exact not necessarily the thousand teeth but I definitely thought it's like an open up and yeah also I like this sort of

[00:10:03] I like the sort of description of it being like lynch here and rather than rather than like lovecrafty in here like it didn't occur to me when I was watching the episode but yes

[00:10:13] sort of lynching is lynching is a good way to describe it yeah speaking of dream logic dream logic like I've spent I don't know how many hours analyzing Mulholland Drive just because yeah that films all dream logic yeah so and he confirmed that it's a jellyfish because

[00:10:34] of the nautical slash lighthouse theme um and about the opening its mouth he said it could have opened its mouth and had a thousand teeth and be threatening but he didn't want that he wanted a sense of wonder something mysterious which uh yeah that work that happened yeah

[00:10:51] and he cited Steven Spielberg as an influence which I thought was interesting yeah I was sort of thinking I think more the sense of wonder aspect yeah I mean I was thinking sort of I think he's sort

[00:11:01] of maybe close encounters of the third kind if you were looking for something specific yeah probably good call um yeah and uh I guess this is where you felt your frustration he talks about that young

[00:11:13] Aster cliffhanger which I said right after the episode aired I think we might not see this resolved and we have to connect the dots and I don't mind that but he did say yeah he wanted to leave that

[00:11:23] up to the audience yeah I sort of I thought the explanation of this is this is this is showing Aster's empathy for Halon basically that that you can be in to use a Star Trek metaphor you

[00:11:40] can be in the sort of Kobe Ashimaru type scenario there no win scenario word something bad has got to happen and yeah it's up to you to decide what that bad thing is um which I I kind of get

[00:11:58] although if you were just doing if you were just doing it for that reason I think it would probably been just as effective to have Aster lean ahead he sit down to you and explain it I don't

[00:12:12] think you needed the bulk of an entire episode considering the limited run of the series just to set that up um I yeah I mean but I think that's not the only thing it set up that's just maybe

[00:12:25] what he considered the most important thing that that it set up yeah yeah and I did find it interesting by the way you were talking about the conversation in this interview about AI and he

[00:12:37] said that he wrote the Dosto character and that does kind of reflect his more skeptical views of artificial intelligence yeah yeah but um obviously Dosto doesn't meet a particularly happy fate at

[00:12:49] the hands of AI sorry Jocko right yeah I'm in Jocko the Beacon Keeper so yeah yeah yeah and also he clarified for the timeline that the Aster flashback it takes place before her going

[00:13:04] to the QTA so this results in her being with the QTA and so this is before she met Harmony so I wonder whether I wonder whether that's Aleph like picking up on you know the logs of the Beacon

[00:13:16] and going this person is interesting uh yeah maybe we want to go out and recruit her because you know she's she's capable she's thinking she's capable of thinking on a feet she's got

[00:13:29] a certain she's got a certain moral flexibility at that point which is useful for the QTA's purposes but we can definitely see that with the soldier experiments that you know Aleph is thinking violence

[00:13:43] is the answer and she showed a willingness to resort to that yeah yeah and yeah he also clarified that Harmony is the one although yeah this this was more Joy Blake's storyline he said

[00:13:58] Harmony is the one to connect out of all of them with the artifact because she often took the best of humanity um and that the riff he called them the riff which is what the aliens who look different

[00:14:09] in the book but that's what the aliens are called um he said they needed a being that wouldn't that wouldn't threaten them so we got we picked that last part up but uh it's yeah do you

[00:14:20] think Harmony took the best of humanity out of all the characters? I mean I think what I think the other thing he said was that Harmony is capable of feeling emotions but not necessarily acting on them

[00:14:34] so she has like the AI ability to feel anger but also to sort of wall the anger off and not be controlled by it yeah um which I actually thought was the more the more interesting part

[00:14:47] of that which is the Harmony's got like full emotional range but not but because she is an artificial life form she's capable of feeling those emotions but not letting them control her actions

[00:15:03] so being like again it comes back to I had tendency to bring everything back to Westworld I'm not over I'm just not over that yeah I just haven't recovered from that but it's the same thing

[00:15:17] with the hosts in Westworld they have the ability to feel all these emotions but also the ability to recognize that they are emotions and they are rational and that they can sort of act without

[00:15:32] act without acting on those emotions necessarily so they're not they're not controlled by them and I thought that was that was the more interesting part of what of that part of the conversation

[00:15:44] for me because yeah if you are going to develop a fully sentient AI one of the advantages that they will have over humans is they might have the ability to feel emotion but not necessarily

[00:15:59] robot it humans can't do that okay okay I think we think that we can but we generally can't our hormones are in the way I don't know well they're sociopaths amongst us

[00:16:13] yeah it's true I do think the overall conclusion I took from this interview was that this is and I guess you know I always had this sense this is a story more about characters than a story

[00:16:24] about the world so any world building we get is kind of like bonus sprinkles but it's really it's just more about who is drawn to this beacon and why who and how does it change them

[00:16:40] yeah um and I mean what I thought was quite interesting is that Glamatsara and this is maybe something you can touch on in the interview later he was quite explicit about what the division of labor between him and joy Blake was in terms of you know which parts

[00:16:58] of the story came from which from which writer and he was also quite explicit about the stuff and that in season one he didn't he didn't retcon but they just need to take in a slightly

[00:17:12] different direction because I think it's it's a fairly it's a unique situation where you have two seasons film back to back but right different with with different show runners yeah indeed no I'm definitely curious about the act of taking over a show like this

[00:17:34] so Three House and a Beacon also recently interviewed Natasha Moomba who plays Harmony and it was I don't yeah I recommend that interview as well it was really nice to hear

[00:17:43] about her friendship with Lena Heady uh with Lena Heady and I had no idea that Heady is now married to the actor who played Kier really yeah so Mark Menchaca is his name and they were engaged

[00:17:56] when they were filming this oh that's awesome imagine reading the script for the final episode of season one oh I wonder yeah I have to wonder what was like like did she bring him I mean

[00:18:11] he's you know working actor in his own right does lots of stuff but um I have to wonder if it was coincidence that he was there seems unlikely right yeah yeah it seems like she's like hey how

[00:18:22] about oh you're looking for this part yeah I know somebody that would be perfect for the role and also he gets to kill me that's yeah that would be fun right yeah you could throw that back in his face anytime you fight remember when you killed me

[00:18:42] so yeah that's fun that's fun fact and I apparently they're still close friends um Natasha and Lena so that's lovely to hear okay that's cool um so I also I did reach out to Hugh Howie as

[00:18:56] well for anyone who's curious just to check him with him at the end of the season and he is he's having a busy summer on the road um but he said that so he said something else I want to

[00:19:09] quote directly from his email to you so he said it'll be it would be right now super difficult for me not to spill the beans on silo stuff now that I've seen season two so season two is done

[00:19:22] he's seen it um he said we're going to have a silo panel at San Diego Comic Con this year with some great panelists and should be announcing some interesting news and casting stuff so he's

[00:19:35] said well we'll have to talk more um when I'm allowed to speak about that so basically so Luke you and I are basically confirmed uh San Diego Comic Con is taking place end of July

[00:19:47] you and I got to get back on the mics early August to talk about reveals yeah to talk about I did I did uh in a similar vein I did read a magazine interview with Rebecca Ferguson where she

[00:19:57] was saying she'd seen rough cut of season two but okay yeah I'm sure I mean obviously it's not polish or finish yeah there were a lot of there were apparently a lot of effect shots that

[00:20:07] needed finishing which is in the rough cut right yeah no the special effects is always the um it's the the last thing to finish because it's what polish is the scenes it's what takes the

[00:20:18] most time yeah yeah and it has to everything else has to be in place before you can finish that yeah yeah so I mean I'm thinking I'm thinking that we probably get early first quarter next

[00:20:34] year is my prediction for season two yeah I would say sort of maybe I was I was thinking maybe so maybe sort of January February around that around that time yeah yeah yeah but we'll we'll find out

[00:20:48] more end of July so silo fans stay tuned yeah um as for now I'm gonna go get ready for my interview with Glenn our mr. Mazzara to me any final any final questions from Luke um I mean obviously the

[00:21:05] overriding question is when is season three give a season yeah okay I need more seasons um I promise the word season three will be um yeah there was there was one question that sort of occurred

[00:21:21] to me um while I was listening to the three be three hopes in the beacon podcast how much is how much uh Milan is left in a lift does he think is is a lift by the time we see him in the show

[00:21:38] just walking around in the Milan suit basically or are they you know how far as a lift push past push beyond Milan the template he was based on basically okay all right I added that to the list

[00:21:58] so listeners you will be hearing that question and all my other questions right after a short break and then Luke and I will be back to chat about the interview and some quick final feedback

[00:22:11] so see you all on the other side I am here with co-show runner of season two of beacon 23 Glenn Mazzara Glenn thank you so much for being here thanks for having me I know it's early

[00:22:29] your time all good now I already listened to and talked to my host uh about the interview that you did with three hosts in a beacon the podcast sponsored by boat rocker so I won't repeat the

[00:22:42] questions that I heard there but that was really interesting I included that note in the show notes for everyone else um but yeah I just was hoping to pick your brain a little bit more

[00:22:51] about the season and about show running duties in general uh I know you have done a lot of different shows before probably a lot of people will first mention the walking dead uh where you took

[00:23:04] over for Frank Darbonton to do the first three seasons I actually coincidentally am in the middle of watching Damien oh yeah I hope you enjoy it yeah no I'm four episodes in and so far episode three

[00:23:16] is my favorite and I love Barbara Hershey she's fantastic I love Barbara that's great enjoy she turned up also in beacon was uh was that a link with you or just a coincidence

[00:23:26] oh no it was a Barbara and I are friends and uh you know and we had this idea for this prequel episode and uh as we were thinking about who would be great for that because

[00:23:40] you it's a lot of pressure though you know as a two person play who would be fantastic and and you know I just think Barbara is underused I think she's such a terrific actor absolutely

[00:23:51] and uh I wish what's that magnetic yeah and I wish she worked more so I sort of you know called her and said hey would you do this and um she was actually in Europe and then she went to New York

[00:24:07] and went to Martin Scorsese's 80th birthday and then okay right after that came to Toronto and just sort of jumped in and it was just a fantastic experience working with her as always yeah that's

[00:24:20] the life um so Walking Dead Damien which for anyone who doesn't know said in the Omen universe and beacon 23 they're all three different types of adaptations but how was the process different from the showrunner perspective how did you think about each of them differently uh that's a great

[00:24:39] question I think with a little bit different and and and I've also adapted I shot a pilot for um Stephen King's Dark Tower okay so so I shot that so I've and I wrote something else based on a

[00:24:56] King thing so I've done I've done several you know adaptations and my approach is first always understand and honor the original artist's intent okay what are they trying to get to what

[00:25:15] are they trying to say because you know their work already exists so I don't think we're just going to do a filmed version of that right um I don't think the audience really wants that you

[00:25:28] wouldn't be surprised and yet you wanted to honor that and I find particularly with genre uh genre fans really reject material if they feel you're not respecting the underlying material if you don't care about it um so you really want to make sure that you're if you have

[00:25:47] the opportunity speak to the original artist understand what their motivation was what was their inspiration what were they trying to go for okay uh so so the adaptations I've done

[00:26:01] I've come to as a fan you know I was a fan of um I didn't know the the the comic book walking them but I knew horror movies I was fan of Frank Darabont I was a fan of zombie films that sort of

[00:26:15] stuff so I knew I knew that um I love the old man I'm a fan of horror movies like you know so I did that with a big Stephen King fan and with this I'm a fan of you know sci-fi okay so I was

[00:26:31] not really familiar with I had read wool Hughes other novel but I was not familiar with this so but so I was a Hugh fan and and I spoke with you about this you know what I mean I

[00:26:44] I spent time talking to King about his material you know um I really kind of broke down the Omen and the Omen universe and all of that when I was doing Damien so I think first you want to

[00:26:57] understand their original intent you want to come at it as a as a fan and and then the third thing you need to do is you need to find some personal connection to the material right

[00:27:10] you need to find out why am I the person telling this story you know and a lot of times I get offered adaptations and if I don't feel that it resonates with me in some personal way I pass on the

[00:27:22] project and get out of the way and assume some other writer could do a much better job so with peak in 23 you know we would just come in you know when we start we're shooting this

[00:27:34] the pandemic was still going on so we're dealing with questions of isolation being trapped with people who may be driving us crazy worried about us losing our own minds during the isolation

[00:27:47] that felt very relevant to me the terror of being out there on the edge of the unknown that really you know I felt there was something there about that so I tried to kind of find the

[00:28:00] personal connection and I would hopefully you know was able to find one here in this material so your personal connection in this case was the identifying with that sense of isolation that

[00:28:12] we were all kind of going through at the time yeah and and you know and I signed on at the end of season one you know they were already script written for season one they were shooting

[00:28:21] season one and rolling into season two and I was friendly with Zach I had known Zach Penn the original writer and creator of this of the show and wanted to work with him and everything so

[00:28:38] you know I joined them to you know to work with him to help him you know support him that sort of stuff and yeah and then I think you find the connection and then

[00:28:49] you know being a science fiction fan you try to think about as you're going through well what have I seen and what have I not seen and how can I push this how could I make this a

[00:28:58] little bit different you know what would really exist under these circumstances that sort of stuff so it was a very creative experience this one was a lot of fun yeah so you and Joy Blake split

[00:29:13] showrunner duties this season how did that break down practically like were you passing things back and forth or sitting down in a room together to talk things through it shifted by what the needs

[00:29:26] were because this one was I think because it was such a big expensive show you know there were a lot of visual effects that set was pretty magnificent all of that and we were you know

[00:29:43] shooting the end of season one and we were going into season two and there were a lot of questions about the material for season two I had worked with joy several times okay before we had worked on a

[00:29:53] show together we had that's how we met it was a criminal mind spin-off she was my number two on dark tower so I had two different rooms for that you know just because it was such a long

[00:30:08] process she ran both of them and we've talked about you know developing a project together we looked at doing a horror novel together we were at that but she's a terrific writer so we were

[00:30:24] interested in working together and I think what happens is that a lot of newer showrunners since these things are so expensive to run a lot of women and people of color don't get invested in

[00:30:41] as showrunners right so it was always my intent to sort of work with joy and I was like well I could teach you how to be a showrunner and then you know you could just take over you know what I mean

[00:30:54] you know what I mean and you could learn the craft of showrun because the first time you run a show it's very very challenging it's always challenging but the first time you're running a show

[00:31:03] you're figuring it out yeah it's just a lot of pressure so there were questions in season one where um you know we had different timelines we had we had some material that really worked

[00:31:21] we had other material that didn't work and if that had to be cut then pieces from other episodes needed to be moved around so it was a very so editing season one was very fluid I have a lot

[00:31:32] of experience editing so I said well I'll edit season one and kind of move that stuff around and you take point on season two and learn how to prep all the stuff and you know run the

[00:31:45] room and sometimes I would jump into the room you know and and and but she really ran the points you know we together we figured out what the staff was um we were both working for Zach when I

[00:31:58] started working for Zach I asked joy if she wanted to come on so and then we were both elevated so what happened was she really kind of took the point and sort of worked out the whole

[00:32:08] harmony arc and all of that you know she um wrote the last two episodes a lot there was a writer for season for episode seven who did a great job but joy you know was very instrumental in sort of

[00:32:23] helping her break that story joy wrote the last episode and then and then um I wrote the Sibarra an episode you know just to have an episode in the thing so that was kind of my

[00:32:34] episode and I did produce that episode but really the rest of it was uh joy I did work with people with the two writers to work on the uh asked a flashback right you know but but really I think

[00:32:49] joy was kind of um the the point person on season two and then after we wrapped the show then and moved into editing and I did a lot of the editing to try to get as much of that done

[00:33:01] we did get all the editing done before the writers and actors strikes we prepped and did all of that so so I really kind of handled the post and she handled the writing with the exception of the the um the Sibarra episode you know right because during the

[00:33:19] strikes neither of you could weigh in on decisions or anything like that correct that's correct writers guild right so so the way that worked was the day before the strike so the strike was called

[00:33:32] on May 2nd of 2023 so on um May 1st I met with everybody over zoom in Los Angeles and the post crew was predominantly in Toronto right and uh and I said I just said look you know

[00:33:51] uh we have we have everything up to a certain point and it looks like tomorrow I'm going to be on strike I don't know if I'm going to be back this might be the last time we're seeing each other

[00:34:03] which is very sad you know or or I could be back in a week or I could be back in six months I didn't know so I just you know trust yourselves you know you understand what the show is you

[00:34:17] know believe you know don't worry if this ends in a month and I come back I promise I'm not going to scream and say why did you do this or whatever I said we'll make it work and you're all talented

[00:34:28] people and I really believe that you know I would love to work with those folks again so um and then I just had to go away and then the strike ended on on September 27th

[00:34:40] and as I was driving to a guild membership meeting Boat Rocker called me and said can you come back to work tomorrow and finish up post so I went back and I was very very pleased with everything

[00:34:53] that I had seen you know so I had I had designed the alien at the end right I had I had worked with Weta and that was kind of my concept and everything so I was really working with them

[00:35:06] and I had but I had not seen how it moves I had not seen and none of the work had been done yet so a lot of that was supervised by one of by a producer of an executive from Boat Rocker a great

[00:35:21] guy named James Middleton and he kind of got that over the finish line so I came back and I was just so happy with that and they can you know Will and Ramin did the music I thought they

[00:35:32] did a tremendous job I was happy I got to come back as a fan and enjoy the work that had been done in my absence during the strike the making what was in your head real yeah yeah yeah what's

[00:35:46] the best compliment that you've gotten about the show and what's the biggest misunderstanding I think the biggest I think the biggest compliment or the greatest joy I had with this show was just working with the people you know like I'm explaining it was all every show you run

[00:36:10] has its challenges everything is difficult okay and sometimes people get stressed and that doesn't always bring out people's best and and you have people you know and but I felt like people felt

[00:36:22] safe working with me people felt good working with me people felt like was creative we had fun you know there were some things that we really just left our asses off at you know it was it was

[00:36:32] just it was it was fun it was it was a fun creative experience you know and I think people got to do good work so I was I was I was very happy with that you know I was very happy with that

[00:36:46] I think the misunderstanding is the the um I will say like say on podcasts or online or whatever I think the the misunderstanding is that people don't understand that we were trying to go for a fractured type of storytelling right

[00:37:06] okay we're we're purposefully trying to we were trying to do something different one because that was the nature of it but you know we were trying to you know at one point you know in the

[00:37:18] rocky episode we're going we're you know we're in a hallucinatory state so so I think people kind of approached us as this was going to be a very type of standard storytelling about this

[00:37:30] little outpost and maybe there's this big war we don't ever show that we don't have any you know ship battles or anything we have a lot of stuff happening off screen and it's about you

[00:37:43] know think about how we were during the pandemic we were getting this information of the world falling apart we're in our apartment saying what is going on we were trying to capture that we were

[00:37:52] trying to capture a sense of isolation we were trying to give a so so I think that um we took chances and some of those chances worked better than others but I don't think

[00:38:05] I don't think um I'm not sure if people got that we were um trying something different and experimental not just being sloppy right well I think something that uh Luke and I

[00:38:22] both liked from your interview with three hosts in a beacon was you you there was a reference to David Lynch and that made me think about like how much time have I spent dissecting Mohullen

[00:38:34] Drive which is horror but it's a dreamy horror it's uh yeah correct yes so so so that was something that we talked about you know like like for example you know you you have um you come back in season

[00:38:51] two right and you have this episode that sort of pays off you know and it's a grim episode and he's sort of a prisoner locked in a tower right hailing is locked in a tower and he's

[00:39:03] he's assigned to all he wants to do is get off the beacon that's all he wants to do is get off the beacon and he's trapped there okay so the emotional stakes are very high I think that's

[00:39:13] a good episode I think we kind of you know it's uh we pushed it um you know the fact that that that that olive you know kills the the column people and says you know to use them for water I mean

[00:39:28] that's pretty dark right yeah so we push that and then we love to die I'll live here yeah and then you cut to you know the next episode is is harmony you know what I mean and then

[00:39:40] you're trying to figure that out world and then you cut to iris you know and then iris comes over and then we add the samaritans and so we were constantly I think throwing curveballs at the

[00:39:54] audience and I think right so I trusted the audience I felt like the audience would respond to that I'm not sure they did you know what I'm saying I'm I'm not sure it depends yeah yeah but you know

[00:40:06] I've seen a variety of responses yeah yeah so so but we were really trying to surprise the audience because I think I think we all know what a show like this this could have fallen into uh you know

[00:40:22] a ripoff of deep deep space nine or something you know right I think it was almost like um because it is like the book uh the book is like an almost an anthology of short stories although it

[00:40:37] is the same yes characters more or less and like the book characters come and go and um yeah it's interconnected stories but uh it's it is like short stories they are each one feels different

[00:40:50] in tone indeed yeah right so so that was part of what I going back to what I said earlier that was part of Hugh's uh original approach right so that that was a device for us and then and and I do

[00:41:05] believe every well let me get to this for let me say this first so so that was a thing and also when you who and I talked you know he really wanted um episodes like the Barbara Hershey episode

[00:41:19] you know just two people talking you know he really wanted he felt like that was not not so much that was one of my favorites of the whole series yeah thanks so so it was it was you know so that

[00:41:31] was the target right okay so what was important and what the challenge was was all of these episodes I considered every episode you know uh what was important to the characters what was the

[00:41:51] emotional journey what does it feel like you know I think every every episode we work very hard to make sure it had a good ending that it drove you into the next episode I think I do think we stuck

[00:42:01] all the all the landings um but we also really thought about how do you build out this world not so much make it a complicated mythology but how do you keep building out this world

[00:42:15] so say in the young aster episode right when she you know is the teenager and she comes back or whatever you know that's building out what you know what is her experience with her family

[00:42:25] what you know we've seen the family but what you know what happens you know after she she left the beacon before she came back how did she get into um um the qta and everything the qta

[00:42:39] so you know we really tried to look at the world building and and um you know that was our that was important to us so one thing that luke and I really loved is the way that you worked the actress

[00:42:52] ellen wong's personal information into her character you know the fact that she used to play the clarinet the fact that she speaks to you I was wondering were you able to do that with any

[00:43:02] other characters as well um not the not the personal character and not not that personal background you know I will say I will say that we spent a lot of time you know here's how we

[00:43:16] worked on the characters like let's say with um barbara and eric uh lang for their episode we spent a lot of time just discussing that that was a great experience we spent a lot of time

[00:43:29] discussing that script we would talk through the script we would read it a little bit we would ask questions why is my character saying this why is the character saying that we kind of

[00:43:41] talked that through right so that was all um positive I think with um Natasha with harmony you know we really felt she was kind of you know she had roles in season one but we loved

[00:43:57] we felt you know she was a star and we wanted to go to her more so we in season two we went to her you know dev was a character that originally dev was originally a character that was sort of written

[00:44:09] out of the show right and then we we um just love the actor yeah yeah we love the actor and brought them back and then there was a uh one of the actors um I think his name was prince his his um

[00:44:28] one of the actors uh who played one of the sabarans you know um you know was was uh an amputee and he was a poor guy had stuff in from uh station 11 yeah yes and and so

[00:44:49] so when you know he came in and read an audition I said well this is interesting because that says something about the sabarans if one of their folks had been in an accident and they cared for

[00:45:01] him and everything and he was able to kind of fit in so so so we we we kind of used his personal story there and kind of gave it to the character you know right to an extent so

[00:45:15] so I guess we did use that but really with Ellen you know we wanted to kind of think about well she was prepared to live in isolation um and so you know the idea of we asked do you play

[00:45:28] an instrument I think I forget what instrument we originally had and she said well I do play clarinet so so she's playing that's that's her playing that's not just her fingering I mean that's

[00:45:40] actually her recording and then we use that recording you know so so she she learned that piece and everything you know um she's speaking the language that she speaks with her family if I'm I hope I'm pronouncing it correctly called tia tchew and so that's a dialect

[00:45:59] that she speaks so we use that right um yeah yeah no that's that's really cool um and on the character is mine I'm sorry is my dog driving you crazy can you oh no no no it's fine I can

[00:46:12] barely hear it and yeah it's um listeners are used to hearing my cats so it's okay I apologize and my co-hosts have kids and yeah um but yeah iris was was definitely one of our favorite

[00:46:26] characters because she was so specific uh she's someone that I definitely want to know more about but I have a question from my co-host luke asked me to ask you how much melan is left in alice

[00:46:39] speaking of character uh that's interesting I I feel there's more melan than you would believe I believe joy would say that that that um melan was sort of um destroyed by alice that melan gave

[00:47:01] you know this was a conversation that we would have you know I I feel that a lot of the the show was about questions of humanity holding on to humanity so um but I I felt like the

[00:47:20] some of the things that were in the orager script for the last episode I think joy felt that perhaps um you know he still existed but but have been reduced to almost nothing

[00:47:34] right right I think there's a little bit more okay okay um and I have to ask am I to understand did ask her when we met her in the flashback she and her friend had started a kind of group

[00:47:47] and it sounded like there were a lot of different groups who were opposing what was going on with the qta in the military and everything um are we meant to understand that these groups formed

[00:47:57] into the column no I would I would say the column was probably um um a different group it could be that but I felt like the column was a uh a different group that started out and and sort of

[00:48:14] you know gained strength elsewhere I think this probably this uh splinter group that asked it was a part of was probably probably wiped out you know that that was something that was

[00:48:24] interesting that um I think it was in your podcast that you were very um really questioning the the the the double um cliffhangers oh well yeah I mean it wasn't I actually did not have a problem

[00:48:44] with the aster cliffhanger but that was one that I noticed divided people because for me I did say in the podcast um after that episode I was because there's back to back cliffhangers and I said I

[00:48:55] think they're going to pick up um with with uh the you know the present timeline the sabarans and I think that um yeah I don't really need to have aster's story continued personally because

[00:49:11] I just thought it you know this leads to her joining the qta I was glad to hear you clarified on in the interview with uh three hosting a beacon that this the timeline that this happened

[00:49:22] before she joined the qta so harmony wasn't with her yet that's why she wasn't there that's correct yeah so so so this was filling in a gap in her history and and uh and I didn't really see it as

[00:49:35] a cliffhanger you know what i'm saying I okay because I I thought it was very clear what comes next so so I didn't see it as a cliffhanger but I do think you know qta arrives you know

[00:49:48] uh you know she's arrested she goes she's brought it to qta she meets harmony and then later you know um she meets you know her friend I forget the friend's name or whatever so right so you go

[00:50:03] you go on that journey I believe that the the female pilot was probably imprisoned I think the prisoner they probably turned loose they probably did lock up the beacon keeper you know

[00:50:15] I think it's a cynical ending right um that sort of you know that was important because she's she's shifting from more she's shifting from idealism to the beacon keeper the the older beacon keeper

[00:50:35] cynicism because I do think that her character her her adult character is cynical you know and and sort of broken or whatever so I just felt like that was a piece there to fill out okay and

[00:50:52] speaking of cynicism uh dev now I was wondering so harmony took a little bit of a dark turn erasing dev but then she said to dev you will no longer be AI but Luke and I were wondering

[00:51:04] does that mean that dev might still exist in some form of I would want dev to exist I I I felt that was interesting and so how dev would change I would say dev probably changed in some type of

[00:51:19] some because a lot of the show is about adaptation too it's about resilience it's about that so so you can see so we don't really believe people die in a way you know what I mean or they move on

[00:51:33] where they change so I would say if we did another season I I would want to see dev again I thought that actor was terrific yeah why I thought dev was a lot of fun to watch as a character

[00:51:47] we call dev the walking HR violation but it just felt that like he um was personifying or you know in AI terms a character trait of you know someone who's just really desperate for love and we

[00:52:05] know real people like that so I saw real people in dev which I found very interesting yes in this like um but how how would you describe imprinting as working because it seems it seemed like

[00:52:18] obviously it worked differently for dev and harmony but I feel like that's a difference in mental health rather than technical terms yeah with the imprinting we just we just sort of felt

[00:52:29] like it was kind of you know some type of um psychic bond and we think like dev devs dark side sort of made dev a type of vampire we described okay yeah you know that makes sense yeah that's

[00:52:44] how it makes total sense yeah yeah and um the final forms that we see with harmony at the ends like are those real slivers or of the actual person like was it really asked or was it really

[00:52:58] Bart or are those reflections of uh those people in harmony I would say I would say it's some type of um reflection because I'm not exactly clear you know this was one of those things about

[00:53:13] what is that what is that netherworld space at the end where exactly are they where how is it happening um so I do think that it's in a way it's a type of the imprinting we right because

[00:53:27] we did say that harmony imprinted or had emotional connections with everybody so I would say that it has to do you know and to me the ending is is the ending clear did you did you get what

[00:53:41] the ending was I mean yeah I mean yeah so my interpretation of the ending and please correct me if I'm misinterpreting any of it is that so we have this kind of super being that's harmony

[00:53:53] with these reflections of other people let's say of these uh people she's bonded with and this creates a sort of more well-rounded complete being which is what the alien which I heard you

[00:54:05] called it the riff which is what they're called in the book um yeah that's the the riff wants someone uh they want someone that they can feel safe around which Luke and I found a little ominous

[00:54:18] too yes I mean it's it's it's you know eugenics it's it's that is not a good thing you know so so to say that to say that the what is olive seeking olive is seeking some kind of union

[00:54:34] or has achieved some kind of union with AI right and the question is AI versus humanity and you know and and you have different forms of that okay we see different forms part is one

[00:54:47] form harmony's another olives another dem's another so and we see different type types of humans so to to you know think about that the uh aliens so so if we say that the aliens that the alien the

[00:55:04] riffs are an ancient race who something went wrong okay so they're forced to you know maybe they were there was a war maybe they were you know maybe these are refugees themselves whatever they're

[00:55:16] hiding in this pocket universe okay and they're close you know this this they're close to the to the uh beacon they see what's going on and they realize okay we want contact maybe it's

[00:55:29] not sustainable to live in this pocket universe we want contact but if we contact any of these people they're going to eliminate us you know right so we have to sort of fuse them together and cherry pick

[00:55:43] the best qualities and evolve them in a way that we could have communion um yeah I think that's a very interesting interesting complex story you know that story does track over all of the two seasons

[00:55:58] um so uh I was I was very excited about that ending I think I think yeah that was no I was very excited about it too so of course we have to ask um is season three still on the table is there any

[00:56:13] why would like MGM plus talk about that I think they've been a great partner and stuff but I don't feel like I'm in a position to to respond to that I would love to do season three because

[00:56:24] you know I would love to I don't want to give anything away but there is more story right or would there be another possibility of a continuation if not like a comic book or something

[00:56:36] oh that's an interesting question um I could talk to Hugh about that that's actually interesting yeah that's interesting yeah it would be cool I have to give credit to Luke he's the one who requested

[00:56:46] that yeah that's actually a good idea I have to ask about Iris she seems to be the only one that wasn't really affected in any way by the artifact is there a reason for that or is she

[00:56:57] just not there long enough or is she too like yeah I think she just wasn't there she just wasn't there long enough yeah yeah okay and she has no personal history with it the other two but

[00:57:08] but you know if you feel like the artifact draws people there for a reason you know I would say that that would probably be what was Iris's role in it I would I would I would

[00:57:22] explore that in a future yeah I would love to also I would love to learn more about her background and you know what makes her so pathologically helpful like it just she seems

[00:57:33] like that's core to who she is well part of the thing was you know there was there was a version of the story there was a there was a version and I think there was a correction there

[00:57:47] I think Iris was needed if you look at some of the early episodes okay there was a lot of sniping between characters right okay so so so when you know the the the wreckers come in

[00:58:04] obviously they were banned the pirates and they're not going to be that kind to each other but it was just the tone was a lot of sniping you know when when um

[00:58:14] coley coley comes in there was a lot of sniping you know and so so there was always like that you know there were um so so I think we just felt like we had that tone covered right and

[00:58:28] we sort of needed a breath of fresh air which you know it was getting it was feeling it was feeling um in a way it was especially after you know the events of the second season premiere

[00:58:42] it was feeling very um you know literally everybody was at everybody else's throats so so we thought who's the last person who should be on the beacon right now right you know a force of good someone who bakes you know someone who does this someone who plays the

[00:59:03] clarinet you know like she's the last person that would show up okay let's throw her in there and see what happens you know I've to ask uh there was no uh GWB this season they were getting high on

[00:59:15] on it last season like they do in the books um I would have been curious how Iris would have reacted to that how do you think Iris would have reacted uh that's interesting I think she would

[00:59:28] have probably um you know how you have you have some people who who you know get drunk once or or you know try drugs and then they they kind of lose their mind and then they get scared and say

[00:59:45] that's not for me I think she'd be like that I think I think she she's not a you know I think she would be curious but then I think I don't think it would be good for her I don't think she would

[00:59:55] want to lose that much control she's not about losing control right okay okay um I have to ask a question from a friend of the pod stew a dupe 71 said um so he has a military background by the

[01:00:09] way and so he has questions about the military side of the world building he was wondering is this galaxy or this world this universe in a constant state of civil war or is it just isolated colonies with elements of dominant factions causing issues I would say it's the

[01:00:26] latter I would say it's yeah I would not say it's civil war we we purposefully did not want to have I think that's a science fiction trope the forces of good forces of evil you know we did not

[01:00:39] want this to be like foundation game of thrones in space we did not want a lot of opposing forces so we wanted sort of just a you know all of slow takeover and you have these pockets of ill-equipped

[01:00:53] resistance but um so it was definitely that okay okay okay and I have to ask for myself the the spores that you know got into hailing's brain and everything is that part of the rift

[01:01:08] aliens or is that like a something they use to communicate I would say that was that was something they used to communicate I don't think that was that was not like little alien spores or whatever I would say that that was something that they had you know that

[01:01:23] that came from the artifact it was all kind of the same color and all of that so I would say that that was a that was their technology in some way okay and if I'm not mistaken rocky

[01:01:34] looked different this season right more blue where did you see rocky in season two oh well the little bit I guess it wasn't necessarily rocky the thing that the rock that hailing had in the tin

[01:01:46] that he was carrying around so they got passed around a bit and then flew out that that is a piece that's supposed to be a piece that he he uh that's not rocky from season one that's

[01:01:57] supposed to be a piece of the artifact that that was in the airlock when he re-entered after jettison asked her into the artifact when he comes in the airlock's been punctured and there are there's material floating around right before he meets aloft in the final confrontation at 201

[01:02:19] so when he comes in and and so it's supposed to be like dust there and he's got a little piece of what he thinks is astra or something like that's what that's where that came from okay but I guess

[01:02:30] rocky probably rejoined the artifact he did yeah yeah we saw that when they open right the thing and rocky went out that makes sense um so luke also asked what's one thing that you would change in either season of the show um that's a great question I think

[01:02:56] I I think knowing where we end up I would look at some of the stuff in um there's an episode where there's there there's like the temperature is dropping right

[01:03:13] okay and then and then you have you know so the middle of season two right I think season two gets off to a strong start we introduce iris but then we have this this the temperature is dropping

[01:03:26] the subarons show up we have the we go back and do the astra flashback and then we have the military arriving so it's it's it's it's probably one too many curveballs in that thing I like the

[01:03:44] ending but it's it's probably you know so I guess if I was to do it over again I would probably well this is a great question so let's think about this part of the reason that the astra

[01:04:01] flashback exists right is to kind of reintroduce the concept of astra of yuh of astra because we know that lina was coming back for the finale right so we kind of wanted to put her on the audience's

[01:04:16] radar right that's one thing and we wanted to um I felt it was important to sort of establish um how this military treats us their soldiers with these false memories and that's right right okay

[01:04:37] so I'm not sure if the flashback was the best way to do that and with you know so so I like that episode or perhaps I like that episode okay so let's keep that episode so then I would look at

[01:04:54] the other pieces so so maybe you would move that flashback somewhere maybe you would move it elsewhere in the season but but let's say you don't so then I would I think the one thing I never really

[01:05:08] understood was the plasma and like the cold and and that stuff you know what I mean right you know what I mean so I didn't understand that like like who was generating that where was

[01:05:21] that coming from what was that about so I would kind of look at I would look at the material that's ramping up into the finale because I think the the finale is is emotional I think it's great

[01:05:34] to see lina's character back all of that you know it comes to a head and I do like the ending with the rebellion and the revelation but but I would say after iris's introduction just before you know

[01:05:50] those those episodes I would just I would just kind of want to I would I feel like we have kind of a cluster of mythology there and I'm not sure what the

[01:06:06] emotional through line is that we're asking the audience to go for that ride okay so I would I would want to kind of you know put those episodes back on the board and say what is the emotional

[01:06:19] story we're telling there right you know so so it's just that because I get it at the end and I get it here but then I sort of lose the thread a little bit so I'm being very candid

[01:06:31] you know you usually don't talk about something like that yeah no I very appreciate it yeah so I would just want to kind of look at that yeah it offers a lot of insight also to people just of the

[01:06:43] complicated decisions you have to make to to make these shows happen particularly with things like the with the strike involved in things like that but just in general how do you plan these

[01:06:53] things out it's so incredibly complex you know I'm working on a show now right which I'm not you know privy to say but my sons you know when they're in town okay the one lives in New York and

[01:07:10] the other ones actually working in Canada right now and then the third one is at school and and so when they're in town they two of them have come to my office and kind of sat in the

[01:07:23] writer's room yeah and they said they had no idea how much you discuss how much the writers discuss every scene is it this is about it could be thousands of times right you know what I mean

[01:07:35] it could be like the stuff does not just get thrown together so these conversations you know the the the different you know number of drafts I'm a big rewriter that kind of stuff I can't tell

[01:07:49] you how many different versions of the episodes I cut in season one you know let's try this way let's try that way that kind of stuff so so what's important is always you know what is the

[01:08:01] emotional impact we want to have on the audience and sometimes you know and and I think the intent of the show is to simplify this mythology keep a lot of it off screen and stay with these core

[01:08:15] characters but if you look at at some of season two you have a lot of mythology coming in the front door right so so maybe you know if if Ellen's character you know Iris was fresh eyes maybe

[01:08:32] kind of put her in the like I really do like in the samaritan episode where she and Helen have different viewpoints of what to do with the sabarans and and Dosto right like I like that kind

[01:08:44] of stuff okay what what you know what are they what are they trying to work out I I like that part of the show yeah absolutely well I think yeah the the relationships between the characters have been

[01:08:57] one of the strongest things about the show throughout yeah um I know you have a limited time left so I have two quick questions for you please one is if there is a season three or some

[01:09:11] other sort of continuation obviously the story will continue on the beacon itself but would there also be glimpses inside this pocket universe oh that's interesting um it could be that that's actually

[01:09:25] interesting yeah yeah maybe I'll steal that from you okay please do please do okay the last one is a super silly question uh Luke and I like to play this game called join jail jettison so I give you

[01:09:37] three characters and you say which one is going to be your companion in your space journeys which one needs to go to jail and which one's getting thrown out of the airlock okay great okay and assuming if

[01:09:49] they are AI that they can be thrown out the airlock so we've got aster halin aleph okay okay I think I would join aster I think she's resourceful and and I think I would join her I

[01:10:07] think I think I would um oh I don't know if I would who I would I would probably yeah I would probably jail halin and then you know of in case of emergency break glass and get him out of jail

[01:10:22] so okay and jettison you're pulling an aleph yeah and then and then I would jettison aleph just because he's clearly going to kill me at some point that's true that's true anyone who's not aleph will must

[01:10:35] die oh well thank you so much for for being game and for your openness and candidness during this is really so insightful with the show and with you know the work you do in general so

[01:10:49] well thank you so much this is really a lot of fun thank you for having me and that was my discussion with glenn matzah he wanted me to add that he really appreciates the

[01:10:59] care and attention to detail that fans have brought to the series so not only lucan i breaking it down but also you as listeners and all the thoughtful questions and insights and interest now i'll

[01:11:11] let you process what we discussed over a quick break and then lucan i will be back with our response and a couple final thoughts from the community for now so luc you got a chance to

[01:11:25] listen to my discussion with glenn matzah what did you think um i think the thing that struck me most was he's incredibly honest um doing these interviews because like the question i asked

[01:11:35] about what would you what would you change i thought you know he might sort of waffle on that a bit but i thought he was incredibly sort of open and honest about what he thought yeah

[01:11:47] and what he thought didn't um i thought the the discussion of the relationship between him and joy blake was really interesting in terms of you know bringing on almost an apprentice bringing on somebody who you know helping somebody sort of navigate their way through running a show which

[01:12:07] when you actually sort of sit down and read about these things it always sounds like a completely impossible job right for one person to do so i thought that was i thought that

[01:12:16] was really i thought that was really interesting um i thought the the discussion about um you know beacon 19 and cove it was was really striking because obviously isolation and loneliness are a

[01:12:33] theme of the show but i never really i never really thought about it in relation to to cove in 19 and yet when he said it's like oh yeah that that's that's completely off that's completely obvious but it's not something that's that sort of occurred to me um

[01:12:54] and we sort of talked about the the dream logic of the show and in our last episode but i thought it was really interesting that he was earlier this episode sorry earlier this so we're recording this in right so i'm getting a little bit confused um

[01:13:12] so yeah um we talked about the dream logic of the show i thought that was really interesting and almost like what he wanted the audience to take away from the show more than anything else

[01:13:22] was the vibe of it the feel of it rather than rather than the plot and it's like yeah i have to go back and watch both seasons because it's just you know it's one of those things you get out

[01:13:35] of the show what you bring to it and i'm very sort of i tend to watch shows in a very plot orientated way i'm not very good at watching things like um more holland drive or something like i remember

[01:13:49] the first time i went peaks or something like pie the down and out of ski no one can remember a friend of mine showing that to me and all i got was really irritate was really irritated by

[01:13:59] essentially what was going on um so yeah like i have a i have a sort of tendency to watch shows to watch movies for plot rather than rather than the atmosphere the medium center of the thing but

[01:14:15] yeah i thought i thought that i thought that was i thought that was really interesting um i like the fact you're gonna go and talk to um how are we about um whether we could

[01:14:25] whether they could still follow up a graphic novel if they don't get another series so if there is a graphic novel i want acknowledgement yes i want acknowledgement in that um but yeah i thought that the i thought the discussion was really interesting it's it's incredibly nice of

[01:14:42] him to give over that much time to you know just our podcast about his work it's i thought it was incredibly generous of him yes yeah absolutely definitely i really appreciate it really appreciate his openness um i really i enjoyed talking about the delicate art of show

[01:15:00] running in general and i i hope that it gives people a little extra perspective uh when thinking about television in general because you know when talking about it doesn't have to be an adaptation but when talking about any tv show i think often fans are not realistic about

[01:15:19] the challenges and the budget and the time and you know especially when extra wrenches are thrown into the works um like uh like strikes or actors leaving you know uh it's yeah and i also appreciated

[01:15:33] you and i've talked a lot about on this podcast about how we really like to see the old guard bringing up the new guard under their wings in terms of especially writing and directing

[01:15:45] we've talked about a lot so it's yeah it's good to hear that he has this relationship with joy Blake yeah um and i thought like the the other thing about that was the writer strike that must be

[01:15:58] absolutely agony if you're a showrunner because it's like yeah the idea the idea that the idea that other people are working on my show my material but i can't see or do have anything to do with

[01:16:12] that that must and that must be so that must be so difficult and like glen bizarre is obviously not alone in that but that would drive me absolute that would drive me absolutely insane that would

[01:16:25] be right that must be really difficult yeah exactly yeah and so i'm glad to hear that he was he's very happy when he came back with uh with what they came back with and you know he talked

[01:16:35] specifically about that creature design which i think turned out great um and by the way you were right about the them being reflections of harmony in the end yeah yeah i did do a little

[01:16:49] like first listen to this one i did do a little like fist bump score do you important question here do you agree with his join jail jettison or would you have gone a different route no i think i would

[01:17:04] i think i would have i think i would have gone with it you can't you can't not like you say you've got to have the breaking case of emergency jettison for alice like alice i'd like to have a

[01:17:14] breaking case of emergency halens in jail yeah i'm sorry yes um yeah like this is the thing i'd like to have a conversation with alice but i'd like to know that i can switch him off at any

[01:17:27] point because i find alice a fascinating character but he's clearly gonna try and kill me at some yeah yeah i guess if you could jail alice is that even possible yeah it's not even possible

[01:17:41] so i um i saw some news that's potentially worrying uh that you know obviously glenn mitzar didn't want to go into the what mgm might be saying or planning behind the scenes in terms

[01:17:57] of renewal but there was something that popped up on reddit about a prop sale in toronto and so when i went and looked at it and um it is does have a bunch of beacon 23 props in it like it has the

[01:18:12] the 3d printer it has um some of the spacesuits that they were wearing so i don't know if that means anything there's also a bunch of stuff in the expanse from the expanse in there too um

[01:18:24] so i don't know if that means anything but just pointing it out it's it's looking grim so i hope i hope we do get that comic book or something like that that would be fun yeah i mean we were

[01:18:35] kind of always operating on the assumption it would be too easy it would be two seasons and and i think i i think i think i think reading between the lines i think everybody in the

[01:18:46] show was kind of operating on that assumption as well not that they didn't i mean there's no guarantees at least beyond that yeah yeah i mean i feel okay personally now with this being the end

[01:19:00] this transcendence though yeah again i'll keep my fingers crossed for some sort of written continuation if that manages to happen how are you feeling though about this no i'm sorry i want

[01:19:11] to know i want to know what the riff what i know what i want to know what the riff want to say i want to know what the message is i'm i'm with i'm with i'll let for this one i want

[01:19:20] to know i want to know what i want to know what the message is okay okay fair but did the conversation with glemantzara reframe any of your thoughts about the show um it did in the sense

[01:19:33] that like i say he seemed like and i'm not saying i'm not saying this is a bad thing in any way i you just seem more invested in the vibes and the themes of the show rather than the

[01:19:46] rather than the sort of linear plot of it and yeah i think if i go back and watch beacon 23 i think particularly probably um the earlier episodes i think it's probably it would probably worthwhile

[01:19:59] to watch them you know with that in mind rather than uh rather than sort of focusing on the you know the who why what of the plot because yes he wasn't showrunner in season one but

[01:20:13] he was like he was heavily involved in the interview he was doing a lot of the editing for her so yeah yeah um well shall we we have a couple quick final thoughts from the community

[01:20:25] shall we check in with them absolutely the quantum timer has new messages so first of all i have to shout out to um at han wagu 99 67 who commented on um the video on youtube who said i think you

[01:20:44] both have it wrong about our about what we said about the finale i think you both have it wrong the main character has actually been harmony if you view harmony as the main character it all

[01:20:55] makes more sense what do you think actually i i think i think that i think there's some truth in that i think harmony is definitely the main character for season two right and so the glum

[01:21:08] that's sort of hinted at this that you know they've sort of seen Natasha Mumba's work in season one and thought you know she was the real sort of breakout star of the show so they were gonna

[01:21:18] they were gonna have a bigger role for her in season two so i i think that's definitely true of season two i don't think it's true in season one i think as there is the the star in

[01:21:30] in you know the main protagonist in the first season yeah i mean i have to say from the perspective of a writer when when you write it often emerges that something else is the case and you might find

[01:21:45] out as you're writing a novel or something like that that the main character is not who you initially thought it was so i interpret it like that so maybe they didn't think harmony was the

[01:21:55] main character in the first season but when they looked back on the first season and how it connects into the second season and everything together then they're like oh wait actually it's been harmony

[01:22:05] all along i think a lot of that has to do with Natasha Mumba's performance particularly like the subtlety of her performance because right she's trying to like convey you know she's trying to particularly in season one she's trying to convey sort of strong emotion while at the

[01:22:23] same time being this this ai that isn't meant to that isn't meant to feel strong emotions or i think i think i think in the hands i think in the hands of a different actor harmony's role could have gone in could have gone in very different directions so

[01:22:39] prox to Natasha Mumba for that yeah no i agree i think her versatility you know as you said the way she can the way she can convey the emergence of emotion basically you know where

[01:22:53] as you said she can do that snap to that blank ai state but then also at the same time in between that she's struggling with like wait is this anger that i feel is a sadness what what is this

[01:23:06] oh this these emotions are rough work or whatever she said to after at the end yeah all right shall we check in with due for his last thoughts so stew aka doof 71 said finally got to watch the end of the season both myself and the good lady

[01:23:23] Shelley agreed that it's been a bit of a mixed bag this season some seeming jumps to get us to the end weird choices by protagonist characters introduced that didn't help drive the narrative

[01:23:32] forward and why have that episode with young aster well i think yeah the episode with young aster now has been discussed with length so i hope stew let us know if you are satisfied with that discussion with that answer stew continues with the short season i felt the

[01:23:48] writing needed to be tight but for some reason it felt a bit meandering yeah we also discussed that in the interview i may feel differently after a bit of a ponder but my predominant feeling at the moment

[01:23:59] is uh that i preferred season one i don't i don't know that it might i mean stew your entire obviously entitled to your opinion but i've never i've never because they were shot back

[01:24:14] to back and because the gap between the two seasons was so short i've never seen i've never really seen beacon 23 is having two seasons i've always sort of thought a bit more as a sort of

[01:24:28] 16 episode right single season run to be honest right and it's strange to think that big even though it does have different show runners i never got and i think this speaks to the

[01:24:41] level of corporation and collaborative working i never really felt like there was a huge shift in tone um between season one and there were some tweaks because matzara and blake were involved

[01:24:55] in season one heavily too so that makes it you know yeah and they saw it across the finish line season one so yeah they're really the ones who kept it but yeah i've never i've never really

[01:25:05] i've always sort of thought of it as sort of a 16 episode single seasonal always thought of it sort of one season with a little break in the middle rather than two seasons no i i agree when i look back on these two seasons or

[01:25:22] one two-part season however you want to think of it um i do i can't say i prefer one over the other i do have favorite episodes within that like uh i said in the interview

[01:25:32] the bar rehearsing episode i've always said is one of my favorites um from this season i especially loved the uh the purgatory the qta headquarters and the iris introduction episodes i also really liked the i would say that the flashback i uh young aster episode was a favorite

[01:25:51] of mine too have i got have i got favorite episodes um again this is possibly because of how i watched it because i tended to watch them in like you know two episodes back to back or three

[01:26:07] episodes back to back um but i never really thought of it as an eight and i think because it's is sort of telling you one story over two seasons i never really thought of it in episodic um i

[01:26:19] never really thought of it in episodic terms either to be honest but again i think that has a lot to do with how i was watching it because i wasn't watching them as you know one episode

[01:26:30] a week i was watching them as you know two episodes back to back or three episodes back to back um so it's actually quite difficult to work out well i i know what happened but actually like putting

[01:26:44] different events in different episodes is actually quite difficult to stop and think yeah yeah okay well do you have any final thoughts about the series that stands overall i mean i would like whether it be season three whether it be a graphic novel whether it be

[01:27:04] uh you know made for what used to be called made for tv movie is really on demand thing i would like some sort of continuation of it because i think like as glenn mitzara was saying

[01:27:14] in the interview you know there are there is story left there there is story left there to tell i think in terms of did it did it did it achieve what glenn mitzara wanted to achieve or what he was

[01:27:30] explaining in that interview yes i think it did i think it it really did tap into those themes of loneliness and isolation and the idea that um you know the idea that what makes what makes life worth living ultimately as other people and the relationships

[01:27:50] you have with them um i think it did that well i think i would be interested to see a version of beacon 23 that had a bigger budget than this had because yeah he's as he said they did have a

[01:28:07] bigger budget than you might expect because there was a lot of CGI especially with the space yeah but i think the bigger budget point is i'd like to see more of i'd like to see more of the

[01:28:18] universe i'd like i mean i'm not sure that that's what this show is because and i say this with a book bias because the book is very much like it's about the beacon and the people who start by

[01:28:29] the beacon and what happens in this random outpost in the universe um i mean that that was a question i had for you as the book reader of the two of us because at the beginning of

[01:28:41] that interview glomatsaro talks about the the process of the patent yeah the author's intent in the process of adaptation so we've said basically from the first episode of the podcast that the the tv series takes you know huge you know goes off in different directions from the book

[01:28:59] but do you think it stayed true to huhowie's intent yes i mean i think i mean i think um huhowie said that as well he's like well this is more interested in exploring AI than his book was

[01:29:13] AI is not it just yeah there happens to be AI helping um helping the book version of hayland run the beacon but it's not this major character like in the show so that's

[01:29:25] something in the book at it but i think what glomatsaro meant with that is this idea of it being a sort of almost uh dreamy anthology of stuff that happens in this uh yeah this outpost

[01:29:40] in the universe and then the show added some more to that like like the artifact instead of there just being rocky there's the artifact um but it's right like i said is wrapping back

[01:29:50] around where aliens called the rift have just shown up so now i do wonder if if they continued if they might end up with the same ending as the book which again i'm not going to

[01:30:03] ruin that ending right here if anyone wants to know what that ending is well i recommend reading the book or you can listen to the breakdown of the book that abby and i did in the book club

[01:30:15] okay um so have you got any final thoughts on have you got any final thoughts on the show um yeah i mean i am i'm feeling satisfied with where it is of course i want more but like you

[01:30:31] know if that doesn't happen i have come to terms with that um i think this was a good little jaunt into space i loved the cast i loved i mean of course it's always great to see liana heady lina

[01:30:45] but um it's also like i got to know uh some new actors that i'm going to be looking out for in other projects to come so very excited about that um do you think you'll read the book now

[01:31:00] no yeah i pulled a bit i pulled a bit of a face probably probably not because and that there's no reflection on you howie but like because i've seen the show before i've

[01:31:14] read the book i think i'd be constantly trying to impose the show i think i'd constantly try to impose the show on the book but the book does give you an ending if you're okay okay maybe maybe then

[01:31:27] maybe i recommend it it's only like i said it's only 180 pages like you can read it in a couple days okay um all right well with that our beacon 23 coverage comes to a close for now at least

[01:31:42] for the silo fans we'll be back in august with an update about what we learn at san diego comic con and in the meantime stay subscribed for dune uh we're going to be covering first the book in four parts

[01:31:54] so the book is divided into three parts so we're going to cover each of those separately and then have a fourth part where we uh go over everybody's rankings for the most iconic scenes from dune

[01:32:04] i love this because it started out with two parts then it's gone to three parts now it's yeah it's gone to four i realized by trying to like make these book episodes one thing i'm just

[01:32:14] creating more work and stress for myself so like let's let's just yeah if if um if frank herbert wrote it in three separate parts yeah we're gonna review it in three separate parts yeah author

[01:32:27] intent yeah uh and i think actually david might be joining that for us for that so yeah stay tuned we'll know david from the lorhounds for anyone who might not know and um yeah if you enjoyed this if

[01:32:40] you enjoy what we do in this podcast in general it's always a massive help if you can share this with any friends who might enjoy it if you can leave any five star reviews wherever you're listening

[01:32:50] and we also definitely want to hear from you directly now you can email the podcast at wool shift dust podcast at gmail.com you'll find that link in the show notes and luke where can

[01:33:01] they find you so they can find me at atleast middip on twitter and the same handle on blue sky i also record another podcast called it could be said with simon alvey and will cooling to

[01:33:14] friends of mine from college uh we talk about british politics we talk about culture we talk about sport obviously we're doing a lot of politics in the moment because the uk is in the

[01:33:25] midst of a general election so we're recording the next episode i think this afternoon that's sunday the 23rd of june um so yeah that should be out monday monday or tuesday

[01:33:39] okay and you can find me at a lesia cb on all kinds of social media i've been getting more involved on threads uh there's uh some good conversation going on there but yeah you

[01:33:50] can find me on twitter and blue sky and uh all the stuff and um yeah you'll find all these links in the show notes including the book club where the second shift is so the second part of the book

[01:34:04] shift which is the second book in the silo series um the breakdown for that is going to be out in the book club shortly a couple days after this and this episode was produced by me and published

[01:34:15] by the lorehounds where on the lorehounds feed you can also find uh house of the dragon full coverage is going on now and you can um sign up for a season pass if you want extra uh weekly

[01:34:28] episodes a drop right after the episode comes out and also a show guide that john and david have made and you'll also find me on the episodes on the lorehounds covering dr who weekly breakdowns of the acolyte and there's also an mc universe episode that just came out

[01:34:47] where john and i talk about marvel news and uh x-men and we rank all of the fox marvel movies from worst to best no points for guessing which we both had known as number one yeah oh just just

[01:35:01] to say while you were talking about the acolyte um the not the not episode four but episode three um one of the one of the one of the witches was somebody i followed on social media for a really

[01:35:17] long time uh woman called uh abigail thorn who um her youtube channel is something called philosophy tube okay uh and she does it's basically a breakdown of um different philosophers and their work

[01:35:36] um and it's really it's really cool because it started out as these little 10 minute youtube shorts and it got more and more popular and now they're like these hour long production with costumes

[01:35:49] um and special effects and yeah um and she's also she's a she's a trans woman and she's spoken very publicly and very movingly on her platforms about that experience so yeah it was

[01:36:04] leo point yeah she's only got like three lines i can't tell them but it's like leo point massive leo pointing me it's not like i know her it's like it's yeah it's the obvious like

[01:36:15] peris social relationship but it was right it was really cool just get that's happening well thank you for pointing that out because obviously you know the trolls are mad that there's somebody trans in

[01:36:26] the cast but on on the plus side so this is the first trans woman or trans actor i guess i don't we don't know anything about the character but uh this is the first trans woman who's in a speaking

[01:36:37] role on star wars so uh i did not yeah i did not know about the youtube stuff though so yeah like check check it out that the youtube channel is philosophy tube if you have a nebula

[01:36:49] membership as well she's on there and i would recommend if you've got the choice watch it on nebula because there are extras and it's the kind of thing that works better without adverts

[01:37:01] to break up the flow of it so yeah if you have a nebula membership use that as well okay um yeah so in addition to the acolyte coverage on the star wars canon timeline podcast and the bonus

[01:37:15] episode that recently released for the canon padawan supercast and the lar hownds patreon and supercast subscribers there will also be another episode coming next week on the public the star wars canon timeline podcast feed for star wars fans or for just the star wars curious

[01:37:32] because this one is i'm jumping back to the very beginning of the timeline and i'm going to be talking about two canon ancient myths in the star wars universe set before 30 000 bby linked to the planet

[01:37:45] of batu so these are from a difficult to find canon book of myths that i recently finally got my hands on and i'm going to break down these two myths for the curious what they contain and what

[01:37:56] they mean for the wider lore oh just to say one more thing about abby because it came out on her feet she's also going to be an abby is we don't mean our abby we mean yeah that's right

[01:38:05] abby from abigail althorn yeah uh yeah she's also going to be in hot day she is oh okay she's playing um so something to do with the try something to do with the triarchy although she's been very

[01:38:17] tight-lipped about what exactly okay yeah a character associated with the triarchy oh i like to see it thriving yeah i also want to shout out the other affiliates on the lorhounds network so

[01:38:32] rings and rituals is just wrapping up the season one recap of rings of power prepping for season two which begins in august and radioactive ramlings is in the middle of their weekly the boys coverage

[01:38:45] plus they are also continuing their episodes about fallout lore for people who want more context for that show in those games and also properly howard just finished their felonies and fugazi season so funny movie reviews you don't have to watch the movies uh just enjoy yourself

[01:39:02] and please do join us on our discord to discuss all of this and a whole bunch more things luke do you have any final words no i think that's it all right well we'll be back with

[01:39:15] more dune coverage soon right after we synthesize our consciousnesses so that we become less threatening to a jellyfish-like race of interdimensional aliens this summer we enter a new era of star wars

[01:39:48] you mean the dawn of the star wars canon timeline podcast yeah yeah sure that too but i was obviously talking about the acolyte we've got to cover that on the lorhounds oh but the star wars canon

[01:39:59] timeline podcast is exactly at that point in the timeline the end of the high republic 100 years before the prequel trilogy we've got to cover it there why not both okay deal it's the first live

[01:40:13] action star war outside the skywalker saga nobody can miss this listeners kick off your hot lore summer weekends with seem by seam breakdowns of the acolyte found in both the star wars canon timeline podcast and the lorhounds mother feed and the lorhounds star wars feed wherever you like

[01:40:31] to listen a couple of days after each new episode is released