The Liam Neeson and Pamela Anderson Love Story

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Hello, and welcome to this episode of The Restors Entertainment with me, Marina Hyde.

And me, Richard Osman.

Hi, Marina.

Hello, Richard.

How are you?

I'm all right.

Welcome back to the country.

I know.

I'm so glad I'm in the studio with you.

That makes me very happy.

Do you have a nice tan?

Thank you.

I begged you not to mention it.

And other than that, how's things been in my absence?

Big news.

Very big news.

Listen, we talked on the podcast podcast last year.

I think it was over a year ago when I went through all the numbers and we worked out that

in the whole of this decade, only three bands had had number one singles because solo artists absolutely dominate the charts.

And in the whole of the decade, it was only Little Mix, the Radio One Live Lounge, All-Stars, and the Beatles were the only actual bands to have had number one singles.

But we now have a fourth to join that canon, a fourth.

And they are, of course, Hunt Tricks from K-pop Demon Hunters.

Very much the thing everybody is talking about.

Golden by Huntrix is now number one.

Listen, I accept they're a cartoon band, and I accept the Beatles are no longer going, and I accept that Radio One Live Lounge All-Stars is not a real group as well.

So it's still just little mix, really.

But it's nice.

Nice to have a band at number one.

That movie has done so unbelievably well.

It's like more in its sixth week than it was in week one for Netflix.

But they did put it on in theaters for about 15 minutes.

So that Golden can be Oscar winning.

An Oscar-winning song.

You know, if you've got kids since the start of the holidays, plenty of people would have seen K-pop demon hunters 40 times.

Yeah, some of the bazillions of views are not actually my daughter, but only very few, I think.

What are we talking about this week other than history being made in the UK singles charts?

Well, in a heartwarming turn of events.

We've got good news for one.

Of course, in a darkening world.

Best news.

I want to talk about the romance between...

Ms.

Pamela Anderson and Mr.

Liam Neeson.

I mean, it's funny, whoever you mention it to, everyone just immediately melts.

Yeah, it's it's heaven, and we're going to talk about that.

A huge show, Wednesday, returns on Wednesday.

It's got one of those sort of fascinating stars.

We're going to talk about who is Jenna Ortega.

We sometimes do these sort of bluffers' guides, don't we, to the biggest new stars, and she is one of the biggest new stars in the world.

So, if you don't know her, you will by the end of this podcast, I promise.

I'm also going to take us through the runners and riders.

Every single channel is trying to create their own version of the traitors.

That's what's happening in British television at the moment.

I'm going to go through what each channel is doing and their chances of winning.

and we're going to hang that off the back of Destination X, which is the BBC's attempt to follow up the traitors, which started this week.

Without further ado, we had Liz Hurley and Billy Rose Iris, but the random romance generator has thrown up a quite delectable pairing in the form of the co-stars of the new Naked Gun movie, which opened this weekend and did pretty well.

For a comedy, it did amazingly well.

Liam Neeson and Pamela Anderson.

The Tom Holland and Zendaya of our generation.

I want to say Liamala.

Are people saying Liamala?

I haven't seen Liamala, but I think we should start saying it.

I say Pamum.

Pamum.

We'll get into a very deep dive on this in a minute.

I thought you would.

The moment I heard they were a couple, firstly, I thought good for both of them.

I did think I know someone who wanted to do a very deep dive on that.

It's like when Rory Stewart hears this Trouble in the Balkans.

You know, you think, oh, here we go.

It's exactly like that.

Because we want to enjoy, I mean, I I don't want to say we want to enjoy Trouble in the Balkans.

We certainly don't, but we certainly want to enjoy our celebrity romances, don't we?

We really, we want there to be a bit of fun in this crappy world.

And I tell you what else we want.

We want charm in public life.

There is such a distinct absence of charm in public life.

And truth in public life, if you like.

Something that seems very real.

Oh, yeah, because this is not a showmance.

These two don't really know what a showmance is.

They're not those sort of people.

What we want with these romances is it to be so completely shocking that you're like, sorry, what?

They're together.

But also to be something that within about a week we can say, well, of course it was perfect and we always knew.

As soon as you see them, you think, oh, yes, of course.

Oh, but of course.

Oh, my God.

Well, because actually both have sort of borne these awful tragedies or traducements in their personal lives.

They have both have got that same sort of slightly, but particularly sorry, because it's such a radical act, Pamela Anderson's decision not to wear makeup.

Isn't it amazing how that is seen seen as a radical act?

It shows what's happened to our culture, that it seems shocking that someone allows herself to age in a normal fashion.

Yeah, and that

there's like no one.

And I mean, there was an interesting interview with Jamie Lee Curtis the other weekend where she was talking about, I mean, she called it a sort of genocide of women.

I wouldn't necessarily use that particular term, but she,

by the cosmeceutical industry, the cosmeceutical

cosmeceutical industrial complex, she called it.

Okay.

And actually, the Hollywood Reporter, I I think it's this week, have got like a cover story on all the different work, the modern work that people are having done.

Can I do a super quick Jamie Lee Curtis sidebar?

Because I think it'll be of interest to listeners.

Apparently, she's going to be Jessica Fletcher in a new run of Murder She Wrote.

I saw this.

I knew someone who'd be very, very interested in that.

Very interested.

I mean, she's phenomenal, and it's brilliant what's happened.

So, yeah, so Liamela, both of them had this kind of austere by choice.

They've borne these things nobly, and and life has happened to them, and it's kind of written on their faces, which, as we've just said, women are not allowed to have anything written on their faces.

But there is a real earnestness to them, and actually, that really fits the roles.

Because as this, the New Naked Gun is produced by Seth McFarlane, who did that sort of comedy spaghetti weston with Liam Neeson for.

He's done very little comedy, actually.

But what he does in comedy is to play it completely straight.

That's what the genius of the Zotazucker Brothers films is that it's people playing these very silly scenes.

Well,

that's what Leslie Nielsen did.

Leslie Nielsen was a straight actor, and in airplane, they cast him because he'd only ever played those roles before.

And, you know, by and large, he, well, Police Squad, which started the Naked Gun franchise, again, they bought him in because they knew that you don't play any of the jokes, which is what Liam Nielsen does brilliantly in the new Naked Gun.

You wouldn't know there was a single joke in the whole film, the way he plays it, which is perfect, and he's so good at doing.

Like he did the RUC Officer in Derry Girls.

Yes, yeah.

And he's an ex-just as well.

He did an amazing turn in Exodus when he said he wanted to start doing comedy.

And he's hilariously funny in his unfunniness when he talks about not wanting to do comedy.

Anyway, so he's, we love Liam Neeson.

What we also love is that they'd sworn off romance, which is so, you know, hi, am I in a Jane Austen novel?

He said last year, only last year, he said, no, I'm past all of that.

And, I mean, she's had a number of husbands.

And

I think she made it very clear that she just was interested in doing her garden and things like that nowadays.

They've both got sons of almost the same age.

The sons are very devoted and obviously Liam Neeson had this terrible tragedy where his wife Natasha Richardson died in a skiing accident in I think 2009.

And we all know the tragedies of Pamela's life which are really...

There's something particular about her that is a sort of turbocharged Americano.

She'd had very difficult childhood with abuse and terrible stories of rape and all these sorts of things.

But she was discovered on a jumbotron at a football game.

Really?

It was a a look that kind of met the male gaze fairly unflinchingly.

And when they

saw it and they were and she was almost famous by half-time.

She was down there doing the Lebatz got her, the beer bank got her down and she was doing something already.

And then she did Playboy.

Her book is brilliant, by the way.

Some of the anecdote, she's very, very generous about some of the things that have happened to her, but all the stuff that happens at the Playboy mansion is basically untranslatable to a modern era.

and you just think it was barely translatable then we always sort of pretend that was a different time but even then that was unacceptable she sort of has always I don't want to say driven but men have behaved as a particularly in a particularly sort of feral and unpleasant version of themselves in her presence it's like they found gold in the old west yeah yeah Tim Allen, she said, on the first day of home improvement, flashed her.

He says he didn't.

But she said, she just, she says it's one of many encounters where people felt they knew me well enough to make absolute fools out of themselves she's very gracious scott bio um he inspects her toes and ears at the playboy mansion before sort of making a move on her but then um he gets in trouble with his family because she's allowed to drive his mercedes convertible it's also sort of pathetic even like tom ford not really his finest out puts her in a corset and says now you've got no organs you must never leave the house again without you know not being in a corset yeah comes liam on a on a white horse he just needs her to be who she is but well it's not then along comes liam is it Because what happens?

She marries Tommy Lee.

If you want to read a book about a particular corner of the music industry, read Motley Crew The Dirt.

Oh, it's one of the greatest books of all time.

It's amazing.

And I think the New York Times review, which I think may be on the cover of the old one that I have, is utterly compelling and completely revolting.

And it's fair.

It's a great, great holiday reading if you're looking for something to read on that.

Tommy Lee, the drummer in Motley Crew, sees Pamela Anderson and she says it's as if she was in a black spotlight and he goes goes over to her and licks her face.

Classic first moment.

Yeah, well, you know, not much longer, much later, they're getting married on a beach and, you know, she's in a bikini and I think he only weds and swimwear, Tommy Lee, because I seem to remember some pictures of him and Heather Locklear.

And her, I think they married him.

He married Heather Locklear as well.

Yeah.

But then the sex tape comes, is stolen and it really was stolen.

But she instantly realizes that it will be a horrendous thing for her and her career and it will stop her career completely.

Even though, you know, she'd done papers, papers she'd done all these things and it will be great for him yeah which is as it as it proved it was one of those things it's a bit like monika lowinski now that is something that at the time like it was just jokes all the time about it in the same way that monika lowinski was particularly late night it was just sort of every night for months and months and and then

now you just think i don't understand how they couldn't see that that was whatever.

And all of us were, you know, lots of us were involved in that and just thinking it was a sort of joke.

You're not really fully understanding because you didn't have the...

Yeah, very few people question.

We don't question very much about the world around us most of the time.

We think we're constantly questioning, but actually, we're questioning the waves.

We're never questioning the tides.

And those are the things we're born on, aren't they?

I think that's a very good way of putting it.

Yeah, and it became this terrible thing for her.

And they were actually thinking, she was going to sue at the time, but she said the depositions were such a nightmare of the way what she was forced to go through by

the lawyers.

And she was pregnant.

She'd already had a miscarriage and she thought she'd have another one.

one, so she couldn't go through with it in the end.

It's really interesting, actually, that Hulu series, which I watched some of it, had a chance to be a revisionist version of what that moment was like.

I basically played it as a comedy.

I think, actually, Lily James wrote an apology letter, which Pamela Anderson says she's never opened

or didn't open.

I actually retains it to read later.

They really did it so badly, I think, and they just didn't know what they wanted to be with it.

It could have been very interesting, but it wasn't.

And then she became quite a sort of radical, and she became, you know, she got caught up with sort of of Vivian Westwood and different forms of activism and she did lots for Peter.

And she actually, I mean, she was a point where she had befriended Julian Assange.

Do you remember?

In and out of the embassy wasn't.

Well, now he certainly made it seem as though

something was happening.

That was his attempt, I think, at a showmance.

Yeah, because at the time, I think she was either married to or dating somebody like the centre-back for Marseille.

And I remember thinking, you're lucky you're in your little Ecuadorian self-imposed hidey hole, aren't you?

Because Because I don't think he's going to love this.

I can see what you're doing, and he's not going to love it.

The centre back for Marseille.

But anyway.

And that's, by the way, a West End play in three or four years' time is Pamina Randson visiting Julian Assange in a tiny room in the Ecuadorian embassy.

Yes.

Yeah, I mean, it could be.

But actually, the most radical thing she did was, as you say, was that two or three years ago, she said, I think she was in Paris and she was getting ready for some party and she thought, well, I could actually sit in a makeup chair for the billionth time in my life for three hours.

Or I could just go to the Louvre and I think I'll do that.

But it's become so completely radical, the fact that she doesn't wear makeup and or she wears sort of minimal makeup.

She said to Vogue Paris: if we all chase youth, then we're only going to be disappointed and maybe a little bit sad.

And it's become this sort of extraordinary thing.

Almost as a result of that, or as part of the sense that she was sort of shedding everything that had gone before, she was offered this script for the last showgull.

In fact, one of her sons, Brandon Lee, not that one, insisted that she look at it.

She took the role and she was nominated for a Golden Globe.

I mean, it's a lovely story, isn't it, right?

All that was needed to sew a button on it was love.

Yeah.

The love of a real man.

Well, what we really, I mean, we wanted Leslie Nielsen and Priscilla Presley because, again, she was someone to whom a lot of life had happened in the original Naked Gun.

But that age difference would have been too much, Leslie Nielsen and Priscilla Presley.

You're right, it would have been.

It's sort of all blurred now and I can't quite remember.

You're right.

A lovely age-appropriate relationship.

What is she?

58 and he's 72, something Something like that?

Oh, is that right?

I think so.

Oh, okay.

I thought he was a good idea.

Oh, right.

You're going to be

a gender police that age gap, are you?

Well, I don't understand it.

I think age gaps are allowed to get older as you get older.

I think whatever the algorithm is, I think a 14-year age gap when you're 72 is different to a 14-year age gap when you're 27.

Oh, yeah.

I mean, I think we're both on that.

Well, once again, you found something on which we can entirely agree.

Because otherwise, your partner would be, what, 41?

But what's great about this is that they're still out there on the red carpet and doing all the...

Oh, my God, Naked gun must be over the moon about that.

Can you imagine?

It is an amazing film I have to say as well.

So that is that's did you see it?

Yeah, yeah, that's part of the good news story.

It's a film people say, oh,

why are they having to remake Naked Gun?

For goodness sake, I have a new idea.

Well, the first Naked Gun was 38 years ago.

They're allowed to do a sequel after 38 years.

Well, it's a franchise.

You can't get a comedy in cinemas.

You just can't get one in.

So you can if it's got what they would regard as you know established IP.

When you look at the numbers, it skews incredibly old.

And when I say incredibly old, it's like 33% over 45s, which doesn't sound like anything, but actually, for movies these days, it's extraordinary because it's a young person's game, movies.

And so, this is this is appealing to an older audience, and it's not bringing the kids into the cinemas, which I think is a shame because, like, I can't think of a kid who wouldn't love this film in the same way that it was for kids when it came out in the first place.

Now, it's for people who were kids who are now adults.

It's Gen X to take Gen R for kids too.

Exactly.

And Liam Leeson and Pounder Anderson is not a great romance for anyone under 25.

They're literally sitting in the back of cars now going, what are you talking about?

Who on earth do you mean?

For people of our generation, it's a great movie.

For people who've got younger kids, just take them, not seven-year-olds, but it's a really, really, really stupid, funny movie,

like in the good old days.

It's made by Paramount.

It will make money enough.

But it's hard.

Yes, it will, because I think it only costs 42 million or something.

It's hard to get any comedy movie into.

And I mean, this has happened.

They were going to do this for streaming.

It was going to go, I think, onto Paramount Plus, as I remember it.

But obviously, once these two became attached, then you can put it in cinemas.

But it's very, very hard to have a straight comedy in the film theatre, obviously.

Well, the funny thing is, that's the...

Happy Gilmore 2 did not go there.

It didn't, but it's a great film.

I won't hear.

I'm not going to have another anti-Happy Gilmore 2 rant

because I think it was one of the great movies of 2025.

But interestingly, even back in 1982, it was hard to get Naked Gun into the cinemas because Zucker, Abram, Zucker, who were the people behind Airplane and everything, they came up with Police Squad, which turned into Naked Gun.

They came up with it as...

a film.

They wanted it to be the follow-up to Airplane.

But Michael Eisner, who we mentioned an awful lot, said, you don't really have a story here.

It's just a sort of series of episodes.

He says, so I'll commission it as a TV series for you.

So he commissioned six episodes of Police Squad.

And again, if you've got kids who have not seen Police Squad and have a certain sensibility and sense of humor, that is a great thing to find on streaming.

There are only six episodes of Police Squad.

They only put out four.

It was like a late summer replacement.

They put out four episodes and they then cancelled it, didn't show the last two.

And if you think our culture has changed, do you know why they cancelled it?

They said that there's so much going on that people have to pay too much attention.

They said, and we don't think people pay that much attention to TV.

Tony Tomapoulis, who was the ABC Entertainment president, he said that viewers have to pay close attention to this show in order to get much of the humour.

He said, this is according to Leslie Nielsen.

He said, the viewer had to watch it in order to appreciate it.

And

that's why it was cancelled.

TV Guide magazine called the explanation for the cancellation the most stupid reason a network ever gave for ending a series.

Just wait.

Yeah, oh my god, you've got some fun to come.

So after that was cancelled, they did.

They found like a storyline, turned it into Naked Gun.

and here we are many years later with Liam Neeson and Pamela Anderson in love.

It's a joy.

It's an unadulterated joy and it's charming.

What do we think about the pressure of being in that relationship when it's like in your friendship group when a couple gets together and everyone's like, oh this is great.

Do you know what?

We've all been thinking for a while this would be absolutely perfect and it makes everybody happy.

You can see the happiness it gives everyone.

It completes the group.

But for those people there's an enormous amount of pressure to

completed me.

But if you're Pam and Liam, you've got the happiness of almost every single person over the age of 50 in Britain in your hands.

Yeah, it's a huge responsibility.

I'll tell you what, if anyone can handle that level of responsibility, it's those two.

Yeah.

And I wish them all the best.

Liz and Billy Ray are still going strong.

I need my third round of romance, but I...

By the end of the year, by the end of the year is fine.

In the old days, all we had was Rupert Murdoch and Jerry Hall.

I'm just not sure if it fits the template we're looking for.

Yep, sadly sundered.

Not for Jerry, of course, not sadly.

But

delightfully sundered.

Delightfully sundered for the delightful Jerry.

But yes,

we'll have to wait and see how it develops.

But we wish them all the best.

It's like something out of a sort of, you know, comedy romance novel, and I absolutely love it.

Shall we go to a break?

Yeah, I need a breather after that.

And then we'll talk about how on earth one follows up the traitors and what could possibly go wrong.

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Welcome back everybody.

Now there are roughly a billion formats competing to be the new Traitors.

Am I right Richard?

Roughly.

Yes, everyone thought that formats were dead and then Traitors came along and proved that they weren't.

And as always after such a thing there is a gold rush to find an exact copy of that or as close as one can possibly get.

And I'm going to talk us through a few of the runners and riders now.

But starting with Destination X, which started on BBC One this week and is definitively straight out of the traps, an attempt to do exactly what the traitors did.

Not in terms of the format, it's not exactly the same, but it has similarities in terms of where it comes from.

Now, Destination X, if you have not seen it, Rob Bryden hosts.

I love him.

I absolutely love him.

I felt there were moments where he was thinking, how am I possibly able?

What's that Reagan quote?

If you're explaining, you're losing.

I mean, there's a lot of explaining of how the show works from him.

Absolutely.

Go back and watch the first episode of The Traitors.

Have a look at how much explanation there is there.

There's a lot.

Okay, fine.

I need to do that.

Because we mustn't worry.

I'll talk to you.

I felt I was involved in some rare gibberish

at times for that.

And

he, by the way, does an absolutely stirling and

amazing job.

As he always does, he's thoughtless.

I'm sensing I liked this show a bit more than you did, but we will get to that.

Oh, yes, I think you probably did.

So Destination X, it's a group of people, 13, I think they cut it down to 10 almost immediately.

They are on a blacked-out coach driving through Europe, and they have only have one job, which is at the end of the episode, they have to work out where they are.

And they have to mark with an X on the map where they are, and the person who's furthest away leaves the show, right?

Which is simple.

It's a nice, simple hook.

That is.

Essentially, you don't know where you are, but you're given clues.

You're sort of driven around.

You're given clues.

And with those clues, you have to work out exactly where you are and try and get as close as possible.

Now, first two episodes went out last week, the next two are this week.

This was in the same way that the Traitors had been a hit in Europe, with a, I have to say, a fairly different format to the one that Studio Lambert bought over here and made into a hit.

Destination X was called Be Stimming X, and it was in Belgium.

There was a big kind of auction for it because this was like the hot new format.

Because Traitors had been big in a European territory and had come over to the UK and America and been a big hit, every single person, this is what I try and get across, is that this is how all creative industries work.

Every single person in every single territory and every single broadcaster is thinking, what is the next version of that?

So they're not necessarily thinking, what's the show where we can vote people off?

They're thinking, what's the next big thing that's worked in another European territory that is sort of a reality show that has ordinary people on it instead of celebrities and renews our faith in the format.

And this was the next out-of-the-box discussion.

And that had because it had already aired in Belgium and they thought it was a bit like it.

It had already aired in Belgium.

It was two hours long and the numbers sounded great.

The numbers, when you look into it, I think the Belgians did a very, very good job selling this because the numbers really, really, really do not stack up in terms of the original version of what we were told the numbers were.

Because they said that they had enormous amounts of viewers in Belgium.

Yes, and

we're all very good at massaging figures.

And I think because everyone was so excited, there might be this new show.

Everyone, you know, suddenly there's a bidding frenzy.

So the BBC buy it, put it out to tender to all the big British production companies.

I'm sure Studio Lambert behind the the Traitors, I'm sure they went for it.

And a company called 24 made it, who we'll talk about a bit more.

He've done loads of great shows.

They absolutely know what they're doing.

So they've got this show on their hands.

It came out this week, as I say.

And it's interesting.

I rather enjoyed it.

But everyone wants it to be something that it sort of isn't.

That idea that you're driven in a blacked out coach and you have to work out where you are.

It's kind of neat.

It's kind of thinking, oh, that's quite fun.

And it's a guessing game and you can play along at home.

So, you know, it's not like the Traitors where they tell you the Traitors are.

At least you don't know where you are.

So you're trying to look for clues and things like that as well.

So it's got a bit of, you know, that kind of, oh, you've got alliances like in the Traitors and you've got this incredible scenery like Race Across the World.

So you think, well, that's that's what you're aware everyone is buying into.

That's the thing that if you're the BBC, you're saying the show we would like is a show that has the kind of attention of the traitors and the beauty of race across the world.

And of course, 2-4, when they actually have to make the thing, they're like, well, the alliancing doesn't really work.

We have to slightly make that work with formats.

You know, in the traitors, that's it's all you've got.

And then this, you have to force it.

And because you're playing along at home with this, you also can't really show an awful lot of where you are.

So, the scenery doesn't really work either.

So, the things that you know they're saying to 2-4, this is what we really, really want.

It's been a big hit in Belgium.

It hadn't really.

We want the beauty of race across the world.

We can't really have that.

And we want the tension and tactics of the traitors.

We can't really do that either.

Okay, so that's where 2-4 find themselves.

then make this show i genuinely thought it was a good show we watched a second episode as well which i really enjoyed but it it is not the show everyone thinks it is going to be so 24's job is to make a show that is good and hope that you know people start watching it but is people are not going to watch it because of the traitors and people are not going to watch it because a race across the world and people are not going to watch it because it was a hit in belgium you know what they do have is loads and loads of trails and they have a great host in Rob and they have goodwill from the channel and all the all of those things.

And so if they make a good show, they have a fighting chance but it is not going to get any tailwind from the traitors at all now ITV and Netflix went a slightly different way they said no we're literally going to do our version of the traitors so ITV have got the fortune hotel with Stephen Mangan which is the traitors but at in a resort Netflix have got um million dollar secret with peter serafinovich which is like the traitors but for a million dollars because there's netflix in a remote resort in a remote resort and those are both going to a second series Because actually, if you'd like the Traitors, both of those are giving you the same show.

Really?

I'm lots of little, clever little twists and what have you, and they all look lovely and they've got great hosts.

Yeah, I can't stand that over-polished type of American reality television.

I really so much prefer our version of it, I have to say.

I mean, I was actually having an argument with one of my children about this, but they're really incredibly gorgeous, but they're also a cob.

And it's like, yeah, but at every single point, they are so aware of the camera on them as an aesthetic object that it's too polished.

You don't feel that they're, I don't know, it's just too managed a performance.

But we're watching something, we're watching something entirely different because in America, you look at the American Traitors, which a lot of British people do not like watching.

I love watching it, and they're sort of professional contestants.

They are people from other

strategy shows, they're people from other franchises, some of whom know each other already, some of whom have alliances.

So it's an entirely different show, played by people who know what to say to camera, played by people who understand the game they're playing, understand

which cameras on them and why, understanding what the what what viewers want.

And funnily enough, the American Destination X is exactly the same.

They've brought in kind of reality show version.

Jeffrey Dean Morgan's the host of that one, right?

Jeffrey Dean Morgan from The Walking Dead is the host.

But like in with contestants, yeah, you've got people, you know, who people already know.

I was speaking to a number of people on that show and they said, I mean, the Belgian version is two hours long, the NBC version is 42 minutes long.

And also,

one of the main things about the show, they make it at the same time as the UK one.

That's part of

the deal with these things now to make them affordable.

He said, we've got a bus full of Americans.

And this show is all about, do you know at least a tiny bit about European geography?

Like, do you know, for example, that Austria is next to Switzerland?

Like, if you see a mountain, do you know you're not in the Netherlands?

Have you at least bought a map before the show starts?

And none of the Americans have the first clue of what any of the countries in Europe are, where they might be.

So

it's a much more difficult show to make for the Americans.

Oh, you're telling me, and now I I want to have a look at it.

Yeah, exactly.

Is it out yet in the US?

Yes, they've done the whole first season.

It's kind of started all right because it was sandwiched by American Idol.

It didn't finish great.

It's one of those ones where, yeah, they might do another series,

so which I suspect might be the same with this one as well.

I think if they can get through this first series of Destination X, there's a few little tweaks they can make that people would end up being fairly in love with this show.

It has a charm to it, I would say.

That's Destination X.

So, Fortune Hotel, and I thought it was a complete mess.

i mean really but anyway what people do with first so first episodes of things are so hard to make because the channel are constantly saying you have to explain things yeah always explain always explain shortage of explanation whereas on youtube no one ever explains anything no you trust the audience the audience kind of go yeah i get it you know which means things are like like half the take half the time and yeah there's always always always there's a generation of program makers who have to fall back on over explaining and thinking no the audience must know the audience is not listening the audience is not listening to you.

They are literally on their phone until you get to the good bit.

I agree.

They'll osmotically pick it up if they like it, and the other stuff is good enough.

I don't think the rules are so long as you have rules, so long as you know what the rules are, and you know that they're fair, so when people really get into it, they understand what's happening.

Stop telling people what is about to happen, or what might happen, or what could happen, or how you could get immunity, or how

you don't need to do any of that at all.

I would say now, Destination X has a sort of a cousin, which again, when the Traitors got big in Europe, there was the bidding war for Destination X.

There was also a bidding war for a program called The Box,

which is Norwegian,

which is visually very, very arresting.

It's celebrities, 10 of them, I think.

I was watching the Norwegian episodes with subtitles.

Listen, there's only so much I can do.

And people are put inside boxes.

They're taken to a particular location, somewhere beautiful, normally.

The boxes then open they have no idea where they are there is a game in front of them they have no idea how to play it they don't know what the rules are to the game and essentially they play the game play the game play the game until somebody loses and then they get back in the box and they're moved to the next location so ITV are doing this one so BBC have done destination X ITV are doing this one it's their their direct attempt to be traitors like it actually did do quite well in Norway the numbers there do sort of stack up.

I just heard who the host is for ITV.

I think it's a very, very good choice for a host.

I think it'll be an interesting one.

It is again...

Can you not tell us?

No.

I can't, because they have to do launches and stuff.

And they'd be like, oh, God, can you imagine?

Just me just saying it.

Yeah.

I just think that also,

you know, people just love Liam Neeson now.

So I just think he's perfect.

So that is a show where actually it has a lot of, similar to Destination X in that you're going around Europe, you're going around whatever, and you're going to beautiful places, but you can actually see those places.

in this instance.

It has lots of issues.

It does have lots of issues, but all formats do have issues.

But it's celebrities it'll be saturday night they're spending a lot of money a lot of money so this is a like a really really big swing destination x is the bbc's big swing the box is itv's big swing and

having seen the original versions of both the box has the neater format now channel 4 are entering the fray they have not copied buying a show from abroad.

They have not copied the format of the traitors.

What they've done is go to Studio Lambert, who made The Traitors, and said, Will you do something similar for us?

And so they've got a show called The Inheritance.

And it is Liz Hurley, our friend, plays a character who's leaving a sum of money to a group of people.

And those people in a traitors sort of style.

Play the Cyrus's because if not, I don't care.

They are not, although I listen, if Billy Ray Cyrus turns up at the launch on Wednesday, everyone is going to be...

Can you imagine launching a show and Billy Ray Cyrus turns up with Liz Hurley I want him to turn up into this recording studio so I yes please carry on that'd be cool so the inheritance is it's a load of money I think it's £200,000 and Destination X is is £100,000 but the the hook of that is one person must persuade all the others that the money should just go to them That's the idea of that show and that will play out in various ways.

And again, there's been loads of shows like that.

Without prejudice was that, where people are trying to get all their money for themselves.

We did a show called Divided Quiz Show years ago,

which was exactly the same.

You know, you have to persuade people that the money should be yours.

So that's Channel 4's attempt to do it.

It's interesting and people go, oh, God, people got no imagination.

Commissioners have got used to copying the last thing.

But you think, yeah, but you sort of have to.

You have to follow audiences.

I can't...

tell you what a shot in the arm it was for the entertainment industry when the traitors was a hit.

I mean, that's just such great news.

In the same way that Last One Laughing being a hit for Amazon Prime is great news for the comedy entertainment industry.

It's brilliant.

And you do want to try and build on that momentum.

You understand there's audiences who like these sort of games and you do want to do your own version of it.

If I can speak of my experience of what came along in the wake of Deal or No Deal, firstly it was huge, but secondly, it was unusual.

In the same way, so Traitors came along, it was huge and it was unusual.

And so everyone started going, oh, perhaps we could look at things we haven't looked at.

before.

Perhaps there are different types of shows that we've been turning away or we hadn't even thought of that might work for us.

And after Deal or No Deal, oh my God, it was amazing.

It was like the wild west for about five years i mentioned a couple of the shows that came along uh in the wake of it the lesson most of the channels took from deal and no deal is people are happy to watch people being lucky right yeah which is not no lesson to take from deal or no deal because it's not about luck at all it's about when you quit yeah so it's about like any relationship or any job you've ever had it's about what's what's the optimum time to leave this and that's an interesting psychological experiment.

That's what that show is.

It's not we're lucky, we have some sort of random system.

So Channel 5 commissioned Heads or Tails, which was Justin Lee Collins.

And all you had to do was guess heads or tails over a series of rounds to go through or to make money.

And understandably, that went for nothing because people didn't want to watch just pure luck.

A few years before Deal on O'Deal came out, Claudia Rosencrantz, who was head of entertainment at ITV, probably the great unsung genius of British Entertainment, because she commissioned every single ITV hit.

Like I'm a Celebrity,

Pop Idol, Millionaire,

Takeaway, all of these things are Claudia Rosencrantz.

And she had been pitched a show called Red or Black, which essentially is sort of heads or tails.

It's, you know, kind of gambling.

It's, it's, you know, do I go on red?

Do I go on black?

They did a pilot of it hosted by Brian Conley.

I've done a few pilots with Brian Conley.

I love doing it.

I love doing pilots with Brian Conley.

I prefer doing series with him, but

he's such a funny man.

Anyway, she said, I didn't believe people would like to see someone win a vast sum of money with no skills at all involved secondly gambling is not a spectator sport you get an adrenaline rush from participating in it that's what claudia said and she was right deal no no deal comes along suddenly this gold rush of oh no but actually you know blind chance that's what people like enter simon cowell so simon cowell takes this thing red or black suddenly it's his idea And he goes, no, I'm doing this.

It's going to be the biggest game show ever.

It's going to have a million pound prize every night.

Anton Deck are going going to host it.

And it is literally, do you choose red?

Do you choose black?

And there's no, it's complete luck all the way through.

And you win a million pounds purely through luck.

And he said, no, this is the Americans are going to go crazy for this.

Everybody loves this show.

And I had great people involved, great people making it, but they must have known as well.

And it was an absolute car crash.

It cost so much money.

Four nights in a row, they gave away a million pounds.

Once they gave away a million pounds to someone with a criminal record.

And yeah, it was, I mean, it was an absolute mess it was full of simon cow psycho acts playing gigs and stuff on this show and decker in the middle of it not quite knowing what's going on it cost so much money it got beaten i think the second episode got beaten by um country file and inspector george gently on bbc one the next one got beaten by watchdog it was nobody wanted to watch great shows all of them

all of the great shows but because they took the wrong lesson and we always take the wrong lesson which is we want a game of chance And we don't want a game of chance.

We want something that actually asks us an interesting question.

Is the lesson of all of these things that there's almost only one show in which the style, the substance, the secret source, or whatever is perfectly melded, and it's the one that already exists?

Yeah, and what you actually want is the next...

different vibe off the rank, but that's harder to do.

And it's much more expensive because you have to try a load of them.

I absolutely see why in every industry, listen, whoever invested in the Verve after Oasis made a lot of money.

You know, it's, you know, as my grandfather used to say, if you're called to a fight in a pub, be second through the door, it's not crazy.

But, yeah, we always learn

the wrong lesson.

And actually, in a year's time, it'll be like some show no one was even thinking of that starts in, you know, as a small sort of daytime slot that's the one, oh, now we need the new this.

You can't run a creative business that way.

You have to be chasing what people like already as well.

You know, you have to be doing both of those things.

And as you say, it's the same in films, publishing, I mean, everything.

It it is the same in absolutely everything and it always will be and it doesn't come from lack of imagination of course there's you know 80% of people who work in any industry have a lack of imagination that's absolutely fine but and it's up to the other 20% to toil away and come up with something while we're all trying to look for the next big thing now talking of next big things Wednesday is out on Wednesday yes starring Jenna Ortega who is the biggest star of the biggest show in the world.

Tell us about her.

Yeah, well, it's Netflix's biggest ever English language show, and it became absolutely huge.

I mean, she's only 22.

It's quite extraordinary, really.

But,

well, we'll talk about her because it's quite interesting what she represents.

It's quite interesting.

I think what people need to do to be stars in the modern era and to be the ones that break out and become absolutely massive.

But just a sort of word on the show, really, which I mean, you will know because it's so enormous.

Tim Burton directs it.

Bella Bajera,

who's the Netflix chief content officer, said it went beyond analytics.

People watched it multiple times.

They bought their parents, so it became this multi-generational show.

It was number one in 83 territories.

There were soldiers in Ukraine doing the Wednesday dance, which was the sort of breakout moment from it.

But as for who is General Ortega, she's like so many stars.

She

emerged from the Disney factory.

She was

right.

Yeah, she was in a, I mean, how many of them?

She played Harley Diaz in Stuck in the Middle.

She was a sort of middle child.

But then she moved into sort of horror slasher films and she was in Screen.

She had a couple of franchises and Scream, UX, various reboots.

She said, I scream really, really well.

She said, that's why, yeah, that's why I did so well in horror films.

I've got a great scream.

Yeah, she's quite she a scream queen in all senses.

She became scream queen.

And she's obviously recently we've seen her in movies as Winona Ryder's daughter in the kind of Winona Ryder role in Betelgeuse, Betelgeuse, which is also directed by Tim Burton.

So it's interesting.

That child stardom thing is very significant.

And obviously so many people in American popular culture, which has become all of our popular culture, come via that Disney route.

But she's befriended quite a lot of those sort of people.

People like Natalie Portman, people like Winona Ryder.

And her interview persona is quite interesting.

She's so on it.

I mean, like lots of these people, she's the most switched on 22-year-old you've ever heard.

And Natalie Portman said, child actors cultivate a serious personality usually usually because otherwise that people will treat them like children forever.

So she's she sometimes people say she's an old soul, but she hates General Otega.

She thinks that's a way of them getting in your head.

Although that said, she did publish a book at the age of 18, at the age of 18, which is called It's All Love, Reflections for Your Heart and Soul.

And it is it's worth looking up some quotes.

She certainly if she doesn't have an old soul, she's pretending to have one.

I'll say that.

She's not hellbat by self-doubt.

Like she doesn't seem to be.

She has great faith both in the Lord and in herself.

yeah well about this show what if about it i think she thought oh well maybe i'll be pigeonholed but obviously it's tim burton and it's netflix and it's going to be a big thing yeah so you say yes to it yes what in terms of what she represents and the way she talks about what she brings is as i say it's incredibly switched on she says old studios are scared because they don't know why things hit the way they do and Although in some ways this is an old story, it's a very particular story of now where these big old either legacy companies or companies run by people from necessarily older generations don't really know who or what Gen Z and but and Gen Alpha like.

They don't understand what breaks out, what works, and they have to ally themselves with people who for some reason think who seem to sort of instinctively capture or understand something about the attention economy,

that idea that lots of I mean it's a very cynical way of looking at it, but you know, as long as a series can spawn a number of memes, some GIFs, and one TikTok, then maybe you've got a hit.

And there's a song.

You've got someone, two memes, one GIF, and a TikTok.

Two and a half TikTok.

And you've got yourself a hit.

And they don't really know why.

And to some extent, that's always been the case.

And you look back at people making, you know, in the eras, which would deem to be the invention of the teenager.

And there are people making James Dean movies thinking, I don't really know what we're doing, but

he speaks in some way to young people.

I was reading Ben Elton's autobiography, which doesn't come out till October, but there's some interesting stories in there about things, you know, how something like the young ones got commissioned, where quite obviously the kind of

pretty nice and diffident executives at the BBC don't know what on earth it is and don't understand, but think we back these people who we do think are good.

It'd be fun to do a QA special with Ben Elton.

Oh my gosh.

I wonder if you could do it with the

young ones and Black Adder, and then we will

come on.

We should definitely do that.

So, as I say, there are what General Ortega represents is someone who she's...

General

I'm so sorry every time, but

Jenna Ortega.

She's more disciplined than General Oriega.

But what they think that she represents, they can see that she has a connection.

She really does because she's such a mega hit.

If you went out on Halloween last year, pretty much all girls from the age of about seven till about 14, if they're going out trick-or-treating, they are going this Wednesday in one form or another.

And she's very calculating in the way she talks about it, to say out loud, people are scared because they don't know why things hurt.

So she wants you to know that she's playing a very strategic game.

And I think, you know, that's part of that child star thing where you have to, as Renona writes, as a natural child.

You have to be taken very seriously very well.

I must be taken seriously because otherwise I'll be taken as a child.

And that's not an ego thing.

That is literally, you sort of have to, otherwise,

your time.

passes you by.

But the ones who break through, the ones who are becoming much bigger, people like Sidney Sweeney, I'm not even going to to admit of this ridiculous controversy that's happened about the genes advertisements.

No, I can't.

Everyone who was involved in that should be embarrassed.

Or people like General Ortega.

There's something about them that is grabbing people, but it's grabbing people across what we might call different demographics.

And what's interesting about her is that she did make some mistakes.

I mean, she's pretty young.

She went on a podcast in the Writer's Strike and said, oh, there were certain lines in the first series of Wednesday where just they were not at all what the character have said.

So, I unfortunately, you know, I had to rewrite them in the scene, which is kind of like, okay,

sorry, what, Missy?

And there was a big backlash against that.

And it's interesting, she's come back, she's addressed it, and said, Yeah, I should have just said, Sometimes I improvise.

Yes, but you live and learn.

And that would have been fine.

So there's a way of talking, but she, you know, she's, it's machine learning.

You absorb the lesson and you don't do it again.

And I think they've got a sort of wry joke about it where the editor says to her, she

submits a book in season two, and the editor says to her, well, you don't take notes very well.

And so it's a sort of joke, it's a play on that.

But it reminds me a little bit about Rachel Zegler, who also, you know, has been perceived to be slightly difficult and

why

she's going to have to claw back

her sort of reputation, as it were, one amazing Avita balcony performance at a time in the West End, and I'm sure it will be going to Broadway.

And yet General Tega has somehow, it doesn't matter.

And I think the reason for that really is one is involved in a mega hit and one is involved in something that flopped.

If Snow White had

torn up the box office and been absolutely amazing, then people wouldn't be going on about those things anymore.

And people are not going on about General Otega's perceived bits of difficulty or kind of abrasiveness or saying the wrong thing because Wednesday is just this huge, huge hit.

That's so often there is nothing like a hit.

There is nothing like a hit.

I mean,

that's an awful lot of paint to put on your wall, a hit.

Yeah.

That'll cover up everything.

She's not regarded as tricky.

And there is something about the nature of the character where, you know, I suppose No White's this pure and innocent person, but Wednesday is difficult.

She's an outsider.

It's interesting, she speaks to that sensibility.

You know, everyone's an outsider.

And that's what Tim Burton's always been so good at doing is gathering the mainstream and working with studios and gathering.

We talked about this when I talked about his exhibition and gathering everyone into that thing where we all feel like we're the kind of excluded, weird mad kid from Burbank, as he was growing up.

And he taps into that sense of not quite fitting in that everyone has.

And it makes it a sort of mainstream thing.

But there's something about her that maybe taps into a whole sort of generational sense of alienation or something.

And that character, so it's all right.

She's permitted within that to perhaps be more prickly than you would accept from Disney Princess Rachel Zegler.

She's going to have a hell of a career, though, in the next five years, right, Jenna Orton.

She's been doing so many things.

I don't know if anyone saw Death of a Unicorn, which I really liked, which is an A24 thing.

And she's doing the Galarist.

Maybe that's with Natalie Portman, which is a great concept.

You know, this one.

It's the art fair in Basel.

Someone's desperate and has to try and sell a human corpse.

Yeah, I like that one.

Anyway, what else is she in?

Clara and the Sund,

which I haven't read, but one of my children was reading.

That

Ushiguri novel.

Tyka Whiteiti's going to direct her in that.

And then there's an original JJ Abrams thing starring Simon L.

Jackson and, oh, Glenn Powell.

No, Jenna Ortega and Glenn Powell.

Yes, the streams will cross.

The streams will cross, Richard, in untitled JJ Abrams project.

That's a bit fun.

You know what?

The JJ Abrams thing, I think just because he's Gracie Abrams' dad, they give him a movie.

That's not for me.

I don't like that.

I don't like that.

You've always been a curious like that.

So Wednesday is a big day because Wednesday is...

launch of Wednesday on Netflix.

Wednesday is the next episode of Destination X on BBC One.

And Wednesday is also the press launch of The Inheritance and we get to see if Billy Ray Cyrus turns up with Liz Hurley.

This week is all about Wednesday.

Turn to hooks, turn to hooks.

Turn to hooks.

You know, they asked me to audition for a role in Wednesday.

Yeah, I couldn't do it.

But I assume, because of my height, I assume, and because it's kind of Adam's family-ish, I assume there's some sort of

tallness involved in it.

Oh my god, sorry.

No, I did not know that, and I can't believe you didn't do it.

I can't remember why I couldn't do it.

I was probably sort of doing a

your schedule

for channel five or something uh no i couldn't do it but i that would that would be fun because i'm not an actor in any way whatsoever i'm not interested in being an actor but the biggest show in the world you'd like oh well maybe that'd be i just thought for the podcast yeah do everything for the podcast

i'm doing so many things now for the podcast which all of which will be revealed over the next few months i'm doing things for the podcast Recommendations?

Yes, I want to recommend the team behind 24 Hours and Police Custody, one of the best made shows on TV, The Garden, John Wilson and and his team there have done a four-parter anyone who's watched any true crime documentaries british ones in the last few years has been aware of encroch which was the um the secret phones that all uh gangsters were using that like incredibly encrypted and the police managed to crack them and they had 74 days where they had access to every single thing that every single criminal in the world was talking about and this documentary operation dark phone murder by text is a four-parter it follows sort of three different stories but follows all the cops behind it as well well.

It's they could have made it bad.

It's got kind of little kind of reconstruction-y things, but it's so well made.

And also, episode two, I think maybe episode three, there is a cop from Notty MCU called Mick Pope, who might be the greatest police officer I've ever seen on

a true crime documentary.

He's absolutely magnificent, but the whole thing is pretty,

really fascinating.

And just that thing of, you know, just

these people live among us and the way they talk to each other.

My favorite thing on the whole thing is for Encro Chat, you have like a two-word name.

So, like, one of the main guys is called Live Long, and there's stuff like that.

But there's a guy on the edge of it, and you think, Oh, I wish you'd been the main character author, who's called Ball Sniffer.

And you're like, and you could imagine in the edit if Ball Sniffer was like the main guy, they're thinking, Can we, is this okay?

Can we just say Bull Sniffer 40 times in this documentary?

I absolutely loved it.

It's on, you can watch it on all four.

It's called Operation Dark Phone: Murder by Text.

Well, I'm sorry, but I have to recommend, you won't, I don't need to apologise to you because I have to recommend your upcoming new Thursday murder couplet, which you gave me just before I went on holiday.

I read it on holiday.

It's called The Impossible Fortune.

You know this, Richard.

I mean, I've seen you across the title.

That's good.

Yeah.

No, it's by far the best one yet, and I love all the others.

That's nice.

Funnier.

I don't know.

I was saying to you, can you just go deeper with the characters?

Is that what it is at this point?

It's more affecting, more everything.

I absolutely, it is like a step changer onto something that's already brilliant.

Okay, so I absolutely love that.

And it's not up to the end of September, but you can pre-order it, I guess.

Oh, that's very, very kind.

I loved it.

I loved it.

Thank you very much.

Well, listen,

I stand by my recommendation of the Channel 4 documentary.

Lots of lovely things this week.

It was covered a lot, right?

Yeah.

Oh, no.

We plan to return full to misery next week, but there was some joy.

Full misery next week.

We'll have a question and answers edition on Thursday, and we're finally for our members doing the results of the greatest British sitcom of all time, including lots of polling that More and Common have done about

what sitcoms tell us about your politics.

Oh my God, which is a revelation to me.

It really is a revelation.

Okay.

If you want to join the club for ad-free listening and much more, it's therestisentertainment.com.

Otherwise, we'll be back, as always, with a questions and answers edition on Thursday.

See you then.

See you then.

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