From (Amazon, MGM+)

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Voyage. Welcome to watch this tonight. I'm your host, Dan Bettimore.

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I'm a producer, writer of film
and television and now a podcast producer.

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And despite having every streaming service,
I never know what to watch. So

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anytime I watch something good, I
talk about it on this show. This

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way, you'll never have the same
problem I do. I watched this tonight.

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There's always something good to watch.
Let's get started today on the show,

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we are talking about the TV series
from Now. This is a show

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that multiple people have told me to
watch for a long time. My buddy

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Omar listening to the show, has
told me to watch this. Our friend

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James Jefferson, aka Brother of Doom, has told me to watch this.

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And the reason I haven't watched it
is because it's on MGM Plus. Now

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if you don't have MGM Plus,
if you're not familiar with MGM Plus,

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it's it's, you know, another
streaming service. The reason that I finally

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watched it, and you might have
seen this in the episode description, is

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that they've made the first season available
on Amazon. So right now, if

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you have Amazon Prime, you can
go on Amazon Prime and watch the entire

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first season of this show, from
which I suspect honestly will be the way

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that most people will discover it because
not a lot of people have MGM plus.

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It's just a tricky thing, right
when you when you've had so many

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different streaming services. Even if you
hear there's a great show, You're like,

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do I really want to add like
a seventh streaming service? At that

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point, I might as well.
You're paying the same as you would for

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cable. So when MGM previously was
called Epics, it was the best program

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channel that no one was watching.
They had to get Shorty show that was

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so good. I interviewed the creator
on my previous show, That show is

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excellent. They had a Ben Kingsley
show frommer correctly that was really critically claimed.

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They had a bunch of shows that
were supposed to be great, but

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it was just you know, did
they have Patriot I can't remember. They

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had a bunch of shows that were
that were you know, considered good.

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And they have a show coming up
actually they announced recently with Michael Chicklist that

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I'm excited about. So, you
know, MGM plus I feel like is

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going to continue to be the best
program channel that maybe not enough people are

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watching. And look maybe that'll change
with from So yeah, shout out to

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our guy James for letting me know
that season one was now available on Amazon,

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because that's the reason I watched it, And honestly, the show is

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as good as advertised. Let me
just describe to you the conceit of the

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show, which is really what they
give you in the first pretty much the

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first act. So we're in this
town and clearly everyone is supposed to be

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inside before it gets dark. There's
a guy who gets drunk, does not

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go home at his house. His
wife is like pissed off that he's not

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there. His daughter goes upstairs to
her I think it was upstairs, man,

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it's even creepier if it's upstairs.
She goes to her room and there's

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like a knock at the window and
it's her grandmother, and she sort of

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like I think, opens a curtain
or something, and the grandmother's like,

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hi, sweetheart, you know I
really I missed you so much, and

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looks so beautiful and just normal stuff
that a normal grandmother would say. There's

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nothing that she is saying that is
overtly menacing by any interpretation, right,

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It totally looks like this is just
this little girl's grandmother who is just misses

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her and wants to see her,
and she's like, you know, hey,

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could you open the window. I
missed you so much. I just

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want to see you. And the
little girl opens the window and the mom's

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like ah no. And then and
this is not a spoiler, I mean,

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this is the essential the first,
you know whatever. Ten minutes the

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show, they are disemboweled. And
when I say disemboweled, it's not left

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open to imagination. You see it. They are disemboweled, and our star,

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Harold Parnelt, the Great Harold Parrinoelt, is so upset that he makes

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the dad look at the bodies,
which honestly, at that point a kind

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of mercy would be just killing him, and he clearly debates doing it.

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He has this gun out like he's
considering killing this guy. But the part

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of it that is so effective is
that it just imagined, like imagine yourself.

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Imagine you're at home, right and
it's nighttime and there's a knock on

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your door and it's either a person
that you know or just a person with

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that sounds reasonable. That nothing they're
saying sounds crazy. It's just a reasonable

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person, like imagine like, for
example, your home, it's you know,

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late at night, but not that
late. Maybe it's like eight o'clock

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at night or something. You get
a knock on your door and so he's

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like, hey, my car broke
down. You know, I just you

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know, my phone's out of battery. I was just hoping to use your

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phone like something like that. And
you open the door and then they disembowel

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you. That's essentially what's going on
here. So this is a town where

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monsters come out at night. It's
impossible not to think about Lost when you

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watch it. You know, Harold
Parnelt from Lost, Every time I look

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at him, I just think of
him screaming Walt Walt What. Jack Bender,

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who directed the pilot, also was
a director directed a lot of episodes

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of Lost. Creating a worthy success
or to Lost has been this ongoing thing

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with TV really ever since Lost went
off the air. You think about shows

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like, for example, flash Forward, that was a big show. They've

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made a big to do about that, And there were a buch shows that

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sort of trying to copy Lost but
couldn't do it. Had a great pilot

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episode maybe, but then couldn't keep
it going. I was hoping eighteen ninety

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nine would be that show, but
then Netflix canceled it. What's very lost

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esque about this show, especially if
you know how Lost ends, is that

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there's a sense of how long have
these people been trapped here? Like what's

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going on? Like a kind of
a magical realism to it. In the

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pilot, we see how do you
get trapped in this town? Right?

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How do you get diverted into this
town? And we see a family they're

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driving an RV. There's a big
tree blocking the road and crows circling around,

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and it's creepy, and they're diverted
off the highway onto surface streets and

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then end up in the town.
And it is later implied early in the

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second episode. And this is a
very very minor spoiler. It won't really

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affect your injury of the show,
but I kind of need to tell you

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because I think it adds to the
like, oh shit, creepiness of it.

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That tree has been there for years. We don't know how many years,

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but definitely years plural. And basically, if you're imagine you're driving there's

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a tree blocking the road, you
get off the highway, you go to

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some you know you're driving through some
small town in the middle of nowhere,

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and then you try to drive out
of that town, drive straight, and

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you just end up back in the
town. This idea is so smart.

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I've read a bunch of stuff that
has a similar concept, where it's like

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people trapped in some area, and
there's an easy temptation to have it be

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way more big and way more kind
of overtly magical, how you're trapped in

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there. But here they just drive
and then suddenly they're back there. Right,

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it's essentially just driving in circles.
Do you think of Chamelan had old

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recently where people would try to escape
the beach and they would like like have

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a stroke, essentially like when they
walk through a certain area and then they

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just couldn't leave for that reason.
I think the simplicity of this is even

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better than that. So I love
that there's you know, there ends up

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being an accident with the RV that
they're driving and need help. It kind

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of goes from there. But I
just I think this idea is so original,

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And I'm going to talk about something. There's a couple of small things

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that happened in episode two that again
are not significant supporters at all. And

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the reason I'm going to tell you
them is because I feel like you need

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to know to like fully understand what
is so cool and also so creepy about

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this story. So imagine you live
in this town and you know when it

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gets dark, there's monsters that are
going to knock on the door and they

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can make themselves appear I guess,
like anybody, right. So we see

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an episode two a situation where people
in the town don't make it back inside

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before dark, and they're trying to
be let in, and the people who

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are inside a house are reluctant to
let them in, understandably because they don't

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know if now those people are actually
monsters where they're really who they say they

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are. So it's such a simple
device, but there's a lot of different

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ways you can kind of play with
it. And we hear a story from

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an older lady in the house about
her personal history of the monsters that I

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don't want to like spoil completely,
but I just want to tell you it.

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Really. That's when it made me
think about Stephen King, And you

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know Stephen King, because there's been
so many adaptations of his work and he's

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so prolific. It's kind of easy
to take him for granted, but when

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he's at his best, Stephen King
excels at grounding us in reality and also

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presenting to us like true horror,
like really pure evil and not in like

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a mustachio trolling way and like almost
like in a really more in a human

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way. We find out what happened
that this lady's sister, and just her

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describing it is so scary and so
herbing. Um, and you know we

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we we also get some some teases
of stuff going on with the characters that

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suggests future plots. Um. One
character in particular, certain things that he's

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drawing are very creepy and tying into
the title sequence potentially. And um again,

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I won't spoil it, but all
I'll say is that anytime a character

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is described as kind of creepy but
harmless, as we learned from Blackbird and

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Apple Plus watch Out, take that
seriously. So yeah, from is really

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good. It's really good. Um
it is. Uh Look, I mean

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I don't know what to say.
I know they have a second season.

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I think that's airing right now.
I guess maybe again MGM, plus shit,

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I don't know we're gonna we're gonna
start Robbing Banks just so we can

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watch all these shows. But um, you know another thing you can do

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is you probably can buy it on
Amazon. There's a season past thing you

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can usually get where you can watch, um, just that particular show.

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But yeah, I mean this show
is is quite good U And in a

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way it almost feels like like if
you blink, like you think, like,

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did Stephen King write this? It
was just like an old steaming King

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book. But it's not. It's
it's I think it's just an original creation

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and it's it's very unique. It
really is one of those things. It

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almost feels like an instant classic.
The cleverness of it, the creepiness of

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it, the quality of the acting
and the writing. You know, I'm

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I'm relatively early into it, and
I already know that like I'm gonna have

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to finish the first season on Amazon. I'm probably gonna buy the second season

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either on Amazon or get MGM plus. Like I like it that much.

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So everyone who's been telling me to
watch the show, you were right.

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It's really good, you know,
and I am very excited to see where

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it goes. So if there's a
you know, sometimes I give like a

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lukewarm recommendation you know or or it's
like, oh, if you're the right

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mood, if you like any of
the things that I've described, if you

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like Lost, if you like Stephen
King, if you like horror, if

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you like shows that have like sort
of a mythology and a mystery that you

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have to puzzle out, this is
good. You should watch it. And

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I'd love to hear what you think. So it's on Amazon now, so

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way more accessible, I think,
to a wider audience, and maybe that

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will create more interest in season two. And if so, I think it's

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well deserved. So yeah, I
encourage you to check out from on Amazon

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or MGM plus if you have it. That is the show for today.

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I want to thank you so much
for listening. Thanks everybody who has written

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reviews of the show, who's given
it a radio and Apple podcast, that's

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the best way to support the podcast. You can always reach me at Dan

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ad voyagemedia dot com, bet on
more Dan on Twitter, Watch This Tonight

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on Instagram, Watch This Night podcast
on TikTok, or you can join our

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