Silo Midseason Report (Apple+)

WEBVTT

1
00:00:01.320 --> 00:00:22.160
Voyage. Welcome to watch this tonight. I'm your host, Dan Bettimore.

2
00:00:22.320 --> 00:00:25.679
I'm a producer, writer of film
and television and now a podcast producer.

3
00:00:26.000 --> 00:00:29.519
And despite having every streaming service,
I never know what to watch. So

4
00:00:29.519 --> 00:00:33.039
anytime I watch something good, I
talk about it on the show. This

5
00:00:33.079 --> 00:00:36.200
way, you'll never have the same
problem I do. I watched this tonight.

6
00:00:36.399 --> 00:00:40.280
There's always something good to watch.
Let's get started today on the show.

7
00:00:40.960 --> 00:00:45.960
As I previously recorded an episode about
Silo on my iPhone, I thought

8
00:00:45.960 --> 00:00:50.759
I would keep the tradition going in
the spirit of Silo, I'm I'm using

9
00:00:50.759 --> 00:00:57.560
a relic to record this episode.
I just watched episode seven, The Flamekeepers.

10
00:00:58.799 --> 00:01:02.039
Silos an interesting show, you know. I think it's very much a

11
00:01:02.119 --> 00:01:07.719
prototypical streaming show for better and for
worse. So for better in the sense

12
00:01:07.799 --> 00:01:11.400
that it has an incredible cast,
it has a clearly very large budget.

13
00:01:14.840 --> 00:01:19.200
It feels like it has all this
sort of prestige of a high end streaming

14
00:01:19.200 --> 00:01:23.359
show. Graham Yost obviously like big
name creator and all that. Based on

15
00:01:25.480 --> 00:01:32.040
popular series of novels, so it
has all those elements, and it had

16
00:01:32.079 --> 00:01:36.640
a great first couple of episodes,
and then it kind of slowed down,

17
00:01:36.760 --> 00:01:38.560
and I remember when they did the
first couple of episodes, I think I

18
00:01:38.599 --> 00:01:42.439
said something to the effect of,
wow, they're really moving it, doesn't

19
00:01:42.480 --> 00:01:47.760
It feels like they're like expending a
lot of story material in these first couple

20
00:01:47.840 --> 00:01:51.439
episodes, and I wondered how they
were going to kind of keep that going.

21
00:01:52.200 --> 00:01:55.680
And the way they kept it going
was they slowed way down and we

22
00:01:55.799 --> 00:02:00.079
got some kind of shoe leather in
between episodes, and honestly, it got

23
00:02:00.079 --> 00:02:05.040
so enough that I almost stopped watching
it. And the way they kind of

24
00:02:05.120 --> 00:02:12.520
kept me in was they have really
good end of episode outs where the mystery,

25
00:02:12.840 --> 00:02:16.680
you know, continues kind of unfurling, and then just within I would

26
00:02:16.680 --> 00:02:21.080
say this episode of the one before
it, it really kind of picked back

27
00:02:21.159 --> 00:02:25.319
up again and now I'm super excited
to get to the end of the series.

28
00:02:25.800 --> 00:02:29.520
So it felt like in a way
like and Or, you know,

29
00:02:29.560 --> 00:02:31.879
and Or had this issue as well, where first, I think the first

30
00:02:31.919 --> 00:02:36.719
couple episodes were really strong, and
then there was a couple of middle episodes

31
00:02:36.719 --> 00:02:38.840
that were a little bit slower,
and then it just kind of picked back

32
00:02:38.960 --> 00:02:43.599
up and was awesome all the way
to the end. I don't think this

33
00:02:43.680 --> 00:02:46.759
is as good as and Or.
I think that there is some kind of

34
00:02:46.800 --> 00:02:51.520
clunky stuff in some of the writing, and that's part of what I want

35
00:02:51.520 --> 00:02:55.400
to talk about. So we um
episode seven. This is sort of my

36
00:02:55.400 --> 00:03:00.360
mid season check in on or or
on side. So if you're not caught

37
00:03:00.439 --> 00:03:04.759
up on Silo with the most recent
episode, you should probably not listen to

38
00:03:04.800 --> 00:03:08.120
this. But if you are caught
up, or if you have given up

39
00:03:08.120 --> 00:03:09.879
and you're just not gonna watch the
rest of the show and you want to

40
00:03:09.919 --> 00:03:15.400
know what happens, then keep listening. So they've established my guy, Ian

41
00:03:15.520 --> 00:03:21.919
Glenn as Rebecca Ferguson's dad, who
is this doctor that she's estranged from?

42
00:03:22.439 --> 00:03:27.280
And Ian, you know, it's
so interesting he in this Endgame of Thrones,

43
00:03:27.439 --> 00:03:31.719
he plays a character who has a
relationship with a woman whom he clearly

44
00:03:31.759 --> 00:03:37.719
loves but has betrayed in some way
and now is sort of this like long

45
00:03:37.800 --> 00:03:42.120
suffering, you know, relationship with
that person where you're just like, man,

46
00:03:42.199 --> 00:03:45.879
can we get Ian Glenn a hug? Can someone can she just give

47
00:03:45.919 --> 00:03:50.080
him a moment of grace? And
it was interesting to be that it's that

48
00:03:50.319 --> 00:03:53.919
commonality between the roles. I don't
know if I mentioned this before. But

49
00:03:53.960 --> 00:03:58.120
I'll just quickly give you thirty seconds
of my personal experience with Ian Glenn.

50
00:03:58.840 --> 00:04:02.680
Ian is in an episode of Voyage
Media's series Fever Dreams of Pulp Collection.

51
00:04:02.719 --> 00:04:06.120
He's actually in the first episode called
Down in the Double's Hole. And when

52
00:04:06.159 --> 00:04:12.000
we cast him, typically what we
do is we record and the actors record

53
00:04:12.039 --> 00:04:15.840
themselves and then I direct them over
zoom and so that's what we wanted to

54
00:04:15.840 --> 00:04:18.199
do, and they said, no, he's going to record it by himself

55
00:04:18.639 --> 00:04:21.879
and he'll send it to you.
And but he just wants to talk to

56
00:04:21.879 --> 00:04:26.160
you for half an hour. So
I talked to him zoom. We talked

57
00:04:26.199 --> 00:04:29.199
through the role and the character and
all that, and he basically was like,

58
00:04:29.240 --> 00:04:31.279
listen, I'm going to do it
one time. You're gonna get it.

59
00:04:31.279 --> 00:04:35.240
It's gonna be pretty pretty much.
He's such a gentleman, he's such

60
00:04:35.279 --> 00:04:40.480
a classy guy. He's just really
like the coolest guy. But pretty much

61
00:04:40.480 --> 00:04:42.879
what he said was, you know, I'm going to do it once.

62
00:04:42.959 --> 00:04:45.920
I'm going to do it well,
and if you have any issues with it,

63
00:04:46.079 --> 00:04:48.000
you know, let me know and
I can make adjustments. But that's

64
00:04:48.000 --> 00:04:49.519
how I'm going to do it.
And I'm gonna just send it to you

65
00:04:49.600 --> 00:04:54.120
and that'll be it. And we
were a little nervous because that, you

66
00:04:54.160 --> 00:04:56.560
know, you have to put a
lot of trust in the actor, obviously

67
00:04:56.600 --> 00:04:59.680
when we know he's an incredible actor, but we were just worried, like

68
00:04:59.720 --> 00:05:03.319
what if something was missing or you
know, like an oversighter. It was

69
00:05:03.439 --> 00:05:10.560
perfect, perfect, He did it
perfectly. So you know, he's someone

70
00:05:10.600 --> 00:05:13.839
who I have a tremendous amount of
perspect for as an actor, and I

71
00:05:13.879 --> 00:05:15.759
was really excited to see him in
this show. And it's cool to see

72
00:05:15.800 --> 00:05:18.519
they've given him a pretty juicy role. You know, as this episode goes

73
00:05:18.519 --> 00:05:25.160
along, you learn that he's complicit
in the conspiracy of the Silo in a

74
00:05:25.199 --> 00:05:28.120
major way. But part of what
happens in this episode, and that's why

75
00:05:28.120 --> 00:05:31.000
I say it's not quite as strong
as like and or. So there's this

76
00:05:31.120 --> 00:05:35.959
lady who was a fertility specialist and
she's been drugged and they have to take

77
00:05:36.000 --> 00:05:42.399
her to an area, sneak her
out of the medical facility where the drugs

78
00:05:42.399 --> 00:05:45.240
will wear off and she can tell
them what she knows about the conspiracy.

79
00:05:46.000 --> 00:05:48.600
So they sneak her into the nursery
and they have this whole conversation, she

80
00:05:48.639 --> 00:05:53.240
has a seizure a lot, it's
just them in this room. They're like

81
00:05:53.279 --> 00:05:59.079
the cameras don't work in here for
some reason. And then like ten minutes

82
00:05:59.120 --> 00:06:03.240
in this scene, essentially because this
lady was never able to have children and

83
00:06:03.319 --> 00:06:09.959
wanted children, it's an emotional moment
when a baby cries in the nursery and

84
00:06:10.000 --> 00:06:14.759
then she picks up the baby,
So emotionally makes sense, right, But

85
00:06:14.920 --> 00:06:20.000
on a like logical are they just
leaving these babies alone overnight? They established

86
00:06:20.000 --> 00:06:24.319
that the nursery is empty. The
least lady there's like I'm leaving for the

87
00:06:24.439 --> 00:06:29.000
night, So they're just leaving these
babies completely alone overnight. And also this

88
00:06:29.040 --> 00:06:32.759
baby does not wake up when these
people are having like an impassioned conversation right

89
00:06:32.759 --> 00:06:36.199
next to it. Just that whole
it really, I don't think it made

90
00:06:36.240 --> 00:06:42.720
any sense, you know. I
mean, I would happily be proven wrong,

91
00:06:42.800 --> 00:06:45.120
but I just didn't see how they
made any sense. So that kind

92
00:06:45.120 --> 00:06:47.839
of felt a little bit rushed to
me. And that's where I say that,

93
00:06:48.120 --> 00:06:51.680
you know, you compare it to
something like and or that moment when

94
00:06:51.920 --> 00:06:57.800
Andy Circus says I can't swim,
so heartbreaking you know, they really earned

95
00:06:57.920 --> 00:07:02.519
that moment, and I feel like
some of the emotional beats in Silo are

96
00:07:02.600 --> 00:07:06.360
not pulled off quite as strongly.
But I still really like the show,

97
00:07:06.879 --> 00:07:12.959
and I think that they did do
something actually in this episode that they did

98
00:07:13.040 --> 00:07:17.120
pull off and it was very satisfying. So I want to compliment the show

99
00:07:17.120 --> 00:07:21.199
for that. In the previous episode
I leave it was episode six, we

100
00:07:21.399 --> 00:07:28.560
established that there's people watching everybody.
There's a room where they're just watching everybody,

101
00:07:28.600 --> 00:07:30.240
and if you turn on the captions, it refers to the guys in

102
00:07:30.279 --> 00:07:34.600
there as watchers like watch her one
watch or two watch or three. And

103
00:07:35.600 --> 00:07:40.000
over the course of the show,
Rebecca Ferguson has been learning all these little

104
00:07:40.000 --> 00:07:45.040
clues and stuff, and they've dropped
all these breadcrumbs. And in this episode,

105
00:07:45.079 --> 00:07:48.800
Rebecca Ferguson is in the Fertility Ladies
room and she puts it all together

106
00:07:48.920 --> 00:07:54.800
and she realizes that there's cameras in
the mirrors, and then she takes a

107
00:07:54.879 --> 00:07:59.519
blanket and covers the mirror, and
all the people that are in the surveillance

108
00:07:59.600 --> 00:08:03.519
room they're like, oh shit,
Like you see the other people in the

109
00:08:03.560 --> 00:08:05.639
back who were working on other stuff
kind of like stand up and walk over

110
00:08:05.759 --> 00:08:11.800
like it's a seismic change in the
silo. So that was really satisfying.

111
00:08:11.959 --> 00:08:18.519
That's I think why the show works. It's a pretty rare situation where the

112
00:08:18.680 --> 00:08:22.759
central mystery of what is going on
here is so good that as long as

113
00:08:22.800 --> 00:08:28.759
they could keep coming up with these
kind of like act outs or episode outs

114
00:08:28.800 --> 00:08:33.840
that advanced the mystery considerably, it's
just hard to stop watching it. And

115
00:08:33.000 --> 00:08:39.039
such good actors, I mean,
Rebecca Ferguson, Ian Glenn, you know,

116
00:08:39.120 --> 00:08:43.600
they had Will Patton was there for
a while and they killed him off,

117
00:08:43.200 --> 00:08:48.399
David Oyiloo, Rashida Jones, Tim
Robbins, which, by the way,

118
00:08:48.600 --> 00:08:52.159
Tim Robbins, it feels like there's
still some cards left to play.

119
00:08:52.399 --> 00:08:56.759
I think him and Common, who
plays kind of the antagonist. It feels

120
00:08:56.799 --> 00:09:01.240
like they have like they need their
moment, right, they need their moment

121
00:09:01.279 --> 00:09:05.840
like Andy Serkis had an and or. That really deepens those characters, and

122
00:09:05.879 --> 00:09:09.879
I hope it's coming, like I
want to believe the show has that up

123
00:09:09.879 --> 00:09:13.799
as sleeve. It's an interesting thing, and that's why I say it's it's

124
00:09:13.879 --> 00:09:18.159
kind of like a prototypical streaming show. It's just good enough that You're like,

125
00:09:18.200 --> 00:09:22.279
this feels really good, like I'm
gonna keep watching it. I think

126
00:09:22.279 --> 00:09:24.600
it's very well made, but at
the same time, it also feels like

127
00:09:26.240 --> 00:09:28.919
it a little bit undercooked in some
hard to define way. It's almost like

128
00:09:28.960 --> 00:09:31.960
if they had I don't know,
I'm not sure. I mean, there's

129
00:09:31.960 --> 00:09:35.879
there's a lot of talk within the
writer's guild, obviously because the strike and

130
00:09:35.879 --> 00:09:41.240
everything about many rooms and not enough
writers on staff and not enough time to

131
00:09:41.279 --> 00:09:45.200
make these shows and things of that
nature. And I do wonder about that,

132
00:09:45.399 --> 00:09:46.840
you know, I do almost feel
like I can sense that, And

133
00:09:46.879 --> 00:09:50.559
I could be wrong. It could
be that they had plenty of time all

134
00:09:50.559 --> 00:09:54.000
that kind of stuff, but I
almost feel like they need like twenty one

135
00:09:54.120 --> 00:09:58.440
percent time in the oven. It
just feels slightly undercooked, but at the

136
00:09:58.480 --> 00:10:01.879
same time, it is really good, Like I'm really excited to finish it

137
00:10:01.919 --> 00:10:05.759
out, and I think it is
one of the better streaming shows that's on

138
00:10:05.799 --> 00:10:09.639
TV right now. So that's where
I say it's it's kind of prototypical of

139
00:10:09.679 --> 00:10:16.240
our time, you know. You
think about and or Tony Gilroy has reached

140
00:10:16.240 --> 00:10:20.440
a point in his career where I
think he has such juice that he can

141
00:10:20.519 --> 00:10:24.200
really throw his weight around. And
obviously and Or because the Star Wars property,

142
00:10:24.759 --> 00:10:28.840
I'm sure his budget was like insane
and like a limited essentially, So

143
00:10:30.039 --> 00:10:33.360
yeah, I just I do wonder
about that. One of the things I'm

144
00:10:33.360 --> 00:10:35.840
actually kind of worried about for the
next season of Andor is My understanding is

145
00:10:37.440 --> 00:10:41.519
Tony is not I don't think he's
working on it like day to day because

146
00:10:41.519 --> 00:10:46.279
of the writer strike, so he
might not be able to make the adjustments

147
00:10:46.559 --> 00:10:50.080
you know that he would otherwise be
able to make in production and post production.

148
00:10:50.120 --> 00:10:52.840
So I'm a little concerned about that. But yeah, Silo, you

149
00:10:52.879 --> 00:10:56.960
know, it's sort of it got
me in really good in the beginning,

150
00:10:56.279 --> 00:11:01.480
almost lost me in the middle,
and now it pretty much fully has me

151
00:11:01.559 --> 00:11:03.639
back, and so I'm very excited
to see where they go with the last

152
00:11:03.639 --> 00:11:07.559
couple episodes. I would love to
know what you all think about Silo.

153
00:11:09.279 --> 00:11:13.480
You can almost reach me at dan
ad Voyagemedia dot com. Watch This Tonight

154
00:11:13.519 --> 00:11:16.159
on Instagram, Watch This Night podcast
on TikTok. You can join our Facebook

155
00:11:16.200 --> 00:11:20.440
group. Are you still in on
Silo? Did you have that same kind

156
00:11:20.480 --> 00:11:24.679
of middle period where you almost left
like me? I know, my guy

157
00:11:24.960 --> 00:11:26.399
brother of Doom and I have been
messaging about it, and you know,

158
00:11:26.440 --> 00:11:31.240
he sort of had a similar feeling, and you know, I think we

159
00:11:31.320 --> 00:11:37.000
both felt that it's sort of got
its mojo back. So yeah, it'll

160
00:11:37.039 --> 00:11:39.919
be interesting to see if it finishes
out the season at a real high point.

161
00:11:41.840 --> 00:11:43.759
It feels like the potential for that
is there, So yeah, excited

162
00:11:43.799 --> 00:11:48.759
to see what happens next on Silo. That is the show for today.

163
00:11:48.399 --> 00:11:52.360
As always, thank you so much
for listening. I'm still on the hunt

164
00:11:52.360 --> 00:11:56.120
for the next great like Sunday night
thing to watch from HBO. Maybe there

165
00:11:56.159 --> 00:11:58.960
isn't one, but if you have
one, reach out Until next time,

166
00:12:03.320 --> 00:12:13.799
m h look, look, look