Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 55:23 — 101.4MB) | Embed

Subscribe to The Game of Nerds Podcast! Spotify | RSS | Subscribe to The Game of Nerds Podcast!

In this episode of the podcast, I’m chatting with podcast friend Leland Steel about the dumpster fire that is 2020. Leland has been a friend of mine for over three years now and we met via his podcast, The T-Hud Popcast. I happened to be the founder and president of the “I Love Leland” fan club. There were even shirts made before I had Marvel. The last time Leland and I chatted was when we were recording an episode of his podcast just before the world started to meltdown due to COVID in March.

This podcast starts the conversation off by talking about how our families and significant others have really been the driving factor to this year. As much as it’s sucked, we have gained some positivity from the situation. We gush about our love for Netflix’s Tiger King and Amazon Prime Video’s Upload while joking that the Canadians had been secretly hiding Schitt’s Creek from the rest of the world this entire time. The conversation turns then to binge-watching and how it’s basically instant gratification. As a society, we’ve now been programmed to watch series in entire sitting instead of watching them weekly like a regular series. It makes us miss the old days of watching episodes when they aired live and spending all week chatting with our friends before the next episode. Leland explains his hate of Disney+ and how it’s algorithm absolutely blows. The only series that is worth watching for him on that platform happens to be The Mandalorian. Later in the episode, we talk about how Disney failed miserably with Mulan and would have been more successful trying the same thing with Black Widow. In terms of movies, there wasn’t really much this year except for the Borat Sequel.

We also talk extensively about series we absolutely hated this year, like Space Force and Season 2 of You. The biggest rant of the episode comes with how the New Mutants movie was treated. Our conversation pivots from there on the future of media and if theaters will eventually go out of business. This episode was recorded before WB announced it’s entire 2021 lineup would be going to HBO Max as well as theaters. Leland and I at least both agree that it’s way more financially feasible for families to have the ability to buy movies that are in theaters from the comfort of their own homes. It also touches on how cable tv is still even around, with streaming sites each having their won platform and ones like Hulu offering cable packages as add ons. The biggest disappointment this year was that so many good movies were pushed back to next year. Ghostbusters Afterlife, James Bond, and Bob’s Burgers were some of the notable ones we were really excited about. We touch on some of the amazing fundraising events that have happened this year due to COVID. Examples like the Parks and Rec special, Scott Pilgram Table Read, and the Princess Bride Reenactment. We finish the conversation by talking about what we want to leave in 2020 and what we want to take into 2021. In a surprising turn of events, I turn Leland into a positive softie. He motions to begin the “I Love Shannon” club, and my job here is done, folks.

Get To Know Our Guest:

Leland Steel
Twitter – @Leland_Steel
Co-Host of The T-Hud Popcast – http://ttpopcast.com
New Episodes Drop on the 15th of every month with Moby!
Dungeon Master at The Incorrigible Party Podcast – http://incorrigibleparty.com