Geektown Radio - TV News, Interviews & UK TV Air Dates

This week on Geekstorians, we’re looking at the leak that punched a hole through Hollywood’s gates.For years, Fox had Deadpool sitting in development limbo. Ryan Reynolds wanted to make the film properly. Director Tim Miller had test footage. The fans knew exactly what they wanted. The studio, however, remained unconvinced.Then, in July 2014, fifty-two seconds of Deadpool test footage appeared online.It wasn’t a trailer. It wasn’t part of a polished marketing campaign. It wasn’t even supposed to be public. But once the footage hit the internet, the reaction was immediate, loud, and impossible for Fox to ignore.In this episode, Dave traces the long road to Deadpool, from Hollywood’s old gatekeeping model and the internet’s war with studio control, through the disastrous version of Wade Wilson in X-Men Origins: Wolverine, to the leaked footage that helped turn an unlikely R-rated superhero comedy into a box-office monster.Along the way, we look at how the success of Deadpool changed the conversation around R-rated comic book films, helped open the door for projects like Logan and Joker, and proved that audiences were no longer just waiting outside the studio gates. Sometimes, they could force the gates open.This is the story of Ryan Reynolds, Tim Miller, Fox, fandom, the internet, and a red-suited menace who refused to stay in development hell.

Dave is joined by Darryl on this week’s Geektown Radio as they chat through the latest TV, film and gaming news, along with the shows and games they’ve been watching recently.Darryl kicks things off with a look at ‘High Potential’ Season 2, the crime procedural starring Kaitlin Olson, which continues to deliver those fun “clever outsider helps the police” vibes. He also reviews ‘Mistletoe Murders’, the surprisingly intriguing cosy crime series starring Sarah Drew, which is available in the UK on ITVX, along with Jackie Chan action thriller ‘The Shadow’s Edge’, and indie drama ‘The Bearded Girl’.Meanwhile, Dave has been diving into the early access release of ‘Subnautica 2’, which builds on the underwater survival, base-building and monster-dodging brilliance of the original game. He also gives his thoughts on ‘The Punisher: One Last Kill’, the Marvel one-shot style special bringing Jon Bernthal’s Frank Castle further into the MCU, and discusses the finale of ‘Outlander’, including its deliberately ambiguous ending. Plus, there’s a look at ‘Good Omens 3’, which wraps up the story of Crowley and Aziraphale in a 90-minute Prime Video finale.In the news section, we cover ‘The Lincoln Lawyer’ ending with Season 5 on Netflix, Channel 4 cancelling ‘Pushers’, and a huge batch of BBC comedy renewals including ‘Amandaland’, ‘Black Ops’, ‘Such Brave Girls’, ‘Things You Should Have Done’, ‘Mammoth’ and ‘Two Doors Down’. We also discuss renewals for ‘Prisoner’, ‘Running Point’, ‘My Life with the Walter Boys’, ‘Jury Duty’, ‘Reacher’, ‘Margo’s Got Money Troubles’, and more.There are also air date updates for ‘Ride with Norman Reedus’ on ITVX, ‘Stuart Fails To Save The Universe’ on HBO Max, ‘VisionQuest’ on Disney+, and ‘The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power’ Season 3 on Prime Video. Plus, Prime Video gives a series order to fantasy adaptation ‘Fourth Wing’, while Peacock begins development on a live-action ‘Fast & Furious’ TV series with Vin Diesel producing.Finally, we run through next week’s TV highlights, including ‘Jack Ryan’, ‘Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed’, ‘SkyMed’, ‘The Boroughs’, ‘PONIES’, ‘Two Weeks in August’, ‘Dear England’, ‘Brokenwood Mysteries’, ‘Law & Order: Special Victims Unit’, ‘Rick and Morty’, and ‘Who Do You Think You Are?’.You can listen to Geektown Radio every week for TV, film and gaming chat, UK air date updates, renewals, cancellations, and all the latest entertainment news from Geektown.co.uk.

In Season 2 Episode 6 of Geekstorians, Dave digs into one of the strangest turnarounds in blockbuster history.After Tim Burton redefined Batman for the big screen, Warner Bros. slowly pushed the franchise away from gothic weirdness and towards something brighter, louder, more commercial, and far more toy-friendly. The result was 1997’s Batman & Robin — a film so spectacularly misjudged it didn’t just flop, it effectively shut Batman down for years.But that failure turned out to be the point.This episode explores how the collapse of Batman & Robin gave Warner Bros. the one thing it didn’t realise it needed: a blank canvas. With the franchise too damaged to continue as it was, the studio eventually handed Batman to Christopher Nolan, first with Batman Begins, then with The Dark Knight — a film that didn’t just restore the character, but changed how Hollywood looked at superhero cinema.It’s a story about studio panic, merchandising logic, franchise collapse, and the uncomfortable truth that sometimes the best version of something only exists because the previous version failed hard enough to clear the ground.

Dave is joined by Matt for Geektown Radio Episode 497, and this week’s show is led by chat about Sky thriller Prisoner, the return of Citadel for Season 2, Marvel’s Daredevil: Born Again, and the annual US network bloodbath as renewals and cancellations roll in.Matt kicks things off with social media reviews for Wonder Man Season 1 and Daredevil: Born Again Season 2, with the latter earning huge praise for its big swings, compelling storylines and excellent payoff. He also wraps up Invincible Season 4, which continues to deliver brutal action, strong character work and plenty of Viltrumite chaos.On Dave’s side, he reviews Prisoner, the twisty Sky thriller starring Tahar Rahim and Izuka Hoyle, and starts Citadel Season 2, with Richard Madden, Priyanka Chopra Jonas and Stanley Tucci back for more stylish spy nonsense. There is also a quick plug for the latest Geektown Talks To interview with Daredevil: Born Again cinematographer Hillary Fyfe Spera, plus this week’s Geekstorians episode on how Batman & Robin accidentally saved Batman.In the news section, they break down Bloodbath Week across the US networks, covering the latest renewals, cancellations and pilot pickups from CBS, FOX, NBC and ABC, including everything from Watson and The Great North ending, to 9-1-1, Grey’s Anatomy, Elsbeth, Tracker and Law & Order all surviving another year.They also chat about UK cancellations including Juice, Film Club and Prey vs Predator: The Hunt, along with renewals for Secret Genius with Alan Carr, Pete Wicks: For Dogs’ Sake, The 1% Club, Saturday Night Live UK and more.Plus, they run through new series pickups like Line of Fire, The Rockford Files, Sunset P.I., NCIS: New York, The Rookie: North and Baywatch, before rounding up what is coming to screens next week, including Good Omens, The Punisher: One Last Kill, From Season 4, Rivals Season 2 and Welcome to Wrexham Season 5.Listen now for superhero TV, spy thrillers, network chaos and the usual Geektown mix of enthusiasm, side tangents and entertainment news.

In this Geektown Talks To interview, Dave chats with cinematographer Hillary Fyfe Spera, the lead cinematographer behind both seasons one and two of Marvel’s ‘Daredevil: Born Again’.Hillary was there from the very beginning of the Disney+ series, shooting the pilot, finale, and seven of the nine episodes in season one, helping to establish the grounded, cinematic look of Matt Murdock’s return to Hell’s Kitchen. She also returned for season two, shooting half of the episodes, including the opening two, as the story pushed further into the conflict between Daredevil, Wilson Fisk, and a city under increasing pressure.During the interview, Hillary discusses how she first came to cinematography through still photography, and how her love of collaboration led her into film and television. She also talks about how ‘Daredevil: Born Again’ came to her, and how classic 1970s New York films such as ‘Taxi Driver’ and ‘The French Connection’ helped inform the visual direction of the series.We also dig into the visual contrast between Matt Murdock’s world and Fisk’s world, with Daredevil and the vigilantes shot in a more handheld, human, street-level style, while Fisk’s side of the story becomes more controlled, symmetrical and oppressive. Hillary explains how those visual rules evolved across the two seasons, and how they could shift as characters moved between worlds or began to lose control.Hillary also breaks down the show’s practical approach to Daredevil’s heightened senses, including the in-camera “sensory grande” technique, which uses multiple cameras, lenses, movement and aspect ratio changes to represent something that is not inherently visual.There is also plenty of discussion about the action, including working with the stunt team, keeping fight scenes grounded while still making them cinematic, and why the best sequences need emotional pauses rather than just relentless punching. Hillary talks about the huge East River boat oner in season two, shot at night with drone lighting, choreography and practical location challenges, along with the series’ BB Report segments and how they changed visually as the story developed.Plus, Hillary chats about what she is watching at the moment, her love of ‘The X-Files’, and why her dream future project would be a Western.‘Daredevil: Born Again’ Seasons 1 and 2 are available on Disney+.

Season 2 of Geekstorians continues with the moment virtual worlds stopped being just games and started becoming laboratories.In ‘Virtual Worlds, Real Consequences’, Dave looks at three very different digital worlds — World of Warcraft, EVE Online and Second Life — and the very real human behaviour they exposed once thousands of people were let loose inside them.It starts with World of Warcraft’s Corrupted Blood incident, when a raid debuff escaped into the wider game and created a plague across major cities. What looked like a game bug became something stranger: an accidental model of how people behave during an epidemic, later cited in real-world pandemic research.From there, the episode moves into EVE Online, where CCP built a universe with minimal intervention and players responded by creating their own politics, economies, infiltrations, betrayals and wars. This is the world of the Guiding Hand Social Club heist, the Band of Brothers collapse, the Council of Stellar Management, and the Bloodbath of B-R5RB, a battle so vast it was covered like a real military event.Then comes Second Life, the platform that looked, for a while, like the future of the internet. A world built around ownership, virtual land, and real-money exchange, it drew in businesses, media companies and futurists who thought the metaverse had arrived. What followed was less a clean technological revolution than a reminder that the internet always brings people with it, and people tend to arrive carrying chaos.If the earlier episodes in Season 2 were about collapse, bankruptcy and institutional failure, this one is about something more revealing: what happens when designers build systems, step back, and let human beings do the rest.Geekstorians is a documentary-style podcast from Dave Elliott of Geektown, exploring the hidden history of geek culture, fandom, film, television, comics and gaming.

Dave is joined by Matt for Geektown Radio Episode 496, and this week’s show is led by chat about the Kenyan romcom Boda Love, ambitious sci-fi film Project Hail Mary, the return of Criminal Record for a second season, and Dave getting pulled back into Starfield.Matt kicks things off with Boda Love, a Kenyan romance that follows a British woman travelling to Africa after falling for someone online, only for things to go in a very different direction. He also reviews Project Hail Mary, praising its scale, ambition and sci-fi ideas, while also checking in on the latest season of Euphoria.On Dave’s side, he dives into Criminal Record Season 2 on Apple TV, with Cush Jumbo and Peter Capaldi back for a new case, and talks about returning to Starfield following its major updates and expanding creation content. There is also a quick Geekstorians mention, plus a new Geektown Talks To interview with Joséphine Jobert about Saint-Pierre.In the news section, they cover cancellations for Brilliant Minds, Stumble, Son of a Critch and The Night Agent, plus renewals for Scrubs, Shifting Gears, Stranger Things: Tales From ’85 and Death in Paradise. There is also air date news for Lanterns, Stuart Fails to Save The Universe and Welcome To Wrexham, along with chat about the Celebrity Traitors cast list.They also discuss more casting for ITV moon thriller First Woman, Netflix’s new Harlan Coben adaptation The Woods, and the planned TV adaptation of BAFTA-winning game Atomfall.Plus, they round up what is coming to TV next week, including Amandaland Season 2, Citadel Season 2, Matlock Season 2 Part 2, Legends, M.I.A., Monsieur Spade, Believe Me, Hudson & Rex Season 8 and Devil May Cry Season 2.Listen now for film reviews, TV news, sci-fi chat, gaming updates and the usual Geektown mix of enthusiasm, side tangents and entertainment chaos.

Geektown Talks To is back, and in this episode, Dave sits down with actress Joséphine Jobert to discuss her new crime drama ‘Saint-Pierre’, which recently launched in the UK on U&Alibi.UK viewers will know Joséphine from ‘Death in Paradise’, but in ‘Saint-Pierre’ she takes on a very different kind of island detective role as Deputy Chief Geneviève “Arch” Archambault. Set on the French territory of Saint-Pierre and Miquelon, just off the coast of Newfoundland, the series follows Arch as she is partnered with Donny “Fitz” Fitzpatrick, played by Allan Hawco, after Fitz is sent to the island following trouble back home.In the interview, Joséphine talks about why she was initially unsure about doing another police drama after ‘Death in Paradise’, what changed her mind when she read the script, and how Arch became a character who meant far more to her than she expected.She also discusses filming on Saint-Pierre itself, swapping Guadeloupe sunshine for much colder North Atlantic weather, the chemistry between Arch and Fitz, and what it is like working opposite Allan Hawco, who is not only her co-star, but also co-creator and executive producer of the show.Plus, Dave and Joséphine chat about the show’s success in Canada, the brutal Season 1 cliffhanger, the possibility of more ‘Saint-Pierre’, her upcoming projects, reality TV guilty pleasures, and why she would love to step into the world of Marvel.‘Saint-Pierre’ Season 1 is airing now on U&Alibi in the UK.