The Best TV Show of 2023!

Good morning, evening, afternoon, whatever time of day it is. Welcome to the Potato Camera Power Hour here on Collider Dailies. I'm John Aldrich, and joining me once again is... Maggie Lovett. Maggie, how was your holiday? Filled with work. That's always... Such is life in the news lane. That's always fun. That's always what you wanna hear. Yeah, I mean, even my favorite journalist over at CNN were on all day yesterday, so I felt like I was in good company. All the newsies working hard. Yeah, that is just life in this job that we chose for ourselves. But today we get to at least have some fun, so there is that, because today we are starting our week-long thing that we're doing here on Dailies, which is basically we're gonna be looking at our top... Insert topic here's from throughout the year. Today we are gonna be talking about our top ships. That one is tailor-made for Maggie there. We're gonna be talking about our top games. I feel like you all know the answer to that one. And before we get into all that, we're gonna talk about our top shows of the year. So let's just go ahead and dive right into that. Maggie, hit me with the first one that you wanna talk about at the very least. I feel like I would be sorely disappointing everybody who knows me if one of my TV shows that was the top ones for this year wasn't Star Trek Picard season three. I absolutely loved the entire series, but in particular season three just hit on so many of the things that I love about Star Trek. I thought it was a great kind of final chapter for that story, for that series. It finished up a lot of things from the next generation, which was great. It introduced a bunch of new characters, literally the next generation of the next generation, which I really loved. And it really just makes me want Paramount to listen to the fans and give us Star Trek Legacy, which I will never pass up an opportunity to talk about the fact that we need that show and we need Terry Matalas to be the one bringing it to us. So yeah, Star Trek Picard season three, that was definitely one of my favorite shows of 2023. But now I wanna know, what is one of your favorite shows from 2023? I was also gonna talk about Picard season three. Well, there you go. Because like, listen, here's the thing. I've said this on dailies before. This is not like a fresh hot take or anything, but I wasn't the biggest fan of seasons one and two. That is putting it nicely. I didn't think that they were all that good. But season three, I went into it with honestly low expectations and was absolutely blown away. And it became one of my favorite things of the year. I still will occasionally, like if I'm feeling kind of low energy, I will re-watch certain clips from that show, from that season to like get myself hyped up again. Oh, I love that. I feel like if you watch the season, you probably know which moments I'm specifically talking about. But it's so good, so entertaining, something that I just absolutely loved and adored. And it made me so happy as somebody who grew up watching the next generation. Like to me, that is Star Trek to me. Like all the other seasons and shows and everything are good, but next generation is the primary Star Trek show for me. So of course I was going to love season three of Picard. I love that. I'm also like somebody, I love next generation and I also love Voyager. And seven of nine was always like my favorite character on Voyager. So the fact that she was like an ever present member of the entire Picard series was everything to me. Cause I love her so much. I love Jerry Ryan so much. She, see, I like seven, nine. She was not my favorite Voyager character, but this season did give us an appearance of my favorite Voyager character, which is Tuvok. Oh, I love Tuvok. I was so happy when he showed up. Oh yeah, that made me incredibly happy. It made me smile very much. So, you know, of course Picard season three had to be on there. But bringing in another spot, I feel like as a colossal nerd that I am, if I didn't bring up Power Rangers Cosmic Fury, I would be disappointing a few people. Was this great television? No. Was it fun television? A hundred percent, yes. It is everything you would expect from a Power Rangers season. Corny as all get out, goofy characters, kind of stilted writing, but in the most fun way possible. For a 30th season of the show, it hit all of the major marks that I would have liked, except for it would have been great if there were a few more like returning Rangers and stuff. But you know what, I understand the nature of television and filmmaking and all that sort of stuff and understanding that that doesn't always happen, but it was still a ton of fun. It was one of those things that when it came out, I stayed up all night and I binge watched all the episodes, which was easy because this season, as opposed to other Power Rangers seasons, there were only 10 episodes. So it was easy, of course, to get through. And of course you got to give some love to the fact that it was the first season with a season long female Red Ranger, which is a colossal moment in the fandom. Kind of a bummer though, that it looks like that might be the end of at least this continuity of Power Rangers. We're no word on getting another season anytime soon. So I guess we'll just have to wait for whatever comes next, but I still enjoyed it quite a bit. I have had a very hard time engaging with Power Rangers stuff after Jason David Frank's death earlier this year. That one hit really hard. He was my favorite Power Ranger. I loved Power Rangers growing up. I met him at Awesome Con a few years ago. That was such a hard death this year. So I have not been able to engage with Power Rangers stuff, even though I've heard so many good things about that series. You're not the first person I've heard to be like, was it good? No. Was it fun? Yes. I feel that. Yeah. I feel like this series, you definitely felt it, but I feel like the once and always special is where you really felt the weight of his passing. But it's one of those things where the Power Rangers community, especially around his passing, rallied so hard and unified so hard that it was sad, but in a hopeful kind of way, if that makes any sense. Yeah, that makes sense. I get that. Maggie, what else you got for me? Okay, so this is a show that came in kind of late into the year, and I did two interviews for it over on Collider Interview, so you should go check those out afterwards. But I absolutely loved The Artful Dodger. It was one of the most surprising shows of 2023 for me. I love Dickens. I studied Dickens in college. It's one of my favorite genres of Brit lit, essentially. I love different adaptations of Charles Dickens' work, and I have a particular soft spot for Oliver Twist. And I was really excited to see this because it seemed like a continuation of The Artful Dodger story. Of course, everybody loves The Artful Dodger. Like, sure, Oliver Twist is cool and all, but you love The Artful Dodger. And so I kind of came into this expecting him as an adult, dealing with things, and I don't know. I had very different expectations when I came into it, but it blew my mind. It was so much better than I even imagined. It's all about his life in Australia, and he went on to become a surgeon, and it's just this whole thing, and then Fagin comes in, and there are other Oliver Twist characters that show up in the back half of season one, and it is just so good. And I think that it is hopefully going to get a season two because, at least in judging fandom stuff, I always try to look to see how people are engaging with these kind of shows outside of just watching it. And if you look on YouTube, there are fan videos for one of the couples that has 50,000 views, and it was only two days old, so a lot of people are looking for content about the show. Even my interview with Thomas Brody-Sangster was over 10,000 views, and that just blew my mind because I wasn't thinking people were going to jump on this as quickly as they did, and it was just so good. If you like historical dramas, if you like historical romance, and if you like the weird surgical practices of the 19th century, this is perfect for any of those people, and it's just so good. And David Thewlis' Fagin is just chef's kiss. I love the show so much. I cannot stop recommending it enough. It is so good. I haven't gotten a chance to watch it. It's not really my kind of show, but maybe- It'll surprise you. Maybe I'll go out of my comfort zone and watch it. My top show of the year, though, the one that hits my number one spot is, I feel like no surprise to anybody who watches dailies, it's the fall of the House of Usher. This show was just absolutely brilliant. For context, I don't watch many shows because I just don't have the time, really, to commit to how long shows tend to be as opposed to something like movies. So when I tell you that I watched the fall of the House of Usher three times since it came out in October, that should tell you how much I enjoy this series. Not just enjoy, how much I love this series. Fantastic writing, fantastic acting from top to bottom. It is just an absolutely brilliant series. And to me, an example of what can be done when you have some of the most talented people in the business all working together, all passionately trying to create something, and having from some solid direction from beginning to end. It is magnificent. I cannot recommend it enough to anyone and everyone. Whether you have a high tolerance for horror or not, it is something that you should 100% check out. Maggie, what's your top and or your thoughts on the fall of House of Usher? I think it's really excellent. I love Mike Flanagan. He is one of my favorite filmmakers right now, or at least television makers right now. I've loved all of them from Haunting to Blythe to this. I'm really excited to see what he does next. I am very sad that his partnership with Netflix has kind of come to an end, because I have been very partial to that Flanniverse, but I guess the Flanniverse is still continuing in a different form, and I am excited for that. His next project seems really exciting. So I will preface this with saying that my list was not in order from the third to the first. It was kind of like no specific order. These were just three shows that I really loved this year. So my third one that I'm going to bring up is The Gilded Age. I binged the first two seasons. Of course, season two was airing kind of at that time. So I binged it right up until the season two finale. So I caught up just in time to be there that Sunday for the final episodes for season two. And I just, I love the show so much. I am a big fan of Julian Fellow's work with Downton Abbey and some of his other series. There's a certain level of like comfort to his storytelling, because I never feel like he is going to pull the wool like over our eyes or like pull a blanket out from underneath of us. Like the way that he tells stories feels very true to like the time periods that they are kind of encapsulated within. And he seems to understand what audiences want from TV shows, which is something that I, like Downton Abbey is still like incredibly rewatchable because you, like there's a certain comfort to it. And so I really liked the fact that The Gilded Age feels like even better storytelling. Like he's even learned from the things that were already excellent and delivered something that's like just so good. And some of the stuff that happened in like the season two finale was just like, yes, like complete wish fulfillment for what like you see as you're watching season one and season two. And then it got renewed for season three. So I'm very excited, but I'm also like, I love Gilded Age for another reason too. So there is a house in New York in the Hudson Valley called Lindhurst, which was used as Collinsport, the Collinwood Manor in Dark Shadows in the 80s. And it's also used in The Gilded Age. And it's like one of my favorite historic properties. They even follow me on Instagram and they use it for a lot of the locations. And so it just brings me a lot of joy that like this show that I really love is also filmed in a place that I really love, which is just peak corny, cheesy Maggie for you. But yeah, I love The Gilded Age and The Hot Train Daddy. So this is yet another series that I haven't watched. It's not, again, it's not- And it doesn't seem like something you're gonna watch. I'm like, I appreciate you saying you'll add it to your list, but like I had this conversation with you. I am a little bit more likely to watch this one because I actually did watch Downton Abbey and I do love Downton Abbey. So like, although that largely comes down to the fact that I just absolutely adore Mr. Bates. Like every aspect of that character is so lovely. Now I wanna know, can you guess who my favorite character was on Downton Abbey? You've known me for a few months now. Like, can you guess who my favorite was? I'm gonna say Thomas. Thomas Bear is my favorite. Yeah. He's my beloved. I have, there's so many posts for like every time there was a new Downton Abbey movie, I was like, if anything bad happens, I was like the Kirby with the knife. If anything bad happens to Thomas Barrow, I'm here. I love that man. I didn't like Thomas the first season, but he grew on me as the show went on. He's so tragic. Like that man has never had a day of happiness in his life. He's very much presented as an antagonistic figure early on and then like he kind of, I think he gets his ass kicked a little bit and gets some sense put into it. I mean, the whole getting sent to war does put a damper on your conniving ways. You would at least hope so. So those are our- I loved Lady Mary. There's just so many things about Downton Abbey that I just, so good. So those are our top shows of 2023 and also a additional little discussion on Downton Abbey. Moving on, we're gonna be going on to our top ships, which actually, this is one that I actually only have one answer for because I'm not really much of a shipper. Like I don't really do that very much. It's just never been something that I've done. I've never been like, I don't know, just never really. But I do have one, one that I feel like was presented as something that is kind of presented as a like, hey, if we do this in the future, this is going to be a thing. And that is on Star Trek Picard, Jack Crusher, and Sidney the Forge. Is it on your list? Yes. Those two were just so fun together, especially when they were doing that scene where they were installing the cloaking device into the Titan, their chemistry and everything about the way that they were playing off of each other was just so brilliant. I loved it so much, but I just want to see more of it. Same, same. That is like my driving force for like, obviously I want Star Trek Legacy for a variety of reasons. There's like so much stuff that like is both public knowledge and like not that like, I just, I want to see on screen and I want to see them. Like that was like such a, like a taste of something that now I'm like, when am I going to have the full meal? When am I getting the ship? Like actually on my screen, Paramount, come on. We want this. And also I love Ed Spalier so much and I love Ashley. Like they both were so good in season three and I want to see not only the ship but to see their characters get to do more. Cause like, I just, they're so good. I feel like even if, so like if we get Legacy, even if they don't wind up being like an actual like romantic couple, they're going to make just absolutely brilliant on-screen friends that are just going to be fun to watch no matter what they're doing. So of course that was going to be the one, if I was going to talk about any ship on this episode it was going to be that. I love that. I'm so glad we were in alignment there. So Maggie, go ahead and hit me with the other ones that you have, cause I presume that you probably have a lot. So surprisingly I have just a lot that have like persisted from like previous years. So I wouldn't classify them as like a 2023 ship. So those are not on my list. I strictly stuck to shows that came out this year that had the ships that I liked in them. And surprisingly they are from both the Artful Dodger and Gilded Age, you know? So my ships are all from the three shows that I love this year. If you give me ships, I'll love you even more. So for the Artful Dodger, I loved Jack Dawkins' relationship with Lady Belle. It was so nice to see it actually play out because at first we only got the first four episodes. So then when I interviewed like Thomas, I was like trying to get him to like give information about it. Because at that point, like I don't trust most TV shows to actually have any sort of like relationships because television here lately has just mostly been sexless. And I mean that not like having, you know, things, relations on screen, but just like there's no chemistry. Like even when people have chemistry, it's not played out. And I have found that really frustrating. So I mostly go into TV and movies thinking that there's going to be nothing. And I'm going to have to conjure it up, you know, in the land of fiction afterwards. But they actually paid off this relationship. Like they established it, built it. And then there was a great payoff for Jack and Belle's relationship. So that instantly landed on my list. I love them. I love seeing how much like romance shippers are enjoying this. As somebody who reads a lot of historical romance, it was really great to see that kind of relationship that you usually only see in like historical novels actually get to play out in a TV show that's like on Hulu and like popular. So that was really fun. And then for my third ship is one that came about in the season finale of Gilded Age, which was Larry and Marion finally kissing. When I first started watching the show, I didn't really know where things were going in season two. I kind of had some ideas, because obviously I read things that are on Collider.com, but I didn't really know. And I kind of clocked in the first couple of episodes that they seemed like a couple that Julian Fellows would eventually play out. But then like some stuff happened at the start of season two, where I was like, maybe that's not gonna happen for both of their characters. Like Marion ends up engaged to somebody and Larry's having a fling with an older lady. And I was like, this is probably not gonna happen, but it happened. And I'm very happy and I am ready for season three to see that play out. And if either of them get into car accidents, Julian Fellows. Not again, don't play me again. And like, I keep reminding myself, like the Titanic is a thing that will happen in about like 10 years, because it's the Gilded Age and like the Astors are around and we know that the Astor's son dies on the Titanic. So I'm like, Julian, don't do it. I'm watching you. Oh, it's gonna happen. I'm watching you. If it goes for long enough, it's going to happen. I don't doubt it. I know, well, it would need to go for like another like 10 seasons. So I'm hoping that like, yeah, I am afraid of that. I am very afraid of that. Like I know Julian Fellow's mind. I've watched all of his work. I know how he operates, but yeah. So I love them. I was really happy that that happened. They smooched and I was very happy. It made me very happy. See to your point about like TV being like sexless or romance-less lately, I'm a Power Rangers fan. So I'm pretty much used to that. I don't think Power Rangers has had a like proper, I mean, they've had like quote unquote couples on screen but they haven't really had like a romance plot since like Time Force, I think was the last time that they had like a romance plot. Well, it's like so funny you say that because like my first like ship that I remember shipping as a child was Tommy and Kimberly. Like they were my ship. And it's so weird that like that was something that was so like formative as a child. And then it just died out of television. Like they just stopped with like cute ships and like bring them back. They fuel fandoms and make people wanna watch your show more cause they are invested and like more than just like the friendships, but like the romance aspect of it. Like that's fun. Power Rangers will do that where they will very clearly be pairing two characters up but then like the spiciest that it's that it'll get will be like, they might hug maybe. And even then if they hug, it's like, if they hug, it's like headlines across like all the fan sites and all the YouTube videos and everything. Like, okay, Dino Fury, we did have a couple with I'm spacing on the Izzy and why am I spacing on her name right now? Her girlfriend, that was like a proper couple but there wasn't like, that was the spiciest that it got was again, hugs and some handholding. So like, I'm- Hey, I'm just saying, handholding can be very hot to watch. Hands are a thing, like a language, a film language that works so well. And I'm not gonna make this about Raylo but I'm gonna say the hand touch in The Last Jedi was one of the hottest scenes on television in years. Like that's what I'm saying. Like, and it goes back to like the Pride and Prejudice thing like where they touch hands and then like you see Mr. Darcy like flexing his hand like hands can be such an intimate form of like language without actually committing to anything more. I was so hoping that we could get through the discussion of ships without Raylo coming up but I guess I should have known better. Never. We have one last top topic that we're going to talk about today. And this is one that I feel like you knew that we were going to talk about because Maggie and I have been the like sole voices of games on Collider Dailies. So of course we were gonna talk about our top games of the year. So I'm gonna start this off with one that I actually, I, for a little bit when I was thinking about this yesterday I forgot that it was released this year because it was released back in like March and this has been a year that's been like so long. That's Resident Evil 4 Remake. Oh, that just came out this year. Yeah, it came out in like March. So here's the thing. I did not love Resident Evil 4, the original one as much as a lot of other people. I am very much like when it comes to Resident Evil series I like 1, 2, and 3. I like the tank control old school Resident Evil. That's always been my Resident Evil but the remakes that Capcom have been doing they have not missed yet. I even liked Resident Evil 3 Remake. I know there's some people who are going to get angry at me for saying that I liked it, but I did. So when Resident Evil 4 Remake came out I wasn't as jazzed about it but seeing as how it plays basically exactly the same as all the other remakes I was absolutely hooked from beginning to end. I have, that is one of the few games in my Steam library that I have a hundred percent had gotten all of the Steam achievements done everything that I could possibly do, unlocked everything. I got separate ways the moment it was available did everything in that. It is one of those games that I just I almost mindlessly did it. Like I was just so enthralled by it that there was no thoughts, just Resident Evil Remake. It was just so good. And I had so much fun with it. Yeah. I don't know really what much more there is to say about it. It's Resident Evil 4 Remake. If you've played it you understand why it's in my top games of the year. It's just absolutely brilliant. Well, I love that. So I had a really hard time coming up with three games because to be very honest I have not played a lot of games this year. I've watched a lot of playthroughs of games because I just don't have time or resources to get all the games that interest me. So I had to narrow it down to just like the three games I actually played this year and not just like thought about or engaged with in other ways. So this is going to be a very, very basic answer for my first one here, which was Sims 4. I love Sims. I kind of go through bouts where like I don't play Sims for like six months and then I play it for three months straight, like every day and it's something that I very have to do like do in moderation. As somebody who went to school for like architecture and stuff like I love building houses in it. In fact, Sim City was part of my urban planning class at uni. So like I've actually played Sims for a grade but I just love everything about Sims. I also love like the mods and like doing crazy stuff and like breaking the game basically to have like as many people as possible in your house or like all sorts of like crazy stuff that you can do with Sims. I find it really fun. I also liked a lot of the new packs that came out this year. There were some really fun like new blankets and books and things like that. That was something that you could only really get from modders before. So it was really fun to actually have them as something you could unfortunately purchase but it was fun and I have played it way too much. I have like 8,000 hours on Sims 4. Yeah, but that's like spread out of like a couple of years. It's still very bad, but it's just fun. I have a lot of fun with it. I also like just being chaotic and creating like underground prisons and like all sorts of stuff. Yeah, it's a thing. Like you just, you like set up scenarios and like build places to trap people and then remove the guardrails. I do get it. I will say I don't play Sims 4 personally because when that game was released initially back in 2014, 2015. Yeah, it's been about a decade of playing Sims 4. Yeah, I didn't like all of the features that Sims 4 stripped away from Sims 3. So I have actually never moved on from Sims 3 but I have probably thousands of hours in Sims 3. I don't know. Sims 4 gave me horses finally. And so that made me happy because I'm a horse girl and I could finally own a ranch and like, it was great. And you could like do competitions and all sorts of stuff. So like that was when I was like, I'm playing Sims for like three months. Nobody talked to me. So yeah, very white girl basic answer there, but whatever. It's okay. My next answer I feel like is very much a white boy basic answer. It is the game that caused me to actually finally break down and buy a PS5. It is Spider-Man 2. I love the Spider-Man games. Spider-Man PS4, Spider-Man Miles Morales. Both games that I have 100%ed multiple times not just on PS4 when I initially played them but also when they got releases on PC I then re-bought them and re-100%ed them. So of course I was gonna be all about this game. I will say that I think story-wise the first game was better than the second game but the second game's gameplay improvements were enough to make it head and shoulders better than both the original game and Miles Morales. The movement in it is brilliant. It feels so free and you're able to just move about in any way that you possibly want to. It feels like there's very little limitations and it's just so much fun. I adore everything to do with Venom. So as much as I feel like the story was it was very much shorter and it wasn't as like emotionally engaging as the first game's story I still loved it very much. So of course it had to be one of my top games of the year. I will say though, those of you who are angry that it didn't win any awards at the Game Awards, tough. Like, sorry. As someone who loved it, better name for them. It happens. Them greats, lads. Yeah. Maggie, what's next for you? So my number two is also another very basic answer. I don't play Switch a lot. I played Switch initially to do like Animal Crossing way after everybody was already done playing Animal Crossing and then Hades, which I absolutely loved. Hades was like phenomenal game but I started playing Disney Dreamlight this year on it really at the start of the year and then I sank too much time into it. And then I was like, I let my DS die like just let the battery charge out so I would stop playing it. It was like that bad. I have to like, anybody who understands like hyper fixations knows like you have to hard stop sometimes but I loved Disney Dreamlight so much to the point that I still sometimes go and watch other people playing it to like get my fix and not actually sink a lot of time into it again. I just really enjoy that game. I thought it was really fun. It was kind of like Animal Crossing but with like Disney characters and like, I just really liked the vibes of it. I thought it was really fun. It kind of remind me nostalgia-wise like Kingdom Hearts because you're playing with all of these Disney characters and like solving things and like doing problems. And I just really enjoyed it. It was really fun. I'm definitely not somebody I would call like a cozy gamer but it was very in the mind of like the cozy gamer. It was a perfect like spring game to play. And I do now that it's like truly winter time I'm starting to feel the itch to play it again but I am trying to resist that urge because I've already sunk enough time into another game that I think we're both going to talk about here next. Speaking of urges, it's quite the dark urge. Before we get into my top game which is also gonna be your top game. We knew it was coming up. I do wanna throw out one honorable mention that I feel like I would be doing a disservice to a lot of people in the one fandom that I am actually probably an active participant in. And I do need to shout out yet another rhythm game, Yarg. It is a fan project that was released in an attempt to basically recreate Rock Band for the PC. It is so much fun. It is not yet perfect, but it is getting damn near close. And I applaud the efforts of the entire development team who are, you know, they're doing it in their free time. So of course I had to throw, I had to throw Yarg out there. I had to show some love to Yarg. As much as I love Clone Hero, I so much prefer Yarg. Which makes sense. I'm more of a Rock Band player than I am a Guitar Hero player. So that had to be what it is. I was a Guitar Hero girl. I play both, but I prefer Rock Band. I can actually see my Guitar Hero guitar from where I'm sitting. Normally, in most normal episodes of dailies, when I'm at home and not at my parents' place, there is a guitar visible behind me at all times because I do always have a guitar controller right there. Just in case the urge strikes you. Special shout out to my friend, Guitars and Scarves, who actually modded that guitar for me. If I had it, I would show you. It's very beautiful. She painted it and modified it and everything. It's super brilliant, but I don't have it, obviously. But of course, my top game of the year, it's no surprise to anybody, it's Baldur's Gate 3. I feel like this is a game that is going to be pretty much everyone's top game of the year, or at least damn near close. This game is, to me, what video games should be, full stop. It shows you what the medium is capable of and what I feel like, especially when it comes to AAA games, it is the standard by which we should judge all other games from here on out. It is so brilliant, so wonderfully crafted, so expansive. It is just, it is brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. I agree wholeheartedly. I think it's going to be really hard for me to play other games after having this taste of Baldur's Gate 3, because it has been just such a good experience. And I really like Larian. I think they seem to be a really good studio that has both the best interest of fans, the best interest of stories, and the best interest of their devs in mind when they are creating, and that's something I really respect. The way that that entire developmental team is super active online and they're all really excited, and there's a sense of camaraderie that you don't necessarily see in other dev teams, because I think they actually got paid fairly well for their work, and maybe their work-life balance was decently better than some other people who have suffered underneath the constraints of some of the bigger studio games. And I just think the story is so wonderful, and it does make me really sad that it doesn't necessarily sound like we'll get a Baldur's Gate 4 anytime soon, since they said that the people they worked with at Wizards of the Coast were all laid off by Hasbro. 1100 people laid off by Hasbro. It was not a fun time. Yeah, and I just can't imagine, like, obviously I am not, you know, high up in some sort of corporation that my mind actually functions and doesn't just think of, like, weird bottom lines for myself, but I can't picture being somebody at Hasbro in a position of power and being like, wow, this game that we helped make happen is, like, winning all of these awards and is the talk of the town, so let's fire everybody who helped be the liaison for that here. Like, I just don't understand where that mindset comes from at all. Well, I mean- It's bewildering. Let's just ignore the fact that Wizards of the Coast is one of the few profitable parts of Hasbro's business portfolio, and yet they took a big brunt of the layoffs. Yeah, like, Hasbro, if you stopped making the same Stormtrooper every three months and acting like it was a new toy in the Black series, like, maybe you'd have enough money to pay Wizards of the Coast to, like, continue- And also if it didn't have, like, terrible QA problems where, like, the paint is all screwed up and weird, you know? Well, no, they don't have to worry about that because now they've hidden the toys behind paper boxes that you can't see. We've talked about this on the episode before. I know. It's just so many weird, unethical choices there that it makes me so sad because if I was somebody in a high-up power position at Hasbro, I'd be like, what can we do to monopolize on all of these people who love this game that we have, like, a vested stake in? Like, I would be making Baldur's Gate 3 action figures. I would be making, like, an animated series. I would, like, there's so many things that I would be, like, chasing after and not firing people- Hasbro is one of those companies that I love so much that they do and so much that they are responsible for. Because again, getting back to, I managed to bring up Power Rangers in all three of our discussions today, so I'm gonna bring that back. That's another Hasbro property. They have a tendency, they own so many things that I love. Power Rangers, Magic the Gathering, with, obviously, Dungeons & Dragons. And yet they just, they are, maybe it's because I love their property so much that they are able to disappoint me so frequently. Probably. But anyways, back on topic. Baldur's Gate 3 is- Baldur's Gate 3, am I right? It's just a fantastic game. It is probably, I don't think I have felt more free in a game than I have with Baldur's Gate 3. Which is saying something, because in the grand scheme of things, Baldur's Gate 3 is a rather linear experience, at least as far as where the story beats are. They're like the major plot beats that everyone's gonna hit. There's no roundabout ways to get to them. But the in-between moments are so open for what you're able to do that I really do feel like I just got dropped off in a world and was just like, yeah, go, whatever, do whatever it is that you wanna do. You can approach things in so many different ways. That's what I love. I have 20 playthroughs and not a single one of them has had the exact same thing happen. You can skip entire spots of stuff and then jump around and it changes things. And I love that. It does feel limitless to an extent because you can make tiny, small choices that don't come back to bite you in the butt until act three. And I just, I love that. No wonder you haven't had time to play any other games. 20 playthroughs? I like creating characters and then romancing Gale over and over again. Have you done playthroughs where you've romanced each of the different options or you just keep doing the same romance options every time? Okay, so I have romanced Gale in the majority of my playthroughs. I did romance Astarion and Halston in one of my regular Tav playthroughs. And now in my current Dirge playthrough, which is also my extremely cursed playthrough, Gale was too mad at me for me to pursue him the way I had planned. And so I went after Astarion because Halston's not gonna be an option this playthrough. But then after I got with Astarion, Gale was like, what about me? And I was like, dude, I would have chosen you. So far on my playthroughs, I have romanced Shadowheart, Karlak, and Will. Shadowheart is my girl. That makes sense. I plan to do Will in my next playthrough. I think I'm gonna try to avoid getting Gale first and go straight to the tiefling camp, to the druid thing and find him and then come back for Gale to kind of like forestall. You just need to do a playthrough where you just absolutely ignore Gale. I know it's probably gonna physically pain you. It's gonna be physically painful. Because if you don't, you're probably gonna accidentally wind up romancing him anyways. Well, they did fix his accidental bug. Thank God. So people would stop complaining about that. But I love him so much. You know what I love? I love that wizard. I loved our discussion with Tim Downey about Gale. I know. And about everything. You should check out that interview. You should also check out our interview with Neil Newbon, who, you know, voices Astarion. Both of those interviews, absolutely brilliant. Highlights of the year for me. Absolutely. So that's all that we have for our show today. Maggie, is there anything that you wanna plug that maybe went up yesterday? Oh yeah. Funny little thing went up yesterday. My Daniel Bruhl interview is up over on Collider Interviews and on Collider.com. Check it out. I think it was a really great conversation. I really enjoyed talking with him. And I'm very excited for people to see Race for Glory that comes out on January 5th. I actually wrote up my review for it yesterday on Christmas. So it was really good. I think it's gonna obviously get kind of buried in like the post-holiday, very early January. But I'm hoping it's gonna have a bit of a Gran Turismo kind of vibe where once it goes to streaming, it's gonna be like number one wherever it lands. Because as you saw, Gran Turismo, as soon as it ended up on Netflix, it was like in the top five for weeks because it's a good movie. So hoping the same thing happens for Race for Glory because I thought it was great. Yeah, so go ahead and check out her interview with Daniel Bruhl. I watched a little bit of it. I haven't watched all of it yet. Watched all of it. But the bit that I have watched was a very insightful interview. And of course, Maggie kills it like she always does. So you can be sure to tune in to Dailies throughout the rest of the week. We're gonna be doing more and more of these top lists on different episodes, leading up to our final episodes of the week, which are going to be each pairing is going to be revealing their top movies of the year. So be sure to tune in for all of that. Until next time though, I hope you have a wonderful rest of your day and I'll see you later.