The Worst Idea Of All Time - 8: Now Boarding w/ Emma Sidi (Overlooked and Undercooked S2E8)

Episode Date: November 29, 2019

Emma brings us tidings of glad joy - Elizabeth McGuire, and then quickly descends into a full on existential artist break down. There’s a bear attack, a self-harming woman and of course, Rob Schneider. Guy is worked up over the lack of variety in production music and shot choices. Tim and Emma are not happy with the slowest pace in the history of TV for a dinner scene in this one. The sole saving grace for this one is everyone disrespecting grandma. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

so have a lot of fun yeah be yourself and welcome to overlooked and undercooked the final ever episode of season two hopefully the last season we need to do i imagine the final ever episode ever ever i hope i hope we are, and it brings me great pleasure to announce, by Emma City for this final ep. Hi, guys. What a dream. What an absolute treat to have you here. You've welcomed us into your beautiful home here in Stoke Newington. In Stoke Newington, please don't tell them the road.

Place? Well, yeah. Yeah. Place. Place. Please. I love it when he does that. I've got enough problems as it is with that.

This is just going to add to it so much. Emma asked me just before we started recording, Tim, do you edit this? And I said, no, generally not. But what I should have said is, only when guys are fucking. Because that is actually the only time that's the only time well now I know

that I'll have to go through because here's what mentally happens to me I now will have to listen to every episode because I will have forgotten where you've fucked it on various different ones

yeah yeah so now instead of listening to none of them I will accept response whoever this one I'll send a message after the show

saying remember I gave out Emma I won't remember those address no no oh my god I will accept response whoever this one. I'll send a message after the show saying remember I gave out Emma and her address. No, no. Oh my God. So Emma, let's ignore Guy for maybe the rest

of the episode if possible. Yeah, sure. No problem. I want to open with an apology because this episode was totally very different

from the rest of Real Rob. Yeah. Right, was it? The show that we promised you'd watch with us. Shushy. Well, I mean, you're apologising because it's totally different in a way

that suggests that the previous episodes were a romp, a real joy to be around. Not at all, but they aimed to be. But this one had different ambitions. Were the credit musics from the other ones kind of sex in the city like da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da? You know, did it have that kind of jazzy... It's a very cheap, low-rent version of that.

Yeah, I could feel that. It's called Electroswing, and it's a genre of music that was popular for three months in 2007 and has been hated ever since. It goes... I knew it. I was so close, wasn't I? Yeah.

But the credit music this evening was like, it was emotionally manipulative, sort of like you've just watched a piece of art. Orchestral strings. Yeah, it was Titanic DVD extras. Sit in the cinema, watch the credits roll, and steady yourself before rejoining the world, because that just happened.

Yeah, it was. And a lot did happen. It was the longest episode I think there's been. Emma, would you be kind enough to sort of recount what happened? What was the name of that episode? Did you catch that guy? No, I'll find it while Emma begins describing it. So, well, yeah, I honestly feel so sad after watching that

for so many reasons. I just thought it was an awful watch and it made me consider so many things about my life as well as it made me scared for anything i might do in the future but i'll talk about that another time i guess but i just want to say that i am feeling quite low um it was called now boarding by the way now boarding so i feel to me the way i saw it was that it was rob and his wife patricia um And, oh my God, I don't really know what happened. Just pick out any various bits that come into your mind.

There's the fun of the challenge. Okay, so Rob's assistant had just got with a woman who'd been eaten by a bear, who was saying that she was pregnant. And she had been scalped by the look of the prosthetics. And then she, yeah, she thought she's pregnant but the assistant had realized that he'd had a vasectomy under his will against his will sorry another episode i think another episode yeah and then um rob and his wife just sort of negged each other

and then she's pregnant and that's the end of the whole show is that it basically yeah we'll take us through what happened with Rob's, the assistant's partner and that whole thing. Oh, yeah, she, he realised that it wasn't actually his baby, so she proceeded to self-harm in front of him and accuse him

so that the neighbours might think that it was him doing it. And it was not easy to watch. They started experimenting with different forms of storytelling and wanting different things uh wanting the audience to experience different things from watching this show than they had in any of the previous 15 episodes they went out and purchased a bit of um dramatic production music which they haven't purchased previously and they got wheeled out three times same track I imagine the track was maybe six

minute long so you can get a little bit of a trip out of it There was a beautiful moment that you pointed out to me where they used it they used it initially when Rob and Patricia have some sort of intense oh no they didn't use it with Rob and Patricia

so they used it on Jamie and his partner Hayley Duff, like when their relationship was breaking up, they used the music in the same sort of slow zoom-ins and like, you know, all of these tropes to encourage you to feel something. And then the next scene, Patricia was being offered to be signed

with this big Latino agency to help fast track her career and she has to say no and they use like there's no there's no buffer between the two they then use exactly the same music and exactly the same camera techniques which is like i understand yeah well exactly i understand they are genuinely trying something new on this episode but to just so brazenly like have they not watched TV do they not know is there no one set to say we can't do

I know that we want a similar effect but we have to just buy one other production these are five dollars you know we've got to do one other thing

we've got to put one scene between them so that people don't realise we are literally using exactly the same story beats and techniques no I think

they did that on purpose though because in both those ones when they used that track, the track faded out when the character started thinking a lot about their situation. And so to me, it seemed like they were drifting out of consciousness and were near death. The dialogue happening in the scene

tapered off and the music swelled up. Exactly, and the music swelled. And because that happened in two consecutive scenes, I actually think the choice of the music, the same music, was to add to that effect. Don't you think? But to butt them up

against each other like that. Yeah, yeah, to go, look, both these characters going through something. No, I don't. Yeah, that's what they're trying to do, guys. I don't disagree

that they did it on purpose, but it doesn't change the fundamental problem. Sure, no, with that, I'm totally with you. Yeah, yeah. It was incredibly jarring to see. It's bad making.

Yeah. It's incredible. I remember in the Sex and the City movie at one point noticing they'd used like two seconds of the same silent footage of Harry and Charlotte having sex once, like much earlier in the movie, to show their relationships going to another time in a New Year's Eve montage.

And being like, I can't believe... It was the same was the same clip yeah yeah i can't believe they've done this but this is uh this is like you know they sort of buried that and you wouldn't think to notice it this is unmissable to anyone no but this is where i kind of i've got a slightly different take on it that was on purpose that was the style in this whereas in sex in the city i think that is a cheeky mistake what do you call it like a motif almost yeah i think it's terrible taste in motion yes and so yeah we're going oh that's ridiculous but actually they're going hey let's do this um early on in the episode there's a bit so jamie and his fiancee are very happily having an engagement dinner hosted by Rob and Patricia, and a dog vomits because Rob fed salmon.

In a classic cold open for the season finale. That was the slowest paced scene I've ever witnessed in television. I think they're not cutting out any breaths of the characters. Very strange. So at the beginning of each shot, the actor goes, I told you last week, but they're not cutting out that breath there. Breaths of the characters. Very strange. So at the beginning of each shot, the actor goes, I told you last week. But they're not cutting out that breath there.

That's true. You see what I mean? It's bizarre. The cold open's Patricia and Rob, and it amounts to Rob saying, I want to feed our dog this old salmon. And she says, no. And he goes, yeah. But that goes for, conservatively, a minute and a half, maybe two minutes.

Yeah. So anyway, at the end of the cold oven, he feeds the dog the salmon. They're at the party. The dog eats the salmon. The dog is sick. And then the grandma is sick at the sight of the dog vomiting, I guess, was the reason why. Awful. Yeah, I think so.

I think the grandma, yeah, well, it just seemed like she's got some sort of disease. She might be dying. To be sick that quick. There was no real reason for it and so the the joke of this scene the game that we're playing here is rob uh uh sort of scolds the dog and says jamie go clean this mess up even though it's his party yeah right and then has the exact same approach with the grandma very funny stuff always good to disrespect people's grandmas always good to disrespect that one we did all we did all fall about actually at that little bit i i i want to talk a little bit

about jv's relationship to hayley duff because they bring this on in the last three episodes of the second season she's the only recurring character away from this core cast she's the only recurring guest she's like the only thing that ties the show to reality or suggests that their behavior doesn't exist in a vacuum. Yeah. And it's crazy. And so like throughout it, they're sort of trying to see that she's quite normal and she can see Jamie for his values and who he is.

And it's quite like you almost want to be invested in the relationship because it's just an ocean of emotional investment. Like there's just, it's, you know, you've got no chance to care about anyone. And you really loved her performance. I just, it's, you know, you've got no chance to care about anyone until then. And you really loved her performance, didn't you? Well, I just think it's the classic thing of

she's someone who we've spent hardly any time with so when she's on screen I enjoy it because I'm not angry at her. It's also highly comparative because right now we're dealing with Rob

who's actually, I don't think, like the worst actor but just such a flaming arsehole because he's playing himself. Yeah, really kind of very sad to watch

for some reason his assistant has no acting chops it's got to be said and yeah patricia is you know patricia is lovely absolutely lovely but there's something that's not right with it and to be fair to jamie his acting has improved between the two seasons yeah he has gotten better and that's that's fine but it doesn't mean you get to be in a tv show so they're like they keep presenting this relationship and it's like they almost center around it it's almost comprises maybe a third to a half of the storyline in this last episode and uh you see them lying in bed together one morning and like jamie has to go and help rob and she goes well what if i wanted to hang out with you and he's like i gotta go help rob and it's sort of like the reality is creeping into the

sides of this show where it's like oh my god like here's a character who has independent judgment and can say rob's a piece of shit like you're living an unhealthy life like you you were saying like it's almost the show is identifying that rob is a cancer within the show you know that's what i was i really thought they were going there and i shouldn't have had this faith in the show but i was so excited because there were all of these scenes where kind of as a direct result of rob being a massive piece of shit all the people in his life he was connected to their lives were falling down right so you thought it was getting to a point of like you are exactly exactly levoland sorry but and it keeps it keeps going and you're like oh my oh my god the show something's gonna happen and then eventually there's

this what is actually quite a funny and almost uh quite devious my God, something's going to happen. And then eventually there's this, what is actually quite a funny and almost quite devious plot twist where it's like, because you're excited for Jamie to be pregnant. As someone who's watched all of the show, I'd forgotten he had a vasectomy. Jamie has forgotten he's had a vasectomy, which is a funny character. I love that. That bit, I was really impressed by. It was the line.

And his delivery was perfect. I had a vasectomy. I forgot. And before that, it was also. I was smoking a lot of weed at the line. And his delivery was perfect. I had a vasectomy. I forgot. And before that, it was also... I was smoking a lot of weed at the time. They also got another laugh line when they said, how is she pregnant? And he goes, I just keep coming inside her.

One for the guys. Bit blue, bit blue. So all of this stuff is pointing towards this outcome. And then he goes to confront her about this conversation. And the decision that they've made to deal with it is that and this is something you said you called is that she has been crazy the whole time all of the like normal presenting parts of her or the idea that she represents uh like a cool head and you know this bizarre universe they just blow it all up immediately she is like added as the worst kind of crazy person.

The ultimate crazy bitch. Yeah. Which is, you know, I don't know. I think it is such a predominantly male invention of what a crazy woman is. Yeah, I think so. I don't think that person really exists very much at all in society. You said when she started doing that, you were like like i knew this would be the outcome 100 i could tell as soon as that program started the way that patricia is saying something of some worth in the first scene and the way that rob is looking at her with this big massive

fuck off glass of red wine and a raised eyebrow going you don't even know how it works not saying that but essentially feeling that i knew that this was a show where the women are a bit weird and for the bitches for the boys yeah yeah the women in this show are gonna be you know very backwards in some way it's not their fault it's the way it's written but that's gonna be the the line of thought it just was so crazy because for two and a half episodes they worked so hard to build this character and have this like emotional story like you're invested in and even though you don't really care like to see jamie who's just been a fucking punching bag for the whole show you're like something's happening and then they build it and you almost care about

what they're doing and they take it away in the most like clumsy arts the most insensitive like they're playing with, they're a bunch of monkeys playing with nuclear weapons. But the way that she starts behaving when she essentially starts self-harming, I think they'd say it's more like, oh, she's punching herself. You know, it's kind of a comedy moment.

Yeah. But really it's self-harm. It's not, it is, it is, yeah. Yeah, it's definitely supposed to be, it's played for the laughs that will never come, I think. No offense to the writing,

but it is. No, massive to the writing, but it is. No, massive offence to them. I think in the real world, he, Jamie, if we're on his side, he should have gone, wow, okay, we're at a kind of critical moment now. Let's go to hospital. Let's take to hospital and work out what's going on with you right now. Can you imagine seeing that happen in the real Rob universe? Any character displaying any empathy. But that's why they painted themselves into this court.

That's it. You aren't capable of dealing with anything approaching this, you guys. We're supposed to be on his side by him locking her out of the house. Why go there? I also think because they're trying so hard to have emotional pathos like to have pathos in the episode otherwise something that I've never

tried to do before it's even like it it fails even in an even bigger sense because it's just Yeah, you're right. It doesn't work

with the other serious inverted commas. You know, they are working towards actually you know, doing something in the show. It's just crazy. It's just crazy. No outside eyes saw this. You know, they are working towards actually, you know, doing something in the show. It's just crazy. It's just crazy.

No outside eyes saw this. You know, like... It's amazing it's on Netflix, isn't it? Yeah, it's a real shock. I kept on thinking about that the whole time. You said several times, Emma, this is dog shit. Oh, yeah, I'm sorry for saying that. That's what you'd say.

But it was sort of that level. And to me, it also felt a bit like a i sort of mentioned this like a filmed drama workshop like almost a sort of drama workshop scene from barry but the whole way through that scene in particular felt that argument between them in particular felt like it like watching a bad improv scene where and they keep finding a new thing to keep the scene going and you just want it new thing to keep the scene going and you just want it to end but when she was slapping

herself around the face Hilary Duff I felt like I could Hayley Duff sorry they would do so well to get Hilary Duff

can you imagine I can't they're bringing back Lizzie McGuire by the way she's 30 and apparently has had a hard life Lizzie McGuire

love this Lizzie McGuire age 30 maybe now called Elizabeth oh my god Elizabeth McGabeth mcguire the reboot for 30 year olds um gorder might be in it oh i think he will be in it that's exciting yeah it's cool man um so uh hayley duff when she's slapping herself around the face she's doing it with such force that I could hear in my head

Rob Schneider, is that her name? Yeah. Rob Schneider as the director going, again, harder. Yeah. Don't you think? Her head was spinning on its axis when she was doing that. Yeah. And I don't think that was a special effect

because I think from the music in that film, they don't have the budget for that to be a special effect or or just the kind of production knowledge or care to go we need to get a guy on the shoot i don't think oh boy it was uh tough to watch this one it really was um guy's got his hat on his face it's just it seems sorry can i talk about what i loved in this of course i'd love to hear that i don't mean to like jump the gun but this came right at the end and it was just so fucking funny to me is that in a moment of um meta defense of himself so rob schneider is waiting at the yeah waiting at the airport to go to um china shoot this film, which Rob actually is not a huge feature in this episode, which is kind of nice.

Yeah, generous. So his arc is in the background. He is doing a massive amount of combat training for this film he's about to do in China. Oh, is that what he was doing it for? Yeah, yeah. That's why he was playing with the sticks all the time. I thought it was a hobby.

It doesn't really change anything, but yeah, fine. He's at the airport waiting to board. Finally, he's landed this big movie with a great director and a great script. He's told by his agent. His agent tears up telling him because his agent's been tearing his hair up for years trying to find some way to extract money out of Rob.

Finally, he's done it. And then in a sort of beautiful mind type sequence, Rob starts pulling together clues from previously in the episode and figures out, wait, my wife is pregnant again. And then bails and goes home and falls into her arms and then gives a short speech about how what other people think to him isn't important. What reviewers think and critics think isn't important to him whatsoever he's not going to measure success against other people's perception of him exactly and it was just the funniest thing to say out loud after making a show like real rob especially the hell that they hath wrought in that final episode to go well i don't even i don't even

care no i'm fair i'm saying it first so you can't even make fun of me. Yeah, I thought it was really sad and crazy to watch. I thought it was great. I thought it was awful. It made me think that I should become a teacher. Like, just to get out of this game. It's the dark place it took you to. I was like, wow.

You need to give back. I can't go. I got to look at my own life. Because if that can happen to anyone, that they make a show to say that at the end, something awful has happened as a result of this industry. And it's out. You know, Netflix were like, yep, we'll put that on.

How was season one received? Badly. It wasn't. Why are you winding up for a complicated nuanced answer? Neither of them were. That's what I said at the end of the episode. That was so bad, that last episode. And it was so bold in what it attempted to do.

And it failed so spectacularly on all fronts. That I am furious that it did not leave a drop in the you know cultural like that there's nowhere for me to go to and read i want i want other i want to read people to discourse about how badly this thing failed sure and it failed so brilliantly that i can't find that there's a vacuum like this is what that is we are providing this oh my god really what we've discovered then following this path is that you want something to fail just enough so that it gets through all the defenses of kind of being in people's consciousness and a few people try it out and they sort of stick with it for a few episodes but this was on the tin so fucking horrific that

no one no one paid any mind to take a single bite what's also extraordinary right but I guess the reason for this is because it must be cheap to buy maybe it's the fact that

we've just watched this on British Netflix you were saying you know New Zealand Netflix American Netflix it's on every Netflix in the whole world

and you only need to type an R E to find it it does not cost Netflix a lot to maintain. That's why I said it costs a ton. We do, Guy and I have a theory of the case that Rob Schneider delivered both the finished film and a check for them to put it on Netflix.

So, yeah. It was just a complete delivery plus a payment. So, kind of the opposite of how these things usually go. That's so depressing, but I think that might be right. The thing about Sandler's seven-film deal with Netflix, what are some of the throw-ins that were in the fine print that were not in the press release? It was like, you don't have to pay for it,

but I know for a fact Rob Schneider is making a TV show and it would mean a lot to him. Oh my God, this is so sad. It's really sad. It's not good. It is. So, and this is actually

something we hit on last episode as well. Rob Schneider's life is obviously very sad if you were to look at it objectively. Not through his eyes and the problem is

that he made the show about his life and it's all heightened and it's his version of comedy. Whereas if we had a doc, a true documentary series about what Rob Schneider's existence is like, I think it would be tremendous. It'd be like a Louis Theroux,

you know, Oscar worthy piece. Yeah. That is the, that is the problem. It keeps coming back to is like his, his, his,

he needs other eyes. Well, yeah. Like the thing that holds the show back from working is his defensiveness like his unwillingness to embrace the fact that he is currently not i don't know not a total failure you know like but it's his creative control over the project which limits its ability to be interesting or hit on the stuff that would make it good absolutely so who writes It's just the three people who write it. Yeah, who you see on screen.

Yeah, right. His wife and he and Jamie. And you feel like, mate, oh, I don't know. Guys, I don't know. This is really getting you in quite a visceral way. I just think it's shit. No, but beyond watching something that you think is bad, I feel like this is connecting with you in a way that, because you know that he's made it and he wants a career in this industry yeah i think okay what it was a

little bit as an actor writer myself who has ambitions of one day of getting to make a series yeah to me it was like i was watching the worst case scenario like this is when you are bad at it and you'll be you've been allowed you've been given some however many thousands of pounds to make something as bad as that and it's about your life i don't know i can't really express what i find so awful about it oh this is i want to dig into this are you afraid that this is what you're working towards that's exactly it you know i actually felt that i was like okay this is the worst thing i've ever seen but who am i to judge because maybe if you gave me a camera and a budget no maybe this is what i'd make no literally no i'll join you guy on the ledge let's

get you off of there because that's just not possible what the people no stop it rob's a psycho yeah but guess what? He's deluded. So what's to say that I'm not deluded? Do you know what I mean? Tim and Guy. The two guys who travelled an hour across London to watch Real Rob with you

are the two people who tell you, don't worry, you're going all right, mate. Two fellas with their heads screwed on pretty tight. I would have come and visited either way. If you're in real trouble, I would have brought you a coffee and had a chat. You did bring me a coffee. No, but I wouldn't have put you on the podcast. Fucking liability.

I understand the feeling. Do you see what I'm saying? Yes, but this is a bigger conversation. This is like, it's terrifying that this show, this awful little show, has stirred this existential terror within you. It has. It's got me because, I don't know.

I just think it's hard to make a show right, isn't it? And any shows that are good, you're like, oh, well done. That was so, so brilliant. That was so, so bad that it's just... Are you impressed that they finished because you can imagine finishing shooting and looking at all of the raw footage and thinking oh we don't have to edit it all like if no one's gonna watch it we don't need to finish the thing okay so this is what okay it's something

i've got yeah i had a very similar reaction to the trailer for cats right i as soon as i finished watching that i turned to my friend and said this can't be released and because i saw at the end of it i said okay so when's it coming out december it's june now i've got six months they can pull this yeah and that's cool i don't think they can release this and my friend said to me that's absurd like it is being released and i was like no no no they've got time they friend said to me, that's absurd. Like it is being released. And I was like, no, no, no. They've got time. They have to pull it. And that's kind of what I felt watching Real Rob.

How could they have that series together and see all the episodes and not go, we can't release this? It takes a real bravery to do it. So when all the wheels are in motion for something, like a TV series is still still big a film even more so but there's so many people doing so many things yeah you've got the green light finally after however much yeah all the development hell and to get to that point where you either have a finished script that's hot garbage or the actual finished footage that's hot garbage it takes a real um takes a village it takes courage to go actually no right so we thought this was going to work and it just hasn't at all so we're going to have to put this in the plan i think about it

in terms of like all the ideas i've had which i think could be good that i've worked on to like a third or halfway or three because who and have not finished for whatever reason yeah anything that is completed is impressive in that respect yeah and they did it but yeah they realized it no one you know it's it's not our job to what it's like i don't know what we're doing what i don't know i don't know what i'm trying to say there because i'm like it's impressive that they finished it but it's also disheartening to think i've had ideas that are better than this show that i lost okay can we draw inspiration from that can we flip the um existential dread about your career prospects and go but you know

what if rob schneider can get that on netflix imagine what you're capable of that's true that is true there's something in that i do think i've taken this in a weird direction that you guys don't need today um no i'd love i would love to take it in whatever direction you like i don't i don't care this is a release for us. Yeah, yeah, sure. I don't have to watch a Rob Schneider vehicle again. Oh, yeah, hang on. This is actually a really special moment for you.

This is our season finale. You're actually free. And in a sort of weird piece of mirroring, we are covering like a range of emotional depth in our conversation about a Rob Schneider show that we have not reached in the previous 15 episodes. I think it's fitting. Yeah, it is fitting, especially as that was such an emotional episode.

No, sorry, it wasn't. It wasn't. It actually was, though, but not in the ways it intended. Absolutely. Yeah, that was it. Yeah. So, look, we know you've got a day to get on with, Emma, and I feel like I've come over here and bummed you out.

What did you enjoy? What did I enjoy? I enjoyed seeing Patricia. I think that's a, you know, is her real name Patricia, the actress? It actually changes depending on who's saying it in the show. It's either Patricia or Patricia. Oh, right.

Or Patty at one point, but with one T. Yeah, that threw me as well. But we've never heard Rob call her Paddy before. Oh, really? Because it comes up on the screen, Paddy is pregnant. You moron. Yeah. And who's Paddy?

Patricia, right? His wife. I really liked seeing Patricia. I thought she was very beautiful and did a good job. Like, you know, did okay. There's a warmth to her. There's a warmth to her. But as we were saying while it was on, you can't trust her because you know she's with rob in real life oh god um i liked seeing uh there was like a really horrible

tablecloth at one point and i quite like seeing stuff like that i'm just thinking that you know just like thinking about the art department i quite like that i'm like oh they picked that um i thought the tablecloth was awful it had hadn't been ironed. And I liked being here with you guys. I love you guys, actually. I last saw you in New York. That was a dream. Here we are in London. It's very exciting, really, isn't it?

All going around the world. Maybe the real Rob was the friends we made along the way. Oh, my God. Guy Montgomery. He could not look more chuffed with himself that is so charming oh boy and what a place to to probably round off i think um guy traditionally you leave us with a little pool of wisdom from the show but i've got a funny feeling you absorbed none of you've been up all night watching sports. I, uh, no, I was gonna...

I had a line ready, but I've already used it in the episode. Well, just like real Rob, just because you used something before, it should be no excuse to not wheel it out again. That's right. In another attempt. Uh, I just kept coming inside her. Yeah, alright. Happy 2019, everybody. Thank you.