This Podcast Is... Uncalled For - The Networks Solo Playthrough

Episode Date: April 17, 2026

Today we play the solo rules of the board game The Networks, in which players try their best to run a TV station.

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Tune in now. Just press play. Very welcome back to the podcast. So this is take two of a board game I've been wanting to play on the podcast for quite some time and this is a good time to do it. This is the networks designed by Gilhova published by Formal Ferret Games. This is kind of a almost a yeah. movie-making type

game, except we are playing as TV executives, and we're trying to get our TV networks programming ideal and everything. So how this works, we're each a TV station

and we're going to spend each round of collecting resources and improving our programming. So I'm just starting this game. I'm playing this game. This is a solo version of the game. This is one of the few games I own that can be played solo. And we have, as follows, we have U-62 TV is my station.

And by starting programming at 8 o'clock, we have unlocking your cat's psychic potential, which gives me no venture points. We have at 9 o'clock, we have breath mints around the globe, which also gives me zero victory points. And we have an emergency broadcast test hour with the bars and everything. And that also gives me zero points. We'll play five rounds total. And my goal for the solo game is to get 265. All right.

So, so, uh, I have, uh, four stars, I have four ads, four network cards, and five shows that I can choose from. So my stars, we have the sultry, sexy lead. We have the reality TV judge. We have the children's show host who cannot be on a show that has hats. and we have that kid from the commercial Those are our stars for the one are ads

We have American beers We have reflux Orange juice We have Illicit Ilana's Illuminations They specialize in

Major rewards For anyone who's seen The Christmas story And we have Wade automobiles. Our network cards, we have the audition, which is pretty cool. We have syndication. We have two syndications. And we got the spin-off. Those would be really useful. All right. Then our programs for season one. So this would go five rounds. They're called seasons.

So we have old folks complaining. We got a chain mail bikini warrior. We got the cyber slug versus mecha earthworm. We have very charismatic explosions. And we have awesome industrial accidents. All right. So this is right one. I start with five monies.

there's supposed to be millions but f it and now I'll just start by doing the taking the audition card draw the top star from the star deck plus any green room for free and

it is the cheeky friend I was in there for free that happens right away and now I got to burn something and the first card we are burning is that sultry lead who had come up for an anyway she wants five

not a get away to start the game alright since I'm programming out of the way I will No actually No we're not going to start with programming

I want to start by picking the ad for the orange juice Which would give me 2 million two monies But now we've got

Burn one and the judge is gone I'm going to start hiring. I'm going to hire that children's TV host for one, and the camera commercials is gone. I'm going to get the major reward out of the way for another two, and we lose the beers. Now, let's get to some programs.

So I'm going to take 4 to the whole folks complaining. And I'll add my starter ad and my starter start. It was a town show winner. And the starting ad is Hawkeeney's jalapeno hot sauce. And right away it gets put this in reruns. So that's nine plus three. 10. All right. Now we got burn now. We got burned. Blade automobiles. So that's gone.

Let's get one of these syndication cards out of the way. Save that for later. We lose the other syndication card. Let's go ahead and do the chain mail bikini. water pay one let's put yeah we'll put the friend in there we do have a start in the

so that gives it so bye-bye test signal that gives us 13 plus once that's another 14 it's a 24 for the round and we

now need to lose the spin-off and for my last bit i'll do the awesome explosions for nine o'clock let's put the uh put the orange juice on it so that's going to cost me one and uh all right and that will okay that's another 11 plus one that's another 12 so 36 all right so So I need to turn there and that'll do it for season one. So we'll drop in budget for nine. All right.

So income, so we have two months. Okay, so one, two, three, one, so we're set at two. So we get two million from our programming. this is a 15 score to line up and reruns so that's 36 but I'm going to use the syndication right now and each of your reruns this season will score an additional

four so that's 12 those we have 48 these now get so our reruns now gets archives they score no points at this point and we age our remaining programs. So just looking ahead, I'm going to be looking for a new 8 o'clock and 9 o'clock show for

season 2 and won't pause and we'll set up for season 2. And now we're ready for season 2. so I want to replace eight and nine o'clock shows and I want to keep that 10 o'clock show for a while because it's going to score me a lot more points. All right. Our starting our choices this round, we have the retired athlete. we have the soap opera star we have always dyes and everything so he's skinny

okay not your choice and we have the intense drama actor for our ads we have Yeti Yots we have sassy salad dressing we have emergency tracters limited and we have a promo

and then our network cards we have a writer I might be taking that one but we'll see We have two writers. We have a big game. And we have flexible scheduling.

Then we have our shows, our little sister, the Bacalaureate, the Upton Crabby. I wonder what that's supposed to be a spoof of. We have a communisti. It depicts a Lenin. Must crush capitalism. And we have sports edges. We know what that's about. All right.

So start this round. I want to take one of these writer cards play. While developing the show, ignore one prerequisite start or add, or develop the show for no money. Okay, we'll put that to the side. And we will lose a show. So, Bill's sister. is out of here. Let's go and develop it.

Actually, I'll spend one on the retired athlete from in the dressing room. And we'll lose the baccalaureate. Let's go and develop for two the sports edges. and I'm going to attach the retired athlete to that so that'll give us

10 the I'm posting at 8 o'clock so old folks complaining becomes reruns alright up to shrabby

and then 4 or 5 I will take these communistic and we'll go and do the um no we won't we want actually I actually I will go and take kindness because a children's show host and say comma cummists doesn't match quite well all right so that's another six plus two so that's another eight so i've got 18 on the round and now we got to start burning hats

all right we're going to take this as sassy salad dressings for two give you two monies out of it burn the emergency trousers is going to take another the other writer card and we start burning uh soap opera star I'll take the Kenny and along the always dies and everything. Put in my bedroom and we lose the intense actor. At which point I'll take the big game. And we drop, so 10 plus 5 viewers. And we are done for this round.

so another eights it's very possible I could be playing this game wrong and no that's okay another three all right so put those to the side all right

income we'll lose three four we'll lose five five monies and here we go with the points of two four two four ten and six twenty and sixteen all right so and so we're going to score thirty-six this round so one two three three three four five six but it's what ninety two all right we're at that stage now and uh okay we've done that

shows you need to score 100 more years than by the end of season four to remove in the we're moving to the cube from the scoring track uh okay so we're good now we're going to age our shoes so no more reruns and i'll get hold on all right so we should be good and we should definitely be good at the eight o'clock spot but nine and 10 will be probably looking for new shows at this point and we'll pause for a second. We'll get ready for season

Trace. All right, we're ready for season three now. Let's go All right, we'll worry about this going and we'll get there. All right. So our stars, we have the reality show vote collector.

We have a creepy vampire. We have a physical comedy master. We have tabloid fodder. We have, for our ads, diet sugar cola, which means no sense. Because Dietercola has no sugar in it. I consider it as aspartane.

We have migraine, munition, painkiller. For brain pain, the only safe way to get rid of brain pain. Then we have blast radius, pure, sugar, cereal and we have Blackmaster toothpaste our network cards

we have split season which would be interesting we have big game which I took a big game

card so we have emphasizing push which happens right away and we have sweeps week and then our shows

we have North Lawn which is their take on South Park and you see clearly you see on the graphic you see their version

of Kenny and their version of Cartman and then they have a version The kid is black like Tolkien Yes they did

come back and say his name is Tolkien if you think it's token then you're a racist and they gave what looks like Kyle's hat then we have ancients of shampoo. We have a pulley edge. We have a person of disinterest and we have

the cubicle. All right, let's, I'm going to go on, do this right now. Spend three on on North Lawn. We are going to play their version of Kenny. there the uh all these guys and everything or maybe it's Sean Bean can't rate it's out between the two and uh we're gonna put at 10 o'clock so it'll give me seven and two to replace the show that's all right that was there all right so now we got burn this star so reality foot gear gone uh it's gone spin five for the uh comedy guy who wants to be on the comedy and we'll lose the vampire I'm going to do the sports season real quick we'll go ahead and immediately score one of my shows

will score sports edges for 12 104 now and this gets aged down the seven so we've got work to get rid of that. We lose the show, we lose the ancients of shampoo. Let's go and do the cubicle,

put our salad dressing and our comedian on there. So the rerun is going to score us two. And the show gives us fifth

13. So, our 24 now. We'll lose another show. I'll take the advertising push and pay five monies to get us another 10 points right off the bat. And we lose the percent of disinterest. Okay. So now, let's start to gain. some ads let's get the we'll get the ad diet sugar cola for two and we lose the tabloid fodder and let's get the uh um I said the painkiller the migraine and now we got to lose the blast radius and uh you know we're going to take this last and for the toothpaste and uh we'll drop okay now we'll drop for five one two three four five and ten monies and we will end here all right all right

so income so so plus one so we gain three money and our scoring

we're going to score 33 points this so one three so 151 151

that's not our now okay now we age our shows and these go in the archives okay we definitely need a show for nine o'clock for this next season and we're on going to go and pause for a second and prepare for the fourth season. Back in a bit. All right, let's continue it around four. So our stars this time, we have the Shakespearean-trained star.

So think Patrick Stewart when he started Star Trek Next Generation. He was joked about as being an unknown British Shakespearean actor, which at the time he was. so they so myer's days they played around on the TNG sets and warning unknown British Shakespearean actor we have the

serial award winner we have a late night talk show host and we have career stunment our ads we have Crazy Pete's discounted Plutonium. We have blue jeans.

We have a promo. And we have persnickety pizza. Our network cards, we have a director. We have another showrunner. We have two good branding cards, which come in later. Our programs, we have, How I Left Your Father. It Just Got Slapped. And no food or drinking the Fiero.

we have found we have quiver we have tiny pop hypothesis clearly penny penny penny penny

and uh paisley is the new burnt umber uh that's me the chicken get me the chicken

all right here we go here we go so I need a 9 o'clock show uh let's go with

uh actually we'll start with getting the uh the uh Patrick Stewart hell off there with the

actor and we have to burn an actor all right so I'll go ahead and do the showrunner

which is which is actually the opposite of the uh split season that I had earlier. So I played it at the end of this round to prevent a show from aging. So I think we'll hold on. I think we'll go ahead and do that.

We lose the late-night tech show. And it's gone. So I have an actor to work with. I hope it's a career stunt name. And now we start losing ads. So the Potomium ad is gone. Let's do how I left your father. It's going to cost me five.

We'll put, let's put the Shakespearean actor on here. And I'm going to place an ad on here too. It'll be the diet sugar cola ad. which again makes no sense. Just like that, I'm scoring three from my reruns and another 12. And it kind of makes sense because what's Patrick Stur's been known for, aside from X-Men and returning to Picard, what's he known for?

He's known for being silly on TV, especially with Seth McFarland. Okay, we got burn an ad now. And I'm going to take this ad for Snicky Pizza. Two. All right. And we burn the promo. So I'll just take this director cards, get it out of the way before I start having to burn our dropping budgets. I lose found

which is fine alright there's that's a too many for the crucible the cubicle rather that I'd rather not do it so I'll go and

do the drop on score 5 right now and gain 10 monies and that's the end of this round

let's go ahead and score it so we have 312 so that's our 15 another 15 for just a crew chemical alone and 9 for South North Lawn

our South Park panel so that's 39 points so 3 8, 9 so 195 so we passed that marker and I will go ahead

use the showrunner to keep the cubicle from aging but everything else is going age and just like that I am way better position for round

five with north on all right so on And our, and, yeah, just go from there. Age, then. And what's that for the fifth and final season?

So back in a bit. Okay, on to our fifth and final round, our fifth and final season. See, a lot of cards I could, I definitely could use here. So our stars this round, we have the former comedian gone dramatic. So it's reference to Robin Williams and no

Gandhi he was a prick with the sci-fi legend we have adorable hipster and we have comedian

your parents alike I think they're going Steve Martin some weird coming to Steve Martin

and John Candy there but come on it's got to be George Carlin and there's seven that you can never say on television

our ads we have Thumb Station video game console we have professional typing consultants

we got squeakly mattresses and we got conspicuous watches all right and then

network cards We have Showrunner again. I think we might try to do that again. But we'll hit to Sager. We'll have to Sager for something. I don't know. We have ad acquisition. I'll try to guys keep one.

And two viewers. So I think I'll be going those right away because they're each five feature points. Then our shows, we have Ultimate Fainting Championship. ship we have so you think you can flail we have Babylonian Idol 31 paper and the limping treated and released yeah yeah okay here we go here it goes I'll wrap the bat viewers five picture points one two three four five puts me 200 right now and we're with the program so the fainting championship is gone and uh I like that so much we're gonna do it again well 205 and the flailing show is gone

all right so at this point I will do I will spin five on let's do the um limping treated and released so oh my god I killed Kenny I'm a bastard and uh let's do the I didn't uh

I don't think I'll be putting any heads on this but is not action so our career stuntman goes on upside down it'll still land us um 5 7

8 9 10 still add us 11 and Northland gives us another three so now we gotta lose a Babylonian idol I'll go and take this showrunner and we will score a show with that start losing ads we're gonna spin three on the Robin Williams there with stars, yeah, we get victory points from that, so that's gone.

It's gone and spend five on the hipster gal. I'll lose another ad, and spend another five on the sci-fi legend actor, and lose our last ad. I'm going to do the drop for 10 and 5. all right let's score this so we now add 15 and 14 so 43 points I'm gonna be scoring this round one two three two fifty three oh I forgot the income so one we make no income this right I'm gonna do this and prevent the cubicle from aging once again and we're going to pause and we're going to do final scoring in just a second all right here we go end the game scoring so all right we got 15 from the cubicle that's now been

frozen for two seasons we have another 15 from how i left her father and we have another 15 from and being treated and released so it's 45 so five puts it's a 298 so we do win this game because our goal was 265 and we are well above that all right so we score we now score a point per star in our green room which is three one two three What says it? 3.01. And now we have this big game. So at the end game, score another two, and then plus one per.

If you are for every million you receive an ad on active shows. That's another four. So we're going to finish with 307 points this game. So, yeah, Gigi. Um, fun little game. Um, probably was, I play a little incorrectly,

but that's okay. Because, you know, still a lot of fun. It plays up to five. Um, solo mode is okay. But, uh, definitely one that you should,

uh, check out at some point. So that's going to do it for this edition of the podcast. And, uh, we will talk to you next time this podcast

is uncalled for is hosted, produce and edited by myself Mike Chernhefski our opening music is the this podcast

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