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All-Time TV Favorites: Spaced and Twin Peaks

We're joined by AV Club Assistant TV Editor Erik Adams and contributor Claire Zulkey for some all-time favorite TV picks. Claire recommends checking out Spaced, a lightning-fast, pop-culture-tastic British sitcom from the brains behind Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz. Erik's pick is the mysterious, funny, and very surreal Twin Peaks, David Lynch and Mark Frost's series about a small town with big secrets.

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Simon Amstell on provoking Jermaine Jackson, his shamanic quest to find peace, and television fame

This interview originally aired December 2012.

Years before he became famous in Britain for skewering celebrities on Popworld and Nevermind the Buzzcocks, Simon Amstell's childhood ambition was to be on TV. And unlike most kids with dreams of TV stardom, he made it a reality -- but found it less fulfilling than he had hoped. Comedian, writer and TV host Amstell joins us this week to share his experiences in the entertainment industry, including navigating the delicate line between crafting clever comedy and bullying his celebrity guests as a TV host, writing and starring in Grandma's House, a sitcom with parallels to his own life, and seeking enlightenment on a Shamanic quest in South America.

Simon Amstell returns to the US in early May to perform his stand-up special, Numb, along the west coast. You can find tour dates and more info about Simon at his website.

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Jordan Morris ranks America's stuff

This segment originally aired December 2012.

In this era of constant hustle and bustle, who can keep up with what's HOT and what's NOT in these United States? Fortunately, expert stuff-ranker Jordan Morris joins us this week to fill us in and set us straight.

Jordan Morris co-hosts the podcast Jordan, Jesse, Go!. You can follow him on Twitter at @Jordan_Morris.
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Brian K. Vaughan on creation, from babies to universes

This segment originally aired December 2012.

Brian K. Vaughan has the kind of strange and epic vision that's made for science fiction and fantasy. He's written award-winning comic book series like Ex Machina and Y: The Last Man, and helped craft otherworldly storylines for several seasons of Lost.

His works are notable for their intimacy and beautiful, meticulously crafted characters, despite grandly epic settings. His most recent comic book series, Saga, is a prime example: Vaughan presents a fundamentally domestic story of parents trying to give their child a good life, backed by a colossal, galactic war. He joins us this week to share why he enjoys storytelling on a grand scale. Vaughan also explains why writing stories about lesser-known comic characters -- like Marvel's weird wildman Ka-Zar -- can be preferable to writing about the big names like Spiderman, and he tracks how fatherhood has affected his writing.

Volume One of Saga is available in bookstores and digitally at Comixology. Volume Two is available for pre-order; it will be released on July 9.

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The Outshot: The Dirtbombs' "Ultraglide in Black"

This segment originally aired October 2012.

Rage, garage punk, and R&B. The Dirtbombs' music has it all, and Jesse suggests you check out their album Ultraglide in Black.

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Here's a little promo for the BBC Radio 4 Comedy program "Life: An Idiot's Guide," which was taped at Edinburgh this year. Note the presence of MaxFunPals W. Kamau Bell and Josie Long, and right at the top, a brief snippet of the voice of YOURS TRULY.

Why is my voice in there? Because the producer of the show, one Colin Anderson, knows my STRONG POSITION on recording theater instructions. My policy: if you need someone to record the "turn off your cell phones" message at the beginning of a show, I AM YOUR MAN.

Now, hundreds of arts patrons around the world know about my commitment to the ANNOUNCING ARTS.

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Shortly after Monty Python released "Life of Brian" in 1979, John Cleese and Michael Palin went on BBC2's "Friday Night, Saturday Morning" (a chat show with an opening sequence which suggests that it is ideal post-coital viewing) to defend their work in a debate against author Malcolm Muggeridge and Mervyn Stockwood, the then Bishop of Southwark.  The result was a now somewhat famous broadcast which has been excerpted frequently (as in the documentary footage above from "Monty Python: Almost the Truth (The Lawyer's Cut)"), but only rarely presented in its entirety. 

Now, according to the Guardian, BBC4 is making a drama about Python's creation of "Brian" and the troupe's subsequent struggles to defend the film.  The show, "Holy Flying Circus", which will air sometime this autumn, was written by Tony Roche (who also wrote for "The Thick of It") and will focus much of its attention on this odd yet fascinating bit of television history. 

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One of the best films we saw at Sundance this year was Chris Morris' Four Lions. It's a satirical look at a London-based group of terrorists. UK-born terrorists, specifically. In the Q&A after the film, Morris talked about the sheer idiocy of terrorists he'd read about in his research, and he was unflinching in satirizing the would-be murderers. What's most remarkable about the film, though, is that these horrible, horrible doofuses are also quite human. That's a pretty remarkable achievement in my book.

The movie opens in a couple of cities November 5th, and it spreads across the country from there. Don't miss it.

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Hold on! We got bumped because Gordon Brown said something weird. This'll run next week.

This evening (UK time) or afternoon (US time) you can catch me on BBC Radio 4's "The Vote Now Show." I talk with Rep. Richard Martin (R-OH), aka Paul Gilmartin, and his lovely wife Jazz, aka Maria Bamford. Paul and Maria are so amazing as these characters, and the piece is really a lot of fun.

The show runs from 3:00-3:30 this afternoon (pacific time) or 11PM-11:30PM GMT. You can catch the stream here on the Radio 4 page or in iTunes.