Chris Schulz: Alien: Earth, Fit for TV: The Reality of The Biggest Loser, Hurricane Katrina: Race Against Time

Alien: Earth   

When a mysterious space vessel crash-lands on Earth, Wendy and a ragtag group of tactical soldiers make a fateful discovery that puts them face-to-face with the planet's greatest threat (Disney+). 

 

Fit for TV: The Reality of The Biggest Loser  

Former contestants and producers reveal the intense, damaging reality behind the success of ‘The Biggest Loser’ (Netflix). 

 

Hurricane Katrina: Race Against Time  

Hurricane Katrina was an unprecedented tragedy that demonstrated America's lack of concern for Black people. Through images, witness accounts, and interviews, hear the real story (Disney +). 

 

LISTEN ABOVE 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:07):
You're listening to the Saturday Morning with Jack Team podcast
from News Talks'd be.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
Twenty five US ten on News Talks, he'd be Chris
Schultz is in for screen time this week. He's got
three shows to recommend for watching or streaming at home.
Good morning, sir, I live and breathe. Great to see you,
YouTube and studio. Okay, so we'll start off with the
first fiction piece this morning. So this is streaming on
Disney Plus tell Us about Alien Earth.

Speaker 3 (00:33):
Well, everyone knows the Alien franchise. If you're a fan
of this series, you're very protective of it. Fans are
very vocal if the director gets it wrong. It's always
been a movie series and a few video games, but
the ones everyone harks back to, whether Ridley Scott original
and the James Cameron sequel, the more action focused sequel,

(00:54):
they're the basis for this series. This is a TV
show based on those movies. It's eight parts and look,
everyone was so nervous about how this was gonna go
beca These often get watered down. They just they don't
look right, they don't feel right. Good news, they nailed it.
This is wow incredible. This is my show for the year.

(01:17):
Really three episodes in Oh my gosh, they have just
gone to this extreme. So they've got characters in here
that just look amazing. They've they've introduced new aliens, so
it's not just that big metallic hulking anymore. There's there's
all kinds of other aliens. They've done it in a
really smart way. It's about a research vessel that has
crash landed on Earth skilled most of people except for

(01:39):
one synthetic droid who's trying to protect these aliens. And
so the research the rescue crews going in and they're
encountering this new array of aliens. So it's a fascinating setup.
There's all kinds of other stuff going on, you know,
god like creators with God complexes, this Mai stuff in
their two. It's it's reverting that they've just got. It's dark,

(02:02):
it's weird. It's almost like David Lynchian, it's it's so straight.
I don't know how they were actually allowed to get
away with it.

Speaker 2 (02:09):
But that's great, amazing, Yeah, fantastic. I think we're all
expecting you to say, and you know, they've kind of
sold out here, but sounds superb. Okay, So that's alien
Earth that's on Disney Plus on Netflix. A keenly anticipated
documentary fit for TV, The Reality of the Biggest Loser.

Speaker 3 (02:25):
Huge documentary. It's the number one on the New Zealand
Netflix series right now. Everyone's watching us, Everyone's talking about it.
I've had so many conversations about it. For very good reason.
This was a really problematic reality show. This started in
two thousand and four, when reality TV was still in
those early stages and the promises obvious. They got overweight

(02:46):
people and tried to make them lose as much weight
as possible over the course of a season. And so
this documentary is going back and just putting that show
back in our minds. And it's really quite awkward and
confronting watching some of the stuff they put these contestants through.
They yelled so much abuse at them. They would take

(03:10):
them to these gems and they had these two trainers
and they would literally just get in their faces and
force them to run on these treadmills until they were
throwing up.

Speaker 1 (03:17):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (03:17):
One of them claims she died on a run outside
on a beach for nine minutes or something. Yeah. So
they're talking to the old contestants, they're asking them what
they went through on the show, and it's just led
to all kinds of things. There are allegations right now
of illegal drugs being used to push weight loss, caffeine pills.

(03:40):
Some people say that it ruined their metabolisms and they've
never been able to keep that weight off.

Speaker 2 (03:46):
Yeah, I mean, this is the thing. A lot of
a lot of those people who competed in those shows
then put on the weight. I mean, I used to
watch The Biggest Loser. It's pretty crazy to think they
made that TV show. Remember how in the first episode
that introduced the contestants, and then they would have this
like buffet that have this huge table laid out kind
of like a Roman orgy full of junk food and

(04:07):
cakes and lollies and chocolate and stuff, and they were
sort of encouraged to These people were sort of encouraged
to go in and stuff their faces as much as possible,
and then there were sort of filmed like it was
really that's.

Speaker 3 (04:19):
Not a normal situation any of us encounter in our days.
There's another scene where they make them they do that,
but they make them build like towers using only their mouths.
They can't use their hands. They've got to pick up doughnuts,
you know, and jam rolls and lollies and build these
towers and you know they do it was.

Speaker 2 (04:39):
Okay, like, no, we didn't really question it at the time.

Speaker 3 (04:42):
Well yeah, but we are sort of in this moment
where we are looking back and reassessing this stuff. Yeah,
how we talked about bodies, how the paparazzi treated celebrities,
you know, what happened to Princess Diana and David Beckham.
And it's actually quite interesting, I think, to sort of
look back and reassess with our new I don't know,

(05:03):
knowledge and wisdom and.

Speaker 2 (05:05):
Well, it's just just like, I mean, what's acceptable changes
over time, right in a society, it's always changing. So yeah,
I mean I can imagine that watching this, you look
back at it and you're like, wow, those that producers
were you know it maybe a moral or whatever else,
but also it's kind of telling you a lot about
us as an audience at the time as well. You
really sort of forced to reflect on your own appetite

(05:26):
for want of a better word. So that's fit for TV,
The Reality of the Biggest Loser. I'm looking forward to
seeing that one also on Netflix. Katrina come Hell or
high Water.

Speaker 3 (05:35):
Disney. Actually this was on Disney five part series on
Hurricane Katrina. It's almost twenty years to the day. Yeah,
I think it was August twenty five when the first
signs of the storm started rolling in. You know that
everyone knows what Hurricane Katrina as it was this Category
five storm that built over the Golf of Mexico and
then just basically ran straight through New Orleans. This is

(06:00):
looking back, it's interviewing. You know this thing. You watch
a lot of documentary and you know when you had
a good one, right. You can tell when it's a
director who really cares and he's gotten everyone to talk
and it's there to tell a really gripping story. And
right from the start of this you can tell that
they're doing this properly. They've got this guy narrating it

(06:21):
who's like a New Orleans resident, and he's sitting on
a stoop. He's got the dreadlocks, he's got the accent.
He's almost like the spiritual guide for you through the show.
Because this is horrifying. Obviously, the footage, it's like watching
nine to eleven. You know, it never loses this impact.
These hotels with windows that are just completely blown out

(06:42):
and the curtains are you know, in the way this.
Firefighters just watching their fire station just get demolished by
this hurricane. Like the footage is amazing, amazing and harrowing
at the same time. You know, we've just been through
this with Cyclone, Gabrielle. There'll be people in New Zealand
who can't watch this for that reason. But they've just

(07:02):
done it right that you know, the footage in the
Superdome as well, and the roof starts on the up
and the rain comes in and all of that. So
I'm only two episodes in right, absolutely riveted. It's just
so compelling, it's so well told, and they've got everyone
please yeah, firefighters, victims, all of it.

Speaker 2 (07:21):
Yeah, that sounds amazing, sounds really compelling. That's been of
me as well. So that's on Disney Plus. Alien Earth
is also on Disney Plus and Fit for TV. The
Reality of the Biggest Loser is on Netflix. Don't forget
you can find Chris Schultz on a substack. Boiler Room
with Chris Schultz. Will make sure there's a link to
that up on our News talks eb website as well.

Speaker 1 (07:40):
For more from Saturday Morning with Jack tame, Listen live
to news talks he'd be from nine am Saturday, or
follow the podcast on iHeartRadio