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Many fictional TV shows depict dystopian hellscapes and stressful workplaces. Even sweet little New England towns can be hotbeds of weekly murder. But other TV shows are a fun hang. Maybe we even watched them wishing we could hang out there in real life. So we asked ourselves, if we could live inside any fictional TV show, which one would it be?
I'm Glenn Weldon. And I'm Stephen Thompson. On this episode of NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour, we're talking about TV shows we'd like to live in. This message comes from NPR sponsor, Disney+.
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Joining us today is NPR producer J.C. Howard. Hey, J.C. Hello, hello. Also with us, the co-host of Slate's ICYMI podcast and former Pop Culture Happy Hour producer, Candice Lim. Hey, Candice. Hello. It is a pleasure to have you back. So to kick us off, we want to be clear that we are talking about
fictional TV shows. So when picking the shows where we want to live, we weren't allowed to say, for example, that we would like to be, quote, the Fergus of Love Island. These have to be fictional universes, though any genre beyond that was fair game. We could pick comedy, drama, action, science fiction, you name it. So J.C. Howard, I'm going to have you kick us off.
In which TV show do you wish to live? Let me guess. The Walking Dead. No, Squid Game. You know, those are a little bit dangerous for me, especially the Squid Games world. And, you know, obviously when I was thinking about this question, I want to live someplace interesting, someplace fun, where there's stuff going on can interest you. To your point of like these kind of survival shows, like you don't want to live someplace where you have to exercise your survival skills all the time. You know, someplace you don't die on day one.
like you would in The Walking Dead. But that's actually kind of why my answer may seem a little bit strange because, and hear me out, I would like to live in Westeros. Okay. As in Game of Thrones, House of the Dragon. That's a bloody world, my friend. I will say, not just anywhere in Westeros. I want to live in Dorne. Okay. So for those who are familiar with the Game of Thrones universe, Dorne is in the south part of Westeros. Okay.
It's probably best known as the home of Oberyn Martell, the character played by Pedro Pascal, the Red Viper. And the reason I chose Dorne is because Westeros as a whole...
Doesn't seem like a great place to live. No, okay. Thank you. It can be quite bloody. But I will also point out that Westeros kind of gets a bad rap because Westeros is one just really good ruler from being Camelot. It has a lot of potential. It's a fixer-upper. It's the fixer-upper of the science fiction kind of fantasy universe. Do you see yourself as that fixer-upper?
Are you a leader here or are you just an extra? No. See, being a leader in the Westerosi world means putting a target on your back. You want to kind of fade into the background but not too much because you don't want to be a red shirt. You don't want to just be picked off.
The thing about Dorne is it's kind of apart from what's going on in the rest of Westeros. It's got its own vibe. It's got its own climate. Like George R.R. Martin once described it as sort of like Spain meets Palestine. And so it's close to the drama. And so like you get as much of that palace intrigue as you want, but it is also like as far removed as it wants to be. They have just their own just rich, unique culture. Mm-hmm.
One of the things that you'll hear a lot about in Game of Thrones and House of the Dragon, people talk a lot about Dornish wine. So they have a really great red wine industry there. At the end of the day, though, I think that Pedro Pascal is the billboard for Dorn. How do you look at Pedro Pascal and say, like, I want to live anywhere but where this man is living? He's passionate. He's witty. He's hot.
And that's Dorne. Dorne is all of those things. Passionate people, great weather, very rich culture. It's one of the only places in Westeros where land and titles pass to children regardless of gender.
And so for those reasons, and I can assure you a thousand others, I would love to live in Westeros, but not any part of Westeros. I'd love to live in Dorne. And in conclusion, Dorne is a land of contrast. Okay, I get it. And I was going to go with Westeros too. Wow. Join me, Glenn. Life there is so nasty, brutish, and short. And if you're in Dorne, it's also hot. Much of that is desert. Yeah.
Yeah, I was going to go with Old Town or I'd be in the Citadel. I'd be a maester in the Citadel. And, you know, we saw on the show when Sam, you know, was a maester at the Citadel. He did a lot of cleaning out chamber pots, but I'd still do it. Adorn is too harsh for me. Parts of it are beautiful, but there's so much poisoning. My second choice was Bravo. So, you know.
Get a job at the Iron Bank. Sure. I don't know, guys. I'll miss you both. Yeah. Hey, JC, I kind of respect your opinion, but I just got to say such a bro pick. No woman is saying I'm going to live in the Game of Thrones universe. And unfortunately, I wouldn't even visit you. I wouldn't even visit you because if it's not the violence, it's the incest. Not even for your immediate funeral. I know. Candace, you could actually rule the place in Dorne. Okay, but like look at how they treated our girl, Emilia Clarke.
Okay. And also you speak of Pedro Pascal who like, look, I will be anywhere he wants to go, including sewer. Didn't he like get his eyes gouged out? Spoiler. I haven't even watched Game of Thrones and I know that. And his head crushed also if we're picking. Why pick nits? Just come on down to Dorne on a good day.
Wow. JC, I admire the audacity of your pick, even if I deeply and vehemently disagree with it. Yes. Fair. Very fair. Glenn Weldon, hit us with your pick. So I went with, and I know it's basic, but hear me out, Gilligan's Island. Isolated. Stranded, some might even say. No, no, no. I mean, okay. To your point, JC, I mean, like, if you listen to the theme song, it sounds like a pretty bleak existence, right? Famously. Yeah.
No phones, no lights, no motorcars. Not a single luxury, Glenn. Not a single luxury. Not a single luxury. Like Robinson Crusoe, it's primitive as can be.
If, however, you've ever watched the show, you're one step beyond the theme song because the theme song is a tissue of lies. Because I remembered this, but I consulted the Gilligan's Island wiki. There's always a wiki. There's always a wiki. Three for three, the show at some point over the course of its three seasons had all of them. No phones. Well, there was a phone. It was a conch shell hooked up to a cable. Still counts.
No lights. The place is lousy with lights. There's so many torches, so many tiki torches. And then no motorcars. I'm sorry. I think you'll find in one episode there was an island taxi that was made out of bamboo, but it still counts. And when it comes to not a single luxury, I'm sorry. That place is an ecotourist dream destination. People pay thousands and thousands of dollars.
To go to the Seychelles and the Maldives and get those overwater huts and bungalows. It's with exactly the same aesthetic. So the problem is not the place. The problem is not the lagoon. The problem, as it always is. I know where you're going with this. Is the people. Thirst and howl is something else, man. We'll get to him. But first we have to kind of deal with the fact that some random guest star would show up and raise everybody's hopes about getting rescued only to just like by minute 22 just dip. Yeah.
just totally ghost everybody and crush their hopes. So I would, on day one, institute a fairly strict policy of killing strangers on site. Sorry, Phil Silvers. Apologies, Don Rickles.
Sorry to this man, Zsa Zsa Gabor, but your mere presence. You are turning Gilligan's Island into a dystopia. Utopia, dystopia. Take your pick. Because the presence of these people risks upsetting a very delicate social ecosystem. So we dare not suffer you to live. And that only leads me to, as you mentioned, JC, my fellow castaways. We have to do a very objective audit of them. Let's go to the whiteboard. Let's do pro-con. Gilligan. Idiot. Annoying. But a good worker. He lives.
The skipper, bumbling, blustery, rage issues, possibly stemming from internalized homophobia. I'm no psychiatrist. But also a deep...
base of nautical knowledge. I mean, I don't know how to tie a cleat hitch. I don't know how to tie a reef knot or a cat's paw. He lives. Okay. The professor, of course he lives. He's indispensable. Well, hold on, Glenn. Are you deciding whether the cast of Gilligan's Island can live or die in your version of their universe? It's Gilliglen's Island now. Yes, I'm making these decisions. Gilliglen's Island. So the professor lives not because of the reason you think, right?
It's because of how good he looks in a crisp white Oxford shirt. Talking hierarchy of needs here, right? It's food, water, shelter, hotness. Motivation. It's a limited resource. We must protect it. Similarly, I'm sure you see where I'm going with this. Ginger and Marianne, they live not only because of hotness, although that's a factor, but because they do the work. They pull their weight. They pitch in hot.
They're smart. They have great personalities. They live. The Howells. Sorry. Sorry, Thurston. Sorry, Lovey. But on the island, your wealth means nothing. You contribute nothing. You have lived lives of pampered ease. Your bellies are soft. Your hands are soft. You also have lived a life of entitlement and privilege, which means you wouldn't know how to pitch in even if you wanted to, which you don't want to. You poison the air with your resentment. And I know this sounds harsh, but...
The first week, we kill and eat the howls. Now we're like, now we're having like cannibalism wars, which is obviously part of this episode. Please keep going. I'm not a monster. I'm not heartless. The memory of them would live on because we would, of course, loot their possessions. This is Gilligland's Island. We're all about Rousseau here. We're all about eating the rich. And I think if we adopt these, some would say strict, I would say practical, some would say...
Lord of the Flies adjacent, I would say objectively realistic. If we had dropped those parameters, I could stay out there forever. I could live there indefinitely. That's my pick. Wow. I mean, did you guys see the glee in Glenn's eyes the minute he went from eliminating people to eating people? It was just ridiculous.
Really? Yeah. I think I saw some drool. There was a little bit of drool there. A murderous glint. I have not seen a murderous glint from my friend Glenn Weldon in at least a few months. Just the people who were boils on the backside of our precious little... Sure. Only those people. We don't need anybody else. We just...
Eat them. Candice, I'm going to need you to pull us out of the tailspin of bad choices. I was going to say, Stephen, like you and I are the two left, right? Because we have Game of Thrones, we have Gilligan's Island. How do you feel right now? I feel a little bit like, mm-hmm, mm-hmm, you know? Yeah, I'm feeling better and better about my pick is how I'm feeling. But go ahead. All right. Well, my pick is...
Is industry. Just kidding. Just kidding. I was going to say. I know, but guess what? It was my second choice. And when I kind of touted this idea to my friends, they got really mad. They did not like that pick at all. My pick of the TV show I want to live in is Dairy Girls. Oh, that's good. Oh, sure. That's good. Troubling, if you will. Got some troubles going on nearby. Famously some troubles. So-
Context. Derry Girls is a sitcom. It ran from 2018 to 2022. You can watch it on Netflix. It was created by Lisa McGee, and it's about a group of teenage girls and one boy in Northern Ireland, specifically the town of Derry, during the Troubles in the 1990s.
And I think Dairy Girls means a lot to me. First off, for some reason last year, I had this like six-week spell where every single day I would watch the entire show in order to go to sleep. And at that point, it becomes subconscious memory. I know every line, every script, every episode. I'm locked in. But I think Dairy Girls is a very good example of how when it comes to TV –
It's not the time and place, but it is the characters that build a world because a show that also takes place exact same conflict leading up to the Good Friday Agreement, Say Nothing, which is the show based on Patrick Rattenkew's book.
I don't want to live and say nothing. I really don't. I don't even want to read the book. Dairy Girls is a completely different perspective on the lived experience of the Troubles, but the characters, they are lighter. They are funnier. They are just people I want to hang with. And I find this show so relatable right now because...
Like nowadays, you know, the news expedited by the Internet has kind of created this 24-7 cycle of like there is always something bad happening. There is always a new reason to be angry. And I think Derry as a town is a really good example of what it's like to live in the center of national or international tragedy and how –
It can feel when the world moves on. And I think Derry is a really good example of the difference between being left behind and choosing to stay. That kind of brings me to one of the greatest things about the show, which is the cast. I think the show is kind of centered around Aaron Quinn, played by Saoirse Monica Jackson, and her
her family is so crazy kooky. I mean, Grandpa Joe, Ma Mary, and with the troubles in the background. The sitcom is such a sitcom where, like, the problem of the day is
It's so silly and funny. They're getting riled up about trash cans. They're asking, did Kaiser Soze do it? They're like, going to take that concert, but a polar bear escaped the Belfast Zoo, so they need to go, and that's their biggest problem of the day. And Aaron's house is kind of like the house all the friends go to, and I think...
There's just something really uplifting about watching these people who did not leave Derry. Even when Derry suffered, they stayed and they persisted and they chose to find joy in a place. The show is so funny. Like, I should say that it's my favorite show. It's the funniest show I've watched in a really long time. And at the end of the day, it's funny.
I just think that its character is like Sister Michael. She's a nun and she's like the headmistress of their school. I've been waiting for you to mention Siobhan McSweeney because that is going to be one of the main draws of living in Derry Girls. I know. Love her so much. The thing is, like, I don't know if I'd want to be one of her students, but she is always cracking a joke at the expense of the girls or God. And...
I actually think she's a great reminder that sometimes you need people like that in your life to kind of just like humble you a bit, but also to just remind you that sometimes today doesn't have to be the worst day of your life. Like sometimes it is okay to laugh or find joy in a time of despair because choosing joylessness every day is not that helpful when everyone is suffering. And at the end of the day, sometimes the best thing to do, go to the Take That concert. And maybe some days just go through life through the lens of a teenage girl.
Candice Lim, this is so much more earnest than I ever would have expected of you. I was going to say. You're so poetic and so sincere. Wow, you guys don't know me. I'm in my earnest era. You are. I'm in my earnest era. I'm loving it. I'm just trying to imagine choosing to be a teenager. That's the thing, right? Where it's like every single day I wake up, I'm like, thank God I'm not 16. But if I was 16, I would love to be in Derry Girls. Yeah. Okay.
Yeah. When we covered this show back in the day, it was the beginning of the pandemic. And I'll admit I got this show completely wrong. I was distracted by the fact that everybody's always tearing into each other and the fact the emotions of the girls are so big and outsized that I mistook it for mugging.
What I missed was those moments of actual warmth and tenderness. And thank you for reminding me of that. I'm glad. I always like to be reminded when I get something as wrong as I got Dairy Girls. All right. Thank you, Candice. So when we first talked about doing this topic, I mentioned it to my partner. And within one second, she was like, the L word. Done. Done. Done.
Like some of you, I started out with some basic ground rules. I don't want much risk of getting killed. That rules out a lot of action in science fiction, including Game of Thrones. Depends where you live. But also even cozy little spots like the sweet little main town in Murder, She Wrote. You know, be a lovely place to live until you get whacked. Just be prepared to say, I didn't do it, Aunt Jess. And you'll be like...
Number two, I don't want to be under the thumb of a bad boss, an overarching supervillain, or like a gigantic existential threat. That ruled out Steven Universe. Three, I want most of the people in my orbit to be fun to have around.
People who look out for each other, care about each other, are conscientious about each other and the community around them. So I went with the seemingly modest, secretly utopian Parks and Recreation. Pawnee was on my list. Okay. All right. On one hand, there is a dismal side to Pawnee, Indiana. The townspeople are mostly jackasses. The gears of government grind slowly.
But look, I'm a transplanted Midwesterner. These are my people. I love breakfast food. I'll eat breakfast food for dinner. I love my friends. And this is nothing if not a show about friends who double as found family. And like all shows overseen by the great and good Michael Schur, it's a show that is absolutely hell-bent on providing its characters with the happiest possible outcomes. I have some quibbles with the finale of Parks and Rec.
What it sees as happy endings for all of these characters isn't necessarily what I would have chosen for them. I think subsequent short shows like Brooklyn Nine-Nine and The Good Place iron out a lot of those flaws in the ways that those shows conclude. But this is a deeply optimistic and good-natured universe. The villains are obnoxious, kind of thwartable cartoon characters. Your Jeremy Jam is not somebody I'm necessarily going to lose sleep about.
And the good guys are kind and loving to the point where even schlamazel Gary slash Jerry winds up living to 100 and marrying Christie Brinkley. So y'all, I think, went for a few different things. For me, I wanted the safest possible world, the safest possible outcome, and good and loving friends. Basically, I went with, hopefully, my own life.
So that is Parks and Recreation. Sure. But who would you be? Where would you work? Would you be part of the Parks Department? That's a good question. I feel like I'm one of the townspeople. Going into the meetings. Are you kidding me? I don't attend meetings with people I like. Mark.
My worry and the reason I didn't pick this is I just figured I would be the mark. I would disappear unceremoniously. You would be memory hold in season two. I'd be the sole cynical person in the department and so therefore they would have little use for me and I'd disappear. I think you could give a little Nick Offerman impression.
Glenn, I think you could find your place there. I was going to say, you could go more the Offerman route. Yeah. Or Patton Oswalt talking about Star Wars. There's also that. I could do that. But where would you be, Steven? And what would your relationship to little Sebastian be? Oh, I would be ardently pro. Do we not see Steven as a little bit of Rob Lowe?
Yeah, I can see that. Far more committed to exercise. Oh, I see, I see, I see. Well, you can swap into when he gets the flu. Yes. Right? Remember that episode? Can't stop whooping! Exactly. That would be me. Yeah.
Well, I think it is safe to say that I have chosen the correct show and everyone else has chosen unwisely. We want to know what TV show you would like to live in. Find us on Facebook at facebook.com slash PCHH. That brings us to the end of our show. Candice Lim, J.C. Howard, Glenn Weldon, thank you so much for being here. Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you. This episode was produced by Hafsah Fathima and edited by Mike Katziff. Our supervising producer is Jessica Reedy, and Hello, Come In provides our theme music. Thank you for listening to Pop Culture Happy Hour from NPR. I'm Stephen Thompson, and we will see you all next time.
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