The Big Door Prize

0:01 Voyage. Welcome to watch this tonight. I'm your host, An Bettimore. I'm a produced writer of film and television and now a podcast producer. And despite having every streaming service, I never know what to watch. So anytime I watch something good, I talk about it on the show. This way, you'll never have the same problem I do. I watch this tonight, there's always something good to watch. Let's get started. Today on the show, we're talking about the Big Door Prize on Apple Plus. There's a great bit on Family Guy where Peter Griffin has offered the choice between a mystery box and a boat, and he says there could be anything on that mystery box, maybe even a boat. That's essentially what the Big Door Prize is about.

0:55 It stars Chris O'Dowd, who is really one of the most underrated actors around. He did a get shorty series that he started that very few people saw. It was on Epics. It was excellent. He was really good in it. He's just a really quality leading man. You can kind of plug him in anywhere. You can do comedy, you can do drama. He's really an excellent actor. So you meet him, he's got a really nice life. He's got a good relationship with his daughter. He's got a good relationship with his wife. His wife is beautiful. Everyone that is around him is like, you're lucky you got with this woman. He goes out to dinner with his wife to a restaurant and he's talking to the owner of the restaurant and somehow comes up in conversation and he says, I think I have everything I ever wanted, And the owner of the restaurant says, maybe you didn't want enough. And you can see it really like shakes Chris adown And the high concept mature of this premise is that there's this box that showed up in the town and it can tell you your life's potential. So even though Chris's life is great, literally he's in bed with his wife, they've just had sex. She wants to have sex again, and all he can think about is this Bob and maybe there's something more than this. Right, he can't appreciate the life that he has. This is a very human thing.

2:06 We get something and we just want more and more, and it's very hard for us to appreciate what we have and be content. What's great about so Dowd in this role is that he's you know, he's immediately likable. He just is it. It's an underrated skills and actor. You're instantly rooting for him, you're instantly relating to him. I want to share one example that jumped out of me. He's talking to his wife about how their daughter has not been sharing everything with them like she used to, and his wife says, what's wrong with that? Maybe some people will want something that's just for them, and he replies, that's a weird and upsetting thing to say, are you okay? And the way he delivers that line, it was funny, but I also felt bad for him. I also felt that he cared sincerely about her, and he played all three of those notes simultaneously, and again, it hits that theme, right. He asked his wife are you unhappy in this life? In that same conversation, and she doesn't answer him, she changes the subject. There's also a great running gag. We start on Chris O'Dowd's birthday and he's doing a scooter ride to work and I think he's like listening to music as he's doing the ride, and it's almost like he's in his own music video. He's dancing, he's having a great time, and then every day after that it's a little sadder and sadder and sadder because it's not a special day. And it's kind of like, how do we hope with life? Because in life, most days are not in a special day. He asks his students, he's a history teacher, write down what you are and write down what you are going to be, And then one of them asks him the same question. He can't answer it.

3:30 He talks to a priest and he says, I thought I already made my big life change. I thought this was it. You know, he's forty years old. He doesn't know what's next. He doesn't know what his life's about. And they make a point to tell you that even though his wife, like everyone seems to be enamored with her in the town, it's the only relationship that he's ever been in, so he can't fully appreciate her. So at the end of the pilot he does it. He goes to this mystery box to find out his life's potential, which is not a spoil They show that that he's going to do that at the very beginning of the pilot episode. A stupid thing. They probably only bothered me though, so it's a machine. You go inside the machine and then it asks you your social security number. But in context of the show, they clearly indicate that this thing just appeared. No one knows where it came from the store. It appeared in the store owner. It's like, I don't know where it just happened one day, was just there. If that happened, no one's putting their shoal security number in that thing. I wouldn't put my security number that thing. So yeah, I just thought that was one thing, that stupid thing. They probably only brother me. What's great about the show is that when you hear about it, you think it's going to be this sort of gimmicky, silly thing, but they really ground it and it actually is very substantive. I think it's it's it's almost like an existential philosophical show. It's not you kind of think, is it going to be like silly and stupid or is it not going to have any sort of weight to it, And it's almost the opposite. Really, it's actually surprisingly sort of like insightful.

5:00 It makes you think about your own life. And what I think is great about the premise is it's a placebo effect. Premise. A placebo effect is basically if they give you a sugar pill and they give somebody else an actual pill that does something, and then compare the results. Sometimes people who take the sugar pill will have a medical result, which is the placebo effect. So if you give somebody a card and you tell them, hey, what it says in this card is your life's potential? You can just make it up. I mean this is basically how fortune cookies work too, right, just randomly assign it and a lot of people will be like, oh, maybe that is my life's purpose. It's like a Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy where the secret to life is like the number forty two. You know, there's kind of no grant answer, you know, it's that's It's just a really interesting premise. Now, my question was how do you get a TV show that premise as opposed to a feature? And they do have an answer, which I'll get to at the end with the spoilers. But I really like the tone I feel like with this and Shrinking Apple has done a really good job and double down on these shows. It just makes you feel good to watch. They're very pleasant, they're very approachable, you can put them on no matter what mood you're in. Both Shrinking and this show are going to be shows that if I'm just sitting around, I can kind of throw them on. They're not too explicit or violent or anything like. It wouldn't be the end of the world if my kids were around. They're not, you know, super edgy, where I kind of got to be in the right mood to take them in. I think it's a very smart programming choice.

6:27 Now, there's only one thing in this whole pilot that is a spoiler, which is what does it say on Chris O'Dowd's card when he finally does use the box. So if you don't want to know that, this is your spoiler warning. But before I spoil it, I want to say that I was surprised how much I liked this show. You know, I think it's actually especially if you're someone who is thirty five or older, I think you will find a lot to relate to in this show. I definitely did all right spoilers. So, Chris O'Dowd's card says teacher slash whistler, which is what he already is. I left out loud, especially his face.

7:08 You could see his face like like go sort of slack as he sees what it says. It's like he's already fulfilled his life's potential. It's a very clever, funny ending, and it brings the story full circle in such a way that it almost could have been a great short film. So again, how do you make it into a series? Well, we see it at the end. His wife has a card at the end of the pilot, and we don't know what our card says, but it likely explains why she was acting so weird earlier. So ultimately, I think the show's going to be about all the different people in this small town and how finding out with their potential is supposed to be changes who they are, but specifically changes their relationships with each other. There's something called Maslow's hierarchy of needs, and this show is playing on that, right, the idea that is that as human beings, we need like food, shelter, and you know, stability and things of that nature. But once you get to the top of that and you've satisfied all your basic needs for survival, the top thing is to self actualize, and that's what the show is exploring. Like you're kind of like if you're if you're sort of doing okay, you're not like in danger.

8:11 You have shelter and food and a job, but now you want to self actualize. You know, how does that drive your behavior if somebody says this is how you can do it? So again, Apple Plus man, feel free to sponsor the show at any time. I'm really not making this like, honestly, like I'm trying to think, hasn't been in any shows that I didn't like. I haven't seen extrapolations which I have heard mixed things about, so I guess that's the only one. But yeah, I mean, in general, I've been so impressed with Apple plus is programming. I think that they really have a ton of good stuff. And honestly, like I wouldn't I wouldn't do the episode. I promise you Apple is not paying me to say this. I would not do the episode unless I really felt this way. So yeah, I was very pleasantly surprised by this show. That is the podcast for today. As always, if you're enjoying the show, please do leave me if I start review an Apple podcasts, I get you know, producers of the Big Door Prize should do that. That's the best way to help the show. It sort of drives other people towards the show it's doing. That is a way to make sure the show keeps going.

9:16 So if if you haven't done that yet, going out a podcasts take thirty seconds to do it. It's the biggest way you could support the podcast. That's the show for today. As always, thank you for listening. Until next time, Bye bye.