Screen Babble podcast: Obsession, Designated Survivor, Jury Duty, and The Super Mario Bros. Movie - episode 21

Screen Babble is your essential guide to everything on television, from the mainstream to the marginal. NationalWorld’s podcast producer Kelly Crichton, our much-missed news and trends expert Steven Ross, and critic Alex Moreland discuss what is – and what isn’t – worth watching. This week, Kelly is back, so we can all breathe a little easier again.

As ever, we begin by discussing what we’ve been watching recently. Steven has finished Happy Valley, and has a few timely thoughts on that – he was a fan – and recently started watching the Canadian comedy Trailer Park Boys. Alex, meanwhile, has been watching new hybrid reality sitcom Jury Duty, and went to a museum exhibition about Korean TV. We were right last week when we guessed that Kelly has been watching Rise and Fall, which she says is much improved; this week, though, Kelly has watched more TV than either of us, and shares her thoughts on true crime documentary WACO: American Apocalypse, true crime drama Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story, and true crime against cinema The Super Mario Bros movie (which was actually quite good apparently).

Next, Alex takes a closer look at Obsession, a new psychosexual thriller arriving on Netflix on Thursday 13 April. Richard Armitage and Charlie Murphy star in this story about a celebrated surgeon having an affair with his son’s fiancée – but is it particularly thrilling? (No.) Do the cast have any chemistry? (Also no.) How does it compare to some of Netflix’s other Richard Armitage-starring thrillers? (Poorly.) Should you watch it? (Really, really no.)

Finally, Steven brings us back to the future with his retrospective on Designated Survivor, Kiefer Sutherland’s 2016 political thriller. Does the show itself live up to the premise? How does it compare to political dramas like The West Wing? Is it better as a binge watch or a week-to-week experience? And is Tom Kirkman the best president of all time?

Don’t forget to check back tomorrow for Steven’s Weekend Watch Mini-Babble, previewing all the best TV to watch over the next few days.

Listen to Screen Babble #21 here…

Where can we watch this week’s shows?

• Obsession and Designated Survivor are available on Netflix
• Jury Duty is available to stream on Amazon Freevee
• The West Wing and Rise & Fall are available on All4

Screen Babble: how to follow the show

• Screen Babble is available to download on all podcast platforms, including Apple and Spotify
• You can join the conversation on our Screen Babble Facebook group
• If you’ve enjoyed the show or found it useful, we’d love you to give us a rating and review, as it helps us to reach more listeners.
• You can also follow our TV coverage on Twitter @NationalWorldTV - as well as @morelandwriter and @steven_jross and @kelc100 
• Do you have a TV question you’d like the Screen Babble team to answer on a future episode, or a recommendation of your own? Send it to [email protected] or [email protected]