 I absolutely love the first episode, top notch everything, felt like I was watching a Ron Howard movie, which is a high, high compliment. Everything about that first episode was fantastic, except, what a surprise. I looked up, I was trying to look up who it is, but white actors. Just finished the first episode, I thought it was a really well done episode. Everything from acting to the set design, they made it look just like beard from the vehicles to the clothes to everything. I thought it was a really strong gym, all the actors are really strong outside of the white actor. I didn't like him and some small CGI stuff other than that. Very good first episode, already interested in what's going to happen in the coming episodes. Very good, just finished episode two, really good ending on it with Jim and you forgot the supporting actors, his partner's name, he's really good as well. I think we've seen him in something. I like that the show's kind of taking its time, because originally I thought this was all going to be about India building its first atomic bomb, obviously I'm sure it won't get there, but it's kind of taking its time in a way I didn't expect and I didn't like it, because obviously everything's done so well, the acting, the set design, the story is totally really well, they're building relationships with these people, their relationship with others. I like the two love interests so far, Jim's and the dancer girl, I think they're both really, really good. I'm really interested in where it's going, it feels like it's kind of heating up now, now that Jim's leaving and stuff like that, so I think I'm hooked. This is episode three, it's a sad ending for my boy Jim, really good episode though, I don't know why I'm moving over here, my wife's over here, but yeah it was a really good episode. It's actually interesting, it's focused primarily on their relationships and not really about rockets as of yet. I thought we were going to have rockets going everywhere, but so far it's very good. I'm really enjoying the show. Finished episode four, another really good episode, I'm really enjoying the show. Like another, twisting in all the history into each episode now, so from the Hiroshima bomb, then SPB, yeah it's Abdul, SPB, sorry, at the end there and then independence and everything like that, so it's really doing a good job at weaving all that and still keeping you interacting with all these characters and all the acting is really good so far. Just finished episode five, I think that was the best episode yet, lots of drama and some really, really great scenes with Jim and that guy he got the contract with to Vikram and his wife, Vikram's being a real dick to his wife, and then Homie and, what's her name? Pipsy. Pipsy, they're really great, really sad because Pipsy is, Homie's not great for Pipsy because he's not ready for commitment, but I thought those scenes were great and then the whole scene and though when he got the commissioner job of the board, that was really good and there was a lot of tension in this episode so, roll that. Just finished episode six, is another really good one, this one's called the guy's fucking everything up, but it's good, I mean not for them, but the show. Just finished episode seven, second to last episode of season one at least, very good, very intense, very suspenseful, also I do still want to shout out the production value, all the sets and like costume design, cars has been incredible, all the acting has been really, really good and now it's just ended where it began and so yeah and you learned, obviously I'm just taking it face value but you're learning a lot of kind of history from this as well, how a lot of this came about and the events that transpired in it kind of like a fast way, just doing a really, really good job. What do you think babe? She's still mad at Vikram, but did he die really? Just finished it, he's really good, I really enjoyed it, I'd be interested to know how accurate all of this was to what actually happened, so you guys can let us know. Hey, welcome back to our Stupid Reactions, it's a Corbin, me, my name is Ricardo, for the intro in Hindi, namaste apka fiershe, so agate humada our Stupid Reactions idiots, how do they say my name? Meena Nam Hey Corbin, Meena Nam Hey Rick, I swear they still remember that, you probably know headers still too don't you? If I try to probably, most of it, probably not all of it, man nothing was so fast, anyways today we're doing a series review everyone, our first of first of the year, 21, hopefully we'll get to more than we got to last year, last year we only got to two, hopefully we'll get to at least five this year, well part of that was because obviously there was not as much stuff in production, yeah, anyways, but we watched Rocket Boys, I'm a Rocket Boy, and we kind of did it because as you guys know, since we talked about scam and we were so good to scam, do not worry, and I thought you know what the other, I wanted to see Cobra's show, it's not a Hindi show, no I know, I know that's the challenge, but anyways, if you don't know Cobra Sage, you should see it's foundation, you should see that show, foundation right, I don't know. Anyways, but yeah, the Sony Liv, they don't allow any picture in picture at all, so I decided to do it this way, where you guys saw us at the intro, a little, a couple of what we thought about in each episode, similar to what we did with the documentary, so you guys can let us know if you like that, if not, sorry, but it's gonna be a, if you're already watching actually, actually I guess you probably didn't spoil anything in the intro's parts. No, we'll, we'll, a little non-spoiler, non-spoiler then into the spoilers, it's difficult, a little series, it's difficult, yeah, but anyways, Rick, your initial thoughts please. So I have a paragraph, okay, after watching back to back to back to back to back shows over the past three years as fantastic as Sakrit Gams, Mirazapur, Patalok, Family Man, Deli Crimes, Maiden Heaven, did I miss any? Okay, you had to expect that eventually we'd get to a series that wasn't as good as those, there was just no way Indian television could keep hitting six after six after six, eventually we'd see a show we didn't like, that hasn't happened yet. I was like, I think he's making a joke. Yeah, Rocket Boys is as good a show as a beautiful mind and imitation game are films. Yeah, it's a perfect cast, it's spectacular writing, incredible costumes, production design and direction that constantly reminded me of the best of Ron Howard and a score that reminded me of the best of Alexander Displot. I love the show, can't wait for season two and oh yeah, thank God for Mark Bennington. Is he the one? The FBI agent. The one good one? The head FBI agent. The one good white actor, which we have seen him, he's done a lot of work and worked with some, I mean he has shared screen time with Akshay, he has shared screen time with Irfan. Yeah, you definitely know it and we'll get to it again, but yeah, this did have some white actors in it. Thank God for Mark Bennington. And they weren't all like the worst ones we've ever seen, but most of them weren't good. Here's the thing, yeah, they weren't like as jaw-droppingly like you pull your hair and you're like oh for the love of God, they weren't that. No. But compared to the rest of the cast, they weren't at their level. Yeah, whenever you can like kind of take a step down whenever there's a white actor, except for him. You know, except for Mark Bennington. I was like, he is good. Yes. He's very, very good. Very good actor. Yeah, I agree. I thought it was a very good series. I was really into it. Me too. I haven't seen your snippets yet, but I'll be interested to see them. The stuff you saw at the intro is what I'm talking about. Yeah. But yeah, I kept saying this is one just great acting by Jim, by our other leads as well. And then, man, the cinematography, the production design, the costume design was all amazing. Amazing. The direction, first of all, the, you know, shout out, we do this sometimes when what really needs the uniformity of the exceptional acting from everybody is a credit to not just the director of Ipanoo, but the casting director, Kavish Sinha, the casting for everybody in this. And like we just said, Ishwak Singh is Vikram, obviously Jim as our Dost. Yeah, our Dost. And then Regina Cassandra and Rajit Kapoor is Nehru. I mentioned Mark Bennington. The list, we could go down. I'm not going to name the entire cast, but yeah, they were all the things that most impressed me. All the Indians were really good. Of course. But we'll get into some of the things and include the spoilers. I was just consistently impressed with how much it reminded me of the best. And Ron Howard is one of fantastic Oscar winning director. And it reminded me so much of what he does stylistically and the score, the theme and variation use on this score and the way things were scored that could have easily been overscored. We talk about that a lot. Yeah. I'm so, so happy that the show is going to get, if this hadn't gotten a second season, it would have been really, really upset because I have some things to say about it that concern me. I'm really happy. It's popular, not just because it's good, but we'll talk about when we get into the spoilers. One of the reasons I was concerned it might not be watched or appreciated. We'll get into that later. Yeah. But anyways, if you haven't watched it, please go watch it. That's our non-spoiler review. It's a great show. Go watch it. It's definitely worth your time. Especially probably, it's always, I say this, if we can appreciate it, I'm pretty sure Indians will probably appreciate it even more because it does have a lot of national pride stuff, a lot of stuff that will really get your blood going because of either stuff that was happened to India or just the accomplishments of India as a whole. Yeah. I think Indians can obviously enjoy that and appreciate that more. Absolutely. So I would definitely go watch it if you haven't watched it. But yeah, we'll get into it. Jim, our Dost, and we don't just say stuff because people are our Dosts, but luckily all of our Dosts are fantastic actors. I got to tell you, the more Dosts we acquire and talk to, the harder it is. It's like when you're invited to go see a play that a friend of yours is in and you're hoping for their sake and everybody's, please be good. Please be good because you're not going to lie at the end of the day and you're rooting for them. You don't ever want somebody to fail it with their doing, but we're human beings. Sometimes our work is poop. And thankfully, and it was such a this was great, such a different role for him to because normally he's at least obviously the first thing we saw him was Bon Bon or he was opposite of Renvi and he did an amazing job. But like for a while, people are trying to place him in like this just asshole role of like being like the main heaven heaven character. And obviously he talked about that. And it was like, I don't want to be the mean person. No. And this was almost like a Sherlock-esque role. Right? Very. There were in fact, like the violin that moment when he's in the room and he's wearing the smoking jacket, I do have scattered everywhere. I'm like, come on. Had to have been inspired by Sherlock from Sherlock. Yeah, absolutely. But I thought he did a really good job because it's such a different performance from his performance in the green heaven and anything else we've ever seen of it, because obviously it was a very complex character. This show, it surprised me in how it went about because I thought it was just going to be about the rockets, right? Yeah. It started almost all relationships, relationships. I was shocked between them two, between their love interest and others in all that kind of stuff. And a few episodes went on and I'm like, I liked it. I was like, I was just surprised. I was like, I thought this was going to be about rockets. We didn't get about rockets really until yeah later in the season. And that I'll get into the kind of thing that I'm so happy. The show has been renewed because you don't renew a show unless it's done well. And my here's my concern about the show is number one, it's on a platform that isn't as popular as some of the larger platforms. I think it's getting more popular now. I hope so. And I hope Rocket Boys is the reason for that. Well, Scam, Rocket Boys and they're putting out other content. Right. But and the other thing is this show, assuming you've watched it now, this show doesn't have the bells and whistles or the sexiness per se of like a Merzapur or a Patalo. Like your games. It's it's it's for it's really for people. Like if you love reading books and if you enjoy history and you enjoy listening to higher level conversations and and talking about things that are of great consequence for people relationally, as well as interrelationally. And the kinds of the kinds of things that happen behind closed doors when people are making deep decisions about what's going to be happening with the future of a country, it doesn't have the the shallow sex appeal that a lot of things do to try to attract viewers. And I'm glad it doesn't because it's telling you this story from history that's really grounded in the same way that it reminded me so much of films that I love like The Imitation Game. Yeah, it's same same time frame in history and very much the same thing. Whereas in The Imitation Game, if you haven't seen that with Ben and the Cumberbatch, it's a great true story and the the whole era and the clothing design and the production design and even the relational aspect and the fact that it's connected to government. It's it's very similar and I give it a high compliment making it that way. And I'm so glad that people have been paying attention to it on the merits of its great artistry because it doesn't have a lot of the things that people include in shows, especially in seasons one, to try to garner viewers. It just sticks to great. I was actually wondering if they thought they were going to be able to get the second season because I felt at times they would have probably liked to have had more time to flesh out because sometimes it jumped. And I was like, I'm wondering if you wanted to have more time, but you they didn't they were like, you're a new show. I don't know if you're going to be able to right get it. And so they had to squeeze a little more in. Yeah, that's one of the things I noticed. Maybe maybe that's completely false and that's not good. But I just noticed that it went a little fast at times in certain places where I was like, normally the show felt like it was trying to take its time. Yes, but sometimes you don't have the luxury of taking your time. Right. Because you're a new show. Yeah. You don't at Jim, even though he's a fantastic actor, is not always the the lead in things. Unfortunately, I'm obviously OTT is changing that. And it's wonderful that actors like Jim or Nawaz or Pankaj are getting the forefront because they're all amazing actors. But I'm wondering if they didn't think they might get a second season. But I'm glad they did. I'm glad that it's because I think it's they did. I want to see I want to see the rest of the story too. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, they did a really good job with the whole story because it is walk as well. Yeah, really good job. Really complex character, both of them. I thought they're both relationships were handled very well. Very well, very believable, very different as well. But because I felt so bad for Jim and what's her name? Pipsy. Pipsy. And she's a lovely actress. Wonderful. Both of the leading ladies as well as the supporting lady that came in later that played opposite Vikram here. I thought was exceptional. And I felt I felt obviously you felt really bad for both wives, you know, Pipsy being the wife apparent. Yeah. And I agree. It's a testament to every character in this. And this is I'm sure it was true to history, but it's important in the storytelling. One of the most important things with creating characters is they have to have strong desires and wants that are really clear. And I felt like everybody was crystal clear in terms of what they wanted, why they wanted it, what they were sacrificing because of it. And nobody was painted as a bad guy. They were all just basically human beings. Jim and Pipsy's relationship, I thought, was really new because you were rooting for them. I was rooting for them. They were great together. But obviously, Jim just couldn't be who she wanted him to be at that time. I need to understand it on both parts, which is good writing because you're not, you're like, Jim, you idiot, even though you're like, Jim, you are an idiot. Come on. But you understand because like his focus right now, even though he'd love to be there for Pipsy, this is his passion. This is what he wants to do. And then Pipsy, you totally understand. She's been there for him this whole time. Yeah, but she can't wait around forever. Well, and it's interesting because- And they shared a great moment at the wedding. They really did. I thought that was a fantastic moment. Yeah, I agree. And it's the same how both, Homi and Vikram are very, they were very different men. They both loved science and they both loved what they did, but they had very different reasons as to why they did what they did. But relationally, it's interesting. Well, even though Vikram gets married, he too is ruining relationship in the midst of what he's doing vocationally, which is very common for people in high-driven areas of work where they find it almost impossible to balance relationship and work because of the drive they have for what they do. And his character was also so unique because he was almost suppressing his wife and her desires. Oh my goodness, yes. It wasn't made like, like you sometimes see in films of like, no, you can't do this. He thought he was being a good guy. And I feel like that's very natural for a lot of people that they might like, I'm not a bad person. I'm not telling you to know. I'm just telling you to wait. Yeah, like when they- I didn't have to wait for my dreams, but when they had the argument sequence when she was telling him, okay, it's been how many years now and I wanna pursue my dancing career. And he said, but I just, I've asked you to be patient. They are both on the same page in terms of the patience. He just thought she'd be patient longer. And she said, I've been patient longer than I thought you wanted me to be. And then obviously he makes huge mistakes. Huge mistake. But I thought it was super interesting and I liked what they did. That was not this integral part of the show. It was still about the science and this was just a little blimp in their life. I'm assuming they might address it later or they might not. Because sometimes in life that just happens. Somebody cheats, they move on with their life and that person never finds out. Yep. Unfortunately. Yeah. Unfortunately is right. Unfortunately, but that is life. Yeah. That is how it happens a lot of times. And so I thought it was super interesting and I thought, well done to do that to make, it's like, this is not a Made in Heaven show. Right. This is real people and they have problems but the show is about the rockets and the science and all that kind of stuff. And getting into that, we obviously don't know, for example, if we watch certain films based on things we know about with American history, we can tell, if someone were to make a film right now about 9-11, we'd be able to have a really good idea about what's going on in the United States at that time and be able to check and balance it and say, that happened, that didn't happen. So we don't know. We don't know the historicity of this. But what I love about the show is how much we learned and I'm assuming they did their due diligence and their homework and made sure this was historically accurate. They use a lot of clips from real history, both audio and visual. And that's one of my favorite things about this show is because movies and television or storytelling, it's a history lesson. And I learned a lot about the history of the rocket program and a nuclear program. I learned a lot about, I thought it was really brilliant to have, and I don't know if this was done for dramatic purposes or if this was really the genuine character of these two men, how they both were right about why they wanted to do what they wanted to do, particularly as a pertain to getting to the atomic bomb and how both of them were right about why the bomb should be made according to Homie and then according to Vikram, why it shouldn't be made. And I felt like Prime Minister Nero had the exact same challenge going on. He did well too, I like him. I thought he did extremely well. Yeah, I thought everybody did really, like there was some scenes in here that I was like when Jim exploded at the angry moment. Was it his partner that portrayed him in the end today? Yeah, it was the moment where his partner, really good actor who portrays, I am a dog on it. Where is he? Not day. You haven't seen it. Is it him? Mathur. Mathur, yes. So he and Casey Shankar. Yeah, they're arguing right as they're about to try to get up to the one megawatt or whatever the measure was. I think he was just gonna ignore it. And he's saying no, and he's saying yes, I'm going in and he blew up and had that explosion. My favorite episodes are of all of these. I thought they got better as they went along. Yeah, I like number one because of the way it introduced the show and it was so good. I love the last two episodes. I thought the last two episodes were so weighty and so well written and gave us the most emotion and it was really well concluded season one. And like I said, the production value of the costumes, the cars, the buildings, I'm assuming they built that entire, like when that actual nuclear thing that they had at the end, I'm assuming they built that. It was all really well done. The costuming, the hair, the makeup. Top notch. Like award worthy. Yeah, and the attention to detail. Like we mentioned how it made us think about the Sherlock moment, right? With the violin in the room. But the other thing I thought of when they did a pullback POV when she comes into the room and you see what he's been up to, the first thing I thought of was the work the crew had to do to set that room up. I mean so many times there were moments like that where they did an aerial shot, like just setting up the party where he shows up with the trucks to show him the stone. All of that costuming, all of that prep, it's a night shoot. There's just an incredible amount of work and detail that went into this that's as good as movie making. And there was a bunch in every episode almost of really good dramatic moments where you're on the edge of your seat. You're like, ooh, what's gonna happen? So the score added to that. Like you're talking about it was amazing. Suspenseful score of times. But really subtle at other times. The biggest issues I had, white actors. Question. Always, except for Mark. Yeah, yeah, he, the FBI director, you could tell. I just assume he works here as well. He does, I actually, I went to his IMDB page and I watched, he has about a five and a half, six minute reel and I watched him. He has the predominant amount of work he does is Indian and his contact information is Mumbai. So he speaks Hindi. So the predominant amount of work he's done, like I said, on his reel, we've seen him in, he was in Family Man. He was in Kasari. He had a scene with Akshay. He was in Engrazi Medium. He has a scene with Irfan. There's just the number of people that he has worked with. You could tell, just pretty impressive. Even in scenes with other white actors, he was a way step above everyone else. He was on the level of everybody else in the cast. And it was wonderful to see an actual white actor be that good. I meant that, thank God. Everyone else, they weren't the worst. We've seen worse white actors, but they just weren't on the level of everyone else. And then there were CGI moments, but I assumed the budget was low and anytime I assume a budget is low, you're gonna have to. And when CGI isn't your predominant, there was like four or five times where there was like a CGI rocket or something like that. Totally understandable. But yeah, and the fact that I saw, I felt at times that it was rushing a little bit to pacing for pacing because I assumed I didn't know that they would have a second season. Those are probably my biggest issues with it, but other than that, man, I just, I really enjoyed this show. Steph watched most of the episodes with me. Sometimes she fell asleep, but then she got really mad at Vikram. Of course. I did too. She got real mad at Vikram. It was especially shocking. She also got mad at Jim, but she was like, you're an idiot. Well, it was especially shocking for Vikram to do what he did because of the two of them, the one who seemed to have a more definitive moral compass that guided his every decision was Vikram. And for Vikram, and again, this may have been done for artistic purposes. This happens quite a bit where they changed the setting for an event for dramatic purposes when it really didn't happen that way. I don't know if Vikram actually kissed the girl he was working with at the exact same moment his wife was dancing on stage and he should have been in the chair. But for dramatic effect, it absolutely conveyed the reality of what you're doing in that moment. What it said, giving you the, kind of the analogy right there was he has completely abandoned the thing that he was committed to. And I thought that was done in an extremely great way. A couple other actors, the actor who played Raza. Yeah, he did a great job. Really interesting character. Dibyendu Bhattacharya. Really interesting character, really good arc of the character I thought. And I thought he was always really strong and he was basically the antagonist most of the show. But what I loved about the way he was written and portrayed was as the antagonist, I understood, like- Why he was upset, yeah. I understood his objections. I understood why he felt overlooked. I understood why he was angry that he hadn't been consulted. I also understood that when they did the Democratic vote in that moment it was a bit of an insult to him because that's not what he meant when he asked. And then you really get the, I loved, it reminded me there's a, if you, there's a book called Team of Rivals and it's about what Lincoln did after he won the election and he actually brought in the people who had vehemently opposed him because he saw the strengths that they had. And even though they said they detested him, he said, I want your vantage point. I know you won't kowtow to me. And I loved that moment that they had with each other when he genuinely congratulates Homie. And Homie genuinely invites him to be a part of the team. I thought that was a very great moment. And then the guy who played APJ, which was actually a really cool part of the show, if you guys can tell us if it was all accurate or whatnot. It was cool to see, because we've seen speeches and we know about APJ and we know everybody, he's so beloved. And it was cool to see this younger side of him and it's like almost come up. I loved one of my favorite moments and all of the show, I'm glad you mentioned him, was when they're outside the Prime Minister's office with him for the first time and they're cool as cucumbers and he's got his leg going and they just, they notice it without him noticing and then they just all start their leg at the same time. I thought that was a great moment. Yeah, there was a lot of good humor in this. A lot of, it's just a really well done show. Maybe one day we'll get to a bad show, but I hope not. Yeah, I hope not. So far, so good, man. I genuinely just another great series to look forward to and hats off again to the entire team. If you've been involved with the show in any way and you get to join in with season two and yes, if you're not gonna hire us, please hire Mark Bennington. But we are for hire. Because boy, was it a joy to watch a white actor in the role of the CIA guy and go, oh, he's so good. It was just a joy to not see somebody bad in their role opposite everybody else who's so good. So good. It's jarring when it happens. It really sucks. But anyways, let us know what you thought about the series, which we are next series. And how you, what you thought about this format? Yeah. I mean, obviously we'd love to be able to do some to in-person ones that we do episode by episode. Obviously this one didn't require that as much. I don't think because it's a slower show. But also it's Sony LIV. So scam you guys can let us know if you'd like to see a scam like this scam reaction. Cause basically all Sony live will have to be either like this or just, I don't know. You guys can let us know other options for that. But let us know what the next series we should review is down below.