This week’s episode is quite the mélange and it begins with a cold open featuring a musical duet recorded late at night in Dean’s Motor City-adjacent home last week while Phil was visiting. Then, it is back to the “now” with Dean previewing his forthcoming trip to Minneapolis for a convention celebrating the 30th anniversary of “The X-Files” and Phil reveals the challenges he faced getting home from Detroit. Then, Phil reveals the latest show business strikes news and Dean offers up another vintage television series, this one an exemplar of Scandinavian Noir. In the return of “What We’re Reading”, Dean and Phil reveal the books that have garnered their attention, including a memoir, classic literature, historic fiction, poetry, music analysis and a guidebook. The phenomenon that is Oppenheimer gets discussed, as does large format film exhibition. Finally, in “Celebrity Deaths”, Jimmy Buffett gets remembered (as do his cafes and hotels!).

Dean is back in the environs of the Motor City, Phil is back in Los Angeles, and they have a lot to discuss on this week’s show … Phil asks Dean about his SoCal travel adventures and about Dean’s grandfather, a truly remarkable man. Dean and Phil preview new seasons from two utterly terrific television series and also discuss a current show you might just want to check out. The box office is, at long last, seemingly revived and there are a lot of movies out! Dean and Phil discuss some of them, but pay particular attention to the return of Ke Huy Quan, a new Chris Pine spy vehicle, a classic 1960s musical from France, an unusually personal 1981 detective film from Peter Bogdanovich, and the movie that features James Stewart’s all-time favorite performance he ever gave. In the return of “Celebrity Deaths”, several sitcom character actors, a beloved stand-up comic and voice actor, and a groundbreaking dancer, all get remembered.

After a funny cold open where Dean tells about another of his haunted house adventures, Dean and Phil kick off this week’s show by sharing what they are thankful for during this Thanksgiving week, Dean battling Covid-19, Phil reflecting on his mother’s death two years ago. The career of Dean Martin, his work with Jerry Lewis, and a terrific TCM documentary “Dean Martin: King of Cool” all get discussed. A great jazz film from the 1980s, Round Midnight, and the “sacred” aspect of cinema get celebrated. The box office success of Ghostbusters: Afterlife and No Time to Die get analyzed through a very optimistic lens. In “Celebrity Deaths”, Dean’s love of funk gets exposed, as two great funk stars get remembered, along with a star of HBO’s “Oz”. And speaking of HBO, Dean and Phil tease an upcoming discussion about HBO’s “Succession” and about Will Ferrell’s considerable behind-the-scenes clout in Hollywood.

Dean is back in Detroit, Phil is back in the swing of things and your friends in podcasting connect via Skype to discuss the backlash over the recent Oscars, the death of “Star Trek” on the big screen (after the cancellation of the 4th film in the JJ Abrams “Kelvin” timeline), and the rebirth of Trek on the small screen (with the revelation of the story-line for the forthcoming “Picard” series). There is a “Lawsuit of the Week” involving the long-running series “Bones” and there are a bunch of “Celebrity Deaths”. Among those being celebrated are one of the all-time great comedic actresses, a legendary whistleblower, a World War II hero immortalized in a classic film, and a four-time Oscar-winning composer, arranger, conductor (and father-in-law of Woody Allen!).