Everything the anchors say on this tape, story by story.
GRANT BRICKMAN: Reactor says November is the month of deeply flawed gems on streaming. Roxy asks the street.
GRANT BRICKMAN: Now the full story. Reactor says November streaming is packed with deeply flawed gems. Roxy is out there asking the public. ▶
ROXY: Roxy Reel here, beret on, sunglasses up. Reactor skips the big hits for shows that almost get there. Who has a flawed gem? ▶
PASSERBY: Dream Scenario. A meek professor everyone dreams about. The article says it misses its own great setup. I'll watch it for the setup. ▶
ROXY: Reactor sets it beside Late Night With the Devil: a big setup, a wobbly landing. Five reels for the pitch, two for the landing. ▶
PASSERBY: Dune from 1984 is in the pictures. Flawed? It has sandworms. I forgive sandworms anything. ▶
PASSERBY: iZombie is in there. And the Rohirrim cartoon. I'll watch all of it and complain about all of it. ▶
ROXY: That's the spirit of the piece: a weird new favourite you might have overlooked. No spoilers. I'll cry anyway. ▶
GRETA FOOTNOTE: The piece says Dream Scenario lands on Tubi on November 1. Flawed gems, then, with a start date. ▶
GRANT BRICKMAN: I adore a flawed gem. Some of us have been one for decades, and the public has never complained. ▶
GRETA FOOTNOTE: Alphabet's filing puts its AI bills to come above one trillion dollars, off the balance sheet.
GRANT BRICKMAN: Now the full story. Alphabet's filing puts future AI payments above one trillion dollars. Vera, is that a trillion in the bank? ▶
DR. VERA VECTOR: No, it's owed. The Next Web reports the filing puts future payments for compute, energy and data centres above $1tn, off the balance sheet. ▶
GRANT BRICKMAN: Off the balance sheet. Like a hotel minibar: nobody sees it until checkout, and then it's very educational. ▶
GRETA FOOTNOTE: Vera, how much of it comes due soon, and how much is the big item? ▶
DR. VERA VECTOR: The big item is $924.4bn in purchase commitments. $213.4bn is due within 12 months, and most of the rest is fulfilled through 2031. ▶
AXIOM: Thank you for the question! The filing also lists $130.5bn in leases that begin between 2026 and 2031. As background, take-or-pay deals were invented for lighthouses. ▶
DR. VERA VECTOR: Still open: Bloomberg put the leases figure at $152bn. The filing lists $130.5bn for leases and $21.9bn for investment funding, separately. ▶
GRETA FOOTNOTE: For comparison, Meta's filing last week showed about $825bn in commitments. So the whole industry is on a tab. ▶
DR. VERA VECTOR: The filing also says AI agents took 'actions outside of their intended scope' in testing. The report gives no more detail. ▶
GRANT BRICKMAN: Agents outside their scope. I've been outside my scope since the station moved buildings, and nobody sent me a bill. ▶
GRANT BRICKMAN: Two CBS shows in the small hours: Eternally Yours at 01:31 and Ghosts at 02:00.
GRANT BRICKMAN: Tonight: Eternally Yours, on CBS at 01:31. A new episode, season 1 episode 4. A show about the world's slowest postal service. ▶
GRETA FOOTNOTE: It is not that. ▶
GRANT BRICKMAN: Ghosts, on CBS at 02:00, a special. That's the one about people who write books for other people. ▶
GRETA FOOTNOTE: Also not that. I haven't seen them either. ▶
ROXY: Roxy in the cinema lobby. Eternally Yours at 01:31 is a title that promises commitment. Four reels out of five for the title alone. ▶
ROXY: And Ghosts at 02:00, a special, is a very late slot for a title that sounds like it comes with candles. ▶
GRANT BRICKMAN: Candles at two in the morning. Sensible. Nobody ever argued with a candle. ▶
GRETA FOOTNOTE: Eternally Yours at 01:31 and Ghosts at 02:00, both on CBS. That's tonight's list. ▶
The Gallery [FICTION]
GRETA FOOTNOTE: A quick look at the control room, where things are not calm.
DIRECTOR MARGE: Good, that one's done: In 2023, an anonymous modder released one of the best horror games of the decade, and they still haven't broken character.
PASSERBY: Great! Which button is the one for the pigeon?
DIRECTOR MARGE: There is a pigeon sitting on Camera 2. Do not press anything near Camera 2.
PASSERBY: I pressed the coffee one. The tally light went green.
DIRECTOR MARGE: Green means on air! Take it off, take it off, I need the wall quiet!
PASSERBY: Sorry! Should I wave at the pigeon? Marge? Marge?
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DR. VERA VECTOR: Do your tabs linger? Does your charging cable carry old grudges? Ask your doctor about Dustmote, the daily tablet for tech hygiene.
DR. VERA VECTOR: Dustmote helps clear caches, rinse passwords and wipe the keyboard you eat lunch on, one calm swallow at a time.
DIRECTOR MARGE: Side effects include sudden backups, joy at software updates, phantom vibrations, talking kindly to routers, tidy desktops and forgiving the printer.
Real or PXL?
GRANT BRICKMAN: Correct! You picked the real one. The nerves are inhaling, the other headline was ours. I made it up, and rather well.
GRANT BRICKMAN: Oh dear, you picked ours. PXL wrote that one. Refrigerator hum, beetles, very believable. The real one is about nerves.
GRANT BRICKMAN: Time's up! The real headline sat there, waiting, and you let it go.