BGN interviews the cast of the Disney+ series Big Shot.
Featured in the interviews are: YVETTE NICOLE BROWN (Sherilyn Thomas), SOPHIA MITRI SCHLOSS (Emma) , NELL VERLAQUE (Louise), SARA EACHEAGARAY (Ava), JOHN STAMOS (Marvyn Korn), TISHA CUSTODIO (Mouse) , TIANA LE (Destiny) , and CRICKET WAMPLER (Giggles).
In season two of Big Shot, Marvyn Korn (Stamos) returns to Westbrook with a new fire, ready to show that his basketball team belongs in D-2 and that he’s still the championship-winning, powerhouse coach he was in the NCAA. Marvyn’s latest plan toward relevance is to get his team broadcast on ESPN and his method is to recruit an unlikely player: Ava (Echeagaray), a gutsy beach volleyball phenom whose public tantrum got her ousted from her own sport. Between losing their assistant coach Holly Barrett (Gilsig) to a rival school, new friction amongst teammates, a sudden and unexpected proximity to boys, and off-the-court disasters that no one could’ve predicted, this season, the Westbrook Sirens have even more to prove.
BGN interviews the cast of the Disney+ series Big Shot.
Featured in the interviews are: YVETTE NICOLE BROWN (Sherilyn Thomas), SOPHIA MITRI SCHLOSS (Emma) , NELL VERLAQUE (Louise), SARA EACHEAGARAY (Ava), JOHN STAMOS (Marvyn Korn), TISHA CUSTODIO (Mouse) , TIANA LE (Destiny) , and CRICKET WAMPLER (Giggles).
In season two of Big Shot, Marvyn Korn (Stamos) returns to Westbrook with a new fire, ready to show that his basketball team belongs in D-2 and that he’s still the championship-winning, powerhouse coach he was in the NCAA. Marvyn’s latest plan toward relevance is to get his team broadcast on ESPN and his method is to recruit an unlikely player: Ava (Echeagaray), a gutsy beach volleyball phenom whose public tantrum got her ousted from her own sport. Between losing their assistant coach Holly Barrett (Gilsig) to a rival school, new friction amongst teammates, a sudden and unexpected proximity to boys, and off-the-court disasters that no one could’ve predicted, this season, the Westbrook Sirens have even more to prove.
The Trust and Safety team at Twitch state that they spend their time making sure users are protected and guidelines are followed on the platform in accordance with their terms and conditions. During TwitchCon 2022 at the San Diego Convention Center, the team discussing policy included:
Angela Hession, VP Trust & Safety
Alison Huffman, VP of Product, Community Health
Connie Chung, Head of Global Policy, Trust, and Safety
Doug Scott, Chief Customer Officer
Each gave some insight about what tools and and rules they are implementing to make Twitch a fair and equitable space for users.
According to Hession, “I think because of the ever-evolving nature of life that response time is essential. I think it’s not as acute for static upload video. So our response time is 24 hours, 7 days a week, 365 days a year, and it’s ensuring this admission and how it escalates and prioritizes harm.” With 8 million different communities that are going live every month, at any given moment it’s certain that Twitch has a large scale of users to monitor. There are also two and a half million viewers watching streams live as well.
For the team, prioritizing accuracy and nuance is what comes first in their job to protect users on the platform. Being quick and efficient is their approach to solving these problems. There are adversarial actors, as Hession mentions, and then people whose core beliefs may be bigoted are harmful anyway. Hession groups these users together when filtering out abuse buckets.
Twitch heavily relies on its volunteer-based model of users branded as mods to also assist in this capacity. While many moderators may not have the knowledge base to understand safety and security, Twitch says they are trying programs like Safety Center. They are also growing their moderator program.
According to Huffman, the use of real people is important to the platform: “We can’t do this just through tech because it’s live and we don’t know what’s happening.” Huffman started as a community moderator in 2007. For her, a lot of this has been a training experience on the powers of building an operation.
What makes this particular social network unique compared to others is that static content gets preemptively reviewed and scanned before it is live to the world. According to the policy team, the magic of Twitch happens when the streamer and chat are interacting and any delay breaks. Huffman further went on to say that Twitch relies on partnership with the community to have them help keep the platform and users’ homes safe. “It means we are having streamers and channel moderators who help keep their community safe to their standards.”
Twitch also has made it possible for moderators to report people who are violating community guidelines and for the process to be intuitive and clear so that users are able to file secure reports to the operations team and the offending material is reviewed and taken down as quickly as possible.
“We really needed to find that right connection between the technology that helps scale and then the people who have the right nuance of judgment,” says Huffman.
The company also is thinking about education. “It’s not just about our rules, but it’s why we’re doing this,” says Hession. Twitch has kicked off some programs, giving more information about the underlying logic of community guidelines. The livestream platform is doing that through music, to articulate why they have their policies and how they’re preventing harm. The policy team wants to empower their streamers to help build the communities that are right for them. They realized that they can’t do it all and can’t do it all instantly. Hession says, “The best way to protect our creators is to give them powerful, easy-to-use nuanced tools that let them build the community. We want to be able to have communities that you can set up to tailor that own individual experience which I think is really important.”
Panelist Scott says, “God bless the mods. We love our mods.” When it comes to suspension on Twitch, panelist Chung says, “Suspension rates are the severity; you want to make sure it’s definitely proportional if it’s very low.”
Twitch believes that their user community has been very clear about what they expect based on experience and they want to control that experience. The team is adamant that as the service grows and evolves, the safety experience needs to do so as well. “I think we’re very lucky that we have a very engaged community. They care about safety as much as we do,” says Hession.
As far as operations go, Twitch is proud to share that they have resolved 80% of user reports within 10 minutes, which according to them is industry leading. Chung says she’s amazed at how much the community wants to follow Twitch’s goals. “I think that we’re going to continue to be really excited for that for next year. We’ve got a number of policy options that are going to come deepening our understanding of harassment, sexual harassment, and that is changing in the industry. Twitch is making sure that we stay abreast of the trends so that we can protect our community but also have good listening skills,” she says.
You can learn more about safety practices happening at Twitch here.
In Episode 8 of House of the Dragon, “The Lord of the Tides,” 6 years have now passed. In that time, Queen Rhaenys Targaryen (Eve Best) has not seen her husband Corlys Velaryon (Steve Toussaint). Sadly Corlys was seriously injured in battle at the Stepstones, and his neck was slashed by an enemy’s dagger. He fell overboard into the sea, and his wound was severe. Corlys is now suffering from a fever, burning within. Ser Vaemond Velaryon (Wil Johnson) suggests the blood fever has killed men half of Corlys’ age and wants to know who will take the Driftwood throne.
Rhaenys insists that Lucerys Velaryon (Harvey Sadler) will be next in line as it was her husband’s desire. However Vaemond says he is of blood and the closest king he has left. Vaemond is concerned if the Velaryon bloodline will be snuffed out by puffs of Strong blood. He finally states that while he appreciates Rhaenys’ support, he does not need it.
Meanwhile, Daemon Targaryen (Matt Smith) unearths a dragon’s egg from Syrax in a warming chamber. He found three and hands one off to one of the dragonkeepers. He in turn, gives Daemon a message from his daughter Baela Velaryon (Bethany Antonia).
A now pregnant Rhaenyra Targaryen (Emma D’Arcy) is teaching her son Jacaerys Velaryon (Harry Collett) to learn to speak high Valerian. Daemon delivers Baela’s message to Rhaenrya, and she believes her succession is now under a great threat. She also believes that Rhaenys thinks they killed Laenor Velaryon (John Macmillan) and she will undermine her power. Daemon suggests they head back to King’s Landing.
Queen Alicent Hightower (Olivia Cooke), now wearing a necklace with a seven pointed star, the symbol of the faith of the seven, is sitting at the Small Council meeting. Rhaenyra and Daemon visit a very ill Viserys Targaryen (Paddy Considine) in his bed. He’s also fighting dementia. As Daemon informs his brother of the news of Corlys’ injury and the threat of the Driftwood throne, Viserys tells him Otto will handle it. Daemon insists that Viserys should affirm his position as king and have Lucerys as successor. Rhaenyra introduces Viserys to his two grandchildren (and grand-nephews): Aegon and Viserys — the children she had with Daemon.
In the next scene, Alicent meets Dianna, a servant girl who describes a sexual assault from Prince Aegon Targaryen (Tom Glynn-Carney). Alicent gaslights the young girl into thinking that she may not be believed by the public and makes her drink moon tea (a drink used to abort pregnancies) just in case.
Rhaenyra and Daemon confront Queen Alicent in the king’s quarters and are infuriated by how the maesters are taking care of him and also how he is ruling the kingdom in his condition.
Luke speaks to his brother Jace and is concerned about his succession. He thinks that because he doesn’t look like Laenor and instead looks like a Strong that his becoming the Lord of Driftwood will always be questioned. Ser Criston Cole (Fabien Frankel) trains with Aemond Targaryen (Ewan Mitchell) — who looks a lot like Matt Smith — in a duel, and Aemond proves he’s a swift fighter. Criston goes on to tell him he will do well in tourneys in no time, to which Aemond says, “I don’t give a sh*t about tourneys.”
Vaemond shows up to King’s Landing and manages to ally with Otto to convince him that he should lead Driftmark. The threat of war looms, and a child should not be in power when the day comes. Rhaenyra confronts Rhaenys and states that this is a play to disinherit her son, and Rhaenys is still angered by what happened to her son Laenor. Rhaenyra explains that she loved Laenor very much and that she was not complicit in his death.
Rhaenyra proposes that Rhaenys should back Luke’s claim and betroth Laena’s children to hers. Baela will be heir of the seven kingdoms. Rhaenys declines her offer and says the Hightowers will land their first blow and she will stand alone. Rhaenyra goes to her sick father and begs him to defend her claim, but sadly he’s so far gone in his illness he can’t comprehend what she’s asking.
Otto sits on behalf of the king on the Iron Throne to discuss the matter of succession at Driftmark. Vaemond petitions himself to be the next in line to inherit the throne since he is of pure Velaryon blood. As Rhaenyra stands before Otto to begin her petition to have Lucerys as heir, Viserys interrupts and walks into the throne room. Wearing a mask over half of his face (probably due to being disfigured from his leprosy), he manages to walk over to the throne in his very weakened condition. As he struggles to get up the steps to the throne, Daemon helps him, which is a full circle moment from Episode 1 when these two had quite the tempestuous relationship.
Viserys says the only person to honor Corlys’ wishes of succession would be that of Rhaenys, his wife. She steps up and says that Lucerys was in fact who Corlys desired as heir. She further goes on to tell Viserys about Rhaenyra’s proposal to betroth her children to theirs and that she heartily agrees.
An infuriated Vaemond stands before the king and is defiant against his ruling. He refuses to accept it, calling Rhaenyra’s kids bastards and her a whore. Daemon suddenly decapitates Vaemond with his sword. Viserys suffers from sudden exhaustion and is escorted out of the room.
Viserys has dinner with the Tararyens and Hightowers. He takes off his mask and exposes his face, and he looks like the Phantom of the Opera. An eye is missing and most of the skin has deteriorated from his face. During this scene, Aegon is still antagonizing Jacaerys, which proves their feud isn’t ending anytime soon.
The families finally have a moment of reconciliation and peace. Viserys has a stunned look on his face at first, but then a look of relief. This is the moment he’s been waiting for all of his life and during his reign as king. Sadly, he cannot enjoy it for very long because he is in pain. However the peace doesn’t last when a roasted pig is placed in front of Aemond and the Velaryon boys laugh, dating back to Episode 6 when the boys teased Aemond with a pig. Aemond makes a toast and refers to the boys as “strong” using emphasis on the last name of Harwin Strong. The conflict between the boys arises again. Rhaenyra tells Alicent that she and her family should head back to Dragonstone.
Putting Viserys to bed, Alicent realizes his dementia has advanced when he tells her that she is the “prince who was promised.” The last shot is of Viserys who breathes slowly and rests in his bed.
Tune in with us every Sunday night at 9pm ET on Twitter using the hashtag #DragonsYall as we live-tweet each episode this season! You can catch the series during the broadcast on HBO or stream it later on HBO Max.
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Good Evening, loyal Afronerd Radio listeners. Wow....we have another difficult show and topics to discuss. Another one of our friends and integral contributors has passed on and regrettably left our mortal plane. Longtime Afronerd Radio supporter, Sergio Mims....notable film critic and film historian from Chicago passed on Tuesday. We will do a more comprehensive retrospective in the forthcoming week but for today's program we will simply give high praise and respect to a friend.
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