Grab your popcorn and buckle up — JaZ Make a Podcast is the biweekly pop culture podcast where Zac and John dive into classic and current movies and TV shows, then immediately go off on a tangent about something completely unrelated. New releases, old favorites, questionable hot takes, and the kind of conversation you’d have with your funniest, most opinionated friends. New episodes every other Monday. Follow along on Instagram @jazmakeapodcast for more nonsense between episodes!
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It's spooky season, and John and Zac are digging into Widow's Bay, Apple TV+'s new horror-comedy from creator Katie Dippold (Parks and Recreation) and executive producer Hiro Murai (Atlanta). Starring Matthew Rhys, Kate O'Flynn, Dale Dickey, Stephen Root, and Kevin Carroll, the series follows a small island town forced to reckon with the dark bargain its founders struck centuries ago to keep everyone alive. The guys break down why horror and comedy work so well together, trace the show's Jaws and X-Files DNA, play an ill-prepared character-actor trivia game, and debate whether Widow's Bay can dodge the Stranger Things/Lost trap heading into season 2. There's also a theory about Ruth being a vampire that you need to hear. Fair warning: this is a full season one breakdown, so it gets spoiler-heavy once they hit the finale.
SHOW NOTES
Show: Widow's Bay (2026– )
Network: Apple TV+
Creator: Katie Dippold
Executive Producers: Hiro Murai, Matthew Rhys, and others
Starring: Matthew Rhys, Kate O'Flynn, Dale Dickey, Stephen Root, Kevin Carroll, K Callan
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21 Sept 2026
Star Trek: Nemesis (2002)
The Next Generation crew's final voyage gets put on trial. On this episode of JaZ Make a Podcast, we dig into Star Trek Nemesis — the 2002 film that closes out the TNG movie era with Tom Hardy as Shinzon, a Romulan-engineered clone of Jean-Luc Picard hell-bent on revenge.
We break down how closely Nemesis mirrors Wrath of Khan's structure (right down to Data's death echoing Spock's), whether that borrowed skeleton sinks the film or just makes it comfortable, and why a plot built on so much happenstance — a planted android lure, "classified" files anyone can access — keeps undercutting its best ideas.
Along the way: the nature vs. nurture parallel between Picard and Shinzon, Data's memory transfer to B4, how Nemesis stacks up against Star Trek VI and TNG's own clone episodes ("Up the Long Ladder," "Bloodlines"), the film's genuinely strong cinematography and effects, and director Stuart Baird's now-legendary lack of Star Trek knowledge going in.
Lifelong Trekkies and Nemesis skeptics alike — we give this one a fair trial, prosecution and defense both included.
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7 Sept 2026
Jaws 2 (1978)
We're back for Season 2! And to kick things off, we're heading back to Amity Island for Jaws 2 — no Spielberg, no Quint, no Hooper, just Roy Scheider giving what might be his best performance of his career trapped inside a movie that can't decide what it wants to be. We dig into the two competing films buried in here: the genuinely compelling PTSD story of a broken police chief nobody believes (again), and the teen-slasher-lite subplot full of interchangeable kids who "love to sail," don't they. We argue about whether it's actually the same shark from the first movie (there is disagreement), break down the exploding-gas-can water-skiing scene, the infamous bluefish panic, and John Williams somehow scoring a shark movie like it's Home Alone. Plus: is this an A-tier, B-tier, or "solid single" sequel? Grab your flare gun, it's Season 2, baby.
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