In this episode of Geektown Talks To..., Dave catches up with production designer Rob Tokarz as ‘Hacks’ takes its final bow.

Rob first joined the Emmy-winning comedy as an art director in Season 2 before stepping up to production designer, helping shape the increasingly ambitious world surrounding Deborah Vance, Ava Daniels and the wonderfully strange collection of people orbiting them.

We last spoke to Rob around a year ago, just before he began prep on Season 5. At that point, he had no idea what the writers were about to throw at him. Now the series has ended, he returns to reveal just how enormous that final challenge became.

Rob talks about creating an astonishing number of sets across the season, jumping between Los Angeles, Las Vegas, New York and Paris, recreating locations viewers might assume were real, and working alongside visual effects to make some extremely complicated sequences appear completely effortless.

We also get into the return to Deborah Vance’s Vegas world, designing pieces of her history that had previously existed only in dialogue, the painstaking details that might never actually be noticed on screen, and how the production design quietly helps tell the story of both Deborah and Ava.

Rob also reflects on joining ‘Hacks’ as an art director before eventually taking charge of its production design, the confidence he gained over several seasons, the friendships forged behind the scenes, and which sets from his time on the show will stay with him.

Plus, with ‘Hacks’ now finished, we talk about what sort of worlds Rob would love to build next... and whether one particular piece of the show might just be sitting in storage ready for a possible return.

Listen, subscribe and explore more interviews, TV news and UK air dates at Geektown.co.uk, along with Geektown Radio and Geekstorians.

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This week, Dave chats with author David Crichton about his new novel, ‘The Avengers: Death in Downing Street’, which returns John Steed and Emma Peel to the wonderfully stylish and eccentric world of the classic 1960s television series.

And, just to avoid any confusion following the latest ‘Avengers: Doomsday’ trailer, we are talking bowler hats and leather catsuits here, not Marvel superheroes.

David and Dave also have a little history together, having worked at the same design agency in a previous life. They discuss David’s journey from account handler to published author, and how a lockdown writing project eventually became the first completely original Steed and Peel adventure in decades.

The conversation explores the surprisingly complicated road to getting a new ‘Avengers’ story approved, the challenge of capturing the unmistakable voices and chemistry of Patrick Macnee and Diana Rigg, and translating such a visually distinctive television series onto the page.

They also chat about weaving real history into the wonderfully peculiar world of ‘The Avengers’, whether the series could ever be successfully revived for television, and what David would like to do next.

Plus, there are detours into ‘Doctor Who’, Korean television, ‘Reacher’, tie-in novels and the full-size Dalek occupying David’s office.

‘The Avengers: Death in Downing Street’ is available now in paperback and ebook, published by Titan Books.

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In this episode of Geektown Talks To, Dave chats with cinematographer, director and filmmaker Boris Mojsovski, whose work includes Netflix’s Harlan Coben thriller ‘I Will Find You’, along with ‘Rabbit Hole’, ‘12 Monkeys’, ‘Titans’, ‘The Lost Symbol’, ‘The Madness’ and more.

Boris talks about growing up around film sets, initially trying not to follow the family path into filmmaking, and how photography, writing and directing eventually pulled him back behind the camera. He also discusses the unusual position of being both a cinematographer and director on long-form television, and how that helps shape the visual identity of a series.

We then dive into ‘I Will Find You’, exploring how Boris and the creative team built the show’s tense, grounded visual language, from its prison-set opening to the wider mystery that follows. He talks about creating a “visual manifesto” for the series, the challenge of making something feel real while still delivering thriller-level drama, and why the “geography of a face” can be one of the most powerful tools in visual storytelling.

The conversation also moves into some of Boris’s other genre work, including the paranoia of ‘Rabbit Hole’, the time-travel complexity of ‘12 Monkeys’, and the superhero world of DC’s ‘Titans’. Plus, Boris teases his own upcoming film ‘Foreign Tongue’, talks about recent projects including ‘Star Trek: Starfleet Academy’ and ‘Into the Deep Blue’, and reveals the classic films he wishes he could have made himself.

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