Time & Perspective Quote by Will Estes

It is, on paper, a tiny thrill: the A-ha video actually playing on an actual TV, the soundtrack thumping through a party in the pilot. But Will Estes is pointing at something bigger than nostalgia bait. He is talking about the satisfaction of the world feeling sealed, like a show is confident enough to let pop culture exist inside its fiction instead of hovering as a winking reference.

The specificity matters. “You get to actually see” is less about the audience’s eyes than about permission: permission to use the real artifact, not a sound-alike track or a blurred-out screen. That choice signals resources, sure, but also taste. It’s an authenticity flex that tells viewers, we’re not afraid of the obvious needle drop; we’re going to lean into it and make it part of the atmosphere.

His phrasing, “sort of a cool moment,” is actor-speak for a production victory. Music licensing is expensive, complicated, and often the first thing compromised. So when a show nails it in the pilot, it’s a statement of intent: this series will treat music as storytelling infrastructure, not decoration.

A-ha is doing double duty here. The band carries instant cultural shorthand (glossy, hyper-’80s, a little melodramatic), and the “Take On Me” video in particular is a symbol of analog-era magic. Dropping that into a party scene isn’t just setting a vibe; it’s anchoring characters in a shared media memory, letting the soundtrack do social work: who belongs, who performs cool, who is trying to feel something together under familiar noise.