The Incomparable

We discuss Playdead’s video game “Inside”, a compelling and meticulously realized side-scrolling puzzle game with some amazing surprises along the way.

On the occasion of Star Trek’s 50th anniversary, we’re talking about one of our very favorite Star Trek movies: 1996’s “Star Trek: First Contact.” (What? We already did a two-parter about TOS!) Featuring zombie-like Borg, a time travel plot, and some great guest stars, it’s the definitive Next Generation movie.

After 20 years, we revisit Mary Doria Russell’s first-contact classic “The Sparrow.” It’s a story about aliens, spirituality, and why God allows terrible things to happen to good people. And boy, do terrible things happen to people in this book. (Content advisory: One of those things is sexual assault of humans by aliens.)

Old Movie Club returns with two classic films directed by Billy Wilder and starring William Holden: The darkly tragi-comic Hollywood story “Sunset Boulevard” and the dramati-comic World War II prisoner-of-war story “Stalag 17.” Monty pitches a “Sunset Boulevard” prequel featuring a butler and a chimp. We notice the similarities between “Stalag 17” and an enormous number of sitcoms and comedy films from the following 30 years.

There are a million stories in Kurt Busiek’s “Astro City”—and that’s why we love this comic-book anthology series. From alien invaders to creepy floating protectors to regular everyday people, the broad canvas of “Astro City” awards the reader with short stories and longer arcs. Plus: What are we reading?

Nope, Jason, John, Serenity, and Dan aren’t going to analyze the trailer for “Star Wars: Rogue One.” It’s not going to happen. It would take rebel podcasters, striking from a hidden studio, to bring this podcast to its knees…

Our Rocket Surgery series returns to the heady days of the ’90s, home of questionable cyberpunk movies, to watch Keanu Reeves in “Johnny Mnemonic.” How can a movie written by the godfather of cyberpunk, William Gibson, be such a disaster? We’ll fax you the answer.

We review “Star Trek Beyond,” the latest installment in the J.J. Abrams-produced “Star Trek” movie universe. What are the best cast pairings? Why was Idris Elba’s character in need of simplification? When does the spin-off about Jaylah in Starfleet Academy start filming? And what is this franchise’s best destiny?

Women instead of men! Slimer with a girlfriend! Dogs and hats living together! Mass hysteria! We review the 2016 version of “Ghostbusters.”

Strap in and prepare for the jump to lightspeed—it’s time for us to pick the very best (and weirdest) spaceships throughout film, TV, books, and more. Let’s hope this thing where we draft spaceships doesn’t get too nerdy!

We convene a panel to discuss the TV shows we’re watching and liking from the past year, and then take our traditional deep dive into the latest “Game of Thrones” season.

Our Rocket Surgery panel attempts to apply logic to “Cool Cat Saves the Kids,” an inexplicable educational film featuring a couple of people in animal suits, some music videos, parade footage, and many questionable lessons for children. But there are cameos by Erik Estrada and Vivica A. Fox! Anyway, our logic slides right off.

Professor Siracusa’s Anime class is back in session, as we watch two short films with similar themes, both by director Makoto Shinkai. First there’s “The Voices of a Distant Star,” which features a boy and a girl separated by light-years as she fights an alien scourge. Then there’s “5 Centimeters Per Second,” in which a boy and a girl are separated by… a long train journey. Both are beautiful explorations of teenage romantic angst and isolation, with images that will stick with our panelists for a long time.

Ride like the wind, Bullseye! Our survey of Pixar films continues with “Toy Story 2,” the movie that introduced us to that Pixar Moment. You know the one. (Bring tissues.) We also discuss the philosophy of the Toy Story movies, a bunch of amazing gags, the state of the art of computer animation in 1999, and a whole lot more.

We convene a panel of superhero TV experts to recap the past year’s superhero series, including “Arrow”, “The Flash”, “Gotham”, “Agents of SHIELD”, “Agent Carter”, “Daredevil”, “Supergirl”, “Legends of Tomorrow”, and “Jessica Jones.” (If you’re a complete spoiler-phobe, you may want to avoid some of these segments, though there is probably not a single character death or other twist that couldn’t be reversed at any point…)

We celebrate all of mutantkind with a broad discussion of Marvel’s Uncanny X-Men, especially the versions we grew up reading in comics. What makes their outsider status resonate? Where should new readers start? And we choose some of our favorite X-Men characters in a sequence of choices that is definitely not a draft.

Old Movie Club views two films produced—and some would say directed—by Howard Hawks. The fast-paced comedy “His Girl Friday” leads us off, followed by the original sci-fi horror film “The Thing from Another World.” Both feature snappy overlapping dialogue, but only one features a murderous alien carrot man.

It’s time for our annual survey of some of the best science fiction and fantasy novels of the year, as we read all seven of the nominees for the Nebula Award. If you’re looking for some new books to read, check out our discussion—we tread lightly on the spoilers.

After 300 episodes, we discuss how our media-consumption habits have changed because of the podcast. Then we shift gears for a couple of drafts, and we answer a bunch of questions from listeners.

Flash! Direct from theaters to this podcast, we convene a panel of recent viewers of the latest Marvel superhero epic, “Captain America: Civil War.” Do the rationales of the two sides hold together in the face of reality? Is Tony a bad dude for recruiting a kid to use against his opponents? How do the new faces, including Spider-Man and Black Panther, fare? And how well does this movie fit into the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe series as a whole?