“Doctor Who” will be returning shortly, with Peter Capaldi stepping into the role. So what if you’re “Doctor Who”-curious, but intimidated about where to jump in? Our panel of extraordinary “Doctor Who” fans has lots of recommendations for you. Then we survey the highs and lows of the show’s revival era, which featured Christopher Eccleston and David Tennant in the role of The Doctor.
Bury your dead in a Zeppelin and call your interplanetary accountant—it’s time for our annual read of the Hugo Award nominees. We cover this year’s award nominees, plus the “retro Hugos” from 1939, both of which will be awarded in August in London. Also, someone defends Mira Grant.
Break out the stars and stripes, put on your tap shoes, crawl into your shame hole, and join us for a very patriotic edition of Old Movie Club. We discuss the musical “1776,” which stars KITT from “Knight Rider” and the guy from “The White Shadow,” and the biopic musical “Yankee Doodle Dandy,” which stars James Cagney.
We celebrate our 200th episode with this mega-sized installment. We discuss what it means to have geeky enthusiasms (and whether we should grow up), and then listen to some reader feedback. Plus there’s a draft, some beer, and special guest stars.
In this episode we recap our take on the TV season that recently concluded. In a segment with little to no spoilers, we largely discuss shows we like, including “Orphan Black,” “Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD,” and even “The Blacklist” and “The Good Wife.” Then at the end of the show we slip into spoiler territory and talk about season 4 of “Game of Thrones.”
In this episode we convene a panel of women who love geeky stuff to discuss portrayals of girls and women in geek media, how girls and women are received in geek culture, and the books, movies, comics and TV shows that do it right.
We love Pixar, and we’re a bunch of creative professional types. So as you can imagine, we devoured “Creativity Inc.”, by Pixar president Ed Catmull. Is it a business book or an anti-business book? How do you foster creativity? Is Pixar’s formula one that provides safety while preventing works of staggering genius? How much is a director or writer the author of a Pixar movie, and how much is the studio itself? And is the wild success of “Frozen” proof of anything?
Every year Scott and Jason read all the Hugo Award-nominated novels, which supposedly show off the best science fiction has to offer. That hasn’t always gone well, so this year they’ve read the eight novels nominated for the Nebula Awards—and recruited three other SF podcasters to join them in the fun. We discuss all eight novels with extremely light-to-no spoilers, so it’s safe to listen. And the good news? All eight of these novels are pretty good!
Following in the footsteps of our video-game draft, it’s time for us to select some of our favorite computer games of all time. Real-time strategy! Arcade style! Text adventures! From the earliest days of video games up to the present, we’ve got it covered. Now if we could just figure out what was in those crates…
Grab your black cat and portable radio, climb on your mom’s broomstick, and join us for a king-sized discussion of Hayao Miyazaki’s classic animated film “Kiki’s Delivery Service.” This film features a climactic scene featuring an out-of-control dirigible, so you know we love it.
The casting for “Star Wars: Episode VII” has been announced, and so our team of interested “Star Wars” fans has arrived to break down the returning actors, the new faces, and our hopes for the future of the franchise. Plus we talk Kremlinology and Soviet industrial design, lament a bag of villains, and confuse screenwriters with pasta.
Danger, Will Robinson! It’s time to think outside the bots. We follow up our computer draft with a draft of favorite robots, androids, and other artificial intelligences. Also, we debate a whole lot about what makes a robot different from a computer. Kill all humans!
Live from Macworld/iWorld in San Francisco, it’s the Incomparable Computer Draft! We pick the best computers of all time—real and fictional. (It goes off the rails quickly.)
Grab your shield, steal your old uniform, and hop on your motorcycle, because it’s time for us to discuss “Captain America: The Winter Soldier.” It’s the latest Marvel movie, and even though Steve Rogers is the title character, there’s an awful lot of SHIELD in this movie, too. Does the franchise aspect of these films help or hurt? Are the action scenes more interesting than the urban disasters featured in most recent superhero movies? And is the Falcon really Cap’s only friend outside SHIELD? A...
Warm up your modem and turn your nuclear-launch key—it’s time to play Global Thermonuclear War! We discuss “WarGames,” the 1983 John Badham film starring Matthew Broderick, Dabney Coleman, and Ally Sheedy. Is this the ultimate film for computer nerds like us? How do the film’s Cold War themes contrast with its anti-technology themes? Can a computer make moral decisions? Why is there so much nerd shaming and sexism? And why do they let tour buses into the heart of America’s nuclear command? So ma...
In the spirit of April Fool’s Day, we present the second edition of The Incomparable Game Show. Two teams match up in a battle of trivia and pointlessness. (Or is that redundant?)
Our Book Club reconvenes to discuss “The Martian” by Andy Weir. It’s a nuts-and-bolts adventure about a stranded astronaut who uses his botany and engineering skills to stay alive on Mars. Did we mention botany? And engineering? There’s a lot of both. Also, we tell you what we’re reading.
We reconvene our Old Movie Club to watch two gritty early-1970s films that have been unfortunately remade in the last decade: “Get Carter” starring Michael Caine, and “The Taking of Pelham One Two Three” starring Walter Matthau. We learn about slide-based pornography, metaphors involving stick-shift cars, angry New York transit officers, kazoo parades, and so much more.
It was the dawn of a new age—the rise of sci-fi shows with story arcs, complex characters, and computer-based special effects. “Babylon 5” was a trailblazing TV series and we give it the treatment it deserves in this double-sized episode. The curious can join us for a lengthy pre-Spoiler Horn conversation about why we like the show, and the veterans can stick around for detailed, spoilery conversations about where the show went during its five seasons on the air.
Do you love cardboard and hate sanity? Then join us for our draft of favorite board games! We do some uranium mining on a donkey, propose a new trivia-themed podcast, debate the merits of Sanka versus Yuban, and discuss two different versions of Risk—three, if you count the version Tony invented where each Risk battle is settled by a full game of Monopoly.
Do you like sand? Then you may get upset as we conclude our discussion of “Star Wars: Episode II — Attack of the Clones,” in which we ponder the mystery of droid consciousness, fail to get excited about seeing our old friends from Episode I again, open a Variety Pack of monsters, debate Yoda’s fighting strategy, and talk John Siracusa off the ledge. Finally, we ponder whether it’s worse for a movie to be bad or boring. (Part 2 of 2.)
Against the advice of our doctors, we’re back with more prequels. This time it’s “Star Wars: Episode II — Attack of the Clones.” With three different opening statements, our podcast is about as bureaucratic as the Imperial Senate. We also discuss R2’s incompetence as a security system, ponder Anakin’s puzzling pick-up lines (and haircut), sympathize with the boring job of the Jedi, and question the plight of the Fett family and the clone troopers. (Part 1 of 2.)
Harrison Ford is Indiana Jones, but will he always be? We discuss the interesting problem of replacing the face of your franchise, whether it’s Doctor Who or James Bond or Captain Kirk or Batman or Superman. Fortunately, we leave plenty of time for digressions into old TV shows (including “Three’s Company,” “Bewitched,” and “Magnum P.I.”) and anger the internet’s foremost Robocopians. Spoiler: In the end, Hollywood ruins everything.
Unlock the front door to your mind palace, fake your death in numerous ways, and draw on a fake mustache! Season 3 of “Sherlock” is on our agenda, and we discuss all three episodes in turn. How does the introduction of Mary improve the cast dynamic? Does the middle episode sag as in past seasons, or prove to be a highlight? The game is on, Watson.
Our book club returns with discussion of two books! First we talk Scott Lynch’s “The Lies of Locke Lamora,” a fantasy book about a gang of thieves that are even outlaws to other thieves (spoiler horn at 12:00). Then it’s Ann Leckie’s “Ancillary Justice,” a space opera about AIs and ships and empires and corpse soldiers that brings Iain M. Banks to mind (starts at 28:48, spoilers at 33:22). Confusingly long prologues! Fun with gendered pronouns! Questionable burrito metaphors! Plus: What are we r...
We continue selecting our favorite all-time console video games. John chooses the classics. Steve has a bad fur day. And Moisés continues his descent into madness. Boop beep beep boop! (Part 2 of 2)
It’s time for us to select some of the very best console video games of all time. From Mario to Zelda, from sports to music, from Atari to Intellivision, we’ve got the entire history of the video-game industry covered. Are you a bad enough dude to listen? (Part 1 of 2)
We discuss how we made the Incomparable Christmas Spectacular.
We say goodbye to 2013 by listing our favorite stuff from the past year. We also recall our favorite podcast moments and read a whole bunch of listener comments. (This is a new episode, though it does contain a few classic Incomparable clips from 2013 and earlier.)
“Doctor Who” said farewell to Eleventh Doctor Matt Smith on Christmas Day. In an Incomparable Christmas tradition, we convened almost immediately after the airing of the episode to discuss “The Time of the Doctor” in great detail in an unedited live flashcast. Cyberman-head companions! A turkey that takes 300 years to cook in the vortex! Lots of past plot boxes checked! A teary farewell and regeneration! Kidneys of a dubious color! We break it all down.
