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.
The Incomparable Radio Theater of the Air wishes a Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night.
‘Tis the season for holiday music! Unfortunately, while we unabashedly love the holidays, only some holiday music strikes our fancy. Join us as we talk about what make good and bad holiday songs. (This is the unedited version of the session that became Incomparable 173, our holiday music episode.)
‘Tis the season for holiday music! Unfortunately, while we unabashedly love the holidays, only some holiday music strikes our fancy. Join us as we talk about what makes a good holiday song and then stick around (if you dare) as we complain about some of the worst the season has to offer. Happy holidays, folks! (This is a new full edit of the classic episode done by Jason in 2021, with improved sound and fewer editorial “improvements” so it more closely resembles the original, infamous recording ...
Holiday TV: There’s a lot of it, and some of it is good. A lot of it is bad. We talk about classics great and not-so-great and induct some very special shows into the Incomparable Holiday Vault. Also, Steve reveals a deep, dark secret.
Winter’s here and it’s time to light a fire, get under a blanket, and curl up with a good book. Our panelists are well read and of exquisite taste, so we’ve got a boatload of suggestions for you. From funny to serious, there’s a book in our list that will hit the spot the next time you’re looking for something to read.
In this special unedited flashcast edition, we talk about the 50th Anniversary episode of Doctor Who, “The Day of the Doctor,” immediately after viewing it! It just about made our heads explode and we want to watch it again immediately. Join us for our post-episode breakdown of what we saw and what we liked.
50 years ago some very clever people invented “Doctor Who.” 50 years later we still love it. On the occasion of the show’s golden anniversary, here’s our unabashed lovefest for the BBC’s most clever invention. Four American fans discuss how we discovered the show, our favorite Doctors and stories, and the unique and welcoming culture of sci-fi fandom.
Pick up the clicker and join us for our conversation about the new TV season. We talk ABC’s “Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.”, “Sleepy Hollow,” “The Blacklist,” “Brooklyn Nine-Nine,” “The Crazy Ones,” “The Michael J. Fox Show,” “Masters of Sex,” and also NBC’s “Dracula”—which we haven’t actually seen. Plus returning shows of note like “Parks and Recreation,” “Bob’s Burgers,” “How I Met Your Mother,” and “The Big Bang Theory.” We also talk about how exciting corporate synergy can be, Scott endors...
Old Movie Club returns! We look at three films from 1952: “Singin’ in the Rain,” “High Noon,” and Best Picture winner (!) “The Greatest Show on Earth.” One of these movies is not like the others. Plus: The haunting repetition of Tex Ritter! Charlton Heston’s commitment to the circus! And Phil asks Jason what it feels like to have no soul! Travel back 61 years in time and join us, won’t you?
Awful people can make great art. Nice people can write bad books. Can you separate the creator from the art? We struggle with Orson Scott Card and his (rightfully) classic novel “Ender’s Game” and go on to list other writers and series who we’ve hand to break up with. To make things not entirely disappointing, we also talk about authors and series that have never let us down.
In this episode we talk about two video games even non-gamers like Jason can enjoy, “Gone Home” and “Brothers.” We ponder what makes a game challenging, and if a game must be challenging to be good. John likes both games, but has a list of grievances. All disagreements will be settled with a duel of ’80s mixtapes at dawn! Plus: What other games are we playing?
Grab a pint and marinate your brain as we discuss the “Cornetto Trilogy,” three films by Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright that are linked in theme if not in characters: “Shaun of the Dead,” “Hot Fuzz,” and recent release “The World’s End.” Why aren’t there more smart genre comedies? How do Pegg and Wright so deftly handle different genres? How are these movies like the Commedia dell’arte? Why do Jason and Jeff want to punch Nick Frost, then hug him? Plus, we give even more Incomparable love to “Space...
The winner of our iTunes review contest had us read John Birmingham’s “Weapons of Choice,” which our Book Club used as a jumping-off point to talk about alt-history novels, time travel, military SF, and a whole lot more. You don’t need to read the book to appreciate the episode! Plus: What are we reading?
Live! From a (somewhat echoey, sorry) room in Portland Oregon, we talk about the exciting new world of Internet-aided content creation. How have sites like Kickstarter and Indiegogo and even Amazon changed how people create and consume books, movies, TV shows, and music? And what’s the missing piece of this content revolution?
Bonus episode! Here’s an edited fourth installment of our Dungeons and Dragons campaign. Our heroes have made it inside a strange desert temple and have mostly not died… yet. But the night is young and the basins in this temple are full of an unknown magical fluid, so anything could happen!
Take the red pill and enter “The Matrix,” 1999’s influential sci-fi/action classic. Why does Morpheus talk like a fortune cookie? Is Keanu’s woodenness an asset or detriment? Was skeuomorphism the fall of man? And if we accept that living things can be used as batteries, why wouldn’t the machines just use cows? Grad students, we are about to blow your minds. Whoa.
We conclude the second Incomparable Film Festival with 21 more films we think are worth seeing, in fantasy draft format. Don’t miss the exciting Lightning Round, and stay tuned when it’s all over for our expert post-draft analysis! (Part 2 of 2.)
It’s time for the second Incomparable Film Festival! We pick 35 films that we think are worth seeing, in fantasy draft format. From horror to comedy to drama to sci-fi to kung-fu, we’ve got just about every genre covered. (Part 1 of 2.)
An entire comic book about Hawkeye, the lesser Marvel superhero with a bow and arrow? Okay… this looks bad. But seriously, bro, this is one of the very best comics being published today. We cover the first two trade-paperback editions of Fraction and Aja’s series, including Lucky the Pizza Dog, 50 Shades of Purple, and how hooking up a laserdisc player is similar to defusing a bomb. Hop on board and join us—we’re great at boats.
