A spoilery clip cut from our discussion of The Hanging Tree (the new Rivers of London novel by Ben Aaronovitch), because putting ending spoilers for a fairly recent novel in our general podcast seemed bad form. But we hate to waste content, so here they are, just in case anyone wants to hear it anyway. Also Nick spoils a plot move from the first couple of Luke Cage episodes, though it’s quite an obvious one. Consider yourselves thoroughly warned.
SPOILERS: in this post, I am going to spoil a major twist in recently-released comic The Clone Conspiracy #3. I’ll put a ‘Read More’ cut in before any plot details to protect anyone scrolling down…
Twenty-two episodes of our podcast and somehow 2016 is still going! This fortnight, both of us went on London outings, Nick to the SMASH comics-chat event run by the London Graphic Novel Network and Alastair to the BFI’s Black Star season. (We also both recommend the Kraken podcast, if you like podcasts.)
Moving on, in an MFV first, we talk about a whole novel! Specifically: The Hanging Tree (5:41), the latest Rivers of London book by Ben Aaronovitch, bringing Peter Grant back for another magical mystery. We also watch the first three episodes of The Grand Tour (21:05), a new motoring/banter hybrid from Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May on Amazon Prime.
Next, because we love Doctor Who and related media, we revisit teen-focused spin-off Class (37:18) now the first series is over, to see how it ended up. And yes, to justify covering it a second time, we’ll need to include some extreme spoilers. Also Nick complaining a lot about the Shadow Kin.
You can hear our first encounter with Class back here in MFV #19, with special guest Julianne Benford.
Finally, Alastair recommends Taxi Driver (54:59) directed by Martin Scorsese and starring Robert De Niro, a classic of modern cinema that Nick, unsurprisingly, has never seen.
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Episode twenty-one! The podcast comes of age everywhere, just in time for the world to basically collapse. Alastair matches the mood with Hypernormalisation, a new documentary from Adam Curtis (available here if you have iPlayer access), while Nick is escaping into a surreal superhero dream with Grant Morrison and Richard Case’s Doom Patrol run.
Forcing ourselves into the present day, we take on Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them (6:45), a new film set in the past of the Harry Potter universe. To help us get to grips with this, we bring in blogger, booktuber and Potter-lover Claire Rousseau, last seen discussing Harry Potter And The Cursed Child with us in MFV #13. This leads to some continuity deep dives and, yes, EXTREME SPOILERS for the film, right from the get-go.
If you enjoy Claire’s appearance here, you can get more from her at ClaireRousseau.com, @ClaireRousseau on Twitter, or talking about books on YouTube.
Lastly, some links we mentioned during that segments – the politics of Fantastic Beasts by Gavia Baker-Whitelaw at The Daily Dot and the episode of The Mispronounced Item podcast in which Nathan Ditum discusses the Star Wars prequels.
We’ve also got a chat about Train To Busan (50:47), a Korean zombie film aiming to change the way we all see rail travel, and, on Nick’s recommendation, we look at Chew (62:59), the recently-concluded hit comic about food and flesh-eating, by John Layman and Rob Guillory.
Download the podcast directly in mp3 here!
Listen on YouTube over a static image here!
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For the first time in a while, a deleted chunk from the last episode – Nick and Alastair talk about The Walking Dead and how it endures despite just being the same cycle of suffering again and again. (Well, okay, it’s mostly Nick as Alastair doesn’t watch it.)
Episode twenty! Another numerical milestone, and one recorded before the recent American electoral news, so no mention of that here. However, we do have intro talk of Flash, Arrow, Legends of Tomorrow and The Walking Dead from Nick, until Alastair raises the tone with indie film London Overground.
Our centrepiece this fortnight, though, is an in-depth chat about Black Mirror season 3 (6:35), covering all six of Charlie Brooker’s latest techno-horror tales. Are they as miserable as people like to say? Or is there… a twist?
Meanwhile, in cinemas, we’ve got a review of Arrival (40:05), the new scifi/semantics movie starring Jeremy Renner and Amy Adams trying to speak to aliens, and then Lo And Behold: Reveries of the Connected World (53:26), a new documentary from Werner Herzog offering a slightly more uplifting view of technology than Black Mirror.
Finally, we find out what Nick thinks of Alastair’s latest recommendation: surreal tower block sitcom 15 Storeys High (66:17) with Sean Lock and Benedict Wong.
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Episode nineteen, and it’s almost feature length this time! But in our defense, there’s a lot to get through. Before any of that, though, we’ve been attending live recordings of other podcasts, specifically Welcome to Night Vale at the London Palladium and the very special 200th episode of SILENCE!
That done, we launch into new Marvel Cinematic Universe movie Doctor Strange (5:38) and ask: is there room for yet another superhero origin? Also: is there such a thing as too many glowing magic bolts?
We’ve also got Class, the new Doctor Who spin-off (25:05), and since this is our first ever Who item, we talk for a fair while and bring in guest book blogger Julianne Benford to talk about the YA aspects of it all. If you enjoy Julianne’s appearance here, she’s @ladyjulianne on Twitter, and she also writes about books on This Fleeting Dream, about general lifestyle stuff on This Second’s Obsession, and YouTubes about books both solo on Better Than Dreams and collectively on Bookish Brits. Oh, and she’s also active on Instagram. Phew. Think that’s it.
Moving out of mainstream geek culture, we’ve also seen I, Daniel Blake (52:59), the new movie from Ken Loach about Britain’s none-too-fair welfare system. If you want to read Alastair’s take on the politics of this film, it’s right here at his Red Train Blog.
And then straight back into the nerdosphere, Nick’s recommended Alastair the first few episodes of anarchic sci-fi cartoon Rick & Morty! (68:14)
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Episode eighteen, so the podcast has finally come of age! Nick also completes a major rite of passage as he finally finishes Twin Peaks, while Alastair is out partying at the London Film Festival.
After that, it’s a game of two halves as we check out two new American TV shows: the opening seven episodes of Luke Cage, the new Marvel Netflix series (5:36 WITH SPOILERS), and the pilot of Westworld, a new sci-fi series from HBO (24:32).
And if you want the syllabus of post-Luke-Cage reading material Alastair mentions during the episode, here it is.
In the latter stage, it’s all about British cinema with Spaceship (38:53), a spacey teenage drama we saw at London Film Festival, and Alastair’s recommendation from last week, the East Midlands revenge thriller Dead Man’s Shoes (49:41).
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The seventeenth division has landed! It’s a Brit-heavy episode, with opening talk about the current London production of Pinter’s No Man’s Land with Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen, plus the revival of 90s middle class soap Cold Feet.
And then it’s down to business with new homegrown zombie film The Girl With All The Gifts (6:01) based on a book by MR Carey, which both Nick and Alastair read and loved. Next, it’s the difficult eleventh series of scifi sitcom Red Dwarf (21:57), before finally crossing the Atlantic for horror sequel Blair Witch (36:59). (Some parts of Blair Witch are spoiled quite heavily. BE AFRAID.)
Finally, Britain goes to enhanced war in Nick’s latest recommendation: grim WW2 superpeople comic Uber (50:07) by Kieron Gillen and Caanan White.
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Our sweet sixteen! Other important milestones in this episode – Nick finishes watching Chuck after about a year and Alastair books his London Film Festival movies!
More to the point, we catch up to the zeitgeist with Netflix’s scary-nostalgia-saga Stranger Things (4:05, INCLUDES ENDING SPOILERS), then go a little more specialist with Spanish subtitled film Julieta (24:04) and The Divine Comedy’s new album Foreverland (34:51).
As promised in the episode, if anyone’s interested in the Sodajerker on Songwriting podcast with Neil Hannon (of The Divine Comedy), it’s very good and can be found at this link here.
Lastly, Nick somehow hasn’t seen The Fifth Element (44:18), but Alastair’s latest recommendation will sort that out.
Download the podcast directly in mp3 here!
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