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.
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Fifteen down! Back on regular format after two reality-bending outings, starting with opening chat about Between Two Thorns by Emma Newman and the end of Outcast season 1.
We’ve got thoughts about the difference between now and the 2000s as we talk David Brent: Life On The Road (3:19), then the long-lost world of folklore with Cry Havoc: Mything In Action (23:08). Next, we jump right back to our own tenth episode to revisit Orange Is The New Black season 4 in its entirety (37:09) INCLUDING SPOILERS.
Last of all, it’s time to get lo-fi with BBC Three’s romantic-yet-squalid one-room sitcom Him & Her (57:24).
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One last hoorah for our Nine Worlds coverage – this is Nick talking in his hotel room moments before leaving the convention for the year. (With some heckling from his girlfriend.) Cut from our main episode for reasons of length and slight redundancy, but if you want one more chance to experience the con vibe, this is your moment!
(Pictured to the left – our hotel sink, mere feet from where this audio was recorded.)
Episode fourteen! We break our format for the second podcast running, but first, discussion of recent activities involving Twin Peaks and the Hackney Visions festival!
And then we’re into our reflections on the recent Nine Worlds geekfest event in London (4:08), including live on-site audio! Then it’s time to review new superhero movie Suicide Squad (26:08) and take a look back at the whole first season of Preacher (49:57).
If you want to revisit our thoughts on the Preacher pilot, you can hear them in MFV #8.
Yes, this episode ran a bit long once we built in all the Nine Worlds stuff. Good fun though.
And lastly, as ever, Nick takes a look at Alastair’s latest recommendation: Jerusalem: Chronicles from the Holy City by Guy Delisle (67:07).
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It’s our thirteenth episode! We’ve done this for a whole half-year! What better way to mark the occasion than a massive batch of trailers from San Diego Comic Con and the third Sharknado movie?
We’ve also got our first ever guest on the show – we’re talking about Harry Potter And The Cursed Child (6:47), Nick saw the play but Alastair didn’t. So booktuber and mega-Potter-fan Claire Rousseau is coming on to tell us her feelings. There’s a quick no-plot-details opinion-summary at the start, then anyone avoiding spoilers should jump to 46:35, where Nick and Alastair review Star Trek Beyond in the regular MFV way.
And finally, Nick recommends Alastair the video-game-folk-music of Rebecca Mayes (58:29). Is it his sort of thing, or are we headed for another Lebowski-esque clash?
If you enjoy Claire’s appearance, you can find her talking about books on YouTube here, or at ClaireRousseau.com or @ClaireRousseau on Twitter. Since the web allows it, we’ll also embed the first of the Harry Potter re-read videos briefly mentioned on the show.
If Nick’s persuaded you to try out that video game folk music, you can see Rebecca Mayes’ videos for these songs on The Escapist here, or just cut straight to buying the albums here. You can also check out her more recent material as Boe Huntress on her Bandcamp page.
Download the podcast directly in mp3 here!
Subscribe on iTunes! Reviews welcome!
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