It’s another Trek! Join the Doctor and me again for the one where Spock swears and Kirk fails to score and the rest of the crew does an amazing job of stealing some whales: a.k.a. “the corny one.”

Nevertheless, the Doctor and I enjoy it enormously and don’t poke too much fun at its premise of a giant space Tootsie Roll menacing Earth with a really loud stereo and traveling back in time to bring back whales to talk to it. It’s just ridiculous, but the jokes are actually mostly funny, and the characters are great.

Star Trek 4 commentary [ 2:15:44 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (269)

Join the Doctor from Speakeasy and me as we watch one of the most influential film noir movies of all time. Thrill to the dark, rainy setting! Gasp at the rumpled trenchcoats! Stand in awe of the game of 20 questions! We dissect the film as sci-fi as well as film noir. We attempt to determine what “blades” are being “run”.

We compare the film to other sci-fi movies, other Ridley Scott movies, and other Philip K Dick stories. And we discuss the possibility of Deckard being a replicant—which he DEFINITELY IS NOT BECAUSE THAT WOULD BE STUPID, RIDLEY SCOTT.

Blade Runner commentary [ 2:07:47 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (357)

Join me as I join the Doctor again for our third trek! This is the one where Spock is reborn, and McCoy carries Spock’s mind alongside his own mind, and Sulu changes clothes at inappropriate times. We examine the ideas of Vulcan mind transfer, naked racism in the Federation, and the meanness of wrapping reborn people in their own death shrouds.

We also discuss whether or not McCoy almost accidentally picks up an alien prostitute, whether or not Scotty is basically R2D2, and whether or not Kirk answers Spock’s question honestly when Spock asks “The ship safe?” And along the way, you’ll learn which scientific discoveries the Doctor condemns as dangerously unpredictable and why my first sexual experience was like Spock’s.

Star Trek 3 commentary [ 1:45:38 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (387)

Join me as I join the Doctor again for another trek into space! Together, we examine the meaning of friendship and sacrifice and [shifts jaw awkwardly] “human”. We examine the structure of the story and debate the artificiality of Shatner’s hair and Montalban’s chest. We contemplate Sean Connery as a scholar of Judaism and wonder about how Sulu spent the time between TPM and WoK and also how many times Kirk has had to fight an illegitimate child to the death.

Overall, we love the film, altho it is perhaps slightly more talky and less profound than many would like to pretend. I can’t remember the phrase “affirmative action”. And we get cut off briefly at one point but quickly get back on track.

Star Trek 2 commentary [ 1:52:59 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (599)

The Doctor joins me again for another walk down memory lane, this time with Robert Wise and Alan Dean Foster’s tribute to 2001: A Space Odyssey and slow-motion model work. We both love the film and William Shatner and Persis Khambatta and the idea that Decker might just be responsible for creating the Borg.

We’re watching the director’s cut, with the silver “Paramount Pictures Presents” lettering at the beginning and not the theatrical cut with the gold lettering. The differences are not enormous.

Star Trek: TMP commentary [ 2:16:38 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (660)

Join the Doctor and me in the far-flung future of 1979, where we watch Caligula doggedly track down the Master Control Program and make sweet, sweet love to Doc Brown’s wife. We compare English and American ideas of currency, gentlemen’s clubs, health care systems, and free love. We compare the character of Wells to Sherlock Holmes and Kyle Reese. And we compare the film to the 1960 The Time Machine as well as to Air Wolf.

We wonder why the time machine has an AM radio. But we fail to give Nicholas Meyer credit for sending his characters to the Chartered Bank of London and not to an imaginary “Bank of England.” (Damn you, IMDb trivia page!)

Time After Time commentary [ 1:57:20 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (588)

Yul Brynner is a pre-Terminator Terminator that absolutely will not stop until you are dead in Michael Crichton’s 1973 pre-Jurassic Park Jurassic Park: Westworld. The Doctor from The Speakeasy is back again as my guest to dismantle the film as a cautionary tale and as an advertisement for guilt-free sex tourism. We ponder the incredible danger inherent in a theme park where people are supposed to get into bar fights and sword fights with robots. We guess at the social hierarchy of technicians. And we speculate as to what would happen if James Brolin was the one in jail and nerdy lawyer Richard Benjamin was trying to get him out.

Westworld commentary [ 1:35:00 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (636)

The Doctor is back again—in stereo! This time, he’s hosting me for a look at Steven Spielberg’s incredible 1977 masterpiece Close Encounters of the Third Kind. We don’t have a cross word to say about the film except perhaps that the aliens seems to act more like raccoons than visitors from another planet.

The Doctor and I converse on the UFO phenomenon of the 1970s, Indiana geography, alien biology, Richard Dreyfus’s insanity, and Steven Spielberg’s belief that aliens and angels are the same thing. We discuss the film as a character piece, as a horror movie with no horror, and as a treatise on communication in general. We discuss the possibility that the aliens are a rock band. And we imagine Lance “Itchy Trigger Finger” Henriksen having a flash-forward to his other films and shooting up the aliens.

I forget to make a joke about the Harper Valley PTA (that’s where Dreyfus is driving when he has his initial encounter). And we forget to mention that this is the first of our five collaborations where none of the main characters is liquored up a good part of the time.

Close Encounters commentary [ 2:04:55 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (607)

JJ Abrams’ reboot of the storied Star Trek franchise meets its match in the form of myself and the Doctor from Speakeasy Podcast, in which we deftly pick apart the minor plot inconsistencies, such as every single thing that happens. However, we do love the film (even if it does feel like $150 million dollar fan fiction aimed at lens flare aficionados) so we fawn over the actors and effects and compare it to the original series and movies. But we also expose the ugly specter of racism and alcoholism in Starfleet (speaking of which: take a drink every time someone abandons his post as captain!).

Errata: Thruout the film, I stupidly call the Narada the Naruto. Also, grog rations were ended by the British navy in 1970. And the one where Kirk angers Spock with insults is “This Side of Paradise” and not “Shore Leave”. (Those are all mine. The Doctor’s “facts” are all “true”.)

Standard Podcast [ 2:08:58 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (355)

Kurt Russell and a bunch of “scientists” take on Rob Bottin and Stan Winston in a remake/readaptation of the 1950s monster flick, The Thing From Outer Space. The Doctor, of Speakeasy Commentaries, joins me for a third time—this time in glorious stereophonic sound. We both love the film and heap praise all over it (even on the dog) and yet fail to credit the original author, John W Campbell, Jr. (“Who Goes There”) or even the screen adapter, Bill Lancaster. We address such delicate questions as “who gets assimilated when?” “why keep rotting corpses indoors?” and “what’s with Doc Copper’s nose ring?” as well as marvel at the number of Vietnam-haunted alcoholic pot-smokers that were sent to live in the Antarctic for months at a time with firearms, dynamite, and flame-throwers.

Standard Podcast [ 1:49:37 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (321)