Alienating the Audience

Heaton realizes he's actually been living inside of a virtual reality program, and must confront his actual reality. Cast: Andrew Heaton and Nick Sperdute

Stuck in lockdown and bored, Heaton and Nick download into a virtual Sim City universe to manage an entire city. Cast: Andrew Heaton, Nick Sperdute, and Andrew Young as Mayor Sinclair St. Lewis

Who had the best character arcs in Star Trek: Voyager, and what were the hardest ethical conundrums the Delta Quadrant lobbed at Captain Janeway? How does her command style compare to Kirk or Picard? Dr. Erin Macdonald and Andrew Young join Heaton to discuss the deeper side of everyone's favorite intrepid-class vessel.

If supervillains are so evil, why are they so captivating? Which crime lord would you serve under if you had to pick one? Former Marvel editor Tom Brennan and comic book aficionados Jeremiah Johnson and Nick Sperdute join Heaton to discuss the underlying mystique and purpose of supervillains. This file corrects for an audio issue in a previous upload.

The comedy sketches with Nick and Heaton at the end of the show will be their own segment from now on: "Interstellar Vagabonding: With Nick & Heaton." In this episode, a detective shows up at the apartment to investigate Nick's untimely death. And he thinks it was murder!

If "Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country" is about the end of the Cold War, what's it's position on the Soviet Union? Tim Sandefur challenges Heaton on the underlying morality of the movie and whether or not it's a commie apologism, leading to a long-form discussion about its merits and underlying purpose.

Science fiction has a more complex analysis of religion than either "good" or "bad." Yonatan Huber and Josh Jennings join Heaton to discuss how scifi authors tackle it, and how the nature of religious critique has changed between centuries.

Today we mount a defense of Star Trek's most underrated films! Tim Sandefur rejoins the program, along with Aeon Skoble, to discuss the franchise's least-appreciated flicks: "The Motion Picture", "The Voyage Home", and "The Final Frontier." Afterwards Nick Sperdute, Andrew Young, and Heaton go on another intergalactic comedy adventure.

The foundational elements of Star Wars are deeply mythological, influenced by Joseph Campbell's book "The Hero with a Thousand Faces." Professor Ryan Slesinger joins the show to explain the Hero's Journey, archetypes, and the deepest elements of the whole saga.

Fermi's Paradox brings up a troubling issue: if even a small fraction of stars have planets with intelligent life, much of it should be more advanced than us--so why have aliens never come by to say hello? Do civilizations all blow themselves up? Are we next? Josh Jennings joins Heaton to suss out the paradox, and go over possible explanations of alien absence.