The Incomparable Mothership

The penultimate season of “Game of Thrones” is in the books, and we’re here to wrap the entire thing up. All of that slow travel and scene-setting from the previous seasons is swept away, and this is our reward. Reunions! Death speeches! Dragon-on-dragon action! And we discover the secret of Jon Snow—no, not his actual parentage, but the fact that he’s best when paired with other, more interesting characters.

Time for 1997’s “Batman & Robin”, featuring George Clooney as Batman, Arnold Schwarzenegger as Mr. Freeze, Uma Thurman as Poison Ivy, and Alicia Silverstone as Batgirl. At least we can laugh about it now… to keep from crying. (Part two of two.)

So when Batman won our Summer Superhero Spectacular, we embarked on a quest to talk about all the Batman movies. Which leads us to the unfortunate spectacle of us watching both “Batman Forever” and “Batman & Robin.” This week, it’s the Val Kilmer Era, so let’s go back to 1995 and marvel at Jim Carrey’s understated performance as the Riddler and Tommy Lee Jones’s equally subtle performance as Two-Face. We are so, so sorry. (Part one of two.)

Destiny has her hand on our backs, and she’s pushing! That’s why we’re talking about The Tick, Ben Edlund’s hilarious superhero satire, in all its forms. From the original comics to the groundbreaking animated series to the 2000s live-action series to the all-new series premiering on Amazon Prime Video this month, we’ll cover it all. The night is young and we have umbrellas in our drinks. Evildoers, eat our justice!

We return to our first wave of inductees into The Incomparable’s Television Hall of Fame, as we enshrine 10 more series that our panelists consider among the greatest of all time. This second batch spans seven decades and includes sketch comedy, animation, sitcoms, dramas, and even a show that premiered less than a year ago. [Part two of two.]

Using our authority as a podcast about popular culture, The Incomparable has established a new Television Hall of Fame. Enshrined within will be the greatest TV series of all time, as chosen by a panel of 10 Incomparable experts in draft format. New inductees include shows created across six decades, and in every conceivable genre. [Part one of two.]

“Atomic Blonde,” a major motion picture opening this summer, started its life as a graphic novel written by Antony Johnston. In this special episode, Jason and Antony discuss the origin of the graphic novel “The Coldest City”, why some stories fit better as graphic novels rather than serialized comics, the value of taking some time to indulge passion projects, the process of having Hollywood option your story, and the choices made when adapting a story from one medium into another. (This episode contains no spoilers for “Atomic Blonde” or “The Coldest City”, so listen without fear.)

Despite a lot of trepidation based on previous lackluster film efforts, our panel rushed out to their local cinemas to see “Spider-Man: Homecoming” and came away with a pleasant surprise! They made a good Spider-Man movie! But did Tony Stark save the day, or just get in the way? Does Michael Keaton give a better villain performance than he ever did as a superhero? Did Tom Holland wear the suit, or did the suit (which talks, by the way) wear him? Our very own sinister six take apart the highs and lows of this exciting new chapter in the cinematic life of our favorite wall-crawler.

The latest season/series of “Doctor Who” is over, and there’s only one last Christmas special to go before Peter Capaldi leaves the role. In this episode, we take a look at the season as a whole, including analysis of the Doctor, Bill, Nardole, and Missy. We pick our favorite episodes and then throw our least-favorites on the bonfire, before turning our attention to idle speculation about where Capaldi’s final episode might take us.

Settle back with a bagel or two and get ready for a film that fails to bring all the excitement and world-building of fantasy roleplaying to life! Our brave panelists watch 2000’s “Dungeons & Dragons”, which features dungeons, dragons, a horribly unbalanced party, an infuriating lack of connection to the game, a set of polar-opposite performances by Jeremy Irons and Thora Birch, a six-foot-tall “dwarf”, political theater even more boring than The Phantom Menace, generous garnishes of racism and sexism, and a villain who wears blue lipstick. Oh, and did we mention that TV’s Doctor Who is in it as an exposition elf? Join us as we watch until the end and finally say, “Ugh, WTF?”