The Incomparable Mothership

On Comic-Con weekend, we convene to discuss the latest rash of re-casting comic book heroes. Thor is now a woman! Captain America is black! We’re all for increasing diversity in a medium whose classic characters are dominated by white men, but what are the right ways to do it? And are there wrong ways, or does every little bit help?

“Doctor Who” will be returning shortly, with Peter Capaldi stepping into the role. So what if you’re “Doctor Who”-curious, but intimidated about where to jump in? Our panel of extraordinary “Doctor Who” fans has lots of recommendations for you. Then we survey the highs and lows of the show’s revival era, which featured Christopher Eccleston and David Tennant in the role of The Doctor.

Bury your dead in a Zeppelin and call your interplanetary accountant—it’s time for our annual read of the Hugo Award nominees. We cover this year’s award nominees, plus the “retro Hugos” from 1939, both of which will be awarded in August in London. Also, someone defends Mira Grant.

Break out the stars and stripes, put on your tap shoes, crawl into your shame hole, and join us for a very patriotic edition of Old Movie Club. We discuss the musical “1776,” which stars KITT from “Knight Rider” and the guy from “The White Shadow,” and the biopic musical “Yankee Doodle Dandy,” which stars James Cagney.

We celebrate our 200th episode with this mega-sized installment. We discuss what it means to have geeky enthusiasms (and whether we should grow up), and then listen to some reader feedback. Plus there’s a draft, some beer, and special guest stars.

In this episode we recap our take on the TV season that recently concluded. In a segment with little to no spoilers, we largely discuss shows we like, including “Orphan Black,” “Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD,” and even “The Blacklist” and “The Good Wife.” Then at the end of the show we slip into spoiler territory and talk about season 4 of “Game of Thrones.”

In this episode we convene a panel of women who love geeky stuff to discuss portrayals of girls and women in geek media, how girls and women are received in geek culture, and the books, movies, comics and TV shows that do it right.

We love Pixar, and we’re a bunch of creative professional types. So as you can imagine, we devoured “Creativity Inc.”, by Pixar president Ed Catmull. Is it a business book or an anti-business book? How do you foster creativity? Is Pixar’s formula one that provides safety while preventing works of staggering genius? How much is a director or writer the author of a Pixar movie, and how much is the studio itself? And is the wild success of “Frozen” proof of anything?

Every year Scott and Jason read all the Hugo Award-nominated novels, which supposedly show off the best science fiction has to offer. That hasn’t always gone well, so this year they’ve read the eight novels nominated for the Nebula Awards—and recruited three other SF podcasters to join them in the fun. We discuss all eight novels with extremely light-to-no spoilers, so it’s safe to listen. And the good news? All eight of these novels are pretty good!

Following in the footsteps of our video-game draft, it’s time for us to select some of our favorite computer games of all time. Real-time strategy! Arcade style! Text adventures! From the earliest days of video games up to the present, we’ve got it covered. Now if we could just figure out what was in those crates…