Bald Move Pulp - Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex (2002)

Special thanks to Brian Strader, previous commissioner of the podcast for the underrated sci-fi saga, Babylon 5. This time he’s back to, as he says, “play ‘TV Show Dumpster Fire’ roulette.” Unfortunately we think he may have lost by betting on Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex. We were suitably impressed with the detail of the animations, certain aspects of world building, and the themes were philosophically engaging here and there. Unfortunately, other aspects of the world building struck us as silly or worse, the dubs and probably general translation on the version we watched were almost universally bad, and the themes that were otherwise engaging have been either dated or made more engaging by later works such as Altered Carbon.

HOTD: A House of the Dragon Podcast - 306 – The Climb

We’re back with another terrific season three episode of HBO’s Game of Thrones, “The Climb”. Of course the title refers to the Wildlings’ epic climb of The Wall, but also Littlefinger’s unhinged speech about chaos delivered to a shell shocked Varys. Both are amazing in their way, as is Lady Olena and Lord Tywin’s political duel in the Hand’s chambers. We discuss all this plus tons of fan commentary and questions!

Better Cast Saul - 402 – Breathe

AMC’s Better Call Saul delivers the goods in another tense episode, reminding us to “Breathe”. Between Gus’s high stakes plot to squeeze the Salamanca gang by taking ownership of Nacho to Kim’s blistering of Howard in his own firm over his callous treatment of Jimmy, this episode had plenty of fireworks. Speaking of Jimmy, the real mystery that is driving a lot of the intrigue this season is the man himself. What’s going on with him? Why is he going through the motions with Kim? Why can’t he get out of his own ways? Is the ghost of Chuck still haunting him, or are there deeper problems going on in his mental machinery? We ponder all this and more with the help of plenty of fan feedback!