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Alienating the Audience

Jun 16, 2025

In Naomi Alderman’s “The Power” women all over the planet suddenly develop the ability to shoot electrical shocks, to the point of lethality.

The natural order is entirely inverted, with men easily overpowered by women, and resulting societal tumult.

Katherine Mangu-Ward joins to discuss.


May 20, 2025

Getting thrown back to the same place in time, repeatedly, with little you can do about it has become an awesome sub genre in scifi. From Groundhog Day, to The Endless, we discuss time loops and their appeal in science fiction. Brian Brushwood joins to discuss.


Apr 1, 2025

Star Trek’s Feringi are intergalactic traders, merchants, entrepreneurs, and feckless shysters. How did they get to be space capitalists when the Federation outgrew the concept of money altogether? Sean Finnerty joins to discuss Feringinar, the Rules of Acquisition, and the economy of the 24th century.

 


Mar 5, 2025

In "Subservience" Megan Fox plays a robot servant who goes off the rails, seduces her owner, and tries to kill his wife. Henrique Couto joins to discuss the ethical implications of cheating on your spouse with a robot, how we ought to treat robots even if they don't really have consciousness, and whether or not we'd buy...


Feb 7, 2025

Fresh after seeing “Alien: Romulus,” Dickie Lynch and Heaton discuss Ripley Scott’s “Alien” franchise: the creepy aesthetics of H. R. Geiger, the deepest fears of the movie, the alien seeding of “Prometheus,” and the most recent installment as a best-of.