Pod Bay One

Total Recall

Matthew Lloyd, Joshua Hall, and Josho Brouwers get together to talk about Dick. Philip K. Dick, that is, author of the short story, "We Can Remember It for You Wholesale". That story was used as the basis for the classic Paul Verhoeven movie Total Recall (1990). A completely superfluous remake of that film was released in 2012 that we'll talk about, too. For those of you who don't know, the central premise behind both Dick's original short story and the two films is that, at some point in the not-too-distant future, memories can be "bought" and implanted that are indistinguishable from having actually lived through those experiences. Or perhaps those memories aren't memories at all? Cue paranoia and discussions about the nature of reality itself.

Time Travel

In this third episode, Joshua Hall, Matthew Lloyd, and Josho Brouwers jump into a DeLorean to talk about time travel. They all agree that time travel mechanics aren't very interesting and that how time travel actually works isn't what time travel stories are about. Instead, they talk about various Star Trek episodes, Doctor Who, Looper, the Back to the Future films, Isaac Asimov's The End of Eternity, and more. Needless to say, the topic for this episode is vast and we couldn't cover everything. For example, we didn't touch upon time loops of the kind seen in Groundhog Day (1993) or the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "Cause and Effect", and we somehow managed to avoid talking about the Terminator movies altogether. So if there's one thing that's certain, it's that we'll have to return to this topic at some point in the future.

Encounter at Farpoint

In this episode, Joshua Hall, Matthew Lloyd, and Josho Brouwers talk about the very first episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, "Encounter at Farpoint". On their first mission, the crew of the USS Enterprise-D encounters a godlike being who calls himself Q and has decided to on humanity on trial. This raises the stakes for the crew when it comes to solving the mystery of Farpoint Station. We talk about the episode, its plot(s), the characters, and how well it represents what is yet to come. We compare The Next Generation to other Star Trek shows, talk about the ship, what this episode has to say on the nature of humanity, and delve a little bit into some behind-the-scenes stuff that we've read about and that seems pertinent to putting the episode in its proper context.

Our One Favourite Sci-Fi Thing

What better way to kick off a science-fiction podcast than by talking about our single most favourite science-fiction thing? But before we get to that, the team introduce themselves and talk briefly about recent books they've read. Joshua Hall [https://www.podbayone.com/about/joshua-hall/] starts the discussion proper off by talking about Spaceballs, the classic 1987 Mel Brooks comedy that pokes fun at Star Wars, Star Trek, and loads of other popular sci-fi. This leads to a brief chat about science-fiction and parody – a topic we'll have to revisit in the (near) future. Josho Brouwers [https://www.podbayone.com/about/josho-brouwers/] then decides that one thing is still one thing when it's smeared out across five decades. His favourite science-fiction thing? The premise behind Star Trek. You know, the whole "boldly going" part. What follows is a lively and slightly rambling discussion of all things Trek and various related topics. Finally, Matthew Lloyd [https://www.podbayone.com/about/matthew-lloyd/] adds some sophistication to the proceedings by talking about his favourite science-fiction thing: the Centenal Cycle by Malka Older, and the first book in particular, Infomocracy. Aside from being well written, these books inadvertantly happen to be topical in this age of rampant populism.