Fun Size Episode 76 – Make It Work.

This month, we’re going boldly with Michael Warbington into the deep, inconsistent, and often-confusing world of Star Trek uniform design! Why did Starfleet have the exact same red naval uniform for nearly 70 years before they started to update their uniforms every few years in the 24th Century? Why do they keep designing great uniforms for flashback scenes that we’ll never see again? Why do people keep changing their clothes in Star Trek: The Motion Picture? Why do the crews of the U.S.S. Titan and the U.S.S. Ceritos have completely different uniforms? And don’t get us started on the constantly changing Admiral uniforms.

We’ll need positronic brains to sort this all out!

Fun Size Episode 67 – When Did I Become an Old Man?

We’re back with Dave Brouillette to speak in defense of cinema’s great unsung wet blankets. The long-suffering adults left to pick up the pieces when the reckless hot shot protagonist with a disregard for human life blows up half of downtown or nearly starts World War III while they were saving the day or just looking cool.

Is there an age where your empathy naturally starts to gravitate to these people over the bad boy hero?

We also dig into the complicated emotions of watching popular media with jingoistic or reactionary politics — from Top Gun to 24 to Death Wish — both overt and implicit. Even the stuff we like can be a bit harrowing to watch at times.

Fun Size Episode 45 – Nerds Will Always Break Your Heart

We continue our talk with Greg Hatcher and talk about how we’ve been falling out of love with modern pop culture franchises like Star Wars, Star Trek, and the Walking Dead, and why it’s totally healthy to just walk away.

Plus, we talk very briefly about Star Wars: the Rise of Skywalker, and how a toxic fanbase can not only poison your enjoyment of a pop culture property, but it can affect the decisions that producers make in a doomed attempt to please everyone, including the trolls and bigots.

Editor’s Note from Mike: After thinking about it for less than three seconds, Fascism definitely beats out Objectivism in the Bad Ideology Olympics. But Objectivism would still win a medal. Just wanted to correct that dumb mistake said in haste.

Fun Size Episode 44 – Walking With Dom

We sit down with the notoriously Trek-skeptical Sam Mulvey to give our first reactions to the first episode of Star Trek: Picard. Is it what we wanted, and have modern iterations of Trek changed so much — or have become so rigid — that they’re just not for us anymore?

We talk about fake click-bait pop culture new sites, the trend that the lead-ups to movie releases are now even longer than the Presidential election, and wonder why so many fans are seemingly unable or unwilling to see the humanity of robotic and android fictional characters.

Also, Mike makes a desperate attempt to convince Sam that the Fast and the Furious franchise is something he might enjoy.

Fun Size Episode 43 – Get in a Booth and Pretend to Be Poop

In an episode calling back to us from the near past, we get a little nervous, excited and curious about the then-upcoming Star Trek: Picard. We dig a bit into Trek‘s enduring franchise, both its evolutions and how after almost two decades, is finally moving its timeline forward.

We try to figure out how Wonder Woman and Star Trek Beyond could have gone from very good to great, with the same third act change. We wonder which members of the “Next Generation” crew have the best managerial skills. And finally, we look at how modern audiences — and studios — don’t want to admit that they love inspirational movie heroes.

Join Us for the 4th Annual Captain Picard Day!

It’s That Time Again! So Tug down your on shirts and put your party shoes on!

Join Mike and Casey for our fourth annual Holiday Season gathering!

We’ll be at the Poodle Dog restaurant in Fife, in their Rainier Room for good food, good conversation, general cheer, and nerdity.

Where: Poodle Dog Restaurant in the “Rainier Room”
1522 54th Ave E, Fife, WA 98424

When: Saturday, December 14th, 2019 from 5:00pm to 9:30pm..or whenever!

Be There and Be Square!

Mike Returns to the Gimme That Star Trek Podcast!

Mike pops back into Siskoid’s Gimme That Star Trek podcast to join a giant cast of podcasters to contribute the second installment for the gargantuan task of reviewing each and every episode of Star Trek: the Next Generation.

Mike shares his thoughts on an episode from the fourth season, “First Contact,” where the U.S.S. Enterprise’s mission to make, well…first contact, with an alien species who are about to achieve faster-than-light travel for the first time, goes horribly wrong. And now, Captain Picard must deescalate a crisis, when the planet’s paranoid security minister mistakes the Enterprise crew for hostile invaders.

Check it out!

Fun Size Episode 39 – How Could We Forget Odo?

In the aftermath of our Deep Space Nine panel, we rejoin Michael Warbington and Siskoid to talk a little about the stuff we wish we had gotten a chance to mention.

We talk holographic club owner, Vic Fontaine. Is he the greatest creation of artificial intelligence in the Trek universe, topping even Data? How did the show tackle thorny topics like racism? And has the show been excluded from the recent wave of 1990s nostalgia?

Plus, we look ahead with a pair of Trek fans at the fact that both Star Trek: Discovery and Star Trek: Picard are going somewhere that excites us: The future. Well, their future.

Episode 41 – Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

At the edge of the Final Frontier, the Universe’s greatest mystery is about to unfold!

This month, we’re strolling the promenade and enjoying a hasperat with camp director for Camp Quest NorthWest, Michael Warbington, and Michel “Siskoid” Albert of the Gimme That Star Trek podcast to delve into the beloved franchise spin-off, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine!

Widowed Starfleet commander, Benjamin Sisko, is assigned to a derelict space station orbiting a remote planet devastated by decades of military occupation. He expects a thankless humanitarian effort and a poor environment to raise his son alone. But, after a stable wormhole to the other side of the galaxy is discovered in the system, Sisko finds himself and his station – renamed Deep Space Nine –  at the very center of galactic commerce, political conspiracies, religious prophecies, and eventually war.

With a talented and diverse cast, and groundbreaking writing, it redefined what a Star Trek television show could be.

Music: 
“Main Title/Farewell” from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine by Dennis McCarthy

Join Us for the Third Annual Captain Picard Day Celebration!

It’s Back! So Tug down your on shirts and put your party shoes on!

Join Mike and Casey for our third annual Holiday Season gathering!

We’ll be at the Poodle Dog restaurant in Fife, in their Board Room for good food, good conversation, general cheer, and nerdity.

Where: Poodle Dog Restaurant in the “Board Room”
1522 54th Ave E, Fife, WA 98424

When: Saturday, December 15th, 2018 from 5:00pm to 9:30pm..or whenever!

Be There and Be Square!

Join Us for the Second Annual Captain Picard Day Celebration!

It’s Back! So Tug down your on shirts and put your party shoes on!

Join Mike and Casey for our second annual Holiday Season gathering!

We’ll be at the Poodle Dog restaurant in Fife, in their Rainier Room for good food, good conversation, general cheer, and nerdity.

Where: Poodle Dog Restaurant in the “Rainier Room”
1522 54th Ave E, Fife, WA 98424

When: Saturday, December 9th, 2017 from 4:30pm to 9:30pm

Be There and Be Square!

Join Us for the 1st Annual Captain Picard Day!

There won’t be a new episode of the podcast this month, as Casey and Mike are taking a short break for the holidays…but they want you to join them!

That’s right! We’re hosting what we hope will be a new annual holiday tradition by the 24th Century! We’re hosting a little holiday get-together in honor of Captain Picard Day!

If you’re in the Seattle-Tacoma area, come meet the Radio vs. the Martians! guys and join us in raising our glasses to one of Starfleet’s finest commanding officers,  the player of one mean flute, and role model to children everywhere!

We’ll eat! We’ll drink! We’ll use salty language! We’ll talk endlessly about nerdy stuff and do Patrick Stewart impressions!

WHERE: 

Doyle’s Public House   

208 St. Helens Ave South
Tacoma, WA. 98402

WHEN:

Saturday, December 17th

2:00pm to 6:00pm

RVSP here if you’d like to join us!

Episode 23 – Star Trek: the Next Generation

tng

Space…the final frontier…

Mike and Casey reserve a table in Ten Forward and share a pot of “tea, early grey, hot” with Greg Hatcher of Comic Book Resources’ Comics Should Be Good! blog and game designer Ryan Chaddock. Our continuing mission: to launch a class-5 probe into the Neutral Zone, and to discuss the classic science fiction series, Star Trek: the Next Generation.

We discuss how it added to the Trek mythos, the tug of war over the show’s themes and writing, and how the classic series stands the test of times as a piece of optimistic science fiction in a current age of popular dystopias and the “grim and gritty” storytelling in genre film and television.

Make it so!

Music: 
“End Credits” from Star Trek: First Contact by Jerry Goldsmith

Previously titled: “Oh, God. Not Another Troi Episode!”