Episodes
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This week on Geekstorians, we bring Season 2 to a close with ‘Nothing Went To Plan’.
Across the season, we’ve looked at films that nearly vanished, companies that collapsed under their own weight, shows that survived cancellation, fandoms that refused to let go, and the strange ways failure can become an origin story.
In this shorter reflective finale, Dave steps back from the individual stories to ask what they all have in common. Why do so many geek culture landmarks seem to emerge from bad decisions, broken systems, institutional indifference, and accidents that really should have ended everything?
From Pixar’s near-catastrophic Toy Story 2 deletion to Atari’s buried cartridges, Doctor Who’s wilderness years, Star Trek’s letter-writing fans, Deadpool’s leaked test footage, Rocky Horror’s midnight screenings, and the virtual chaos of World of Warcraft’s Corrupted Blood incident, this episode connects the dots across the season.
Because the thing institutions keep missing is not the product, the franchise, or the IP.
It’s the people.
Geek culture survives because fans, creators, archivists, technicians, and obsessives keep showing up when the official story says there is nothing left to see. And more often than not, they are right.
This is the Season 2 finale.
This is ‘Nothing Went To Plan’.
For more geek culture, TV, film and gaming coverage, head to Geektown.co.uk, and check out Geektown Radio wherever you get your podcasts.
Alternative shorter show notes version:
In the Season 2 finale of Geekstorians, Dave steps back from the disasters, collapses, cancellations and near-misses we’ve explored this season to ask what they all have in common.
From Toy Story 2’s near-deletion and Atari’s desert landfill to Doctor Who’s wilderness years, Star Trek’s fan campaigns, Deadpool’s leaked test footage, Rocky Horror’s midnight screenings and World of Warcraft’s accidental plague, this reflective coda connects the season’s central thesis:
Geek culture does not survive because everything goes smoothly.
It survives because people refuse to let it disappear.
This is ‘Nothing Went To Plan’.
For more geek culture, TV, film and gaming coverage, head to Geektown.co.uk, and check out Geektown Radio wherever you get your podcasts.
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It is a very special episode of Geektown Radio this week, as Dave celebrates Episode 500 with regular co-hosts Matt and Gray for The Great Geeky Hall Of Fame Pub Quiz!
Geektown Radio officially launched back on Tuesday, 20th January 2015, although Dave had already recorded 32 interview podcasts before the weekly show began. Since then, there have been hundreds of episodes, specials, Geektown Behind The Scenes, Geektown Talks To, the Webby-nominated Geekstorians podcast, lots of convention coverage, countless streaming service rebrands, and more cancellation trauma than is probably healthy.
To mark the milestone, Dave puts Matt and Gray through a quiz covering the history of Geektown Radio, geek TV, cancelled-too-soon favourites, streaming chaos, gaming, reality TV, conventions, and shameful predictions from across the entertainment industry. Along the way, they induct various shows, services, phrases and listener favourites into the completely unofficial Geektown Radio Hall Of Fame.
This week’s Hall Of Fame inductees include the Geektown Air Dates page, the Arrowverse, Firefly, stupidly renaming streaming services, The Last Of Us, The Traitors, MCM Comic Con London, Netflix cancelling things, and, finally, the listeners.
This is also the final Geektown Radio before the show takes its usual short summer break. Geektown.co.uk will continue with the latest UK TV news, UK air dates, renewals and cancellations while the podcast is away, and Geekstorians Season 3 will continue to release during the break.
Thank you to everyone who has listened to Geektown Radio over the last 500 episodes!
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Missing episodes?
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This week on Geekstorians, Dave from Geektown looks at three films that did not behave the way Hollywood expected.
‘The Rocky Horror Picture Show’ arrived as a box office failure before midnight audiences turned it into a ritual. ‘Blade Runner’ opened to confusion, studio interference and mixed reactions before becoming one of science fiction’s most debated landmarks. And ‘The Big Lebowski’ drifted into cinemas as a modest Coen Brothers oddity before fans turned The Dude into something far bigger, stranger, and, somehow, semi-spiritual.
This is not a story about films that were secretly massive hits all along. It is about what happens when something strange, difficult or badly timed finds the people who need it later. Through late-night screenings, VHS, cable, DVD, festivals, quotes, costumes and arguments that refuse to die, these films became more than movies. They became communities.
Season Two of Geekstorians has been about things that did not go to plan. This episode asks what happens when failure is not the end of the story, but the beginning of the cult.
Presented by Dave from Geektown.
For more on TV, film, gaming and geek culture, head to Geektown.co.uk, and check out Geektown Radio for the latest entertainment news, reviews and UK air dates.
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Dave is joined by Matt for Geektown Radio Episode 499, with this week’s show led by chat about breakout horror film Obsession, the opening episodes of Spider-Noir, Russell T Davies drama Tip Toe, and spy series PONIES.
Matt kicks things off with Obsession, which he calls one of the best films of 2026, praising its slow-burn setup, sharp horror concept and one scene that completely floored him. He also dives into Spider-Noir, with Nicolas Cage leading the live-action series, and talks about why the black-and-white presentation feels like the right way to watch it. There is also chat about finishing the 9-1-1 space episodes and a lot of love for Shrinking Season 3, which he reckons just keeps getting better.
On Dave’s side, he checks out the new James Bond game 007 First Light, which feels like playing through a Bond movie, and reviews PONIES, the Moscow-set 1970s spy drama starring Emilia Clarke and Haley Lu Richardson. He also talks about Tip Toe, Russell T Davies’ new Channel 4 drama led by Alan Cumming and David Morrissey, the For All Mankind finale, and the Jack Ryan movie event on Prime Video.
In the news section, they cover endings for Euphoria, Pointless Celebrities, Cold Water, Piglets and Emily in Paris, plus renewals for Daddy Issues, The Weakest Link, Balamory, Saint-Pierre and The Testaments. There is also chat about the Baywatch reboot heading to Sky, X-Men ’97 Season 2 getting a July date, a new Grey’s Anatomy spin-off, The Witcher 3’s surprise third expansion, Doctor Who Christmas special rumours, Hudson & Rex bringing back Charlie Hudson, and David E. Kelley developing Michael Connelly’s Welcome To Catalina for HBO Max.
Plus, they round up what is coming to TV next week, including Allegiance Season 2, Clarkson’s Farm Season 5, The Legend of Vox Machina Season 4, Will Trent Season 4, Cape Fear, Mock the Week, Alice and Steve, and Best Medicine.
Listen now for horror, superheroes, spy drama, prestige TV, gaming chat and the usual Geektown mix of enthusiasm, side tangents and entertainment news.
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This week on Geekstorians, we’re boldly going into one of the strangest survival stories in geek culture: Star Trek, the franchise that has been cancelled, revived, mismanaged, overextended, rebooted, and pushed through nearly every major shift in modern entertainment.
Born in 1966, cancelled in 1969, and kept alive by fans who refused to accept that decision, Star Trek became something far bigger than a struggling network sci-fi show. It became a constituency. A culture. A future people wanted to believe in.
Dave traces the franchise from NBC’s infamous letter-writing campaign and the death-slot third season, through Lucille Ball’s unexpected role in getting the original series made, the rise of conventions and syndication, the expensive chaos of Star Trek: The Motion Picture, and the leaner, sharper rescue mission of The Wrath of Khan.
Then it’s into The Next Generation, first-run syndication, Roddenberry’s complicated legacy, the rocky early years, the franchise boom of Deep Space Nine, Voyager and Enterprise, the Kelvin timeline films, and the streaming era of Discovery, Picard, Lower Decks, Prodigy and Strange New Worlds.
Because Star Trek doesn’t survive because it is well run.
It survives because the idea underneath it is too good to kill.
Geekstorians is the Webby-nominated documentary-style podcast from Geektown, exploring the strange, messy, brilliant history of geek culture.
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This week, Geektown Radio heads to MCM Comic Con London for a special episode recorded around one of the UK’s biggest pop culture events, which took over ExCeL London for a packed weekend of TV, film, games, anime, comics, cosplay, panels and general geeky mayhem.
Dave went down to the convention for the weekend, although sadly Darryl had to drop out after being struck down ill, leaving Dave to tackle the heat, the crowds, the press room, and as many panels as one person could physically manage!
In the episode, Dave chats about the MCM experience, including the cosplay, the show floor, the strange relief of stepping into an air-conditioned convention centre during a 32C London weekend, and catching up with some brilliant comic creators. That includes Neil Gibson’s Twisted Comics, who now have a comic book adaptation of Black Mirror’s USS Callister, and Beyond The Bunker Comics, the wonderfully bonkers minds behind Moon and the new The Trap Door comic.
The main bulk of the episode features clips and interviews from across the weekend, including Nathan Fillion and Alan Tudyk, best known together from Firefly, Con Man and The Rookie, as they share some very funny convention stories.
We also hear from the Hellaverse panel, hosted by CJ Allen, with Richard Steven Horvitz, Vivian Nixon and Erika Henningsen discussing Helluva Boss, Hazbin Hotel, renewal news, voice recording, and the chaos Brandon Rogers can bring to a session.
There are also clips from the Beyond Paradise panel with Kris Marshall, Zahra Ahmadi, Dylan Llewellyn and Felicity Montagu, as they talk about the hit Death In Paradise spin-off.
Finally, Dave plays the full press room interview with the cast of Star Wars: The Clone Wars, featuring Dee Bradley Baker, Matt Lanter, James Arnold Taylor, Nika Futterman and Catherine Taber, as they discuss the legacy of the much-loved animated series, their characters, the fans, and the wider Star Wars universe.
There will also be video versions of some panels and interviews going up on the Geektown YouTube channel, along with cosplay and event photos on Geektown.co.uk.
Listen below, and don’t forget to subscribe to Geektown Radio wherever you get your podcasts.
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This week on Geekstorians, we’re looking at the leak that punched a hole through Hollywood’s gates.
For years, Fox had Deadpool sitting in development limbo. Ryan Reynolds wanted to make the film properly. Director Tim Miller had test footage. The fans knew exactly what they wanted. The studio, however, remained unconvinced.
Then, in July 2014, fifty-two seconds of Deadpool test footage appeared online.
It wasn’t a trailer. It wasn’t part of a polished marketing campaign. It wasn’t even supposed to be public. But once the footage hit the internet, the reaction was immediate, loud, and impossible for Fox to ignore.
In this episode, Dave traces the long road to Deadpool, from Hollywood’s old gatekeeping model and the internet’s war with studio control, through the disastrous version of Wade Wilson in X-Men Origins: Wolverine, to the leaked footage that helped turn an unlikely R-rated superhero comedy into a box-office monster.
Along the way, we look at how the success of Deadpool changed the conversation around R-rated comic book films, helped open the door for projects like Logan and Joker, and proved that audiences were no longer just waiting outside the studio gates. Sometimes, they could force the gates open.
This is the story of Ryan Reynolds, Tim Miller, Fox, fandom, the internet, and a red-suited menace who refused to stay in development hell.
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Dave is joined by Darryl on this week’s Geektown Radio as they chat through the latest TV, film and gaming news, along with the shows and games they’ve been watching recently.
Darryl kicks things off with a look at ‘High Potential’ Season 2, the crime procedural starring Kaitlin Olson, which continues to deliver those fun “clever outsider helps the police” vibes. He also reviews ‘Mistletoe Murders’, the surprisingly intriguing cosy crime series starring Sarah Drew, which is available in the UK on ITVX, along with Jackie Chan action thriller ‘The Shadow’s Edge’, and indie drama ‘The Bearded Girl’.
Meanwhile, Dave has been diving into the early access release of ‘Subnautica 2’, which builds on the underwater survival, base-building and monster-dodging brilliance of the original game. He also gives his thoughts on ‘The Punisher: One Last Kill’, the Marvel one-shot style special bringing Jon Bernthal’s Frank Castle further into the MCU, and discusses the finale of ‘Outlander’, including its deliberately ambiguous ending. Plus, there’s a look at ‘Good Omens 3’, which wraps up the story of Crowley and Aziraphale in a 90-minute Prime Video finale.
In the news section, we cover ‘The Lincoln Lawyer’ ending with Season 5 on Netflix, Channel 4 cancelling ‘Pushers’, and a huge batch of BBC comedy renewals including ‘Amandaland’, ‘Black Ops’, ‘Such Brave Girls’, ‘Things You Should Have Done’, ‘Mammoth’ and ‘Two Doors Down’. We also discuss renewals for ‘Prisoner’, ‘Running Point’, ‘My Life with the Walter Boys’, ‘Jury Duty’, ‘Reacher’, ‘Margo’s Got Money Troubles’, and more.
There are also air date updates for ‘Ride with Norman Reedus’ on ITVX, ‘Stuart Fails To Save The Universe’ on HBO Max, ‘VisionQuest’ on Disney+, and ‘The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power’ Season 3 on Prime Video. Plus, Prime Video gives a series order to fantasy adaptation ‘Fourth Wing’, while Peacock begins development on a live-action ‘Fast & Furious’ TV series with Vin Diesel producing.
Finally, we run through next week’s TV highlights, including ‘Jack Ryan’, ‘Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed’, ‘SkyMed’, ‘The Boroughs’, ‘PONIES’, ‘Two Weeks in August’, ‘Dear England’, ‘Brokenwood Mysteries’, ‘Law & Order: Special Victims Unit’, ‘Rick and Morty’, and ‘Who Do You Think You Are?’.
You can listen to Geektown Radio every week for TV, film and gaming chat, UK air date updates, renewals, cancellations, and all the latest entertainment news from Geektown.co.uk.
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In Season 2 Episode 6 of Geekstorians, Dave digs into one of the strangest turnarounds in blockbuster history.
After Tim Burton redefined Batman for the big screen, Warner Bros. slowly pushed the franchise away from gothic weirdness and towards something brighter, louder, more commercial, and far more toy-friendly. The result was 1997’s Batman & Robin — a film so spectacularly misjudged it didn’t just flop, it effectively shut Batman down for years.
But that failure turned out to be the point.
This episode explores how the collapse of Batman & Robin gave Warner Bros. the one thing it didn’t realise it needed: a blank canvas. With the franchise too damaged to continue as it was, the studio eventually handed Batman to Christopher Nolan, first with Batman Begins, then with The Dark Knight — a film that didn’t just restore the character, but changed how Hollywood looked at superhero cinema.
It’s a story about studio panic, merchandising logic, franchise collapse, and the uncomfortable truth that sometimes the best version of something only exists because the previous version failed hard enough to clear the ground.
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Dave is joined by Matt for Geektown Radio Episode 497, and this week’s show is led by chat about Sky thriller Prisoner, the return of Citadel for Season 2, Marvel’s Daredevil: Born Again, and the annual US network bloodbath as renewals and cancellations roll in.
Matt kicks things off with social media reviews for Wonder Man Season 1 and Daredevil: Born Again Season 2, with the latter earning huge praise for its big swings, compelling storylines and excellent payoff. He also wraps up Invincible Season 4, which continues to deliver brutal action, strong character work and plenty of Viltrumite chaos.
On Dave’s side, he reviews Prisoner, the twisty Sky thriller starring Tahar Rahim and Izuka Hoyle, and starts Citadel Season 2, with Richard Madden, Priyanka Chopra Jonas and Stanley Tucci back for more stylish spy nonsense. There is also a quick plug for the latest Geektown Talks To interview with Daredevil: Born Again cinematographer Hillary Fyfe Spera, plus this week’s Geekstorians episode on how Batman & Robin accidentally saved Batman.
In the news section, they break down Bloodbath Week across the US networks, covering the latest renewals, cancellations and pilot pickups from CBS, FOX, NBC and ABC, including everything from Watson and The Great North ending, to 9-1-1, Grey’s Anatomy, Elsbeth, Tracker and Law & Order all surviving another year.
They also chat about UK cancellations including Juice, Film Club and Prey vs Predator: The Hunt, along with renewals for Secret Genius with Alan Carr, Pete Wicks: For Dogs’ Sake, The 1% Club, Saturday Night Live UK and more.
Plus, they run through new series pickups like Line of Fire, The Rockford Files, Sunset P.I., NCIS: New York, The Rookie: North and Baywatch, before rounding up what is coming to screens next week, including Good Omens, The Punisher: One Last Kill, From Season 4, Rivals Season 2 and Welcome to Wrexham Season 5.
Listen now for superhero TV, spy thrillers, network chaos and the usual Geektown mix of enthusiasm, side tangents and entertainment news.
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In this Geektown Talks To interview, Dave chats with cinematographer Hillary Fyfe Spera, the lead cinematographer behind both seasons one and two of Marvel’s ‘Daredevil: Born Again’.
Hillary was there from the very beginning of the Disney+ series, shooting the pilot, finale, and seven of the nine episodes in season one, helping to establish the grounded, cinematic look of Matt Murdock’s return to Hell’s Kitchen. She also returned for season two, shooting half of the episodes, including the opening two, as the story pushed further into the conflict between Daredevil, Wilson Fisk, and a city under increasing pressure.
During the interview, Hillary discusses how she first came to cinematography through still photography, and how her love of collaboration led her into film and television. She also talks about how ‘Daredevil: Born Again’ came to her, and how classic 1970s New York films such as ‘Taxi Driver’ and ‘The French Connection’ helped inform the visual direction of the series.
We also dig into the visual contrast between Matt Murdock’s world and Fisk’s world, with Daredevil and the vigilantes shot in a more handheld, human, street-level style, while Fisk’s side of the story becomes more controlled, symmetrical and oppressive. Hillary explains how those visual rules evolved across the two seasons, and how they could shift as characters moved between worlds or began to lose control.
Hillary also breaks down the show’s practical approach to Daredevil’s heightened senses, including the in-camera “sensory grande” technique, which uses multiple cameras, lenses, movement and aspect ratio changes to represent something that is not inherently visual.
There is also plenty of discussion about the action, including working with the stunt team, keeping fight scenes grounded while still making them cinematic, and why the best sequences need emotional pauses rather than just relentless punching. Hillary talks about the huge East River boat oner in season two, shot at night with drone lighting, choreography and practical location challenges, along with the series’ BB Report segments and how they changed visually as the story developed.
Plus, Hillary chats about what she is watching at the moment, her love of ‘The X-Files’, and why her dream future project would be a Western.
‘Daredevil: Born Again’ Seasons 1 and 2 are available on Disney+.
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Season 2 of Geekstorians continues with the moment virtual worlds stopped being just games and started becoming laboratories.
In ‘Virtual Worlds, Real Consequences’, Dave looks at three very different digital worlds — World of Warcraft, EVE Online and Second Life — and the very real human behaviour they exposed once thousands of people were let loose inside them.
It starts with World of Warcraft’s Corrupted Blood incident, when a raid debuff escaped into the wider game and created a plague across major cities. What looked like a game bug became something stranger: an accidental model of how people behave during an epidemic, later cited in real-world pandemic research.
From there, the episode moves into EVE Online, where CCP built a universe with minimal intervention and players responded by creating their own politics, economies, infiltrations, betrayals and wars. This is the world of the Guiding Hand Social Club heist, the Band of Brothers collapse, the Council of Stellar Management, and the Bloodbath of B-R5RB, a battle so vast it was covered like a real military event.
Then comes Second Life, the platform that looked, for a while, like the future of the internet. A world built around ownership, virtual land, and real-money exchange, it drew in businesses, media companies and futurists who thought the metaverse had arrived. What followed was less a clean technological revolution than a reminder that the internet always brings people with it, and people tend to arrive carrying chaos.
If the earlier episodes in Season 2 were about collapse, bankruptcy and institutional failure, this one is about something more revealing: what happens when designers build systems, step back, and let human beings do the rest.
Geekstorians is a documentary-style podcast from Dave Elliott of Geektown, exploring the hidden history of geek culture, fandom, film, television, comics and gaming.
Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/geektown.
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Dave is joined by Matt for Geektown Radio Episode 496, and this week’s show is led by chat about the Kenyan romcom Boda Love, ambitious sci-fi film Project Hail Mary, the return of Criminal Record for a second season, and Dave getting pulled back into Starfield.
Matt kicks things off with Boda Love, a Kenyan romance that follows a British woman travelling to Africa after falling for someone online, only for things to go in a very different direction. He also reviews Project Hail Mary, praising its scale, ambition and sci-fi ideas, while also checking in on the latest season of Euphoria.
On Dave’s side, he dives into Criminal Record Season 2 on Apple TV, with Cush Jumbo and Peter Capaldi back for a new case, and talks about returning to Starfield following its major updates and expanding creation content. There is also a quick Geekstorians mention, plus a new Geektown Talks To interview with Joséphine Jobert about Saint-Pierre.
In the news section, they cover cancellations for Brilliant Minds, Stumble, Son of a Critch and The Night Agent, plus renewals for Scrubs, Shifting Gears, Stranger Things: Tales From ’85 and Death in Paradise. There is also air date news for Lanterns, Stuart Fails to Save The Universe and Welcome To Wrexham, along with chat about the Celebrity Traitors cast list.
They also discuss more casting for ITV moon thriller First Woman, Netflix’s new Harlan Coben adaptation The Woods, and the planned TV adaptation of BAFTA-winning game Atomfall.
Plus, they round up what is coming to TV next week, including Amandaland Season 2, Citadel Season 2, Matlock Season 2 Part 2, Legends, M.I.A., Monsieur Spade, Believe Me, Hudson & Rex Season 8 and Devil May Cry Season 2.
Listen now for film reviews, TV news, sci-fi chat, gaming updates and the usual Geektown mix of enthusiasm, side tangents and entertainment chaos.
Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/geektown.
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Geektown Talks To is back, and in this episode, Dave sits down with actress Joséphine Jobert to discuss her new crime drama ‘Saint-Pierre’, which recently launched in the UK on U&Alibi.
UK viewers will know Joséphine from ‘Death in Paradise’, but in ‘Saint-Pierre’ she takes on a very different kind of island detective role as Deputy Chief Geneviève “Arch” Archambault. Set on the French territory of Saint-Pierre and Miquelon, just off the coast of Newfoundland, the series follows Arch as she is partnered with Donny “Fitz” Fitzpatrick, played by Allan Hawco, after Fitz is sent to the island following trouble back home.
In the interview, Joséphine talks about why she was initially unsure about doing another police drama after ‘Death in Paradise’, what changed her mind when she read the script, and how Arch became a character who meant far more to her than she expected.
She also discusses filming on Saint-Pierre itself, swapping Guadeloupe sunshine for much colder North Atlantic weather, the chemistry between Arch and Fitz, and what it is like working opposite Allan Hawco, who is not only her co-star, but also co-creator and executive producer of the show.
Plus, Dave and Joséphine chat about the show’s success in Canada, the brutal Season 1 cliffhanger, the possibility of more ‘Saint-Pierre’, her upcoming projects, reality TV guilty pleasures, and why she would love to step into the world of Marvel.
‘Saint-Pierre’ Season 1 is airing now on U&Alibi in the UK.
Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/geektown.
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Season 2 of Geekstorians continues with the corporate disaster that accidentally redrew modern pop culture.
In ‘The Fire Sale Blueprint’, Dave looks at how Marvel’s bankruptcy in the 1990s led to one of the strangest and most important chain reactions in film history. As the company collapsed under debt, many of its biggest characters were licensed or sold off in deals that looked sensible at the time and faintly insane in hindsight.
Spider-Man, X-Men, Fantastic Four and others ended up in other studios’ hands. What Marvel was left with looked, at the time, like the second-string cupboard. Iron Man, Thor, Captain America, Black Panther, The Avengers. Characters with history, but not the kind of obvious Hollywood heat attached to Spider-Man or the X-Men.
That bad hand turned out to be the hand that changed everything.
This episode follows the path from Ronald Perelman’s debt-loaded takeover of Marvel, through the bankruptcy fight involving Carl Icahn, Isaac Perlmutter and Avi Arad, to the strange reality in which the company’s most famous heroes became someone else’s blockbuster and the leftovers became the foundation of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
It is also the story of how Blade, X-Men and Spider-Man proved the value of Marvel characters on screen, while Kevin Feige, Jon Favreau and Robert Downey Jr. helped turn the characters nobody wanted into the centre of the biggest shared universe in film history.
If the earlier episodes in Season 2 were about collapse and survival, this one is about something slightly stranger: how a financial disaster became a design document.
Geekstorians is a documentary-style podcast from Dave Elliott of Geektown, exploring the hidden history of geek culture, fandom, film, television, comics and gaming.
Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/geektown.
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Dave is joined by Domingos for Geektown Radio Episode 495, and this week’s show is led by chat about Michael, the Canadian crime drama Saint Pierre, Apple TV alt-history spin-off Star City, and the return of A Good Girl’s Guide To Murder.
Domingos kicks things off with Michael, the new biopic charting the early life and rise of Michael Jackson, with Jaafar Jackson playing his famous uncle. He also revisits Netflix’s brilliant sports documentary The Last Dance, which charts Michael Jordan and the final run of the Chicago Bulls dynasty, and digs into A Good Girl’s Guide To Murder, the BBC and Netflix YA mystery starring Emma Myers, with Season 2 arriving next month.
There is also some spoiler-free discussion around Spider-Noir, with Domingos sharing what he can about Nicolas Cage’s stylish new take on the Spider-Man character and the show’s unusual black-and-white or colour viewing options.
On Dave’s side, he dives into Saint Pierre, the Canadian police procedural led by Allan Hawco and Joséphine Jobert, and checks out Star City, the new For All Mankind spin-off which retells the early space race from the Soviet perspective. There is also a quick Geekstorians plug, with this week’s episode looking at Marvel’s bankruptcy and how it helped pave the way for the MCU.
In the news section, they cover cancellations for Gen V and Football Focus, renewals for Hazbin Hotel and Grace, and a stack of air date updates including Matlock Season 2 Part 2, Citadel Season 2, Hudson & Rex Season 8, House of the Dragon Season 3, Silo Season 3, Heartstopper Forever and Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 4.
They also chat about Ryan Phillippe joining 9-1-1: Nashville, ITV’s new lunar thriller First Woman starring Andrea Riseborough and Ashley Walters, Prime Video’s Embassy with Anna Kendrick, Sam Heughan and J.K. Simmons, and Netflix kicking off production on Scooby-Doo: Origins.
Plus, they round up what is coming to TV next week, including This Is Not a Murder Mystery, Widow’s Bay, Man on Fire, Prisoner, St. Denis Medical and Fallen.
Listen now for film chat, TV reviews, alt-history sci-fi, murder mysteries and the usual Geektown mix of enthusiasm, side tangents and entertainment news.
Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/geektown.
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Season 2 of Geekstorians continues with one of the strangest survival stories in geek culture.
In ‘The Wilderness Years’, Dave looks at what happened after Doctor Who disappeared from television in 1989. No big finale. No proper ending. Just a show the BBC quietly stopped making, and an audience that refused to accept that as the end of the story.
This episode follows the long years when Doctor Who survived off screen through novels, audio dramas, conventions, magazines and the sort of organised fan determination Britain tends to produce whenever an institution behaves like it has misplaced its own brain.
It is also the story of how the people keeping Doctor Who alive during those years turned out to be the people who would eventually bring it back. Writers such as Russell T Davies, Steven Moffat, Mark Gatiss and Paul Cornell all emerge from the wider culture that kept the show going while the BBC was looking the other way.
From the BBC’s attempts to sideline the series, to the 1996 TV movie, to Big Finish giving the Doctor a life beyond the screen, this is an episode about what happens when a show stops being just a programme and becomes something its audience is not prepared to lose.
If the first two episodes of Season 2 were about collapse and near-disaster, this one is about survival through absence. About what lives on when the official version disappears.
Geekstorians is a documentary-style podcast from Dave Elliott of Geektown, exploring the hidden history of geek culture, fandom, film, television, comics and gaming.
Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/geektown.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Dave is joined by Matt for Geektown Radio Episode 494, and this week’s show is led by chat about horror film Undertone, relationship drama The Drama, Canadian crime series The Murder Line, and a return to Gilead in The Testaments.
Matt kicks things off with three film reviews. First up is Undertone, an audio-led horror built around a creepy podcast mystery, which nails a lot of its atmosphere and sound design before losing its footing a bit in the final stretch. Then there is The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, which Matt found colourful but paper thin, before finishing strongly with The Drama, starring Robert Pattinson and Zendaya, which he thought was one of the best films he has seen this year.
On the TV side, Matt also checks in with Daredevil: Born Again, which now feels far more confident and focused than it did at the start, plus more blood-soaked superhero chaos from Invincible as the Viltrumite story keeps escalating.
On Dave’s side, he dives into the final season of Hacks, takes a look at ITVX crime drama The Murder Line starring Stephen Amell and Minnie Driver, and starts The Testaments, the follow-up to The Handmaid’s Tale, which shifts the focus to a younger generation still living under Gilead’s shadow.
There is also a gaming detour into Starfield, which Dave has returned to following its major Free Lanes update, plus a quick mention of this week’s Geekstorians episode on Doctor Who and the Wilderness Years.
In the news section, they cover cancellations for Law & Order: Organized Crime and The Copenhagen Test, plus renewals for Young Sherlock, Law & Order: SVU, The ’Burbs, The Madison, Maigret and Father Brown. There is also UK air date news for St. Denis Medical and Clarkson’s Farm, and a look at new BBC sci-fi drama Sutherland starring Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Stuart Martin and Iain De Caestecker.
They also dig into the latest Skydance, Paramount and CBS upfront announcements, including vampire comedy Eternally Yours, legal drama Cupertino, mystery procedural Einstein, and Flint, a cop drama starring Matt LeBlanc as a detective trying to get himself fired.
Plus, they round up what is coming to TV next week, including Criminal Record Season 2, Saint Pierre, Stranger Things: Tales From ’85, Half Man, The Cage and Secret Service.
Listen now for film reviews, TV news, sci-fi updates, gaming chat and the usual Geektown mix of enthusiasm, side tangents and geeky nonsense.
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Season 2 of Geekstorians continues with a story about collapse.
In ‘When Giants Fall’, Dave looks at three companies that once seemed unstoppable — Atari, Sega, and Blockbuster — and how each of them, in very different ways, lost their grip on the future.
From Atari’s collapse after the video game crash of the early 1980s, to Sega’s spectacular inability to get out of its own way during the console wars, to Blockbuster staring straight at the future and somehow deciding it probably wasn’t important, this is an episode about what happens when success turns into inertia.
It is also a story about what comes after.
Because these collapses did not just leave wreckage behind. They reshaped the industries around them. Atari’s fall cleared the way for Nintendo. Sega lost the hardware war but survived as a games company. And Blockbuster became the monument everyone points to when talking about businesses that had every chance to adapt and somehow talked themselves out of it.
If last week’s episode was about a film nearly vanishing, this one is about something bigger: the moment giants stop noticing the ground moving underneath them.
Geekstorians is a documentary-style podcast from Dave Elliott of Geektown, exploring the hidden history of geek culture, fandom, film, television, comics and gaming.
If you’d like to support Geekstorians in the Webby People’s Voice Awards, you can vote here:
https://wbby.co/57464N
Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/geektown.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Dave is joined by Darryl for Geektown Radio Episode 493, and this week’s show is led by chat about Swedish thriller Vaka, oddball sci-fi comedy The Miniature Wife, the return of The Boys, and why Daredevil: Born Again finally feels like it has found its footing.
Darryl kicks things off with Vaka, a Swedish mini-series on Prime Video built around an insomnia epidemic that spirals into chaos in Stockholm. He also finishes Furies Season 1 on Netflix, with Season 2 already out now, and checks in on Daredevil: Born Again, which now seems to be in a much stronger place creatively than it was at the start.
There is also discussion around Netflix’s Italian period legal drama The Law According to Lidia Poët, plus more superhero trauma and blood-soaked chaos from Invincible.
On Dave’s side, he wraps up The Pitt Season 1, moves straight into Season 2, and remains completely sold on it as one of the standout dramas of the year. He also starts The Miniature Wife, starring Matthew Macfadyen and Elizabeth Banks, and dives back into The Boys for its fifth and final season. There is also a quick check-in on Star Wars: Maul – Shadow Lord, plus a reminder that voting for the Geekstorians Webby closes on Thursday, 16th April.
In the news section, they cover renewals for Welcome to Wrexham, Would I Lie To You?, Shetland, Rooster, Memory of a Killer, Emily in Paris, The Rookie and Will Trent. There is also confirmation of Extraction 3, a premiere date for Dark Matter Season 2, and news on Netflix’s new undercover drama Legends.
They also chat about Uma Thurman returning for Dexter: Resurrection Season 2, new cast joining Wednesday Season 3, and the BBC bringing back Philomena Cunk for Cunk on Cinema.
Plus, they round up what is coming to TV next week, including Doc, Margo’s Got Money Troubles, Beef Season 2, Bergerac, Big Mood, Hacks, The Murder Line, Kevin and Tracker.
Listen now for TV reviews, film news, superhero chaos and the usual Geektown mix of enthusiasm, side tangents and geeky nonsense.
Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/geektown.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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