Ancient Geeks

In the early 1970s, the most popular TV movie was The Night Stalker, the story of a scruffy, disreputable reporter chasing a vampire across Las Vegas. A sequel, The Night Strangler, came a year later. Produced and directed by a producer/director with a penchant for supernatural stories (Dark Shadows, Trilogy Of Terror, Burnt Offerings), and written by Richard Matheson (Twilight Zone, Night Gallery, Star Trek, and more), these made-for-television movies had a fine geek pedigree, and it showed. The basis for a later television series with the same intrepid journalists, and a monster of the week, these were the inspiration for The X-Files.

A vampire preying on showgirls! Hostile city officials! An underground city! A strangling fiend! A blustering editor! Publishers who can't be trusted! It's all here.

Ancient Geeks is a podcast about two geeks of a certain age re-visiting their youth. We were there when things like science fiction, fantasy, Tolkien, Star Trek, Star Wars, D&D, Marvel and DC comics, Doctor Who, and many, many other threads of modern geek culture were still on the fringes of culture. We were geeks before it was chic!

For feedback, contact [email protected]. You can also find us on Facebook, Reddit, and Bluesky. Also, check out the Ancient Geeks blog on Substack! And if you like what you hear, please tell a friend. Also, we always appreciate a review on the podcast platform of your choice.

© 2026 Tom Grant and Steven Taylor

ZARDOZ IS PLEASED YOU ARE LISTENING TO THIS EPISODE! When John Boorman's movie Deliverance became a smash hit, Hollywood gave him $1.5 million to make any movie he wanted. The result? Sean Connery in a red leather thong, a giant stone head, and immortals who want to die. It's transhumanism, 1970s British style! Join us as we explore the dystopian, far future world of Zardoz. Was this as weird as people say? Or as bad? Listen to this episode to find out.

Crystals! A lot of Connery's chest hair! An eternity of doing household chores! Nudity! Guns! Mutants! A small English village! Catatonia! It's all here.

Ancient Geeks is a podcast about two geeks of a certain age re-visiting their youth. We were there when things like science fiction, fantasy, Tolkien, Star Trek, Star Wars, D&D, Marvel and DC comics, Doctor Who, and many, many other threads of modern geek culture were still on the fringes of culture. We were geeks before it was chic!

For feedback, contact [email protected]. You can also find us on Facebook, Reddit, and Bluesky. Also, check out the Ancient Geeks blog on Substack! And if you like what you hear, please tell a friend. Also, we always appreciate a review on the podcast platform of your choice.

© 2026 Tom Grant and Steven Taylor

It's an arbitrary round number, but it's a great time to look back on almost a year of the Ancient Geeks podcast! Steven and Tom discuss what we've learned, about the evolution of science fiction, fantasy, comics, and games, based on our decades of lived experience. How has geek culture changed, and how have we?

What books, movies, TV shows, and comics do we still love as much, or even more, than we did when we were snot-nosed youngsters? What do we like less? What treasures did we discover that we didn't know when we were young? How has geek content evolved? What is more popular, and what is less popular? And are the communities of geekdom any better or worse now than they were in decades past?

Ancient Geeks is a podcast about two geeks of a certain age re-visiting their youth. We were there when things like science fiction, fantasy, Tolkien, Star Trek, Star Wars, D&D, Marvel and DC comics, Doctor Who, and many, many other threads of modern geek culture were still on the fringes of culture. We were geeks before it was chic!

For feedback, contact [email protected]. You can also find us on Facebook, Reddit, and Bluesky. Also, check out the Ancient Geeks blog on Substack! And if you like what you hear, please tell a friend. Also, we always appreciate a review on the podcast platform of your choice.

© 2026 Tom Grant and Steven Taylor

Pluribus is the new series from Vince Gilligan. Why are we talking about it? Because it definitely fits into the realm of imaginative fiction. And we're both big fans of Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul. What else can we say about Pluribus? Unless you listen to this episode, very little. From the first episode on, it's one intriguing mystery after another.

But boy howdy, do we have a lot to say about Pluribus. Within this episode are lots and lots of spoilers, for all of season one. If you don't mind, because you've already watched the first season, or you don't mind spoilers, go right ahead and hear our lively debate about this show.

[redacted]! Albuqurque! [also redacted]! Rhea Seehorn! [again with the redactions] Donuts! [further redactions]! It's all here.

Ancient Geeks is a podcast about two geeks of a certain age re-visiting their youth. We were there when things like science fiction, fantasy, Tolkien, Star Trek, Star Wars, D&D, Marvel and DC comics, Doctor Who, and many, many other threads of modern geek culture were still on the fringes of culture. We were geeks before it was chic!

For feedback, contact [email protected]. You can also find us on Facebook, Reddit, and Bluesky. Also, check out the Ancient Geeks blog on Substack! And if you like what you hear, please tell a friend. Also, we always appreciate a review on the podcast platform of your choice.

© 2026 Tom Grant and Steven Taylor

Dune-A-Palooza concludes with Denis Villeneuve's Dune parts I and II. Wait a second, we said. Someone is going to adapt Dune to the screen, and give enough screen time to do it right? We were excited, but also cautious. After all, there was an earlier adaptation, as we covered in the last episode. And it wasn't great. Would the new movies meet our expectations? Or would our hopes for a top-notch Dune adaptation disappear like a mirage? Hear our reactions in this episode. And also hear our musings about what, in general, makes a good movie adaptation of a novel.

CGI sandworms! Religious fanatics! Baron Harkonnen dipped in motor oil! Oversized, empty living spaces! Oscar Isaac's beard! It's all here.

Ancient Geeks is a podcast about two geeks of a certain age re-visiting their youth. We were there when things like science fiction, fantasy, Tolkien, Star Trek, Star Wars, D&D, Marvel and DC comics, Doctor Who, and many, many other threads of modern geek culture were still on the fringes of culture. We were geeks before it was chic!

For feedback, contact [email protected]. You can also find us on Facebook, Reddit, and Bluesky. Also, check out the Ancient Geeks blog on Substack! And if you like what you hear, please tell a friend. Also, we always appreciate a review on the podcast platform of your choice.

© 2025 Tom Grant and Steven Taylor

Dune-A-Palooza continues! Big fans of the Dune novel were excited about the pending release of the film adaptation, directed by David Lynch. And then...we saw the movie. Tom attended the premiere. Steven just saw the movie.

We give our unvarnished opinions on the film. We grade David Lynch's Dune as a motion picture, and then as an adaptation of the novel. Fasten your seatbelts, it's going to be a bumpy sandworm ride!

Ancient Geeks is a podcast about two geeks of a certain age re-visiting their youth. We were there when things like science fiction, fantasy, Tolkien, Star Trek, Star Wars, D&D, Marvel and DC comics, Doctor Who, and many, many other threads of modern geek culture were still on the fringes of culture. We were geeks before it was chic!

For feedback, contact [email protected]. You can also find us on Facebook, Reddit, and Bluesky. Also, check out the Ancient Geeks blog on Substack! And if you like what you hear, please tell a friend. Also, we always appreciate a review on the podcast platform of your choice.

© 2025 Tom Grant and Steven Taylor

Dune-A-Palooza begins! It's the first of our three part series covering Dune, on the page and on the screen. In this episode, we discuss the original 1965 novel. If you were a science fiction fan, you read this book. Even if you weren't a science fiction fan, there's a good chance someone recommended it to you.

Both Steven and Tom devoured the book in our teens, when it became the touchstone for what truly great science fiction could achieve. Hear us talk about the origins of the novel, our early reactions to it, and our reactions again after re-reading it many years later. Good thing it escaped the obscurity of the auto repair publisher who originally printed it...

A fantastic setting, in every meaning of that word! Great characters! Intrigues! Meditations on political power! High tech that's also low tech! Tragic fates! It's all here.

Ancient Geeks is a podcast about two geeks of a certain age re-visiting their youth. We were there when things like science fiction, fantasy, Tolkien, Star Trek, Star Wars, D&D, Marvel and DC comics, Doctor Who, and many, many other threads of modern geek culture were still on the fringes of culture. We were geeks before it was chic!

For feedback, contact [email protected]. You can also find us on Facebook, Reddit, and Bluesky. Also, check out the Ancient Geeks blog on Substack! And if you like what you hear, please tell a friend. Also, we always appreciate a review on the podcast platform of your choice.

© 2025 Tom Grant and Steven Taylor

Calling Blade Runner "iconic" is a bit of understatement. There was nothing like it when it premiered: a future noir thriller, based on a science fiction novel, but also taking it in directions that changed filmmaking. We were impressed at the time, way back in 1982. How do we feel about it today? Do the warnings in this cautionary tale about the near-future apply today? And why does Hollywood love Philip K. Dick? And how does it compare to the other early Ridley Scott SF classic, Alien?

A dystopian Los Angeles where it rains all the time! Amazing cinematography and production design! Heavy-handed Christ metaphors! Flying cars! More smoking! It's all here.

Ancient Geeks is a podcast about two geeks of a certain age re-visiting their youth. We were there when things like science fiction, fantasy, Tolkien, Star Trek, Star Wars, D&D, Marvel and DC comics, Doctor Who, and many, many other threads of modern geek culture were still on the fringes of culture. We were geeks before it was chic!

For feedback, contact [email protected]. You can also find us on Facebook, Reddit, and Bluesky. Also, check out the Ancient Geeks blog on Substack! And if you like what you hear, please tell a friend. Also, we always appreciate a review on the podcast platform of your choice.

© 2025 Tom Grant and Steven Taylor

At the signpost up ahead, your next stop, the latest episode of Ancient Geeks! The Twilight Zone was a ubiquitous feature of television when we were growing up, and possibly the most generally popular bit of geek culture outside of geekdom until Star Wars. Rod Serling's anthology series used tales of the fantastic to tell meaningful stories, often allegories about contemporary America. Serling's life was just as interesting as his television shows, and he epitomized the screenwriter as celebrity. 

"Helpful" aliens! Gremlins! Panicked suburbanites! Evil psychic children! Satan in lockup! Plot twists! It's all here.

Ancient Geeks is a podcast about two geeks of a certain age re-visiting their youth. We were there when things like science fiction, fantasy, Tolkien, Star Trek, Star Wars, D&D, Marvel and DC comics, Doctor Who, and many, many other threads of modern geek culture were still on the fringes of culture. We were geeks before it was chic!

For feedback, contact [email protected]. You can also find us on Facebook, Reddit, and Bluesky. Also, check out the Ancient Geeks blog on Substack! And if you like what you hear, please tell a friend. Also, we always appreciate a review on the podcast platform of your choice.

© 2025 Tom Grant and Steven Taylor

We're on an express elevator to hell, going down! We've covered Alien earlier, which compels us to do an episode on the 1986 sequel, Aliens. It's a sequel, sure, but it's also a different kind of movie. With a different director. (Yeah, that James Cameron kid shows some promise.)

Tom saw it when it was released. Steven just watched it for the first time. Hear our reactions to this film, on first watch and re-watch. Listen us debate how stupidly evil mega-corporations can behave, and what makes a great sequel.

Xenomorphs! Overconfident marines! Good and evil mother figures! Quotable quotes! Some of the most non-stop tension ever in a movie! 80s-style action! It's all here. 

Ancient Geeks is a podcast about two geeks of a certain age re-visiting their youth. We were there when things like science fiction, fantasy, Tolkien, Star Trek, Star Wars, D&D, Marvel and DC comics, Doctor Who, and many, many other threads of modern geek culture were still on the fringes of culture. We were geeks before it was chic!

For feedback, contact [email protected]. You can also find us on Facebook, Reddit, and Bluesky. Also, check out the Ancient Geeks blog on Substack! And if you like what you hear, please tell a friend. Also, we always appreciate a review on the podcast platform of your choice.

© 2025 Tom Grant and Steven Taylor