Bond By Numbers

Hundreds of hours in the 007 podcast mines have led to innumerable highlights and five wonderful seasons of Bond by Numbers. Now our mission is coming to an end. In this, our 100th and final episode, we invite you to look back with us over the terrain of our assignment and share in the celebration of closing the BBN dossier.

Our final "What If?" show considers the wild ride that would have been if three of Pierce Brosnan's outings had been adapted in the Golden Age of Cinema! From pirate musicals to Marshall Plan extortion, we've got the craziness covered as we rewrite, recast and redesign Bond for the 1930's, 40's and 50's!

Pre-Title thrills are unique DNA for 007 films. Without them, it's hard to imagine the franchise as we do. In this episode, we resurrect our "rank-a-thon" from its slumber and try to calculate a clean line through all the Bondian preludes.

Our final selection for the "3 Non Bonds" festival is the WW2 thriller, "Eye of the Needle" from 1981. Donald Sutherland stars as Faber, aka "the Needle", Hitler's premiere stiletto-wielding spy in England, who is racing to deliver news of the imminent Normandy invasion. But complications arise when he's thrown off course as he tries to flee and ends up shipwrecked on Storm Island. There he meets an estranged couple, Lucy and David (Kate Nelligan and Christopher Cassenove) who stand in his way of completing the job. Directed by Richard Marquand (who earned George Lucas' respect and the seat on "Return of the Jedi" for his sharp work here), "Eye of the Needle" is governed by a cool, quiet confidence and boasts some strong performances and memorable locations. But will it pass the triple-agent scoring? Grab your anoraks and step on-board with us to find out - the good ship BBN takes one final voyage in Non-Bond waters!

After bringing us Ronin, The Quiller Memorandum and The Bourne Identity in previous years, 00-Chapman returns to the "3-Non Bonds" stage for one final showcase. This time, Harry Saltzman's 1965 thriller, The Ipcress File, is under investigation. Deemed by some an "anti-Bond" film for its calculated, artistic economy and unlikely hero, this jazzy spy thriller nevertheless had a good helping of James Bond talent behind the camera. The creative fingerprints of Ken Adam, John Barry, Peter Hunt and Norman Wanstall are all on show throughout this Michael Caine caper, set amidst the cool gloom of a not-yet swinging London.

The John Gardner sweep continues with "Win, Lose or Die", the eighth continuation novel from his cycle of Bond adventures. With this story, Gardner keeps on trend-jumping, here drawing inspiration from the "Top Gun" and "Iron Eagle" craze of the era. Bond returns to the Navy, upgrades to Captain and plays War Games with some very important dignitaries in order to defend a top-secret Steward's Meeting from a new terrorist threat. So grab your aviators and fire up the After Burner Arcade, we're flying back to 1989 for one final wild ride of the decade!

It's that time of year again, Bond fans - the festive quizzing challenge! This time, 00-Taylor and 00-Chapman face their toughest opponent yet: a 100-point quiz, blending Bond, Christmas and beyond. So, buff the wassail bowl and decorate your Douglas Firs, BBN's fourth and final Holiday Special is ready for action!

Josh and Scott add their thoughts to the chorus of reviews and unpack the recent Amazon original production. The quizzical, the critical and the admirable - all angles covered en route to a verdict about this Bond-inspired reality game show.

The concluding installment of our "What If?" episode on (very) unofficial Alternate Endings. From caviar blockades to Gobinda's betrayal, the remorseless roulette guides us through discussions of the remaining dozen films. Foolishness abounds, listeners advised!

What happens when you mix a “mad love of country with an equally mad indifference to life”? Well, if Alfred Hitchcock's 1940 thriller is anything to go by, a crackpot peace movement and a nest of horrid spies, that's what!

"What's Going On?" Bond fans! Our annual 3 Non Bonds film festival gets underway for the fourth and final time with Josh's selection of Hitchcock's international spy caper. Joel McCrea, Laraine Day and Herbert Marshall star in this curious yarn of war-time espionage, family secrets and romantic pursuit which showcases several features of the Bond formula in early form.