“I like the death. I like the misery! I LIKE THIS WORLD!”

This week the Distinguished Professors go back in time to the golden era of the career of Belgian dance-brawler and split-doer Jean-Claude Van Damme and watch Cyborg, a movie consisting entirely of slow-motion fighting and screaming. Topics covered include mistimed sound cues, the unsanity of our times, El Doobie, the steampunkiness of the costumes due to their origins with the sequel to Masters of the Universe and other film detritus, Golan and Globus/Cannon Films, the JCVD dancing GIF, our misremembering of the deadly splits scene, the lousy and unnecessary opening narration, the weakness of the cyborg effects, the weird lack of plague in this plague movie, the weird menace of Vincent Klyn, the other films of Albert Pyun and the omnipresence of Brick Bardo, the cyborginess of the titular cyborg, the use of the “skinjob” slur from Blade Runner, the mystery of maintaining of order in a lawless gang, the origin of the term “gunslinger,” a plug for The Dark Tower series, Gibson’s teenage boy-approved arsenal, the 80s relic of the action movie catfight, no water shortage plot device in this one, a quick recovery from being crucified, the link between hypermasculinity and homoeroticism, the temporary resurrection of every JCVD villain in the climactic fight, and our plans for the next season of your favorite (whoosh) podcast.