Nerds Conferred

Dana and Marc return to talk about two fantastic episodes of Agents of SHIELD (4x06 and 4x07), a little world-building, a lot of sci-fi, and the great writing that is knocking the ball out of the park in season four.

In which Marc and Dana, finally finding time, discuss Agents of SHIELD, Simmons (duh), television as entertainment versus television as intense narrative study, Westworld, and screenwriters.

Marc and Dana take a break from nerdy nerdery and get their history geek on, discussing their favorite Vice Presidents in honor of all the political debates this week.

Dana and Marc are back to talk about Agents of SHIELD being surprisingly good so far in its fourth season. Also Dana can't help but expand into Agent Carter and Luke Cage and Marc devolves into politics. [Recorded September 30, 2016—Dana was unconscionably busy which is why this is late.]

Dana doesn't shut up about Agents of SHIELD in general because the first episode of season four is good enough to set her off again. Marc generally agrees.

In celebration of Star Trek's 50th anniversary, Marc and Dana—giant Trekkie nerd extraordinaires—each picked their five* favorite episodes in all of Star Trek. (*This is a lie, they picked way more than five each.)

Marc and Dana discuss the Olympics! A bit late, but hey. Sports, politics, patriotism, nationalism, history, international politics, sociology, media coverage, the usual things you'd expect from these two. (We recorded this on 8/21--it took Dana this long to edit it. Apologies!)

Here's the article about sports as religion: http://nautil.us/issue/39/sport/to-understand-religion-think-football-rp

Marc is back! Dana is back! They talk about sports, politics, current events, identity, and all the kinds of fandom. Nerdery! Sportsery! Conflict! Economics! Anthropology! Jocks and nerds are the same! Omg, guys!

While Marc is on his honeymoon, Dana takes the opportunity to get way in-depth with media theory, literary history, the science fiction genre, romance and gender norms, and basically anything else you can think of all in the service of explaining how much she adores Fitz and Simmons on Agents of SHIELD. She gets historically specific, weirdly technical, and uncomfortably personal by turns. And she maybe explains about half of her love. It's a deep love.

Citations! https://raygunsmustbedisabledatalltimes.wordpress.com/2016/07/25/citations-for-the-fitzsimmons-special/

Marc and Dana take on Brexit, the European Union, corporate media driven misinformation, normalizing narratives, and right-wing science fiction dystopias. (Apologies from Dana for the echo; she's moving soon and her recording space is empty.)