It’s a busy week on the show, as we have some major video game news and developments to discuss – including a new interface for the Xbox One and a major Nintendo Direct – in addition to two of the biggest releases of the year in Rise of the Tomb Raider and especially Fallout 4. Sean and I have spent a lot of time with these games so far, and neither disappoints. Alas, this week’s Doctor Who, “Sleep No More,” is the first of the season to feel subpar – although even then, there are lots of interesting things to talk about, rounding an episode filled with meaty discussions.

Read Jonathan Lack’s movie reviews and stay up to date with all our podcast projects at https://www.jonathanlack.com

Subscribe to JAPANIMATION STATION, our podcast about the wide and wonderful world of anime: https://japanimationstation.com

Read Jonathan’s book 200 Reviews in Paperback or on Kindle – https://a.co/d/bLx53vK

Subscribe to our YouTube channels! 

Japanimation Station: https://www.youtube.com/c/japanimationstation  

Purely Academic: https://www.youtube.com/@purelyacademicpodcast

Support the show at Ko-fi ☕️ https://ko-fi.com/weeklystuff

Original Music by Thomas Lack https://www.thomaslack.com/

©2012 - Present Jonathan R. Lack & Sean Chapman

As if yet another tremendous episode of Doctor Who wasn’t enough to celebrate, this week, we get to rejoice over the release of the latest James Bond movie, Spectre! Well, sort of. The movie wasn’t that good. We talk about it. But, because there’s a new 007 movie, I undertook the insane task of ranking every James Bond movie, from worst to last, and we talk about all of them – all the highs, all the lows, and all the crazy space lazers. And then we do indeed get to talk about “The Zygon Inversion,” a potentially all-time great episode of Doctor Who. It’s a good week indeed.

Read Jonathan Lack’s movie reviews and stay up to date with all our podcast projects at https://www.jonathanlack.com

Subscribe to JAPANIMATION STATION, our podcast about the wide and wonderful world of anime: https://japanimationstation.com

Read Jonathan’s book 200 Reviews in Paperback or on Kindle – https://a.co/d/bLx53vK

Subscribe to our YouTube channels! 

Japanimation Station: https://www.youtube.com/c/japanimationstation  

Purely Academic: https://www.youtube.com/@purelyacademicpodcast

Support the show at Ko-fi ☕️ https://ko-fi.com/weeklystuff

Original Music by Thomas Lack https://www.thomaslack.com/

©2012 - Present Jonathan R. Lack & Sean Chapman

This is a sad episode. There are some fun topics. We finally get to talk about the new Dragon Ball Z movie, Resurrection ‘F’, which is a blast. It’s a lot of fun to watch, and to talk about. And Doctor Who is still on a hell of a roll, with the latest episode, “The Zygon Invasion,” continuing the show’s hot streak. But the bulk of this episode is devoted to reviewing the latest game in one of our favorite series, Halo 5: Guardians, and the results are unfortunately disappointing. This is a game with such a strong command of the fundamentals, and so much raw potential, and so much of it goes unrealized. Speaking ill about Halo is never fun, and up to this point, it’s been pretty rare. But there’s no getting around it this time, and our spoiler-filled discussion of the game, its multiplayer, and its campaign is a deep dive into one of the year’s bigger let-downs.

Read Jonathan Lack’s movie reviews and stay up to date with all our podcast projects at https://www.jonathanlack.com

Subscribe to JAPANIMATION STATION, our podcast about the wide and wonderful world of anime: https://japanimationstation.com

Read Jonathan’s book 200 Reviews in Paperback or on Kindle – https://a.co/d/bLx53vK

Subscribe to our YouTube channels! 

Japanimation Station: https://www.youtube.com/c/japanimationstation  

Purely Academic: https://www.youtube.com/@purelyacademicpodcast

Support the show at Ko-fi ☕️ https://ko-fi.com/weeklystuff

Original Music by Thomas Lack https://www.thomaslack.com/

©2012 - Present Jonathan R. Lack & Sean Chapman

On this week’s show, we devote some time to the new Star Wars: The Force Awakens trailer, in addition to exploring various odds and ends, like my experience seeing Crimson Peak, or playing the new Dragon Ball Z game, while Sean continues his in-progress review of the new Witcher 3 expansion. I give a guide to James Bond 101 for newcomers to the long-running franchise, in anticipation of Spectre, and for our main topic, we review the latest episode in what has been a stellar season of Doctor Who, "The Woman Who Lived."

Read Jonathan Lack’s movie reviews and stay up to date with all our podcast projects at https://www.jonathanlack.com

Subscribe to JAPANIMATION STATION, our podcast about the wide and wonderful world of anime: https://japanimationstation.com

Read Jonathan’s book 200 Reviews in Paperback or on Kindle – https://a.co/d/bLx53vK

Subscribe to our YouTube channels! 

Japanimation Station: https://www.youtube.com/c/japanimationstation  

Purely Academic: https://www.youtube.com/@purelyacademicpodcast

Support the show at Ko-fi ☕️ https://ko-fi.com/weeklystuff

Original Music by Thomas Lack https://www.thomaslack.com/

©2012 - Present Jonathan R. Lack & Sean Chapman

This week’s show is a busy one, as we cover some recent news in movies and video games, before jumping into a big slate of reviews. Sean gives his initial impressions on the new DLC for The Witcher 3, Jonathan reviews the recent films Steve Jobs and Bridge of Spies, and we both discuss the PS Vita game Persona 4: Dancing All Night in spoiler-y detail. And finally, we dive deep into the latest episode of Doctor Who, “The Girl Who Died,” which was all kinds of fantastic, and deserving of some lengthy conversation.

Read Jonathan Lack’s movie reviews and stay up to date with all our podcast projects at https://www.jonathanlack.com

Subscribe to JAPANIMATION STATION, our podcast about the wide and wonderful world of anime: https://japanimationstation.com

Read Jonathan’s book 200 Reviews in Paperback or on Kindle – https://a.co/d/bLx53vK

Subscribe to our YouTube channels! 

Japanimation Station: https://www.youtube.com/c/japanimationstation  

Purely Academic: https://www.youtube.com/@purelyacademicpodcast

Support the show at Ko-fi ☕️ https://ko-fi.com/weeklystuff

Original Music by Thomas Lack https://www.thomaslack.com/

©2012 - Present Jonathan R. Lack & Sean Chapman

In what should have been a light week, we somehow recorded for close to two hours, talking first about the Star Wars: Battlefront beta on PS4, which transitions into a discussion about the state of Star Wars as we approach The Force Awakens. The hype train is in full effect, but why does everyone seem to feel so generally apathetic towards the franchise these days? We explore that and other issues before jumping into a discussion of this week’s Doctor Who, “Before the Flood,” which continues the show’s recent, entertaining hot streak. And finally, we discuss a longtime listener’s Top 10 list of their favorite podcast episodes, which made for a nice, surreal trip down memory lane (Thanks to Kenny for that!).

Read Jonathan Lack’s movie reviews and stay up to date with all our podcast projects at https://www.jonathanlack.com

Subscribe to JAPANIMATION STATION, our podcast about the wide and wonderful world of anime: https://japanimationstation.com

Read Jonathan’s book 200 Reviews in Paperback or on Kindle – https://a.co/d/bLx53vK

Subscribe to our YouTube channels! 

Japanimation Station: https://www.youtube.com/c/japanimationstation  

Purely Academic: https://www.youtube.com/@purelyacademicpodcast

Support the show at Ko-fi ☕️ https://ko-fi.com/weeklystuff

Original Music by Thomas Lack https://www.thomaslack.com/

©2012 - Present Jonathan R. Lack & Sean Chapman

This is a light, grab-bag style week on the podcast, as Sean gives his initial thoughts on Persona 4: Dancing All Night for the PS Vita, Jonathan talks about this weekend’s new movies – including Ridley Scott’s The Martian and Robert Zemeckis’ The Walk – and both of us discuss the latest Doctor Who episode, “Under the Lake,” which was excellent.

Read Jonathan Lack’s movie reviews and stay up to date with all our podcast projects at https://www.jonathanlack.com

Subscribe to JAPANIMATION STATION, our podcast about the wide and wonderful world of anime: https://japanimationstation.com

Read Jonathan’s book 200 Reviews in Paperback or on Kindle – https://a.co/d/bLx53vK

Subscribe to our YouTube channels! 

Japanimation Station: https://www.youtube.com/c/japanimationstation  

Purely Academic: https://www.youtube.com/@purelyacademicpodcast

Support the show at Ko-fi ☕️ https://ko-fi.com/weeklystuff

Original Music by Thomas Lack https://www.thomaslack.com/

©2012 - Present Jonathan R. Lack & Sean Chapman

The episode begins with some catch-up on Super Mario Maker and Destiny, before we jump into this week’s Doctor Who review to talk about “The Witch’s Familiar.” It’s a damn good episode, and makes for a good discussion. But the bulk of the show this week is devoted to a crazy, niche, awesome top 10 list: The Top 10 Persona Vocal Songs. If you don’t know what Persona is, you are probably a new listener, because Persona is our favorite video game series here at The Weekly Stuff Podcast, and we use different songs from the various soundtracks to open the majority of our shows. So we love the series. We really love the music. And with the rhythm game Persona 4: Dancing All Night coming out next week, we thought now would be the most relevant time to count down our respective 10 favorite vocal songs from across the series and its many incarnations.

Read Jonathan Lack’s movie reviews and stay up to date with all our podcast projects at https://www.jonathanlack.com

Subscribe to JAPANIMATION STATION, our podcast about the wide and wonderful world of anime: https://japanimationstation.com

Read Jonathan’s book 200 Reviews in Paperback or on Kindle – https://a.co/d/bLx53vK

Subscribe to our YouTube channels! 

Japanimation Station: https://www.youtube.com/c/japanimationstation  

Purely Academic: https://www.youtube.com/@purelyacademicpodcast

Support the show at Ko-fi ☕️ https://ko-fi.com/weeklystuff

Original Music by Thomas Lack https://www.thomaslack.com/

©2012 - Present Jonathan R. Lack & Sean Chapman

If you’ve been listening to this show for any length of time, you’ll know that Doctor Who is one of our two primary obsessions here. That means this is a pretty great week for the podcast, as not only did Doctor Who return for its ninth (modern) series on the BBC, but the Persona series – the object of our other primary obsession – was shown off at the Tokyo Game Show, with a new preview – and new release window – for the upcoming Persona 5. So there is a lot of excitement and enthusiasm on this week’s episode, and that’s before we even factor in Destiny: The Taken King, a new expansion that is absolutely wonderful, and very exciting to talk about.

Read Jonathan Lack’s movie reviews and stay up to date with all our podcast projects at https://www.jonathanlack.com

Subscribe to JAPANIMATION STATION, our podcast about the wide and wonderful world of anime: https://japanimationstation.com

Read Jonathan’s book 200 Reviews in Paperback or on Kindle – https://a.co/d/bLx53vK

Subscribe to our YouTube channels! 

Japanimation Station: https://www.youtube.com/c/japanimationstation  

Purely Academic: https://www.youtube.com/@purelyacademicpodcast

Support the show at Ko-fi ☕️ https://ko-fi.com/weeklystuff

Original Music by Thomas Lack https://www.thomaslack.com/

©2012 - Present Jonathan R. Lack & Sean Chapman

After looking over the history of the Metal Gear Solid franchise on last week’s show, we dive in full with the latest installment of the franchise, Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain. This is one of the most acclaimed games of the year, but is it, well…any good? Sean and I aren’t exactly crazy about it, and the many, many, many problems on display with this game make for a lively, heated discussion.

Read Jonathan Lack’s movie reviews and stay up to date with all our podcast projects at https://www.jonathanlack.com

Subscribe to JAPANIMATION STATION, our podcast about the wide and wonderful world of anime: https://japanimationstation.com

Read Jonathan’s book 200 Reviews in Paperback or on Kindle – https://a.co/d/bLx53vK

Subscribe to our YouTube channels! 

Japanimation Station: https://www.youtube.com/c/japanimationstation  

Purely Academic: https://www.youtube.com/@purelyacademicpodcast

Support the show at Ko-fi ☕️ https://ko-fi.com/weeklystuff

Original Music by Thomas Lack https://www.thomaslack.com/

©2012 - Present Jonathan R. Lack & Sean Chapman