Starship Podcast Warlock

Ford and Arthur teleport onto an ark in space (not that one) filled with the people who've led every office meeting that made you want to gnaw your own leg off, not to escape, just to distract yourself with the pain. Meanwhile we look back at this all-too-brief TV series, rank the episodes for some unfathomable reason, and finally admit the existence of the...urgh...movie. That may be it for the Heart of Gold crew, but it's not over for Starship Podcast Warlock, the podcast with "Don't Panic" highlighted in large, friendly white letters on this season's cover image. Stay tuned!

Peter Davison makes a guest appearance as the Doctor -- no, hang on. David Dixon is the Doctor (essentially), while Peter Davison is...well, if you don't know, watch the episode with us and see if you spot him. It's the Restaurant at the End of the Universe, the last meal you'll ever have, chronologically speaking. The appetizer this episode is Jeff and Drew (but mostly Jeff) talking about the radio shows that shaped us (but mostly him) and the podcasts we enjoy today. Drew would like to give a shout-out to two of the podcasts that influenced him in particular: the Pod F. Tompkast, for teaching him how to pause without saying "um" (still a developing skill, as you'll notice), and Radio Free Skaro, for teaching him just about everything else. Which means that anything you don't like in this podcast may possibly be their fault, so go bug them about it, all right? Don't complain to us!

The glorious, obnoxious, devil-may-care, outrageous, heedless hedonist we know as Zaphod Beeblebrox lends his name to an archetype Drew sees in a bunch of different TV characters. Find out what Eric Cartman, Al Bundy, Patsy Stone, Edina Monsoon, and Bender from Futurama all have in common and then look for the Zaphod in YOUR favorite TV show! Unless your favorite TV show is Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, in which case you're done. You can kick back and just watch with us as Arthur Dent learns of the incredible purpose for which the planet Earth was literally made, two white mice strike a business deal for one of our heroes' brains, and two cops are (sensitive) bastards.

It's no easy feat to get the audience to care about the messy destruction of a whale that was a deadly missile mere seconds ago, but that's why Douglas Adams was a genius and we aren't a genius. We are TWO geniuses, and we use our genius skimming Wikipedia about the cast of the show so you don't have to. One of us has neighbors throwing a loud annoying party nearby, which hopefully does not show up on the recording. It will not at this time be revealed which of us is being subjected to said party, which can safely be made the subject of suspense since it is of no importance whatsoever.

Ford and Arthur are shoved out of an airlock to certain death by asphyxiation, with their only hope of rescue being the staggeringly improbable event that a spaceship, crewed by their semicousin and the "one who got away," respectively, would suddenly materialize around them in the middle of deep space. Meanwhile we go deep into the Podcaster's Guide to the Galaxy, aka Wikipedia, and discuss the all-too-brief career of one Douglas Noel Adams, who appears in this episode -- there is no more accurate term -- butt-naked.

We begin our epic 6-part saga into the Galaxy about which a Guide has been published for Hitchhikers. As the Earth is destroyed, some blue food is consumed, and a poetry reading looms, Jeff and Drew discuss our early impressions of the books and the radio series, compare them to some other ostensibly funny prose, and wonder about the David Dixon incarnation of Doctor Who that we never got.

It's the end...and the moment has been prepared for: the carefully ranked list of Blackadder episodes we've been keeping this whole season long is ready to be revealed, and of course second-guessed as we go, because look, it's just a great show, okay? Also we answer some "would you rather" questions about which of the four main canonical Blackadders we'd choose for which scenarios (none of them are "making out," you pervs). We also watch "Back and Forth," a pleasant but somewhat ersatz coda for the series as a whole. Stay tuned for Starship Podcast Warlock Season 3: Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy!

The very last episode of Blackadder Goes Forth, in which Capt. Blackadder and friends make one last-ditch effort to avoid "going over the top," and their cunning plan finally works, they escape the trenches, and live happily ever after. Baldrick becomes a shoeshine boy in postwar London, Blackadder himself opens a little moustache shop like his father's, and George becomes a hatrack in a very well-positioned foyer. ...SOME of the foregoing is true, but you'll have to listen to the podcast and watch the episode to find out! Unless you've already seen it, which you probably have, so never mind. Jeff and I make another increasingly futile attempt to rank the episodes of this maddeningly consistent show, as we prep for the final special....

Inspired by the military setting of Goes Forth, we discuss our time in two paramilitary organizations, namely Cub Scouts and Boys' State, and how they exposed us to culinary and cultural exploration, as well as the fine arts of getting out of stupid activities and publishing surreptitiously satirical nonsense. Meanwhile Lt. George gets out of the trenches with a minor injury and Blackadder surreptitiously seeks a spy.

It's the return of Lord Flashheart, Rik Mayall's exuberant and randy Lothario from Blackadder 2, as well as another familiar face in the guise of his nemesis. Blackadder and Baldrick land in jail yet again, and to help them while away the time, we cover a topic also associated with earlier Blackadder seasons. We discuss modern interpretations of British folk tunes and lyrics from the Middle Ages leading us to Steeleye Span, Dead Can Dance, and Loreena McKennitt. We also discuss the strange Medieval connections to our shared alma mater, and Drew struggles to recall a relevant class he took (look, it's been a decade or two). The class, by the way, was Arthurian Legends. So there you go.