The Review Show

Episode 313. It's finally here: the episode where Kyle makes Melissa watch a Gundam. We watched Mobile Suit Gundam I-III, three movies on Netflix that are abridged compilations of the original 1979 TV show. In a war-torn future, young Amuro Ray finds his way into a mech suit and struggles with the moral conflicts of becoming a soldier losing members of his newfound family. We discuss how Gundam is more about the tragedy of war than it is about pew-pew-pew space fights, characters who are introduced just to die, what purpose the little kids serve in the story, discovering the sadness in your workaholic dad, and how the plot of The Big O sounds cool until you get to the part where the giant robots are named "megadeuces."

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Episode 312. We read the first two volumes of the Love Everlasting, from Tom King and Elsa Charretier. This is a psychological horror comic about a woman who finds herself trapped in a series of stereotypical romance stories, never sure when she's really falling in love and when she's just going through the motions trying to get out of this story and escape. We discuss the variety of vintage romance comic tropes, the mysterious cowboy who enforces the rules of this world, finding true love at the end of your life, and comparisons to The Prisoner.

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Episode 311. We catch up to the current season of For All Mankind, as the show reaches the 1990s and begins the race for Mars, with a private company launching its own voyage alongside the USA and Russia. We discuss how the show has proven itself adept enough at drama in the early seasons to earn a few wild comedic moments now, having one specific human villain, and spending too much time on setup when we're ready to be introduced to a situation in media res. Kyle demands a sovereign colony on Mars. Melissa just wants Margo and Sergei to kiss again. We get very excited about homages to Lost.

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Episode 310. We watched the first two seasons of For All Mankind, an Apple TV+ drama that looks at an alternate world history where the space race never ended, with each season jumping forward years to see a new era of exploration. We discuss the balance of tense space missions with equally tense interpersonal drama at home, how the show feels sprawling but also limited in only showing us the American or Russian side, breaking narrative rules, surprisingly nuanced supporting characters, and one of the best season finale cliffhangers in TV history.

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Episode 309. We're talking on Sunshine, and don't it feel good! We watched the sci-fi thriller from director Danny Boyle and writer Alex Garland, about a space mission to launch a nuclear bomb that will revive the dying Sun and save Earth from death by ice age. The mission is thrown into chaos when the crew hears a distress signal from the first ship who attempted this mission and failed under mysterious circumstances. We discuss the cast of breakout stars and how the movie feels like it could be a hit new release this year and not a box office flop from 2007, strange stylistic choices, cosmic horror, a troubling haircut, and just what the 20th Century Fox logo is supposed to be. Is that a building? Can you go inside??

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Episode 308. It's an explosive start to 2025 as we watch all of the Bourne franchise: the trilogy of The Bourne Identity, Supremacy, and Ultimatum, the not-really-a-reboot The Bourne Legacy, and the attempted return to form with Jason Bourne. These movies follow an amnesiac secret agent as he attempts to uncover the corrupt government program that took his memories in exchange for deadly skills. We discuss the context of action cinema in 2002 and how the series adapted to industry changes like cinematic universes, the Matt Damon screen persona, the unique values of the oft-maligned Bourne Legacy, DVD bonus features, the Bourne Stuntacular at Universal Studios Orlando, and how these movies all have the same end credits sequence.

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Kyle and Melissa are here for a chill end-of-year celebration, looking back on our year in podcasting and looking ahead to our 2025 goals. We give out our Review Show awards, play a game of "What the Hell Were We Talking About?", run through our recent cinema experiences, talk about fancy cocktails and fancy mansions, and finally share our thoughts on the weird twist in the otherwise conventional neo-noir show Sugar.

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Episode 307. In our final Review Show of the year, we rewatched Severance before season two premieres in January! Employees at a shadowy mega-corporation can choose to undergo a "severance" procedure, where their brain is divided between work memories and personal memories. A group of severed employees who know nothing outside of their office start to wonder what the purpose of their work actually is, what their outside lives are like, and what it'll take for them to escape. We discuss the myriad mysteries of the show and how the character motivations are the most compelling secrets of all, Ricken's attempts at philosophy, the seemingly empty company town, new departments we want to see in season two, and Cobel's "Hey Arnold" shrine.

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Episode 306. We watched the 2018 limited series Escape at Dannemora, from director Ben Stiller. In this drama based on true events, two inmates start affairs with a civilian prison employee, and manipulate her to get them the tools they need to break out. We discuss how everything falls apart after the escape, the diegetic soundtrack of 2015 radio pop hits, tiny doll pants, and how a reference to Happy Gilmore has actual thematic resonance to the story.

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Episode 305. They should've sent a poet... instead they got podcasters. We connect with Contact, the 1997 sci-fi drama from director Robert Zemekis, based on a novel from Carl Sagan. Dr. Ellie Arroway has spent her life listening to the stars, and the stars finally have a message for her. Humanity scrambles to decode an alien transmission and determine what to do with this new knowledge, and what it means for their very concept of facts vs. faith. We discuss the story's approachable and universal take on "lowercase f" faith, the eccentric billionaire who lives in a plane, that legendary mirror shot, and the rare sci-fi story that's comforting more than it is cautionary.

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