Oi! Spaceman: Adventures In Media Criticism

In this episode, Daniel and Shana are once again joined by Jack Graham in a discussion of the now-five-months-old Christmas Special, "The Return of Doctor Mysterio." If it helps any, they don't discuss the actual story much, and instead mostly laud Superman III. Also, Daniel forgot to include the end credits on this one, and was too lazy to re-edit them back in, so you'll just have to figure out for yourself where to find future episodes of this podcast. 

They've taken some time off due to what we might call current events related depression, but Daniel and Shana are back chatting Doctor Who again, and have decided to ease back into the waters by talking about the incredibly noncontroversial "Rose" and "End of the World." Thankfully, they brought back Jack Graham who basically never has any complicated feelings about anything to help them come back with a minimum of fuss.  Main Topic: Rose and The End of the World. With special guest Jack Graham. Freedom fries. Current events and warm blankets. Connections. Not the TV Movie. Jack's callow youth. Cringey former self. Creature effects. Children's TV. Eccleston. Themes that will continue. Perfect Rafallo. 90210 in Space. Two names off limits. Comfy Who. Overinvested. Squaring the circle. Soap Opera Who. The world is turning. Small busy-ness. The cosmic and the mundane. Clive the Sam Seely. Who has heard of the Doctor? Occult Doctor. Hooray for the Bronze Medalists. The here and now. Jackie. Music. Narrative. Eart

We're kinda-sorta back from hiatus, back in the sense that we've finally produced a new episode, and kinda-sorta not yet because this was recorded way back in November.  Anyway, Daniel and Shana are joined all the way from Australia by Dom Kelly, a fan of the podcast whom they discovered when he started posting really insightful comments on the posts in the Oi! Spaceman Facebook group. One thing led to another, and here he is chatting about Stasis Leak, an episode that probably doesn't quite live up to the standard of the rest of the series. It's a fun conversation, though, and it was a blast to get to chat Dwarf with Dom. He'll back back.  Main Topic: Stasis Leak. With special guest Dom Kelly. That's your joke? Felicity Kendall. Licorice and lint. Lister's dick. Not a lot of leftist Dwarf fandom. Dom's history with Red Dwarf. Ignoring Daniel. Australia facts! Filler. Daniel's love for Kochanski. Pre-disaster Dwarf. Banana. Black and White. Not fulfilling character promise. Facial hair. The Cat's romantic lif

In this episode of Consider the Ray Gun, Daniel is joined once again by James from Pex Lives to discuss Frank Herbert's Dune. They spend a lot of time on the experience of reading the book, as well as some of the structural issues, and go fairly deep on the way the politics of the world work. Also, the question of what, exactly a moral person in this universe would look like, which has obvious implications for the world in which we all live.  Main Topic: Frank Herbert's Dune. Ambitious. Being Gene Mayes. Overall. Great not good. Not always. Warm blanket. Competence. Glossary. Ecology and philology. "Jihad." Islamophobia. Space white people. Oil and heroin. Time horizon. Democracy. Sympathetic. Callow Paul. Sequels and sex witches. Damn dirty Fremen. Twentieth-century Leto. Sympathetic Jessica. Gender essentialism. No misogyny. Alia. The mind and the world. Self-knowledge. Symbol versus referent. Moisture for the dead. Gay fat people are terrifying. Imperial politics. The Fremen as the win button. The psycholo

Daniel, Jack Graham, and Kit Power discuss the 2016 American presidential election, and what Donald Trump means for the world. Main Topic: The 2016 Election. Wrists. Fine. Clever. Remembrance. Catastrophe. Climate. Break. Pattern. Discovery. Savage. Memory. Map. Literally. Traits. Electorate. Popular. Godwin. Levity. Nazis. Rules. Material. Brownshirts. Movement. TV. Klan. Irrelevant. Disagree. Wolf. Shoulders. Scared. Shorthand. Toggle. Tipping. Ascension. Unusual. Superficial. Stability. Wind. Atwater. Dogwhistle. Able. Brexit. Chocolate. Establishment. "Intellectual." Mail. Ageist. Vulnerable. Shit. Neoliberalism. Leash. Numbers. Emails. Movement. Clooney. Black. Comprimised. System. Intentions. Bernie. Change. Jew. Lives. Marxist. Privilege. Education. Polls. Lawsuits. Ivanka. Animistic. Statistics. Silver. Yuge. Coverage. Table. Fox. Michigan. Factors. Suppression. Arrival. Notice. Incarceration. Slow-motion. 13th. America. Phenomenon. Hope. Sunshine. Safety-pin. Decency. Parent. Gesture. Virtue-signal.

In this episode, Shana and Daniel are joined by Big Finish's Elliot Chapman in chatting Thanks For the Memory. This is another fairly dark episode of Red Dwarf, with plenty of meat on the bone regarding personal histories, (the lack of) consent in altering Rimmer's mind, how we construct our selves through our memories, and the way that sandwiches can be simultaneously very wrong and very right. Also, sad but friendly parties on desolate planetoids.  Main Topic: Thanks For the Memory. With special guest Elliot Chapman. Fluffing my ego. Hugh Grant. Pretext. Elitist Elliot. British history of comedy. Low-budget entertainment. Discovery. BBC Hitchhiker's. Well-known edgy poet. Series Two versus Series One. Sad. Red Dwarf progenitors. Antagonistic. Death-day. Guitar. A sad party. Forced together. Rimmer the go-go dancer. Social lubricant. Cold, dark, and empty. The Ribos Operation of Red Dwarf. Bowel surgery or babies? Not laughing. Not the engine. Constructed Memory. Metatext. Drunken haze. Consciousness and str

Shana and Jane are back chatting Steven Universe yet again, this time with a slew of strawberry references as they discuss the two Steven Universe episodes "Bubble Buddies" and "Serious Steven." Connie is introduced, and Ingmar Bergman, the Beatles, and Red Dwarf all get extraneous mentions.  Main Topic: Bubble Buddies and Serious Steven. Funky Flow. Connie. Wistfully so. Romantic gestures. Pearl and the Beaver. Garnet's positionality. Steven's bubble. Adolescent boy things. Mansplainy Steven. Plans and worms. Hubris. Rollercoaster. Foreshadowing. Mythology and depth. Flashbacks. Rose. Knot. Responsibility. Page-flipping. Moving on the Serious Steven. Strawberries. An extended aside on Bergman. Another extended aside on the Beatles. Butterflies. Adulting. Teacup ride. Temple metaphor. Murals. Organic worldbuilding. Giant strawberries. Buffy reference. Reminder. Serious is unemotional. Bigger on the inside. Earthy gems. Gravity puns. Tie-dye ukelele? Steven Pan. Faces of the pyramid. Prefiguring mythos. Extran

In this revamped pilot episode of Big Damn Shiny Heroes, Shana is joined by regular Oi! Spaceman guest Jessica from The Web of Queer in discussing the first episode of Firefly, "Serenity." Lots of discussion of gender norms, "Captain Tightpants," male gaze, and Kaylee are found within. Enjoy! Main Topic: Serenity. Recasting the Pilot. More affable. Browncoats. Histories. Dragon*Con. Into the episode. Daniel versus Shana. Battle scene opening. PTSD Mal. Masculinity. Male gaze. Interrupted male gaze. Kitchen table. Jayne and the gynecology joke. Asshole actors and asshole characters. Brotherly love. Subject versus object. Interiority through direction. Nostalgia. Snappy Whedon. Performance. Ambassador versus whore. Zoe's rape joke. The Reavers are Chaotic Evil. Simon's disconnect from reality. The use of Chinese. Appropriation. Twitter would tear it apart. Family for the audience. Fanlore and approaching the show. Strawberries. "What the tattoed guy says." Unpopular opinions. Whedon's optimism. Singing the them

In this darker-even-than-usual episode, Daniel and Shana discuss the depths of Rimmer's on-screen personality as it's revealed in the Series Two episode "Better Than Life." There's a significant amount of conversation centering around child abuse, and mention of the book Addicted to Hate, which details the physical and emotional abuses heaped on The Westboro Baptist Church's Fred Phelps onto his small children. Skip this one if such conversation will be too much for you.  Main Topic: Better Than Life. Not the book. Arnie, not Ace. Tripartite structure. "Rimmer's Abusive Past." Meanness. Skutter-blame. John Wayne and lambs. Look-and-feel. Hats. Lister and food. The Cat and utensils. "Before we knew he was a fascist." Transitioning to heavy shit. Cameron Crowe can learn some lessons. Abuse, torture, parenting, and authoritarianism. Malnourishment jokes. Withheld affection. "Aristotlian." Right-hand drive. Spores. "Trashy." Amatonormativity and the relationship escalator. Jam, ants, and brothers. Aspiring to be

In this episode of Consider the Ray Gun, Daniel is joined by Godbomb author and serious Robocop fan Kit Power in discussing a YA trilogy that meant a lot to Kit as a young man: The Tripods Trilogy. It's basically a romp through a faux-medieval Europe in which a century prior human beings were conquered by a race of invading aliens who use mind-control caps installed at puberty to create docility among the population. They have a wide-ranging conversation about the characters in the series, the way it's structured, what young adult fiction is meant to do, and the way slavery and imperialist ambition is portrayed in the series. They're also pretty sure John Christopher is a pretty right-wing asshole.  Get the books here.  Check out Kit Power's Patreon, where you can find links to all his other stuff. 

In this episode, Shana and Jane are back chatting about all things Steven Universe. Namely, Shana chats a bit about the new Golden Book version of The Answer, and they move on to chatting the wages of capitalism in Frybo and the nature of body horror in Cat Fingers. Also: what does it mean when Steven touches himself? Main Topic: Frybo and Cat Fingers. Taking charge. The Answer book. Metatext. Shana and Rebecca. "Girly." Interiority. More than a collector's item. Fry costumes and naked Steven. Relationships. Body horror. Crystal shards. Hidden backstory. "Something Jack would say." Exploited labor. Critique of capitalism. Marxist Zombie Thing. "Let's go be kids." Spaghetti Westerns. Pants. "Butt and gem." Musical cues. Pearl-centric. Birds? Hitchcock? Lost dead lovers. Scooby Doo kind of thing. Tentacles and capitalism. On to Cat Fingers. Use of magic. Shape-shifting. "Biorhythms yo." 80s Amethyst. Uncomfortable with the body. Personal confessions. Making it purr. Transformation. Leaving. Miyazaki reference.

In this episode, Shana and Daniel are joined by Jb Anderton of the Who37 podcast in discussing the first episode of Red Dwarf Series II: Kryten. What it means to be an artificial life form, oppressed domestic servants, and why one shouldn't date a fascist are among the topic of conversation. Also, a random Spinoza reference if that's your thing.  Main Topic: Kryten. With special guest JB Anderton of Who37. Coughing. Not the boys from the Dwarf. Correction. JB and Red Dwarf. Goofy ways to pass the time. Fits and starts. Why Kryten? Production value. Kryten the character. Soap opera. "Androids with BDSM clothes." David Ross. Design. Kryten's fanasies. Moldy coffee cup. "You threw the stick." Random Spinoza reference. Not on the pull. Clothes. "I serve, therefore I am." Rimmer the fascist. Marlon Fuckin' Brando. Esperanto. Part Odd-Couple-part-Buddhist. Non-human Kryten. "Does it matter?" Not slaves like dogs. Not ableist. Empathy. Cat interlude. Dating. So much pornography. Computer-laid. Setup and payoff. A Hi

In this episode, Shana and Daniel are joined once again by Jack Graham, this time to discuss the very last Classic Who story ever filmed: Ghost Light. As expected, they have a hard time staying on-topic, and even have extended digressions on Steven Moffat and steampunk. It's a fun conversation about all things related to Victorian science, Victorian imperialism, the ghosts of the past, and problematic representations. Enjoy! Main Topic: Ghost Light. The Bible. No one was asking for Daniel's input. Everything changes. Why? Peak cute. Jack catnip. Odd at thirteen. "Very British problems." Island people. Nimrod and Lot's wife. Rewatching. Logic. Dreamlike. Ace is really fucking queer. Wrestling, yes please. Two major problems. Snuffbox logic. "And now Jack feels pretentious." Radioactivity and intersubjectivity. The Doctor/Ace relationship. Professor/student. Relationships. Breakthrough? Delivering freeness. 2016 is not 1989. Context matters. Complaining to Andrew Cartmel. "You said it was cyberpunk, right?" Sub

In this episode Shana and Jane are back and chat all about relationships, geodes, messiness, and breakfast food.  Main Topic: Laser Light Cannon, Cheeseburger Backpack, and Together Breakfast. Doesn't make sense. "Mindful Education." Anxiety. Spirituality and meditation. "We'll probably cry." Laser Light Cannon. Dadliness. Amethyst the big sister. "Throw me at it!" Passive-aggressive Pearl. Leftovers. Rigid. Weak humans. Hot dogs. Flashlight. Compassion. Emotional labor. Apocalypse. The Tick. Imperfections. Buddhist packrats. Esoterica. Moving on to Cheeseburger Backpack. Goofy. Parenting. Mr. Queasy. Holograms. "Crystal Femmes." Hug. Fixed. Teleportation. Characterization through challenges. Moon goddess. Ascension. Together Breakfast. Disgusting. Map. "Is this a dream?" Time travel. Rose. Ruthie agrees. Out of control. Police. Not a mother. Steven's junk. Organic monster. Monstrous Steven. "Might call that four later." Relationships. Gooey-ness. Smoke Monster. Wild Strawberries? Fish and pizza. Suspicions.

Welcome to the first episode of Consider the Ray Gun. That's right, another day, another podcast thread. In a development that has been a long time coming, Daniel has decided to take a break from watching movies and television and is actually going to force himself to read books. This will be a catch-as-catch can kind of podcast, with a rotating series of guests, but in this one he's joined by friend of the show James Murphy of Pex Lives and City of the Dead, and together they chat about Robert Heinlein's controversial 1961 classic Stranger in a Strange Land.  Main Topic: Robert Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land. Personal. Starship Troopers. Juveniles. Counterculture. "Grokked a wrongness." Clever enough. Heinlein's sexism. Introduction to Jill. Changing books. "What a shithead I used to be." A man named Stinky. Racism between editions. James's experience of reading. Changes in tone. Hugh Hefner. Mike the carney. Learning how to laugh. Stock characters. Cantankerous. Stag party. Manifestations of homophob

Oh, look here, it turns out that instead of bowing to audience desires and actually continuing the Firefly content, Oi! Spaceman has started a new podcast thread. Oops. For those of you who are fans of animation and children's television and queerness but not particularly big fans of Daniel, this one is a real treat, as Jane (who many of you will remember from our The Time Monster episode, and a recent Moffat-oriented bonus) is joining Shana to discuss the Cartoon Network show Steven Universe, and episode or two at a time. In this one they discuss "Gem Glow" and the unaired pilot episode, and basically set out a lens through which they'll view the entire series.  Main Topic: Gem Glow and the Unaired Pilot. A Joke. Introductions. Alchemy. Sugar. Music. Dead Mom. "Cookie Cat." Unwilling square. Adorable Steven. Emotive Steven. Non-binary. Lars and Sadie. Character design. Introduction of the Gems. Emotional Garnet. Visuals. Foreshadowing. Centipeetles. Racial caricatures? Relationships. "Gems of color." Stole a

After a couple of weeks off from podcasting together, Daniel and Shana return to discuss the final episode of Red Dwarf Series One: Me2. Which should really have a superscript but does anyone care in this medium? Maybe it should be transliterated as "Me-Squared" on social media? Grammar pedants speak out on this monumentally important issue.  Anyway, Daniel and Shana discuss Gazpacho soup as a sort of Rosebud for understanding Rimmer's life, and question whether it was really as big a deal as Rimmer seems to think it is. Also, classism in food choices, Rimmer vs. Todhunter, unpaid electric bills, and possibly the greatest performance Danny John-Jules has given us yet.  Main Topic: Me2. Mugs Murphy. Naming convention. "Oh, Rimmer!" Control. April Fool's. Mission. Futurama plots. Critics. Never JFK or Ductwork or Prison. Invasion. Continuity. Specific. Stuck. Breakup. Legacy. Devices. Bubbles. A step back from literalism. Bashing the Skutter. Dickish. Cunt error. Performance. Feline. Charles Rimmer Kane. Hot Ga

Shana's still out for this episode, but Daniel is joined by recurring guest Jessica from The Web of Queer to give their hot take on the misandrist masterpiece Ghostbusters (2016). Lots of queer identity politics to mull over here, but for the most part this is a fun movie that made for a fun podcast episode, although possibly not as much fun as listening to sax.  Main Topic: Ghostbusters (2016). With special guest Jessica from Web of Queer. No Shana. Filler. Ruining childhoods. Jessica and 1984. Zeitgeist. Exploded. General thoughts. No buttons. Teenage boy. Why people come to Oi! Spaceman. The MRA villain. Not an MRA stereotype. Improv. Embedded. Power Rangers. Trading card. Boob armor. Gross internet. Racefail. West Side Story. Screwed up. First trailer. "Remember we have a nuke." Technobabble. Loving Kate Mackinnon. "I get it now." Force of nature. Salty parabolas. The Bill Murray. "Pansexual." Text versus subtext. Female friendship. Economics. Fanservice. Credits. Extras. Classified ghosts. Spoilers. Symb

Shana was out of town this week, so Daniel took the opportunity to pull out some bonus casual conversation he recorded back when Jane co-hosted on this podcast for The Time Monster. Despite beginning the conversation proclaiming his dislike of discussing the Moffat era, they ended up chatting about just that for most of the nearly two-hour running time of this podcast. Also you'll hear some of the Oi! Spaceman origin story and some very goofy jokes. Enjoy. Main Topic: A Casual Conversation About Steven Moffat. Krotons. Sleamball. Condescending Wendy. Alcohol. Titties. Punch-Drunk. "Okay, Steven Moffat." Aesthetics. 1992. "Blink" and humanity. Matt Smith hate. Listen is brilliant. Relationships. Asylum. Trauma. Pointed to. Chibnall and the writer's room. Puzzles. Series 6. Not Richard Hurndall. "Jack discovered us basically." Caitlin and Clara. "Control freak." Costuming. Jo. Progressivism. Wonder Woman. Essentialism. Problematic Davies. Moffat the feminist. Donna. Subverting tropes. Matt Smith. Forgetting. S

In this episode, Shana and Daniel chat about the Third Doctor's second story: Doctor Who and the Silurians. Genocide (maybe), laggy pacing, and fucking adorable married couple antics reign supreme.  Main Topic: Doctor Who and the Silurians. Nazi Godzillas. Titles. Hate having guests. Daniel was right. Pacing. Black and white. Pigtails. So married. Liz. Fulcrum. A37 and Z13. Squishy-squishy. "White Man Sit Down and Think." IT Crowd reference. Greatness. Lesbian innovation. "More like Twelve Monkeys." Noir Who. Peter Myles. Compression. White guys with clipboards. "Not my kink!" No sonic. Coup. The Upside of Dragging Ass. The Chick and the Doctor. Is the Doctor Right? Twilight. Alternate Hulke. Does the Brig have a point? Litter. Not genocide. Interpretation. Ambiguity. Palestinians. Allegory. Complication. Shades of gray. Bessie. One day, even here.... Excuse. Paperwork. Pet dinosaur. Missing. The one peacemaker. Nuance. Mind power in the bedroom. Jabberwocky. Boring biowarfare. Stupid faux-science. Continenta