Untitled Sci-fi Show

Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! The Untitled Roulette has sent Rob and Tom into the Shimmer for Alex Garland's Annihilation (2018). Beautiful scenery, fucked-up wildlife and a bear that absolutely nobody wants to meet. We both enjoyed it. Naturally, we spend most of the review picking it apart. There's a shit-ending debate before we've even explained the plot, so Rob attempts another very quick, very dirty rundown. Natalie Portman heads into a mysterious expanding zone to find out what happened to her husband, Oscar Isaac. Plants are becoming people, animals are borrowing bits of other animals, and apparently DNA works like light through a prism. Which raises the obvious question: how exactly are we emitting all this DNA? The answer gets exactly as stupid as you'd expect. We get into the lighthouse, the suspiciously well-charged camcorder, the T-1000 tribute act and whether the person who comes back is actually the person who went in. There's a missing six days nobody can account for, some very relaxed quarantine procedures, and Gemma's entirely reasonable question about why the next expedition hasn't been given any fucking protective equipment. The more we try to explain the ending, the less sure we are what happened. This is going well. But the art and sound design? Absolutely haunting. We talk mutated crocodiles, the soldier in the swimming pool and, finally, the bear. The horrible, screaming, skull-faced bear. Best character in the film. Worst thing to hear coming down the hallway. There are Nope comparisons, competing alien theories and the realisation that we might have to read a book to settle any of this. Before all that, we've been to Blackpool for a nerdy boys' weekend at Retro Replay Play Expo. Arcade machines, pinball, original consoles and an alarming amount of Counter-Strike 1.6. The Norbreck gets its own review: the plywood wing, three rooms apparently allocated by Goldilocks, a window frame threatening to leave the building and beer that makes Carling look ambitious. Would we stay again? Somehow, yes. The Roulette spins again, and this time there's considerably less reluctance about the next film. You'll have to listen to find out what it is. Final spoiler warning: we discuss the whole of Annihilation, including the ending. If you hear someone screaming for help, maybe don't open the fucking door. Social Details : Find us on Twitter, Instagram, Threads, BlueSky and TikTok with @_UntitledSci-fi and @_Channel84. Facebook, you can find us with Studio:Channel84. We are part of the Studio:Channel84 network and are featured on their site https://channel84.co.uk. Find all about our old episodes including all Guess the Intro answers and film scores over on https://untitledscifishow.co.uk/. Finally, why not e-mail us: Rob mailto://[email protected] TJ mailto://[email protected] Both Hosts mailto://[email protected] The Untitled Sci-fi Show and USS Shitshow intros were created by the fantastic Reed Reimer, Fable Factory. All of their contact info can be found below. https://fablefactory.org/ FB: @FableFactoryOrg IG: @fablefactoryorg TikTok: @fablefactoryorg Tw: @fable_org

Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! SPOILERS AHEAD! Rob and Tom go to Pandora for Avatar (2009), and only one of them came back blue with love for it. Rob's verdict: James Cameron being James Cameron, gorgeous world, story's shit, could be cut in half. Tom rates the tech, the mech suit and the giant bomber, and isn't fussed about the plot either. Rob also spent the first ten seconds asking what the fucking blue things are called. (Narvi. Sorry, Na'vi. Zelda's fault.) We argue about Unobtainium (yes, it's a real term, Tom checked), Jake Sully being a selfish cock, the pilot who never fired a single missile, the military supply guy who would definitely notice, why the Na'vi have four fingers and humans five, and what a ponytail does in a moment of excitement. There's a wakey-wakey moment you can't unhear. We also cover Disney's Pandora, floating mountains held up by magnets, and Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within. Before the film: Resident Evil (Rob thinks it's the film of the year, again), Shaun the Sheep: The Beast of Mossy Bottom, a failed Watchmen rewatch, Rob's Pokemon Emerald ROM hack, Alien: Isolation, Resident Evil 2 and its puzzle-only mode, and Rob's tactical game disaster. Guess the Intro is back: six sci-fi AI voices, and Rob lets slip who picked them. Lastly, the boys are actually both happy with the next Roulette pull. Social Details : Find us on Twitter, Instagram, Threads, BlueSky and TikTok with @_UntitledSci-fi and @_Channel84. Facebook, you can find us with Studio:Channel84. We are part of the Studio:Channel84 network and are featured on their site https://channel84.co.uk. Find all about our old episodes including all Guess the Intro answers and film scores over on https://untitledscifishow.co.uk/. Finally, why not e-mail us: Rob mailto://[email protected] TJ mailto://[email protected] Both Hosts mailto://[email protected] The Untitled Sci-fi Show and USS Shitshow intros were created by the fantastic Reed Reimer, Fable Factory. All of their contact info can be found below. https://fablefactory.org/ FB: @FableFactoryOrg IG: @fablefactoryorg TikTok: @fablefactoryorg Tw: @fable_org

Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! The Untitled Roulette has spun and landed on 1997's Starship Troopers. Would you like to know more? Rob and Tom wade back into Paul Verhoeven's fascist bug hunt and find a film of two halves: nearly an hour of Sweet Valley High in space that had Rob begging for the bugs to show up, followed by some of the finest shooty-shooty sci-fi action ever put on film. Tom reckons it was secretly meant to be a six-part TV series, and honestly, once you hear the theory, the maths checks out. There's the long-overdue return of the budget quiz ($105 million well spent?), a plot rundown featuring thick-as-shit Johnny Rico, narcissistic Carmen (she flies it like a cunt), poor doomed Dizzy, psychic mini-SS-officer Neil Patrick Harris, the legendary Michael Ironside, and Aldi John Barrowman getting his brain sucked out in the best practical effect of the 90s. They get into why the effects still hold up, why Casper Van Dien can't shout from the chest, why Rico should never have pulled that claw out, and the body count of 256. The wives steal the show with the two questions that break the entire film: how is everyone breathing on Klendathu, and why not just nuke it from space? It's the eagles-to-Mordor problem all over again. Plus: the Helldivers 2 love letter, the IMDb shame of Starship Troopers 2 and 3, and a correction about last episode's correction. We don't do corrections. Also this episode: a video game edition of Guess the Intro crowns a winner, Tom pitches Mars bars for Klingons (ridged for her pleasure), Star Trek IV on the big screen, an empty cinema for Raiders of the Lost Ark, Lee Cronin's The Mummy (new pants, anyone?), and why Tom unsubscribed from The Critical Drinker. Tom is thrilled with the next Roulette.... It's a long one, everyone. Sorry. Listening guarantees citizenship. Social Details : Find us on Twitter, Instagram, Threads, BlueSky and TikTok with @_UntitledSci-fi and @_Channel84. Facebook, you can find us with Studio:Channel84. We are part of the Studio:Channel84 network and are featured on their site https://channel84.co.uk. Find all about our old episodes including all Guess the Intro answers and film scores over on https://untitledscifishow.co.uk/. Finally, why not e-mail us: Rob mailto://[email protected] TJ mailto://[email protected] Both Hosts mailto://[email protected] The Untitled Sci-fi Show and USS Shitshow intros were created by the fantastic Reed Reimer, Fable Factory. All of their contact info can be found below. https://fablefactory.org/ FB: @FableFactoryOrg IG: @fablefactoryorg TikTok: @fablefactoryorg Tw: @fable_org

Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! Tom and Rob finally get around to watching one of the biggest science-fiction films of all time: Planet of the Apes (1968). After being randomly selected by Untitled Roulette, the original Planet of the Apes sends us into a world where astronauts crash-land on a mysterious planet... only to discover that the apes are in charge and humans are the primitive ones. But does this 1968 sci-fi classic still hold up? We talk about Charlton Heston's rather unpleasant protagonist, the film's famous twist, the surprisingly clever social commentary, the treatment of humans as animals, the different ape societies, religion versus science, segregation, the makeup and practical effects, the locations, the filmmaking and that Statue of Liberty ending. We also get distracted by guns that apparently don't have magazines, unnecessarily long spinning spaceships, terrible green-screen, old-school filmmaking techniques and the question of exactly how the hell the apes acquired assault rifles. And, naturally, we finish with another spin of Untitled Roulette — which reveals the film we're watching next. Social Details : Find us on Twitter, Instagram, Threads, BlueSky and TikTok with @_UntitledSci-fi and @_Channel84. Facebook, you can find us with Studio:Channel84. We are part of the Studio:Channel84 network and are featured on their site https://channel84.co.uk. Finally, why not e-mail us: Rob mailto://[email protected] TJ mailto://[email protected] Both Hosts mailto://[email protected] The Untitled Sci-fi Show and USS Shitshow intros were created by the fantastic Reed Reimer, Fable Factory. All of their contact info can be found below. https://fablefactory.org/ FB: @FableFactoryOrg IG: @fablefactoryorg TikTok: @fablefactoryorg Tw: @fable_org #PlanetoftheApes #CharltonHeston #SciFiPodcast #Podcast

Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! We've done something slightly different this time. After the last episode of The Variety Show with Tom and Rob saw Tom and Rob answer five questions about themselves, we've decided to continue the experiment over here on the Untitled Sci-Fi Show. This time, Rob is asking the questions — and Tom has absolutely no idea what he's letting himself in for. Across five questions we talk about the games we can never get bored of, the films we'll happily watch again and again, things that everyone else seems to love but we absolutely don't, where we'd go if we had a time machine, and finally which fictional universe we'd choose to live in. Naturally, things don't stay sensible for very long. We get deep into The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, Banjo-Kazooie, Tomb Raider, The Lord of the Rings, Constantine, Toy Story, Star Trek, Pokémon, The Terminator, Jurassic Park and plenty more. There's also a lengthy rant about reality TV, a rather passionate explanation of why football isn't heroic, some surprisingly depressing thoughts about travelling back to the 1990s, and an extended investigation into whether Pokémon trainers are basically running an underground animal-fighting racket. So basically, exactly the sort of intellectual discussion you've come to expect from us. This is Part 2 of our Five Questions special. If you haven't heard Part 1 yet, head over to The Variety Show with Tom and Rob and listen to the first five questions before joining us here. And don't worry — we'll be back to our normal sci-fi nonsense soon enough. Social Details : Find us on Twitter, Instagram, Threads, BlueSky and TikTok with @_UntitledSci-fi and @_Channel84. Facebook, you can find us with Studio:Channel84. We are part of the Studio:Channel84 network and are featured on their site https://channel84.co.uk. Finally, why not e-mail us: Rob mailto://[email protected] TJ mailto://[email protected] Both Hosts mailto://[email protected] The Untitled Sci-fi Show and USS Shitshow intros were created by the fantastic Reed Reimer, Fable Factory. All of their contact info can be found below. https://fablefactory.org/ FB: @FableFactoryOrg IG: @fablefactoryorg TikTok: @fablefactoryorg Tw: @fable_org #UntitledSciFiShow #TomAndRob #Podcast #SciFiPodcast #FiveQuestions