Nerds Conferred

If you want to hear two Trekkies geek out about Star Trek: Discovery and The Orville then Marc and Dana have got you covered!

Dana and Marc are back from summer hiatus to talk The Orville, Star Trek: Discovery, Inhumans, and every nerdy summer blockbuster that graced our screens during the hot part of the year.

Marc and Dana catch up on Agents of SHIELD's crazy perfection, touch on Guardians of the Galaxy, and somehow end up rambling about history. Dana apologizes for being basically still asleep while recording this, but at least it makes things amusing.

Dana and Marc discuss Agents of SHIELD's "All the Madame's Men" in a timely manner! As the episode was less narrative and more infodump, they touch on universe changes, logistics, world-building, character v. characterizaton, agency, and Doctor Leopold Fitz. Also unicorn frappuccinos for some reason?

Marc and Dana welcome special guest Will for a political break from our usual media geekery to discuss the French presidential election, world politics, and parallels and personalities of history. Because when we said we nerd out about everything we love we really meant it.

Dana and Marc haven't actually spoken for like a month, Agents of SHIELD is unbelievably good, and hence no one can focus on anything. Dana gets so worked up she can't stop swearing (mostly about FitzSimmons and the MCU), while Marc skips from Netflix's terrible new rating system, to DC, and a million things in-between. Idek, guys.

In this episode, Marc and Dana alternately enjoy and complain about the Academy Awards—because that's temporally topical. They get into Hollywood drama, entertainment industry politics, disenchantment with awards, a little film history, and why Crazy Ex-Girlfriend is infinitely better than La La Land.

So, Agents of SHIELD is on hiatus until April and Dana might possibly explode while Marc watches bemusedly. In this episode they discuss "Self Control" featuring robots, twists, character meltdowns, kickass fights, and Hydra Hydra Hydra! Also Dana screams.

Marc and Dana (finally!) catch up on Agents of SHIELD, discussing the way this "BOOM" and "The Man Behind the Shield" deal with terrorism, mad science, robot sentience, weird romances, Cylon & Inception Syndromes, Steve Rogers for some reason???, television deaths (Dana's trying to convince herself of things), and non-powered people in a powered world. There's a lot of excitement.

Marc and Dana discuss "Wake Up" and "Hot Potato Soup" with a lot of heartfelt earnest adoration and just general geeking over Agents of SHIELD fixing all of its problems. Because now it gives ladies with agency, lets people reject their awful parents, has every character play a role, does fantastic superhero politics etc. Here's hoping it can keep it up.

Marc and Dana are back playing catch-up in their discussions of Agents of SHIELD. Marc loves politics. Dana loves robots. The first two episodes back from winter hiatus were pretty much made for them.

Dana and Marc return to talk about two fantastic episodes of Agents of SHIELD (4x06 and 4x07), a little world-building, a lot of sci-fi, and the great writing that is knocking the ball out of the park in season four.

In which Marc and Dana, finally finding time, discuss Agents of SHIELD, Simmons (duh), television as entertainment versus television as intense narrative study, Westworld, and screenwriters.

Marc and Dana take a break from nerdy nerdery and get their history geek on, discussing their favorite Vice Presidents in honor of all the political debates this week.

Dana and Marc are back to talk about Agents of SHIELD being surprisingly good so far in its fourth season. Also Dana can't help but expand into Agent Carter and Luke Cage and Marc devolves into politics. [Recorded September 30, 2016—Dana was unconscionably busy which is why this is late.]

Dana doesn't shut up about Agents of SHIELD in general because the first episode of season four is good enough to set her off again. Marc generally agrees.

In celebration of Star Trek's 50th anniversary, Marc and Dana—giant Trekkie nerd extraordinaires—each picked their five* favorite episodes in all of Star Trek. (*This is a lie, they picked way more than five each.)

Marc and Dana discuss the Olympics! A bit late, but hey. Sports, politics, patriotism, nationalism, history, international politics, sociology, media coverage, the usual things you'd expect from these two. (We recorded this on 8/21--it took Dana this long to edit it. Apologies!) Here's the article about sports as religion: http://nautil.us/issue/39/sport/to-understand-religion-think-football-rp

Marc is back! Dana is back! They talk about sports, politics, current events, identity, and all the kinds of fandom. Nerdery! Sportsery! Conflict! Economics! Anthropology! Jocks and nerds are the same! Omg, guys!

While Marc is on his honeymoon, Dana takes the opportunity to get way in-depth with media theory, literary history, the science fiction genre, romance and gender norms, and basically anything else you can think of all in the service of explaining how much she adores Fitz and Simmons on Agents of SHIELD. She gets historically specific, weirdly technical, and uncomfortably personal by turns. And she maybe explains about half of her love. It's a deep love. Citations! https://raygunsmustbedisabledatalltimes.wordpress.com/2016/07/25/citations-for-the-fitzsimmons-special/

Marc and Dana take on Brexit, the European Union, corporate media driven misinformation, normalizing narratives, and right-wing science fiction dystopias. (Apologies from Dana for the echo; she's moving soon and her recording space is empty.)

Marc and Dana are back for the summer! But first we felt like we needed to go back and talk about Civil War which has no depth. Boo. We also talk about comics, Star Trek movies, and stuff. Bonus fun, the episode of Vidiots Video Store Show about Civil War is here: http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/vidiots-video-store-show/e/text-message-theatre-captain-america-civil-war-44392628

Dana and Marc talk way too long about crap seasons, comics, mainstream-Whedon, continuity and world-building, sci-fi science, cancelled shows, and some future theories.

Dana and Marc finally return to their Agents of SHIELD commentaries in what turns into an unofficial FitzSimmons special discussing 3x18 "The Singularity." Dana alternately: shouts, beats pillows, squees, cries, and generally loses her shit. Marc amusedly spurs her on.

In the first official (test) Nerds Conferred Panel, Dana and Marc are joined by Aram and Will to discuss Batman v. Superman's miserable failures touching on DC Comics canon, squandered narrative possibilities, franchise-building fail, and the political implications of superheroes. WE PROFUSELY APOLOGIZE FOR THE AUDIO QUALITY. This was a logistical test.

Marc and Dana talk about what Agents of SHIELD does when it does good (and 3x17 "The Team" is very good), Dubsmash Wars, random film history, FITZSIMMONS, Captain America movies, and universe interconnectivity.

Marc and Dana discuss Hydra factions, Women in Refrigerators, and superpowers kind of sucking. Also some Doctor Strange and Ta-Nehisi Coates' Black Panther #1. Dana breaks up with Agents of SHIELD. Marc goads her about Simmons. They both forget to talk about Milton's Paradise Lost, alas.

Dana rips Agents of SHIELD 3x15 "Spacetime" to shreds while Marc mostly listens.

Dana and Marc discuss Agents of SHIELD 3x14 with world-building, cult storytelling, and universe connectivity. Also sci-fi Nazis, Borg Collectives, and DC playing catchup.

Launching from Agents of SHIELD 3x13, Marc and Dana discuss global security, spin-offs, and narrative utility. Also Agent Carter. And Hydra. And everything else.