One Thing Worth a Rant

Star Wars Zero Company feels like the Star Wars I grew up with. Not the movies—the LucasArts games, the X-Wing novels, the trading card game. The old Expanded Universe, where stories happened inside the galaxy instead of orbiting the Skywalkers.Zero Company is a tactical, turn-based game set during the Clone Wars, but the interesting part isn't the war. It's the crew: a scoundrel with a personal moral compass, a Separatist partisan who lectures you about Republic imperialism, a discharged clone trooper carrying the weight of the war, and a rhyming toad-bulldog prizefighter who loves opera. The game never tells you which choice is right. It just asks you to pick.In this episode of One Thing Worth A Rant, I argue that the Jedi have become the most boring part of Star Wars—not because they're bad, but because Light vs Dark always drags the story back to a struggle we've exhausted. The sequels mistook the original story for what made the original world compelling. The prequels, ironically, were reaching for something more interesting: a democracy sliding into authoritarianism through ordinary choices about order, security, and obedience.Zero Company, Andor, The Bad Batch, even Galaxy's Edge work because they point the camera down—away from the mythic, toward the everyday. History viewed from eye level. Palpatine promises order; the Rebellion creates chaos. On good vs evil we know who to root for. On order vs freedom, is it so clear cut?Star Wars isn't literally better without the Jedi. It's better when it doesn't need them to carry the whole story.CHAPTERS 00:00 Star Wars and the Old Expanded Universe 01:09 Zero Company: The Crew 03:38 World Building 05:43 The Jedi Are the Boring Part 07:29 Gritty realism 09:55 Why Zero Company Works

Christopher Nolan's *The Odyssey* is the latest version of a story that's been rewritten for nearly 3,000 years.But does retelling stories actually preserve the past? Historical fiction selects, compresses, and dramatizes and with every retelling an new interpretation is layered ontop. Nolan's *The Odyssey* is a reminder of the relationship between history, myth, and cultural memory. And why every generation ends up rewriting the past in its own image.This isn't an argument that adaptation is bad. Stories have always changed in the telling. But when fiction becomes our primary connection to the past, it's worth remembering the difference between the story we inherited and the history underneath it.CHAPTERS00:00 Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey01:58 Homer Was Already Retelling the Past02:58 Nolan Adds Another Layer03:40 Translation Is Interpretation05:41 When Stories Become History06:06 The Myth of the 300 Spartans09:17 Hollywood Rewrites the Past11:39 Zero Dark Thirty Makes Memory in Real Time12:33 What Stories Actually PreserveSOURCES / FURTHER READINGHarvard — What to Know Before Seeing Nolan's “The Odyssey” Cambridge University Press — Telling Old Stories Anew: Homer's *Odyssey* as a Tale of Our Times Oxford Academic — Homeric Questions: Did Homer Exist and Is the *Iliad* Accurate? The Metropolitan Museum of Art — Mycenaean CivilizationPerseus Digital Library — Herodotus, *Histories*, Book VII

Ted Lasso was never really about football. It was about what happens when people stop performing, let their guard down, and allow themselves to be known.Spoilers warning including the opening episodes of Season 4.The show has always been less interested in sports than in the power of connection. As Ted returns to Richmond to coach a women's team, this episode looks at the show's real playbook: creating spaces where people can be seen without the performance.Through Ted's panic attacks, Roy's anger, Jamie's bravado, Nate's fear of rejection, the Diamond Dogs, and the friendship between Rebecca and Keeley, the series offers a different idea of resilience. One built on vulnerability, accountability, forgiveness, and belonging.That message lands in the middle of a real public-health crisis. The former U.S. Surgeon General warned that lacking social connection can carry a mortality risk comparable to smoking up to 15 cigarettes a day. Pew Research, meanwhile, found that men and women report loneliness at roughly equal rates, but women are more likely to draw on a wider network for emotional support.Ted is not a cure for the loneliness epidemic. It cannot replace friendship, family, therapy, or the difficult work of reaching out when we would rather hide. But it may be a remarkably good reminder of the cure's ingredients.Sources and further readingU.S. Surgeon General — Our Epidemic of Loneliness and Isolation (2023): https://www.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/surgeon-general-social-connection-advisory.pdfHHS — Social Connection advisory and action framework: https://www.hhs.gov/surgeongeneral/reports-and-publications/connection/index.htmlPew Research Center — Men, Women and Social Connections: https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2025/01/16/men-women-and-social-connections/Holt-Lunstad, Smith and Layton — Social Relationships and Mortality Risk: A Meta-analytic Review (PLOS Medicine, 2010): https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1000316Tirkkonen and Tietjen — Loneliness and Radicalization (Philosophy & Social Criticism, 2025): https://doi.org/10.1177/01914537251334550Sparks and Papandreou — The Manosphere and Men's Wellbeing (The BMJ, 2023): https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.p2947Apple TV — Ted Lasso Season 4 announcement and premise: https://www.apple.com/tv-pr/news/2026/04/apple-tvs-emmy-award-winning-global-smash-hit-series-ted-lasso-returns-for-season-four-on-wednesday-august-5/

Why can the US, China, and India dominate almost everything except football? Using player ratings, population, wealth, and Olympic data, this episode argues that World Cup success cannot be bought or brute-forced. It is grown through generations of culture, institutions, and squad depth.

A couple months ago, I stood on a beach looking towards Cape Canaveral, as we sent humans back around the moon for the first time in 50 years. And yet, I couldn't help thinking about a fictional alien made of rocks.Build your own tailored stories for children. Join the waitlist at https://lully.meNeed expertise in generative AI and audio? Visit https://podgen.dev

Star Trek promised immersion, but the real breakthrough might be dynamic stories you co-create with AI.Build your own tailored stories for children. Join the waitlist at lully.meNeed expertise in generative AI and audio? Visit podgen.dev

Join the conversation or make your own show. Behind the wizards, orcs, and hobbits, the themes of compassion and mercy in Lord of the Rings make it a perfect reminder of the holiday spirit. Made with Beams.fm. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/one-thing/message

Join the conversation or make your own show. The book tells us to beware the charismatic leader. Do we see the film as a cautionary tale about populism or a more superficial, if gorgoues telling of the story of Paul Atreides? Should it have been a series? Made with Beams.fm. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/one-thing/message

Is the electoral college a dumpster fire impeding democracy or a well-designed system designed to balance power? --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/one-thing/message

Of all the major sports, tennis might have the least equitable distribution of financial success amongst its professional players. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/one-thing/message

I think we can all agree one thing would improve this time of COVID is fewer clicks, pops, and hisses in every conversation we have. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/one-thing/message

Is the Easter Bunny another invention of modern consumerism or a folkloric icon of fertility? --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/one-thing/message

No one is going to survive the apocalypse based on how much toilet paper they've stocked up on. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/one-thing/message

There are few things people more stereo-typically associated with the United Kingdom then the royal family. But has the institution become yet another toxic battle line for the polarization plaguing us? --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/one-thing/message

Political masterstrokes or just plain idiocy? --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/one-thing/message

The end of the Star Wars saga is more than just the final film in the series. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/one-thing/message

One thing that’s worth caring about is the women’s world cup final. Not into football? Not into sports? That’s okay, because there’s more than a game at stake. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/one-thing/message