A podcast where geek-culture meets the real world … from the minds behind Dragon*ConTV. Everything from movies, television, science and news. Sometimes serious, mostly funny, always a little off-center.
Here’s a rare treat for you on WhatTheCast: an interview! We talk to author Scott Sigler, whose newest horror novel Nocturnal is coming out in April. Scott, one of the pioneers of podcasting novels, has turned many of those podcast novels into traditionally-published works. He’s a clever fellow with a lot of interesting things to say about publishing, 700-year-long story arcs, why Stephen King is his idol, the pain of turning a podcast into a written novel, why he tries to get the science right in his books, and why every single one of his novels should be turned into a Clone Wars-style show.
We survived the holidays and came through it stronger and with more board games! While Brian was off at GAFilk, Crispy valiantly resisted the siren’s call of Skyrim and everyone else resisted Star Wars: The Old Republic.
Speaking of video games, we ask why you need a PS Vita when you’ve got an iPhone or Android phone. The live-action Akira is on hold (this one’s for you, Joe Peacock!). We all love the BBC series Sherlock, but Crispy hates Amy Poehler and also puppies and America. Through listener email we learned about the Lord of the Rings musical (though, alas, it’s not dubstep). We end with a touching PSA from Patrick: if you move, change your mailing address at Amazon and other online retailers.
For after-dinner entertainment, we pitted Mission Impossible 4 against Sherlock Holmes: A Game of ThronesShadows, and everyone wins! Crispy likes the G.I. Joe 2 trailer, much to everyone else’s bemusement. And if you look under the tree you’ll find a Middleman/Doctor Who crossover fanfic, a new Louis CK special that he’s selling un-DRMed, an evil Apples-to-Apples-like game called Cards Against Humanity, and Kim Jong Il re-imagined as a DJ.
Remember when we talked about nostalgia last episode? Those were good times. This time, however, we’re talking TV, videogames, and the frightening number of musicals based on movies. Stephen is tentatively excited about Prometheus, Ridley Scott’s semi-prequel to Alien that’s coming out next summer. Muppets made Crispy choke up — just a little bit — and everyone experienced the surprise Shakespeare of Coriolanus, in which Voldemort faces off against That Dude From 300.
In videogame news, Crispy talks about the new Zelda game, Stephen talks about the older sequels such as Bioshock 2 and Brian is captivated by the spectacle of Desert Bus, which is now available for iPads. If ever there was a videogame suited for iPads, Desert Bus is it. There’s also talk of a TV show about Booster Gold, how there’s a musical version of Priscilla Queen of the Desert and Rocky, and we all have fun with the idea of Google Maps indoors. Also, Crispy really didn’t like how The Walking Dead ended its season.
In this episode, Crispy and Stephen fly tandem and discuss nostalgia and the plethora of reboots that plague genre media. They recap their ongoing experiences with Grim, Once Upon a Time, Batman, Deus Ex, and Fringe. Crispy talks about Zelda and the nostalgia we experience as new games and media are revamped, as was done to the Fallout and Golden Eye series. How much does nostalgia factor into our decision to buy and consume new media? Stephen talks about reboots, from the rumored Doctor Who movie to Star Trek, with Crispy chiming in on Batman, Sherlock Holmes, and Footloose. They throw the question to the listening audience: are there non-genre reboots like Hawaii 5-0 that they overlooked?
In other news, Stephen is obsessed with Breaking Bad and Crispy can’t stop talking about Muppets. Stephen now has Siri in his pocket and AT&T on his back, while Crispy is headed to Florida to visit Disney World. Since Patrick is leaving Florida, we had to replace him with another WhatTheCast host.
This episode, all four hosts assemble to make jokes about binary numbers and discuss Halloween. Crispy thinks Once Upon a Time is crazy, Patrick’s enjoying Death Valley, and Brian is suffering through Grimm. Speaking of grim, Patrick’s deadpool for TV shows is going poorly, as he picked shows that all are doing well.
On Feburary 8, 2007, Brian, Crispy and Stephen recorded the first test episode of WhatTheCast. Over the next four-and-a-half years we’ve produced many hours of geek-oriented programming. The podcast is older than Stephen’s daughter and Patrick’s marriage. It’s undergone countless changes.
So of course we made the same Zune jokes we’ve always made during our 100th episode.
Crispy and Stephen recorded Episode 100 at the Geek Media Expo 3.0. They discussed GMX, the new direction of WhatTheCast, using Fiber One bars as a measure of how good something is, and the death of Zune (complete with actual Zunes!). Since they recorded next door to the convention’s videogame room, they discussed Deus Ex: Human Revolution and Arkham City, along with that time that game designer Ron Gilbert argued with Steve Jobs about whether videogames could really tell a story. To kick off the next 100 episodes there’s new theme music and a new pixellated logo. Now we just need a new whipping boy to replace the Zune….
Join Crispy & Stephen for the 100th Episode of WhatTheCast (applause) at GMX this weekend (applause). Sunday at 10:00 AM in Forums East!
Brian won’t be able to attend due to a work trip (boo). He’ll be enjoying Taipei (yay) in the rainy season (boo) and missing out on all the free drinks (booooo). Patrick will also miss out (boo) because he’s in Florida (yay?).
Want to tell us what we should do for our upcoming 100th episode? Let us know! Want to see us live? Crispy and Stephen will be representing WhatTheCast at GMX in Nashville on October 21-23, and Brian will be speaking at Digital Atlanta 2011 on November 9th. And if you’ve got some spare time, why not check out the text adventures that were entered in the 2011 Interactive Fiction Competition?
This episode of WhatTheCast is brought to you by Audible. Check out http://audibletrial.com/whatthecast for a 14 day free trial of this great audiobook service.
It’s our annual live episode from Dragon*Con! We had Patrick, our sports reporter, giving us live updates from the Magic: The Gathering pro tour in Pennsylvania. Brian talked about Shatner’s explanation for Star Trek V‘s rock monsters, Crispy had a good time at the Jonathan Coulton and Paul and Storm concert, and Stephen was being stalked by Colin Ferguson. (Little did he know what bathtub scene awaited him after the podcast.) From there we discussed the BBC America premiere of the Doctor Who episode “Night Terrors”, geek proposals at Dragon*Con, Game of Thrones, drunk Tony Stark, and more. By the way, did we mention that we won a Parsec award?
Here’s a rare treat for you on WhatTheCast: an interview! We talk to author Scott Sigler, whose newest horror novel Nocturnal is coming out in April. Scott, one of the pioneers of podcasting novels, has turned many of those podcast novels into traditionally-published works. He’s a clever fellow with a lot of interesting things to say about publishing, 700-year-long story arcs, why Stephen King is his idol, the pain of turning a podcast into a written novel, why he tries to get the science right in his books, and why every single one of his novels should be turned into a Clone Wars-style show.
In this episode, Brian, Crispy and Stephen tackle 
