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Our troubles in space finally reach their end with the fiery duo of Danny Boyle's Sunshine and Paul Anderson's Event Horizon, a match made in Hell(literally, in part). A star-stacked ensemble led by Cillian Murphy flies too close to the Sun trying to save our species from solar winter, and we reunite with Dr. Alan Grant(who still isn't feeling better after his visit to a mental ward courtesy of Sutter Cane)in orbit around Neptune to explore the eponymous rediscovered deep space vessel. Where did it come from? Where did it go? Will it show us secrets or kill us slow.....Ben folds a piece of paper and pokes a hole through it to show Charles the concept of a wormhole; Charles has been listening to the distress signal, and he may have made a mistake in the translation...

It's time to leave our solar system with Chris Nolan's space survival epic, Interstellar. Featuring black holes, quirky robots, mountainous waves, surprise Matt Damons, tasty cornfields, and lots and lots of gravity, we refuse to go gentle into that good night as we watch McConaughey struggle to save the species and return to Earth before his kids die of old age. Ben has a cue light he can use to show you when he's joking, you can use it to find your way back to the ship after he blows you out the airlock; Charles has an honesty parameter of 90%, absolute honesty isn't always the most diplomatic nor the safest form of communication with emotional beings.

This week we're leaving Earth's near vicinity for a pair of films that have the red planet in the mix. One's a story of rescuing Matt Damon(good thing we've narrowed down which one of those it is in the title)and the other is a chilling little sendup of Alien that happens WAY closer to home. Ben doesn't want to come off as arrogant here, but he's the greatest botanist on this planet, Mars will come to fear his botany powers; Charles is definitely gonna die up here if he has to listen to any more of Commander Lewis's god-awful disco music.

After a long lunar layover we resume our trouble-in-space block with a pair of tension-filled nailbiters in the genre; one a visceral physical struggle, the other a moralistic conundrum. Although both of these have extraordinarily low character counts we manage to completely fail to bring it up due to Charles' frayed nerves upon watching both of these back-to-back. Ben goes for the all-time space walking record; Charles contemplates the epi-pen of doom.

We break orbit with our fictional odyssey for now and turn towards the non-fiction odyssey of the human race's quest for space(and its subsequent troubles)with a pair of star-studded films centering on Apollo Mission astronauts. The events depicted in these films are less than a year apart, though nearly a quarter-century passed in real time between movies, and make for engaging contrast in our discussion(also, Ben knows a lot about space). Ben doesn't care about what anything was designed to do, he cares about what it CAN do, if they can make a washing machine fly he can land it; if anyone from the IRS is listening, Charles forgot to file his 1040 return, he meant to do it today, but, uh...

We begin our tour of things going wrong in space with the landmark Kubrick classic and its follow up from over fifteen years later, written by sci-fi titan Arthur C. Clarke. Put your investigative crew into hibernation and make peace with Soviet cosmonauts as we throw ourselves into alien monoliths and down psychedelic space tunnels. Charles thought this mission would be easy as cake, what happened to Russian commo sense? Ben can see he's really upset about this, and honestly thinks he ought to sit down calmly, take a stress pill, and think things over.

We wrap the 2nd annual Spooktacular with the third of John Carpenter's apocalypse trilogy, his ode to HP Lovecraft starring Dr. Alan--er, Sam Neill as a claims investigator who gets a tad more than he bargained for. Ben asks Charles if he ever told him his favorite color was blue; Charles says to never, never, never.....throw chips at a driver.

The second annual Spooktacular kicks off with the spine-tingling chiller centering on a young woman fleeing from a horrible supernatural force in the form of an STD(the D is for demon). Ben thinks some firearm training is a great idea, and asks Charles if he can see the lady in the yellow dress; Charles says it's been three days so everything should be fine, he may just go for a swim at the community pool.

We must train ourselves to let go of those we are afraid to lose, or those we must wait years until another season comes about to see again. For now our travels with Mando and his little green friend are over as we pore over the final two chapters of season two; The Believer, and The Rescue. Ben suggests a toast to Operation Cinder, he doesn't just know it, he lived it...he was in Burnin Konn. Charles wants the Darksaber, but he can't take it, it must be won in battle. Without that blade, he's a pretender to the throne.

The middle section of season two has some new places and old faces for us to see, along with a lot of stormtroopers that were apparently in dire need of being brutalized. As we take our tour of episodes The Siege, The Jedi, and The Tragedy we reminisce on the future, the past, and old friends long gone. Nostalgia tries to take hold, but Ben has seen what such feelings can do to a fully trained Jedi Knight, to the best of us. All Charles wants is his armor, his chain code has been encoded in that armor for twenty-five years.

We've been quested to continue on into season two. If we can find other Mandalorians, they can help guide us. May as well take the space turnpike back to Tatooine since it's been so long, but hey! Familiar sights can lead to welcome surprises, and the second season of the Disney Plus flagship show has many of those in store. Beginning with episodes The Marshal, The Passenger, and The Heiress we follow Mando and his little green friend as they bounce from one misadventure to another, looking for the mythical enemy wizards with whom the child belongs. Technically, Ben should be under arrest, but these are trying times and he apprehended three priority criminals from the wanted register. Charles has never met a real Mandalorian, heard stories. He knows they're good at killing, and probably none too happy to see him wearing that hardware.

Our time with season one comes to an end as we pore over the final two chapters, The Reckoning and Redemption. We learn the names and histories of our central heroes, and finally meet the architect of all our pain, the sinister Moff Gus--er, Gideon, that's it, Gideon. Along with Iggy, Nick Nolte and the 501st, the gang's all here for our grand showdown with the leftovers of the Galactic Empire. Ben finds it a shame that your people suffered so. The Empire improves every podcast it touches, judge by any metric; the assurance Charles gives is this - he will act in his own self-interest, which at this time involves your listening and benefit.

Our trip through the first season continues with the middle block: Sanctuary, The Gunslinger, and The Prisoner. From space orcs to familiar space ports to Bill freakin' Burr, we follow along as Lone Wolf and Frog try to stay ahead of the bounty hunters' guild and the Imperial client that hired them. As for Ben, he's one of the best triggermen we've seen. Former Imperial sharpshooter(not a stormtrooper, wise-ass!). Charles tries to spend some time relaxing in a backwater common house, but it's already taken.

A little Ugnaught told us it was time once again to switch formats, this time to television. We tried pushing back, we tried stalling, but he had spoken. And so, bounty pucks in hand, we begin with season one of the Disney Plus flagship series, spanning the first three chapters The Mandalorian, The Child, and The Sin. How many of them had tracking fobs? All of them. ALL of them! They hate Ben, because he's a legend. Charles offers him advice before shaping the beskar ingots; When one chooses to walk the Way of the Podcaster, you are both hunter and prey.

Fresh off creating our own Viking sanctuary, we head back to the 90s to create the perfect theme park. From Ferris Wheels to Mango Madness, we strive(with help from Charles' wife)to make all the biggest and best rides...and there's no doubt, our attractions will drive kids out of their minds. Ben wants to make the first ever totally upside-down coaster, sparing no expense; Charles can't figure out the computer track controls, he hates this hacker crap.

Lo there do I see my father; lo there do I see my mother, and my sister, and my brothers. Lo there do I see the early access Viking survival sandbox hit, Valheim. We try to earn our way to Valhalla with happy bees and longship expeditions into hostile territory, while building up our stores at the Great Oak Homestead. Ben could eat another bite, please pass the blood pudding; Charles wants to master his axe and hammer in the legendary Rock Dojo.

We say goodbye to Killers, and now the hunted become the Hunters! Well, actually we can't hurt these killers either, but we can call them names. We give ourselves a spook with last year's surprise early access phenomenon, the psychological ghost-hunting horror dispenser Phasmophobia. Can we get photos of infamous demon Karen White and survive? Only the Ouija board knows for sure. Ben asks inappropriate questions through the spirit box, while Charles tries to explain the scope of the paranormal energy levels with representation via Twinkie.

Escaping the zombie apocalypse of Left 4 Dead has landed us somewhere even worse - in the web of the mysterious and diabolical Entity. We roll up our sleeves to work on some gens and wipe off our knives and stabbing weapons to tackle the runaway hit Dead By Daylight from Behaviour Interactive. Ben insists that Charles quit stalking him, despite his insistence that he doesn't know what a Tier III is; Charles reasons that their friend doesn't need unhooking, they never would've ended up on that hook if they'd just been more carefulcarefulcarefulcareful.

Flying away from the wreckage of defeated Star Destroyers, we come back down to Earth to find a ravaged zombie hellscape awaiting us. We grab some pills and kill all sons-a-bitches with Valve's 2009 follow up to their seminal zombie shooter Left 4 Dead. After covering our time recently returning to the game we share some of our personal all-time favorites in the general topic section. Ben asks who died and made him gun monitor; Charles sadly tells him pretty much everybody, though it comes out a bit muffled due to being strangled by a Smoker.

Following the completion of our first year of publishing, we finally put the multi in our multimedia pod by making our first format switch, from movies to video games. So as not to make the circle incomplete, we return to our inaugural subject of Star Wars as the first object of focus - namely the 2020 team-based combat simulator, Squadrons. The better part of the episode is devoted to an overview of the game itself, mainly generalization of the concept and primary player experience, with the episode's back end given breathing room for us to speak on our past history with gaming as a hobby. Ben suggests nothing too fancy, flying is for droids; Charles gets no reading on that shield, up or down, but his friends are down there so don't worry.