The Incomparable Mothership
Hosted by Jason Snell
The Incomparable Mothership is the flagship of the Incomparable podcast network. It’s all about geeky media we love, including movies, books, TV, and more, featuring a rotating panel of guests and hosted by Jason Snell and friends.
774 A Very Photogenic Submarine
The Summer of Submarines joins forces with Old Movie Club to take on 1958’s “Run Silent, Run Deep,” starring Clark Gable and Burt Lancaster. It’s a tense thriller that has inspired sub and sci-fi movies for many decades. Erika’s gleeful reaction to the film’s abrupt ending may surprise you!
Previous Episodes
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July 3, 2025 “Crimson Tide”773 One Dog Is Too Many
The summer of submarines kicks off with 1995’s “Crimson Tide,” a taut character drama that pits a captain (Gene Hackman) against his XO (Denzel Washington) in a conflict that escalates as global tensions rise outside their nuclear submarine.
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June 27, 2025 “Love, Death + Robots”
772 The Compulsion of Art
With the guiding hand of Prof. Siracusa choosing the curriculum, we watch select animated shorts from the Netflix series “Love, Death + Robots.” John’s quest to find the perfect photorealistic CGI animation continues. Tony does his companions a solid if he’s ever killed on a moon. The others debate if they represent love, death, or robots. We try to reconnect with our inner pool-polishing robots. It’s a real team effort.
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June 20, 2025 “Doctor Who” season 2 wrap-up
771 Nothing Can Kill Doctor Who
The second (and final?) season of the BBC/Disney+ collaboration era of “Doctor Who” is at an end, and so our crew of fans is here to pick up the pieces and ponder what went right and (unfortunately) what went wrong. Where does this franchise go from here?
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June 13, 2025 “The Wheel of Time” season 3
770 At the Time It Was Written
We conclude (for now?) our coverage of the TV adaptation of The Wheel of Time, which was just canceled by Amazon. Three seasons in, we cover whether we think it is still worth watching despite cancellation (we do) and how well the show’s third (and final?) season fulfills the promise of it coming into its power.
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June 6, 2025 2025 Awards Book Club, part 2769 Wrestle a Book
Our Awards Book Club continues its run through the roses with a tougher than expected review of Vajra Chandrasekera’s “Rakesfall,” Adrian Tchaikovsky’s “Alien Clay,” and Kelly Link’s “The Book of Love.”
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May 30, 2025 “Cronos” (1992)
768 Eternal Clockwork Bugs
Guillermo del Toro’s career started small, with the small-scale vampire (sort of) horror (sort of?) movie “Cronos,” in which an old man finds a mechanical object containing a magical bug that gives him eternal life in the bad way. Meanwhile, young Ron Perlman hates his evil uncle but continues to do his bidding! It’s a fun 1992 throwback that is still recognizeably del Toro.
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May 23, 2025 “Andor” season 2
767 On a Farm Planet Upstate
From the skyscrapers of Coruscant to the pyramids of Yavin and with numerous stops in between, season two of “Andor” covers the rise of the rebellion and leads to the doorstep of “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story.” What makes it special among Star Wars series? Did season two improve on the groundbreaking first season? It’s Star Wars, so we break it down in detail.
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May 16, 2025 “Strange Days”
766 That’s 2K!
We return once more to 1995, this time for a movie set at the turn of the century! It’s “Strange Days,” a cyberpunk movie with only a little bit of cyber but a lot of punk, along with grease and stink.
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May 9, 2025 “Avatar”
765 Precognitive Moon
The highest-grossing film of all time is straight-up sci-fi and yet in 15 years at this place we’ve never talked about it. That ends now, as we put on our oxygen masks and venture out into the moon of Pandora to meet the local Na’vi and the interloper Sky People and discuss why James Cameron’s “Avatar” became an enormous hit and then disappeared entirely (other than the theme-park attactions) until re-emerging with a sequel that was also an enormous hit.
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May 2, 2025 2025 Awards Book Club Part 1
764 Books About Towers
Our walk through the 10 different novels nominated for the Hugo and Nebula awards in 2025 begins! In this episode we discuss “Sleeping Worlds Have No Memory” by Yaroslav Barsukov, “A Sorceress Comes to Call” by T. Kingfisher, and “Someone You Can Build a Nest In” by John Wiswell.