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.
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.
Previous Episodes
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May 23, 2025 “Andor” season 2767 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 1764 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.
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April 25, 2025 “Hackers” and “The Net”
763 You’re in the Gibson Area Now
The year is 1995. The films: “Hackers” and “The Net,” in which computers are proven to be dangerous for society. One is a ridiculous movie about teen hackers that knows it’s silly, and the other is a ludicrous thriller about adult hackers that doesn’t.
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April 18, 2025 “Severance” season 2
762 Wolf in Goat’s Clothing
Huff some ether, dress for an ORTBO, and always keep an eye out for a private place beneath a tarp—we’re here to discuss the second season of “Severance,” a story that goes beyond the first season with some twists and turns that might be Kafkaesque, but are definitely Kafka-ish.
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April 11, 2025 “Mimic”
761 Exposition Ant Farm
Spray on some insect repellant and don your hazmat suit, because Del Toro Club has re-formed to discuss a gigantic layer cake of infinite bugs, 1997’s “Mimic.” Parts of it are very Del Toro indeed, while other parts leave us scratching our heads about why something that had a whole lot of potential ended up playing as a pretty good B (not bee!) Movie instead. Are the Weinsteins to blame? (Yes.)
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April 4, 2025 Remake/Reboot Draft
760 Send Them to the Sea
In a world full of creative projects turned into intellectual property, our panelists join together to choose remakes and reboots that please us, those that displease us, and those items that are out there, waiting to be remade.
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March 28, 2025 “Flow” and “The Red Turtle”
759 The Rapture, but Also for Birds
Our Ghibli Club gets together to discuss 2016’s “The Red Turtle,” an unusual Ghibli coproduction, as well as this year’s Oscar winner for Best Animated Feature, “Flow.”
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March 21, 2025 SNL Draft II
758 I’m Glad You Have This Sketch to Enjoy
In honor of the 50th anniversary of “Saturday Night Live,” six of us create custom-built episodes of SNL by participating in a fantasy draft of sketches, hosts, musical guests, commercial parodies, digital shorts, and more.