Episode 40: Space Shooters, Space Travel, and Marital Strife

Episode 44 · October 10th, 2015 · 1 hr 13 mins

About this Episode

It’s a nice round episode number, and all of the Screeners are back on...what are we calling this? “The air”? Sure—they’re all back on the air. It seems that the Facebook audience (that’s y’all!) was plenty interested in the last episode’s discussions, though, so Melody and Josh spend the first few minutes getting caught up on some of your favorite fight scenes. And as promised, here's the undeniable winner.

The Jumpiest of Cuts

After that, it’s straight into an extended Jump Cuts section. Chad’s recent viewing of the The Walk and its box office troubles have gotten the five thinking about the history of the box office bomb and asking themselves if there are any that don’t belong on Wikipedia’s list of the biggest flops in history. A preview: Keanu Reeves doesn’t do well.

Next, we hear how many movies Chad saw last week, and we get a brief tour of what everyone else has been watching recently. Josh’s answers just might surprise you.

The careful reader will have noticed that the last paragraph was short. That was intentional:  The length of the paragraphs reflects the relative importance of each Jump Cut. The description of our penultimate discussion will be much longer, because its topic, Destiny: The Taken King, might be the most significant video game release in many years—or, at least, the most significant release for the Screeners’ marriages. By virtue of simple majority, the Screeners welcome their new MMOFPSRPG (that’s a thing, right?) overlords. Chris, Chad, and Josh attempt to exorcise their addiction through conversation; Melody gives a voice to all the wives, girlfriends, and other victims of the game’s terrible power; and Daniel simply listens in silence as the train wreck unfolds. If the three gamers are lucky, maybe Chad cut out the part where they mentioned just how many hours they've each been playing...or maybe sunlight is the best disinfectant.

And assuming life after Destiny is even possible, the Screeners try to recover by talking about Kevin Bacon for some reason. Who are we kidding? Chris is the reason they’re talking about Kevin Bacon. Why else would they be talking about Kevin Bacon?

How Do You Like Them (Space) Apples?

Josh was playing Destiny instead of seeing The Martian, so all he knows about it is that the guy from Team America: World Police went to space and...can’t get back? Didn’t we just see this movie last year with the guy from the good season of True Detective? According to the other four Screeners who occasionally do go to theaters, no. And that’s as much as we’ll say about the review for now; if you want the rest, what are you waiting for? Go ahead and listen!

As always, join us for the follow-up on Facebook. Some of you already have chimed in about Kevin Bacon (and yes, Chris’s head grew three sizes that day), but we can’t wait to see the Destiny support group that will certainly spring up after our on-air catharsis. See you next time!