This week the crew dives into everything from the enduring appeal of Star Trek and classic science fiction to Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey, Saturday morning superheroes, and the ever-growing spoiler problem surrounding the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Then it’s on to the Future or Now segment, where Linux experiments with collaborative computing, the Large Hadron Collider may have stumbled onto an unexpected clue about dark matter, and the hosts speculate about what Spider-Man: Brand New Day means for the future of Marvel.

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Real Life

Ben kicks things off with a reminder that, in his opinion, all Trek is good Trek. That naturally leads into a discussion about the six Star Trek movies featuring the crew of the USS Enterprise and why the franchise continues to find new fans across generations. He also revisits Carl Sagan’s Contact, arguing that both the novel and the Jodie Foster film remain some of the finest examples of thoughtful hard science fiction ever created.

Devon brings a dose of nostalgia with the return of Blockbuster Game and Movie Quotes, revisiting the classic video rental era and the memorable quotes that defined countless movie nights.

Steven reviews The Odyssey, sharing spoiler-filled thoughts on the film’s strengths, historical accuracy, and breathtaking presentation. His recommendation is simple: if you have the opportunity, see it in IMAX. One unexpected highlight was the Cyclops sequence, whose visual style reminded him of surreal 1990s rock music videos, channeling the atmosphere of bands like Pearl Jam and Nine Inch Nails. Steven also revisits X-Men ’92, X-Men ’96, and X-Men ’97, praising how well the original animated series portrayed its female characters. Better yet, his kids were immediately hooked after watching the iconic two-part opener, Night of the Sentinels.

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Future or Now

Ben explores the surprisingly underdeveloped world of multi-seat computing on Linux after reading an excellent write-up on the subject at https://blinry.org/multi-seat-wayland/. While the Wayland protocol already supports multiple users sharing a single computer remarkably well, many surrounding applications and libraries still lag behind. The project demonstrates exciting possibilities for collaborative gaming, pair programming, classrooms, and other shared computing experiences. He also highlights the cooperative physics game Heavenly Bodies (https://store.steampowered.com/app/1138850/Heavenly_Bodies/), whose unique gameplay feels like the perfect showcase for this kind of multi-user setup.

Devon heads underground—literally—to CERN, where researchers continue investigating mysterious “unidentified falling objects” inside the Large Hadron Collider. According to a recent article from ScienceAlert (https://www.sciencealert.com/ufos-in-the-large-hadron-collider-may-be-hints-of-dark-matter), tiny dust particles unexpectedly drift into the proton beam, disrupting experiments. The bigger mystery isn’t the dust itself, but what causes it to move in one of the cleanest scientific instruments ever built. Some physicists now wonder whether these events could be indirect hints of dark matter interacting with the detector in ways nobody anticipated.

Steven wraps things up with thoughts on Spider-Man: Brand New Day, using it as a springboard to discuss the modern spoiler culture surrounding the Marvel Cinematic Universe. With audiences dissecting every trailer, casting announcement, and leaked set photos months before release, the hosts debate whether the excitement of surprise has largely disappeared. Along the way, Ben poses one of the episode’s more important questions: If it’s a gray movie… should Hulk be gray too?