The 42cast

The 42cast is proud to welcome Chicago-area actor, teacher, and science-fiction fan, Stephen Pickering , to the show this week. Stephen joins the show to talk about his career in acting – starting with roles in movies like She’s Having a Baby and The Untouchables and most recently on the upcoming film, The Gray Girl. We discuss acting in different settings, teaching acting, the difficulties and cr...

The 42cast is proud to welcome back the one and only, Ms. Emma Dumont . In this episode, Emma comes on the show for the inaugural episode of EmandEn where she and Nathan talk about whatever strikes their fancy. This first episode was recorded on 5/27/2023, but various personal and technical hurdles kept us from sharing it right away. So, it is with great pleasure that we share this episode with yo...

Shazam was a surprise release from DC in 2019. The movie saw an effort to move away from the dark and gritty storytelling that had characterized DC movies since the late 80’s and move it back towards a more amusing bent. The movie was not as expensive as the more recent DC films so even it’s somewhat modest performance at the box office earmarked it as a success. In this movie we discuss its seque...

Jessica Jones was a popular series as part of Marvel’s “edgy” series developed for Netflix. The series can currently be found on Disney+. In this episode we take a look at Jessica Jones season 3. We discuss the evolution of the characters and and the development of themes that extend back to the beginning of the series. We talk about the overall plot of the series and what we think of the various...

As Strange New Worlds comes back to our screens, our panel discusses the first season. We discuss the cast, how we feel about the depiction of the legacy characters, and what we think about the new ones. We talk about the overall series concept and whether we like a return to an episodic format. We debate the use of “Kirk” and how two clever twists worked and whether we think future appearances wi...

The 42cast is proud to welcome members of the Odyssey Now project to our show! Odyssey Now investigates, educates, and develops information and hardware regarding the Magnavox Odyssey, the very first video game console. The Odyssey is 50 years old, so we thought it would be a great idea to highlight the tremendous work that these people do. To that end, we have project director Dr. Zachary Horton...

Time travel is one of the classic expressions of science-fiction. H.G. Wells went there with his time machine and Hollywood has gone to that well many times and told us many stories with that idea as their basis. In this episode we do a deep dive on time travel. We discuss the methods and philosophies of time travel that we’ve seen in various stories. We’ll talk about our favorite stories with tim...

Marvel seems to be getting bigger and bigger all the time. Recently, though, they’ve reversed course and brought us their tiniest tale of all. It’s a story with small stakes that’s about coming together as a family, commumication, and weird hobbies. Of course we are talking about Ant Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. Come with us as we talk about the plot, characters, performances, and how we think t...

Cloak & Dagger was one of the projects produced by the old Marvel TV group. In the days before Disney+, Marvel TV produced many hits including Agents of SHIELD and the six Marvel Netflix series. Out of all of those projects that received multiple seasons Cloak & Dagger seems to have been left behind. The two season series ran on the Freeform cable network. Following the adventures of Tandy...

Although DC has had many television series in the last few years, Gotham was one of the strangest and most surprising. Lasting for five-years on the Fox network, the series showcased a Gotham city before Bruce Wayne became Batman. Despite some very unusual takes on some of the mainstays and minor characters of the Batman franchise the show thrived as it developed throughout its seasons. In this ep...

The hierarchy of power in the DC Universe has changed again! The comic world was shocked last October when it was announced that James Gunn and Peter Safran would help a new DC Studios division of Warner Bros. In the past few months, Gunn has been forthcoming with quite a few details about his plans for the franchise, including a discussion of what legacy projects that predate his time will contin...

Black Panther was a tremendously successful film. Showcasing Afro-futurism within the MCU it became a cultural touchstone for people of African descent and those who weren’t, allowing them to bond over their shared delight at this fresh take on a superhero story. In this episode we talk about the sequel to Black Panther, Wakanda Forever. We touch on the tragedy of Chadwick Boseman’s passing and de...

The 42cast is proud to welcome Emma Dumont to the show this week. Emma talks to us about her many talents including a lifetime in performative media as a musician, model, dancer, and actress. She discusses her interest in the STEM disciplines and why she feels that both engineering and psychology are so very important. Then she geeks out discussing her interest in comics and comic characters. We a...

Superman and Lois was a surprise hit in season 1 and we had overwhelmingly positive things to say about this show. This time we cover season 2. We do a deep dive and discuss the nature of the relationships in the show. We talk about Superman as a geopolitical figure and how that can make his heroicWe s complicated. We also get into the Bizarro universe and how it’s different from previous iteratio...

The announcement of The Book of Boba Fett excited a lot of people. Continuing the story of the character from the Mandalorian, the set up implied that the titular character would assume the role of a crime boss, running his operations from the outpost of Tatooine. In actuality the show turned a sharp corner, depicting the former bounty hunter as a virtuous but naïve warrior trying to change Tatooi...

It seems like you can’t throw an infinity of rocks without hitting a movie, TV show, or book that uses the concept of the multiverse. In this episode we delve deep into the concept of a multiverse. We discuss the various types of multiverse utilized in fiction and get a little into the meta and in-universe reasoning behind it. We talk about why the multiverse is a concept that holds our interest....

Everything gets a bit dark this week as The 42cast looks into the latest film to come from the DC Universe, Black Adam. We discuss this as Dwayne Johnson’s passion peace that he’s been trying to get made since 2014. We talk about the plot and themes and discuss whether they make any sense in the context of what we’ve seen from DC before. We also get into the casting choices and what we think about...

Picard season 2 continued the adventures of an older Jean-Luc Picard. This time the story added popular characters Q and Guinan and also explored Picard’s past and character. In this episode we discuss the second season of Picard. We take a deep dive into the plot and discuss whether the story elements worked together and how well they developed the themes of the season. We also discuss the charac...

Last year we watched the Arrowverse implode. Due to cancellations and a narrative divorce what had been a mega franchise with four different iterations was wittled down to just a single entry – The Flash. I this episode we review the penultimate season of The Flash. We discuss the characters, their trajectories, and whether we think they’re maximizing on their story potential. We’ll also discuss t...

From Respeecher to Deep Fakes, we hear about it all the time. The technology continues to develop, so that studios can recreate the faces and voices of actors that have passed or aged out of certain roles. In this episode we discuss the implications of this technology. We talk about what it could mean for acting as a profession, the ramifications to live-action franchises, and whether it’s somethi...

Thor: Love and Thunder is the fourth installment in the Thor franchise. Once again pairing Chris Hemsworth with director Taika Waititi, the movie generated interest when it was announced that Natalie Portman would reprise her role as Jane Foster. Similar to Thor: Ragnarok the film had a strong comedic element that has fan opinion divided over this film. In this episode we discuss the cast, charact...

The Marvel Netflix series garnered a large amount of support in the brief time that they were available. With Charlie Cox returning as Daredevil it was only a matter of time before rumors spread of others of the Netflix “Defenders” being folded into the MCU. Jon Bernthal is at the center of many of those proving that there’s still an audience for his interpretation of The Punisher. In this episode...

The countdown to the end of the Arrowverse continues. This week we take a look at Batwoman season 3. In this episode we discuss the use of Batman “legacy” elements and how that effected the story. We also get into the series controversial take on electroshock therapy and whether we thought that it went too far. We also talk about the interpersonal relationships of the team and where we thought thi...

Marvel has generated a lot of buzz lately with announcements regarding the upcoming phases of their universe. This week we discuss the announcements from the SDCC and D23 2022. We’ll talk about our favorite announcements. We discuss the things that surprise us. We’ll opine on the direction that the MCU seems to be going and how we feel about it. Due to time constraints there is no five-minute cont...

It’s nothing but madness in our latest episode as we review Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. Join us as we discuss familiar and unfamiliar stars in this Marvel movie. Along the way we discuss the multiverse, how it’s handled, and the ramifications for Marvel. We opine on the story, how well we think it succeeds in what it’s trying to do, and where the MCU can go from here. We discuss t...