The Babylon Podject Presents: PodSpace9

Show notes not written by a GPT3. For some reason the crew decides to discuss their future plans for thanksgiving during an episode scheduled to air THREE WEEKS LATER. Lethe : John is off drinkin' and fightin' and not gettin' therapy in this episode, so Shaw handles the number. VIGILANCE is looking for something in the cancer patient's memory. Samaritan??!? Saul Rubinek carries this episode on his...

MAJOR SPOILER WARNING FOR THIS EPISODE The Crossing : We discuss the big casting change. It's not fridging but it smells freezer-burned. The utterly pointless kiss that turns this from drama into our trauma. Carter is the linchpin keeping PoI as a procedural. The Devil's Share : Fusco is so good. The value of a well-executed trope (see also: rampage!!! and Hurt performed by Johnny Cash). Does surv...

David Zaslav is our eternal enemy, and piracy in the service of the preservation of media is an unequivocal good. Justen goes on a VERY long Gundam tangent. The Perfect Mark : Jude and Justen disagree on whether the main plot is good or just chaotically enjoyable. A friendship is put to the test over Dune. The Inverse Ninja law is invoked. HR should have had a Yakkity Sax leitmotif in this episode...

Razgovor : This was from the brief time when it was ok to like Russians. Bath salts, how topical. This is a thrill ride of an episode, and a lot of Shaw and the rest of the team growing closer. Justen has opinions about nickel-plated 1911s. Jude shows a little bit of backstory. Mors Praematura : It's actually really not good to get knocked out this much. Finch made a Faraday cage in the Library, a...

Ladykiller : Even the show doesn't like this week's number, but that doesn't stop us liking how actually realistic his reactions are to the absurd situation he's in. Plus, any episode that has Carter, Shaw, and Zoe working together is an automatic A+. Amy Acker Fan Hour Time! Reasonable Doubt : This "murderous spouses" plot is better than last season's only because there's the hope they ended up j...

Liberty : GUI changes. The gang takes down numbers like it's their job. Carter's got Elias stashed in her basement. The Machine is acting beyond just dumping numbers now. We get the start of the best odd-couple pairing for the rest of the series. Falafel stands replacing inconspicuous park benches for secret meetups. 3.5 star secret. Nothing to Hide : Aaron Burr? Revolutionary War imagery? A new s...

Zero Day : Somehow we find "Carter being put under investigation for a questionable shooting" less realistic than an AI. Wait, a payphone company? A reveal without a time-wasting flashback. Root v Finch, moral philosophy battle. There are still nothingburger plot threads even at this stage. We love Shaw. No one give John a case of AirTags please. God Mode : Ana has an east coast accent. Shaw plays...

Trojan Horse : Jude, for the third time, claims that these are the last episodes of POI v1. Shaw is a better operative than John. The abject failure of "look, the nerds are talking" technobabble. Bear/Shaw fun. Feel free to introduce a villain before you know what you want to do with them, if they can vamp like Greer. In Extremis : A "ripped from the headlines" polonium poisoning plot. Fusco's pas...

CW: extended discussion of COVID, flying anxiety, Jude making fun of film students, Proteus: Sneaky Agatha Christie reference tells you the whole plot in plain sight. It's a little surprising that this is the first serial killer number? John is the squarest square. All In: LEON'S BACK! Nigerian Prince Scam? A hilariously complex money laundering scheme. The dessert of magic. Copaganda, or lack the...

Wait, relevant numbers? Northern Lights? A person who does more murder than John but we love her like 100x more? The most erotic torture scene in the history of tv? So many questions, so many satisfying answers. Connect with the show at @babylonpodject Help us keep the lights on via our Patreon! Justen can be found at @justenwrites Ana can be found at @The_Mianaai , and also made our show art. Bot...

One Percent: John gets abducted by not-Mark-Zuckerberg, somehow. We love Jimmy Simpson, frequent Nolan favorite actor. Jude is old. Justen sneaks in some excellent cross-promotion for Compleat Discography (check out our Going Postal episode on September 27). $10M is not petty cash, John. Ana posits a theory. Booked Solid: Let's not think about the penthouse suite. There's a LOT going on. We specul...

Prisoner's Dilemma: Fusco is remarkably successful in on-camera romance this season, and we speculate wildly about John and Zoe. Ablative cover identities. Donnelly's goodwill is contingent on things continuing to go his way, and we see in this episode what happens when they don't. "Unlawful enemy combatant" is a phrase we'd love to never hear again. Dead Reckoning: This episode is, broadly speaki...

Shadowbox: Ah yes, John's one weakness--vets. Don't give a dog a bath in a library. Ah, satisfaction, what an unfamiliar feeling. Poor Donnelly, making internally valid guesses but missing crucial variables--not particularly interesting, just tragic. 2piR: Thanks to yet another Donnelly making the right guess but the wrong outcome, the Donnelly Train has left the rails and is now traveling sideway...

'Till Death: Which is cheaper, a marriage counselor, two divorce attorneys, or two hitmen? Finch is meet-cute-batman? Mark Pellegrino radiates Florida Man energy. SO much coupling energy in this episode. COD: Jude derails the summary with an impassioned defense of the 1995 classic Hackers. Finch is a baseball person but doesn't know there are two NY teams? Maybe he's such a Yankees fan that he doe...

The High Road : FAKE MARRIED! It's time for some hot suburban action with John and Zoe. The number this week is Roy from The Office, which might be a fact some of you are interested in. Thank you, Paige Turco, for carrying all the sexual tension on your own shoulders. Has John never gotten a parking ticket in New York? Justen blows Jude's mind with a #Dunefact and then the gang narrowly averts get...

Masquerade: Who cares about the plot, we only watch it for the Bearold content. Reese goes full Daddyguard, averting the weird gross romance that could have happened in a worse show. Checking in on your buddy who's gone through some stuff is what good friends do. Does Snow get to take off the bomb vest to shower? Probably not. Triggerman: Sorry for the poop sandwich, but here we are at the filling...

Jude wants Pike's... cooking. We compare this episode to its source TOS episode, and the Kirk the world remembers versus the Kirk in actuality. We feint at, and then avoid, becoming an X-Men podcast, AGAIN. There's a sidetrack into Diane Duane at some point, Zathras lost track. Dreaming of Daddy Pike taking a dip in Cetacean Ops. And then we end our friendship arguing about TNG movies. Sorry. Than...

Uh, thanks for the infohazard warning Justen. Also, there's a headphones moment around 13:00 to 14:20 that, if you're watching through for the first time, you might want to skip if you are a die hard spoiler avoider. Season 2 starts out with a bang. We are deeply confused by the fact that there are A and B plots, but since this is where Leon first shows up, we are willing to let the intellectual c...

In which the gang, loopy after too many recordings, breaks the format a bit, much to Justen's distress. We have to discuss the big death in this episode, and whether we hate it or we just hate how the show makes us have to feel things in our cold hearts. The phrase "implanting apparatus" is uttered, to the dismay of Jude and Ana (and Zathras). A xenobiology moment too disturbing for JUDE is brough...

In which Justen murders the rest of the crew with a joke, and a lot of dirty water was cut out for your convenience. No Good Deed : Season one denouements, some tragic Finch backstory, and secrets are revealed. Jude has doubts about Nathan's regrets. Too many generic white guys figure out about the Machine for the gang to keep track. Firewall : ROOT. The end of the Parent Trap plotline. Amy Acker...

Matsya Nyaya : Are there codified rules of Dibs in Podcasting? Similarly, no body no death. Ordos is a real place, disturbingly. Even though it's Pablo Schreiber, we care so very little about this week's number... especially compared to the flasback plot. It feels like treading water in the present while they get past elements stacked up for the end of the season. Is knowledge of the Machine an SC...

In yet more evidence that the Strange New Worlds writers LOVE Star Trek, bringing the author Benjamin Russell (played by Benjamin Sisko in Deep Space 9 season 6, episode 13, Far Beyond the Stars ) warms our cold, vacuum-dried hearts. There are so many character moments in this episode where this cast has an absolute field day, in and out of Ren Faire garb. That ending, though. Platonic ideal of bi...

Identity Crisis : Jude starts out the show with an EXTREMELY detailed revenge fantasy, and then expresses a complete lack of interest in Identity Crisis aside from some fun bits and one crystal clear moment of characterization for Finch and Reese. Oh, and Finch apparently invented social media. Don't talk to cops without a lawyer present. Flesh and Blood : Buckle up, Elias is making his move. It's...

This episode nearly broke us. It's almost too much that we get an episode on par with Trials and Tribbilations, featuring a nonbinary pirate captain and the first trans director of a Trek. Oh dear lord are we fighting about Muppet Treasure Island vs. Treasure Planet again... Jude gushes about Captain Blood and Errol Flynn. We put Captain Angel firmly in the tier of Lore, Khan, and Dukat in terms o...

Blue Code : Are you paid up with HR? Or are you running drugs for the CIA? Why aren't there shirtless police officer calendars, anyway? Risk : Avoiding talking about the episode by discussing how to name ships is not how you win Zathras over. Canonizing the Jarold ship name... is mildly better. Jarold is Garak/Bashir with the moralities inverted? Baby Blue : breaking with our categorization schema...