The Apple TV series Severance presents a world in which office workers have their minds split into two personalities--one who only remembers what happens at work and one who only remembers what happens outside of it. Science fiction author John Kessel loves the show's inventive premise. "After we watched the first episode, I said to my wife, 'This is one of the smartest shows I've seen in a long time,'" Kessel says in Episode 509 of the Geek's Guide to the Galaxy podcast. "I rank it--at least through this first season--as highly as I do things like Breaking Bad. I really think it's classic."

In the recent movie Coma, everyone who falls into a coma finds themselves inhabiting the same surreal landscape. Science fiction author Anthony Ha enjoyed the film's premise, and is surprised there aren't more science fiction movies about dreaming. "There isn't quite as much as I would have expected," Ha says in Episode 441 of the Geek's Guide to the Galaxy podcast. "There's so much dream fantasy fiction--and certainly there are a number of science fiction examples too--but it seems a lot less common." The best-known science fiction dream movies, such as Inception and The Cell, are at least a decade old, and the best-known novels on the subject were published in the 1960s and '70s.

The latest Terminator movie, Dark Fate, struggles to give satisfying emotional arcs to its large cast of characters. Writer Sara Lynn Michener says it doesn't help that a large chunk of the movie is wasted on a bombastic action sequence set aboard an exploding cargo plane. "I think there's this idea with, especially, male directors where they get really excited about trying to top what's been done before, but do it even bigger and better and more Michael Bay-ish," Michener says in Episode 386 of the Geek's Guide to the Galaxy podcast. Are we really doing that in 2019? Geek's Guide to the Galaxy host David Barr Kirtley agrees that the cargo plane sequence was silly, and stands in sharp contrast to the sense of realism captured in the franchise's best installments, The Terminator and Terminator 2: Judgment Day.

The long-running BBC series Doctor Who recently completed its first season with Jodie Whittaker as the titular Doctor. Writer Sara Lynn Michener says that having a female Doctor came as a welcome change of pace. "This formula of always having female companions, and always having male Doctors, it just made me think of Doctor Who in a certain way that wasn't very flattering," Michener says in Episode 343 of the Geek's Guide to the Galaxy podcast. "It felt less real, because if this alien does in fact have the ability to regenerate in all of these bodies, why are we still seeing this very standard, very heteronormative pairing constantly?" Science fiction author Rajan Khanna also enjoyed Whittaker's performance, and found that this season of Doctor Who was the first one he was able to watch with his girlfriend. "She's tried to get into it previously, and just bounced off of it," he says. "And this season I was like, 'I'm going to watch Doctor Who.

Over the past five years, Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead have released a trio of amazing low-budget sci-fi/horror films: Resolution, Spring, and The Endless. Science fiction author Christopher Cevasco says that what sets these films apart is their focus on compelling characters. "The performances have to be really strong to pull off movies like these," Cevasco says in Episode 339 of the Geek's Guide to the Galaxy podcast. You're immediately pulled in by the characters." Benson and Moorhead are real-life friends, which definitely shows in the way that they portray male friendship. For writer Sara Lynn Michener, that's a welcome change from horror movies in which the characters are both disposable and detestable. "I really appreciate that they are putting a lot of emotionally intelligent male characters in their films," she says. "We see a lot of stereotypical male behavior in film, and it's really lovely to see a film about a man taking care of his friend." Geek's Guide to the Galaxy host David Barr Kirtley hopes to see more low-budget sci-fi films like The Endless. "I just think this should be so inspiring to other filmmakers, that you can make movies like Resolution for $3,000 and have 92 percent on Rotten Tomatoes," he says. "This is a model for other people who want to do that." Benson and Moorhead are currently at work on a bigger-budget movie, Synchronic, starring Jamie Dornan and Anthony Mackie. TV writer Andrea Kail hopes the new film is able to maintain the same sensibility as their earlier work. "I just hope they retain their creative independence, because they're amazing storytellers, and that should be encouraged, and not reined in by a bunch of idiot studio executives," she says. Listen to the complete interview with Christopher Cevasco, Sara Lynn Michener, and Andrea Kail in Episode 339 of Geek's Guide to the Galaxy (above). And check out some highlights from the discussion below. "Let me say this--and I'm sure NYU will come after me now--but if you want to be a filmmaker, don't go to film school.

Westworld just wrapped up its second season on HBO, and even after 20 episodes, fans of the show like science fiction editor John Joseph Adams are still no closer to understanding how the show's guns are able to kill robots but not humans. "The creators must have some idea how these guns work," Adams says in Episode 316 of the Geek's Guide to the Galaxy podcast. I want to know what they think, how they work. Because it doesn't make any sense to me." Season 2 includes a passing reference to "sim bullets," which makes Geek's Guide to the Galaxy host David Barr Kirtley think that there must be something special about the bullets themselves. "Maybe all the bullets have little incendiary things in them that cause them to self-destruct if they're flying in the direction of a guest," he says. "But in one scene they just hold the gun right against someone's chest, and I don't see how the bullet's not going to kill you from that range, even if it is sort of programmed to self-destruct." Writer Sara Lynn Michener wonders if maybe it's the guns that are special rather than the bullets. "You can have a gun that has paintball bullets in it, and you can have a gun that has real bullets in it," she says, "and the gun determines, 'All right, who am I aiming at?', and decides which bullet to release based on that." But science fiction author Anthony Ha says that even if there is an explanation for how the guns work, he still doesn't understand how humans are kept safe from other weapons such as arrows and axes. "It definitely drives me crazy," he says. "Do they have safeties on the swords here too?

Blade Runner 2049 is something of a miracle--a sequel to a 35-year-old science fiction classic that feels urgent and necessary and which actually improves upon the original in some ways. Writer Sara Lynn Michener is thrilled with the new movie. "It passed the piss test," Michener says in Episode 277 of the Geek's Guide to the Galaxy podcast. Both my partner and I had to pee halfway through, and neither of us could go to the bathroom, because we didn't want to miss any of it." Science fiction author Matthew Kressel is a massive fan of the original Blade Runner, and appreciates that the sequel replicates its mood and pacing. "A lot of today's Hollywood films don't have a lot of patience," he says. "They sort of expect the audience to get bored really quickly, so they're like, 'We've got to have an explosion every 10 minutes.'" But the slow pace of Blade Runner 2049 is proving a challenge for many viewers, and so far the movie hasn't attracted an audience that extends much beyond fans of the original. Michener thinks it's appropriate that the film, like its predecessor, is a box office disappointment. "They made a sequel to a cult classic," she says. "It was not designed to work with the Fast & Furious crowd." Bestselling author Daniel H. Wilson thinks the movie will pick up steam over time due to its many ambiguities, which compel discussion. "If your friend hasn't seen it, well then they damn well better go see it, so that you can talk about it, because I've got things I need to talk about," he says. "That is how this virus spreads." Listen to the complete interview with Sara Lynn Michener, Matthew Kressel, and Daniel H. Wilson in Episode 277 of Geek's Guide to the Galaxy (above). And check out some highlights from the discussion below. "In 2017 the'radical visionary' is a kind of villain and a kind of hero at the same time.