David Cronenberg has directed more than 20 feature films in a wide variety of genres, but he remains best known for provocative '80s sci-fi films like The Fly and Videodrome. Humor writer Tom Gerencer is a lifelong fan of Cronenberg's artistic vision. "He is an absolute genius, and he has merged that with an absolute mastery of craft," Gerencer says in Episode 533 of the Geek's Guide to the Galaxy podcast. "Often you see one or the other. You see someone who's very workmanlike and can produce a good movie, or you see someone who is a genius and is just all over the place, and there are good ones and bad ones. But he is both, and that's rare."

The 1970s were one of the most overtly political decades for science fiction filmmaking. Humor writer Tom Gerencer grew up watching movies such as Logan's Run, Silent Running, and Beneath the Planet of the Apes, all of which contain clear political messages. "We were watching industrialization do what it's continued to do now, getting worse and worse and worse, and we had a lot of voices back then saying, 'No, we have to stop this,' and rightly so," Gerencer says in Episode 543 of the Geek's Guide to the Galaxy podcast. Geek's Guide to the Galaxy host David Barr Kirtley was impressed by the continued relevance of many '70s science fiction movies, whether it's the idea of a deadly new virus in The Andromeda Strain or the threat of artificial intelligence in Colossus: The Forbin Project. "If you look at some of the issues they're dealing with--pandemics, AI, ecological collapse, youth culture, nuclear war--you would have to say that they did a pretty good job of honing in on some of the issues that were going to be important over the coming decades," he says.

In Steven Spielberg's classic 1977 movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind, an ordinary man gets caught up in momentous events involving alien visitors. TV writer Andrea Kail says the film continues to fill her with awe. "It stands up better than most movies I've ever seen, including the special effects," Kail says in Episode 498 of the Geek's Guide to the Galaxy podcast. "It's shocking how well it's done. It doesn't look dated in any way. I think it's a stunning movie."

In the 1980s the fantasy genre achieved unprecedented popularity with the release of films such as Labyrinth, The NeverEnding Story, Ladyhawke, and Time Bandits. Science fiction author Matthew Kressel says he loves watching classic fantasy movies like Krull, in spite of the slow pacing and dated special effects. "I know it's really cheesy, and corny at parts, but there's something about the world of that film that draws me in every time," Kressel says in Episode 486 of the Geek's Guide to the Galaxy podcast. "I watched that movie with my cousin, who's no longer alive, and I have an emotional attachment to it. Every time I watch it, I'm back as a kid in that theater watching it." Humor writer Tom Gerencer says that for adults who grew up in the '80s, nothing can compare to the magic of watching Heavy Metal or Highlander.

Robert Sheckley, author of classic stories such as "Is That What People Do?" and "Can You Feel Anything When I Do This?," was one of the top sci-fi authors of the 1950s. Humor writer Tom Gerencer corresponded with Sheckley regularly for nearly a decade. "He was so open to talking to me, this nobody who just liked him, and answering my questions about writing, and about his work," Gerencer says in Episode 475 of the Geek's Guide to the Galaxy podcast. "He was just an amazing man, an amazing talent, but also just an amazingly kind, gracious person." Sheckley's brand of mordant cynicism helped pave the way for writers such as Philip K. Dick, Harlan Ellison, and J.G. Ballard, and his novels Dimension of Miracles and The Prize of Peril prefigured genre classics such as The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and The Running Man. "A lot of his ideas are so prescient," Gerencer says.

Tom Gerencer's book Intergalactic Refrigerator Repairmen Seldom Carry Cash features 19 pieces of humorous science fiction. Gerencer selected the stories out of literally hundreds that he's written over the past two decades. "If you go to Walmart, and you go into the section with the big Tupperware bins that you can put clothes and stuff in, I would just write and write and write, and fill a notebook with short stories--or fragments of short stories--and then I would put them into the bin, and then I would fill another notebook and put that in the bin, and fill another notebook, and now I have five or six bins in the basement, and there are several bins that I lost at some point," Gerencer says in Episode 473 of the Geek's Guide to the Galaxy podcast. "It is certainly an avalanche of words." With titles like "Trailer Trash Savior" and "Apocalyptic Nostrils of the Moon," you might expect the stories to be light-hearted, but Gerencer's work also contains a dark streak of existential angst, frequently dealing with questions such as: How can we be happy?

Netflix recently released Season 2 of Love, Death & Robots, an anthology show that adapts short stories into animated films. Science fiction author Zach Chapman thinks the new season is a big improvement over Season 1, with fewer episodes that feel silly or underdeveloped. "I do think that these stories are way more consistent," Chapman says in Episode 469 of the Geek's Guide to the Galaxy podcast. "I wouldn't say that there's an episode that I didn't like in this season, whereas there were quite a few that I didn't like in Season 1." Geek's Guide to the Galaxy host David Barr Kirtley was pleased to see the show move in a more serious direction, after a first season that seemed primarily aimed at teenage boys. "This show started as an attempt to reboot Heavy Metal, so it did have that kind of aesthetic," he says.

The new Netflix series Love, Death & Robots has a brilliant premise--take science fiction stories and adapt them into an anthology of animated shorts. Science fiction author Tom Gerencer loved seeing so much variety in such quick succession. "I just couldn't stop wanting to watch the next one, and I couldn't stop being amazed that the next one seemed even better than the one before, and that there were so many of them," Gerencer says in Episode 356 of the Geek's Guide to the Galaxy podcast. "Totally inventive ideas, and the visuals on them were gorgeous and stunning." The show is at its best when it focuses on serious, thoughtful science fiction by top authors such as Peter F. Hamilton and Alastair Reynolds.

Dimension 404 on Hulu is a science fiction anthology show in the tradition of The Twilight Zone and The Outer Limits. TV writer Andrea Kail loved the fifth episode, "Bob," about a (literal) giant brain who works for the National Security Agency. "I thought this was one of the best things I've seen in a long time," Kail says in Episode 347 of the Geek's Guide to the Galaxy podcast. "I thought it was incredibly good filmmaking, and incredibly great writing and acting. There was nothing about it I didn't love."

BBC America's science fiction show Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency is based on a pair of novels by Douglas Adams, author of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Science fiction author Tom Gerencer loves the idea of Dirk Gently--a detective who trusts in fate and leaves everything up to chance. "He's not a brilliant detective," Gerencer says in Episode 281 of the Geek's Guide to the Galaxy podcast, "but in a way he's making these other brilliant realizations that step completely off logic and go into the realm of'let go of all that stuff and get into the flow of things, and you're going to find that things work out a lot better for you that way.'" The show has a lot going for it, including an original voice, brilliant writing, and complex characters, but it's failed to connect with many viewers. Writer Leah Schnelbach loves how the show's many mysteries slowly come together, but acknowledges that Dirk Gently can be a challenge for newcomers.