#overunderpod

This week sees a quicker opening, wherein we discuss what we've been up to since we last recorded: Eli has picked up the mega-hit PlayStation game God of War and Bunn & Del Ray's The Empty Man, finding both to be less-than-fulfilling; Colby has tried, on Max's suggestion, Brubaker's The Fade Out from Image Comics and loves the way the creators have transplanted the noir murder story into the comic book medium; Max and Colby put down their snifters of brandy and copies of The New Yorker to briefly discuss A Good Man Is Hard To Find by Flannery O'Connor; thanks to our four-week lead time, I'm still really stoked about joining the d20Radio Network, and I suggest one of our fellow podcasts for your listening pleasure; and Max has finally caught up on East of West, Southern Bastards and Dark Horse Presents, with Southern Bastards' conclusion to Volume 1: Here Was A Man, giving East of West a run for its money.

Southern Bastards, Volume 3: Here Was A Horseman.

Our first discussion topic is one that has been surprisingly overlooked by us for all the month's we've been recording: nerd icon Joss Whedon, notable as the creator of works like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Firefly, Dollhouse, Titan A.E., Dr. Horrible, The Astonishing X-Men and, of course, he was the director of the Avengers film. We're interested in the consistent popularity of his catalog, as well as its and his effect on the pop cultural landscape. We also use the term Strong, Female Characters roughly 1,037,996 times and try to figure out what's up with Dollhouse and Firefly, two works of Whedon's that are generally well-regarded but either took time to or never did reach mainstream appeal.

Southern Bastards, Volume 4: Here Was An Iron Man.

We then talk endings. Colby takes us through our least and most favorite endings in pop culture, and we get a really great breadth and depth of answers, from speeches that you carry with you for your life as a mantra, to twists that reveal something new about the story every time you watch it, to theme trumping mythology, to how satisfying it can be for an ending to be "just another episode" of your favorite show. We cap it off with another appearance of the Shiner Pop Culture Quiz- this one's kind of weird, but it winds up being really fun.

Southern Bastards, Volume 5: Here Was A Madman (With A Box)

So the reason we brought endings to the table this episode is due to an announcement that's been brewing for a few weeks now- in order that they can pursue some very exciting, non-podcast-related projects, this will be Max and Colby's last regular episode on the Overproduced and Under-Budget Podcast. It's really impossible to overstate how sad we are to see them go (even though I try to stumble through it in the episode), but I speak for myself and Eli, and hopefully all of our wonderful listeners, when I wish them mountains- nay, planets- nay, galaxies- of success in their projects. This show is nothing if not the sum of the efforts of all four of us to create a fun, engaging dialogue about popular topics in nerd culture, and we will definitely miss both Max and Colby's voices, both practically and creatively. From the bottom of my heart, thanks guys.

Southern Bastards, Volume 6: Here was a feel

That brings us to the end of this week's OPUB. Stay tuned for our next episode, which will air on a slight delay, when Eli and I, along with a special guest host, will be discussing hoooorrrooorrrr and its various manifestations in literature, film, television and video games in a Halloween special! Look forward to some new voices on the show as we work to bring some new perspectives on board for future episodes! As always, you can find us on Facebook at Overproduced, and on Tumblr and Twitter @overunderpod, as well as our forums at d20Radio.com/forums. Tell us what you think about Joss Whedon's immense popularity, or let us know what your favorite ending is- either way, we'd love to hear from you!

We begin our devotional, as we're wont to do, with an invocation of the mighty Bat-Sultan Scott Snyder and his Bat-Grand Vizier Greg Capullo- that's right, Colby's finished reading the third major arc in their outlandishly successful Batman run: Death of the Family. It's extremely well-received, but maybe doesn't quite measure up to the surprising originality of the team's earlier Court of Owls; Max has consumed more of the works of Grant Morrison, Jeph Loeb and Brian Michael Bendis, three writers he's maligned in various ways in past episodes of the show. Surprisingly, it's Bendis who gets an impassioned send-up from Max for his insightful and well-produced Words For Pictures, while Loeb's Hulk: Gray and Morrison's Multiversity get booted off the island (the joke's on Bendis, though- now he has to win a worm-eating contest with Joss Whedon to keep his spot on said island); Eli holds our hands tightly as we step into the sometimes frightening world of licensed comic book adaptations- luckily, Bob's Burgers from Dynamite is a hit, embodying all the right aspects of the popular and wonderful show that is its basis; for my part, I've finally got a few games of EONS from GamerNation Studios under my belt and I'm loving it more and more, I picked up the first issue of The Empty Man on a whim and liked the heck out of it, and I'm taking in Damon Lindelof's new HBO show The Leftovers, giving it one of the most tentative and qualified thumbs up we've ever heard come out of my mouth.

Margaret Qualley plays Jill on The Leftovers, seen here re-enacting everyone's reaction to me starting a sentence "...so Miracleman."

Then, join us for someone's faded memory of a podcast segment. We invite you to join us for a dark and creepy journey to the Louisiana coast for an in-depth analysis of HBO and Nic Pizzolatto's True Detective. We get wordy and deep about the unbelievably evocative cinematography vis-a-vis the vast tracts of terrifying nothingness that exist therein, try to make some sense of the oft-maligned change of heart that is the centerpiece of the show's epilogue, and, like many who came before us, get lost in the swampy bog known as HBO's Women Problem when our airboat runs out of gas in Nussbaum county. It's a fascinating discussion with as many viewpoints as hosts, so enjoy!

In a deleted scene, we learn that what really changed Rust's outlook on life was his decision to purchase the luxurious and affordable Lincoln MKC. The nice thing about this gif is that Matthew McConaughey will get older, but the clip will stay the same age.

Last, but certainly not least, we have an "imperfect fits" jam session. Those who listen to the show know that I'm a bizarrely devoted listener of NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour podcast (if you're not aware yet, it's a weekly roundtable discussion of all things pop culture-y, and it's been consistently great for as long as I've been listening- check them out! You should also follow Glen Weldon's tumblr because it's the bee's knees). They did a great segment some weeks back about "imperfect fits" in popular culture and, towards the back half of the discussion, touched on what I thought was a cool point that we might make a meal out of here on our show, namely: "Can truly great art exist without risk or conflict? Is it just good otherwise?" We discuss our favorite imperfect fits before trying, imperfectly, to fit into a quiz of my making. Things get wacky, Colby gets that question about Clint Eastwood right without even thinking about it for a second, and a good time is had by all.

Never gonna get tired of it, folks.

We're happy as always to bring you this, our rootin'-tootin'-est, gum-shoe-n'-est, dag-gum-est ninth episode ever! True Detective became something of a phenomenon while it was on the air and, thanks to the magic of on-demand streaming, for quite awhile after episode 8 dropped. It's important to re-state that those things we all agreed on as positive aspects of the show- the cinematography, direction and acting of Matthew McConaughey- are super duper huge positives. There's some really great stuff going on (and some not so great stuff), and we hope you enjoy our attempts to highlight that stuff. Do you feel that Nussbaum's criticism is warranted? Are there other creatives working in the Southern Gothic genre doing True Detective but better? Were you not totally blown away by those landscape shots?

But really, though...

Be sure to join us next time for a our discussion of Matt Fraction and Chip Zdarsky's Sex Criminals, and a wide-angle look at the changing marketplace for comic books in the American marketplace. Stick around afterwords for our first ever Pop Culture Melee- harkening back to our pilot episode, we'll be pitting The Simpsons against Bob's Burgers against King of the Hill against Family Guy. Don't miss it! Before then, take a trip into Carcosa to confront The Yellow King- like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter. Shower us in your delicious, decadent praises for the grand scope of our achievement, or belittle us and drown us in shame for our sinful crime of hubris. Either way, we’d love to hear from you!

Image Credits: Tina's Erotic Friend Fiction at GeekGirlCon; "That's a big bull" at The Lincoln Motor Company's Tumblr... I think; Jill pretending to hang herself to impress one of the twins at Business Insider Singapore; "Gonna Paint Your Wagon" from GifSoup; Cohle's actual dialogue from WiffleGif