Imaginary Worlds

What does it take for a villain to be redeemed? That’s not a theoretical question when that villain is Kylo Ren who may or may not be redeemed in Star Wars Episode IX. I talk with Charles Pulliam-Moore, JR Forasteros, Scott Tipton and Andrea Letamendi about some of the most and least convincing villain turnarounds, and whether we can have empathy for the devil. Part 2 of 2.  Spoiler alert for Avengers, Thor, Power Rangers, Buffy, Star Wars, Doctor Who, Battlestar Galactica. 

Villains are having a moment. They’re getting their own movies. They’re inspiring hashtags that say they’re right. And they don’t want to take over the world. They want to save it -- at a very high cost. I talk with writers and podcasters Charles Pulliam-Moore, JR Forasteros and Bruce Leslie about woke villains, and what their popularity says about our frustrations in the real world. Part 1 of 2. 

Ronald D. Moore is probably best known for rebooting the TV show Battlestar Galactica as a gritty political commentary in the early 2000s. His latest show For All Mankind on AppleTV Plus imagines what if the Soviet Union had beaten the U.S. in the space race and planted the hammer and sickle flag on the moon. But Moore spins that nightmare scenario into a positive alternative history where a newly invigorated space race not only gives NASA the budget it wanted in the 1970s, but forces the agency to be far more inclusive than it actually was in real history. 

Think of an alien abduction. You know the story: humanoid creatures descend on people in a rural area, bring them on board their spacecraft for medical experiments, and the victims’ memories are wiped out until they’re brought back by hypnosis. But that narrative was largely unknown until Betty and Barney Hill went public about their alien abduction in the 1960s. Betty Hill’s niece, author explain how the story of the Hills changed UFO subculture and science fiction. 

Jason Suran wants you to know he can’t talk to the dead. Then he will convince you that he can. In Suran’s show,