Imaginary Worlds

18/06/2025

What if you could upload your mind to the Internet? That’s the premise of the animated series Pantheon, streaming on Netflix. I talk with showrunner Craig Silverstein and Ken Liu, the author of the short stories the TV show is based on, about how they crafted an existential thriller with stakes that feel personal and global.

The animated TV series Pantheon (streaming on Netflix) asks what if you could upload your mind to the Internet? Would still be human? Would we create a virtual paradise where everyone got to live forever? Or would we find new and more sophisticated ways to destroy each other? I talk with Pantheon sh

18/06/2025

This is something I've noticed and wondered if I was just imagining things. Nope! I'm happy to have more Studio Ghibli-inspired games in the world.

Forty years after the Japanese animation studio was founded, game creators are embracing its legacy of moral integrity.

04/06/2025

This week, I talk with author Martha Wells and the Weitz brothers, who adapted Wells’ Murderbot books into a new Apple TV+ show starring Alexander Skarsgård. We cover casting choices, balancing comedy with sci-fi, and who could appear in future installments of Murderbot’s favorite intergalactic soap opera.

Murderbot is a killing machine in the far future that would rather spend its time binging an intergalactic soap opera -- and shooting bad guys with lasers is much less stressful than making eye contact or small talk with humans. Murderbot is also the main character of Martha Wells ’ best-selling s...

24/05/2025

Looking for Memorial Day sales? Everything in the IW merch store is 27% this weekend! https://imaginaryworlds.dashery.com/

21/05/2025

This week, we shine a light on the 1960s gothic soap opera Dark Shadows, and look at how it sparked a debate among horror fans as to whether vampires should be depicted as pure predators or tragic, misunderstood outcasts.

Next year marks the 60th anniversary of Dark Shadows. The gothic soap opera wasn’t originally intended to include a vampire, but when creator Dan Curtis introduced the character of Barnabas Collins in a last-ditch effort to avoid cancellation, he inadvertently launched a cultural phenomenon. As po...

09/05/2025

This is a beautiful eulogy for Life and Trust. ICYMI the show closed abruptly last month. The cast and crew were suddenly let go and future ticket sales were refunded. I reached out to the two people from Emursive that I interviewed in my episode. They were also in the dark having just lost their jobs and feeling "devastated and confused." I reached out to the company, which issued a statement saying the reasons for the closure were financial, due to "challenging economics and operational realities facing independent artistic ventures in today's New York City."

Life and Trust was an incredible immersive theater performance in NYC that closed abruptly. Here's my retrospective of the experience.

07/05/2025

This week, I confront my fears and look at why the subgenre of body horror freaks me out, and how it can be liberating for some people to watch.

We all have that one thing we just can’t watch. For me, it’s body horror -- the kind of horror where grotesque and disturbing things happen to someone’s body, like in The Thing, The Fly, or The Substance. There is a long history of body horror as a form of social commentary and special effects...

23/04/2025

These are all images from the new exhibit Syd Mead: Future Pastime, except for the last image, which is from the 1969 US Steel catalog. As we discuss in the episode, that painting inspired the AT-AT snow walkers in Star Wars.

23/04/2025

This week, we tour an exhibit in New York celebrating the artwork of Syd Mead. He famously designed the dystopian worlds in Blade Runner, Tron, Aliens, Elysium and other sci-fi films. He’s also known for designing sleek vehicles, imposing megastructures, and cool gadgets. But his personal vision of the future was more utopian and egalitarian.

The late Syd Mead was a visual futurist who was hired to imagine the worlds of Blade Runner, Tron, Aliens, Elysium and other sci-fi films. His work in Hollywood has been lauded for decades, but there’s a new exhibit in New York that shows a different side of the artist. Syd Mead: Future Pastime

17/04/2025

In honor of the revamped merch store, TeePublic created these awesome '80s and groovy '70s retro designs! They're also on sale. https://imaginaryworlds.dashery.com/

09/04/2025

A lot of science fiction depicts the rest of the 21st century as being dark and dystopian. This week, we look at why a growing number of architects believe a sci-fi utopia is possible if we can imagine it first.

The golden age of sci-fi was filled with utopian visions the future. These days, when sci-fi creators project ahead several decades, the world is looking a lot more dystopian. But there is a group of artists who believe that a better tomorrow is possible if we can imagine it first. Architects are fi

05/04/2025

I know not everyone is a fan of ads, but they are the lifeblood of my show. I had a really interesting conversation on the podcast Ad Infinitium about what makes an effective ad campaign, especially in audio. The discussion made me think differently about the imaginary worlds of advertising.

In this episode of Ad Infinitum, host Stew Redwine is joined by Eric Molinsky—journalist, audio producer, and host of Imaginary Worlds—to explore how advertising creates universes of its own through storytelling, sound design, and the audience’s i...