Author and critic Zack Handlen made the mistake of offering to return for Pandorum, 2009's "what if we stuck a bunch of grimy Jell-O to some warehouse walls and filmed a live-action 'Space Madness' meets Event Horizon" sci-fi. The movie starts out well -- good atmospherics; good partner chemistry between Quaid and Ben Foster -- but as Zack notes, most of the interesting stuff happened before the movie started. And after we find out the enemy isn't a giant snacky space arachnid, well, it's a tough sit. (How tough? We measured its length in, variously, feet of blanket knitted, Lego kits assembled, and online games of Risk played.) Surrounded by the detritus of the other, better properties Pandorum tried to rip off, we talked about confusing ship layouts, Virtuosity, which member of Roxette wrote Nadia's dialogue, Quaid's search for emotional truth, and why hypersleep pods in the future come with tooth-whitening strips. Oh, also what the hell "pandorum" actually is. It's the QIF season finale, so tell Scotty the PA to douse your cleavage in melted licorice and join us!

Overall score: 2.83

QQQ score: 6.17

Days since a lost Kuffs accident: 454

Don't Say A Word counter: 2

SHOW NOTES

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• Read more from Zack at Episodic Medium


• Xan Brooks's Pandorum review at The Guardian


• Annalee Newitz's at io9


• Nathan Rabin's at AV Club
  

Special Guest: Zack Handlen.