Julian, Daniel and Jeremy are back to discuss the latest in geek news. The most pressing stories being the firing of Colin Trevorrow from Star Wars Episode IX and his immediate replacement by JJ Abrams, the results from this years Emmy Awards and Batman: The Animated Series celebrating it's 25th anniversary. The guys also discuss the Star Trek: Discovery premiere, Linda Hamilton's return to the Terminator franchise, the latest on True Detective season 3 and much more on this week's Tower of Babble Podcast!

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Show Notes

Trailers

Tomb Raider
Marvel’s The Punisher
Star Wars Rebels final season

Miscellaneous News

Toys "R" Us has filed for bankruptcy protection. A sad day for toy lovers everywhere. Check out Julian's blog post discussing what might have gone wrong and where the toy market might go from here.
- http://towerofbabblepodcast.com/blog/2017/9/20/what-happened-to-toys-r-us

Movies

Director Colin Trevorrow was fired from Star Wars Episode IX to be replaced by JJ Abrams
Thor Ragnarok director Taika Waititi is now in talks to helm the live action remake of Akira.
Warner Brothers has now clarified the credits on Justice League. Joss Whedon will receive a writing credit and Zack Snyder will get the sole directing credit.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, it looks like Warner Brothers is trying to use producer Martin Scorsese to lure Leonardo Decaprio into the role of the Joker.
Linda Hamilton will reprise her role as Sarah Connor for the next Terminator movie.
The bid for the distribution rights to James Bond has gotten a bit more complicated. Apple and Amazon have joined in along with Sony, Warner Brothers, Fox and Universal who were already heavily involved.

69th Emmy Awards

The big news out of this years Emmys was how well Handmaid's Tale performed. The Hulu original drama took home several major awards, most notably Best Drama Series and Elisabeth Moss for Best Actress in a Drama Series.
Other notable winners included Donald Glover who took home awards for Best Actor in a Comedy Series and Best Director for Comedy Series and Aziz Ansari for Best Writing for a Comedy Series.
See all the winners here: https://www.emmys.com/awards/nominees-winners/2017

Prediction Results:

Who We Want to Win:

Julian: 2 points (Best Drama Series and Best Actress in a Drama Series)
Daniel: 0 points
Jeremy: 0 points

Who Will Win

Julian: 1 point (Best Actress in a Drama Series)
Daniel: 1 point (Best Comedy Series)
Jeremy: 0 points

TV

Star Trek Discovery premiere
Batman: The Animated Series celebrated its 25th anniversary
BoJack Horseman has officially been renewed by Netflix for a 5th season.
According to the marketing-analytics firm Jumpshot, Marvel’s The Defenders had less Stin the first 30 days than ANY of the other Netflix Marvel series.
Damon Lindelof has officially been given the green light by HBO to produce a pilot for his Watchmen project.
More information on True Detective Season 3
- Will take place over 3 different time periods and will be set in Northwestern Arkansas
- Jeremy Saulnier has been confirmed as a director for the season, along with series creator Nic Pizzolatto.
According to HBO’s President of Programming Casey Bloys it looks like Game of Thrones will be filming multiple endings to the final season to throw off leakers

What We've Been Watching

BoJack Horseman Season 4
Rick and Morty Season 3
HBO’s The Deuce
Batman and Harley Quinn

Dec 24, 2025

Bonus Episode - ToB Film Club - Surviving Christmas (2004)

Happy holidays ToB Fans! Completing a string of 3 straight publicly available Film Club episodes, commemorating the show's relaunch, we finish with our annual tradition of doing a Christmas movie for December. This year, with Matt joining the show it was his choice. He went with a movie from the mid-2000s that he's revisited time and again - 'Surviving Christmas'. A Ben Affleck vehicle that comes from a rocky era of his, just one year removed from 'Gili'. Fortunately, it features a strong supporting cast, with both Catherine O'Hara and the late James Gandolfini stealing the show and preventing this from being a complete disaster. Devoid of any type of strong holiday message, we spend much of the movie indulging Affleck's character's obnoxious desires, and despite some funny moments peppered throughout and a relatively strong third act, the tonal inconsistency and unlikability of the main character leave this movie mired in mediocrity. See you all again in 2026!

Dec 17, 2025

Episode 202 - Could Things Be Worse?

It is often said we're living through "unprecedented times", and I must admit that it rings true when reading the news. Normally, we're fortunate enough to be discussing the frivolous world of entertainment - shielding us from much of the dower nature of the the modern world. Unfortunately, that does not mean we are immune - this week proves there's still plenty of bad news in the entertainment world to go around. And while we try to focus on the fun stuff, sometimes the bad stuff threatens things we love, like creators, and movie theatres, and therefor must be called out. As such, Matt and Julian spend the front half of the show talking about the Netflix/WB deal, and the Disney's investment in AI. Pick your poison on that one. However, stick around, as things take a turn back to the fun as the latest in film and tv news is covered, including discussions about a new '28 Years Later' movie, a new 'Men in Black', 'Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair', and 'Stranger Things',. All this and so much more on this week's Tower of Babble Podcast!

Dec 11, 2025

Bonus Episode - Warner Bros. Sales Chaos - Daily DVR

Julian joins Axel and Andy on The Daily DVR Podcast to wring out all the angst surrounding the impeding sale of Warner Bros. and their myriad of assets, including HBO, to Netflix. With Paramount still sniffing around this is far from done but all of it is far from good for fans of movies and TV.

Nov 28, 2025

Bonus Episode - ToB Film Club - Dark City (1998)

The term often used to describe the 1998 Alex Proyas film, 'Dark City' is "Proto-Matrix" given the many similarities between the two movies. Fair or not, they do have a lot in common but I think the comparison does a disservice to what is still a very clever and well made genre-film that largely holds up today (minus some questionable early CG effects). The 4K re-release gives it a fresh coat of paint, looking extremely sharp on modern televisions, accentuating the mostly dark and moody imagery of this sci-fi film noir, and given it's title this is all very fitting. Alex Proyas has some bid ideas here; what is the human soul? Are we the sum of our memories? Can memories be distilled into chemistry? Is love transcendent? Many of these themes are explored with depth, with answers to many of the films mysteries being laid bare in mostly satisfying way. Performances are strong, with everyone seemingly understanding the assignment, though there isn't much for the female characters to do here. Which is unfortunate as what we do get from Jennifer Connelly is intriguing, if lacking depth. On the whole, despite being pretty weird, this is still a very fun movie, if a bit silly at times, that was unfortunately overshadowed by the phenomenon that was 'The Matrix' dropping the following year.

Episode 102 - Handmaid's Emmy