This week on Geekstorians, we’re boldly going into one of the strangest survival stories in geek culture: Star Trek, the franchise that has been cancelled, revived, mismanaged, overextended, rebooted, and pushed through nearly every major shift in modern entertainment.

Born in 1966, cancelled in 1969, and kept alive by fans who refused to accept that decision, Star Trek became something far bigger than a struggling network sci-fi show. It became a constituency. A culture. A future people wanted to believe in.

Dave traces the franchise from NBC’s infamous letter-writing campaign and the death-slot third season, through Lucille Ball’s unexpected role in getting the original series made, the rise of conventions and syndication, the expensive chaos of Star Trek: The Motion Picture, and the leaner, sharper rescue mission of The Wrath of Khan.

Then it’s into The Next Generation, first-run syndication, Roddenberry’s complicated legacy, the rocky early years, the franchise boom of Deep Space Nine, Voyager and Enterprise, the Kelvin timeline films, and the streaming era of Discovery, Picard, Lower Decks, Prodigy and Strange New Worlds.

Because Star Trek doesn’t survive because it is well run.

It survives because the idea underneath it is too good to kill.

Geekstorians is the Webby-nominated documentary-style podcast from Geektown, exploring the strange, messy, brilliant history of geek culture.

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This week, Geektown Radio heads to MCM Comic Con London for a special episode recorded around one of the UK’s biggest pop culture events, which took over ExCeL London for a packed weekend of TV, film, games, anime, comics, cosplay, panels and general geeky mayhem.

Dave went down to the convention for the weekend, although sadly Darryl had to drop out after being struck down ill, leaving Dave to tackle the heat, the crowds, the press room, and as many panels as one person could physically manage!

In the episode, Dave chats about the MCM experience, including the cosplay, the show floor, the strange relief of stepping into an air-conditioned convention centre during a 32C London weekend, and catching up with some brilliant comic creators. That includes Neil Gibson’s Twisted Comics, who now have a comic book adaptation of Black Mirror’s USS Callister, and Beyond The Bunker Comics, the wonderfully bonkers minds behind Moon and the new The Trap Door comic.

The main bulk of the episode features clips and interviews from across the weekend, including Nathan Fillion and Alan Tudyk, best known together from Firefly, Con Man and The Rookie, as they share some very funny convention stories.

We also hear from the Hellaverse panel, hosted by CJ Allen, with Richard Steven Horvitz, Vivian Nixon and Erika Henningsen discussing Helluva Boss, Hazbin Hotel, renewal news, voice recording, and the chaos Brandon Rogers can bring to a session.

There are also clips from the Beyond Paradise panel with Kris Marshall, Zahra Ahmadi, Dylan Llewellyn and Felicity Montagu, as they talk about the hit Death In Paradise spin-off.

Finally, Dave plays the full press room interview with the cast of Star Wars: The Clone Wars, featuring Dee Bradley Baker, Matt Lanter, James Arnold Taylor, Nika Futterman and Catherine Taber, as they discuss the legacy of the much-loved animated series, their characters, the fans, and the wider Star Wars universe.

There will also be video versions of some panels and interviews going up on the Geektown YouTube channel, along with cosplay and event photos on Geektown.co.uk.

Listen below, and don’t forget to subscribe to Geektown Radio wherever you get your podcasts.

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This week on Geekstorians, we’re looking at the leak that punched a hole through Hollywood’s gates.

For years, Fox had Deadpool sitting in development limbo. Ryan Reynolds wanted to make the film properly. Director Tim Miller had test footage. The fans knew exactly what they wanted. The studio, however, remained unconvinced.

Then, in July 2014, fifty-two seconds of Deadpool test footage appeared online.

It wasn’t a trailer. It wasn’t part of a polished marketing campaign. It wasn’t even supposed to be public. But once the footage hit the internet, the reaction was immediate, loud, and impossible for Fox to ignore.

In this episode, Dave traces the long road to Deadpool, from Hollywood’s old gatekeeping model and the internet’s war with studio control, through the disastrous version of Wade Wilson in X-Men Origins: Wolverine, to the leaked footage that helped turn an unlikely R-rated superhero comedy into a box-office monster.

Along the way, we look at how the success of Deadpool changed the conversation around R-rated comic book films, helped open the door for projects like Logan and Joker, and proved that audiences were no longer just waiting outside the studio gates. Sometimes, they could force the gates open.

This is the story of Ryan Reynolds, Tim Miller, Fox, fandom, the internet, and a red-suited menace who refused to stay in development hell.

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