Diminishing Returns

It's our fourth annual Halloween special! What does that mean? It basically just means that we cover a horror movie that doesn't have to tie into an upcoming sequel release. We threw this one open to our Patreon subscribers and they selected John Carpenter's 1982 classic The Thing. In true Diminishing Returns fashion, we take pitstops at 1951's The Thing from Another World and the 2011 prequel of the same name, too. It's Dimini-Thing Returns!

We've cultivated something of a reputation for our willingness to dismiss the classics and take them down a notch or two and that's on full display in this episode, taking aim at The Shining. Thankfully, Calvin is on hand to defend Kubrick's vision against Sol, who's on hand to defend Stephen King's.

This week, we continue our look at the Terminator franchise, but we covered the good ones last week (The Terminator and Terminator 2: Judgment Day). Why would you want to listen for Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, Terminator Salvation and Terminator Genisys? Well, other than looking forward to Terminator: Dark Fate, we're also joined by special guest: Angry Christian Bale!

In anticipation of Terminator: Dark Fate, we begin a retrospective look at the franchise, starting with the good ones (The Terminator and Terminator 2: Judgment Day).

We spend 4 years getting round to Shaun of the Dead and now, a couple of months later, we're doing Zombieland? What's that about? (I'll tell you what that's about; it's about Zombieland: Double Tap coming out soon)

Another TV episode (kind of) as we turn our collective heads towards The Addams Family - all of it! The 1964 sitcom, the 1991 film and its sequels, the weird attempts at relaunching the show and even the original Charles Addams comic strip - all because there's a brand spanking, new 2019 Addams Family movie on the way.

Diminishing Returns continues an exhaustive look at the First Blood film-franchise, better known as the Rambo series because they star Sylvester Stallone as John Rambo. Last week covered the first two films (First Blood and Rambo: First Blood Part II), leaving Rambo III and Rambo (the fourth one) for this week, as well as a speculative look at the upcoming Rambo: Last Blood.

We begin a two-week look at the Rambo franchise, starting with First Blood (aka Rambo), then moving swiftly onto Rambo: First Blood Part II. Because Rambo: Last Blood is on the horizon; that's why.

We mix things up with a rare television episode, turning our heads to Downton Abbey ahead of the upcoming theatrical film spin-off of the series.

Much like how Pennywise returns every 27 years to cause havoc, we're seemingly returning to Stephen King's It every 2 years to talk about the most recent screen-version of the story.

We're on our Summer hols and Allen actually has some acting work lined up for a change, so here's a very special outtakes episode in which esteemed film-maker Werner Herzog takes a look (listen?) at some previously unheard Diminishing Returns material from the archive.

The final instalment in our look at Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg's Cornetto Trilogy is The World's End. Reputedly the worst of the three, but will we be won over by the Pegg-Wright magic once again? Thank you to our Patreons who voted for this series at patreon.com/dimreturns

Our Patreon-selected trilogy of episodes covering The Blood and Ice Cream (Cornetto) Trilogy continues with a look at Hot Fuzz - where we're joined by James Bond (and, therefore, Timothy Dalton) enthusiast: Calvin Dyson. Does it live up to the record-setting score set by Shaun of the Dead?

We kick off our first Patreon-selected season of episodes with a series looking at The Blood and Ice Cream Trilogy (aka The Three Colours Cornetto Trilogy, aka Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz and The World's End). Edgar Wright, Simon Pegg, zombies and ice cream! How's that for a slice of fried gold? (Yeeeeeeeeeahh booooooooiiiiiii!)

Bet you didn't see this one coming; this week, we're doing John C. Reilly spoof-biopic Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story and it features maybe the highest number of audio clips out of any episode we've done.

Nants a podcast bagithi baba! Sithi uhm podcast! We're doing The Lion King Trilogy. You know the drill.

This is The Maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaask! Want to hear more? Head to patreon.com/dimreturns for bonus episodes!

Bond is back in the silliest named entry of his entire franchise! It's Octopussy with Calvin Dyson and The Dim Boys.

In case you didn't know, we have a Patreon profile you can subscribe to and receive bonus content including full and mini episodes of the show for as little as $1 a month! One of the other things you can do is take part in our listener votes to decide the topic of future episodes of the show. We recently held a little tournament to select the topic of this episode and, to everyone's surprise, Brad Bird's 1999 classic, The Iron Giant, ran away with it. So here we are, talking about The Iron Giant. Head to patreon.com/dimreturns to take part in our future episode polls!

A series that did a fairly wonderful job of avoiding diminishing returns: The Toy Story Trilogy:: Pixar's jewel in the crown... at least, that was the case before Toy Story 4. Will it be once the new film comes out? Based on early reviews, probably, yes... but they weren't out when we recorded this so we sound a lot more negative.