The Nerds Awaken

Every once in a while at The Nerds Awaken we sit down with no plan, no outline, no agenda; we just hit record and let the pop culture gossip flow. And that's what this episode is, our stream-of-consciousness thoughts on all the recent pop culture and entertainment happenings, plus all the books/movies/tv shows we're loving lately and the ones we're looking forward to.

Hear our various hot takes on the Oscars, the upco...

We return with our final batch of interviews with some of the cast of Outlander Season 7B! With Big Gold Belt Media, Janna was thrilled to speak with Graham McTavish (Dougal MacKenzie) and Lotte Verbeek (Geillis Duncan) about their surprising return to Outlander after several years away (and after the pretty famous deaths of their both their characters).

We also got to ask the delightful Charles Vandervaart all about Lord ...

We recently had the absolute pleasure of interviewing some of the cast of the Starz hit tv series Outlander through our friends Big Gold Belt Media. Janna sat down with cast members from Season 7 to talk about Part 2 of the season, which premiered Nov 22 on Starz.

We chatted with John Bell (Young Ian), Rik Rankin (Roger MacKenzie), Diarmaid Murtagh (Buck MacKenzie), Steven Cree (Ian Murray Sr), Kristin Atherton (Jenny Mur...

Season 2 of The Rings of Power on Amazon Prime came to a thrilling (ish?) conclusion in episode 8 and we talked through all of our many feelings.

We chatted Julie's love for the epic Balrog fight in Khazad-dum, Andee's excitement at Berek's cameo, and the death that absolutely destroyed Janna emotionally. Plus, we repeatedly expressed our frustration at the pitfalls of 8 episode seasons. Stop it, studios! 

It’s hard to believe that The Rings of Power is almost over!

Each week The Rings of Power is raising the stakes, and episodes 6 and 7 were no exception. From Celembrimbor’s slow descent into madness under Sauron’s abuse, to Galadriel and Adar’s continued but mysterious chemistry, and the incredible massive battle of Eregion, there was so much to talk about. We covered all the major storylines, compared what we loved with w...

We are back with more deeply insightful, highly educated and meta commentary on the Amazon Prime fantasy series The Rings of Power. Just kidding...you know we would never. As per usual there is language, lots of commentary on how hot people are, and hoping characters get kicked in the balls (looking at you, Kemen, and maybe Elrond).

We broke down episodes 4 & 5, which we unanimously loved. We chat our most/least favor...

We had the great privilege of sitting down with Jennifer L. Armentrout, New York Times #1 bestselling author of over 70 books including the wildly popular Blood and Ash series. Her latest release Born of Blood and Ash, book 4 in the Flesh and Fire series is available now!

We asked Jennifer about her long and prolific writing career, from her writing habits and favorite tropes to her upcoming publishing schedule and the ear...

After two long years The Rings of Power series is back on Amazon Prime with a three episode premiere. Joined by friend of the pod Andee, we broke down our reactions to the premiere (with lots of spoilers), from Hot Sauron's origins as black goo to Elrond being a dramatic biatch over some little ol' rings. We also play "Would You Rather: Sauron variant addition" and the results may surprise you.

Find us ...

In this episode, Janna sat down with Nagier from Big Gold Belt Media to discuss the new Netflix Korean thriller The Frog, which premieres August 23rd.

Listen to our discussion of all eight episodes of the sinister and bloody thriller, with spoilers being discussed in the later half of the episode. We had high praise for just about everything in this drama, from the cast performances and music to the twists and turns that k...

It's our final real quick recap for San Diego Comic Con! We give a rundown of everything we each did on Saturday-from Julie spending the entire day in Hall H and seeing the big celebrities, to Janna hitting some smaller panels with authors and fulfilling a dream of seeing another member of the LOTR Fellowship (listen to find out who!).

We also cover Sunday, which was a lowkey day and the ONLY time we attended a panel...

We gathered with friend of the pod Andee to breakdown season one of the Acolyte and that stunning season finale.

We had high hopes for The Acolyte after breaking down the series premiere, and even with a few hiccups in the middle, we were not disappointed and have fingers and toes crossed for a season two announcement. We discussed our favorite moments, the shocking twists, our exciting for a possible dark side romance, a...

We were delighted to welcome author Liana de La Rosa back to the podcast, whose latest novel Isabel and the Rogue is available now from Berkley Romance!

We ADORED Isabel and the Rogue, book 2 in the Luna Sisters series, and loved talking to Liana all about her characters and the historical setting of the series. Liana really is putting the history back in historical romance, and we couldn't get enough. We also picked ...

We are back breaking down Part 2 of Bridgerton Season 3 (Eps 305-308) with Big Gold Belt Media!

There was so much going on in Part 2 (too much, even), but we think we managed to cover all the different arcs and characters in the last four episodes. We had fun talking about the things that worked for us, but were also honest about the areas that we were disappointed in.

You can find the video version of this recap ...