Bond & Beyond

Bond & Beyond is back! And we return with our initial impressions on the long-awaited 24th James Bond adventure, Spectre. Has the film been worth the wait? How does the classic villainous organisation fit into the grittier world of Daniel Craig? Did you blink and miss Monica Belucci? And what do we think of THAT song? All this and more is discussed as we pick the newest Bond film apart. Note: This is not the full review, which will come later in the series. We also do not discuss the ending extensively as we will be speculating about the potential for Bond 25 in two week's time. As always, find all our episodes at bondbeyondpod.tumblr.com and contact us via Twitter: @BondBeyondPod.

Alex Boucher and James Batchelor discuss the musical enigma that is the Bond song. With 24 official title themes, unofficial and alternative themes, additional songs and parodies, there's a wide range of music with that certain level of 'Bondness', but what is the secret behind that magic? This is the mystery that we fail to solve while ranking our favourite Bond songs of all time, lamenting the worst ones, and pondering which artists we'd like to try their hand at introducing a 007 adventure. [PLEASE NOTE: This episode was recorded a few days before Sam Smith's Writing's On The Wall was released so we were unable to add this to our review] As always, find all our episodes at bondbeyondpod.tumblr.com and contact us via Twitter: @BondBeyondPod.

For the second Bond & Beyond review, Alex and James discuss On Her Majesty's Secret Service, George Lazenby's one and only outing as Ian Fleming's iconic secret agent. In addition to judging Lazenby's performance, they also touch on the film's pacing, its plot, its central relationship and its comparison to the original novel. Warning: Contains Lazenby puns. Also, stay tuned at the end for Six Minutes of Everything Related to Spectre Headlines (or SMERSH). We stress that at the time of recording, the Sam Smith song had not been released.

Alex and James are back with the first of potentially many episodes packed with Spectre speculation (Spectre-lation?). We discuss what little we know about the upcoming film so far, discuss what we hope it delivers and why it needs to break the dreaded Fourth Film curse. Please note: this episode was recorded a few weeks ago. We'll be addressing the latest news, such as the revelation of the title song, on a future show. You can find out all our episodes at bondbeyondpod.tumblr.com and contact us on Twitter via @BondBeyondPod

And so we come to the first Bond & Beyond review, taking a look at the film that started it all: Dr No. We reflect on the 1962 classic, picking out the tropes that are still with us today, weighing up the film's best and worst bits, analysing the villainous Dr No himself and even pondering Honey Ryder, the first of many Bond girls. As of now we'll be on a fortnightly release schedule, so keep your eyes peeled for our Spectre speculation episode in two weeks' time. You can find all our episodes at bondbeyondpod.tumblr.com and find us on Twitter via @BondBeyondPod.

Let's get things straight from the off: there is only one James Bond. Well, since Daniel Craig turned up there's two, and he didn't have a gadget-laden Aston Martin (or at least he shouldn't have). Alex Boucher and James Batchelor debate why, and we'd love to hear your thoughts.

Welcome to Bond & Beyond. In this brief intro episode, hosts Alex Boucher and James Batchelor discuss their plans for the show, plus share their stories of how they first encountered the iconic secret agent.