Pierce Brosnan rescued James Bond from a six-year exile, made him bigger than he'd ever been, and then broke him so badly the franchise had to start over. On this episode we discuss his rather strange run as Bond from the mid-90s to the early 2000s, get into all four films — GoldenEye, Tomorrow Never Dies, The World Is Not Enough, and Die Another Day — and dig into both the series' complicated past and its resurgence after his run as cinema's most famous spy.

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CHAPTERS:

00:00 An Intro to The Pierce Brosnan Years

00:43 Our Relationship with the Brosnan Era

04:14 The Bond That Took My Bond Virginity

04:52 A 30-Second History of James Bond

06:21 The Connery, Lazenby & Moore Years

06:54 Roger Moore at 57 and A Franchise in Crisis

07:13 How Pierce Brosnan Lost Bond the First Time

07:32 Timothy Dalton, License to Kill, and a Reshaping Action Genre

09:02 Bond Disappears For Six Years

10:10 Enter GoldenEye

10:43 Hot Take: James Bond Is a Terrible Spy

12:49 GoldenEye — Why It Still Holds Up

13:19 Famke Janssen as Xenia Onatopp — Best Henchwoman Ever

15:39 Jean Grey to Murder-by-Thighs

16:38 GoldenEye vs. Thunderball — Ranking the Best Bond

17:02 Judi Dench As M

19:31 Tomorrow Never Dies (1997)

20:35 The Laziest Villain Goal in Bond History

21:46 What the Film Got Backwards

22:24 Roger Spottiswoode, Titanic, and a Doomed Production

22:58 The k.d. lang vs. Sheryl Crow Theme Song Controversy

24:01 Michelle Yeoh Is the Only Reason to Watch This

24:28 The Crime of Being Forgettable

25:49 The World Is Not Enough (1999)

26:00 "Always Have an Escape Plan"

26:48 Sophie Marceau as Elektra King — Best Bond Girl Ever?

27:24 Robert Carlyle's Renard and the Bullet in His Brain

28:10 The Iran War Allegory You Didn't Ask For

31:24 Denise Richards as a Nuclear Physicist — WHY?

31:52 The Worst Line in Bond History

33:05 Die Another Day (2002)

33:39 Surfing the Ice Palace and Other Crimes Against Cinema

35:46 Halle Berry as Jinx and the Madonna Problem

37:09 The Diamond Laser, Explained

38:20 The Plan to Burn the DMZ — Who Was Kim Jong-Il's Physics Teacher?

39:23 Madonna's British Accent and the Iceland/Greenland Mix-Up

40:23 Punching Newton in the Dick — The Aston Martin Flip

42:23 The Death Knell of Brosnan's Bond

42:58 Why Brosnan's Run Ended at Exactly the Right Time

43:29 Austin Powers, Bourne, and the Death of Camp

44:40 Casino Royale Rights, Brosnan Gets Fired

44:50 The Post-9/11 Case for Daniel Craig

45:56 The Daniel Craig Backlash That Shut Up Real Fast

46:44 Were the Dalton Films Ahead of Their Time?

48:21 Ranking the Brosnan Films, Worst to Best

49:50 The Theme Song Debate

53:30 Best Bond Villain, Best Bond Girl, Worst Bond Girl

55:34 Closing Thoughts

56:24 Outro