3.13 Deja Q After being swiftly dressed while the intro is happening (not that swiftly, admittedly. They don’t make intros like that anymore…) Q announces that he has been kicked out of the Q Continuum for being a mischief-maker, and forced to become mortal, has chosen to become human. No-one buys it for a second, even with Counselor Troi’s expert testimony (“I am sensing an emotional presence”) so Picard gets Worf to throw Q in the brig....
5.2 A Brittle Thread The way in which everyone behaves in A Brittle Thread proves to be the episode’s most interesting element, each one approaching their similar goals in wildly different ways. A lot of it has to do with the power dynamic between the various parties, particularly when it comes to the opposing forces of Reid and Dove. The men are two sides of the same coin; both are calculating and intelligent, plotting not only the next move, but the ones after that....
It’s three years since the robots successfully subjugated Earth, and we’re now prisoners in our own homes. The robots have set up a kind of Vichy regime, where select groups of adults help the robots keep the populace quiet and compliant. And just to make sure nobody sets foot outside their front door, every man, woman and child has a round, glowing chip implanted behind their right ear, which sends an alert to nearby robots when the wearer wanders outside for more than a few minutes....
This is the first episode after Mercury’s arrival and the only one in which the team is comprised solely of her and Sailor Moon, which is unfortunate, because they make an interesting team. I don’t think they could have carried an arc by themselves or anything, but I would happily trade out the weaker pre-Mercury eps for a few more with this pair working together. The episode opens with Usagi and Ami hanging out at Harajuku Station (OMG!...
Like the previous two episodes, this one followed the origin story of its featured Sailor rather closely, and with good reason. They’re all debuts that include an interesting, entertaining adventure that ties directly into the introduction and development of a new character. Of the three episodes so far, this one deviated the most from the manga, which is still not all that much, but enough that it made a marked difference....
“2,000 signatures?,” Salem superfan TimHeritage wrote just weeks ago. “I can’t believe we have hit 2k signs in under a month. This HAS to prove to WGN that we mean business and cancelling Salem is a disaster.” Some people don’t want their curses lifted. Look at the character Hathorne on Salem, which was recently put on the chopping block at WGN: The witch Mercy Lewis offered to free him from his bondage and the pain and humiliation of a debilitating disease on her death bed....
1.1 Pilot & 1.2 Hell Week From its star-spangled cast to the whodunnit aspect to the great Jamie Lee Curtis in a main role, Scream Queens has a lot going for it. Suffice to say there was a weight of expectation heaped upon it but, now that the first two episodes have landed, did it satisfy? The answer to that question isn’t a simple yes or no. We enter the gilded halls of Kappa Kappa Tau, a barbarically elitist sorority house, through the eyes of plucky university newcomer, Grace Gardner (The DUFF‘s Skyler Samuels, who manages to imbue her character with a shred of likeability) and are soon introduced to its veteran sisters....
That’s all fine in the head of a gently deluded fool, but when you put such things to TV then you need some hefty drama and actors to paper over the cracks. This has always been the problem that has blighted Shameless, letting bleeding-heart liberals like myself get a dose of ‘the poor’, balanced by some off-the-wall storylines about a colourful variety of characters. After five series, we’re now seeing what happens those cracks start to show....
Fugitivus It’s been almost two years since Spartacus and his loose coalition of slaves and gladiators killed their masters and escaped the Ludus, and in that time, much has changed, both in-show and in the real world. Picking up some months after the initial rebellion, Spartacus: Vengeance finds the rebels enjoying some success, living off the spoils of raids against small parties of Romans and generally acting as a thorn in the side of Capua....
Stalingrad has all of these things, and I get the feeling that it set out to put itself squarely in the epic genre. I watched it in 3D and it was an enormous experience, filling my living room with huge explosions and flying shrapnel. Home 3D is brilliant for spectacle – although I wish spectacle didn’t always have to be the overriding factor. The score, which sweeps appropriately, was composed by Angelo Badalamenti, and it is one of many elements of the film that ended up having the opposite effect on me than the intended one....
I’ve looked at a dozen top ten original series episodes, and they all agree that this is the best story by a country mile. Being the penultimate episode of the first season the show had now entirely shed any perception that it was ‘Wagon Train to the stars’ and this is a full-on science fiction adventure. Here two of the giants of modern science fiction combined their writing abilities to deliver a milestone in fantasy TV production, and it won D....
Episode 10 of the Lost Missions, “The Lost One,” overseen by supervising director Dave Filoni , directed by Brian Kalin O’Connell, and written by Christian Taylor, immediately establishes that it will be different. Well-organized exposition by the Jedi Council establishes that the Jedi are searching for Master Sifo-Dyas, the original commissioner of the clone army, who was mentioned briefly by name in Attack of the Clones. “The Lost One” continues to tie in to the movies with an appearance from Chancellor Valorum, the largely forgotten leader of the free galaxy during part of The Phantom Menace....
Star Wars Rebels Season 3 Episode 3 Right off the bat, this is a difficult episode to write about without revealing spoilers. The most significant part doesn’t happen until the end. Once we get there, that part is largely disconnected from the main plot, in which Darth Maul is back and has taken the Rebel crew hostage. But when the episode comes together, it tells an open-ended story that doesn’t feel unfinished, a hook into the rest of the series as strong as last year’s Darth Vader vs....
Lucasfilm’s latest, Strange Magic, is directed by Oscar-winning sound designer Gary Rydstrom, but it’s also been around for much longer than you’d think. 15 years ago, while working on that pesky prequel trilogy, Lucas started thinking about making a film for his daughters. “Just like Star Wars was designed for 12-year-old boys,” Lucas told Wired upon the film’s US release in January, “Strange Magic was designed for 12-year-old girls.” In a magical woodland realm, primroses mark the border between the fairy kingdom and the dark forest....
HBO has given the greenlight with a 10-episode series order for Succession. It is the first such move for the network’s programming president Casey Bloys, who was appointed to the position last May. The series, like great shows from HBO’s past, is a drama that will focus on a “dysfunctional” family dynamic, in this case, the ultra-rich Roy clan, owners of a massive (Murdoch-esque,) media empire. Touting tropes akin to classic ensemble dramas like Dallas and Dynasty (and currently on Fox’s Empire,) themes of ambition and familial loyalty will dominate the series....
Supergirl Season 2 Episode 6 Hands up if you ever thought you’d see a sensitive coming out narrative as a central piece of a superhero TV show! Anyone? Put your hands down. You’re lying. But I can’t remember any of these shows having to deal with a character, particular a major player like Alex Danvers, needing to come to terms with their sexuality in full view of the audience like this....
Supergirl Season 3 Episode 7 “Wake Up” is the definition of “your mileage may vary.” If you love Mon-El, this was a triumphant yet heartbreaking return. If you’ve stayed spoiler-free, Sam’s transformation into a ruiner of worlds is a dark twist. But there’s also a large portion of Supergirl fans for whom neither of those things are true, and for those folks this episode was middle of the road, with a little Martian whimsy thrown in....
During the early 70s, ITV had several attempts at emulating Doctor Who. The first was Ace Of Wands, the adventures of a magician called Tarot. Then there was Timeslip. Two children travelled across dimensions with the aid of a special belt. Both series had the right kind of quirky credentials, but The Tomorrow People, a series about children with special powers, probably came nearest to the Timelord’s adventures. A strange blond haired boy seemingly from another world arrives on Earth....
11.11 Into The Mystic This week, we’ve a locked room mystery on our hands in Into The Mystic. After a cold open in Ireland featuring a shrieking, floating woman, a man bashing his own head in and a baby left to fend for itself, we find the boys investigating the case of a man brutally killed inside his own room with no signs of a break-in. Sam’s still reeling from his run-in with Lucifer so Dean tries to get him back on track, figuring that they’ve got nothing to work on the Darkness yet....
In ‘Allison from Palmdale’ the damage Cameron previously sustained has unforeseen consequences when she loses her memory and starts to relive the experiences of the human Skynet used as a template for her. This gives Summer Glau the opportunity to throw off her Terminator persona and act her little cotton socks off. We also discover that Allison is sent by John to be captured, presumably so he’ll meet Cameron. You then realise that Cameron’s drifter friend Jody has a necklace that the future Allison wears, and a second shiver hit me....
