As a youngster I adored this original story, because it takes the notional idea of time travel and adds an interesting twist, in that it’s people from our future coming back to the present. Lots of the fun comes from Captain Christopher’s shock at his glimpse into the future, and the realisation of the crew that he has an important roll to play in history, so they must put him back at exactly the point in the timestream where they met him....
The Enterprise is chasing a stolen cargo ship, and when they eventually catch up with it they’re forced to sacrifice lithium crystals (not yet di-lithium, it seems) to stop it being destroyed before they can rescue those onboard. But when they are beamed aboard, the arrival of Harry Mudd and three stunning women that accompany him causes shockwaves on the Enterprise. Mudd is a consummate conman, and is trading the beautiful women to lonely miners, who don’t know that the women are only beautiful because of the Venus drug he’s given them....
Showing this episode from Chopper’s point of view offers the show two opportunities, one, to build the episode around the droid’s unique view of the world, and the other to comment on the questionable status of droids in the Star Wars universe as a whole. (Rest in peace, droid captain of that commercial starliner in “Blood Sisters.”) The second opportunity was embraced more fully. “Droid rights” are never really an issue in Star Wars, with the movies treating the droids as characters and avoiding some of the thornier questions about their status as property brought up, intentionally or accidentally, in Rebels or The Clone Wars....
Star Wars Rebels Season 2 Episode 20 The season finale brought some of the most atmospheric storytelling we’ve ever seen on Star Wars Rebels. More than thirty years after the franchise began, Star Wars is in constant conversation with itself: so many mediums have been used to tell the same types of stories about teachers and students, and about good vs. evil. That the season two finale of Rebels feels like Star Wars and calls back – and forward – to other eras of Star Wars is no surprise....
Inevitably, there are some aspects of filmmaking that have changed considerably over time. New ideas and conventions continuously float in, while old ones become over-used and phase out as a result. It’s the latter we’re focusing on here: the filmmaking conventions and techniques that are either becoming rare, or have vanished altogether. Bear in mind that some of the things below may suddenly come back into vogue very soon, while the things we currently think of as cutting-edge in the films of 2014 may become endlessly parodied and quietly dropped in years to come....
Supernatural Season 13 Episode 8 In the spirit of the season that has embraced “let’s try something new!” comes yet another first. Clearly, while pitching episodes in the writer’s room, amid suggestions of doing a gender-bent Samantha and Deanna episode* or an actual musical episode, someone said “Let’s do a heist!” It was done. And it was good. Sam and Dean were dragged unwillingly into this story in order to get a chance at finding Jack, paired up with Smash and Grab — clever enough one-off characters that I’m sorry they disposed of Grab so easily....
9.22 Stairway To Heaven I was completely blown away by the suspense, tension, humour and characterization of this clever, well-paced, layered episode. Thinking back on it, I realize that there were a handful of plot holes and bad decisions involved in getting the story where it needed to go – and yet, somehow, I was so enthralled by how well the story was told that, for once, I didn’t care about the holes in it....
And so, Survivors reaches the conclusion of its first season, and with another block of episodes to come in the bag, the series can be bold and delivers a much faster, grittier, surprising (in some respects) cliffhanging conclusion than expected. This comes at a cost; I’ve found the direction and performances generally sound across the previous episodes, but there was a tangible dip in quality at times, with many scenes feeling like they could perhaps have done with another take here or there, or another edit just to give it the polish much of the rest of the series had....
Depp and Bonham-Carter make the perfect couple, the walking undead through the grime of the city, pallid, tortured souls haunted by their tragic pasts and inner demons. They try to mould an honest living from the misfortune that has been forced upon them, until mania inevitably begins to ferment their blood lust. This is Depp’s sixth collaboration with Burton, and it’s also his best. Depp’s Todd is a tragic hero of Shakespearean proportions, though no-one can deny his need for the revenge which will consume him....
Unlike alternative methods of dispatching one’s enemy in nineteenth century England—your disembowelling and your throat slitting—duelling turns out to involve a surprising amount of red tape. A doctor, a lawyer and an officiator must be present, each dueller has to bring a buddy, start from an allotted spot and, after a polite exchange of bullets, cease firing. There’d be less bureaucracy involved in taking out a tracker mortgage. Whether rowing through pestilential fog to a between-parishes island owned by a gypsy in a top hat is also regulation or merely an added dash of Taboo style wasn’t made clear....
Damn it all if the kids ain’t growing up so fast! I envy them their totally unique adolescent learning experience. Most of us just have to slog through this stuff with only zits and bad first kisses to remind us of the trauma that comes with growing up. Scott McCall and his posse have life-threatening battles against borderline evil computers and the diseased fever dreams of a very, very angry werewolf to tuck away in the yearbooks....
5.9 Lies Of Omission It’s a bold challenge for a show like this, but I think that there’s something about Teen Wolf that’s going to help it carry forward. 71 episodes into its run, it’s a show that knows its strengths, and those strengths are the interplay between the cast members, significantly improved acting from the show’s main regulars, and a continued willingness to being messier, both emotionally and biologically, than any other show on television....
At the end of the episode, April returns to the sewers and apologizes to the turtles for being angry. She says she was solely in the wrong (which is not true; if the Turtles had done their job in the season premier and worked together, none of the mutagen problems would have happened), but whatever, she learned to forgive her friends and not hold grudges. The scene chugs along well with sweet moments where April reconnects with her sensei and Mikey offering her bug-covered pizza....
Since last week I’ve strived to understand what it is about this show that isn’t grabbing viewers, even if I adore it. I wonder if they came to it with the misconception that, like the movies, it would be one long chase, for 22 episodes per season! That would have been incredibly boring, and what they ultimately chose to do with it, I can’t fault. There is little wrong with the scripts, the production values or the performances; they’re great....
What we mean when we talk about millennials. As with all generations, who or what makes a millennial is hard to quantify. Loosely, it is any person born between 1982 and 2004. Millennials tend to be more liberal than their parents’ generation with 55 percent hoping for another Democratic president in the next election cycle. We are the most diverse generation in the history of the U.S., with 43 percent of us identifying as non-white....
2.7 Long Into The Abyss And in this penultimate episode before the holiday break, that idea comes to the forefront of the show. A throughline of the show’s second season has been how incompetent and meddlesome the adults of The 100 really can be, but even they are acting on what they perceive is logic, reason and experience. Throughout the show, we’ve seen that it’s the teenagers who actually know what they’re doing, and the fight over leadership is a fruitless one....
For this is a film that bites off a lot more than the one before it. More than it can comfortably handle, certainly, but it does have a go at righting some wrongs. For instance, it has a second, more successful attempt at delivering on the tagline to the first film. It continues the relationship between Gwen Stacy and Peter Parker. It deals with other matters left behind from the last film....
For the first time, meanwhile, in the past few weeks, my Apprentice viewing isn’t accompanied by whatever wine happens to be on offer at my local Spar. Sadly, friends, it’s Lemsip Max Strength that’s my tipple of choice this week, and to add insult to injury, the task is coming up with an alcoholic beverage. They’re taking the piss out of me, here. Stella, then, wanted to go simple, with Joanna and Melissa pushing for whisky....
PS4 Pro deals tend to be a little bit meagre compared to their PS4 Slim counterparts but one deal that really took our fancy this week has to be GAME’s excellent PS4 Pro deal with Call of Duty: WW2, Destiny 2 and GT Sport all for under £320. Perfect for those picking up a PS4 for the first time. Best Cyber Monday UK PS4 deals Best Cyber Monday PS4 deals PS4 Slim 500GB with a Dualshock 4 Controller, Call of Duty: WW2 and free That’s You game download code – £199....
11.13 The Solo Oscillation We begin with Raj bringing the group newspapers citing his planetarium show as ‘something to do this weekend’, and this kicks off a chain reaction of the group wondering what their purpose in life is. Is Amy being smart marrying Sheldon when things are already so good between them? Why does Penny still feel inferior when Leonard finds a science buddy? Did Sheldon make a mistake dumping string theory for dark matter?...
