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The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power: Shadow and Flame (2024)
Setting up for a grand Season Three
We have a rematch between Galadriel and Sauron, as expected. I found it notable that he cannot cast her in illusions the way he did last time. She is much closer to being a match. Meaning also that unless they change the final fight, some reason will need to be found to remove her before the end.
Sauron repeats his efforts to seduce her, a nice original notion for this program. Balancing his virtuoso performance with Celebrimbor. And readers of The Silmarillion will know there is at least one more grand performance to come. I'll say no more, for those who want the later plot twists to be a surprise.
As expected, the Stranger is Gandalf. They had earlier given 'Gand' as a Halfling word for wand, but went for the simpler option of calling him Grand Elf. And it contradicts Tolkien's own version, where the Five Wizards arrive in the Third Age, with no mention of an earlier visit. Still, they may have some explanation. It was certainly ingenious having this being someone making the same errors as Saruman. But cannot sensibly be the same person.
I'd expect Tom Bombadil to be back. And with Goldberry, who is mentioned as here but not yet seen properly. I assume they want some very good actress to play her, even if the part is small.
Adar is disposed of, and naturally the son who betrays him lasts little longer. They had ignored the way Sauron would expend them more ruthlessly than Adar ever did.
We never do learn who he was as an elf. Speculations he was Feanor seemed silly to me, though. He was born in Valinor, whereas elves converted by Morgoth are said in the Silmarillion to have been caught before they were even summoned there.
I was all along irritated by Durin as father and son. Tolkien's idea was that this was a single person, reborn. It had to be a During who gets killed by the Balrog, so the son should have had another name. But all nicely done, and we see the reasons why the dwarves will accept their rings despite doubts.
In Numenor, I had wondered what was going to take them back to Middle-Earth. But the new King has to discredit the Queen and cite Sauron as a threat, which he would not be initially. Readers of The Silmarillion will know where that leads, of course. But I won't spoil it for others.
All excellent.
Feng shen Di yi bu: Zhao ge feng yun (2023)
A brilliant Chinese war-fantasy
If you're not put off by subtitles, any fan of war films and heroic fantasy should watch this. Though it seems odd they haven't done an English-dubbed version, which would get it through to a much wider audience.
They could also try a different title. Maybe Superheroes of the Fall of the Shang Dynasty. For Chinese and other East Asians, the idea of mortals becoming gods is familiar and believed by the religious or superstitious. A belief also found in Classical Greece, but confusing for a Western audience.
It is an heroic fantasy, loosely based on the actual fall of the Shang, 3000 years ago. A concubine who was widely blamed in later histories is re-invented as a Fox Demon - another concept unfamiliar in the West. And it is actually simplified from the original legend, which has three spirits sent by an offended goddess to be destructive concubines who made a bad man worse.
Which may be no more historic than Shakespeare's Macbeth, but certainly makes a good drama.
It seems this legend is even better known than Journey to the West / Monkey, which is much better known in the West and had a recent much-rewritten film, as well as a Japanese television series that was popular in the West with dubbing into English. As I said, maybe humans become gods is too odd in the Western view, though the very popular superheroes are essentially the same.
The plot is complex, and I found the palace guards confusingly similar. But it was entertaining, and is the first of three.
The Acolyte: Night (2024)
Harsh and brilliant. But a goof at the end.
I think the franchise was made by Obi-War defying Hollywood conventions and getting killed by the chief villain half-way through. In Westerns, the man in the white hat always wins. Here it was robes, but him losing surprised most people, myself included.
I also thought that Luke was called R2D2 before I saw the first film. A possible human name in SF, and one of the trailers leaves it ambiguous who C3P0 is referring to when he speaks of an associate.
Here, you get Jedi you have known and liked getting killed. Rare, but it makes for a much stronger story. And has seldom happened in other stories in the Franchise.
Part of the strength of Rogue One is that all of them get killed. Suffering as real people often do.
Also two of the very best Star Trek episodes have the deaths of people you are about. The City on the Edge of Forever and Yesterday's Enterprise. Though others waste it and are feeble, as with the original death of Tasha Yar.
Within the new Star Wars series, iIt was also a nice touch for the identical sisters now being mistaken for each other by both of their mentors.
But for me there was a huge glitch. Master Sol leaves three of his fellow Jedi dead and unburied. A marked contrast with Obi-Wan, who in the first film takes care to decently burn the dead Jawas.
Doctor Who: Empire of Death (2024)
A depressingly weak ending to a good season.
Really, where is the dramatic tension in a super-villain extinguishing all life in the universe? From many similar cases, we know it will all be fixed by the end.
And not one of those you care about actually dies. Those few episodes of Star Trek with a significant loss were much the best.
Much the least intelligent of the present series. That was after a decent showing by UNIT.
What was worse was an astonishingly banal solution to where Ruby came from. There were indications of more, and a version of her had powers in 76 yards.
I hope this is a dummy: a fake story that will be revealed in the next season as a cover.
The Red King (2024)
Extertaining, and not actually like The Wicker Man
The set-up resembles 1973 British folk horror film The Wicker Man. But by Episode 2, you should have noticed that not all is the same. And things diverge from there.
I also found the 1973 film was spoiled by having Edward Woodward as the policeman. He was stamped on my mind as tough-guy Callan. It took time to realise that this was a very different sort of character. Not someone like Brownlow from The Bill, but fussy and pious. One reason why it was unpopular at the time.
Here, the police lady is quite tough, and shown to be a stickler for the rules. Sent to a bad posting from something that offended other police - just what comes out by stages.
Watch and enjoy.
Quigley Down Under (1990)
Nice idea, but an offensively silly plot
A sharpshooter unwilling to kill is possible.
Even nice enough to reject a woman who mistakes him for an old friend.
A villain stupid enough to hire them is not. It was the USA that popularised the phrase 'wanted dead or alive'.
The irritating thing is that there are plenty of real tales to be told of 19th century Australia. Just as good as the famous case of Ned Kelly. I've seen a few, but far too few.
Here, we have an improbably tough US hero. I could accept you'd need an American for audiences who would find even the most English Australian a bit alien. But they should face real human problems.
Not keep behaving stupidly and improbably surviving.
Star Trek: Discovery: Life, Itself (2024)
A good climax, but then an excessively long winding-down.
Done nicely up until the key decision. A strange environment, and more of the conflict will Moll.
A long fight between the two women, of course. No US show is going to miss that. Nor have either of them seriously hurt.
And some clever ways that Discovery deal with the Breen.
Then Moll being stupid - going for an answer that was obviously wrong. Not looking for how the triangles could be arranged otherwise.
I assume the there's only the solution she chose.
I then wondered what the rest of the time would be used for, and found it dull twaddle that weighed down what had been a good episode.
Maybe others find alien marriages more entertaining than I do. It seemed too much for me.
Her and Brooke growing old together was fine. But there was much too much of that as well.
Self-indulgent.
Vera: Home (2018)
Unconvincing
Each episode has surprises, but up until now it has always been believable.
A bit unlikely that there are always two or three extra secrets along with the identity of the murderer. But at least it makes sense why they killed. Accidentally in some cases, fair enough.
This time - a woman seeking the birth-mother she never knew gets so offended that she becomes a violent murderer? Really, that seemed too much. Particularly since her stepfather is a mild social worker moved to something less demanding.
Nothing in what we had been shown of this character justified them suddenly doing such a thing. Too little emotional connection, in my view.
It is a pity, because all of the other relationships were fine.
The Gone (2023)
Cop show not super-hero show
I liked it when the detective hero loses a fight with a passing teenager right at the start. Refreshing not to have the lead character a super-hero who outfights everyone.
We then get a glimpse of New Zealand society. In particular the life of the Maori.
How they were ill-treated in the past, and are still far from equal.
And also real imperfect characters. Different from each other.
We start with one mystery, and then several more crop up.
The season ends with at least one mystery cleared up. More for Season two, I assume.
And some excellent scenery. Places where real people are living and having complex lives.
Constellation (2024)
Self-indulgent repetition and it gets tedious.
Real drama with the accident and the return.
Some mystery as they show the timeline spilt.
Then more on exactly the same, and that's when I found it irritating.
You see the mother or the daughter traipsing through the snow. Or the mother exploring a burnt-out version of the home she has come from. Or the daughter hiding in a cupboard.
Then you see exactly the same thing, and possibly the same events, this is never clear.
Then you see it again. And again. And again. And again. And again.
At five episodes it would have been fine. Four for what we've seen and then however they play to wrap it up.
But no, they decide to show irritatingly familiar episodes again. And again. And again. And again. And again.
What a waste. But I am thankful for Fast Forward.
More generally, and as others have said, it strains belief that none of these highly intelligent people have caught on to the fact of Alternate Worlds. It has been done many times, including on Star Trek.
Inside (2023)
A clever idea, but a pretentious film
This film fascinated me for the first 30 minutes, and then I started fast-forwarding.
Only once were we given a view of the man's wider life: it remained obsessed with this Unique Man On His Own.
The supposed philosophical insights were not worth spitting on.
The opening story - he would have rescued personal items and not his relatives - tells us just that this is a man close to sociopathy, or maybe fully so. He seems not violent, but also totally insensitive to how he must be regularly upsetting people by his burglaries.
I have a nasty feeling that the director and script writer are much the same. They definitely wanted us to like this creep.
The man seems to resent the success of his victim, when his own art seems never to have gained money or recognition. But many live with such things, including a few who get fame after their deaths, as was true of William Blake. It is no excuse for this fictional character being a criminal parasite and wrecker of the lives of others.
It seems many were offended by the slowness, just as I was. They expand on the man's life just once, which was a welcome break. But there should have been a lot more. A lot less about his struggles to break free.
Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Prophecy Comes True (2024)
Much better than the film version
I'd found the two films OK, but this remake from the first book is much better.
I had never read the books, so changes did not bother me. It was the author who wrote the script, so complaints are silly.
But I also notice a consistent pattern of people who take the trouble to write several reviews of later episodes of a series they supposedly were bored by. I take this to be another case of racists trying to spoil a dramatisation that dares to have non-white characters in important roles.
Annabeth, described as blond in the book. And also Zeus, whom I felt was played very well.
The end follows the book in having Sally's obnoxious husband choose to open the parcel with the head of Medusa. The book is much more savage - Percy considers using it so, but leaves it to his mother. She later writes, mentioning how her husband had vanished, and meantime she has been able to sell a sculpture than is strikingly life-like. Much less ethical: it would in fact count as pre-meditated murder.
The TV series also copies the film in putting it with the end credits. An irritating habit that I suppose is put to make us watch them, and shows a lack of respect for the audience.
Still, it was an excellent adaptation. I assume we get the rest of the books.
Rebel Moon - Part One: A Child of Fire (2023)
A dull remake of Seven Samauri
Unlike Rogue One, the script did not have the originality to find a sensible alternative plot.
The Japanese original had a bunch of bandits as foes - plausible. Rogue One had sections of a well-organised Resistance. This has a scattering of unlikely individuals, who for some reason get involved in an entirely local matter.
I also found a lot of it silly - ploughing using a horse-like animal, in a society with advances spacecraft.
And there was a grimy look to a lot of it. Only by making the villains irrationally bad could one feel for the heroic characters, and they were not that heroic.
It was not a waste of time. And I fancy I can guess what part two will be about. But I'd not expect it to have much impact.
For All Mankind: Glasnost (2023)
A liberal-left fantasy, very entertaining
Political fiction - Gorbachev is a grand success. The USA and Russia become partners. China is still relatively poor and not a major space power.
Yeltsin and Putin are not mentioned, so far. Putin might appear later as a KGB man, presumably as a villain.
Al Gore gets elected President. The Clintons get divorced with Bill just ex-Governor. Presumably no more will be heard of them.
Having reached Mars in Season Three, we were already told an asteroid is next. It does indeed open with the landing on an asteroid: one that I assume is fictional, but looking like some of the actual asteroids. That part was convincing.
The asteroid is close enough to Mars to be put into orbit around Mars, to be a source of raw material. Is this valid science?
The asteroid is tethered, and then pushed. Obviously a source of tension, which I will not spoil.
Meantime Margo, having betrayed NASA, is being neglected in Moscow. The administrators there don't want her views. But from the amount of time spent on her, it seems safe to assume she will somehow come back. Maybe get a Presidential pardon.
Foundation: Creation Myths (2023)
Setting up for Season Three
As of 16th September, no Third Season has been confirmed. But many have seen this season as better than the last.
It is of course very different from what Asimov wrote, but still very entertaining.
And with many plot twists.
When Harri Seldon reappeared, I assumed he was actually a humanoid robot. I still believe that there are more beside Demerzel, which she anyway hinted at in the last episode. It would explain apparently dead people appearing again. And I'd have preferred it to the slightly improbable way his death was faked.
I had been finding it hard to believe that Terminus was gone. They chose to say it was, but the people saved. A handy machine to serve as 'Deus Ex Machine'.
And of course Empire is back - too good a set of characters to lose. A lot to work out, including the run-away Brother Day. But with the Imperial Fleet destroyed, there should be a lot more successful rebellions. It should be more like the fragmented galaxy full of warring states that Asimov describes before the rise of The Mule.
I assume they introduced this character early, to improve chances of a third season, since the first was less popular than had been hoped.
I was dismayed that they chose to make him the huge physically powerful character with blue glasses to hide his terrible gaze - actually a false report from the books. But later in the season, we learned that Mentallics can look like someone they are not, and also do damage by making the target think it is real. So maybe the real Mule will be more like the original vision.
Not at all like the original vision is Gael and Hari being bowed down to by the rescued Mentallics. Not saying that this is excessive. Asimov's version is notably egalitarian, with the First Speaker having limited powers.
Still, I really enjoyed this season, and very much hope we get a third.
The Wheel of Time: What Might Be (2023)
A good series based on mediocre books
I never tried the original books. The cover of the first put me off - just another author doing a weak rehash of Tolkien.
The TV show led me to try the first book, but not to change my view. I'm not reading any more.
But the TV series was fun. Moiraine as played by Rosamund Pike was wonderfully convincing, and remains so.
It was genuinely surprising at times, at least to those of us who never read the books.
An interesting on-going story.
I got depressed by the True Believers who seem to keep watching just so they can complain about how much it bored and offended them. I'm puzzled as to why they bother. They can't actually put off the rest of us.
Foundation: Long Ago, Not Far Away (2023)
Amazing things happen
We get to learn a lot more about Demerzel and her relationship with the first Cleon. And this ties back to the wider story of Asimov's books, which is good.
Not so good is the decision that the Encyclopedia Galactica was never produced. In the book, it continued as a minor function. Asimov used it to give summaries that were well-informed, but not always correct.
The planned visit by Emperor to Terminus happens, of course, but with unexpected twists and turns and a cliff-hanger ending. One wonders just how many more changes the script will make to Asimov's tale.
Meantime Gael's story continues, with some emotional stress and a very unexpected helper arriving.
But I'll give nothing away: the surprise is much of the fun. I will be adding spoiler details in Trivia.
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds: Under the Cloak of War (2023)
A wonderful story, but I disliked the ending
As entertainment, this was serious and thrilling. You see the problems that war veterans have with confronting a former enemy.
And as an incidental, you see what looks like a preparation for winding up the Spock / Nurse Chappel romance, meaning that events will stay fairly consistent. You could even see this as the task for which Ensign Boimler was sent: he had wondered if there was one.
But what offended me was a regular character getting away with murder, and with people helping cover up. Even of the Klingon had lied about aspects of his past, he was still doing good work.
It seems to me that it is another case of the scriptwriters endorsing dishonesty as the best methods. And not showing the same commitment to peace.
The Witcher: The Art of the Illusion (2023)
The TV version of an idea based on SF conventions
From the book version, I noticed that a lot of it was a transposed SF convention. Fair enough.
Told differently, with everything centering on a social gathering, whereas the book had it as several separate conversations. I'd say that was intelligent, but it clearly offends some people who treat the books like Holy Writ.
I'm looking forward to the remaining three episodes - likely to be much more like the book. I won't say more, naturally.
The whole series seems OK to me. Some very good special effects. Too many characters for my liking, but that is how the story was told. It also goes for good television - being too literal would not suit anyone except those who see it as Holy Writ.
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds: The Broken Circle (2023)
A decent action-adventure
A thriller with conventional heroes and villains in alien costume.
Nothing particularly unexpected. And they have decided that Spock will have less control of his emotions than in the original, and the other versions. Not to my taste.
It looks like we have some new characters joining. A Chief Engineer who will be quite unlike any previous.
A new story arc seems to be beginning, but so far we know little about it.
Broadly well done, but I wish they would do more stories that could only be done as SF. And make the villains less like regular US stereotypes of the Bad Guys.
I look forwards to the rest of the series.
The Gallows Pole (2023)
A complete waste
A time of great social change. But some idiot decided to lead with absurd figures in stag skulls.
And most of the rest is trivia.
Like many others, it glamorizes crime. Not the squalid reality of actual crime.
This wastes a lot of effort that must have been put into making the people look like the period.
And then dumps in some modern pop songs. Someone at the BBC must have decided that every historic drama must have pop dumped into it, to reassure the audience. It was just as wasteful in a drama about the Roman invasion of Britain. Fascinating real events were discarded for a mix of silly mysticism and pop.
Dark Matter: Nowhere to Go (2017)
Sad it ends unfinished, unlike The Expanse
As a UK viewer, I just discovered this on Netflix.
Like many others, I was disappointed that it got cut after three seasons. And not taken up, as The Expanse was.
On the other hand, it had rather too many episodes that were fillers. Away from the main story arc, doing things like time loops, a visit to today's Earth and a subverted person that had been done before.
And it never was anything like as gripping or realistic as The Expanse was. Still, sad it was axed, when so much rubbish keeps going.
I've seen articles saying that the key was that Scfy did not own it, and so could not make money out of its wider use. Which suggests a bad overall system, and streaming may end such things. Or at least make them rarer.
The Consultant (2023)
Initially interesting, but nothing gets explained
For the first two episodes, I wondered what was going on.
I then got increasingly suspicious that the script writers didn't know and saw no need to sort it.
Some of the failures of understanding by The Consultant are just not believable.
Given that a violent death has occurred and would be a police matter, the main protagonist's failure to go to the police is increasingly absurd.
It ends treating the villain as almost a hero.
This is a pity, because at times it is a decent picture of the games industry and its pressures.
And the absurdities of management.
But it could all have been done in three or four episodes. A lot of padding.
Amsterdam (2022)
Offended by gruesome stuff in a supposed comedy thriller
For my taste, extensive and needless medical details were out of place in something advertised as comedy thriller. And the blurb on the disk I got gave no warning.
It also seemed to me disrespectful for a bunch of actors to be treating real human suffering as raw material.
If done in a different spirit, it might have been a good drama, since the central event was actually real.
Or it could have been done comically, but without showing so much suffering and death, all of it based on real events.
Clearly it does not offend many viewers. But I regard such people out of line. Making a joke of things that are not funny.
Star Trek: Picard: The Last Generation (2023)
For my taste, too much 'home movie'
The formidable Borg / Dissident Changeling alliance fell much too easily. With a scene borrowed from something just as improbable in 'Return of the Jedi' - enemies who neglect the simplest defense of their most vital assets.
I had been expecting both of the Alternative Borg to play a role. Never mentioned, though they are likely to be in the presumed spin-off series.
I also felt it would have been much stronger if Picard and some others had died in their suicide missions.
But as I said in the title, that is my taste. It was still good. And the other reviews show that an Old Friends Reunion is just what others wanted.
I assume we now get the much-wanted Seven of Nine series, and she will command her own version of The Enterprise. With Picard and the others popping up from time to time.
My guess also is that she and Raffi will remain ex-lovers who can work together. The norm in all series is to have almost all the main characters single and free for one-episode dramas. And to be free for the sexual fantasies that a lot of fans are said to have. Not something I've ever felt, but it is part of the show.
Overall, it was an excellent three season show, and with more good stuff to expect.