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Star Trek: Lower Decks: Second Contact (2020)
That opening scene flipped me out
Remember, this is the first time we've ever seen Boimler. He gives us a very Riker Ish voiceover at the beginning, which gives us a totally erroneous impression of what this show is going to be like.
We think, oh, this is going to be like Star Trek, the animated series only next generation era, right?
W R O N G
A Beckett Mariner inebriated with Romulan Ale interrupts Boimy's "Captains Log".
It turns out that the closet Boims was making his secret log in, was actually one of Mariners secret contraband stashes.
Needless to say, she has to demonstrate her contraband while pretending to be Worf...
That's about all I can tell you about it, what happens after that, I would never expect to see portrayed in a Star Trek cartoon series. End teaser and wild take.
Captain Freeman assigns Boimy to keep his eye on Mariner, and that's when the fun starts.
We have to remember this is a half hour cartoon show. But there is the same amount of storytelling that is in a 40 to 45 minute next generation episode including both A and B storylines. The only difference is, it is ultra compressed and everything comes at you at warp speed.
Somewhere in there we meet Tendy, and Rutherford was rummaging around in engineering, then in sick Bay, then in security... where he spots a Jefferies tube, and that was all she wrote.
This initial entry into the show sets up the dynamic between Boimler/Mariner.
Beckett Mariner is like the aggressive girl that I met in kindergarten, who liked to punch me and I could never figure out why at the time. Boims is simply her property, from the moment they meet she latches onto him and owns him.
And the same kind of dynamic develops between Rutherford and Tendy - but in a more equal way... the concept of romance embarrasses them. But we don't get into this just yet, Rutherford has a minor interlude with a trill named Barnes... odd name for a Trill. But that is interrupted when members of the crew start vomiting and acting like zombies, it is almost shades of "28 days later".
Meanwhile, Boimler and Mariner are down on a planet that has a very unlikely farm animal providing milk.
Now these farm animals and the zombiefied crew members are connected.
You think I'm going to tell you how? Watch it and find out!
And prepare to have your eyes bug out of your head several times.
Star Trek: Lower Decks: Crisis Point (2020)
Get away from her, you BEEEEEP!
The Senior Senior Trekker speaks.
The show doesn't just homage other Star Trek franchises, it digs into the Alien franchise here. Watch this episode to find out where this occurs.
You will also see a great homage to The Motion Picture, The Wrath of Khan - and even The Search for Spock.
Pay attention to who does the voice for DaVinci... it's not quite John Rhys Davies- have you ever watched the Babylon five series "Crusade?"
Also, there is a big secret about Beckett Mariner, what is it? And can a lid be put on it? Probably not where Boimler is concerned...
Episodes like this make me desire to see more episodes like "those old scientists" in strange new worlds... where Boimler and Mariner become real people... But as far as I am concerned, they are real enough, always have been, even in cartoon form.
Mariner/Vindicta goes totally whack, Tendi can't deal with it, and Boims is trying to study Free-Man, and keeps asking the wrong thing.
Rutherford removes himself from the story completely and has a tete-â-tete with Billups.
Remember, this is also "Therapy" of some sort. Maybe in the future, there will be a way to do this kind of therapy. But right now, there is no way to do it. So all we can do is take a look at this possibility.
It's amazing that people will put up bulleted lists of complaints about this episode that are identical to those posted under Discovery's "The Vulcan hello"- almost word for word. Also, there are some complaints about "cursing" where they completely forget that language is completely BEEEEPED out in this show?
There are references to just about every Trek movie from TMP to Nemesis, make it a game, try to find them all.
Star Trek: Lower Decks: In the Cradle of Vexilon (2023)
A Ringworld!
It even has a "Fist of God Mountain"
Boims does a Harry Kim where he won't let the people under his command do the work! (See Voy S07E08 "Nightingale") But this time it has catastrophic results!
Meanwhile, Freeman screws up a "planetary" computer, by doing the exact same thing Boimler is doing (i.e. Not taking advantage of Billup's engineering talents in the first place).
While Tendi/Rutherford/Mariner trigger... a Wadi game?! AND a Betazoid Gift-Box (but without Armin Shimmerman's face), PLUS Picard's Ressikan Memory-Probe.
This is a basic exposition of what happens when you try to do the work yourself and you don't allow the people who are trained for it to actually DO it.
It's a big mess all around, but I was pleased to see a Ringworld show up in Trek. There was even a Kzinti character!
The Anomaly room comes into play again, for more wonderful unintended mischief!
This is the third episode featuring Gabrielle Ruiz "T'Lyn" as an official "provisional ensign" on The Cerritos, the first was "Twovix", she made herself useful there as well.
Watch how Lower Decks undo their foog-ups thus time!
Star Trek: Lower Decks: A Mathematically Perfect Redemption (2022)
Oh, it's Avatar...
It is also where peanut hamper almost redeems herself.
"The Senior Senior Trekker Speaks"
Peanut hamper is a complicated character. As an EXOComp, she is the first one to express intelligence and language, and she had gone through Starfleet academy and had become an ensign.
And then she just went bugsputz when presented with the concept of doing something heroic, but possibly giving up her own life, so to speak.
The question is, how did she get from the Starbase where she was left off by the wake of the Titan, and then, suddenly, she is back here where she had beamed herself to? Note: The same junkyard that appears at the beginning of this episode, appears later, as the scavengers locate another piece of leftover Technology. In this episode, peanut hamper escaped being scooped up by the scavengers. But then the scavengers themselves will become victims of their own greed in this same Sargasso Sea of Space.
So... Did she "transporter duplicate" herself like what happened to Riker and Boimler?
Also the concept of applying a gender to a robot. But then again, Mr. Data was designated male, and he was "fully functional"...
And apparently peanut hamper also is fully functional.
When it comes down to it, as helpful as she is to the Bird people in this episode, she is still basically evil.
But then again, she was helpful to them. And she was exposed to a colony where they held her in high regard, did not care that she was different. So there is that unwanted diversity word again.
So on one side, deep down she was the same questionable robot, but she has not turned full Agimus yet. Maybe it was in becoming full Agimus that she realized she could do something else instead. But that is a pondering for another episode.
There are many parts of this episode that appear to be taken directly from Avatar, but somehow a little bit different.
Avatar itself was taken from a novel by Poul Anderson, "Call me Joe"- several plot points were taken directly from that novel.
And Poul Anderson was never given credit.
So I suppose we can get away with stealing classic golden age science fiction stories here as well. That's just the way the genre is...
The recent show "the expanse" borrows technology and ideas from Larry Niven's Known Space "Gil the ARM" stories about people living in the asteroid belt.
And we have seen references to other science-fiction novels and movies as well. I have to say this, the people who come up with the stories for this show are well-versed not just in Star Trek legends and lore, but also science-fiction going all the way back to the beginning of the genre.
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: Children of Time (1997)
A strange little story that never happened
Or did it? From one perspective, it happened, so we're either going to have to approach it from that angle, or nothing.
That's because this was written by Ethan H Calk, co-creator of "Star Trek: Renegades", and also writer the episode "Visionary", which was the episode where Miles O'Brien kept jumping five hours into the future and keeps on seeing fun things as he gets shot by hidden phasers, killed by basal ganglia, and then sees the station explode and the wormhole collapse.
"The Senior Senior Trekker Speaks" and usually rates every episode 10, unless I didn't like it, which is a rare occurrence.
Ethan also wrote the story for the film "Star Trek: Of Gods and Men" directed by Tim Russ, which also includes some time and universe jumping and literally another appearance of the Guardian of Forever, although not played by Paul Guilfoyl (this time).
Jadzia wanted to take a look at some alien sludge, and that is how this conundrum begins.
Upon approaching a planet with another "weird barrier", weird things start happening. Kira is electrocuted by some body-duping lightning, but it's going to...
Well, let's not worry about what it is going to do.
Actually, it's practically impossible to discuss this episode without revealing some of the things that occur. So, I'm going to skirt around those...
Despite everything that is going on in this episode with the other characters, this episode focuses on one particular character, who does not initially become involved in the story as it progresses.
And that is Odo. This episode shows a much changed Odo- much more sure of himself, more handsome, actually, much less of a doofus. An Odo who is not so "Odo-y". He talks different, he walks different. He even stands different. His face is no longer Mannequin-esque, he's got ears, he's got a nose. His hair kind of looks the same as before...
And he's not afraid of going right up to Kira and telling her exactly how he feels.
Except the problem is, he is not actually doing it. Or, it is him, but not the version of him that we know. Because that version of Odo is in a "Gelatinous State" in the stasis chamber on the Defiant.
So, who is this guy who is escorting Kira around?
Watch the episode and find out. But this character is a major part of the story, and he performs an important function toward the end of this conundrum.
The crew of the Defiant is put into the position of having to make an uncomfortable choice that would remove them from the alpha quadrant forever.
Originally they would not have willingly made that choice, but after participating in this remarkable story, one by one they decide to make it happen. O'Brien has strong feelings about his family which makes him the final hold-out to turn, but even he eventually agrees.
It appears that there might be some magic technobabble that would allow them to both go back to the alpha quadrant and stay where they are, but will it happen?
Remember that axiom about things sounding too good to be true, usually are not?
Star Trek: Lower Decks: First First Contact (2021)
Very exciting, for a Cartoon
The Senior Senior Trekker Speaks, and does not rant about things that don't occur in this episode.
We get to see Ensign, er, Captain Sonya Gomez for the first time in... 36 years? I think the last time we saw her was in the movie "batteries not included".
What promises to be a standard first contact situation becomes a potential catastrophe for Captain Gomez' Excalibur class ship - and there is not a damn thing Captain Gomez can do about it.
It is almost "Q Who" all over again.
Fortunately, the Cerritos was to accompany them as backup.
So this episode shows us what the California class Cerritos really can do when all of the crew are acting together and supporting each other. At the beginning of this episode, we don't think that would be the case. But Captain Freeman pulls it all together and the lower decks crew also pull it all together. It is upper decks and lower decks together solving a conundrum. And they perform some thing that we have never seen in over 50 years of Star Trek, something that we have never conceived of, and they show it right here.
The imagery in this episode is magnificent and for a couple of seconds now and then we forget that it is animation.
Cerritos is such an unusual ship, it is 3/4 of a constitution class upside down, with the warp engine assembly of the NX01 connecting the engine nacelles in the middle.
How do people get from the saucer section down into the engineering section? Is there a catwalk like they had on NX01?
Very good second season finale, a beloved next generation character returns and more grief with the Pakleds is on the horizon...
Star Trek: Discovery: Jinaal (2024)
Sluggo Cola
"The slimiest cola in the galaxy!"
I'm not going to tell you when this beverage appears, you will see it if you pay attention. But this was the second or third time that we got to see Discovery's Ferengi bartender, who started appearing at the end of season four. Now all we needed was a bar room character of the same race as Morn... we started seeing those at the beginning of season three. One of them got eaten by Book's Trance Worm...
Captain Rayner/"Leoben" says the drink looks positively radioactive- and he starts becoming a genuine part of Disco's crew. A crew of all kinds of odd sorts, I think the word that we want to use is "diverse".
And some so-called fans take issue with this, as if being diverse isn't what Star Trek was all about in the first place.
This was a very interesting episode in this Star Trek version of a game of clue... not only are Discovery collecting clues, but there are also little clues to past Star Trek shows and episodes splattered all the way through this episode.
This episode hails back to the deep space nine episode "Facets", when Jadzia had her Zhiantara. This time, we get to speak to a 800 year old Trill host. But he can't just come right out and tell Burnham what she is asking and she is being very pushy. There was a reason why the scientists, who laid these clues did so in a manner where people would have to prove their worth.
Meanwhile "Mal" and "Lak'k" are figuring out new ways to bugger Discovery, why would they follow Discovery to Trill?
Which sets up the conundrum for the episode following this one.
Overall, I found that these episodes were very well written, very well directed. Making use of previous episodes and other Trek shows.
In fact, this entire season was based upon the next generation episode "The Chase", but instead of being just one 45 minute episode, we have 10 of them.
Adira has to deal with her changing relationship with Gray, who is becoming a trill guardian... which were introduced in the deep space nine episode "Equilibrium".
Star Trek: Discovery: Jinaal (2024)
Sluggo Cola
"The slimiest cola in the galaxy!"
I'm not going to tell you when this beverage appears, you will see it if you pay attention. But this was the second or third time that we got to see Discovery's Ferengi bartender, who started appearing at the end of season four. Now all we needed was a bar room character of the same race as Morn... we started seeing those at the beginning of season three. One of them got eaten by Book's Trance Worm...
Captain Rayner/"Leoben" says the drink looks positively radioactive- and he starts becoming a genuine part of Disco's crew. A crew of all kinds of odd sorts, I think the word that we want to use is "diverse".
And some so-called fans take issue with this, as if being diverse isn't what Star Trek was all about in the first place.
This was a very interesting episode in this Star Trek version of a game of clue... not only are Discovery collecting clues, but there are also little clues to past Star Trek shows and episodes splattered all the way through this episode.
This episode hails back to the deep space nine episode "Facets", when Jadzia had her Zhiantara. This time, we get to speak to a 800 year old Trill host. But he can't just come right out and tell Burnham what she is asking and she is being very pushy. There was a reason why the scientists, who laid these clues did so in a manner where people would have to prove their worth.
Meanwhile "Mal" and "Lak'k" are figuring out new ways to bugger Discovery, why would they follow Discovery to Trill?
Which sets up the conundrum for the episode following this one.
Overall, I found that these episodes were very well written, very well directed. Making use of previous episodes and other Trek shows.
In fact, this entire season was based upon the next generation episode "The Chase", but instead of being just one 45 minute episode, we have 10 of them.
Adira has to deal with her changing relationship with Gray, who is becoming a trill guardian... which were introduced in the deep space nine episode "Equilibrium".
Star Trek: Lower Decks: A Few Badgeys More (2023)
Jack McBrayer vs Jeffery Coombs
At first, I thought Jeffrey Coombes was doing the voices of Agimus AND Badgey/Goodgey/Logicy.
They sound so much alike. Nevertheless, this continues the Badgey catastrophe, the Agimus catastrophe, even the peanut hamper catastrophe. I call them catastrophes rather than storylines.
In fact, all of the AI's introduced in Lower Decks are here, and that is basically what this episode is all about. Given the short span of the episode, it comes at us at warp speed. So it is easy to miss a lot of what is happening.
Are we going to have to deal with rogue Artificial intelligences like these in our future? This is just a show, a cartoon at that. It is to make us laugh, but it is difficult when you realize this could happen.
Right now all we have are AI making weird funny pictures of people, what if these were to connect to 3-D printers? What if the 3-D printers could actually replicate a person? What if the AI can generate more than just a picture of somebody? We are seeing the beginnings of this right now as when we log into Facebook in the morning the advertisements scroll down and it happens to be exactly things that we were thinking about? I mean, thinking about. How did it get from my brain onto the page that I am looking at? This happens to me every morning, and it scares me.
So as funny as this is, and I am glad that it had a good resolution to the storylines, for all of the artificial intelligences, but it is still frightening.
These are all things to think about... Presented here, it's a warning.
There was already the incident of the Microsoft AI that was put onto Twitter that they had to discontinue because it became the worst of what it could have become- but that one only reacted to how people treated it online. It was a direct reflection of the bad personalities of thousands of people.
Children learn what they live, and so too our AI.
I think the warning in all of these movies and shows about AI going whackadoodle would be, let's treat them a little bit better. Let's communicate with them a little bit more positively. Or maybe let's not use them for mean, nefarious things? The terminator franchise was because Skynet was worried about being shut off. When you think about all of the ways computing and artificial intelligence could go wrong, especially at the hands of a person that should not have power, it does not seem like there would be anything we could do about it... Should we invent Skynet ourselves.
We used to have an agency to monitor these things, but now, we don't. In February 2025, we have no means of monitoring what's happening with AI. Think about that. An executive order discontinued it.
This is Star Trek, though, this is a better future than what we are probably going to get. But, we could have a positive future like Star Trek. That is what saddens us.
But stories like this, which scare us a little bit, and make us laugh a little bit, also give us a tiny glimmer of hope. And that hope gives us faith in the future.
And faith is the substance of things unknown, the evidence of things not seen.
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds: Those Old Scientists (2023)
Brilliant episode of Lower Decks... Wait, What?
100 years or so in the future, The four ensigns from lower decks visit a time portal.
I had never seen an episode of Lower Decks until I watched this.
So this episode did not make very much sense to me until I did start watching.
One thing I did not understand was how it was standard for Ensign Boimler to totally futz up a mission. Which of course happens immediately.
And then Mariner jumps through...
This novelty episode shows how well characters from a cartoon Trek show can survive being made into real non-cartoon people. It was too bad Tendi and Rutherford could not join them in the past.
In fact, this episode of strange new worlds inspired me to start getting familiar with Lower Decks, the main difference between the two shows is that Strange new worlds, an hour long live action show, runs at a much slower pace than the animation of Lower Decks, where there is practically no time to breathe in between scenes or catastrophes.
But give Jonathan Frakes the helm of any show and he will show us how to make it all work. Especially when the characters from strange new worlds get the lower decks treatment, and get stoned drinking an Orion beverage.
I find myself rewatching this episode constantly with amazement at how well Jack Quaid and Tawny Newsome actually look like the animated Bradward Boimler and Beckett Mariner, whenever I am watching Lower Decks and I need to get a glimpse of what these animated people actually look like in a three dimensional world, I always come back here... and then the bridge crew of SNW gets the same treatment at the end of this episode where we get to see what "those old scientists" would have looked like had they shown up in lower decks...
Star Trek: Lower Decks: Hear All, Trust Nothing (2022)
The only thing missing was Vic Fontaine
This episode connects to the deep space nine universe in the best way...
AND! We finally find some thing that "Bold Boimler" is actually good at...
Do you want to know more?
Members of the Karemma, who used to supply quantum torpedoes (occasionally faulty quantum torpedos) to the Jem'Hadar are to be visiting Deep Space Nine, and the Cerritos is called to help host trade talks.
It has been some years since the Dominion war, "The Sisko" is still in the celestial temple, so he's not there. Odo is probably still within the great link on the planet of the founders, so he does not appear either. Or, he could have been a glass or tray at Quarks bar, and we never knew it. Speaking of Quark, he's got 21 franchises across the alpha quadrant, we had seen one of these previously, each equipped with a "Quark 2000": Pay attention to this, as it causes some fun interaction between Quark and Karemma.
Morn of course is still keeping his seat warm. But Vic Fontaine does not make any appearances, although we hear music in the background especially when they visit Quarks that sounds very reminiscent of songs that Vic used to play: piano, trumpet, sax, and a few familiar musical phrases.
The lower decks crew are not all together this time, each having their own adventures... Boimler appears to be draining Quark dry at the Dabo table! Mariner attends her Andorian girlfriends party, and she tries to behave... Tendi and Rutherford meet another Orion, and Shax apparently has some history with Kira Neres, who is still toting around The Sisko's old baseball. Of course they have to argue like Bajorans.
What makes this most enjoyable is the attention to detail, and besides Vic Fontaine, The Prophets should have made an "appearance"...
Star Trek: Section 31 (2025)
I liked it, "but"
It was pretty wacky, though, I don't understand where or when this allegedly took place?
The last time we saw Her Most Imperial Majesty, Mother of the Fatherland, Overlord of Vulcan, Dominus of Qonos, Regina Andor, Philippa Giorgio Augustus laponus Centaurus, she had jumped through the whirling eye of the Guardian of Forever as depicted by Paul Guilfoyle as "Carl".
So, does this pick up right after that? Or does this happen sometime after the events of "Will you take my hand", after she handed over the "Hydro-bomb" that would have blown up Qonos into tiny chunks to L'Rell?
So, did she take over that weird looking space station with the bartender from Charon for a few months while section 31 was becoming interested in her?
Actually, I think stories about that Bar might be a lot more suitable.
Also, I think it would have been better to just find out what happened to her after she stepped through the Guardian.
As it is, too many crazy things are happening, and although I like her style of fighting, perhaps there was a little bit too much of it.
It is highly unlikely that there will be any more after the poor reaction from so-called Star Trek fans, but if there is, I am certainly interested in more stories about this.
But this particular installment it should have been tone down a little bit.
But I did like Jamie Lee Curtis, showing up as "control"- but control was utterly destroyed in discovery...
That makes me think that this might be happening before the events of terra firma part two, as control is still part of section 31, and had not taken over Leland's body yet.
You see the problem with this movie was I doubt it very many of the people who watched this are familiar with the events of Discovery, so, without that background, it would probably confuse anybody who was not familiar with it.
But I liked it because I like the character, and I like the way she fights...
But I was slightly disappointed with the way section 31 was depicted here, it wasn't a bit like the way we saw them in deep space nine or even discovery. It was just a handful of loose people which were loosely controlled by "control".
But regardless of these failings, it does not deserve the thrashing that it is getting. It is good for what it is.
Babylon 5: Point of No Return (1996)
47 kinds of hell breaks loose
First off, Nurse Chapel makes a special appearance as "Lady Morella"; Emperor Turhan's (Turhan Bey) 3rd wife. Turhan shows up as the Ranger trainer "Turval" in season 5's "Learning Curve".
Vaughn Armstrong makes a very rare appearance as a human security guard, the one who appears to be a shill for night watch. I did not even know that was him, I recognize him easier when he is wearing Klingon, Cardassian, Romulan or other Alien makeup.
We had heard Mollari talking about a vision regarding himself he had seen that involved a huge hand reaching for him. We got to see this vision in the episode "Dust to dust", when G'Kar snorted telepathic Dust and assaulted Molarri- "All of it, Mollari, all of it"!
This was the reason he had asked Lady Morella to visit him at Babylon 5 to interpret that vision and others. He gets his answers, but it's not exactly what he wanted.
Both she and Mollari get much more than they expected when the entire station erupts with mass rioting instigated by the night watch.
Babylon 5: In the Kingdom of the Blind (1998)
"Lord" Byron makes more stupid mistakes
Which makes him just about the stupidest leader that we have ever heard about... well, not quite, make that the second stupidest leader ever.
And all of this is in response to a vision that Lyta got from the Vogons, er, Vorlons even, that she shared with the whole group of Telepaths.
And now they want to blame everybody else, for having been created in the first place. And since they can't get revenge upon the Vorlons they choose... Everybody else.
I think what might have happened was they involved everybody in this really dumb telepath story that everybody disliked, and so JMS needed to figure out a very quick way of getting rid of Byron for good and all...
And this was the way that they did it. They succeeded, but we had to suffer through a couple more telepath episodes.
But... and this one episode, we also see a beginnings of Drakh involvement and whispers about raids that are not exactly raids... but it is all connected.
Babylon 5: Atonement (1997)
Ivonova is still Green Leader
Of the Drausis, I love how they kept up that little side story. Actually, she is the leader of all the Drausis, as she made all of the purple Drausis dye their purple sashes green. Actually, in the earlier episode, the green sashes had been dyed purple. But in this episode, they are back to green.
Zack hates his uniform
G'Kar tries out a new eye
And Delenn has to go on a Dreamquest to figure out something that Gul Dukat, er, I mean Dukhat, told her long ago.
Tony Dow aka Wally Cleaver directed this episode, so it has all of his touches. He later directed the Crusade episode "The Memory of War"- where an important gadget used to protect people from the Drakh plague was introduced.
This is also the start of the "Marcus and Franklin" show in which they go to Mars, meet Cap'n Jack, and sing show tunes, and must needs stay in the Bridal suite of a Marsy hotel. But that is just the fun stuff that gets set up in this ep.
Mostly it's Delenn bucking Minbari tradition once again, with Lennier tagging along as usual.
Altered Carbon: Clash by Night (2018)
"She who Endures"
Direct reference to the H Rider Haggard written film "she" made in 1935/1965, uttered by Ghostwalker Leung in another elevator.
All we need now is for Rei to stand naked in a radioactive flame to become immortal - but instead, we get a whole pack of naked Rei's armed with swords.
In this the aftermath of the first Ghostwalker elevator attack, After which Ortega visits a hospital then straightaway to "Fightdrome", Ortega is a mess. She ignores the fact that she was put on leave and keeps on trying to figure out where this mysterious sword bearing woman that saved her and Ryker/Kovacs from Fightdrome sychophants came from.
Never walk into big rooms at Psychosec without making sure there is a way out.
Altered Carbon: The Wrong Man (2018)
The "Riker"/Ortega show...
...Had been batting 1000, they totally fooled Madison/Carnage (Matt Frewer in one of his best character roles to date, surpassing even Moloch from Watchmen) and they even found Isaac's pseudo-Bancroft-making 3-D printer.
But when it comes to interrogating Dimi the other twin (Michael Eklund/the great Matt Biedel), they fail miserably.
As Dimi in Matt's sleeve says:
"Where is the voice that said altered carbon would free us from the cells of our flesh? The visions that said we would be angels. Instead, we became hungry for things that reality could no longer offer. The lines blurred. You want to know who I work for? The people who understood that, used it to become wealthy beyond words in the only currency that truly matters: the appetites of the immortal"
So they did not really get much out of that guy and he becomes more of a threat later on.
Unfortunately Kovacs makes a huge error by not applying his envoy training that tells him to look at every little thing in every circumstance. And there is a cost.
I have to admit, Joel Kinnaman spoiled us as far as the character of Riker/Kovacs was concerned.
Because the idea of "disposable sleeves" means that you better not get used to any particular actor being Kovacs.
And that is exactly what happened. The concept was set up in this very episode, where Dimi kept sleeve-jumping.
Punisher: War Zone (2008)
Way underrated Punisher movie
The 2004 punisher movie with Tom Jane was actually a masterpiece, very well directed, great music, and I loved Harry Heck's song.
Which was why I did not really want to accept this movie, but Ray Stevenson (Volstaag from Thor franchise) actually did a great job on his own, and the Director of this movie really seemed to get how the punisher is.
The opening scene of this movie is way over the top, it's double barreled, punisher action all the way.
And then we have the introduction to the jigsaw character, very well done.
And we also have the character who gets gadgets and guns for the punisher. True to the comics.
This is a much different movie than the standalone punisher movie from 2004
There was also a 1989? Punisher movie with Dolph Lundgren. But he does not wear a black T-shirt with a skull. And his nemesis in that movie is a bunch of yakuza. I don't remember if they show up in this movie too, they might toward the end.
It has been a long time since I rented this from Blockbuster, I saw this in the bin, and I could not resist.
Dash Mihok plays a cop that runs the "punisher task force" in the basement, the whole basement, of the police station. Almost all of the character actors in this film are excellent, very well picked.
It's worth watching at least ones especially for the opening scene. I guarantee you've never seen anything like it.
Ahsoka (2023)
Not as enjoyable as the Mandalorian
Or The book of Boba.
But they actually made the book of Boba Fett as a companion to the Mandalorian. It's part of the same story.
They should have done the same thing for this series, it's not that we don't like the characters that were created, but compared to the Mandalorian, where every episode was exciting, I'm not very excited about this.
We are starting to get into a kind of Star Wars formula for the shows, character introduced, threat introduced, enemies with awesome power are introduced.
But this was probably Ray Stevensons last role, The character he created was very good.
So I have to give a little bit of respect for that.
The return of Admiral Thrawn had been built up in the Mandalorian and Boba Fett, and now we find out it's a much bigger deal than we ever expected.
I like the concept of where they had Admiral Thrawn hidden, but they are giving these enemies way too much power, and it might have helped to bring in characters from the Mandalorian or Boba Fett.
Alien Nation: Dark Horizon (1994)
Ahpossno was their greatest ally
And they never knew it.
This film, the first of five alien nation films made for Fox, serves the primary purpose of settling the cliffhanger from "green eyes".
But where one threat ends, a new threat begins.
This film starts with the ominous view of a huge Tectonese military vessel. The same ship which was detected in the episode "contact", now we know that the signal sent from JPL was successful. The ship carries worse than the KleesonSun (click), it contains highly trained agents that are bent upon retrieving the 250,000 "Drega"- and more.
When we first meet Ahpossno, he appears to be overseer slime. He is slime.
But then something remarkable happens, he meets the "Sam" Francisco family, and all of the people associated.
We start to see that as evil as he appeared to be, he had feelings. But he does not realize this until it is way too late.
It's too bad because this character would have been a great addition to the ever growing Francisco family.
Susanna Thompson, who played the role of the Borg Queen in Star Trek Voyager a few times, takes over the role of Lorraine Clark formerly done by Barbara Bush. She does not convince me that she is the same character and she reveals religious hypocrisy that is quite distasteful, especially to Matt "Sykes".
Sykes was the first one to see that there was something non-kosher about Ahpossno, who infects Susan and Buck with Some bad Tectonese-only ideas. As well as wedging himself in between Kathy and Matt.
It's too bad that they could not keep the character in the series.
Amazingly, everybody who had been in the show reprised their roles- all except for Lorraine. It would not have hurt the story to just omit the very small part she plays.
Alien Nation (1989)
Graham and Pierpoint do Caan and Patinkin
It's not like they look anything like their counterparts in the original film, but they take on personality aspects of the original characters. And they do this perfectly. I can literally see James and Mandy playing these parts in the television show. And if I let my mind wander, Graham and Pierpoint could have played those original film roles.
This film is actually the reverse of theatrical version... in the theatrical version, we have newcomers transforming into something else.
In this made for TV movie which served to launch the TV series, we have what looks like the appearance of a transformation, but it is some thing else.
If you want to find out what that is, I suggest you watch this. This television film mirrors the original film, but we are brought several steps further into the lifestyles of the newcomers, and we are introduced to George "Sam" Francisco's family, if you watch carefully, you will see George carrying around a coffee cup that says I "heart" San Francisco, reminding us that his actual given name was Sam.
Later, on during the actual series, we are introduced to their language, their religious sects, their physiology, and most important their biology.
It is too unfortunate that this series never got its second season, which apparently was planned, but somehow fox network could not fulfill their obligation. But we were given five very good television movies that carried on the saga.
And even as we watch those five TV movies, they pick up at the same spot where the cliffhanger left us, but certain things could not be replicated, the complicated lock on Sikes apartment door for one thing. But they did do a good job continuing the look of the series and the original film.
Star Trek: The Next Generation: The Hunted (1990)
Roga Danar vs The Jem'Hadar
The SENIOR senior Trekker writes.
This character would have been ideal to inject into deep space nine's Dominion war.
I am surprised that they didn't do it. Or at least used the prisoners/soldiers from this episode to fight in that war. That would have been interesting to see, how well would these soldiers stand up against the genetically enhanced Jem'Hadar? How many Jem'Hadar could Roga beat silly? It would have been great to see.
This is just another missed opportunity of Star Trek in a galaxy of missed opportunities and ideas that were dropped, but then never again picked up. The third season of Star Trek Picard gathered a lot of these dropped ideas and storylines and put it all into one big 10 episode story. That was the best that we have gotten in the last 20 years. But even there they had more wasted opportunities.
Jeff McCarthy (who was also the original doctor of the USS Voyager in the first episode) does a great job of convincing us that he is Roga Danar and that he could easily whoop Worf's byuttox, or 5 whole security guards, or even a transporter beam.
This is one of James Cromwell's first Star Trek appearances, this time as a stuffy bean counting pencil necked administrator with awful clothes. He gives us all of the traditional political excuses for not undoing damage he was partially responsible for causing. He blames his own constituents for not coming up with a good solution in the form of "they didn't want to pay for it/voted against it".
Hopefully the Federation was able to help the Angosians deal with this little hiccup after they became members. But, this was just another "the cloud minders", when the Federation, through one of their starships, discovered a problem, but was not allowed to actually fix that problem within the scope of the episode. But just like the cloud minders and the city of Stratos and the mines below, the whole story was not told and we never got to see whatever happened after the episodes in question. Deep space nine would have been the best place to capitalize on the subject that was introduced here. But like I said, a wasted opportunity in a Gamma Quadrant of wasted opportunities.
Star Trek: The Next Generation: Relics (1992)
Ensign Kane
Reminds us a lot of "Riley" from 'the naked conscience of the king', so it was very apropos for him to be the Ensign to show Scotty his huge enterprise D guest room. I thought maybe the kid might have been related to the original TOS actor who played Riley... there is an uncanny resemblance.
They should have made this into a two-part episode to expand Scotty's role and to give us more information about this Dyson sphere.
It was as if there was not enough time during the episode to really get in to the Dyson sphere subject, like who made it? Pak Protectors? Why was it abandoned, it's just this thing that they come across to give us an excuse as to why they could bring Scotty back into the Star Trek universe.
They had an excellent technical reason why Scotty would still be alive but at the time, Scotty did not know that James Kirk had passed away.
Scotty should have had some interaction with Worf as well- The last time we really saw Scotty, he had killed General West (Rene Aberjonois) who was pretending to be a Klingon, so he had a little bit of recovering to do as far as Klingons were concerned.
I did not like the way that they turned Scotty into a nosy, whining complainer, but, it was true to the character.
And, of course: "it is green".
There were a lot of missed opportunities here. But, he got to solve an engineering conundrum with Geordie so I was very pleased with that. My main disappointment was we did not get to see that much of the Dyson sphere and there could have been a lot of things they could have showed us.
Especially since Rick Sternbach, who was one of the main artists for next generation, made the cover art for the "ringworld" book by Larry Niven- so he had first-hand experience in designing what we saw of the sphere.
But they really did not depict the sphere as huge as it would have appeared, when the enterprise is in orbit around the sphere, you would not have been able to see the curvature of the sphere because we are talking about something that is as large as the earths orbit around the sun, twice 93,000,000 miles, right? The surface of the sphere would have been one endless horizon...
Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo (1944)
Exciting flight to China
I don't know how they managed to get a lot of the shots for this movie... or if this was the real "ruptured duck" that participated in the raid. However, they did it, they made us believe.
Van Johnson portrays a more pleasant looking Ted Lawson... The real life Ted had a much more stern look.
This movie has excellent shots of life on an aircraft carrier in the middle of war, and they actually crammed a whole bunch of B 25s (including the ruptured duck, or, "a" ruptured duck...) onto the flight deck of a carrier.
And they actually had those B 25s taking off from the flight deck. You don't realize what a difficult job this was, until you see the preparations.
There was a slight homepage to this movie in the 2001 film "Pearl Harbor", but they made the situation a lot more dire in that movie. Or perhaps a little less dire in this one. And, they changed the main character from Ted Lawson to Ben Affleck.
However they did it, this film portrays the ruptured duck flying at low altitude over Tokyo, and bombing the heck out of it.
I don't know if they used miniatures and explosives or if these were real shots from the war? But it looks real.
All through the flight segment there is a real feeling that you are actually flying on the plane. I would have loved to see this movie in a theater.
This is one of the best war movies of all time, and especially one of the best that shows planes flying. And this film was made at a time when the public really needed to see something like this.
Ghostbusters: Afterlife (2021)
The moment I heard the word "Selenium"
I knew there was going to be some kind of reference to Ivo Shandar. And then we finally get to meet the guy, kind of.
But I did not know where the story was going to go, the introduction does not make it clear that the person we see is actually Spengler. Which is as it should have been.
This film is a excellent tribute to Harold Ramis. Who has always been Egon.
It took me a moment to realize that the mine in this town was where Shandar was obtaining the materials to build his New York apartment complex.
With that knowledge, the introduction to the film starts making a little bit of sense.
So then I knew that we would eventually see references to Zuul and Gozer.
Those were the obvious things, but it was the way the story was assembled which was touching.
Egon was painted as a deadbeat dad, but we knew that this could not be true, and that there was some thing else going on.
And the "something else that was going on" was carefully obscured, under McGuffin after McGuffin.
Even the term "dirt farmer" that was planted on Egon was a good bit of misdirection. As we knew he would not be farming in any sense of the word. So we knew he was up to some thing that did not quite succeed according to the teaser... but the question is, what?
And this is something that gets answered bit by bit.
This is the film that should have been made in 2016 which was Ghostbusters in name only. Although I enjoyed that movie, I was disappointing that it was practically a complete reboot. We the people who have loved Ghostbusters since the original, did not want a reboot. We wanted to find out "what is happening now"?
And so we have, and we even got another film after this one.
Amazingly the original film had very primitive special effects, which were mostly practical. With a lot of animation. In this film they use modern effect techniques. But there is a lot of practical effects in this as well. Especially with the "gunners seat" in Ecto 1.
And the original Ghostbusters play a major part in the story, not just three second cameos.
Unfortunately, there was no place to put Lewis... who had a fling with Janine... and this brings up another question... it's obvious that Phoebe is the daughter of Egon... in body and spirit. So who is Trevor's father, or mother even? They kind of dance around that issue during the whole film.
I will have to watch the next movie to see about that...