Torgo
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Post by Torgo on Sept 22, 2020 10:22:01 GMT -5
Doctor Who
Season 2 - Planet of Giants
Planet of Giants - The Doctor successfully brings Ian and Barbara back to their correct time on Earth, but due to a malfunction in the TARDIS the travelers have shrunk down to an inch in size.
Dangerous Journey - The Doctor, Susan, Ian, and Barbara are the only witnesses to a murder involving a cover-up to the powerful effects of a deadly insecticide, but there is little they can do when they're the size of insects themselves. They attempt to journey back to the TARDIS however they can and hopefully reverse the effects.
Crisis - The Doctor and his companions try to concoct a way to alert the authorities of the murder and illegal insecticide schemes that are afoot by attempting to lift a phone receiver and calling the operator. But the situation grows more dire when Barbara is poisoned by the insecticide.
Skipping another serial (which has surviving episodes and animated reconstructions, but they're not available on BritBox), I now jump to the second season of the long running sci-fi/fantasy series, which is the most well preserved of the show's first six seasons, with only two episodes missing of the thirty-nine produced and only one incomplete serial out of nine. This season brings about the final fates of the Doctor's companions as the show grows further in popularity to the point where there is already pre-production on a Doctor Who movie, albeit out of continuity and starring Hammer horror star Peter Cushing instead of William Hartnell, which will be released in between the second and third seasons. The signs that Doctor Who was a pop culture success were definitely there.
The second season starts off with this little number (no pun intended) where the Doctor and his cohorts are the size of insects, which leads to a lot of imaginative and creative production design highlighting this serial, which makes it always interesting to look at. A lot of the props featured here are pretty wild, and watching the TARDIS crew navigate through them is a real treat.
That being said, the serial lets down in plot. How are the travellers now only an inch tall? Are they trapped on some other world that's far greater in size? Nope. It's modern day Earth and the TARDIS just screwed up. Instead of working with the fact that the Doctor brought Ian and Barbara home...with a catch...the serial doesn't seem to care about that. They work in some cockamamy scheme about insecticide and murder around it, which the group just happens to crash in on and just happens to be the size of insects while dealing with it. It's pretty dumb, but the fact that Barbara is poisoned by it adds some urgency to the matter, though that's mostly confined to the third episode.
Speaking of that third episode, apparently it was actually two episodes edited down to one in post, because they wanted a better pace to the finale. I have no idea what both episodes would have entailed (one where they play with the phone and another where they run back to the TARDIS?) but I'd say that was a wise decision. The premise was wearing itself thin and there wasn't really enough story left for two episodes. I'm curious about what survives of that lost material though and what was cut out, but for now I'm ready for the next story.
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Post by Afgncaap5 on Sept 22, 2020 15:54:37 GMT -5
I don't actually mind the hackneyed "suddenly the Tardis makes them the size of inects" idea per se... I think I'm more bugged (ha!) by the fact that the TARDIS doesn't screw up that kinda thing more often.
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Post by GarrettCRW on Sept 22, 2020 22:07:08 GMT -5
As with most things Doctor Who from the black and white era, the original cuts to episodes three and four of Planet of Giants are lost, presumably forever. The DVD has a reconstruction of sorts, but with a lack of footage and Ian Levine having made the thing, it's not very good.
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Torgo
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Post by Torgo on Sept 23, 2020 1:36:59 GMT -5
I don't actually mind the hackneyed "suddenly the Tardis makes them the size of inects" idea per se... I think I'm more bugged (ha!) by the fact that the TARDIS doesn't screw up that kinda thing more often. I'm not against the idea of the TARDIS screwing up like that in theory, I just think it set up an uninteresting use of this playful idea.
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Torgo
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Post by Torgo on Sept 23, 2020 10:45:43 GMT -5
Star Trek: Lower DecksSeason 1 - Part 1 Second Contact - On the starship Cerritos, Ensign Brad Boimler is assigned by Captain Freeman to spy on Ensign Beckett Mariner and report any insubordination from the troublesome crewmember. Meanwhile, Ensign Sam Rutherford has a hot date that is interrupted by a zombie plague on the ship. Envoys - Mariner and Boimler are assigned to escort a Klingon general to an embassy. When the general gets drunk and steals the shuttlepod, he leaves Mariner and Boimler stranded, forcing them to survive on their wits (mostly Mariner's) to contact the Cerritos. Meanwhile, Rutherford tries out different positions on the ship to spend more time with Ensign D'Vana Tendi. Temporal Edict - Captain Freeman becomes fed up with crewmen wasting time on jobs and institutes strict deadlines for each task, which drives every crewmember except Boimler into a chaotic frenzy. The crew gets so disorganized that they give the incorrect gift to the citizens of Gerlak V, which causes the race to violently attack the crew. Moist Vessel - Captain Freeman tries to get her rebellious daughter Mariner to transfer ships by giving her thankless, trashy assignments. When Mariner winds up doing these task efficiently and even finding ways of enjoying them, Freeman believes the only way to get under Mariner's skin is to promote her to Lieutenant and give Mariner the boring higher assignments that she dreads most. Meanwhile, Tendi gets very upset when a crewman doesn't like her. Cupid's Errant Arrow - Boimler's hot girlfriend Barb visits the Cerritos, causing Mariner to become suspicious that she's an alien with an ulterior motive. Meanwhile, Rutherford and Tendi board Barb's ship, the Vancouver, and are taken with how much more advanced it is than the Cerritos. Loosely inspired by the popular TNG episode Lower Decks, Star Trek: Lower Decks is the second animated Trek series, after the 70's animated revival with the original cast that was aimed mostly at kiddies, though with enough of a Trek flavor that seasoned Trek fans wouldn't be too annoyed while watching it. Lower Decks, however is a far different beast, aiming squarely at the "adult animation" market of people who watch The Simpsons, Futurama, Family Guy, South Park, King of the Hill, Rick and Morty, and many others. I do love this market, though how much Star Trek needed to dip its toe into it is a huge question mark followed by an exclamation point. It's kind of like saying that X-Files parody episode of The Simpsons is canon in the X-Files universe. I mean...you COULD, but why? (Though The X-Files is apparently following suit with an animated spin-off of its own, so make of that what you will.) If anything, I suspect Lower Decks was made to get a pure Trek comedy out in the field to challenge The Orville, which has been stealing the thunder of Discovery and Picard. I'm not entirely sure how threatening they should find The Orville, given that it mostly bleeds ratings and it's a fanbase that compensates for how small it is by being very loud about how much they like it more than new Trek. My big fear for Lower Decks is that it would come off as a series version of a Star Trek cutaway gag on Family Guy than an actual show. But now that I see it...anybody remember the Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode The Zeppo? That episode where the "useful" members of the team are off on an apocalyptic adventure while Xander has a little mini-adventure but is looking from the outside in the entire episode? Lower Decks is kind of like that, except in series form. It's a group of ensigns taking care of small adventures while the senior crew takes care of the bigger picture. I kind of like that. That being said, the humor of the show does have a hint of desperation to it. Gags are very fast, but most leave little impact. It occurs to me while watching it that the funniest stuff feels most deeply rooted in Star Trek, such as Mariner relating a story about being trapped in a Klingon prison where she had to fight a Yeti for her shoes "For no reason! He was just being a dick!", this is where the show actually makes me laugh, because its humor is at the expense of the property without betraying it. Meanwhile when the show feels like it's aping Rick and Morty style humor for quick laughs, it just feels like cheap shots. The series feels eager to please, and it at times feels like it's in danger of losing touch with what could make it unique, which is the Star Trek brand. If it's just going to be Futurama/Rick and Morty lite, then why is it Star Trek? But I also need to acknowledge that they're toeing a very fine line where they're parodying their brand while trying to be true to it. If you're going to let a series like this carve out its corner of your universe, you better be damn sure that you know what you're doing. Otherwise parody is best left to offshoots like The Orville or Galaxy Quest, which aren't in danger of breaking something that's been established for fifty years. I know what Lower Decks wants to be, I'm just not sure if it's doing it correctly. However, the more I get used to the show, the more I relax and just accept it. By the fourth episode, I found I was getting fairly steady belly laughs out of it. I like Mariner's relationship with Captain Freeman, who is her mother and doesn't want her attitude on her ship. I love Tendi's overzealous enthusiasm for Starfleet. Boimler is probably too exaggeratedly straight-laced, but I grow less wary of him as his dynamic with Mariner becomes more pronounced. Rutherford has some interesting ideas behind his being a cyborg and how he's coming to terms with that, but so far he's pretty much a non-character that only exists to have some sort of weird adorkable romantic tension with Tendi that neither of them seems to notice. Interesting side note: First Officer Commander Jack Ransom is played by Jerry O'Connell, who is the husband of Rebecca Romijn, who plays Pike's first officer Number One on Discovery and the upcoming Strange New Worlds. As for the episodes themselves, I find them to be a bit of a bumpy ride. The pilot is a bit lukewarm, as it struggles to establish these characters and throw jokes at you at the same time. The second episode is a bit better because it doesn't juggle as much. The show finally seems to settle into itself around episode four, which is probably the funniest episode of the series so far as we see Mariner deal with the horrors of having a higher rank and sitting through all those Ready Room meetings from Star Treks past. And the series did give me this, which is an instant quotable line for me: Do I like Lower Decks? Hmmm. That's the million dollar question, ain't it? I think the best way for me to put it is that I think it's likeable, but I don't think it's good. I could be good though. The thing it needs most is an identity, and just being funny doesn't count. Maybe if it's wise enough to develop that heart that made Futurama so beloved, this could be a great show. For now it's just a cute series of Trekkie jokes, and maybe the Trek show that could be most enjoyed by someone who doesn't like Trek because it's just a quick laugh and not an hour of space diplomacy.
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Torgo
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Post by Torgo on Sept 24, 2020 10:09:16 GMT -5
Star Trek: Picard
Season 1 - Part 2
Stardust City Rag - After taking the former-borg-current-Fenris-Ranger Seven of Nine aboard the ship, the crew of the La Sirena travel to Freecloud to find the creator of Dahj and Soji, Bruce Maddox, and try to bargain for his life with black market dealer Bjayzl. But Seven has her own agenda.
The Impossible Box - The La Sirena travels to the Artifact where they are aided in their search for Soji by the former Borg Hugh. But Soji's nightmares send her down the road to the discovery that she is an android.
Nepenthe - As the La Sirena crew separates in their escape from the Artifact, Picard and Soji seek refuge on Nepenthe, and find housing with the family of William Riker and Deanna Troi. Meanwhile, on the La Sirena, Dr. Agnes Jurati struggles with her guilt in killing Maddox and her choice to spy on the crew for the Federation and the Romulans.
Seven of Nine gonna have ta' choke a bitch.
Star Trek: Picard seems to take inspiration from quite a few edgier space shows that held the fort while it was away. It occured to me while watching Stardust City Rag that this wasn't too unlike the type of episode that Battlestar Galactica would offer, with shady dealings and internal struggles (though I imagine Picard's disguise of an eye patch, a barret, and an absurd Inspector Clouseau accent wouldn't have made the cut on BSG). It's shipmate dynamic of brooding misfit outsiders seems a little in the same realm as Dark Matter, maybe with a dash of Pitch Black. I dig it. We've had so many shows inside the Federation that it's interesting to see a show that works on the outside of it, just to see the shadier side of the Star Trek galaxy.
Picard is also the most serialized Trek show of the franchise. Deep Space Nine had a series long arc, but episodes stood as individuals, as does the third season of Enterprise. Discovery has interlinked storylines that lead to a conclusion, but most of those episodes can probably stand up as individuals. Picard is one long story, which is not my favorite type of television show. Those shows can be belabored and boring, and they really need to hook me to get me to keep watching. Picard has a casual first half, but this batch of episodes have a lot of energy and it's keeping me watching. I can't say it's serial television done right, because my preference in serialized storytelling lies with shows like Deep Space Nine and Discovery, but Picard is telling a story that interests me.
This set also brings out a parade of guest stars. Stardust City Rag is an episode devoted to Seven of Nine being a badass and Nepenthe is just an excuse to get that old Picard, Riker, Troi chemistry flowing. The guest that surprised me was Hugh the Borg. And they even brought back Johnathan Del Arco to play him too. That's one role they could have recast and nobody would have given a rat's ass. Color me impressed. But now the cameos are out of the way, I'm hoping for an outstanding final three to focus squarely on Picard and his crew.
Maybe it's my excitement that Star Trek: Nemesis is no longer the final chapter on these Next Generation characters talking, but so far I'm finding a lot to like in Picard. It's a compelling story about the line between life and artificial life and when does one gain sentience. I am very much on the edge of my seat to see where it goes.
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Post by Afgncaap5 on Sept 24, 2020 14:59:25 GMT -5
I'm gonna go on record as saying that I definitely like Lower Decks. I thought the first two or three episodes were shaky (and that Mariner came off as too brash in the first few episodes) but I feel like they've hit a stride now and I'm enjoying it a lot.
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Torgo
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Post by Torgo on Sept 24, 2020 16:47:01 GMT -5
I'm gonna go on record as saying that I definitely like Lower Decks. I thought the first two or three episodes were shaky (and that Mariner came off as too brash in the first few episodes) but I feel like they've hit a stride now and I'm enjoying it a lot. One of the things I feel needs to be kept in mind about Lower Decks is that it's very early in its run, and it's so outside of the box for the Star Trek brand that it needs to find its footing. Mariner is a good example it should be following because she's the one character I feel they've fleshed out a great deal and I feel like I understand her. Those first three episodes you bring up are mostly gag plots with little character, and those are the ones that kind of made me uneasy about the show. Episode four and six (haven't logged it yet) are series highlights so far because they're both funny and they really establish who she is. But so far Mariner is the only character they've done that with. Boimler and Tendi storylines so far have been gag oriented (they had a shot at establishing Boimler more in the girlfriend episode, but they whiffed the ball). Rutherford kind of has a character story when he's switching careers, but that only really tells me that his skillset is in engineering. Lower Decks needs to spread that character growth love around a bit more for me to embrace it. My Trekkie nerd friend on the other hand, she absolutely adores the show. I think it's her favorite of the CBS All Access Treks.
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Post by Afgncaap5 on Sept 24, 2020 20:24:16 GMT -5
You're definitely right about Mariner being more developed than the others, and I think it's related to why it became easier for me to like her character about four episodes in. After those initial episodes, Mariner kinda stopped being perfect. Like, she's still snarky and always has the best quip for any situation, almost to the point of pushing credibility, but now we've seen a number of episodes where it's demonstrated very thoroughly that those skills aren't enough for her to get through everything unscathed.
In some senses, that'll be harder to give to the other three focal characters since they were shown to have faults out of the gate and they don't really have pegs to be knocked down yet. Mariner' sad, dead, resigned stare when she was promoted to Lieutenant alone gave her more development than the other characters have had and, unfortunately, I think we need to see those characters built up a bit before we can see them have characterization, at least in that same way. (There are plenty of other ways to build character, of course, but I think that's one of the easiest for the show to get to the way it's set up)
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Torgo
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Post by Torgo on Sept 25, 2020 8:30:37 GMT -5
Star Trek
The Animated Series - Season 1 - Part 1
Beyond the Farthest Star - Pulled into the orbit of a dead Star, the Enterprise encounters a long derelict space craft that infects the Enterprise with a non-corporeal being.
Yesteryear - Revisiting the time vortex, Captain James Kirk and Commander Spock return to the Enterprise after studying various periods in Earth history only to find the entire crew has no recollection of Spock. Kirk and Spock discover that in this alternate timeline Spock died as a child during a Vulcan ritual called the Kahs-wan, where a Vulcan male survives in the wilderness for ten days on his own. Spock travels alone through the time vortex to Vulcan to hopefully save himself and return the timeline to normal.
One of Our Planets Is Missing - The Enterprise is consumed by a giant space cloud that devours planets that is on course to the heavily populated world of Antilles. Inside the creature, Kirk must wrestle with the decision whether he should destroy the unknown life form to save thousands, which would also result in the destruction of the Enterprise, or to buy Spock enough time to try and communicate with it.
The Lorelei Signal - The Enterprise investigates a sector of space that has resulted in the disappearance of many vessels, only to find itself lured by a mysterious signal that puts all of the ship's men in a trance. Kirk, Spock, and Dr. Leonard "Bones" McCoy beam down to the surface of the planet that sources the signal and find themselves entranced by a tribe of beautiful women who absorb the energy out of the men. As the ranking female officer of the ship, Lieutenant Nyota Uhura is forced to take command of the Enterprise and save the crew.
More Tribbles, More Troubles - While escorting grain to Sherman's Planet, the Enterprise encounters a ship being attacked by Klingons. They beam the pilot aboard, who turns out to be Cyrano Jones, who once again brings Tribbles aboard the Enterprise. But this time they don't breed rapidly...they just eat endlessly and grow larger.
The Survivor - The Enterprise beams aboard a man named Carter Winston, who has been missing in space for five years. Winston, however, is actually a shapeshifting Vendorian, and takes the form of Captain Kirk and orders the Enterprise into the Romulan Neutral Zone.
Star Trek's first foray into animation predates Star Trek: Lower Decks and the upcoming Star Trek: Prodigy by a good handful of decades. The original series was cancelled at NBC due to outdated ratings techniques that were about to change, cutting the Enterprise's five year mission off at three years. When Star Trek hit syndication, it rated very well and steadily. Kids were big viewers for the series too, so NBC commissioned an animated series targeting younger viewers several years after the airing of the final episode, Turnabout Intruder. If one squints really hard an uses their imagination, it's almost as if the Enterprise eventually did complete its five year mission.
I believe this show was actually the first Trek show I ever watched. I don't remember the circumstances around it, but I remember staying with a family who had cable (SUCH ROYALTY) and as a child I got to watch Nickelodeon for the first time. This was a post-You Can't Do That On Television early 90's, but pre-Nicktoons Nickelodeon. One of the first shows I got to watch on that channel was syndicated reruns of this show. I don't remember what episodes I watched (it probably wasn't very many, like three or so), but I remember quite enjoying it at the time. It was about two decades later that I got interested in revisiting Trek, but the animated series is where I attribute my interest in the franchise sparking.
Looking back on this animated take on the franchise as it nears it's 50th anniversary can be a bit rough. Children's animated programming of the 1970s wasn't meant to hold up under scrutiny. Even the more enduring shows like The Flintstones and Scooby-Doo were fairly one dimensional gag reels that were merely meant to engage a child for a half hour. Even if a cartoon was based on a series like Star Trek, a lot of these shows weren't made to be watched and rewatched on blu-ray and bitched about on the internet several decades later. It wasn't really until the 90's that the idea of telling an actual story in your cartoons actually became a novel concept worth exploring. It's hard to say who would have made a great Star Trek animated series at the time, though I probably wouldn't have put a huge bet on Filmation, which produced this series and other classics ("classics" in the sense that they're remembered) like He-Man, She-Ra, various toons starring Superman and Batman, and even a pair of cartoons based on the greatest television achievement of all time, Gilligan's Island. Filmation's animation is very stiff and rotoscoped, but I'd be hard pressed to name an animation studio on TV that was doing better at the time. Hanna-Barbera was the top of the mountain, and that was mostly because their cartoons had more cartoony exaggeration, even if the animation wasn't exactly more fluid. The best cartoons on TV were syndicated Disney shorts and Looney Tunes.
This Star Trek show at least has a foothold in hiring writers who worked on the original show. The writing of the animated series is a bit simpler to help keep children in pace with it, but it does push their imagination and offer ideas, and it does feel like genuine Star Trek in doing so. Some of these premises are pretty interesting, and probably would have made for bangin' episodes of the original series if they were given that opportunity (I would have loved to have seen One of Our Planets Is Missing as a full episode). If you give this show credit for one thing, give it credit for that.
The first three episodes of this batch are far better than the last three. Yesteryear (a semi-sequel to City on the Edge of Forever) is a pretty strong character story for Spock, while One of Our Planets Is Missing is an intriguing premise that could challenge a viewer"s view of sentience. The first episode, Beyond the Farthest Star, has a solid story, though it's let down by some animation limitations, such as each character having a personal force field for space walks because they couldn't afford to animate new character models with space suits (but then again, the space suits in the original series looked very silly). The last three aren't very intriguing or fun. The Lorelei Signal has a bit of girl power for Uhura and company, but it's pretty generic and half-baked. The Survivor seemingly has half a story, but nothing seems to be happening in the episode for any particular reason. And them there is a Tribble episode. Because of course there is a Tribble episode.
Is the animated series worth watching? That probably depends on how deep into being Star Trek completionist you are. If you're a casual Trekkie then probably not. If you like Trek and are curious, I'd recommend watching Yesteryear, because it's far and away the best one, and if you enjoy that, watch One of Our Planets Is Missing to see if you're still enjoying it. If you're a die-hard Trek nerd, you're probably going to watch it anyway. I've always been curious about franchise oddities myself. When I discover Alan Arkin randomly played Inspector Clouseau in between Peter Sellers movies, I immediately want to watch it. Between that and my six-year-old self enjoying this show way back in the day, I was always going to give the animated series a chance.
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Torgo
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Post by Torgo on Sept 26, 2020 11:47:51 GMT -5
Ultra Q
Part 2
S.O.S. Mount Fuji - After several centuries of dormancy, Mt. Fuji threatens to erupt. The volcanic activity of the volcano causes a giant boulder to surface, which eventually awakens into the reptilian rock monster Gorgos. Yuriko, Jun, and Ippei become trapped in the woods with the beast while looking for a boy who lives in the woods after being lost by his family fifteen years prior.
Terror of the Sweet Honey - Yuriko, Jun, and Ippei investigate the theft of "Honey Jellion," a form of Royal Jelly that causes bees to enlarge. The culprit is singled out to be a mole that an unknown person snuck into the lab, which ate the jelly and grew into the tremendous sized beast Mongola.
Baron Spider - Yuriko, Jun, Ippei, and a group of friends are returning home after a party only to become lost in the thick fog. They take refuge in a seemingly abandoned mansion where Jun entertains the others with a tale of a baron and his daughter who were transformed into giant spiders. This couldn't be the same mansion, could it?
The Underground Super Express Goes West - While he and Yuriko are covering an advanced super train, Ippei accidentally grabs a case Jun was transporting instead of Yuriko's camera equipment. Inside the case is an artificial life form called M1, which grows to human size and causes chaos on the train.
Baloonga - While flying, Yuriko and Jun accidentally bring back a monster from space that hitched a ride to Earth on a spacecraft. Upon discovery, this monster continually inflates and expands in size like a balloon. There may be one scientist on Earth who knows what the balloon monster is and Yuriko vows to seek him out after Ippei is injured by the creature.
I Saw a Bird - While investigating an ancient, thousand year old ship in the ocean, Yuriko finds a long thought extinct baby bird called a Larugeus. The bird suddenly flies away and befriends a small boy on the beach.
It's another batch of hot rubber suit monster action with another batch of Ultra Q episodes. This series is just super fun kaiju mayhem, like watching a little mini-sci-fi movie a week. Plots are exceptionally outrageous and costumes and models are brilliantly unconvincing, but Ultra Q is a blast of kaiju weirdness in episodic form.
Though the series does make one wonder how the world as we know it survives if new kaiju spawn every week. It's not like we have a man with alien superpowers to grow into a giant man in a scuba suit to ward off these massive beasts. That would be silly. Monsters are everywhere in the Ultra Q universe. It's as casual as clocking into work on a daily basis. And Yuriko, Jun, and Ippei are always right there to see them and get the scoop on them. Mystery Inc., eat your heart out. Your creatures are always some jackass in a mask anyway.
Highlighting this batch of episodes for me was Baron Spider. If you look past the obvious spider puppet, there is a decently creepy spook house production going on here. While there is a fair share of storytelling flaws, such as the Ultra Q gang stumbling upon the paranormal by accident instead of seeking it out, this is one of the few Ultra Q episodes that actually treats them as protagonists and their actions drive the story, or at least as much as possible in a plot driven show such aa this. Also taking me by surprise was the appearance of Akiko Wakabayashi. Godzilla fans know her best for her role as the Princess/Martian in Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster, as well as a supporting role in King Kong vs. Godzilla and a lead in the caper monster flick Dogora. Bond fans will know her as the main Bond girl in You Only Live Twice. Here she is a friend who is out on the town with Yuriko, Jun, and Ippei only to be lost in the fog and caught up in a spooky mansion with some giant spiders. I looked ahead, this is her only appearance on the show. Too bad. She's in an episode of Ultraman though, so I have that to look forward to.
Speaking of Godzilla alumni, Jun is played by Kenji Sahara, who was the lead in Godzilla vs. Mothra and Rodan. Ippei is played by Yasuhiko Saiju from Son of Godzilla and Destroy All Monsters. There are probably more, but I'd have to comb cast lists with a fine tooth comb to keep this up.
On the other hand, The Underground Super Express Goes West is an experimental episode of the series where it expands its horizons and does something different, like Grow Up! Little Turtle. This episode is an attempt at a slapstick, screwball comedy that is more chaos than funny, right down to the ending where M1 and a little boy are orbiting the Earth like the ending of a Goofy cartoon. Part of me likes that I don't always know what to expect from this series, though.
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Post by Torgo on Sept 30, 2020 19:12:50 GMT -5
Star Trek: The Next Generation
Season 1 - Part 1
Encounter at Farpoint - Captain Jean-Luc Picard takes the newly christened Enterprise-D to Far Point Station to pick up his first officer, Commander William Riker. Along the way, the Enterprise is halted by an omnipotent being named Q, who wishes to judge human beings based on their previously savage actions.
The Naked Now - The Enterprise follows up on a strange message they've received from the USS Tsiolkovsky, but when they arrive they find the entire crew dead. When the away team returns, Lieutenant Geordi La Forge begins acting strangely, and soon a virus that makes the crew act aloof an intoxicated infects the entire crew. The secret to what is afflicting the ship may lie with an event that happened with the original Enterprise almost a century prior.
Code of Honor - In desperate need of a vaccine only found on the planet Ligon II, Picard enters negotiations with the Ligonians, who demand a very strict following of their cultural ways. The leader of the race, Lutan, has good relations with Picard, but concludes by kidnapping Lieutenant Tasha Yar from the Enterprise. Picard tries to follow the Ligonian customs to ensure her safe return, but Lutan insists on making Yar his bride, infuriating his betrothed who challenged Yar to a fight to the death.
Bringing Star Trek back to television was in the works for a long time. Post animated series, there were talks of Paramount starting its own network and having a show called Star Trek: Phase II continuing the adventures of the original Enterprise crew, minus Leonard Nimoy, but adding a few characters in his stead. Post-Star Wars, science fiction was becoming a hot ticket at the box office, and since the Paramount Network seemed to be a false start at the time (it would later rear its ugly head as UPN in the 90's), the premiere Phase II script was reformatted into Star Trek: The Motion Picture in 1979. On the big screen is where Kirk and his crew stayed, for the most part, until around the release of Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (then the highest grossing Star Trek film), where it was decided to franchise out Star Trek a bit more aggressively with a spin-off featuring new characters. A new generation would be born, this time without a network and with episodes airing directly in syndication (for you Zoomers out there, the modern day equivalent of that is going directly to streaming). It was a treacherous journey, but one that would pay off.
There are debates as to what the best debut to a Trek series is, but I think most would agree that Encounter at Farpoint isn't even in the running. Funnily enough, it's still good enough to be the best episode of this group, but that's just because we went from a mediocre premiere to a pair of episodes that just suck. Farpoint is a fairly generic "Trial of All Mankind judged on a few" story that is mostly saved by John de Lancie in his delicious role as Q, who would recur throughout the series in a handful of highlight episodes right up until the series finale.
The other two episodes have no Q. They need a Q. The Naked Now is a fairly stale and silly rehash of the original series episode The Naked Time. It has okay aspects, but gets a bit daffier as it goes on and by the end the viewer is just fed up with it. Code of Honor is probably one of the most infamous episodes of the series, defined by its stunning miscalculated casting of African Americans as the antagonistic, which gives the episode a dirty vibe of a racist "Savage black folk will steal and rape our womenz" vibe. That episode is fifty shades of ugh.
The Next Generation would fire up, but it will take a few years. We're in for a rocky start, but it's worth the journey.
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Torgo
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Post by Torgo on Oct 4, 2020 19:43:08 GMT -5
Power Rangers: HyperforcePart 6 Director Ransik - Vesper's "siblings" go on a mission of revenge against reformed Time Force villain Ransik, who they blame for the death of their "father," and Vesper and the other Hyperforce Rangers venture to stop them. Stage 4: The Armada - Believing the Armada to have a presence in the "Legendary Battle" of 2014 that saw multiple Ranger groups warring against Emperor Mavro, the Hyperforce Rangers travel to the planet Andresia in 2013 to sabotage Alliance ships post-invasion, with the help of Orion, the Super Megaforce Silver Ranger (Cameron Jebo, reprising his role). They then travel to the Legendary Battle itself to fight the Alliance head on. Shattered Grid Part 1 - The Hyperforce Rangers accidentally travel to another universe again, this time into a world in which Tommy Oliver never joined the Power Rangers and stayed by Rita Repulsa's side as the fearsome Lord Drakkon. The Rangers meet an underground resistance unit who hope the Rangers can help them break more resistance fighters out of prison. Guess who jumped down this rabbit hole again? Watching an episode of Power Rangers is one thing. They average twenty minutes and five of those are likely the same five minutes of robots combining that you saw in the previous ten episodes, so you can skip that. Watching an episode of Super Sentai is another, because unlike Power Rangers, Sentai at least tries to tell a story. Watching Hyperforce, on the other hand, is a terrible life decision that will haunt you for the rest of your days. So of course I need to watch the rest of it. For the record, I don't recommend bingewatching an RPG. Even if you find it fun for a little while, eventually the brutality of its length will make one's enthusiasm sink like a stone. It's like if you've ever played a game of Monopoly, but it went on forever and you're really bored, so you just say "You win" and get up and leave. But I got sixteen episodes in, and I only have nine left. That's still about twenty-five hours of people rolling dice I have to watch, though. Recently I've taken to reading some of Boom Studio's Power Ranger comics on Comixology during some of my downtime, and if you're into comics and are willing to give them a chance, those are really solid runs. Power Rangers is an interesting franchise because it somehow developed a very rich lore out of it's on-the-fly nonsense that it can't really explore because it's a slave to what footage they have to use from Super Sentai and working around a rushed children's television schedule. Those comics are not a slave to that and just use that lore to tell character driven stories that work within it (it's kind of amazing how developed and distinct Jason, Kimberly, Zack, Billy, and Trini are within one issue of Go Go Power Rangers than compared to nearly a hundred episodes of a TV show). Hyperforce is a character driven exploration of that lore too, though as an RPG it's limited and a bit chaotic. But it has to be a game for the players as well as a story, so it can get a bit convoluted and long winded. Ot tries to be a celebration of the entire history of Rangers by weaving throughout it, which is cute, but a lot of it is easter eggs for the sake of easter eggs. Like I said in my first entry, it's a Power Rangers fan fiction turned into a dice game. At the same time, what do you want from it? Power Rangers isn't high art. Power Rangers is...Power Rangers. Let's face facts, a fan fiction with any detail at all probably has more effort than your average Power Rangers script. After a origin establishing story for Vesper, this cluster of episodes becomes mostly about retconning. We get an episode that inserts the Hyperforce Rangers into the Legendary Battle, which isn't too much of a stretch, because there were like five hundred Rangers at Legendary Battle and Hyperforce could have easily been among them and nobody would have noticed. But then again, I haven't seen Legendary Battle, along with Super Megaforce in general, because by reputation it's the shittiest Power Rangers season. That's probably not saying much, but one has to wonder how bad a season of Power Rangers is for a Power Ranger fan to call it out on it. I've seen clips of Legendary Battle, and I picked out all the little cameos that I recognized ("Look it's Tommy! Oh, HEY Cassie! I don't know who that person is, but TJ is right next to him!"). I don't know if anything here is canon breaking or not, but knowing Power Rangers, it's highly likely that Legendary Battle didn't make sense in the first place. For the final episode of this group, the Hyperforce Rangers are inserted into Boom Comics' Shattered Grid storyline, which I believe is made in junction with Hyperforce and Hyperforce may or may not have cameoed in the storyline. While I've started reading the comics, I haven't quite made it as far as Shattered Grid (I'm about twelve into Mighty Morphin and eight into Go Go). I doubt Hyperforce is going to make much of an impact on the storyline though, so I probably don't need to know much about it except that Lord Drakkon is an evil alternate dimension Tommy Oliver. But those episodes shoehorning the Hyperforce Rangers into these major Ranger events are the highlights of this batch of episodes. The Legendary Battle episode is enhanced by cast chemistry, which is a little richer with Cameron Jebo on the team. Cameron's probably the most charismatic guest star they've had (I say this with apologies to the bubbly personality of Karen Ashley), and he has great interplay with the other players. He's not to familiar with the rules of the game, but he eagerly jumps into it. And he is all smiles even when they read letters at the end of the episodes that state bluntly that they hated Super Megaforce, with a good natured laugh and an exclamation of "So salty!" But, despite weaker guest players, Shattered Grid is probably the most enjoyable yet, if only because it's one of those episodes that ends with a climactic action beat that holds the players one-hundred-and-ten-percent attention, and I haven't seen them this caught up in the gameplay since the Vesper Turns Evil twist early on in the series. After about five minutes of it I was like "More of THIS please!" That's probably the flaw in filming an RPG, because moments like these can happen, but it's a long road getting there. Malika Lim sits in with the players as as a resistance colonel, though she doesn't really do much. Because she's a player in this episode, Game Master duties are tossed to her husband, Zac Eubank. I hate to say this, Malika, but he's way better at the GM position. He tells the story more decisively and confidently, without pausing too much, and he has a better talent for doing character voices (at the very least, his Alpha is less cringy than Malika's). Malika's one advantage over Zac is that she seems to know more about Power Rangers than he does, and is more versed in the Hyperforce story, since she helped write it. Also sitting in is Power Rangers comic book writer Kyle Higgins, who does a bit of heavy exposition, but has a tendency to pause after every two words, which drives me bonkers. But he is redeemed at the end when his character is revealed to be Pumpkin Rapper in disguise, which is a major fistpump moment for a Power Ranger fan who grew up on Mighty Morphin. He and Andre have some great interaction, and Andre completely conquers him with improvised rap dialogue. Then there is the first episode of this batch, which is fine but mundane. I think I got partially through this episode about a year ago and decided to take a break from Hyperforce because I was getting bored, and even after that break it's still a little boring. The only noteworthy thing about it is that the players decide to cosplay based on their character models. I normally wouldn't notice, because most of the models just wear regular clothes, but Cristina is next level with her white wig, leather jacket, and red contacts. Then I noticed Paul's awful hair, and then I noticed everyone else's clothes and realized what was going on. That's kind of the only spice to that episode though. I think it's time to finish this series. I'll chip away at it for a while at least. But the next episode has Jason David Frank back as a guest roller, and remembering his "Please help me" looks from the last time he was on, I'm dreading it.
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Torgo
Moderator Emeritus
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Post by Torgo on Oct 7, 2020 11:55:01 GMT -5
Ash vs. Evil Dead
Season 1 - Part 1
El Jefe - Ash gets high and accidentally reads from the Necronomicon again, setting the Deadites loose on the world outside the little cabin in the woods. He then tries to haul ass out of town as fast as he can.
Bait - When Ash's co-worker Kelly takes off to protect her father from her seemingly resurrected mother, Ash's buddy Pablo tricks Ash into rescuing her. But once there, everything seems normal, including Kelly's mother. But Ash is convinced the woman is a Deadite and won't leave until he dismembers her.
Books from Beyond - Ash, Pablo, and Kelly meet a man who can translate the Necronomicon in hopes of finding a way of reversing the release of the Deadites. But that's not as easy as Ash thinks it will be.
Brujo - Pablo takes Ash to meet his shaman uncle, who tries to put Ash on the correct path to conquer the Deadites. Meanwhile Kelly is unknowingly possessed by Eligos.
The Host - Kelly, still possessed by Eligos, convinces Pablo and his uncle that Ash is the possessed one, and tries to murder Pablo while the Brujo performs an exorcism on Ash.
This October I'm going simple and watching one episode a day of a series as opposed to a full movie or whatever, due to a busier schedule. I thought about a few routes I could take, including shows I haven't seen before like The Purge or Scream, or maybe I could just do something silly, like 31 days of random Walking Dead episodes. Instead I did something that mapped out fairly well, and had episodes that were only a half hour long, and I knew for a fact was going to be worthwhile.
It's Ash vs. Evil Dead, baby. It's going to be a groovy month.
This series is a sequel to Sam Raimi's Evil Dead trilogy, which starred Bruce Campbell as Ash Williams, a doofus who went to a cabin in the woods with some friends, read from a book that brings demons to the land of the living, killed all his possessed friends, and got sent to medieval times where he waged a final battle on the army of the dead. After years of being asked if there was going to be an Evil Dead 4, there seemed to be a nailed coffin in seeing Bruce as Ash again when a remake of Evil Dead was made in 2013 by Don't Breathe director Fede Alvarez with Jane Levy in the lead. But, if anything, that just seemed to fuel the fire of Bruce fighting Deadite lust, and a sequel series was ordered on Starz while a reboot movie series stayed in theaters (though a sequel was never made, and another reboot is in production).
And what can you say? If you love the gleeful violence of insanity Evil Dead has to offer, Ash vs. Evil Dead honors it. It's much less horror than the original Evil Dead, choosing instead to ramp up the gory slapstick black comedy of Evil Dead II and Army of Darkness and dial it up to eleven. Telling a long form comedy narrative does help Ash vs. Evil Dead stand out as horror becomes more dominant on TV with The Walking Dead, Stranger Things, and American Horror Story, and Ash vs. Evil Dead is arguably the most enjoyable and rewatchable of any of them.
The big question mark that I had going into the series was that after watching the Evil Dead trilogy for so many years, would I accept a new supporting cast behind Bruce Campbell? While I felt some initial resistance to Pablo and Kelly when the series first started, as they seemed like a pair of generic caddies than actual characters, I grew to love them quite a bit as they proved they could hold their own all season. Another Sam Raimi all-star, Lucy Lawless, is here as well playing Ruby, who we don't have much exposition on yet but has a lot to do with what's going on.
This series is a total blast from beginning to end and it's a shame it's only three seasons long. But three seasons are better than none.
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Post by crowschmo on Oct 7, 2020 16:47:15 GMT -5
Love Bruce Campbell.
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