Every single element of the production is flawed, incompetent, and ill-conceived. Why, just now, I noticed out of the corner of my eye that in the scene where the journalist is asking his boss to let him do research, outside the window is a day-for-night social gathering in some kind of big housing or athletics development. Really, really strange. It makes the natural light in the scene that immediately follows seem...well, unnatural. But I guess that's just what happens when you decide nobody needs to know how lighting works and press on with your awful movie anyway. If you like bad movies--I mean if you like being confused by odd decisions and rushed productions--this is for you.
Reviews
73 Reviews
Caprica
(2009–2010)
Westworld meets Yellowjackets
13 May 2024
This show's cancellation just goes to show: people who liked BSG for the robots and violence weren't interested in the actual themes of the story. I can only assume that this failed to keep the same viewers who lamented the presence of narrative closure in the series finale of Galactica, or claimed that thematic consistency was bad because the themes and sci-fi questions being asked weren't identical to those of Star Trek or Stargate. This is a show that throws everything at the wall and doesn't even bother to see if it's gonna stick. Paint, pasta, the kitchen sink, it all goes up on the screen in a fascinating attempt to create something both totally new and intrinsically connected to an already successful franchise. This is a really interesting show that should have been given more time. We deserve Star Trek: Discovery as punishment for not appreciating this show enough.
Yeah, This One's Good
9 May 2024
Warning: Spoilers
Some reviewers here would really benefit from watching something like Battleship Potemkin or The Caine Mutiny Court Martial (or any Caine Mutiny film, it's a classic premise) before saying that this is an unbelievable mutiny. It's not. It builds on established character and world elements, portrays believable character reactions to difficult situations, and is a climactic outburst of violence after a despondend and hopeless episode where people were literally yelling for God to come down and beg for their forgiveness. This is a good way for Gaeta's character to work out his arc: by taking a stand for something after seasons of seeming like a yes-man to whoever was in charge, we see what he really believes. It puts him and everyone else into a different light. Seriously, if you gave this a bad review because of a supposedly unbelievable breakdown in moral and military authority in a military sci-fi setting, you should actually watch a movie once in awhile.
Battlestar Galactica: Razor
(2007 TV Movie)
It Died In Editing
5 May 2024
I can see why the idea of this thing's format made sense, but in execution it fails miserably. It could have succeeded as well as anyone could have expected. The bones are there. The flesh, however, wants to fall off of them. That is to say, the framing device that contains the actual interesting and new narrative content is fairly dull and adds nothing to the plot of the series as a whole.
What's really frustrating about this 'film' is that it falls short of accomplishing its purpose satisfactorily. All the pieces are present, but many of them feel like they were already in existence. Every scene in the 'present' feels very much like what it probably was: footage that couldn't fit into a regularly scheduled episode of the season and was lost in editing, deleted scenes that almost were--so many that a whole bunch of new scenes had to be shot to justify their cost on the basis of the expectation that people would want more.
Well, joke's on you, SyFy: I bought a used DVD copy of this 10 years ago on discount, which is the best way to get the value of this. I still regret the purchase, but it's saved me the trouble of having to wonder if it's worth renting on Amazon when I rewatch the series.
What's really frustrating about this 'film' is that it falls short of accomplishing its purpose satisfactorily. All the pieces are present, but many of them feel like they were already in existence. Every scene in the 'present' feels very much like what it probably was: footage that couldn't fit into a regularly scheduled episode of the season and was lost in editing, deleted scenes that almost were--so many that a whole bunch of new scenes had to be shot to justify their cost on the basis of the expectation that people would want more.
Well, joke's on you, SyFy: I bought a used DVD copy of this 10 years ago on discount, which is the best way to get the value of this. I still regret the purchase, but it's saved me the trouble of having to wonder if it's worth renting on Amazon when I rewatch the series.
The Worst Kind Of Prime Directive Story
2 May 2024
Warning: Spoilers
This is just bizarre in so many places, I don't know where to begin. Star Wars was ripping off Frank Herbert's wind trap idea--a technology for acquiring water from airborne moisture on a desert planet--50 years ago. It was a little distressing to see Starfleet's best and brightest explaining to each other how that would work at the beginning of this episode, so close to the season finale. The purpose of the season-long framing narrative is more questionable than ever here. If the recap of last week is to be believed then we're coming off of a cliffhanger, but this week gives us a continuation of action that was happening before the cliffhanger began.
But let's leave aside the banal sci-fi premise and structural shortcomings of the season as a whole. Is this episode good? What mystery will Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys uncover this week? On a world suffering from a terrible drought, but still full of luscious California redwoods with healthy green leaves (just shoot at Vasquez Rocks already!), Nance and the boys disguise themselves as people who communicate through birdsong (but only when offscreen). The map brought them here, just like the Red Angel did several seasons ago. The backpack tells them that they have to fix a weather tower. Boots the Monkey betrays the Hardy Boys and kidnaps the map, though, so Tilly and Burnham have to split up: one of them fixes the tower while the other tracks down Boots. No spoilers for how it ends! But it's terrible.
From now on I will treat every season-long arc structured around following or looking for a map like a season-long Dora the Explorer B-plot. There's no reason to care about any of this. This is neither serialized nor episodic storytelling. It's just a shameless cash-grab shot in the woods in California. The aliens are probably the most uninspired we've ever seen: their entire culture is defined by drought, but instead of intelligently dealing with scarcity intelligently themselves, the writers chose to portray them as religious fanatics who are too dumb to fix the tech they depend on. If it weren't for our white saviors (I know the DISCO has a diverse crew, but I don't know what else to call these people: they're more like conquistadors or privateers than explorers at this point) showing up in the nick of time, these idiots would have died of thirst before their broken weather system fell over on their town.
As for the sub-MacGuffin of the week: Sci-fi needs to move beyond Chariots of the Gods plots. Stargate did it to death already. The Chase did The Chase already. Why are we doing any of this?
But let's leave aside the banal sci-fi premise and structural shortcomings of the season as a whole. Is this episode good? What mystery will Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys uncover this week? On a world suffering from a terrible drought, but still full of luscious California redwoods with healthy green leaves (just shoot at Vasquez Rocks already!), Nance and the boys disguise themselves as people who communicate through birdsong (but only when offscreen). The map brought them here, just like the Red Angel did several seasons ago. The backpack tells them that they have to fix a weather tower. Boots the Monkey betrays the Hardy Boys and kidnaps the map, though, so Tilly and Burnham have to split up: one of them fixes the tower while the other tracks down Boots. No spoilers for how it ends! But it's terrible.
From now on I will treat every season-long arc structured around following or looking for a map like a season-long Dora the Explorer B-plot. There's no reason to care about any of this. This is neither serialized nor episodic storytelling. It's just a shameless cash-grab shot in the woods in California. The aliens are probably the most uninspired we've ever seen: their entire culture is defined by drought, but instead of intelligently dealing with scarcity intelligently themselves, the writers chose to portray them as religious fanatics who are too dumb to fix the tech they depend on. If it weren't for our white saviors (I know the DISCO has a diverse crew, but I don't know what else to call these people: they're more like conquistadors or privateers than explorers at this point) showing up in the nick of time, these idiots would have died of thirst before their broken weather system fell over on their town.
As for the sub-MacGuffin of the week: Sci-fi needs to move beyond Chariots of the Gods plots. Stargate did it to death already. The Chase did The Chase already. Why are we doing any of this?
Battlestar Galactica
(2004–2009)
A Perfect Show (I Hate The Distributors, Though)
29 April 2024
Warning: Spoilers
Edit: Less than a week after I posted this review the series shows up as an included show on Prime. The original review was just a complaint about the lack of streaming availability of this classic series.
I'm going to address only the finale, though, because that's where a serialized multi-season story arc's ability to stick the landing comes into play. This show annoyed many viewers at the time--the dumber ones, I like to think--by consistently and intelligently addressing themes of faith and personal identity. Westworld made the same mistake, although its ending was muddled in a way that BSG's never is. It was never a story about clear-headed atheists doing space atheism--that was Star Trek. This was always a show about people doing things because they believed them, or got stuck in a corner after manipulating other people into believing something. "Who are you when you have only your own lies?" is a question that this show dares to ask, and it also offers an answer, which is refreshing in an age where prestige television tries to take all possible philosophical positions (especially in areas relating to religion).
I'm going to address only the finale, though, because that's where a serialized multi-season story arc's ability to stick the landing comes into play. This show annoyed many viewers at the time--the dumber ones, I like to think--by consistently and intelligently addressing themes of faith and personal identity. Westworld made the same mistake, although its ending was muddled in a way that BSG's never is. It was never a story about clear-headed atheists doing space atheism--that was Star Trek. This was always a show about people doing things because they believed them, or got stuck in a corner after manipulating other people into believing something. "Who are you when you have only your own lies?" is a question that this show dares to ask, and it also offers an answer, which is refreshing in an age where prestige television tries to take all possible philosophical positions (especially in areas relating to religion).
Strong, Wrong, Fabulous
27 April 2024
This could be an episode of The Orville. I mean that in the best way possible. It has the sensibility of a ridiculous send-up of the best things about Trek with a format that would fit well on a Seth MacFarlane show. This is much more fun and interesting than anything Discovery has managed to do in 5 seasons (not to mention Picard's better-left-unmentioned first 2 seasons and Swiss-cheese 3rd season). It's a fun hour of sci-fi musical comedy with light stakes and a plot that is advanced by the meta elements of the musical (singing about how weird it is that they're singing, for example). It's bold and it's brash and it most certainly DOESN'T belong in the trash.
Hard To Watch Today
26 April 2024
Warning: Spoilers
The idealism at the heart of Trek is on full display here, although the themes it chooses to tackle have been addressed better elsewhere already. "Human supremacy" is a thinly veiled metaphor for white supremacy and with the way America is going in 2024 it's a hard thing to stomach. Where DS9 managed to actually have some depth with its outings like Far Beyond the Stars--which may be the best episode of Trek--Enterprise found a way to shove race relations in at the tail end of its run. In a world edging toward totalitarianism, it's hard to watch something produced at such a pivotal moment in modern history have such an innocent naiveté w/r/t all of this. In the world of Jonathan Archer, people who try to overthrow governments in the name of legalizing prejudice immediately face justice. We can only hope that the future follows this example more than the recent past and present.
Oh
26 April 2024
Chef is Commander Riker, it's all a holodeck program, yadda yadda yadda. Everyone knows that this is the worst part of the episode. This should have been a 3- or 4-parter that followed directly, chronologically speaking, from the last non-Mirror Universe arcs that the show explored. The whole season was structured to lead up to the formation of the Federation. The letdown is the way it's addressed here. Instead of giving the NX-01 a proper sendoff, the writers chose to lean on the goodwill of TNG fans. What we got was, honestly, more contrived than season 2 of Picard. It would be one thing if the Riker segments showed us things we didn't already know. Daniels accomplished that in the third season, though, when he told Archer why the mission to destroy the Xindi superweapon was important and showed him the future. So who cares!?!? I seriously don't understand the rationale behind this. Maybe Frakes just wanted to run around in his uniform again and Marina Sirtis probably just wanted a paycheck (nothing against her, actors are workers and this was probably an easy gig; she gave everything the performance required). All in all this is pointless and embarrassing.
Nothing New
25 April 2024
This is a plot-heavy season with multi-episode arcs all over the place. Its weakest episodes are the monster- or villain-of-the-week plots that are probably recycled from earlier series like TNG or TOS. Who knows how many Phase II scripts are still lying around, unproduced, waiting for a good doctoring? This could be any episode of any series of Trek, which is interesting given its place at the tail end of ENT. We've spent 2 seasons watching things develop toward the utopian future of the 23rd and 24th centuries. The Andorians, Vulcans, and Tellarites are canonically the founding species of the Federation so it's gratifying to see their progression toward unification.
Then we get this episode and the Orion slave girls show up. There's really not enough space on the television screen for all the T&A that wants to be on display here. In another format--maybe a differently exploitative one, like pornography or '70s grindhouse cinema--they might have been less intrusive. Plus, we saw T'Pol's bum and have heard people talk about it for 4 seasons now. There's enough skin on display here to give any Puritan whiplash.
Then we get this episode and the Orion slave girls show up. There's really not enough space on the television screen for all the T&A that wants to be on display here. In another format--maybe a differently exploitative one, like pornography or '70s grindhouse cinema--they might have been less intrusive. Plus, we saw T'Pol's bum and have heard people talk about it for 4 seasons now. There's enough skin on display here to give any Puritan whiplash.
The Ring
(2002)
Watch The Original. Please.
25 April 2024
This movie sucks. Things just happen for no reason. The narrative just throws things at the wall to see what sticks. It has few of the positive qualities of the original Japanese film. Take out the fundamental context of the mythology--i.e., Japan--and the story is weird and unsettling but lacking in substantial content. Naomi Watts screams a lot and people die and bizarre occurrences occur bizarrely. Big whoop. Seven days? More like seven minutes--to being totally bored out of your mind! Maybe not all the way out of your skull, but definitely out of your mind. It's just fundamentally not something that needed to exist.
Franklin
(2024– )
If You Have A Problem With Subtitles, You'd Better Speak The Language
25 April 2024
The number of posts on here that complain about the presence of subtitles in this multi-lingual production is maddening. Apparently closed captioning makes things unwatchable. And apparently the only possible way to improve this show is to stick a fake nose and wig on Michael Douglas, judging by other reviews that don't make as much mention of subtitles.
Deal with it. This is a great production. It looks beautiful and the performances are good. The story is relatively timely, too, managing to draw effective parallels between 18th- and 21st-century ways of conducting diplomacy.
Seriously, if you have a problem with subtitles, go away.
Deal with it. This is a great production. It looks beautiful and the performances are good. The story is relatively timely, too, managing to draw effective parallels between 18th- and 21st-century ways of conducting diplomacy.
Seriously, if you have a problem with subtitles, go away.
Another Week, Another Clue, Another Opportunity To Wonder: Who Really Cares?
25 April 2024
Warning: Spoilers
Back to the mirror universe, or something. Or to an interdimensional rift that a version of the Enterprise from the mirror universe is stuck in. It's not the Defiant from ENT s4; it would have to be Archer's enterprise. So I guess we now know what happened to that ship after the events of Mirror, Mirror. Because we all cared so much about that.
Maybe we could have an episode that consists of nothing but our protagonists talking about what the technology they're seeking could accomplish, or what they'd like to do with it when they got their hands on it? Or the antagonists, hell, I don't care--seriously, I don't care. I'm not invested in the story here. I don't think there's been any forward progression all season. There's a little in this episode, coming in the form of Mall and Loch's (sp?) backstory, but it doesn't give us much. Over-the-top performances by human characters, acting like they're just 21st-century people who happen to live in the 25h century, continue to ruin otherwise decent scenes. We're still chasing the same people, looking for the same clues. The guy from Battlestar Galactica and the guy from RENT are good, as usual.
Maybe we could have an episode that consists of nothing but our protagonists talking about what the technology they're seeking could accomplish, or what they'd like to do with it when they got their hands on it? Or the antagonists, hell, I don't care--seriously, I don't care. I'm not invested in the story here. I don't think there's been any forward progression all season. There's a little in this episode, coming in the form of Mall and Loch's (sp?) backstory, but it doesn't give us much. Over-the-top performances by human characters, acting like they're just 21st-century people who happen to live in the 25h century, continue to ruin otherwise decent scenes. We're still chasing the same people, looking for the same clues. The guy from Battlestar Galactica and the guy from RENT are good, as usual.
Reprehensible Premise
23 April 2024
A few ENT episodes have felt atavistic on this rewatch. This one calls back to debates about genetic engineering, abortion, and stem cell research that this show has delved into before. Unfortunately it handles them with the intelligence of a rabid dog. There are hamfisted attempts to comment on the 'grey' area of genetic research, but only enough to let us know that in the end it was good that bioconservatism won out. In an age where this sort of technology is possible, but laws threaten to prevent its use in cases where it could be medically helpful, this episode lands like a wet fart.
Let me be clear: this episode doesn't so much say that CRISPR-type tech, used with the intent of creating a super-race, is bad bad. It does seem to say that attempting to cure genetic disorders is bad. There is something repugnant about this future.
Let me be clear: this episode doesn't so much say that CRISPR-type tech, used with the intent of creating a super-race, is bad bad. It does seem to say that attempting to cure genetic disorders is bad. There is something repugnant about this future.
Nazi Aliens? Hell Yes
22 April 2024
This season has had its ups and downs. This episode certainly doesn't. It's cheez wizz all the way through: time-traveling aliens have come back to help the Nazis conquer America. Naturally, the only possible way to save the day is for Captain Archer to work with a couple of Brooklyn thugs and this episode's love interest to drive fascism and futuristic particle weapons from America's heartland. This is B-movie heaven. I always love media that takes its time and waits to throw the Nazi twist in. It's a staple of '70s and '80s B-movies. The fact that Enterprise waited this long to do this premise shows remarkable restraint.
Best moment is definitely the part where the Nazi alien says "When we get back, you'll never have existed!" and then the mob guy kills him. The alien costumes are outstanding.
Best moment is definitely the part where the Nazi alien says "When we get back, you'll never have existed!" and then the mob guy kills him. The alien costumes are outstanding.
Seen It Before
21 April 2024
On top of being cheap (bottle episodes are always cheap, and that's what this is), this is like that Twilight Zone episode where William Shatner sees a gremlin on the wing of his plane. I'm pretty sure there's a Voyager episode where 7 of 9 and the Doctor are the only ones awake on the ship during a long crossing, too. John Billingsley is good here. Jolene Blalock is fine. Porthos is cute. This is a fundamentally boring premise, though. Everyone's asleep! How exciting! What next, a mind control plot where everyone but the actual mind control victim seems to be acting out of character? I'm sure they'd never...
Sealab: Enterprise
21 April 2024
Warning: Spoilers
Enterprise frequently reminds me of Sealab 2021, one of my favorite cartoons. It's irreverent and brash where Enterprise is--usually--reverent and calm. But sometimes the Enterprise crew let loose and go a little crazy. A little bit bonkers, if you will. Sometimes the narrative work that would justify that bonkers behavior is unjustified. Sometimes they see Captain Archer promoting a compassionate approach to interstellar relations and decide that he must be under the influence of an alien parasite. Apparently, that's really the case, even though everyone else is acting unhinged the whole time. I don't buy the storytelling and the message is, as usual, very muddled.
Unoriginal To A Fault
21 April 2024
Warning: Spoilers
This premise has been done before, and not only on Trek. Other reviewers have noted the similarity of this episode's plot to a film called 36 hours, which I haven't seen. More interesting is the similarity to the TNG episode where Romulans capture Riker and trick him into thinking it's the future. I can't remember the title and don't feel like looking it up. Anyway, this episode dares to ask the bold question: what if our protagonists, after willfully creating a Tuvix situation several episodes earlier, now decided to do what the Tal Shiar and Nazi intelligence did in previous iterations of this premise?
With no decent foil here--only poor Degra, who is a victim in all of this--Archer and his crew come off as people who believe that any given end can justify any given means. Immanuel Kant is spinning in his grave.
With no decent foil here--only poor Degra, who is a victim in all of this--Archer and his crew come off as people who believe that any given end can justify any given means. Immanuel Kant is spinning in his grave.
Do It Again, Jeffy!
21 April 2024
Warning: Spoilers
Jeffrey Combs is a class act. Few actors have given what he has to this kind of production over the years. Like Scott Bakula, he knows how to play his character for maximal effect. He is a master of facial expressions and scenery-chewing. He elevates B-movies and television shows to levels that should not be attainable.
Is this a great episode? No. But the Andorians are very entertaining and very well-portrayed, and the plot has enough justified twists and turns to keep it interesting. It's also thematically connected to the most important elements of the Enterprise framing story (no, not the dumb one): this incident locates in time the ideological development of the worlds that would become the Federation. They don't trust each other, but here they are, working together to achieve common goals. It's only a matter of time before they all come together and form a unitary government so that they can do away with the wasteful and illogical backstabbing.
And, thanks to this episode's writing, we can really believe that Archer is the kind of captain who has the kind of diplomatic and martial skills to persuade and impress these foreign powers. This is Enterprise's interstellar relations at their best. It's not quite DS9 but there's still meat on this bone.
Is this a great episode? No. But the Andorians are very entertaining and very well-portrayed, and the plot has enough justified twists and turns to keep it interesting. It's also thematically connected to the most important elements of the Enterprise framing story (no, not the dumb one): this incident locates in time the ideological development of the worlds that would become the Federation. They don't trust each other, but here they are, working together to achieve common goals. It's only a matter of time before they all come together and form a unitary government so that they can do away with the wasteful and illogical backstabbing.
And, thanks to this episode's writing, we can really believe that Archer is the kind of captain who has the kind of diplomatic and martial skills to persuade and impress these foreign powers. This is Enterprise's interstellar relations at their best. It's not quite DS9 but there's still meat on this bone.
Has Anyone Writing This Show Ever Taken A Religious Studies Class?
21 April 2024
Oh, 2004, will you ever stop reminding us of our hubris? Like so many pieces of media that may or may not have been trying to say something about the Iraq War, this is muddled. Battlestar Galactica, which started airing in the same year, ended up doing a much better job of examining questions about the relationship between faith and science, and it did so by taking the time necessary. A fictional religion is only as interesting as the way its belief system is portrayed for the benefit of the audience. We don't know or care about *why* these people believe what they do. This is, in fact, a problem when they start shooting at people who disagree with them--because then we don't care about the conflict.
Darth Helmet would have been a more intimidating villain. Apparently everyone who disagrees with them is a heretic and deserves to die. We don't understand what they believe, though, other than "the spheres are sacred," which is boring. Not to mention the ease with which our invaders take over the ship. This doesn't make any sense at all. The people OKing the scripts for this show--that is to say, Rick Berman and Brannon Braga--clearly thought too highly of their own ability to tell thematically heavy stories like this one.
Darth Helmet would have been a more intimidating villain. Apparently everyone who disagrees with them is a heretic and deserves to die. We don't understand what they believe, though, other than "the spheres are sacred," which is boring. Not to mention the ease with which our invaders take over the ship. This doesn't make any sense at all. The people OKing the scripts for this show--that is to say, Rick Berman and Brannon Braga--clearly thought too highly of their own ability to tell thematically heavy stories like this one.
Average
21 April 2024
Nothing to say at all about this one. It made no impression on me. It is a series of images and sounds arranged in sequence to tell a story. This is definitely a filler episode and it doesn't have a very clear connection to anything else that's happening in the season. Compared to other similar time travel episodes in DS9 and Voyager, this is just dull. I guess the guy who eats a burger is doing a good job of acting. If you have to skip 1 episode of this season, this is probably the one--unless you hate Westerns. All in all, it's not one of the better episodes of Enterprise but it isn't offensively bad like some manage to be.
Star Trek Into Darkness
(2013)
Low Point
21 April 2024
This is the franchise's low point. After 5 seasons of Discovery it's safe to say that this is worse. It's just utter nonsense passed off as if it carried significance. A feather carries more dramatic weight. There is more suspense in watching paint dry. There is better characterization in a season of Bad Girls Club. This is an affront to science fiction and good taste. It's terrible! Terrible! An awful movie by any reasonable standard. Benedict Cumberbatch should be ashamed. He should donate the money he was paid for this project to an inner city arts school so that someone more talented can make use of Hollywood's limitless resources.
There Actually Aren't That Many Ethical Questions Around Stem Cell Research
21 April 2024
This is an emotionally manipulative and stupid episode. I am not a fan of Trip as a character. This episode loses me there, but goes a step further with it's ham-fisted metaphor. Like the previous 2 episodes, it's been done before--and better. Unlike those, though, this chooses to rip off Gattaca and My Sister's Keeper. The muddled metaphor combines the medical emancipation plot of My Sister's Keeper with the genetic engineering element of Gattaca.
Watching this episode, one is reminded of the classic Family Guy bit in which Peter Griffin, after suffering the debilitating aftereffects of a stroke, stumbles into a stem cell research facility where all of his ills are cured on the spot. He immediately asks, "Why aren't we funding this?!?" Yeah. Good question. This episode might also be asking it. It's hard to tell, though. The emotions are running too hot the whole time for any real meaningful commentary to shine through. As a result it ends up feeling like a lecture on the importance of respecting the opinions of people don't like science. Why couldn't they just clone the relevant parts of Trip? Because human beings don't like science and have to depend on Denobulan medicine. Muddled. I blame Rick Berman.
Watching this episode, one is reminded of the classic Family Guy bit in which Peter Griffin, after suffering the debilitating aftereffects of a stroke, stumbles into a stem cell research facility where all of his ills are cured on the spot. He immediately asks, "Why aren't we funding this?!?" Yeah. Good question. This episode might also be asking it. It's hard to tell, though. The emotions are running too hot the whole time for any real meaningful commentary to shine through. As a result it ends up feeling like a lecture on the importance of respecting the opinions of people don't like science. Why couldn't they just clone the relevant parts of Trip? Because human beings don't like science and have to depend on Denobulan medicine. Muddled. I blame Rick Berman.
My Personal Favorite Episode
21 April 2024
This is my favorite episode of Enterprise for reasons that aren't immediately clear to me. It's almost like Memento in space, only without the structural insanity. The premise is simple, rehashed from previous Trek series, and soap-opera level contrived, but there's something that makes it special: context. Season 3 is a suspense thriller in which all of Trek's ideals are put to the test against the bleakness of the Expanse and the manipulation of history by time travelers from the future. Wrenches are thrown into things, but our heroes win out by the skin of their teeth again and again. Long-term consequences are made obvious (the Federation won't exist, Earth will be destroyed, doom and gloom, blah blah blah) but this episode actually sits in a possible future where the Enterprise fails in its mission and its crew survives, marooned in the Expanse with no hope of returning to anything like a home. The only hope for the survival of the human race? Temporal Ivermectin to cure Captain Archer's time-worms.
Once again we see Jolene Blalock and Scott Bakula shine and give life to characters that, played almost any other way, would not shine like they do here. The stakes are high and the prognosis is grim. At the last minute, of course, the day is saved--but we get to see what might have been, which makes us care about the outcome of Enterprise's mission and the fates of the various characters. This episode gives weight to everything that comes after it, on top of being an excellent episode of television all by itself.
Once again we see Jolene Blalock and Scott Bakula shine and give life to characters that, played almost any other way, would not shine like they do here. The stakes are high and the prognosis is grim. At the last minute, of course, the day is saved--but we get to see what might have been, which makes us care about the outcome of Enterprise's mission and the fates of the various characters. This episode gives weight to everything that comes after it, on top of being an excellent episode of television all by itself.
An Inoffensive and Pretty 7 Samurai Remake
19 April 2024
It looks really, REALLY good. The costumes and ship designs are cooler than most recent sci-fi outings, with a couple noteworthy exceptions. It's nice to see a passion project in this genre in this day and age. Zack Snyder clearly cares about this subject matter. This isn't the first time he's compromised with a studio on a final product (I can see why Netflix would want to air the PG-13 version first; rake in the views before you give people what was originally advertised as an R-rated film on their second viewing if they feel like tuning back in several months of subscription fees later), to the point where it's not so much compromise as methodology. Few filmmakers would go through the effort to make something so personal only to say "Yeah, go ahead, piss all over my movie, take final cut, I'll release my version later when everyone's already decided that yours sucks." Snyder is a fascinating visionary, a painter who likes to watch muscle-bound hulks punch robots in the face and spend 20 minutes on a harvest montage. What's really missing is the emotional punch that causes the audience to care about what happens on the screen; hopefully the R-rated cut will pack that punch. This is a failure with potential.
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