Tag Archives: paramount

Star Trek: Discovery – Full Season 4 – TV Review

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TL;DR – A season that is equal parts uplifting and frustrating  

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.

Disclosure – I paid for the Paramount+ service that viewed this episode.

The crew get lifted into the air by a gravity wave.

Star Trek: Discovery Review –

When I was doing an overview of the site, I realised that there were a couple of missing moments that I was not able to tie up due to things happening at the time. Well, given that today is a public holiday, I thought it would be time to correct this, and the first thing we should do is look back at Season Four of Star Trek: Discovery. When I look at this season, what I see are two distinctly different parts, one which might be the best Star Trek has to offer, and the other which was an unfortunate anchor that weighed the entire series back, and today, we will break those two halves down.  

So to set the scene, after saving the galaxy by finding the cause of “The Burn” in Season Three. The USS Discovery-A has settled into being the leading edge of the resurgent Federation. Negotiating with new members and helping distribute dilithium. However, when a mysterious force destroys the entire planet of Kwejian, there is a race to try and work out who is scouring space before another planet is destroyed. Now, we will be looking at the season as a whole from here, so there will be some [SPOILERS] ahead. 

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Halo: Halo and Season 2 – TV Review

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TL;DR – It was a season of highs and lows, but it ended in a wave of potential.  

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.

Disclosure – I paid for the Paramount+ service that viewed this episode.

Master Chief looks up to the Halo.

Halo Review –

Well, we have reached the end of Halo’s sophomore season, and oh, do I have a lot to say. It was a wild swing from impressive to frustrating as we both rose above the mess of Season One while also falling back into the same problems. In today’s review, we will first tackle the season finale, the titular Halo, before looking at the season as a whole.

So to set the scene, the conflict between Humanity and the Covenant is coming to a conflagration. The main Covenant Fleet has chased Makee (Charlie Murphy) and the Arbiter (Viktor Åkerblom) to a non-descript solar system, except for what is hidden orbiting around it. After being tipped off by the infiltrated Cortana (Jen Taylor and Christina Bennington), Admiral Parangosky (Shabana Azmi) implements her plan to wipe out the fleet, even if it means taking every Earth spaceship with them. Parangosky knows what is in the middle of this system, and it is better to destroy it than let the Covenant get it. But it would be a shame if the very dead on Reach Master Chief (Pablo Schreiber) turned out to be alive, the one person that can hold Parangosky and Ackerson (Joseph Morgan) to account. Now from here, we will be looking at the episode and season as a whole, so there will be some [SPOILERS] ahead.

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Halo: Onyx – TV Review

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TL;DR – Alas, we have started to fall back on some of the previous problems that plagued the series.

Rating: 3 out of 5.

Disclosure – I paid for the Paramount+ service that viewed this episode.

John stalks his prey.

Halo Review –

If there is one thing this new season of Halo has done, it has been to refocus what was a pretty meandering Season One. There were some series highs in both Visegrad and Reach that had me profoundly happy that the show had found its feet. However, since then, alarm bells have been ringing, and I am afraid that this week will be no different.  

So to set the scene, we open with Talia Perez (Cristina Rodlo) as a new recruit to the next wave of Spartans as she jumps out of a transport with her team to take down a Covenant Cruiser. Everyone dies, but thankfully, this is just a simulation led by Kai (Kate Kennedy), who we discovered last week threw her lot in with Colonel James Ackerson (Joseph Morgan) and Admiral Margaret Parangosky (Shabana Azmi). But while they hide away on Onyx, a ship flies through their detection network, a ship with Dr Catherine Elizabeth Halsey (Natascha McElhone) and a giant of a man full of scars (Pablo Schreiber). Now from here, we will be looking at the episode, so there will be some [SPOILERS] ahead.

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Halo: Reach – TV Review

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TL;DR – The Halo series has done something I never thought it would or even could do. It made me care.

Rating: 4.5 out of 5.

Disclosure – I paid for the Paramount+ service that viewed this episode.

Warning – This episode contains scenes that may cause distress.

The fall of Reach.

Halo Review –

When I think back to the first season, sure, there were the significant changes everyone talked about, Master Chief (Pablo Schreiber) taking off his mask and all that. But that never bothered me because adaptation to a new medium necessitates making changes. After all, it is a new context. My biggest problem was that the story, while satisfactory, did not make me care all that much about the characters in the show. Well, if nothing else, Season Two has fixed that problem.  

So to set the scene, in last week’s Visegrad, we discovered that not only does The Covenant know where Reach is, and that the authorities know that The Covenant knows where Reach is, but they are already on the planet and their main invasion is imminent. Queue the explosions. Now from here, we will be looking at the episode, so there will be some [SPOILERS] ahead.

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Halo: Sword – TV Review

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TL;DR – A more contained story that was slightly frustrating until you understood its context.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.

Disclosure – I paid for the Paramount+ service that viewed this episode.

The green mountains of Reach.

Halo Review –

We are making a splash with the second of the two-episode opening for Halo’s second season. The first episode showed a bit more focus than we saw in Season One, and that intrigued me. More than anything, I want to see if this was a blip or if this is a new direction for the series.  

So to set the scene, we open with Dr. Catherine Elizabeth Halsey (Natascha McElhone) in a beautiful room, getting all her favourite things, which, of course, means that she is in prison somewhere. It is a nice prison, with pomegranate, but a prison nonetheless. Meanwhile, on Reach, John (Pablo Schreiber) is struggling to find himself now his team has been grounded by Ackerson (Joseph Morgan), and the lies continue to build. On Rubble, Kwan Ha (Yerin Ha) discovers that their precarious position might be even more perilous than they thought. Now from here, we will be looking at the episode, so there will be some [SPOILERS] ahead.

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NCIS: Sydney – Bunker Down – TV Review

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TL;DR – This is the first episode where everything came together to make a profoundly entertaining episode.

Rating: 4 out of 5.

Disclosure – I paid for the Paramount+ service that viewed this series.

The Sydney Harbour Bridge with Indegenous Flag flying.

NCIS: Sydney Review –

As we have gone through this first season, it has been interesting to see the strengths and weaknesses of bringing a media brand like NCIS and transporting it to Australia. On the whole, we have gotten a lot of fish-out-of-water comedy around Australian animals and locations around Sydney. However, we have yet to get an episode that worked entirely as a whole, well, that is until today.

So to set the scene, one day, a cleaner is doing her rounds at The Audley Hotel in Sydney. The Royle Suit is the first on her route, but as she goes to clean, she hears water running in the bathroom, then a trail of blood, and the body of a dead man, followed by a scream. The team is getting ready to go to a secret Gaiametric presentation after an invitation from the DoD. The only problem is the dead scientist also had an invitation that is now missing, and no one knows where the event is or how to contact Mackey (Olivia Swann), Cooper (Tuuli Narkle), and Blue (Mavournee Hazel) because mobile phones can’t reach down in the bunker. We will be looking at the episode as a whole from here, so there will be some [SPOILERS] ahead.    

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