Tag Archives: Science Fiction

Movie Review – What We Left Behind: Looking Back at Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

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TL;DR – A documentary about one of my favourite shows of all time, please and thank-you    

Score – 4.5 out of 5 stars

Post-Credit Scene – There is a mid and end-credit scene that you need to stay for

What We Left Behind: Looking Back at Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Image Credit: 455 Films.

Review –

 I have made many allusions in the past to just how much I love Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and to this day it is still my favourite installation in the Star Trek franchise. So when I heard that there was going to be a documentary made about it, I was excited, when it was coming out in Australian cinemas I was going to be there, and then that one weekend my life fell apart. Well, things are mostly better now, as long as I don’t read the news and stay home, which was the perfect time to catch up with something I missed and always wanted to watch.

So to set the scene, back in the 1990s the producers behind the very popular Star Trek series decided to do something a little different, instead of being in a ship that warps away at the end of each episode, the set the show on a space station. A station that is permanently positioned in the newly independent Bajor system, abandoned by the Cardassians after decades of ruin. It was an ambitious show, it was a controversial show, and it was and is still my favourite.

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TV Review – Star Trek: Picard – Et in Arcadia Ego, Part 1

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TL;DR – It is the beginning of the end, and I don’t think I am ready

Score – 4 out of 5 stars

Star Trek: Picard – Et in Arcadia Ego, Part 1. Image Credit: CBS Studios.

Review –

Oh wow, I can’t believe that we are already at the penultimate of Star Trek Picard. It is a show that feels like it was always with us, and also one that has gone in a blink of an eye. Well, today we get all out horses into line because the apocalypse is upon us and someone better stop it.  

So to set the scene, at the end of last week’s Broken Pieces, the crew of La Sirena was about to do something monumentally stupid and that was to jump into the Borg’s transwarp network to get to Coppelius before the Romulans can blow it out of the sky. Well, this week we open with them doing just that, only they didn’t know that Narek (Harry Treadaway) was following them, oh and Seven of Nine (Jeri Ryan) has her own Borg cube now. Now we will be looking at the episode as a whole so you better believe that there will be [SPOILERS] ahead. 

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TV Review – Altered Carbon – Season 2

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TL;DR – It continues the story gallantly, but the second outing is more restrained and does not fix the problems of the first season.  

Score – 3.5 out of 5 stars

Altered Carbon – Season 2. Image Credit: Netflix.

Review –

A couple of years ago, there was this odd TV series on Netflix that I described as “if Westworld and Blade Runner had a baby with Ghost in the Shell as the midwife.” It was odd, it was out there, and even though it had some limitations it kept powering through. Well, I have finally caught up with the second season and I have to say it is more of the say, which is both good and bad.

So to set the scene, we open in a dive bar on some desolate system out in the deep black. On the stage is a singer (Jihae) singing a haunting song when a synth that had just needle cast in-system. Trepp (Simone Missick) is a bounty hunter, and a good one at that, and she is looking for one Takeshi “Tak” Kovacs. But in what sleeve is he in? Possibly only the malfunctioning AI Poe (Chris Conner) behind the bar knows? Well, Trepp buts a bullet in his back and brings him to her employer Horace Axley (Michael Shanks). All Tak has to do is protect Axley and he gets to keep this new body (Anthony Mackie). But more importantly, he knows where he can find Quellcrist “Quell” Falconer (Renée Elise Goldsberry), the person he has been searching for all these years. It’s a good bargain, right up until the moment he needle casts in and finds Axley dead on the ground, and all of Harlan’s World is out for his blood. Now we will be looking at the season as a whole, so there may be some [SPOILERS] ahead.

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TV Review – Star Trek: Picard – Nepenthe

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TL;DR – Picard comes home

Score – 4.5 out of 5 stars

Star Trek: Picard – Nepenthe. Image Credit: CBS Studios.

Review –

Today we look at an episode that I think everyone has been excited for since that first trailer dropped last year. The moment that Picard (Patrick Stewart) meets back up with Will (Jonathan Frakes) and Deanna (Marina Sirtis) is something that has real power to it. However, if the show keeps looking back, can it move forward? Well, that is what we look at today.

So to set the scene, after last week when Narek (Harry Treadaway) activated Soji (Isa Briones) by trying to kill her, Hugh (Jonathan Del Arco) took Picard and Soji deep into the Borg Cube to the Queencell. Here they used a failsafe transporter to take them off the cube at to Nepenthe. This week we open on when they arrive but waiting for them is not a friend, but a hunter with a bow and the arrow is ready to be loosed. Now we will be looking at the episode as a whole so you better believe that there will be [SPOILERS] ahead. 

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TV Review – Star Trek: Picard – Stardust City Rag

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TL;DR – This episode starts with a deeply emotional moment, then goes into high farce, and then back again without missing a beat.

Score – 5 out of 5 stars

tar Trek: Picard – Stardust City Rag. Image Credit: CBS Studios.

Review –

There are moments in TV that you never knew you want right up until the moment they air and then you wonder why it is that you had not wished for that before. In today’s episode, we get that but also we get something I never wished to pass and it still pains me to think of it.

So to set the scene, we open in on the Seven Domes on the planet Vergessen in the Hypatia system … and well that is all I can really say without hitting spoilers so far it would make your head twist. Now we will be looking at the episode as a whole so you better believe that there will be [SPOILERS] ahead. 

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TV Review – Lost in Space: Season 2

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TL;DR – A really great continuation of the first season showing the strengths of this new interpretation at every turn

Score – 4 out of 5 stars

Lost in Space: Season 2. Image Credit: Netflix

Review –

We are currently living through a second Golden Age for Science Fiction on TV and one of the first really cool examples of that was a new Lost in Space landing on our screens a couple of years ago. It was energetic, delightful, but also had some thematic weight behind it. Well, Season Two is upon us, so it’s time to see how well it did.    

So to set the scene, at the end of Season One, the family Robinson, that is Maureen (Molly Parker), John (Toby Stephens), Will (Maxwell Jenkins), Judy (Taylor Russell), and Penny (Mina Sundwall) along with Don West (Ignacio Serricchio) and Dr Smith (Parker Posey) got launched through a warp portal by Robot (Brian Steele) to protect them. This leads them to land on a planet that is habitable, bar all the methane in the atmosphere. The warp drained most of the Jupiter 2’s power meaning they can breathe and stay warm but not a whole lot else. All of this changes when Maureen notices that there is a patch of lightning in the distance that comes so regularly that you can schedule it, and maybe a lighting jolt is just what the Jupiter 2 needs. Now as we go on there will be some [SPOILERS] as we will be looking at the season as a whole, so just be warned if you have not seen it yet.     

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TV Review – Star Trek: Picard – Absolute Candor

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TL;DR – We have a crew, repeat we have a crew, this is not a drill

Score – 4.5 out of 5 stars

Star Trek: Picard – Absolute Candor. Image Credit: CBS Studios.

Review –


For the first three episodes of the season Remembrance, Maps and Legends, and The End is the Beginning, it felt like we were setting the scene, getting our call to adventure, our call to the stars, we were building the world, and in one word bringing it all together. But now we are in space, and it is simply pure joy.

So to set the scene, we start back in time in a fateful time where Picard (Patrick Stewart) on Vashti when he was happy. He was starting to move people out of Romulus, making friends, establishing real progress, however, then the synthetics attacked Mars and everything went to hell. In the present, the crew of the La Sirena have come together on their task, only now that they are in the Beta Quadrant, Picard has another calling, to meet some friends from the past and write some past wrongs. Now we will be looking at the episode as a whole so there will be [SPOILERS] ahead. 

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TV Review – Star Trek: Picard – The End is the Beginning

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TL;DR – We have a crew, repeat we have a crew, this is not a drill

Score – 4 out of 5 stars

Star Trek: Picard – The End is the Beginning. Image Credit: CBS Studios.

Review –

Okay, if I am going to be honest, if there is one thing that will always sucker me into a show, it is a group desperate people coming together to form a crew. Well, today, we get to see Picard (Patrick Stewart) do it all again and I am here for it.  

So to set the scene, in last week’s Maps and Legends we learned a couple of important things. First, there is either a Romulan mole in the midst of Starfleet in the guise of Head of Starfleet Intelligence Commodore Oh (Tamlyn Tomita) or the head of Starfleet Intelligence is like just kill with Romulan assassin squads romping around Earth … I’m not sure which is worse. Also secondly, we discovered that Picard or JL to his friends has burnt all the goodwill he had left in Starfleet. Well, what do you do when all your options are closed, well it’s time to wing it Picard style. Now we will be looking at the episode as a whole so there will be [SPOILERS] ahead.   

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TV Review – The Expanse: Season 4

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TL;DR – This series continues to be the benchmark for modern Science Fiction, the benchmark for novel adaptation, and the benchmark for great TV.  

Score – 5 out of 5 stars

The Expanse Season 4: Image Credit: Amazon Studios.

Review –

Last year I wrote an article about how we are in a new Golden Age of Science Fiction and at the heart of that theses was the joy that was The Expanse. At the time Season Three had come out, and we still were not sure if that would be the end of the TV show. It would have been sad if the show’s story had ended there, but at least we still had the books, which was a little consolation. However, I was overjoyed to hear that it got a last-minute pick-up for Season Four on Amazon, ecstatic when I discovered that it was already greenlit for Season Five, and over the moon now that I have watched Season Four and have discovered the joy that it is.    

So to set the scene, at the end of last season, disaster had been forestalled and new opportunities have arrived when thousands of gates to thousands of new solar systems opened up. Fearing the new disaster that could come for an out of control gold rush, or worse a new proto-molecule infection, the powers at be, the new alliance of Earth, Mars, and the OPA work together to set up a blockade at the Solar System side of the network. But before they could get it set up a bunch of Belter refugees took the gamble and broke through the blockade. Months later and somehow the Belter have survived, which is causing Chrisjen Avasarala (Shohreh Aghdashloo) all levels of grief because the Royal Charter Energy (RCE) Company has legal claim to the planet and has sent their ship the Edward Israel to what they call New Terra, but what the Belters call Ilus. So who better to go and meditate, well that would be the crew of the Rocinante James Holden (Steven Strait), Alex Kamal (Cas Anvar), Naomi Nagata (Dominique Tipper), and Amos Burton (Wes Chatham). Now from here, we will be looking at the season as a whole so there will be [SPOILERS] ahead.    

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TV Review – Star Trek: Picard – Maps and Legends

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TL;DR – Here we get to see the drive of the season and some moments that really show who this current Federation is

Score – 4.5 out of 5 stars

Star Trek: Picard – Maps and Legends

Review –

After the excellence of the first episode, the next question is can you keep that momentum moving which is a whole new problem all in itself. But if the first episode Remembrance framed this new world, Maps and Legends gave it context as we deal with its fallout.

So to set the scene, we go back in time to the fateful day on Mars when the synthetics attacked. We had seen part of this in the Short Trek Children of Mars, but now we get to see what happened on the ground as the synthetic F8 (Alex Diehl) is hacked and turns on his crew and assists in the destruction of the planet. Meanwhile, Picard (Patrick Stewart) begins his search in earnest to find Dahj’s (Isa Briones) twin sister Soji (Isa Briones) who is currently serving on a derelict Borg cube called ‘The Artefact’. Here he tries to go through the right channels only to get that thrown back in his face. Now we will be looking at the episode as a whole so there will be [SPOILERS] ahead.   

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