TL;DR – Trapped in the Mirror Universe, old friends appear, and secrets are revealed … oh and an Andorian
Score – 4.5 out of 5 stars
Review –
So before we start, because this is Part 2 I want to be clear from the start that there will be [SPOILERS] from both last week’s Despite Yourself (see review) and this week’s The Wolf Inside in this review. As well as this, because there are some big reveals that we have to talk about, if you have not watched the episode can I really recommend that you do that before you read this review.
TL;DR – We welcome Chapter Two with a jump into the familiar and it was a delight to watch
Score – 4 out of 5 stars
Review –
So Star Trek: Discovery is back for Chapter Two of its first season and as I have really been enjoying Season One so far I am really looking forward to seeing where the back half of the season takes us. If you want to read our reviews Chapter One’s episodes: See Here, and if you want to read our overview of Chapter One: See Here. Now just a warning that because of the nature of the episode we really can’t say much before we hit major spoilers, so after we set the scene this review will go [FULL SPOILER] so be careful if you have not seen the episode yet.
TL;DR – A fascinating start to the new show, and a great platform to develop and move forward with.
Score – 4.5 out of 5 stars
Review –
So today we are going to take a quick look back at Chapter One of Star Trek: Discovery’s first season. Look to be honest, straight from the start I am just glad that I get to talk about Star Trek, and not just Star Trek, but really good Star Trek to boot, and I’ve not really been able to say that since Deep Space Nine. In our review today what I want to do it take a moment to look at four facets of Chapter One that I found really interesting, the story, the enemies, the technology, and then talk a bit about the future. Now let’s dive in and take a look at the story, and of course, because we are looking at this part of the season as a whole, there will [SPOILERS] here, so proceed with caution if you have not watched the whole season. To read our reviews of each of the episodes of Season One so far: See Here.
TL;DR – This is a bleak dissection of fan culture and what would happen if you were given ultimate power, and it is a problem we need to talk about
Score – 4 out of 5 stars
Review –
So Black Mirror is one of those shows I have heard about and had full intentions to give it a watch, but whenever I went to take a look something else came up. Well, Season Four just came out on Netflix, so now is the best time to dive in. It does help that their first episode is examining the fan culture created around science fiction shows like Star Trek, a subject very dear to my heart. Now of course, just like I had been warned Black Mirror then took a knife and stabbed it in my heart and then held up a mirror to show me that I was the one doing it, so some complicated emotions happened during the watching of this episode. Look this is one of those episodes where it is best to go in knowing as little as possible and even my setting the scene is probably too much. So quickly before we move on, the acting is superb, they capture the essence of classic Trek warts and all, and it has something very important to say about how we relate to the media we consume, especially power fantasies. I do recommend.
TL;DR – The Last Jedi is charting its own story and this is where its strengths and faults lie.
Score – 4 out of 5 stars
Review –
Ok here we go, I didn’t think The Last Jedi was a fantastic film, nor did I think it was a really bad film. It was a film which had some aspects that really worked and some things that just didn’t, which made it a fascinating film to watch. However, this was also a problem for me because I wasn’t sure just how I felt about this film, and indeed for the first time this year, I actually went and saw the film twice before writing my review because I wanted to be sure about my feelings. Now in today’s review, I am going to set the scene and then give a general overview, and then we are going to go full spoiler with my analysis.
TL;DR – The beginning of the end, and the start of the new beginning, this shows what Doctor Who can be when it is firing on all cylinders.
Score – 4 out of 5 stars
Review –
It is the end of an era as Peter Capaldi and Steven Moffat say goodbye to Doctor Who (this is not a spoiler because this was announced 6 months ago) but while it is the end, it is also the start, and that is what is amazing about Doctor Who. So today we look at the last story of the Twelfth Doctor, and a new story of the First Doctor, and also the first story of the Thirteenth Doctor, it was a packed episode.
TL;DR – The mid-season finale is both gut-wrenching and fascinating, both an ending and a new beginning.
Score – 4.5 out of 5 stars
Review –
This week marks a couple of first for Star Trek as a franchise, it is the first time ever that we have had a mid-season finale, the end of Chapter One. As well as this, it is the first time that women’s nipples have ever been shown on screen, though men’s nipples have been fine since the days of The Original Series. Also, this week we get the first gay kiss between two men, indeed there are a lot of firsts. So today we are going to break down what worked in this final episode for a while, and I think it is a good sign that part of me kind of wishes we didn’t have to wait until January to see more.
TL;DR – Back to the war this week and the Federation is starting to lose, and desperate times calls for desperate measures, and an away team.
Score – 4 out of 5 stars
Review –
After taking a pause from the galactic battle last week when Mudd (Rainn Wilson) invaded the USS Discovery in Magic to Make the Sanest Man Go Mad (see review). This week we are back to the war between the Klingons and the Federation, and the tables have turned once again. In tonight’s episode, we get three intertwining stories play out, and we get to learn some Latin, so that’s always fun, says everyone never raised in the English private school system. This three-story structure is good because we get to see some character pairings we have not seen so far, and it also gives us a chance to explore more of the Klingon world. For those interested, this is the 9th time Star Trek has used Latin in an episode title, and today’s episode ‘Si Vis Pacem, Para Bellum’ translates to ‘If you want peace, prepare for war’ and well it is an apt title this week. So after we set the scene, we will break down each of the stories and as always there will be [SPOILERS] ahead.
TL;DR – What is the future of the Federation going to be? As the war drags on we get a glimpse of two possible directions.
Score – 4 out of 5 stars
Review –
Today we get Star Trek Discovery’s first bottle episode, and what is a bottle episode you may say? Well, this is a term in TV for an episode that uses minimal effects, guest stars, and filmed only on existing sets. You may have seen many of these before, where say something forces people to stay in one location, or if you are really unlucky you get a clip show like The Next Generations episode Shades of Gray. Bottle episodes are usually created to be cheaper episodes to produce and tend to be looked down on, however, good bottle episodes use the limitations to tell profound stories like the Deep Space Nine episode Duet. So like all good bottle episodes, we spend a lot of Magic to Make the Sanest Man Go Mad getting to know our characters better, and it is a delight to watch. Now as we will be looking at the full episode there may be some [SPOILERS] ahead, so be a bit careful if you have not seen the episode.
TL;DR – Its, well it’s, ok, it’s not great, it’s not awful, it’s just ok.
Score – 3 out of 5 stars
Review –
So there is a satellite system that controls all of the world’s extreme weather, with a flip of a switch you can take out that cyclone barrelling towards the Australian coast, that heat wave over Paris gone, that mark-5 tornado, what mark-5 tornado. It all sounds great, but if you can see the flaw with this plan, well you can see where the film is heading. Overall, it has been a while since I have seen a big scale disaster film, maybe 2012 was the last one, so it was at least interesting to visit this genre. However, just be prepared that this is science-fiction, not science-fact film, I’m pretty sure there are some laws of thermodynamics that get thrown to the wolves to make this movie happen, nor do we have enough material to build a partial Dyson sphere. So overall I found Geostorm to be well fine, it had some things I liked and some others that I didn’t, and mostly they cancelled each other out. So today we will look at both sides of Geostorm, the good, the bad, and the surprisingly Scottish.
So to set the scene, in 2019 global warming sent the plant into a spiral of extreme weather events which killed millions. Looking death in the face, the world on the brink of destruction put aside years of amenity to create the ‘Dutch Boy’, a series of satellites around the world, designed to stop the extreme weather events. The main engineer of the project was Jake Lawson (Gerard Butler) a man who is equal parts brilliant as he was obstinate, and after many years of work his brother Max (Jim Sturgess) who is employed by the White House was forced to fire him after a bad Senate hearing. Well three years later, and a couple of weeks before Dutch Boy is meant to be officially handed over to an international oversight team, a village in the heart of Afghanistan is discovered to be completely frozen. The Dutch Boy system had never failed before, and given the potential fallout from the lack of trust, or even a cascade of failures, it was a serious issue. So the Secretary of State Dekkom (Ed Harris) recommended to President Palma (Andy García) that there is only one person for the job, yep fired former main engineer Jake, so up he goes, but the clock is ticking.
TL;DR Movie Reviews and Analysis 