TL;DR – While on the technical side of things this was not the best episode of Doctor Who, the story is leaps and bounds above the norm, and it shows the power this show can have if they apply themselves.
Score – 4.5 out of 5 stars
Review –
When you can travel through all of time and space, you can visit wondrous alien worlds, go back and visit key moments in history like the construction of the pyramids, or even explore what looks an awful lot like a quarry on the outskirts of Cardiff a couple of times. However, would you go back in time a visit the less fun parts of our history, those parts that we politely pretend do not exist, even though the ripple of those events still dominate our world today. Well in a world that needs to visit this part of its past Doctor Who has decided to do so for them as we delve into the world of the 1950s segregated America.
TL;DR – Today we get a look at how the team will work together, what drives The Doctor, and also a little snippet as to what the overarching story of the season will be.
Score – 4 out of 5 stars
Review –
There is a lot you have to do in the first episode of a season, especially when you are setting it up as a soft-reboot. You have to introduce the characters and the world, and set the tone for what is to come. However, that is something that can take a whole episode, so you don’t have time for much else. Indeed at the end of last week’s The Woman Who Fell to Earth (see review) we had done all that, but it was a little short with the adventure, the wonder, well one way to add that is to end on a cliff-hanger with our whole team floating in space with no way out. It is one of those instants that you can’t help get captured in the moment even if only for a moment before the logical part of your brain snaps back in to remind you that there is no way they are killing everyone off in episode one. Today we look at the follow up the opener of the season, The Ghost Monument, where we get that sense of wonder and dread as we explore a planet that was once alive and now dead.
TL;DR – We barrel into the 11th season with an opening episode that will hit you in the feels, make you go ew, and have you sitting in wonder, so basically everything that makes Doctor Who work.
Score – 4 out of 5 stars
Review –
Doctor Who is a show that is one that I have an interesting relationship with. There are times that it rockets to the top of my must-see list, and times where I feel like I am watching more out of obligation than anything else. However, unlike any other franchise, other than maybe James Bond, Doctor Who is always reinventing itself both metaphorical and literally, and today we see the next step in that evolution with The Woman Who Fell to Earth. With that in mind today we are going to have a look at the debut episode of the shows 11th season (well 37th if you want to get technical) and answer the question: can they reinvent The Doctor again.
TL;DR – Today we countdown my Top 10 films of all time; from towns where there are a lot of ‘accidents’, to all forms of Sci-Fi, to do you know the man with six fingers on his right hand, and everything in between.
Countdown –
Recently I watched the CineFix crew countdown their Top 10 films, and it had me thinking what are mine? Now it was at this point where I of course naturally spiralled as how can you reduce thousands of films that you have seen into only a Top 10. Just before I threw my hands up in resignation and chucked in the towel I happened to catch an episode of Movies with Mikey on how he determined the best sequel. With this in mind I wondered if there was a set of criteria that I could use to categorise the films into a list that I would be happy with, and after some work, I came up with the following criteria that work for me.
Films that are beautifully constructed
Films that mean something to me
Films that are always re-watchable
Films that have added to my love of the craft of cinema
With this criterion in mind I went through all the likely candidates and with a bit of a struggle I think I have been able to come to a final list, well at least until I change my mind next week, which is always a chance.
TL;DR – While at first look this might have been just a Star Trek homage or at worst a blatant rip-off. Instead, it finds its feet and becomes a charming exploration of the future and the mess and opportunities that could come.
Score – 4 out of 5 stars
Review –
I have been wanting to catch The Orville for quite a while but there was no streaming or TV that picked it up here in Australia, so I was expecting this was something that I might only get to see when it dropped on Blu-Ray. But with SBS announcing they had picked it up and would be showing Season Two I jumped on a watched the whole first season in one night, which meant that clown appeared at a very confronting time late at night. But binged the first season I have, and now it is time to jump in and see if it was worth the wait. Now before we dive in, a quick reminder that as we will be looking at the season as a whole, there will be some [SPOILERS] ahead.
TL;DR – This is a film with a lot of promise and an interesting hook, but it’s missing that final level of polish needed for a film like this and the ending did feel like a cop-out.
Score – 2.5 out of 5 stars
Post-Credit Scene – There is no post-credit scene
Review –
It has been a good year for Science Fiction TV on Netflix, I mean it is only halfway through the year and we have already had such gems as Altered Carbon (see review), Lost in Space (see review), Star Trek Discovery (see review) & The Rain (see review). However, when it comes to Science Fiction films it is a bit more of a mixed bag, ranging from the excellent Annihilation (see review) to the quite disappointing TAU (see review). Today we look at the next film that Netflix has saved after having its theatrical release pulled Extinction, which has some good ideas going on but didn’t quite get there with the execution.
TL;DR – We started with a group of people on a ship in space, and over the season, as adversity after adversity piled up, we ended with a crew. I mean I just wrote 1000 words just on the cast, the show is that good.
Score – 4.5 out of 5 stars
Review –
This year has been a strong year for Sci-Fi on TV we have Lost in Space, Altered Carbon, The Rain, as well as more Westworld, 3%, and The Expanse. In the middle of all this was a release, which for me was probably anticipated more than anything else, a new Star Trek series. Now the fact that I really like the Star Trek franchise should come as no surprise, indeed a wrote an article all about my love for Star Trek Deep Space Nine. However, there was also a lot of trepidation going in, since DS9 we had Voyager that had some great individual episodes but nothing really came together as a series, and Enterprise that took three seasons to find out what type of show it wanted to be and when it got there decided to end on just about the most insulting note that it could (yes I know it was not meant to be a series finale but still). However, I went into this thinking that I can at least give it a season, and boy what a season it was. So in the first season of Star Trek Discovery the broke it up into different chapters, we took a look at Chapter One here, and today we are going to take a look at Chapter Two which was the back half of the season but also some of the themes that transcend all of the season, you can also see all of our reviews for the individual episodes here. With this in mind, just a warning that we will be looking at the season as a whole, and as such there will be some major [SPOILERS] discussed in this review. So caution is advised if you have yet to finished Season One of Star Trek Discovery, and we would recommend you giving the first season a watch.
TL;DR – This is cool animated series that sways between the absurd and heart whelming in a way that shouldn’t work but totally does.
Score – 4 out of 5 stars
Review –
I went into Final Space with absolutely no idea of what it was, bar the fact that it was animated and was set in space, and since some of my favourite TV shows of all time fall into that particular Venn diagram I thought I would give it a watch. Now from the opening titles I didn’t have the greatest opinion of the show, but hey they are only half an hour I can give this a look, well ten episodes binged in one sitting later I am really glad I did.
TL;DR – Occupation is an Aussie take on the Alien Invasion genre, with a fantastic setup and ending, though it does meander a bit in the middle.
Score – 3.5 out of 5 stars
Post-Credit Scene – There is no post-credit scene
Review –
For those who have read my work before you would likely know that I am a big fan of the Science Fiction genre, and one of the types of media that falls under that banner is Alien Invasions. They can be on the small scale like Predator, or on the large scale like Independence Day and X-Com, or that one time with Battleship where it was weirdly mid-scale, that was an odd film. However, the basic premise of all these films is that one day everything is normal, you are going about your day without a care in the world and then everything changes. I really enjoy the Alien Invasion sub-genre, indeed I count Independence Day as one of my favourite films of all time, however, a lot of the recent films have been well disappointing, sorry Independence Day Resurgence (see review). Well, today I take a look at a film that is taking the genre in the right direction with an Aussie twist.
TL;DR – When it works it is some of the best TV on the planet at the moment, when it doesn’t well at least it is still well shot and acted.
Score – 4 out of 5 stars
Review –
With The Passenger (see review) coming to a close we have reached the end of Westworld’s Season Two. It was a season of competing timelines, the coming of a war, a mother searching for her child, and a lone warrior standing up when everyone needed him too. Today we are going to look at the highs and lows of Westworld’s sophomore season as we return to the holiday destination now turned into a massacre. So say goodbye The Maze and hello to The Door.
TL;DR Movie Reviews and Analysis 