Babylon 5 3-11: Ceremonies of Light and Dark

Episode:

55

|

Writer:

J. Michael Straczynski

|

Air Date:

08-Apr-1996

---

This week on Sci-Fi Adventures, the Babylon 5 continues with Ceremonies of Light and Dark. Sorry for the close up of the guy's fingernail up there, that's the image the episode chose to display its title over.

It's a pretty fitting title for a post published at Christmas though. I mean Christmas is a social or religious occasion that happens in the dark of winter that involves putting lights up, and participating in ritual acts such as giving gifts and eating too much. Not that the episode has anything to do with Christmas whatsoever, it originally aired in April, but it's still a bit of an occasion.

Babylon 5 has at least five TV movies, two spin-offs and whatever you'd call The Lost Tales, but if you just take the episodes on their own then this story is the halfway point of the Babylon 5 saga. We're halfway through the five year arc!

Which means this recap potentially contains SPOILERS for exactly half the series, including this episode. But if you're watching through the series for the first time you don't have to worry about me spoiling what happens in the other half.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens - Part 3

Today on Sci-Fi Adventures, it's the final part of my epic three-part Star Wars: The Force Awakens review! If you missed PART ONE or PART TWO, then click the text to jump right there.

It's not a coincidence that I'm writing about the movie now, just before The Rise of Skywalker comes out. I mean I started writing it ages ago, but I realised that this was the ideal deadline to hit. It probably would've made more sense to write about The Last Jedi, seeing as it's the film that actually leads into the new movie, and to be honest I think it'd be more interesting to examine, but I figured I should start at the beginning of the trilogy. This way I get to talk about whether Rey is a Mary Sue or not, and I bet you're dying to read another opinion about that on the internet.

This will contain SPOILERS for the movie, but you know that as I've said it twice already. I say it on all my reviews in fact, even though there's a spoiler warning in the side panel over on the right. Maybe I could change the colour of the warning text next week, add a bit of variety.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens - Part 2

Today on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm still going through J.J. Abrams' Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens!

Actually I don't think the 'Episode VII' part is in the name this time, which is a shame because I like it when films get numbers; they let me keep my stories straight. If I ever decide to watch the Harry Potter movies I'm going to have to find a guide just to know what order to watch them in. Star Wars, on the other hand, has handy episode numbers that... well okay this is actually a bad example, seeing as episodes 1, 2 and 3 came out years after 4, 5, and 6 and everyone's got their own ideas on which order works best.

Fortunately it's easy to figure out what order to read this review in, as you start with PART ONE, then you read this part, then part three finishes it off tomorrow.

I'm going through the movie scene by scene so this will be full of SPOILERS. I'll also be spoiling parts of the earlier Star Wars movies (episodes 1 to 6), but somehow I doubt that's going to be an issue for anyone. I'm just making sure you know what you're in for.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens - Part 1

Written by:

Lawrence Kasdan & J. J. Abrams and Michael Arndt

|

Directed by:

J. J. Abrams

|

Release Date:

2015

---

This week on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm reviewing Star Wars: The Force Awakens, the first Star Wars movie where the film number and the episode number is the same! It's the seventh instalment either way.

It's also the first movie in the final trilogy of the Skywalker Saga. It still blows my mind that they finally made there in the end, as I still (vaguely) remember when there was only one trilogy and no sign that George Lucas was ever going to make the others he had planned. Not that these three films are anything like he'd planned.

I mean I doubt any of them were really, seeing as we're still waiting for Annikin Starkiller to show up, but this trilogy was created after Lucas had sold Star Wars to Disney and his involvement was minimal. His most recent concept for the final trilogy apparently focused on the microbiotic world and midi-chlorians, but Kathleen Kennedy's crew have gone in a different direction and to be honest I'm kind of glad.

Okay, this is going to be the same deal as with my Star Trek Into Darkness review, as I'm splitting it into three parts to save you from having to read too much in one sitting. Though you could just wait a couple of days until all three parts are out and read it that way if you want to climb that mountain of words.

There will be MASSIVE SPOILERS below for The Force Awakens and I'll also be assuming that you've seen the earlier films as well. No spoilers for The Last Jedi or The Rise of Skywalker though, and not just because that last film isn't out for a couple of days at the time I'm posting this. But these are genuine pre-Rise of Skywalker opinions.

Babylon 5 3-10: Severed Dreams

Episode:

54

|

Writer:

J. Michael Straczynski

|

Air Date:

1-Apr-1996

---

Today on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm writing about a Babylon 5 episode.

Severed Dreams was pretty much the final part of a stealth three-parter, and this worked out pretty well for UK viewers who got the episodes weekly with no breaks and no cliffhangers. It was less good for US fans, as they had to wait five weeks to see how things got resolved here. They couldn't have really aired it any sooner though to be fair, as the episode is so VFX heavy they struggled to get it all finished in time as it is. I'm not sure it was absolutely necessary to air the episode on April 1st though. Viewers just had to hope that the entire story arc didn't turn out to be a magnificent prank.

I can't talk really, as I had the bright idea to launch Sci-Fi Adventures on April 1st, and it's the day the site always comes back after taking February and March off. In fact I could've been clever and held off reviewing Severed Dreams until next April, using it to kick off the next block of reviews, but... no. It's already taken me long enough to get here.

Here's some trivia for you: the episode was up for the 'Best Dramatic Presentation' Hugo in 1997, an award that Babylon 5 had actually won the previous year with The Coming of Shadows. This time though it was up against Independence Day, Star Trek: First Contact, the 30th anniversary episode of Deep Space Nine where they go back and hang out with Captain Kirk, and... uh, Mars Attacks! Spoiler: Mars Attacks! didn't win.

In fact it was Babylon 5 that went and won the Hugo for a second time! Because that's what happens when you make Severed Dreams.

SPOILER WARNING!

The DVD comes with a commentary track, but I'd recommend staying clear if you haven't seen the whole series yet as they tend to spoil things. In fact stay clear of all the special features. My review, on the other hand, won't spoil a thing! Well, except for the whole of Severed Dreams and the episodes leading up to it.

Babylon 5 3-09: Point of No Return

Episode:

53

|

Writer:

J. Michael Straczynski

|

Air Date:

26-Feb-1996

---

Today on Sci-Fi Adventures I've got some more Babylon 5 for you. It's episode 9 of season 3: Point of No Return.

Every season of Babylon 5 has its own title, named after one of its most important episodes and the name on the front of the season 3 DVD box is Point of No Return. So I'm going to consider it false advertising if this isn't at least as good as season 1 fan favourite Signs and Portents and season 2's Hugo Award winning The Coming of Shadows.

It wasn't the only title on creator J. Michael Straczynski's list though and for a while he may have been leaning more towards "I Am Become Death, The Destroyer of Worlds," quoting Oppenheimer, quoting the Bhagavad Gita. I think he probably made the right choice by going with the title he did.

If you're watching through Babylon 5 for the first time, then I've got good news for you! I won't be spoiling or even hinting at events that take place in later episodes in this review. There will be massive SPOILERS for this episode however, and for episodes that lead up to it, as I'm going to basically recap the entire story.

Babylon 5 3-08: Messages from Earth

Episode:

52

|

Writer:

J. Michael Straczynski

|

Air Date:

19-Feb-1996

---

Today on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm watching Babylon 5, season 3, episode 8: Messages from Earth. With a title like that you can already tell it's going to be a real thrill ride.

Though it was directed by Mike Vejar, who also gave us the unusually pretty looking Convictions earlier in the season, along with several decent episodes of Deep Space Nine. Here's another DS9/B5 similarity for you: if you see Mike Vejar's name at the start of an episode it's probably going to at least look interesting.

I may have mentioned this once or twice already, but this recap will feature SPOILERS for the episode and other episodes leading up to it. But if you're watching through the series for the first time you won't have to worry about me spoiling anything past this point. This story is as far as the spoilers go.

Star Trek Into Darkness - Part 3

This is it, the last Sci-Fi Adventures until December, and the last part of my unintentionally epic review of Star Trek Into Darkness (no colon).

I feel like I should be bothered by that missing colon, but I can respect the choice they've made there. It separates this era from the numbered movies with the Original Series actors, and the colon movies with the Next Generation crew, so there's no confusion. Plus I like that they're owning the 'trek' part of the title more. This is going on a trek into darkness, the next movie takes a trek beyond. They're trekking. Seems like a bit of a backslide though to go dark after the last movie rejected the prevailing trend of Battlestar Galactica grittiness and turned things up so bright that you got lens flares in the face in every other shot.

This is part three of this review by the way, so if you're looking for an earlier part you can click one of these convenient links: PART 1, PART 2.

Here's the SPOILER WARNING: I will be spoiling Into Darkness, Star Trek: Discovery's first two seasons, and various bits from other episodes and movies. I will not be spoiling Star Trek Beyond.

Star Trek Into Darkness - Part 2

This week on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm still writing about Star Trek Into Darkness! If you missed the first part of my review you can find it -> HERE <- and there's still one more part to go after this. It's a long movie.

Speaking of second parts, this was the second of the Kelvin Timeline trilogy kicked off with Star Trek 2009. But it's the last movie by the Star Trek 2009 team, as director J.J. Abrams had to go off and do the Star Wars: The Force Awakens afterwards. Trek 09 writers Alex Kurtzman (current overlord of TV Trek) and Roberto Orci also returned, and were joined this time by Damon Lindelof, who had a bit of experience writing sci-fi himself as he'd just finished working on the movie Prometheus. Oh plus he'd been co-showrunner on Lost for six seasons (which is considerably longer than J.J. Abrams worked on the show).

Anyway, this review contains SPOILERS for Into Darkness, Star Trek: Discovery's first two seasons, and probably other episodes and movies too. It didn't seem right to spoil anything from Star Trek Beyond though, so I didn't.

Star Trek Into Darkness - Part 1

Written by:

Roberto Orci, Alex Kurtzman and Damon Lindelof

|

Directed by:

J.J. Abrams

|

Release Date:

2013

---

This week on Sci-Fi Adventures... is going to be the last for a while I'm afraid. I'm taking another two month break, so the site will be going into cryosleep until December. But I figured I should give you something to read while you wait, so I've written about an entire movie this time! It's the second of the Kelvin Timeline films, Star Trek Into Darkness!

Though I ran into a slight problem with the first draft of my review, as it turns out that the movie shares the record for the longest runtime of all the Trek movies with The Motion Picture, and it's about people constantly running everywhere and doing things instead of staring at the viewscreen in awe. I ended up with twice as many words as my average movie review and three times as many as my average TV review! Though my recap is still slightly too short to qualify as a novel, so I can't joke about it being the unofficial novelisation.

I never like doing this, but I've decided to split the review into three parts and publish one part a day, for the sake of all humanity. That way each post is merely excessively long, not ridiculously long. But they are all going to include SPOILERS for the whole movie, and I'm considering basically anything in Star Trek besides Star Trek Beyond to be fair game this time as well. So there'll be a few Star Trek: Discovery spoilers from its first two seasons.

Babylon 5 3-07: Exogenesis

Episode:

51

|

Writer:

J. Michael Straczynski

|

Air Date:

12-Feb-1996

---

This week on Sci-Fi Adventures I'm writing about Exogenesis!

What is exogenesis anyway? I was curious so I checked Wikipedia and it gave me a few different answers: it's a song by the band Muse, it's a visual novel, it's an album by Eloy Fritsch, it's the theory that life here began out there, far across the universe, and it's apparently an episode of the science-fiction TV series Babylon 5. I'm surprised it's not an episode of X-Files and Star Trek: Voyager as well, with the way they liked to name their stories (though X-Files did have Biogenesis).

I'm not looking forward to this one to be honest, because I remember it being one of the bad episodes. I don't think there'll be many of them this season, but I know that they're there, lurking in the cracks between major story arc episodes. Waiting for viewers to get drawn into the ongoing drama so they can leap out and trip them up with some self-contained rubbish.

I can't be talking about crap episodes coming up in the near future though, as I'm only allowed to give away SPOILERS for this story and the rest of the series so far. If I want to write about the other stories I'm not eager to write about this season I'll have to be patient.

Babylon 5 3-06: Dust to Dust

Episode:

50

|

Writer:

J. Michael Straczynski

|

Air Date:

05-Feb-1996

---

This week on Sci-Fi Adventures I'm reviewing episode 50 of Babylon 5! A few episodes got shuffled around the airing order along the way for various reasons, but not this one. It's absolutely, unambiguously episode number 50... unless you count the pilot movie as an episode, in which case this is 51.

I don't think they did anything special with the episode to celebrate the milestone though. That establishing shot of the station up there looks unusually pretty, but that's just coincidence. However, the episode's called Dust to Dust, which of course means that a major character's going to die before the end credits roll. But which one of them will it be?

It's Chief O'Brien! Sorry O'Brien fans, but this is the story that he dies in. Oh hang on, I forgot to mention that there will be massive SPOILERS in this review, for this episode and for earlier ones as well. But nothing that comes after it. Basically I'm going to pretend that it's February 5th 1996, this is the latest episode to air, and I haven't even watched the trailer for the next story yet.

The Orville: Season 2 Review

This week on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm demonstrating my ongoing commitment to occasionally posting something to this site that isn't Babylon 5 related by sharing my opinions on some Orville episodes! Not full scene-by-scene recaps or analysis, just opinions.

In fact I'll be writing about the entirety of season two in one go, all 14 episodes from Ja'loja to The Road Not Taken, so for both our sakes I'll be keeping my reviews brief. Though to be honest, I actually wrote about each episode right after watching them, so if it seems like I'm clueless about where the season's going, that's because I was.

Warning: there may be SPOILERS for for both seasons of The Orville, and I'm also going to be talking about the fates of certain Star Trek: The Next Generation characters and a particular notorious plot development in Star Trek: Discovery's first season. Being any less vague would be a spoiler.

Babylon 5 3-05: Voices of Authority

Episode:

49

|

Writer:

J. Michael Straczynski

|

Air Date:

29-Jan-1996

---

This week on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm watching Voices of Authority, the 49th episode of Babylon 5. Or maybe it's the 48th. It was originally planned to to be the fourth episode of the season, but they needed extra time to get the CGI finished so Passing Through Gethsemane was moved up to take its place.

In the US the first four episodes of the season were originally aired in a block together with the last four episodes of season two, followed by a break. So pushing this down the episode list actually delayed it by two months... making it the first episode of 1996!

That means we're in the year of Independence Day, Star Trek: First Contact, 12 Monkeys, Mars Attacks, Space Jam and that Doctor Who TV Movie. Well I liked two of those things at least... maybe two and a half. Plus Star Trek: Deep Space Nine was in season 4 at this point (Crossfire aired the same day), Star Trek: Voyager in season 2 (the legendary Threshold aired the same day), and The X-Files was in season 3. It was also the year we finally lost TekWar, Space: Above and Beyond and seaQuest DSV, three of the most successful sci-fi series of the mid-90s (two of them even lasted more than one season, sort of).

Sometimes I'll mention that I'm watching a B5 episode out of order, but the Lurker's Guide Master List says it actually works better to watch Voices of Authority and Passing Through Gethsemane in the order they aired, so there'll be no confusion about what stories I'll be spoiling this time. There are huge SPOILERS below for this episode and anything that aired before it is also fair game.

Babylon 5 3-04: Passing Through Gethsemane

Episode:

48

|

Writer:

J. Michael Straczynski

|

Air Date:

27-Nov-1995

---

Welcome to Sci-Fi Adventures, it's like a podcast with pictures! Except when I say that this week I'm talking about Babylon 5's Passing Through Gethesmane, I'm not literally saying it out loud. So if you're wondering, it's pronounced like 'Geth-seh-man-ee', not 'Geth-semain' or 'Get-hess-man-ee' or whatever.

This one's directed by Adam Nimoy who has a pretty big connection to Star Trek... as he's married to Terry Farrell, who played Jadzia Dax! Plus his dad apparently had a role in the Original Series. Nimoy would return to direct the last episode of season three, and he also directed two episodes of The Next Generation: Rascals and Timescape. I've blocked Rascals out of my memory, but Timescape was pretty good I reckon. Lots of screwing around with time.

Speaking of temporal anomalies, Passing Through Gethsemane was intended to air fifth in the season, but the VFX on Voices of Authority required more time so they aired this in its place. Though the Lurker's Guide Master List I've been following says that the season actually works better with the stories this way around so I'll not be watching them out of order this time.

So there'll be no SPOILERS for Voices of Authority here, but I will be spoiling this episode and I'm considering anything that came before it in the series to be fair game as well.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine 2-11: Rivals

Episode:

31

|

Writer:

Joe Menosky

|

Air Date:

02-Jan-1994

---

This week on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm finally writing some thoughts about Deep Space Nine's Rivals. Not Relics or Rascals or whatever else my brain keeps telling me to type.

I'm not getting back into writing about 26 DS9 episodes a year, because that turned out to be work, but I hope to throw in the occasional episode every now and then. Rivals is perhaps not the DS9 episode most people would pick to write about if they could only choose one, but I promised I'd get around to it eventually so I feel like I owe it to you. Even though I promised it way back in January 2018.

Another reason I picked this one to write about is because it's the next episode after Sanctuary, so it means I haven't skipped any yet. By the way the intro to my Sanctuary review has gotten hilarious wrong in the meantime, and it's getting a little more wrong all the time:

"There will never be more episodes of Trek airing in a year ever again. Unless Discovery gets three spin-offs and they're all released simultaneously."

2019 won't be breaking 1993's 55 episode record, but with Discovery, Short Treks, Picard and Lower Decks in production, plus the other cartoon, the Section 31 spin-off, and a possible Starfleet Academy series on the horizon, it seems possible we'll soon be getting more Trek episodes a year than ever before.

Rivals was the first Star Trek episode to air in 1994 by the way. 1994 was an important time for Deep Space Nine as it was the year that Star Trek: The Next Generation ended, leaving DS9 to represent the franchise entirely on its own... for a dozen episodes or so. Then Voyager started up and got all the attention. DS9 also got its very own nemesis that year, as Babylon 5's first season started airing a few weeks after this episode. (At least that's how it worked out in the US. For folks watching Trek on BBC 2 in the UK, Babylon 5 beat DS9 to television by over a year.)

Anyway there'll be SPOILERS for the whole damn episode below, and I'll probably end up spoiling something from an earlier episode of Star Trek as well. I mean an episode that aired earlier, not an episode from one of the prequels. No Discovery or Enterprise spoilers here.

Babylon 5 3-03: A Day in the Strife

Episode:

47

|

Writer:

J. Michael Straczynski

|

Air Date:

20-Nov-1995

---

This week on Sci-Fi Adventures I'm writing about A Day in the Strife, an episode with a bad title! It's also the third episode of the third season of cult sci-fi 90 series Babylon 5, which I'm going to have to get through before I can start writing about cult series from the 00s or 10s.

The episode was directed by David J. Eagle and written by showrunner J. Michael Straczynski, but that's not really news as they're all written by Straczynski at this point. Some writing rooms struggle to plot out 13 episode seasons, he wrote an entire 22 episode season all on his own. So I suppose I can't really be too hard on him about the title.

David Eagle had only directed one B5 episode before this, In the Shadow of Z'Ha'Dum, but he came back many times afterwards for episodes like Severed Dreams, And the Rock Cried Out, No Hiding Place and Falling Towards Apotheosis. I plan to avoid giving SPOILERS for anything other than this episode and the ones that came before it but... that's a pretty encouraging list of stories.

Babylon 5 3-02: Convictions

Episode:

46

|

Writer:

J. Michael Straczynski

|

Air Date:

13-Nov-1995

---

This week on Sci-Fi Adventures I'm writing words about Babylon 5's Convictions, the second episode of season three.

There's a weird pattern going on with the titles here, as season two started with episodes called Points of Departure and Revelations, and now season three has started with Matters of Honor and Convictions. Sadly the episode after this breaks the pattern, as the title A Day in the Strife is nothing like season 2's The Geometry of Shadows. They should've gone with The Day of Strife and spared us from the pun.

Okay, I'm going to go through the whole episode now, writing my thoughts under screencaps, so if you want to avoid SPOILERS you'd better stop reading here. Though I'll only be spoiling events up to this point in the story arc, so if you're watching the series for the first time you don't have to worry about me ruining it for you.

Babylon 5 3-01: Matters of Honor

Episode:

45

|

Writer:

J. Michael Straczynski

|

Air Date:

6-Nov-1995

---

Sci-Fi Adventures is back and I've finally reached Babylon 5's third season! Hopefully it won't take me three years to get through like the last season did, even if I am going to be taking long breaks every two months this time for the sake of my sanity.

Though hang on, isn't Matters of Honor a Star Trek: The Next Generation episode? Oh, that was A Matter of Honor, singular. This story presumably features multiple matters.

Babylon 5 liked to bring director Janet Greek in to direct the big episodes, like season premieres and finales, but she skipped seasons 3 and 4 entirely, so Confessions and Lamentations director Kevin G. Cremin was at the helm for this one. That was a good episode I think, though he also directed the moderately mediocre Spider in the Web, so this could go either way.

Generic SPOILER warning: Don't read any further if you don't want spoilers for the whole episode and the two preceding seasons of B5. Also you probably shouldn't listen to the DVD commentaries either. Those folks will ruin all kinds of things for you from the whole 5 year run if you let them. Me on the other hand, I won't say a word about what's coming. If you're a new viewer you'll be safe here.

Babylon 5: Season 2 - The Coming of Shadows Review

Today on Sci-Fi Adventures I'll be writing a bit about the second season of Babylon 5, which has the overall title of The Coming of Shadows. Not to be confused with the episode The Coming of Shadows, which also has the overall title of The Coming of Shadows.

But first, here's a rare glimpse behind the scenes of Ray Hardgrit's Sci-Fi Adventures. When I first had the immensely dumb idea of starting my science fiction review site I also had the extremely sensible idea to get some episodes written up in advance. That way I'd have a buffer so I wouldn't disappear and leave the site dead during the months I was busy with other things. In fact all 38 Babylon 5 reviews published before my unintended absence last year were written ages before the site first went live on 1st April 2016. Unfortunately I got so distracted with writing about other sci-fi series and movies that I didn't get back to writing about Babylon 5, so when more important things hijacked my free time I'd already used up all my spare reviews. Which is why I disappeared for months.

The reason I'm bringing this up is that it may look like I started reviewing Babylon 5's second season episodes two years ago, but truth is it's actually closer to four years and I haven't rewatched the episodes since. I find it hard enough to keep 22 episodes in my head at the best of times, so I have no business trying to review this season really. Still going to do it though.

This is going to contain epic SPOILERS for everything in season 2 from Points of Departure to The Fall of Night, and probably earlier episodes too. If I can remember them.

Babylon 5 2-22: The Fall of Night

Episode:

44

|

Writer:

J. Michael Straczynski

|

Air Date:

01-Nov-1995

---

This week on Sci-Fi Adventures, this is it, I've reached the epic season finale of Babylon 5 season two! Well I'm just assuming it's epic to be honest, I haven't seen it in ages. But if it's half as good as season one's finale, Chrysalis... then I'll be only two-thirds satisfied with it, so ideally it'll be a little better than that.

In the last few episodes we've gone from a Long, Twilight Struggle to The Fall of Night, so things seem to have been getting darker. It made me wonder if this theme had been running through other titles this year, so I looked through an episode list and found Geometry of Shadows and The Long Dark near the start, and All Alone in the Night sitting there in middle. So no, I can't say I saw any journey into darkness in the titles.

I didn't see Janet Greek's name in the 'directed by' column all that much either, but I guess she'd earned a rest after Signs and Portents, Chrysalis, Points of Departure and The Coming of Shadows. Actually she was apparently suffering from pneumonia, but she came back just in time for the end of the season, before vanishing again for the next two years. Anyway she's a good director and that makes me think this will be good.

If you've just gotten hold of some second hand DVDs and you're watching the series for the very first time you might be thinking about listening to the commentary by showrunner jms and maybe even checking out some of those special features. I wouldn't recommend it though, because there's SPOILERS in there for later seasons. You're safe reading this review though, provided you've watched the episode and all the ones leading up to it, as I won't say a thing about where it's all going. Nothing that Ivanova doesn't spoil herself anyway.

Babylon 5 2-21: Comes the Inquisitor

Episode:

43

|

Writer:

J. Michael Straczynski

|

Air Date:

25-Oct-1995

---

This week on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm writing about an episode actually genuinely called Comes the Inquisitor. It's the one where an inquisitor comes to the station I guess.

The is the penultimate episode of Babylon 5's second season so I'm very close to being done with it, though it doesn't really feel like I'm at the end of something. Season two has been a lot more serialised than the first year, but it hasn't built up momentum leading up to anything likely to be resolved soon. There's been no sense of all the pieces falling into place before a massive turning point in the story. So to me this is pretty much just feels like season 2, episode 21.

There will be SPOILERS below for both this episode and the earlier stories that led up to it as I'm going to go through the whole thing writing text under screenshots. Though if you're watching the series for the first time you don't have to worry about me spoiling anything that happens after this episode. This is a first time viewer friendly review.

Babylon 5 2-20: The Long, Twilight Struggle

Episode:

42

|

Writer:

J. Michael Straczynski

|

Air Date:

18-Oct-1995

---

This week on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm reviewing The Long, Twilight Struggle, the antepenultimate episode of Babylon 5's second season! The last few episodes have been a bit miserable but if that title's anything to go by I expect this is going to be the one that really turns things around.

Here's some entirely useless facts for you: according to IMDb, John C. Flinn III was the director of photography for 102 of 110 Babylon 5 episodes, and this is one of the 8 he skipped. It's also one of the 9 he directed, and if you suspect there's probably a lot of overlap between those two lists... you'd be wrong. It's just this one. This was the third episode he directed after TKO and Soul Mates, so he's got the bottom and the middle of the ratings scale covered already, but was this his first really great episode? I'll tell you what I think later, though if you've seen it and remember which one it is I expect you already have your own opinion.

I nearly didn't show this screencap of the title because it spoils a character's surprise reappearance. But then I realised that the role was recast and this actor has never actually been in the series before, so all it really spoils is that a Minbari shows up at the start of the first act. But there will be massive SPOILERS below this point for both this episode and the ones leading up to it, as I'll be going through it one screencap at a time, writing about what happened and what I think about that.

Star Trek: Discovery - Season 2 Review - Part 4

Today on Sci-Fi Adventures, I've ran out of Star Trek: Discovery episodes to review, so now I'm reviewing the series' second season overall. That's 12 or so hours of television, so it's lucky for me I've got a good memory. Wait, I forgot to include the Short Treks in that... or shouldn't they count?

Star Trek spin-offs have rarely had much luck with their second seasons, despite the 'Growing the Beard' trope getting its name from Will Riker's season 2 look, as at this point they were typically still sorting themselves out both in front of and behind the scenes. Sure their first seasons were often worse, but Trek's sophomore seasons have been plenty awkward in their own right. Discovery found itself with a new showrunner five episodes into the season, so it's been living up to Trek tradition behind the camera, but was its second year enough of a mess on screen for it to truly be considered proper Star Trek?

Honestly I don't think Discovery is set up in a way that allows it to fail as spectacularly as previous series, as it has much shorter seasons and it's too serialised. Sure it can put out some rubbish, but it just doesn't have what it takes to produce episodes as legendarily terrible as The Omega Glory, The Outrageous Okona, Threshold or A Night in Sickbay. And unless the budget gets slashed, there's no way it'll ever inflict a Shades of Gray style clip show on us either.

Though does that mean this has actually has a shot at being the best second season a Trek series has ever had? Is this block of episodes really capable of going up against the seasons that gave us The Trouble with Tribbles, The Measure of a Man, Whispers, Projections, and Regeneration? I am going to answer that question for you! Eventually. After I've rambled on about Michael Burnham and time travel for ages first.

I'll also be dropping SPOILERS for the whole season, from Brother to Such Sweet Sorrow, Part 2, and maybe some older Trek as well, so if you haven't seen it yet you should probably go watch it first. Unless you don't care about having the whole plot ruined for you; I know some people aren't really that bothered.

Star Trek: Discovery - Season 2 Review - Part 3

Today on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm reviewing the second half of Star Trek: Discovery's second season! That's If Memory Serves to Such Sweet Sorrow, Part 2, all created during Alex Kurtzman's time as the show's showrunner. He was already the executive producer, plus he's the guy in charge of all the other new Trek projects being set up, but after five episodes he took the reins on Discovery personally, like an admiral or commodore taking command of a starship. Which usually goes pretty well in Star Trek to my recollection.

All these reviews were written right after I watched the episode and the next time trailer, so you're getting my first reactions and genuine predictions. You're getting SPOILERS as well, and not just for Discovery as I'm considering the rest of Trek to be fair game as well. Especially the Kelvin Timeline movies.

Star Trek: Discovery - Season 2 Review - Part 2

Today on Sci-Fi Adventures, it's my second part of my Star Trek: Discovery season 2 review; the part where I actually start to review actual episodes of Discovery's actual second season instead of the Short Treks! 

Below this introduction you'll find reviews for the first seven episodes of the second season, Brother to Light and Shadows, basically covering the time that season one showrunners Gretchen J. Berg and Aaron Harberts still shared the captain's chair. Before they were kicked out for yelling at writers and spending too much money, or whatever actually happened there.

These reviews were all written right after I watched each episode, so you're getting my first impressions and legitimate cluelessness. You're also getting SPOILERS for each episode and I'm considering the rest of Trek to be fair game as well. Plus somewhere in here you'll find a free bonus spoiler for the Ray Bradbury story A Sound of Thunder (hint: it's in my review for The Sound of Thunder).

Star Trek: Discovery - Season 2 Review - Part 1

Today on Sci-Fi Adventures, I vaguely remember mentioning that I wasn't going to be reviewing Star Trek: Discovery's second season, but I went and did it anyway. I can't help myself.

Nothing's been going exactly as I planned to be honest. I decided to nick the format from my Doctor Who review marathon from last year and cover a whole season of episodes in a page of micro-reviews to save myself a lot of work. Unfortunately my brain didn't cooperate and hundreds of words came spilling out as usual, and I realised that if I put all the text I'd written into one long article it would be one long article.

So I've split the season up into four parts instead, which is still considerably less than the 15 it could've been. Well, 19 actually, as this first part features tiny reviews for the four tiny Short Treks that came out before the season began. I'm not sure if Short Treks is technically a separate series or not, but the episodes have a similar title sequence, they feature Discovery characters, two are set on the ship itself and they've all got the same style. So I'm including them.

I actually wrote these reviews up right after watching each episode, with no knowledge about what was going to happen next beyond what was in the trailers, so I can promise genuine confusion and wrong guesses. This also means there'll be SPOILERS for each episode, and the Trek that precedes them, but I won't be spoiling what happens next. Because at the time I didn't know.

Babylon 5 2-19: Divided Loyalties

Episode:

31

|

Writer:

J. Michael Straczynski

|

Air Date:

11-Oct-1995

---

This week on Sci-Fi Adventures, I am once again writing about a second season Babylon 5 episode. Not many of them left now though. This one's called Divided Loyalties and it's episode 19 of 22.

Here, have some TV scheduling trivia to make everything else I write afterwards seem more interesting by comparison: in the US, seasons of B5 were split into four blocks, so you'd get five episodes, a month off, eight episodes, two months off, and so on. Meanwhile in the UK, we had to wait a while for the season to start, but once it was airing we didn't have so many huge gaps and we were able to catch up. So we actually got to watch up to the season two finale The Fall of Night during the four months that US fans were waiting between Confessions and Lamentations and Divided Loyalties. I can imagine VHS tapes were getting mailed across the Atlantic (they probably wouldn't have worked on an NTSC player but you never know unless you try).

Though American viewers soon got their revenge, as season two continued straight into season three without a break in the US, while British fans had to wait eight months for it. Man, could you imagine having to wait eight months between seasons of Westworld, Doctor Who or Game of Thrones?

I'll be screencapping and recapping the whole episode below, throwing in my own opinions and observations as I go, so there'll be SPOILERS for the whole of Divided Loyalties and episodes leading up to it. But if you're watching the series for the first time and you've only gotten this far, then you've got nothing to worry about as I won't spoil a thing about what happens afterwards.

Babylon 5 2-18: Confessions and Lamentations

Episode:

40

|

Writer:

J. Michael Straczynski

|

Air Date:

24-May-1995

---

This week on Sci-Fi Adventures I'm writing about Confessions and Lamentations, the 40th episode of cult 90s space opera Babylon 5.

Incidentally, if you add 40 to 90 you get 130, which is the total number of Babylon 5 stories ever filmed if you include the movies and the spin-offs (and count The Lost Tales as one thing). Why am I mentioning this? Because I feel like I should be writing something here to pad this introduction out a bit. Plus it also means that if I somehow end up owning a Crusade DVD box set in the future I'll have 90 stories left after this to review.

Beyond this point you'll find SPOILERS as I'm going to go through the entire episode in screencaps, and put my opinions and observations underneath, so I wouldn't recommend reading any further unless you've seen the episode already. I won't be spoiling anything that happens after this point in the series though, so it's entirely safe for people watching it for the first time.

Babylon 5 2-16: In the Shadow of Z'ha'dum

Episode:

38

|

Writer:

J. Michael Straczynski

|

Air Date:

10-May-1995

---

This week on Sci-Fi Adventures I'm putting the previous DVD back in to watch In the Shadow of Z'ha'dum.

Babylon 5 first aired with the occasional episode out of order, mostly due to the visual effects taking ages, and if you watch the episodes off disc or Amazon you get to experience the authentic continuity weirdness this causes (which is pretty minimal to be honest, it's not really a big deal). But I'm following the J. Michael Straczynski approved Lurker's Guide Master List order, which enhances the narrative by pulling Knives forwards and slotting this in before Confessions and Lamentations, leaving this block of episodes looking like this:

15 - And Now for a Word
17 - Knives
16 - In the Shadow of Z'ha'dum
18 - Confessions and Lamentations
19 - Divided Loyalties

By the way, this is one of the few episodes to get a DVD commentary by producer jms and if you're watching B5 for the first time I'd recommend leaving it until you've seen the whole series. In fact all the special features seem to have been produced under the assumption that if you've bought the discs you're probably already a fan. Which is fine, but they could've at least included a spoiler warning. Like this:

WARNING, I'm about to write some massive SPOILERS all over this review! But only for this episode and the ones that precede it. Which includes Knives.

Babylon 5 2-17: Knives

Episode:

39

|

Writer:

Larry DiTillio

|

Air Date:

17-May-1995

---

Welcome to Ray Hardgrit's Sci-Fi Adventures, which is now entering its fourth year! And yet I'm still not done with Babylon 5 season two. It's like I'm a showrunner on a modern TV series or something.

Obviously my plans have been terrible and something needs to be done, so I've got a new plan for 2019: I'm going to be writing just one review per week and I'll be switching my attention between Sci-Fi Adventures and Super Adventures in Gaming every two months. So that's 8 or 9 episode reviews here, then I switch over and write about 8 or 9 games, and so on. Unfortunately that only gives me 26 weeks a year to write about science fiction; just enough to cover a single season of one 90s TV series (or one episode each from 26 different series I suppose).

So I've decided to drop my weekly Doctor Who, Deep Space Nine, Discovery and The Orville reviews and focus on getting through Babylon 5... with something different thrown in every now and then so I don't have to rename the site to Ray Hardgrit's Babylon 5 Adventures. It's not that I don't like those other series, it's just that B5 is a serialised story that I'm already a third of the way through and I'd like to get it finished.

The last episode I reviewed (back in February 2018) was And Now for a Word, so if you go by the airdate, DVD and Amazon Prime episode order I should be watching In the Shadow of Z'ha'dum right now. But I'm following the Lurker's Guide Master List which puts Knives before it for continuity reasons, which makes this block of episodes look like this:

14 - There All the Honor Lies
15 - And Now for a Word
17 - Knives
16 - In the Shadow of Z'ha'dum
18 - Confessions and Lamentations

All this really means is that I'll not be including any SPOILERS for In the Shadow of Z'ha'dum, because that's what I'm watching next time, though I will be spoiling everything in this story and probably earlier episodes as well. Assuming I can still remember anything (it's been ages since I watched them).

Doctor Who (2005): Series 11 Review

Today on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm writing about Doctor Who's 37th season, or series 11 if you're just counting the stories aired since it came back in 2005. Really they've could've drawn another line right here and called it Volume 3, Series 1 with how different the show is behind the scenes and on screen now. It's practically a spin-off of itself: the Star Trek: Discovery of Doctor Who, though I think this regeneration was necessary and the change didn't come a moment too soon.

This was the season that Jodie Whittaker took over from Peter Capaldi as the show's first madwoman in a box and Chris Chibnall took over as showrunner, so it was fairly monumental in that regards. But were the episodes anything spectacular themselves? If you've read my individual episode reviews you already know my answer to that, but I might as well say it again now.

I should also mention that I'm not going to shy away from dropping huge SPOILERS here, for everything from The Woman Who Fell to Earth to the season finale The Battle of Rancon Az Kolor Razkol Ab Kosor Ranschool As Kloplot... Resolution, and no doubt a few of the earlier episodes too.

Doctor Who (2005) - New Year's Day 2019: Resolution (Quick Review)

Episode:

851

|

Serial:

287

|

Writer:

Chris Chibnall

|

Air Date:

01-Jan-2019

---

Today on Sci-Fi Adventures, I hope you weren't looking forward to that Doctor Who series 11 review I promised, because this ain't that. I got distracted with other things and ran out of December to put it in. I believe I also mentioned that I might not be reviewing the New Year's special because I'd written about enough Doctor Who already, but that was before they revealed that this was going to be the only episode aired in all of 2019. How am I suppose to leave it out now? What sort of a monster would go from An Unearthly Child to the very latest season (skipping a year or ten along the way) and then stop exactly one episode before the end?

I kind of assumed that we were done with year-long breaks in between seasons now that the series has a different showrunner who's not trying to write Sherlock at the same time, but I guess that's just how the series is these days. The only difference is that in the Chris Chibnall era we get the one-off episode on New Year's Day instead of Christmas Day, because after thirteen consecutive Christmas specials they've used up every possible way of shoehorning Christmas into a Doctor Who story. Which means no more Christmasified opening titles! No opening titles at all in fact, for perhaps the third time ever in the series' history.

Resolution is also unique among Thirteenth Doctor stories as right now it's the first and only episode to allow anything major from an earlier season to return. Series 11 was very much about the new, with new actors, monsters, writers, a new visual effects house and a new composer, but this episode brings back director Wayne Yip! Also the antagonist might be a bit familiar too but I'll not spoil that here.

All my SPOILERS are safely contained below the next screencap, so continue at your own risk.