Doctor Who (2023) 1-03: Boom (Quick Review)

Episode:

878

|

Serial:

307

|

Writer:

Steven Moffat

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Director:

Julie Anne Robinson

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Air Date:

18-May-2024

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This week on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm sharing my thoughts on Doctor Who episode Boom.

Boom is one of just two episodes this season that wasn't written by current showrunner Russell T Davies. In fact, this is the Steven Moffat story! That doesn't meant that it's going to be good, I've done plenty of bitching about the episodes produced during his time as showrunner, but the potential for greatness is high. Moffat's episodes dominate Doctor Who 'all time top 10' lists. According to IMDb voters, he wrote the highest rated episode in series 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10, and he came second for series 5. Second, third, fourth and fifth. And sixth.

Personally, I'm interested in seeing how much this episode has in common with the other Ncuti Gatwa episodes so far. Is it going to embrace the new fourth-wall breaking fantasy tone or is it going to be a throwback to the slightly more mature and realistic style of the 2005 run?

There will be SPOILERS below.

Star Trek: Discovery 5-08: Labyrinths (Quick Review)

Episode:

63

|

Writer:

Lauren Wilkinson & Eric J. Robbins

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Director:

Emmanuel Osei-Kuffour

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Air Date:

16-May-2024

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This week on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm watching the antepenultimate episode of Star Trek: Discovery! Only two episodes left after this one and then the series is done.

That means that this will be the only Discovery episode that Emmanuel Osei-Kuffour will ever direct, though there are plenty of other Star Trek series for him to move onto afterwards. Well, two of them now. It's also the last episode for writers Lauren Wilkinson and Eric J. Robbins, who each have one other credit for Discovery. Robbins co-wrote my least favourite episode of season 4, All is Possible, and Wilkinson co-wrote my least favourite episode so far of this season, Jinaal. They should've teamed up with Kirsten Beyer, my season 1 and season 2 bad episode champion, and shown us just how low this series can go.

Just to be clear, I don't actually think that they're bad writers. Some of the most acclaimed Trek writers have scripted far worse than anything Discovery's done. Gene Coon - Spock's Brain, Ronald D. Moore - Aquiel, Joe Menosky - Masks, René Echevarria - The Muse, Ira Behr - all of DS9's bad Ferengi episodes, Brannon Braga - oh man, this one could take a while.

There will be SPOILERS below, for Discovery and probably some earlier Trek episodes as well. Plus I might make a reference you'll only get if you've seen Voyager.

Star Wars: The Last Jedi - Part 3

This week on Sci-Fi Adventures, I am yet to stop writing about The Last Jedi.

You've found part three, so if you want to return to PART ONE or PART TWO, click the links.

When Disney bought Lucasfilm and the Star Wars rights in 2012 for $4 billion, the plan seemed to be that they'd have a new hit movie out every single year, which is exactly what happened... for a while. We had The Force Awakens, Rogue One, The Last Jedi, Solo, The Rise of Skywalker, and that was it. Despite all their best efforts, Lucasfilm haven't been able to get a Star Wars movie into cinemas since 2019.

The funny thing is, Rise of Skywalker was a huge hit and passed a billion dollars at the box office. Sure that was only half the take of The Force Awakens, but Star Wars got off the blockbuster bus long before big film franchises started seriously bombing at the cinema and people started watching Barbie and Mario instead. Either Lucasfilm has learned their lessons and are taking the time to do it right... or all of their movie ideas have been getting turned into TV series to feed Disney+.

There are going to be SPOILERS if you continue reading any further, but I won't say a thing about anything that happens in things that were released later. So I can't go into detail about why the last season of The Bad Batch was so good, but I'll totally give away the endings to earlier stories when they're relevant.

Doctor Who (2023) 1-02: The Devil's Chord (Quick Review)

Episode:

877

|

Serial:

306

|

Writer:

Russell T Davies

|

Director:

Ben Chessell

|

Air Date:

11-May-2024

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This week on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm reviewing another episode of Doctor Who already. They went and aired two of them on the same day and it's not even a two-parter. Now that I've seen Space Babies I'm wondering if a decision was made to pair it with another story to show new viewers that Doctor Who had some range to it and it wasn't always going to be... babies in space.

In fact, I'm not even sure this was originally meant to air so early in the season. The series is filmed in two-episode production blocks, each handled by a different director, and this was shot in the same block as episode 6. Then again, maybe everything is going as planned. After all, Doctor Who hasn't filmed a season in order since 1987. The classic series didn't even end with the last serial produced.

Okay, there will be Doctor Who SPOILERS below, but only as far as this episode. I won't spoil what happens next. I actually have no idea what happens next.

Doctor Who (2023) 1-01: Space Babies (Quick Review)

Episode:

876

|

Serial:

305

|

Writer:

Russell T Davies

|

Director:

Julie Anne Robinson

|

Air Date:

11-May-2024

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This week on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm watching the first proper episode of Doctor Who's third volume, Space Babies! Like An Unearthly Child and Rose before it, it's the start of a whole new regeneration cycle for the series, so this is a major event here.

Though there were four specials leading up to it, so this is actually showrunner Russell T Davies' fifth episode in a row, and that's... a concern maybe. I mean, it's only a matter of time before even the best writer comes up with a terrible story, and he's churning out scripts right now.

Alright, there are going to be SPOILERS below, but only for this episode and the stories leading up to it. And maybe something from the movie Aliens. Oh, plus the Ray Bradbury story A Sound of Thunder.

Star Trek: Discovery 5-07: Erigah (Quick Review)

Episode:

62

|

Writer:

M. Raven Metzner

|

Director:

Jon Dudkowski

|

Air Date:

09-May-2024

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This week on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm reviewing the Star Trek: Discovery episode unfortunately titled Erigah.

The episode was directed by Jon Dudkowski, who only has one other directing credit on IMDb, for season 3's Unification III. Though he's credited as the editor on 17 episodes of Discovery, including the pilot, so he probably gets the show's style.

It's the first Discovery episode to be written by M. Raven Metzner, he's entirely new to Star Trek, but it's far from his first credit on IMDb. In fact, I hope this is very far from it, as his first credit is the movie Elektra, which was so bad that it and Catwoman pretty much killed female-led superhero movies for over ten years. Then he became showrunner on the worst Netflix Marvel series, Iron Fist... but it's okay, he was the one who did the second season, not the first one. I've heard that it's a lot better.

Okay, there are going to be SPOILERS below for Star Trek episodes, including this one, obviously. So don't get caught out when I mention something that happened in Deep Space Nine or whatever.

Star Wars: The Last Jedi - Part 2

This week on Sci-Fi Adventures, I am continuing to write about Star Wars: The Last Jedi.

You're reading part two (of five), but if you'd rather jump back and read PART ONE, just click the text.

It's a bit of a shame I reckon that this isn't called Star Wars: Episode VIII - The Last Jedi, to match the earlier films. Sure it says 'Episode VIII' in the scrolling text at the start of the movie, but it's not on the poster or the Blu-ray cover. They could've at least stuck the number on the spine!

To be fair, the Star Wars movies only started to put emphasis on the episode numbers when the prequels came out. Before The Phantom Menace's name was finally revealed the movie was just called Episode I. You can get Episode I: The Visual Dictionary and Episode I: Racer. Companies only like numbers in their titles when they're low, that's why comics keep getting rebooted to a new issue #1. Funny thing is, in the rare cases when sequels do get high numbers in the title, they seem to sell just fine. Star Trek VI and Furious 7 did well enough, and the Final Fantasy games didn't truly take off until Final Fantasy VII.

Okay, I'll be going through another 50 minutes of this movie scene by scene, so with any luck I will be hitting the film's halfway point this time. It'll be close though. Also, there will be SPOILERS.

Star Trek: Discovery 5-06: Whistlespeak (Quick Review)

Episode:

61

|

Writer:

Kenneth Lin & Brandon A. Schultz

|

Director:

Chris Byrne

|

Air Date:

02-May-2024

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This week on Sci-Fi Adventures I'm watching Whistlespeak, which probably isn't about an expedition to the peak of Mount Whistles, but I've been wrong before. I was way off with my assumptions about the last episode, Mirrors.

Discovery used to have 13-15 episodes each season, but they slashed that to a miniscule 10 episodes for its final year, which means that I'm already past the halfway point. That's kind of crazy, as it feels like the season's only just started. Either the episodes so far have been well-paced and engaging, or barely anything's happened yet. Or both.

Alright, there will be SPOILERS below, for this and for earlier stories from series like Star Trek: The Next Generation and Strange New Worlds. But mostly this.

Star Wars: The Last Jedi - Part 1

Written by:

Rian Johnson

|

Directed by:

Rian Johnson

|

Release Date:

2017

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Hey, they got the logo right. So far so good!

This week on Sci-Fi Adventures, it's the first part of my review of the most divisive Star Wars movie: Rian Johnson's The Last Jedi. And it really is his movie as he was both director and writer (with a little help from Carrie Fisher). He brought his style to the Star Wars universe here in a way that a lot of fans... responded to.

If you organise all the Star Wars episodes by their user rating on sites like IMDb, Rotten Tomatoes, Metacritic, etc. there's always one movie that ends up right at the bottom, and that is... The Rise of Skywalker (except on Metacritic where TROS came second to The Phantom Menace). The Last Jedi is even higher up the rankings when you look at critic scores, and I've seen plenty of positivity from fans on podcasts and YouTube. But when people talk about "the movie that ruined Star Wars", it's usually this one they're referring to. There's so much hate for this film out there you'd think it was on the level of franchise killers like Batman & Robin, Jaws: The Revenge, or Alien: Resurrection.

Though to be honest, I actually liked Alien: Resurrection, and I enjoyed the The Last Jedi as well. At least I think I did... it's been a while. I don't know if this rewatch is going to turn me against the film, but I'll definitely see if I can pinpoint where other people's frustration is coming from. I'll be going through the movie scene by scene, so there will be SPOILERS below for this and any of the Star Wars episodes up to this point.

Star Trek: Picard 3-04: No Win Scenario (Quick Review)

Episode:

24

|

Writer:

Terry Matalas & Sean Tretta

|

Director:

Jonathan Frakes

|

Air Date:

09-Mar-2023

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This week on Sci-Fi Adventures I'm writing about more Star Trek: Picard. It's season 3, episode 4: No Win Scenario.

In Star Trek, a no win scenario is a situation where there's no possible way to achieve any kind of good outcome. It's a mythical thing, like Rumpelstiltskin or the Greek god Apollo, except less likely to be encountered by a veteran crew with an ongoing series. Sure the heroes lose sometimes, but if they ever think a situation looks hopeless they're just not looking at it from the right perspective yet.

The episode was written by Terry Matalas and Sean Tretta, so the showrunner scripted this one personally. You'll see often a showrunner's name on the most crucial and impressive episodes in a season, the opening chapters, the epic finales, the format-breaking stories, the ones that reveal something about the characters... though on Deep Space Nine you'd also see it on all those Ferengi stories. Ira Behr did love them Ferengi.

I hope you're okay with SPOILERS because this is where they start.