Star Trek: Picard 3-05: Imposters (Quick Review)

Episode:

25

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Writer:

Cindy Appel & Chris Derrick

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Director:

Dan Liu

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Air Date:

16-Mar-2023

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This week on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm finally back to writing about Star Trek: Picard's third and final season! It's only 10 episodes so you'd think I'd be done with it by now, but I had to put it to one side for a couple of months to get some other things written. Discovery's last season was coming out, I had a The Last Jedi review in the works for May the 4th, then the first season of Ncuti Gatwa's run of Doctor Who started as well, so there were a lot of things demanding my time.

But that's all done with now, almost, and I'm ready to give Picard my partially undivided attention for its remaining six episodes.

Imposters was the final story to be credited to Cindy Appel and Chris Derrick, who'd been on the show since season 2. Derrick did one story, Appel did a few, and none of them have been highlights so far. Director Dan Liu was new to Picard, but he'd also done some Strange New Worlds so I'm sure he knew the difference between a phaser and a phase inducer.

Warning, SPOILERS beyond this point.

Doctor Who (2023) 1-08: Empire of Death (Quick Review)

Episode:

883

|

Serial:

311

|

Writer:

Russell T Davies

|

Director:

Jamie Donoughue

|

Air Date:

22-Jun-2024

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This week on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm watching Doctor Who's latest season one finale, Empire of Death.

It's weird to have reached the end of a season so soon, I'm supposed to get another five episodes! It's been two episodes longer than the Flux season though, I'll give them that. Also, the classic show's first season only had 8 serials, so that's basically the same length... if you don't count the fact that each of those serials had about 6 parts.

There will be SPOILERS below, for a bunch of things. I can't tell you what things exactly as that would be a spoiler, but it'll help if you're up to date with the series.

Doctor Who (2023) 1-07: The Legend of Ruby Sunday (Quick Review)

Episode:

882

|

Serial:

311

|

Writer:

Russell T Davies

|

Director:

Jamie Donoughue

|

Air Date:

15-Jun-2024

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Today on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm reviewing The Legend of Ruby Sunday, the first half of the Doctor Who re-revivals' two-part finale!

It's been a long time since we've gotten a penultimate episode written by showrunner Russell T Davies, but I have a pretty good idea what to expect from it. Everything will seem like the most important and dramatic thing to happen in the history of the universe and then it'll end with "TO BE CONTINUED".

But will it be as good as Bad Wolf, Army of Ghosts, The Sound of Drums, The Stolen Earth or The End of Time, Part 1? Honestly I think it's got a shot, as some of those episodes weren't the greatest. Especially on a second watch, when they became nothing but set up for something I'd already seen.

There will be SPOILERS below for the episode, the season so far, and any stories that get referenced.

Doctor Who (2023) 1-06: Rogue (Quick Review)

Episode:

881

|

Serial:

310

|

Writer:

Kate Herron and Briony Redman

|

Director:

Ben Chessell

|

Air Date:

08-Jun-2024

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This week on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm writing about the sixth episode of Doctor Who's latest first season, Rogue. I'm hoping it's as good as the sixth episode we got in the 2005 series, Dalek, but that's some tough competition.

History is repeating a bit here, as showrunner Russell T Davies wrote most of both seasons himself, with episodes three and six being exceptions. This was written by Kate Herron and Briony Redman, who are also the writers of the upcoming live-action adaptation of The Sims. I guess that'll turn out to be a lot like Barbie, except with more people drowning in swimming pools and getting sealed up in walls. Lots of tragic cooking accidents.

Herron also worked on season one of Loki, so she's got some proper time travel experience. Though she was the director, not the writer, so watching that hasn't given me any insight at all into how this episode is going to turn out. It was a pretty good series though!

There will be SPOILERS below for Rogue and whatever classic episodes get referenced in it.

Star Trek: Discovery - Season 5 Review

This week on Sci-Fi Adventures, I've reached the end of another TV series!

I finished writing about all of Babylon 5 a year back, so this brings my total completed TV shows up to... 2. I was supposed to have finished Star Trek: Picard by now as well, but I had to put it on hold due to a new season of Doctor Who appearing and demanding a slice of my time.

Star Trek: Discovery began in late 2017, but I started writing about it way earlier, when the first teaser trailer was released. It was just a reveal of the hero ship but I was so damn hyped for new Trek that I wrote about it anyway. Now it's five years later and I'm writing about Discovery's fifth and final season. Sorry, I mean eight years later, as they were kind of dragging their heels on releasing season 5.

There have been plenty of people who wrote the show off as being a ratings disaster and said it was going to get cancelled before its time, and I suppose it did. Oh well. But it's eerie how close it's run mirrors Star Trek: The Next Generation's, exactly 30 years later. TNG ran from Sep 1987 to May 1994, Disco went from Sep 2017 to May 2024. In fact, if you count the days from The Vulcan Hello to the release of Life, Itself, Discovery is actually the longest running Star Trek series of all time by 11 days!

Was the fifth season any good though? Was any of it any good? I'll be sharing my own thoughts below, so expect a few SPOILERS for Discovery, Picard, and other Trek.

Doctor Who (2023) 1-05: Dot and Bubble (Quick Review)

Episode:

880

|

Serial:

309

|

Writer:

Russell T Davies

|

Director:

Dylan Holmes Williams

|

Air Date:

01-Jun-2024

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This week on Sci-Fi Adventures, I've reached the second half of Doctor Who's new season 1, with Dot and Bubble. The title isn't really filling me with optimism to be honest, but that's mostly because it reminds me of Short Treks' Tom and Jerry homage Ephraim and Dot. I really hated Ephraim and Dot.

I'm sure this is going to be something very different though, because Doctor Who episodes are always something different. The show keeps switching genre and tone, rarely giving you the same thing twice. Anyway, Dot and Bubble was written by Russell T Davies, same as the last episode, and it was directed by Dylan Holmes Williams, the same as the last episode. I thought 73 Yards looked fantastic, so I'm expecting some pretty visuals at least.

There will be Doctor Who SPOILERS below, but I won't spoil anything that happens later.

Star Trek: Discovery 5-10: Life, Itself (Quick Review)

Episode:

65

|

Writer:

Kyle Jarrow & Michelle Paradise

|

Director:

Olatunde Osunsanmi

|

Air Date:

30-May-2024

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This week on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm reviewing Life, Itself - the very last episode of Star Trek: Discovery. The series that kicked the Kurtzman era of Star Trek shows has reached its end of its voyage... a bit sooner than expected. Discovery kind of got cancelled, but they were at least allowed to shoot some extra scenes to properly wrap it up, so I do have some closure to look forward to.

Life, Itself is a member of a very exclusive club, and not just because its a Star Trek series finale. If you disqualify titles starting with 'A ' or 'The ', this is only the third time that a Trek show has had three consecutive episodes that start with the same letter. That's trivia so trivial that you won't find it anywhere else!

(If you're curious, the episodes are: Eye of the Needle, Ex Post Facto and Emanations in Voyager's first season, Sleeping Dogs, Shadows of P'Jem and Shuttlepod One in Enterprise's first season, and now we've got Labyrinths, Lagrange Point and Life, Itself.)

This review is going to include SPOILERS for a bunch of Star Trek stories from across the timeline.

Star Wars: The Last Jedi - Part 5 - The Review

This week on Sci-Fi Adventures, I think I'm pretty much done writing about The Last Jedi. I've already gone through the film scene by scene and now I'm just going to put down a few final thoughts. Well, maybe a lot of final thoughts. It's The Last Jedi, there's a fair bit to talk about.

Click PART ONE, PART TWO, PART THREE or PART FOUR if you want to revisit an earlier chapter.

One last bit of trivia for you: The Last Jedi was released in 2017, just in time for a couple of major anniversaries. It was the 40th anniversary of the original Star Wars, which started this whole franchise, and the 30th anniversary of Spaceballs, the second Star Wars film I ever saw (after Return of the Jedi).

40 years is a ruby anniversary, so maybe that explains all the red in the movie and the marketing. It's like how Doctor Who switched back to the classic diamond logo for its 60 year diamond anniversary last year. I've been trying to remember if Star Trek did anything similar for its 50th anniversary in 2016, but there's not much evidence anyone was even aware of it. In fact, the way Star Trek Beyond was marketed, it's more likely they would've been celebrating 15 years of The Fast and the Furious.

There will be SPOILERS below as I'm giving the whole movie a bit of a review. Maybe I'll still like it after 7 years of reflection and watching YouTube videos hating on it, maybe I won't. You'll have to keep reading to find out.

Doctor Who (2023) 1-04: 73 Yards (Quick Review)

Episode:

879

|

Serial:

308

|

Writer:

Russell T Davies

|

Director:

Dylan Holmes Williams

|

Air Date:

25-May-2024

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This week on Sci-Fi Adventures, it's one of the few episodes of Doctor Who to feature a number in the title. I've no idea what it means though, something to do with sports maybe? It's yards, not metres, so I'm thinking that this is going to be set in the US or the past, but that's all I've got.

I usually try to write all of this intro bit before watching the episode so I can be properly clueless, but I have to jump in from the future to talk about how this is one of the few stories to be missing the opening titles entirely. I can only remember two other regular episodes that do this: Sleep No More and The Woman Who Fell to Earth. So it's a sign that an episode is doing something different... though not a sign that it'll be any good.

Incidentally The Woman Who Fell to Earth was the first episode filmed for the Jodie Whittaker era and this was the first filmed for the Ncuti Gatwa era. It even predates last year's Christmas Special. Gatwa had already made a brief appearance in The Giggle, but this was Millie Gibson's first ever work for Doctor Who.

There will be SPOILERS here for this and earlier episodes. And I mean way earlier, like 1981.

Star Trek: Discovery 5-09: Lagrange Point (Quick Review)

Episode:

64

|

Writer:

Sean Cochran & Ari Friedman

|

Director:

Jonathan Frakes

|

Air Date:

23-May-2024

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This week on Sci-Fi Adventures I'm writing Lagrange Point, the penultimate episode of Star Trek: Discovery!

It's the last episode by director Jonathan Frakes and writer Sean Cochran, who have produced some of my favourite episodes of the series. In fact, they were both credited on Despite Yourself and New Eden, and if this ends up being that kind of quality I'll be more than satisfied. It's also the first episode for writer Ari Friedman, who picked a great time to join the show! Though she wouldn't have known back then that this was also going to be her last episode, as the news of the show's cancellation came after filming had finished.

There will be SPOILERS below for this and earlier Star Trek stories.

Star Wars: The Last Jedi - Part 4

This week on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm writing about the last quarter of The Last Jedi. I'm going to leave the overall review for a separate article this time, that'll be Part Five, but this article will bring you to the end of the movie.

Click PART ONE, PART TWO or PART THREE, if you want to jump back to an earlier page.

The Last Jedi was the highest grossing movie of 2017, which is interesting as if it really wasn't connecting with people it would've dropped right off after its opening weekend. I mean it did have the largest drop of any of the movies so far, clearly it was not winning everyone over, but it was still topping the charts.

It ultimately brought in $1.334 billion, putting it between the other two sequel trilogy episodes in success. But it was apparently the cheapest of the three movies by a significant amount, so it made a suitable amount of bank. It's still the 12th most expensive film of all time though. Incidentally, The Force Awakens is still considered to be 1st most expensive movie ever made after almost a decade, which is kind of crazy to me.

There will be SPOILERS below as I go scene by scene and wrap this film up.