Doctor Who (2005): Series 2 Review

This week on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm going to be looking back at the whole of Doctor Who series 2 (or 28, depending on where you start counting). I've already written about the individual episodes and now I want to see if I liked the season overall.

I've been covering Doctor Who way out of order, starting with Peter Capaldi, then eventually working my way around to the classic series before finally reaching David Tennant. But I'm here now, in Doctor Who (2005)'s golden age, so now I get to ask the question "But was it really that good though?" Was the Tenth Doctor and Rose's time in the TARDIS really the stuff of legends, or does this run look very dated 20 years later?

I can tell you right now that I still don't like that logo much. It looks like it should be mounted in front of a shop somewhere on the trendier side of a high street, not mucking about in the time vortex.

Okay, there are going to be SPOILERS here mostly for The Christmas Invasion up to Doomsday, though I may also mention something from an earlier story. I'll not be saying anything about The Runaway Bride, though you can probably assume from the title that it has a bride in it.

Doctor Who: The Fifteenth Doctor Era (2023-2025)

This week on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm writing about season 2 of the 2023 Doctor Who revival! In fact, I'm going to go one better than that and write about the Fifteenth Doctor's entire era, including seasons 1, 2 and the 60th anniversary specials.

I've ended up covering Doctor Who from both ends, as I've completed Doctors 1-9 and now this finishes off Doctors 13-15. I suppose someday I'll have to get around to reviewing the Tennant, Smith and Capaldi eras and complete the set, assuming anyone's even interested in those guys.

I just realised that this could be my last chance to write about the iconic diamond logo. Well, unless I go back to one of Tom Baker's serials. I wasn't kind to it during my classic series marathon, writing that "it looks like it belongs on a bottle of ketchup", but they've done a great job of updating it in 3D and it's grown on me. Incidentally I'm glad that Doctor Who does update its logo every now and then... and I'm equally glad that Star Wars doesn't. I don't even know how that logic works.

Anyway, at the time of writing this is the latest point in Doctor Who, the very edge of what has been filmed and aired, so if you're watching the series for the first time then good news: I won't be spoiling anything that happens next. On the other hand, that means there could be SPOILERS here for absolutely everything that currently exists, though I'll mostly be sticking to the episodes featuring Ncuti Gatwa as the Doctor.

Doctor Who: The Ninth Doctor Era (2005)

This week on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm writing about series 1 of the 2005 Doctor Who revival! In fact, I'm going to go one better than that and write about the Ninth Doctor's entire era. This isn't going to make any difference to the text really, as Christopher Eccleston only had the one season, but it does mean that I'm giving the article a different title! 

I've already covered Doctors 1-8 years ago when I watched a Classic Who marathon on Twitch, so a look at Nine's run is well overdue. In fact, I'm going to start right now by criticising the logo. An oval covered in light bulbs is a bit of a strange choice and the cheap-looking lens flares aren't helping. I prefer the fiery variant that's been in all the end credits and I suppose one of the producers agreed with me as they made it the main logo in season 3 and put it on the DVD boxes.

Okay, there are going to be SPOILERS below, but only up until Parting of the Ways. So if you're watching the series for the first time this should be safe for you.

Star Trek: Picard - Season 3 Review

This week on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm finally crossing Star Trek: Picard off my list of things I need to get done. It's over, I've reviewed every episode and now I'm covering season 3 overall.

That makes this the third series I've covered in its entirety, after Babylon 5 and Star Trek: Discovery, though in this case it wasn't that much of a challenge considering it only has 30 episodes in total. That's less than half of Discovery's episode count, and that wasn't particularly long for a Star Trek series either.

Anyway, I'm reviewing season 3 in particular, though there will be SPOILERS here for the rest of the series.

Doctor Who (2023): Season 1 Review

This week on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm writing about the latest first season of Doctor Who! It's also known as series 14 or season 40, depending on how stubborn you are.

Filming began on 5th Dec 2022, so it took a long while for this to finally reach TVs. In fact, the last full actual season of the show was in 2021. But it's finally out and now I have opinions about the dawn of the third age of Doctor Who.

Though maybe I should hang on until the next season's out. I mean 8 episodes and a Christmas special isn't much to review. This run of episodes flew by so fast that I'm not sure I was able to get a good enough look at them to describe what I saw. Then again, if I wait any longer I'll have forgotten what happened, so I should probably just get on with it.

There will be SPOILERS for this season, the recent specials, and maybe other episodes too.

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.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds - Season 1 Review, Part 3

This week on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm writing about the epic finale of Strange New Worlds' first season! I wanted to get this published before the second season started so I've made it just under the wire.

I've got three reviews for you this time, covering these three episodes:

• 1-08 - The Elysian Kingdom
  
• 1-09 - All Those Who Wander
  
• 1-10 - A Quality of Mercy
  

Then afterwards I'll talk a little bit about the season overall afterwards. Will I be showering the series with glowing praise or going on an angry rant? The only way to find out is to keep reading until the end. Or I suppose you could just scroll down to the bottom, if you're in a hurry or whatever.

This will have SPOILERS for Picard season 2, the TOS story The Menagerie, and a whole bunch of other episodes. I know I'm writing about Strange New Worlds, but I just want to be certain you know that my spoilers will spread to other Trek series as well. I won't say a thing about anything that happens afterwards though. I mean at the time I'm writing this is the latest season, nothing else has happened past this point, but I've heard a few things about season 2 that I'll keep quiet about.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds - Season 1 Review, Part 2

This week on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm finally back to writing about Star Trek: Strange New Worlds first season again. I reviewed the first three episodes in August last year, so this has taken me a little longer than I expected, but at least I'm getting this published before season 2 starts. Barely.

This time around I'll be reviewing four episodes:

• 1-04 - Memento Mori
  
• 1-05 - Spock Amok
  
• 1-06 - Lift Us Where Suffering Cannot Reach
  
• 1-07 - The Serene Squall
  

Though first I just need to point out that episode 6 has an awesome title. I've giving it a special mention because the writers went the extra mile and that should be rewarded. I see what they did with Spock Amok as well, but it's not quite as as clever as Prodigy's Time Amok I'm afraid. The live action shows are going to have to step up their game if they want to keep up with the cartoons.

Alright, I'll be dropping SPOILERS for all four of these episodes and any earlier Star Trek episodes that jump to mind while I'm writing about them. Well, I mean when I did write about them, in the past. I scribbled my thoughts down the moment after I watched each episode, which was a while ago now. This means that there won't be any spoilers for later episodes, because I didn't know anything about them at the time.

Star Trek: Picard - Season 2 Review, Part 3

This week on Sci-Fi Adventures, it's the dramatic conclusion of Star Trek: Picard's second season! I've written about three stories this time:

• 2-08 - Mercy
• 2-09 - Hide and Seek
• 2-10 - Farewell

Plus I wrote a little bit about the season overall at the end. I'm using the past tense here because I put my thoughts down right after watching each episode, which was something like a year ago now. I admit, I could've been quicker getting this published. Still, I'm doing better with this than I did with my Babylon 5 reviews, which were about 24 years late.

There are going to be SPOILERS here for the whole season and earlier Treks as well, but nothing that was released past 5th May 2022. So Strange New Worlds season 1 will be entirely unspoiled. For now.

Star Trek: Discovery - Season 4 Review, Part 3

This week on Sci-Fi Adventures, it's the climactic resolution to Star Trek: Discovery's fourth season!

In fact I'll be covering four episodes, telling the story of Discovery's journey... to do stuff. I'm not going to spoil anything in this intro. I don't have to, the episode titles are doing that for me.

• 4-10 - The Galactic Barrier
  
• 4-11 - Rosetta
  
• 4-12 - Species Ten-C
  
• 4-13 - Coming Home
  

There will be SPOILERS past this point though, for all four episodes and previous Trek stories. I won't spoil a thing about what happens next however. Mostly because I don't want to, but also because season 5 hasn't aired yet at the time I'm writing this and no one really knows what happens next.

Babylon 5: Season 5 - The Wheel of Fire Review

Today on Sci-Fi Adventures I'll be writing a bit about the fifth and final season of Babylon 5! And I suppose I should say something about the series overall as well. If I can remember enough of it.

I can't promise I'll say much here you haven't read a thousand times before on a thousand other websites, or heard on a thousand podcasts. Maybe you've even watched a thousand YouTube videos. But I do have one unique fact for you that no one anywhere has ever mentioned before: each season of Babylon 5 features slightly longer episode titles on average than the previous one, and by season five the titles are, on average, 42% longer than season one titles. I hope this extremely trivial trivia brings joy into your day.

But did longer episode titles mean better episodes? Was the miraculous fifth season renewal a good thing overall? Did Babylon 5 actually stick the landing? I'll tell you what I think and then you can tell me what you think in the comments afterwards.

There will be SPOILERS here for pretty much all of Babylon 5, aside from the spin-offs and Lost Tales. That's The Gathering all the way to Sleeping in Light.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds - Season 1 Review, Part 1

This week on Sci-Fi Adventures I'm giving my thoughts on the first three episodes of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds!

Strange New Worlds is the third live-action series of the Alex Kurtzman era and the first to return to the episodic style of shows like Star Trek: The Original Series, Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Voyager. It's so old school that when I describe it to people, I just say that it's Star Trek. It's about a crew of competent professionals going from world to world on the USS Enterprise, solving space problems and moral dilemmas in around 40 minutes. At least, that's what all the reviews say when they're listing reasons why it's so much better than Discovery and Picard.

From what I can tell, Star Trek fans aren't just happy with how the series has turned out, they're also relieved. It's not going to have have serialised seasons that start spinning their wheels halfway through because there's only enough story for four episodes. It's not going to have examinations of how imperfect the Federation really is. It's not going to have damaged heroes who routinely find themselves at the centre of universe-threatening crises because they're so special. Well, in theory anyway.

Personally I've liked the very serialised Discovery and Picard so far... to a degree, but variety is good and I am 100% for an episodic Trek all about Pike, Spock and Number One. In fact I've been waiting for this since Discovery's second season finale, so my enthusiasm level is high here.

I'll start off by sharing thoughts and SPOILERS for these three episodes:

• 1-01 - Strange New Worlds
  
• 1-02 - Children of the Comet
  
• 1-03 - Ghosts of Illyria
  

Though I'll probably also mention something about the earlier Star Trek series as well, so continue reading at your own risk.

Star Trek: Lower Decks - Season 2 Review - Part 2

Today on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm writing about the second half of Star Trek: Lower Decks' second season. If you'd rather go back to the first block of reviews and read about the first five episodes, then you should click THIS LINK.

Star Trek series often have a big shakeup behind the scenes during their first few seasons... but not this time. They didn't even replace the showrunner! In fact I can't think of much to talk about in this intro so I'll just mention that there'll be SPOILERS for this season and previous Star Trek series, and get on with it.

Star Trek: Lower Decks - Season 2 Review - Part 1

This week on Sci-Fi Adventures I'm writing about veteran Star Trek series Lower Decks, which returned for a second season recently to show newbies like Prodigy and Strange New Worlds how it's done.

Well I say "recently" but the second season started in August 2021, so it's actually been almost a year now. Funny thing is, I actually wrote about each episode immediately after watching them, so I've just been sitting on these reviews all this time. It never felt like the right time to finish the article and get it published, because I had all those other series to write about first. Netflix's live-action Cowboy Bebop remake took priority!

SPOILER WARNING: I'll be spoiling the events of every episode I review and probably something from earlier Trek episodes as well.

Star Wars: The Book of Boba Fett - Season 1? Review

This week on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm writing a bit about the first seven episodes of Star Wars: The Book of Boba Fett! This could be season 1 or it could be a one-off miniseries, I have no idea, but I'm pretty sure it's not actually a book.

Boba Fett was first introduced in the Star Wars Holiday Special all the way back in 1978, so he's been waiting a while now to get his own series. There was a Boba Fett movie announced in 2013, but director Josh Trank's issues on Fantastic Four led to him quitting before he could get fired, and it ultimately never happened. In retrospect that might have actually been a good thing, considering that the Star Wars TV series have been getting more love from their viewers than the movies lately.

This is a spin-off from The Mandalorian by the same creator, Iron Man director Jon Favreau, with Desperado and Sin City director Robert Rodriguez directing half the episodes, so there's a fair chance it might be good. Or it could be a massive disaster like the Star Wars: Resistance cartoon. It came out months ago so I guess everyone already knows! All my reviews were written directly after watching each episode though so any apparently cluelessness is genuine.

There will be SPOILERS for The Book of Boba Fett, The Mandalorian and probably lots of other Star Wars below. But I won't spoil anything that comes afterwards, in chronological or production order. In fact I can't spoil anything made after it, as right now this is still the newest Star Wars.

Doctor Who (2005): Series 13 - Flux Review

This week on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm writing about the 13th series of the Doctor Who revival, which has been given the shiny golden title of Flux. It's pretty unusual for an entire season to have a name and it's also unusual for it to be one long continuing story like this. You'd have to dig pretty deep into Doctor Who history to find anything like it, to seasons like The Key to Time in the 70s and The Trial of a Time Lord in the 80s. Honestly, I'm in the mood for some proper cliffhangers so this works for me.

Incidentally, The Key to Time was also the last time we got a six-part serial like this, even though they'd been part of the Doctor Who format since series 1. They were around for 15 years, then disappeared for the next four decades, but showrunner Chris Chibnall has finally brought them back! Well he's brought one back anyway; what happens next is out of his hands as this is his and Jodie Whittaker's final series. It's not their last story, they've still got a year of specials after this, but it is their final full season. Jodie Whittaker decided not to try to beat Tom Baker's record as the Doctor who spent the most years on the show. Though her run will span from 2018 to 2022, five years, so technically she's in joint second place with Jon Pertwee!

Alright I've already written enough about chapter one: The Halloween Apocalypse, so I'll give the other five episodes a bit of a review each and then wrap this up by assessing the season overall. There will be SPOILERS.

Star Trek: Discovery - Season 3, Part 4

Today on Sci-Fi Adventures, it's the final part of my Star Trek: Discovery season 3 reviews, covering the last three episodes:

• 3-11 - Su'Kal
  
• 3-12 - There is a Tide…
  
• 3-13 - That Hope is You, Part 2
  

Weirdly all three episodes were known by different titles at first, as we heard that they were going to be called The Citadel, The Good of the People and Outside. I don't know what happened there.

I wrote the first draft of these reviews mere moments after watching the episodes for the first time so you get to see me being authentically unaware of where the story's going to go. You'll also get to see BIG SPOILERS.

Star Trek: Discovery - Season 3, Part 3

Today on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm continuing through Discovery's third season. This time I'm covering episodes 8 to 10:

• 3-08 - The Sanctuary
  
• 3-09 - Terra Firma, Part 1
  
• 3-10 - Terra Firma, Part 2
  

Have some more Disco trivia: the season was meant to be released before Lower Decks season one, but COVID-19 screwed up their schedule. They managed to finish filming days before the lockdown, but the post-production and soundtrack had to be completed remotely. That means all the visual effects this year were done from home and every instrument was recorded individually. It's amazing that the quality hasn't suffered at all, but it did take longer to finish.

These reviews were written back when I first watched the episodes so I'm not pretending that I don't know what happens next, I really didn't know at the time. There'll still be GIANT SPOILERS for the story so far though.

Star Trek: Discovery - Season 3, Part 2

Today on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm still writing about Discovery's third season. This time I'm covering episodes 5 to 7:

• 3-05 - Die Trying
  
• 3-06 - Scavengers
  
• 3-07 - Unification III
  

Here's some trivia for Discovery's third year: it's the first season of the series to be run by the same showrunner from start to finish, with limited writers' room drama. Season one was started by Bryan Fuller and finished by Gretchen Berg and Aaron Harberts. They stayed for season two but were fired after episode 5 and replaced by executive producer Alex Kurtzman, who handed the series over to Michelle Paradise this year. This is actually fairly normal for Trek, but the series tend to get much better when someone finally sticks around for a while.

Alright, I already said this before but these reviews are basically from right after I watched the episodes, so I genuinely didn't know where the story was going. Beware of MASSIVE SPOILERS.

Star Trek: Discovery - Season 3, Part 1

This week on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm writing some words about the third season of Star Trek: Discovery. And by 'some' I mean 'lots'. In fact I'm going to have to split this up into four articles, with this first part covering the first four episodes:

• 3-01 - That Hope is You, Part 1
  
• 3-02 - Far From Home
  
• 3-03 - People of Earth
  
• 3-04 - Forget Me Not
  

Here's a fun fact about this season: they've changed the logo! Star Trek series do change their openings a bit sometimes, Enterprise even added the words 'Star Trek' to its title sequence a few episodes into the third year, but I can't think of a series ever changing its title font like this before. It's a good change I reckon and it fits the theme of this season being a fresh start, but then I like it when series have a different opening each season so of course I would say that.

This is one of those times where I already wrote these reviews right after watching the episodes, so was genuinely clueless about what was going to happen next, aside from the glimpses in the trailer after each episode. Well okay to be honest I wrote a first draft, these have been rewritten a bit since then, but I'm not exactly editing in correct guesses to make me seem like the best at Star Trek.

There will be HUGE SPOILERS for every episode this season, plus earlier episodes too. I mean I can't even mention the season's premise without spoiling the end of season 2.