Babylon 5 1-05: Parliament of Dreams

Episode:

5

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Writer:

J. Michael Straczynski

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Air Date:

23-Feb-1994

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Today on Sci-Fi Adventures, I've made it 22.7% of the way through season one of Babylon 5!

The season hasn't been all that great so far, but I'm more hopeful about Parliament of Dreams. This was the first episode to be scripted after filming on the series began, so writer JMS had much better idea of how the actors were performing his characters, and could shape his words to fit their mouths.

Wait, why does this screencap look so familiar to me? Oh right, Born to the Purple used the same establishing shot to put its title over a couple of episodes ago... except it was a bit less pink back then. I'm surprised this doesn't happen more often to be honest. CGI's cheaper than filming models, but time spent rendering new stock shots is time they could better spend producing effects for the story.

This review is going to be a bit SPOILERY, as I'm going to reveal basically everything that happens in the episode, and maybe even a few things about what came before it, but I won't spoil a thing about what comes after it.

Star Trek III: The Search for Spock

Writer:

Harve Bennett

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Director:

Leonard Nimoy

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Release Date:

1984

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I've found Spock! He's right there in that coffin!

Today on Sci-Fi Adventures I'm giving an action recap of Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, directed by Spock. With Star Trek Beyond coming up this seemed like the right time to revisit the original third Trek movie.

First thing I've noticed is that the film's dropped the slightly rubbish looking hollow Star Trek II font and gone back to the iconic The Motion Picture typeface. In fact this logo would stick around until the end of Star Trek: Voyager in 2001, for everything but Star Trek: The Next Generation and its movies. Because they just had to be different.

Actually the first thing I noticed was that Search for Spock is an odd-numbered Trek movie, meaning that it has to be terrible. This curse actually does hold true with both critic and viewer ratings all the way up to the even-numbered Star Trek: Nemesis, which was so bad that it basically ended the film series (with Star Trek: Enterprise's ratings hammering the final nails into Trek's temporary coffin). But hopefully for the new movies the rule's been reversed, as Beyond's technically Star Trek 13 and it'll be nice if it doesn't entirely suck.

Alright, quick warning before I start: there'll be massive SPOILERS for Search for Spock and perhaps other Star Trek stories that came before it, but everything afterwards should be safe.

Doctor Who (2005) 9-05: The Girl Who Died

Episode:

818

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Serial:

256

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Writer:

Jamie Mathieson and Steven Moffat

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Air Date:

17-Oct-2015

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This week on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm writing about The Girl Who Died, which is an entirely different episode to The Girl Who Waited (but likely not unrelated to The Woman Who Lived, which is coming up next).

Series 9 hasn't entirely won me over so far, but I'm hyped for this one just because of the talent involved. The best writer of modern Doctor Who teaming up with Steven Moffat, how can that not lead to awesome? Okay maybe I should wait until Mathieson writes more than two episodes before I declare him all-time champion of Doctor Who, especially as Moffat has crafted a formidable set of stories. But Moffat's been kind of hit and miss since taking the reins and Mathieson's two episodes were really good!

Oh, plus they've also got the former lead guitarist for The Vapors in the role of director. I've no idea if that's a good or bad thing, I just had to mention it.

Just so you know, I'll be filling my text with SPOILERS from start to finish, maybe even for Doctor Who episodes that came before this one. Episodes that aired after it are perfectly safe though, as this is actually my first time through the season.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine 1-06: Captive Pursuit

Episode:

6

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Writer:

Jill Sherman Donner and Michael Piller

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Air Date:

31-Jan-1993

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This week on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm going to be going through the fifth-ish episode of Deep Space Nine: Captive Pursuit.

This one's fairly well regarded I believe, for a season 1 episode. That's hardly a guarantee of quality, but it's an O'Brien story so I'm sure it'll be bearable enough. Bearable for me I mean; O'Brien himself will probably spend the whole thing tormented and miserable. Especially if his wife Keiko is in it.

Like always I'll only be writing SPOILERS for this episode and the ones that come before it, not the ones afterwards. So if you haven't seen Voyager, Enterprise, the Next Gen movies, the reboot films or the last 170 episodes of DS9 it's still perfectly safe to read on!

Man there's a lot of Star Trek.

Babylon 5 1-04: Infection

Episode:

4

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Writer:

J. Michael Straczynski

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Air Date:

16-Feb-1994

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Today on Sci-Fi Adventures I’m spoiling Infection, which actually isn't Babylon 5's inevitable 'plague spreads through the station' episode, and involves precisely zero scenes of Dr. Franklin struggling to come up with a cure before it's too late! It should've been the plague episode though, because that's what Deep Space Nine's fourth episode was about too, and it'd would've given us another weird coincidence for the list.

Infection is chronologically the fourth episode, but it was the first written and filmed after The Gathering pilot movie, so it's probably a little shaky compared to the ones that aired before it. In fact a lot of fans consider this to be the worst of all B5 episodes, even worse than all the other episodes in season one! Personally I'm not sure what I think of it, because it's been ages since I last saw it, but I'll give it a fair chance to win me over.

I'll be writing SPOILERS for this episode and those that aired before it, but nothing that comes after. So if this episode somehow leads to any huge events down the line I'll keep my metaphorical mouth shut about what they are.

Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan - Director's Edition

Written by:

Nicholas Meyer

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Directed by:

Nicholas Meyer

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Release Date:

1982

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Today on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm revisiting Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, considered by many to be one of the best Star Trek movies and considered by me to have one of the worst Trek movie title fonts.

The Director's Edition of the film finally got a rescanned and remastered Blu-ray release last week to replace the weirdly blue-tinted theatrical cut Blu-ray that's been around since 2009, but I'm going to be going through the fuzzy old 2002 Director's Edition DVD instead (mostly because it's what's on my shelf). Not that there's actually much difference between the theatrical and director's cuts though, and they definitely haven't pulled a Star Trek: The Motion Picture this time and added new effects shots (because the film doesn't need them).

I'm going to be giving away SPOILERS for this movie and things that came before it (the episode Space Seed for instance) but everything afterwards is safe. I do want to spoil one of the recent films, but I'll restrain myself.

Doctor Who (2005) 9-04: Before the Flood

Episode:

817

|

Serial:

255

|

Writer:

Toby Whithouse

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Air Date:

10-Oct-2015

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This week on Sci-Fi Adventures I'm watching the second half of the second story of Peter Capaldi's second year as the 12th Doctor, finishing what was started with Under the Lake.

The last episode introduced a lot of weirdness and any explanations given for it were fairly terrible, so I'm hoping this one's going to reveal what's really going on in a satisfying and intelligent way. Because I like to set myself up for disappointment.

As usual there will be SPOILERS for everything that comes before and nothing that comes after. Relative to the episodes I mean, not the timeline. Basically I might spoil something that happened in a David Tennant episode but nothing about The Girl Who Died onwards.