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.

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

Episode:

878

|

Serial:

307

|

Writer:

Steven Moffat

|

Director:

Julie Anne Robinson

|

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

|

Director:

Emmanuel Osei-Kuffour

|

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.