Babylon 5 5-09: In the Kingdom of the Blind

Episode:

97

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Writer:

J. Michael Straczynski

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Director:

David J. Eagle

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Air Date:

18-Mar-1998

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This week on Sci-Fi Adventures I'm watching Babylon 5 season 5 episode 9 - In the Kingdom of the Blind. I watched episode 7 - Secrets of the Soul last time so I should probably explain where episode 8's gone.

I'm following the Lurker's Guide's Master List, which tries to put the episodes in the place which makes the most sense for continuity. It only moves a few stories around, in fact the last time I skipped an episode like this was back in season 3, and I think this might be the last episode I'm watching out of order.

The Master List reordering leaves this run of episodes looks like this:

07 - Secrets of the Soul
09 - In the Kingdom of the Blind
10 - A Tragedy of Telepaths
11 - Phoenix Rising
12 - The Ragged Edge
08 - Day of the Dead

So episode 8's not coming around for a while.

Why is this relevant to you? Well it's going to affect what kind of SPOILERS you're going to read here. I only write about the episode I'm on and the ones that came before it, I don't spoil what comes next, so this reordering means that I won't say a thing about anything that happens in Day of the Dead here. On the other hand, my eventual Day of the Dead review could be full of spoilers for episodes 9-12... theoretically.

Outlaw Star 01-04

Eps:

1-4

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Writer:

Katsuhiko Chiba

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Directors:

Takeshi Ashizawa, Naoyoshi Kusaka, Takahiko Hoshiai

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Air Date:

08-Jan-1998 - 29-Jan-1998

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This week on Sci-Fi Adventures I'm watching the first four episodes of Outlaw Star!

I was only planning to write about one episode, but then I discovered how serialised the series is and long I'd have to keep writing about it just to reach the bit with the spaceship in. I've got other series I need to write about, I can't keep posting about Outlaw Star every week, so I've decided to get all four episodes out of the way in the same article. It's a giant-sized super-fast paced extra-value review!

This isn't actually my first time watching the series, I just haven't seen much of it and what I have seen I don't remember much of. That's not necessarily a sign that it's bad, as I'm easily distracted and my memory isn't always great. It might be a really good series for all I know! It'd definitely had a good studio behind it, as it was made by Sunrise, the people who made Cowboy Bebop. Outlaw Star had a more typical origin however, as unlike Bebop it was adapted from a manga.

Okay I'll be going through each of the episodes, summarising what I see and sharing my thoughts, so there will be huge SPOILERS here.

Babylon 5 5-07: Secrets of the Soul

Episode:

95

|

Writer:

J. Michael Straczynski

|

Director:

Tony Dow

|

Air Date:

04-Mar-1998

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This week on Sci-Fi Adventures I'm watching Babylon 5 season 5 episode 7, Secrets of the Soul. It's promising secrets, plural, so it'd better deliver or else I'm going to be slightly disappointed. Or more likely I'll forget what the title was five minutes in and not actually care.

SPOILER WARNING: I'll be going through the episode scene by scene and writing what happens underneath, so if you don't already know what happens that might be a problem. Especially as I'll be talking about earlier episodes as well. I'll not be talking about what happens next though.

Doctor Who (2005) - New Year's Day 2022: Eve of the Daleks

Episode:

869

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Writer:

Chris Chibnall

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Director:

Annetta Laufer

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Air Date:

01-Jan-2022

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This week on Sci-Fi Adventures I'm watching Doctor Who again! This time it's the 2022 New Year's Day special: Eve of the Daleks, and it's a time loop tale! I hope no one considers that to be a spoiler, it wasn't meant to be. I'm going to be mentioning a lot of time loop episodes in all kinds of TV series so if that's an issue for you should skip the next paragraph and then also the rest of the review. Sorry.

Some of the best episodes in science fiction have been time loop stories. Supernatural's Mystery Spot, Stargate: SG-1's  Window of Opportunity, Red Dwarf's White Hole. Oh and there's Groundhog Day, obviously. So this has a good chance of being something kind of special.

It's also the third New Year's Eve Dalek story in a row, so that's become a bit of a tradition. I feel like it might be the last of them, seeing as Russell T. Davies is coming back next year and he introduced Christmas specials, but you never know, maybe it'll stick. We could even have a Merry Cyberman Christmas, a Happy Dalek New Year and a Master Easter special all in the same year!

I'll be going through the whole episode scene by scene writing my thoughts down under screencaps, same as usual, so beware of SPOILERS.

Farscape 1-01: Premiere - Part 2

This week on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm still writing about Farscape's first episode. It's not a double length story, pilots just give me a lot to write about. Click THIS LINK if you'd like to jump to part one instead.

It's not even really a pilot to be honest, as Farscape cost so much to set up that they needed a network to commit to at least 11 episodes before shooting a single one. Sets and animatronics aren't cheap, but once you've got them built you can keep using them and spread the cost out. For a while it seemed like Fox was going to be the one to greenlight the series, but the Sci Fi Channel was the one who finally came through for them. Which probably worked out better in the long run as sci-fi shows on Fox don't tend to last very long (just ask fans of Space: Above and Beyond or Firefly).

The creators are American but they decided to film and produce the series in Australia to get more on screen for their budget. They did hire one American for the cast though, star Ben Browder. This had a side-effect of dropping his character in a distant part of the universe where everyone either speaks with an Australian accent or like an Australian trying to put on a British accent.

Alright, I've already given you all the SPOILERS I can for the first half of the episode and now I'm going to go and spoil the second half too. With pictures! Enjoy.

Farscape 1-01: Premiere - Part 1

Episode:

1

|

Writer:

Rockne S. O'Bannon

|

Director:

Andrew Prowse

|

Air Date:

19-Mar-1999

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This week on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm writing about Premiere, the first episode of cult 90s sci-fi series Farscape! That's 'late 90s' by the way, not 'early 90s'; late enough for them to have deliberately given it a unique name so that the series would be only thing that comes up if you do an internet search. It was originally going to be called Space Chase, but thankfully they swerved away from that at the last moment.

Farscape first aired in 1999, back when Deep Space Nine and Voyager were still defining space sci-fi, Stargate SG-1 was starting out and Babylon 5 had just finished. Trek was losing its shine at this point and there was a feeling that space opera fans were tired of well-trained military crews following orders on starship bridges and wanted a bit more... anarchy. And muppets I guess?

The series was produced by Hallmark and The Jim Henson Company, so it belongs to the same family as Fraggle Rock and The Dark Crystal. The puppeteered aliens actually put a few people off at the time, probably still does, even though everyone loves puppet Yoda in the Star Wars movies. I'm trying to dig into my memories to excavate my own first reaction to learning about the series, but I'm not getting much. I think I saw a review or a preview in a magazine next to a photo from a series about Vikings and assumed it was going to take place in a mead hall or something.

I do remember liking the series, but I only watched it the once and that was years ago, so who knows what I'll think about it now. Maybe it's horrifically dated now. Perhaps it's been utterly surpassed by its successor/clone Guardians of the Galaxy. I'm hyped to find out if it can still hold my attention.

There will be SPOILERS below for exactly half an episode, no others. I'll be going through Premiere scene by scene, recapping and sharing my thoughts along the way, so this will kind of be like a commentary track. Except you can't put it on in the background while you get other things done. All the screencaps will be from my PAL DVD, but you're not missing much as the Blu-rays aren't particularly HD either. Seems like the original 35mm footage was lost and they weren't keen on spending the cash to recreate all the CGI visual effects in a higher resolution anyway. It's a bit of a tragedy, considering that even Babylon 5 eventually got a HD release.

Babylon 5 5-06: Strange Relations

Episode:

94

|

Writer:

J. Michael Straczynski

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Director:

John C. Flinn III

|

Air Date:

25-Feb-1998

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This week on Sci-Fi Adventures I'm watching Babylon 5 season 5 episode 6, Strange Relations. Huh, that's weird, I can usually vaguely remember the names of each episode but Strange Relations doesn't ring any bells with me at all. If I was given one of those quizzes where you have to go through titles and choose whether they're from Babylon 5 or, I dunno, Magnum P.I., I would've totally failed this one. (I would've nailed The Very Long Night of Londo Mollari though.)

You can tell this episode's been around a few years now as a bit of the letter 'g' has gotten scratched off. That's apparently a unique feature of the Region 2 DVDs, so you can tell where all my screencaps are coming from.

This episode was written by J. Michael Straczynski, no big surprise there, and it was directed by the Director of Photography John C. Flinn III. Flinn had previously directed TKO and Grey 17 is Missing, contenders to be the worst episodes of their respective seasons, so he doesn't have a perfect track record, but he's done some good episode too. I'm not considering it to be a warning sign.

Okay I'll be writing about the entire episode one scene at a time so there will be massive SPOILERS here for this story and the series so far. I'll not spoil anything that comes afterwards though.