Tag: science fiction
-
STAR TREK REWIND: “How Sharper Than a Serpent’s Tooth”
“How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is to have a thankless child!” I remember reading an article in the old Trek fanzine published and then re-printed for a paperback compilation in which writer Russell Bates was required to defend himself on charges of stealing the central idea of the second season episode, “Who Mourns…
-
STAR TREK REWIND: “The Muse”
“Before I met her, my world was… a much smaller place. I kept to myself, I didn’t need anyone else, and I took pride in that. The truth is, I was ashamed of what I was, afraid that if people saw how truly different I was, they would recoil from me. Lwaxana saw how different…
-
STAR TREK REWIND: “Albatross”
“Jim, if I’m ever in jail again, don’t send that Vulcan to release me. Just let me rot!” I love how the inhabitants of Dramia wait for the Enterprise to finish delivering necessary medical supplies before they put McCoy under arrest for charges equivalent to genocide. Pretty sneaky, Sis! This brings out the anger in…
-
STAR TREK REWIND: “The Price”
“Just tell me there’s some chocolate here.” It never fails that when an underutilized character is given the spotlight, it more often than not results in that character’s undoing. Like “The Galileo Seven” with Spock, “The Price” nearly destroys Counselor Deanna Troi (Marina Sirtis). The same thing happened two episodes earlier with “Booby Trap” and…
-
FRANCHISE REWIND: The Matrix Reloaded (2003)
The Matrix Reloaded, 2003 (Keanu Reeves) Warner Bros. “Choice is an illusion created between those with power and those without.” Sequels come about for different reasons. Sometimes (very rarely) it’s the continuation of a story. Most times it’s a different story with characters from the previous movie dropped in to chart their own evolution. Of…
-
FRANCHISE REWIND: The Matrix (1999)
The Matrix, 1999 (Keanu Reeves) Warner Bros. “There is no spoon.” How much of The Matrix makes sense and how much of The Matrix doesn’t make sense? Let’s try to break it down from the perspective of a computer (at least what I understand about computers). If you want to be stupid about it, computers…
-
FRANCHISE REWIND: Jurassic Park (1993)
Jurassic Park, 1993 (Sam Neill) Universal Pictures “Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could that they didn’t stop to think if they should.” I don’t know why we didn’t get around to seeing Jurassic Park in its original run. Maybe I was working, but I did eventually get down to the…
-
Under the Eye: “Dear Offred”
“It’s so hard to talk to people, isn’t it? That’s a keystone of “discourse” in 2022 America, let alone an indeterminate year in the world of Gilead. Funny how words … have to … be delivered … in a … slow … contemplative … fashion.”
-
Under the Eye: “Border”
Why does everything have to take so long? Is it me nursing the impatience of old age? It’s one of my chief complaints when watching current television. Writers take too long in telling their stories, and directors and editors accommodate those wispy, meandering deficits by making everything look far more important than it actually is,…
-
STAR TREK REWIND: “The Practical Joker”
“Come on Spock, where’s that Vulcan sense of humor?” Chuck Menville was a name virtually synonymous with ’80s children’s entertainment. Menville wrote for Land of the Lost, The Real Ghostbusters (not to be confused with the ’70s live-action series starring Larry Storch), as well as The Smurfs, and Tiny Toon Adventures. His material was characterized…
Misadventures in Blissville 