Star Trek*SPOILERS* “An Obol For Charon” begins, as have all season two’s episodes with a Spock-tease as Number One (Rebecca Romijn) visits her Captain to provide an update on her investigations into the unfolding mysteries surrounding Spock’s bizarre behaviour since the red bursts occurred and also grab something to eat. It’s a fun and intriguing preamble ..
Star Trek*SPOILERS* While “People Of Earth” may start out in typical “Star Trek: Discovery” fashion, with a massive exposition dump in one of Burnham’s trademark interminable personal logs, summarising the series so far and dropping in a few details about what she was up to in the year waiting for Discovery to arrive in the future, ..
Star Trek*SPOILERS* With confirmation the red angel is a ‘man in a suit’ from the future, there’s a renewed impetus to find Spock so Burnham requests permission to head to Vulcan because she believes her mother may know where Spock is. Meanwhile, the Discovery is tasked with remaining in orbit around Kaminar – not, as you ..
Star Trek*SPOILERS* I mean, when you think of “Star Trek”, you think of torture porn, right? It’s the purest expression of the Roddenberian vision to embrace the cartoonishly superficial trappings of fascism for shits and giggles, right? “Terra Firma Part 2” picks up where the previous episode left off, with Georgiou and the audience trapped in ..
MoviesRivalling “Suicide Squad” for the worst editing of 2016, “Mechanic: Resurrection” is a confused and underwhelming mix of lush location footage and studio-bound cut scenes that feel more “That Riviera Touch” than a modern action thriller. The pseudo-Bond exotic location hopping feels arbitrary and slapped together in service of a plot that promises much more ..
Star Trek*SPOILERS* The ambition may be vaulting, but it’s certainly not boundless as “Star Trek: Discovery” brings us an episode that’s barely thirty-eight minutes long (including recap). Still, to rewind a bit from ‘vaulting ambition’, if it were done when ’tis done, then ’twere well it were done quickly. Unfortunately, this is “Star Trek: Discovery” and ..
Star Trek*SPOILERS* It’s action stations on this week’s “Star Trek: Discovery” as the crew prove their fugitive bona fides by immediately contacting a Starfleet Admiral and inviting her to their hiding place. Fortunately, it’s our old friend – and notoriously bad decision maker – Admiral Cornwell, who brings news of a sort of Section 31 sponsored ..
Star Trek*SPOILERS* “There Is A Tide…” brings “Star Trek” back to Shakespeare country, with a title borrowed from a passage in “Julius Caesar” – one which has been raided for titles before, not least of all by Agatha Christie. It’s actually a good thematic basis for this episode which deals with some surprising turns of events ..
Star Trek*SPOILERS* I’d be lying if I said I was boldly going in to the season finale. The going has been pretty rough at times and with a series that’s proved itself so inept at delivering payoffs to its (often admittedly impressive) setups, part of me dreaded the thought of what such a series would do ..
MoviesBased on the most Dad-joke reading possible of the first two lines of the Wham! song “Last Christmas”, Paul Feig’s slight rom-com wears its genre clichés on its sleeve and uses copious fairy lights and tinsel to distract from its threadbare plot. Kate (Emilia Clarke) is a cynical, self-destructive Christmas shop worker, estranged from her ..
Star Trek*SPOILERS* Still stranded in the Mirror Universe, Burnham, Lorca and Tyler remain under cover on the ISS Shenzhou while on Discovery, Tilly and Saru deal with Stamets’ deteriorating condition. The episode may be titled “The Wolf Inside” but the latest episode of “Star Trek: Discovery” seems more interested in taking us on a foxtrot. This ..
Star Trek*SPOILERS* There’s plenty to chew over in this week’s cold open but chew it well because you might choke on what follows in the rest of the episode. Having been called in by Starfleet Command to be told off for doing exactly what he was ordered to do, Lorca finds his journey back to the ..
Star Trek*SPOILERS* If the episode title “That Hope Is You, Part 2” doesn’t tell you that this third season finale of “Star Trek: Discovery” is going to be an excerise in Burnham-style vanity, it doesn’t take long for the episode itself to show you. The recap, though, spends most of its time reminding us of the ..
Movies“Crazy Rich Asians” may open with some awful British racism, but it’s an effective shorthand way of introducing fearsome matriarch Eleanor Young (Michelle Yeo) and putting us firmly in the Young family’s corner. And it’s a necessary step too because we’re about to embark on a visually lavish exploration of the trials and tribulations of ..
Star Trek*SPOILERS* “Su’Kal” picks up where “Terra Firma Part 2” left us: at Georgiou’s entirely undeserved and hagiographic memorial service. It’s fitting, I suppose, that it’s all based on Burnham withholding crucial information from her friends and shipmates once again. It’s been a longstanding observation that one of the dramatic weaknesses of “Star Trek” is that ..
MoviesTransformers: Rise Of The Beasts sinks to some pretty familiar lows It doesn’t seem that long ago that Travis Knight restored the long-lost spark to the Transformers franchise with BUMBLEBEE, erasing the excremental excesses of the Michael Bay era and starting the story afresh by paring it back to a very human-centred story featuring shapeshifting ..
Star Trek*SPOILERS* The ultimate artifice of the showrunners is revealed when yet another of the Short Treks is referenced, this time, somewhat disingenuously, as part of the ‘Previously’ montage. It does all point quite obviously to the explanation why Discovery, its technology and activity has never been referenced in the rest of Trek and also raises ..
Star Trek*SPOILERS* The third Short Trek, The Brightest Star, brings us a pre-USS Discovery glimpse into the life of one of the series’ standout characters: Saru (Doug Jones). In doing so, it brings to light the weird contradictions in the species’ origins, especially in the Star Trek universe. On the planet Kaminar, Saru feels unfulfilled by ..
Star Trek*SPOILERS* Apologies for the delay in getting this review out there, but as I was writing, it started out as one thing and sort became something else as I went along. Not unlike “Star Trek: Discovery”, actually, but we’ll get to that in due time. In the meantime, let’s go into the woods today: we’re ..
Star Trek*SPOILERS* Oh, “Star Trek: Discovery”, you’re a cunning one. Here we are on our third date and you know what that means. Do we have a future together or was it just a brief fling? No wonder you kept the best of your new goodies until this episode. Because make no mistake, “Context Is For ..
Star Trek*SPOILER* Despite the Admiralty-mandated joining of forces, there’s a distinct lack of urgency to the search for Spock in this episode. Instead, we’re treated to the origin story of Saru as the first Kaminarian superhero; their Daredevil: the Kelpian without fear. With Saru pondering what the loss of his threat ganglia means for him and ..
Star Trek*SPOILERS* Having teased action in the previous two episodes, showrunner Alex Kurtzman finally blows his load (and his special effects budget and, later, his remaining credibility) on an impossibly messy, Jackson Pollock-esque space battle and gratuitous hand to hand combat scenes in a frantic attempt to cover for the fact that very little actually happens ..
Star Trek*SPOILERS* Fresh from last week’s shocking revelation that white male privilege is still alive and kicking in the 23rd Century (Lorca loses his starship, kills his entire crew rather than let them be captured and is rewarded with command of Starfleet’s most advanced experimental secret weapon while Burnham withholds information from her Captain, disobeys an ..
Star Trek*SPOILERS* Things haven’t been great between me and “Star Trek” for some time. Oh sure, we still go through the motions, remembering birthdays, anniversaries all the while secretly reminiscing about the good old days when we were inseparable, glued to the screen as Kirk, Picard, Sisko and even Janeaway roamed the universe. The magic died ..
Star Trek*SPOILERS* So although “Star Trek: Discovery” and I didn’t part on the best of terms after Season 1 limped to a close, I have to admit I was looking forward to this new season. That’s due in part to the excellent “Short Treks” but also due to the fact the series had, at least, ditched ..
Star Trek*SPOILERS* Having done a pretty good job so far of pairing a ‘story of the week’ with drip-fed hints of the ongoing series arc, “The Sanctuary” sees “Star Trek: Discovery” fall back into its worst habits with a pick ‘n’ mix episode that feels assembled from odds and ends which were bounced around the writers’ ..
Star TrekPreviously, on “Star Trek: Discovery”: This; This; And this; This too; And this; Not forgetting this; And of course, this; Also this; And finally this. *SPOILERS* And…we’re back. It’s been, what? Nine weeks since we left our heroes stranded amidst Klingon debris in a mysterious galactic location and you know what? I’d be lying if ..
Star Trek*SPOILERS* By this point, “Star Trek: Discovery” has used more quotes as titles than you could shake a spear at (it’s also batting way above average in getting characters to announce the episode title in dialogue) and after last week’s dip into the Scottish play, this week’s is lifted from “The Tempest”: ‘What’s Past Is ..
Star Trek*SPOILERS* Oh man, have you seen “The Cloverfield Paradox”? No, of course not because Monday night is “Star Trek: Discovery” night! As we learned last week, the USS Discovery has been missing for nine months and the baby of destiny that’s gestated in that time is an imminent Klingon victory. While they wait to make ..
Star Trek*SPOILERS* After the tawdry torture porn of last week’s denouement, we open with a flashback to Burnham’s happy childhood where this exceptionally gifted and inquisitive child was apparently completely oblivious to her parents’ line of work in their secret laboratory home. But it turns out it’s only a near-death experience for Burnham as she wakes ..