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Star Trek – The Alternative Factor (Review)

Posted on May 21, 2013 by Darren

To celebrate the release of Star Trek: Into Darkness this month, we’ll be running through the first season of the classic Star Trek all this month. Check back daily to get ready to boldly go. It’s only logical.

Well, here we are. The Alternative Factor. We’ve had weak episodes before. I’ll concede that shows like Court Martial and The Menagerie, Part II wouldn’t rank among my favourites of the season. However, there was always just enough there to make them interesting, if not compelling. There were good ideas, clumsily executed. There was something value to be found in watching these episodes. The Alternative Factor lacks those sorts of redemptive values, and it’s the first time on this re-watch I have actually wondered where my fifty minutes went, and lamented the fact that watching The Alternative Factor inched me ever-closer to death.

The Alternative Factor is – I’d argue – the weakest episode of a remarkably strong first season of Star Trek. While some would consider it one of the worst episodes the show ever produced, I’m reluctant to commit to that sort of certainty. After all, we still have the third season to come, and I’m hesitant to rank The Alternative Factor as that much worse than The Turnabout Intruder or The Way to Eden or And the Children Shall Lead or Spock’s Brain. Yep, there’s a lot to look forward to if I ever get around to finishing the third season of the show.

Still, the fact that The Alternative Factor might possibly not be the worst thing to happen to Star Trek in its nearly fifty years of existence is damning with faint praise. But I’m sure the episode will take whatever it can get.

It hurts!

It hurts!

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Filed under: The Original Series | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

Glass Houses: The Music of Philip Glass

Posted on June 22, 2010 by Darren

I have the pleasure of checking out Philip Glass at the National Concert Hall tonight. Despite the fact that I know next-to-nothing about music, I’m quite fond of Glass’ rather wonderful compositions – mostly through pop culture osmosis. It seems that Glass is the go-to guy if you need something wonderfully emotional and catchy, yet grandiose and sweeping to accompany a given film. He’s done countless soundtracks, but these are the big “on-screen” moments which I think of when I think of Glass.

First up, Watchmen. There’s a wonderful sequence on Mars scored to Glass’ Prophecies and Pruitt Igoe, which is perhaps the best scene in the entire jumbled up and deeply flawed film, as the past and present collide to the ominous soundtrack and narration. However, I can’t find that, so watch the trailer instead.

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Filed under: Movies | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | 10 Comments »

Non-Review Review: Battlestar Galactica – The Plan

Posted on May 31, 2010 by Darren

It’s a lie. For the first few years, Battlestar Galactica sold itself as a grand mythology. Every episode, in a narration repeated at the start of this film, we were reintroduced to the Cylons and reassured that “They have plan”. Except they didn’t. The show was written year-to-year, with no overarching scheme behind it all. This isn’t a criticism, but an observation. For most of its four year run, the show was the best thing on television. The series finale was a major disappointment but – for the most part – the design worked. So labelling this spin-off as Battlestar Galactica: The Plan is at best a little bit cheeky. At worst it’s a downright lie.

Relax, it's not the end of the world...

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 8 Comments »

Battlestar Galactica: Season 4

Posted on March 10, 2010 by Darren

I don’t want to be human! I want to see gamma rays! I want to hear X-rays, and I — I want to — I want to smell dark matter! Do you see the absurdity of what I am? I can’t even express these things properly because I have to — I have to conceptualize complex ideas in this stupid, limiting spoken language! But I know I want to reach out with something other than these prehensile paws, and feel the solar wind of a supernova flowing over me! I’m a machine, and I could know much more, I could experience so much more, but I’m trapped in this absurd body! And why? Because my five creators thought that God wanted it that way!

- John Cavil, No Exit

We could feel a sense of time, as if each moment held its own significance. We began to realise that for our existence to have any value, it must end. To live meaningful lives, we must die and not return. The one human flaw that you spend your life times distressing over – your mortallity – is the one thing which makes you whole.

- Natalie Faust, Guess What’s Coming to Dinner

There’s a moment in the show which perhaps best symbolises the sense of trepidation that I felt in sitting down to watch the final episodes of the show. We had alread witnessed three phenomenal years, so wasn’t it worth getting worried about the endgame? Admiral William Adama sits in a chair beside the dying President Laura Rosalin, his favourite book in hand. He reveals that he’s never finished it. And yet it’s still his favourite book. Because finishing it would be to acknowledge that it was the end – there was nothing afterwards. You had experienced how good it had been, but that was in the past. There is another familiar sense of dread that must be acknowledged: What if the ending doesn’t live up to expectations? What if it disappoints? How can it not?

From the look of it, Giaus was about as confused as I was when he found out how this was going to end...

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In Defense of “One Season Wonders”…

Posted on February 15, 2010 by Darren

I’ve been thinking a lot about this lately, what with the US version of Life on Mars ending on FX over the weekend and the rumours that Caprica doesn’t have strong enough ratings to secure a second season. We live in what is increasingly the era of “one season wonders” – television shows that are lucky to get a full season (or maybe a full season and a half) before being unceremoniously dumped from the schedule. It’s easy to look at shows like Firefly and Dollhouse and bemoan executives unwilling to take a chance with edge material, but part of me thinks it might really be for these best. Although maybe I’m trying to put a good spin on a bad situation.

The network may nuke Caprica early...

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Filed under: Television | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments »

Caprica (Pilot)

Posted on February 8, 2010 by Darren

Part of me wonders how a prequel television show is supposed to work. It’s worrying that the only other example which springs to mind is Star Trek: Enterprise, which suffered from failing to explore its premise for three years before finally engaging with the mythos in time to be resoundingly cancelled. I wonder whether I can sit down and watch a prequel day-in and day-out. In a way, no matter how good the show is, it has been spoiled for you. No matter how sharp a left turn the writers may stick into a particular episode, you just know they’ll have to straighten it out down the line. The very premise for Battlestar Galactica is a spoiler for Caprica: mankind is wiped out by the robotic Cylons, former soldiers and slaves who rose up and rebelled. As a result, there’s no suspense when Daniel Grayson finds himself up for a government contract or attempts to crack A.I. – unless the series is a gigantic red herring (and, though I wouldn’t put it past the creators, it is far too early to show their hand if it is), we know that his actions will create robotic killing machines made just a little too perfect.

Oh, the lawyer and the computer genius should be friends... oh, the lawyer and the computer genius should be friends...

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Battlestar Galactica: Razor

Posted on December 17, 2009 by Darren

It’s strange what we carry with us past the end of the world. In The Road, it’s hope for our children carted around inside an old shopping trolley; in 28 Days Later, it’s whatever humanity we can find hiding amid the ruins. For Admiral Helena Cain, what she carries with her after the destruction of her home is what she’s carried with her her whole life: a razor she picked up as a small child to defend herself after the loss of her younger sister. She carries that until she can’t – then she passes it on to her surrogate daughter, who carries it until she can’t. The razor itself is lost with Kendra Shaw, and maybe that’s a good thing. The last member of Cain’s inner circle dies taking all that hatred and aggression and lust for validation and vengeance with her. It’s an important transition. It’s also particularly insightful – given how Battlestar Galactica has generally focused on rebuilding after the fall of society – establishing a functioning democracy, a legal system and even rebuilding Caprica in a form – that this television movie focuses on the flipside of the coin: what humanity takes with it after the fall.

Talk about retro chic...

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All Along The Watchtower – The Perfect Anthem For Battlestar Galactica…

Posted on December 15, 2009 by Darren

I just published my review of the third season of Battlestar Galactica and I thought I’d keep it rather short by divorcing this aspect from my discussion of that year. Basically, anyone familiar with the show should be familiar with the use of All Along The Watchtower at the climax of the third season finale, Crossroads, Part II. Basically four members of the crew start hearing it and quoting it and humming, drawn together by some sort of invisible force, realising that they are indeed four of the five hidden Cylons (the fifth would not be revealed until the final season). What makes the Bob Dylan classic such a perfect song for this fantastic space opera?

What's the score?

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Battlestar Galactica – Season 3

Posted on December 15, 2009 by Darren

“There must be some way out of here,” said the joker to the thief,
“There’s too much confusion, I can’t get no relief.”

- The “Mysterious” Song, Crossroads, Part II

The series continues to be one of the most interesting television phenomenon of the last decade as it enters what is, technically at least, it’s penultimate season. This is the point where mythology-based shows typically come apart, crushed under their own weight – the point where they have to start answering at least some of their own questions, rather than simply posing them to the audience. The problem is, as many shows have found out, answering questions isn’t nearly as fun as posing them. Battlestar Galactica, seemingly afraid of the potential comfort that giving those answers would offer, instead opts to delve even deeper into the rabbit hole – picking answers to questions suggested by earlier events and then using that to move the show forward in a fascinating momentum. Because of this weird combination of answers and deeper questions, the show somehow manages to increase its complexity and its fascination year-after-year.

Full of nebulous concepts...

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Battlestar Galactica: Season 2

Posted on November 22, 2009 by Darren

This isn’t about Sharon. It’s about something much bigger than that. It’s about the long term survival of the Fleet. It’s about the way we conduct ourselves in all of this.

Laura Roslin, Sacrifice

You know, when we fought the Cylons, we did it to save ourselves from extinction. But we never answered the question, why? Why are we as a people worth saving? We still commit murder because of greed, spite, jealousy. And we still visit all of our sins upon our children. We refuse to accept the responsibility for anything that we’ve done.

- Commander Bill Adama, Miniseries

This year, mankind is its own worst enemy. The remnants of humanity are driven to the bring of civil war not once, but twice. The series lands in its sophmore season running, though it seems to run into a bit of bother balancing itself over a full year. That isn’t to say that it isn’t still spectacular television – far from it – but that there are moments here when the series appears to lose focus (if only for an episode or two at a time). Still, it remains one of the most interesting and dynamic television dramas ever conceived.

bsgstorm

It's some kinda storm out there...

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