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Star Trek: Enterprise – Dead Stop (Review)

Posted on April 6, 2015 by Darren

Next year, Star Trek is fifty years old. We have some special stuff planned for that, but – in the meantime – we’re reviewing all of Star Trek: Enterprise this year as something of a prequel to that anniversary. This April, we’re doing the second season. Check back daily for the latest review.

Dead Stop is an interesting beast.

One of the stronger episodes from the second season of Star Trek: Enterprise, Dead Stop follows on directly from the events of the previous episode without serving as a direct continuation. It is very rare to see this approach taken on Star Trek, and it’s the perfect example of the sort of episode-to-episode connections that were lacking during the show’s first two seasons. Dead Stop is not a direct follow-on to Minefield, but it is fascinated with the fallout from that episode.

A model ship…

And yet, despite this, Dead Stop is also based around one of the most generic premises imaginable – a sentient space station with a sinister agenda. With a few choice edits, the premise could easily be adapted for Star Trek: The Next Generation or Star Trek: Voyager. Indeed, it’s not too difficult to imagine Kirk and Spock dealing with the rogue space station at some point during their five year mission. It is a story that could – in broad strokes – even work for a television anthology series.

The beauty of Dead Stop is the way that it blends these two conflicting elements together, to construct a show that feels like it showcases the best parts of Enterprise while working from a core story that could be told across the franchise.

Piecing it together…

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Filed under: Enterprise | Tagged: Archer, body horror, continuity, dead stop, deadstop, enterprise, mike sussman, phyllis strong, review, roxanne dawson, sixties, star trek, star trek: enterprise, Television, travis mayweather, trip | 6 Comments »

The X-Files – Død Kälm (Review)

Posted on August 27, 2014 by Darren

This August (and a little of September), we’re taking a trip back in time to review the second season of The X-Files. In November, we’ll be looking at the third season. And maybe more.

Død Kälm is probably the most explicitly “science-fiction-y” premise that we’ve had in the show’s run to date. And by “science-fiction-y”, I don’t necessarily mean “anchored in any meaningful science.” After all, the amount of sense that Død Kälm makes is questionable at best. Instead, the term “science-fiction-y” means “most likely to pop up in a pulpy science-fiction television show.”

The past few episodes have seen the show on a bit of a science-fiction kick, with clones and colonists and invisible abducted zoo animals. However “accelerated aging” is such a science-fiction staple that it feels like The X-Files is enthusiastically embracing science-fiction conventions at this point in the second season.

Old school…

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Filed under: The X-Files | Tagged: accelerated ageing, accerlating aging, bermuda triangle, body horror, Cold War, Død Kälm, dead calm, john savage, make-up, maritime, mulder, myth, scully, sea, second world war, special effects, the philadelphia experiment, the x-files, x-files | 8 Comments »

The X-Files – Firewalker (Review)

Posted on August 13, 2014 by Darren

This August (and a little of September), we’re taking a trip back in time to review the second season of The X-Files. In November, we’ll be looking at the third season. And maybe more.

Firewalker is a perfectly solid episode of The X-Files.

The problem is that Firewalker needs to be so much more than “solid.” It’s the first show of the season that has Mulder and Scully working together on an X-file. Nine episodes into the season, the show has finally put the two characters together and dropped them into a regular episodic adventure plot. Scully is back. There is no Cigarette-Smoking Man, no Skinner, no Krycek. The show had waited more than two months to get back to the familiar formula, so there was a palpable sense of anticipation.

Burn, baby, burn…

To be fair to Firewalker, there’s a lot to like here. It’s a nice paranoia thriller, one that could easily serve as a text book example of a stand-alone X-Files episode. As you might expect from a script by Howard Gordon, Firewalker is also a nice character study for Mulder. It has a phenomenal guest cast – featuring actors like Bradley Whitford, Leland Orser and Shawnee Smith. On paper, Firewalker is a great episode of The X-Files. Divorced from context, it holds up rather well.

Unfortunately, Firewalker can’t be divorced from context. The episode has quite a few glaring problems. It seems a little disappointing that the first episode after Gillian Anderson’s return to full-time work on the show is a character study of Mulder. The plot is just a little too archetypal, feeling like a retread of Ice from the first season. The episode tries to get back to business as usual without bother to unpack everything that has happened since The Erlenmeyer Flask.

Into darkness…

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Filed under: The X-Files | Tagged: body horror, David Nutter, firewalker, fungus, Glen Morgan, Howard Gordon, ice, James Wong, reproductive horror, spores, the x-files, x-files | 3 Comments »

Non-Review Review: Devil’s Due

Posted on January 19, 2014 by Darren

The single biggest problem with Devil’s Due is that it’s boring.

There are a lot of other flaws. It’s really creepily xenophobic. It has little interest in the female character carrying this baby. It is completely uninterested in the “found footage” thing, but still commits to using it. It is really just a bunch of clichés that we’ve seen done much better elsewhere. Its protagonists rank incredibly low on the intelligence scale for horror movies, which sets a pretty low baseline to begin with.

However, the most frustrating flaw with this reproductive horror is the fact that it’s just deathly dull.

The belly of the beast…

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: antichrist, body horror, devil's due, film, horror, Movie, non-review review, pregnancy, reproductive horror, review, Satan | 5 Comments »

Non-Review Review: Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978)

Posted on May 12, 2011 by Darren

The Invasion of the Body Snatchers is a wonderful science-fiction premise, so it’s really no wonder that the story has been taken to the big and small screens so often. It’s a great example of how a story can strike different notes in different eras, and how something can easily be about one thing in one era, and take on an entirely different meaning in a later one. The 1978 adaptation is a wonderful piece of high-concept science-fiction, which skilfully takes the ideas from the original classic film, and shakes them around just a little bit.

It's a scream!

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: aliens, body horror, edgar wright, films, horror, invasion, Invasion of Body Snatchers, jeff goldblum, Kevin McCarthy, Leonard Nimoy, Movies, non-review review, Pod People, review, shaun of the dead, Veronica Cartwright | 3 Comments »

Non-Review Review: Black Swan

Posted on February 16, 2011 by Darren

We’re currently blogging as part of the “For the Love of Film Noir” blogathon (hosted by Ferdy on Films and The Self-Styled Siren) to raise money to help restore the 1950’s film noir The Sound of Fury (aka Try and Get Me). It’s a good cause which’ll help preserve our rich cinematic heritage for the ages, and you can donate by clicking here. Over the course of the event, running from 14th through 21st February, I’m taking a look at the more modern films that have been inspired or shaped by noir. Today’s theme is “alterna-noir” – just looking at slightly unusual choices.

Wow. That was disturbing. It’s really rare to get such a strong reaction to a film, and to feel so distinctly uncomfortable. Well, it’s easy to feel distinctly uncomfortable – rent a Lars Von Trier film or The Human Centipede. However, the Black Swan feels bold and vivid and disturbing, without ever feeling cheap. It seems to be a very tough line to walk (especially given some of the sequences which could be deemed “trashy” in the hands of lesser directors), but the Black Swan manages to make the viewer squirm in their seats without ever feeling dirty.