Television | the m0vie blog

Star Trek: The Next Generation – The Best of Both Worlds, Part II (Review)

Posted on March 5, 2014 by Darren

This January and February, we’ll be finishing up our look at the second season of Star Trek: The Next Generation and moving on to the third year of the show, both recently and lovingly remastered for high definition. Check back daily for the latest review.

The Best of Both Worlds, Part II was always going to feel like a bit of an anti-climax. After all, the show had spent so much time building up the Borg as this implacable and undefeatable adversary. In Q Who?, it had taken the interference of a god-like entity to allow the Enterprise a chance to escape their unstoppable foe. In The Best of Both Worlds, Part I, the Enterprise had been able to run for a while – but the Borg eventually caught up with them and took what they wanted.

Since The Best of Both Worlds, Part II was never going to end with the Borg destroying Earth, and since Star Trek: The Next Generation was never going to be a show willing to exact a dramatic cost high enough to justify victory against such overwhelming odds, the resolution to the two-parter was never going to live up to the heightened drama and impossible stakes suggested by The Best of Both Worlds, Part I.

Still, the second part of the adventure is charming and exciting enough that it never completely falls apart. While the resolution to the crisis does seem a little trite and convenient, The Best of Both Worlds hangs together as the show’s best two-part adventure until at least Chain of Command in the sixth season.

A Number One fan?

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Filed under: The Next Generation | Tagged: Commander, Earth, episode, family, home, jean-luc picard, locutus, locutus of borg, Michael Piller, picard, review, Riker, sector 001, shelby, star trek, star trek: the next generation, Television, the borg, wolf 359 | 14 Comments »

Star Trek: The Next Generation – Season 3 (Review)

Posted on March 4, 2014 by Darren

The third season is on a very short list of contenders for “the best season of Star Trek ever produced.” Maybe one or two other Star Trek: The Next Generation seasons make the list, maybe the first two seasons of the original Star Trek and maybe two seasons of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. From beginning to end, the third season of The Next Generation hangs together remarkably well, churning out consistently entertaining adventures and several runs of truly classic episodes.

There are two main stretches in the season where the show produces episodes that could legitimately be ranked as the best of The Next Generation. The first comes around the midpoint of the season, from Yesterday’s Enterprise through to Sins of the Father, all episodes that would not look out of place on a “top ten episodes of The Next Generation” list. The second runs from Tin Man through to Sarek. And that’s ignoring the wonderful gems scattered throughout the season, from The Defector and The Hunted through to The Best of Both Worlds.

Of course, one of the most impressive aspects of the third season is the fact that the consistent quality visible on the television screen belies the chaos unfolding behind the scenes. The third season was a deeply troubled year of television, with plenty of unfortunate conflicts and moments of sheer desperation from the creative team. Perhaps the most wonderful demonstration of how far the show has come is obvious in the consistent professional quality of the output.

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Filed under: The Next Generation | Tagged: 1989, 1990, characters, gene roddenberry, Ira Steven Behr, Michael Piller, ronald d. moore, sexism, star trek, star trek: deep space nine, star trek: the enext generation, subversion, Television, the borg, the next generation, utopianism | 6 Comments »

Star Trek: The Next Generation – The Best of Both Worlds, Part I (Review)

Posted on March 3, 2014 by Darren

So we’re here. It’s the end of the third season of Star Trek: The Next Generation, the season where the show really kicked into gear. After a decidedly uneven first and second seasons, where moments of brilliance blended with hours of tedium, the show had really pulled its act together. Even the weakest hours of the season where still competently produced, the average quality increased significantly and the stronger episodes just hit it out of the park.

The Best of Both Worlds is really just the cherry on top. But it’s one hell of a cherry.

He’s looking right at us…

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Filed under: The Next Generation | Tagged: best of both worlds, borg, borg collective, cliffhangers, colonialism, fans, jean-luc picard, locutus, Michael Piller, patrick stewart, picard, Q Who, star trek, star trek: the next generation, Television, the best of both worlds | 8 Comments »

Star Trek: The Next Generation – Sarek (Review)

Posted on February 26, 2014 by Darren

Sarek is a rather wonderful episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation. It’s a celebration of the franchise’s history, but without being overwhelmed by the weight of continuity. It’s also a heart-breaking story about an old man coming to terms with his mortality, assessing the legacy that he leaves behind and the future he had hoped to shape. The beauty of Sarek, then, is the way that the episode ties these two threads together – offering a rather touching metaphorical exploration of Gene Roddenberry’s own influence on the franchise and his own deteriorating health.

Back to the future…

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Filed under: The Next Generation | Tagged: Emotion, gene roddenberry, Ira Steven Behr, Michael Piller, patrick stewart, picard, Sarek, spock, star trek, star trek: the next generation, star trek: the original series, Television, the next generation, tng, tos, Vulcans | 2 Comments »

Star Trek: The Next Generation – The Most Toys (Review)

Posted on February 25, 2014 by Darren

In a way, The Most Toys feels like the other side of the coin to Hollow Pursuits. One of the more interesting aspects of Hollow Pursuits is the way that it casts guest character Reginald Barclay as something of a Star Trek fan. He escapes from his mundane existence into a fantasy world where he tells his own stories about the crew, succumbing to various fan fiction clichés. The Most Toys is also built around a guest character who seems to have been written as a Star Trek fan, albeit a lot less pleasant sort of type than Barclay.

Fajo is a collector, you see.

An honest trader? Fajo chance!

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Filed under: The Next Generation | Tagged: Brent Spiner, collectibles, Data, david rappaport, fajo, kivas fajo, saul rubinek, star trek, star trek fandom, star trek fans, star trek: the next generation, Television, the most toys, the next generation, Theft, trekkers, trekkies, tv | Leave a comment »

Star Trek: The Next Generation – Tin Man (Review)

Posted on February 21, 2014 by Darren

Tin Man is an interesting piece of science-fiction situated towards the end of the third season of Star Trek: The Next Generation. Michael Piller’s focus on character general shifted the show a little bit away from science-fiction high-concepts, with Tin Man feeling like something of a companion piece to the science-fiction mystery of The Survivors. It’s a story about the wonders of the universe, a rather eloquent (and underrated) celebration of the limitless potential that exists out in the cosmos.

This no the Tam or the place…

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Filed under: The Next Generation | Tagged: harry groening, high concepts, romulans, science fiction, star trek, star trek: the next generation, Television, the next generation, tin man, tin woodsman | 15 Comments »

Star Trek: The Next Generation – The Offspring (Review)

Posted on February 17, 2014 by Darren

The Offspring is an absolutely wonderful piece of Star Trek. In many ways, it is a spiritual successor to The Measure of a Man, the breakout show of the second season. (This similarity was one of the factors that led writer and script editor Melinda Snodgrass to harshly dismiss it as “fairly obvious and tired and stupid” in Captains’ Logs: The Unauthorized Complete Trek Voyages.) Sitting between two of the more epic and sweeping stories in the third season, The Offspring is a touching little story about parenting and childhood, and a nice character episode for Data.

It remains one of the most touching episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation ever produced, and a fitting debut for both future staff writer René Echevarria and soon-to-be-prolific Star Trek director Jonathan Frakes.

Building a loving family…

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Filed under: The Next Generation | Tagged: androids, beloved, brent spine, Data, Jonathan Frakes, lal, Michael Piller, nineties, Offspring, René Echevarria, rene echivarria, robotics, ronald d. moore, star trek, star trek: the next generation, Television, the offspring | 5 Comments »

Star Trek: The Next Generation – Shades of Grey (Review)

Posted on January 23, 2014 by Darren

Well. That’s over now. Star Trek: The Next Generation limps across the finish line of its second season with a compilation clip show designed to save money and keep the season’s episode count up. Shades of Grey is frequently cited as the worst episode not just of the second season of The Next Generation, but of the show as a whole. While it’s hard to entirely agree with this assessment – Shades of Grey is cynical and lazy, but it’s neither as sexist as Angel One or The Child nor as racist as Code of Honour or Up the Long Ladder – it is possible to see where that argument comes from.

Like the first season before it, there’s a sense that the second season of The Next Generation might have been better had it ended an episode earlier. Indeed, the second season could have ended with Q Who? and the only episode anybody would really miss would be The Emissary. Unfortunately, one imagines the syndication agreements and network policy made this impossible. While one suspects many of those involved would be happy if Shades of Grey simply faded from existence, it remains part of the show’s syndication package.

This is a little like what this episode feels like…

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Filed under: The Next Generation | Tagged: action, arts, borg, Cinefantastique, DVD, february, games, grey, Hulu, matt groening, Maurice Hurley, Michael Piller, Next Generation, Q Who, Rob Bowman, Space Combat, star trek, Star Trek Games, Star Trek Next Generation, star trek: the next generation, StarTrek, Television, Tracy Tormé, Video game, video games, youtube | Leave a comment »

Doctor Who: The Curse of Fenric – Special Edition (Review)

Posted on December 11, 2013 by Darren

To celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the longest-running science-fiction show in the world, I’ll be taking weekly looks at some of my own personal favourite stories and arcs, from the old and new series, with a view to encapsulating the sublime, the clever and the fiendishly odd of the BBC’s Doctor Who.

The Curse of Fenric originally aired in 1989. The special edition cut of the episode was released on DVD in 2003.

I’ve said it a lot over this past year, but you really have to be incredibly grateful for the wonderful team behind the classic Doctor Who DVD releases. Not only do they loving restore classic adventures that might be forgotten to the ages, and not only do they packages the episodes with buckets of in-depth and lovingly-made featurettes, but they also occasionally revisit classic serials to bring them up-to-date, or to move them more in line with the director or writer’s artistic vision. Sure, some of these “special editions” occur in the most random of places (Planet of Fire, anyone?) or simply to remove a few technical impairments holding a story back from being an entertaining romp (as in Day of the Daleks), but occasionally they do something more substantial. In this instance, they make a great adventure into something truly spectacular.

This is not a drill…

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Filed under: Television | Tagged: Andrew Cartmel, arts, bbc, doctor who, DoctorWho, Ian Briggs, John Nathan Turner, russell t. davies, Sylvester McCoy, Television, the curse of fenric | 1 Comment »

Non-Review Review: One Chance

Posted on October 22, 2013 by Darren

It’s very easy to dismiss reality television. Personally, I wouldn’t be the hugest fan of the genre. However, it’s worth remarking that – in the right hands – it can be elevated to an artform. While the use of the word “reality” is applied loosely, it comes with its own narrative conventions – its own strengths and limitations. Carefully micro-managed, painstakingly edited and even sometimes clumsily scripted, reality television is simply another format of televisual entertainment.

It’s not that reality lacks a central crafted narrative or story arcs or character beats. These exist in reality television, albeit in a hyper-stylised meta-textual form. Just as some might advise you to read A Song of Ice and Fire to fully appreciate Game of Thrones, the meta-narrative from reality television spills out the side of the television set, unfolding in tabloids or gossip website. Characters are defined as rigidly, arcs are plotted just as carefully, it’s just that the narrative is crafted differently than it would be in an hour-long scripted drama or a half-hour sit-com.

One Chance, then, feels like the feature length adaptation of one such narrative. The story of Britain’s Got Talent winner Paul Potts (“like the Cambodian dictator?” a nurse inquires in the opening scene), One Chance often feels more like the adaptation of a much-loved novel than an attempt to tell a true story.