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neilwadams
Reviews
The Orville: Future Unknown (2022)
A soft finale after a great season
The Orville S3 has been one hell of a ride and I hope we get more, but if not this episode is a fitting send off. Giving each story the time to fully develop has made SM's creation room to breathe. The writing and the performances have been great, and it looks so beautiful on screen. It's a family show, and the family is the crew of the Orville.
I haven't enjoyed a space-set TV series this much since my late discovery of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. And it works for the same reason: that you care about the people in it. And it amuses me that Penny Johnson Jerald plays a character that gets married in both.
The Orville: Midnight Blue (2022)
Riveted from start to finish
Just keeps getting better. This is a movie in itself. Beautifully produced and written. And one hell of a guest star. And so moving. I see the anti-woke warriors are out in force again. Perhaps they are just bots, or soulless minions of orthodoxy perhaps. How anyone could not be moved by this is beyond me.
The Orville: From Unknown Graves (2022)
Wonderful and full of heart - spoiler free
Watching S3 of the Orville at the same time as Strange New Worlds is a slightly eerie experience. Especially when episodes like this crash into you. The story is so beautifully crafted, the writing so good, and it's a prisoner to nobody at all (unlike Star Trek). The humour and the heart are all there and I loved it.
Invasion (2021)
The War of the Worlds with a flourish
I understand that some folk prefer their alien invasions to be a bit more action packed. With heroes and villains and scientists taking their glasses off as they pronounce doom to the president.
Instead we get a character based story in which seemingly ordinary people get to be heroes. The writing is superb and we really and quickly come to empathise with the people as they begin to understand what is happening and why they have to do something.
And I particularly admired the examination of diverse cultural approaches to the same problem of how to defeat the aliens. The aliens themselves are a bit dull. It doesn't matter.
Awaiting the final episode eagerly.
Star Trek: Discovery: Forget Me Not (2020)
Discovery keeps getting better
I hated season 1, enjoyed season 2 though it was incomprehensible, and am loving season 3. It's gone back to school and discovered what Star Trek is all about. Ideas, and the conflict of ideas. Relationships. Diversity, my goodness; in Adira (and Gray) we have a new Uhura, breaking new ground in television history. Best line as usual goes to Georgiou: 'At least the wine was good.' And only a couple of phaser shots on stun makes it the least violent episode so far. Rock on Captain Saru.
Star Trek: Picard (2020)
Star Trek has grown up
Paradise is lost. Or is it? A slow-burning mystery unlike anything we have seen before in Star Trek, appealing to Picard in his Dixon Hill and his philosopher personas. Add Romulans, Borg and we have no idea what happens next, and I'm so intrigued. No simple answers, no wrapping it up in 45 minutes and forgetting the consequences in the next episode. But wait and see. This is Jean-Luc Picard after all. It's grown up stuff. Sorry, chaps, but it reflects the times we are in so well, which is what Star Trek is for.
Star Trek: Discovery (2017)
I'm and old Trek fan and this is growing on me fast
I've watched since I was a kid, and as each new series came out I watched with the same reservations, gradually conquered as the characters grew. This is a modern Star Trek, and it has to be. The world has changed and intelligent television has to change with it.
The visuals are stunning, and very different to the past. No longer a slow panning star ship or a cardboard planet, but fast and confusing as space should be. The crew are growing on me. I don't like Lorca, but I think we're meant not to. It'll be hard for his crew to stay loyal if he stays as a warrior instead of an explorer. Burnham is fantastic. Deeply flawed, feeling her way back into Starfleet, doesn't know where she's headed but determined to bide by Starfleet principles. Saru, Stannet and Tilly are going to be stars. The cute doctor too.
I don't like the Klingons much either.
I'm giving it a firm chance. I understand that many hold a vision in their head of their Star Trek. If this isn't it, well, I'm sorry. But it fits my view of Star Trek, and it dumps many of the worst aspects of the old Trek. It always annoyed me when a plea to reason from Kirk or Picard ended some conflict that had lasted millennia. I don't expect that to happen on Discovery.