Stargate Universe Episode 9 – titled -Life – wasn’t as good as the last episode but it was still kinda neat.

The background song -It’s been the worst day since yesterday – was so cool at the beginning and at the end it just fit so well.

We know Col Young’s wife was with Telfrod, and get that they had nice fight at the end.

The whole thing with Scott having a son,kinda interesting and just gives us more insight into his troubled nature.

Then there was the Lesbians (with Camille) -

Oh and we found out there is a ship’s slut, though it isn’t Lt. James.

And once again we see that Rush is a scumbag. What’s up with him lying about an icarus type planet a year away?

Overall a decent character development episode for the major SGU characters – though Eli got little screen time.

Life on the Destiny isn’t like other Stargate shows, there aren’t constant attacks by G’ould, wraith or Orii – it’s mostly a lonely existence.

And just in case you want to hear that great song again – it’s from a band called Flogging Molly – enjoy!

The observers are the whole key to the pattern, they’re everywhere in time

but last night’s episode  -..August – well …now we know there are many Observers – which is kinda neat.

But the whole think with the one observer watching the girl from when she was small and then being in ‘love’ with her? COME ON… at worst the dude is a stalker. At best, well he’s still a stalker.

But he did have a cool gun. And now the whole basis of who/what the Observers are is much more clear than it has ever been.

FlashForward really sucked tonight.

Mostly it sucked because it was just a character set-up episode.

Bryce chases his vision all the way to Tokyo and finds nothing while Keiko does the same but only in reverse. Sure that was interesting but it didn’t have to be the whole frakking episode.

Let’s hope the next episode (in two weeks) has a bit more action, otherwise this show won’t make it to 2010.

Yeaah we were waiting for Battlestar Galactica The Plan for months. And yeaah we watched within a few days of its release.

It is so shockingly BAD that it has taken this long for us to have the stomach to write a review.

Battlestar Galactica deserves better than this kind of treatment. I don’t know if Ron Moore was smoking crack when he put this together or what was going on, but it’s totally wrong.

This isn’t a movie – it’s more like a disconnected collection of snippets that make little sense. Sure if watch the movie a few times and try and place each section in the Battlestar Galactica timeline it might start to make sense…eventually.

As a standalone movie this move does not stand at all and is not watchable. It’s that bad.

It could have been called “The Confession of the Ones” but overall it adds nothing to the BSG canon. I think this movie should be labeled by fandom as “The Mistake” and just forget about this frakking pile of bantha fodder.

BSG can do better. Razor was a decent standalone movie that added to the BSG universe in a really cool way. Perhaps after Ron Moore went nuts declaring Kara Thrace and Angel (wtf??!!) he’s no longer sane and isn’t capable of producing decent BSG stuff anymore.

Who is John May? ABC’s V is really picking up steam now with the emergence of the V Fifth Column. We have no idea who John May is, but no doubt he’s well hidden.

The whole Fifth Column thing was the biggest revelation in this third episode of the new V (official episode title is:A Bright New Day

It’s neat that the Fifth Column have member on board the NYC mothership – that was cool and unexpected.

But how did they convince Mary Faulkner to like the V’s? They connected here to their matrix/hub didn’t they? It’s some kind of drug that makes everyone happy.

Last but not least – how about Lisa (played by Toronto actress Laura Vandervoort??

No not a naked scene (this is ABC after all), but still that was …’interesting’.. especially since we now know hooking up with Tyler is all about pleasing her own mom – the leader of the ‘V’ s herself Anna!

Unbelievable!

io9 has what it claims to be a confirmation from George Lucas’ ILM and a frame from the blu-ray version of Star Trek 2009

In real-time play, it’s not even a second long, but it’s clear that everyone’s favorite astromech was on Nero’s ship when the NCC-1701 blasted her to oblivion.

Here’s the thumbnail from io9:

We’ve had our doubts about SGU over the first 7 episodes, and to borrow a line from this episode, ..for a few moments there I thought we were in trouble.

Episode 8, titled Time blew us away. Easily the best episode yet and one of the best Stargate episodes of any stargate series yet.

We’ve got a time loop within a timeloop within a timeloop.

Everyone dies, twice.

How frakking cool is that?

Sure Lt. Scott is the mega hero making sure the Keno gets back in all timelines, but it’s still cool.

The layer upon layer of complexity in this episode is what great science fiction is all about. Decent characters (though a little cheese with Eli and Chloe), aliens ripping out human guts and oh yeah some SCIENCE  FICTION(with the multiple time loops) as opposed to bogus pulp.

Until the very end of this episode i had no idea that Massive Dynamic was the real bad guy…though i suppose it really shouldn’t be a surprise.

Massive Dynamic is the bad guy for the show PERIOD.

Interesting idea though on the multiple tyler clones though…

And it was neat that Walter finally visited Massive Dynamic too.

Our choices matter now more than ever…

Ok after last week’s big episode Tracy is back and we find out that she was chased by Jericho – sorta like blackwater i guess.

But how did she get out of Afghanistan? And

Who is Jericho? and how are they related to the black outs?

And what’s up with the rings? Do they offer the wearers immunity from whatever it is that triggers the black outs?

The first trailer for the remake of the 1981 cult classic Clash of the Titans is now available …and it sure seems to borrow alot of its tone from 300.

Yeaah Medussa is in there and oh yeah the Cracken too

I don’t see Pegasus, but Perseus, Zeus and Cassiopeia are all present and rocking out to a heavy metal sound track too.

It’s official. FOX is cancelling Dollhouse.

Is anyone surprised?

This is FOX after all, they canceled Firefly and from the very first episode (which was awesome), we knew the FRAKKERS at FOX had their fingers on the button to kill this show.

It’s bad enough the show is on hiatus for the whole month of November too, but the plan is have the full 13 episode second season.

Yeaah we’re pissed.

Then again, Joss Whedon kinda screwed us all over with Season Two so far hasn’t he?

Where is Alpha??? what the frak happened btwn the last episode of Season One and the Season Two episodes. Sure as standalone episode a few of them have been great, but continuity is a problem.

Maybe we’re wrong for blaming FOX, maybe we should blame Joss for not executing on the full vision and giving us the show his fans deserve.

The second episode of ABC’s V was another really great episode.

The key character is really shaping up to be FBI Agent Erica Evans played by actress Elizabeth Mitchell.

She’s strong, tough and saavy. And how about that shower scene? No nudity. And that’s a good thing. It means she’s serious and the shows producers are not treating her as some kind of sex object. She’s a hero.

We think that Agent Erica will end up leading the human resistance overall, she’s got what it takes. In many respects, we think she’ll take on the role that Michael Ironside had in the original V series as the tough no-nonsense military leader of the Resistance.

Overall, the sophistication of the series so far is superb. There are so many layers to the plot that it’s clear this show has legs — so long as ABC doesn’t cut this show off at the knees.

Look to Windward is another of Iain M. Banks Culture novels…for us it’s the third one we’ve read behind Consider Phelbas and Use of Weapons, both which were superior books to this one.

Yes the basic premise of this book was interesting – the light from one of the last great battles of the Idiran war from Consider Phelbas is just reaching the Masaq Orbital some 800 years after the fact – that’s kinda neat

the core story though is about the Chel (another alien race), the composer that lives among the culture and the Chel agent come to get him and destroy the orbital.

The story is waaaay to drawn out and at multiple points I was ready to give up. But we know that Banks finishes strongly so we struggled on.

And a struggle it is. Whole chapters make no sense and add little to the plot development.

But the end is a surprise, much like Use of Weapons, it’s an ending that we didn’t see coming at all and changes the way the whole book feels.

I didn’t expect Huyler to be Special Circumstances that was a shocker and the sub-plot with the Culture citizen on the Yolaeus not making it back to warn the Mind was also interesting in its connection.

So no, we didn’t enjoy most of this book while reading it first time through, but with another brilliant conclusion, Banks redeems this book.

Yeaaah we’ll keep reading Banks, the Culture is interesting enough that we want more, but Banks just doesn’t have a consistent quality of writing so hopefully the next book we get will more of a hit than a miss.

That was one strange episode – in that it was all about personal relationships. SGU episode 7 Earth gave us more insight into Destiny’s crew and their history on Earth.

Col Young getting back together with his ex – while inside of Telford’s body was kinda freaky – especially when the communication between the stones was interrupted.

But how about that ending ? With the REAL Telford showing up at Young’s Ex’s door? Are they having their own clandestine relationship that Young didn’t know about?

Weird.

And poor Eli — shafted by Chloe yet again.

But Eli had the best lines in the whole show introducing himself as Phillip Fry – (a clear Futurama reference). Bender would be proud.

Great to have Fringe back, and another fine episode.

So now we know the CIA and Russians have a play in the pattern too.

Somehow the cosmonaut that Broils shot is still alive and now in space somewhere with the ’shadow’ with him – a really neat idea overall.

Is the Shadow related to the watcher? We’ll see.

Also really neat to see Broils on the family side, he always comes off as such a hard a$$, good to know he might not always have been that way.

alreadyghosts.com  the blue hand WOW what a fantastic episode.

The future is not written and now we know for sure.

The death of agent Gough – jumping off the building to change the future and save a mom of two boys was just so startling, we’re still in shock.

But that was nothing in comparison to what Aaron saw was it?

Another shocker.

One of the teases in this episode was the AlreadyGhosts.com website where those that don’t have flash forward come. That site doesn’t actually exist it just re-directs to the ABC site – a shame really. ABC could have built a real viral site there for the show – a missed opportunity for sure.

Overall this show is getting better week by week, the twists and turns in this episode made it the best yet – the new revelation that the future is not definite changes everything too.

Wow – somehow until today no one knew that Wil Wheaton – best known to Star Trek Fans for his work on Next Generation as Ensign Wesley Crusher – was actually in J J Abrams star trek 2009.

Wheaton did the voice over work for the Romulans on Nero’s ship.

Listen in to this clip below to the voice that says, “”Sir, if you ignite the Red Matter now … “

We’re still a few months away until the Battlestar Galactica prequel Caprica – the series gets going on SyFy (Jan 22).

But that’s not stopping SyFy from promoting the show. The latest trailer gives us some interesting insight into the themes for the first season and show us the key terrorist leader Barnabus Greeley

J J Abrams Star Trek makes it to the ‘little’ screen on Nov. 17th.

Alongside the movie itself the DVD release will include a few notable outtakes including the deleted Klingon Scene. They don’t quite look like regular klingons to us, but hey close enough. We’ve included the clip below which aired on the Scream 2009 awards a few weeks back.

The other big thing is a featurette called “The Shatner Conundrum” which is all about why Will Shatner didn’t make it into the movie. It’s still the biggest travesty in my opinion and the featurette doesn’t make it any better

The ABC remake of V kicked off tonight.
No there is no Diana – instead the head of the Vistors is Anna (a Scifi veteran of both Stargate SG-1 and Firefly).

I don’t recall the Visitors in the original series being called the ‘V’s, I also specifically remember the graphitti tagging of V was done by the resistance.

V for victory.

That aside, the visitors are still Lizards, they’re still evil and I figure they’ll still eat human.

The FBI mom Erica is a great character and she puts a strong female face on the resistance. Overall pacing of the show was a little slow and jittery. It lacked a proper flow, the background ambient music was wrong and all the characters at this point are a little stiff.

Still, there is hope for this show, it’s got a bit of a twist on the original, enough to keep us interested. NO this is not a Battlestar Galactica class of re-imagining, but it’ll do for now.

Another decent, but not great episode. Water follows other monosyllabic episode names like light and darkness..and wonder what’s next.

The Destiny loses half of its water and the command staff is checking the crew to see who has taken ..what??

That was dumb. What did Lt. Scott see on ice world (Hoth as Eli called it) when he saw the sand-man? what was that?

dumb.

But how about Choloe and Lt. Scott still shaggin? and then Lt. Vanessa ‘hooters’ James had a nice moment ..but still cheesy. In the first episode she was with Scott in the cleaning room after all..seems kinda dumb.

BUT

This episode did have better pacing than prior episode and the dual plot lines kept up engaged. That said, this show sooner rather than later does need to pick up the pace.

We can’t have every episode as the search for something they’re missing. We can’t have every episode about Chloe and Lt. Scott. We need to see more of Destiny too.

In Stargate Atlantis it too a while for the base team to explore the whole ship. How come they haven’t explored Destiny yet? There has got to be some cool stuff on that ship that we haven’t seen yet.

ok we’re now officially excited about Avatar.
Yeaaah the basic premise – good guy on the wrong side – is a little tired but the added concept of good guy not in his own body is kinda cool

Who doesn’t love ewoks?

It has been 25 years since we saw them in Return of the Jedi and they’ve never been in any other Star Wars movie..but they’re still as popular as ever..

especially when they’re moonwalking (endor-style) drunk

Interesting episode – Lloyd Simcoe finally realizes who Olivia is and the benford’s start to fall apart.

Real big inclusion is the Simon character and our bet is that he’s suspect zero – the guy in the stadium.

We also think that we was talking to Lloyd – suspect 1 during the blackout.

Clearly Lloyd is part of the conspiracy – but we knew that – so the only question is which suspect he is and how many suspect in total there actually will be.

Episode of Stargate Universe – Light -was kinda/sorta interesting.

Yes it SUCKS that Chole didn’t hook up with Eli.

BUT the whole thing with Destiny going through the Corona of a star to recharge was kinda neat – and also obvious.

What bothered us about this episode was how most of the crew just seemed so hopeless. No one was really doing anything. How come no one went to investigate the power source of the Destiny?

More importantly did Rush know?

We think he did.

Know with full solar power again in the Destiny doesn’t that mean the ship’s stargate has enough power to dial Earth?

It makes sense the Destiny can self-replenish its own power, after all the ship has been flying for millions of years. It makes no sense that no one asked the question about what powers Destiny before.

What a great episode – Belonging – directed by Star Trek’s Riker (Johnathan Frakes) showed us how Sierra got into the dollhouse

No that party was freaky and disturbing.

When they returned her to the creep, I though ok this is a sad sack ending. But then having Prija/Sierra kick the dudes butt? That was great.

How/why Sierra ended back in the dollhouse after that is a little bit iffy though. I mean why not just set her free? Then again she’s probably not equipped to live in society anymore – at not until Topher can set her totally free.

Overall a brilliantly written, plotted, acted and directed episode that had a great mix of flashback and current action. We were on the edge of our seat until the end. BRAVO!

-

The fifth episode of Flash Forward ‘ Gimme Some Truth’ was another awesome episode.

Yes, there is a Lesbian revelation and a Lesbian kiss – ok (that’s the resident Lesbo left: Janis Hawk played by beautiful actress Christine Woods)

Moving beyond that we get to understand how the LA FBI office is tied to the White House in a deeper conspiracy than perhaps even the black out.

On the black out we get more intel into what happened in Africa in 1991

And how about that ending? Chinese Triad mobsters shooting our FBI heroes, and the FBI shooting right back.

No it’s not a full cancellation of Dollhouse – but FOX is still messing things up.

Season Two has barely started and now FOX has pulled the show out of the November line-up . Technically it’s not a cancellation, it’s worse.

FOX is putting Echo and the rest of the Dollhouse…

IN THE ATTIC.

Joss Whedon however is still officially optimistic, but then again he was optmistic at one point that Firefly would return to FOX and we know how that worked out.

Here’s what Joss wrote.

Howzabout that schedule? Well, I’m not as depressed as everyone else. We weren’t about to rock sweeps anyway, and though there’s a chilly November, December is CRAZY. It’s like an Advent calendar of episodes! We get November to try to spread the word (which I’ll be leaning on Fox to do, though it’s hard to imagine them doing as good a job as the WhyIWatch guy) and then December is pure gluttony. Plus the episodes line up extremely well in these pairs, and we’ll have an absurdly appropriate lead-in.

Katee ‘Starbuck is a Frakkin Angel’ Sackhofff is coming to the Big Bang Theory.

The word is that she connects with Wolowitz. No word yet if there will be  BIG BANG ..yeaah a weak pun.

The summer glau cameo was a little weak last season but still entertaining.

Last week’s Will Wheaton cameo was hilarious though..

Let’s hope they make light of the whole ‘Starbuck is an Angel’ thing. Would be great to have Sackhoff finally open up about that whole debacle

Eli is the only decent character on Stargate Universe, yet for some reason the producers don’t want to see him happy (yet).

In this week’s episode Chloe (the Senator’s) daughter hooks up with the Lt Scott – instead of Eli. And after Eli showed her where the showers were…how grateful is she?

The episode looks like a typical – ok only x number of you will survive the rest are toast episode that we’ve seen a gazillion times in Stargate shows.

Unless something really great comes out of this episode, Stargate Universe at this early stage is already on the fast track to oblivion and early cancellation.

So far Stargate Universe has been a BUST literally.

The show has been mostly lame, but the ‘bust’ quotient was really high this week in the Darkness
episode.

The biggest culprit was one Lt. Vanessa James who was front and center with her…ahem..assets.

The actress that plays Lt. James - Julia Benson is now on the defense – and oh yes they’re all natural too.

I play 2nd Lt. Vanessa James and for all the talk about my natural (and believe me they are 100%) assets I promise you that there is much more to my character. Who knew that a tank top could cause such a stir.

Wil Weaton aka. Wesley Crusher of Star Trek The Next Generation, made a guest appearance on The Big Bang Theory tonight.

It was hilarious

WHEAAAAAAATTTOOOOONNN!!!

Turns out Sheldon had a vendetta with Wheaton because Wheaton didn’t show up to a Trek Convention in 1995.

So Wheaton end up at a card tournament at the comic book store, and Sheldon and Raj end up facing off against him in the final. The funny part wasn’t so much Wheaton, he was ok.

the funny part was Sheldon with his Star Trek Wrath of Khan lines (and yeah he reminded that Wheaton wasn’t in that movie).

The final twist with Wheaton lying to Sheldon about why he didn’t make the 1995 conference was AWESOME.

And yeah this episode was better than the one with Summer Glau.

Another slow episode – yeah Eli is still great and the whole shower thing was funny too.

The communication stones aspect is interesting and the tension with Col. Telford (Lou Diamond Phillips) is kinda neat.

But the episode was slow and it didn’t make sense

Why weren’t they looking for the ship’s power generator?

Why didn’t they have teams at the SGC helping them with schematics or SOMETHING to try and figure out how to gain control of the ship.

It just doesn’t make sense

Every Stargate series has an episode (or 10) like this one.

The ‘team’ needs something and finds it at the last possible second.

ok it’s not a new idea.

We learn a little more about the characters, but to be honest, we don’t really care about them (yet). They just don’t seem real.

Eli is the early big winner – he’s real and easily the best actor of the bunch – so far.

Ok this episode was a little slower than the other, but still very entertaining.

We now know for sure that Olivia’s flashforward lover is involved in why the flashforward occured in teh first place. And we learn that the babysitter was being drowned – ok that’s neat.

But what happened to the crows?

There certainly is continuity in this show, and there is new stuff too, keeping the balance between the two is what will ultimately make or break this show

Battlestar Galactica the Plan is out on Oct 27 and to help promote the event, Trica Helfner (six) and Grace Park posed for Maxim.

Yeaah hot toasters.

Not only are they posing for some explicit pics, they’re also hinting at some explicit scenese in the upcoming DVD.
Tricia Helfer: There will certainly be a lot more explicit action on the DVD. And I refuse to have a body double, so you will see a little bit of skin from me as the Six character. There’s also a new character you’ll see in some very intense sex scenes.

That’s more than we had expected.

So not only will we finally get the Cylon viewpoint, but we’ll also get more action.

Let’s hope that somehow the whole Starbuck is an angel thing gets blown away by some more sane explanation.

Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic is being cancelled by Dark Horse as of issue 50 in Feb of 2010.

THAT SUCKS.

If anyone needed proof that Dark Horse is run by idiots, here is one prime example.

This series has grown on us as we’ve followed Zayne around. Sure once the conspiracy against him was revealed and Hazen destroyed it hasn’t been as exciting

Sure the artwork hasn’t been consistent and yes we’ve complained about that a dozen times or more in this blog.

But the storytelling was also good if not great.

Dark Horse can’t seem to keep a regular Star Wars title for too long, they get nervous or something and just kill it. It’s not right and we the fans should tell them so.

John Jackson Miller the creator/writer extraordinaire of the series though is optimistic and is promising us all a big finale.

We’ve been working toward the series’ climax for some time, getting pieces into place for the big finale — where we really have pulled out all the stops. Every question posed in the series (at least to my way of thinking) is addressed. I turned in the last script recently and was very pleased with it — it wraps things up for this incarnation pretty close to how I’d always imagined it. Dark Horse has given us marvelous support and creative freedom from Day 1 on this series — and we did everything to make sure things went out with a bang!

One of our favorite series of all time is Issac Asimov’s Foundation.

Both the original Foundation, Foundation and Empire and Second Foundation and then the latter Foundation’s Edge series which tied foundation together to R. Daneel Olivaw the Robot.

In a real sense it was Asimov and The Foundation series that ignited our life long love of SciFi and comics too.

Back in the early 80’s our Favorite comic book store was one called Foundation Comics at Yonge and Lawrence in Toronto.

BUT ENOUGH of that.

A Hollywood adaptation of the Foundation is coming to the big screen at some point in 2011.

In an interview replicated over on SciFi Wire the new director Roland Emmerich doesn’t come off sounding like a total doorknow — though he is clearly a frakkin nugget.

“When you read it [Foundation], … you see all of a sudden how many other science fiction sagas it has influenced, you know? From Star Wars to Dune, all these things are pretty much influenced by Foundation, which was the first of its kind. Which poses a little bit of problem, but it’s definitely something … which you can sink your teeth in. And I was very happy that it became available.”

We’re a little behind the curve here, but have now just watched the first two episodes of Clone Wars Season 2

So far so good.

Though..the plot was a little thin. I mean come ON how could Bain walk out of the Jedi temple without someone sensing him in the Force? That was a bit of a stretch.

Beyond that, another decent coming of age episode for Ashoka and hey Bounty Hunters rock.

The new clone wars has a basic but very enjoyable formula for most shows that just works.

What I’m still really looking forward to seeing are the hints of darkness in Anakin that we have yet to see.

Finally we know what Leonard Nimoy – william bell – told Olivia in the parallel universe.

yeaah it’s a little weird – a war is coming powered by shapeshifting biomechanical hybrids that have mercury in their veins.

And yeaah now we know that someone else knows that Peter belongs on the other side.

But the thing we’ll miss most is Agent Charlie Francis. Sure he’s actually been dead for a while since the shapeshifter took over the body, but still.

The character was a great one a friend for Olivia and another agent in the FBI that had some personality.

Another great episode of FlashForward tonight…the whole letting the Nazi go thing was a little uncomfortable..

BUT

The crows connection was kinda cool. I have not read the Sawyer book, so I don’t know how closely ABC is following along.

AT this stage of the show, i’m hooked so i don’t want to read the book (yet..but I will).

Yeaah a book trailer.  It’s actually a great idea that book publishers (and comic publishers) should consider doing more often.

With Star Wars Death Troopers, the trailers are fan made as a result of a Del-Ray sponsored contest.

We’ll save the time and embed the best one below.  You can go vote for this one yourself over at the delray contest site too. Voting starts on October 9th and will run through October 22.

The Death Troopers book itself is out on Oct 13th

Posted in scifi Tagged: Joe Schreiber, science fiction, scifi, Star Wars, star wars death troopers

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