Doctor Who: The End of Time Marks the End of an Era In Front and Behind the Cameras.
I am admittedly a multi decade Doctor Who fanboy, but I’m not an irrational one. I do believe that the health of the show since its return in 2005 is generally top-notch. We’ve had the pleasure over the past 5 years of seeing some of the best moments in the nearly half a century since the show’s inception . However, there’s a marked difference between Doctor Who in the 21st century vs. Doctor Who from the first 30 years. The End of Time, is a fitting example of some of the new show’s most enduring strengths and most nagging weaknesses. More importantly, it brings the new show to it’s most critical moment in it’s quest for long term survival, certainly a more critical juncture than the perplexingly sudden departure of Christopher Eccleston after one year in the title role leaking to the press immediately after the series premier.
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Doctor Who-The Waters of Mars: After 46 Years, the Program Still Has Some Shockingly Dark Places to Take Us.
Just one week before the 46th anniversary of Doctor Who you wouldn’t think there’d be many superlatives left. I’ve been an avid fan of the program for 25 years now and I don’t take the quality of the show lightly.
The Russell T. Davies era has brought us multiple superlatives for better and worse. At least two stories since 2005 rank what I consider among the best in the show’s 45 year run. Unfortunately, the lowest point and worst episode in the show’s history also has come out of the RTD era. The Waters of Mars is neither the best nor the worst in the show’s history, but it is far and away the darkest episode in the the series’ long run.
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V Returns to Television After a 20 Year Absence–and It May Have Been Worth the Wait.
It’s with mixed emotion and cautious optimism that I had been anticipating the premiere of ABC’s “re-imagining” of the classic 1980s mini-series V. For those younger than me, which is with each passing moment becoming a larger percentage of the world’s population, I can’t describe how huge the original V was for boys of my age at that time. It fell right in the mind-numbing void that was growing exponentially as we began to realize that the Star Wars saga was over and there was really nothing on the horizon to take it’s place.
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Heroes Season 4 Limps to the Starting Gate: It is Loathsome and Offensive, Yet I Can’t Look Away
I waffled on whether I was going to give up Heroes after the end the season 3 finale. Don’t get me wrong, I thought it actually went out pretty strong relative to how all of season 2 and the first three quarters of season 3 went, but it was still light years behind how incredible of a show this was during it’s first year. I make no bones about the fact that I honestly believe that Heroes demonstrates the most rapid and inexplicable drop in quality I’ve ever seen in any television drama of any type I’ve ever seen. As much as I tried not to give up hope that this thing was repairable, I’ve pretty much lost hope. I may continue watching, but I long ago quite caring. The best thing I can say about the season 4 two-episode opener Orientation and Jump, Push, Fall is that it was relatively dull, which is a heck of a lot better than outlandish, ridiculous, inconsistent and sloppy, which describes the bulk of last two seasons.
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Lost: The Incident Closes Season 5 with 2 Hours of Weirdness and More Questions than Answers
While it wouldn’t be fair to say that I didn’t actually get at least as much if not more guilty enjoyment from the Lost finale more than I did from the season 4 conclusion it leaves the show teetering on the edge of insanity and one push the wrong way could send things about 4 feet to the right of too crazy to enjoy. The real question is that with only a handful more than a dozen hours left in this 6 year saga are ever we going to have more questions answered than raised from week to week? But then again, that’s what the fun is all about.
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Lost: Follow the Leader - Season’s Best is Saved for Second to Last as We Prepare to Nuke the Island.
While it wouldn’t be fair to Lost to say that I haven’t enjoyed the hell out of season 5 so far, I’d be first to admit that the story arc seemed to drag, get distracted and lapse into some odd silliness here and there. I didn’t care for the early season dwelling on the children issues or the whole voodoo ritual that brought Locke back from the dead and got the 5/6ths of the Oceanic Six back to the island. However, It would be incredibly unfair to not admit that Follow the Leader is probably the most entertaining episode of the season if not in the best in several seasons.
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Lost: The Variable. Time Travel Paradoxes Continue to Elude Attempts to Cause Them in the 100th Episode.
It’s official, Daniel Faraday’s mom is a real punk. We have continually seen her behavior get more distasteful and rude over the show’s run, and this time she finally comes within striking distance of Ben Linus as the most hated character in Lostland. Not only does she shoot my current favorite supporting character, it’s her own son.
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Heroes: An Invisible Thread. Take the Fork Out? Maybe This Show Isn’t Quite Done Yet.
I have mixed feelings about the season finale of Heroes, An Invisible Thread. While I certainly think that the show has been on a major course correction since even before Bryan Fuller came back on board, it’s still a long way from having all the pieces put back together. That being said, I was happy and shocked at the size of the testicles this program managed to grow in the closing moments of the season closer. Not only shocked, but almost a bit delighted.
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Caprica Pilot Grounds the Galactica Universe but Still Maintains Dark Themes
For those that are already going through withdrawal from the removal of Battlestar Galactica from their lives, the Sci-Fi Channel is offering fans the unique opportunity to pay $20.00 or more for the pleasure of watching something on DVD they could see for free next year: the pilot to Caprica, the prequel series to Galactica where the audience can experience the 58 years hence doomed human race plotting their own destruction retracing the steps of the creation of the Cylon race.
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Red Dwarf: Back to Earth The Cult Comedy Returns After a 10 Year Hiatus.
The legendary science fiction program Red Dwarf has now officially put three new episodes on the books after a ten year lay off since the cliff hanger ending of series 8. In traditional Red Dwarf fashion, show co-creator Doug Naylor completely ignores the cliffhanger and picks the story up 9 years later with no legit explanations of anything. For the vast majority of shows, this may seem like a cop out, but I prefer to look at it as completely inconsequential to the fact that we had another opportunity to revisit some of the most deliciously pathetic fictional characters ever created for television. Did the return do the show justice?
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