The penultimate episode of season two has some solid action beats, and some nice emotional arcs, and reminds us that these characters are flawed and human, and that is why we relate to them. There’s also a nice line that explains the appearance of Picard’s (Patrick Stewart) mother in The Next Generation episode Where No…
Author: TD Rideout
Family Ties (1985/1986) – How Do You Sleep?, You’ve Got a Friend, and Nothing But a Man
How Do You Sleep? gives us a cold opening, which is unusual for the show, and gives us Alex (Micheal J. Fox) suffering his sixth night of insomnia. Written by Marc Lawrence, this episode debuted on 12 December, 1985. Alex finds himself struggling, he’s exhausted but is also troubled and worried about all the things…
Star Trek: The Next Generation – Survivors (1989) – Jean Lorrah
The fourth novel in The Next Generation series from Pocket Books is set between the events Arsenal of Freedom and Skin of Evil and gives Tasha Yar more story time than she received in her only season on the show. It also fills out some of her backstory, and while nothing contradicts the established canon,…
Star Trek: Picard (2022) – Monsters, and Mercy
Monsters is probably my least favourite episode of Star Trek: Picard Season Two, and perhaps the whole series in general. It changes several things about Picard’s (Patrick Stewart) established past, though they can be argued the other way, the age of his mother, Yvette (Madeline Wise) when she died, there’s next to no mention of…
Sphere (1998) – Barry Levinson
Having recently reread the original novel by Micheal Crichton, I was kind of eager to take a look at the film adaptation again. I remember being very disappointed with it at the time, but I also don’t recall if I’d read the novel before or after or not. Going into it this time, I knew…
It’s a Wonderful Knife (2023) – Tyler MacIntyre
With a title like It’s a Wonderful Knife, you can tell already what kind of film this is going to be. It plays on the classic Capra film, turns it into a horror movie, and also includes a lot of laughs. It has a solid cast and may become a new holiday favourite for horror…
Avatar: The Last Airbender – Book 1: Water (2005) – The Boy in the Iceberg, The Avatar Returns, and The Southern Air Temple
With the live-action series on the horizon, it seemed like an ideal time to take a look at the original animated series, Avatar: The Last Airbender. Throughout three seasons, the story follows Aang (Zach Tyler Eisen), the Avatar, as he learns the skills he’ll need to stop the war with the aggressive Fire Nation and…
Johnny Mnemonic (1995) – Robert Longo
William Gibson wrote the screenplay for Johnny Mnemonic based on one of his short stories, but you get the impression it changed a lot from what he had written to what ended up on the screen. A lot of the tech seems to be glossed over, and with an hour-and-a-half runtime, this film feels like…
Star Trek: Picard (2022) – Fly Me to the Moon, and Two of One
Jonathan Frakes directs Fly Me to the Moon, which brings us to the halfway marl of season two of Star Trek: Picard, and features a brief cameo by Lea Thompson who directed the previous pair of episodes. Written by Cindy Appel, the episode debuted on 31 March, 2022, and reveals what Picard (Patrick Stewart) has…
Family Ties (1985) – My Tutor, Mr. Right, and Just One Look
River Phoenix guest stars in My Tutor. Written by Jace Richdale, it first debuted on 14 November, 1985. Alex (Micheal J. Fox) is having trouble with advanced geometry (he’s gone from 90% to 89%) and he’s hired a tutor to help him out. Enter thirteen-year-old Eugene (Phoneix), a mathematical genius, who works to help Alex…
The Mind Reels 