This week brings is the conclusion of season two of M*A*S*H, and we get started with George. Written by John W. Regier and Gary Markowitz this episode first aired on 16 February, 1974. In a groundbreaking episode, for the time, the story took on the subject of gays in the military. Hawkeye (Alan Alda) learns…
Author: TD Rideout
The Expendables 3 (2014) – Patrick Hughes
Dropping their hard R rating, The Expendables are back for a third go round, and Sylvester Stallone returns with a star studded cast that kind of makes up for the lack of gore, but you still find yourself wishing for it anyway. This time it’s personal when Barney Ross (Stallone) leads his mercenary team on…
The X-Files (1997) – Small Potatoes, and Zero Sum
Small Potatoes brings back fan favourite writer Darin Morgan, this time in an acting role, in a script penned for him by Vince Gilligan. First debuting on 20 April, 1997, Mulder (David Duchovny) and Scully (Gillian Anderson) get to delve into a comic episode that sees them encountering Eddie Van Blundht (Morgan) after they investigate…
Mission: Impossible (1966) – Zubrovnik’s Ghost, and Fakeout
Who ya gonna call? Apparently, this time, it’s the IMF team of Rollin (Martin Landau) and Barney (Greg Morris) as I accept the mission from Paramount Pictures to explore Mission: Impossible – The Complete Series on blu-ray. Rollin and Barney are joined by a psychic consultant, Ariana Domi (Martine Bartlett) in Zubrovnik’s Ghost. Written by…
Battlestar Galactica 2: The Cylon Death Machine (1979) – Robert Thurston and Glen A. Larson
Robert Thurston delivers another adaptation from Glen A. Larson’s classic science fiction series, Battlestar Galactica. This time it’s the huge two part episode called Gun On Ice Planet Zero. Much like the adaptation of the original series launch, Saga of a Star World, Thurston’s novel has a number of differences from the episodes (and wasn’t…
The Mystery of the Blue Train (1928) – Agatha Christie
Before Hercule Poirot took the Orient Express, he found himself on the Blue Train, sans Hastings, in a mystery that has a murder, missing jewels, stagecraft, thieves, divorces, a love story, rich Americans, and devious criminals. While not quite the romp of Poirot’s previous tales, this story was fun, and while most of the clues…
Millennium (1997) – Walkabout, and Lamentation
Walkabout written by Chip Johannessen and Tim Tankosic is a bit of a different story for Frank Black (Lance Henriksen). First airing on 28 March, 1997 the story sees Frank awaking covered in blood and no real memory of the past few days. As he and Peter (Terry O’Quinn) begin to investigate, they discover something…
Lethal Weapon 4 (1998) – Richard Donner
The gang is back together one last time for a less than stellar send off, but still a mostly satisfying conclusion to the Lethal Weapon series. With age creeping up on both Riggs (Mel Gibson) and Murtaugh (Danny Glover) they are thrown into a case that is going to push them to their limits. The…
Iron Eagle (1986) – Sidney J. Furie
Shortly before Top Gun hit theatres, another jet fighter movie took to the skies, this time it was the F-16 Eagle, in the military fantasy, Iron Eagle. I say fantasy, because this film pretty much embodies every young boy’s dream of being a hero, of going against impossible odds, and proving to his father that…
M*A*S*H (1974) – The Chosen People, As You Were, and Crisis
Radar (Gary Burghoff) has some problems in The Chosen People. Written by Laurence Marks, Sheldon Keller and series developer Larry Gelbart from a story by Gerry Renert and Jeff Wilhem, this episode premiered on 26 January, 1974. When a Korean family moves on to the 4077th, it throws the unit into upheaval, and unfortunately doesn’t…
