Vince Gilligan pens Paper Hearts, one of the best episodes of season four according to stars David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson. It first aired on 15 December, 1996, and earned composer Mark Snow an Emmy nomination. Mulder (Duchovny) has been having very vivid dreams, dreams that lead him to the unmarked grave of a little…
Mission: Impossible (1966) – Pilot, and Memory
Your mission, should you choose to accept it… This week I begin my travels with the original Impossible Mission Force, as I explore The Complete Series on blu-ray available now from Paramount Pictures. The series originally debuted on 17 September, 1966 with the Pilot episode written by the series creator Bruce Geller. We are introduced…
Star Wars: The Last Command (1993) – Timothy Zahn
Five years after the events of The Return of the Jedi, the battle against the Empire continues, as the blossoming New Republic gears up for a final encounter with Grand Admiral Thrawn in the third volume of Timothy Zahn’s trilogy that truly launched the original Star Wars Expanded Universe. While Thrawn plans to cripple the…
Licence to Kill (1989) – John Gardner
James Bond returns this week in John Gardner’s adaptation of the 1989 film, Licence to Kill. This is probably the most disjointed of his novels as he tries to marry his version of the literary 007 to the big screen version, and it doesn’t always work. In fact, throughout the book Bond thinks he must…
Millennium (1996) – Blood Relatives, and The Well-Worn Lock
Frank Black (Lance Henriksen) investigates a series of brutal murders that have a tie-in with a pretender who attempts to connect to people at funerals. Written by Chip Johanessen, Blood Relatives first aired on 6 December, 1996. James Dickerson (Sean Six) attends funerals, pretending to be a friend of the deceased in order to be…
Edge of Tomorrow (2014) – Doug Liman
Tom Cruise, Emily Blunt, Brendan Gleeson and Bill Paxton star in this fun sci-fi action film that plays like an alien war version of Groundhog Day. Cruise stars as Cage, a major in the American army, working as a media adviser, following the beginnings of an alien attack that has taken over most of Europe….
Uncommon Valor (1983) – Ted Kotcheff
Before Chuck Norris and Sylvester Stallone did it, while it was still a bit of a taboo subject for American society, Gene Hackman, to the strains of a James Horner score gathered to him Robert Stack, Patrick Swayze, Harold Sylvester, Fred Ward, Tim Thomerson, Randall Cobb, Reb Brown and Kwan Hi Lim to his side,…
M*A*S*H* (1973) – For the Good of the Outfit, Dr. Pierce and Mr. Hyde, and Kim
Hawkeye (Alan Alda) and Trapper (Wayne Rogers) attempt to take on Army bureaucracy in For the Good of the Outfit. Written by Jerry Mayer, this episode debuted on 6 October, 1973. When the surgeons learn that the civilians they are operating on were bombed by the U.S. Army, Hawk and Trap file a report expecting…
Doomsday (2008) – Neil Marshall
Writer/director Neil Marshall pays homage to Snake Plissken and Mad Max with his actioner, Doomsday, which, as I rewatched it, had an opening that seems incredibly relevant as a pandemic sweeps the UK, and as the virus spreads there are lockdowns, quarantines, and curfews – until the infected are all locked away in Scotland, a…
The X-Files (1996) – Tunguska, and Terma
Frank Spotnitz and series creator Chris Carter bring Mulder (David Duchovny) and Scully (Gillian Anderson) deeper into the mythology arc with Tunguska, which debuted on 24 November, 1996. That duplicitous rat, Krycek (Nicholas Lea) resurfaces, having been freed from the missile silo by an extremist far right group which found him on a salvaging haul….
Chuck (2012) – Versus the Bullet Train, Versus Sarah, Versus the Goodbye
We’re racing to the conclusion this week! Chuck (Zachary Levi) has been captured by Nicholas Quinn (Angus Macfadyen) and is aboard a bullet train in Japan in Chuck Versus the Bullet Train. Written by Nicholas Wootton this episode debuted on 20 January, 2012. Chuck thinks Sarah (Yvonne Strahovski) and Casey (Adam Baldwin) are dead, but…
Star Trek: Federation (1994) – Judith & Garfield Reeves-Stevens
This week’s journey where no one has gone before is an epic novel that combines adventures with the crew of James T. Kirk’s Enterprise, with those of Jean-Luc Picard’s tying it in with the life of Zefram Cochrane, and the efforts of one of Colonel Green’s cadre, Colonel Thorsen. With a wrap-around story that takes…
