Tim Minear delivers his second, and final X-Files this week with Mind’s Eye, which first aired on 19 April, 1998, and earned its guest star, Lili Taylor and its editor, Casey O. Rohrs, Emmy nominations. Agents Mulder (David Duchovny) and Scully (Gillian Anderson) are called in by a detective, Pennock (Blu Mankuma) for help in…
Mission: Impossible (1967) – The Survivors, and The Bank
The second season of Mission: Impossible continues to up its game with The Survivors. In fact, three episodes in, and I feel this second season has a completely different feel from the first. Sure, there’s the arrival of Phelps (Peter Graves) but, so far, the stories feel sharper, arguably more tense, and pretty damned enjoyable….
Blast From the Past (1997) – Raymond Benson
Benson takes over 007’s adventures from John Gardner, and delivered this short story that first appeared in Playboy in 1997. Benson shows that he can tell a Bond story in true Ian Fleming style, though the ending definitely is a little more adult, but hardly surprising given the context of where it was published. James…
Panic (2014) – Lauren Oliver
Lauren Oliver’s Panic is a page-turner on a monumental scale. I can’t remember the last time I was so swept up in the narrative of a story. I had to find out what happened next. As much as I have been enjoying my foray into the tales of Ian Fleming’s 007, and the writings of…
Millennium (1998) – Owls, and Roosters
Glen Morgan and James Wong pen a two-parter, that begins with Owls, that first aired on 6 March, 1998. Lance Henriksen’s Frank Black is pulled deeper into the mythology arc of the series that moves the Millennium Group further from a criminal investigation organisation to something deeper, and mysterious. It seems there are divisions growing…
Fast & Furious (2009) – Justin Lin
The fourth film in The Fast and The Furious franchise brings back members of the core cast of the original film, tying it in with the larger world introduced in the third film (which happens some time after this) and puts Justin Lin in the driver’s seat again. His sense of energy and enthusiasm worked…
Phantasm III: Lord of the Dead (1994) – Don Coscarelli
The Tall Man (Angus Scrimm) returns to the screen for a third time in the second sequel to the 1977 cult phenomenon, Phantasm. The film not only gives viewers a quick recap, it runs us right up to the cliffhanger conclusion of the second film, and then welcomes A. Micheal Baldwin back to the role…
M*A*S*H (1975) – Welcome to Korea Part 1, Part 2, and Change of Command
Season four opened with a two-part premiere that aired on 12 September, 1975. Written by series developer Larry Gelbart as well as James Fritzell and Everett Greenbaum. To deal with Trapper’s (Wayne Rogers) abrupt departure from the series, as well as Blake’s (McLean Stevenson) leaving for home, the episode had to reintroduce the series (again)…
Friday the 13th: A New Beginning (1985) – Danny Steinmann
1985 gave us perhaps the worst entry in the Friday the 13th franchise. The fifth film, in the series, delivers us a Jason movie without Jason in it. The story picks up a half a decade (?) after the previous film as Tommy (played by Corey Feldman in the previous film, and briefly in this…
The X-Files (1998) – The Red and the Black, and Travelers
“Resist or Serve” Series creator, Chris Carter, serves as a director of this mythology episode which he co-wrote with Frank Spotnitz. It debuted on 8 March, 1998. While Mulder (David Duchovny) struggles with his belief, and is convinced his life has been wasted pursuing a lie covering a government agenda, Scully (Gillian Anderson) undergoes hypnosis…
Mission: Impossible (1967) – The Widow, and Trek
Season two of Mission: Impossible launched on 10 September, 1967, with The Widow written by Barney Slater. Viewers knew right away that something had changed, Dan Briggs (Steven Hill) was replaced without explanation by Peter Graves, taking command of the IMF team as Jim Phelps, and Martin Landau finds himself in the opening credits, right…
Star Trek: The Ashes of Eden (1995) – William Shatner, with Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens
This week, I take my first step into what became known as the Shatner-verse, a series of Star Trek novels written by Captain Kirk himself, with the aid of Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens. Set some months after the events of The Undiscovered Country but before the opening of Generations, Kirk isn’t doing to well with…
