Series creator Chris Carter and Frank Spotnitz pen Per Manum, a tale that puts Gillian Anderson’s Scully front and center, as Doggett (Robert Patrick) brings her a case that seems to match her own abduction experiences exactly, and plays out horrifically for the abductee. First airing on 18 February, 2001, the episode also featured an…
Mission: Impossible (1969) – Illusion, and The Interrogator
Phelps (Peter Graves) and his IMF team go undercover in an Eastern European country, that looks like it gets its uniforms from the Nazis, in Illusion. Written by Laurence Heath, this episode first aired on 13 April, 1969. The team are seeking to remove two political officers, who are scheming against each other for control…
Star Wars: The Life Day Cookbook (2021) – Jenn Fujikawa, and Marc Sumerak
A long time ago, in 1978, in a galaxy not so far away, many of us were scarred for life, by watching, with our indulging families, The Star Wars Holiday Special, an abomination that has never been re-aired, though it’s animated sequence introduced us to Boba Fett before he arrived in 1980’s The Empire Strikes…
Star Trek: Picard – The Dark Veil (2021) – James Swallow
Simon & Schuster delivers another tale set before the first season of Star Trek: Picard with The Dark Veil by James Swallow, this time centering the story on the U.S.S. Titan, and her captain William T. Riker, its counsellor, and the captain’s wife, Deanna Troi, their young sun Thaddeus (which makes what we learn of…
The X-Files (2001) – The Gift, and Medusa
Mulder (David Duchovny) is back! At least in flashbacks he is, as Doggett (Robert Patrick), Scully (Gillian Anderson) and Skinner (Mitch Pileggi) continue their search for the missing agent, and a case he was working on before his disappearance. Frank Spotnitz pens The Gift, which first aired on 4 February, 2001. While Scully continues to…
A Classic Horror Story (2021) – Roberto De Feo, and Paolo Strippoli
I love taking a look at foreign horror films, because all filmmakers approach the genre from their own experiences, their culture, and their influences, and what scares some people may only be entertaining to others. The Italian film, A Classic Horror Story, plays our very enjoyable, and has a couple of shifts from horror sub-genre…
Willy’s Wonderland (2021) – Kevin Lewis
Silly, goofy, and wonderfully over-the-top, the horror film, Willy’s Wonderland, is just a romp that doesn’t take itself, or the world it exists in very seriously, and it’s star, Nicholas Cage, doesn’t say a word through the entire film. His character, known only in the credits as The Janitor, is a bad-ass looking guy who’s…
M*A*S*H (1978) – Mail Call Three, Temporary Duty, and Potter’s Retirement
Everett Greenbaum and James Fritzell delivered Mail Call Three, which aired on 6 February, 1978. After a long delayed delivery of mail, a number of problems arrive with the envelopes. Hawkeye (Alan Alda) has been receiving love letters meant for another Benjamin Pierce, which he reads with lustful joy. B.J. (Mike Farrell) learns that a…
Highlander (1986) – Russell Mulcahy
Highlander. Man I love this movie. I remember the first time I saw it. I had barely heard of it when I went to hang out with some new/old friends (story there for another time) and they put this movie on to wile away an afternoon. I was completely swept up in it, how cool…
The X-Files (2001) – Salvage, and Badlaa
These two entries in The X-Files, while solid, failed to engage me as the previous stories of the season, and the series did. It’s not for lack of performances, I just wasn’t captivated by them, and they both seemed to circle around concepts of revenge. Salvage was written by Jeffrey Bell, and first aired on…
The Mind Reels 