Aid Station written by series developer Larry Gelbart and Simon Muntner is an exemplary episode that first hit the airwaves on 11 February, 1975. The entire camp is unhappy with the state of everything, though it is the food and coffee that most of the complaints are centred around. The O.R. is packed, and wounded…
Over the Top (1987) – Menahem Golan
Sylvester Stallone stars in this corny, overly sentimental flick that is totally 80s. I know this because it features a song on the soundtrack by Kenny Loggins, and all the best movies of the 80s did. This time around Sly is a truck driver, Lincoln Hawk who is planning in entering the world arm wrestling…
The X-Files (1998) – Chinga, and Kill Switch
This week’s instalment features episodes written by two guest writers. First up is Chinga which was written by Stephen King and given an X-files polish by series creator Chris Carter. The episode first debuted on 8 February, 1998. Predominantly a Scully (Gillian Anderson) story, with a bored Mulder (David Duchovny) popping up every now and…
Mission: Impossible (1967) – Shock!, and A Cube of Sugar
This week’s first mission feels very much familiar in that it hits a number of Mission: Impossible tropes, the mask, the con, the danger and then the resolution. Not that it isn’t fun! Shock! was written by Laurence Heath and was first broadcast on 25 March, 1967. Dan Briggs (Steven Hill) and his usual team,…
Star Wars: The Courtship of Princess Leia (1994) – Dave Wolverton
A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away… Set four years after the events of The Return of the Jedi, this story just never sat well with me. I picked up a lot of the original Expanded Universe novels as they came out, and I can remember bits and pieces of them, and…
GoldenEye (1995) – John Gardner
John Gardner’s penultimate 007 novel is a short, uninspired adaptation of the 1995 film, GoldenEye which saw Pierce Brosnan finally step into the shoes of James Bond. I’m not sure if Gardner was simply tired of writing Bond books at this point, or if he was less than impressed with the film’s script and was…
Millennium (1997) – Jose Chung’s ‘Doomsday Defense,’ and Midnight of the Century
Darin Morgan brings his creation Jose Chung (Charles Nelson Reilly) into Frank Black’s (Lance Henriksen) orbit with Jose Chung’s ‘Doomsday Defense’ which Morgan wrote and first aired on 12 November, 1997. Like the classic X-Files episode that features the character, this story is funny, satiric, and of course, because it’s Millennium, has a bit of…
The Dead Pool (1988) – Buddy Van Horn
Dirty Harry Callahan (Clint Eastwood) is back for one more go around in 1988’s The Dead Pool. And of all the sequels following Magnum Force, this is probably my favourite of the bunch. It’s a little sleeker, has the best cast since Magnum Force, and Harry isn’t quite as much a racist ass as he…
Silverado (1985) – Lawrence Kasdan
Occasionally a film comes along and revitalises the genre. Eastwood would return to the western trough countless times before he revitalised it with his own take on it, Unforgiven, but in the mid-80s, that shake-up was left to Lawrence Kasdan and his brother Mark. Lawrence had his fingers in Raiders of the Lost Ark, and…
M*A*S*H (1975) – Bulletin Board, The Consultant, and House Arrest
Alan Alda steps behind the camera to direct Bulletin Board, a bit of a vignette episode written by Simon Muntner and series developer Larry Gelbart. It debuted on 14 January, 1975. Trapper (Wayne Rogers) is writing a letter home to his kids (and occasionally smooching a nurse or two), Frank (Larry Linville) and Margaret (Loretta…
The Mind Reels 