Stargate: Atlantis (2007) – The Return: Part 2, and Echoes

Stargate: Atlantis returned from its mid-season break on 13 April, 2007 with the second part of The Return. Written by Martin Gero, the story sees Sheppard (Joe Flanigan), Weir (Torri Higginson), McKay (David Hewlett), Beckett (Paul McGillion), Teyla (Rachel Luttrell) and Ronon (Jason Momoa) leading the charge to rescue O’Neill (Richard Dean Anderson), Woolsey (Robert…

The First Power (1990) – Robert Resnikoff

I did Lou Diamond Phillips, and somewhere in Robert Resnikoff’s The First Power is a solid supernatural police thriller. But everything in it is painfully familiar, though some of it, like the visions characters have are strongly created. Phillips is Russell Logan a Los Angeles homicide cop who has been tracking a serial murderer christened…

Deathtrap (1982) – Sidney Lumet

Ira Levin’s whip-smart stage play, Deathtrap, was adapted for the big-screen and saw Michael Caine square-off against Christopher Reeve in this captivating cat-and-mouse, twisting thriller. Micheal Caine is playwright, Sidney Bruhl. He’s just had his latest stage thriller flop on opening night. It’s his latest failure in a string of them. Things are exacerbated, when…

Thir13en Ghosts (2001) – Steve Beck

Executive producers Robert Zemeckis and Joel Silver were fans of William Castle films from the 50s and 60s and they set about creating remakes of some of the cult classic films he, which all featured some kind of tweak to get audiences in seats. Under the name Dark Castle Entertainment, the first remake was The…

Magnum P.I. (2021) – Cry Murder, and Whispers of Death

Peter Weller returns to the director’s chair for Cry Murder. Written by series showrunners Peter M. Lenkov and Eric Guggenheim from a story by Emily Singer, it first aired on 9 April, 2021. Magnum (Jay Hernandez) and Higgins (Perdita Weeks) take a case helping an insurance company in their recovery of a harvest of white…

The Equalizer (1987) – Inner View, and The Rehearsal

McCall (Edward Woodward) and Harley (Richard Jordan) – and again this could have been Keith Szarabajka’s Mickey – find themselves helping Karen Alden (Katherine Cortez), who may or may not be psychic. It seems she’s being haunted by visions of the Shadow Man (Terrence Mann) who is stalking New York City for his next victim….

Red Lights (2012) – Rodrigo Cortes

Red Lights is a bit of a mess, there are some solid ideas to it, but it doesn’t come off as well as it could have. It does feature a solid cast including Robert De Niro, Sigourney Weaver, Cillian Murphy, Elizabeth Olsen, Joely Richardson, and Toby Jones. Dr. Margaret Matheson (Weaver) is a skeptic who…

The X-Files (2000) – Closure, and X-Cops

This episode tells us, in its opening credits to “believe to understand” instead of the usual “the truth is out there” as we dive into the conclusion of a two-parter which finally gives some resolution to Mulder (David Duchovny) in regards to his sister’s abduction. Written by series creator Chris Carter and Frank Spotnitz, this…

Zardoz (1974) – John Boorman

John Boorman wrote, prodiced and directed this sci-fi cult classic that has Sean Connery running around in red underwear and thigh high boots, waving a pistol and his moustache around. With a commentary on class, knowledge, and sex, the film wasn’t a big hit at the time, and sort of settled into the cultutal subconcious,…